Girl's Frontline: Field Agent

by Johnny Wycliffe

Sometimes, life comes at you like an explosion through the storefront. A young man, Hadwin Galanis, finds this out the hard way as his life is turned upside-down by a PMC and Paradeus, forced to pick up a gun and fight in a war fought by machines.

31. Chapter 31: Calculated Risk

1557, Sunday April 11th.

"Hey bro." AEK's voice pierces the fog in my brain. "You really should wake up."

My eyes open slowly and I try to sit up, but I hadn't properly disengaged the Exo suit and it's got me locked in place. My arms are free, but I'll have to use the Linker to get out of the rest of the suit.

"We arrived about half an hour ago, but I decided to let you sleep." She grins. "Don't worry, I was standing guard."

I engage the Linker, tell it to open the latches on the suit, and sit up. "Thanks AEK."

"Don't mention it. Everyone else is upstairs getting repaired or stitched up."

I climb out of the buggy, leaving the exo suit occupying the passenger seat. "Not you though."

She shrugs, her skin on her arms not quite staying where it should through the motion. "I'll keep."

I stretch, mindful of my largely-missing right foot, and start walking to the elevator. "Well, I guess it's time to see what our next step is."

"For you it better be a shower." AEK makes a show of holding her nose. "You smell."

"I bet." We climb into the elevator and I scan my keycard. "I didn't exactly make it through the battle unscathed."

"Really? I thought all of that blood was from other people."

"Most of it-"

The doors open into the lobby and a group of six people look in at us. The two closest to the door wretch at the smell, and the others' faces screw up in concern and horror.

The doors slowly slide shut without anyone moving.

"Shower." I conclude.

"Yeah…"

The doors open once more to the fourth floor and I walk out into the deserted hallway.

"I'll be in 408." AEK waves to me. "That's where the doll repair bay is set up."

"Got it. Good luck."

"If I need luck to get repaired, we're in a lot of trouble." She taps my shoulder with her fist. "See ya."

"Same."

I walk up to 409 and scan my keycard, the door's latch retracting with a hefty thunk.

Inside, UMP 45, M4A1, RO, and Gentaine are all talking. They stop once the door opens, all turning to face me.

I tip my head to acknowledge their attention, but walk over to my bundle of stuff in the corner of the room and start rifling around for a new set of clothes. The stuff I bought yesterday that's not the suit should still be fine…

I pick up the clothes, drop off the Linker, and turn back to the shower.

"...Hadwin, what happened to you?"

I pause and turn to 45. "I slipped in a pool of blood."

She glances down at my feet, one with a boot and another that's just a metal stump with wires hanging out. "I see..."

"I'll ask Sop to make you a new foot." RO says evenly.

I ignore her. "I'm gonna clean this crap off of myself before I get some sort of infection."

"When you're done, please talk to me. I have a few things I need to talk to you about."

I nod reluctantly and push my way into the shower.

First, the jacket comes off. The darker red does indeed hide the color of blood mostly, though there's still an outline where it wicked up though the material, a faint discoloration of the fabric. I toss it over the top of the shower's glass, deciding to just wash it at the same time. Next my tac vest comes off, and I empty its pockets before tossing it into the shower as well.

Then comes the rest of my clothes, which are all so sticky that I have to peel them away from my skin. It's mostly black fabric, but I can tell it's rank.

Once bare, I glance down at my foot. With the exposed wires, isn't that going to be a hazard?

I sit down on the floor and disengage the remnants of the foot, setting it off to the side and hauling myself up. I have to balance on one foot since I can't put my weight on the connector, though thankfully the shower has grips for people that have a hard time moving around. Before I climb in, I grab the cup sitting on the edge of the sink counter and peel the plastic off, awkwardly pulling it on like a sock in hopes it'll stop water getting into the device.

Carefully, I hop myself into the stall, the tile of the shower cold under my remaining foot. I turn on the water to be hot and hold on for a few seconds as the water pours down my body, savoring the feeling of the sludge of battle sloughing off.

After maybe a minute of just savoring the feeling, I turn the temperature down to warm and very, very carefully lower myself down onto the floor of the shower. There's enough space that I'm not uncomfortable, and I'm able to grab the bottle of shampoo and my clothes to start washing.

No, shampoo is not the best way to clean clothes. Hot water also makes it harder to get the blood out.

But I'm cold and I don't have any peroxide on me, so I'll live with just getting it mostly clean.

Once I'm sitting, it's actually easier to keep my ankle away from the water pouring down, propping it up on the soap rack. I fall into light trance, focusing only on the act of scrubbing, watching the water run red, then pink, then finally clear with each garment I work on.

"Haddy!" The door bursts open and Sop walks in, eyes finding me in the shower. "I heard your foot… needs… replacement." Her seemingly boundless enthusiasm is diminished as she tries to see through the glass that's partially steamed up and partially covered in condensation. "What are you doing?"

I quickly grab one of the garments and pull it over myself. "Sop, get out!"

"Huh? Why? I need to fix up your foot- Oh, there it is." She finds the stump and picks it up. "Wow, what happened to it?"

"Sop. Leave."

"I don't wanna." She grumbles. "I wanna fix your foot."

"I-" I rub my temples. "Fine, do what you want."

"Yeah?"

I watch in horror as her hand reaches for the handle of the shower.

"Then, let me see-"

"NO!" I manage to jerk myself up and place my hand on the handle, not actually able to resist Sop pulling the door but hopefully giving her the hint. "Don't come in! Fine, you can stay in the room for now, but you can't come in."

"...Fiiiiine." She drawls, her eyes looking away. "So, why do you have a tail?"

"...Huh?'

She points down at my legs-

Oh SHIT the clothes I had used slipped-

I drop back down to the shower floor and grab the garment back up and hurriedly cover myself. "It was your imagination."

"It was?"

"Yes. It was."

"...Okay." She sits on the counter and starts playing with the broken foot some more. "So I was thinking, when I fix up your foot I should add some new features."

"Yeah?" I grab another piece of clothing that isn't cleaned yet and start washing it, keeping an eye on Sop.

"Yeah. Like that hand we saw yesterday. The guy said that you could feel through it unlike the one I built for you, so I wanna add that to this new one."

"That'd be nice, but that's cutting edge tech, isn't it?"

"Nah. Doll's can feel through touch sensors embedded in our skin, so I'll be able to use a spare foot to get the necessary parts. Now, my next idea-"

"Can you just focus on getting a foot working for now?" I cut her off. "We can discuss upgrades later, but for now, I just wanna be able to walk."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"Also, what the hell was in my foot before? I kicked at Anisim and the top of my foot blew off."

"Oh!" Her eyes brighten up enough that I catch a hint of red through the haze of the shower glass. "I put in two shotgun shells."

"...Come again?"

"I put two shotgun shells in there and put a mechanism in that triggers if you kick someone hard enough." She puts her hands on her hips and her nose in the air. "I think I did a good job, myself."

"What would have happened if I dropped something on my foot?"

"It would have gone off. It's not wired into your brain or anything, it just needs sufficient impact."

"Okay, definitely do not put that back into my foot."

"Aw, but-"

"I don't want to be hauling furniture around only to accidentally blow a hole in a sofa."

"Fine. But, I wanna add something else."

"Sop-"

"It won't be dangerous, I swear! See, Since you're going to have the space anyway, why don't I add in a small GPS unit, or how about-"

"Tell you what, assuming you can make it work, you can cram whatever information gathering things into it. Just make sure that it doesn't try to kill me when I plug it in."

"Okay!" She hops off the counter. "I'll start right away!" She exits the bathroom before I can respond. The door slams behind her and I hear some confusion from the outside room, though muffled.

I finish cleaning up the clothes and then work on myself for a bit, cleaning my hair and giving my skin a good scrubbing before shutting off the water and, scared to slip on the slick tile, crawling out of the shower.

After a painfully long time used to get dressed and then to throw the wet clothes over the top of the shower glass to drip dry, I hop awkwardly out of the bathroom.

As soon as I open the door, 15 is right next to me, having been waiting by the side of the door. Wordlessly, she steps up to my right side and throws my arm over her shoulder, offering herself to be my temporary crutch.

"Thanks Star."

She blushes slightly. "No problem."

"Help me over to my bed, please?"

Turning, I see Gentiane on AK-12 and AN-94's bed is occupied by Gentiane, M4, and Eva. The couch bed has been returned to a couch and the two former bodyguards, Oleksiy and Gregory, are eating something out of take-out containers. Aleah and 45 are perched on my bed. 416 is leaning against the wall. RO's sitting on the windowsill, looking outside.

"Took you long enough." Eva grumbles.

I sit down and lift my ankle into the air. "Had to be careful of this. Also, I washed the blood out of my uniform."

Gentiane nods. "Don't worry about it. While Sop fixes your foot up, we'll discuss our strategy moving forward."

Aleah hands me a water bottle and a take-out box. I open it to find a grilled cheese sandwich with some coleslaw on the side. There's a small disposable fork in there too! "Alright, shoot."

Gentaine looks around the room. "To start, for those who don't know; This is Gregory and Oleksiy. They're former bodyguards of Myroslav Rud, who have decided to join us temporarily. You two have met Hadwin and myself. The others are M4A1, RO, HK 416, Negev, AR-15, and Eva."

Oleksiy raises an eyebrow. "I've never heard of a gun called Eva."

"That's because she's a human." I smirk at him. "One of my old classmates, Evangeline."

"Hey, we're friends, aren't we?"

I ignore her as Gentiane clears her throat. "Introductions done, let's move onto the current situation. First of all, we have something very important to discuss: We have very limited supplies." She crosses her arms. "Ange has some stored away in her hideout, but it's not enough to really resupply all of us. We need ammo, doll parts, and any dummy links we can get our hands on if we're going to be fighting."

Eva raises her hand. "Uh… I was thinking, why are we sticking around instead of leaving as soon as we can?"

I nod, unable to talk through a mouthful of food. It would make sense for all of us to leave with DEFY.

"We do have a time limit, and we will be leaving as soon as we can. We have to get to Talinn and Paldiski before the others, but if we can cripple their supply lines, it will make it that much harder for them to catch up to us." Gentaine turns to the younger woman. "DEFY, once Ange is patched up, is going straight on ahead. We'll pull as many forces away from her and her team as we can until we get out. There's evidence that there's not too many Paradeus units in this city, from their response to our moves and how many units they're willing to field outside the wall, so they might not have as limitless resources as it seemed in Belgrade."

15 and M4 scowl, I set my fork down to touch 15. She jolts, not expecting the contact, but not moving away from it either.

"Fortunately for us, both harassing Paradeus and getting some supplies can be done in one action. Ange managed to scout out a warehouse near the north border that has a lot of GeneLab trucks in its lot, despite not being outwardly associated with the company. She and her team managed to get a few photos of the inside, and the video that 45's been playing on repeat for the past few hours."

I glance over at the one-eyed doll, but her evil grin gets wider.

I'll ask later.

"We know that at the bare minimum, Paradeus is making some of their troops there. It's a good target for us, but we have to consider that they might be waiting for us."

"Also, we don't want them to be able to overwhelm us, so it's going to be a stealth mission." M4 continues for Gentiane. "404, you're being hired to investigate the warehouse, locate supplies that will help us survive, and to sabotage any critical infrastructure."

45 nods. "Send me the details and I'll go over it. I do have one condition."

M4's eyebrow arches.

"We want the Field Agent to come with."

"Yeah, he's going with you." Gentiane comments. "We're going to wait until late tonight."

"Got it." I say around my sandwich.

"Ja, we'll be ready." 416 nods.

"Great." Gentiane stands up and stretches. "Everyone should get some rest. It's gonna be a long few days."

I turn back to my food only to have a hand land on my shoulder. I look up to see Gentiane looking down at me. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"...Sure."

She eyes the rest of the room. "Clear out for a minute."

Oleksiy and Gregory hastily gather up their food, Eva also gets up, but the dolls as whole remain fixed in place. M4 stands up to walk with Gentiane, but other than her, none of them move from their spots.

Gentaine contemplates this with furrowed brows. "I said-"

"Is there a reason for them to leave?" I ask. "If it's about… that, the only ones who don't know here are 416 and 15."

