The foliage was unkempt, thick and obstructive; exactly so as to mask the entryway to the decrepit concrete structure that nature had swallowed up. UMP-9 carefully pulled aside a particularly limber branch, careful to not to snap or otherwise mar any of the branches or leaves.
UMP-45 slipped by, pulling her neural jack from the bag and plugging into a panel next to the sealed doorway.
Safe-house five. It was where they retreated to after their last big engagement against Sangvis Ferri.
9 hated it from before, and now she had even more reason to despise the cold, lonely darkness that was this old-world bunker. Audible clacks of the door's bolts releasing, and 45 swung the heavy steel thing open, ushering everyone through the threshold.
9 normally would have been the first through. Usually. Today, she hesitated.
HK416 shoved past her, G11 in tow, both with their weapons shouldered and ready in case of any unwanted infiltrators- or because their weapon mounted flashlights were the only source of illumination to even see where they were going.
No lights in this bunker. Only old propane lamps and candles- whenever they found them. Electronic shielding- EMP-proof, nuclear-proof, and in 9's personal case, comfort-proof. She leapt in behind her teammates, pulling the flashlight off of her weapon's rigging and clicking it to life.
416 might be paranoid about intruders, and 9 might have been too, if she wasn't so damn upset.
"Dorm space clear." 416's voice echoed down from the cold concrete hallway.
"Kitchen clear." 11's bored tone chimed in.
By the time 9 had trundled into their collective living space, 416 was returning, weapon lowered.
"Command and communications space clear- all the side tunnels are still sealed tight."
9 never acknowledged her, she simply set about lighting up their lanterns, trying to shine some light. The hiss of the propane held an uneasy break in the awkward silence, and the dull yellow glow cast an illusion of warmth. Hesitantly, 11 found her long-abandoned bedroll, left exactly as it had been a year ago. She curled up in it, though to 9 it seemed as though even G11 seemed to be discomforted in it.
Everyone knew what was to be said, but no one dared to say it.
The echo of bolts latching shut from the dark. Each light footstep sending waves of dread through 9's systems. Sealed once again from the outside world.
"I'll call our employer." 45 brushed past the three dolls that were awaiting… something. 9 didn't know what. Maybe an explanation, or an apology for returning here? It certainly seemed like even 45 didn't wish to be back here.
416's scowl grew even more pronounced once the door to the "command" room quietly creaked shut.
"We're home." 9 found herself bitterly croaking. Both of them began to empty their rucksacks of the ration and ammunition they had pilfered.
"What did the commander tell you?" 416 whispered. Their auditory sensors hadn't been tapped by 45, but the neural network most certainly was.
And still, 9 hesitated.
The moment- that final moment with their commander had been brief, gut-wrenching, and uplifting all in the same moment. If 9 had a heart, it would be thundering at the mere memory of it.
Her head twitched, an electrical spasm brought on by the corruption of some of her primary processes.
416's stare glowed, piercing green in the dim light of the lantern, haunting and unerring in their judgement.
"You're fragmented." Her statement was obvious, its implications terrifying, "Tell me, what did the commander tell you." 416 pressed again.
And again, the same dreadful shiver. 9 knew, it was because the memory might be wiped, the fragment it was attached to might not be consolidated. 416 was pressing because she wanted to preserve it.
She just went about asking in the wrong ways. The commander always knew- he always understood the right ways to ask- knew what was troubling 9… they were his dolls.
Like he cared for them all.
9's hand fidgeted.
"That we'd have a home with him when we need it." 9 croaked.
Those were not his exact words. In that moment when the commander had come across her near the base's perimeter fence… he had said a lot of things- some very important things only for her ears. In the end, she shut down his appeal, sent him off to intercept 45 to make his case with her, but they were certainly the most relevant words for 416 to hear.
And they had stopped 416 from bristling like an upset cat. Her shoulders relaxed, the glare melting from frozen daggers to mere frigid butter knives.
"When we need it, huh…" 416 wistfully parroted.
9 doubted that 416 harbored the same terrible thought as herself.
To just leave. Return to the base and simply live. Abandon the team, abandon her promise that she made with 45.
Another spasm rocked her. A deep-seeded conflict between her programming and her budded sense of self. Was this conflict what humans considered "irrational"? "Existential?"
"So when we get into trouble again, and can't handle things ourselves." 416's scowl had downgraded to a frown, "Well, it's good to know we have a safety-net, sort of."
Safety-net?
416's words were a gross betrayal of her feelings too; elite doll or no. As much as she scowled and snarled, she cared for the commander too. It was like she were trying to convince herself that this was to be their lot in life.
"Nothing else?"
"No. Nothing else." 9 quietly stood, picking up a lantern. 416 watched her in silence as she moved a box of rations to their "kitchen". She wasn't hungry, but she just needed something to do.
"I'm going to bed, then." 416 announced, signalling that it was only going to be 9 and 45 left. The elite doll knew that there was a storm coming and wisely was going to step out of the way. The rustle of a bedroll, the deep sigh, a final breath before the redundant process of mimicking a human were shut down by sleep mode.
