For Griffin and Kryuger's current position in the public eye, to be undertaking contracts was certainly a miracle of all belief. The company itself was hanging on by a thread, with most of the bigger contracts being routed to other commanders. Kar98k found herself relatively bored until the call came in asking for her team in particular. A concerned citizen reported a yellow zone city was apparently being run by Sangvis Ferri dolls, and was worried they could be trying to rebuild their forces there. The exact details they were able to gather was that an SF Jaeger model, named Juliet, had gone rogue and was reforming other SF dolls to make a new and improved Sangvis Ferri. Considering the recent attacks on the former stronghold in Romania, absolutely nobody was willing to believe this was as benevolent as it seemed. Seeing as the Brigade had experience with this sort of thing in the past, Kar98k and her team were mentioned by name for the operation.
The concerned citizen, who so far wished to remain anonymous, set a plan forth in the contract for G&K to directly contact Juliet for permission to investigate whether or not this rogue SF faction would be considered a target of Griffin's prior standing contract to combat the rogue manufacturer. Juliet happily obliged, not wanting a conflict with a group well versed in fighting Sangvis Ferri. The citizen that established the contract made a formal request to meet with Kar98k sometime after their arrival in the city to further investigate evidence and clues for the operation.
Everything about this operation stank to high holy hell, with numerous red flags waving in hurricane winds. After the most recent betrayal, Kar98k was very tentative to accept a mystery contract that requested her by name. Everything that had come up in the past few weeks had only made her more suspicious and speculative, but in order to avoid setting off any alarms she felt obligated to maintain a status quo. She was extremely nervous to head back into the field, especially in such an unfriendly environment. This wouldn't be a yellow zone city pretending to be a green zone, they were heading straight into a salvaged environment filled with shanties and refugees. In areas like this, people only saw dolls as spare parts and electronics to scrap for money and food; many people here were well prepared to catch and sell them on the black market as well. She hated to admit it, but maybe Sangvis Ferri being here would help keep the doll collectors under control.
Kar98k and her team arrived by bus, but there were no checkpoints or searches. The bus driver themself was chartered by the citizen who made the contract, who similarly had also never met the person before. Anticipating an obvious trap, Kar98k decided to select her team for any sort of contingency if they were ambushed. While MP41 would have proven herself useful in this case, she had requested some time off to work on a project with her friend from the party. As a substitute, FG42 would be the closest thing they had to an electronic warfare specialist. MP40 was brought along as an emergency second in command in case Kar98k was ever disabled. In case the operation ever gets hot, StG44 and G43 were included as fire support.
While the team was disgruntled to once again be operating in a city with SF security, they were at least happy to be going in uniform this time. Pretending to be human had built in consequences for dolls, making them uncomfortable at best. While Kar98k had an easier time than the others, she could tell that the prospect of it made her team nervous. Whereas before they all sat in silence, now they happily talked shop to each other en route to their objective. "What do you think is up with MP41 and that nerd anyway?" G43 asked, referring to the man that MP41 referred to as Herr Dealer.
Kar98k knew that he was providing her with outside information that their systems were hard wired to filter out, but beyond that was a mystery. FG42, ever eloquently, had her own opinions on the matter. "Clearly there's some sexual tension there," she explained, "you can tell by how nervous he gets around her. I'm willing to bet good money that she did that thing like when she hid in a trash can and took pictures of 44 trying on underwear and had a bunch of creepy pictures of him too."
StG44 was clearly flushed. "How was I supposed to know she was there?" She yelled as she buried her face in her hat out of embarrassment.
"You need to be very thorough when it comes to the little one." MP40 explained, sitting as one of the only on base team members besides Fredrick and Kar98k to avoid the camera lens. "You just need to be about as crafty as she is to realize she's not very creative at all. I mean really, a trash can?"
G43 popped over her seat on the bus to ruffle StG44's hair. "Cheer up 44," she said, "I thought the green ones looked nice, they match your eyes."
StG44 gave her a muffled thanks, her face still buried in shame. FG42 reeled the conversation back to her interests. "So what do you girls think that little brat is even doing with him?"
"Do you think they're gonna get married?" G43 asked, buying into the hype. "I wonder if I can be the flower girl."
"Being the flower girl requires walking in a straight line, dumbass." FG42 snickered.
"A girl can dream." G43 poured in her seat.
FG42 leaned back on her seat, resting her knees on against the back of the one in front of her. "I do appreciate those of you that decided to invite boys to the party though," she casually crossed her arms behind her head, "that's something a girl can dream about."
"Don't be such a pig, gunner," MP40 elbowed her seat, upset that FG42 was using her for support, "I told you all to invite friends."
"Yeah, everyone invited their boyfriends." FG42 explained, sitting back in a less comfortable position. "MP41 brought the fat nerd, the sisters brought the hunky brothers, 44 convinced that kid to show up, and the boss dragged her work husband out of his cave."
"Work husband?" Kar98k finally broke into the conversation, causing the others to flinch as she broke her stoic silence.
"At this point I'm convinced you break something on missions so you can spend time with him." She complained with a smile.
The rest of the best remained eerily quiet as they awaited a response. "Continue this line of thought and I'll be calling my 'work husband' for your replacement legs."
"She doesn't need a lower torso to operate a gun." MP40 added on.
"Killjoys." FG42 mumbled as she crossed her arms, unable to keep the momentum of shit talk going.
