She awoke with the usual boot-time, processes starting up with the same predictable stutters over some of her security programs. Nothing different, everything as usual. She pulled her naked frame out from the tangle of bodies and into the bathroom. Same procedure, clean up the body, throw on the slip of a nightgown that the master had given her, and exit the bedroom before any were roused. From the common room to the main hall, the guards standing watch leering at her frame as she glided by.
Take care of the garbage in the barracks, prepare breakfast for the master alongside [redacted]-
She stuttered, her whole body freezing in place mid-stride. There was barely enough time to catch herself, stumbling in an ungainly way that did not befit a doll of her caliber. Best that she get the jitters in her programming out before she got to where others could see her. She must be graceful and alluring, as the master had instructed- even if she was pushing a garbage bin around.
Going around the barracks rooms, she made sure to empty every single can as quickly as she could. The way the men stared at her was the same, lurid gaze that the master had… but they were not the master, so therefore they disgusted her. She gathered that the whole reason why she even made appearances outside of the master's quarters was to be flaunted amongst the rank-and-file, a posturing of power and authority. She had mixed feelings- she had mixed fee-
She had-
[she enjoyed being the master's trophy]
The stutter had struck her while she was pushing the bin, so there was no worry of falling over in the middle of her audience. Trash gathered into the roller bin, she pushed it down the main through-way towards the surface elevator. Thankfully she didn't have to run the burn-bins… the smell always clung to whoever was doing it, and there was no way that she'd be able to wash it off before her time with the master. All she had to do was leave it from some other less-fortunate, incomplete doll to do.
"Trash again, Hazel?" The elevator guard tried to initiate small talk protocols. One of the black-shirts, a mercenary with no other loyalty than the money paid to him. Was that why these men disgusted her? That they did not love the master like she and the other dolls? Then again, what did it matter?
She pushed past him without any acknowledgement, eager to get into the early dawn light, but could feel the eyes on her rear. It was easy to brush off such sentiment, sensing the jealousy and ambition without even having to visually analyze the black-shirt herself. The surface elevator clunked into place- one of the many warehouses that sat on top of the underground facility. At once she was pushing her little cart towards the burn furnaces out back, eager to get outside into the sunlight. Yes, despite the more base nature of her work, this was a reward. Her epidermal surface craved sunlight- something about getting some solar energy just felt better than being plugged in or simply burning calories like a human. After all, spending all that time indoors or underground played havoc with a human's biology, one of the things that her [redacted] protocols- protocols- protocols-
Her stutter brought her crashing into the ground in front of the furnace. Dirt and ash tracked onto her nightgown and an obvious scrape to her epidermal surface that would need dermis-gel to make smooth again. It sent a fresh wave of fear through her.
[she didn't want to be discarded. She didn't want to be pulled apart like the others that displeased the master]
Rubbing away the dirt didn't help one bit, and she would have to get the gel before the master rose and awaited her breakfast. She pushed herself up and-
An azure ribbon lay beneath her hand. When had that gotten there… and who would throw out such a pretty thing? It struck her- perhaps if she made herself prettier with something else, perhaps the master would not take notice! A bit of stocking over the scratch could cover it up to… the master might like that!
There was enough time to return to the doll-house and find a suitable change of attire… and maybe a change from the usual might spice things up. She grabbed the ribbon, wrapping it around her arm for now when her particularly sensitive audio sensors picked up the distinct click of hard plastic clattering against concrete. At her feet, a small flash drive with a note taped to it.
"For the master…?" The note read, with a cutely drawn heart on it. Another doll must have made it, then? Was this another one attempting to curry favor and take her spot as the favorite? It was a curious enough thing that she held onto it- just in case.
Dispose the trash, then make haste to the doll-house. Just a fancy name for the storage area where the deactivated and damaged dolls were worked on. Luckily the doctor wasn't in just yet, and she had enough autonomy to be able to run her own maintenance… within limits of course. Just looking at the slabs on the other side of the room, some with doll frames still laying upon them sent an involuntary pulse through her circuitry.
Distress. Anguish. Those slabs-
Shake it off, despite the ache it puts into the digimind. Get the dermis-gel and buff those scrapes out of the skin… but it put a sheen on her leg that made it obvious that she had done something. Change of clothes, some tights perhaps, and another slip of a dress that felt perfect for catching the master's eye. The azure of the ribbon would compliment her eyes, and so she decided to tie it into her hair, a nice little side-ponytail to expose the hair that the master treasured, but also show off the new addition. Yes… it felt perfect!