The two dolls both look at me, but I continue to stare at Gentaine.

"No. I suppose it doesn't matter if they hear this. I just wanted to know why you didn't go with DEFY?"

"...Huh?"

"You could have left the city with DEFY and Ange. In fact, I told Ange that she should take you out and help support operations out there."

I stare up at her. "But… most of us are here." I glance around at the rest. "I need to make sure everyone gets out."

"...I see." She nods. "Okay, enjoy the rest of your dinner."

She and M4 walk out and I'm left confused. Ange didn't try to encourage me to leave. 94 did, but she wasn't insistent or anything.

"What is 'that'?" 416 ask once the door closes.

"It's not important." I look down at my food to hide my face.

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it's why Hadwin and RO aren't talking." 15 sighs. "She won't say what's wrong, but I was able to figure out enough that I know something is up."

45 seems unperturbed, but both RO and Aleah are also showing signs of discomfort.

"I don't care then." 416 says after a moment of consideration. "He'll tell me when he can."

I glance her way, meeting her eyes. "Thank you."

"...I suppose I can wait. Just, make sure you tell me as soon as you can." 15 scootches closer on the bed so we were in contact with each other.

I nod and go back to my food as the door opens once more. In comes the three people Gentiane had kicked out of the room.

Oleksiy sits on the edge of the bed across from me. "Hey man, this outfit is crazy."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I know that modern A-dolls are pretty impressive, but damn you all look like real people."

I nod. "Fooled me at first."

"Dummkopf thought I was human until he saw my guts spilling out." 416 provides.

"To be fair, Sector 3 doesn't really allow dolls. We've had this 'Anti-AI' policy in place since the end of WWIII."

Gregory arches his eyebrow. "Then who does the dangerous jobs?"

"Hmm?"

"There's lots of jobs, especially Collapse Fluid cleanup that can't be done by humans without great risk. Then, there's sewer work and other hazardous jobs. Is Sector 3 really wasting human lives on those jobs?"

I blink, thinking back to the city I grew up in. I never really considered this before…

"There's actually a clause in the Sector 3 laws that allow certain exceptions." Eva speaks up. "Hadwin's dad was talking about it with me earlier. It's how Gentaine was able to bring dolls into Sector 3 legally to be Mayor Panagos' bodyguards."

"Oh, right. I forgot about that."

"You had more important things on your mind." 15 says. "Like being betrayed."

416 and 45 tense up slightly, but I don't think that Oleksiy and Gregory caught it.

They do however want to hear about Sector 3, and I provide a moderately edited version of events to avoid having to explain certain things, like 404's continued presence. This continues for an hour before Sop bursts into the room, a shiny new foot in hand.

Eva is especially interested in it, and everyone watches as I plug it in and walk around.

"Man, it feels weird to feel the floor under my foot again." I mutter. "Thank you, Sop. It seems like it's working fine."

"I didn't have time to plug in any modules, but when I get some free time…"

"I'm sure you'll have time later, Sop. For now, lets focus on-"

RO suddenly bolts upright. "We've got company."

"Huh?"

She turns away from the window, pointing down at the ground. "Paradeus is here."

---

The next several minutes are spent scrabbling around, gathering everything up and preparing to leave as soon as we can. This includes my wet clothes, which I wring out and stuff into a plastic bag before sticking it into my backpack and my tac vest which I throw on despite how damp the straps are. I load everything back into it that won't be damaged by the water and the rest goes into the backpack.

I even strap the AT4 to the side of the pack and put my M16 in its carrying case, because it's not likely we're coming back.

As I leave the room, Gentiane's voice reaches my ears. "-leave before they decide to level this place with us in it." She turns to spot me. "Hadwin, are you ready to go?"

I roll my shoulders, the exo suit that I had retrieved from the garage responding properly. "Seems like it."

"Great." She flicks her fingers, and an image appears in the air courtesy of the Linker. "Here's footage from around the property."

Looks like there's a bunch of Strelets attempting to surround the building. I say trying because-

"There's way too few of them." I scrunch my brow.

"I know. Either they don't know how many people we have here, or they're a lot worse off than we expected." She frowns.

45 pops out of her room, messenger bag at her hip. "I covered everyone's tracks here and back. I don't think we've been followed."

"Then how are they outside?" Gentaine asks.

"Perhaps someone noted something suspicious?" 45 offers. "I can't erase memories."

"I think it's unlikely that random people would notice a random bunch of people and decide to report them." Gentaine counters.

"Uh…" I raise a hand. "Some people saw me covered in blood on my way up."

"...That'd do it." Gentiane shakes her head. "Okay, this hotel has a lot of civilians in it. We're not going to stick around here long enough for them to get caught up in it, alright?"

"Sounds good to me." I glance at the pictures again. Some of the views overlap, but I think I count about 15 of them? A number appears in the corner of my vision, and the two views have an overlay showing two of the Strelets that I thought were different are actually the same one, for a total of 14.

Yes yes, showoff.

"So, what's the plan?"

"We need them to think that only you and a few others are staying here." Gentiane rubs her chin. "AEK was seen with you, so she should probably go."

AEK steps forward, her arms now partially stitched back together. Where the bicep would be on her left arm, there's a bundle of cables and some plastic cover that looks like it's designed to look like a bicep.

"You need to go, obviously, they'll be expecting you…" She frowns.

45 breaks into the conversation. "Since we're supposed to go off separately anyway, 404 will go with him. We're most capable of losing them with my camera control, and even if we can't meet up with you we can proceed to the mission."

"...Sounds good." Gentiane nods. "Though, let me give you one more assistant." She turns and gestures to…

Ah, crap.

P90 steps up, nods to 45, and promptly glues her eyes to the floor.

Shit, it's still going to be awkward between us. I guess our little moment at the cafe wasn't enough. I take a deep breath and walk over to her. "P90?"

She looks up in surprise.

"I look forward to working with you."

She looks at my outstretched hand before looking up to me. I can't say my face was devoid of the turmoil I'm feeling, but I'm sure she can see my determination shine through too. "Okay, let's do this." Her words are more subdued than I'm used to, but she shakes my hand all the same.

"Alright, with that sorted, the six of you should head downstairs to the garage. Go ahead and be obvious, maybe stop by the lobby and spot the Strelets. Make it a show. If you can, try to make it seem like you need to get to the rest of us in another hotel."

"You're asking him to act?" 45's eye is half lidded. "Oh, this is gonna go poorly."

"Feel free to improvise." Gentiane shrugs, before looking at the large crowd we've amassed in the corridor. "Everyone should be ready to go on a moment's notice, in case this goes south."

I hike my bag higher, tap the pistol at my chest, and nod to myself. I'm ready. Well, I guess I don't have any ammo, but-

416 and G11 walk up to where 45 and P90 are waiting with me, 9 the only person missing.

Eva walks into the center of the hall and stops in front of me. "Hey, um… be careful out there."

"...Yeah." I turn to 45. "What's going on outside?"

"They haven't moved yet. Maybe they're waiting for something?"

"Crap."

Eva is still standing there. "So…"

I turn to face her fully and cross my arms. "Yeah?"

She's taken aback slightly.

MDR walks past with a packed duffle bag on her shoulder. "You've got to be a lot more direct with our Field Agent, miss. He only picks up on extremely obvious hints."

I turn my glare to MDR, but it works about as well as it worked the last several times, I.E. it didn't work at all. "MDR, shut up."

"Hey, I'm just saying."

"Well, stop saying." I turn away from the two. "Where's 9?"

"Here!" 9 opens her door, her own luggage hanging off her shoulder. "Let's get going!"

I nod and walk towards the elevators.

15 jogs to catch up, grabbing my hand in hers for a brief moment before letting go so I can enter the elevator. I smile at her and she reciprocates.

I wonder how many times I'll be able to see that smile in the future? If I leave Griffin, will I be able to see it through level 2 like Ithaca had indicated? And that's assuming I make it out of here alive…

The elevator doors close, and the lobby button appears to press itself.

"Everyone, follow my lead." 9 plasters her smile onto her face, the one that makes her seem like she's not thinking about anything. "Hadwin, only act if one of us asks you a direct question."

"Got it."

416 lines up shoulder to shoulder with me, head held high. "We'll make it out."

"Not worried about that." The elevator doors open and the seven of us walk out, though P90's form flashes blue for a fraction of a second. "I'm worried about everyone else."

"Anti-Rain is… competent." She spits out the last word like it's poison. "No one will die."

"Yeah bro." AEK spins her bike's keys around her finger. "Gentaine made it this far with pretty minimal casualties."

I nod and watch as the elevator we had just left now spews a few more dolls. At first I'm confused because while I recognize them, none of them are actually on this mission, but then I see P90 is watching the new arrivals intensely.

"They look good to me." I mutter just loud enough for her to be able to catch.

She smiles slightly and turns to follow our group.

9 suddenly skips ahead and turns to look at us. "I can't wait to get back to base!"

45's features soften slightly. "Ja, this was a nice vacation, but we've got things to do."

"I don't wanna." G11 complains, her feet dragging. "The bed here was comfy."

416 reaches out and snags G11's collar, irritation leaking onto her face.

…Is that acting? I can't tell.

AEK walks up to me. "Do you think that we're going to be heading north again after this mission?"

I hesitate. Clearly we're heading north-

Oh, right. Acting.

"Mmm…" I put my free hand up to my mouth hiding the lower half of my face. "Maybe east into Bulgaria? Gentaine was saying something about that."

"Speaking of-" 9 opens the front doors while looking back, ignoring the White Armored Strelet outside. "-where is Gentiane supposed to be meeting us?"

"Her hotel closer to-" 45's eye purposely flicks to the Strelet's blue face shield. "Ah."

"Scheisse!" 416 curses, dragging G11 back as the rest of us turn and run back into the building.

I don't even have feign surprise, not having expected 45 to grab my hand on her way past and start dragging me with her good arm.

P90's illusions act a whole lot better than I can, looking around in mild confusion before 'spotting' the Paradeus troop and turning to follow us.

We run to the stairwell and start heading down to the garage, P90 holding open the door to the stairs until her illusions enter, dropping them only once the door is firmly shut.

"Okay, down to the buggies." 9 leads the way. "We've got to get them running before they try entering the garage."

"Why?"

"Because." She grins at me as the stairs switch back. "We've got more illusions planned."

We make it down to the three buggies-

"Wait, where's the other buggy?" I look around, but I only see the two.

"It was blown up by Paradeus earlier." P90 says. "We've only got the two now."

"We've still got the APC and my bike." AEK smirks. "Speaking of, I'm gonna head out first. I'll lead them down away from the warehouse, help split up the horde."

"Not much of a horde." I shake my head. "Alright. Be careful out there."

"You too bro. Don't make me comfort all of your widows."

I roll my eyes. "Half of them are going to be with me-"

"Hadwin." 45 calls my attention and I turn to face her. She tosses the keys to the buggy my way. "You're driving."

"Got it." I turn back to AEK, and bump her outstretched fist. "See you on the other side."

"Hell yeah!"

---

Honestly, escaping the Paradeus encirclement was too easy.

P90 spoofed an entire other car full of dolls that left right after we did, my own driving reckless due to the speeds that I went through the parking lot and the ramp up to the street.

All four tires were off the ground at the end of that ramp, a very surreal feeling.

Once we landed, I followed the route my Linker laid out, though any time 45 chimed in with a suggestion I made sure to modify the plan.

All the way, she was tweaking the footage on the cameras along the way in a very obvious fashion, according to her, so it would look like she wasn't as skilled as she was on further watching of the tapes, 'not that anyone's likely to spend checking them for long. Our ruse will be fairly obvious sooner rather than later.'

Eventually, she had told P90 to cut the illusion and had gone hard on the cameras, directing me to drive down an alley and park the buggy.

P90 is panting something fierce, and when she's looking in my direction, I can feel the hot air. It's almost scorching.

I pat her shoulder nervously as we all pile out of the buggy, leaving our belongings in the lock-box built into the back. "Are you doing okay?"

"Oui. The strain of keeping up an illusion that large was…"

"Good job, take a rest."

She nods and sits down on the curb.

