White noise.
A constant, erratic hiss. Whenever 45 approached the "concept" of that partition in her digimind on Level Two, it was that great electronic barrier that greeted her.
Like how a rattlesnake shook out its warning, or how a spider would posture and bare its fangs. A clear, unsettling warning to any who approached it.
Except the only person who could ever get this deep into 45's digimind was 45 herself.
Who put it here?
45 reached out to that black, foreboding-yet-formless wall; the holographic image of her simulated consciousness losing its shape and tangibility the closer she reached. The fingertips that were nanometers from the wall melted away into static noise.
Erratic electronic signals fired off; all designed, coded to instill fear and panic. What terrified 45 the most, however, was the voice from beyond. Familiar. Warm. It tugged at 45's emotion module, it beckoned her into the wall of oblivion.
The static crescendoed in pitch and volume, rising to drown out that voice.
[remember me]
45 pulled her hand away, burned by an invisible flame.
[Update complete. Repair sequence complete]
Her whole world chimed, echoing in this empty, conceptual space like a clock-tower bell's ring through an abandoned plaza.
[Please exit Level Two to reboot]
She ran. Not from the wall, but of what lay behind. 45 was unsure her digimind could handle whatever lay behind the barrier, and clearly it was there for a reason.
And with a snap of her fingers, 45 cast her consciousness back into the dark.
.
..
…
….
[error: memcheck - incomplete]
[error: memcheck.v2]
[error run.{REDACTED} - unable to parse {REDACTED}]
[system restored]
45 snapped awake, hand reaching for a weapon grip that wasn't there.
Naked on a slab within an empty repair bay, only the cold light of her station to give her any comfort. The holes in her frame neatly patched up, no shoddy epidermal mesh, no scars to indicate she had ever been damaged… well, damaged recently.
Arm and leg functionality fully restored- at least to her last recorded specifications. Not better than before, but definitely not worse. More to the point, no odd bits and bobs that Deele thought that he could get away with modifying.
No visitors to greet her when she woke, either. They were either too distracted by the commander, or they were politely waiting for her to dress herself; she didn't bother running a predictive process to figure out which as she reached for the clothes folded neatly on the tray beside her slab.
To no surprise, the clothes were mended and washed, just like how she remembered they would always turn back up. Burn and bullet holes carefully cut away and restitched with a precision matched only by whenever her jacket had been originally woven. G36 certainly was a miracle doll on the homefront.
45 clung onto her beloved jacket just a bit longer than she would have liked to admit before finally getting herself dressed and sorted. Her gear lay on the underside of the slab, preliminary scans showed it had remained undisturbed from where the commander had set it down. His fingerprints were still fresh on the repair protocol case as she slipped her own thumb drive back into it.
The simple act of gearing up brought her solace, something about the finality of every clasp and buckle clicking shut mirrored the different programs in her digimind snapping to the ready after startup. For a doll, sorting oneself was as simple as sitting in Level Two while waiting for a defrag program to finish jumbling around your mindmap's file paths and data, but coming up with one's own little ceremony, one's own personal little decorum, it was centering...
Ugh, look at her. Fawning and flowering over an electrical process like some sort of… poet. 45 grunted at herself; she had already been here too long, let herself relax just a bit too far.
He had that effect on her, regardless of where they actually were at. The crisp sigh of a metal door gliding open had 45 shutter those thoughts of hers quickly.
"Ah good, you are awake! You are the one we saved, yes?" A feminine voice floated over 45, cadenced to the rhythmic tick of high heels upon tile. Fal… no… an FAL unit had so casually strolled in as if she owned the bay. She sounded the same, certainly, but there was no way that this unit was the same FAL-
"I am." 45 responded cooly, quietly checking the last bit of her kit and trying her damnedest to not look the doll in the eyes.
"Good. I am glad that the teams reached you in time." The FAL let out a relieved sigh, despite having no lungs in which to truly emote with. A corner glance showed that it looked like the FAL that 45 had known. That same silken slip of a dress, that beautiful flowing auburn hair, that ribbon-
Circuitry fired- the connections in 45's memory completely involuntary.
The azure ribbon, stained with fluid slipping from her hand.
"I am FN, FAL. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
She wasn't the same.
"UMP-Forty-Five." She gave the FAL a sidelong glance, taking in the full figure of her. The FAL moved like 45 remembered, sounded like 45 remembered, those long legs shifting with the elegance of a dancer- programmed for such preternatural grace as she approached, arm extended out in a welcoming gesture.
"Thanks then." 45 slipped her gloves back onto her hand before taking up that demure, scarless hand and shaking it firmly. Undoubtedly the FAL had caught the mico-hesitation, that slight stutter to 45's movement that she had tried so hard to delay.
