Rachel felt the fog begin to dissipate within her head. A whirling kaleidoscope of colors began resolving in her vision. She tried to remember...

The general's office. Yes, she thought. I'm in the general's office with Anya. Anya! Is she okay? I should be unconscious already, she thought, from the shot. The doctor just injected me with something. Maybe my body is resisting it. If I can just stay awake, I can fight.

Her heart started pounding as she began remembering more. Are they going to do that thing to me now? The... mannequin thing?

Rachel's vision cleared at last. Anya! She's here! Rachel instinctively tried to reach out to touch her.

Or thought she had tried, anyway. Her brain had sent the signal to her arms, she knew that, and she had taken for granted that her arms would follow orders.

She sent the signal again.

She was astonished, now, by the lack of response. It wasn't quite as if her brain's orders had been delivered, like a piece of mail, and then ignored. It seemed more as though they had been marked undeliverable due to smudged and unreadable addresses. It was the oddest feeling -- when she tried to move an arm, she somehow felt uncertain just how to get a message there, as if she had forgotten where her arm was. Yet she could feel her arm there. It wasn't like a part of her body falling asleep, insensitive to touch. Her arm was saying, I'm here, I'm here. But somehow the communication only went one way.

Atop an avalanche of shocks, one in particular emerged on the surface now: Anya's hair! It wasn't like that just a few seconds ago! It's about two inches long! That's impossible! But they haven't even had time to slap a wig on her, for whatever reason, let alone... Oh, no! If that really is her hair -- and it looks for all the world as though it is -- it would take a couple of months for it to get that long...

Understanding cut through the knots of confusion at last. They did it to me already! she told herself. It's done! That whole thing the president said they were going to do!

It just hadn't sounded possible. I was so sure, Rachel thought, that they were all just crazy. I'd wake up, grin at His Royal Majesty, scratch his eyes out, and look for the exit.

But it's just like he said! I can't move anything!

Rachel tried to calm herself by focusing on Anya. Anya, she thought, still looks so adorable. Anya's hair might have hid her ears now, but it had been brushed back behind them. Rachel could still see the suggestion of points at the top. Anya still looked so much like a magical sprite from Greek mythology.

Oh!! she thought. Look at Anya's skin! The whip marks are almost gone! Another sign that a lot of time has gone by.

The bruises on Anya's cheek had also disappeared, where she'd been hit several times, twice by the Amazon, once by Rachel herself. Healed now.

Rachel took inventory of her own body. She knew she was naked -- nothing new about that, she hardly thought about it anymore. She was sitting the same way Anya was: upright, her butt on a relatively smooth, soft surface, her legs bent and spread apart wide, knees raised, heels on the surface. She was leaning back slightly, one arm, her left, extended behind her for support, her hand, palm down, on the surface. She could feel it back there. Her right hand was in her lap, middle finger resting lightly, curled slightly, on the cleft of her sex as if frozen in the act of stroking it. Anya, naked as well -- that looks perfectly normal, thought Rachel, I've never seen her in clothes -- was in nearly a mirror-image pose in front of her, her legs spread farther apart relative to her height so that the soles of her feet were pressed against Rachel's. In Anya's case her right hand was underneath her breast, cupping it, the thumb over her nipple as if she were brushing it.

Anya's mouth was open as she stared at Rachel, suggesting intense arousal. Rachel realized her own mouth was likewise open.

At least they let me touch her, thought Rachel. She could feel the soft pressure and warmth of Anya's feet against her own. But she couldn't move either foot, not even to wriggle her toes.

Rachel's self-examination was interrupted now by the sound of footsteps to her left. She tried to turn her head, but couldn't. She tried to shift her eyes to look in that direction, but to her astonishment, she couldn't even do that.

The president came into her view from the periphery. Rachel couldn't look directly at him, but he was near enough the center of her field of vision, standing just to Anya's left, that she could recognize his shape, and knew it was him as soon as he spoke.

"I see you're awake." Rachel wondered how he'd known.

Her heart suddenly began racing so fast her breath almost couldn't keep up. He'd said he wasn't going to rape me, she recalled, but what if that was just to calm me down? Is he going to do it now? With me in this condition? Rachel made her first attempt to speak, but couldn't even sense where the controls to her vocal cords were, let alone make any use of them. Every time she tried to move anything, it somehow felt as though she had forgotten how it was done.

