Chapter 1

M16A1, former member of AR Team and renegade T-Doll, strolled casually through a Walmart Superstore that was very clearly abandoned long ago. Most of the shelves in the grocery store were bare, the doors had been smashed open and most of the few intact light fixtures hung dormant. Ironically, the jewelry section appeared unmolested.

Despite the fact that she knew anything of value had been looted already, M16 held out the hope of finding what she was looking for here.

She walked past the men's and women's clothing sections towards the office supplies, her namesake weapon held loosely in one hand. There were ELIDs in the area, but the Walmart seemed to have escaped their notice. For now, anyway.

Suddenly, a young man appeared in front of her. "Get down!"

As soon as she did, he swung the baseball bat he was holding over her head, hitting the ELID that had snuck up behind her in the face. The impact knocked the corpse's head clean off, sending it flying off into the housewares section.

Meanwhile, M16 studied the Walmart's other visitor. He was young, surprisingly so, late-teens at the oldest. He had short, messy black hair and light brown eyes, which in the poorly lit store glittered like gold, painfully reminding M16 of her sister, M4. He wore a gray jacket, a blue vest, black pants and boots, a t-shirt, and an old US Army map bag. The vest and the now bloody bat he held still had tags, suggesting he'd just looted them from this very store.

"I'm Colton." the boy held out his hand. M16 ignored it. We're not friends, kid.

"Em…" She started to say 'M16,' but decided against it. "Jackie. I'm Jackie." Doll-haters came in all shapes and sizes after all. M16 didn't want to take the chance that this boy was one of them, no matter how much he looked like M4.

Colton meanwhile, appeared oblivious to the idea that appearances could be deceiving. "Nice to meet you. Y'know, if you fire that old 16, you're gonna piss off every 'Lid in this place." He wasn't wrong. ELIDs were nasty on a good day. "Why are you here?" M16 asked. And who are you?

Colton shrugged. "I wanted to scavenge some old tech, Y'know, maybe one of the desktops they got in the back? Anyway, it'd be cool to have backup, wanna come with?"

Now it was M16's turn to shrug. "Sure." Despite her earlier misgivings, she was finding it hard to completely distrust the boy. Huh. Maybe I'm getting sentimental. Or she was malfunctioning. That was also likely.

Colton jogged off towards the electronics section, which was just as bare as the rest of the store. He briefly stopped to grab a thumb drive and tore the packaging open as he walked. They entered a door at the rear of the sales floor next to the restrooms and entered the warehouse area, which was not as barren as the sales floor.

Colton meanwhile, ignored everything, heading straight to the back of the warehouse, where an old desktop computer sat on a table. "Jackpot!" He grinned at M16, who had followed him to the computer.

Colton inserted the thumb drive, then entwined his fingers, cracking his knuckles. He rubbed his palms together and pulled a screwdriver and a contraption made out of wires, circuit boards, and what M16 would bet money was duct tape out of his map bag. Colton opened the computer's case, and plugged his device into the motherboard, then slipped them on.

"'C'mon baby, show me the money," He muttered. The computer's screen flared to life as the device broke into what little security it had.

The sound of feedback suddenly echoed through the store, as Colton had somehow managed to trigger the store's speaker system. "Shit." Colton pulled off the Linker and turned to M16. "I hope you know how to use that thing, 'cause this party's getting crazy."

M16's eyebrow shot up. "I thought you said my gun was too loud?"

Colton shrugged. "No point now, they're already on their way here. Take that side, I'll take the other." He swung his bat through the air, hyping himself up for the fight to come. M16 nodded, aiming towards the guttural growling sounds already nearing their location.

The first ELID rounded the corner, its skin loose and pale. M16 fired twice, hitting the ghoul right in the forehead. It collapsed, but she knew it wasn't dead.

"Shall we dance?" Colton called from behind her. She heard him swing his baseball bat, which connected with undead flesh with a meaty thwack. He laughed, taunting the ELIDs and clearly enjoying the thrill of battle. "Is that all you got? C'mon!" He crowed. Sounds like you've got competition, Sop II.

M16 quickly returned her attention to her own opponent, which was sitting back up and had been joined by several undead comrades. She fired again, this time blasting the ghoul in the knee. It began to walk with a noticeable limp until she shot out its other knee, dropping it to the ground. She then continued firing at the others until the first crawled over to her. M16 simply raised her foot and stomped straight through its skull. Come back from that, buddy.

