"I figured it out, Daddy." Gerty puts her laptop in front of me.

"Not now, sweetie, I'm going to work-"

"But if you don't look at it now, we're going to have to wait a month!"

I finish strapping on my plate carrier, and obligingly look down at what my youngest has come up with.

A map of Sector 3, taken from some satellite, fills the screen. Red X's with lines trailing them run around in spirals all around the city. One of them is blue, and it only has one line into it.

"What am I looking at, Gerty?"

"A map of all the dead drop locations!" She excitedly points out the blue X. "This is where the next drop will happen, tonight!"

I give her a look. "How did you get the old locations?"

"I asked Holly. She's very nice." I glare at the representation of Holly, but the digital woman just tilts her head. "Anyway, you need to ask Auntie Noelle to come here again! Please Daddy?"

"I… can't promise that." I look back at the screen. "How are you sure she's going there?"

"Duh." She rolls her eyes. "If you look at where she's already gone, this is the next spot unless she breaks her pattern."

"She's picking randomly, isn't she?"

"Daddy… she's a doll." Gerty puts her hand on mine and pats it sympathetically. "She uses math to pick things randomly."

I'm being comforted by my nine-year-old. "...She's not SV-98 though."

"Who?"

"Oh. Auntie Esvie."

"Can you ask Auntie Noelle to bring her here? She seems like someone I would have fun talking to."

"How about this, if Noelle agrees to come back, I'll see if she can bring anyone else back." I scratch my head. "And… I'm sorry to dash you hopes, but remember that Auntie Noelle wasn't supposed to show up here at all. There's a reason you haven't talked to them much."

"I know." Gerty grabs her computer back. "But, I wanna meet all of my aunts."

"I hope you get a chance to meet them too, Gerty. Maybe once things lighten up on their end, I'll ask them to come by."

"Really?"

"Of course." I rub her head. "Anything for my littlest flower."

"Yay!" She hugs her laptop and runs back into her shared room with Ollie and Farah, presumably to tell them my latest promise.

I holler after her. "I'm going to work! Make sure you keep the door locked!"

"I will!"

All during work, my head turns over and over with the location of the drop that Gerty provided, wondering if it could possibly be real. The guy I was training noticed it, my boss noticed it, and I almost got sent home for the day. When I told them that I might be able to see one of my wives, I was assaulted by all sort of questions about them and I had to deflect pretty hard.

The consensus among my coworkers was that it was a good idea to at least humor my daughter, and once work ends I realize that I'm already heading to the location instead of home.

When I get to the proposed drop off point, I find a nice cafe within viewing distance, but not easy viewing distance. One thing I realized after leaving Gerty behind this morning was that if I actually met with Noelle, I might be causing more problems. She was pretty cryptic on why none of them were allowed to meet with me, and I don't want to ruin it. Besides, any decision made will probably be put into the drop, and if she's willing or able to show up she'll put some indication in.

This is, of course, assuming both that Gerty's estimation is correct, and that Rose hasn't decided to cut me off entirely after last month's stunt.

My coffee arrives, and I sip on it as I contemplate my situation, mind wandering back to before I retreated to Sector three, Ollie in my arms, desperate to give him to my parents so I could just go back to Rose on the battlefield. They had, of course, insisted that I take care of him. Farah showed up a few months later in Aleah's arms, and Aleah had stayed with me until her core corrupted. Gertrude was deposited on my doorstep in the night with a note from Hannah.

Aside from Aleah and recently Noelle, I haven't seen any of the dolls I had become close with since the day I arrived back in Sector 3. It took me years to go through the stages of grief and finally just prioritize the kids properly, and that's when the dead drops started.

I sip my coffee once more, glancing up at the bench that Gerty had predicted would be the drop location. Nothing yet.

Rose has been coordinating them, and she sends pictures of herself and the others each time with the simple request that I send photos back. They rarely write letters to me, though I always write something to tuck inside the drive next to the folders and folders of pictures.