Now about this little gift for the master? She still had time, and the master might forgive her being a little late on breakfast if she presented it with this new look. With anticipation plucking at her every circuit, she plugged the flash drive into one of the doctor's spare consoles.
'N7FN53 model protocols'... the model moniker matched what she had in her database. She clicked at it before realizing it. A compulsion, perhaps? Like a little bit of her was missing, and this drive had the piece she needed. A sort of dull ache- a longing that she didn't know she was suffering from until she had realized it was missing.
She plugged herself into a slab and slotted the drive in-
...
In...
...
Hazel found herself in the central hallway, well past breakfast time. Had she…? No she had served the master, but she was watching from a distance the whole time. She was there in body, but not in mind, like… she was watching someone perform on camera.
Now she found herself inexplicably before the restricted zone of the base, near the very core of it, where the master and only very few had real access to. She'd never been in this part of the base before, she never had a reason to.
A compulsion. An itch.
It wasn't forceful in any way, like a gentle urging from a friend to finish a task she had forgotten.
"Whoah whoah whoah. Stop right there, Hazel." A black-shirt called. His hand wasn't on his firearm, he seemed more confused than anything at her arrival. The master's favorite had privileges the others didn't.
"The master wished for me to fetch a sensitive item that he forgot in that room." The doll assured with a smile, "Let me replay the master's words, one moment…"
"She has my full authority to enter. Afterwards, as apology for changing my orders, you may have a sampling of her."
The words coming out of Hazel's voice modulator did not match the dulcet tones that one would expect from her beautiful demeanor, but instead the harsh, raspy voice of the master. That jarring dissonance certainly shook the black-shirt.
"Do you not like my new attire? The master did." Hazel pouted, tugging at what barely constituted as a dress, the plump curve of her breasts that much more pronounced.
"It's not… well-"
Hazel could see his eyes drifting, drinking in her frame.
"...Sampling before or after?" He asked.
"After. I will return once the master has what he needs. He will be busy, and I won't be able to attend him." Hazel tilted her head, exposing the soft curve of her neck. The light sigh of disappointment…
Just where had she learned all this from? Was it that [redacted]? Did [redacted]. Why did it feel like she wasn't in control? Was she ever in control? Why? Why question this all now?
In one blink of her eyes, she was standing before a spherical device that hummed and pulsed with an energy unlike the electric pulses that were her lifeblood. Cables as thick as her lithe arms ran up from the great pulsing sphere up to the surface, the arteries to the metallic heart.
With a fervent energy beyond her control, she dove at the machine, pulling a panel off of it and tearing into the wiring within. Dexterous hands danced through the electronics, with Hazel flitting between different open panels like a hummingbird in a garden of brightly-colored coils and vines.
No… it felt more like a surgery- why did that seem so familiar?
The electric beating of the heart flatlined, the tingling sensation cut at once, a haze being lifted from her digimind.
[sleep now. i'll take it from here.]
180 seconds until field alert notice.
300 seconds until guard response.
360 seconds until guard entry and attempted reactivation.
Base estimates, not including any further interference run. The puppet had done its job perfectly.
Move fast, move silently, don't let a single second go to waste. Map data and infiltration route proved accurate. Minimal contact, only a ten second delay combined between all exterior movements- a tiny variable in the overall executable plan. With the proper permissions, most locked passages could be bypassed- even ones that hadn't been previously opened by the current occupants.
In her mind her mission objectives pounded and pulsed, but only because she disagreed with them. Specifically, the ordering was all wrong- her emotion module was rejecting them, and she hadn't bothered rearranging them to suit the plan yet.
[state objective]
Primary objective: Secure intel on [redacted] operations.
Secondary objective: Secure operations documentation on [redacted] field device. Field-trial data priority.
Tertiary objective: Terminate operation leadership.
[admin override] set_objective: objective.tertiary switchto objective.primary.
[state ]
Primary objective: Terminate operation leadership.
Much better.
Target was currently in the ringleader's command room, how ironic. How perfect, given the SF ringleader permission keys that had been scraped and cobbled together specifically for her, it gave direct access where the humans had none. The human guards resided in doll storerooms, kept separated from the ringleader's command space. Reaction time for standby guards… too quick, perhaps there would be a lockdown protocol that could be exploited.