I ask my Linker for a map and it shows up immediately showing where I am, the circuitous route we had taken, Gentaine's suspected position, and finally our destination.

The Paradeus warehouse.

We're within walking distance, to be sure, but it's not just a few blocks. In addition, I'm in an exo suit. That's not subtle, and I have a suspicion that knowing our location or not, Paradeus isn't going to ignore the defense of an important place like that building.

I'm about to ask 45 about our next move when G11's sleepy face turns grumpy. "What a pain."

"Hmm?"

"I was watching a tv broadcast through my radio and it got cut off by an emergency broadcast." G11 grouses. "It was a good show too."

"What's the broadcast say?"

"'A curfew is now in effect. Please shelter in place until further orders are given. If no orders are given in 24 hours, please evac to the nearest tunnel.'"

Tunnels?

45 glances at the errant doll. "That's not good news."

416 turns to me. "If there's a curfew, we're going to be the only thing traveling outside."

"Yeah, I was worried about this happening earlier before we got Ange out of the city." I scratch my stubble.

"It'll take a while for the roads to clear." P90 glances at me. "Though, unless I cover him up we're not going to blend in at all."

"Nein, we're going to take another route." 45 walks over to a manhole cover. "Follow me."

She lifts the cover up and points to the ladder leading down into the darkness.

I hesitate a moment and 416 takes that moment to step in front of me and climb down the ladder.

I climb down next, looking around with Linker enhanced vision. It's a tunnel, three sets of rails stretching in each direction. We're on a walkway beside the rails. The tunnel is pretty nondescript, no markings of any kind. It's also completely without illumination, the Linker pulling overtime to allow me to see.

The rest of the group makes it down into the tunnel, all looking around with their brightly lit eyes.

…I don't think I'll ever think a pair of acid green orbs floating in the darkness is scary ever again, or a single bright yellow, or… I suppose really any color really. Two bright points in the night are a friendly sight.

"Alright, we're heading this way." 45 interrupts my train of thought. "It's going to be about half an hour on foot to the warehouse."

"This place goes past our target?" I ask.

"It does. It looks like Paradeus was planning on using this tunnel system to transport things out of the public eye." 45 turns to me. "Ange and DEFY scouted it out and found a loading area not detailed on the plans."

We start walking, our footsteps echoing into the darkness. The walls remain featureless, the only indication we're moving being the undulations at the tunnel weaves back and forth slightly.

After a few minutes of being completely alone with my thoughts, I get a message from Gentiane. No sound, just some text.

"Made it to Ange's safe house. Will use it for now. Come here after the mission."

I reply back in the same format and speak out loud to the others. "Gentiane seems to be using Ange's hideout as our new base of operations. They just made it."

There's a few nods, but nobody speaks.

Unable to handle the silence, I search desperately for something to talk about. "Hey, 45?" I ask through the Linker, to not send my voice echoing through the tunnel.

"Ja?"

"Gentiane said something about you broadcasting a video earlier and I was wondering about that."

My Linker lights up with the same footage I had partially caught earlier showing someone being turned into a Strelet. "I hijacked a local TV station, set this to play on repeat, and locked everyone out of their computers and even the studio, since it has electronic locks. They can't shut it off because of the emergency generator inside, which won't run out for a few days."

"Ah." I watch the rest of the video, which announces in both English and Serbian to stay indoors, shelter in place, don't approach anything wearing clean white armor. "Well, some of this is redundant now that there's a curfew."

"Once I can connect back to the network, I'll change it." She shrugs. "In any case, it's a useful avenue for us to use if we want to influence the civilians."

"I see."

Once more, silence descends on all of us walking through the tunnel.

"So, I was thinking." I announce.

"Uh-oh." P90's voice is teasing.

"No, seriously. The emergency broadcast said that people should be evacuating down here, right?"

"Not for the next 24 hours." 45 shakes her head. "We'll be fine until then."

"I wonder what Paradeus expects to do about their hidden connection if that happens."

9 answers instead of 45. "The warehouse is near the northern wall, next to the river that runs through the north section of the city, Zapanda Morova. There's a bunch of stations around there, but none of them have a direct connection to this tunnel. You'd have to walk for a good hour from any of them, doubling back at a junction to make it."

"It's unlikely to be found casually, and Paradeus would just shoot anyone that saw it." 45 continues. "More soldiers for the factory."

"Ugh." P90 shivers. "And nobody would wonder because 'maybe they just got lost' or something." She looks around. "I wonder how many people have disappeared down here already."

I can't help but look over my shoulder, by chance meeting the rear-guard's acid green eyes. 416 tilts her head and I give her a nervous smile.

"If we come across any records, I'll be sure to save them for you." 9 informs P90.

"Do you think there's zombies down here?" G11 whimpers.

"I'm pretty sure the tunnels are sealed to ELIDs or else they'd be useless." I assure the doll.

"No, I mean-"

"That show of yours is stupid." 9 turns to G11. "What's the point of watching a show about flying zombies when there's real ones you can see any day?"

"Yeah, but these ones are able to-"

"Shh!"

Despite all of us talking through the Linker, 45 interrupts.

I carefully draw my pistol, eyes straining in the complete darkness. "What is it?"

"We're here." She points to the side and I realize that we are just about to pass a door.

It's a regular door for a single person at a time, not a loading dock type of door, so I barely registered it at first. "Really?"

"Ja. This is the side door for emergencies. The main door is another few hundred meters down the rail, but why risk entering there?"

I turn my attention to the door, a very non-descript door that lacks even a handle. It's even painted the same color as the rest of the tunnel so it won't show up easily on casual identification. Actually, the only reason I can see where it is at all is because of the Linker highlighting it.

"Okay." I draw my pistol and check that the first pound is chambered. "After you."

9 steps up to the door, slides a metal hook into the slim gap to let the door swing and pulls downwards. The door clunks open, but 9 doesn't try to open the door.

Instead, 45 pulls out another item, a stiff card, and turns to me. "Hadwin, give me a boost."

I don't understand what she wants, but I oblige, standing by the door as indicated and kneeling on one knee.

She climbs onto my leg, her mechanical hand lightly bracing herself on my shoulder while her other hand slides the card along the top of the door, poking at… something.

Eventually, she stops moving. "Got it."

9 nods and sticks her fingers under the door and slowly starts to pry the door open, careful not to disturb either her grip on the door latch or whatever 45's thing is.

Once the door is open enough for someone to slip inside, 416 walks in, followed by G11's sleepy form and P90. 9 slides inside herself as I look up at 45. "So…"

She looks down at me, suddenly making a big show of letting go of the card and holding back her skirt. "Hey! No peeking!"

I continue to stare up at her face. "Uh, the card?"

She clicks her tongue. "You're no fun anymore. 416's holding it in place." She hops off and grabs the edge of the door. "Let's go."

"...Right." I shake my head. "And for the record, I expected you to wear black, not white."

"Oh?" Her eye brightens. "So you did see."

"Y'know, I'm partial to shorts." I sigh as I round the corner, glancing up to see that indeed 416 is holding the card against… something. "Less chance of you flashing someone accidentally."

"Was it an accident though?"

I glance back at her as 9 lets the door close, choosing not to respond.

The main channel opens back up as P90 looks around. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. It's time to start the mission." 45 nods to 416 who removes the card.

"What's that?" I ask.

"A pressure switch for the door. If the switch trips, two wires disconnect and a signal is sent to the security department. We had to hold it closed." 9 shrugs.

"Couldn't you just hack it?"

"What part of 'two wires' didn't make sense? There's nothing to hack." 45 rolls her eye.

"...Fine." I check my pistol once more and start following the five T-dolls.

P90's got her signature weapon ready, looking slightly odd with a suppressor attached to the front of it.

G11's hugging her namesake.

Both of the UMP's have their weapons at the ready, as does 416 who is taking the lead and walking sideways so she can keep her weapon sighted as we go down the hallway.

Being the rearguard, I can't help but look behind me every so often. It's probably just my nerves, but I feel like something is about to ambush us from behind. Or, maybe it's just watching us?

"Hey, 45?"

"Hmm?"

"There's no cameras down here, are there?"

"Nein. Why?"

"I dunno. Just a feeling of being watched."

416 stops, but doesn't look away. 45 turns around and steps up behind me, staring into the darkness beyond my Linker's range. "I don't feel anything."

"...I guess it's just my imagination."

"Man, this is creepy." P90 hugs herself. "Can we just head inside please? I wanna get into the light before my IR beams fail."

"If our eyes were that poorly constructed, we couldn't go on night missions." 416 rolls her own pair. "Grow up."

"Says the dolls that don't have to go in for maintenance on her eyes every few weeks." P90 grumbles.

"Which is a point in our favor. If we needed maintenance that much, we'd be completely useless." 9 counters.

"Fine! Can we just go?"

"Ja." 45 waves forward and 416 continues.

Before long, we run into a door. This one has a small glass window through which light can be seen.

416 plasters herself to the wall beside the door as 9 and 45 step up to start picking the lock.

I brace myself as the door clicks open and 45 stops with her hand on the handle. "Okay. Hadwin, you're with me, 9, and P90. 416 and G11 should wait here on standby unless things go south."

"Eh?" P90 blinks. "We're bringing him?"

"He'll be useful." 45 asserts. "Activate your cloak and let's get started."

After the telltale blue flash, the four of us disappear from sight, only my Linker allowing me to see where everyone is. We creep out into the hall, weapons readied and sense on high alert.

It's not long before we encounter a security guard. He's pretty heavily armed, clothes similar to the other Paradeus personnel I've seen in the past.

45 and 9 raise their weapons immediately, aiming at the man who continues to walk slowly, head bobbing along to a beat none of us can hear. P90 raises her own weapon and leans on the wall to stay out of the way.

Me? I practically attempted to melt into the wall, brain screaming at me to run because of course he can see me. The hallway is brightly lit, my dark clothing is in stark contrast to the light gray walls, and I look nothing like the guards.

Still, P90's little invisibility trick works perfectly. I have some experience with it before, but now with a little bit of stealth training hammered into my skull, I feel myself rebelling against the logic that I'm actually invisible.

Fortunately, as we encounter more and more security, I'm able to calm myself down a bit, since they repeatedly fail to so much as glance our way.

45 doesn't have a map of the facility, but by guessing and intuition, we make it through the lower halls and into the main warehouse floor unmolested, exiting the tunnels via a staircase.

Opening that door into the warehouse hits me like a massive dose of deja vu. Military style crates stacked on racks multiple stories high, hallways twisting and turning on themselves. Off to the sides, sub-buildings with big windows show the scene Ange had managed to record; Strelets being created. Other sections are dedicated to building weapons, and there's presumably more than I can't see.

Part of my gut wants me to charge in and cut off the Strelet making machine, but I already know the subjects are long dead. Rushing in is too likely to get me killed.

Something that is different from what I expected is the amount of people running around. Instead of a few guards, there's plenty of people walking through the aisles and grabbing items from all around. We're forced to plaster ourselves to the wall to avoid a forklift passing by.

"P90, what's the range on your cloak?" 45 asks once the forklift has passed.

"I'll be able to maintain it as long as we're all together." P90 shakes her head. "If we split up it's not going to be stable for long, or I'll cook."

45 and 9 look at each other. "Fine. P90, you and Hadwin head to the left. We'll take the right. Report back anything interesting you find."

I nod, P90 glancing my way. 45 and 9 wait for a gap in the patrols and take off down one of the twisty aisles.

P90 and I head the other direction a lot more slowly, both attempting to keep our noise down to an absolute minimum as we sneak past busy people.

"What's going on?" I eventually asked over the Linker.

"Looks like they're scrambling to prepare for war." 45 states. "Pulling as much together as they can as fast as they can. I suppose that with our presence in the city and the KCCO on the outside, they're starting to feel the pressure."

"Either that, or this is normal and they have armies hidden somewhere." 9 comments.

I feel my stomach twist into a knot at the idea.

"If that was likely, we woulda had a lot more resistance to us trying to escape." P90 replies. "Hadwin did kill their local leader, so the smaller response kinda indicates they don't have the forces we expected."

"True, but only if they're still in the city." 9 muses.

