1155, Jan 11th, 2062
"Rather sloppy, aren't they?" M4's voice mused.
"They're likely all converts," she said aloud, looking out from her perch.
She was seated up in dense cluster trees, Thermal cloak wrapped tight around her and helping her blend in with the snow-covered pines. In her scope, about four hundred meters from her, was a Griffin Echelon marching along in a loose column through an open clearing of the forest.
M4 had been observing them for the better part of an hour, watching how they moved, interacted, and had been forming estimates on their capabilities. The apparent leader, the shortest of the group who held what looked like an MP5, was doing a decent enough job at moving her team. She moved with consideration to the terrain, took frequent breaks to observe and listen to her environment, and seemed reasonably cheerful as she interacted with the rest of her team.
Still, M4 had nitpicks in the handling of the echelon which were obvious even from hundreds of meters out. They also weren't sticking to the tree line, instead being perfectly willing to stroll out into open fields and clearings as they were now, which M4 found peculiar.
"It's like they want to be seen."
"Perhaps they do? They may be intended for me to find," M4 muttered.
"Then why not transmit on comms? If they filled the area with signals there'd be enough noise that we could get away with replying."
"One echelon wouldn't be enough to disguise my signals effectively."
"And a group of converts like them wouldn't stand a chance against Executioner, surely their commander doesn't think they would be enough for extraction. It must just be a coincidence."
M4 sighed. No, of course one echelon wouldn't be enough against Executioner, especially not in terrain such as this where that sword wielding maniac could get close to them. The forest was excellent concealment from SF eyes, but they did little to slow down the ringleader.
Although she truly wished that the ringleader was her only worry.
Right on cue, that all too familiar buzzing hum filled the air. M4 quickly retreated deeper into her cloak, leaving only a small slit for her eyes to observe the Griffin dolls as they seemed to realize their situation as well. The twenty-five frames dispersed, Mainframes and dummies alike spreading out and diving to the ground as they began scanning the sky and tree line.
Off in the distance about two dozen little black dots buzzed up over the trees, SF scouts diving towards the Griffin dolls.
Bursts of gunfire echoed across the forest as several of the fast-moving scout drones tumbled from the sky. In return brilliant flashes of purple energy splashed into the snow all around the dolls, sending up puffs of steam and clumps of snow.
Visual tracking proved impossible moments into the engagement, so M4 swapped over to her Rads. On that scope she was able to track the dozens of high energy signatures coming from dolls and drones alike.
M4 tracked one drone hanging above the rest, an observer that was no doubt routing the rest of its group's signals up to SF command. It bumbled around the sky, sensor's facing downward while its fellows darted around the sky beneath it, exchanging fire with the dolls.
After a couple minutes SF lights flickered and died en masse as the engagement turned decisively in favor of Griffin. The final gunshot rang out across the landscape barely four minutes after it'd started, the observer drone at last tumbling to the earth as the bullet's report reached M4's ears with a tinny reverb.
"They're not half bad, not even one lost."
Twenty-five little blue lights still glowed defiantly in the distance, none had lost any of their vigor either, indicating minimal to no damage taken.
Perhaps she could take a chance on them.
M4 leaned forward on her branch, her weight shifting until she felt her body begin to slip from the perch, at which point she straightened her body and fell from the tree. Her boots sank ankle deep into the snowbank on landing, and she began trudging through the snow towards the Griffin dolls.
"Might need to hurry, they appear to be growing restless."
Sure enough the Griffin echelon had begun moving again, this time making haste for the tree line, which made M4 cringe a bit. The clearing wasn't the best place to engage the drones, sure, and it certainly would make sense to seek the cover of the forest if there weren't a certain someone undoubtedly rocketing her way towards them at this very moment.
M4 made haste, charging through the dense snowbanks, and weaving through the suffocating pines towards the distant blue marks. She was moving faster than them, gaining about a meter and a half on them every second.
She was tempted to open comms, tell them to move back to the clearing and prepare. However, doing so would broadcast her location to SF and make an extraction near impossible.
Instead, she gritted her teeth and doubled her efforts, kicking up a tremendous amount of snow and nearly stumbling dozens of times as she closed the gap.
Then her rads picked up a new signal, four thousand meters and closing fast enough to be mistaken for an aircraft.
"Our friend has arrived."
100 meters away from the dolls. M4 was charging along the edge of the clearing that now separated them, getting as close to the edge of the trees as she dared. Executioner was closing rapidly, covering hundreds of meters in mere seconds.
3000 meters.
2000.
