#09bdc9

<Hey.>

Every military had their own name for them. “Macro-Scale Second Strike,” “Project Tarasque,” “Object 2000,” and so on. Normal people mostly just called them kaiju.

<Heyyyy.>

They were meant to be the ultimate deterrence weapon: massive bomb-proof monsters trained to avenge their homelands at all costs. Miracles of nuclear biology that would make every fleet of bombers totally obsolete - what madman would attack another nation with the knowledge that the destruction of his own nation would be guaranteed?

<Heyyyy come look out the window.>

Well, nobody has ever been sure exactly who it was, since all the records would have burned up three years ago, but evidently there was at least one madman willing to roll the dice - and all it took was one.

<I can see you in there, you know. Your curtains don't block infrared.>

We never had a kaiju of our own. My homeland could barely afford to keep our secondhand jets in the air, being able to develop our own kaiju was as likely as a flying saucer or a magic carpet.

<You know I could squash this whole building, right? C'mon.>

I pull open the shade, already knowing what I'll see – but no amount of anticipation makes a slitted pupil as tall as you are any less terrifying!

“Jesus fucking Christ in a rowboat what the hell are you doing here?”

Our homeland never made a kaiju.. but now we have one anyway.

<Well, after my mission was done, I needed somewhere to relax, and your country is much nicer than where I was sent.>

Her tone is matter-of-fact in my head. Nobody had predicted the telepathy thing, or so they told us - it was some emergent property of having neurons the length of a city bus.

“I know that, but why are you–”

I cut myself off. What's the point in asking? The kaiju had been here for about two years now, and it seemed to just do whatever it wanted. I guess you're entitled to a vacation once you've finished annihilating a nation.

“Hang on, I'm going to come outside.”

As far as I've heard, it's never actually talked to anyone here. This might be a first, and in that case it's my civic duty to ask whether it'd be willing to stop rolling on the freshly-tilled fields every spring!

Also.. if a kaiju wants you dead then you're dead, right? That's kind of the whole point of kaiju. There's nothing you can do to stop them. So I figure, what's the point in panicking? It doesn't seem to want me dead.. yet.

Imagine a woman - the tall, lanky, scrappy-looking type who's equal parts intimidating and endearing. Now add 25 meters of height, or 80-ish feet if you prefer, and don't worry about the square-cube law because nuclear biology considers that a solved problem. Replace her skin with pale-green scales the size of your fist, with big green-brown ones on her hands, feet, cheekbones, and scattered around the rest of her body. Still pretty human, right?

Give her a tail. Big and solid, like an alligator’s, but she moves it like it weighs nothing. Give her spines down the middle of her back, from the base of her skull to the tip of her tail - sort of like a dragon's ridges, and sort of like a porcupine’s quills. Give her four horns, wicked and demonic and scarred from battle.

That's what I'm looking at right now, and even crouched down it's - she's? - huge.

<Finally. Come here.>

It holds out its hand to me, trying to coax me into its palm as if I'm an interesting bug.

<Don't you wanna see what I see? Let me show you how the world looks from up here.>

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious. Not just about the view, but about the proximity to a kaiju.. and, honestly, I want to know what this is all about. Why's she here? Why the interest in me?

I climb into her palm, past talons that are as long as I am tall - a reminder that kaiju are weapons above all else. And I'm VERY LITERALLY placing my life in the hands of one.

But if it wanted me dead - if she wanted me dead - then I'd already be dead, right?

Standing up from her crouch is enough to make the safety of solid ground feel terrifyingly far away. By the time she lifts me to her eye level, I'm clinging to one of those talons, petrified, hyperventilating.

From this high up, I can hear her breath huff out as she laughs at me inside my mind.

<I've plucked missiles from the air with my bare hands, I'm not going to drop you! Just relax, you can trust me.>

“It's not that I don't trust you, specifically! I'm just afraid of heights!”

It's true, being up too high has always made me go all wobbly in the knees.

