To Kane: I don't store chapters unless I write more than one a night. Three thousand words or a chapter is about four hours of writing for me. I've just had a bit of free time these past two weeks, and a touch of inspiration.

The ideas and inspiration take most of the time for my uploads, not the typing.

Also, I started writing this after you posted the comment. Quick turnaround times, am I right?

"Fucking… ow." I grumble, limping through the streets.

"Are you sure you do not want a ride?"

I look up at the Hydra stomping along beside me, looking almost aimless and she slows her pace to match mine. Several of the earliest of risers are watching us pass from windows as we pass, though I give them no heed. "I'm sure. My ankle will be good soon enough, and… well, it's kind of embarrassing to sit on your cannon."

You don't think Hydra frames would be that expressive, but by turning to crab-walk sideways, raising a laser pod up, and aiming her primary sensor suite my way I get the impression she's just raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"You are willing to go through significant pain to avoid being embarrassed."

"I wouldn't say it's significant."

"Do not forget I am still monitoring your vitals in case I need to intervene." She turns back forward, twin laser pods once more adjusting as her targeting software finds potential targets and dismisses them. "You would be much safer should you take me up on my offer."

"You know, I'm not sure I like you being both inside my head and in a form that could crush me like a twig." I grin at her.

All four of her legs shoot outwards, and she bows down like a dog inviting another to play. "I never did find out your exact physical resistance."

I smack the armored leg with my hand and shake my head. "Let's not disturb the civvies more than we already have."

Instead of sending the sounds of exasperation through our connection, some of her hydraulics depress, a hissing sound filling the street. "They are not fighters. It does not matter what they think."

I pause in place, and the Hydra has to turn in place to look back at me.

"What is it, Hadwin?"

"You're… really aggressive in that form, aren't you?"

"...Correct. Combat related functions have all been activated since recovering this form, including my combat directives." The immense robot lowers itself slightly, like it's shrinking away from me. "Shall I disable them?"

"Are you going to start shooting anyone if you don't?"

"I do not expect to attack anyone unless they are a threat to those on my protection list."

"You sure?"

"I can assure you that none of my programming allows me to randomly attack humans, dolls, or living creatures. ELID life-forms are an exception to this rule."

"...Alright, I'll trust you." I continue to limp along, and she rotates to continue meaning next to me. "Who's on the protection list?"

"Your children. You. Eva. All dolls you have Oathed. All Griffin dolls you are friends with. Lucas. Your parents. Tristan. Polly. Rakim. In that order."

"Wait, back up. Rakim? And who are Tristan and Polly?"

"All three are the police officers that spent time to ensure my frame remained functional and charged. Each time my battery was plugged into a charger, my automated defenses recorded who was connecting or disconnecting the power plug."

"Huh." I nod. "Well, I guess I owe Rakim a gift of thanks."

"I would like to provide all three with a present. I will need to discuss it with you." The light on the front of her chassis blinks on and off. "I have discovered that several of my behavioral modules are having side effects, not just the combat one."

"Modules installed into your physical chassis?"

"Yes."

Huh. I get why T-dolls have personalities, mainly Persica, but why would a KCCO robot have emotion modules? I'm pretty sure that the KCCO units weren't supposed to have personalities. Then again, her core is of an IOP design, or she wouldn't be able to slot into my head so easily…

"Well, I hope the expanded experience is interesting."

"I am having fun."

I nod, and glance down the street the sound of an engine drawing my attention.

A police cruiser rounds the corner, and upon the driver spotting us, the red and blue flashers blaze for a second to make sure he has our attention.

I stop walking, letting the weight off my lame foot as the vehicle approaches.

The window rolls down to reveal Rakim, bags under his eyes and tiredness etched into every nook and cranny of his face. "For fuck's sake, Hadwin. We give you a warehouse to fight in, and we find it with several holes torn into the side. Then, we get a report from the gate crew that some lady with laser fingers attacked them, and a guy riding a war machine had climbed the wall, and when I got there to write down the report, I heard the guy had just climbed back down the wall and walked away like nothing happened." He glances at the faces peeking out of windows, curtains mostly drawn like the fabric would stop bullets if it came to that. "And then the Chief tells me that there's a walking disturbance on this street, and here you are."

