Soooo… lately there's been a bit of a miscommunication. When I mused about the idea of Crysis-themed T-Dolls, what I meant was the possibility of implementing them into the actual game, not this story. Lord knows GFL isn't lacking in characters, so why would I throw in a few half-assed OC Dolls when there's already a couple hundred others I can work with?

I'm not saying I won't ever do it – plenty of people seem to want them, so I've drawn up some plans for the future. (The far future – like, Singularity far.) The problem was adding them in a way that won't have them overshadow the cast we already know and adore. This story revolves around Alcatraz first and foremost, so how would that work?

Simple. You guys said you want T-Dolls based on Crysis weapons.

Nobody ever said they had to be friendly…

(Farmhouse Cellar)

Somewhere along the line – probably during my scuffle with Squiddie – I forgot that I was wearing the Jaeger's looted cloak. A cloak made from cloth. Soft, delicate cloth which is infinitely more susceptible to damage from bladed weapons than hardened nano-weave. See where this is going?

So, yeah. My cloak's been shredded like window curtains after the family cat is done playing with them, and I'm a little pissed about it.

Huge shame to see it go, especially after all the work I went through to obtain it. I don't give a crap if the colors clashed so badly with the Nanosuit that it would make a teenage girl faint in horror; it was warm and snug and it fit me perfectly and I liked it, goddammit!

Speaking of teenage girls…

I drag my unconscious Doll rescuer, M4A1 or whatever her designation is, into the depths of the cellar like a predator dragging its kill into its lair, then prop her up against a wooden support beam, setting her assault rifle down on the coffee table out of her reach. The main reason I brought up the ruined cloak is because I manage to squeeze one last bit of use out of it: A minute of scrounging the basement's supplies here, a few surgical cuts with a folding pocket knife there, and voila – unless she can brute force her way out of a Marine Corps taut-line hitch, she's not going anywhere.

I lay my shotgun next to her rifle and put the pistol on the couch. I toss around the idea of staying in Nanosuit form when she wakes up, but ultimately decide against it and get dressed once the armor's absorbed back into my body. From there I move the couch over to where she's slumped against the ground, take a seat, and begin the wait.

My eyes rove over her limp form in a slow once-over. I've never been this physically close to a live, non-hostile Doll before… All I can really say is that whoever designed and built this artificial girl did one hell of a job making her appear human, hands and legs notwithstanding. I take note of the steady rise and fall of her chest (her developed chest… Christ, I need another drink), unsure why someone would make an android that needs to breathe. SECOND swoops in to save the day by hypothesizing, with 97.1% accuracy, that a machine as advanced and active as a Tactical Doll must produce a lot of heat, and that the air intake is meant to cool their systems off and keep their internal workings at a safe temperature. Okay, makes sense.

Too bad nothing else in this crazy new world does.

It's not a particularly long wait. I've just finished lighting more candles and placing them at intervals around the dark space when she stirs, groaning lowly. Brown eyes flutter open; she blinks the last of the sleep away. Those eyes then widen into saucers and she pivots her head around, seemingly remembering what just happened, before her attention finally lands on me.

"Where…" She swallows, clears her throat and tries again. "…Where am I? Who are you?!"

Based on voice analysis, she's on the verge of panicking. Strange – I wouldn't have thought a machine built for combat would be capable of such a… undesirable emotional state. Or have emotions at all, now that I think about it. Who the hell designed these things?

"I'll be the one asking questions here, Doll." My cold tone leaves no room for argument. Just to prove my point, I show her the handgun, fighting down a twinge of sadistic amusement when she visibly shrinks into herself. "Now then. Griffin or Sangvis?"

"Wh-what…?"

"Griffin or Sangvis?!"

I seriously hope she answers with the former. With Sangvis it's always been easy: a strict 'kill on sight' policy. They'd given me that mentality in the research facility and I've been sticking with it ever since. Griffin I'm not so sure of, however. I want Griffin to be different. While it's true I still know next to nothing about them, from their origins to their goals and all the little details in between, it would be a huge burden off my shoulders if I could get confirmation that not every Doll in this forest is sniffing for my blood.

Say the right thing, M4A1. Say you're with Griffin. You might be a Doll, but I really don't want to have to kill you… Not when you went out of your way to save me from getting filleted by a wild Stalker.

"Griffin!" She shouts at an equally high volume. She lowers her head to the floor, then repeats in a much smaller voice, "I'm… I'm an elite Tactical Doll employed by Griffin & Kryuger."

…I can't tell if she's lying. That's bad.

The N2 has a few features that aren't written on the tin, one of them being the ability to turn its wearer into a human lie detector. I can pick out the subtlest signs of dishonesty without even trying. There's no diagnostic scans or tactical overlays helping me – it's just something I know how to do, a side effect of the suit making me smarter. Useful when you're getting debriefed by a CSIRA pawn; not so useful when you're interrogating a Tactical Doll apparently.

There's nothing to suggest she is lying, however, so I stuff my lingering suspicions away and decide to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm not familiar with these Griffin & Kryuger guys, or their Dolls. Enlighten me."

M4A1 looks genuinely surprised. "You don't know…? How could you not know who Griffin & Kryuger are? You're in the middle of highly contested territory; a warzone between them and Sangvis Ferri-!"

"That's not what I asked." I disengage the Nova's safety with a loud click, drawing a sharp intake of breath from my captive. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. If you answer honestly, I might let you go. Otherwise I'll have no choice but to kill you. Understand?" Even I don't know how much of that is a lie. I watch as she swallows, then nods quickly. "Good. Now answer the damn question – who are Griffin & Kryuger?"

She's more than happy to comply. Might have something to do with the gun pointed to her head. "Okay… I don't know what you want answered specifically, but I'll try my best."

When I nod and gesture for her to continue, she begins, "Griffin & Kryuger is a private military corporation-" Aaaand I hate them already. "-currently under contract by the military to repel the invasion of Sangvis Ferri's rogue forces across different sectors. We're also tasked with scouting out habitable land for human settlement, in addition to more mundane roles like security or law enforcement."

Another PMC… how fucking fantastic. Spending a few years in a real military, one that ingrained in me the values of brotherhood and teamwork, left me with a pretty low opinion of mercenary organizations whose only loyalty is to their next paycheck. My run-ins with CELL throughout New York City tore down whatever sympathetic feelings I might've had left for them.

My mind flashes back to Parchman's tortured expression when I found him outside Castle Clinton.

It returns to the present when M4A1 hesitantly asks, "Is that… a good enough answer?"

"…I suppose so." Though I don't tell her this Griffin company is coming dangerously close to having a spot on my shit list.

Yes, I'm aware I'm behaving like a paranoid asshole, but really, how much am I personally to blame for that? I've spent the past week on constant move, alone. I've lost count of the number of Sangvis patrols and field outposts I've decimated. I've been living in constant fear that the next time I allow myself to rest my eyes would be the last; that the Dolls would capture me in my sleep and haul me back to their HQ for dissection. I'm worn out, distressed, aggravated that it's taken this long for anything to change… and above all else, still unsure of who or what I can trust.

So excuse the fuck out of me if I'm not exactly clamoring to strike up a friendly conversation with a stranger over a serving of crumpets and hot tea.

"May I speak for a moment? Please?" M4A1 shyly asks.

"Fine. Just don't give me any bullshit."

Part of me suspects she's going to pull something identical to how I handled Scarecrow: keep my attention on her so I won't notice an escape plan in progress. She's an elite Doll, right? Whatever that entails. Maybe she has some kind of hidden microwave emitter on her person and plans to blow up the heater while I'm distracted.

