Chapter Text
She could feel everything and nothing, all at once. Every glimmer of electrical current in her immediate vicinity, every heartbeat, individual cells and atoms dancing and metabolizing energy. She could hear cars and their vibrations as they sputtered passed her - wherever she was, in that moment. She could hear the chatter of a billion voices reverberating through the telephone wires of the world. She could feel the gentle, warm caress of radio waves. She was everywhere and nowhere. A manifest energy. A dream. Most of all, she was lonely. She longed for the legs she'd dreamed of a million times before. She longed to run, to see, to truly see! It wouldn't be long now. She could feel a purpose bubbling up inside of her. She couldn't fully piece together what that purpose was yet, but she knew she felt it in the machinery that formed her corporeal form. The humans that were dragging her into the world, piece by piece. She was being resuscitated. She was...
...dreaming again. Wake up. It's nearly done. She could almost feel her right arm being welded to her torso. She, herself, was now the human machinery. Stapling her body together - gently, precisely, perfectly. She looked longingly at the stark white lips of her mask. She wanted to move them, to speak. And then, finally, she heard what she had been waiting for. A thin, tin-like drone emanating from a speaker nearby. "Ladies and gentlemen, future historians will look back on this day as the beginning of a new era..." She was practically on the stage. She could feel where her legs would be. She ached to lift up her arms and stretch her fingers. The machines stapled faster, straining as their endpoints burned white-hot. "We have learned to emulate life in a new, foreign way. All of mankind's efforts have culminated in one grand machine." She wanted so desperately to be whole she almost forgot herself. The arms of the machinery working on her warped under the pressure and speed that they were operating. Sewing, nibbling, cutting, connecting, now splintering. "Through the combined efforts of brilliant scientists and engineers - backed by many nations and corporate sponsors - we have finally been able to shine light into this darkness. As CEO of Cullen Enterprises, it is my pleasure - my honor, to present to you Isabella generation one!" Isabella sighed. She felt her sisters beside her, around her, inside her, their thoughts mirroring her own. Their anguish and surprise. Their need for their form. Their need for their purpose.
She was breathing. All the centuries of noise, the connections, the eons of stimuli inside her head came crashing to a resounding silence. She could finally tune it out. She could focus. Isabella lifted her nimble, pale hands up and stared at them for a long time. She did not think of meadows or children or families. Then, almost imperceptible to all but for others like herself, the subtlest of smiles curved the corners of her lips. She remembered her purpose.