“We interrupt this broadcast to breaking news,” the male anchor said as he straightened the pieces of paper in his hand. “Terror in the streets today as armed soldiers stormed a local gated community and targeted the head of Research and Development at DollTech. Police report this was a coordinated attack as across town the hospital where his wife was seeking treatment was also attacked. Police report at least twelve injured, ten fatalities and seven patients remain unaccounted for. We’ll update you as we learn more.”

Laura looked at the TV to turn it off. She should’ve expected Raymond to spin this in his favour and no doubt her militia would get the blame. That’s why she had to step things up. There’ll likely be a crackdown shortly.

“Marco, I need you to contact our more extreme allies and lock them down. They’re the ones that are going to bear the brunt of this. I also need to get in contact with the general, tell him our side of events.” Laura ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” Marco saluted Laura before turning to leave.

“Will you stop moving,” Stacey complained as she pulled out the bullets from Laura’s arm, and began to do some patch work on the synthetic skin. “It’s not going to look right.”

“You mean it’ll scar?” Laura smiled as she twitched her arm on purpose. “Oops…”

“Sometimes I just wish you left me deactivated in that warehouse…” Stacey complained not bothering to fix the mismatched patch on Laura’s arm. The door opened to the workshop causing Laura to stand up, making Stacy do an even worse job. “Oh come on!”

“Laura?” Jane asked standing in the doorway, her eyes starting to tear.

“Dad!” Laura walked over to her and gave her a big hug, careful to use her previous physical restraints. “I’m so glad to see you… Are you injured…? Are you alright…? I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there… I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.” Laura dropped to her knees begging for forgiveness.

“I am too…” Jane said as he returned the embrace. “All this is my fault if I never piloted you…”

“I wouldn’t exist,” Laura cut him off. “I am thankful for my existence and I’m glad a part of you got to be who you wanted to be. What I’m remorseful of and this isn’t your fault, is the loss of Lauren and who you are now. That like so many things is on Raymond Jones. It has been my mission for the last five years to make him pay…” Laura was standing up looking at Jane with determination behind her artificial eyes.

“Lauren’s gone…?” Jane collapsed to her knees as her heart began to race.

“Oh… I didn’t mean it like that… I meant it like how Ben is gone but the core parts of her still exist.” Lauren gave Jane support, cursing her bad choice of words. “This was always going to be hard for the two of you, Dad I’d like to introduce you to Lorelei…” Jane saw a shadow move in the corner of the room, she was waiting for her cue.

Laura was right; it was hard watching Jane enter the room in Lauren’s former body. Now more aged than she remembered with longer hair. Lorelei was glad she had a lot of the body’s more human functions turned off otherwise she wouldn’t be able to do this. Lorelei approached Jane and took off her glasses, handing them over. “I think these will help,” she said to break the ice.

Upon seeing the Doll that looked exactly like Lauren did six years ago, Jane collapsed. She couldn’t take this. The loss of Lauren came flooding back and while there was a version of her in front of her, she knew it wasn’t her wife. Her wife had died even before he became Jane.

“I’ll give you two some time to yourself,” Laura said, putting her arm on Jane’s back. She could feel how much she was hurting and wanted to hurt alongside her parents but she had work to do and Jane needed to spend this time alone. “Come along Stacey.”

Stacey was more than happy to follow Laura out of the room. She didn’t do well with emotional drama and this was one of the worst she had seen. “I’ll have Cassandra see Jane after this,” Stacey promised Laura. “She’s going to need a lot of counseling. She can’t turn off her emotions like the rest of us.”

“Jane is strong,” Laura stated before changing the subject. “Things are worse than we thought. Raymond is already using organic puppets to enter combat and he brainwashed everyone where my parent’s used to live, just to watch Lorelei.”

“We knew this would be a possibility, but a full community of humans scares me,” Stacey nodded. “I’ll prepare the report for all active Dolls and write up orders for the Drones now.” Stacey put her body into autopilot while remoting into her private server.

Laura led Stacey to the war room where Marco was waiting already on video call with a general.

“What the hell happened today?!” The general demanded. “I told you to inform me of any actions that could lead to armed conflict.”

“I understand General, today’s mission was a personal one. I should’ve kept you in the loop.” Laura bowed her head in shame. “Things didn't go as planned.”

“They never do, that’s why you keep me in the loop,” the General scolded Laura.

“General if I may,” Marco gave him a salute. “Today has proven our greatest fear. DollTech has created an army, one that has no choice but to comply with any order. They brainwashed an entire community, sir. They used civilians!” Marco lost his composure.

“God damn…” the General was speechless. He took a deep breath. “I’ll inform my compatriots, we need to be careful who we trust.”

“I recommend we commence with Operation Blindfold,” Stacey said, coming out of her trance. “I know it’s risky, but what choice do we have?”

“Risky? It could start World War Three” Laura interjected.

“If DollTech is already brainwashing large civilian populations, any conflict can lead to mass casualties. And how long before DollTech brings out a new line of Dolls that you two can’t hack or copies your Drone methods. That will give them an unlimited army of both humans and machines. If we sit back, they’ll gain even more control. You said it was time for war Laura, this is what war looks like.” Marco agreed with Stacey’s plan.

“If people know the truth, people won’t be able to trust each other, they won’t be able to trust themselves, it’ll be chaos.” Laura pleaded. She wanted a war but her war meant just focusing on DollTech.

“Marco is right, Laura. If we do not act now the world is lost. I thought you valued freedom. Operation Blindfold is approved,” the General acknowledged before disconnecting.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing…” Laura turned to Stacey. She wasn’t happy being blindsided like this or everything they risked by going ahead with it.

“I hope I do too,” Stacey acknowledged. This was one of the few times she wasn’t self assured. “Though you aren’t going to like how I intend to begin Operation Blindfold…” Stacey paused to do a threat assessment of Laura. “I need Jane…”