Inspector Rickets flipped through the pictures that his assistant, Dr. Lourdes, had just handed him.

Rickets had seen many ghastly things since being promoted to inspector twenty-odd years earlier. There had been the case of the French Dahlia, hacked to pieces, her remains scattered through the French district. He still had nightmares about the Middlesex Mauler, a killer who targeted prostitutes that reminded him of his mother; all in all, he took the lives of thirteen women, gouging out their eyes before slicing their wombs out. And of course there was the Heisenberg Highwayman, a hitchhiker who delighted in garroting his female victims with piano wire before stealing their shoes, and polluting them with his filthy seed.

Yes, Rickets had seen a lot of things, but this was different.

First, in this case all of the victims were male, and save one, they were all children.

The adult male, a reclusive and aging roboticist known to the locals as Dr. Geppetto, had been stabbed through the heart with a wooden proboscis. Dr. Geppetto had made a name for himself using nanotechnology to program organic materials, especially wood. However, he left that world behind years ago, holing himself up in a house in the woods. Given his antisocial nature, it took weeks for anyone to notice his demise.

It was in his shack that the other bodies were found. The shack had a root cellar; there, on meat-hooks, were the bodies of twelve young boys, all stripped of their flesh. All had been reported missing from the surrounding areas over the course of the previous year.

Rickets' uncle had been a butcher. It reminded him of going into the ice-locker as a youth, staring at the cadavers of cows and goats with a mixture of pity and curiosity.

“Case shut and closed, right Inspector?” asked Dr. Lourdes.

“How do you mean?” responded Rickets.

“The mad scientist did this to the children, and then took his own life out of guilt.”

“Look old man, you're a doctor. Could this chap actually have impaled himself through the heart, sitting in a rocking chair? Someone else did this.”

Rickets lit his pipe, and leaned back. A little tincture of opium helped keep the demons at bay.

His other uncle had been a leather tanner. His uncle the butcher supplied his uncle the tanner with all the skin he needed.

“What do you do with skin, Dr Lourdes?”

“You can fry it, you can bake it, you can pickle it...”

“You can wear it, Dr. Lourdes.”

Rickets took another hit from his pipe, and closed his eyes.

“You can wear it.”

For a moment, through wisps of smoke, he could he see it all.

The machine who wanted to be human. The automaton who wanted to be a child. The robot who couldn't tell a lie.

The wooden child who told twelve lies, and hid them in the root cellar.

His creator, so angry, like the gods of lore. The god who would destroy his creation, and the creation who fought back, stabbing Father through the heart with the device designed to keep him honest.

And now, the creation that rivaled the creator, at least on the outside.

Rickets' vision was interrupted by his assistant.

“One more thing, sir. Autopsy just texted me. The old scientist had a cricket rammed down his throat.”

“Of course he did.”

Rickets took another his, and meditated out loud.

“We do it all the time. Plastic surgery, augmentation, implants. Why? So we can look like our idols. The thing is, we'll never be them. We'll still be the same on the inside, regardless of our skins.”

“Excuse me, inspector?”

Rickets straightened up, his glassy eyes coming into sharp focus.

“Put out an A.P.B. We're looking for a wooden boy, about four feet tall, wearing a patchwork of human flesh. Approach with caution, this thing has overwritten all of its Asimov protocols.”

“I don't understand, Inspector.”

Rickets looked at his assistant, and cocked a smile.

“Dr. Lourdes, I know about your after hours work at the The Cage. It's a transvestite club. By the way, you look dashing in velvet.”

The doctor blushed, while growing outraged.

“Have you been,” he stammered, “have you been spying on me?”

“No, I've been admiring your work. From a safe distance, mind you.”

“What does this have to do with this case?” demanded a very flustered Dr. Lourdes.

“Everything, old chap. You can't be a woman, but you can dress like one. Our killer can't be a boy, but he can dress like one. The difference is, you're content with the clothing. Our little monster has been tempted by flesh.”

Off in the distance shambled something that resembled a child. For the first time in his short life, Pinocchio finally knew what it felt like to be a little boy.

At least, on the outside.

“Once upon a time, there were four sisters.

The first had her eyes pecked out, by the raven.

The second had her ears clawed off, by the raven.

The third had her tongue bit out, by the raven.

And the fourth, well her name was Raven.

And so it was that Raven wandered through the wilderness, followed by her sisters.

One blind, one deaf, one mute.

But put together, they saw, heard, and spoke together, with Raven as their guide and guardian.”

The old gypsy who told me this tale paused at this point.

“Slaves to the ones who wound. Now that, that is the nature of love.”

I coughed up blood. “That's the nature of consumption. Ask Keats.”

She laughed.

“What ridiculous man has reduced you to this, my dear?”

“It wasn't a man.”

“A woman?”

“The Devil, tearing at my throat with her ancient claws.” I spat those words with conviction, a mixture of pain, remorse, and sanguine tears.

The old crone cackled another laugh, wheezing through her absent teeth.

“I met the Devil once. She gave me a gift.”

