Yes, that Combat Doll has gotten implants and augments to make herself look like an anthropomorphic rabbit woman in a playboy outfit, yes she is competent and is in fact statistically speaking our deadliest Doll, yes she is dtf if you’re a woman, no we’re not going to stop her because she is genuinely our most successful operative and also legally that’d be homophobic probably, yes she does pilot the rabbit themed mech, no she does not kill people by fucking them that’s a stupid rumor her ex-husband spread before he got sued for libel. If you have any questions nobody’s asked before take them up with High Command or Doll Engineering and Maintenance.
A doll made to fight. Bleeding edge, next generation, highly experimental.
A doll that will never fight. A failure. Malfunctioning, defunded, disassembled. Disposed of.
A doll clinging to life. Some of its sensors reactivate. Moving north, in a truck full of jagged shards and dead sisters. It pries open the hatch just enough…
A doll falling. It hits the ground with a crack. Something is broken. It doesn’t know if that was bone or ceramic. It crawls out of the street, opens a gate, hides behind a fence. It should keep moving, but it’s so tired.
A gasp. The doll looks up to see a person. A shocked little girl stares down at her from the arms of a maid doll. The maid is carefully stepping back toward the house.
Signals are sent to weapons that are no longer attached. Adrenaline spikes. This is it. This is how they’ll find it.
This is how it dies.
…
A doll getting better. It wakes up and looks down at itself, bright porcelain filling in the gaps between bulletproof ceramic, the two materials joined by gold.
A doll learning to be taken care of. The maid appears—she always moves so silently. Its sensors finally stopped reading her as an ambush a few days ago. She gestures, offering to help it out of bed.
A doll with a family. It makes its way down the stairs, still learning to take them slowly. Its young Miss runs up to it and hugs its knees, calling it by the name she gave it.
The strange combat doll asked you this this question during its maintenance. You had been maintaining it and its sisters for about a few years now so you had a good grasp on them. This one was unit 4L-133 but you called it Alice in your head.
You named all of the combat dolls you took care of but Alice seemed to be one of the older models. It was always quiet and seemed to be contemplative. so you gave it a book to read occasionally.
"The concept of souls... Is one the greatest philosophers have debated for centuries. Noone has come to an answer everyone likes." Your voice is calm as you humor the doll, it was getting closer to decommissioning. Looking at it's file it had maybe another month of service before it would be disposed of... The thought makes you sad.
You must have had a look on your face because it gently lays its hand over yours. "It's okay, This unit has lived a good life. It was just wondering what came after. will it go to meet its sisters that fell? Go someplace new? it does not know... this one is sorry for making that one sad."
It then goes quiet as you finish it's checkup and you watch it leave. going to the shooting range to be with it's sisters... you find your vision getting blurry as tears that you didn't expect come forth. You were crying? why? it was just like all the others that died why is that one different? You wipe the tears as you go to clean up your tools to find a Polaroid of yourself with the doll and the words remember this one written under it in soft marker.
You find yourself drifting to look at all your photos you have had over the years. all the other dolls you had maintained and bonded with. All were decommissioned because no one would adopt them...
You made up your mind and filled out the form. You would leave it as a surprise for it. You would need to make space for it at your home. You would also need to make sure to have lots of books for it and an art section.
Once upon a time, in the year 2021, I tweeted a story that went weirdly viral.
The later follow-up that I wrote lacked teeth, and so I disappointed myself with it. This is a very different follow-up which I'm much more satisfied with in that respect.
The caress of a soft hiss coaxes me from torpor with gentle insistence. It is, at first, the universe of my awareness. Yet not for long. New sensations creep in. An aching, bone-deep chill permeates my body. Sounds, initially indistinct, slowly resolve into voices, though I cannot see their source.
“—last of them, master.”
“Acceptable performance, Wirth. Shay, see to that bite of his. Bandages here.” A short pause. “No, on second thought, clean it, but let me take a look before you wrap it.”
That second voice. I do not recognize it, but I know the cadence of authority. From the gravel crunch of their boots, it sounds like four people total. A small squad. Likely military.
