It was Friday morning, and very few of the echelon was awake. Having gotten all of her work done, the only thing MP40 needed to do was monitor the various cameras they had spent the week setting up. She casually strolled through the penthouse, taking her time with each step instead of marching around. It was relaxing in a way, having so little responsibility on her for a short while. In fact, she would even go so far as to call it liberating. While this was definitely not the norm for her or the others, she was going to go out of her way to enjoy the moment no matter what. In fact, MP40 decided to enjoy her morning by cooking herself some breakfast while watching the video feeds.

FG42 had managed to procure some fairly decent groceries for her to work with, a decent silver lining to the gunner's unfortunately rude disposition. While MP40 just wanted to get her job done neatly and effectively, every step of the way the others and their personality defects were getting on her nerves. Between FG42 running her mouth and MP41 sticking her nose in everyone's business, on top of the Commandant being aloof to the issues that ail them; being forced to play nice with each other was becoming a massive strain on the mission. It was a surprise that none of them had pulled out their respective guns to shoot the rest. Interestingly, StG44 had managed to avoid much of their conflict by pursuing a closer relationship with Captain Adelhard's son. This friendship had revealed quite a bit of information about how things are run in the city, giving them leads on places to watch or visit. She was, however, getting too close to the boy, and this would only end in disaster once it came time to make arrests.

MP40 sighed as she checked camera backlogs to see StG44 spending too much time wandering the streets of the city after leaving their job. Almost two full hours of walking around at night, visiting all sorts of different sights and sounds. On closer analysis, it seemed that StG44 was focusing her vision primarily on locations that could be useful in a firefight; when she wasn't giggling or looking at the boy that is. Dolls and humans forming romantic bonds wasn't uncommon, but it was most certainly not something that was commonly accepted either. Considering that she was undercover as a human only complicated things even more. StG44 wasn't an infiltration model, she lacked the upgrades to do so effectively. Moreover, romantic love wasn't something that was programmed into dolls. Sure, MP40 loves the work she does, she loves her music, and thanks to imprinting technology she loves her gun; none of that is romance. MP40 decided it must be StG44 pretending to be in love just to get closer to the boy. No matter how she spun it, however, StG44 had added something new to her neural cloud that didn't exist there before. Whether it be young love or cold deception, it shouldn't be there and that worried the captain.

Distracting herself from existential questions, MP40 returned to her much simpler understanding of cooking. Splitting her vision between the cameras and her food, she jumped between the live feeds for information. For the most part, everything seemed to be business as usual as she prepared an egg omelet for herself. Quality food was a luxury these days for humans, much of it being ruined by collapse fluid radiation and most animals being mutated along with the people that once fed on them. To be able to make a decent breakfast was a dream most humans couldn't dream of, and here was MP40 making one because she was bored. Technically dolls don't need to eat, running on battery power, but food and hunger was still built into them anyway to keep the actual humans around them feeling comfortable. Many dolls could even process food to help power themselves, making it a useful, yet redundant, feature.

Watching one of the city wall gates, MP40 noticed a slight anomaly. While her pan heated up, the butter starting to melt, MP40 found herself watching one of the Sangvis Ferri Vespid dolls patrolling the gate. It's behavior was slightly off from how they typically patrolled, as if it seemed like it was looking for something. It reminded her of how StG44 was searching around the city the night before, like it was assessing the environment for weaknesses. While the doll was wearing some sort of vision enhancing helmet, MP40 could still make out roughly where it was directing its gaze. The butter in the pan began to burn while she watched in horror as the Vespid looked directly into the camera, gave a sly smile, and the feed went dead. Terrified, MP40 realized that she wasn't the only one prodding the city for weaknesses.


StG44 sat on the floor, organizing a shelf of assorted salt and pepper shakers. They were simple novelty items, and due to the cost of living in the new world they didn't sell well. Having cleaned the shelf, she took to sorting the merchandise out by color in a rainbow pattern. While she worked, she couldn't help but notice the sound of someone entering the store. Usually, people didn't come into the store this early during work hours, but that didn't stop the occasional customer from showing up. From what she could gather, Kurtis was already introducing himself to the customer. StG44 decided to continue doing her work, tuning out superfluous audio to try and eavesdrop on the two of them.