I wish I knew why they refuse to see me to this day. Originally, I was a screaming mess, and Rose has informed me that part of the reason she decided to get pregnant in the first place was to anchor me to Sector 3, a white zone. A safe place to live, where I'd stop being in combat. Aleah and Hannah agreed to the plan, also having kids before I could figure it all out, and they cut off communication to avoid me doing anything rash to go after them.

I can't blame them either. There were days I would have ditched my children of less than a year old to go chasing after the ones that sent me here, if only I had known where they were at that time. Now, I've realized that Ineed to take care of my kids, and I've learned to treasure them properly. I wouldn't leave this city to go chasing after them anymore.

Oh well, I'm sure Rose has her reasons.

I look back at the bench. No sign of a drop. The last of my coffee goes down my gullet and I glance down at my phone. Usually, the text about the drop shows up about this time.

Once the waitress collects the cup and offers me the check, I pay it and decide that, despite my hopes, Gerty was just wrong this once. Now I'm going to have to break the news to her gently-

My phone buzzes and displays a simple message.

It's… right here, isn't it?

I glance back at the bench, only to see the barest hint of a black tail disappearing into the crowd.

Holy shit. Gerty… got it right. Holly wasn't able to figure out the pattern!

…Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask Hannah what she meant by 'minor alterations'.

I get out of my seat, walking over to the drop, thoughts still swirling in my head.

A pale form in a black dress sweeps up to the drop.

I freeze in place, watching as she pulls the drop loose, plugs it into a device in her hands, and then replaces it.

Looks like I got the culprit, all right.

How did she figure out the drop location so fast though?

She turns and starts to walk away, and I realize that this is a perfect chance.

I pull my jacket close, duck my head to hide my face a bit, and start to follow her through the crowd. It's only seven on a Friday, so there's plenty of people around for me to hide among. Prepared to duck into an alley or shop at any moment, I quickly ascertain that this isn't going to be necessary as she never looks back, entirely confident in her stride.

Either she naively assumes she can't be followed, or she's so strong that she doesn't care if she is. I'll do my best to make it the former, but privately I think that being a named Nyto she's going to be one of the more troublesome ones.

I keep up, doing my best to not run into any of the pedestrians milling about as I follow after her brisk pace, doing my best to keep her in sight as she takes turns and continues through the downtown like a celebrity, hardly looking to either side as she places a foot in front of the other. Her pace is so blistering that whenever she turns a corner, I start sprinting to catch up. I'm getting looks, but I need to figure out where she's going, hopefully before I get reported for following a younger woman around the city.

Even I have to admit I seem extremely suspicious to any outside observers.

I follow her as she goes, right, then left, the right twice, left once, right four times-

Four?

When I make it to the same spot I had been standing only a few minutes ago as we'd made a large loop, I find that Protea has turned around and is looking back through the crowd almost nonchalantly.

Yes, she's scanning for anyone that's following her.

All of the pursuit lessons I've been given by 404 and others scream at me to let it go, that I'm as good as burned at this point and need to back off to not spook her. Most of those lessons are based on an expectation of having more than one person available to help with surveillance.

I glance away from the sop window to find that she's once more on the move, her already impressive speed now even faster as she picks up her pace to draw me out.

No matter.

I pick up my pace as well, weaving through the crowds with ease of practice, letting her get just about as far away as she can be before I lose her entirely.

She rounds another corner, and I stride up to it only a dozen seconds later, peering around the edge…

She's gone.

I pause in place, waiting to see if she pokes her head out, or rejoins the flow of human traffic, but no dice.

Dammit.

I look around, fully taking in my surroundings for the first time since I hyper-focused on the Nyto, only for a chill like cold water dumped down my neck to overtake me.

I'm only two locks from home. She almost led me right back home.

I hurry my pace, no longer concerned with hiding my presence from anyone, heading right for my house, eyes flicking around to see if I can spot the hostile woman before she can get to my house, get to my kids.

No sign of her, up until the point I make it up to my doorstep.

There's nobody even remotely matching the description of the Nyto either, so…

I open the door to find Ollie and Farah playing a game in the main room, looking up from the mess of cards as I walk in.