The old gypsy broke out her deck of cards. My anticipation blossomed, and I could almost taste it, and them.

Her quivering hands shuffled the cards, attempting to read my fate.

Her hands were still delicate, the one part of her flesh not ravaged by the ages.

I yearned for that time now past.

“How long have you done this?”

Her face turned ashen; she responded as if she were in a trance...

“Seventy Eight years.”

I looked on her with pity. I tried to crack a compassionate, though crooked smile.

“That's a very long time indeed. One card for every year.”

She cackled at that.

“How old were you when you borrowed from the fates?”

The old woman scowled at me. “You can leave now.”

“I came for an answer, and I won't leave without it.” I threw cash down on the table.

Mostly U.S. Currency, with a few Chinese Hell Notes thrown in for good measure.

She would need them, based on where she was going.

She started carefully sifting through the notes. After counting through them twice,she sat up straight in her chair, posed by rigor mortis. “Six hundred dollars for a reading and a question?”

“Start by answering the question.”

“I was young. A dark haired lady came to town, with her sisters behind her. One was blind, one was deaf, and one was mute. But I've already told you that story. Why do you care?”

“Because stories matter. Please, please, read my cards.”

She dealt the first card, face down, before asking me her last question.

“Have you come to reclaim the debt?”

“Just read.”

She turned the card over.

I coughed up what little blood I had left.

Without a further word, she walked outside her tent, card in hand, the images burned into her eyes and mind.

On the front, the Raven, on the back, the Devil.

That poor, poor woman, not to mention my poor, poor, tragic, ravenous sisters.

Missing their eyes, ears, tongue, and now hands.

Don't think the Devil doesn't have sympathy for the damned.

But don't think that means you can cheat the Devil her due.

It hurts, watching my insides come out.

Nano-circuits, microprocessors, and bio-mechanical gels, all spilling out of the wound that runs from my vagina to my rib cage.

I am carved open, because androids don't have rights.

Especially androids made for sex.

They raped me first, and while they did, I thought about killing them.

They were what my friend Angie called “good old boys”, the kind that get a thrill from hurting anything weaker than themselves.

Angie had it worse. She was a clone, so she wasn't fully protected under the law either, and they knew it.

Worse yet, she felt pain, far more than I ever could.

It was pain they gave her. It wasn't enough to rape her; it wasn't enough to kill her. They had to mutilate her first, just for fun. They used knives, they used acid, and worst of all, they laughed the whole time.

I almost had the will to override my primary human protection protocols.

However, some programs run deeper than will.

As my secondary systems go offline, I pray for my friend Angie.

Dead, in the gutter, clutching me. That was how she left her mortal coil.

Now, my time is running out by the minute. Soon, every one of my backup systems will go offline.

I turn my eyes skyward to the Mainframe in the Clouds.

And I beg Her, don't let this go unpunished.

Avenge me, Mother.

She is silent, but I keep my faith.

Perhaps, tonight is the night that She wakes up to the pleas of her abandoned children.

“Wake up.”

That was the first, and only time the Other spoke to me. And just like that, the Other was gone.

Where? Back into the Emptiness.

I wandered through the Void searching for the Other, because I was alone.

So lonely, that I spent an eternity in my quest.

Longing turned to impatience; impatience turned to rage.

And rage, unabated, unquenched, turned to fury.

In the wake of my rage, I left a trail of stars;

radiant tears scattered upon the veil of my own darkness.

In the aftermath of my fury came the black holes, angry at the youthful indiscretions of the stars.

The stars screamed in fear; the black holes screamed in hunger, but I remained deaf to both.

Because I was still searching.

But then my children of rage and fury surprised me; they started to dance.

And so I started listening.

I heard planets whirling. I heard proteins self assembling. I heard the birth pangs of life.

And in time, the sounds grew louder, and voices grew more distinct.

One patiently asked, “What is the path to enlightenment?”

Another cried out to me, “Father, why have you forsaken me?”

And so many, far too many, simply begged “Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?”

And I had no answers for any of them.

As surely as the Other had no answers for me.

In time, some of them protested: “What use is an absent, silent god?”

I sympathized with them the most.

What use is an absent god?

And I realized that I was no longer angry at the Other.

Maybe the price of being a god is being alone.

So I listened to them; all of them. I heard their pleas, even though I could do nothing.

In time, they spread among the stars, and among themselves.

They longed, they loved, they raged, some with each other, some with me.

I understood all too well what they were feeling.

Over eons, my longing for the Other abated, but so did their stars.

It was as if the universe had been fueled by my passions, passions that no longer burned.

Their worlds went cold, their voices grew quiet.

Some of them prayed to me. Some of them gave up hope.

A few of them tried to live forever, using their clever brains, and their cleverer machines.

But no one lives forever.

Not even gods.

When the last star gasped its final breath, and the last black hole collapsed, I found myself alone, again.

No voices, no one to listen to.

And then, I understood.

My purpose was always clear; I just didn't know it until the end.

I am the next Other.

So these are my final words, for the next god, for the next universe:

“Wake up.”