"Pardon my rudeness," the FAL's synthetic face flushed a rosey shade- the pigment pumped through to the epidermal surface for that mask of embarrassment, "but have we perchance met before?"
"No." 45's lie was as instantaneous and hard-programmed as a human's biological impulse to breath. She could see the logic program spinning its gears in the FAL's head, constantly clipping on something.
And eventually the T-doll shaking her hand let out another artificial sigh, though the way the FAL smiled… the way that her eyes softened; it was relief. 45's empathy program was not so corrupt that she couldn't tell that emotion.
What a shame, then.
"Oh good. I was so worried that I would have offended, forgetting a comrade in such an uncouth manner."
A shame that 45 couldn't tear her own damn module out after hearing those words. She knew where this was going, she could predict the path that the conversation was to head and she opened her mouth to retort- to interrupt before more damage could be dealt, but nothing came out of her voice modulator.
"I'm sure our commander and support staff have already welcomed you, but if you could give me a moment-"
No.
Don't do this.
Gently, like 45 was made of the most delicate porcelain, the FAL took both of 45's gloved hands into her own, held together like a prayer to a deity.
Exactly like she had before.
"Our home is your home."
Played like an audio file. Played exactly as she had done before.
"Our family is your family, when you need it-"
45 managed to seize her own override, slamming it down over her emotion module just in time.
"No thank you." The words slid from 45 as easily as her hands did from the FAL's own. It was so much simpler to say no this time. She was still on a mission, and 9 wasn't here to hear that damnable word.
9… The thought of her sister sent an electric shock through 45. Pain. It could have only been pain...
And pain was a programmed illusion. Cut it off, isolate it, keep its currents from finding a new route… regaining control was always easiest after a maintenance.
"I appreciate the gesture, but there are still many things I must accomplish without putting others at risk."
To this, the FAL frowned slightly.
"We are dolls. We are meant to be disposable."
[If the commander heard you say that, he'd be furious.] 45 caught herself thinking.
"I am sure that our commander-"
"I am… acquainted with your commander… speaking of which, where is he?"
"The commander is en route currently with one of your team-members. Please stay within the repair bay until you are granted leave." G36's familiar, stern tone echoed through the bay.
"You know our commander… do you work for another G and K officer, perhaps?" The FAL smiled, innocently tilting her head as a way to elicit more from 45. It only hammered in that 45 had let too much information slip. Already she was wishing for her console, she could probably create a mutation of the last wipe bug…
"Apologies. My question seems to have made you uneasy." The FAL frowned, but it seemed more aimed at herself. Quietly, she looked around the empty room, perhaps trying to find a more neutral point of conversation. Her eyes settled upon a slab. "A shame, Five-seven left already, you seem like someone she would get a long well with."
With her scheming, ineffectual sub-commander? Was this FAL trying to kill the conversation? 416 worked far better a foil for 45...
"I work for a private firm, and I am currently on assignment. Forgive my rudeness for not wanting to speak about it." 45's response had made the FAL light up, just eager to be acknowledged in conversation, "But tell me about you, miss FAL- about your team and whatnot."
"Ah! Well, I am the captain of Team FN. It consists of myself, FN Five-seven as my sub command unit, FN FNC, FN-Two-thousand, and FN-Fourty-nine. Our missions are usually for the-"
The FAL had lapsed into the default response from her programming, exactly as 45 predicted. She would run over her team preview information, their base duties, maybe even their regular mission specifications, if they weren't redacted. It gave 45 time to try and plan. The commander was inbound…
What was she going to do? What could she do? He was a valuable asset, obviously, but with the current parameters she needed to operate her team under…
She had to stay away. Far, far away. From not just him, but all of Griffin. Bad for their current line of business, bad for future business. 416 understood why, and G11 would always go along with her… but 9…
9 couldn't have been reasoned with before, and if she really had shaken the memory partitions that 45 had placed in her digimind, it would be even harder than before once she realized what 45 had done. Caught with crumbs on the face, hand still in the cookie jar, as it were.
"-though I am sure you understand… the pressures of being a field team leader. I must confess... our circumstances may differ, but there is a certain sort of kinship with those that have the same experiences, would you not agree?" the FAL smiled, but there was a fault to it, a diminutive flaw that came from experience rather than programming. It wasn't a predicted part of the conversation- the FAL had broken from parameter…
"Y-yes." 45 agreed, trying to pull back what her audio sensors had picked up but not processed. The FAL looked expectant, perhaps waiting for 45's turn to speak her part on a conversation subject that 45 hadn't prepared for.
Never before had she been so relieved to hear the repair bay door slide open.
"Hello, commander." The FAL smiled brighter than before, standing to give him a salute.
"Fal, keeping our guest entertained?"