<Just open your eyes and take in the view. You don't have to move, okay?>

Her hand is so solid, completely unwavering. It feels like the next best thing to solid ground. I'm not releasing my death grip on her talon but I can at least open my eyes–

It's beautiful from up here. There are no tall buildings - or at least, none taller than her - so I have an unbroken line of sight all the way to the horizon in every direction. The people below aren't exactly ants but they sure look like little toys scurrying around. This is how she's seen the world from the moment they made her…

<Nice, isn't it?>

“That's an understatement.”

<I can give you an even better view.>

She shakes me loose from her talon - rattling me around enough that I can't get a word out before what comes next.

With me loose in her palm again, she flings me into the air???

How high am I now? 150 feet? 200 feet? I have no idea, all I know is everything falls away until she looks almost normal-sized, a woman standing among a child’s stacked blocks.

<Calm down, I won't let you fall,> she tells me as I reach my apex and start my decent. <I did this all the time in training.>

It's true, she doesn't let me fall. She doesn't even catch me like you'd catch a ball, that sudden stop with its spike of g-forces. She catches me like you'd catch an egg - cradling me in midair, gently slowing me to a stop before bringing me back up.

And then she throws me again!!

To my credit, I think I'm screaming less this time? For a few moments it feels like I’m soaring like a bird, out in the air and completely unsupported, and then I swoop back into her hands.

After the third catch, she brings me up to her eye level, smiling like a whole billboard of shark teeth.

By the third time, I'm laughing as she throws me.

<Not so scary now, right?> She pauses. <You should go inside and change and then we can keep playing.>

Oh. Yeah. Mortal terror does do that. She sets me down on the ground so I can head back to my apartment.

Halfway down the hall I stagger, lurching against the walls - this must be what an earthquake is like, but nothing else is shaking, nothing else is damaged. The earthquake is inside my head.

The feeling subsides after a few moments of disorientation and I make my way back to my apartment. Everything feels normal again.. except for the feeling that someone's looking over my shoulder.

<I like your decor. Very minimalist.>

“It's not minimalist, I'm just broke.”

Is she peeking on me again? But there's no eyeball outside the window this time - and, despite me checking, definitely nobody behind me.

<Oh, wear that black dress, it suits you,> she says as I'm picking clean clothes out of my closet. <You can be an elegant lady riding in my hand, okay?>

Okay, my closet is definitely not visible from the window.. “How–?”

She cuts me off before I can finish asking: <There's a big important name for it but we always called it a ride-along. I can get into the heads of certain people, and borrow their senses. Not everyone is compatible, so you should feel special.>

The kaiju says I'm special? I'll admit I do feel kinda special about that, that's hardly an everyday occurrence.

<C'mon back out, let's go for a walk. We can get to know each other.>

I walk back into her hand with no hesitation, now. I'm more certain than ever that being afraid of her would be totally useless.

She sets me on her shoulder, her hand hovering nearby in case I start to slip - but I don't need it, she's surprisingly stable as she makes her way out of town.

There's something interesting about the way she walks through town. Her head is down, watching each footstep, and she's careful to step in backyards and parking lots rather than smashing roads and treading on buildings. She's flattening a shed here, a couple cars there, but she's avoiding anything that might hurt people.

Once we're out of town, she transfers me back into her hand. While I'm wondering why, she breaks into a sudden sprint - 80+ feet of kaiju running full-tilt across farmland and open plains, each step a crater, tail out behind her for balance. The freedom of the open road, kaiju-style.

<So, what's your name, anyway?>

Her voice is so casual, as if she weren't in a flat-out sprint right now. Advantages of telepathy, I guess? And/or this isn't a flat-out sprint for her, which is a humbling thought.

I'm Kate!” I shout up to her, hoping I'm still audible over the wind.

<Kate. Hello, Kate, let's skip the designation and you can just call me Viv.>

“Viv! Nice to meet you!”

Maybe it was her designation once upon a time, maybe it's just something she saw and decided she liked.. I won't pry. Getting into a kaiju’s personal matters seems like it could be hazardous.

Of course, everything that's happening right now is already hazardous.

“So.. Viv? Where are we going??”

<I'm taking you back to my nest. I've never had a guest before, but I prepared especially for this.>

A nest? Kaiju have nests? We're heading out toward the mountains, away from any major cities - where would she nest out here?