Hmm… I guess you're right, Chino. If she was capable of cooking the gray matter between my ears, she probably would've tried it already. Not that it would've worked, mind you.

My eyes still flicker towards the heater as the bound automaton nods again.

"Thank you." She pauses to take a deep breath. "Please listen to me… Whoever you are, and whatever your circumstances may be, you have my word that it was never my intention to disturb your peace. Those Ceph earlier, that was my fault – I was careless. I wandered too close to one of their nests and they caught me unaware. I thought I was done for until something pulled their attention away from me. I followed them when I heard gunfire, and… well. You know the rest."

Her tone tells me I haven't been forgiven for my little oopsie. If she's anything like a real girl, she'll carry that grudge until Judgment Day.

She tilts her head, regarding me with a quizzical look. "Assuming you're the same person as before, that is. I've never seen a suit of armor like that… If you don't mind telling me, where did you get it? Is that how you've been surviving in a Yellow Zone?"

My brows knit together in confusion. For a moment I forget I'm the one who's supposed to be doing the interrogating here. "Yellow Zone? What, like a contaminated area?"

"Well… yes." The Doll mimics my puzzled expression, as if wondering why I'd just asked something that should be common knowledge, like why eating dish soap is a dumb idea. "Yellow Zones are places where ELID poses a moderate to high risk of infecting humans. Surely you've experienced radiation sickness by now? And you never answered my question: Where did you get that strange radiation suit?"

"Don't overstep your bounds." I cut her off when she opens her mouth for a follow-up inquiry. "I'm serious. Keep at it like this," I aim the Nova sideways, gangster-style, "and my finger might accidentally slip."

She looks away. "…I understand…"

M4A1 just said this was a fluke meeting, that she didn't even know I was here, so what right does she have to pry into my business like this? Don't get me wrong; I'm happy to finally meet someone who isn't interested in claiming the bounty on my head, but there's zero fucking chance I'll give away sensitive, not to mention personal information just because she didn't shoot me on sight. Zero.

"You mentioned something called ELID. Is that the name of the virus that's turning people into the walking dead?"

"It is, although I wouldn't necessarily call its victims 'walking dead' – it's highly radioactive, and it's lethal even in light doses after prolonged exposure, but those who die to ELID tend to stay dead. The survivors are generally considered to be the unlucky ones…" She looks back at me. "The full name of it is Eurosky Low-Emission Infectious Disease. Its release was the catalyst for the manufacturing and widespread distribution of service Dolls."

Okay, now I'm a bit lost. How does a viral outbreak lead to the mass production of military robots? Was ELID a Ceph plot to cripple military installations around the globe so they could exterminate us easier? If so, why zombies? What is it with Ceph and their morbid fascination with fucking around with the human brain?

"What do you think, Chino?" I turn to the marine hogging the blanket for himself. He smirks at me from his spot atop the bundle of cloth, unhelpful as ever. Jerk. "Dude, no. That's sick."

Like I'd ever make a Doll my 'personal prisoner' …Has he not been paying attention this whole time? It would be just like him.

Curious to see me talking with some invisible presence, M4A1 straightens her posture, finally glimpsing my squadmate. If her expression was confused before, it becomes downright weirded out now.

"Um… sir?" she speaks up hesitantly. "Are you speaking to a rock?"

"That's not a rock, that's Chino. He's the only one I trust not to stab me in the back out here. We've been through a lot together, haven't we, buddy?" I smile and pat him affectionately.

Chino lets out an inaudible Oorah!

"Right… if you say so." M4A1's wary reply gives away what she thinks of my mental state. Can't hold it against her, honestly. "In any case, are we done here? May I please go now? I'm on a bit of a tight sched-"

"You're free when I say you're free." God, how many times do I have to make her stare down the barrel of this gun? "As you can see, I'm a little behind on current events, and I'm not going to let such a valuable opportunity to fix that slip away. Therefore, I'm going to keep asking questions, and you're going to keep answering until I'm satisfied. Get it? Got it? Good."

She eyes me critically for a few moments, then eventually relents, breaking her gaze away with a defeated sigh.

"As you wish… I'll comply with whatever gets me out of here fastest, and with my life intact."

A sudden, loud growl catches us both by surprise. At first I think a wayward Ceph Stalker somehow found its way into my sanctuary, but no: It's my captive's stomach.

"And… maybe with a bag of trail mix for the road," she adds, blushing in embarrassment.

I'm tempted to ask why a Doll can feel hunger. Very tempted. She's sitting on the concrete floor right in front of me, she could indulge me with an answer right now if I ask about it. Wouldn't take more than a second.

Then again, it's really none of my concern. I file away a mental note that starving Sangvis out by stealing enough of their rations might be a viable strategy before returning my focus to the artificial girl.

"What country are we in? Which state or province?"

There's that puzzled look again. "How do you not know where-"

"Just humor me here. Where are we?"

I'm reasonably certain I'm somewhere in the western United States, judging by the sparse signs of human habitation and the fact that all the Dolls I've seen so far speak non-accented English. A national park, perhaps, or at least a place the environazis are clamoring to preserve. It would explain why this forest is so damn huge. Maybe Sangvis Ferri forked out a donation in exchange for letting them set up an out-of-the-way research facility.

"We're in Russian territory."

Or I could be on the other side of the globe. That's also a possibility.

"Well… I suppose the proper name now would be the New Soviet Union," M4A1 throws in an afterthought, "which I personally find a bit strange since they don't really emulate the old regime all that much. At least the humans here don't practice what they call 'communism'."

Secret joy that Soviet Russia jokes are once again relevant aside, I'm left even more lost than I was before. How on earth did I end up in Ru- the New Soviet Union? Why the name change? Does this have anything to do with Tunguska, where Hargreave and Rasch thought they could get away with plundering Ceph tech?

I set the pistol down and massage my forehead, ignoring the headache I feel coming on. Why can I never get an answer that's easy to digest?

"Tell me more about ELID. Where did it come from? How far does the contamination reach?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you more than what's already public knowledge. Not that I'm trying to keep anything from you," she hastily adds when see sees my frown, "it's just that I'm not aware of the explicit details myself. ELID was released into the atmosphere a few decades ago after a catastrophic containment breach on Beilan Island. Longstanding rumor says a buried Ceph lithoship carrying huge quantities of Collapse Fluid – the core component of the disease – exploded when CryNet Enforcement & Local Logistics botched the quarantine."

Somehow it doesn't surprise me to learn this is all CELL's fault. Those morons couldn't contain a pig to its pen. Still, to hear they'd fucked up so badly that it triggered a second viral outbreak- no, a full-blown pandemic…

Wow, CryNet. Just… wow.

A remorseful sigh passes through M4A1's lips. "To say the resulting damage was extreme would still be putting it lightly… Four-hundred million died within the first hour. Entire countries were decimated overnight. Refugees fled to escape the contamination but it seemed like nowhere was safe. Borders had to be redrawn to accommodate the resources and habitable land left untouched. Even a global superpower like CELL was powerless to stop the spread of ELID."

She meets my eyes again. "In order to compensate for those losses, and with manpower at an all-time low, CELL turned to funding fledgling manufacturing companies. Companies like Sangvis Ferri." She punctuates her last statement by squirming in place a bit. I'm not getting the impression she's struggling, however. "Their solution? Service Dolls, created to substitute for humans in whichever job positions needed filling. Accountants, teachers, construction workers…"

Her gaze pierces straight through me. "Soldiers."

I just sit there for a minute. Then I rise to my feet, walk over to where the booze is stored, pull the cork from another bottle with my bare hands, and down half of it in one go.