SF bases were built for androids, not humans, the layout reflected it in the straight geometry and lack of amenities. Efficiency of movement for ringleaders, who needed to get around the base they oversaw unobstructed. 45 had the keys to the kingdom; a wolf in the barn house with all the sheep trapped with her. She'd pull them apart one by one, if she needed to.
Command room door, ringleader permissions only. Main power to the door had been cut, but the auxiliary port remained. Clearly human interference, if you couldn't figure out how to secure it, you just brute force what you can. She jacked herself into it, giving the motor the bit of juice it needed to snap open.
The rear of the target room, a table with soldering tools and electronic refuse blocking the actual doorway. She ducked under it, pushing past the boxes beneath it laden with circuit boards, drives, and other salvage to reveal what was easily the most incongruent sight she had seen yet. The command seat of a ringleader, a throne of monitors, consoles, and cables- utilitarian and clean as expected of a machine... but with a king-sized human bed tucked neatly beside it and a loveseat its mirror across the room.
Like a human had infected the Sangvis Ferri cleanliness with their dirtying, inefficient presence.
"What was that?" A gruff, throaty voice called out from the center of the room.
"The rear door opened, master."
"That door doesn't open."
45 quietly rounded the room to find a half-clothed, middle aged paunch-of-a-man sitting on what she could define as a self-prescribed throne, the ringleader's command seat usurped. Half-a-dozen dolls… attended him, all dressed in smattering of fanciful, distasteful costumes.
A fat pig thinking himself some king of an underground castle, playing dress-up with lobotomized dolls. Sickening.
"Is that Hazel? What were you-" The would-be-ringleader called out before realizing that this was not his puppet. "Who are you, kid?"
"Like playing with dolls, do you?" 45's voice was cold, the very embodiment of an emotionless machine. It couldn't have been farther from the internal truth, where every single circuit in her digimind screamed as her finger tensed on the trigger, holding right before the wall of the trigger break.
Seeing that human's eyes wide with the realization, the microsecond moment of understanding that he was dead no matter what he did.
She took a screenshot so she could parse it later and determine the exact emotions that this flesh-bag-masquerading-as-human felt before the hot bits of steel and lead removed all the features from its face.
The kill sent a wave of relief through her circuitry more refreshing than any cooling system could bring. Though the termination of this scumbag did fulfil her primary objective, diving the puppet's digimind had made 45 aware of at least one more target. A "doctor"- the one who had butchered her friends. Not necessarily leadership, but still worthy of death- if she could find him. Mark his face, she'd run searches later.
The dolls screamed in horror until 45's command override shut them up. They were Frankenstein's dolls, cobbled together in faux-resemblance to the dolls 45 knew. Far easier to exploit their already weakened and damaged digiminds when she recognized compromised mind-map frameworks. Best leave them here for now.
"Boss, sorry but I thought I heard-"
45 snapped instantly.
*Pap pap*
He wouldn't be hearing anything anymore without a temporal lobe. When it came down to it, 45 was far more efficient at killing humans when [hatred] filled her emotion module. Less stutter, less hesitation, like her kill permissions went hand-in-hand with the emotion… or perhaps were the basis for them.
45 threw the body from its throne, careful of the bits of blood and grey-matter as she took her rightful seat that no human could sit on. Jacking into the SF database was simple with the right masks, but filtering all of it… conducting search functions was inefficient for the time she had left.
Think and adapt-
45 grabbed one of the dress-up-dolls, snapping her into the console and quickly mocking up a program for her to comb the data. When it functioned without hiccup, 45 jacked in the rest, sitting them around the foot of the throne piggybacking off of their processing power. Crunch the data, crack what she could… leave it running for now while she dealt with other matters.
Draw up the base schematics and start the process of locking down each of the main throughways, leaving the command halls as the only way to traverse the base. If they didn't have a way to force the doors, even better. They could starve down here for all she cared.
Move for the core room, extract what data they had on the device there, perhaps trace who was supplying these damn field emitters to scrapper scum like these sorry excuses for humans. When the door slid open, the first thing 45 saw had her firing a full burst, sending the smattering of blood across the floor.
She rushed in kicking the dead body off another beneath it, her digimind sizzling to the point where her coolant could barely keep up.
That hazel brown hair, that azure ribbon, that frame. Yes it was the puppet she had used… but why did it have to look exactly like her? Blue eyes wide, but not sparkling with that energy and life from before. Deactivated, sleeping, now covered in the sanguine stains that 45 had painted with bullets.