"Hey daddy." Farah waves. "We're playing Re-Gi-Ah!"

"That's nice." I glance around. "Where's Gerty?"

"In the room." Ollie points his finger without looking up from his cards. "What's up?"

"Well… I got the drop." I hold out the data device. "I wasn't able to talk to Auntie Noelle though."

"Aw." Farah deflates slightly. "Maybe next time."

"We'll see." I walk toward the kids' room, only for my phone to ring. "Hello?"

"Hadwin." Eva says shortly. "Can you come over to my place? I've got a doll here that's having the same symptoms you are."

"...Huh?"

"Your nightmares?" She elaborates. "I want to compare the code between the two programs."

"I can make it over…" I look at my watch. "Maybe a few hours later? I gotta feed the kids."

"Just bring them over." She sighs. "I'll get Gin to make something for everyone."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Hadwin."

I turn to Ollie and Farah. "Want to go to Eva's for dinner?"

"Can we really?" Farah asks, dumping her hand flat on the table, letting Ollie see her cards.

"I'd like to." Ollie also abandons the game after evaluating his cards against hers.

"Sounds like we'll be over soon then." I respond to the phone.

"Now that everyone's full, I'd like you to meet Beatrice." Eva leads us all into her garage, where wires dangle from every surface and the hum of PC fans is almost oppressive, enough light spewing from several dozen monitors to illuminate this place even with the lights off.

Gerty looks absolutely at home here, peering at all the computers, but my other two stick close to me as if worried.

I hold my hand out to the disheveled doll, skin torn to expose metal tarnished by years of exposure. She seems surprised that I'd be willing to shake her hand, but responds in kind.

"Beatrice, this guy is Hadwin Galanis, the human I told you about."

The doll glances back at me. "He has a neural cloud."

"Yes, I do." I sit down next to Eva's computer. "Long story."

"He's near suicidally crazy, hangs out with only the weirdest people and married a few dolls." Eva rolls her eyes. "Him having a doll core is almost normal for him."

"I see."

"Eva said you have something similar to the program inside my head inside of yours?"

She nods. "I am experiencing hallucinations on a seemingly random basis. My monthly security sweep noticed unauthorized files saved to my neural cloud, and attempts to delete them failed. My owner then sent me here to see if Eva would be able to fix me."

"If anyone is able to, she can." I smile at the doll. From her language and state of repair, she's probably not having the best life, but no reason to leave her in an even worse state, right?

"That is the hope."

Eva walks up to us. "Alright, let's see-"

She runs several tests, hooking us up to her many banks of computers to run comparisons and stare at long readouts of code with her brow furrowed.

"Hey dad?" Ollie asks as Eva once more starts to tear her hair out as she examines the latest results.

"What's up, kiddo?"

"Can we do anything to help Beatrice?"

I glance at the doll, currently sitting in level two and thus unable to hear us. "I have no idea. She's owned by someone else, and without knowing who or why, we don't know why she's in this state. She might just have a hostile job and is going to go for an overhaul soon."

"Dad… That's not…"

I reach out and rub one of my only son's shoulders with my hand. "I know bud. I know. I just have to tell myself that sometimes so I don't go crazy."

He nods sadly, not continuing the conversation.

Eva finally just hits a few keys on her computer and Beatrice resurfaces to reality.

"Alright, I have… news." Eva rubs her face. "The smaller files seem to be some sort of patchwork movie files. They all have data for some sort of visual and audio programming, as well as access to pain circuits for some reason. Think movie theater with a taser built into the seats. In any case, the main program is hard to isolate, and I don't think I'll be able to without running the program at least once more." She glances at me and Beatrice in turn. "I know neither of you-"

"I'll do it." I volunteer. "It's horrible, but I'm not going to let Beatrice risk frying herself again."

"Er… Hadwin, is it?" The doll looks at me. "I'm just a doll, you don't have to go that far for me."

"All of Daddy's wives were dolls." Farah grabs the doll's shredded hand. "So was my mom! Dad's very nice to dolls, so you don't have to worry."

The look Beatrice gives me… "I suppose that's acceptable." She frowns. "Have you figured out the activation code?"