The burning of whiskey sliding down my throat helps clear my thoughts a little.

Mm, yes. Alcohol never fails to improve my mood. CELL became a world power despite their mishandling of the New York incursion? Gulp. They apparently, accidentally, killed off a good chunk of the human population by unleashing a mutagenic alien virus? Gulp. They're indirectly responsible for the creation of Tactical Dolls? Funding Sangvis Ferri? Likely aiding them in their gambit to capture Prophet-slash-me?

Down the fucking hatch.

Should probably stop before I get too drunk. I put the bottle away and meander back to the couch. There's a bit of a buzz in my head, an early sign that the liquid stress relief is working its magic, although I'm still cognitive enough to think straight. My body feels warm, but also numb. I don't think there's much more this Doll can say that would evoke-

Hold on. When did she say the initial containment breach was?

"Hey, uhh…" I hesitate. Why am I hesitating? Why am I so… apprehensive, all of a sudden? "When exactly was ELID released, again?"

A lock of jet-black hair dangles over M4A1's left eye as she tilts her head. She fixes me with an incredulous stare. "2035. Why, what's the matter? You're getting kind of pale…"

2035. Four years after Sangvis Ferri's founding. Twelve since my ill-fated mission to New York.

She said that was a few decades ago.

"But if that's the case, then…" Pause. Swallow. A pit of dread opens up in my stomach.

Oh no…

I feel lightheaded. It's just the booze, Alcatraz, it has to be the booze. That's all it is. Shove the blame on your alcoholism. I drank before I went to sleep before, right? Maybe I just have a tiny hangover and simply misheard her.

"What… what year is it now?"

She seems equally hesitant to provide an answer. Clearly she can tell something's wrong with my behavior, and it's making her nervous. After a few long seconds of silence, however, she reaches the conclusion that there's no point in withholding the truth and lets it spill.

"You really are isolated…" she mutters. "If my memory is correct, and assuming it's passed midnight, then today's date would be February 16th, 2062."

My whole world splinters.

The old life I remember, the dream I had of getting it back, the desire to reconnect with my friends and family back home… it all dies an ugly death the moment those words leave the Doll's mouth.

The year is 2062. It's 2062. All conscious thought grinds to a halt. Restarts, eventually. It takes a minute.

2062. Those five syllables echo in my brain in an endless, torturous loop, and I want to deny it and say it's all a bad dream, that this isn't real, but it is real and it has to be real because it fits together too well. I hadn't been dead for eight years like I'd thought, but closer to forty.

And the world died along with me.

I'm dimly aware of M4A1 mouthing more words. I can't hear any of it; the buzz in my ears has evolved into a high-pitched ringing that drowns out all other sound except the nonstop chanting of the date. I don't care what else she has to say. Can't care. I can't care because there's nothing left for me to care about.

I failed. We failed. Prophet and I gave up everything – my mind, his body, our moral compasses, our own humanity – we gave up everything to stop the Ceph and while I have an inkling they're no longer the biggest threat to us, the fact that CELL's sheer fucking incompetence made all those sacrifices for naught is a huge slap to the face. Especially after everything I went through to stop global extermination via the Manhattan Virus… The brothers I lost. I can count on two hands the number of people I genuinely give a shit about, and half of them died on that submarine.

The shock skips the denial stage and morphs straight to fear, then overwhelming grief, then a hollow black hole of nothingness.

Anger manifests somewhere down the line – anger at Prophet, anger at CELL, anger at Sangvis, anger at the Nanosuit and God and how fucking shitty my life has been in general. My entire body trembles at the pure, unfiltered RAGE that bubbles upward, boiling just under the surface of my skin until I finally can't hold it in any longer-

"GOD DAMMIT!"

I don't know if it's me or M4A1 who's screaming right now but I'm on my feet with a solid object in hand. Even in human form, I'm terrifyingly strong: Whatever I just threw breaks into itty bitty pieces against the wall.

Deep breaths. Try to focus, can't. Still not sure where all the noise is coming from. Doesn't matter. I look down at the pebbles scattered across the hard cement.

Wait. Pebbles.

I look at the blanket, then back to the floor.

The last of my self-control shatters like glass.

"NO! CHINO!"

Oh shit… oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit fuck fuck fuck…!

I need to… I need to get out of here, do something other than stare for one more second at the friend I've just murdered out of blind rage. I need some fresh air. Eclipsing that is the sudden, overpowering urge to destroy something.

2062. Destroy something in 2062, just like I did in 2023.

I stagger up the steps, swing open the door. The cool night air does absolutely nothing to calm my frayed nerves.

All I see are reminders of the truth I so desperately want to avoid. They're embedded into every object in sight – the farmhouse's charred remnants, for example. This would be a perfectly normal house with a perfectly normal family living in it if CELL hadn't gone and fucked us all over. I don't want to see it anymore, can't bear the memories it's bringing up.

My fists harden into miniature wrecking balls. They smash through the burnt wood, barely encountering any resistance. Jagged shards the size of pencils harmlessly bounce off my shirt. I scream every vulgar word in my vocabulary as I hammer away at the rickety wood, and it all comes crashing down after a minute but it's not enough, man, there's no fucking way that's enough. There are cuts all over my my hands but they're not bleeding; slivers of CryFibril are soon hidden under fresh tissue that gives the Hayflick limit a giant middle finger.

The tractor. The tractor hasn't been used for decades. It's another reminder that the world still died despite my best efforts. Break the tractor.

One of the shed's doors is torn from its hinges and thrown aside. There you are.

Metal shrieks in agony.

I'll never see them again, never see any of them again. Never tie up loose ends, never get back what precious little I cherished, never never never-

Nathan Gould has undoubtedly croaked by now, if not from old age or infection then from lifestyle choices. Same goes for my adoptive Uncle Ron. And Chino – the real Chino… what would he be now, sixty-five? Wife, kids? Grandkids? Is he alive? Dead? Whatever the case may be, I'm certain I don't have a place in his life anymore.

Alice… she'd be in her middle ages now. She would've accepted a long, long time ago that her older brother was finally never coming home again. If I were to track her down, show up randomly at her doorstep… I don't know how she'd take it. The thought scares me almost as much as the possibility of her being dead.

The tractor's been pulverized into an unrecognizable mass of rubber and rusted junk, but it's still not enough; there won't ever be enough to quell the rage but I try anyway. I grab a sledgehammer off the wall: The bellow from deep in my chest as I bring the head down is more animal than human. I go apeshit on the wreckage, each loud pound crushing it further into a steel pancake.

I adjust my grip on the sledgehammer once the tractor's thoroughly demolished, then swing it around and around, spinning in wide circles, building up momentum before suddenly letting go. It punches a clean hole through the sheet metal roof and soars away into the night.

Not enough, never enough. I need more.

The other door is yanked free. It's not bending under my blows like it should be, so I envelop both arms in nano-weave and try again. I'm rewarded with the noisy screech of iron caving inward. Much better.

I can't go back to the Marines, either. No doubt the brass listed me as KIA after the New York incident. What would I say if I returned to the States and tried to re-enlist?

"Hi, I'm Sergeant James Rodriguez, but I'm usually known better by my nickname, Alcatraz. I'm a Force Recon veteran who died back in 2023. Don't worry about it! Also, I have this really weird suit sealed inside my body that's full of alien tech and gives me superpowers. So, where do I sign?"

Yeah, because that would go over well.

The shed's door is bending and breaking under my relentless assault; it's screaming but it's not hurting, dying but not suffering. So I make it suffer: I scream and cry and cuss and hurt, I pour as much of the crushing pain in my soul into the damn thing as I can but it's not fucking working, I'm still up to my neck in emotional agony. It dribbles out of my mouth with each shout, each vile word, but it's never enough.