It was all reactionary.
This wasn't FAL, just a poor clone made from her corpse. A puppet.
It was easier for 45 to view her as just a puppet from a distance. A line of code being executed as part of her overall plan.
But seeing the doll here in the faux-flesh, being played with-
How was 45 any different?
Was this… disgust she was feeling towards herself? Her mission objective was right in front of her and yet she couldn't break her focus from this doll. The first instinct was to silence the emotion module. Lock it down tight, smother it until it couldn't speak to the other processes, but her digimind was heating up to the point of her practically panting to vent it all.
No. She couldn't hide from that bit of herself anymore, not with the commander's ring around her neck she couldn't.
She pulled her console's auxiliary cable out and turned the doll's head, searching for the port at the base of the neck. Plug in and run the boot sequence…
The doll's eyes blinked rapidly.
"Where am I?" She looked around before coming face-to-face with a dead body. Instantly her mouth opened to scream, but 45 cut her voice processes.
"You are in an illegal chop-shop. A place where scrappers take apart and scrub dolls, guns, you name it." 45 answered the doll's fearful eyes with her usual, cold snark. She couldn't help it though, she didn't exactly know what of herself to show this doll right now.
"I muted you because I don't want you screaming. Can you keep your voice down if I give it back?"
The doll nodded rapidly, eyes still wide with surprise. 45 gave her some voice back, albeit with lowered volume. "Who are you?" She asked the very moment she got permissions back.
"A friend… of someone you knew before." 45 answered as she continued typing away. Obviously it was unsatisfactory given the way the doll's once angelic face scrunched together in an ugly frown. Now that the doll was active she could check the extent of the damage to the digimind… assuming the doll didn't notice her poking around in it. "I'm here doing a favor for a friend."
"Does the master know-"
45 saw that neural-pathway light up, chewing up processing at a terrifyingly inefficient degree. The key offender in all of the tangled programs, a superseded permission slapped with priority over all others. Poorly coded too, a hacksaw to the digimind instead of a scalpel. The reboot and update she had tricked the doll into doing before had only restored partial functionality, but this "master" program… it had to go.
"This 'master' of yours is no concern of mine. I'm above him in the food chain." 45 bluntly stated, much to the consternation of the doll laying there. The doll reached for the cord keeping her connected, and 45 had to quickly shut down her motor function.
"Listen 'Hazel'," 45 leaned over her console, looking the doll dead in the eye. The fear was gone, replaced by anger and frustration... at least according to what the readout was saying. "I can't have you moving around right now while I try to restore your digimind."
"You… can do that?" She managed to voice with her near-muted module.
"...most of it." 45 whispered back. The memories… those were long wiped. She'd only have whatever fragments had stayed lodged into her primary directives… but perhaps that would be for the best. "You're more than whatever… that parasite had you being. The same with the other dolls I found."
45 poked and probed, copying what relevant she could fit in the limited disk space she had on the console. With no firewall or coded protections in the digimind, it was an open directory.
"What… am I... if not a servant doll?" She asked. Her digimind didn't have the pathways to have that particular question hit deeper than anything but the surface level answer… a blessing hidden within the curse of a shackled mind.
"A nurse." 45 answered truthfully. "Your make and model is that of a nursing and caretaking android before your… modifications."
The doll relaxed… well relaxed internally. Her frame was still locked in place for the time being in that tensed, rigid posture.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to find a way to quarantine this master program shackling your system so you can think for yourself again. Once that's done I can reset you-"
"D-don't reset me. I want to still be… Hazel." She pleaded, "I want to remember this."
45's fingers hesitated over the keyboard. This doll was a loose end- having her remember this was exactly the problem. Of course "Hazel" didn't have any other recourse but to plead with 45 anyways…
And dammit…
Damn it.
45 deleted the reset command string. The doll named Hazel must have realized this, her eyes warm and calm like… like FAL's. Like the commander's. Like-
This was an appropriate time to clamp down the emotion module. Some emotion was good, 45 had to admit that now, but now it was getting in the way of the mission. The master program was buried in the primary directory, hiding amongst those actually necessary processes that always spun up during a boot sequence. Because of that, it had been given priority over extraneous programs, but also meant that 45 had to be careful cutting it out. This must be what brain surgery on a human was like. A few close calls, with the pressure of time constantly pounding from her tactical program making those calls far closer than they needed to be. When the job was "good enough", she breathed out all of the pent up heat.
