Chapter 1

Stan held the industrial sized toner cartridge up to the light and shook it slightly, hoping to see the source of the blockage. Behind him, Livingston Enterprises's Christmas holiday office bash was in full swing. Around Stan, people sang Christmas carols, danced in the cafeteria, told jokes, and generally had themselves a wonderful time. Stan blew his nose, set down the toner cartridge and leaned back into the guts of the giant copier.

Stan tried hard not to pity himself, working late on Christmas eve, knowing he was going home, once again, to an empty apartment for Christmas. The very best he could hope for, the very best, was that his boss Al would call him in on triple time to fix someone's copier on Christmas day. Otherwise, Stan knew he'd spend the day alone, trying not to call his sister Margie and impose on her family. No, Stan thought to himself as he started trying to fit the toner cartridge back into the copier, he'd find something positive to do on Christmas, like play a marathon session of 'World of Warcraft' and then get drunk.

As he was fitting the cartridge back inside, the filter element caught on a ridge of the toner flap, it flew open, Stan tried to jam it in, and magnetically charged magenta colored toner particles blasted all over Stan's face, chest and hands in a gust. Stan sat back on his heels, trying to blow the pigment out of his nose. As he sat back, his shirt caught on the door of the copier and it tore with a loud rip.

Nearby, an attractive brunette turned at the sound and looked. She tried to stifle a drunken giggle as she saw Stan. He male companion was less polite and burst into a loud braying laugh at the sight of Stan sitting there on the floor, shirt ripped open, and covered in red toner, looking for all the world like a piece of comedy clip art. Stan looked away.

It had taken hours to finish cleaning up the mess at Livingston, and he only got paid for half of the time. Stan raced up the steps to the bus station, only to miss the last bus home. He had to pay for a cab, and it cost more for the cab than he'd earned that day. Arriving at his apartment building, he slipped on the snow on the sidewalk and got mud all over his pants as he went to pay the cabbie. Walking inside, the building was dark. Most folks had left for somewhere else at Christmas, not wanting to be in Omaha ... of all places. Stan tended to agree. He let himself into his cold apartment, ready to bathe in the warm affection of the one being on the planet who accepted him for who he was. His cat Freckles rubbed between his legs and then made a slow saunter towards the kitchen, making small yowls for food. Stan smiled.

He made himself a piece of microwave pizza after feeding Freckles. Then he had a shower and had to soap up three times to get all the residual toner off of himself. After that, he sat down at his computer to cruise the web. Later, he went to his favorite porn site and masturbated. Just before midnight, he went to bed. He slept soundly.

Christmas morning dawned cold in Omaha. The temperature was 24 degrees, and the wind blew in gusts, making it feel far colder. Stan woke to the banging of his old building's pipes as they tried to keep up with the work of the boiler down in the basement. He made himself some poptarts and grabbed a bag of cheetos to settle in on the couch. The news was all too cheery, and he snapped it off with a sigh. "How many times do we have to watch a segment on a plucky handicapped boy, huh, Freckles? Bah."

He played some online game for a while, then drifted into a nap. When he awoke, text was scrolling up his screen. Someone was calling him a 'L4m3r N00b!' and claiming that he'd gone comatose in a big battle and gotten a bunch of characters killed. He logged out of the game with a sigh and frowned. "Great! Just Great. What a wonderful fucking LIFE! AAAH!" He kicked an empty soda can on the floor into the kitchen where it bounced off the range and broke a cheesy figurine his mother had given him before she retired and moved to Guadalajara.

Just then, his front door buzzer rang. Wondering who it could be, he answered. There, standing in the open doorway was a tall man in an immaculate red and black delivery uniform. His pants were creased perfectly, the belt he wore was a shiny black. The shirt was creased perfectly and bore no stains of any kind. On top he wore a linen cap of some kind, and the insignia on it read 'NPDS'.

"Delivery for Stanley Edsel Mertz." The man said in a warm, professional tone. He smiled at Stan.

"You make deliveries on Christmas?"

"Yes Sir, every year."

Stan looked around as he signed the form. There was no sign of a package anywhere. "You must make a ton, if you do it every year. I get golden time, triple, if I have to do a repair on a holiday."

"We find it most rewarding, yes sir." The man nodded at Stan. "We'll have it up in a moment." Then he took out a tape measure, took a quick measurement of the width of the door and then nodded. "Perfect." He said, turning.

Just then, three extremely small men in identical red and black delivery uniforms appeared, carrying a huge, decorated package up the stairs.