Time isn't an enemy you can beat into submission. You can't shoot a minute or stab an hour. It's not a stretch to imagine I'm one of the most lethal warriors on the planet, if not the most lethal, but what good is all this power and fancy gadgetry against a universal force like the passage of time? The irreversible, indefinite continued progress of existence? What should I do?!

Somehow, through the sea of rage and pain, an idea manifests and sets sail. It's so brilliant that it actually puts my grief-fueled rampage on pause.

Maybe things don't have to be different…

The heat in my chest lowers to a quiet simmer. I pace around, thinking. Collapse to my knees next to an empty Stalker exoskel.

The pull of total insanity is strong. It would be easy to stop resisting and let myself fall into a delusional fantasy world, wouldn't it? Easy and harmless. Who would stop me? I'd live the rest of my second life here, yeah, maybe collect some more rocks and bring back the squad. And Alice. And Gould, if only so I could yell at him for neglecting to mention how the suit was more interested in fusing with my body than fixing it. I'd pick up right where I left off. Wouldn't that be great?

A tentative smile forms. It's so brittle it may as well be made of cracked glass.

That would be nice. Just… forget about the post-apocalyptic future, pretend it's still 2023 in this little plot of land. World War III never happened here. Dolls won't cause me trouble. The radiation is a byproduct of Russia – not the New Soviet Union – being Russia and testing experimental bioweapons under NATO's nose, not an alien virus released by CELL.

Yes. That would be so damn nice. I'm already teetering on the edge of the abyss – one more step, a little nudge, and insanity would welcome me with open arms and an understanding smile.

All I have to do is let myself succumb…

A glint of moonlight escapes the cloud cover and shines over the Ceph carapace. It's brief, but I catch it and turn to look.

Through the dents and grime coating the armor, Laurence Barnes' reflection stares back at me. He looks as sad as I feel. No, not sad – disappointed.

Fuck off, Prophet, you body thief. You're not welcome in my fantasy world.

Oh, get off your high horse. You think you're the craziest thing I've seen this week? You're just my imagination playing tricks on me. A ghost from times long passed.

I know, it's just that-

And how would you have reacted? Huh?! The world as we knew it is gone! Finished! Taken over by Dolls and ELID and fuck-knows-what-else! What am I supposed to do now? Where would I belong here? How do I make things right? Quit your bullshit and tell me already!

…

…

…

…Christ, why do you always have to be right about everything?

I morph my arms back to normal and wipe the tears away with my sleeve. When I glance back at the empty armor, I see my own face, red and puffy around the eyes. They're still the wrong color. Still have that dim glow around the irises.

My shoulders slump. Dammit, look at me… I'm supposed to be better than this. No marine worth his salt, especially one who got into special forces like me, would ever lose his shit like that. I should be above throwing petty temper tantrums whenever things don't go my way.

That's one of the things recruiters don't tell you, you know, when you go to enlist. None of the branches give a single flying fuck about your individuality. As far as the higher-ups are concerned, they own you, and if you exhibit a quirk that doesn't conform to their standards, they'll rip that behavior out of you piece by piece and fill the gaps in with more respectable etiquette.

You grow to appreciate it in the long run. I lost a few bad habits during boot camp, and without the Marine Corps'… peculiar brand of hardening, I would've broken down long before New York happened. If a superior caught me screaming like that, my ass would've been toast.

Now that the anger has burnt out, the sailboat called insanity is pulverized by a tidal wave called rationality and sinks to the bottom of my mind. I have no tears to spare for it.

So what happens now, then?

...Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle. Thinking about my predicament like an individual is doing me no good, so I figure, maybe I should start analyzing it like a soldier instead. I signed up for military service to help keep the peace when times were grim, right? So I think: Where in this new post-apocalyptic Earth would I be needed most? What can I do to clean up the mess CELL left behind? Without TV or Internet access, it's hard to say. But the problem is that I have nothing to- Oh shit, I left M4A1 tied up in the basement.

Erm. That sounded a bit wrong, even to me. For the record, I'm not a sex predator, nor do I think I can ever be attracted, emotionally, to a Tactical Doll. Just putting that out there.

I head underground.

And lo and behold, she wasn't content to patiently wait around while her crazy kidnapper was out of eyesight. Her hands are still bound, but she's laying on her back across the floor, and for some odd reason it reminds me of those old Weazel Ball toys from the turn of the millennium. She's uttering muffled curses as she repeatedly tries and fails to knock the coffee table over with her outstretched legs. I'm puzzled as to why. There's nothing on it she might want besides her rifle, and even then, she'd be hard-pressed to use it given her circumstances.

"Eep!" She snaps her head to me when she hears my footsteps. Her brown eyes are wide, full of fear. "I wasn't trying to escape, honest! I just wanted my rifle back!"

I don't say anything. Instead I take the pocket knife out before approaching her.

"What are you doing?" The pieces in M4A1's mind click together when I flick the blade open, and hoo boy, her reaction is not a calm one. She shuts her eyes and tears up as she thrashes against her restraints, fighting against them for all she's worth. I didn't know Dolls can cry. "No, please! I'm telling the truth! I don't feel safe without my gun; please, I promise I wasn't-!"

Her blubbering stops after one clean cut.

"…Ehh?"

I toss the knife away. Sit down on the couch, bury my face in my hands. Wonder if I'm going soft. No, that's not it – I just can't find it in me to give a damn anymore. I feel exhausted. Empty.

I hear M4A1 scramble to her feet, struggling to process why I'd cut the bindings loose and left her unharmed.

M4A1. The only Doll who refrained from shooting me on sight. Truth be told, I envy her – she has a valid reason to be out here, doesn't she? She's fighting to keep Sangvis Ferri's influence from getting out of control. She has a chain of command, even if it isn't real military. She has other Dolls to rely on and a place to chill out between missions. Probably. Wishful thinking, but where's the harm in that?

It's funny, in a sick sort of way. She's not even alive, not really, and yet she has more of a reason to keep on chugging than I do.

A humorless chuckle escapes me. "I don't know what's worse. That I'll never get my old life back, or that I never had much of a life in the first place." I tell her matter-of-factly. It's easily the most pathetic thing I've ever said, but it's also the cold, hard truth. "You're free to go. Just… get out of here."

I don't need to tell her twice. She springs into action – I hear her sigh of contentment as she scoops up her beloved carbine, relieved to have the gun she's named after back in hand. I hear her do a magazine check. I hear her scuttle towards the exit, itching to put miles of distance between herself and the madman who talks to rocks. And really, after all the less than welcoming shit I've put her through, who can fault her for taking an excuse to leave the party early?

I hear her pause before she goes upstairs. I hear metal on concrete as she slowly, cautiously, approaches the couch. A weight settles down next to me.

A cold hand rests itself on my shoulder. And for the longest time afterward, silence.

"…Who are you?" she eventually asks.

That's a really good question, M4A1. I'd asked myself the same thing before I joined the Marines; I'd asked that when I got the Nanosuit; I'd asked that as recently as two days ago. There's no one solid answer, either: Sometimes I'm James Rodriguez the seemingly normal human, other times I'm Golem Boy the ass-kicking machine. There was even a span of time where I went by the moniker of Prophet, although I don't quite remember it.

But if I have to pick one name that encompasses me, as a whole…

"They call me Alcatraz."