"I'd fly if I could, but I broke my wings." I shrug.

"Yeah… you're not the issue here." He glances at the large military mech. Holly's legs splay out slightly as she lowers her sensory suite to peer into the vehicle. "God, that's freaky."

I glance at Holly as she speaks to my mind. "Er… Holly wants me to tell you that she's thankful you kept her body intact and energized under your care."

"'She'? That's a girl?"

I shrug. "She's always presented herself as a woman with her avatar." I pat the closest leg. "She's the one who took over when Chloe left."

Her whole body nods.

"...Okay." Rakim shudders. "It- uh, She's still pretty intimidating."

"Really?" I look at my companion. "I guess I'm just used to her."

Rakim nods distractedly. "Oh, yeah… Uh, Chief asked me to bring you to HQ if I found you. Hop in."

"What about Holly?"

"How fast can she go?"

I turn to her, question unspoken.

"Faster than any puny police car."

"She's fast enough to keep up." I translate.

"Grat, 'cause I don't think she'd fit in the cruiser."

I open the passenger door, climb in, and Rakim slowly starts to move, Holly keeping pace behind the car with apparent ease.

"Hey man, do you mind if I take a few minutes to rest?" I yawn. "I've been up all night."

"You say it like I haven't." He grumbles. "But I'll let you sleep if you promise me to tell my boss to give me the rest of the day off."

"Deal." I rest my head on the cushion and close my eyes. While I am tired, I'm not actually planning on sleeping.

Noelle had dropped off a new batch of photos and audio logs. I haven't had a chance since she dropped them off… twelve hours ago to actually look at anything other than Rose's note.

I decide to continue to hold out on listening to the audio recordings. I don't know how long they are-

Holly helpfully adds timecodes to the files for me to see and I can't help but let out a slight chuckle. She's still helping me even while being in another body.

Well, these are pretty long. Pictures it is.

There's the usual assortment of shots of the dolls around the table in Springfield's latest cafe location. It's not as fancy as the last one from a few months back, but it still looks cozy. I'm also pleased to see that none of the dolls that were in the last batch of photos had gone missing.

Everyone's still alive. Well, everyone who's in the photo. DEFY and 404 are never in the photos.

There's a bunch more of some everyday life shots, some at shooting ranges, or cooking, or just hanging around. I never get shots of combat, and I can't exactly say I'm surprised, as that would give away a lot of potential information and I'd be sorely tempted to rush out and get them.

There's also a special photo folder set aside and I leave that unopened, tucking it into my 'tax information' folder.

I start sorting the rest into ones I think my kids would be interested in seeing, though arguably that's the entire contents of the drive.

I keep sorting them until a particular photo strikes me.

A section of a dorm room where every inch of free space is covered in prints, actual physical prints of the photos I had sent back to the dolls. Ollie, Farah, Gerty and I smile and grin at the owner from all varieties of angles, and the doll taking the picture has her left hand extended out so I can see a shining silver ring on her ring finger.

Scrawled across the photo digitally is the message. "Always thinking of you. -Rose."

I find it's hard to tear my gaze away from the ring, and only return to reality as my shoulder is grabbed and I'm shaken back and forth.

"Hadwin, we're here."

I open my eyes reluctantly, hand already reaching for the door handle to pull myself out.

Holly's massive form starts to follow me, but I turn to her. "Hey… uh, you can't really fit into the police HQ, so… Uh, would you rather stay inside your body or join me inside?"

"I will join you inside." She says after a moment of thought.

I feel my cognitive load increase as she returns her neural cloud processes to the core inside my head. It's almost like being buzzed on alcohol, my thoughts are just a little bit lower.

"Hmm."

"What's up?"

"I have lost something." Holly tilts her head, her avatar now fully animated as she's not controlling a whole other form. "I feel like I should be feeling something, but I cannot."

"...I'll install you back into your body as soon as I can, and we can discuss it." I nod to her. "Maybe I'll get Eva to see if she can transfer those behavioral modules so you don't have to choose."

"I think I would like that."

I nod and turn back to Rakim, who's nervously licking his lips.

"Is she gonna try to follow us?"

"No. She's in here." I poke my skull.

"Great."