1000.
M4 dove into the nearby brush, herself barely fifty meters from the Griffin dolls and able to hear their distant voices. She quickly nestled herself within the tight confines of a thicket, trying unsuccessfully to spy the dolls through the forest.
A great rush of air whooshed out from the direction of the dolls, followed shortly by the all too familiar impact.
A burst of rapid gunfire thundered out, followed by yelps and what sounded like a tree collapsing.
M4 peeked up above her cover, found her immediate area clear, then hopped out as the gunfire intensified. SF plasma discharges sizzled in the air, sending wafts of ozone drifting in between the trees.
There was a tremendous crash, followed by a creaking groan.
"Heads up."
M4 glanced up to find a pine tree hurtling down towards her through the forest. Thinking fast she twisted her body to the side as the pine's trunk crashed to the ground, its branches following it down and smacking her in the back.
She found herself buried under snow and pine with wooden prods poking into her back. Another burst of gunfire sent her scrambling forward, pressing her body through the broken branches and snow.
Branches tugged and tore at her hair and clothes, rough bark scraping at her skin as she slithered her way out, at last gasping open air.
She took a moment to dust the snow and twigs off as she caught her breath, before pressing on forward again. M4 wove between the pines, the trees taking turns swatting at her with their branches as she dashed forward. She got within about twenty meters but there was still no visual, the forest was simply too dense.
Suddenly there was another tremendous crash, and what seemed like a hurricane of snow and limbs burst out through a picket of pines as Executioner charged straight through the trees, a flailing blonde doll on the receiving end of the charge.
The doll went flying as M4 scrambled to put some sort of concealment between her and the ringleader. She managed to get a bush between her and the doll as another pair of identical dolls came rushing after, both firing pistols at the ringleader.
"AHAHAHAHA!" Executioner whooped, whirling around to face the attackers.
Her blade swung out at unbelievable speed for its size, catching one of the two dolls in the side and cutting clean through.
A split second later she drove a kick into the second doll, sending it skidding through the snow.
Suddenly a dozen more Griffin dolls rushed out from the trees, guns blazing away in a fury and tearing the forest around Executioner to shreds. Behind her the first doll remerged, pistol blazing despite the red coolant leaking out from one eye.
The ringleader charged forward right into the attacking Griffin dolls, bullets whizzing all around her but never quite able to find their mark. Her blade bisected another of the dolls before she whipped out her plasma pistol and placed two shots in the one beside it.
She moved like a buzzsaw, slicing through the Griffin dolls one after another before they could readjust their aim, often putting friendly dolls in each other's field of fire before launching herself into another attack.
Two of the blonde dolls from before rushed forward, skidding around their foe and peppering her with largely ineffective fire.
Executioner turned on the spot, smashed the butt of her pistol into one and sent it flying. She then dropped her sword and reached out for the second with her oversized sword hand, wrapping her fist around the doll's head, picking her up, then slamming her into the ground so hard that M4 could feel the tremor from over a dozen meters away.
For a split second the gunfire stopped, all the dolls watching in shock as she raised the now dead doll, probably the mainframe since its last dummy fell still as it died.
Then with almost no warning Executioner tossed the doll behind her and rushed the few remaining dolls, her blade snatched along the way and arcing up over her head before coming hurtling down towards a group of the dolls.
But it stopped short, sparking off some invisible barrier in the air that sprang to life with a low hum. Carefully, M4 crept through the brush, hand gripped tight around her weapon and trained on the ringleader. From her new position she had a better view of the Griffin dolls, and specifically their leader who held out a small angular device in one palm from which a blue shimmer had sprouted and formed a bubble around her and the few remaining dolls.
"A force shield…?"
"Oh ho! Neat toy you have there," Executioner cackled. The ringleader pulled herself back and shouldered her blade, "Well then, since you've gotten all the shooting out of your systems, good morning, Griffin Maggots!"
There were about seven of them left with faces scuffed and eyes wearing and unblinking. None seemed too enthusiastic about the ringleader's sudden turn.
Executioner grinned, "I'm looking for a doll, if you answer honestly, I'll let you lot limp home alive."
There was a subtle exchange between the dolls, quick glances and nods between them. Finally, their leader returned her gaze to the awaiting ringleader, and slowly lowered her hand, the rest of her team then lowered the weapons just a bit.
"Heh, good choice. She's got brown hair, wears a scarf with a skull on it, and is carrying an M4 assault rifle. Ring any bells?"
