Odette Vanderveer

Richard Vanderveer was a man of utmost devotion- both to his work as an inventor, and to raising his young daughter. No matter how many hours he worked on his projects, he always made sure to spend time with the little girl, whether that was in the few hours before her bedtime, or at breakfast in the morning. Sleep deprivation was worth it to see her smiling face, and to give his loving housewife a break for a few hours. Life was not necessarily easy. Sometimes his deadlines ran tight, or a project he had planned turned out to be a failure, but overall he couldn’t complain.

However, a mere five years into young Ruth’s life, their world collapsed. His wife, her mother, collapsed one day, and the doctors couldn’t save her. They couldn’t quite tell him what was wrong, either. Richard fell into a state of shock and devastation. He spent hours upon hours brooding upon what signs he could have missed, ways he could have reacted, actions he could have taken- it was in his nature, to ruminate upon problems, to solve them… but unless he could invent a time machine, such rumination was fruitless…

He threw himself into other projects, working twice as hard now that he had to ensure a future for his little Ruthie alone. He stayed up long into the night working on ordered pieces for his clients, or some days spent so long in his basement workshop that he missed the sunlight hours entirely. The only times he acknowledged his daughter were when she’d come whining that she was hungry, or pleading for him to tuck her into bed. He would respond, but truly, he was only going through the motions. He was so exhausted, he could hardly listen to a word she said. Frankly, he couldn’t bring himself to care about her nightmares or childish games. He… felt nothing at all.

This went on for months, until he noticed a dreadful pattern. That Ruth seemed to be emulating him. She didn’t play with her toys. She no longer came to him for stories, and when he pried himself away from work to head towards the kitchen, he would often find she’d already scavenged her own meals from the snacks in the cupboards she could reach. He often found her simply sitting around the house, or curled up in her bed, no matter the hour. If he asked her what was wrong, she’d murmur unintelligible responses.

Ruth was not behaving the way a well-adjusted child should. She was withdrawn, dull… deeply, terribly sad. She was alone in this house. He… even if he tried to be better, he alone would not be enough to fill the void inside her, would he? She… She needed a feminine influence. A babysitter. A friend. An older sister, perhaps? All of those things, and more!

He found himself pushing aside his older projects, even letting the deadlines for some of his contracted devices lapse. Nothing was more important than this new vision. A companion, better than a pet or a parent! One who would be virtually indestructible, who couldn’t fall ill or grow old!

In the following months, Richard had formed a proper blueprint. He gathered supplies, began visiting doll-makers and dress-shops across the country. And he hunted for feral mon… not just any common species, but a rarer, unique sort deep in the mountains. Klink, the living ‘gear’. He captured dozens of them, bringing them back to his basement to carry out his experiments. Feral testing was thought by some to be cruel, certainly, but… the world could be cruel. It could be unforgiving, and life could be snuffed out in a moment’s notice. The strong would survive. The strong would bring progress to help future generations.

Throughout the many iterations of his invention, several of the klink perished. Eventually, only one remained that he’d held off on using, on account of its unusual colour. He assumed it may be a sickly variant, like an albino. But it was his only option until he could take another trip to gather more in a few months.

This klink, however, proved to be a miracle! Its body did not melt and scream under the strain of the wires and attachments he fused to it. It turned heartily and without struggle, powering the ‘heart’ of his creation. It did not rebel during his scoldings, but seemed overjoyed at any praise he lavished upon it, no matter how small. He began to cherish the little creature, truly.

Eventually, it was finished. He called Ruthie down to the basement on the morning of March 9th, 1993, to unveil the surprise. His little girl was astonished at what was waiting for her. A tall ball-jointed creature in the shape of a ponyta, her favourite feral. Adorned with fancy ribbons and hair harvested from sylveon fur farms, clad in a gorgeous dress… her new friend stood with a gentle smile on her metallic face.

“Ruthie, darling, this is what I’ve been working on. Meet Odette, your new toy! She can speak, play, dance… just about anything you can imagine. She can be a friend, a sister… whatever you would like! She’s all for you, my dear… A living doll!"

Odette was a hit with Ruth from the get-go. The little girl and her new doll were inseparable, spending hours prancing through the house or dancing in the yard, sitting on the floor for tea parties or playing dress-up. Odette was comforting, gentle… she was built to entertain, and entertain she did. As the next few years passed, Ruth developed back into a more social child. And, seeing her joy, Richard found himself becoming a more present father again.

