Rs brought the car to a halt in the back lot of the bar. Wordless she pulled the key, letting the engine's purr sputter to a halt. She leaned back into her seat, sinking into the cracked faux leather.

"Everything alright?" Cano asked, the doll leaning forward in her own seat to look at Rs' face.

"Yeah, yeah," She replied, "Just taking a breath."

"Tired?"

Rs nodded, "Yeah. You?"

Cano grinned ear to ear. It was surely just a trick of her own exhausted mind, but Rs felt as if the car's interior warmed a few degrees from the expression alone.

"Sto da dio!" Cano said enthusiastically.

The enthusiasm was contagious. Rs felt her own spirits rise in response, trying to meet the doll's cheer.

"Then let's get to it!"

Rs kicked open her door, placing one muddy boot on the gravel of the parking lot and clambering out. She straightened her 'borrowed' uniform and made sure she had all her personal items with a quick patdown of a few pockets.

Cano opened the rear door to retrieve their bundled gear, the thermal cloaks and clothing they'd started the evening wearing were hidden within a trash bag in the back seat.

"Hey, grab that PM too," Rs said, shutting her door.

" 'kay," Cano replied.

Rs made her way to the rear door of Tepes' bar while the doll finished retrieving all their items, and the Makarov from the car's glove box. She knocked on the old wooden door in a short, familiar pattern she knew Tepes would recognize, then took a step back to wait.

"Here," Cano said as she joined her by the door. The doll held out the holstered Makarov with one hand, the other keeping the bag of their gear pressed tightly against her side.

Rs took the weapon. She checked quickly to ensure the safety was engaged, then slipped it into the confines of her uniform jacket. Makarovs were hardly her preferred sidearm, but having one could be useful. Plus, the poor soldier who's car they'd 'borrowed' should not have such a weapon within their vehicle. Somewhere deep in her mind, the NCO within her felt a need to punish the unknown man for such a transgression.

She and Cano took another couple steps back as the wooden door creaked open. A tired looking guard, dressed in a somewhat disheveled looking blazer and dress shirt, appraised them both from head to toe through dark ringed eyes. The man rubbed his temples, as if trying to will some more energy into himself, before stepping aside without a word to let them in.

The bar looked strange in the morning light. The pale early morning rays shining in through the numerous windows filled the place with light. Rainbow refractions played along the floors and walls from the light bouncing off the long wall of spirits behind the bar, while dark wood flooring and bar surface seemed to glow a deep rosy red in the morning light. The whole place was empty, even the front door bouncer was absent, and a small sign hung in the door window.

It felt very liminal stepping in, as if she'd wandered into a place she shouldn't have been able to.

Cano handed their gear off to the man who'd let them in. The man dutifully took the gear over his shoulder and began climbing up to the second floor of the bar. The wooden stairs groaned beneath each step.

"I'll let the boss know you're back," he said off-handed as he made his way up, "might be a while."

"Okay, thank you," Rs replied.

Both she and Cano watched as he disappeared from view into the next floor up, leaving them both alone in the bar. In the corner, a small clock ticked away the seconds. Rs realized she'd never noticed the sound before, and wondered if it had always been there.

"So, what now?" Cano asked after a couple seconds.

"We wait," Rs said. She made her way over towards the bar, pulling out a stool and hopping up onto it before laying her head on the cool wood bar.

"You'd better not start drinking again," Cano chided her.

"It's 7, I'm not that far gone," Rs muttered back, her body feeling heavy as it lay against the bartop.

Cano made her way to the otherside of the bar, inspecting the bottles against the far wall with a curious expression on her face. She picked up a couple, reading their labels before placing them back in their proper places. Rs lazily watched her inspection for a while, crossing her arms on the table and laying her head in the crux -enjoying the moment of rest.

"Hmmm," Cano paused, stepping back from the bottles for a better view of the entire display while tapping her chin in a thoughtful gesture.

"Looking for something?" Rs asked.

"What were you and Tepes drinking earlier?" she asked, "I wanted to see what it was."

"It wouldn't be up there," Rs replied. She raised a hand and pointed down at the bartop, "check below, it won't be labeled though."

Cano's brow furrowed as she crouched down to check below the bar, leaving Rs' sight for a moment. She could still hear her rummage around just below her head though, the sounds of bottles and boxes being pushed around sending little vibrations through the bar.