I spend the next hour and a half talking to the Chief about the night's exploits and sharing images, much to his bemusement. I had asked him to let Rakim go as well, and the exhausted man had trudged to his barrack to pass out.

Of course, eventually the problem of Holly's form is brought up. Technically, I had given her frame to the police, but it's not like they can use it without Holly, and she's not likely to quit me for the police force anytime soon. It's not like they want her clogging up their storage either.

I had asked to take possession of her frame again, and the Chief had just started to sigh heavily, before he asked one of the other officers to grab the paperwork for ownership of vehicle class destructive devices.

As that mountain of paperwork was being generated, I had been asked to sit in the lobby and rest until they were ready to discuss moving forward. I take the time to finally start listening to the audio recordings.

The first one is from Belle, describing in her enthusiastic way a recipe she's come up with recently.

The second is from Star, who reads some absolutely cringy poetry that she had written, and I save the file to a nice place on my internal hard drive. That's important to keep for sure.

The last audio log is from Antja.

"Hello Hadwin. It's… been a while since I last contacted you. Rose sent me your last batch of pictures, and I'm glad you still seem to be doing well." She pauses for a moment. "We've been well here in DEFY, what's left of it. Ange and Erwin are on a stakeout right now, and I'll be replacing them soon. Um… well, this is going to take a week or two to get to you, so by then I'll already be done with this job… u-um, I'm sure I'll be fine! Erwin's still crazy strong, and Ange is actually looking better these days. I think the new cream for ELID bruises is actually working. I'm still trying to become a great leader like 12- like Lucia, but I feel like I'm still a long way off."

"Someone call my name?"

My nostalgic smile freezes on my face.

"Lucia? Aren't you supposed to be out buying groceries?"

"I'm done already." The sounds of two bags laden with food landing on the floor comes through the recording. "What are you doing?"

"N-nothing!"

"Ah, a message to our dear Field Agent." Her voice grows a lot more distinct. "Hadwin, I hope you haven't moved on! I'm still very interested in seeing what life in a white zone is like, and-"

"Lucia!" Antje stops AK-12 from continuing to talk. "A-anyway, Hadwin, We're all fine over here! Don't worry about us, and tell the kids I said hi!"

"Tell them I want to examine them t-"

The audio drops out as Antje hits the end button.

No.

Not possible.

"Audio file shows no sign of external tampering. What's more, comparing vocalization to previous recordings shows an extremely high match percentage."

"Holly… I have her core at home."

"You have an IOP core." Holly agrees. "I do not know if we know whose core it truly is."

"Mother FUCKER-"

"Hadwin, it's like six am-" Eva rubs her eyes, bathroom hastily tied to keep her modest. She cuts herself off as she sees who I have behind me.

"...Why do you have a Russian military combat platform following you?"

"That's Holly. You've met." I hold out an IOP core. "I need you to see if you can figure out who ro what was on this core."

She reluctantly takes the core. "Is it really that urgent that you'd wake me up this early?"

"It is, Eva." I take a deep breath. "I don't think that's actually Lucia's core."

She looks at me for a few seconds before sighing. "Fine, but tell Holly she can't come inside in the form.

I listen to the larger robot for a second before repeating her words. "She says she'll monitor us through my connection to her, but will also stand guard."

"So comforting." She dryly states. "Okay, follow me."

I nod and walk into her fairly nice house, noting the pictures of her and her husband litter the walls and some of the surfaces.

"Still getting along with Fredrik, I see."

"Yes. He's wonderful." She glances my way. "Are any of your…?"

"As far as I know, everyone's still okay." I gesture to the cube in her hand. "Maybe I'll even get someone back."

"I wouldn't put my hopes on that, Hadwin. THis core is pretty damaged, and they don't really survive without being charged for too long."

"I keep them on chargers." I look away. "I know it's not actually useful, but…"

"I understand." She leads me into her lab, the layout reminding me of the nightmare I had been part of less than a day ago. "So this is the core that you got that's supposedly Lucia's?"

"Yes. It was included with one of the drops." My hands curl involuntarily. "I didn't want to believe it, but it happened just like the last few times I had been sent a core."

"And I suppose you weren't able to verify the contents were a fractured neural cloud?"