She could see the president look down at something he was holding. She thought it might be a phone. "Ahh, yes. Your heart is beating even faster. I don't believe we need this anymore."

Rachel tried, and failed, to flinch as he reached behind her and peeled something that felt like a Band-Aid from her upper back. She was amazed that she couldn't even wince.

Okay, she thought, a heart monitor. That's how he knew I was conscious. Probably broadcasting a wireless signal to that thing he's carrying. Maybe it is a phone. No doubt there is an app for this.

Sitting here this way is every bit, thought Rachel, as humiliating as it had sounded. Rachel was flaunting her naked body, displaying it, simulating masturbation. Under such close scrutiny from a man she feared and loathed, her mind screamed at her to cover up, to hide her sex and her breasts. And she absolutely could not move.

She understood now that her visualization of what the president had described to her, as frightening as it had been, her mind resisting it and telling her it couldn't happen, had been woefully inadequate. Until someone has been subjected to this, she realized, it's impossible to know how helpless it feels.

The president went on conversationally, "Your companion awakened an hour ago. Already I had a nice talk with her. Of course it was one-way."

Anya is awake?? she thought in amazement. Now? She can hear the president right next to her? And she's been sitting there awake for an hour, thinking how vulnerable she is??

Rachel had learned so little about Anya through the language barrier, but everything Rachel could sense about Anya told her how impossibly exposed Anya must feel, the degree of Rachel's self-consciousness multiplied by ten. Anya, Rachel was positive, could never have imagined showing herself in such a flagrantly sexual way in public.

Rachel couldn't read anything in Anya's face. Anya only stared blankly.

Rachel wanted again to reach out to Anya, to comfort her, to tell her everything would be all right. But every instruction from her brain to move any part of herself seemed to vanish down a black hole before reaching its destination.

Suddenly a shadow, a mere hint of the terror Anya must be feeling flashed through Rachel's mind, much more important and all-consuming than any mere embarrassment. Rachel knew Anya must have had the same fear as she herself had experienced when the president revealed his presence, only worse, maybe far worse. Rachel really had no idea what the president had actually told Anya beforehand about what was going to happen. Anya had seemed to accept it, but had the president really told her anything near the truth? Even if he had given her an accurate description, did Anya know he wasn't going to rape her? Rachel had only found out because she'd asked. What was Anya thinking was going to happen?

Shame washed over Rachel in waves. I was so selfish! she told herself. I was trapped into this, but it was me who got Anya into it. Is Anya really better off here? I think so, but that's my own perception, based on what might very well be false hopes. Is Anya suffering in terror, wishing she was back in her cell? Would she curse me if she knew it was my fault she's here? So selfish, so selfish! I didn't want to let her go, and now look what I've done to her!

Rachel felt a shard of guilt, like a piece of glass in her shoe, wedge itself into her soul. And I will feel it with every step, she thought. It won't go away. Not ever. Anya can't tell me how she feels. I'll never know!

The president's voice broke through Rachel's inner recriminations. "Well, I have work I must do. I will leave you alone now." He walked away.

Rachel could take in very few details of the room, and those were out of focus in her peripheral vision. The president had said he would keep Rachel in his office. This did appear to be an office, as far as she could determine.

She heard a sound that seemed to be computer keys being struck. She heard the president's voice, and then another voice in answer. She hadn't sensed the presence of anyone else. How many people has he got who know what he's doing to Anya and me?

Wait, she thought, it could just be a phone, on Speaker. As more voices joined in, Rachel shifted her theory to videoconferencing. Maybe he does a lot of his work that way, she thought. Gets meetings done, and nobody knows we're here with him.

That must be it, Rachel decided. If there were actually other men physically present in the room, it's not humanly possible they could resist coming over for a closer look at two naked women in poses that screamed, "Sex! Sex!"

Rachel thought that she ought to be feeling strain in her lower back by now, from the way she was sitting. Am I numb, just imagining I can feel my body? she wondered. But then it occurred to her that she wasn't using any muscles to maintain her posture, as anyone normally would. Instead her hip, shoulder, and arm joints were frozen in that position. She could sit like this without effort, incapable of effort, perhaps indefinitely without feeling her muscles complain.

