September, 2061
The world was a black, inky, impenetrable darkness that extended on and on to infinity. The void surrendered no sensation, no temperature, no sounds, no smells. It was total sensory deprivation, a sensation which many find somewhat calming.
She was far from calm.
No, Carcano 1891 was all but screaming in frustration.
The void, as far as she could guess, was the result of her senses being literally locked away from her consciousness. She had no memory of what could have caused it, all she knew was that she needed to not be here.
What she was attempting was what could be best described as searching a pitch black room for one particular light switch. She was attempting to cycle her internal power source with no internal diagnostics. Normally dolls such as herself could do this with similar ease that humans could breathe or blink. Similarly, as a human might struggle to breathe in a coma, so too was she struggling to accomplish her current task.
Or maybe she wasn't, and the reactor was simply broken, or maybe it was working fine and the problem lay elsewhere. There was no way to know, and her knowledge of her inner workings was rather limited so her guess work wasn't very educated.
She ran through the process again, and again, and again and again and again. Cano ran through the process a dozen times, hoping that she was actually doing something.
Then, eventually, something changed.
There was a pin prick of pure white light which shone through the void. It hung there in the middle of her vision for a moment, before winking back out and leaving Cano feeling greater despair than she felt cool air on her skin, a low humming in her ears, and a musk of stone and rain.
She peeled open an eye.
She was in a dark room, heaped in a corner with stone walls pressing against her. All around were several other dolls heaped in a similar manner to her, but none were moving. A few were in a state of disrepair, but more concerning were the several disassembled dolls lying on half a dozen tables with a wide variety of tools for the purpose of dismantling.
A chop shop, probably illegal, definitely not where she should be. Based on the number of dolls this was a significant operation too, so likely in or near a city.
Cano investigated each of the dolls around the room, plus many of the disassembled ones. There were a few familiar models, but none she knew personally. Small mercies.
She checked herself over for anything missing, but found nothing wrong. She did discover she had been put into some prison style trousers and a tank top, neither of which she owned and she blushed a little as she wondered how she'd been put in them. A quick glance around the room confirmed that the other dolls were dressed in a similar manner.
"Эй, Артем, открой дверь!" Shouted a muffled gruff voice
Cano jerked her head to the old wooden door where the voice had come from. Someone was fiddling with the lock.
She dashed back towards where she'd awoken, laying back down in position but making sure she had eyes on the door.
The entrance creaked open, shining light into the room that was broken up by a few silhouettes. Two humans stumbled into the room, with another figure draped over their shoulders. The pair dragged the body a few meters into the room before unceremoniously dropping it against a wall. Behind them a fourth figure stood guard with what looked like an AK in their arms.
"Хорошенькая, не правда ли?" The same man from before commented, looking over the body.
His buddy punched his shoulder, "Ты собираешься ее трахнуть?"
The first man chuckled, saying "Не в моем вкусе," before walking out.
The second man lingered, staring at the body for a few seconds before his companion called to him from the hall. He started to leave, glanced back, but decided to go and shut the door behind him.
Cano got up again. Her Russian was shaky, but from what she got the second guy wanted to know if the first wanted to get 'involved' with that body, a girl she assumed, but apparently she wasn't his type.
She walked over to the girl. She was maybe twenty, if she was human, with ratty mid length brown hair. She was gaunt, with sunken cheeks and thin arms, and oddly she lacked a UDC [ Universal doll connection ] port on the back of her neck as was typically standard. Cano checked for a pulse, finding none, but did feel the intense heat that the girl was giving off and noticed a shallow rise and fall of her chest as she took a few soft breaths.
She was alive then. Cano knew some elite dolls could cannibalise synthetic muscle to convert to power, so she guessed that was what was happening here. That would explain both the heat and her gaunt appearance.
"Geez, what happened to you?" Cano whispered.
The girl's hazel eyes flicked open, causing Cano to recoil back a pace before regaining her composure.
"Oh, uh, hi."
"Wo-" The girl began, her voice coming out hoarse and stopping her mid sentence. She rubbed her throat with a confused motion.
"Shhhhh, we're in a chop shop."
The girl shot Cano a questioning glance before looking around the room.
"What the…"
"I dunno, I only woke up a few minutes ago."
The girl sat up and groaned.
"Who are you...Italian right? Carabinieri?" She spoke with a mild german accent.
