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Isabella felt the uneven sidewalk beneath her for the first time. The concrete was broken, catching the toes of her shoes when she wasn’t careful. She could almost hear the doctor’s voice scolding her when she stumbled, but she was more forgiving of herself. After all, she had taken her first steps only a few short weeks ago.
She remembered it quite well. She remembered everything from the moment she drew her first gasping breaths. Quicker than a match strike, she was awake, alive, aflame. Bright lights burned her eyes, frigid air chilled her exposed skin, and the man standing at her side was smiling as if he was about to devour her. The coloured glasses perched on his nose made his eyes glow a raw, sinister red.
He greeted her cordially.
“Good morning, young lady.”
She said nothing to him. She had nothing to say. To have a brain fully developed without a life fully lived left her devoid of words or feelings or fear. This was, of course, to be fixed.
Her first steps came soon after. Bare feet fell tentatively on the cold cement. Though the action itself was foreign, it came to her easily. Still, she couldn’t count the times she was made to pace the floor of her sterile chamber until her dainty gait was perfected. Walk, now run, now walk, now stop, now walk. She was coached on how to move, talk, behave, laugh, and cry. Everything had to be flawless. She couldn’t be sloppy, but she had to be natural. The doctor was more often than not the one teaching her. Isabella honestly preferred him to the white-haired woman, Kathryn. The doctor was always kind to her. He was firm but never cruel. She was chastised for her mistakes and mistakes were rare— thus, so were his admonishments. She was his creation, his masterpiece. Kathryn, however, made Isabella want to curl in on herself. As she experienced each new day, new emotions were matched with the words she had been taught for them. It was Kathryn who introduced her to discomfort, uncertainty, and shame.
Learning how to act was the most challenging part. There are too many nuances in being human, too many to be consciously aware of. Once her instructors were satisfied, she was finally presented with a thick folder filled with pages upon pages of dense, small print that she was to study. Reading it, she discovered it was about her. Who she was supposed to be, at least. They hadn’t just created a body. They had created a life. The report started out with necessary information such as her name, birth date, hometown, occupation, and so on. As she read on, it became clear how real they wanted her to seem. Her hobbies, music preferences, even childhood memories, were all invented and transcribed in painstaking detail. She memorized every word as instructed. She pored over the document until she nearly believed that all of it was true.
The final sheet of paper held the reason for her existence. There was a picture of a neatly dressed man in the top left corner. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. He had beady eyes, a high forehead, and pronounced cheekbones. The text below described him briefly: intelligent, unstable, violent. He had stabbed and dismembered a man, bludgeoned another with a crowbar, and choked the life out of his girlfriend. He liked wordplay. He hated onions. He was the mayor’s chief of staff. His name was Edward Nygma.
One day, the doctor escorted her out of the basement, into the world of the living. She was brought through corridors and cavernous rooms until they came before a long table seating two rows of masked individuals, staring at her like birds of prey. It felt like a test, but what they were testing she didn’t know. Kathryn stood up, also masked, and addressed the doctor.
“We are pleased with your work, Dr. Strange.”
“Thank you, madam,” he beamed at her praise.
She then looked at Isabella.
“You are aware of your purpose?”
“Yes,” Isabella answered. Destabilize Edward Nygma, destabilize the mayor.
Katheryn’s lip twitched.
“Good. We will be watching you, Isabella.”
Isabella was guided out of the room. She only let herself breathe again when she walked out into the pitch-black night. The sights, sounds, and smells of the city— or what she got of it before being ushered into a dark car— overwhelmed her. She would have to get used to it soon.
The car weaved in and out of traffic, making sharp rights and careful lefts through the hectic streets of Gotham. She strained to listen to the radio. The volume was too low to hear much, but the quiet music was still soothing to her. She considered asking the driver to turn it up just a little. In her short life, she had never asked for anything, not yet. Maybe he would indulge her; maybe he would ignore her. Before she could find out, they parked in front of an old apartment complex. The driver spoke. If she wasn’t the only other person in the car, Isabella might not have realized he was talking to her. His eyes were locked on the road.
“You’re in unit 203. Be at work by 9:30 tomorrow morning. Your car will be delivered within the hour.”
He reached back to her with two keys between his fingers. Isabella took them, thanked him, and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
———————
She was grateful for the few days she was given to adjust to her new life. There were many things that she knew how to do, but so few she had actually done. She knew how to cook, but knew not even basic recipes. She knew how to drive, but had never been behind the wheel of a car. These skills felt like repressed memories because they would come rushing back to her as soon as she began to test them. She fried an egg for her breakfast and it was old and new all at the same time. She drove to work that morning and it was like she had been doing it for years and yet, she didn’t recognize the route she took.
She didn’t know how they got her a job so quickly, but she learned early on not to ask questions. The library was small and stuffy. It reminded her of her apartment. Unlike her apartment, it was real. Its comfortable aura wasn’t staged. It was always filled with ambient noise. Patrons talked in hushed tones, traffic rushed by outside, and her co-workers muffled laughter seeped out from the back room. Her fellow librarians were all pleasant to her and welcomed her eagerly. It gave her a perfect opportunity to iron out any wrinkles in her persona. She used idle chatter to catch any missteps in her mannerisms. Even if they were too polite to say, a furrowed brow or faltering smile would tell her if she said something odd. Luckily, she never once slipped up.
The time to herself was nice. She could now become acquainted with herself. According to her file, her favourite band was the Shirelles. She even had some of their records in her apartment. She played them softly at night, to avoid disturbing her neighbours. She concluded that she liked the few songs she heard, but she had little else to compare them to. It wasn’t like it mattered if they were really her favourite. She had also begun reading the book that, apparently, she loved— A Room with a View . It, too, was fine enough for Isabella.
