It was October 31st, 1999, the day the invasion began. Halloween festivities were booming all over town, but the Blackmores were above such revelry--or so father insisted. Cecilia Blackmore sat alone in an average old bed within her room at the Blackmore Estate, poring over an old adventure novel she’d borrowed from the library. It was the kind of adventure novel that was full of content a thirteen-year-old should not be reading and that parents paid no attention to since it was a “proper” medium, unlike movies or video games. An old turntable setup in the corner took up almost a quarter of the room and was currently playing an old Ella Fitzgerald record from the collection she’d inherited. It provided a delightfully unfitting soundtrack to the dramatic chase scene she was currently reading.
Where the other rooms in the Estate were grand and tall and ornamental and sprawling, something between a European castle and a Victorian mansion, Cecilia’s room was the old supply closet. Granted, this meant it was about the same size as any ordinary child’s room, but Cecilia was no ordinary child and this was no ordinary home. She had never figured out why her stepfather hated her so, but she had a feeling it had something to do with the step part.
“Knock knock,” an obnoxious voice, like farts in a wind tunnel, called out before opening the door anyway with no warning.
“Hello, Gerald,” Cecilia sighed, using an old scrap of paper as a bookmark and adjusting her glasses. Her brother was insufferable, arrogant, elitist, and had never known trouble, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. He didn’t treat her with any great fondness, but he treated her as a person, which was more than could be said for… anybody else he’d ever interacted with, as far as she could tell. She was also pretty sure he’d stood up for her to their father, but he would never admit it. “What do you want?”
“I have something for you,” he replied, leaning in the doorway. He was still wearing his favorite god-awful black trenchcoat.
“If it’s another article you’ve printed out about how The Matrix might be real, I will have to respectfully decline.”
“No, not this time,” he replied. “Matthew, you may proceed.” A tall figure with vaguely punk attire stepped out, wearing a fishnet shirt, leather jacket, high heels and fingerless gloves. It looked like whoever had dressed him was not quite sure what punk or rock actually was.
“Gerald, you can’t give me a person,” Cecilia blurted, flabbergasted.
“No, no, no, on the contrary,” Gerald frantically explained, “he is merely a gacha, a One Star at that.”
Cecilia squinted at the gift. “He looks like a person. Nice to meet you, Matthew.”
“Charmed,” Matthew replied, lifting her hand to his lips and politely kissing it.
“He talks like a person too.” Cecilia winced, her discomfort quickly growing.
“So does Linguine Arf,” her stepbrother insisted, “and he’s merely a dog blessed with pastakinesis. I implore you, dear sister, not to look a gift Matthew in the mouth.”
“My teeth are all suitably clean, I can assure you,” Matthew added, nodding. He smiled slyly and Cecilia giggled. He liked this. Gerald never laughed at his wit.
“A what?” She’d heard chatter at school about some amazing new toy, but she hadn’t really followed the conversations.
“They’re…” the words were hard to find. “They’re fun little characters that emerge from the fifty cent machines at various storefronts, but they’re thoroughly inhuman, I assure you. William had some say in their distribution in this particular town, I believe, but he has still made me purchase them myself. You know father.” William was his father’s name, but he said it with the coldness and disdain one might use when discussing an elementary school bully.
“And this person, this man standing here breathing like we are, with arms and legs, is just a gacha, you say. A vending machine toy.”
“Essentially.”
“How did he fit in the capsule?”
Gerald shrugged.
“How did you get him out!?”
“I bled on it.” She thought this was a joke, but her brother could never keep a straight face through one, and he looked dead serious. She wasn’t following this insanity at all, but he seemed to be sincere in this absurdity.
“So you’re sure he’s a ‘gacha,’” Cecilia reiterated, glaring daggers through her brother.
“Entirely,” Gerald replied, rolling his eyes. “I have ten more just like him if you don’t believe me.”
“Ten!?Then what’s wrong with this one?”
Her brother shifted awkwardly, stammering. “N-nothing, my dear sister--”
“What’s wrong with him, Gerald.” A demand, not a question.
“He is n-not very combat oriented, so he is of no use to me. He reminds me of you: he is witty and pleasant, but too weak to follow through.” This was more of a compliment than he’d usually showered her with. “I do not have an extra Glove,” he said, motioning to the plastic contraption with a single blinking red LED on top currently slipped over his left hand, “but he has promised me that he will not harm you. And,” he cleared his throat, thoroughly impressed with himself for recalling the next phrase from his private tutor’s vocabulary lessons from that morning, “to use complete verisimilitude--”
“You sound like an idiot when you talk like that,” Cecilia prodded. “Verbosity,” she said, mimicking his voice, “does not equal intelligence--”
“--he doesn’t have the stomach for it, either” Gerald finished with a huff, “and insulting my verbosity does not make you any closer to my intellect. He’s all yours. I’m off to conduct business. Farewell.” He slammed the door just as quickly and rudely as he’d entered it, much to Cecilia’s relief. She had never figured out what “conducting business” meant in Gerald-speak, but she was quite certain she was happier in her ignorance.