"Where else would they be?"

Nobody is willing to answer P90's question.

Instead, we get to investigating the nearby crates.

Frankly, I don't know what we're looking for. I'm just glancing at the little shipping manifests and trying to judge what the items inside are supposed to be. Nothing in particular jumps out at me after a few tense minutes of carefully looking at labels and dodging people walking around.

"Uh-oh."

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end at 9's transmitted worry. "What?"

"We've found a truck." 45's voice is contemplative. "It's full of doll parts, conventional ammunition, and a bunch of dummy links."

My brow furrows. "That's… way too convenient."

"Yes, it's got everything we are likely to need. That's because this is a trap." 45's voice remains calm. "416, G11, head to the exit door. Don't open it yet, and keep an eye on the hallway. Don't let anyone sneak up on you."

"Of course not." 416's reply is steady.

"Hadwin, you need to get out before they spring the trap. We've been careful so they probably don't know that we're here yet."

"But, we need to shut down their operations." I counter. "That's half the reason we're here!"

"Too risky." P90 grabs my arm. "If they're expecting us, this isn't going to end well."

My eyes stray over to the Strelet factory, a corpse currently being assembled into a suit by a large surgical and welding combination robot. That desecration of a corpse, soon to be a soldier pointing its rifle at me or mine.

"Shit." I curse. "Okay. P90, what's the fastest way out of here?"

"I dunno." She shrugs. "I don't have a map. I do see some cargo doors on that wall though."

I turn around and spot the tall rolling shutter doors common to warehouses. "We'll head for those then. Usually there's a smaller door for people around it, right?"

"It's good enough." 45 replies. "We'll see about snagging this truck."

"...Isn't it a trap?"

"Ja. But it's got all the equipment we need. Ignoring it isn't much of an option."

"...Good luck."

"Danke."

I glance at P90. "I guess we should get going?"

Carefully we walk around the maze of crates, stopping to avoid passing lab techs and guards as they scurry about and grab parts. Several times it seems like we're going to get caught, but each time I'm able to move away just enough to not get caught.

For all the warehouse's size, it's not really that hard to get from one side to the other. While it felt like it took ages, it was only about ten minutes to get to the shutters that P90 had spotted.

In front of those shutters…

"Hey, 45?" P90 raps on the side of the vehicle in front of us.

"Ja?"

"They have Uhlans." P90 shakes her head. "Hadwin, we really should go."

I nod to her. Invisible, I'm able to walk up to and in between the two massive vehicles.

"How many?" 45 asks.

"A pair of them." I respond. "They look so much bigger up close."

"...Schiesse. Just get out of the warehouse, we'll note this to Gentiane."

I continue to stare at the big, heavily armored, unprotected tank.

"Hadwin?"

"Yeah." I snap out of it. "Yeah, I hear you."

P90 steps up next to me. "You wanted to steal it?"

"The thought did cross my mind." I gesture back toward the other facilities. "We need to shut those down, and this would be a great way to do that."

"It is." P90's mouth slowly widens into a grin. "Y'know, UMP 45 doesn't actually get to order you around. Maybe you should exercise less restraint?"

I hesitate. P90 has a point, and man do I want to just use the tank to wreck shit. Then again, 45's the expert at stealth missions and getting out of here seems like a really good idea…

I glance back and P90's gotten her hand wrapped around the handle to climb onto the tank. "Coming?"

I scramble up the side of the tank after P90-

"Hey!"

I glance to the side to see a Paradeus security guard aiming a pistol at me. It takes a good second to realize a few things. The first is that I'm no longer invisible for some reason. The second is that if I don't move now, I'm dead.

I duck down and open up the hatch on the side, getting it closed just in time to avoid getting shot.

Outside, sirens start wailing.

"Oh shit, oh shit-" I mutter to myself.

"What do we do now?" P90 asks, glancing at the control interface.

I look at it myself, a sinking feeling entering my gut as I realize that I have no idea how to operate this. There's a pilot chair with a dangling cable around the neck area, something similar for a gunner, but not much else. No steering wheel, no levers… "How is this controlled?"

Outside, I can hear someone banging on the hatch.

"Hadwin Galanis." A voice calls from inside the cramped vehicle. My blood runs cold, eyes flicking to a screen the seconds earlier had been inactive. I know that voice.

Anisim stares at me through the screen, a vindictive gleam in his eyes. "I see you've fallen for our trap. I was half convinced that you had decided to do the smart thing, but then here you are. I commend you for trying to steal an Uhlan, but as you see it's quite impossible."

"...B-but, you're dead. I stabbed you." The world starts spinning around the screen, all other noises fading into the background.

He shrugs. "Paradeus has a contract with death. Surely given all you've seen, recovering a corpse and bringing it back doesn't seem so far-fetched?" His smirk turns into a twisted grin. "I told you I'd be back on my feet soon enough, didn't I?"

I can't even move or blink, my eyes glued to the screen.

No. No no nonono. He can't be back. He-

"Now, if you'd be so kind as to open the hatch? We'd really appreciate not having to cut our way into the Uhlan. They're moderately expensive, you see."

I continue to stare blankly at the screen, my brain refusing the evidence of my eyes. This is impossible.

No way, no how.

"Hadwin." P90's hand lands on my shoulder and I jump. "Hook yourself into the tank."

"Huh?" I glance back at the dangling plug. "You mean like an exo suit?"

"Yep!"

Anisim's face flicks from a hint of confusion to contempt. "While normally I'd enjoy watching you fry your brains, I still have a use for you. Open the hatch and I just might spare your 'friends'."

Once more, my attention is drawn to the screen.

"Yes, I know that there's five dolls here with you. We monitor all exits and entrances into our little operation, you see, and while the trick you pulled to get into the warehouse proper was impressive, in the end it's not a match for our technology."

"You're bluffing." 404's the best in the business and P90's in here with me, so they should be fine.

I have to trust in that.

"Am I? Just open the hatch and we can talk. I can't promise that any of the others will survive, but I can promise that if you don't get out of there right now, all five of them will be tortured slowly while you watch."

I can feel P90's hand on my shoulder. Reassurance. I take a deep, shuddering breath and open my eyes back up. "Anisim?"

"Yes?"

"Fuck you." I grab the plug and fumble it into a slot on the back of the Linker.

"Hadwin-!"

Instantly, my brain is assaulted by digital static, all of my senses inundated with random noise; My eyes see all of the colors floating around in blobs, my ears can hear a cacophony of indiscernible sounds. Every inch of my skin is simultaneously on fire and ice cold being crushed by the weight of a few people. Even my sense of smell and sense of taste is saturated and rendered useless.

Somewhere in the screaming, my brain picks out something coherent. I can't tell what it is at first, but it's not the shapeless mass of color that everything else is.

I focus hard, desperate to have at least something make sense.

Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the colors start to resolve slightly. What had been sheer visual noise only moments earlier is starting to become something I can actually interpret.

It's…

It's the warehouse, but smaller.

I try to rub my eyes only to find I don't have hands. Further panicked checks find that I don't have feet, or a body or even my own head.

I'm the Uhlan.

The realization comes with the knowledge of how to operate the vehicle. I can feel the treads, the cannon on top. I can feel the grenade launcher loading up a shot. I can sense that there's no radar sweeping me, and I can see all of the small heat signatures surrounding me.

Those heat signatures are marked as friendly, but given they're pointing guns at me, I think I should reclassify them.

Fractions of a second later, the first grenade goes off, blowing the enemy aside.

I look around, my turret swinging to show me what I'm aiming at.

I mark the Strelet production line and fire the main cannon.

Plasma rips through the machines, melting them to slag in only a few volleys. I rotate my treads so I'm pointing into the warehouse, and spin myself up to ramming speed.

Then, I rampage.

Information flows in freely.

How many grenades I have left.

How hot the cannon barrel is.

And how many shots I have until it overheats.

My GPS location and a small map of known targets.

I roll around, smashing through the carefully stacked crates and crushing terrified people under my treads.

Each of the special sections of the warehouse fall one after the other. Weapons manufacturing, some sort of office, a medical ward.

All of them reduced to rubble.

As I sweep my eyes across the destruction I've wrought, I see something move.

Is that… is that someone driving away?

Do they think they're allowed to escape?

I climb the rubble, treads scrambling to find purchase on the scattered and broken crates. I can't let any of them get away.

He threatened 416 and 45.

He threatened all of 404 and P90.

I'm not going to stand for that.

Eventually I make it out of the warehouse into the brightly lit yard. I still have thermals on, which makes it easier to see the hot exhaust of the truck that's trying to escape. No escape. It lurches to a halt, tires screeching in the night as I hone in on it, cannon prepared to fire.

Suddenly two blobs step out into the road from behind some parked vehicles. They're not quite the same temperature as humans. I switch to exclusively using visible light, and sure enough, it's a bunch of T-dolls.

T-dolls are the enemy. They're marked as high priority targets

…Wait, that doesn't seem right.

I look closer, a set of acid green eyes staring back.

Don't I know those?

Suddenly, the hatch in my side opens, and I realize I had stopped paying attention to my surroundings.

That was a fatal mistake.

A fraction of a second later, my world goes completely dark.

Returning to my own body is shocking and disorienting, causing me to lean over and heave my guts out before I can register what's going on around me.

"Hadwin!" Two hands land on my shoulder and I turn to face a doll with one eye. "Hadwin! What are you doing?!"

I try to work my mouth, but I can't seem to get my mouth to make coherent noises. Her face is genuinely concerned, and that… that is fucking me up.

I caused that? No, I can't have. I wouldn't have…

What the fuck just happened? The last few minutes existed, I'm sure of it, so why can't I properly recall any of it?

And, I'm pretty sure one eye has a name.

What is it though?

"Ah, whatever. We're leaving!" She grabs me and starts to drag my limp form out of the tank, the doll with green eyes appearing over the hatch to haul me out.

Once she's pulled me out, she holds me close as she leaps down off the top and sprints towards the truck. Once inside, I see brown eyes and gray eyes are already crammed into the cab's small backseat while red eyes is in the driver's seat. Green eyes refuses to let go of me even as one eye scrambles inside and barks something to red eyes that I can't hear.

The truck starts to move, and my newly formed headache overwhelms my senses.

---

Have you ever woken up from sleep only to find yourself staring at the ceiling, and knowing you have been staring at the ceiling for a while? The realization that I'm awake and have a significant headache seems to hit me all at once. My eyes are dry and I have to blink a few times to moisten them up.

Once I can look around I discover I'm in a room covered in pictures. It's entirely unfamiliar and that, combined with the leaden feeling of all my limbs, is starting to cause me to panic.

No. No panicking. I have to pay attention to my surroundings. Something happened and I need to figure out what.

I… I was in the warehouse.

I, no, we were trying to steal a bunch of supplies and get rid of the warehouse because… um… because Paradeus needs it. There were a few of us there.

Yeah. 404, and… and P90.

45 saw it was a trap and we had to escape.

P90 and I found some Uhlans-

Anisim.

I can feel my heart beating faster and faster.

Anisim is alive and I plugged myself into that Uhlan…

And then everything past that is blurry.

Painful.

Okay, so something happened after I plugged myself into the Uhlan. Something that put me here.

Oddly, I don't really hurt that much physically. It's mostly just the back of my neck that feels like I have some bad sunburn.

My eyes dart around the room and I find myself completely alone. I'm lying down on a larger bed and I seem to have lost both my exo suit and my tac vest. My Linker is gone too.

Slowly, I force my arm to move, then my other arm, and then I risk sitting up.

My head is a little woozy, but I'm able to look around the room.

I don't recognize the room at all. Even if all the photos were taken down, it's just too distinct from anything I'm familiar with. The photos themselves seem to be of places around the city, and not even the popular places, like tourist locations. Just boring streets, some random stores, a few unmarked buildings…

I hear a noise from outside the room and I spin to stare at the door.

There's someone outside.

I glance around the room only to find it largely barren. Nothing to use as a weapon. I guess I'll be using my hand knife then.

Someone steps up to the door and the knob turns. I brace myself and prepare to lunge.

S.A.T. opens the door and finds me hopping on one foot, trying to abort a strike, my hand already snapped back into normal mode.