She continued engaging the ELIDs in a similar fashion, but they kept coming. Apparently, this Walmart was home to a horde. She started backing up, seceding ground to the encroaching ghouls. She bumped into Colton, who was dealing with similar difficulties.

"We need to leave."

He nodded. "Yeah… Damn. Lemme think." He then stepped forward, bashing yet another ELID's skull into paste.

M16 stomped on another ELID of her own. "Hey, do stunners work on ELIDs here?"

Colton nodded. "Yeah, but not for long. Got one?"

"Yup." M16 dropped the 'nade, closing her good eye as she did. Colton did the same, and as soon as the light dissipated the two ran past the ELIDs. Unfortunately, Colton's prediction was spot on, and the ghouls soon began to pursue their prey. M16 had crippled a few of them, but they still crawled forward on their hands.

M16 stopped briefly to cripple more ELIDs before running after Colton, who bashed his way through an ELID foolish enough to approach him. Despite their efforts, the horde kept growing. M16 checked her ammo, then swore. Shit. I need to be more picky. She had no idea when she'd get a chance to resupply, if ever.

Meanwhile, Colton had managed to get out of the warehouse area. He was pushing against a shelf, trying to use it to barricade the doorway.

"Wait!" M16 cried, rushing over to a box she'd found earlier.

Once she'd secured her prize, she ran over to Colton. The two easily pushed the shelf into place, blocking the ELIDs' advance.

Colton panted, "Thanks. That won't hold for long, we should get outta here." With that, the two beat feet, exfiltrating the store as quietly as possible so as not to disturb more of its undead residents.

Once they were outside, Colton noticeably relaxed, and M16 realized he'd been tense ever since that computer he'd found had shorted. "Hey Jackie, what were you doing in a 'Lid infested Walmart?" He turned to face her, now walking backwards.

"Well…" She grinned, holding up her prize. Colton threw his head back and laughed. "Ha! A raincoat!? Man, you Dolls are crazy." He spun back around as he chuckled. It's not funny! No, I take it back. It is funny. Too bad HK416's not here to laugh at "Old Maid M16."

She had indeed stolen a black rain coat, virtually identical to the one she'd worn while part of Griffin, although this one lacked the original's orange trim. She'd lost the big, armored trench coat she'd adopted when she defected to Sangvis Ferri and longed for the nostalgia of the good old days, when she had sisters.

Then M16's Digimind caught up with the present. She cocked an eyebrow. "How did you know?"

Colton simply shrugged. "That you're a Doll? I was raised by one. My Mom was a bigshot scientist working for the government, so her assistant usually took care of me. She was weird, like you."

M16 laughed. Unlike ST AR-15, Colton's jibe felt complimentary, with none of the barely concealed jealousy her sister often displayed. She knew trusting him was dangerous, but it really was hard not to. Colton exuded genuineness, as if he really was just a dorky kid who spent his time running around abandoned department stores, gleefully bashing ELIDs with a baseball bat.

Besides, M16 missed having a friend. Sure, she'd teamed up with Beak during her time with Sangvis, but Beak was always a partner, not a friend. The large, motorcycle riding Ringleader had made that quite clear.

Suddenly, a watch on Colton's wrist beeped. He looked at it. "Shit. Curfew." He turned to M16. "I gotta get outta here. You got a place to stay?" M16 shook her head. "Then come with me." He bolted like a rabbit, running away from the Walmart.

They ran full tilt for about an hour before Colton had to slow down, which M16 decided was impressive for a human boy. They eventually reached a massive sewer drain installed in an equally massive wall. Colton immediately entered the drain without hesitation.

A few minutes of sewer walking later, they climbed out of a manhole into a city that looked like everything wrong with urbanization on steroids. There was trash everywhere, and quite a few vagrants milling about. Neon billboards advertising various wares covered the buildings, which seemed to stab the sky. Wow. If this place's architects wanted to make me feel like I didn't want to be here, they succeeded.

M16 didn't get a good chance to look around though, because Colton was already moving the second after he'd replaced the cover. Damn, he's fast!

M16 rushed after Colton, who disappeared into an alley. He climbed onto a stack of cardboard boxes and leaped, grabbing hold of the fire escape. Colton scrambled up to the third level in a manner not unlike a spider-monkey.