"I've never met a doll like that," the leader with the MP5 replied after a moment. As if to emphasize the point, her shield flickered and died, the shimmer fading and dissolving in the air.
"Really? Never?"
"Never."
Executioner huffed, planting her sword in the ground and crossing her arms, "I thought she was nearby though, why wouldn't she try to contact them…" the doll muttered under her breath.
M4's eyes narrowed.
"It's a good thing we didn't contact them then."
No kidding.
The lead doll glanced back at her team as Executioner began pacing back and forth, muttering softly to herself.
"You're sure?" the ringleader then said, looking back at the leader, "Not even a sign of her?"
MP5 took a shaky breath, "You're the first doll we've met today."
"She's being quite specific with her words. Curious."
"Huh. How do I know you're telling the truth?"
MP5 shrank back a bit as the ringleader leaned towards her, baring her teeth in a predatory smile.
"We would have turned back if we'd found that doll already," the doll whimpered.
Executioner cocked her head, "Is she the reason you guys are on this mission?"
The doll didn't reply.
"Well I guess I can always consult this one," Executioner mused, strutting away from the Griffin dolls and picking up the blonde doll she'd just killed, "I'm curious if her memories will tell the same story as you."
The Griffin dolls bristled as she hefted the doll over her shoulder carelessly, as if she were carrying a sack of potatoes and not their comrade. Executioner's smile grew a degree as they did, however Mp5 quickly reigned them in from resuming the engagement.
"Fine," MP5 spat, "but you're wasting your time. She doesn't know anything of value to you."
M4's fingers tapped a rhythm against her grip. Her original plan was a bust, clearly, she had no doubt that even if SF let these dolls go they'd monitor them closely, waiting for her to try and contact them, and this echelon was not strong enough to take down whatever response Sangvis would then put up if she did.
But on the other hand, this all confirmed that Griffin was actively looking for her.
"Well, we certainly can't go with them, but perhaps we can still use them."
M4 carefully began feeling around her pockets, finding, and retrieving a small pill shaped device about the size of a stone. A data life pod, usually meant to safeguard data in the event of mainframe death.
M4 snagged the UDC chord that went with the device, and plugged herself in.
"Am I?," Executioner began, " Well if you're so confident then I guess you can go. Just know that I'll be in touch if you're lying."
The Ringleader nonchalantly strolled back over to her sword, clutching it, and ripping it up from the ground as the Griffin dolls looked on in a mix of disbelief and anger.
"Location Location Location…" M4's voice mused, "What would be the best place."
M4 watched as the ringleader began strolling off into the forest, sauntering at an almost comically casual pace with the dead doll over her shoulder.
They needed somewhere adverse to Executioner, where her overwhelming strengths would be the least potent, yet also capable of holding against swarms of regular SF dolls and with enough open space for a Heliborne extraction…
Somewhere like…
An image flashed into her mind, a recent memory, a place she'd wandered past one evening and not thought much of in the moment. An old wood and stone building, two stories and sitting silent in an open field surrounded by trees.
It'd take over a day to get there at best speed, but it may be worth the risk of traveling during the day. The trees were rather thick in the area around it after all, so she'd be harder to spot visually.
M4 unplugged the life pod from her and made a quick sweep with Rads. Executioner had taken off, moving fast away from them and was more than two thousand meters away already. No other signatures were within range either.
"I can't believe that just happened," one of the Griffin dolls exclaimed, "I thought we were goners."
"We shouldn't have let her take M9," the tallest of the group growled, hefting her MG3.
"It's fine, she did a backup today," Mp5 reassured her teammate, "As long as the rest of us get to go home she'll say it was worth it, I'm sure."
"We were let go," one of the others, a girl who quietly pulled out what looked like a chocolate bar and started chewing as she answered, "They're gonna follow us, see if we meet M4. Might even kill another one of us to be sure." she finished between bites, speaking with a surprising amount of nonchalance.
"They're pretty sharp, despite appearances."
"Unfortunately, she's right. So how do I get this to them?" M4 hissed under her breath.
"But what if they find some important information?" MG3 protested, "Surely, we can't just let it go!?"
"Her core'll blow if they try to access it," the doll with the chocolate replied.
MP5 sighed, "Let's collect the dummies and start heading back. Maybe we can get to safety before she decides to finish us off."
M4 glanced back over her shoulder in the direction of the blonde doll's still dummy.
"Risky, but worth it."
She silently began creeping along the brush in that direction as the Griffin dolls began throwing the dead dummy frames over their shoulders and stripping them of their ammo.