"Is it this?" Cano held a bottle up into Rs' field of view. It was the size and rough shape of a wine bottle, but with a makeshift reusable cap and a pale red liquid within that only reached about halfway.

"That's it," she grunted.

Cano reappeared from below the bar. She raised the bottle up to the morning light and studied with a curious look on her face, "what is it?"

"Uh, Visinata I think is how you say it. It's made from fermented cherries, Tepes' family used to make it."

"Oh, that's nice… " Cano muttered. From the tone Rs gathered that wasn't an answer she expected.

"Yeah. His sister probably made that. Nice girl."

"You met her?"

Rs made a halfhearted shrug, "Long time ago."

"Sounds like a story," Cano said, leaning against the bar nearby.

"Not really," she began halfheartedly, "We used their family farm as a staging point early into the war. She and I bonded over teasing Tepes, so she made sure he always shared the bottles they sent him with me afterwards."

A faded memory of a young woman rose in the back of her mind. She had Tepes' same rounded features, but a full head of hair that she often tied back into a messy bun. She was smiling, laughing, full of life. It made Rs smile a little too.

"So she's still alive?"

"According to Tepes. Married even."

"Aww, good for her."

Rs turned an unimpressed look towards Cano, "You've never met her."

"Can I not still be happy for her?" Cano asked, frowning as she set the bottle back down on the table gently.

"I suppose," Rs muttered. She settled deeper into her crossed arms, the starchy fabric of her stolen uniform's sleeves starting to feel as warm and soft as down pillows as her eyes drooped.

Sadly, she was startled from her blissful, drowsy state by the sudden kicking open of the front door, accompanied by a loud ringing bell. Her head shot up off the bar, eyes wide with her heart racing.

A group of four girls entered. Their leader, a short girl who looked to be around her late teens with long ashy hair, quickly scanned the entire room before locking eyes on Rs.

The girl had inquisitive green eyes, and a thin scar running her left one. She was dressed in a large, slightly oversized black hoodie with pale yellow highlights and carried a large black duffel bag on one shoulder. Rs recognized her as a doll immediately. She walked with a slightly awkward gait, suggesting a less than optimal maintenance state, and as she entered her gaze never left Rs.

Behind her were three others. Another doll of roughly the same size, with brown hair and a scar over her right eye that looked like a sister model to the leader. A tall one in the middle, with paler white-blue hair and a black and blue jacket. The one at the tail of the group was being dragged by the former, was significantly smaller than the others, and was dressed in a large oversized green jacket and a big floppy hat. Like their leader they each carried a large duffel bag over one shoulder.

Rs's brow furrowed briefly, as she thought idly that she recognized the shortest one's model from somewhere else, though she couldn't place exactly where from. The other three appeared to be unique models.

The leader smiled as she and Rs made eye contact, a sickly sweet thing that felt quite forced in Rs' opinion, and began to make her way over. Meanwhile the three behind her stopped near the entrance, looking around with a range of expressions from curious to bored.

"Hello, are you the client?" the leader asked.

As she spoke, Rs noticed a handshake offer pop up on the local Zener network. She hesitantly accepted, and on doing so tags appeared in her vision overlaid atop each of the dolls. The three near the door were 'UMP9', 'HK416', and 'G11' respectively, while the leader was labeled as 'UMP45'.

Rs frowned a little. She'd suspected, but was still a bit taken aback. 404 was not quite as she was expecting. They looked alot more… normal.

"I suppose we are," Rs grumbled, "I'm surprised you got here so quickly, we only just arrived ourselves."

45's smile turned a shade more mischievous, and the doll shrugged, "Actually we were told to arrive early, in case we needed to rescue you."

"Oh, I see," Rs rolled her eyes, "Tepes had that little faith in us, did he?"

"Perhaps it'd be more accurate to call it insurance."

"Knowing him, probably."

"Indeed," 45 mused, her grin fading into a more muted look of amusement. "Hello RS9. Dier sends his regards, by the way. He wanted me to ask about your model too."

45 sent the message in conjunction with her spoken words, externally betraying no sign of the silent communication. The doll took a seat beside Rs, setting her bag down by the feet of her barstool. She folded her hands into a polite steeple atop the bar.

