"Tiss…"

The pain was gone. OTs-12's mind was clear of the migraine, her limbs free of agony, her chest empty of ache. It was once again easy to breathe, and, better yet, any trace of numbness had vacated her body. For a while, she lay in pure bliss, eyes closed, enjoying her good health.

Something poked at her face. OTs-12 reached up to swat it away. Go away.

"Tiss, it's SV-98!"

All of a sudden, the terrible memories of the cave came flooding back to OTs-12. SV-98, held firm by the Sangvis as it drew data from her, and OTs-12's voicebox stolen straight from her throat. The poking went away, and OTs-12 reached for her throat. A thick strip of duct tape had been placed over where the Sangvis had sliced it open. Impromptu repair.

"I'm… oh God… I'm so sorry…"

OTs-12 finally opened her eyes. SV-98 sat on her knees by Tiss, face red and blue eyes brimming with tears. Her arms were folded across her naked breasts, and she was hunched over from tiredness. OTs-12 opened her mouth, wanting to say something to comfort the other doll, but no words came out. Damnit. She reached out with an arm and patted SV-98 on the shoulder, looking around as she sat up.

They were in some sort of compound. She was leaning on a shed, and to her right was the chain link fence that wrapped around the entire area. Across from them was a larger, longer building, though only one floor, and to her right was an open courtyard populated with wrecked military vehicles, broken-open crates of ammunition, and huge, rusted shipping containers.

SV-98 heaved a big sigh before wiping away the last of her tears and looking at OTs-12. "I c-covered you with some sheet metal, for the nudity."

OTs-12 looked down at the large sheet of aluminum tactfully placed over her legs and torso. She nodded thanks at SV-98 before raising both her hands. She needed to know where they were, but how to gesture it? Zener was still broken. At a loss, she merely swept her pointer finger about at their surroundings. SV-98 followed the gesture confusedly for a few moments before the doll understood.

"I… well, I don't know, I just dragged you here and then dressed the wound and sat."

What the hell happened to you? OTs-12 thought. The SV-98 she had known was decisive and calm, not a sobbing wreck… though she supposed that she herself had been much the same back in the cave, if not worse. Maybe SV-98 had never seen wounds up close and was queasy. OTs-12 made to stand up, still holding the aluminum in front of her, and SV-98 slowly followed suit, covering herself with both hands. A quick look at the shed door behind her told Tiss that no one had entered it in ages. She looked back to her partner and pointed to the door, miming a punch. SV-98 looked at her in confusion. Breaching, OTs-12 thought angrily, before giving up.

SV-98 averted her gaze as OTs-12 threw away her aluminum cover, raising her foot and slamming it against the door. The old, rusted lock broke easily and it swung in. OTs-12 instinctively raised her hands to check the corners with her gun, too late remember that she had no weapon. Sangvis. She would need a new gun, to be sure. The shed was empty regardless, and had been for a long time. It appeared to be some sort of workshop, with numerous tools strewn across battered metal tables. A thick layer of dust had fallen across everything, blanketing it all in a light grey haze.

It was early evening, but the overcast weather turned everything a great deal darker. Gloomy light filtered in through the grimy window over the workbench, so OTs-12 had a hard time picking out what lay in the corner. Something rectangular, to be sure. She was about to reach for it when SV-98 called out.

"Tiss, there's nothing in there, let's move on."

On the verge of protesting, OTs-12 stopped herself and exited the shed, picking up her sheet metal cover. SV-98 tried the door to the larger building and found it unlocked, pushing it open and walking inside. It was a long dining hall, though its former glory had been ruined when the windows were smashed and debris from the surrounding forest made its way inside. Petrified animal droppings littered the floor, as well as a copious amount of shattered glass. OTs-12 tapped SV-98 on the shoulder and pointed to alert her to the danger.

"You need a better way to communicate," said the blonde tiredly. OTs-12 could only nod.

At the end of the dining hall was the kitchen, though a sweep of that found little of use. The two dolls swiped mildewed dishtowels from the cupboard to cover themselves with before they reentered the courtyard. The packed dirt was hard underneath their feet, but OTs-12 found the chillness of the ground soothing.