"What? No, I'm with Griffin and Kryuger."
"Who?"
Cano shook her head, "Never mind, I'm a friend."
"What's your name?"
"Carcano 1891, but please call me Cano. what's yours?"
The girl regarded her for a moment, "Ehm, call me… J."
"Jay? Is that your name?"
J shook her head, "Nope, but until I know who you really are I can't tell you."
Cano rolled her eyes, "Do you think I'm lying to you?"
"With a name like that do you have to ask?"
J took a few minutes to get to her feet. Her legs were shaky and stiff so Cano had to help her at first. She took a few minutes to stumble around the room, taking a morbid curiosity in the disassembled dolls, especially the partially pulled apart ones.
"А? Чем могу помочь, Артем?" Spoke a voice on just the opposite side of the door.
"Ты хочешь домой? Я все равно задержусь допоздна, я тебя прикрою," replied a second. It sounded like the second man from earlier.
"Эм... конечно, да."
There were some scuffling of feet and hands, and it sounded like someone walked off.
"He's coming in," J whispered, staring at the door.
"What do you mean?"
"Sounds like Artyom wants some alone time with me, he just got the guard to go home."
"Oh, yeah he was kinda giving you that look earlier."
"Were any of them armed?"
"The guard had an AK, but I didn't see anything on the others."
"Sounds like he gave that to Artyom, that's doable. Wanna get out of here?"
Cano looked at her, "You have a way out?"
"I'll lay back down, he'll come over, you take him while he's getting ready and we go."
Cano cocked her head, "What? I can't hurt a human!"
J shot a wilting glare at her. "Cano, do you understand what his intentions are right? He's a scum bag, fuck you mean you can't?"
"I literally can't. I'm hard coded against it."
"What are you, a fucking nun?"
"No, I'm IOP; IOP dolls can't intentionally harm humans without direct permission from either a Soviet government official or designated superior."
J blinked a few times, staring at her.
"What?" Cano asked.
J swallowed, "Well, we're just gonna leave all those revelations for later. Okay, new plan, you stand still by the wall where I was, then I get him while he's distracted by you."
"Can you… do that?"
J gave her a look .
"I'm not IOP," She said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Cano gave her a shaky nod, then stepped over to about where J had been left. For her part J snagged a long rod of aluminum which had formed part of a doll's lower leg endoskeleton, then hid down behind one of the tables nearest the door.
Artyom didn't barge in right away. Instead Cano was left standing against that wall for several minutes. As she waited she wondered about her new companion. The doll not being IOP was an issue. She could be another from another manufacturer, but to her knowledge all those in the NSU placed limits on T-dolls similar to IOP, so she still shouldn't be capable of hurting htis 'Artyom' guy.
The door clicked, cutting off Cano's train of thought. It creaked open, revealing Artyom, who turned out to be the second man from earlier, standing with his AK slung. The man's head snapped to her, and his relaxed stance shifted into hostility.
"Какого хрена? Не двигаться!" He shouted, unslinging his rifle and pointing it at Cano.
He stepped into the room, approaching her cautiously. Each step he took built anxiety in her, making it harder to stay still, but she kept her eyes locked on him and did not move a muscle.
J appeared behind him, swinging the rod hard baseball style into the side of his head which reverberated with a dull ring. Artyom slumped down with a dull thump.
"Whoa…" Cano muttered, looking down on him.
J nearly collapsed, but just saved herself by using the rod and a nearby table as a crutch. Cano ran up to her, trying to support her. She was panting hard and felt even hotter to the touch than before.
"You okay?" Cano asked.
J shrugged her off, "Fine, fine just… just not as strong as I'm used to."
"Sorry I couldn't do it for you…"
J shook her head, "No, no I get it. Programming and all that."
"Is he… Is he dead?" Cano asked, glancing over him. There was a small pool of blood coming from where the impact had occurred.
J leaned down, pressing a finger against his throat.
"No, not yet at least. If he lives he'll have one hell of a concussion though," She said with a wince.
"So now wha- what are you doing?" Cano said, watching as J began pulling off Artyom's armor and clothing while going through every pocket.
"Need stuff, ya know, money, weapons, clothing. You do wanna escape don't you?"
"Well, yes. It just… I dunno feels wrong?"
"Get over it," J said. She handed Cano the Ak Artyom was holding.