She looked longingly at Anya. I really wish, she thought, that I could hold her right now. I want to feel her lips against mine, feel her arms wrapped around me. And more than anything else, I want her to tell me she doesn't hate me. That she doesn't blame me for her being here.

What is she thinking? Rachel wondered desperately. She said she loves me. She said it in English, but she knew exactly what it meant. Does she still feel that way? Or have I fucked up way too much for that?

Larisa carried her lunch tray to her room. Ivan had delivered the four lunches to what the nurses now referred to as the "ward," as if the two frozen women, whose names Larisa understood she would never know, were hospitalized patients. Each of the nurses, like Larisa, had her own room off the ward, with the same amenities as Larisa's. As Veronika and Raisa likewise took their trays into their rooms, Zlata stayed behind.

Zlata nodded to Ivan, who'd brought the food. "Thank you, Ivan. Oh, maybe you're the person to talk to about this." Larisa, listening from her doorway, smiled at that idea. As if there was anyone else Zlata might choose.

Zlata pointed to the hard slabs on which the two patients had spent the night, and would be expected to spend every night. "They can't keep sleeping on those, Ivan. They can't move around to let their bones settle in. They're going to have curved spines, and other deformities like that, and that can't be something the president wants. They need a real bed, with a mattress. Something has to cushion them."

Ivan listened, frowning, seeming to take Zlata's warning seriously. "I'll see what I can do." He left then, closing the door behind him as Larisa and the others knew he always would.

Larisa caught Zlata's eye as the latter picked up her tray and turned towards her room. Zlata gave Larisa a tiny smile, and a wink.

Larisa choked back a laugh. She understood that Zlata was telling her that the justification she'd given Ivan was just plausible-sounding bullshit, given weight by her authority as a medical professional. The slabs wouldn't cause skeletal damage to the women. Zlata's real reason for asking for the bed was that for these women to sleep on the slabs, unable to turn over or move at all, would be very painful. They would be much more comfortable with something softer. Zlata was telling Larisa she was keeping her promise.

Larisa closed the door to her room. She was glad to have found that her door no longer locked itself when closed. Unfortunately, that only expanded Larisa's world by a small amount. Neither she nor any of the nurses could leave the suite of rooms consisting of the ward and its peripheral bedrooms -- and one other room attached to the ward. The door to the world outside the ward was kept locked, always closed except when Ivan brought food and other supplies. Larisa had seen a guard stationed outside the door, and suspected that a rotation of guards might be stationed there twenty-four hours a day.

Sighing, Larisa sat at her table and opened her sketchpad. She started doodling possible arrangements of... Blondie and Pixie, she decided. She would call them that.

As the day dragged on, Rachel came to see Anya's empty stare as hostile, accusatory. Rachel already knew that the main source of her own hope for this situation -- that the process of "mannequinizing" her would fail, allowing her to escape -- had turned out to be the barest form of wishful thinking. The process did work. Rachel couldn't find the control room for any of her muscles, and had despaired of working any of the levers. She didn't feel any closer to being able to move than she had when she'd first awakened. Her hope, which had sustained her from the moment the president had told her what was going to be done to her, began evaporating like slowly popping soap bubbles.

Rachel knew how Anya felt, since she herself was going through the same humiliation and frustration, but while Rachel could blame her immobile captivity on the president, or on the late Mandy, for getting Rachel mixed up in her quixotic and disastrous spy mission, Anya was able to assign the blame to the "friend" sitting right in front of her.

Just for an instant, at one point, Rachel thought she had cleared herself. Anya, she'd realized, actually had no way to know that getting her here was Rachel's doing.

But Rachel's relief fell apart when she saw that Anya must surely be able to figure it out. Anya had arrived in the president's presence with Rachel already sitting there. What were the odds that the president had happened to pick out, out of all the inmates in the prison, the one single person who was Rachel's lifeline? Anya would know that Rachel must have given the president Anya's name. I want her with me, Anya would know Rachel had said. I want Anya to suffer this too.

Through the day, Rachel had heard the president make a few phone calls and answer a few, and he'd engaged in two more videoconferences. Rachel was growing more worried about her physical needs. She was thirsty and, soon after, grew progressively more hungry. Also, she needed to pee. She became progressively more scared that the president would leave her here to die of thirst, hunger, and a burst bladder.

At last she heard the president's footsteps headed her way again. Her heart began pounding once more.