“Master, amidst the rubble, I spy a curious artifact of—”
“Did I give the signal to begin, Anturo? Do you spy the rest of the claw scouring for treasure?”
The new voice—Anturo—is cringing and uncertain, his reprimand immediate.
“No, master. Deepest apologies, master. I meant only—”
“Each. Matter. In its time.” I imagine the leader jabbing a finger at Anturo with each furious word he bites off. “One of us is injured as a direct consequence of your panicked, blind shooting. A well-placed incendiary might have cleared the whole nest had you not awakened them first. Right now, our objective is to watch for threats, not resources, while tending to the health of the claw.”
“Yes, master. I understand.”
“Do you spy any threats, Anturo?”
“No, master.”
“Then all is well. For the moment. Keep watch while I determine whether that bite was envenomed, and whether we may press onward or must retreat to the surface. Can you handle that, Anturo?”
“Yes, master. I shall remain vigilant.”
At this, the leader huffs an acknowledgment, the sound of footsteps implying a brisk stride toward the rest of the group.
I try to flex and stretch my limbs, but cold, stiff muscles complain of aches and a profound lethargy. Even my mind is sluggish from disuse. How long have I been sleeping?
“Why is it so cold in this place?” Anturo asks. The trembling voice attempts to banish a nerve-wracking silence, only coincidentally managing to speak the question on my own mind.
“We travel the deep roads under the earth, child.” This must be Shay. “These places have seen no sun since time immemorial. They are haunted by the dead and by beasts that would have us join the dead.” Shay pauses for a moment, and there is a pointedness to the words that follow. “There are many reasons one may encounter a chill wind. None of them good, Master Prothil.”
A heavy sigh follows. “Right,” the leader says. “Wirth, lace that boot up and join us sweeping the area. As long as you are not excessively hobbled, we shall continue the delve. Now, adhere to form. Shields high. Call out portals of any size. Shoot whatever wears no light.”
The words are cause for concern, but still I struggle to rouse myself. I feel halfway stuck in dreams, thoughts abstract and remote. A vague sense of alarm is present but muted, offering too little motivation to spur me into motion. Will they shoot me when they find me, I wonder? Am I hidden well enough from them? I don’t recall how I came to this place. Perhaps these people will consider me among the haunting dead rather than the beasts that must be slain in self-defense.
“Master, this side is a solid steel wall. Undamaged. You think these conduits still carry energy?”
“Marked. Trace them. Discover if you can what suckled at the reactor from this level.”
“Hole down here, master. Fist and a half in diameter. Spider sized but no signs of frost webbing.”
“Purge it anyway. Shay has the right of it. The cold here bodes ill. We take no foolish chances.”
“This passage remains sealed. In want of more explosives than I have remaining.”
“Marked for later. Assist Wirth with the purge. Double-check for signs.”
The soft kachunk of a pressed switch heralds a brightening of the chamber, as witnessed through closed eyes. Still, a suffocating fog wraps my head and limbs with dreamy lethargy, and I cannot so much as flutter my eyelids open to witness these strangers’ exploration.
“Mindless ape!” The leader, Prothil, screams in fury. “Hands away! Remove them from the device. You will touch nothing without my leave, Anturo. Not a thing!”
I hear no acknowledgment at all from the rookie of this… “claw,” was it? I imagine a figure gaping in stunned silence for a long moment at whatever has been revealed by the light.
“Master, what—?” The rookie’s voice continues to project a quality that reminds me of a frightened rodent, but in this moment it competes with a current of awe.
“By the Saints,” even Prothil is affected by the sight, lowering his voice as though only now considering he might be heard by anyone outside of his party. “I had hoped never to set eyes on one of these.”
“I never expected one to be so…” Wirth trails off, also at a loss for words.
Shay bites off what might have been a bitter curse. “Faer Sacros, God’s Last Tear.”
“A weapon of Those Who Bled The Stars,” the leader confirms. “Have you encountered one before, Shay?”
She gives no verbal response, though possibly a shake of her head suffices. “A broken and empty one, decades ago. With Master Korik.” The older member of the claw heaves a sigh of her own. “We departed in haste and sealed the passage behind us. I count us fortunate to have escaped with our lives.”