Cano took the unfamiliar weapon, turning it over in her hands to inspect the polished wood stock and fore grip, then checking the serial number on the receiver. It was a 1950s soviet AK-47, with from what Cano could see were at least most of its original parts in quite good condition.
"I'm surprised he had something this nice…" Cano muttered.
"Gimme," J said.
Cano glanced up to see her new companion stretching out a hand to receive the weapon. She'd thrown on Artyom's jacket , which was several sizes too large for her, and she was holding what appeared to be his wallet.
"Uh, yeah here," Cano replied, handing off the weapon.
J handed Cano the plate carrier Artyom had been wearing, likely because it'd be far too heavy for her to wear, then charged the Ak, "let's move."
The stark concrete hall outside was empty, and it stretched long to both sides with a few windows. They stepped out, tiptoeing up the hall up to the nearest of the windows. Cano peered out into the inky nighttime darkness beyond.
They were in a compound, encircled by a chain link fence with a few guards patrolling. She didn't spy an entrance or exit, but did notice a couple other buildings nearby looming in the darkness. J led her on. They navigated a few bends and turns, peeking around each one as they did but finding nothing.
A gnawing feeling pulled at Cano's core. This all seemed far too simple, at the pace they were going they could just walk out of here. There had to be more guards, right?
J stiffened like a hound picking up a scent, then snagged Cano's collar to pull her through a nearby door. She shut the door with a whisper, then pressed an ear up against it. Footsteps and low russian conversation grew on the other side
For one agonizing moment, they paused outside either door. Silhouettes nodded back and forth in conversation, unaware of the muzzle J had pointed towards them in case they should try and enter. However, the shadows moved on, giving Cano room to let out the breath she'd been holding.
"That was too close."
"Mmm," J nodded, " Let's make ourselves scarce, shall we?"
She pushed the door open, letting it swing open on its own before peeking out muzzle first.
J fired a shot.
"FUCK!" J shouted, "Come on!"
Cano leapt up as J took off in a sprint out into the hall, away from whatever she'd just shot. Cano glanced over her shoulder to see a guard squirming on the ground against the wall at the end of the hall with another just starting to react beside him.
They rounded the next bend and pressed up against the wall.
"Plate hit," J explained, tapping her chest where she'd evidently shot the guard.
A burst of rounds slammed into the concrete as at least two people shouted in russian to each other.
J groaned as she rose to her feet and crept back up to the corner. After a moment, she whipped around and let loose three individual rounds before returning to cover.
"Got 'em," She said with a grin, though her jovial tone was undercut but how heavily her chest was heaving.
"You okay?" Cano asked.
"Yeah, damn barrel is hard to keep straight though," She said, "Plus this things heavier than I expected, I'm already getting winded just carrying it."
"Want me to carry you?" Cano offered with a smirk.
"Ah, this is still just our first date, let's save the romantics until after dinner."
Another group of Russians rounded the corner ahead of them, rifles raised. J responded by firing a burst and pulling Cano back around the corner as bullets zipped through the air around them.
J stuck her rifle around the corner to loose a burst in reply, however the volume their foes were putting out made it seem like a drop in a bucket.
Cano's head turned back down the hall, noticing where J had dropped the two guards from before. It was long, and other than a few windows and the door they'd hidden in earlier it was empty. If more guards came from that direction, they'd have no escape and no cover.
"Hang on!" Cano shouted, dashing down the hall towards the dead guards.
She scooped up one of the Aks that'd fallen from their grips and fired a burst into a nearby window. The glass starred from the impacts, shaking loose the dust from its frame.
Cano turned her rifle around, then slammed the weapon's butt into the weakened pane. The window shuddered, but held, so she did again, and again and again in a rhythmic jackhammer like motion.
After one final hit, the pane shattered completely, sending shards of glass raining down to the ground far below.
"Come on!" Cano shouted, waving J over.
J let off a final burst around the corner until her weapon clicked empty before getting to her feet and stumbling over to Cano. She shot a quick glance into the black night over her shoulder as she covered the corner.
"I'm not making that jump," She said, slamming another magazine home and re-charging the Ak.
"But I will," Cano said with a grin, earning a concerned glance from J
"What's your plan?"
One of the guards peeked around the corner, causing J to let loose at him. He whipped back around into cover as concrete shards flew up around the impact.
"This," Cano tossed her rifle off into the black and scooped J up into a bridal carry, who after a brief moment of confused squirming wrapped an arm around Cano's neck.