"...Hadwin?!" She cries.

"Ah, y-yeah, sorry about that-"

She leaps forwards herself, bowling me off my feet with a crushing bear hug. "You're alive!"

"Ow! Yeah, I'm alive, but- ow!"

She buries her face into my chest for a few seconds before finally looking up at me. "I'm so glad."

Before I can react, more dolls poke their heads in. 416, 15, and Sop. Upon seeing me sprawled on the floor, decide that the best course of action is dogpile.

S.A.T. manages to stand up just as the other three descend, Sop latching onto my legs and the other two practically collapsing on top of me. 15 immediately wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me closer to her, while 416 places one of her hands on my chest and the other on my cheek.

Stunned by this sudden display of affection, I'm unable to speak for a few seconds. I'm unable to move either, but that's because there's three T-dolls on top of me. "Uh…what's going on?"

"Idiot." 15 mutters.

"Dummkopf." 416 agrees.

Aleah walks into the room, eyes focusing on me immediately. "Ah, you're awake." Her features soften. "That's good."

"...What happened?"

Sop grabs my clothes and pulls herself up in between the other two ARs. "You weren't waking up."

"We were worried you'd never wake up." 15 mumbles into my shoulder. "45 said-"

"It doesn't matter." 416 snaps. "You're okay. That's all that's important."

I relax my head to the floor and stare back at the ceiling. Well, I suppose that I can get answers later.

The door slams open and more dolls pour into the room. The three assault rifles get off of me just in time for Mk23 to pounce. She lands on top of me, squeezes her arms around me for a few seconds before letting go and pulling me to my feet. Before I can react, G11 glomps onto my side. With her restricting my movement, M200 is able to grab me in a hug as well.

AEK sets herself against the wall. 9 walks over to the bed to sit down and watch the commotion. NTW's features are relieved, which is the most expressive I've seen her. SV seems to be holding back tears, along with S.A.T.

…I don't think it's ever really hit me just how much they care about me. But now, with a room crammed full of relieved dolls, I can see just how much I must have worried them all.

45 steps in front of me as the other three let go. "Hadwin?"

"Yeah?"

"If you ever try to interface with any Paradeus tech again, I'm not going to pull you out." Her eye flicks around, noting all the others watching the two of us. "What you did was insanely reckless, and almost got all of us killed."

"...Yeah." I nod. "Sorry."

"We almost lost you."

"'Lost'?"

"You plugged your brain into a machine that even I've never had a chance to look at. It probably should have fried your brain. I'm amazed it didn't. When I pulled you out of the Uhlan, you didn't respond to any outside stimulus at all."

I swallow. That sounds bad.

"You've been asleep for about six hours, just so you know."

Scratching my neck where the burning sensation is, I contemplate my actions. "Well, I'm awake now. I don't feel bad at all."

She looks at me askance for a few seconds. "Well, as long as you're okay, then, we need to report to-"

9's leg snaps out and she pushes her sister, sending her into my arms. I have to grab her to stop her from falling over and her own arms wrap around me.

We stand like that for a second before she lets go, turning away from me.

…Is she blushing?

No, it can't be.

"Ah, you said something about a report?" I offer her an olive branch after a few seconds of awkward silence. Thankfully none of the others are leering, but it's still awkward.

"J-ja. We need to report to Gentiane about what happened. Some of it doesn't make sense."

"Of course." I glance around the room, taking in the dozen or so gazes. They all care about me, to some degree or another. Through manipulation or situation, all of them have a bond with me, and I to them.

The true weight of the relief hits me and I feel myself start to choke up.

Almost a whisper, I manage just two words before I duck my head and leave the room with 45.

"Thank you."

I follow 45's lead down the hallway down to another room, this one a kitchen of some sort.

Inside, Gentiane, Echelon 10, Echelon 1, M4, and RO are crammed into the kitchen of what is increasingly more apparent is a standard apartment. From the conversation earlier in the tunnels, I'm assuming this is Angelia's old apartment.

"So you woke up." Gentiane looks me up and down. "Most of us were worried that you wouldn't."

"Yeah, it seems like I made a few bad choices." Despite the crowd, there's a seat open across from Gentiane and she gestures for me to sit in it. Once my butt hits the plastic, 45's form appears in front of me and she sits on one of my thighs. I decide to let this go unchallenged. "What's going on?"

"Normally, our first order of business would be to make sure you're mentally sound. Humans don't tend to survive having their brains plugged into machines."

"Especially not unknown ones." 45 mutters.

"However, the situation outside is getting worse, so I'll settle for getting an understanding of your actions earlier."

I see P90 in the corner of my eye wringing her hands. I suppose that since she was with me, she's been interrogated a bunch. I start from entering the tunnels, sneaking around and looking through the stacks of crates, only to abort the mission and run into the Uhlans.

When I start describing P90 suggesting that I climb into the tank, Geniane stops me. "You say she encouraged you to get into the Uhlan?"

"I… well, I wouldn't say encouraged." I try to backtrack. "Just that she-"

"Hadwin." The warning in Gentiane's tone shuts me up and forces me to think about my next words.

"She… she climbed onto the Uhlan and indicated the hatch to me. That's when I was spotted by security and had to duck into the Uhlan."

Silence in the room.

"W-what?"

"45, if you would." Gentiane indicates a TV mounted to the wall. Echelon 10 has to move out of the way so I can see the screen.

After a few seconds of video, I realize I'm watching P90's view inside the warehouse. She's checking up on me often, though I'm invisible. I'm highlighted like when I was looking at the other dolls when they were invisible.

"They have Uhlans." The view shakes as P90 shakes her head. "Hadwin, we really should go."

I watch myself nod, still looking at the Uhlan.

Next, I start talking with 45.

"How many?"

"A pair of them." My voice comes through the speaker. "They look so much bigger up close."

"...Schiesse. Just get out of the warehouse, we'll note this to Gentiane."

"Okay Hadwin, let's go." P90 looks around. "We can't be here if-"

"Yeah. Yeah, I hear you."

I frown. Did I cut her off?

"So, let's go."

"The thought did cross my mind." The Hadwin on the screen waves out at the facilities. "We need to shut those down, and this would be a great way to do that."

"Yes, that's if we're able to control them." P90's voice is confused. "We don't have time to figure it out right now. Let's go before-"

The 'me' on screen stares up at the tank for a few seconds before gripping the handrail and starting to climb onto the tank.

"Hadwin?!"

45's voice cuts in. "P90? What's going on?"

"Hadwin's climbing into the Uhlan!"

On screen, my head jerks to the side, and P90's gaze follows to find nothing but crates. By the time she looks back, I'm already halfway into the hatch, locking it behind myself.

"Merde." P90 mumbles, already backing away. "45, we have a pro-."

The video pauses, but I continue to stare at the unmoving screen. That's not what happened. That's not what I saw-

Oh.

Oh no.

It wasn't P90 that was with me in the Tank.

It was… it was the other P90.

The voice in my head.

How did I get the two confused?

"How do you account for the differences in what you did and what you said you did?" Gentiane asks.

"...I…" I let my head drop into my left hand, my right hand currently blocked by 45's body. "I saw…"

The room is deathly silent as I stare into space, brain trying to reconcile everything that just happened.

"I… I've been seeing a, um, different P90 in my head." I admit. "The old one."

P90 is stock still in the corner of the room.

"It's not a lot, and… and nothing like this has ever happened before. Just glimpses or hearing her voice." I start to shake. "I know I'm going crazy, but-"

45's hand finds mine, interleaving her fingers in mine. Somehow, this stops me from shaking.

"Hadwin, hearing voices is usually a bad sign." Gentiane says gently. "When did it start?"

"...Two days ago, in the Parliament building." I find I can't make eye contact with anyone. "Right before… before…"

"I see." She leans back in her seat. "I suppose it was the stress that did it."

I remain silent.

That's the conclusion I had drawn as well, but hearing it from her mouth makes it seem more real.

"I hate to ask this, but do you think you're still combat capable? If you're not, we need to get you out of the city as soon as we can. Things are about to go south very quickly." She leans back forwards and splays her hands open. "If we were outside the walls, I'd kick you out in a heartbeat, send you to see Dr. Matvei, and lock you in there until he figures out if you can recover."

"That is the only sensible course of action." Five-seveN offers.

"But." Gentiane's face twists into one full of regret. "It seems like we've kicked the hornet's nest and I need all the help I can get."

I look up at her eyes. A light brown, bordering on red.

"Some woman claiming to speak for Paradeus broadcasted a message." M4 states. "They've abandoned the city to the KCCO. According to the other commanders, Paradeus' presence in and around the city has completely disappeared."

"45 hacked into a broadcast station and we've taken over issuing orders to the city, trying to get everyone evacuated into the tunnel system. It's already equipped as a shelter, but it's been slow going getting everyone out. The KCCO are already advancing on the Eastern wall and there's already been a few pockets of panic that resulted in people's deaths."

I continue to stare blankly.

"As much as I'd like to just get out of the city and catch up to Ange, the KCCO are making it very hard to leave the city. A few boats tried to leave, but they were sunk."

"So… you're saying we're stuck here." I mutter.

"Yes."

"You don't have to fight." RO speaks up, drawing a lot of eyes her way. "Just sit in here. This place is reinforced, well stocked, and you should be safe until the KCCO find what they're looking for and leave."

"RO-" Gentiane turns to the doll standing off to the side.

A ringing sound cuts through the air and I slap my pocket.

It's my cell phone.

Pulling the object out, I see that the caller ID is my mom.

Gentiane notices my expression and waves for me to go ahead.

I answer the call and put the device to my ear. "Hi, mom."

"Oh, thank goodness." Tension leaks from mom's voice. "I was worried that you had gotten caught up in one of the riots."

"Ah, no, I'm currently safe." I lick my lips. "Where are you?"

"We're all still in the city. We heeded the lockdown order, but now that we want to evacuate, it seems like the… um… Russian Military is too close to our jet for us to leave."

My blood freezes. "What?"

"Yes. Your father is currently trying to plot a route to it, but it looks like we may have to shelter inside this building until they leave. They're starting to move through the streets."

I look around the room, everyone seeing the horror on my face, but not privy to the conversation.

"Mom… put dad on the phone."

I set the phone down on the table and press the speaker button.

"Hadwin?" Dad's voice comes through the speaker after a few seconds.

"Dad, you're on speaker." I state. "Why are you still in the city?"

"Ah… well, it seems like the small airport we landed in has been overrun with some Russian troops." He laughs awkwardly. "According to the TV, they're here to find something, and we've missed our chance to take off. Maybe they'll find what they need and leave?"

"Mr. Galanis?" Gentiane's voice hardens back up. "Are you in the airport?"

"Yes, we are."

"Do you have a defensible positions?"

There's some murmuring that doesn't get translated through the phone. "The staff says that there's an emergency safe room."

"Retreat there. We're going to see if we can't get that bird in the air." Gentiane's eyes meet mine.

Ah. I see. That's the plan.

I take a deep breath. "Well dad, it looks like I'm headed your way."

---

The darkened streets are empty. Traffic is gridlocked and unmoving, leaving us to travel Eastwards through the stopped vehicles. Even when we were fighting through crowds, the majority of people avoided the sixty-odd people sporting guns and tactical gear walking towards the threat.

To my left, Anti-Rain is checking ammo. To my right, 11-1 is keeping an eye ahead, SV especially focusing forward, looking through her scope every few seconds. In front, both 11-2 and Echelon 10, both warily striding forward, picking our path. Behind, 404 talks with Gentiane and Echelon 1.

Eva's also back there, a tactical vest scrounged from Ange's apartment strapped onto her. She's definitely out of place, but on mutual agreement, Gentiane and I figured she should be on the plane out. Eva protested, but she's not the one with the guns.

Apparently, 404 made it back with both the truck and our buggy earlier, so we're reasonably equipped. Some of the dolls that have more exotic ammo requirements are out of luck, but nobody's unarmed. We've also got a few dozen dummy links walking with us, over doubling our forces.

Aside from me almost frying my brains, the raid on the Paradeus base was actually a major success on our part. We've got some supplies, just enough to maybe take an airport long enough to allow a plane to take off.

