"One prisoner." A statement more than a question, it was never a good sign when Helian reiterated her questions as thus.

"Yes, resistance was stiff. Given the circumstances and personal risks, no others could be captured." The commander held his breath as Helian stared at him through the display.

"Prepare the prisoner for transport. We'll conduct interrogation here before we hand him over to authorities."

"Affirmative."

"Was there anything else that you may have missed in your report, commander?" Helian's glare was that of ice, a chill that shot through the commander's spines and raised every hair on his arms and neck.

Good thing Helian couldn't see that.

"No, ma'am." He lied.

"When the inventory on the recovered items is finished, send it to IOP with the proper encryptions. They will send for the captured equipment at a later time."

"Affirmative."

"Payment will be delivered upon transfer of the data."

"Affirmative."

Helian seemed to pause, and the commander could see the subtle lines of her jaw pulse slightly as she clenched her teeth. Her eyes were unflinching, like she were trying to read him through ever little pixel on her side of the screen.

"Command out." The feed cut in an instant, leaving only the dull glow of a dead channel.

"Miss Helian's suspicion levels as well as stress index were quite high." G36 spoke quietly from behind the commander. Unfortunately, it didn't take an android's empathy program to see that Helian was more than displeased with the commander's performance.

"She'll have to make due." The commander grunted, collapsing into his chair. The sudden, overwhelming urge to just do nothing anymore had sapped the strength from his muscles, and only G36's constant, unintentionally harsh frown drove him to scoot himself towards the desk.

He was going to do the paperwork for reimbursement for-

The commander wretched slightly, overcome by nausea. In an instant, G36 was at his side, a small paper bag waiting patiently beneath his chin. As frustrating as it was, he forced it back down, pushing the barf-bag away in frustration.

"Master, if I may intrude... let me take over the task?"

G36… she was close to FAL, she could do it. Yet, it felt wrong to push that duty onto someone else. He grabbed the pen and drew up the documentation needed, all the while G36 hovered over him.

"If I might suggest, master? It would raise Miss Helian's suspicions further if you request T-doll frames of a team that you have personal connections with; especially in regards to how little prisoners were taken during the operation."

The commander's arms seized up, instantly wanting to reject his adjutant's logic.

And he hated himself even more for daring to agree with her. He thumbed the silver band on his ring finger, all the while biting his lip.

"It would be best to sleep on it, master. Your adrenal levels have spiked, and your stress values have been steadily increasing since returning from the operation. I will handle documentation for submission at a later time."

"Okay… okay." He shoved his chair away from the desk, holding his hands out as a rejection of the work and as agreement to G36's proposal.

His maid followed him all the way to his dorm, quietly waiting patiently as he dressed down and began passing her parts of his uniform to her for dry-cleaning.

"Oh, if you can double check with Fourty-five," The commander began unbuttoning his pressed white shirt, the final step until he was free, "Make sure that they get themselves to maintenance to defrag their mind-maps." Standard operating procedure for a doll's "mental" health after operations, but still, sometimes 45 neglected those particular steps after a deployment.

"I must apologize, master. I have no recollection of a doll by that moniker in our database."

"UMP-fourty-five? One of your HK cousins?" The commander was certainly confused. G36's mind-map was exceptional at recalling information and rarely skipped unless she overheated, but there's no way she'd be burning herself out right now so why-

The commander froze in the middle of unbuttoning.

He dashed from his room, making for the doll's dormitories. The door to Dorm 3 was not locked, neatly sliding open when he stood at the threshold.

Four dolls stared back at him from their room.

"Can we help you, commander?" UMP45's voice cooly called out from where she sat on the edge of her bed.

"I- thought…" He started to speak, slack-jawed. They hadn't left, but how did G36 not have…

Something felt off, the way the four of them were. 45 sitting upon the bed, G11 curled up in the lounge chair, 416 reading in the corner, 9 laying on the floor.

9 would have been the first to stand and throw herself at him, 416 would have been scowling at the hour that he was disturbing them at, and G11… well that was the only thing right about what he was seeing.

"What were you thinking, commander?" 416 turned her head towards the doorway, though her movements felt less refined- less dignified. 9 too, had tilted her head in curiosity at the situation- all just slightly off.

They were dummy links.

"Nothing. Nevermind." The commander bid the 'dolls' a goodnight before dashing to the data room. A single desk lamp was on, his faithful quartermaster quietly tapping away at a computer.

"C-commander? Where are your pants?" Kalina covered her eyes the moment he crashed through the door, interrupting her consolidation of combat reports.

"Double check the data from the last operation, now." He ran to another console, running through the Doll database, hastily pulling up the mind-map data for every single one of his dolls.

UMP-45, UMP-9, HK-416, and G11 were not listed in his armory roster. Worse yet, there was a base-wide memory rollback from back when…

Back before UMP-9 had first come to the base. The commander cursed out loud.

"Oh… um… uh-" Kalina seemed nervous, perhaps thinking the missing data was her fault. Of course the data would be missing.

"Contact IOP, see if they can send us mind-map backups from last week's maintenance." The commander ordered, not even giving Kalina the explanation why. She undoubtedly saw the contorted mix of worry and anger on his face that she complied instantly.

"Did Echelon 3 turn in their spare ammo and kit?"

"SASS was on duty still so you'll want to ask her, I was working on reports-"

A doll's memory could be compromised, a human's not so much. The commander quietly cursed his subordinate's sudden uncharacteristic adherence to his orders- if she had been in the armory trying to swindle someone then perhaps he could have caught wind earlier.

There was no point double checking. They might still be on the base, somewhere-

But where?