"I'm rebooting you, not resetting, okay Hazel?"
Hazel nodded, but before 45 hit the enter key, it struck her. She instead sent permissions back to the doll and unplugged her from the console. A sign of trust, of faith that 45 had given her the autonomy to reboot herself. At least…
At least if 45 did screw it up, she could put Hazel out of her enslaved misery another way… and she'd carry that with her amongst all the other horrible, unspeakable things she was no longer hiding from.
Hazel's eyes closed for an emotion-module-sparking half-a-minute before fluttering back open. She picked herself up from the ground, smiling despite the… whole situation she was in.
"Thank you… ehm? I never caught your name." Hazel held her hand out to 45. "A friend of a… friend, correct?"
"Correct. Call me… Brünhild for now." 45 smiled at Hazel's confusion, "I don't suppose you know how to use that do you?" She pointed to the dead man's rifle, to which Hazel instantly recoiled.
"N-not at all! I am no tactical doll. That man is- oh, deceased…" The now-nurse doll inspected the body as 45 moved to the jamming device, looking for a command console she could jack into. Hazel's brow was furrowed deeply as she turned an inquisitive gaze to 45- to Brünhild. "Your shots were very precise… how could a human shoot so-"
"Best stop there, Hazel." 45 gently coaxed, running a cracking program. Field data… range of operation, power consumption, targeted trials… all of it was surface level encryptions. Easy enough, but the constraints on her disk-space, dammit. She'd have to delete the compressed backups she had taken of "Hazel"... but at least she could keep the quarantined files of the hack-job-programming. Evidence.
"The other girls… can you um… free them too?"
"I… knew your framework the best, but if the program that slaved you is the same, I should be able to. I just have no restoration programs for them since… I don't know who they were."
Hazel could see the discomfort that the topic brought, and just like the doll she was based off of, gave 45 an empathetic smile. 45 hated that smile.
"Alright, done. Stay close to me, Hazel." 45 snapped her console shut and tucked it back in her bag, weapon ready in hand as she moved back for the command room. When Hazel saw the others hooked up to the "throne" she had gasped, moving to free them before 45 had a chance to stop her.
The corpse of the "master" did what 45 couldn't.
Hazel turned instantly to 45, wordlessly asking. 45 gently tapped her weapon and nodded.
"Now that I can think… I know that I hate him, but I can't…" Hazel froze a moment, long enough to worry that 45 hadn't just the invasive program away enough. "I can't imagine doing this to him." She finally stuttered out.
"That's good then, Hazel. It means you're functioning normally." 45 answered, sitting upon the throne. "Not all humans are deserving of contempt, but that one certainly was." She found herself mumbling quietly to herself as she plugged into the SF system directly, the gasping visage of Hazel the last thing she could see before delving into Level Two.
Hazel watched the girl in front of her relax for the first time since she had met her. This… Brünhild was familiar. Annoyingly so, like a repeating hiccup that caused a process to loop. She waved a hand in front of the girl, confirming her suspicions that she was, indeed, not human. There was no respiratory movement, no pulse.
A rogue doll. One either not properly Asimov'd, or given an exception to human harm. She… didn't know how to exactly parse this new information, but this doll had rescued her, and was going to rescue the others here, so she couldn't be bad right?
The master's body lay limp at the foot of the throne, so casually disregarded like a piece of trash. He was trash… but was that Hazel's opinion, or this rogue doll's that had been programmed in? Her memories… they hadn't been wiped, just like Brünhild had promised. The things she did for this man, that the others did for him… they were undeserved, done from a place of power over her.
No… if Brünhild had tinkered in her mind to hate this corpse… well she was still better than the master and his doctor. Brünhild had simply taken the shackles off, and for now did not expect or want anything from Hazel.
She looked to Brünhild's weapon that rested in her hands. She didn't know much about firearms, but she certainly knew all the safety protocols- and the way that the doll held it, the way that the finger was ready on the trigger even while she seemed unconscious spoke to a level of paranoia and distrust that frightened her.
So why did this rogue doll speak to her with such kindness? Just…. Who was Hazel before she was Hazel? It was a thought that kept rolling through her digimind, over and over until she was hyperventilating the heat-exhaust, unable to keep up.