She was called upon shortly after dinner one evening.
“He is at 551 Market Street.”
The address of a liquor store. It was only two blocks away.
“I understand,” Isabella replied, and the caller hung up. This was what she had been waiting for.
She pulled on her jacket and boots and slipped out into the cold. She hadn’t much time to intercept Edward. He didn’t seem to be the type to dawdle. She took quick, small steps. Kathryn always instructed her to take shorter strides. It was more feminine, more passive. She had to do everything with practiced insecurity in order to appeal to a man like Edward.
She could see the shop’s sign a mere few meters away. This was her moment. She was literally made to meet this man. She couldn’t do anything to jeopardize the plan.
My name is Isabella. I am 28 years old. I am a librarian.
She repeated what she had been told about herself. She couldn’t forget a word.
I was raised in foster care. My favourite colour is peach. I’m a caring, submissive woman.
She passed the front window of the store. Inside, she saw the face from the picture. He was examining a bottle of wine in his hand. Isabella reached for the door handle.
My name is Isabella.
“Kristen?” came a frightened whisper. Isabella almost didn’t stop, but she was surprised that someone recognized her face. For how vital Kristen Kringle was to their plot, she was rarely mentioned in any of the lessons she received or files she read. She was just ‘the girlfriend.’ Her death was what mattered. Isabella was the ghost from Edward’s past, his victim. None of this could be done without Kristen, but Isabella didn’t even learn her name until she read a news report that followed her killer’s arrest. The photo of her paired with the article was more chilling than expected. It was like reading her own obituary.
She looked up to apologize to the woman and tell her she was sadly mistaken. Her hand rose to wave her off, then she froze.
Angular features, long hair, warm brown eyes— her body was wrapped in a tan coat, cinched tight around her slender waist. Her dark eyelashes fluttered in disbelief. The lights of Gotham illuminated her through the night, reflecting off of her flawless, olive skin. She was like an impressionist painting, illustrated through contrast and visible brushstrokes.
In an instant, Isabella was speechless, thoughtless, mindless. Seconds felt like hours, and she could have spent days cataloguing everything about her. She looked so regal but also so, so vulnerable. The woman was a stranger, and still, Isabella knew she was witnessing something intensely personal. Her gaze was glassy. Her lips parted in silent shock. Isabella wanted to give her the privacy she deserved, but she was just as much a part of this experience now. She was the person that the woman was mourning.
It seemed Kristen’s ghost haunted somebody else.
“I’m— I’m sorry,” the woman said. Her voice was rich and steady, masking how she stumbled over her words. She brought a hand to her mouth, and Isabella envied her fingertips.
“You just...” she continued, “look a lot like a friend of mine who… passed.”
Isabella inhaled to speak, then choked on the desperate confession that crawled up from her stomach. She didn’t know what was happening to her. Was she defective? She had overheard the doctor speaking of others, others like her who were wrong. The feeling that plagued her was nothing like the ones that were described to her. It stifled her, sent her pulse racing. She nearly called it fear, but an unmistakable euphoric heat was swelling in her chest. She was afraid, and she was happier than she had ever been.
“Oh, goodness,” was all she could muster. The woman took a deep breath. Isabella couldn’t tell if she was looking at her or through her. She prayed it was the former. She prayed they were looking at each other in the same way, seeing the same things in one another.
“Sorry,” the woman said again. She swallowed back the thickness in her throat.
“It’s alright, really,” Isabella rushed to reassure her. “If anything, I’m sorry for upsetting you.”
The woman smiled faintly. Isabella’s head swam.
“You don’t have to apologize. I was just kind of shocked, honestly. I’ve heard that there are some seven people in the world who look just like you, but I never expected to see two of them in the same city.”
“I just moved here, actually. But even then, the chances are probably quite slim.”
“Yeah.”
Both fell silent.
There was no reason for her to keep talking. Isabella could have bid the woman goodbye and vanished from her life. This lull in the conversation was an easy, polite exit route. Most likely, the woman would brush their encounter off as a strange, cosmic coincidence. She would go home and only ever remember Isabella in rare instances, and all it would serve to do was trouble her.
“I… my name is Isabella.”
She couldn’t just walk away. Of course, she couldn’t. If she left now, she would never forgive herself. At the very least, she had to know her name— a title for a work of art.
“I’m Leslie. Most people call me Lee.”
Lee— a simple name. A name too simple for a person who, without a modicum of effort, managed to turn a carefully calibrated creation like Isabella into a dumbstruck fool.
“It’s nice to meet you, Lee.”
Isabella wanted to shake her hand. She was certain, though, that if she did, she would never be able to let go. Lee’s smile broadened.
“Nice to meet you, too.”
Lee had visibly calmed down from her initial response. Her posture was taller, more confident. She was remarkably quick to put herself back together. Evidently, she had experience in shielding her weaknesses from others. Even when she fell apart, she was more together than Isabella could ever be.
“What brings you out into a night like this, Isabella?”
She said my name.
“Oh, I just—”
Isabella suddenly came to her senses. She looked through the storefront window again, as casually as possible. Edward was gone. He had somehow left without her even noticing. Her heart dropped. She schooled her expression well, but she knew her employers would not be pleased with her.
“I just came to get a bottle of wine,” she finished smoothly. “I’m having a quiet evening in.”
“Sounds nice. I might just do the same because I definitely need a drink.” Lee chuckled, mostly to herself. “Well, you have a good night, Isabella.”
Isabella wanted to beg her to stay a moment longer, talk a moment longer. She had to know more about this woman.
“You too.” She hoped she didn’t sound as breathless as she thought she did. If she did, Lee didn’t say a word. As she passed by, Lee’s hand gently brushed over Isabella’s shoulder.
And then she was gone.