This was not the first time Rs had encountered a doll communicating like this, masking a comm conversation with a seemingly innocent verbal one. Cano and herself did this somewhat often when discussing sensitive topics in the dorms, though typically this was done by those up to no good. It'd taken a great deal of practice to navigate such a conversation, or recognize when others were having one nearby. Dolls communicate much faster via comms than they do verbally, and hearing two of the same voice speaking about two different things and very different speeds could easily make her head spin. On the other hand, dolls tend to fall into fairly generic small talk for the verbal mask. They go through the motions of a polite conversation, but it has no real engagement from either party.

"Hahaha, afraid he'll have to be disappointed on that," Rs sent back.

"So, have you been here before? How do you know Tepes?"

"Oh just once or twice. He's an old friend, you could say."

"Hmmm, likewise. Only ever been here for work. Is that why he's paying for us on your behalf?"

"Do you work for Tepes often? More or less. What about you? He seemed quite familiar with you girls."

45 winked, "Sorry, trade secret."

Rs rolled her eyes.

"So this is them? I thought they were Griffin, not army," Rs heard from one of the other dolls, HK416.

Rs turned her eyes to glance over towards the doll. Her lips turned up in a small amused look as she now got a better look at her.

Immediately obvious was the tattoo, or doll equivalent, of a single tear beneath her left eye. On top of that, the doll's blue and black jacket was a civilian cut, but had clearly been modified at some point. There was a German flag on her left sleeve, and her cuff links were shaped like balkenkreuz. What was particularly amusing to Rs however, was the symbol embroidered into the doll's Beret. It was an upturned dagger surrounded by a wreath, doubtless to go along with the words embroidered vertically along the doll's jacket: 'Kommando Spezialkräfte'.

"The uniforms are borrowed," she said, managing to choke back her opinions on the doll's own appearance.

"Hmmmm? Stolen more likely. That's illegal you know," 416 chided.

Rs sighed. Her head felt too heavy.

"You know, what we do is too, 416," 45 said, "You shouldn't bother our clients with such trivial details."

"Yeah 416!" UMP9 interjected, gently socking 416's shoulder.

416 stood head and shoulders over 9, and turned a glare down at the shorter doll that would withered most. 9 though didn't seem to care as she cheerfully grinned back at the doll.

Behind 416, the fourth of 404 stumbled through the pair, breaking their staring contest up. G11 waddled over towards the bar, the doll's eyes barely open as she grasped for the nearest bar stool. Her bag fell to the wayside as she crawled her way up the stool, and collapsed into a heap a few stools down from 45 and Rs.

Rs realized after a moment of staring that she'd fallen asleep, her chest gently rising and falling.

Cano, noticing this, moved over to G11 and began to gently stroke her head. "Someone's tired," she said with a warm smile.

"Hmph, when isn't she?" 416 said, crossing her arms and turning away from the group.

"She's a prickly one," Rs muttered to 45, nodding towards 416.

The corner of 45's lips crept up in a smirk, "Ja, she's quite something."

UMP9 strolled across the room, leaving 416 to brood by herself. She slid atop a bar stool beside G11, on the far side of the group from Rs.

"So what's your name?" the auburn haired doll asked Cano.

"Carcano M1891, though please just call me Cano," the doll replied.

"Ohhhh, that's a cute name. I'm 9!" she declared, offering a friendly handshake to Cano.

The pair shook hands, both grinning as they did.

9 seemed a fair bit different to 45. Not as fake to Rs' eyes, and certainly more energetic. Rs wondered if 45 had ever been like that. She also wondered what the story behind both sister's scars was. They were over opposite eyes, consisting of long single slices right over the middle. The eyes themselves didn't appear affected at all though. Perhaps it was a cosmetic choice the designers of their models had made?

9 and Cano had begun to chit chat, mostly just making small talk and exchanging compliments on each other's hair and outfits. 45 seemed content to simply sit and watch them, her face a mask in the shape of a small look of amusement.

Eventually, after several minutes of being ignored, 416 reluctantly wandered over too. She sat down a few chairs from Rs, placing herself far away from the rest of them. She then pulled a pistol, a stock Walther PDP, from her jacket, setting the weapon gently on the bar before starting to strip it.

"So, what were the two of you up to? Anything to do with how you acquired those uniforms?" 45 asked after a while, careful not to attract too much attention from the others as she did.