He disappeared into an open window, then the end of a rope fell out the window. "Yo, climb up quick!" M16 complied, and was soon inside the youth's… well, 'apartment' was a bit generous. 'Hideout' was more accurate.

There was debris and detritus everywhere. Several stacks of empty pizza boxes almost reached the ceiling, save one that had fallen over. Bits and pieces of various electronic devices littered the room. Everything was covered in a film of dust. Colton obviously lived alone.

Most interesting to M16 was the posters Colton had covered one wall with, including one soliciting for US Army recruits, and another advertising a very attractive model of Autonomous Doll apparently produced by a company called Asgard Manufacturing. Colton had scrawled a note in the corner of the poster, reading "I'm sorry Maggie. I hope you can forgive me."

Colton dug through the rubbish for a few seconds, eventually retrieving a digital alarm clock reading 12:00pm. "Whew! A couple seconds later and we'd have been in trouble." He looked around the room. "Ah… sorry about the mess. I've been out of town." He swept a bunch of junk off his bed and gestured to it. "If you need to power down, clear your cache… go ahead. I don't really sleep anymore." Sure you don't. Neither did ST AR-15. She still crashed anyway.

He sat down in a chair miraculously not covered in junk in front of a table completely covered and began tinkering with a model kit. A few more sat in various stages of completion on a shelf nearby. M16 sat on the bed but didn't lie down.

"Why the rush to get back here?" She asked after a bit of thinking. Colton shrugged. "Nobody's allowed to be outside after midnight, and you're a rogue A-Doll that's not connected to the system."

"The System? What system?" M16 prompted. Colton scratched the back of his head. "Y'know, the network that connects almost all the AI in America? It's illegal not to be." She wasn't 100% satisfied with Colton's answer, but the boy was getting squirrelly, so she let it go. You win kid. You're lucky you push the right buttons.

He returned to his model. Colton eventually fell asleep, and M16 pulled him out of his chair and set him down on the bed. She then took his abandoned chair and went to Level 2 so she wouldn't disturb him.


M16 reactivated the next morning to find Colton already awake. He had yet another box of pizza open on his desk. Noticing M16 was awake, he held out a slice to her. "Want some? I don't have a Charging Station unfortunately. I could try to rig something up, but I've got stuff I need to do today."

M16 shook her head, accepting the pizza. "Nah, this is fine."

After their "breakfast," Colton and M16 left the boy's hideout via the fire escape, then left the city via the sewer. The two then traveled for a few hours to a local fire station.

Colton walked up to the door and knocked. A voice on the other end called out "Speak friend and enter!" Colton laughed. "Melon. Open the door, Nerd." The door opened to reveal a rotund young man a few years older than Colton. "Howdy, Jefferey. May we come in?"

The older boy grinned. "Sure." Jefferey then noticed M16. "Who's this?"

Colton gestured to M16. "This is Jackie. She's an A-Doll and she's pretty good in a fight. I figured she'd be able to help with the mission. I trust her."

Jefferey's eyes narrowed. "You'll have to ask Sarge, Colton." He stepped aside, allowing Colton and M16 into the station.

Inside the station, they climbed a flight of stairs to come across a dark skinned girl wearing denim shorts and a white crop-top leaning against a counter in the kitchen. She immediately approached M16. "Howdy Sugar, I'm Raquel, our little group's resident bodacious babe! What's your name?"

"Jackie." M16 replied casually. Meanwhile, Colton seemed to have shrunk, the boy clearly uncomfortable around the very forward Raquel.

"C'mon, the briefing room's this way." He ran off, causing Raquel to smirk at Colton's retreat.

She turned back to M16. "So Jackie, do ya like whiskey? I found a case of Jack Daniels a while back I've been dying to share."

The barest hint of excitement at the offer of her favorite booze passed over M16's features. "I might be interested."

The two women followed Colton to a room filled with recliners and a TV that was most likely used as an entertainment center by firefighters. Colton stood near the TV talking to an older man with graying hair.

Colton waved M16 over, and as she approached, the man spoke. "You must be Jackie. Colton tells me you're an A-Doll?"

M16 nodded.

"You realize she might be compromised." He told the youth next to him.

"Yeah…" Colton scratched his head again. "I don't think she is, though." He added quickly.