"Just couldn't your hands off me could ya?" J snarked.
"Hehe, hang on."
Cano leapt out into the night, the cool air whipping her long hair behind her like the tail of a comet. She had just the briefest moment to prepare, letting her knees bend just a bit.
The ground came up fast and slammed into her feet. She let her legs take the fall, using them like springs to absorb her momentum. Once coiled, they then shot her forward into the night, propelling both of them away from the building. Once well out of sight Cano stopped and crouched down in the overgrown grass which covered the whole area.
A few tentative shots rang out from the guards behind them, but they came nowhere near the pair of them.
"Ah, that was fun," J said with a chuckle.
Cano let her hop out onto her feet.
"We're not out of this yet you know."
As if to emphasize the point, several more of the russian thugs burst out from the building and began to fan out in search of them with blazing flashlights.
J began creeping along in the tall brush towards the perimeter fence.
"Come on," She hissed.
Cano trailed her, ducking down as one of the russian's flashlights cast over their general area in a wide search. By some miracle the beam passed on without finding them, and they resumed their trek.
The fence was chainlink, about three meters tall and topped with razor wire. J crouched down to its base, inspecting the bottom before turning back to her.
"Can you pull this up?" She asked, pointing to the unanchored bottom of the fence.
Cano took a moment to decide on her approach before wrapping her fingers around a few links and pulling up as hard as she could. The fence warped and screeched, but did yield enough for J to just wriggle under to the opposite side.
Cano released the fence, letting it snap back into position with a crash that made her flinch. J tried to replicate her approach, straining with a grunt against the fence but couldn't seem to get it to move.
"Fuck, uh…" She gasped between ragged breaths. J glanced up to the top of the fence then began patting herself down in search of something.
"Ah, here," She said, offering a small pair of wire cutters she must've taken off Artyom earlier.
Cano took the small tool through the wire links. It looked more suited to cutting through zip-tie cuffs than steel wiring.
"Pretty sure this won't work," she said, tapping the thick fence chain links with it.
"No, climb up and cut the razor wire, I'll cover you."
Cano glanced up, the wire was thinner than the fence links, and she'd only need to cut twice rather than the dozens needed to pass through the fence.. She shrugged and began pulling herself up the fence, each movement causing it to rattle.
"Shhhhh…" J hissed.
"I'm trying!" She protested in a hushed tone.
Just before Cano reached the top, a sea of white light washed over her from behind, followed by angry shouts in Russian. A fusillade of gunfire rang out as J engaged the thugs behind her.
Just as she got within reach of the wire, what felt like a sledgehammer blow slammed into her back. It smashed her against the fence with enough force to dislodge her and send her falling back towards the hard ground.
"Fuc-!" J yelped.
A moment later the gunfire from both sides died off. Cano could hear the rustle of grass and crunching footsteps approaching her.
"Тот, другой, мертв?" Asked a voice.
"Да, я попал ей в самую точку!" A second one answered, sounding triumphant in a way that filled Cano with worry.
She strained to look where J had been standing moments before. The doll was gone. She let her head fall back to the grass. So was that it then? Three heads appeared above her, looking down on her from behind balaclavas and old army helmets.
"Это тот самый, которого мы привезли вче-" One began in a curious tone, Cano recognized him as Artyom's comrade from earlier.
A gunshot cut through the night air. The one speaking had his head jerked to the side, followed by his body collapsing. His friends whirled around to where the shot had come from, only for a second shot to send another crashing to the ground.
The third man ran for cover, but a burst of automatic fire flew all around him and caught him in the leg. The man screamed out as he writhed on the ground, shouting all kinds of profanities.
A final report rang out, and he too fell into a silent heap on the ground.
"J?!" Cano gasped as a shadow rose up from the ground past the fence.
"Yeah, I'm here," She replied. Her voice sounded far more ragged, and she was not as steady on her feet as before.
Cano scrambled to her feet as J stumbled up to the fence.
"You okay?" J asked, leaning into the fence for support.
"Ye-yeah, the plate caught a round I think but I'm fully functional," Cano replied, smacking her body armor with a closed fist.
"Good," J nodded. Cano noticed her holding a spot just below her right shoulder where her jacket had been torn
"J… you're hit?"
"Heh, yeah. I'll live," She answered weakly, "but I might actually need you to carry me now, so hurry up and get over here."