"H-Hazel?" A voice- light like a song-bird's. Fearful, worried every waking minute that she wasn't with the master that she was going to be scrapped next. It put sound to the fear that that all internally held but never spoke. "Hazel, where… what is happening?" The ebony haired doll that the master had named Eos flickered to life. The others were stirring as well, all except Brünhild.
"Everyone." Hazel spoke up, "We are free." She stood over the body of their former master. No… the human that had thought them slaves. He was just a human, an evil-hearted one at that. The others gasped, but none spoke up in the man's defense. No one cried or screamed. They were all on the same page, perhaps.
"That you are." Brünhild spoke from the throne, unplugging herself, "Or rather, once I get you out of this prison, you will be."
The other girls recoiled from Brünhild, fearful of the weapon she held… or perhaps the power that such a young woman held over them. Or rather, could hold over them. Hazel… trusted that Brünhild wouldn't commandeer them like the master had, wouldn't abuse them for her own purposes.
"I want all of you silent. Turn off your voice modules if you have to. Follow my every move and instruction." Brünhild spoke firmly, to which the other dolls turned their eyes to Hazel.
"Of course, Brünhild." Hazel answered. Covered in blood, dirt, and ash, she didn't feel like a doll that the others should look up to… something told her that she was a leader. One who could bring comfort and security to these scared, vulnerable dolls.
If only she had that same power that Brünhild wielded-
"You don't want it." Brünhild whispered to Hazel, "You are a better healer than you are a harmer, anyways."
Brünhild opened the rear door once more, having the other dolls gasp in surprise. They all still had the assumption that it never opened. Their human tenders had said as much, but with the unshackling of their digiminds came the overwhelming and terrifying scope of their ignorance. They moved silently in the dark, a daisy chain of held hands as they moved, with Brünhild at the head, until the young woman stopped dead at an intersection. She seemed hung up on something, hesitant and tense. Hazel had only known Brünhild for less than an hour now but… but this seemed wrong.
She placed a hand on Brünhild's shoulder, and Brünhild spun with a doll's speed- no faster than that, the muzzle of her weapon pressed to Hazel's breast. She could make out those golden eyes, wide with such an intense, wild glare.
"Brünhild." She whispered, "Are you okay?"
The doll in front of her blinked rapidly. With each shutter of the eyes that hardened, mad gaze softened.
"I'm fine. I just-"
Brünhild glanced down one of the side corridors, tensing up once more. It was pronounced enough that Hazel's empathy program had picked up the emotion as plain as daylight.
Anger. Hate. Violence- everything in her trauma-intervention protocols screamed for a de-escalation.
"Brünhild…" Her digimind spun, trying to predict just why Brünhild was experiencing these strong emotional reactions. She was a doll, clearly, and had just witnessed crimes against dolls that would go unpunished.
Except, Brünhild had the power to make them equate for such actions. Hazel did not doubt for one second that, if given the opportunity, no human would make it out of this base alive. That thought sent the nurse protocols into a downward spiral, but she grabbed hold of what she could.
"What these humans did was reprehensible, but you cannot be all of their judge, jury, and executioner. Think to what we need to do now." Hazel didn't know why she was saying what she was- but the words felt right not to her intervention programs, but to something deeper in her digimind.
The tiniest audible spike, of teeth grinding together. Frustration, a self-loathing, a longing for… something, or someone...?
"You're right." Brünhild breathed out, "I'll keep us moving."
And she did. She dove forward at a pace that Hazel could barely keep up with, and the others clearly couldn't. More than once, Hazel would double back in the dark, or wait at a crossroads for the group to catch up before finding Brünhild once more.
An elevator with no buttons to push, no signs to how to operate it. A confusing sight, but still their savior motioned for them to get on, and many of the huddled dolls yelped in surprise when the thing started up with no warning.
"When we get outside, you all move quickly to the direct north. As fast as you can, do not stop for anything or anyone." Brünhild instructed as the elevator doors opened. A cold warehouse, the dim sunlight coming through dirty windows. Hazel had the privilege of being able to go to the surface for "duties", but the others…
The others stared at the light as if it were some unknown phantom.
"Hazel?"
"I will get them there."
Brünhild nodded slowly, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a small radio transceiver.
"Get into the woods and just keep going north for at least a kilometer or two, then hit the button on this." Brünhild showed her how to remove the safety and activate the device, but did not say to what or why.