Directly ahead of them was a rusting, green-painted truck, its wheels sunk halfway into the ground and its cloth cover featuring several large rents. Tiss circled around to the back, climbing up into the bumper to look inside. Curse any IOP engineer who thought I looked cute short.

Once inside the truck bed, OTs-12 peered around the darkened interior. Several wooden crates had been pushed against the side, and sprawled across the bench were the half-eaten remains of what she could only guess was a Soviet soldier. His body was half disintegrated, though the fatigues seemed good enough. OTs-12 looked back to SV-98 and made several gestures around her body.

"What?" said the blonde doll. "That's kinda erotic."

Screw you. Tiss pointed to fatigues, then to SV-98.

"Oh… I can't wear those! We're too short…"

OTs-12 again damned the IOP designers who chose to make the dolls as diminutive as they were. Perhaps they would be able to find good clothes elsewhere, though, and if not, she was not above some amateur sewing to get the job done. The doll turned her attention to the wooden crates in the truck. They were all marked in Cryllic, and they told her that there would be weapons inside. OTs-12 looked about for a bashing implement before taking the helmet off of the corpse's head and bringing it down on the crate, splintering the wood enough to rip it away with her hands.

Inside the crate was a row of neatly lined AK-15 rifles. OTs-12 cleared away the rest of the debris and knelt down to pick one up out of the box, inspecting it with a practiced eye. 2047. Evidently an abandoned shipment of weapons from the third world war. It was heavier than her namesake weapon, to be sure, but would certainly do its job well.

She hopped out of the truck with an armful of magazines and set them on the bumper along with the rifle.

"How are you going to hold all that?" SV-98 asked. "And you know that neither of us can fire those too well, right?"

OTs-12 pointed towards the side of the shed, then mimed shooting. SV-98 shrugged.

"All right."

They approached one of the shipping containers. SV-98 set her hands into the door and leaned away from it, pulling the door out with an ear-splitting screech. OTs-12 missed her old earmuffs, which would've done a great job of cutting out the horrendous sound. Once the door was open, SV-98 advanced inside, Tiss close behind her. The inside of the crate was lit by a mottled pattern of shadows cast by the rusted holes in the roof, covering the wooden crates in a patchwork of light and dark.

Please be ammunition, Tiss hoped as SV-98 busted open the first crate. She let her breath out as brass glinted out from the box. SV-98 held the cartridge up to her face, inspecting it.

"Seven-six-two by fifty-four rimmed," said the blonde doll. "That's my cartridge. They might have SV-98s around here."

"Lucky you." OTs-12 cursed the rarity of her rifle and its ammunition. At this rate, you would think I was defective.

Farther into the shipping container was crates of unused uniforms. Both of them tried on the fatigues, and luckily enough found some that fit well enough to keep. Female underwear was nonexistent, however, but Tiss was perfectly fine with any type of clothes.

"Look, now we're real Russians," SV-98 joked. "SV-98, reporting to the Chechen front as reported!"

Don't even make jokes about that, OTs-12 wanted to say, but had no way to communicate it. We really need to work on a language of some sort.

By the time the two had exited the container, they were fairly well equipped with a partial set of Soviet Ratnik gear. OTs-12 had strapped on armored supportive greaves and a set of breastplate armor. SV-98 wore much the same.

"How'd the Russians even leave this gear unattended?" SV-98 pondered. OTs-12 stared at her for a second before attempting to mime someone leaving in a hurry, but gave up after a few moments.

The second building was much larger and appeared to be some sort of command structure. Numerous poorly preserved corpses were littered about in the lobby, and the two of them stepped over or around them with as much care as they could. OTs-12 felt much better once she had a rifle in her hands, so she led the way down the main hallway. Many of the doors swung open to reveal empty rooms, though yet more simply led down empty corridors.

"Tiss, ahead," said SV-98, pointed over OTs-12's shoulder towards the wall. A large hole was in the center of the wall, though OTs-12 could see nothing in it. "That's man-sized, and looks manmade."

A sniper hole? Tiss pondered. It did offer an excellent point from which to fire down the hallway. She raised her AK-15 and approached the hole. No fire came from within. The doll reached for her belt and pulled out the flashlight, turning it on and shining it into the impromptu hideout. Nothing was present but for a box of cartridges and a Mosin-Nagant. As SV-98 came up behind her, OTs-12 pointed at the rifle.

