In the Lives of Puppets

As they approach the city, Victor confides to Nurse Ratched that he isn’t sure they can succeed. She tells him to have courage and reminds him that low odds have never stopped them before. The City of Electric Dreams is a breathtakingly vast array of towers covered in colorful lights. Victor dons his disguise once more, and Hap conceals his features with a hooded coat. Hap has been practicing how to display his identification barcode since he saw his HARP lookalike, but the Coachman reminds him not to let anyone scan it because that will reveal he’s been decommissioned. The impressed Victor tells Hap that he’s amazing, which pleases the android.

Although winter has come, the weather is sweltering when Victor and his allies disembark at one of the city’s back entrances. Bernard, a machine who oversees deliveries, owes the Coachman a favor and agrees to smuggle Victor and his friends into the city. Bernard hides Nurse Ratched and Rambo in one crate and Victor and Hap in another. Due to the cramped quarters, Victor has to sit with his back against the android’s chest. Hap distracts Victor from his claustrophobia and panic by asking him to explain how he builds hearts.

A few hours later, Victor and his friends exit the crates and find themselves in an abandoned warehouse about a mile from Heaven. This time, when the group recite their rules about sticking together, running when necessary, and being brave above all else, Hap joins in. Victor and Hap share a smile. With Nurse Ratched in the lead, the group sets out into the City of Electric Dreams. Victor is anxious and overstimulated by the cacophonous crowds, but Hap grounds him by holding his hand. The friends spot three members of the Authority, but they escape detection by darting down an alley.

At last, they catch sight of the enormous glass pyramid of Heaven. The pyramid is covered in moving images, including a butterfly that mesmerizes Hap. Victor pushes the gold coin through a slot in the back door, and a diminutive, black-haired Doorman asks how they obtained the token. Despite Hap’s best efforts to keep the human safely hidden behind him, Victor explains that the coin was a gift from the Coachman and that he is Giovanni Lawson’s son. The Doorman realizes that Victor is human and allows them to enter. Seeing Hap take Victor’s hand, the Doorman observes, “Things suddenly become that much clearer. Oh, is the Blue Fairy going to enjoy this” (298). Resolving to stay together no matter what, the friends follow the Doorman into Heaven.

The Doorman leads Victor and his friends through a hallway lined with moving paintings of humans and machines in various sexual positions. From behind closed doors come the sounds of Heaven’s clients living out their fantasies. Victor is deeply uncomfortable with his surroundings, but holding Hap’s hand helps.

Victor and his friends enter an enormous sphere covered in screens. The Blue Fairy speaks to Victor from the screens, asking how he found them and questioning if he will leave death and destruction in his wake like his human forbearers. The Blue Fairy decides to test Victor and Hap’s loyalty. They hungrily describe their desire to see Hap’s dreams and memories in a voice “like a monster from a fairy tale, a witch in a candy house” (311). Victor tries to stop Hap, but the android bravely agrees to comply if the Blue Fairy promises to help them in return and to not harm the others.

When Hap sits in a chair in the middle of the sphere, metal bands lock him into place. The Blue Fairy warns that the procedure will be painful and that Victor could destroy Hap’s mind if he attempts to stop the dream. A black cloth covers Hap’s face, and the screens display Hap’s earliest memory. He awakens for the first time to see his inventor, Giovanni (then known as Gio), who tells him that he has a slight glitch but is the pinnacle of HARP. An Authority operative takes Hap for a field test, and he kills a young human without hesitation. The screens show Hap taking hundreds of human lives. He hesitates for a moment when a woman defending a child tells him that he has a choice, but then he carries out his programming. In the next memory, Gio pours out his regrets and anguish to Hap. After Gio goes missing, the Authority orders Hap to track down his inventor, but he refuses and is dismantled. Hap is badly injured during the decommission process, but he manages to escape total destruction by hiding in a pile of broken parts. The next memory shows Victor, Nurse Ratched, and Rambo finding him in the Scrap Yard. After that point, the majority of Hap’s memories are about Victor, much to the human’s astonishment. In a rare Victor-less memory, Giovanni confides to Hap that he tried to atone for his mistakes through his son. Gio wonders why their paths have crossed again, and Hap answers that it’s for Victor.

When Hap begins to overload in the present, Victor, Nurse Ratched, and Rambo work together to free him from the bands securing him to the chair. Hap’s protocol is in place once more, and he seizes the human by the throat. Victor presses a hand against the android’s chest and kisses Hap. Hap returns to himself and holds Victor close, apologizing profusely. The Blue Fairy now understands that the difference in Hap is about more than his heart. They descend from the top of the sphere, revealing their form to be 10 feet in height with billowing cerulean hair and enormous electric-blue butterfly wings.