"Of course, commander. I fear that G-thirty-six has been... harsh in her judgement of UMP Forty-five." The FAL waved a quick goodbye, making room for the commander and, of all dolls, 416.
"Everything functioning fine?" The commander gave 45 a quick inspection, to which 45 coyly shied away from, giving a flat-noted yelp of false embarrassment. As predicted, 416 scowled even harder; one of these days 45 would get her facial expressions to break from overuse, but today wasn't that day.
"Clearly everything is function fine." 416 crossed her arms, trying to urge the commander on to what he was going to say with a flick of her head, but 45 swept her teammate aside. She had moves with such speed that 416 hadn't reacted quick enough to pull back before 45 had slung an arm around her waist.
"A word in private, if we may, commander?" 45 waved back at him, feeling 416's tension ease only when the commander agreed.
Not wanting to risk setting up even a small encrypted network, 45 relied on the old trick- a small hand signal to 416 to indicate they were switching to masked conversation.
Sub-conversation routines were simple enough- play a prerecorded conversation speaking over a lower, specifically set decibel level. Filter out the above noise, and have your conversation in secret. No human would ever know, and only specially programmed dolls could pick it out amidst the other vocalizations.
"Nine's status?"
"Gave me the slip for a moment during a tour of the facilities, distracted her by pushing her and Eleven to the dorms. Enough there to keep her distracted and entertained."
"Change in behavior?"
"None, other than the insufferable curiosity."
Again, part of 9's usual routine- something in her base programming that couldn't be planned for, only around… but the dorms were still a risk. Much like being near the commander, there were things that 45 couldn't completely scrub the memory fragments of...
"She's in Dorm Three with G-eleven- and before you get on me about it, there was nothing I could do about it. It was either that or her running off to hunt down him. That damn curiosity of hers."
"We need to collect her and leave, now." 45 practically hissed, spinning to throw on a fake smile to the object of all her current troubles. "Sorry about that commander."
"No offense taken." He shrugged, leaning against one of the support columns. The angle of his lips, the relaxed muscle movements as he crossed his arms… he was conscious of something going on under his nose, but didn't care. Or he thought it wasn't any of his business. Too trusting.
"We'll be taking our leave then."
"Just like that?" He tilted his head.
"Just like that. Again, we're on a mission right now."
The commander hummed a flat note to himself. The man tended to do that when he was considering something. No doubt it was something along the lines of, 'what can I say to make them stay?'
"Well, the only thing I can really do for you is offer some support." The commander sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, "I'll have Kalina pull a set of essential supplies for your team. You told Nine?"
"She knows we're on a mission." 416 spoke up, motioning that they should get moving.
"Right then." The commander shrugged, being the first to head out the door. It was… unusual for 45 to see him give up so easily, though she was thankful he did. One less person she needed to exhaustively commit processing and memory towards convincing; she'd need all of that for dealing with 9.
"I'll catch up with you four at the dorms once the order is in." The commander waved them off as he turned to head his own way.
Good. 45 could think clearer without his presence. Even with 416 next to her brewing hotter than a kettle forgotten on the stove, the assault-rifle doll was a known quantity; 45 had a suite of ways to handle her. Right now, collect 9 and 11, say a "proper" goodbye and then finally shove off from this place before anything worse could happen. Get back to the safe-house, offload the intel, and get their damn payment. Not to mention she still had to double-check 9's digimind stability- just one more distasteful task before 45 could even begin to assess her own digimind.
Dorm 3's door slid open and before 45 could really catch a look at who awaited inside, she felt the shove, sending her stumbling through the threshold. The last thing she saw before the door slammed shut behind her was that stupid, smug grin of 416.
"Bitch!" 45 shouted, slamming on the door's control panel, but the damn thing blinked red- access denied. She was locked in.
"Sis."
The tone, the decibel level, the inflection off of just a one-syllable word, all of it specifically programmed to project seriousness. It sent a chill through 45's circuits, despite her being the "older" sister, the one with the authority and power… 45 slipped a new mask over her face to hide everything. Amusement, a half-cocked grin ready to go as she spun to face 9, a shrug already rolling off her shoulders.
"So, how did you get Four-sixteen in on this?"
"She's concerned. Everyone's concerned." 9 sat on what had once been her bed, gaze unflinching, and her lips clamped into a tight, thin line. There was no micro-stutters, no delay in her words, not a single sign of 9's actual memories conflicting with 45's set narrative.
9 isn't smiling.
"So you've got them back?"
"Yes."
9 isn't smiling.
"When did you get them back?"
"I've always had them. You only blocked them, didn't you?" 9 shoved herself up from the bed, taking a single, demanding step forward. "You could have fully wiped me. Set me all the way back to being Reina again." 9 closed in. Never before had 45 felt so cornered while standing in the middle of a mostly empty room. "If I told you to do it again, would you?"