Hopefully.

NTW strays away from her group, pulls up next to me. "Commander, we're nearing the airport."

"Right." My Linker shows me the path we're taking, only two deserted blocks left before we approach. Being inside the city limits, it's more of a heliport. It's small, and the only vehicles that can land are VTOLs: Aircraft that can vertically Take-Off and Land. It's not even on ground level, instead being on top of a sturdy parking deck, sporting a whole six individual landing pads.

Right now, there's only one vehicle currently on a pad, the passenger jet that had ferried my family and Eva's from Sector 3.

"We've made contact with Mikhail." Gentiane announces through the comms network. "He managed to get Statesec to pull some strings and get us a satellite feed for the next… thirty minutes. As you can see, the KCCO are already occupying the helipads. We're not sure if they're planning on bringing resources in through that route or not, but we've got two objectives here; The first is to secure the one remaining aircraft and evacuate any civilians in the airport; The second objective is to blow it to hell, so the KCCO can't use it. Any questions?"

Nobody opens their mouth.

"Alright then. 10, 1, 404, follow me. Anti-Rain, 11-1, and 11-2 follow the Field Agent."

NTW, S.A.T., and M4 look in my direction. I look at the map once more, deciding on a course of action. "Okay, 11-1, you're going to post up in this building across the road. It's the only building high enough for you to get an angle on the roof, and we need you to make sure that the KCCO doesn't do anything funny with the jet. 11-2, we're going to be pushing up through the garage. Anti-Rain…" I hesitate.

Sop's eyes light up as I look her way. "Yeah? What are we gonna do?"

I look back at M4. "Would you be better at pushing through the garage or trying to sneak around?"

"Gentiane's group is going to be heading through the elevator shaft. We could work on securing that for them."

"Perfect."

"Aw, we're not gonna be charging the enemy?" Sop whines.

"Think about it this way." I pat the excitable doll's head. "You get to kill anything that shows up, and trust me, given how many KCCO units are flooding into the city, there's going to be a lot of stuff for you to fight."

"I suppose that's good enough."

"It'll have to be." I turn to the three rifles and Mk23. "Your post is up there." I point to the building. "Only fire if they're about to shoot something important. Also stop them from shooting anyone if you can. Other than that, just wait until we're there to help."

"Understood." NTW nods. Mk23 and SV throw me a salute before turning and heading towards the building, M200 waving as she chases after them.

Seeing NTW hesitate, I turn towards her fully. "Something on your mind?"

Her face remains neutral. "Good luck."

"You too."

She turns to follow the rest of her squad into the building.

"Okay." I mutter to myself. "Anti-Rain, you better get moving yourselves."

"Understood." AR-15 regrips her rifle.

RO nods, but doesn't say anything.

M4 copies RO's demeanor.

Sop's lips curl away from her teeth as her eyes start to go wide, the excitement of the hunt getting to her already.

I look back at the shotgun and two machine guns and brace myself. "Ready?"

"Always." Aleah nods.

"Si!" S.A.T. loads a shell into her namesake, the click-click of her weapon oddly comforting.

"Is it too late to go back and get my bike?" AEK grins.

"Much too late." I grin back.

I lead us down an alley and right up toward the parking deck. There's three entrances built for vehicles and I have to pick one of them to enter.

Well, I suppose there's nothing as distracting as entering through the front door.

"Shields." I state, and the blue glow envelopes me before fading away. Two of S.A.T. keep pace, one of her on each side. I have to stare at the dummy to see the differences, and I find that in general, if I'm not paying attention, I can't really tell them apart.

Negev and AEK each have a dummy as well, bringing my frontal assault force up to 7 units if I include myself. Up against… probably way more KCCO troops.

Speaking of-

An Aegis pokes its head out, face turning to see the seven of us crossing the street.

I level my rifle and pull the trigger, sending a trio of bullets through its head.

Immediately, more Cyclops and Aegis units start popping up, guns rapidly being aimed in our direction.

I break into a sprint with 11-2, making it to the wall beside the center entrance with the help of S.A.T.'s shield.

I slam my back into the concrete support and make sure the rest of my squad made it. Noting zero casualties between the dolls or dummies.

Good.

A cyclops pokes its head around the wall and we stare at each other for a second. My brain has a hard time processing that it just walked around the corner all brazenly like that, but it has no such hangup. Its weapon raises up-

S.A.T.'s weapon reports and it loses its head, the flash revealing the scene through the darkness.

"Thanks, S-"

"WATCH OUT!"

I duck as more KCCO pour out of the entrance, apparently having decided to rush us.

Aleah and AEK open up as S.A.T. grabs my collar and starts dragging me back as the enemy's fire starts to impact our shared force shield.

I manage to bring my weapon to bear on a few of the KCCO forces, but my bullets just scrape along their armor.

S.A.T. hauls me over the wall suddenly, her legs propelling the both of us up a good meter and a half. I lose all sense of direction as I leave the darkness and my eyes are temporarily blinded by the interior lighting of the garage. Inside, the echoes of gunfire assault my head and make it even harder to get my bearings as I struggle to my feet, leading with my weapon, looking for flashes of green.

With all the chaos, car alarms start to go off, further adding to the confusion.

Three bursts of fire around a nearby car and I take down a cyclops before ducking back to avoid incoming fire.

Aleah pokes her head in through the door, having dispatched the enemies that had tried to flush us out and starts laying down fire. AEK joins moments later, followed by both of her and Aleah's dummies, and finally S.A.T.'s dummy, the five moving behind the cars for concealment, shooting all the while.

The assorted Cyclops and Aegis units are forced to split their attention between the two groups as S.A.T. and I continue to try to edge around them to try to pincer them.

I ensure they can't follow us visually by staying low and only taking pot shots through gaps between cars.

It's not working particularly well as reinforcements arrive from the floor above and force both of us to duck behind a concrete divider to block incoming fire from above. The cars are keeping us hidden for now, but if they start randomly firing…

I peek around the side and dump the rest of my mag at the soldiers approaching from the upper floors. As unfocused as my fire is, it does nothing of note.

S.A.T.'s shots have a lot more effect on the targets, aiming for joints and staggering a bunch of them.

I reload as fast as I'm able and peek out again, shooting the downed enemy units that are still able to hold their rifles to disable them.

"Hadwin, we're in the elevator." M4's voice calls out.

"Great." I grit out. "Can you climb it?"

"Better." RO's voice is level. "I have control of the car."

"Sounds like you've got it under control." I duck back as one of the shotgun-wielding Cyclops finds a line of fire before I can finish it.

"It sounds like you don't." She responds.

"Oh, I dunno." I rip an old American frag grenade from Ange's stash from my gear, the ring still attached to the vest. "We're not dead yet."

"Stay that way. We'll be back to assist."

I toss the grenade, spoon releasing as it sails through the air, landing at the feet of one of the Aegis units. The grenade bounces back at us, the slope of the garage floor rolling it back our way-

Five seconds are up, and the explosive goes off, shrapnel clattering off the floor, walls, ceiling, and our cover. The ricochets smack into me, the metal no longer fast enough to get stopped by S.A.T.'s shield. One of them stabs into my flesh hand and I almost drop my M16.

"OW! Sonnova-"

"Hadwin?!" Several voices flood the channel with concern.

"I'm fine!" I snap. "Keep fighting!"

I debate pulling the shrapnel out of my hand, but I think that polling it out would just further risk damage. It's nowhere near as bad as the plate that destroyed my left hand. Just a light scratch.

The grenade had the desired effect of taking out a few of the enemy, scattering the rest so S.A.T. can continue to stymie their flow.

I regrip my rifle, ignoring the stabbing feeling in my hand. Once more sighting in on some KCCO, my rifle roars and I send more of them into the ground. Just aim for the limbs, they can't hurt me if they don't have limbs.

I can feel the exo suit compensating for my lack of aim, gently guiding me into better firing positions and correcting my aim. With its help, I'm able to score a few kills.

Right as the reinforcements stop coming, a large Orthrus steps around the corner, jaws clamping around a car and throwing it in our direction faster than I can react. It's only because it misaimed that I didn't lose my head, the heavy metal vehicle slamming into the ones behind us, and turning the two into a tangled mess.

"AEK is down." Aleah's voice is devoid of emotion.

"What?!" I curl further behind the chipping concrete barrier as S.A.T. once more fires her namesake to drive the beast off.

"Her main unit was tagged in the head. Core is intact."

"Is her dummy still functional?"

"No. It needs to be puppeted."

"Shit. Okay."

"Commander, we're in position." NTW's voice is dour as always. "We've got an angle on the roof and two floors below it."

"This parking deck is five floors, right?"

"Correct."

I turn back to see that the majority of the first floor is covered in twisted metal of some source or another. Looks like Aleah's going to be able to push through the remains, but we need to deal with that Orthrus. Maybe-

S.A.T.'s hand reaches out and shoves me hard, sending me out of the line of fire of the Orthrus. The hulking mech plows through the concrete and S.A.T.'s shotgun bounces off the shield that it erects.

"RUN!" She calls.

I start sprinting down the ramp towards Aleah.

Both Aleah and the five remaining Aegis units spot me, the KCCO units raising their firearms. The S.A.T. dummy is down and the AEK dummy is frozen.

Aleah and her clone desperately try to spray them down, but I'm still forced to duck, one of their shotgun blasts scraping past my face and splashing my Linker lenses with blood. Still, I made it to my destination, AEK's AEK.

It takes me a fraction of a second to drop my rifle, scoop up the AEK, turn around, and shoot the few remaining Aegis with Aleah's help.

"Hadwin-"

I hold up my finger and turn to the currently stock still AEK dummy, holding a combat post, but unseeing.

Okay. I just need to hack it. I prepare for a mental fight-

My head splits open like I just got an ax to the skull, and for a second, I swear I saw P90.

Before I can fully recover, The AEK dummy springs to life, checks its ammo, and starts moving up the ramp towards where S.A.T. is still struggling with the Orthrus… Wait, no, they've both moved farther up and around the corner. Shit.

I gesture for Aleah to follow me and the AEK dummy, taking off into a sprint up the ramp.

"How did you…?" Aleah asks.

"I hacked it. We're probably going to need it."

"But, humans can't-" She's cut off by a new voice.

"Hadwin." M4's voice is slightly strained. "There's heavy resistance on the top floor. We've secured Gentiane's team's infiltration into the airport floor, but we're not going to be able to push down to assist you."

"NTW, can your squad provide assistance?"

I round the corner in time to see a flash of light from the building opposite the parking garage, hear the report of her weapon, and get a firm "Yes, commander."

"Great. You do that, M200, SV, keep an eye on the roof."

"Yes!"

"S.A.T., status?"

"Could be better!" I hear her weapon fire twice more. "I'm running out of places to hide!"

I renew my sprint, dodging the scrapped cars the Orthrus had left in its wake. "We're on our-"

S.A.T.'s corpse goes flying past me, slamming into a car at the end of the bend in the ramp. The Orthos stalks around the corner, scarred, but not out.

I can feel rage boiling up inside of me. The AEK dummy opens fire, and the Orthrus responds by turning on its shield to block the incoming fire.

"Aleah, go get S.A.T.'s core!" I order.

"A-firm. My dummy is with you."

The dummy and I start moving around the Orthrus, and I command the AEK dummy to stop firing and pretend to reload. Meanwhile, I start firing quick bursts from the AEK.

The Orthrus starts to turn to follow us to block our fire, and I give the final command to the AEK dummy.

Shoot the shield.

The bullets ricochet off the glowing green projection and spear into the projector located inside the beast's mouth, which causes the shield to flicker and fade.

It roars at us before turning around and scrapping the dummy with a swipe of its claws.

Okay, time to motor.

I continue to fire at it, and it starts to chase the final dummy and me up the ramp. I barely have time to sprint around the chaos in the parking deck, let alone stop and aim. The dummy is the only thing keeping its attention as we continue to climb up and up. I barely keep ahead of the beast due to the limited space that it has to move.

The exo suit suddenly gives me a warning: Low power.

Talk about poor timing.