He stopped beside Anya first. As he spoke to her in Russian, Rachel watched with increasing anger as he stroked Anya's shoulder in what, in any other context, might seem to be a friendly manner, but under the circumstances couldn't be anything but menacing. His hand, as he spoke, dropped down to Anya's breast, the one she wasn't holding herself.

Rachel made her strongest effort all day to break the internal bonds holding her frozen. But as always, it seemed less a struggle to move against unbreakable resistance, and more a fight to just remember how moving was done in the first place. She would happily have killed the man for touching Anya, regardless of whether those huge bodyguards were in the room out of Rachel's sight. But the president was safe from anything Rachel might try fruitlessly to do.

And then he turned his attention to Rachel.

"You see what I want from you now?" He could easily have been the villain in any 1930s screen melodrama. "You show what I think of American spies." He reached down, below where Rachel's eyes could see, and stroked her mound, his fingers tracing around Rachel's own that was brushing her sex.

Rachel's heart was stumbling through a race in which she could not keep pace. She thought she might die, and reached out towards the possibility, hoping it would cost him what he wanted most.

"I have an artist working on possibilities for you. She is a very..." He searched for the English word. "...naughty artist. She will show you things you did not know you would do with your body." He reached up to give Rachel's breast a squeeze.

Rachel could only imagine what he had just said to Anya. As frightened as Rachel was, she knew her fear could never reach the level of dear, innocent Anya's. Anya, who Rachel was sure had been imprisoned by mistake -- Anya could never, ever have done anything that would incur such ire by the state, except by accident.

The man patted Rachel's mound softly. "I will see you tomorrow. I look forward to what you will show me."

Please, please, Rachel thought, somehow get Anya away from here. I don't care about myself. I would be happy to let this animal have my frozen body if that is what it would take to free Anya.

The president walked away. Rachel heard a door close.

Minutes later, a door, it sounded like the same one, opened again. A man, not the president, floated through her limited field of vision and opened a different door.

The room then seemed suddenly to flood with people. They surrounded her and Anya, two of them lifting Rachel and, it seemed, two of them picking up Anya. All four were women, to Rachel's surprise. They carried her stiff body, and Anya's, through a door into another room.

Zlata and Veronika carried the tall blonde through the ward and into Veronika's bathroom, and sat her on the toilet. Luckily the blonde was already bent at the waist, which saved time. Grunting with effort, they pulled her legs closer together, though not completely closed. Veronika pulled the blonde's hand away from her sex, so that Zlata could reach in past the lips to open the tiny valve surgically implanted in the blonde's urethra -- it had a pressure release in case the bladder became too full, but Zlata could tell by smell that there hadn't been any overflow. A steady stream of urine began cascading into the toilet. Zlata waited for it to stop, then patted the labia dry with a tissue.

Zlata frowned in puzzlement. She ran her fingers lightly over the blonde's mound. "There's still no stubble at all. Not on her legs, either. There should be some by now. She must have done a permanent hair removal." She grinned at Veronika. "Bet her boyfriend likes it." She was instantly sorry. This girl didn't have that kind of life anymore.

Veronika sucked in a sharp breath. "Remember, when we saw the prisoners..." She shuddered as memories of that day came flooding back. "None of them had bushes. I don't think this girl did it to herself. I think they did it, at the prison." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Remember how that guy said they... use the prisoners? For entertainment?" She put her hands over her face, her feeling of horror expanding. "And now they do this to them, making mannequins out of them. The doctor said it was an experiment. But the experiment worked. What if... Will they make all of the prisoners sex dolls now? Like those plastic blow-up dolls, except they're alive, they can think and feel?" She turned to run out of the room.

Zlata grabbed her arm before she could get away. "Veronika... I know, maybe you're right. But we can't think of that now. We have a patient to take care of. We promised to do the best we can for her."

Veronika stood with her eyes closed, fighting back tears. At last she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. You're right."

Veronika started to ready the equipment for colon irrigation, then stopped with a gasp. "I forgot! She's supposed to be awake now. She probably heard everything we just said! Is she awake? Is there a way to tell?"

Zlata thought a moment. "Oh. Take her pulse, okay? Let me get something." She ran out into the main room, as Veronika called out, "Her heart is beating faster than last night."

Zlata returned moments later holding a syringe with a long needle. She held it in front of the blonde's eyes.