We left in the late afternoon, and the sun is starting to set by the time we arrive - a clearing in the trees, a pristine blue lake, and a series of towers and huge cubic buildings along the shore.

“Oh! The old power plant! That makes sense!

This is a place I'm familiar with - I've never been here, but I've read about it in the news for years. It was supposed to be a revolutionary nuclear power plant that would end the whole country's fossil fuel dependence, but the construction dragged on and on... Eventually the funding got diverted elsewhere, with the construction site simply abandoned.

It's big enough, solid enough, and sheltered enough, right?”

<More or less, yes. It's also isolated enough to keep anyone from bothering me. Hikers come through occasionally, but they never get too close.>

“Plenty of peace and quiet for you, huh?”

Viv saves me from further awkward small talk by carrying me through a kaiju-sized hole that's been smashed into the side of the main reactor building, and placing me gently next to..

“Why is there a camping chair here??”

<I stole it. It'd be rude to expect you to eat dinner standing up.>

Dinner? My stomach growls in response to the idea. Now that I'm back on solid ground, I'm realizing that it has been quite a while since I had lunch, and some food would be really nice… but what could she have out here for me?

With one claw, slides an overturned crate towards me across the floor - an improvised table for dinner in an abandoned building. Positioned on it is a packaged MRE, the kind you can buy for hiking supplies.

That's a relief, I was worried she was just going to drop a raw deer and expect me to dig in! Not that I have any reason to think she would have, but…

Viv stays quiet as I heat the MRE, but once I open the package I can feel her shove into my head for another ride-along.

<This one's my favorite,> she says by way of explanation.

<The only compatible hikers lately had either soup or this terrible freeze-dried rice bowl, so I went out and got you a proper meal so I could enjoy it with you.>

A bit self-serving, arguably, but.. who am I to judge? I hadn't really considered the idea that she’d have things she could only enjoy through ride-alongs, but I guess it makes sense to me. It's not like she'd be able to enjoy it herself, with the whole meal being a tiny speck on her tongue.

“What do you eat, anyway?” I can't resist asking, now that I've had the thought.

<I'll explain once you're done. Please, eat.> The voice in my head isn't exactly ‘pleading’, but it's also not not pleading.

<You were curious about my meal?>

I was, and I tell her so! I don't know much about how kaiju work, and the proximity to her is making me curious.

It's nothing like I expected. I'd have bet money she was out here swallowing bears whole, but instead– she lifts a 55-gallon drum and drops it straight into her mouth, biting down and then sticking out her tongue to show me the black oil coating it. She eats two more drums before she explains.

<I can get mass from nearly anything. These are heavy fuel oil. Tastes a little burnt, but not too bad. If I get tired of that, I can grab a couple trees, or even crunch on some gravel - the rocks around here have a pleasantly high iron content.>

<For energy, I need this,> she says, reaching into a hole in the concrete floor and pulling out..

..well, I'm not sure what it is, exactly? Just some metal cylinder, glowing faintly red, that she swallows like she's taking a pill.

<That's what an RTG looks like without the casing.>

“RTG– wait, you eat radiation?”

<It's nuclear biology, isn't it? Radioactive decay is the only source that puts out enough energy to keep me going. I'll hold onto it for an hour or two and then put it back in the tank.>

Okay, I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised, but still!

“Wait, is it safe for me to be around you, then?”

<My gut lining is the equivalent of 50 centimeters of lead plate. You're fine.>

I'm taking a kaiju's word for it about the safety of being around her. My friends would balk at the thought, but.. I believe her.

“Viv.. why'd you bring me out here?”

She sighs. Not just in my head, but also out loud, and I grab a hold of the meal tray before she blows it away.

Well… I'm lonely, Kate. This is a perfect place for me, but there's nobody here except the occasional gawker who's traveled a hundred kilometers to ogle the kaiju’s nest. I wanted some company.>

I wasn't sure what to expect, but “the giant weapon is lonely” was the last thing on my mind.