"Just an errand for Tepes."

"Repayment for his fronting our fee?"

Rs nodded. "Don't think he'd appreciate me discussing more than that."

"I understand, professional courtesy and all that."

"How much is his bill by the way?"

"Hah," 45 laughed, "Ah, well, perhaps more than you'd really like to know. Though as things go, S is not our most expensive service."

Rs had a feeling she knew what may occupy the top spot. In fact she suspected that as things went, search and rescue might not even make their top five.

"How much did he tell you?"

"Eh, not much. Looking for a Griffin doll who may or may not want to be found. Last seen outside Vinnytsia."

"Sounds about right. Any thoughts?"

45 shrugged her shoulders, "Well, I don't think AR-15 wants to be found. I also doubt she went north."

Rs' brow furrowed, "I never mentioned which doll I was after."

"Pfft, please. AR-15 goes missing from the G HQ north of that city, and then a Griffin comes in not even two days later with an S mission for a doll in the same area? Doesn't take a genius to put that together."

"That's definitely not common knowledge…" Rs said lazily. It didn't come out so much as an accusation, but as a statement of fact. There hadn't exactly been a press release on the incident.

She couldn't really be too surprised she supposed, but there was an uncomfortable question left hanging now: What else did she know?

For now, she had to go without an answer to that question, as just then the door opened behind them. Tepes and a couple of his men entered, all looking like they'd been asleep just minutes prior, but still dressed sharpley.

Rs forced her weary body up onto its feet, and made her way over to offer a friendly hug to the man.

"Ah, I see you made it my friend, so good to see! Will I be paying out the bonus as well?"

Rs grinned, "Ah, perhaps. I don't think anyone really noticed us, though there are some complications."

"Oh?" Tepes took a step back, looking at her borrowed uniform, "To do with this I presume?"

Rs fished into a pocket, retrieving the car keys hidden with and held them up for Tepes to see. She could see the confusion written plainly on the man's face.

"Do you know a bar that the reservists frequent? Somewhere they frequently leave their cars at?"

Understanding dawned, with amusement mixed in with it, on Tepes' face, "Ah, I see. I believe I know a spot. I'll have my men handle it before too long."

He took the keys, and handed them off to a man beside him.

Tepes then seemed to notice 404 for the first time. His face stretched into a grin, but one more akin to 45's own as she got up to meet him. The facades were up.

"I see our friends have arrived as well. Good morning to you, miss," he said, greeting the doll

"Hehe, thank you sir. "

"I take it you've all gotten acquainted then?"

45 nodded, "Yes, actually. We were just discussing logistics."

Tepes nodded, "Excellent. I have arranged transport to your destinations, and if you have need of equipment I can provide, though at cost."

Rs tapped the man's shoulder to get his attention, "I do have a list actually."

Tepes nodded, "Certainly, provide it to my man here… "he indicated to another of his men beside him, "...and he'll see to it."

The group dispersed from there. 45 and Tepes moved off to a corner to discuss payment while Rs handed the man her list and haggle over prices. She'd brought a fair bit of kit with her, but supplies were a different matter. The dolls may be fine with solar chargers, but she'd need actual food and water to manage.

Eventually, once 45 and Tepes were done and Rs' man had gone off to place the orders for her kit,Tepes informed them that they had a train to catch in a few hours. Rs and 45 then met back up with the rest of the team to begin planning the first stage of this job and answer questions.

Rs found herself impressed with the doll. She reminded her a bit of M4, albeit quite a bit more confident and shady. She had a good instinct for planning and logistics, and seemed to operate without many of the typical limitations of doll's Rs had come to expect. It seemed her teammates trusted her extensively with such matters too, with even the still grouchy 416 listened intently to their briefing.

This was certainly shaping up to be an interesting team to work with.

Their arrival in the target city was without incident. A simple four hour train ride which UMP 45 had spent largely in a stand by mode. Not asleep, but not really awake either. She only awoke mid journey when one of her companions got up to wander the cabin or an employee came to ask if they wanted to purchase any concessions.

The train itself was nothing too impressive. A second class passenger cabin, simple, but not uncomfortable. The seats were a little stiff and upholstered with a short haired carpet type fabric, while the upper walls were adorned with numerous ads for various services and products.