Veronika blinked. "Okay, now it's really going." She shook her head in amazement. "She's definitely awake. She's sitting here knowing everything we're doing to her."

Zlata ran over to Raisa's bathroom, where the smaller girl was peeing. With the syringe behind her back, she said, "Raisa, take her pulse, okay?" As Raisa settled her fingers on the girl's wrist, Zlata whipped out the syringe and passed it through the girl's field of vision.

Raisa blinked. "Pulse really took off. She's awake, huh?" She closed her eyes. "That is creepy."

Zlata returned to Veronika's bathroom, and pointed to the enema tube. "Your turn. Her heart's about to start running wild again, I imagine."

The blonde's intravenous diet didn't create much in the way of solid waste, but there was some. Zlata lifted the blonde slightly up from the toilet seat so Veronika could insert the tube into the blonde's anus.

They had performed the toilet procedure for several days now, using a sink when they were in the prison infirmary, but had decided last night, on arriving at the president's mansion, to use the toilets available here in the ward. Already they were performing the routine smoothly.

In Raisa's bathroom, Larisa had helped Raisa get the smaller girl seated on the toilet and get her legs closed, then had gratefully exited the bathroom. Raisa found it easy enough to handle the tiny girl by herself, and Larisa had gotten queasy the first time she'd watched Raisa doing the enema. She went back to her room to continue planning for future presentations of Blondie and Pixie.

Rachel found herself at a new level of self-consciousness she hadn't imagined could exist: she had two women she'd never seen before carrying her naked, helpless body and setting it down on a toilet seat. They were dressed in a way that suggested military service, though Rachel supposed it could be simply a style choice: heavy pants with many pockets, looking as if they were made of tent canvas, in a camouflage design, and light green t-shirts, tight enough to outline their breasts and taut stomachs. They were wearing army boots.

Rachel saw how much effort it was for the women to close her legs -- she could feel the joints moving reluctantly, like a door on a very tight hinge -- showing her why she had managed to hold a position despite having no control at all of her muscles. And now one of the women was exploring her with fingers inside her sex...

All the while, another section of her mind was demanding to know what they'd done with Anya. Why had they been separated?

Rachel was suddenly almost buoyantly happy when the woman somehow opened up her bladder. There must, she thought, be some kind of device in there.

She felt alarm when one of the women ran her hand over her mound. Are you going to start messing with me too? she wondered. Then the other one got distressed, and Rachel couldn't make out what was happening. Maybe she was telling her not to play with Rachel, but Rachel hadn't actually detected anything threatening in the gesture. It seemed curiosity, really... oh, of course! she thought. They're wondering why it's so smooth! Rachel had gotten sufficiently accustomed to her missing pubic hair that she didn't give it much thought anymore.

Rachel's happiness over emptying her bladder disappeared altogether when one of the women waved a syringe at her, and then, the other one stuck a tube up her ass. But at least, she told herself, they obviously plan to take care of everything I need. I sure as hell can't do it myself. They're not trying to take advantage of me. They're trying to help me.

Rachel was cautiously optimistic about her future. This was the first time since her arrest that anyone in authority seemed to care about her.

She decided the syringe, presented and then never used, had been a trick to determine whether she was awake, considering the interest they'd had in her heart rate when it happened -- it had been obvious the one woman was taking her pulse. Rachel would have shaken her head in amazement if she could move it. They can't tell by looking at me! she marveled.

Rachel felt hopeful, during the pain and indignity -- much more of the latter -- of the enema, that Anya was in a nearby bathroom; she believed the woman with the syringe had just run out and done the same trick to Anya, checking whether Anya was awake. Rachel wished once more she could understand Russian, which would probably have cleared up a lot of her worries and told her what the hell was happening.

After the two women -- based on a certain level of professionalism Rachel perceived, she decided they must be nurses, despite the clothes suggesting army recruits -- carried her out of the bathroom, Rachel knew immediately that what happened next would be her favorite part of every day. The women sat her in a big tub, out in the main room through which they'd come after exiting the president's office, and then, from another room, one woman carried Anya and sat her in the same tub facing Rachel. It took a little joint-bending to maneuver Anya's legs on either side of Rachel's waist, and similarly Rachel's around Anya's, but once they were situated the three woman gave Rachel and Anya a bath together -- it was more like a sit-down shower, with one of the women directing a warm -- warm! -- spray of water at both of them, from a hose with a shower attachment, while the other two scrubbed every square inch of Rachel's and Anya's bodies with soapy sponges.