You know the old saying, 'The best way to the heart is through the stomach'? Turns out it holds as true to Dolls as it does to humans. All I had to do was point my former captive to where the food is stored, and wouldn't you know it – all is forgiven. Or maybe she simply knows better than to rile up the guy who's apparently prone to violent psychotic outbursts.

It's been a quarter hour since I released her. She'd taken the time between stuffing her face to properly introduce herself as Elite Tactical Doll M4A1 (I pretended I didn't already know that), adding that most of her colleagues at Griffin call her M4 for short and how I'm also welcome to do so. An olive branch? Or just a casual attempt to look more approachable? Either way, M4 it is.

Then she started with the questioning.

"Sho ret meh get thish…" The artificial girl pauses to swallow her food before trying again. She's sat cross-legged on a spare blanket I'd draped over the floor. "So let me get this straight… You're a member of the Marine Special Forces who fought in the New York incursion of 2023."

"Yes."

"Not only that, it was you who stopped the Ceph pathogen and not CELL as the media claimed."

"Yes."

"And the next thing you remember is waking up in an abandoned Sangvis Ferri research facility, only to find out you're being targeted by their Dolls?"

My eye twitches slightly. "Isn't that what I just said?"

M4 flinches at my sharp tone. "I'm sorry… I thought it would be prudent to make sure I'm following you correctly." She spoons in another mouthful of dry oats. She's on her third bowl; how long has it been since she's last eaten? "It's just that what you're claiming is dubious at best. No offense, but…"

She motions at me and shrugs apologetically. "Look at you. How could one human reprogram an alien virus? How did you get captured? What makes you so special that Sangvis Ferri's Dolls would organize a manhunt? So many things about your story aren't adding up."

It's possible I was a bit vague on the details.

What, you think I'm going to spill my whole life story to someone I met only two hours ago? And almost killed, for that matter? M4 might hold the honor of being the first on my 'Dolls I shouldn't shoot' list, but let's make one thing clear: Just because we're not enemies doesn't mean we're suddenly buddy-buddy with one another. And it sure as shit doesn't mean I trust her.

This is going to sound crazy, but I actually trust Scarecrow more than M4. Yeah, that Scarecrow.

The Sangvis Ringleader was a lot of things – arrogant, cold, conceited, a total bitch, the list goes on – but for all her negative traits, I never once got the impression she was a liar. Her digital mind convinced itself that no matter how many cheap tactics I used to fight against her, it wouldn't amount to anything in the end. She felt she had no reason to feed me false information. Why would she, when victory was inevitable? N2's voice analysis in the arena proved that despite a few setbacks, Scarecrow had absolute confidence in her master plan. I could trust her to follow through with whatever she said.

By contrast, M4 is a mystery. She still hasn't told me why she's traversing the forest by her lonesome. I'm willing to believe she wasn't searching for me, but that begs the question – what else out here is important enough to risk death by Sangvis or wild Ceph? What was she doing before our chance encounter?

I'll figure it out later, one way or another. She wants to know what makes me a special boy? I'll tell her.

"M4A1," I deliberately draw out her name, "how much do you know about Nanosuits?"

"Nanosuits?" The Doll cocks her head, adopting a curious look. "Barely anything, I'm afraid. I once saw an old brochure advertising the first-generation model. If I'm remembering it right, they were combat exosuits fielded in limited quantities that greatly enhanced human soldiers' abilities on the battlefield."

Her expression turns troubled. "My creator told me that in 2047, CELL captured all active operators and forcibly removed their suits… She said very few survived the skinning process. Her father had connections to CryNet," she elaborates when I look at her funny. "Why ask, though? This still isn't making sense."

My mind flashes back to the hallucination in the facility's control room, so long ago. Scratch that: I'm reliving it; I can picture Psycho's face in perfect detail, scrunched up in agony. I can hear his tortured wails, hear the woman overseeing the procedure trying not to have a breakdown as she commentates on the atrocity. It doesn't last long, and I'm soon aware of the Tactical Doll staring at me, waiting for me to say something. So I do.

"What if I told you they missed one?"

"I beg your pardon?"

I don't answer verbally. Instead I pull up my left sleeve, making sure she has a clear view. There's a faint slithering sound when CryFibril as black as the night sky creeps over the surface of my skin.

And I think M4's mind crashed at the sight, because it takes her a full minute to pick her jaw up off the floor.

"…Oh. That's…" She nervously taps her fingers together, babbling a stream of gibberish that briefly leaves me worried I really did break something. Her oats have been forgotten entirely. "I mean, I just… I didn't expect, you know, when you said that you – that is to say…" She gives up trying to find an adequate response and sighs, "Somehow this explains everything and nothing at the same time."

Truer words have never been spoken, especially in this day and age.

"Bet the brochure never mentioned symbiosis, did it?" I revert my arm to normal and roll down the sleeve. "Course it didn't." Then again, maybe that's exclusive to the upgraded version. "I was in bad shape when I got my suit, M4. Real bad. Practically staring death in the eye." A snort. "Hell, I did die – I was a vegetable on life support. That suit turned me into a grotesque freak. A Frankenstein's monster, an unholy abomination, however you want to phrase it. But at least I could still get shit done, even as a walking corpse."

"But if that was you in the suit earlier, then how are you…?" M4 trails off.

"I'm not sure when or how it happened myself, to be honest." I shrug, answering the unfinished question. "All I know is that I'm not a guy in a suit anymore. I'm a guy and a suit, fused together into one being. Now I can, you know. Change back and forth. It's cool, I guess."

"Wow. Incredible…" The Doll puts her bowl aside, visibly thinking over everything I'd told her. Which isn't much, mind you, but it's still pretty mind-boggling. "Even for me, this is a lot to take in… I mean, what were the odds I'd stumble across the last Nanosuit user, living alone in a deserted farmstead? A hero…?"

I want to burst out laughing. Hero? Oh, M4. You sweet, naïve, innocent child. She'd only need to take a cursory glance at my service record to realize I'm hardly a paragon of virtue. A hero wouldn't burn down innocent South American villages to keep the spread of deadly diseases at bay. A hero wouldn't stand by and watch refugees electrocute themselves trying to climb a livewire fence. And a true hero definitely wouldn't toy with elite mercenaries, meticulously picking them off one by one, just to make their jerkass commander shit his pants in terror.

Though to be fair, Hargreave was the one holding my leash during that last bit, and he never berated me for my sadism. I think he got a small thrill out of watching his new attack dog putting the old one in its place.

M4 brings me back to the here-and-now. "Um, Mr. Alcatraz? I have more questions…"

"So do I. You ever gonna tell me what you're doing out here all by your lonesome?"

Nice try, missy, but I never said our game of 20 Questions was finished. Also, looking back, didn't she imply she was in the middle of something before the Ceph sidetracked her?

She doesn't say anything for a moment. She looks at the floor, twiddling her metal thumbs. "…That's classified."

Of course it fucking is, I think with a roll of the eyes.

"Okay, so can you give me something that isn't classified?"

Now, I might be an ass but I'm not heartless. I won't force her to tell me anything – I'll consider it a token of goodwill for her saving me earlier and putting up with all of my crap. Truthfully, I just want to see how much intel I can squeeze out of this Doll without any literal squeezing.

Um. Painful squeezing, not pleasurable. Shut up, hormones, you're not helping here.

To my surprise, she nods thoughtfully. "Perhaps we can help one another, Mr. Alcatraz. I wasn't originally deployed by myself… I have friends. Sisters, you could call them. We were separated ten weeks ago after an encounter with an extremely powerful Sangvis Ferri Ringleader. Ringleaders are high-ranking command and combat units, in case you aren't aware, and they're each notorious in their own way. I can't get into the specifics, but please believe me – it's imperative that I reach the nearest Griffin outpost."