"Yeah." Eva puts her chin on her hand as she stares at more data being kicked out of her computer. "Hey, Hadwin. Gerty told me you got a new drop tonight?"

I give my youngest a look, but she just grins at me. "Yeah."

"Let's see if that has a new part of the sequence on it. Maybe we'll be able to see if we can trace what part of your cloud accesses the new file. It might be our best bet of tracking it down."

I pull the data drive out of my pocket. "I… Well, I think I figured out who put the file on there." I hand it over to Eva. "If these movies are being made like you thought, she's probably the one creating them."

"One of your exes?" She smirks.

"No, someone much worse." I look away. "If… if you're going to load the program, give me a few seconds to prepare, okay?"

"Well, first I need to hook you up to as much monitoring equipment as I can."

Holly appears on Eva's screen, and most eyes shift to her.

"May I transfer my core functions to one of your servers? I would like to observe. The program normally forces me to shut down to avoid frying Hadwin's brain."

"Sure!"

In short order, the cables are hooked up, and I close my eyes.

I'm going to hate the next minute of real-time, but maybe a dozen minutes inside my own head.

"Hadwin, are you sure about this?" Eva asks, hand hovering over the button.

"No." I give her a weak smile. "But let's get it over with."

She nods, and hits the button.

The looks in my children's eyes as they hide from me, and the inevitability of me shooting myself.

I had expected to die instantly from the bullet to the head, but to my surprise, my corpse stands up, completely out of my control, pulling weapons as if from thin air. Still, the feel of the steel in my hands, the weight as I load the guns up, everything is right.

This is reality. Too real to be a dream like before.

A small part of my brain screams that this isn't reality, it's just an illusion, but how can that be? I just killed 416, my Adele, and my kids are going to report me to the police.

But, if they aren't able to go to the police-

\My arms rack the assault rifle in my grip and I start marching after the trio. How dare they. How dare they?!

I catch up with them soon enough, their short legs not allowing them to get far.

I walk up to them, ignoring whatever it was that Farah's saying, raising my rifle-

I'm back in a lab, cables surrounding me. Eva's got a bundle she's yanked out of the back of my head in her hands, her eyes wide.

I can feel tears on my cheeks, but I can't move.

Beatrice is holding her head in her hands.

"W-what…"

"She…" Eva gathers herself. "You two synchronized. Whatever that program does, it also started to transmit." She looks away. "I… I didn't know how bad those files were, Haddy. If I did-"

Wait. She saw them?

Then…

My neck resists moving, rebelling against my need to know.

Sure enough, three terrified faces, owners holding onto each other for comfort.

All of my motor functions come back on at once, and I grab a nearby trash can only to empty my contents into it.

That's not me. It's not, it's NOT! IT's a fucking trick by that FUCKING NYTO-

A small hand touches my back.

Then another, and then Gerty's entire body lans on my hunched over back.

"Dad!" Ollies hand hits my back a few more times. "Dad, it's okay! That's… just a movie, right?"

"D-duh!" Farah's false bravado shows in the tremor in her voice. "Daddy loves us more than anything! No way he'd ever… um, ever…"

"Daddy." Gerty's arms hug me as tight as her short arms can manage.

"I'm so s-sorry." I choke out, before puking again. "I'm not in control of the visions-"

"Obviously!" Eva snaps. "I told you they were video files! I cannot believe… For fuck's sake, Hadwin, tell me if it's that horrible!"

I sit back, and scoop all of my kids into a big bear hug, unable to stop the flow of tears. "I… I… T-that last part was n-new. Th-the rest of it I c-can handle…"

Eva drops back into her seat. "...Shit."

I look back down at the heads of the three kids burying their heads into my chest. Ollie, the most observant and kindest. Farah, the Bravest and strongest. Gertrude, the smartest and best planner.

How could anyone make me hate these kids? Even with that fucking program…

I'm a horrible father.

I pull them closer, and none of them make even a single movement to resist.

My tears redouble, and I can't see anything through the haze on my eyes for a good long while.