9 was thus far the trip's busy body. As far as 45 could recall she'd only sat down once the whole time, otherwise moving from window to window, cabin to cabin. Cano and Rs had been tied to the hip much of the time, getting up once or twice together and returning together. However they'd spent much of the journey in their private cabin. After a while Rs had fallen asleep on Cano's shoulder while the latter pulled out a small stitching circle from her bag and began a small embroidery project.

416 was, like 45 herself, in a standby mode most of the trip, both of them wanting to pass the time as quickly as they could. G11, of course, slept the whole time.

So 45 was eager to get up and stretch her legs as the train pulled into the station, being the first to hop down onto the platform in Vinnystia's main station. In keeping with the era in which it'd been built, the place was a cold industrial maze of steel and glass, a hall of mirrors laced with the smells of oil and hydraulic fluid.

Hundreds of humans milled around inside and out, throngs of them moving in every direction as electronic boards announced train times and delays. Counter to most expectations, 45 quite liked crowds. She found them easy to hide in, easy to stalk or evade through. The presence of others made humans more predictable, and dolls unfamiliar with so many humans would struggle to blend in convincingly.

The group made their exit from the station, stepping out into the cool late morning. They got their bearings, reaffirmed their plan that they'd put together hours earlier, and split into two. 9, along with G11 and Cano, took off into the city proper, hailing a taxi on the curb near the station.

Once they were off, 45, 416 and RS then began to follow the winding streets towards a different destination.

The NSU liked to pay lip service to the idea of being a surveillance state. Certainly the infrastructure was there -the cameras, servers, and facial recognition algorithms. However, the fact stood that the state was simply too broke and too decentralized to really do anything with it.

Sometimes if they had a reason to go looking, they may use some part of all the thousands of hours of footage they captured each day. Often though the records obtained were all automatically deleted off their servers a year after they were taken, never opened even once. It was a common belief among many that one could murder a man in the street right in front of a camera, and so long as the body nor the killer were there when the cops arrived, nothing would be done. 45 should know.

However, this absurd system that'd make Kafque roll in his grave was the objective today. Though the footage was rarely, if ever, used, it was still available. Many of the CCTV's were quite old as well, difficult to spoof. It was quite possible their target had been spotted if she'd come through the city.

9's team had a different objective. They had a contact in town who they were paying a visit to. One man, a rail manager, was the guy one went to when moving things in town that the feds weren't supposed to see. 45 figured AR-15 may qualify, but this man was one who was good to check in with from time to time regardless.

After all, 15 wasn't the only thing on her mind.

The trio reached their intended destination soon enough, needing to only walk a few blocks from the station's main building. They found a small nondescript door that led into a building nearby the main station. It was a two story temporary construction, with cheaply painted white walls and a slightly sagging roof. It sat overlooking a rail storage yard on the rear of the station house, peering out over rows of unused rail cars and engines. On the roof sat a small box, fitted with a small set of antennae, and a few nearby power lines stretched over to bring power.

They entered quietly, the front door giving way to some EW on its lock and swinging open. It was dark inside, so 45 set her vision into low light mode. Her eyes, and those of 416's, glowed dimly in the gloom.

Doll eyes were versatile, especially those of later gens. They could see in multiple spectra, zoom in several times over what humans could manage, and could project a small amount of light in situations where there may otherwise be none. Normally this last feature was best used for IR, functioning as built in PEQ style illuminators, but in this case she'd decided on visible light instead. For the sake of their guest.

Rs was barely visible in the dark, a pale silhouette sandwiched between 45 and 416 as they wandered the building. She didn't seem to be hampered however, moving with surprising confidence to the dolls despite the dark.

Their goal in this search was a network relay, typically a small circuit board with a stack of RAM. They existed mainly to help aid servicing the surveillance network, and so could be used to access the archives remotely. Often these were placed in otherwise uninteresting, low traffic buildings like storage warehouses.

The bottom floor of the building certainly fit that description. After a thorough search through the dark, they found piles upon piles of random crap. Dusty tool boxes that looked to have been there for decades, a few miles of coiled corrugated housing, a bike, a horse saddle, about ten I-Beams of various lengths, and strangely, a branded IKEA bag full of allen wrenches.

