Pain.
Pain.
Pain pain pain pain painpainpainpainpainpain-
It hurt her, and it would continue to hurt her. Electrical impulses through every single circuit when she didn't obey and she… hadn't felt pain like this before. Battle damage? Sure, and that was always as fleeting for as long as it took her to tamper with her pseudo-limbic system settings.
This was a pain that she couldn't control.
[nonsense. you can control the pain, you only need to obey like a good little puppy.]
The voice is crisp and clear in her head, even when all the voices picked up from her audio sensors come in as white noise. The only one that had been as clear was… was-
[find her, puppy. find her for me or you get the lash again.]
She snarls at the voice in her digimind, but it wound up coming out her voice modulator and directed at the doll aiming a rifle at her.
"~~~!" The doll screamed, "~~~!"
White noise, but the sound of the gunshot is clear, amplified, pushing the survival protocol to the fore of her programming. It was a warning shot, the bullet pinging down the hallway past her, but the doll wouldn't get another chance. She pounced on the chocolate-haired twin-tail, tore the rifle from the doll's hands as she took them down to the ground. Knife out, reverse gripped, point slammed down through the doll's optical sensor- and straight through the processing unit in a single movement.
The voice inside her head cackles, forces her to stay straddled over the dead frame to look at her handiwork, it even gave her the deceased's IFF signal-
Friendly [G&K] Model: M14
She wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to apologize for being a bad girl. M14 had been on the rescue team that had found her and brought her to this cool new home. M14 had always shared her rations, her bunk, and would have shared her ammo too if they had been compatible. M14 was her first friend here-
[empathy is a weakness, puppy.]
She managed to scream aloud this time, feeling how every bit of her emotion module pulsed with anger as she tore the knife from dead circuitry… and tried to bring the knifepoint up through her own neck-
And her joints locked up before she could feel the steel pierce epidermal layer. She tried to get her other hand on the handle to push it that last little bit, only to feel her left hand… gently take the knife out of her right.
[ah, no. i can't have such a useful puppy kill itself. That would just be so s a d]
It made her stand up; shoved her forward until she was running at a pace that would leave a truck in the dust. Blue line to the dormitories, red to armory, gold to command; she needs her rifle, but it's in the armory. Too many dolls there, most likely already armed. The voice in her digimind lets the contempt be felt- she doesn't need her rifle, a knife will do. It drove her towards the dormitories with harsh electrical stings, needles in the mind that set her body on fire.
Another doll came around the corner ahead of her, and though surprised, the doll still managed to shout something. Without a weapon, the doll is not a threat, but it still tried to run… and running only pinged her instinct to give chase. The difference between their frames is clear- there was no way a converted A-doll could outpace her. The knife sank into the doll's neck. The impact, the strength behind the frame that grabs the doll by the neck takes the unfortunate girl off her feet. It's like she had hit a clothesline- or perhaps piano-wire as the knife tears through coolant piping and electronics.
Two more quick stabs, savage and uncaring, to make the frame stop moving- stop transmitting-
She tossed the dead doll aside before making for the dormitories, and for the first time in her life, she is afraid. Not for her own existence, of course; dolls in the dorm weren't permitted to be armed.
But the pain she was causing…
She was a bad girl. She was a very bad girl.
With no control over her own voice, she can't apologize when she plunges her knife into the gut of another doll who came to see what all the commotion was about. There's no way to stop her own self from cackling madly as she plucks a pretty blue eye from its socket, letting the doll see how her frame dies before being sent to the hard reboot.
It's… it's the only way to make the pain stop. When she kills, it dulls the pain. She… she needs to kill more- she's good at killing, right?
[such a good puppy. such a vicious little thing, aren't you?]
She growls of her own volition, her one bit of defiance even as it sends her body barreling towards the target dormitory. There was the hope that the girls there would be armed, that they'd be able to… put her down.
[oh but you're no rabid dog… yet]
The door denied her scan- Zenner network required, but she knows the passcode. The door snapped open and-
M4 stares at her, eyes filled with fear and sadness.