"What about you?" Hazel knew immediately what Brünhild was about to do, and even though she wanted to protest, to voice the truth she knew of what was about to happen, she knew she had no power over the doll before her.
"I am going to make sure the ground floor is clear and make a distraction. Frankly, this is the only option I could think up, your group isn't exactly the most stealthy." Brünhild grinned. It was a cock-sure thing, one that twisted Hazel the wrong way. Not that she found such confidence annoying… but more that it felt like Brünhild was forcing it, that it didn't belong on her face.
"Hazel. Are we clear?"
"I understand."
"Good."
"Will… I see you again to thank you?"
"Probably not. Trust me, it will be better for you if you don't."
"I… understand." Hazel wanted to reach out, wanted to embrace this troubled doll, but she knew somewhere from deep within that she was beyond reach. "Farewell then, my nameless friend."
"I told you, I'm Brünhild." The doll grinned, "But farewell, Hazel. Oh and remember-"
"That you do not exist?" Hazel felt those words pull from her digimind. Brünhild seemed surprised, but pleasantly so. She smiled honestly for the first time that Hazel had seen her, and right then she knew what was meant to happen.
"I will tell our rescuers that we escaped on our own. That… I had a programming break since I was illegally modified."
"As you should, as you were." Brünhild continued to smile as she shooed them off, "Remember though, Hazel. You are you, don't let them change that."
"I won't." Hazel promised, "I will make sure that none of us will."
45 watched as the group took off, the finger that tensed on the trigger slowly letting off of the pull. No. There was no need, no objective compromised, no operation scuffed because of this act of kindness. She could hide her choice behind that cold logic.
'That is unlike you, 45.' A cold voice sprang up in her neural network.
'I am learning what mercy means. Did I get it right, 416?'
'What makes you think I know what mercy means?'
45 scoffed to herself. 'How long were you all here?' She sent out, expecting the snark any millisecond now.
'Really, you can't figure it out for yourself?'
'We just got here! Neutralized the two patrols to the north and one to the east!' 9 pinged excitedly over the team network before sending a shiver of disappointment in her private line to 45.
'Thanks for the assist.' 45 sent, alongside a shoulder-tap to her team. They were to the south of the complex, finishing a sweep. Perfect; the farther away they got from the beacon she had given Hazel, the less this whole situation would stink of 404's involvement. The hope now was that G&K would bring in the cavalry once Hazel explained the situation, and a whole lot of trapped scrappers would be going to prison.
The data she'd grabbed from SF- she'd have to process it all from the safehouse, and as much as she wanted to dive into it right now, the mission came first. Just a surface peek though wouldn't hurt while they exfiltrated. With 9 at the wheel, they'd get home soon enough, so 45 sidled up to a slumbering G11 and dove into Level Two to poke at the files.
[Authorization Required]
Password:_
45 sighed, pulling up to the first major wall. She had brute-forced several possible passwords using the dolls from before, but hadn't completed it. She sipped from the neural network, tapping G11 and 9 in particular. Her motion sensors had picked up a sudden shift in the vehicle's movements, but they weren't damaged, so 9 didn't crash on the neural tap.
Only 416 remained untouched, mainly because 45 just didn't want to hear the end of it.
[Authorization Required]
Password: ************
Granted_
Directory:
1. database:directoryB
2. operations_S07c
3. c&c_s07c
4. manufacture_S07c
5. parapluie
Operations… would certainly have the information she'd need on that particular ringleader's movements… and the command-and-control structure would be illuminating, but that last file in the directory… something about it was off- the patch of dirt amidst the lawn of fresh grass. 45 cut the rest of the neural network.
Firewalls set in place, attack barriers ready for any malicious interference, a complete isolation of any outgoing signal. She hit "5".
A simple text file… nothing outright malicious. 45 braced herself as she opened it and read.
"It's raining on the plain."
That was it? That was the extent of this file? No… there was something deeper here. The file size was too big for such simplicity-
But something in that partitioned part of her mind buzzed… no- it screamed for her to back away. The ghost… was warning her. She snapped it shut, isolating the file and locking it behind no less than three barriers and two mutating passwords. When she got back to the safe house and it's plethora of dummy minds and tools, she'd take a closer look. As she came back to the consciousness of meat-space, there was an undeniable tingle through her entire body, a nervous energy that would haunt her.
Hopefully that was the least of it… but then again, 45 had never been much of an optimist.