There were more rooms on the floor, but they were pinned behind the heaps of stored and forgotten materials clogging the halls and open spaces of the building. Instead of trying to get in, 45 decided instead it'd be easiest to simply go up to the next floor and see if their target was there. They could always come back, after all. No sense in going through the trouble.

So, they clambered up the narrow stairwell to the next floor.

The building appeared to be originally intended for office space, with large open sections ringed by smaller personal offices. The few small windows, all boarded up, would've done little to make the space feel less cave-like. The low ceiling and stark white walls which almost glowed in the low light would have driven a man insane in little time.

Indeed, 45 felt a pang of fear that such a fate may be in store for her as she gazed upon the second floor main space.

Rows upon rows upon rows of computers sat collecting dust in the dark. Laptops, desktops, smart tvs and CRTs all cluttered the room in wide, bulbous colonies cut up by narrow passages between the large groups. Over a few clusters, canvas had been lazily stretched across, while others sat exposed to the stale air. A quick count told her there were, at minimum, well over three hundred devices stored here. Many were even wired up and plugged in, ready to be used at a moment's notice.

"Gottverdammt," she muttered, glaring at the rows of computers, "seriously?"

"Problem?" Rs asked from behind her.

45 turned halfway to glare back at her, "I'll have to comb most of these, the node could be on any of them."

Rs raised an eyebrow, "Really? Wouldn't it be plugged in at least?"

45 pursed her lips, "No guarantee. Assuming it's even in this room."

"How do we know for sure it's in this building?" 416 chimed in.

"I saw the relay on the roof. It's here for sure."

Rs glanced upwards, as if trying to look through the low hanging ceiling to find the relay, "Could we just access it from there instead?"

"I mean…" 45 frowned, "I've never had to before, but I suppose there's no reason we couldn't. I don't know if I could get up there without a ladder though."

"How would you connect?"

"USB to UDC adapter probably," she replied.

Rs nodded, "Shouldn't be an issue. Probably easier than searching all this shit." She gestured to the rows of computers.

"If I can get up there, sure."

Rs grinned, "No, I can get to it no problem. I'll plug the cord in and you can connect from the ground."

45 furrowed her brow, "The cord is only two feet long."

Rs shook her head, and moved towards a nearby stack of computers. After rummaging around for a moment, she yanked out a long thin black cord, about ten feet long, and presented it to her. 45 noticed it had two USB heads.

"Ok, better but…"

Rs rolled her eyes, "There's bound to be extenders. Look around."

Beginning to get the idea, 45 and 416 began to peruse the heaps of cables. They were lucky enough to find a box of USB-USB extenders shortly, and from there began to stitch together a long frankenstein USB cable.

Once done, Rs spooled the whole thing up and tied it to her belt, before heading back downstairs and outside, with 45 and 416 following.

Sure enough, Rs began to ascend. She went from the top of the doorframe, leaping half a meter to a thin line of piping that sprouted from above it, and then began to claw her way along its length. She made it to about a meter below the roof, where the pipe split off horizontally, and began to make her way over towards one side. From there, she snagged hold of part of a power box, and hauled herself up atop it. Finally, after a moment, she leapt up the rest of the way to the roof, scrambling up and out of sight.

A few moments later their makeshift extended chord descended down off the roof. 45 snatched up the chord and slipped it into the UDC port on the back of her neck, pressing in and twisting to lock it in.

Internally, she was greeted by a locked access point, the prompt requesting login information.

45 smirked. What a joke.

A second later she was on the server.

She sifted through hundreds of saved hours of footage in mere moments, internally scanning each and every one as she searched for Ar-15. It helped significantly that she had a tight band to search, only three days and a few hours, as there were several months worth stored in the database.

Soon, she got a hit. Footage of a girl dashing across a rail yard at night. The cameras only captured her for a moment, but she was unmistakable. Admittedly, her holding her namesake rifle helped in that regard. 45 checked more footage, searching a much tighter time band now and only focussing on cameras in the area of the first sighting. Within a few moments, she had a collage of sightings, tracking the doll across the rail yard and atop a footbridge over the main lines.

At that position, she got several minutes worth of partial shots of ar-15 hiding against the bridge's support beams.