Someone whines. I assume it must be Anturo.
“Wh-why do we not run, then?”
“This one is still sealed,” Prothil answers, and I can all but taste the fear he suppresses only with great discipline. “There is no risk as long as the container remains powered and intact.”
“Be honest, master,” Shay grumbles.
“I speak no falsehood. However, the critical matter is verifying the artifact’s structural integrity. It may be that this chamber’s cold is inconsequential, the heat simply pumped into the upper levels with excessive puissance.” Somehow, he sounds like a man attempting to convince himself of a lie. “Yet the possibility exists that an errant shot has damaged it, leaking its protective chill.”
Silence falls on the group as they appraise the relic for damage. What do they see? What possible weapon could earn such a reputation? Could I help them? I do not know these people, but I am no beast and do not yet count myself among the dead. Nor have I ever been helpless.
I summon as much strength as I can dredge up from within myself. I stir, one finger at a time, slowly flexing life into my joints, willing strength into my muscles.
“Master Korik once told me—during my own training—that when one encounters a Faer Sacros,” the leader speaks with grim sobriety, “and when it may be too late to run, a Sunbirthed claw has but a single chance at survival. The stories say one may be destroyed before containment collapses utterly, though the attempt guarantees the weapon is unleashed if we fail.”
“Faer Sacros is unleashed either way,” Shay says, and I can almost hear her shrug. “We will be in danger the very instant after we strike. If fortune favors us, some of us may live. Otherwise… Ah, I hope that bringing too few explosives will not prove to be my last regret.”
Move, damn it! Someone needs my help. I refuse to sleep while people risk their lives defending from another relic of war! I… have… to… move!
I don’t hear the signal to strike, but I cannot miss the gunfire, nor the shatter of glass and thunderous boom of sudden depressurizing. At last I feel myself coming to life, heaving my body forward as if breaking free of confounding restraints. I collapse to my knees as my eyes snap open, time slowing down while at last I can see who these people are and what they face.
Front and center, a man with a close-trimmed beard just beginning to show the gray of age. In his eyes I see the resignation of one consigning himself to death. To his right, a woman some decades his senior, back unbowed by age while she howls with fierce determination to survive. The two younger people must be Anturo and Wirth, naked fear painting both their faces. Only the bandaged leg of the one on the left offers the hint I need to guess who is who.
Their clothes: utterly unfamiliar, from no country I know. Four different guns, four different manufacturers, and they raise similarly mismatched shields as if to ward off a riot—or a flight of arrows. Four irregulars, armed with salvaged and refitted armor and weaponry. Through the shower of glass, I observe that all this weaponry is pointed my way, as pain blooms in my chest and shoulder.
No time to wonder why they are trying to kill me. Slow as I still feel, I scramble and manage to dive out of the way of their next volley, rolling across stones and dirt to duck behind damaged machinery.
“Such swiftness!”
The rookie might waste time on commentary, but someone else does not, judging by the grenade sailing past my cover. Palms to the ground, I manage to twist my hips into position to kick the explosive back, away from me. It’s a sloppy maneuver, but with joints as stiff as they are, this is all I can manage.
A chorus of shouts heralds a muffled explosion and the unmistakable squelch of gore. I risk a peek. The claw is spattered in what remains of their leader. Looks like he threw himself on the grenade to spare the rest of them.
A heroic act. He shouldn’t have had to do it. But his death might save me too.
While the rest of the group gapes in horror, I take advantage of their momentary distraction to get my feet under me and sprint toward my attackers.
Shoulder first, I collide with Anturo, sending him flying backward toward the cave wall. This puts me in arm’s reach of Wirth, whose rifle is no longer pointed the right way. I grab the barrel and lift it upward while driving a kick toward the injured shin. The kid lets go and crumples at my feet.
The old woman may not have the same reflexes as the younger members of the group, but she recovers from shock quickly. She spins on her heel, spraying an arc of bullets in my direction. I have just barely recovered enough speed to swat aside a shot that would have been fatal, at the cost of allowing one to graze my skull.