There is a rifle in M4's hands, and it is aimed.
"Sop! Stand down!"
The command goes in one auditory processing unit and out the other, the command line sent by M4 having no grip on her anymore.
[get her, puppy. bite her puppy. if you give her the same gift, you can be sisters again]
Y-Yes, she needed to only break M4's legs, maybe twist her arms off so she couldn't crawl away. All she'd need to do is jack into M4 and give the voice what it wanted, and it'd make the pain stop. It'd make the pain stop. It'd make the pain stop It'd make the pain stop it'd make the painstop itdmakeherpainstop-
SOP-II lunged, and where M4 hesitated, M16 did not.
No warning shot for a friend; just three rounds, center mass into a former teammate.
She should have felt something, but there is nothing but her primary protocol pulsing through her digimind.
[Protect M4 at all costs]
Sop didn't stop though, owing to her frame being beefier than most dolls, forcing M16 to leap into direct action. Case held like a riot shield, she slammed into Sop, driving the blonde doll back… but not before Sop got her own say.
:WARNING: Unit sustaining frame damage: Left arm functionality 50%
Knifepoint got around her case, right into the shoulder joint. Leave it to Sop's CQB protocols to test M16's. The doll that had been her teammate skidded along the dormitory floor, crouching low like a predator with eyes darting between M16 and M4. Clearly whatever was driving SOP had screwed with her tactical processing- there was no way even SOP-II could win a two-on-one against armed elites.
Except, Sop moved with a feral, erratic energy before M16 could get her rifle back up on her. Their CQB specialist lunged at M4 again, realizing that their sentimental leader was hesitating to pull the trigger on her.
"Shoot her!" M16 belted, throwing herself at Sop again… only to realize too late that she had taken Sop's bait. The platinum blonde skidded and rolled low, letting M16 and case rush past- and she took another chunk of M16 with her.
:WARNING: Unit sustaining frame damage: Right leg functionality 45%
M16 stumbled, hamstrung at the ankle joint, the weight of the case carrying her forward. Prediction was that Sop would jump on her, probably drive the bayonet for her unarmored neck and go for a nervous-system kill, and there wasn't much she could do without M4's help.
'M4, you're still soft.' M16 pinged into the silence of an empty, isolated network.
And her ping was answered by a punching burst of rifle fire.
Sop tumbled once more, part of her once mirthful face smashed and punctured by 5.56 rounds. Both she and M16 managed to pull themselves up at the same time, but M4 was quicker to M16's side.
"You shot me, M-four-" Sop's voice sobbed, epidermal mesh on her face partially torn at the cheek… and though it makes M4 hesitate once more, M16 doesn't. Rifle up, another burst-
"It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts-"
Sop's voice modulator crackled and stuttered, her words screeched in an unending loop as she bound through the dorm living room. Rounds pinged and buzzed like hornets, shattering the illusion of a home that they could have had together, all before SOP-II dove behind the kitchenette counter for cover. M16 was about to signal a maneuver when M4… M4 motioned for her to flank the side, her own rifle ready for Sop to be flushed out.
The moment M16 moved, however, the screaming stopped. Heightened combat awareness at once, ready for a hint of movement, but M16's audio picked up soft sob instead.
"Sop?" M4 called out, and despite the stern glance that M16 shot at her younger sister, M4 apparently could not be swayed away from trying… but then again, she hadn't lowered her weapon, either.
"M…Four… I'm a bad girl, M-Four." SOP-II's voice crackled, spoken through a filter of static. She was there behind the counter and yet, seemingly, so far away.
"You can shut yourself down, Sop. We can have Persica fix you." M4 silently motioned for M16 to move once more during the distraction. She'd keep her talking.
"I can't, M-Four." Sop sobbed, voice clear for a split second before the hiss of white noise returned, "I can't."
"It's that eye, it has to have been that eye, Sop-"
M16 heard SOP-II's joints groan, her dainty frame shuddering as it fought against itself. There was the sound of metal clicking, of SOP-II's fingers rattling, and the distinct suction of an eye socket freeing up. M16 froze when she saw SOP-II's hand reach up and place something on the counter.