So there might be other Ringleaders besides the three stooges I'd fought in the facility. Good to know. My scuffle with the trio is another thing I conveniently 'forgot' to mention earlier.

And ten weeks, holy shit... I'm surprised she never thought to make rock versions of her missing friends.

"You might be on the right track, then." I nod back. "I came across a Griffin patrol just the other day. Overheard them say they were looking for-"

I blink and just like that M4's face is suddenly three inches away from my own, light brown eyes wide and hopeful. Even SECOND fails to come up with an explanation as to how she did that. But wait, it gets even more awkward: She places her hands on my shoulders and starts shaking me like I'm a pinata and she's trying to make the candy fall out.

"You saw Griffin Dolls?! Where? How many? What did they look like? Were they carrying assault rifles? Did one have an eyepatch or a mechanical arm? Tell me everything!"

Dolls might be stronger than baseline humans – I learned that from experience – but not post-humans. I manage to pry her away from my personal space without breaking her arms. "Whoa, slow the fuck down. You're making me nauseous." Not really, but whatever stops her from manhandling me again. "Take a deep breath and try again. Do you think your… uh, sisters might be nearby?"

She does, and she calms down a bit, and she asks again – more politely this time – about the Dolls I'd observed a day and a half ago. She's disheartened when she learns FAL and Five-seveN don't match the descriptions of her sisters. She's saddened even further when I make the grand reveal that I don't know where Griffin's base of operations in these parts is. On the other side of the coin, she hasn't seen any non-Sangvis Dolls (or any friendly faces at all, for that matter) since she split with her team over two and a half months ago, so the presence of Griffin androids in the area is a huge boost to her optimism about this secret mission's success.

It's got me thinking…

"You've helped me more than you know. Thank you so much, Mr. Alcatraz!" She beams at me, back on the floor and finishing up the last of her meal. She looks cheerful, more so than I'd seen up to now.

I just shrug from my spot on the couch.

She continues, "No, really, this is the best news I've heard in ages! It feels like I'm finally getting somewhere. Like the risks my sisters are taking won't be in vain." Her expression turns faraway, a wistful smile spreading over her lips. "I'm getting close… When I deliver this data to Griffin, we might finally have an answer to the Sangvis insurrection."

"What data?"

M4 freezes mid-spoonful. Just the sight of her brings to mind the image of a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"…Did I say that out loud?" I nod once, and she winces. "How foolish of me. I'm an elite T-Doll; I'm supposed to be above such silly mistakes..."

T-Doll...? Oh, must be short for Tactical Doll. I kinda like it.

"Cat's halfway out of the bag already," M4 continues with a sigh, "so I might as well tell you the whole story. My sisters and I – we're called AR Team, by the way – we're unique Dolls who specialize in covert operations. We recently acquired some encrypted data that could help us better understand Sangvis Ferri's chain of command, along with whatever incident occurred that caused them go rogue. Unfortunately, as I already said, we were forced to scatter, and I was tasked with delivering the data to Griffin in exchange for backup." Her eyes gloss with fresh tears. "Even now, the rest of my team is out there drawing SF's attention away from me. I have to find Griffin… I have to save my sisters."

I just nod again and don't say anything. It's not that I don't sympathize with her situation – believe me, I really do. If our roles were reversed and it was Omega-One covering my ass, then I'd also do whatever it took to bring them back home alive. I know better than anyone how much of a punch to the fucking gut it is to lose people you consider family. I know what it's like to feel helpless, when there's nothing you can do to keep war from claiming those you grow to care about.

The part of my psyche that still holds a shred of childish innocence is actually rooting for M4 at this point, urging her to persevere and achieve victory. Lord knows I'll approve of anything that throws a spanner into SF's evil machinations.

The T-Doll herself seems to be on a similar train of thought. "Say, Mr. Alcatraz…" she begins shyly, sitting up a bit straighter.

I hold up a hand. "Enough with the 'Mister' shit. Just Alcatraz is fine."

"Right. Sure." She nods obediently. "Um, Alcatraz, would I be wrong to assume you hold no special love for Sangvis Ferri?"

"Let me put it this way, M4. If I could gather up all those annoying, delusional, narcissistic, thick-headed, stripperific sex robot rejects in one place and nuke the ever-loving shit out of them, I'd do so in a heartbeat. Then I'd piss all over the ashes."

M4 stares at me for a long time.

"Uhhh… okay then…" She coughs into her fist. "Well in that case, since we share a common enemy, I was wondering if… perhaps, maybe… you'd like to accompany me?"

Work together with a Tactical Doll…? Yeah, why not? Rock Chino (bless his soul) notwithstanding, I haven't had a proper ally since New York. And now that my pipe dream of reuniting with my loved ones has gone down the shitter, my schedule's completely empty. What else am I going to do? Till the fields?

What I need is a goal, something to work toward. Something that will benefit me in the long run. Bodyguarding a delivery android may not have been my first pick, or even the tenth, but if it means I get to kick Sangvis Ferri in the balls again, then I'm all for it. Maybe I can get directions to a town or city from someone at Griffin once that's done, see what I can do from there.

Sure, Mr. Frodo. I'll help you take the ring to Mordor.

"Okay."

"Really?" M4's face brightens like Christmas lights. Is she prone to mood swings just like regular human teenagers? "Thank, you, Mr. Al- uh, Alcatraz! I promise I won't be a bother! And I'll make sure that you're… that you're…"

She stifles a yawn. I guess all the excitement over the past couple of hours along with the food has finally left her spent. "That you're rewarded…"

Oh, I can think of a suitable reward and PENIS SHUT UP.

"Why don't you spend the night?" I rise to my feet and make my way to the cellar's exit, shotgun in hand. "Take the couch."

She accepts with a grateful nod, then looks at me curiously. "We're doing shifts, right? You'll wake me up when you're tired?"

"I don't think I'm getting any more sleep tonight," I admit with a shrug. "I'm just gonna, you know. Take a walk, clear my head a little."

"Oh, okay." I watch my new Doll companion get comfortable under the blanket. I turn away and make it to the third stair when she suddenly calls out, "Alcatraz?"

"Yeah, what?"

She lifts her head up to look me in the eye. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry that your experience with Dolls hasn't been pleasant so far. We're not all bad, you know. Really. Most of us sympathize with humans and want to help in any way we can."

We keep eye contact for a bit longer. I break it first and head outside, not entirely sure how to feel about anything anymore.

(Morning)

It's midway through sunrise. I approach the couch from behind, pick the whole thing up with barely any effort, and dump its sleeping occupant on the floor.

"EEK!"

M4 lets out a startled yelp. She glares at me through the tangle of blanket, silently demanding to know what the hell my problem is.

"Ran into a Sangvis patrol a few hundred yards out. Don't know if they found this place by accident or if they're closing in on us, but I'm not sticking around to find out," I inform her. "Grab your gear and whatever else you need. We're leaving in two." Without waiting for a reply, I head to the back area, away from her view, and put on the combat threads.

The patrol was nothing special; in fact, it was pathetically tiny for SF: two Vespids, a Ripper, and five Dinergates. They're dead now but I'm still worried. Last night wasn't exactly a quiet affair, mostly thanks to Squiddie, and the paranoia that still owns a large amount of real estate in my head is warning me that I'd best get moving, pronto.

I grab a civilian backpack and stuff my clothes inside the main compartment, filling the extra pockets with food, water, and other assorted crap. Also, booze. Can't forget the booze. Part of me wants to hit the shed and grab some tools; most of me counters that there's no time for lollygagging when SF is nipping at my heels.