The new customer just grunted and ignored Kurtis as he shopped, shambling around and bumping into things. StG44 thought she heard Kurtis mumble something about the man being drunk, prompting her to peek over the display shelves she was working on to take a peak. Getting a good look at him, she noticed that he was wearing a thick puffy coat despite the warm weather. He also had his left arm in his coat pocket at all times, almost like it was glued inside the pocket. Raising an eyebrow, she figured the man wasn't drunk as much as he was a victim of collapse fluid radiation, doing his best to hide his radiation burns and any silificated skin. While treatments and cures exist to treat radiation and ELID, it's often too expensive and heavily dependent on exposure length. Each human was different as well, with some having higher tolerances than others. Because of the dangers, dolls like StG44 were created to minimize any human exposure to the radiation, allowing the human race an opportunity to heal. Humanity celebrated this new freedom by waging a Third World War. Sometimes human behavior baffled her.

StG44 continued to watch the man, interested in the shambling mound. Curiously enough, the man seemed to be showing enough signs of ELID that she's wondering how he was let into the city. He looked a lot worse than a lot of the people she saw outside the walls in the refugee camp. If she had to guess, a man in this bad of shape would have been forcibly removed, or even shot for being within a sanitized location like this. Either this man stumbled into a highly irradiated zone in the city or someone let him in from the camp. Both possibilities were equally concerning, but one was more likely than the others. Unfortunately she didn't have the kind of authority to ask him if he had a pass to be in the city or not. Looking over at Kurtis, she realized she didn't need to ask; it looked like he was on the store phone, having reached a similar conclusion as she had. If she was a betting doll, she'd wager that he was calling his father to deal with the issue.

Sure enough, within the next ten minutes an officer arrived at the store, Ripper submachine gun strapped to his side. StG44 couldn't get a look at the officers face, he was wearing a repurposed military armored uniform which included a full face covering helmet. He was wearing the full armor as well, which should protect him from any radiation as well as allowing him to make use of the light exoskeleton built in. StG44 had to admit a tinge of jealousy at the officer's better kit, she had to spend her own hard earned money to commission a winter coat, let alone buying her own socks. Of course, the kind of hardware this man had was completely illegal for someone that wasn't employed by a federal army, reinforcing the fact that the city was breaking a lot of laws to supply its security.

As soon as the infected man saw the officer enter, he went into a frenzied panic, making a run for the closest emergency exit. The armored officer shouted and then gave chase, knocking over displays and shelves. StG44, realizing she was the closest to the exit, prepared to help by moving in front of the door. The man charged at her, fully intent on running her down. In his eyes he saw a young woman standing in his path of escape, and he was more than willing to run her down and make a getaway. As he approached her, StG44 planted her feet as a brace and pushed her shoulder into the man as he attempted to barrel into her, putting the full power of her chassis into play as she withstood his charge and shoulder checked him backwards. The man, not expecting any resistance, fell backwards as she held her ground. The officer followed up by throwing himself onto the man, the sound of the exoskeleton straining as he made his arrest.

The officer forced the man's hands behind his back, the cracking sound of hardened skin and calcified bones drowned out by the man's frenzied screaming. No doubt this experience, and accompanying pain, was going to push him over the edge to becoming feral. It was probably too late to treat him now, and unfortunately he was most likely facing a merciful death from a rifle later today. StG44 felt sorry for the man, none of this was his choice. With a sigh, she dusted herself off and rotated her shoulder she hit the man with. It was like throwing herself into a wall, the man no longer a squishy human. Kurtis came up to her, shock painted all over his face. "Where the hell did you learn to do that?"

It was at that moment StG44 knew she made a mistake. For just a moment she dropped her cover and did something only a Tactical Doll with combat experience would do. Cursing herself, she tried to make up something to justify the action. "I had an older brother I would rough around with." She lied, hoping he would accept it.

He gave her an incredulous look. "I didn't know you had an older brother."

While he didn't look suspicious, StG44 still felt she needed to lie her way out of this lie as well. "I don't like to talk about it." She did her best to lower expression and pitch her tone to appear more believable.