"Pardon us, sir, if you could just step back into your apartment?" The tall man said.

Stan blinked, staring at the huge package. It had to be nearly seven feet tall and three feet wide.

"If you could step back, sir?" The man said again.

Stan stumbled a couple of steps back, trying to avoid the mess in his apartment.

With a lithe dexterity that belied their size, the three small men rapidly rotated the huge christmas present sideways, tilted it on end, shimmied it through the door, and stood it up on end in the middle of Stan's place. Without so much as a word, the three tiny men left the apartment and literally skipped down the stairs. The tall man made a small gesture that Stan thought might have been a bow and turned to go. Stan looked at the huge present, and then turned. "There must be some mistake." The man was gone and his apartment door had been closed, all in silence.

Stan shook his head. It had all been far too weird. He examined the package. The massive present was wrapped in a beautiful foil print paper, one he hadn't seen before, but found beautiful, it was wrapped with a wide red ribbon and topped with a huge extravagant bow. He almost didn't want to ruin the wrapping it was so pretty. Surprisingly, the wrapping was undamaged from its delivery up two flights of stairs and through his door.

He unwrapped the package and under the foil was heavy kraft paper. Under the heavy kraft paper was wood. What stood in his room was a large wooden crate. He examined it for markings. With a grunt of surprise, he stepped back. The 'crate' was not composed of cheap pine boards power stapled together. Instead, it was carefully joined solid oak planking. The crate had been stained and varnished. It was like a piece of furniture. There were no markings on it anywhere. The crate opened on the left, where Stan found a gleaming brass handle with a keyhole. Hanging from the handle was a delicate brass key on a fine silken red string.

Stan thought about it for a second. Looking the crate over, he briefly thought that the crate itself was probably worth more than anything in his apartment. He untied the string and then retied it around the key. Shaking his head at the weird turn of events, he unlocked the handle. He pulled it, and it glided smoothly to the right and then turned. There was a hiss of air, and the crate opened slightly. The inside of the crate was stainless steel, with a thick rubber or urethane foam seal around the edge. A pair of large gauge rubber tubes seemed to be connected to some kind of fan assembly.

Stan heaved the heavy crate door open. Inside the crate was a black vinyl bag that looked very, very much like a body bag. A stainless steel zipper ran down the front of the bag. The two large tubes entered the bag, one down low and one up high. Hanging from the stainless steel zipper fob was an engraved Christmas card. Stan opened it. It said. "Merry Christmas, Stan. From Santa."

Stan stood a moment and looked at the ominous black bag. He didn't know if it was time to call the cops or not. He looked at Freckles and said. "Jesus Christ, Freckles. If this is a body, I'm gonna completely freak out. This is like that episode of "The Twilight Zone". Do you remember? I think Burgess Meredith was in it." Freckles purred.

Stan took a nervous tug on the stainless steel fob. It moved easily. He slid it down slowly. The bag was dark inside. Peeling the bag open and down revealed a naked woman ... or doll ... standing unmoving in the crate. One of the tubes went into a mask-like apparatus over her mouth. The other snaked it's way back into the recesses of the crate.

Stan examined the doll for a moment. It was bald and hairless, and it looked anatomically complete. He touched it. The skin was warm. He finished peeling the bag off the doll and stepped back to examine it.

The doll was about 5'5" tall. It was busty, perhaps a bit on the too busty side for Stan's tastes ... perhaps even an 'E' cup. Stan wasn't too sure, having very little experience in these matters. In any case, despite being put off by the baldness, the doll looked very real, spookily real, and very, very beautiful. Stan found himself growing erect in his pants.

He tried to lift, then just to move the doll, and discovered that it was heavy, very heavy. The doll felt at least as heavy as a real girl might weigh, however much that was. He imagined it to be over 100 lbs.

Just then, the eyes on the doll opened.

"Whoa!" Said Stan, taking a step back, tripping over and then falling into the wrapping paper at his feet.

The doll blinked.

"Holy crap, Freckles. It's a robot"

The doll lifted it's left arm and removed the mouth piece. Lovely pearl white teeth and ruby lips were revealed.

It then reached behind itself, into the recesses of the crate and apparently removed the other tube.

"Um" Said Stan.

A moment later, the doll took a single step out of the crate and stood, staring blankly into space. A second passed, then the doll turned, shoulders and waist, and opened a small compartment on the interior of the crate. It pulled out a large paper manual on a red silk ribbon, and then returned to a neutral posture. The manual hung from it's left hand by the ribbon.