Our heels. Mine and M4A1's. I'm traveling with her now, aren't I? Huh. Feels weird not being alone anymore. Weirder knowing she's named after a rifle.

I return to the living area. I have to give M4 credit: She handles the sight of my Nanosuit far better than your typical normie. She screams, sure, but I'm only in her rifle's crosshairs for three seconds before she remembers who, or rather what I am. "A-Alcatraz?!"

I can't resist snarking. "In the flesh. Ready?"

She nods, adjusting the strap on a rucksack slung over her shoulder.

I nod back. We leave behind the closest thing I've had to a home in a week, me at the front, emerging into the Russian dawn. The suit keeps me warm and cozy from the chill that hangs in the air like ELID radiation, everlasting and capable of making you sick with enough exposure.

The farm, while remote, isn't totally isolated. Beyond a waist-high metal gate at the property's edge is a dirt road. It's in the opposite direction of where I encountered the Sangvis patrol, so it should be a safe route.

We walk for about five minutes when I realize M4's being unusually quiet. Curious, and maybe just a tiny bit concerned, I turn my head around to check on her.

She's not quite fast enough to lift her eyes from my ass to my visor before I notice.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…On second thought, maybe I should stay in human form."

(Several Hours Later)

I don't even get a warning this time. I take only a second – literally one measly second – to rub a bright spot from my eyes and bam, I'm back in New York. Or I think it's New York. Nope, definitely the Big Apple – I can just make out the crumbling remains of the Empire State Building many miles away.

…What the fuck happened here while I was gone?!

The whole city's been reclaimed by nature; everywhere I look are ferns and bushes and other greenery of all shapes and sizes. There are still manmade structures that aren't piles of rubble, that continue to stand tall against the overgrowth swallowing the city streets, but they don't look like they'll last much longer: Vines creep up concrete walls and wrap themselves tightly around lampposts, like floral tentacles attempting to drag the last remnants of mankind's urban habitat back to where they belong. Craters and rusted APCs are intermixed with the shells of cars; a stark reminder of the horrors that went down here almost forty years ago. To me, it feels like it all happened yesterday.

Oh, and did I mention the giant dome thing covering the entirety of the city? What is this, the Simpsons movie? Also, why am I holding a compound bow that looks like it's been subjected to German engineering?

Movement from below puts my jumbled thoughts on hold. I'm at the edge of what used to be an overpass. Below me is a shallow pond. Treading through the water, yucking about Prophet and Ceph and all this other stuff I should be paying attention to but I'm also sick of hearing about, is a six-man CELL squad.

Look at them. They aren't even in proper patrol formation, and I'm expected to believe these asswipes took credit for all my work? And why, or more importantly, how on God's green earth did they turn New York City into their own private jungle? When did CELL develop a green thumb?

While I don't know the answers to any of those questions, I do somehow know that my fancy bow has electrified arrows. I also know that a pond is a very, very bad place to be standing right now if you had friends in Cobalt Section.

I nock an arrow and pull the bowstring back. Memories of the archery course my dad and I signed up for when I was a kid flood back to me, and with them come the proper instructions on bow technique. I cloak and take a deep breath. Then I release.

The arrow's almost completely silent; the little noise it makes is more of a light thwip rather than a twang. It flies straight and true, directly towards the water at the lead CELLulite's feet. You could say this band of goons in soldiers' clothing are in for a very shocking surprise.

"Alcatraz?"

Alcatraz...? No, I'm Prophet. Alcatraz is sleeping. His personality matrix was corrupted and put into storage, and I need his body if we want to stop the Alpha Ceph. Didn't I explain that already?

"Alcatraz, look at me!"

An invisible force shakes me just as I hear a shout from the lead merc. I blink a few times, look around. My gaze settles on a certain black-haired Doll.

"You were spacing out," she says. Judging by her concerned expression, I must've been unresponsive for longer than I thought. "Are you okay? Do you need to rest?"

I shake my head. Partly to affirm the negative, partly to make sure I'm not still stuck in the past. "Um, no. I'm okay… Sorry about that."

She frowns at me.

"M4…" I rub a hand on my forehead, sighing. "I'm fine. Just… got caught up reminiscing, I guess." I motion with my head to a dilapidated general goods store across the street, hoping to change the subject. "Did you check in there yet? Could be something useful."

"…Not yet." She stares at me a bit longer. Then, apparently trusting that what I'm saying is the truth, she leaves my side to investigate the building, stepping over a Vespid laying on the hard-packed ground.

It's been about six hours since we left the farm, give or take two. The road led us to an abandoned town. Actually, calling it a 'town' would be too generous – it's hardly more than a village. It's square-shaped, with five rows of unpaved streets. The third street, which in actuality is an extension of the road leading in and out of this place, is the only one with a commercial presence. The other four are lined with neat rows of small houses; unfortunately, time hasn't been kind to them.

And it might be a stretch to say it was abandoned, too, because the village was crawling with Sangvis when we got here. Key word: was. As in, there was a truly startling amount of Dinergates when I clambered up the side of a drugstore where they couldn't reach me. The number got more manageable a few minutes later.

While I was preoccupied being the big buffoonish distraction, M4 took the opportunity to slip away and pick off the rank-and-file androids with suppressed rifle fire. I'm starting to see why she's classified as an elite T-Doll – she wiped them all out with unerring accuracy, not taking so much as a scratch throughout the whole ordeal.

Long story short: village is cleared, we're alive, Sangvis isn't. Go team. Now we plunder the spoils of war.

But back to the flashback… I mean, they still happen, just not as frequently as they did on day one. Once or twice a day now, usually. Sometimes they only last a few seconds; other times it feels like I'm trapped in Prophet's mind for hours. I'm slowly piecing together what he was up to while I was dead. None of it involves rainbows, ponies, and shitting glitter. Jesus, and people say I'm antisocial… At least I never pissed off my squadmates every time I opened my yapper.

Still have no idea why the flashbacks even happen, or why the suit still hasn't found a fix for what obviously counts as a performance-hindering issue. Usually SECOND's right on top of that shit. Weird.

Whatever, I guess. The breaks from reality haven't gotten me killed yet, so I'll leave that particular problem on the shelf for now. Better regroup with M4 before she starts worrying again.

"Anything good?" I ask after finding her rummaging through some drawers in a small back office. The rest of the store is picked clean; there's nothing on the shelves but cobwebs.

"Not really. Rusty shotgun, expired pain medicine… oh, but this might be useful." She tosses me an unopened package of 12-guage buckshot. A blessing, because the Marshall's running dangerously low on ammo. "No food though, I'm afraid." She adds with a sigh. "This village must've been evacuated from either ELID or Sangvis. It explains why we haven't seen any bodies."

She raises a point there – I know the signs of panic-purchasing, having survived an epidemic or three back in the early 2020s. I wonder where all the villagers went. "Ammo's always better in the long run than expired breakfast pastries. C'mon, let's sweep the houses next."

We never get to. My human form, lacking a BUD, doesn't detect the danger in the form of a gun barrel until I feel it pressed against the side of my head the moment I step out the front door.

"Put your weapon down!" a male voice demands in Russian.

Well. This escalated quickly.

I ignore M4's panicked shout, as well as the second guy emerging from the ruins of a bed-and-breakfast on the opposite side of the street, focusing instead on the translated text that appears at the bottom of my vision. I know I should be at least slightly concerned – I don't know if this human disguise can stop a shot fired point-blank, and I can't summon the N2 fast enough before my unknown assailant pulls the trigger – but I'm just captivated by what I'm seeing right now.

I have built-in subtitles. That's fucking cool.

