"Welcome to our factory, Commander Lasky!"

The beleaguered man smiles at the IOP rep and tries to pretend he has any enthusiasm whatsoever. "Thanks for agreeing to meet up with me, Mr…?"

"Ah, you can call me Petrov." Mr. Petrov ducks his head differently. "I'll be guiding you through the factory for this tour before we head over to meet up with the lead designers." He smiles as he gestures toward the door. "After you!"

The Griffin Commander holds back his sigh and pushes through the indicated door, eyes wandering to see a massive assembly line laid out across the large factory, so much mechanical movement it almost looks like a Sangvis formation.

"As you can see, we're still busy manufacturing thousands of dolls a day. If you look over here-" The rep points to a part of the floor. "-You can see where the basic frames are being finalized."

Commander Lasky follows his pointer finger and frowns. "Those are just endoskeletons."

"Well, they're not at the customization phase yet." Mr. Petrov's smile never wavers. "This batch is a limited run of a doll we're planning to sell to upmarket crowds as a host. Lots of processing power, more facial muscles than your average doll, and-" He glances around conspiratorially, as if this wasn't a tightly secured facility Lasky had been forced to go through hoops and mountains of paperwork just to know what city it was in. "-We're planning on giving her a alcohol recognition module, so she can be a wine taster."

"...Greaaat." Commander Lasky does his best to hold his face straight. "And here I thought you were actually making a male frame for once."

"Oh, good lord no!" He shakes his head. "Male frames don't sell well at all! It only looks like that because the breasts are added to the skin first so that they sit properly on the frame!"

"Uh huh." Lasky looks back out over the warehouse. "How many of them are you making?"

"About a thousand." He taps the glass. "Production should end after about a week, at which point we're going to re-tool it for one of our regular, mass-market dolls." He glances down at his tablet. "Ah, yes, the munchkin cat model."

The scream of a certain cat doll invades Lasky's head, and he resists the urge to find where Vector had gone and steal her molotovs to do the world a great service.

"I take it you're not a fan, Commander?"

"It's… nothing personal." Lasky grits out. "Why don't we continue?"

"Certainly!"

Mr. Petrov leads Commander Lasky through the entire production process, first leading him down to the floor of the factory to watch each component being manufactured.

IOP does a lot of the parts manufacturing in house, as a lot of the parts are bespoke and once you're a s big as IOP, it's cheaper to have your own tooling department instead of subcontracting when the designs change on a designer's whim.

Once the limbs and body are formed, the frame is assembled, electronics to control movement, house the core, and control basic functions are added. Several dolls work on the production lines in what must be a dystopian hell for them, endlessly making more of their brethren, never seeing the outside of the place of their birth-

"And, obviously, all of our staff including the dolls get adequate pay, time off, and reasonable shifts." Mr. Petrov smiles. "In fact, being employed by IOP is one of the safest career paths for a doll, and positions are eagerly sought after."

"...Alright."

Once the frames are constructed, they're sent to the next portion of the facility.

"Here's where the looks of the dolls are finalized."

Commander Lasky looks askance at the man. "Shouldn't it be finalized before you give them arms and legs of whatever length?"

"Well, sure, the general shape of the doll is specified." He nods. "But the face? The size of the bust? Hair color? Eye color? Bust elasticity? Skin color? Breast softness? All of that is decided based on the indicated personality, and when the dolls are just large frames they have potential to be anything from a tall, shy girl that hides her eyes behind her bangs and peeks out at you from behind her bangs to a tomboy that plays basketball in her spare time, to a elegant lady of the night or even a dommy mommy with honkers the size of her head!"

"...Right." Commander Lasky clamps his eyes shut, trying to forget the trauma gained from that one mission with DP-12, M37, and DSR-

"Of course, right now we're only spinning up this one model, so all our individual lines are set up for the one conversion." He gestures at the rows of stations manned by dolls. "Here's where all the visual touches are added. Anything in particular you'd like to see?"

"Er…" The commander looks around. "How about where the hair is added? I've always been curious."

"Excellent! Follow me."

Lasky's eyes flick around, only to be met by curious looks from the dolls working on their newest sister, or daughter, or whatever. A few of them wave cheerily, though one looks like she's had just the worst day of work and is currently scrubbing her hair into a tangled mess over… what appears to be a set of eyeballs.

"Here we are."

Commander Lasky focuses once more, only to do a double take. "What the FU-"

"Is there a problem, commander?"

"N-No, I suppose not." Lasky shudders. "I just wasn't expecting…"

Laid on on the tables where the dolls are working… well, were working, they all stopped at Lasky's outburst, are hundreds of empty skins.

After more than a second of though, Lasky realizes that of course the whole body is here. If it was just a head, there'd be a seam at the neck, and numerous close encounters late at night had shown him that the neck is indeed the same part of the skin as the rest of the body… but damn, he wasn't expecting to see naked T-doll skin laid out like some horror movie.

The breasts look extra sad without any filling.

"If you look over here, Miss Delilah is sewing each of the synthetic hairs into the scalp." Mr. Petrov leads Commander Lasky's eyes away from the genitalia of the skins and toward what he had asked about. "This doll is not going to have pubic hair, so nothing is being sewn down there."

"Great, thanks, I'm now both knowledgeable and very uncomfortable." Lasky sighs. "Can… can we just get to the designer's meeting?"

"Well, the design shop is the next stop on the tour." Mr. Petrov rubs his chin. "I'll see if they're available yet."

Commander Lasky relaxes slightly. "That'd be much appreciated."