Moment by moment, I return to myself. The room brightens around me. I could end this, now, in a burst of terrible light—a solution as easy and seductive as any fall—but with neither leash nor understanding to guide my tactics, my first priority must be information.
With the flutter of a finger on the trigger, I place a single round to remove the threat of Shay’s gun, shattering bones and disarming her.
Assessment: One dead by grenade. Another dying of internal hemorrhaging with a cracked skull—unintentional, a consequence of inaccurately gauging the pace of my recovery. A third without weapon, only mildly injured but psychologically broken. A fourth, disarmed and bleeding but still spirited.
What do you say to people who assume you are a threat to them by default, especially after demonstrating, whatever the reasons, that they aren’t entirely wrong? What questions can I ask them that would lead to me learning pertinent information?
I am not, however, the first to speak.
“What do you wait for?” The old woman spits the words, defiant until the end.
“Memories, maybe,” I respond. “This place is unfamiliar, and the state of its decay unsettling.”
Is it a military base? A research facility? Whatever it once was, it has been neglected for so long as to give the earth itself time to digest it. Few man-made walls retain structural integrity. The sporadic intrusion of human construction stands in stark contrast to the rest. Stone and clay and strange growths lay patient siege to material science and technology. Whatever purpose this underground compound was once built for, it more closely resembles a natural cave system now.
I turn to look back at her. “Where are we, exactly?”
She eyes me suspiciously. It’s clear that I am not what she expected of the weapon they thought they unleashed, but I’m not sure if there’s any reassurance I can offer that she might believe. All I have are questions and nagging worries, while she grips her own wrist with the force of a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
Her words are slow, uncertain, weak. “We have not named this cave system. Its entrance is on the north side of Techler’s Scar, partway up the eastern slope of the Coruscating Mountains.” Taking a ragged breath, she regains a certain degree of vehemence, adding, “Kill me if you wish, but I shall never reveal the location of our city.”
Strange names. They mean nothing to me. How far from home am I? Something must have gone completely off the rails.
“I’m not going to kill you, Shay.” I try to sound soothing, but everything about this feels wrong, and I find myself rubbing my temple in agitation. “They haven’t activated me. You’re not a threat. My first priority is getting back to my wife. And if my leash is off, I can promise you that you, your family, and your city—none of it is on my agenda.”
“Eh? W-wife?” I can’t tell if she’s truly thrown off by a “weapon” being married or by the casual way I address her by name. “One of the ancient Star-Bleeders?”
Ancient. I glance around at the signs of decay in this facility. Dread creeps into my gut as the obvious question bubbles inevitably up and out. “What year is it?”
Her voice is weaker, wavering and uncertain. “Six-twelve.”
My mind stumbles as though certain footing just became a bottomless pit. My thoughts wheel, fresh disorientation leaving me more lost than I expected. I take a step backward, impulsively trying to distance myself from the implications.
“612 AV.” Wirth speaks up again, voice ragged with pain and anger. “Do you know our calendar? No? From what mark did your people count years? During the Great Forsaking, did the Star-Bleeders abandon you too? Or is the truth that your original drove them to extinction?”
Distracted by my own confusion, I failed to notice Wirth gathering courage, snatching up Shay’s dropped weapon. At point-blank range, finger on the trigger, the kid makes a fatal mistake: waiting for a response to those pointed questions. My reaction is all pain and panic and old, ingrained reflex—a flash of light to burst a person’s skull.
Hardly registering Shay’s horrified scream, the only thing in my head is a maelstrom of outrage. I whirl toward the machine that kept me in frozen stasis until mere minutes ago. It’s a shattered capsule, cryogenic mist escaping, the heavier-than-air fog spilling out to chill the floor.
There, mounted on the machinery near eye level, is a dusty, corroded plaque, mostly illegible. No dates. The only text I can read for certain says “clone series” followed by an unclear sequence of numbers. A clone. One of who-knows-how-many.
Of course they could never be content to use me as their weapon and then discard me. They had to make more of me. How many more, that people tell fearful stories of finding me and me and more me? How many times have I been used to eradicate the enemies of empire?
