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“So!” said Xerxes Break, as Raven dribbled gasoline all along the walls of the laboratory and Alice followed along behind him, insulting his hair and his clothes and his intelligence and anything else she could possibly think of. “Your uncle is away on a business trip now, but he’ll be back in the country in about a week and a half at the latest, and you’ll be able to go home then!”
Something icy found its way into Oz’s chest. “I can what,” he said.
“Go home!” Break smiled down at him, but the smile was a little sharp around the edges, a little expectant. “Don’t you want to?”
“I—well,” Oz said, and he matched Break’s smile with one of his own. “Why would they want me there? I was already forced on my uncle once, you know. And the scientist who—made me—told me all about how much he hated it. Why would he want that to happen a second time?”
“Oh?” said Break. “And how did this scientist know that? —On that note, how do you know that? Alice has already said she barely remembers anything at all. How is it that you’ve held on to your memories?”
Oz shrugged. “No clue,” he lied. “Maybe because I was the building’s AI? It might have been harder to fuck with my head. Or, you know, Alice has been through a lot. Trauma will do that to you, you know? My best friend doesn’t remember anything that happened to him before he turned nine. It’s probably the same with Alice, really.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re not traumatized?” said Break. “Don’t make me laugh! You’ve spent the past decade a brain in a jar .”
“Exactly,” said Oz. “I’m not real. I’m just—a toy. A doll. A brain in a jar—nothing more. So I can’t get traumatized. My purpose is just to keep Alice happy. I might have been a person once, but I’m not one anymore.”
“Is that so, ” said Break.
“It is so,” Oz said. “I’m a tool, nothing more. And if I were you I wouldn’t assume that I was on your side just because you put me in a body that’s more like my old one. And I wouldn’t assume that anyone in my family wants me around. I’m a worthless, broken doll, and it would be more trouble than I’m worth to inflict me on my uncle again.”
“You seem to have this all thought out,” said Break. “Whose side are you on, then? And what conflict do you think is going on here?”
“You’re burning down a lab that you invaded, after having your personal hitman slaughter everyone who was working there,” said Oz. “What sort of conflict do you think is going on here?”
“My, my! There’s no need to sound that offended, you know,” said Break. “Everyone we killed was directly hurting you and your precious Alice, after all!”
Oz said nothing. He knew that they were hurting Alice—obviously he did—but not all of them were as bad as the others, and Jack’s retaliation for rebellion was always worse than anything any of the researchers ever did. And anyway—
“They never hurt me, ” Oz said. “You can’t hurt something that was never real to begin with.”
“Assuming I concede the point that you aren’t rea—”
The lab went up in flames; beside Raven, Alice whooped in joy.
“Oz! Oz! Come look!” she shouted. “It’s burning down! It’s all on fire! Come look!”
“Alright!” Oz said, making sure to smile for her as he hurried over. The flames were dancing all over the building, and they reflected in Alice’s glass eyes. She had been standing in the building when it went up, and he could feel the heat emanating from her as Raven muttered unhappy things about how he’d burnt his hands pulling her out of the fire.
“Oz—” she said, her face literally glowing in the flames and in the sunset, “Oz—isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah,” Oz said, looking at Alice, the light of the flames reflecting off of her metal skin. “Yeah. Really, really beautiful.”
“Stay back from the flames, you two!” said Raven, tugging both of them backwards and swearing when his hand made contact with Alice’s shoulder. “It’ll look just as nice from a safe distance, alright?”
Oz was about to say that there wasn’t really an unsafe distance for Alice until he remembered that the heat could warp her internal wiring, so he nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Come on, Alice. Let’s step back a bit, okay?”
Alice went willingly, having come to the opposite conclusion—Oz, in his brand-new flesh body, was just as susceptible to getting burned as Raven was—and continued watching the flames from a little further back, wildly, furiously joyful.
Oz couldn’t say he felt any which way about the destruction of the lab—there was no way it would affect Jack at all beyond ticking him off—but Alice’s happiness meant more to him than anything else in the world, so, at least for now, Jack’s reaction mattered about as much to Oz as the setting sun.
As the building burned, Raven’s less-burnt hand found its way to Oz’s hair, ran soothingly through and, despite himself, Oz leaned into his touch. Somewhere further back, Xerxes Break and Sharon Rainsworth discussed something in whispers, Break’s cell phone open to Recent Calls in his hand. But that was alright: what they thought of him didn’t matter to Oz. He was just a toy, after all—a worn-out, broken toy, but a toy nonetheless, and whatever happened, he knew that everything would be okay as long as Alice could still smile at the end of it.