M4 came upon the dummy and rolled it over, greeted by its still, shallow eyes and blank expression. Suddenly she found herself unable to move.
"What are you thinking?"
M4 pursed her lips at the odd question, figuring that she ought to already know, but then realized that she didn't actually know why she had frozen. Fear, regret, guilt? This was a dummy, not even a full doll but the extension of one. But its mainframe had died in search of her, because she hadn't warned this group of what was to come, of what they faced.
Perhaps there was another way she hadn't seen, something more she could've done.
"I doubt that."
M4 gritted her teeth, the words feeling hollow as she thought them. She could think of a realistic better path, but… maybe that was the problem.
There was a crunching behind her, Griffin boots stepping through the snow banks and over shattered brush.
Quickly stirred in action, she took her life pod and wrapped the dummies' fingers around it, taking a moment to ensure it had a tight grip before scurrying deeper into the forest. She went about ten meters, far enough to not be noticed but still within ear shot.
"Ah, there it is," she heard MG3 say.
The doll came into view a moment later, standing over the fallen dummy.
"Pick her up, would you, I've already got too many," One of the other dolls said.
"Jeez fine you lazy- Hold up," she said, kneeling down by the body.
There was an awkward pause before MG3 spoke up again, "Uh, MP5, you might wanna come see this."
MP5 came into view a moment later, another dummy frame draped over her shoulder, "yes?"
MG3 held out the lifeboat to her team leader, "Looks like we may not have lost much of M9 after all."
MP5 took the lifeboat, flipping it over a couple times as her mouth turned downward in a frown. She then glanced up, scanning the forest and causing M4 to duck down out of sight.
"I don't know about that…" the doll muttered, "Why would her dummy have one? Did she even pack a lifeboat?"
"I don't know, but what else could it be?"
M4 carefully moved to get eyes back on the group of dolls, watching them through a parting in the brush.
"I dunno." MP5 said, "Come on, let's go."
1603
Rs marched forward through the dusk towards the glowing headlamps of two ten ton trucks that'd just rolled through the main gate. It was a cool night, the forecast threatening intermittent storms for which she was already feeling the pregame frost.
Beside her Matt rubbed his hands together as he tried to force a little warmth into them, the man's Texan origins doing him no favors here.
Dolls began piling out of the trucks as they drew close, MP5 first followed by six ragged dolls and dummies, each carrying one or two of their fallen frames.
"Jesus, twice in one day," Matt commented just out of earshot of the dolls, "They actually look worse than Fifth Echelon."
"Same culprit too," Rs added, "Fuck if I'd known there was a ringleader in the AO…"
"Don't even," Matt cut in, "We couldn't have known. It was the right call at the time."
MP5 toddered over towards them, the girl's eyes barely able to open, but she still came to a wobbling position of attention before the two of them.
"We're home…" she muttered, " 'cept M9."
Rs reached out and patted the doll twice on the shoulder, "You did your best. We'll get M9 back up ASAP, but you girls get checked out and get some rest okay?"
MP5 nodded, taking a step forward before catching herself, "Oh, we found this…" she said, holding up what appeared to be a data lifeboat, "We think it's M9's."
Rs' brow furrowed, "Did she take one?"
The doll managed a half-hearted shrugged, "I didn't think so, but I guess it's her personal one."
"Ah," Rs replied, taking the pod and placing it gently in her jacket pocket, "I'll get this to Damek, make sure she gets it once she's back."
MP5 nodded blearily before stumbling past the two of them and hobbling towards the Main. Her team followed on after her, each clearly as worn as her as they hauled their fallen frames.
Matt and her followed a little behind them, keeping a careful eye on each of them in case one may stumble beneath her load. Unfortunately an all too similar incident from earlier that day involving one of the fifth echelon girls had made them both wary to leave the exhausted dolls unattended.
"So, what's with the pod?" Matt asked offhandedly, "I'm pretty sure we didn't authorize them.
"Most of the doll's have their own pods."
"They buy them on their own?"
"Usually, though sometimes they're gifted them."
"Jeez, those things aren't cheap. Especially on their wages."
"mmhmmm."
Ahead the doll's of fourth echelon managed to stumble their way into the building, carefully handing off the dummy frames they carried to the Engineering techs awaiting them.
Matt and her waited outside the building as they did.
"Those pods can be damn important to some dolls. I'm guessing if M9 went through the trouble to ensure her's was recovered its precious to her."
"She wanted to preserve her memories that bad?"
Rs shrugged, "maybe, but there could be all kinds of things on that pod."