But that's not fair, is it? I've known Viv for a few hours and I already know she's a person, not a weapon. Of course she'd be lonely, given her last home was probably a military base!

<Just stay until the stars come out. I want to show you how they look out here, and then I'll take you home.>

<I'll come for you again in a week or two. You're the best company I've had since the war.. I don't want to let you go.>

I pause, considering my response. There's a lot to think about, a lot of choices to make.. but none that would keep me away from her.

“If you wait until Friday, I'll pick up some camping supplies so I can stay the weekend, okay?”

The voice in my mind feels surprised, but warmer than before.

<I'll hold you to that, you know. Don't try to trick me, you can't run from me.>

“I won't run. I promise.”

1.

I washed out of combat training almost immediately, but it wasn’t enough to get me off the hook. I’m sure you all know how it goes – just because you can’t fight doesn’t mean you can’t support the ones who do. If you can’t carry a gun, you can fix a gun, if you can’t fly a plane, you can fuel a plane.

Nothing wrong with that, of course! It’s simply efficient use of resources, and I’m certainly in no place to criticize that, especially not given my current status, so to speak. But even then I wasn’t exactly bothered by it -- I would have rather not been conscripted at all, but maintenance would be safe and interesting and I was already pretty good at it.

2.

The first time I ever saw a combat doll was when I was at the range, trying to get in enough practice to pass my pistol qualifications. I didn’t even know she was there, at first - there was no fuss, no fanfare - but as soon as her handler started barking those sharp, staccato orders I realized what was going on.

I looked over, of course. I know, we’ve all been taught not to make eye contact with the dolls because they might take it as aggression, but how could I not be curious? Can any of you say you wouldn’t be tempted to take a peek?

I hadn’t expected her to not be wearing her mask. All the publicity photos, all the technical diagrams, all the battlefield footage always shows dolls with their masks on, so I assumed that was just their usual state – but no, I was wrong. That was her natural face, with her implant jacks and her surgical scars and her delicate-looking skin. I truly hadn’t expected her to be so pretty…

She caught me looking, of course. Dolls are the apex predators of the battlefield, and noticing a maintenance trainee staring at her was trivial in comparison. She met my eyes before I could look away, and then I couldn’t look away. I knew nothing except her eyes and my heart pounding in my ears, and I had no idea what was coming next… and then she grinned at me.

That grin did something to me, something strange and frightening and wonderful. It felt like lightning running down my spine, like watching a sunrise after being blind my whole life, like finding my way out of a forest I’d been lost in since birth. I was never the same again.

3.

I needed to know who she was, of course. She could pick off targets faster than my eyes could follow, with a perfect bullseye every time. Her handler ran her through everything in our arsenal, and more besides - pistols, rifles, machine guns, throwing knives, on and on - and she was perfect every time. How could I have not wanted to know more after watching a display like that?

Well, apparently, that made me the weird one in the battalion. Everyone I asked about her just shrugged or gave me sidelong glances. Why would they want to keep track of which doll was which, they asked? They were all equally frightening, after all. What did it matter what the shark swimming next to you was named?

It took more than a week - and a couple cases of beer - for me to find out who I’d seen. My buddy on the security team had seen the handler’s name and done some quick research, and he was willing to pass on that information… for the right price, of course.

Victoria. Her name was Victoria, and the next thing he said to me was “be fuckin’ careful around that one,” which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time. We’re taught to use caution around all dolls, combat or not, why the extra warning?

Because, he told me, there were stories about the Victory-class dolls. They weren’t the fastest dolls or the most powerful dolls, but they were notoriously unpredictable, and dangerous even to their allies. I won’t get into the details right now, that’s not what I’m here to do - but some of your classmates went pale the moment I said her name, so ask them about it later.

But what did that have to do with Victoria? I had to ask, because I used to be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. In case any of you haven’t put all the pieces together: Victoria is the first Victory-class, the flagship, the template upon which all others were modeled – and that meant if there was some fault with the Victory-class dolls, some flaw in their design or their conditioning, Victoria would definitely have it.

4.