416 wouldn't wake up, no matter how much sound was going to be made.
9 dropped the box of rations and lantern on the counter, making for the command room as if possessed by a command compulsion. The door wasn't bolted, and the creak of it announced her presence. The silhouette of 45 was lit by the dull blue glow of her portable terminal. Fingers tapped away at keys, the line jack not set into the base of her neck like usual.
"Yes Nine?" 45's voice was distant and cold, distracted.
"You lied." 9 wanted her words to cut like a knife- to pierce like a bullet. Instead, they jammed in her mouth, becoming a weak whisper.
"I did, but we had to leave." Again, 45 kept repeating the same reasoning. The same weak excuse. It drove more electricity through 9's circuitry- through her emotion module.
"Why?" Her words fired forth once again, reinvigorated through spite.
"Because we would put the base in danger." 45 still had not turned to face her, she still spoke with those dismissive words.
"You are lying to me."
"I am not."
"Everything about a home, about a family-"
"-is part of your primary desires hardwired into your mindmap. It's part of your programming from when you were just a doll."
9 pursed her lips, an anger she had never felt before welling up within every conceivable neural pathway she had. She hated feeling anger, and the paradox she was currently stuck in only fueled this irrationality more.
"I don't care if it was from before, it's still who I am now." 9 thumped a closed fist over her breast, trying to drive her point, "Family doesn't need to lie to each-other. A family's connection comes from trust, sis. So explain to me why I should trust you again."
"You shouldn't trust me." That weak self-deprecation was all that 45 could muster? UMP-45 turned her head to stare back at her younger sister, blank and unreadable.
"Then I'd rather you wipe my memory than constantly be reminded that you lied to me. I don't want to hate you, sis." 9 gritted her teeth. She knew 45, her sister in name only, lied on a daily basis- it was her nature as a covert unit…
But they had sworn to each other that they came first... that 9 would give everything for 45, and she assumed that it was likewise for the older sister. To find out that even that promise was a lie… it hurt too much.
And 45 just had to know how much leaving the commander would cost their team. Not only in profits, but also in their own sanity. After all, the commander and Kalina were perhaps the only other humans that saw them as people rather than as tools. It wasn't about profit, or a mission using expendable pawns, it was about keeping their little family of soldiers together.
That was what stung 9 the most. It's what drove her to hatred, to the definition of what "spite" was.
And it was why she lied to 45. 9 clenched her fist, the commander's ring biting into her ring-finger from beneath her glove. Even if she was reset- rolled back, or whatever mucking about 45 did in her digi-mind, 9 swore that she would remember her commander- she would push those warm memories into the inert ring on her finger, rationality and logic of that being impossible be damned.
"We'll… get the backup of you from Deele. It's still on Level Three..." For once, 45 seemed backed into a corner, weakly trying to reason.
"I don't care if you get my backup or not." 9 scowled, "Do what you want, just like you always have."
"Fine!" 45 screamed- one of the few times that she had ever raised her voice to her sister. In a flurry, 45 had bolted up, running the connection jack from her deck and jamming it into the port on the back of 9's neck.
9 did nothing to resist. Even as 45 ran the reset sequence, her sister only moved once or twice. Small twitches, silent shudders with no sound.
9 was sobbing.
And when the program completed, the heaving breaths stopped, stuttering back up into a calm, steady rhythm. Her chocolate eyes fluttered back open.
"UMP-nine, scout model tactical doll reporting." The T-doll snapped a quick, sloppy salute.
"Nice to meet you, Nine." UMP-45 croaked, "I'm UMP-forty-five."
The twin-tailed doll blinked twice in surprise, the remnants of silicon tears still dripping from her chin before she brightened instantly, "Another UMP? Then we're SISTERS!" The doll cheered, grabbing onto 45's coat and pulling her into a hug.
But this was not real happiness. 45 had seen 9's real happiness- this was just the programmed emotion module running it's default, devoid of the personal developments that 9 had gained. Even if 45 overwrote this UMP-9 with her UMP-9's mind-map… the past year that they had spent changing and growing with the commander-
Only 45 would have changed. Only 45 would hold those regrets, storing them away in a dark corner of her mind map, tucked neatly away next to the black partition that loomed over some unknown memories- warning enough to not come looking for them again. It became a place of her mind-map that she knew well.
Somewhere behind that locked-down part of herself lay regrets and guilt, and yet she knew held something of such great importance that it should never be cleaned.
"Sis?" UMP-9 tilted her head, an innocent curiosity pulled upon 9's youthful features.
"It's nothing, Nine. Nothing at all."
"Is this our home?" UMP-9 looked around the dark. She showed no disgust, no anger, no disappointment. A perpetual light of excitement, waiting for 45 to lay in the confirmation command.
"...no." UMP-45 held back something trying to surge forth from her emotion module, "This isn't our home, but we have to stay here a while, okay?"
"Oh…" UMP-9 deflated somewhat, but still put on a smile, "Okay sis. When we find our home, you'll tell me, right?"
"Of course." UMP-45 sucked in a quick breath, "Of course I will, Nine."