I round the corner and realize that I can't go any higher. Not only is the exo suit now a lot heavier than a few seconds ago, but I can see some of the KCCO units up the ramp. They're not looking this way yet, but there's precious little cover between us.

Aleah's dummy is caught in the Orthrus' mouth and dashed against the wall. I have to remind myself that it's not her-

I squeeze the trigger down, the weapon in my arms bucking more than it did just a minute ago.

When it clicks empty and the enemy's still not dead, my head fills with curses.

I hope I'm high enough…

"NTW?"

A round comes in from the side, punching straight through the Orthrus's head and sending it crashing to the ground.

"Nice shot." I dangle the AEK with one hand, drawing my pistol with the other, walking up to the still machine with caution. "Is it dead?"

A bullet whips past my head and I recall that there's KCCO behind me.

I have no choice but to scramble around the back of the Orthrus and hope its armor is stronger than the other unit's weapons.

Oh, and that it's dead. That'd be nice.

Aleah, the real one, rounds the corner and crouches down beside me as the hail of bullets starts to get intense. "I recovered S.A.T.'s core."

"Good." I set down the AEK fully and grip my pistol tightly. "Now we just gotta get out of here alive."

"Commander, a bunch of the KCCO are on their way. Cyclops and Aegis." NTW reports. "Too many for me to take out."

"But not too many for ME!"

A grenade detonates ahead of us, sending shrapnel flying past the Orthrus on either side. I'm exceptionally grateful for its armor for the second time in this fight..

The grenade and the voice both belong to Sop, who is already tearing more of the KCCO to shreds with her bare claws as I peek around the mechanical corpse again. Behind her, M4, RO and 15 step out, guns already destroying the remaining KCCO.

I watch the last unit fall before standing up and walking over to Anti-Rain, AEK still cradled in my arms.

"They're moving." M200's voice interrupts my calm. "Looks like they're about to try to use the VTOL."

"Fire at your discretion." I order.

Several shots start ringing out and I stop in front of Anti-Rain. "Good job."

15 steps up to me and give me a quick hug. "You're undamaged?"

"For the most part." I lift my right hand into view. "Probably should get this fixed."

Sop's eyes light up as she leaps from shredding her last victim apart to looking at my hand. "Do I get to make another one?"

"I hope you don't have to." I keep the hand out of her reach, moving it each time she tries to grab it. "For now, it's fine. We need to clear out the airport."

"No need." Gentiane's voice calls over the Linker. "They've been routed. Meet us on the roof."

---

I step onto the roof to find my family, Gentiane, Gentiane's forces, some airport employees and the rest of the Sector 3 crew from the party a few days ago are starting to load onto the plane.

11-1 is on their way over, but they have to get off the nearby building so it's taking them a while.

…Looks like most everyone made it. Lot's of dolls have superficial damage, skin torn here or there, but the only dolls that are missing are S.A.T., AEK, and FAL.

I do note that most of the losses were the dolls directly around me, probably something I need to pay attention to.

Five-seveN is holding Fel since FAL isn't around and he is squirming a lot.

I make a beeline for the doll, who notices me as the rest of us approach. "Ah, Commander! Good to see you made it- oh!"

Fel leaps from her arms and runs over to me, climbing up my leg and chittering at me.

"Sorry Fel, I don't speak ferret." I coo at the poor animal. "What happened to FAL?"

"She was regrettably taken out. I've recovered her core, but it's not unscathed." Five-seveN's voice is gentle. "We will take it back and see how much we can recover."

"I understand." I glance at the ferret on my shoulder. "See? She's going to do her best."

Fel stops chittering so loudly, but doesn't seem convinced. I mean, he is a ferret.

"Commander." M4 steps up to Gentiane, who is busy directing the civilians. "We've got a window of opportunity that we should not squander."

Commander Gentiane glances back and sees my group. "So it seems. Alright, let's get this fueled up!"

Two guys drag a hose over to the plane and start connecting it up.

45 and 9 walk over to me. "I see you're not dead yet."

"Glad you're okay too." I smile at 45. "Any trouble?"

She scoffs. "As if. I had full control of the building as soon as I entered. The difficult part was waiting for everyone else to clear out the obstacles."

"We've got a good foothold here for now." 9 glances away. "I expect there's going to be reinforcements soon."

"That's correct." Gentaine steps up in front of me. "I need to talk to you about it."

"Joy." I grumble. "Can we at least sit down? My exo suit's heavy since it ran out of power."

"Sure." She gestures to a nearby tow vehicle.

45's hand lands on my shoulder at the same time 15's lands on my other one. "Do you want me to come with you?" 45 asks.

"I'm good. Just watch to make sure she doesn't shoot me." I joke, but the twins nod.

Okay. Maybe I do have too much influence over the dolls.

Regardless, I step up to the small vehicle and disengage the exo suit and Linker before climbing into the cab.

"I have some bad news."

"Is there any other kind?"

She smirks, but it fades quickly. "The VTOL can't get everyone out."

"Fuckin' awesome." I pinch my brow. "How many fit into there?"

"Well… It looks like we'll be leaving two echelons behind." She looks away. "As it is, the VTOL will be overweight anyway. It's going to chew through fuel."

"...Shit."

"So, here's what I need you to do. I've instructed the pilot to land where Kylie's set up a helipad outside the walls. I need you to join up with them and start moving north. Mikhail commandeered a train, we're going to use that to get ahead of the KCCO."

I maintain eye contact, mild confusion creeping in.

"You need to make sure everyone gets organized together and on that train heading after Ange. Tell Mikhail everything you know about Paradeus, and then you can go home with your family."

"Uh, okay." I scratch my head. "What are you going to be doing?"

She closes her eyes and rubs her temples. "I need to stay here. The KCCO still wants something with this city, and I need to stop them from getting it."

"Isn't that more my area?"

"No. Your job is to go home and avoid getting killed, as it should have been from the start." She sighs. "I can see that you're hurt."

I glance down at my hand in silence.

"Get that patched up before you leave base. I don't want you to lose both hands. And, talk to Matvei about the hallucinations. I mean it." She pats my shoulder. "Thank you for your help so far. I know it wasn't fair of me, but I am grateful."

"...I understand." I nod, and we both step out of the truck.

Fel finally hops off my shoulder, running towards Five-seveN, apparently over his fit.

Sop skips over to me, Eva in tow. "Haddy!"

"Hey Sop. Do me a favor?"

"Sure!"

"Can you find a place to plug in the exo suit and this Linker? They're low on power."

"Yeah!" She grabs both devices, dragging the exo suit's heels across the tarmac in search of an electrical source.

Eva licks her lips, her eyes not quite focusing. "Um… hi, Hadwin."

"Hey. You doing okay?"

"To be honest… no, I don't think so." Her eye twitches. "That was so terrifying."

"Yeah." I lean on the fender of the truck, and she sits down on the step into the cab.

"I didn't know how intense it was and how scary having someone point a gun at you was."

"Yeah."

"I… I saw…" She hesitates. "I saw somebody get shot. Their eyes… they just stopped moving. It was horrible."

"..."

"This isn't right. A-and, every time I close my eyes I see…"

I glance down to see tears in her eyes, running down her face. I freaked out a bunch my first few days too, so I get it… but it's still hard to watch.

I look around instead of at her and spot 15 and 416, both glaring at me.

I mouth "What?" at them.

15 mimes a hug and points to Eva.

I raise my eyebrow and point to her as well.

416 nods.

Okay, I'm not completely stupid. Everyone's been hinting that she likes me in some capacity. She came to me instead of anyone else on this damned roof for comfort, but this doesn't seem right. Won't comforting her just give her the wrong idea? And, if everyone else is wrong, this is going to be a really, really bad idea.

If she was a T-doll, I could at least rely on the fact that I'm known as weird about T-dolls to my advantage if I misread the situation.

Please let this actually be comforting and not creepy, please…

I slide off the fender and sit beside her, sliding my arm over her shoulder. She leans onto my shoulder and continues to cry, burrowing her face into my shirt. Seems like it isn't the worst case scenario, her thinking I'm a creep.

Whatever. I'll just… sit here and let her cry on me. My eyes wander again, 15 and 416 still looking angry, but now with a hint of jealousy. This is your fault, don't give me that.

I also spot my parents and Eva's parents.

And they spot us.

Aw, fuck.

Mom, Dad, Lexi and Eva's Dad start walking over, Dad already giving me that teasing look. It lasts right up until he sees my face covered in blood and my hand with metal still sticking out of it.

"Hadwin, are you alright?" Mom asks.

"I'll be fine." I nod. "I've gone through worse."

Dad's eye twitches a bit at that. "Ah… I suppose." He clears his throat. "I don't know if you remember from the party, but this is Frederico Castellanos."

I nod to him as well. "Nice to see you again."

"Likewise." Frederico's eyes shift to his daughter. "I didn't know you two were that close."

I open my mouth to say we're not, but bite my tongue and consider my words. She may not be participating in the conversation, but she's probably paying attention still. "She's tired from… um, being in combat, and needs some time to process things. I think. We can discuss this later?"

He nods, not seeming to particularly mind.

"I'm so glad you're safe." Mom grabs my right hand carefully, looking over the wound. "You have no idea how worried we were about you."

"I made it." I shrug my unoccupied shoulder.

"Bro." Lexi's been oddly quiet and she finally looks up. "We watched you on the cameras."

…Ah.

"It was quite impressive work." Dad scratches his chin.

"It was scary, is what it was." Mom shivers.

"Hadwin, you're coming home with us, right?" Lexi pleads. "You can't keep worrying us like that."

I reach out and ruffle her hair. "Don't worry. I'll be going back."

"Plane's fueled!" One of the guys pumping the fuel hollers. "Everyone get aboard!"

"We'll go on ahead." Dad pulls on Mom and Lexi. Mr. Castellanos waves and turns back to the plane.

"Uh… Eva, we should probably board the plane. Don't wanna be stuck here, right?"

She nods and I gently pull her up as I get to my feet. She doesn't let go of my arm and keeps her head low.

At the base of the folding set of stairs leading into the plane, she's still not really paying attention to the world around us. I genty guide her aside, behind one of the large rotating engines to avoid the stares of the other people scrambling about. "Hey."

She looks up, her face a mess from crying.

"I know that things seem crazy right now, but I need you to do something for me. Do you think you can manage that?"

She sniffs. "W-what is it?"

"I need you to make sure that all of the dolls get repaired correctly. You've been studying that, right? Well, I want someone I trust to fix them up."

"Y-you trust me? I thought you h-hated me."

Gee, I guess I was being obvious. Now I wish I hadn't, but it's a bit late for that now. "I don't hate you." I sigh. "I just don't really know how to respond to you."

She barks out a laugh and her face clears up a little. "I think it's fairly simple."

"It should be, shouldn't it." I carefully step away from her and face her, making sure she's not going to break down. "Look, let's talk once we're back in Sector 3, alright? For now, just take it easy and help and dolls that you can. If it's too much trouble, don't bother."

She nods a few times. "Yeah… yeah, I'll do that. Thank you."

"No problem." I plaster a smile on my face. "For what it's worth, it's actually been interesting talking to you. It's funny how it seemed people put you on a pedestal back in high school, but now that I've had a bit of time to talk, I realized you're just a regular person."

She sniffs again and laughs weakly. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Well… yes?" I scratch my head. "It makes it easier for me to approach you, I suppose. I never really thought about what you were doing, just how people treated you. It's pretty cool you can actually understand Sop when she starts talking tech."

"It's not that hard." She wipes her eyes on her sleeve and starts to get her breathing under control. "It's just physics."

"If I understood physics, maybe." I point back at the plane. "Alright, it would be great to talk further, but-"

"We need to get onto the VTOL." She nods. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." I guide her back to the steps. "I've got to talk to a few people before we take off, so-"

She leans in and plants a kiss on my cheek, cutting me off mid sentence, before running up the stairs into the aircraft.

…Can I pretend that didn't happen? It's one more thing I have to worry about that I don't need right now. With my luck, that was on camera and will be distributed far and wide strictly to embarrass me.

No, I suppose I can't pretend it didn't happen. After all, 416 and 15 are both glaring at me, having not moved from the spot they started this whole mess.