"No," said the doll, crossing her arms. "That thing is ancient."

OTs-12 shrugged in a gesture of nothing better. SV-98 curled her lip before reaching into the hole and seizing the rifle and cartridges.

The last room they searched was the command center proper. OTs-12 found it oddly familiar in layout, a large table in the center surrounded by numerous desks against the wall. It was admittedly a bit more tactile than a modern center, but dusty, gutted computer monitors were part of each desk.

"Maybe Sangvis looted this section for parts," SV-98 speculated. OTs-12 dearly hoped that they would not return to loot more – despite their weapons, neither of them was in any position to fight Sangvis troops at the moment. As SV-98 walked around the room, Tiss took a seat at the table, setting down the backpack she had picked up from one of the storage crates. The table was covered in several layers of maps and papers, all of which was in Cyrillic. Soviet. Very old. OTs-12 supposed that it was only old to her, and not to the humans who had abandoned the command center. This must have been abandoned during Butterfly. The event had come at a poor time for OTs-12, then a new recruit, making her much less enthusiastic about joining Griffin.

The doll picked up one sheaf of papers, studying the title. Status report, 17/5/61, Major Bezpalov. The entire stack was information from the same day: commissary inventory results,, range logs, patrol reports. OTs-12 set the papers aside and brushed off a layer of dust to reveal the map underneath. Though it was worn and faded from the sunlight, she could still make out the text and images. Outpost, supply road, patrol paths… there. OTs-12 ran her finger along a red-line path through the mapped forest, finding the icon marked as the forward operating base. She supposed that the other building in the compound must be the barracks.

"Mountain range is to the south, here," SV-98 said, pointing to one region of the map. OTs-12 reoriented herself based on that. The Griffin base coordinates were thankfully still in her memory, and now she compared them to those of the compound. She was shocked to find that they were over twenty miles from the base. Seizing a pen, she wrote out the distance to SV-98, who nodded slowly but said nothing.

"Several days on foot through forest," OTs-12 wrote, then began plotting a path on the table map.

"And that's assuming we won't need to avoid Sangvis elements in the area," SV-98 said. "We don't have a full echelon, so more likely than not we'll need to avoid them entirely."

We could take some Sangvis brainlets, OTs-12 wanted to believe, but she knew that her partner was right. Even they would have a hard time taking on full Sangvis patrols, at least without prior planning. The doll sighed. Everything would be exponentially harder now. They had no allies, out-of-date weapons they weren't etched to, half-complete sets of Ratnik gear, and a twenty-plus mile trek to friendly territory. They had found no radio in the search, so they couldn't even contact Griffin. Worst of all, they could have been compromised by their run-in with the Sangvis Ringleader. Neither of them had any way of knowing if they had Parapluie, so they simply hoped for the best. Both were silently aware of what would need to be done if it was shown that they did carry the deadly Sangvis Ferri virus.

SV-98 returned to the table with a smaller, portable map as well as an electric lamp and began copying OTs-12's route. She had also brought a couple scavenged binoculars, which OTs-12 added to her backpack. Their internal compasses would prove useful for navigation, though the GPS had been scrambled while in captivity.

Tiss set down her pencil and sat back in the chair. SV-98 had hauled herself up onto the table and sat on the edge swinging her legs. Like a kid, OTs-12 thought. The sniper had a cute face, and despite her attitude as a sniper she was quite young and innocent enough mentally. The captivity seemed to humble her too. Her sandy blonde hair had been tied back in a messy ponytail, and several strands hung forward around her face. Tiss stared at the other doll for a few minutes more before tearing herself away. Something more important needed to be done – a language.

As Tiss prowled about the command room searching for blank paper, she glanced out the window at the evening sky. The dark clouds formerly on the horizon now jostled for position right over their heads, and as she looked back to the ground she saw that it had begun to rain. First one drop, then another turned the gravel and dirt dark brown until everything started to turn to mud. OTs-12 found the paper in the drawer and went back to the table, tapping SV-98 on the shoulder.

"Have you heard of sign language?" she wrote. SV-98 nodded.

"A little, but I've never met someone who uses it."

This will be difficult. The sound of rain on the roof grew louder as, by the light of the lamp, OTs-12 began writing a new language.