"I know what you mean." Kurtis responded in turn, putting a hand on her shoulder. For some reason, perhaps because of his tone and facial expression, she felt a slight warmth in her neural cloud at the gesture. "I know losing family sucks, if you ever need someone to talk to…"

StG44 felt that warmth in her neural cloud spark into a great conflagration, setting off a thousand red flags as she tried to find the proper emotion to display. She wasn't sure what it was, but she knew she had to do something before she crashed her system. All she could manage to do was smile and say "I'd like that."


FG42 leaned against the city wall, watching as a Ripper doll walked by her. Thanks to her electronic cloaking system, she could safely stand around this location without having to worry about any other dolls or cameras interrupting her. This morning, MP40 had witnessed one of the Sangvis Ferri dolls acting strange by the main gate, followed by a person from outside the city walls wandering the city. According to the intercepted police reports from MP41, he had been let through the wall by one of the Sangvis Ferri dolls. A shame the man went feral and had to be put down, he could have done so much more with the right guidance. However, he was not the only one to be apprehended this week, a sign of bigger issues to worry about.

The hypothesis that Commandant Kar98k had reached was that whoever was controlling that SF doll had instructed it to let these people into the city. The front gate was too obvious and under too much human surveillance, so the entryway had to be somewhere out of view of the main gate. She walked the length of the wall, tapping it with her fingers to see if the sound varied or changed. If there was a weakness to exploit, they needed to know about it. Tapping along, she eventually found a spot in the wall that sounded particularly hollow compared to the other sections. Looking around, it didn't seem too different when compared to the rest of the wall, telling her that the way through was perhaps much more complicated than she had assumed.

Surveying the area, she couldn't help but notice a Ripper doll leaving a crumbling house nearby. The doll didn't notice her, returning to its patrol route as if it had never strayed. Deciding to investigate, FG42 approached the house and went peering through a window. The inside of the house was mostly junk, having been abandoned during the war and looted for valuables ever since then. However, Sangvis Ferri doesn't care for minor kleptomania or breaking and entering, so there must be some other reason why that doll was here. Continuing to watch, she ducked as an actual human man walked into the room she was looking at. From what she could gather, he was a refugee from outside the wall that had no hope of ever seeing what's beyond the gate.

The man made his way out the front door and eventually wandered into the city. FG42 was almost stupefied, where the hell did he come from? Testing the door, she found it unlocked and easily broke in. Hopefully, that was the only human in here or she was going to have to get violent. Sneaking around the creaking house, she followed where the man came from and made her way into the basement. Relying on her electronic cloak, she slowly made her way down the steps, keeping an eye out for any more refugees. Instead, what she found was a makeshift tunnel dug through the basement in the general direction of the city wall. A Sangvis Ferri Vespid stood guard, unable to detect her.

She swore under her breath, turning and making her way up the stairs and out of the house. So not only did Scarecrow have a tunnel into her dolls heads that let her into their mainframe, but she also had a literal tunnel into the actual city to let refugees past the gate. Was this part of the plan, did Sangvis Ferri really want to have their dolls let infected humans run amuck through the city under their dolls supervision? What did they have to gain from all of this?


MP41 nestled herself comfortably into the head of this Vespid, taking full control over its body as it stood on guard duty at the front gate. Tonight was the night that Sangvis Ferri would supposedly drop off more equipment for the city security, and MP41 just stole herself the best seat in the house for the show. Powerful floodlights drowned out the night, illuminating the gate reception area. Captain Adelhard himself waited patiently for his honored guests to arrive, completely unaware of the traitor in his ranks. While MP41 would have preferred to have more than one set of eyes on whatever shady transaction was about to occur, she knew that too many would draw attention to herself and blow her cover. All the better to get the evidence they need to crush the city's seedy security.

All of the humans wore the same military exoskeletons, with Captain Adelhard the only one without the full helmet. This also meant he would be unable to actually utilize the armor fully, making him effectively weaker than his men. Curious that he would cripple himself in such a way while dealing with such dubious people. Was he doing this as a show of trust to Sangvis Ferri, or a show of confidence in his men? Whatever his reason, all that mattered was his actions. The things he did here tonight would seal his fate, and possibly even the city's fate as well. MP41 was practically shaking in anticipation at the sheer thought of what she might discover. Still, she maintained the stiff and somewhat uncomfortable guard stance that was expected of the doll, trying desperately not to blow her own cover.