Even with all he’d told me, and all I’d learned on my own afterwards, I still couldn’t get her off my mind. Not that I was thinking about her every second, or even every day, but that moment never quite left my mind. I’d lay down and try to sleep, close my eyes, and behind my eyelids I’d see that bare face, that grin, and my heart would start pounding all over again.

By the time we were given our assignments, I knew what I was going to do. I knew what I had to do. I got the cushiest possible position – 8th Supply Battalion, well away from any combat zones, where the greatest danger would be a private driving a forklift drunk. The perfect position to serve out three years of compulsory service and go back to my old life, right?

Except I didn’t want it. I hadn’t wanted it since the moment I’d seen her.

As soon as we were dismissed, I went straight to the commander’s office and asked for a transfer – which they don’t usually do, of course, but he was willing to hear me out anyway, so I told him I needed to be on Victoria’s maintenance crew. Once he was done laughing he asked me what I was really there to ask for, and I repeated my request. I explained to him that I was serious, that I wanted, needed more than anything else, to be assigned to maintenance for Victoria.

He didn’t understand – which is no surprise, because I don’t think any of you do either. Why would I have wanted to be transferred to the only role that had higher casualty rates than front-line infantry, right? Truth be told, I didn’t understand either, and I still don’t. There’s nothing I can point to, no specific reason, just this surety that I belonged there and nowhere else.

Someone needed to do maintenance on the dolls, right? Why shouldn’t it be someone enthusiastic about it, someone fully committed to their role? I don’t know if my argument won him over or if he was just tired of listening to me, but in the end he just shrugged and wrote out my transfer orders: maintenance crew, Victory-class combat doll “Victoria”.

I still remember what he said when he handed me the orders:

“It’s your funeral.”

5.

Just because I’d volunteered for the position didn’t mean I was any less nervous when I first reported for duty! The rest of the crew had already been giving me a hard time - I was the squeaky-clean new girl, fresh out of training - but honestly, they weren’t why I was nervous. That was just some laughs and some hazing, nothing I wasn’t used to by that point.

No, I was nervous because of the six-plus feet of exquisite purpose-built killing machine standing in the middle of the maintenance bay.

The thing is, though.. the reasonable thing would have been to worry that Victoria was going to kill me, right? That’s what you’d be afraid of, that’s what any sensible person would be afraid of! But it wasn’t what I was afraid of.

I’d done my research, I knew the numbers, and I was certain - beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt - that I wasn’t going to survive three years in her maintenance crew. I’d made my peace with that before I ever even walked into the commander’s office.

I was worried that Victoria wasn’t going to like me.

6.

I know that probably sounds bizarre to you - after all, nobody worries about whether their tank likes them, right? - but trust me, it was absolutely the biggest thing on my mind. So much so, in fact, that I decided to introduce myself to her immediately! Why hang around hiding behind the rest of the maintenance crew when I could just walk right up to her and make a good first impression instead?

So that’s exactly what I did. Right into the maintenance bay, right past the rest of the crew, right across those painted lines on the floor… one foot in front of the other, listening to the pounding of my heart until I was within arm’s length of an active combat doll.

I took one more deep breath, accepted that it could have been my last, and gave her the usual introduction: name, rank, and role. She just stared at me, with those intense eyes I remembered so well, and I offered a little bit of extra politeness – just a simple little “I look forward to working with you, ma’am.”

7.

The moment the words were out of my mouth, she grabbed me by the collar and dragged me in, my body pressed up against hers, and as I stared up at her in shock and fear and excitement, I heard her voice for the first time.

“You’re cute,” she said.

There were teeth in my neck before I could even make sense of her words - combat-specced teeth, the kind that can slice through bone - and it was unbearably painful… but also something about it felt right. I was helpless in her grip, completely powerless, and I realized that I’d wanted that all along.

I saw her true face for the first time, then. That flat, blank non-expression she’d been wearing when I walked up to her had simply been another mask, another disguise… and she’d let it fall away. As she licked my blood from her lips, I understood – she was a hunter, a predator, hungry for more and strong enough to take whatever she wanted… and I was her prey.