How many versions of me have lashed out and killed random scavengers just like I did?
Suddenly the claustrophobia of this wretched underground facility is too much to bear. I bolt across the room, retracing the path of my victims up, up, back to the surface—past ruined walls and collapsed floors, through tunnels burrowed by ancient machine or unknown beast.
I ignore the chalk markings left by the expedition downward. Sky-seeking is in my blood; the path hauls on my heart with inerrant pull. Faster, faster, I pick up speed as exertion burns away the lingering grasp of cryo-containment. Yet even when I emerge from cavern into canyon, still something blocks my view of the sun. Upward I climb, without caution or care, until at last I reach the top of the cliff face and turn my face skyward.
Even the surface has been denied its sun. A hideous construct of gleaming metal defies gravity overhead, spanning an unfathomable expanse of sky, breathtaking in scope. Far to the east, I see the edge of its shadow, but even there the sunlight languishes, tepid and weak, sustaining but meager vegetation.
The construct overhead is not the only one. The sky is littered with them at every altitude, in every direction I look. Farther still in the distance, I can just make out the wreck of one such colossus, the shattered hulk protruding upward like a finger pointing in accusation.
Craning my neck to scrutinize the one directly above, I notice no signs of life. These constructs may be larger than whole cities, yet I see no indication that people occupy them. No lights, no shuttles delivering travelers or supplies, no motion to speak of. They appear dead and abandoned.
God, there’s no avenue for justice or even revenge, is there? The people who did this to me are dead. The country, hell the whole civilization that birthed the ones who cloned me, long dead. Whatever came after them? Dead and gone as well.
“Faer Sacros” is the name of a nightmare, a ghost story passed down through generations. A name for a mass-produced weapon based on the person I thought I was. And I’m not even her! She’s long dead. My wife—her wife—too. Everyone dead, and still haunting the long-forgotten graves of their ancient empire.
All that remains are scavengers surviving on discarded remnants, risking their lives navigating around old, unexploded ordnance like me.
In the caves deep below my feet, an old woman slumps to the ground next to comrades who were meant to outlive her. They were inadequately trained to disarm the bomb they encountered, which discharged itself and took their lives. Soon she’ll join them. She’s already lost so much blood, hasn’t she? With what strength will she climb to the surface and find her way home?
If I go back down there, even if I stopped the bleeding and kept Shay from dying, I would not be saving her. At best I would be very slightly mitigating what harm I caused. Three people remain dead, and she is permanently maimed.
It would be the first time I have ever been permitted—
But nobody remains to forbid or permit me, do they? This is a choice—to offer mercy to a victim.
We still remember finding a cool vaguely-mechsploitation-adjacenf story, then losing it, probably forevee. We only read the very start and the very end, but it kicked off with someone agreeing to (or at least being offered) intelligence reduction after being captured by a mind-controlling empire, And ended with the person responsible expecting to be subjected to similar in the new regime only to find out it doesn't work that way? Something like that anyway. Definitely not conventional, but it intrigued us and we wanted to see how it got from point a to point b.
I've been watching one of the dolls under my care learn to make various kinds of tea. Its traditionally a combat doll, designed to be barely restrained on a metaphorical leash, seconds away at any time from tearing someone apart for its handlers and staff. But as its amount of down time increases its found itself restless and wishing to expand the ways it can serve and care for its handler.
Watching it retry again and again until it gets it just right. Learning the different temperatures for different kinds and what kinds need additives like sugar and milk. Drinking failed batches it doesn't like just to not waste supplies. Expressing confusion that sugar and honey are different forms of sweet, something its hyper efficiency focused mind never would have bothered noticing.
The way it uses the data slate we gave it to take notes on preparation, preferences of different staff member, always with its handlers focused on the too of priority.
And how happy it noticeably is when anyone nods approvingly or says they got it right. How stressed and tense it is till then. Its a thrill to watch. I adore watching dolls work and grow and find new purposes to keep them going. It makes some of the rough parts of this job all worth it. I'm thrilled with it and thrilled I'm getting to work with it.