The main gate screeched and rolled open, its heavy mechanical gears grinding as they opened up. A lone truck drove in, one of the automated ones designed for long hauls through yellow and red zones. As the gate closed behind it, the large back end opened up, allowing an occupant to exit. Unfortunately, they were on the other side of the truck, building up tension for MP41 as she waited for them to come into view. She didn't have to wait long as the tall woman walked in front of the headlights of the truck, making her way to Captain Adelhard. The woman wore a black and white dress, her hair tied in twin ponytails. As the woman looked around at the reception prepared for her, MP41 was able to identify a light duty air filter mask covering her nose and mouth. No doubt about it, Scarecrow herself had made a personal appearance. "Captain, you don't look too pleased to see me," She spoke like a snake, each word sounding calculated, "are you not pleased with the gifts I've brought for you so far?"

"People outside are getting in, and they say your dolls are to blame." Adelhard sounded genuinely upset, was he really throwing this relationship away already?

Scarecrow did not show expression, her face nearly impossible to read because of the mask. Even her body language made it impossible to determine how she really felt, moving with the grace of a dancer. "You wound me with such accusations against our Sangvis Ferri Manufacture." She kept her tone the same, perhaps confident in her ability to manipulate Adelhard. "But of course you know that our dolls are unable to operate on their own, they receive orders from whomever is giving them commands."

"That's what I'm worried about," Adelhard grunted, "who is pulling their strings?"

"If you're accusing me of remote control, don't be ridiculous." Scarecrow gave a small laugh. "I'm stationed much too far away to be able to control this many units. Perhaps the betrayal comes from within your own ranks?"

Adelhard looked to his men, then took a step towards Scarecrow. "Don't accuse my men of something like that, I trust them with my life."

Scarecrow chuckled to herself, then stared directly at the Vespid MP41 was riding along with. "I have full faith in my dolls to follow their orders as given," her eyes practically bore straight through MP41, shaking her with their intensity, "I doubt they'd ever act out of turn unless ordered to do so. They're loyal soldiers, incapable of human faults."

Adelhard signed, running a hand through his hair. "We're gonna need more eyes on the walls then, maybe even more security guns. I want to make sure nobody is getting in and out unapproved."

Scarecrow's gaze lingered on MP41 a little longer before turning back to Adelhard. "I can arrange for some more defense systems, but for tonight I only have another echelon of Nemeum armored units for you. Perhaps they'd be fitting for watching your walls?"

As the humans moved to offload the armored drones, MP41 withdrew her control of the Vespid and returned to her own body, hiding nearby on a rooftop with the Commandant. While she had recorded everything, she almost wished she could forget it all. Scarecrow's venomous gaze still haunted her vision, the only real window of emotion on that doll's face. Sangvis Ferri ringleader dolls like her were extremely advanced, capable of combat feats MP41 could only dream of. No doubt this Scarecrow had detected the intrusion in one of the units, and made a few idle references to let the hacker know who was really in charge. Out of fear, she checked herself for any sort of electronic interference, unsure if she was followed back. Searching through her neural cloud and her memories, she couldn't find anything that didn't belong. If she had a heart, it would be beating through her chest. Instead, all she could do was gasp, hyperventilating as she tried to air cool her overheating core.

As she tried to control herself, every bad rumor and bit of information that MP41 had heard about these advanced Sangvis Ferri combat dolls raced through her neural cloud. While Scarecrow didn't look like it, there was no doubt in her mind that the doll could easily pacify that entire gate reception area by herself. Given an echelon of troops she could take the entire city. Scarecrow was a military grade machine built to lead armies into combat disguised as a prim and proper noble woman. Whatever she had planned for this city wasn't good, and now she used the instability of the refugee camp and the fears of ELID to convince Adelhard into agreeing to station an even larger army within. They were going to have to move smart and fast to end this before things got even more out of hand.