There were four women altogether, one of them dressed in a more ordinary way than the other three: white t-shirt and blue jeans, with sneakers on her feet. She seemed less of a participant in all the action, and Rachel couldn't make out what she was doing there.

Rachel noticed something on her own left arm, just above the inside of the elbow: a small circle of some kind of material that looked like plastic, with a tiny hole in the middle. It was nearly flush with the level of her skin, and so close to flesh tone in color, that it was very nearly invisible. She only saw it because she happened to be looking directly at it.

When one of the nurses turned Rachel's head slightly to get a better angle while washing it, she saw the exact same thing on her right arm. It was understandable she hadn't noticed the things all day -- she hadn't been able to look at either arm, or move either arm, so there was nothing to cue her senses of touch or sight to tell her there was something odd down there.

She couldn't solve the mystery now -- certainly not by asking about it. She'd just have to wait to see what that was all about.

After her head was turned again, Rachel found herself staring into Anya's eyes once more, as she had all day. She fervently wished for some sign, of any kind, that Anya was all right and, almost beyond Rachel's hope, that she wasn't angry. But Anya's face was blank, as it had been all day.

Anya wanted to cry out when they'd taken Retchell somewhere else. The words screaming in her head tried so hard to make her mouth work to say them: I want to be with Retchell!

But then it felt so good to pee!

Her heart leapt when she heard the voices in another room talking about someone being awake, and she knew they must be talking about Retchell. Anya had thought Retchell must be awake when the president started talking to her, and Anya had spent the rest of her time since then trying to see some sign of it. She didn't need to hear Retchell speak, or see Retchell look at her the way she always did, not counting during the Bad Time. Anya had sworn to herself, at the end of the Bad Time, that she'd never doubt Retchell's love again. All she wanted, for now, was to know Retchell was okay.

And then that other woman had come in waving the syringe, and they'd all decided from that that Anya was awake. And yet they continued talking about Anya right in front of her, as if they'd forgotten she could hear them. That was such a really strange feeling.

It occurred to Anya at last that they couldn't very well have somehow fit both her and Retchell on this one toilet. That, she decided, must be the only reason they separated us.

The way the woman with her seemed to know exactly what she was doing, Anya decided she must be a nurse. Probably they all were. Anya found it astonishing, after all this time in the prison, that there would suddenly be people surrounding her trying to do for her things she needed done. Maybe this won't be so bad, she thought.

And then the nurse had carried her out to see... Retchell! And then they put her in a tub with Retchell! Anya's legs were against Retchell's hips on either side, and Retchell's legs rubbing her own hips. Anya's heart almost exploded with happiness.

Larisa came back out to watch the bath, hoping that seeing Blondie and Pixie sharing a tub might give her some useful ideas. She pointed, and said to Raisa, "You missed a spot on Pixie, behind her shoulder."

Raisa looked where Larisa was pointing. "I think it's a bruise. You can barely see it, so it's probably from awhile back." She looked up at Larisa curiously. "That's her name, really? How do you know?"

Larisa smiled. "It's just what I've been calling her. And that's Blondie." She pointed at the bigger girl.

Veronika giggled. "Okay. That works." She looked at the small bed two men had brought in at Ivan's direction after dinner. They'd been disappointed with it, having expected that Ivan would have understood that they needed one big enough for both patients. "So should we let Blondie have the bed?"

Zlata frowned in thought. "You know, Pixie really doesn't weigh much. Does it seem like it would be much of a problem for Blondie if we just let Pixie lay on top of her? It'd sure be more comfortable than that slab."

Raisa looked skeptical. "Can we still hook up the IVs? With Pixie facing down?"

Veronika pointed out, "If we stretch her arms out in front of her they'll be up the right way."

Zlata nodded. "We'll keep an eye on Blondie to make sure she's not having trouble breathing."

Raisa nodded and lifted Pixie out of the tub, wrapping her in a soft towel to start drying her.

Veronika and Zlata together dried Blondie and lifted her onto the bed, laying her on her back, her legs in the air. They needed Larisa's help to lower her legs, laying them flat on the mattress, then pulling her arms to lay straight at her sides. Zlata ran to her own bedroom to get one of her pillows and put it under Blondie's head, which then required a further adjustment in her neck and back to get her shoulders back down to the mattress.