A single electric-green eye staring back at them.
"It… it still hurts, M-Four. It… it still hurts!" Sop screamed, and this time M16 can pick up anger in all of that cacophony. If something was going to happen, it'd be soon-
"Save me, M-Four." Sop whimpered, just before her clawed hand reached up from behind the counter again… this time holding something cylindrical.
M16 flagged it too late; one of her flashbangs. Sop must have stolen it from M16's kit sometime during the initial frenzy. No time to shutter her optical sensors or shield her audio- so M16 fired a suppressive burst into the counter, unloading the rest of her magazine into the outlined image she had last snapped. Predictive programs went haywire, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of variables introduced… and almost all of them ended in frame death for either herself or M4.
After all, of all the dolls M16 knew, SOP-II was anything but predictable.
And… of all the dolls M16 knew, SOP-II was anything but predictable. Three seconds to reboot audio and optical… and in those three seconds, SOP-II was gone. M4 was shaking the flashbang as well, but despite that, she looked no worse for wear. The dormitory door was open, the trail of coolant and conversion fluid clear to just where their teammate had gone.
"I'm on her-" M16 belted out… only to lurch, nearly stumbling the moment she landed on her damaged ankle. How had she forgotten so quickly?
"The base is on lockdown, she won't get far." M4 spoke confidently, or at least M16 picked out confidence amongst the fluctuations in her voice. There's a discrepancy though, confidence, yes, but there's something more, something deeper, spoken through that buzz to M4, the frown on her face, the way that her little sister is still tense… and M16 can't pick out the emotion. Well, either that, or her own emotion module couldn't create or parse complex ones like M4's… but the one thing she could sort in herself was frustration- frustration and disappointment that she couldn't put a traitor down-
-put a traitor down-
Traitor-
[syserror 000042]
[memerror: 2457189]...
[:set: memroute.1115]
[syserror 000042]
[memerror: 2491859]...
[:set: memroute.1116]
[syserror 000042]
[memerror: 248810227]
[:set: memroute.1117]
[…]_
[put a traitor down]
A harsh hiss. An intense heat. Rifle in her hands, there is a doll pinned beneath her.
"Any last words, traitor?"
She presses the barrel against the doll's back, finger on the trigger. The doll's reaching for her weapon.
"Just a little more…" The doll beneath her groans.
She's already won, so why was she letting this traitor speak? There were so many dead, so many destroyed, all because of this one doll.
"What's this, still putting up a fight?" She sneers, pressing the barrel harder, like she is trying to nail this small doll to the ground. Pin it there like a butterfly to corkboard-
[memerror: 248810227]
[:set: memroute.1117.2]
[…]
Desperation. Desperation and hate. She brings her rifle around, swinging like a club despite everything in her combat protocols screaming at the blunder. She isn't acting as she was programmed, her tactics processes not firing through the haze emanating out of her emotion module. Take from the emotion module instead, reroute its impulses direct to the digimind to keep her frame moving.
She's burning up; her digimind is burning up. She can feel the unknown processes eating up her virtual memory, overheating her circuits, the white haze of the coming crash all but inevitable.
But her CQC program kicks in as she knocks the gray-haired doll's weapon away. Grapples the smaller doll, manages to get her pinned on the ground again-
[memerror: 248810227]
[:set: memroute.1117.3]
[…]_
Knife out.
Tries to bring it down. Kill the traitor.
Doll- the doll claws at her face-
Damage to optical. Desperation. Struggle.
Just need… to kill this doll. Kill the traitor.
-kill-
-traitor-
[memerror: 2488102878]
[:set: memroute.1118]
[…]_
M16 woke to find M4 holding her up, dragging her to a couch now riddled with holes. Her movement startled M4, but there's relief in her little sister's eyes.
"Big sis?"