I suspect your instructor would kick me out of this class immediately if I described what she did next, so I’ll just say ‘she had her way with me and I had no desire to stop her.’ You’ll have to use your imaginations for the rest… or come find me sometime and I’ll be happy to tell you all about it!

8.

Anyway, even though it seemed like I’d made an excellent impression on Victoria, the rest of the maintenance crew was pretty clear that I’d made a pretty poor impression on them. As soon as we were off-duty and the dolls had all been escorted back to their bunker, they made their feelings known in a very direct fashion.

I got off easy, they told me, pointing out maintenance staff for other dolls. One man had a bloody bandage where his ear had been, and another was completely unresponsive – just blankly staring at a wall. In comparison to things like that, a bite and some fucking was downright gentle for a Victory-class doll!

The crew insisted that I’d better not expect special treatment from Victoria to mean they’d give me special treatment too – I protested that I’d never once expected that, but I don’t think they were listening to me by that point. From all the shouts and cursing, it seemed like they were upset that I, the death-wish rookie who walked right up to a combat doll and introduced herself, had been treated more gently than maintenance staff who simply wanted to carry out their duties safely.

I tried to answer them, I tried to explain that all I’d done was to be friendly and polite, that I’d just wanted to treat Victoria with the respect she deserved. They didn’t like that answer.

Nobody told me about this, so I’ll pass it on as a warning to you just in case: maintenance crews aren’t just wary of their dolls, they’re downright resentful of them. From their perspective, the dolls are the thing that stands between them and getting home safely, and they’re not particularly fond of people who see the situation differently.

I, not knowing this, made some helpful comments about the dolls not being our enemy, about our purpose being to support the dolls so they can carry out their Purpose. Shortly thereafter, in a totally unrelated event, I slipped and fell down a staircase – completely by accident, of course.

I’d been hoping that the maintenance crew - and the staircase - had gotten all the vitriol out of their system by then, but it only got worse. Someone had found out that I’d volunteered for the maintenance crew, while they’d all been unwillingly forced into that position, and it was all over. That was all the proof they needed to decide I wasn’t like them in some indescribable way. They might not have been able to explain how, exactly, I was different from them, but they all agreed that I was, and they all wanted to make that my problem.

9.

I next saw Victoria for post-mission diagnostics two days later. The procedures would be routine, and yet the crew was far more anxious than they had been for our previous visit to the maintenance bay. A doll just back from an operation, having spent only a few minutes being gentled by its handler before being sent off to maintenance, was the most dangerous kind of doll as far as the maintenance staff was concerned: all keyed up on adrenaline and battle stimulants and potentially unsure as to whether or not it was actually safe or still on the battlefield.

The crew all talked like they were off to the firing squad, and I had no idea what to expect as we all walked down to the hall… especially when they all hung back, in ones and twos and threes, lagging behind me while I walked up to the maintenance bay first.

I was the tribute, the offering, the fresh meat tossed to Victoria to sate her hunger - and oh, did she ever take the bait. She ran to me, snatched me right off the ground, and sprinted back to her designated zone as if to convince everyone she’d never left.. except now she had me clutched in her arms, her deadly teeth tracing up and down my neck, that beautiful voice giggling in my ear.

The maintenance team had to conduct their diagnostics around me, in the end. Victoria simply didn’t want to give me up, no matter how they tried to convince her -- and I had absolutely no desire to argue with that. Where could I possibly have wanted to be more than her arms?

In fact, I didn’t want to leave her arms. Even once our duty shift was done and she’d turned me loose, bloody and weary and deeply content, I lingered in the maintenance bay as the others fled for the mess. I knew what was waiting for me there - the same thing that had been waiting for me since I first met Victoria - and I wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.

10.

I hadn’t expected her to notice me hanging around - surely I was unworthy of her attention, right? - and yet, as I lingered behind, she spoke to me for the second time. “Not joining them?”

“No ma’am,” I told her, quietly enough for nobody else to hear. I hadn’t meant to say anything else, but the prospect of having a sympathetic ear was just too much, and the words just tumbled out of me. As she stared down at me with that blank expression, I explained how the crew had decided I didn’t belong, and how they’d been treating me since – the punches, the kicks, the fish in my bunk, the thousand other little reminders that they’d decided to hate me.