Mr. Petrov starts a call on his phone, and Lasky looks over at Miss Deliliah. Something about her.

She looks back, giving him a pleasant smile. "Something on my face?"

"No, just… you remind me of someone." He frowns. "Sorry, I have a lot of dolls under my employment, and sometimes it's hard to place them all."

"Ah, I'm an early model, if that helps." She stands up and twirls. "Several of us were deployed during World War Three, so if your employees are veterans, it would make sense."

Lasky nods to himself, running through a mental inventory. "...Holy crap, Thompson."

"Hmm?"

"You're… well, you share a model of doll with Thompson. She's got a completely different personality though."

"Oh?" Delilah tilts her head, eyes narrowing.

"Yeah. Thompson's the kind of doll that would charge into a place like this, force you to either start drinking with her, fighting with her, or run away. Last time I put her on a non-combat mission she almost gutted the VIP when he insulted her choice of booze." He chuckles to himself. "Bastard deserved it too."

Delilah looks around hastily. "Well, if you want a shot-" She opens her jacket, revealing a bottle of scotch.

"...Oh. I suppose you are the same model." Lasky smirks. "Sorry, I'm technically on official duties right now."

"Spoilsport." She shrugs and lifts the bottle to her lips.

"Commander?"

The bottle disappears so fast that Lasky wonders if he imagined it. "Ah, yes?"

"The designers will see you now."

Delilah waves as Lasky walks out toward the designer room.

Lasky taps his laptop, once more ensuring that it's still there. If he loses it, his long list of complaints is gone. His entire reason for being here, gone.

Maybe he should have brought the USB stick with the data on it too. Redundancy and all that.

He greets the six men who claim to be the designers, though instead of names they are all just assigned numbers. Most of them are just old men in their forties who look like they haven't stepped outside in at least half of that time, but there's one exception of a woman with a set of cat ears on her head.

"Persica, aren't you supposed to be-?"

"Shh!" She hisses at him. "I'm number four!"

"..." Commander Lasky lets his hands drop into his hands, counting to ten a few times before recovering enough to look back up and open his laptop.

Oh good, the presentation is still there.

"So, Commander." Number One folds his hands. "What business brings you here today?"

"Oh, do you want us to design you a custom doll?" Number Six leaps to his feet.

"Only if it has small tits." Number Two grumbles. "Too many cow dolls these days."

"Shut up, you pedophile." Number Five rolls his eyes.

"You're one to talk, you jerk off to the ones that call you 'onii-chan'-"

"OKAY!" Commander Lasky shouts. "No, I don't want a custom doll commissioned."

"Boo."

"Why are you here then?"

"Goddamn normie, who doesn't want a custom sexbot?"

"I wanna get back to designing my latest onahole."

Lasky looks down at his list of questions, the first one seeming like it's answering itself.

Why are T-doll personalities so fucked?

Sadly, he crosses off the question. With these guys being the designers…

"Okay, I have a few questions. First off… Why did you give the German maid model from 2055 poor eyesight?"

"Oh, I remember that one!" Number Three sits back in his seat. "See, when she was under development she kept staring at me cuz I gave her cleaning protocols. See, I wasn't in the habit of wearing pants and my underwear was filthy-"

"Okay, next question."

"-so to get her to stop I made sure she wouldn't be able to calibrate her cameras without glasses."

Commander Lasky works his mouth a few times. "N-next question. Why is it that when I forced 9A-91 to wear pants, her entire pelvis detonated?"

"Commander, they're not going to be familiar with our codenames." Persica- excuse me, Number Four says. "But I can interpret."

Number Five looks at Persica's laptop. "Oh… Yeah, I liked seeing her panties."

"...And you installed explosives inside her waist-"

"-Because I wanted to always be able to see her panties!" Number Five starts to get mad. "What's so hard to understand?!"

Commander Lasky looks back down at his computer. So many questions, and he's starting to get a sinking feeling that none of these are going to have decent answers. After months… MONTHS of trying to get access to the brains behind doll design…

"Kalina was right."

"What's that?" Number One asks.

"Uh…"

'Commander, they design teenage girls for people to lust over. They're all crazy, even Persica.'

"She said, 'The designers at IOP are all wonderful people'." Commander Lasky lies through his teeth.

"Obviously."

"Aside from this pedophile over here."

"Hey, I at least draw the line at tod-"

"Dude, shut the fuck up."

Lasky closes his eyes and wishes Paradeus would find him here and now and end this.

"Is that all, Commander?"

Lasky looks back at his computer. "Uh… well… I guess I can ask." He straightens up. "Why… why G41?"

Persica turns her computer to show the other designers, who all look at the doll.

Then, as one, they turn to face the Commander.

"Fucknugget."

"I was taking a dump when I imagined her." One of them cackles.

Lasky stares at them for a moment before getting up. "Well, it's been a time. Thanks for agreeing to meet with me."

"Of course." The fat fucks immediately drift away from the central table toward their cubes.

Lasky pulls up his radio set.

"Hey Vector?"

"Yes, commander?"

"TIme to burn this place down?"

"...Can I?" The hopeful tone doesn't escape his notice.

"Please. Use as much fire as you can."

"Alright." She pauses, and the crash of glass can be heard. "Aren't you still in there?"

"Yes. It's unfortunate, but I need to ensure everyone else remains inside, and I can't figure out a way to do that while escaping myself."

Another bottle crashes over the comms, and there's a shout before the fire alarm starts going off. "Well, you'll be missed, commander."

"...Thanks, Vec."

"It's what I'm here for."