"Like what?"
Rs turned to look at Matt, taking a moment to decide exactly what it was she wanted to say, "Boss, if you could keep any little part of you in a box, what would you put in there?"
He cocked his head, "I don't follow."
"The doll's on this base almost universally have a personal life boat, what they store on it varies depending on them. I know some keep older memories on theirs, others store things like photos or videos, and some just use them like normal pods so that if they're killed, they never lose the memories from their last backup."
"But, why?"
She shrugged, "they all have their reasonings. Course some put more stock in this stuff than others too, so the importance varies."
Matt's brow furrowed as a far away look took him, "Huh, I had no idea."
Rs clapped him on the back, "It's not something they really discuss too much."
He glanced back at her, "So then, why did MP5 give you that one?"
"Well she, like me, probably suspects that there are memories on here that M9 wanted to preserve, so it'll be easiest to return them to her during repairs."
2300
"There's only two lines," Damek said.
The man was hunched over, peering into his computer's screen in the Den's office control room. She was standing behind him, watching the whirring repair machines do their work over in the next bay when he spoke
Rs leaned over his shoulder, eyes taking a moment to adjust to the bright computer screen. Beside the screen sat the lifeboat M9's dummy was found with, plugged into Damek's computer with a short UDC chord.
As her retinas finally adjusted, she found that sure enough, there were only two lines of text on the screen.
"Wait…" She muttered, head tilting, "that first one, those are coordinates."
"Do you know where?"
"Roughly." She glanced around the room, eyes darting between the various piles of refuse, "Do you have a grid map of the sector here?"
"I can pull one up," He said, switching on a second monitor.
Rs waited patiently as Damek began pulling up the sector nine map on the second screen. As soon as it was up she took over, shoving him aside and zooming in on the designated grid zones.
"Let's see," she muttered.
The old satellite image zoomed to an area of forest. At the time it'd been taken the trees had been green and full, so most of the area was nothing but a sea of green save a few barren stretches of ground scattered around the ten square kilometer area.
"What's that?" Damek asked, pointing to one of the larger blank areas.
Rs centered the screen on it. There was a squat old structure in the center of it, surrounded by a few rings of broken up fencing.
"A farmhouse?" she said, "What is this, a treasure map?"
Damek glanced back at the other screen, "What do you make of the other line here? 17001122062, a code? Maybe it is a treasure map."
"Why would M9 have this? Why wouldn't she tell anyone?"
Damek shrugged, "I don't know."
She rubbed her eyes, the night starting to wear at the edges of her, "Hell maybe she'll know."
She nodded to one of the fourth echelon girls, FNC, who was quietly sleeping as the repair machine whirred above her.
Damek shrugged, "Want me to wake her up?"
"Yeah sure," Rs sighed, stepping out into the repair bay.
As she made her way over the repair machine whined to a halt before slowly retracting up into a folded position above the bed. Just as she got to the foot of the bed FNC stirred.
"Hey FNC, sorry to wake you.
"'M I done?" she grumbled."
" Not quite yet, just have a quick question for you. Do the numbers…" she began, glancing back at Damek.
"17001122062," he finished.
"Yeah those, do those mean anything to you, maybe something to do with M9?"
FNC propped herself up in bed a little, "It's a time stamp isn't it-?"
"What makes you say that?"
She shrugged, "sounds like one…"
Rs cocked her head, "anything to do with M9? Is that an important day to her?"
The doll's head bobbed as she tried to maintain eye contact with Rs, "Don't think so…"
Rs nodded, "Alright, thanks. We'll let you get back to sleep."
FNC nodded blearily and collapsed back onto the bed as RS turned to head back to Damek. Behind her the repair machine picked up in tone as it returned to life.
"Time stamp," she said as she slid back into the control center.
"Oh I can see that. That's for tomorrow then isn't it?"
She nodded and came to lean against Damek's table, "yeah, weird. What was that house we saw? Maybe M9 went there once?"
"Eh I doubt it, she was a shop clerk in Vilnius before Griffin."
Rs frowned, "Then why…?"
He threw up his hands, "Don't know."
"Yeah," she said, letting out a heavy breath, "Well then I'm gonna turn in."
"Yeah you take care of yourself okay?" He said, "I'll let you know if anything comes of this."
She nodded, pushing herself back onto her feet and heading out. She offered the engineer a wave just as she left, which he answered with a quick one of his own.
She wandered her way back up through the empty stairways and halls of the main, feeling the cool air on her skin that made her want to dive right into bed. Still she couldn't get her thoughts away from that lifeboat.