While Kar98k could understand where the gunner was coming from with her accusations, she had learned too much about the mechanic's past to ever force him to come out of his shell in such a way. Besides, as much as she liked her friend she knew they worked better as professionals, especially knowing how he sees dolls more as children that need guidance than machines that needed fixing. Besides, she had more important things to worry about than whether or not a middle aged war veteran was interested in her or not. While the other girls could run around chasing boys like high school dames, she had to reign in their obnoxious results. While they all enjoyed the attention, most of them more so enjoyed taking advantage of it as well. Too many times have the sisters alone manipulated lovestruck boys into buying expensive things for them; that's not even considering the time StG44 convinced an entire local sports team to repaint the cafeteria by simply batting her eyelashes at their coach.
"Also, 44," Kar98k decided to say with a small smile on her lips, "I would prefer if you wore those black ones with the frilly lace, I can assure you that they are very comfortable. We could even wear matching pairs."
Kar98k chuckled to herself as the girl behind her groaned, unable to bear her shame anymore. G43, on the other hand, almost fell out of her seat in laughter as even MP40 had a stifle of laughter. Maybe they were just kissing her ass, but it was good to let them know that she wasn't a malevolent overlord.
Despite wanting an opportunity to scout out the town and get a feel for what the situation was like, almost as soon as the team moved into the small apartment that would deserve as their headquarters they were set upon by complications. The first issue was the fact that the apartment was a two bedroom home with a single bathroom. Sleeping arrangements were going to be sparse at best, but they would be able to make do. Most worrisome was the rationing of the bathroom, especially considering how long most of them spent getting ready in the morning. On base, they had two bathrooms that could accommodate multiple occupants at a time for all of their routines, and unfortunately most of the girls had grown quite accustomed to their morning rituals. While Kar98k wasn't worried about not having enough time to tie her hair ribbons, she was worried about her team bickering amongst themselves over meaningless circumstances. Makeup would just have to wait until after the operation was over.
The city itself, if you could even call it that, was built around a central industrial zone. There were some homes and shops in the established brick and mortar buildings, but there was an excessive amount of people displaced onto the streets, living in ramshackle housing or just sleeping in alleyways. There was no doubt that people were suffering on a daily basis here, with anonymous corpses being the norm. Drugs and alcohol were certainly the most profitable industry, with deals happening in broad daylight out on the streets. It was a stark difference from the clean streets of the green zone cities that tried to maintain their pre collapse appearance. Life out here was harsh and cruel, which explained why a rogue Sangvis Ferri group was able to move into a warehouse and start patrolling the streets.
The person that filed the contract with Griffin, who still remained anonymous, had requested to meet with Kar98k at a small, shady bar to discuss any further information with her. While she preferred to perform her own investigation, the faster they were in and out of this place the better. Ever since they arrived, seedy individuals who were no doubt interested in scrapping the girls for parts had been watching them. Going out alone was not recommended, but it was what their employer had requested for this time. Without her rifle, Kar98k had kept her bayonet knife in her belt at all times, making all attempts to draw attention to the fact that she was armed and dangerous. By the time she had reached the determined meeting place, there was at least one automated drone following her to give her a debilitating shock.
Ducking into the crappy bar, she was immediately hit by the stench of stale beer and even staler food. The floor stuck to the bottom of her boots, if it wasn't covered in dirt or worse. There was at least one man passed out at a side table, who could quite possibly be dead considering his position. The lighting and music only added to the filthy atmosphere, with the lights bathing them in a urine colored light while the radio serenaded the bar with music that assaulted the ears. Kar98k was most revolted at the audacity of the insects in the bar to not even fly in fear from her, which didn't bode well for the quality of the food. If she had a human stomach, it would have most likely emptied its contents by now.
Looking around, she noticed an out of place woman sitting alone at one of the bar's side booths. While most of the denizens were about as filthy and rough as the bar itself, she looked to at least have seen a bath sometime this year. She had a long, black trench coat on, and wearing sunglasses, looking more like a secret agent trying to blend in. Kar98k couldn't shake some sense of familiarity looking at the woman, wondering where she had seen her before. At a gesture, the woman beckoned her over, no doubt being the anonymous employer. Kar98k took the seat across from her, taking off her coat and folding it onto her lap as she sat down.
"We should be left well enough alone here," The woman said, looking her up and down from behind the sunglasses, "I've been here for an hour and the only people to approach me were wondering if I was selling narcotics or myself."
Kar98k gave a small sigh of disappointment. "It's a shame that's what most humans have been driven to."
The woman folded her hands over the table top, careful not to actually place her hands on the one washed table. "Desperation turns them to interesting places, don't you think?" She asked with a smile.
"Like Sangvis Ferri?" Kar98k asked.
The woman chuckled, "oh dear no, Sangvis Ferri isn't operating here at all."
Kar98k leaned forward, interested in what the woman had to say. "Then who is Juliet actually working for?"
"There's a human yellow zone cult that seems to have a reverence for ELIDs," the woman explained, "and they have an ever growing presence here that has spiked exponentially in the past few weeks. I think they might be related to those interesting individuals that interrupted the military's slaughter of Griffin and Sangvis Ferri."
None of this was public information, with very few people outside those that were there even aware that a mysterious faction even appeared. More importantly, she seemed to know the real story of the military feud with Griffin. Publicly, the military threw Griffin under the bus and justified their actions as self defense. The only people that would know the truth were related to the incident. It was entirely possible that this woman was an operative from Soviet State Security to know this kind of information. "How do you know about them?" Kar98k lowered her voice to barely a whisper.
The woman took off her sunglasses, the piercing doll eyes staring straight into Kar98k. "I was there, Doll Commander."
It took a moment to connect the two, but Kar98k had been in a very similar place before. Once again, she now found herself sharing a table with the Sangvis Ferri Ringleader, Scarecrow.