Veronika bit her thumbnail. "I can't tell if she's comfortable. Like if her elbows are lifting her back off the mattress. Does she look okay? I'd hate if she started really aching because she was lying wrong."

Zlata crouched down. "I think everything that can get down to the mattress is down there." She patted Veronika on the arm. "This is why we got her a mattress, Veronika. You know it's better than the slab. It's the best we can do for her."

Anya listened with growing amazement. They're worried about hurting Retchell! she told herself. When's the last time somebody thought about that?

And why do they keep calling me Pixie?

Raisa decided it would be easier to straighten Pixie's body while she was standing. She stood with her stomach pressed firmly against Pixie's back, arms wrapped around her, while Larisa pulled the girl's legs down to the floor. Then they lifted her and gently laid her on top of Blondie. After some thought, they pulled her a few centimeters down Blondie's body and tilted her head back to rest her chin between Blondie's breasts, thinking that would work just as well as a pillow.

Anya thought she'd gone to heaven.

I can't believe this! Rachel thought. Are we sleeping like this?

She wished she could wrap her arms around Anya. But no, she decided, this is okay. I'm not going to wish for more. I don't want to jinx it.

I just wish she could tell me if she was mad. I'm so sorry, Anya!

As a final bit of putting-the-mannequins-to-bed routine, one of the nurses pulled over four stands that each had an upside-down plastic bag hanging from a hook, and Rachel realized she was going to be fed intravenously, which was a good thing, since she had no other way to eat anything. Another of the nurses pulled two of the stands around the bed to the opposite side. The third nurse took needles from each of the two stands on her side and put one into Rachel's right arm, the other into Anya's left, while the nurse on the other side did the same thing for their other arms. Rachel expected to feel the prick of pain associated with needles, and felt none. She just had time to wonder whether that part of her arm was numb when she remembered the little plastic circles implanted in each of her arms. Oh, okay! she thought, that's what those are for: they push the needles into those. Probably there's a little tiny valve inside the plastic that keeps it closed until a needle is inserted. And it's all hooked up to a vein. Clever.

She thought, it seems like one intravenous bag would be enough... then the words Oh no, oh no, oh no! ran in a cycle through her head.

The last hope Rachel had held onto for escape from the mannequin trap was that the human body is so adept at repairing any damage: that whatever they had done to her, she would gradually heal from it. The effect had to go away sometime. But she knew, with certainty, that that was what the second IV bag was for: It was maintaining the mannequin effect with some drug that would keep it working indefinitely. It was already clear that the stuff worked perfectly, and now Rachel knew they would be renewing it every day. There was nothing to stop them from keeping her this way for months, for years. For the rest of her life, if they wanted to.

I was so stupid, she thought, to think that this was going to be a way out. I am never getting out of here.

Raisa went to get the thin piece of rubber tubing they'd been using for this: standing over Blondie's face, she blew very gently into the tubing, aiming a soft jet of air at the bridge of Blondie's nose. Blondie's eyes closed reflexively, as they had each time Raisa had done this before. It was the only way the nurses had found to close either girl's eyes without risking eye damage by touching them. Then she did the same to Pixie.

Raisa sighed, knowing tonight was her turn to get up in the middle of the night to replace IV bags -- not the ones with the medication, of which only one bag per day was needed for both girls, but the ones delivering food and water: each girl needed two of those every night. At least she only had to do that one night out of every three.

Rachel tried so hard to find a way to open her eyes again, but as with every movement she had tried to make all day, it was impossible.

Fine, she thought morosely. Anya must hate me even more, now that she knows she'll never move again, the rest of her life. And I'll never see that sunburst smile on her face, ever again.

Through closed lids, Rachel could tell the nurses had turned the lights down, but not off -- it wasn't pitch-black. She heard doors close, and since she could hear no noises from within the room other than the slow drip, drip, drip of intravenous fluid bottles -- one bottle feeding her to keep her alive, the other condemning her to a lifetime of immobility -- she decided she and Anya must be alone. Great, thought Rachel sarcastically, alone at last. Our chance to escape.

Rachel wasn't sure she wanted to sleep. Sleep would bring tomorrow faster. But somehow, she did.