Eventually I ran out of words and found myself simply staring up at Victoria. She hadn’t said a single thing the entire time, and her expression was the same unreadable blankness that I’d seen before. While I tried to figure out whether she was sympathetic or simply bored, I suddenly realized that she’d met my gaze, staring into my eyes as if she was looking for something. I couldn’t imagine what she was looking for - and, truth be told, I still don’t know what it was - but I stared back up at her and let her look for it.

I guess she found what she was looking for - or perhaps found an absence of the wrong things - because she simply grabbed me by the arm and practically dragged me right out of the maintenance bay. What was she doing? Where was she going? She ignored my questions, of course, so I stopped asking them and simply walked along with her in silence.

You probably haven’t seen a doll bunker yet, but they’re extremely sturdy – downright overengineered, even. They’re even more heavily reinforced than munitions bunkers, and the only route in and out is through an extremely sturdy-looking steel door. It’s the sort of thing that makes the vault doors in heist movies look like tissue paper… and that was the door Victoria had led me to.

Even though I’d walked to the bunker with her willingly, I couldn’t help but protest a little as she swung the bunker door open. I had been told, upon my assignment, that only handlers and commanders were permitted to enter the doll bunker – all support staff were required to stay out in order to avoid ‘unnecessary manpower shortages’. Not that that stopped Victoria, of course! She simply picked me up by the back of my uniform like an uncooperative pet and tossed me right through the door.

11.

Have you ever walked into a room and found eight combat dolls staring directly at you? Sixteen eyes fixed on you, unblinking, like cats that have just spotted a mouse? Presumably not, but if you’re very lucky - or very unlucky - you might get to someday.

That’s where I found myself as the bunker door slammed shut behind me – gracelessly picking myself up off the floor under the hungry gaze of eight combat dolls. They waited a moment, graciously permitting me to get back to my feet, and then… well, I guess the best way to describe it is to say each one started trying, in her own way, to draw me away from my host.

Not a word was spoken, but carnal offers were made, and one or two dolls began to creep toward me as if stalking prey – and then suddenly they all froze at once. I couldn’t receive dollchat yet, so I didn’t know what Victoria said to them - and even now she just giggles when I ask! - but whatever it was, it was enough to convince the other eight dolls not to steal her guest away.

I spent that night in her bunk. I didn't do a lot of actual sleeping, of course, but the moments I did get... having a combat doll holding me close and murmuring sweet reassurances in my ear was maybe the safest I'd ever felt in my whole life. To be told I'm safe now, that the squad will look out for me, that I'm theirs forever…

12.

I hardly ever left the bunker after that. I would have never left, if I’d had the option, but there were still two things I was expected to handle: work and food.

I was still a member of Victoria’s maintenance crew, expected to be present for those duties, and since the necessary hardware was in the maintenance bay, that was where I had to be too. My first duty shift after being taken to the bunker, I’d hesitated – I was even more uncertain about showing my face around the rest of the crew now, after all! Victoria had just returned from a mission, so she would be waiting for me there, but I still had to get from the bunker to the maintenance bay on my own…

Before I figured it out myself, one of the other dolls took pity on me. She took my hand in hers, as if I was a child, and led me to the maintenance bay herself. It was permitted - after all, she was being escorted by maintenance staff - and nobody dared to say she couldn’t stand by while Victoria received her post-mission diagnostics and I received an entirely different kind of post-mission attention.

I’m not sure if the crew ever appreciated just how much lighter on them she was when I was around, you know? I don’t know if they even noticed, or if they were too busy hating me. It didn’t matter, though – when we were done, Victoria and the other doll walked me back to the bunker, hand in hand, as if they were concerned I’d stray – or flee, perhaps, but there was already no chance of that.

If any of you ever get invited to a bunker, be aware: there’s nothing for you to eat. There is food for the dolls, although it’s terribly bland, but those meals are measured out to the last bite. Even once the whole squad had fully accepted me as their own, they still didn’t have anything to give me – every bite of food for me was one less for them, and dolls are always hungry.