"Was it you? Did you do this?" The guy holding a gun against my ear asks once I drop the Marshall, clearly suspicious of me (and in a twisted way, he has every right to be). I open my mouth to respond but M4 and the other dude both beat me to it:

"Wait, don't shoot! He's with me!"

"Lev, what the fuck do you think you're doing?! Get your gun out of that man's face, now!"

My new not-friend, Lev, pauses. M4 scoots around us from my left peripheral; oddly, she doesn't have her gun raised. She's wasting a perfectly good opportunity here. If I were her, I'd be pointing it at the friendlier dude. Who, I observe as he closes the distance, is also armed.

After a few more tense seconds, Lev complies and backs off to stand with the other man. Oh, he's got a Grendel battle rifle. No way I would've survived if he decided to snuff me.

So. Two dudes, both human. Even though one of them seems a bit trigger-happy, I'm so relieved to finally, finally, finally see fellow humans that I just might cry.

They're both wearing backpacks and respirators and look to be a few years older than me – biologically speaking, of course. Lev's wearing an olive drab hoodie and a pair of dirty jeans; his associate is garbed in a black sweatshirt, a matching fleece cap with bits of blond hair poking through, and woodland camo pants. He's carrying an FY71, basically a North Korean clone of the AK-74M assault rifle, in a sloppy at-rest pose. Not military, then.

"I apologize for what happened just now," Dude 2 says, also in Russian. "We were out hunting game when we heard gunfire coming from the village. Everyone knows to avoid this place ever since Sangvis moved in, and I asked myself, 'What idiots think they can win against those machines?'"

"Damir, you're stupid, you know that?" Lev grouses. He glances back at us. "I wanted to leave, but no! Let's fucking get closer to the action instead! I swear, brother, one of these days you're going to learn the hard way that you're not invincible."

In New Soviet Russia, the action finds you, I refrain from saying.

"Ah, come on, Lev. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"It died years ago, along with every person employed by Sangvis Ferri."

M4 clears her throat, bringing all eyes to her. She wilts a little under all the gazes. "Yes. Well. I-In any case, I feel we haven't been properly introduced yet. My name is Tactical Doll M4A1, employee of Griffin & Kryuger PMC. And this is my companion-"

"James," I blurt out. "My name's James. I, uh… I'm just a guy trying to start over."

I lock my eyes on M4's, silently daring her to question me. Luckily, she takes the hint.

"Oh, you are a yankee, eh?" Damir switches to surprisingly good English, looking me over. It completely slipped my mind that I'd introduced myself in my native tongue. So did M4, I also realize after a moment. "Apologies if you did not understand us earlier, friend. Do you need me to repeat what was said?"

"Um, no. It's fine. I understand Russian," somehow, "but I don't speak it."

Nope, nothing suspicious here. I'm just your everyday guy who happens to be able to hold his own against a superior number of killer robots. Dammit, I should've thought of an alibi for when I actually found other humans. Guess I'll default to saying as little as possible and pray these hunters don't ask for a backstory.

Damir pauses long enough to skirt into awkward territory before replying. "That is… good to know." Back to Russian. "So, what brings an odd pair like you around here? An assignment from Griffin?"

"Actually, yes." The suddenly bilingual M4 nods and smiles politely. "James is helping me get back into contact with my employers. You sound familiar with G&K, Mr. Damir. Would you happen to know of any bases around here?"

The man's hazel eyes sparkle with jolly mirth. "As a matter of fact, da, I do! There's an outpost maybe… oh, ninety minutes' drive from our home village. Lev and I sometimes go there to trade supplies; usually fresh meat in exchange for ammo." He jerks a thumb behind him. "Our truck is parked farther up the road. Would you like a lift?"

M4 quivers like she's about to explode with happiness. Before she can thank him, however, he's pulled aside by Lev. They whisper to one another in Russian, trying to be discreet. I hear them anyway.

"Damir, what the hell are you doing? They're total strangers!"

"They seem harmless enough to me, little brother."

"Harmless?! One of them is a T-Doll! And did you see that man's eyes? They're glowing, Damir. Glowing. And need I point out that they seemingly killed all the SF in this village by themselves?"

Damir not-so-subtly glances at me. "Okay, I'll admit the eyes are strange, but I don't see that as reason enough to be concerned. We live in a strange world already, Lev. I just have a good feeling about this."

Lev still doesn't look convinced.

The older brother gently pats his arm. "Trust me, my brother. The fact that they are enemies of Sangvis speaks for itself. Besides, when have I ever steered us wrong before?"

"I can think of a few instances." Lev says darkly. "Ugh… fine. Just promise me we won't stay at that- that mental asylum any longer than necessary."

Even under the respirator I can tell that Damir's grinning mischievously. "Aww, but Lev, your admirer will be so happy to see you-"

Lev elbows the other man away and hastily addresses us. "We'll take you! Just… argh. Just don't do anything funny, or I swear to God I'll end you both myself! I'll be keeping a close eye on you the whole time, got it?"

Without waiting for an answer, he turns his back to us – immediately and ironically contradicting what he'd just said – and starts down the road, grumbling under his breath.

"Don't sweat it, I'll behave." I call after him in my most assuring voice. I pick up the shotgun and follow his retreating figure.

"Thank you again, Mr. Lev, Mr. Damir!" M4 adds, still over the moon by this turn of good fortune.

Damir, walking side-by-side with me, nudges the butt of his assault rifle into my gut. "Do not worry about Lev, comrade. He is a bit rough around the edges, but he's a good man at heart. Our family, it is just the two of us, and he is very protective of me, da?"

I nod at him and smile weakly. Although he doesn't know it, he's brought back memories of the sister I'll probably never see again.

"Anyway," he continues, oblivious to my sudden inner turmoil, "I am Damir Paskov, and Lev is my younger brother by two minutes. Don't tell him I said that, though. He gets cranky whenever I point that out, haha!"

He keeps talking but I'm not really paying attention anymore. Jeez, talk about a turn of events. Twelve hours ago I was alone with nowhere to go or anyone to talk to besides a rock; now, I'm en route to civilization with two human hunters and an elite T-Doll for company. As far as bullshitting your way through your problems goes, this didn't turn out half bad.

It's a mixed feeling, though. I'll have to find a way to carve out a new life in this future. A proper life.

On the plus side, I know I can trust Lev and Damir. They have every intention of taking us to the Griffin outpost; the lie detector in me confirmed it. They're not stupid enough to try and rob us. Though if they do try… well, it would be an awfully short fight, wouldn't it?

Can I get an F in the reviews for Rock Chino?

So, about this chapter. Eagle-eyed lore enthusiasts will note how I changed the year of ELID's release from 2030 to 2035. The reason is so the events of Crysis: Escalation will still be 100% canon; while I'm not the hugest fan of the book, lore is lore. (Seriously though, why did they suddenly make Chino Hispanic? The random snippets of Spanish came out of nowhere. Ugh.) Besides, I doubt five years would make a huge difference where ELID is concerned.

I additionally considered having a proper combat scene where Alcatraz and M4 worked together to destroy a Sangvis command post, but scrapped it at the last minute. While it would be cool to see how well the two synchronize in combat, it would've been too much of a shift in tone (especially after Alcatraz's mental breakdown), plus it didn't really add anything to the main plot. Also, I needed a break from extended fights.

As for Damir and Lev: They'll be important for the next two chapters. After that, they'll be relegated to reccurring side characters. I only have three OC's planned for this story, and the hunter twins, as I affectionately call them, are two of them.

That's about it. Let's make this the chapter that breaks the 100-review mark!