"Y-Yeah, sorry. Was doing an internal damage assessment." M16 grunted, giving her sister a pained scowl as she laid herself out to properly inspect. She had to give it to the little pup- she'd certainly learned some new tricks, and Sop… already knew her shit. Got her good in the joints, reduced M16's effectiveness just enough to edge out. Despite the recent damage, her hand drifted to her eye instead. She hadn't taken frame damage there since-
Since…
[runmem:2022100]...
[ :0000x92]
"Fire! Don't stop firing! This damn ineffective doll. Just what garbage did sixteen-lab send us?"
[Shouting over communication net. Fear detectable in FSB trooper voices. Gunfire drowns out radio]
:Data collection enabled: Practical combat v. ELID infected.
-Center mass: Ineffective, target operational.
-Legs: Effective, target mobility-killed, not pacified.
-Head: Effective, target neutralized_
:Assessment: Continue engagement of target heads.
[Confused shouts, screams]
"Fall back! Leave the doll and fall back!"
[ELID howls]
:Data collection enabled: Practical CQB v. ELID infected.
-Arms: Effective, target threat-killed, not pacified.
-Legs: Effective, target mobility-killed, not pacified.
-Head: Effective, target neutralized_
Continue engagement of targets- prioritize threat-kill.
:WARNING: Unit sustaining frame damage: Prolonged CQB Unadvised. :WARNING: Unit sustaining frame damage: Ocular sensor efficiency reduced. :WARNING: Unit sustaining frame damage-
[end playback]
… A forced playback? M16 managed to trace the memory line through her mind-map… only to come to a dead end. She'd need to drop to Level Two if she was going to really trace the code, except that wasn't in the cards right now. Much bigger problems, and if she was going to help M4, she'd need to pull her damn head together and cool off literally and figuratively.
"Sis, are you okay?" M4 frowned deeper, closing in before M16 gently pushed her away.
"I told you, I'm fine. Check in with command and figure out… what's gotten into Sop."
"Your processing temperature-"
"So I'll put fucking ice on it. There's bigger problems right now, M-four!" M16 shouted, taking her little sister completely by surprise. Guilt spiked for a moment, but when she saw how M4's expression hardened… and knew that it was the kind of tough-love that M4 needed.
"I'll get Star and a few other dolls. Sop won't get too far." M4 said grimly, grabbing her go-bag from the remains of their coffee table. "You get to the repair bay, sis."
"Sop will go to ground, you'll need me-"
"No." M4 commanded, and for the first time M16 felt the weight of M4's voice. No command string or ping added to it- just raw authority.
It made M16 smile, even if M4 couldn't see it when she turned her back. The little sister paused in the doorway, glancing back at M16 without pity nor worry, only steel.
"Get yourself fixed up, quickly. You'll be on the QRF once we've got her trail. Clear?"
"Crystal." M16 snapped back, deflating only when the door snapped shut behind M4. It was a bit of a pain standing up, but once she got her balance sorted out she limped herself over to her go-bag… or what was left of it. Sop had torn it up, showing exactly where she got that flashbang from, but that wasn't M16's concern right now. She rummaged through until her hand brushed that familiar metal.
Boot flask, still in one piece. She unscrewed the top, olfactory sensors picking up that familiar burn. A quick swig before she'd need to get to work.
"Damn it all. And here I thought I'd get to relax a bit."
Sop ran.
If she couldn't stop killing her friends and if she couldn't… hard reset herself, then running was the best option. Her emotion module spun at three times its usual processing speed, and she somehow used that to bypass the voice in her head, if only temporarily.
And escape and evasion were part of her core programming. The base was in disarray so finding holes to slip were easier than expected- even if the voice wanted her to kill. Part of her primary protocol was self preservation, but if that had the added benefit of Sop not hurting anyone else… then she'd do it.
Even if she was leaving behind those that could help her… she came to the conclusion that she had no other choice. Oh sure, her predictive programming was a bit flawed compared to her teammates, and her ability to create complex plans was shoddy at best, but she did have a strong emotional core.
That core told her to trust in M4. M4 would find her, and she and the commander and Persica would find a way to save Sop from the voice in her head.
So she'd run. She'd run as far as she could until there was nothing around for the voice to tell her to hurt. She'd run until her battery and backups gave out, and then she'd collapse as just another harmless bit of metal.