I walk up to them, knowing full well that I need to do damage control.

Man, I sound like a prick. 'Damage control'. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize that would happen."

"I know." 15 growls. "You're stupid."

"Doesn't mean I like it." 416 grumbles.

"Don't worry," I pull them both in close with a hug, an arm around each. "You can't be replaced."

15 and 46 eventually return the hug, though they do glance at each other occasionally.

I wait a few seconds, savoring the contact before I decide to interrupt the peace. "So, does anyone know what Gentiane's plan is?"

"According to the one airport security guard we're able to talk to, there's a vault with a large quantity of 5.56 ammunition, along with smaller quantities of some other common calibers." 15 states into my chest.

416 picks her head off my shoulder. "Gentiane is requesting that all of us that can use 5.56 stay behind. Since everyone else is running dry, they need to head out to meet up with the greater Griffin forces to resupply. G11's also low, so I'll be free of that burden for a while at least."

"AR team, 416, and Negev are those of us that can use 5.56." 15 continues. "Though, Negev might not stay with us, since she's not a fully Griffin doll."

"Don't worry about it." I pat her head. "She's not the kind of person to abandon friends."

"I suppose." 15 mutters.

416 suddenly steps away. "I will see you soon, Hadwin. Do not die before I can come see you."

"I don't plan on dying." I gently tap 15 again. "I've got to talk to Gentiane for a minute, but I'll be back in a minute."

"Okay." Her hand stays in contact with me as long as it can without her moving.

I feel guilty for leaving her behind, but I need to ask-

"Commander."

I turn to see that NTW, SV, M200, and Mk23 have arrived. "Oh, good. You all made it back."

"Of course!" Mk23 grins. "Looks like you had an interesting time inside the garage."

I grimace. "Not my finest hour."

"You did your best." NTW assures me.

"Don't worry about it, commander." M200 steps up to me. "We know you wouldn't put us in danger on purpose."

"Yeah." I pat her head. "Thanks."

"I wonder what the KCCO are after?" SV frowns. "If it was just information that Paradeus had, wouldn't they have given chase?"

"Hmm?" I look up at her puzzled face. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, we've been monitoring the KCCO transmissions." SV shrugs. "Ange had quite the setup in her apartment. They're looking for something, right?"

"Wasn't it the information about the location of the Pike Node?" I furrow my brow."

"That's what we thought, but then why are they still trying to enter the city? Shouldn't they be after Paradeus?"

"...That's worrying."

"Well, it's not going to be your problem for much longer." NTW asserts. "We'll be going on ahead, commander."

"Good job, everyone." I wave to them and continue on my way toward Gentiane.

"Here's the cores." Aleah steps in front of me and offers me three small cubes.

"Ah… thanks." I take them. "Ah, 15 said that since you use the same type of ammo that they found, you've been asked to stay behind. Are you going to?"

"I am. I'm not particularly happy with leaving your side, but I do understand that she will need the help to get out of the city and you would likely be happier if I'm helping her." She smiles. "Am I wrong?"

"Nope. I was thinking about asking you to stay myself, actually."

"I will join your side as soon as I make it out."

"I appreciate it." I glance down at the cores in my hand. "Er, I hate to burden you more-"

"I am your adjutant, it's my job to assist you." Her expression is full of amusement. "What do you need?"

"Can you get these cores to Eva? Tell her that if she's up to it, I would be grateful if she could help get these three back on their feet."

"Understood." She takes the three cores. "Anything else?"

"No. Well-" I point over to my backpack full to bursting with random crap, an AT4, and M37's shotgun. "If you could grab M37's weapon and put it onto the plane along with AEK's gun, I'm sure that they'd appreciate it."

Aleah's eye flick between me and the backpack, gears clearly grinding in her head. Eventually though, she nods. "Of course. I'll only be a moment."

"Thank you."

Now, Gentiane-

"Commander?"

I stop and turn to face the whole of Echelon 10, minus FAL. "Ah. Good work out there."

"Thank you, monsieur." Five-seveN bows her head slightly. "Thank you for covering our backs as we cleared the airport."

"Of course."

"You suffered a bunch of losses." FN2000 says. "I think you probably absorbed some of our potential losses."

"We've still got their cores. They're not gone yet." I assure her. "I'm just glad none of them are completely gone. Hope's important."

"Oui."

P90 raises her head. "I'm, ah, sorry that I couldn't be more helpful." She chuckles to herself halfheartedly. "Especially after-"

"It's not a problem." I shrug. "Just keep protecting your squad and that's all we can ask."

She smiles a bit. "Y-yeah, I suppose."

FN FNC frowns, reaches into her pocket and withdraws a candy bar. "Chocolate?"

"Thank you." I break off a chunk, and seeing the look in her eyes, return the rest of it. "I'll see you all around. I've got to talk to the Commander."

"We'll be on the VTOL." Five-seveN confirms. "Don't be late."

"I won't." I turn and look around. Let's see, I've talked to the singular member of 11-2, all of 11-1, 10. I don't think 1 will accost me, I've talked to 15 and 416-

"There you are."

Of course, the rest of 404. "45." I turn back to her. "What's up?"

G11 grabs my leg, and I absentmindedly pat her head.

"Oh, well… we're going to stay behind."

That's surprising. "Why?"

"We found some 45 ACP and 9mm ammo." 9 twirls her hair absently. "We'll be able to support Gentiane and Anti-Rain."

"I thought we didn't have ammo for G11."

"I'm going on the plane." She says. "I'll get to sleep instead of fighting for once."

"Mmm." 45 glances at the smallest doll in 404. "Sometimes I wish she'd been assigned a gun with normal ammunition."

"Whatever." 9 shrugs. "The rest of us can do the right thing, saving an innocent maiden and her band of merry dolls from certain annihilation from the forces of evil."

"Uh-huh." I cross my arms. "And the real reason?"

"Hazard pay." 45 sneers.

"Gotta run up those hours to afford repairs!" 9 claps her hands.

"Sure." I allow myself a grin. "Well, you'll have to be careful."

"I suppose. It would be annoying if I never saw you again." 45's eye wanders away like it's no big deal.

I wrap my arms around her shoulders, hugging her from behind. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"That hardly narrows it down." 9 blinks. "Actually, doesn't that make it worse?"

45 grins. "I see. Well, don't go dying somewhere I can't recover your corpse."

"Agreed, but you have to promise the same."

She hesitates for a second, but nods. "Ja."

"Good."

9 makes a gagging sound and I let 45 go. "Bye Hadwin."

"Yeah, see you soon."

G11 finally lets go, looking up at me. "I'm gonna find 416, then I'm gonna board the plane."

"Alright." I pat her head once more. "See you in a bit."

Okay, that's the last of the groups. The only ones left are the rest of Anti-Rain, who are talking to Gentiane.

Before approaching them, I scoop up my backpack and sling it on, the weight affecting me more than usual without the exo suit. Where did Sop plug it in, anyway?

I'll have to ask her later.

Once I've got my pack back on, I steel myself and walk up to the group of Gentiane, RO, and M4. "Ah, excuse me?"

"Hmm?" Gentiane turns to me. "You should be loading into the aircraft."

"Yeah." I scratch my head. "But… well, look. I want to stick around for a little bit. I don't want to leave immediately, outside the walls, especially since you're keeping a bunch of dolls I care about inside the walls. Dad's angry about it though. D'you think you can convince him? He seems to listen to you."

"...Hadwin…" She pinches the bridge of her nose. "Fine. I'll see about that. You two, stay here for a minute."

M4 nods and RO gives me a look.

"Hadwin, don't you think you should be doing that yourself?" RO glances at the beleaguered Gentiane, with yet another stupid task to add to the pile.

"Probably, if that wasn't a lie." I turn to the two. "So, I have a dumb plan."

"We're a little past having you plan for us, Hadwin." M4 says politely.

"No, hear me out. You want to keep Gentiane safe, right?"

"Of course." M4's eyes narrow. "Why?"

"Just don't interfere and follow me. Get the others that are staying here too."

RO and M4 look at each other before splitting up to gather the scattered dolls.

Okay.

Everyone's on board the aircraft, aside from the eight dolls that are currently being gathered and myself. I climb the stairs into the VTOL and poke my head into the pilots' cabin. "Evening."

The copilot glances back at me. "Can we help you?"

"Everyone's on board. I'm going to close the hatch and we can go."

"And… who are you?" The pilot asks cautiously.

"Oh, I'm the guy working under Commander Gentiane. She told me to tell you we're ready."

"Great." The pilot flicks a few switches. "I've been dying to get out of here."

"Alright, I'll get out of your hair." I step out, before climbing out of the aircraft, eight sets of curious doll eyes looking at me.

Well, seven and a half, 45's single eye narrowing as I step back down onto the roof. "I think you're supposed to be in there."

I pull up on the staircase and slam it into the closed position. "Hey, can you force this door to stay locked?"

I can hear some thumping from inside the plane, but I ignore it, holding the door closed in case someone tries to open it.

"...Oh." M4's eyes go wide. "I see."

"Door's sealed, Hadwin." 45's evil grin is out in force. "Plane is ready for take off. I've also locked the forward cabin so nobody can tell the pilots to abort the launch."

"Great." I step away from the hatch and turn to face the plane.

In the window nearest the hatch, I can see Commander Gentiane's face, furiously shouting something at me.

I point to my ear and mouth "I can't hear you."

This certainly doesn't calm her down.

I turn to 9. "Can you provide them with take-off instructions?"

"I guess I can hack into the auto beacon." She blows air out her lips. "Gimme a minute."

15's radio starts to buzz as 9 starts talking with the pilots as the tower, or… something. I don't claim to know takeoff procedures.

Sop glances around. "What's going on?"

15 turns to her sister. "Hadwin's gonna stay behind instead of Gentiane."

"Oh! Okay!" Sop turns to the plane and waves to the still shouting Gentiane. "Bye! See you in a bit!"

I can see the veins on Gentiane's forehead start to bulge.

"Takeoff clearance granted." 9 states. "We should probably get out of the jet wash."

The nine of us, Anti-Rain, 404 minus G11, and Aleah all back away from the plane as it spools up, more faces looking out the windows as they realize they're about to take off.

The pilot's voice calls out, 15's radio squawking out the words. "Kruševac tower, WhiskeyFoxtrot 32, pad 5, Ready for takeoff."

"WhiskeyFoxtrot 32, Kruševac tower, cleared for takeoff." 9's voice chimes in as the radio tower.

"What were they going to do if you didn't provide clearance?" I ask nobody in particular.

"Who knows?" 9 waves to the pilot as the engine whine increases and the vehicle starts to lift off.

I wave to my parents, the dolls that are on the plane, and Eva. I keep waving until the wheels are off the ground and the plane has rotated West, away from the KCCO and started on its journey to land outside the walls.

"She's going to be pissed." 15 stands beside me, linking her fingers in mine.

"Whatever. She's needed outside the walls." I shrug. "I'll delay the KCCO. It's what I do best."

"Dummkopf." 416 stands on my other side. "You should have escaped."

"And leave you all behind?" I smirk. "I told you- until I'm out of the city, I gotta protect you all."

RO jerks upright. "You… did say that."

M4 nods. "I appreciate you thinking of Gentiane's wellbeing, though I do think this was a bit uncalled for."

"She wouldn't have let me stay." I glance at 45 and 9. "You two know where the ammo stores are?"

"Ja. Follow us."

I glance up once more at the distant speck that is the airplane before following the others into the building.

Alright KCCO, time to see how you respond to pure, weaponized stupid. Hadwin's here to fuck up your day.

And I brought friends.

---

Author's note:
I've decided (with some prodding) to start a discord server that you can follow for updates, to discuss the story, or just post memes. It's an experiment for now, to see if there's interest. Several other authors such as WhiskeyTheFoxtrot, VectorsWritings, ClearlyInvisible and Musing Soul have also joined, so come say hi!

Since FFN eats links for breakfast, the invite link is:
discord. gg / 4pTJbbSKR5
Just remove the spaces. I hope to see you there!

Beta's Note:
I'll also be around and be known as "The Beta" just cause.
Though, I tend to spam quite the fan art so don't mind me lol.