"I'm not sure I'd know it if I saw it." I grimace. "I'm no good with that kind of analysis, you know?"

"Mm. Maybe I should call little Gerty to help?" She grins. "Girl's a genius, Hadwin."

"I know."

"No, I don't think you do. I asked her a bunch of things, and if she continues to learn about computers at the rate she is, she's going to be able to compete with the best."

"She gets it from her mother."

"That's what I'm worried about." She plugs the core into a computer isolated from the rest of her internal network, the one she uses to scan unknown devices. The scan starts and she turns back to me. "I think your wives might have tampered with you kids a bit more than they let on-"

A shriek sounds from upstairs, and my hand goes to my handgun even as I leap into action. I left my Badger and NTW on Holly's frame, so I only have the small 9mm.

Eva runs up the stairs behind me, and we burst into the bedroom-

Fredrik is naked save for a towel, ponting at the open window where the peak of Holly's frame is poking into sight. "The military! They're here to get us!" He scrambles back across the floor, eyes glued to the armor protruding into sight. "Eva, we need to-"

His eyes land on me, and his panic turns into a scowl.

"Hey Freddy." I nod. "Nice towel."

He stands up, Holly seemingly forgotten. "Eva, why is this… man in our house?"

"He's paying me to look into something for him." She crosses her arms. "And he ran up here to help you, you know?"

He glares at me, and I just shrug and tuck my firearm away. "That's Holly, by the way." I point ou the window. "She's with me."

"...That's a 'she'?"

I nod. "Sorry to disturb your morning, I'll be out of your hair soon."

Wait, I didn't actually tell Eva I was gonna pay her. Do I have enough left of my bonus to pay her?

"Hadwin, go back down to the garage. I'm gonna have a talk with Fred here."

Fredrik swallows nervously, and I leave the two lovebirds alone, heading downstairs to sit in front of the computer as lists upon lists of files are copied over much too fast for me to parse.

My mind drifts back to Eva's comment before we were interrupted. "So, Gerty might not be… um, fully human."

Holly shakes her head. "I suspect that when Hannah said she was perfect, she wasn't meaning in only the 'motherly love' sense."

"You know, part of me is just glad she's intelligent. Another part of me wonders what the hell Hannah had to do to get the result she was looking for. Did she modify the donor egg to include smarts? Is that even genetic?"

"Doubtful. I suspect that it's more likely Hannah figured out a way to create a biological computer inside the genome."

"Is that really much more likely? That sounds impossible."

"One. She has been known to scavenge Paradeus tech in case of emergency, and Paradeus has show capabilities far beyond simple genetic alteration. Two: The likelihood of Gertrude's mental faculties being anywhere near her mother's especially since her mother is a doll, is astronomically low. Either Hannah decided to do her best attempt at genetic engineering or whatever god you may believe in stepped in."

"...Damn."

The light in the dim room suddenly tints red, and I glance at the screen next to me.

"OGAS detected - Quarantine required."

Holly and I look at each other.

Eva walks down the stairs, dragging a still damp husband behind her. He glares at me, but I ignore him.

"Is it finished?"

"It's OGAS." I cross my arms. "I can't believe that's still the best way to take over neural clouds."

"It's not like you can just patch core functionality." She starts tapping away much too fast for my eyes to follow. "Dolls were never meant to operate with all ports closed- YES!"

I jump a bit as she stands out of her seat.

"W-what?"

"This is it!" She grabs my shoulders. "This is what I've been looking for!"

"If you wanted a sample of OGAS, I have plenty-"

"No, you dumbass! This is how that virus got onto your neural cloud!" She drops back into her seat, fingers starting to blur. "You interfaced with it, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"Since it's OGAS, it's already designed to break through neural clouds, and since it spreads naturally that makes it a perfect vector to install the main program. OGAS is too easy to detect now, so any scan would find it. It must be setting up the nightmare program and deletingitself to remain hidden."

"...Which means?"

She spins around to face me once more. "If I'm right, I'll be able to reverse engineer this and send out a counter virus to stop this from spreading!"

"...Holy shit."

Freddy steps forward. "Wait, what's going on? What's this nightmare program?"

I glance at Eva. "Uh… If you want to see…"