"Hmm." The older man turned back to M16. "I'm going to be blunt. I don't think I should trust you. You could be hooked into the System. You could be transmitting everything you see and hear to the enemy right now." He looked her dead in the eye. "However, Colton trusts you. So, I'm going to trust you." He held up a finger. "After our tech makes damn sure you're not carrying any passengers."

She nodded. "Thank you, sir."

The man smiled. "Call me Sarge. Jefferey, you know what to do." The man who had greeted them walked up holding a laptop. He held out a cable. "Please cooperate with the scan." Jefferey spoke in a noticeably clipped tone. M16 accepted the cable, plugging it into a port at the base of her neck. She begrudgingly gave Jefferey's laptop permission to access her Neural Cloud. The surface parts of it anyway. She couldn't read their minds, so why let them read hers?

Jefferey's laptop emitted an electronic ding, and he turned to Sarge. "Scan says she's clean."

Sarge grunted. "Good. I like it when my trust is rewarded. Go grab a chair, Jackie. I'm about to start briefing these jokers."

After a few more people entered the room, Sarge addressed the room. "Alright people listen up. We've got word from another cell about a convoy coming through DFW. Now, we don't care about the cargo. That isn't important. What we want is their GPS data. With that, we can track all their units' movements, not just their convoys. It'll make evading their patrols a lot easier."

Jefferey held up a thumb drive. "I've uploaded a virus to several thumb drives just like this one. Plug it in and we'll have our data."

Sarge took back over. "Each team will have one drive each. Do not lose them." The TV, which had been displaying visuals matching Sarge's speech, now changed to a chart of names. "These are your teams." M16's alias, nor her real name, were on the chart for obvious reasons.

Suddenly, Colton appeared on her right. "C'mon Jackie, we're a member short, so you're with us. Come meet the team!" Grinning at Colton's nostalgic SOPMOD-like impetuousness, M16 followed the boy over to a group of three people. She recognized Raquel, who waved, but the other two were unknown to her.

"Oh right! You don't know everybody." Colton scratched the back of his head and gestured at the other two. "This is Eduardo and Ken. Ed, Kenny, this here's Jackie. She's gonna be part of our team."

Ken chuckled, putting his hand out. "Welcome aboard. I apologize for Colton. He's an… acquired taste."

M16 accepted the handshake. "Thanks for having me. So, is anybody gonna explain to me what this outfit is?"

Kenny and Ed exchanged a knowing look. "What do you know about the good ol' US of A?"

"I know they and Russia were on opposite sides of World War III, and I know the US withdrew from the war halfway through, turning the whole thing into a stalemate for years."

Ken raised his eyebrow. "They? You're from Europe?"

M16 nodded. "Yeah. That a problem?"

Ken shrugged. "No, it does mean I have to provide a long and boring explanation though. Nobody from Europe knows anything."

That wasn't entirely true. M16 suspected Persica had her suspicions, and Berezovich Kryuger certainly would have known, but other than those two, M16 didn't know anyone else who did. She clearly didn't.

"Well, the story starts with a company called Skunk Works. They were a collaboration between Lockheed Martin and a government think tank called Big Sieve. During the war, Uncle Sam gave them the task of coming up with a silver bullet to beat the Neo-Soviets. They came up with the idea of having an AI called ODIN calculate the best strategy for winning the war. They gave it control of the entire Military Industrial Complex." Ken frowned. "Unfortunately for everyone, the AI went nuts. Instead of invading Moscow, it took over Washington, and sent ambassadors to draw up treaties with hostile nations. Now it's got control of almost every other AI in the country. That's where we come in." He waved his hand across the room. "We're part of a resistance movement trying to take back America. This mission we're going on is a big part of that. Raquel says you're an A-Doll. You sure ODIN's not hiding in your Neural Cloud?"

M16 smirked. "Nah, my Digimind's special. He'd get lost in there."

Ken grinned back. "Good enough for me. Fair warning though, if you betray us, I'll kill you."

M16 laughed. "Hah! I'd be disappointed if you didn't!" She kept the fact that he'd never get the chance if she did betray them to herself.

If she was being completely honest, this ODIN business worried her. She was no slouch when it came to electronic warfare, but against a dedicated assault her defenses would crumble. She went to Level 2 and closed all her outgoing connections. She wasn't actually connected to anything anymore, but she didn't want to take any chances.


Hours later, M16 and the others were positioned on the edge of a ravine overlooking a road on the convoy's route. The plan was simple: Wait for the trucks to show up, then a team of rebels would stop them. Next, the other teams, including theirs, would break inside the trucks and use Jefferey's thumb drive to steal their GPS route data. It was exactly the kind of plan guaranteed to go wrong during the execution.