The only way for me to get food would be to get it from the kitchens myself. I’d have to brave the hallways solo, avoiding any other staff, and throw myself on the cook’s mercy in the hopes that they’d be willing to let me take something back with them – and I’d have to do it two or three times a day! It’d be absolutely miserable, right?

As it turned out, that was practically a nonissue. The kitchen staff recognized me on sight - word spreads quickly, especially when you’re escorted to the bunker by two dolls! - and realized that we could solve each other’s problems: I needed food, and they didn’t want to interact with the dolls. If I could come out of the bunker to receive each day’s rations, rather than the staff needing to hand-deliver it directly to the dolls, they’d be more than happy to throw in each day’s worth of meals for me! Teamwork and problem-solving, that’s what we’re trained for, right?

13.

With food resolved and my duties sorted out… well, one day started to blur into the next. There are no windows in a doll bunker, after all -- there’s no sense of time unless you’ve got a chronometer built in, and I sure didn’t. I slept when they let me, I did as I was told, and every time the rations were delivered I felt a little more like I was walking through a dream.

The kitchen staff stopped looking straight at me, eventually. It wasn’t that they were afraid of me - I was no doll, no battlefield predator - but something about me unsettled them. Maybe my body language had changed – after all, I’d been spending more time around dolls than humans, even I could tell that I was picking up their mannerisms, that I was absorbing the way they spoke and moved and held their bodies.

Or maybe it was something else. Maybe there was something in my eyes. I had prostrated myself before the squad and worshipped them for the goddesses they were. I had licked blood from a doll’s body without ever stopping to wonder who it had belonged to. I had given myself to them over and over, even after my stamina was exhausted and I could do little more than accept their desires.

They had made me theirs - with pleasure and pain, with fear and adoration - but they decided I was ready for more.

14.

I’d tell you it was a day like any other, but I don’t even know if it was a day. It was just another moment in the bunker, a moment of laying on a bare concrete floor, my limbs tangled with giggling dolls who simply couldn’t bear to let their plaything go… and then it wasn’t.

They hauled me up off the floor and pushed my back against the wall, one on each side of me, and the rest of the squad parted as Victoria approached, as the doll who’d claimed me first stood over me once more.

“You’ve been fun,” she told me, “but you can be better. We want you to be better. Don’t you want to be better for us?”

Even after all the time I’d spent with them, I still hesitated. I knew what they meant, and I had learned exactly what it entailed. The surgery, the conditioning, the experience of not being human anymore – but wasn’t I already seen as no longer human?

Victoria saw that hesitation, she saw the fear in my eyes, and stroked my head like a pet. She promised me she’d stay by my side the whole time… and she promised to do my conditioning herself.

How could I say no to that?

15.

The surgeons broke me. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Even without all the modifications combat dolls get, having an arrhythmia control device implanted in your chest without any anesthetic is simply more than any human can bear and stay sane – so I didn’t. I screamed, I struggled and I let myself fall apart.

Victoria put me back together. She reminded me how much I liked being helpful, and how much I enjoyed being useful. She dug up my memories of how much I loved each and every member of the squad, and she made those memories into the core of my personality so I could never, ever forget again. As for the rest of my memories… well, I told you this whole story, didn't I? But everything before the dolls took me in feels distant, removed from me, as if they're someone else's memories instead of my own. It's better that way – I have a whole new life and a whole new family to love.

Speaking of which, Victoria had a surprise for me once I'd recovered, a way of celebrating me as the newest part of their family. One at a time, each doll got up on one of the bunks like it was a makeshift stage and delivered maudlin, overdramatic speeches about the person they imagined I had been before, and we all giggled along together.

In the end, it was my funeral after all.

16.

There you have it, that's the whole story. That's how I went from being just like you to being who I am now. Your instructor wanted me to share it as a warning, a cautionary tale, and I'm sure for most of you it is. But for one or two of you, if it appeals–

Yes, sir?

Understood, sir.

Something New (CW gore, body horror, war mention)

Safehouse (CW references to war and abuse)

War (CW violence, bigotry, implied threats)

Together (CW despair, merging/fusion)