When she ran, everything was so much simpler. She could shut down all those unnecessary processes, and that kept the voice in her head quiet. Who knows how far she went, or how far she'd keep going, but eventually the sun had come up… and eventually it had set…
And, somewhere in the middle of the pitch black of night, her legs gave out. Tumbling to a stop in the middle of some unknown woods, Sop felt the cold grip of emergency sleep mode forcibly shutting her down bit-by-bit. Backups would keep her consciousness going though, and if she were still connected to Zenner, would have at least attempted to copy parts of her mind-map.
But here in the dark, she had only her thoughts… and the emotion module was always the last to shut down. Guilt, fear, loneliness…
New to her. New neural paths to process. If she was lucky, it'd drain the last of her backups quicker...
And then she could slip into the void, conciousness mercifully silent, and wake back up... to her family again.
Audio booted first. Always first, before any of her other subsystems connected. Helped her survive, helped conserve power.
Except she didn't need to conserve anymore. She was plugged in now, a charging station?
"Ahh Intruder really screwed up, but at least we got something out of her little blunder…"
A female voice, young, echoing. Sop can tell she's in a large room without her optical data, can pick up the tip-tap of metal on tile, the hum of computers and electricity.
Her optical sensor booted up and she was greeted by a young woman grinning wildly up at her. Pale complexion, yellow eyes, small stature, tell-tale black dress- she was not human.
"Isn't that right, puppy?"
Sop tried to speak, tried to get her hands around that soft, throttleable little neck, but there was no chance of it, no matter how hard she fought. Her body was unresponsive, her one good optical sensor forced to follow the frame of a pale little girl pacing back and forth. She was dangling from a repair-bay rack, but its not like the IOP ones-
"Don't worry, I have a habit of picking up strays. Sometimes I even train them to be useful." The Sangvis Ringleader grinned wide and wicked, her fingertip tracing Sop's damaged jaw before flicking off her chin. Sop wanted to snarl and bite that finger clean off, but whatever they had her plugged into was cutting off her digimind from her frame.
"Who knew I'd find one that is resistant to rabies? We'll have to study you, maybe dissect you bit by bit to figure out why."
The repair bay shifted Sop, lowering her down to dangle just off the ground as the Ringleader continued to inspect the damage of Sop's face. She stuck a finger into Sop's empty optical socket, tapping the interior hard enough for the metal clink to be felt in her audio processors.
"Didn't your masters ever tell you not to go around installing strange things, puppy?" The Ringleader scolded by bopping Sop on the nose. The little brat was so close! If she had control of herself, she's pluck those little yellow eyes from her sockets and-
"Ah, but you're not in control here, puppy. How fortunate for me, hmm? I like my eyes." The Ringleader smiled wickedly, producing a pale-yellow optical sensor from behind her back. She leaned in, holding it up to Sop's empty socket, scrutinizing like a decorator trying to find the right accessory.
So vulnerable, so damn vulnerable. Sop tried. She really really did try to lunge her body forward with every ounce of strength she could… and her hand flexed, if only for a second. It got the Ringleader's attention, made the little girl laugh maniacally.
"I have so many things I want to attach to you, puppy! So many sharp and dangerous things… but first I need to make sure that you don't come and bite the hand that will be feeding you now." The Ringleader tossed the optical sensor over her shoulder before clapping her hands excitedly. "Oh we are going to have so much fun with you puppy! And when your owners come looking for you, we'll be sure to send you back to them better than when you ran away." The cruelty in her voice practically dripped and burned, like a battery-acid leak. Whenever they decided to unhook her, Sop would tear that little girl's throat out, she'd pluck out both eyes and replace them with batteries, she'd tear off her arms and beat her to frame-death with them, she's-
"My my, how creative you are, puppy. My other dog could learn a thing or two from you-" The Ringleader laughed, pausing if only for her silence to be broken by the stomping of someone else storming to whever this torture-room was.
"Dreamer! DREAMER! I want my eye back!"