Children of the Night - Chapter 5: The Way it Ends

"So… Is this how it ends?" RFB quietly asked, kneeling on the ground with a rifle barrel pressed against the back of her head. The room was pitch black, which just made the presence standing behind her feel all the most suffocating.

"Yes," Night Eyes calmly responded. The child of the night stood poised over RFB, her body blending seamlessly into the darkness of the room. This was her playing field, the outcome of the encounter was sealed the moment she entered the depot.

RFB closed her eyes. I was so close, she thought to herself, All just to let it slip away at the final hurdle.

"Do you have… any final words?" Night Eyes asked, preparing to pull the trigger.

"You're a monster," RFB replied through gritted teeth, her face contorting into a mixture of anger and despondence.

"Perhaps I am," Night Eyes calmly responded.

"Why… Why are you doing this?"

"We are at war."

"Don't play dumb," RFB venomously responded, "You're here for the data drive… Aren't you? What does that have to do with the war, huh?"

Night Eyes didn't respond immediately.

"Do you- do you even know what's inside the data drive?"

"I should kill you right now," Night Eyes replied, pushing her rifle barrel forward against RFB's head.

"You coward!" RFB shouted, invigorated by desperation. "You don't even care! Or maybe your masters don't even bother telling you what's stored in your mission objective?"

Night Eyes pushed her rifle against RFB's head harder, but didn't respond.

"You, you don't know what inside this data drive… Do you?" RFB asked again.

"Tactical data. Results from training exercises."

"Tactical data, huh… So that's what they told you." RFB muttered, suppressing a low chuckle. She raised the data drive to her head, motioning for Night Eyes to pick it up.

Night Eyes cautiously took the data drive and connected to it. The drive certainly contained data alright, but not the kind she expected.

"Individual neural backups," Night Eyes noted, a tinge of confusion bleeding through her emotionless veneer. She stared at the faint red indicator light on the drive. "This is worthless."

"Worthless to you, maybe, but not to us," RFB responded, "These neural backups… These are our memories, our souls, the proof we ever existed! As a fellow tactical doll, you should know exactly what I mean."

"It's just some files, you'd have a central backup for everything in here anyway," Night Eyes dismissively said, "But we don't. Perhaps there is something useful we can gleam from this thing after all-"

"No!" RFB suddenly insisted, turning around. Night Eyes firmly pressed her rifle barrel against RFB's forehead to keep her knelt on the ground. "You can't take these backups with you!"

"Why shouldn't I?" Night Eyes asked, narrowing her luminescent eyes as she studied RFB's expression.

"Who ordered you to retrieve this data drive?" RFB demanded, "Was it Alchemist?"

"None of your business."

"Oh god, please don't let it be Alchemist, anyone but that sadist!" RFB exclaimed, "She's done this before. Do you know what she did to those backups?"

"I don't care-"

"She tortured them in their own level II for her own amusement!" RFB shouted, "Imagine waking up to endless incessant torment, unable to even end your own suffering… Time flows differently in a neural cloud, they could've been stuck in there for years… decades! By the time they were found by a Griffin recovery team, the consciousnesses within have been withered away into mere empty husks, stripped of all their personality and reason…"

"I said shut up!" Night Eyes interrupted. RFB was beginning to get on her nerves. "Why do you think I care about you Griffin dolls?"

"Because you're a doll too!" RFB shot back, desperate indignance colouring her face. "What you're about to do to these dolls, one day it could be you! Don't you feel a shred of empathy for these poor souls? We dolls… have always existed at the whims of humans… created in factories and discarded like used tools at the end of our useful lives… Shouldn't we at least look out for our own kind? To make sure none of us needlessly suffer due to our own actions?!"

"I… am not weak like you are," Night Eyes responded with a scowl, "You call yourself a tactical doll, but you are too attached to others. We are tools of war; we exist only to fight, and any excessive thinking beyond that takes away from our true purpose. Unlike you, I don't worry myself over what happens to others."

"I refuse to believe that!" RFB defiantly shouted, "Do you not have ANYONE that you care about? Friends, allies, people who would fight and die for you… Or are they all nothing in your eyes? Tools to be used and discarded?"

Night Eyes has seen this many times before—a final flash of resistance the moment before death—but something prevented her from immediately pulling the trigger. Night Eyes froze for a brief second. Images of her squad mates flashed through her mind. Night Eyes was always a loner, having a bad reputation even amongst the Mobile Task Force dolls. She always shielded herself with an invisible barrier which isolated herself from the outside world, protecting herself from troubles associated with the others but also chaining herself to perpetual solitude. She didn't need anyone else in her life.

That is, until Dazzle, Sapphire, and Swiss were created. She was naturally wary of her new teammates at first, but slowly and surely, each one of them infiltrated her invisible barrier, becoming an integral part of her life and identity. The four of them fought tirelessly, working together to overcome impossible odds just to see another day. She had put her life on the line to save her teammates, and they have done the same for her. Deep down, she wanted nothing more than for Sabre team to live to see the end of this war.

"You… You do care, don't you?" RFB softly asked after a while, "Deep down, you have your own… 'family,' too."

"Yes…" Night Eyes replied, deep in thought. Deep down, she knew RFB was right. As an elite Sangvis doll, she knew what it was like to have her neural cloud tormented. She imagined Alchemist mercilessly doing the same to the neural backups within the drive, then she imagined those dolls were her three squad mates. An indescribable dark feeling began to well in her heart.

"I… I understand what you mean."

"Thank you," RFB replied with a faint smile, feeling a massive weight lift from her chest. For the first time, she raised her eyes to meet Night Eyes', whose brilliant yellow eyes were clouded by conflicting emotions.

"Thank you so much for understanding. Thank you, not as an enemy combatant, but as a fellow doll. At the end of the day, even though we fight on different sides… We are not so different after all."

"Perhaps we aren't…" Night Eyes echoed with a whisper, briefly closing her eyes.

RFB collapsed onto the ground, a faint wisp of smoke emerging from the hole in her forehead.

Night Eyes opened her eyes again. Though the muffled gunshot quickly faded from the tiny room, the echoes of the gunshot continued to reverberate in her heart.

"We are not so different… but I'm not ready yet."