Frustratingly, the only camera with a view of the position had apparently been on a swivel. Its view swept back and forth, watching a wide section of the rail yard and only capturing 15 at the edge of its sweep. 15 stood in place for several minutes, only moving slightly as a train approached beneath the bridge. The camera at that point swept away, and on returning a few seconds later, 15 was gone. Only a long line of train carriages remained, trundling along beneath the now empty foot bridge. 45 waited a while longer, noting the id markings on the train cars as she saw them move past in the CCTV footage.

"Got her," 45 stated, sharing the footage to the net, "She hopped on a train, headed southwest along the main line."

"So, towards Chisinau," Rs concluded.

"So it would seem," 45 replied, "Any idea why?"

Rs sighed, "Could be a number of reasons. The kid was always headstrong and independent, but if the malware is messing with her head, corrupting her…"

"Well, it's not like she's gone on a rampage," 416 interjected, "So, probably not that badly affected, right?"

45 shrugged, "Depends. Though since she is being rather strategic about her actions you may be right. Perhaps, for now, let's assume she's not out of her own control. Rs, what would the doll you know be trying to accomplish by all this?"

Rs stroked her chin thoughtfully, "hmmm… She, and her team, are dedicated towards protecting their leader. 15 was always the most begrudging about that, but she was still committed to it. I doubt Chisinau is her final destination, I suspect she's planning on going further south than that."

"It's all wasteland south of there, why go there?" 416 wondered, crossing her arms.

"It's SF Territory, 416."

"Technically I guess, but no one ever enters that area. The whole place is a yellow zone at best. If she wanted to get into SF territory, why not further west?"

"There are ways through," Rs commented, "and Griffin doesn't watch that border very closely. SF rarely patrols there either. If one wanted to slip in unnoticed, it's the best place to go. So long as you know the safer routes that is."

"You know them?" 45 asked.

"Some," Rs admitted, "Though I don't know if 15 does."

"Could she be defecting?" 416 asked, "maybe SF is guiding her through."

"It's possible. The malware may be capable of that, but we won't know for sure unless we find her." 45 said.

It wouldn't be her first experience with such a thing. The sounds of a blaring klaxon echoed deep in her mind, but she was able to will the sound away. It'd been two years since then. She hated remembering.

A distant, heavily dulled pop sounded in the distance. At first 45 thought nothing of it, until a sheepish sounding 9 called over comms.

"Hey sis… we have a problem."

Her eye twitched. She knew that voice.

"Is it the kind of problem I'll have to smack you over the head for?"

"I'll… let you decide."

A dozen dolls stood as still as statues at the edges of the room, all baring weapons and ill-fitting armor. They were older models, Gen 1s of various types, with poorly made synthetic skin laid somewhat awkwardly over metal frames.

Gen 1s were fairly uncommon, but cheap to acquire. Most had been upgraded to Gen 2s or recycled long ago. It seemed their contact however had taken to collecting a few of the relics, repairing and arming them to his needs.

Said contact was now a twisted mess on the floor behind his desk, with 9 standing awkwardly nearby. For their parts, G11 and Cano stood off to one side, eyes darting between 9 and 45 as the latter stalked across the room towards her sister.

With a loud smack, 45 slapped an open palm across 9's head, not enough to really hurt, but enough to make the point. "What were you doing!?"

"Owwww," 9 complained, rubbing the spot, "He attacked us!"

."Unprovoked? Did you try to talk him down? Did you HAVE to shoot him?"

"I-, yeah! He had a gun too!"

On glancing down at the corpse of the man, she found he did in fact have his hand wrapped around a machine pistol -some kind of glock with a drum magazine. Not a huge threat to 9 herself, the doll even at the close ranges this confrontation would have happened at could've easily out maneuvered the human. Cano and G11 though, well they were a different story.

"Alright," she muttered, turning back to 9. She softened her features a bit, not quite letting her off the hook but still easing up, "so what happened? Did you learn anything at least?"

9 nodded, a little more eagerly now, "Yes. He was actually very chatty. Turns out one of his men may have seen 15, apparently they saw her jumping the fence into the rail yard, but they weren't able to find her after."

"I asked about trains that were leaving around then, and he mentioned one headed south at around the same time. But when I asked about anything else going on in that direction…" 9 gestured to the dead dolls.

"I see. Sounds like there's more going on that way than just 15…"

45 looked away, seeking RS9. Her and Cano were both standing around one of the frozen dolls, staring down at it. They both appeared to still be listening, but were transfixed by the doll in question, circling it as they studied the figure.