For a time she sat on the bed staring at Matthew, who stood awkwardly in the center of the room like a robot awaiting a command. It was both sad and disturbing.
“So… your name is Matthew?” she finally asked, shattering the silence.
“I suppose,” he replied. “We’re all called Matt, but… ah.. how did Gerald put it?” He cleared his throat and then did a much better impression of Gerald, quoting: “Shortening a gentleman’s name shortens his genitalia.”
“That must be why he hates being called Gerry,” Cecilia giggled. Matthew smiled. “So, you’re Matthew because of that.”
“We all are,” he replied with a nod. She sat on the edge of the bed and tapped the spot next to her, where the polite gacha plopped down beside her.
“You’re quite formal and polite for a character dressed like a gay stripper,” she said, cracking a grin.
“I resemble that remark,” Matthew replied, a slight bitterness to his tone, “though I’ve yet to find a gentleman worthy of my poise and charm.” He winked and shot finger guns at an imaginary heartthrob in front of herself, and Cecilia couldn’t help but cackle.
“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to offend.” She couldn’t recall the last time someone had been so frank around her, and not a cardboard cutout of a person from being imposed by her status, beauty, or father. “I was just--well, your appearance doesn’t become your personality, you understand.”
Matthew nodded. “Matts are not a pleasant sort, as a generality, but I like to think one can rise above their backstory and become something better.”
“Me too,” she softly replied, suddenly overcome with sadness.
“I look to your father and brother as examples of what a gentleman should not be,” Matthew continued. “No offense.”
“Stepfather,” she corrected him, her venom aimed entirely at the word and not the gacha. “And none taken.”
“What would you have me do?”
She thought for a moment. “That sounds so cruel and formal. What did my stepbrother have you do?”
“He wanted me to participate in his games, but I refused.”
She tilted her head in confusion. “Oh?”
“He would have his Matthews fight one another to train. Gacha regenerate quickly if not killed outright, so we’d be mangled over and over as practice and then grown back to go at it again.”
“As practice for what?”
Matthew stared into the distance, focused on nothing at all. He paused, took a deep breath, swallowed hard, exhaled slowly. “I can’t tell you that, Cecilia.”
“Aww, why not?”
“The man he wants to…” Matthew ran a finger across his throat. “...that man has means of monitoring everyone around him. He knows whenever anyone mentions him. He has very rare, very powerful gacha that give him near-omnipotence.”
“And so you can’t tell me who he is, because he’ll hear you.”
Matthew nodded, swallowing hard.
“Is it someone I know?” she asked. Surely this line of questioning was harmless.
Matthew hesitated. Her eyes were so young and so full of life. He could see the scars of horrors he didn’t know yet in her too-mature gaze, but he wanted her to retain even an ounce of her innocence and happiness if he could.
“If you don’t reply, I’m going to assume the answer is yes, and you just don’t want to tell me.”
Matthew squinted his eyes shut and nodded slowly.
Cecilia leaned backwards onto the bed, flopping onto her back. “I figured that’s who you meant. Gerald’s not going to be able to do it, though, don’t worry. He’s talked about that as long as I’ve known him. It’s impossible. He just… says stuff like that to make himself feel better. There’s no way it’s possible.”
Anything is possible with gacha, Matthew thought, but he thought better of saying it. “Regardless, a pacifistic optimist like me did not fit the criteria for his army, so I’m now here at your command. What would you have me do?”
She thought for a moment. The thrill of having a built-in butler, like everyone in the house her father liked had, was indeed thrilling… but it was too much like what William or Gerald would do, and loneliness was her true curse. “I just want a friend.”
“Shall I find you one?” Cecilia was taken aback, taking this as a direct rejection, but saw in the sincerity of his eyes that Matthew wasn’t being cheeky.
“I meant you, you big punk.”
Matthew had never even considered that anyone would ever want to befriend him, least of all a human. He was a one star, a worthless, broken one at that, going against all of his forced backstory and not even willing to throw a punch. Gerald had treated him as a soldier to be dishonorably discharged, which was better than he could expect from any other human, and much better than he’d had from the other Matts, but... someone of her status would want him not a servant, but as a friend? He burst out crying in spite of himself, and she quickly tossed him an old handkerchief, apologizing.
“No, no, it’s quite alright,” he consoled her, laughing through the tears. “They’re not sad tears. I just… thank you.”
She smiled. “Don’t mention it. We’re friends now, and that’s what matters. You should go to the game room with me.” He tried to mask his excitement, as he’d never been allowed outside of Gerald’s suite, and had only heard rumors of its wonders.
“Yes,” he immediately agreed, smiling warmly and sniffling a bit. “Let’s go there… as friends.” The words were like the sweetest honey on his tongue. Maybe there was more to life than servitude and war. Even for a gacha. Even for a Matthew.