Unfortunately, as the family grew older, Odette’s flaws became more apparent. Richard had hoped to sell her concept to toy companies, but his idea was rejected almost immediately every time. Production that required animal cruelty was an ethical nightmare, especially with feral rights groups on the rise at the time. The finished product also took far too long and was too complex to mass-produce, and even for the few who may be interested, the high price still wouldn’t be worth the effort. Odette remained a one-off, a vanity project, simply to show that he could-

But should he have created her at all? As the years wore on, Richard found that question plaguing him more and more often…

Ruthie’s infatuation with Odette grew thinner by the year. By the age of ten, she had begun to have a rather close circle of real friends at school, and she found herself more inclined to spend time with them or running the neighborhood than talking to a creature that could only perform the same few dance routines, speak the same few phrases and scripted conversations… By her teenage years, she was over dolls entirely, and Odette was relegated to the basement lab, where Richard attempted to tinker with her once in a while- to no real avail. Her technology simply wasn’t that impressive, after the novelty wore off. But the body had already been so expensive to build, so delicately put-together… He was wary attempting to gut her and revamp it would destroy her entirely.

So Odette stayed in the basement. Sometimes she was given extremely simple tasks, or to play music for him while he worked. Other times, she was simply told to sit in the corner and be quiet. That command grew more frequent once Ruthie left the home for college, and Richard’s hair began to grey. He no longer looked at Odette with the same pride he once did. She tried to be helpful. She tried to be entertaining. She tried to talk to him.

All of these attempts only brought scoldings. Sometimes he snarled that he wished he could turn her off, that he’d never built her-

But Richard didn’t mean that. He couldn’t mean that. Richard loved her like his other daughter. Richard was her father.

Sometimes, he held his screwdriver rather close to her. But he never used it. His hands shook, and his teeth were gritted, but he never used it.

She just needed to cheer her father up! Like she had originally done for Ruthie, over two decades ago. Maybe if she could somehow learn some new tricks? New things to talk about?

The few times Ruthie came home to visit, she was always looking at this little machine in her hands. Something she’d quipped was ‘way more fun than you ever were, Odette! Smarter, too…’. Richard had one too.

So Odette started a new routine. On the nights Richard was sleeping instead of working late, she would leave her dusty spot in the basement and sneak upstairs to take the little machine. It was hard at first to figure out how to work it. Her cold metal hands couldn’t seem to wake it up. When she tried to heat them, it started to get too hot, so that was a bad idea! But eventually, the machine started talking to her! Alexa, was its name.

Alexa started to teach her some things. Like what the ‘school’ Ruthie went to was. Apparently, that was what most children were supposed to do. Go to a building to meet lots of other mon, and learn things. But… Richard had never sent her to school with Ruthie. Why not? She had never been allowed to leave the house and yard, except for a few ‘meetings’ years ago. These days, she mostly was told to stay in the basement only…

When Richard awoke a few weeks later, Odette was standing over his bed, leering down at him. Only one question left her creaking mouth: ‘Father, can I go to school?’

The answer was ‘No. Go back to the basement, you creaky thing!’ But Odette was persistent. Or maybe just forgetful. She found herself stuck a lot these days, repeating the same things or even the same words, over and over until her jaw got stuck, and Richard had to reset it. Thinking was hard, sometimes. Her insides felt hot, with strange stings in different places, often in her head.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed. Sometimes, the room would go black suddenly, and she couldn’t see or hear. She would get frozen in place. Then Richard would pound on her with a fist, or oil her, or throw some coal down her throat, and she would be awake again. She was always happy to see her father. But… he looked at her strangely, when these episodes happened. Maybe he was worried she was getting sick? Did he miss her when she was gone?

But one day, after an episode like this, Richard took her by the hand and began dragging her upstairs and out the door. “Come along, Odette. You want to go to school? We’ll enroll you in school.”

It was a little hard to fit in the trunk of his car, but she was excited! She hadn’t been on a trip in years! She wondered what school he was going to send her to? Would she make many friends, like Ruthie had? Would they like her? Would he be proud of her, if she learned a lot and came back with new tricks?