It was such an oddity. Knowing M9 she'd have expected something a little less cryptic than a place and time, honestly she'd have expected the pod to contain a personal library of movies the doll had acquired through various means.
"Hey RS?" MP5's voice suddenly chimed just as she reached the dorm room floor.
"Yeah?"
"Um, can you come to our dorm please?"
"Yeah sure, I'm almost there already."
Curious now, she strolled a little faster than before through the third floor's halls, stopping short of the third echelon dorm and knocking on four's door.
MP5 answered a moment later, tired eyes meeting each other.
"What's up?"
"Uhm, I was a little curious about the lifeboat M9's dummy had today, cus I'm pretty sure she's never brought it before."
"Mmm, Yeah, Damek and I were just looking at it. It was really weird, it looked like she just had a set of coordinates and a timestamp in there."
"Uh, weird," the doll muttered, "But anyway, I did a little digging… and I found her actual lifeboat. It was hidden under her mattress."
Rs's brow furrowed, "Wait, then what was that other one?"
MP5's eyes widened, "I don't know! I don't remember her ever finding something like that, and I thought it was really weird that her dummy had it."
Her pulse quickened, eyes darting around as her mind went into overtime. Why and how?
The location was odd, middle of nowhere really. The nearest highway was a winding twenty kilometers of backcountry roads away and in poor condition. Forested, difficult to map, swarming with SF.
That house in the gridzone, a structure in a field about a kilometer across and nearly as wide. Big enough for multiple Helicopters to land…
They could get in and out easily, but the structure… cover?. It looked old, the whole area it was in hadn't been inhabited since before the war, so it must be made of something that wouldn't easily rot. Stone, concrete, maybe even steel.
Something that couldn't be easily cut through.
Rs grabbed MP5's hand and began hauling the doll back down the hall, rushing her into the stairwell and flying down to the bottom floor.
"It's not M9!" She said, bursting back into the den and nearly sending Damek catapulting out of his seat.
"Wha-?" he gasped as she rushed over, furiously pulling the grid map back up.
"Here," she said, pulling the still reeling MP5 over, "show me where Executioner attacked you guys today."
"Uh," the doll said, moving the screen a little upwards from the grid before zooming back in, "Around here."
Rs zoomed out again and snagged a nearby piece of paper. She pressed it to the screen beside the distance scale displayed with the map, then began glancing around the office.
"Pencil? You have a pencil?"
"Uhhh," Damek said as he rolled over to a cabinet on the wall, snagging a mechanical pencil and handing it to her.
Rs began marking the scale in increments on the paper, then without touching affecting the zoom, she moved the map until both the rough engagement sight and house were on screen.
She then placed the makeshift ruler in line with both.
"That's about 48 Kilometers?" She said, turning back to MP5, "How fast do you think you'd be able to go that far in the conditions you girls saw?"
"Uhm," MP5 began, "Maybe a little over 30 hours if I really rushed."
"And when was the time of the engagement with Executioner?"
"About 1215?"
"The time stamp was for 1700 tomorrow, almost twenty nine hours," Damek gasped, "that's close."
"Really close," Rs added, "You think an Elite doll could do that distance an hour faster?"
At a good charge, easily," He began, his eyes widening halfway through as a bolt of energy seemed to strike him, "Wait you don't think-"
"I think there was another pair of eyes watching her today," Rs finished, pointing to MP5, "And I think they wanna meet here.
She placed her finger squarely on the house in question.
Damek nodded slowly, "We're in for a long night."
She grinned, "Yeah." She then turned to MP5, "Kiddo, looks like you hit the jackpot."
A bright smile formed on her face that could've lit up the whole dark control center.
"We gotta tell the commander, Dam could you copy everything we have so far?"
"On it."
"Cool," She said, then switching over to comms, "Hey G36, are you near the commander?"
"The commander has turned in for the evening, he asked not to be disturbed."
"Get his ass to the TOC Dreissechs, he'll wanna see this."
"Orders are Orders RS."
"Just do it. When you do, tell him: we may have found them."
Notes:
Alrighty, I know, I'm late. I was keeping a good schedule riiiight up until I hit finals, when I stopped. Sorry, I'll try and get 6 out by the end of the week and maaaaybe an actually new chapter. We shall see. It would be nice to wrap things up with that hanging thread afterall.
Anyway, I actually like this chapter now, Hooray! Seriously this was rough making work both times I've written it but I like where this ended up, and I hope y'all feel the same. Anyway, till next time!