"Problem?" she asked.

"No, but… this thing looks like a Jaeger," she replied, not taking her eyes off the dead doll.

45 cocked her head, and made her way over. As Rs and Cano made room, she saw they were about right in the assessment. It wasn't equipped to SF standards, instead clad in standard camo pattern body armor and holding an old AKS, but its features were undeniably of the SF standard type dolls.

"It's a Vespid," she corrected Rs, "though they do look quite similar without the helmet."

"Why would he have this?" Cano wondered, "I didn't notice at first, without the helmet and all."

45 looked back at 9, "You didn't notice when you froze it?"

The doll shook her head, "They were all on the same network. Just a basic civvie control setup, nothing resembling OGAS or anything."

45 pursed her lips, and laid a hand on the doll. A moment later her EW suite found ports to connect to and she was able to quickly overpower the rudimentary firewall in place. The doll's internal architecture was familiar enough to her, and 45 was able to quickly gather a plethora of information about its body and recent memory.

Physically the doll was in a stock configuration for the type, with standard SF parts listed for every single component. Naturally it wasn't equipped with the usual external hardware for a Vespid, but internally it was identical to the other SF Vespids she'd encountered before. On the software side though, it was anything but stock. Though its OS was running on OGAS architecture, it appeared to be running on a very old version designed for SF built A-dolls, with a modification for compatibility with the non-OGAS control network it was being managed on. There was additional infrastructure for other networking models too, even Zener, but the doll did not appear to have been configured for them recently. Frustratingly, there were no logs listed that detailed by whom or when the software changes had been made.

"Huh," 45 said aloud. For all the others in the room, she'd been connected for only a second, but in that time she'd been able to get every detail she'd wanted about the doll. "It's in really good shape. Way too good to be legacy."

"What makes you say that?" Rs asked.

45 frowned, "Legacy SF dolls lack reliable spare parts, usually having to have custom orders or improvised parts. Not to mention there aren't many still trained on their maintenance anymore. Unless our former friend kept this one in a box for the last three years, it would have some wear and tear he couldn't fix perfectly. This one is basically mint condition."

"Maybe he cannibalized other SF dolls he had?" Rs suggested.

"Perhaps," 45 replied, "Still, why haven't we ever seen this doll until today. I do recognize some of these others."

"Maybe he recently acquired it," 416 started, "gave him the confidence to betray us."

45 narrowed her eyes, "Yes. That's what I'm thinking. Its logs only go back a few days, the earliest recorded memory was one week ago, activated in this building."

"You're worried about who would have given it to him?" Rs asked, though it was less of a question 45 suspected.

"Perhaps it is the same reason he attacked. 9, what exactly did you ask him?"

"I asked if he'd seen anyone heading in the direction of the train that'd left. Is there anything going on in that direction we might want to know about?"

The group was quiet as 9 finished, 45 pondering, processing, trying to figure out why this man would attack. She'd never known him to be rash or overconfident. She'd also felt he did like working with them, they always paid well for the information and never intruded on his business.

So why?

"Seems like an over reaction," Rs concluded.

"Indeed," 45 agreed with a nod, "Something else is going on, and the only one who could tell us what is dead."

9 fidgeted sheepishly, her face now written with hints of guilt. 45 didn't necessarily blame her, she'd been right to neutralize the man as a threat and perhaps she'd simply not thought through every way that could be done.

"Welp, I don't think we'll be finding answers here then. Is there another train headed to Chisinau soon?"

45 nodded, accessing the rail schedule and rapidly searching, "Two today, next is less than an hour. We already have tickets."

Rs nodded, "Then we should get ready to head out."

Well, life certainly has a fun way of creeping up on you, don't it. I was HOPING to get three more chapters out by years end, this one included, but that was a month ago. We'll see I guess, I want at least ot wrap up this little arc we're on and keep going. with GFL EOS on the horizon and my interest in the setting continuously waning from MICA's BS, I'd like to try and reach A conclusion for this story before I lose all will to at all. Despite it all, I do like this story, so hopefully I'll manage.

Anyway, 404 is here! As with alot of GFL we are compression alot of the story down into a shorter time frame, so we'll be seeing more of their core story here despite this being much, much earlier than when they occured in canon. And ofc, Rs will be getting alot of lore here too, so stay tuned