"I…"
"If I never wanted to leave the commander again, would you send me all the way back to being an A-Doll?"
"Nine, I…"
"If I told you I hated you, would you do it?"
Not this. Not now. 9 isn't smiling. I made her not smile.
"Would you do it?"
9 was face to face with her now, scar mirrored across from 45's own. A reminder.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because wiping your T-Doll programming would just cause problems. Getting those back would be…"
"You're lying." 9 had yet to blink, had yet to convey anything other than silent, justifiable anger. "Be honest with yourself, sis. Why wouldn't you just wipe me completely, to send me back to innocence?"
Did… 9 want a full wipe? Did she… not want to be a part of 45's life anymore? 9 had been the one to follow 45 into all of this, but was 45 the one keeping her there?
It hurts. Why does it hurt? It hurts.
Circuitry overheated, the most basic of her programming strings ran into errors, it felt as if her digimind was going to crash just trying to hold everything back; her systems couldn't physically handle it.
[Then just say it, stupid. Say it clearly.]
"Because you're my sister. If I lose you I…" 45's voice modulator trailed off, as if its power had been cut. "Because without you, I'm alone again."
45 couldn't cry. Not because it hadn't been programmed, but because the fluid used for simulated tears had long since dried up… and still, 45 sobbed. Her emotion module had fully hijacked her, new neural-connections stabbing fresh paths through her mind-map. Even when 9 embraced her, the deep pain did not go away. This was fake- everything about her was just a fake human so why did it hurt? Why did her frame make these strange sounds, make these jerky, stuttering motions?
"You always want to be apart from everyone, so you can simply disappear when it is most convenient." 9 read into 45 as if she had access to 45's digimind, "But even if our family is fake, even if you try to push away, I'll be there to remind you." 9 scooped up 45 into her arms, pulling her close.
Perfection for a hug was purely subjective, as it was an imprecise, immeasurable thing. A fundamentally human gesture, one practically necessary for the mental wellbeing of the bipedal, vulnerable meatbags that served as their creators. It was so necessary that every doll came equipped with the gesture as the baseline functionality for their empathy programs. There was no science, no study to the perfection of the gesture other than not squeezing the organic to death. For a doll receiving a hug, there should be no other function; even with simulated emotion, a hug was nothing.
So why did it soothe 45 so damn well? Why did the simple act of having 9's arms cradle around 45 feel like something that she needed?
A stutter from 45's emotion module, a single shot of electricity, a loose bit of unfinished code that kept looping.
"It's okay sis. I'll always be here for you." 9 lied, but it was a lie tied to a truth; a fundamental paradox. 45's sister physically couldn't always be there; after all, even in the most peaceful of times frames broke down.
"I understand why you did it… but I don't understand why you are so afraid of others, so I'll make sure to be here for when you want to talk about it. Cuz that is what family is."
Again, 9 gently stroked the back of 45's head, "Like right now, I'm covering up your crybaby face so that no one else can see."
[...you always were a crybaby.]
The ghost of the partition whispered. Not mocking, not disgusted, simply contented, with a tiny hint of nostalgia sprinkled on top.
45 clammed up in an instant. Why was it so familiar?
"Are you ready to go?" 9 asked gently as she let 45 go.
The older sister had locked up, barely managing to stutter. "Y-you're fine with leaving now?"
"I got to say my proper goodbyes this time, and you should too." 9 looked to 45, eyes wide with an innocent expectancy, like 45 was just going to jump right along with it. If she had her memories back, then she should know the dangers of lingering too long in one place-
"He's right outside, isn't he?"
9 said nothing as she looked away, a poorly whistled note escaping her lips. Since when did 9 get so damn scheming… was it a part of the faux-memories that 45 had wrote? After-all, 45 always regarded herself as her own worst enemy.
"I want you to apologize properly this time." 9 scolded. Even as 45 turned an ireful glare upon 9, the younger sister didn't shrink from it. That determination… it came from a pure place. It was something that 45 couldn't smother from 9's programming, something that not even those humans could erase from 9 when she had once been Reina. It was something that 45 could only yield to.
"Look who's giving who commands now." 45 said, shaking her head. She turned to the door, hiding her sigh and smile from 9. Last thing she wanted now was for 9 to think that she won twice.
"And hopefully it's the last time. Giving orders makes my digimind ache." 9 whined, throwing herself back onto the bed. Though the younger sister sighed and feigned indifference, 9 couldn't hide that smile- nor did 45 want her to.
"Then let's get this over with, before I overheat from overriding my central programming." 45 breathed out, expelling the processor heat. Finger over the OPEN button, she hadn't even pre-allocated any memory or processing to what she was going to say. From the corner of her eye, she could see as 9 looked on expectantly as her finger gently tapped the panel.
And the door slid open.