Several cars had been positioned inside the ravine as if they'd had a pile-up. Colton had briefly expressed his displeasure at not getting to be one of the guys making the cars look pretty with a sledgehammer, but he'd cheered up pretty quick when Ken reminded him that he'd be breaking into one of the trucks. M16 chuckled at the memory. She wished Colton could have met SOP-II. The two of them would've been a force of chaos.

Meanwhile, the trucks finally arrived. Being AI controlled, the three massive semis slowed down about half a mile from the barricade, stopping just short of the first car. Colton and two other rebels dashed to the cabs and pulled the driver's side doors open. M16 couldn't see inside the cabs, but she knew each rebel was inserting their thumb drive into the truck's computers.

Suddenly, the rear doors of the trucks' trailers opened, allowing armored androids armed with XM250s and in blueish gray livery to jump out. They were headed for the cabs… and Colton.

M16 burst out of cover, firing at the androids. The rebels didn't follow, but Ken had a radio in his hand. "Yo Colton! You got company my friend! Sit tight, Jackie's coming to pull you out!" He then turned to Eduardo and Raquel. "C'mon my friends, let's make some noise!"

The rebels unleashed their guns on the androids, causing them to stop and fire back. M16 slid into cover behind a rock right next to the truck, then popped up, pulling an android over the rock and onto the ground. She dumped her mag into the droid, then crouched down and reloaded.

The rebels were clearly outmatched. Nobody held the advantage in numbers, but the androids were using a strategy where only half of them fired at the enemy while the other half reloaded, allowing them to use their LMGs to lay down a constant spread of fire. Smart. Almost too smart. What kind of AI is this ODIN?

The rebels on the other hand, were armed with hunting rifles and civilian AR-15s, meaning they couldn't put out as much fire. The rebels had better aim though, as the androids were simply filling the sky with lead with no regard for where it went. It reminded M16 of Sangvis Ferri.

Another robot's head exploded, and M16 saw Raquel give her a thumbs up from behind the scope of a hunting rifle. Nearby, one of the other truck-jackers leaped out of the rearmost truck, only to get gunned down by an android.

M16 broke cover again, firing a burst at the remaining androids near her truck. There were three of them, and they all had deadly aim. M16 ducked back behind her rock a split second before a .277 Fury round could take out her good eye.

Unfortunately, that was the moment things went from bad to worse, as a massive tank in the same gray colors as the androids burst through the rebel's makeshift barricade. If that wasn't bad enough, the 'droids that gunned down Rebel Number 3 had noticed her. Shit.

The tank fired at the rebels on the cliffside, ignoring M16, but that was only a small comfort, as she was surrounded on two sides by androids trying to kill her. M16 decided to move to the one place with no androids… under the truck. She broke cover, running to build up speed before baseball sliding beneath the trailer. She came up on the other side and ducked behind one of the truck's massive tires.

Which is where she found Colton. "Hi. Having fun?" 'Cause I sure am. Ow.

The boy grinned. "I got the data." He held up the thumb drive.

Then Colton's radio squawked to life. "Yo Colton, Jackie! The last guy managed to make it out, but these tin cans are giving us too much trouble. You two better make like bananas and split!"

Colton and M16 needed no further prompting to follow Ken's advice. They took off, running full out away from the trucks and androids. They scrambled up the other side of the ravine and laid down prone.

The remaining androids returned to the inside of the trucks, and M16 was pleased to see that almost all of them had taken a beating. Looks like that wasn't a one-sided fight after all.

The tank rolled off the road, and once it was out of the way, the trucks resumed their course..

"Let's go." M16 started crawling backwards away from the edge of the ravine but was stopped by the action of a very familiar weapon. "Don't move… Big Sister."


Author's Note: Um… Hi! If you made it this far, thanks for reading my fic! I really can't promise a consistent upload schedule, but I am currently working on the next chapter.

Also, I'd like to give special thanks to Johnny Wycliffe himself, who heroically volunteered to be the first person exposed to my writing. He's basically the entire reason it looks as nice as it does. (I suck at formatting.)

I'm not technically on his Discord yet, but I do lurk there. Come join the chaos!

discord . gg / EawWwpSZY4 (Delete the spaces)