“Dammit!” Laura flipped the cafeteria table blocking some of the stray bullets heading in her direction. “Close your eyes,” she instructed a young girl cowering behind her. Without double checking to see if she was, she came out from the desk with her two handguns and fired at the brainwashed teachers.



“Clear!” Marco announced as he and his troop came from the hallway. “Ieso, look after the kid.” The paramedic nodded and took her out of there and into safer hands. “I can’t believe that monster went after a school…”



“I can, and we’ll get the blame for it. That girl was the CFO’s daughter. After they killed Yuki… good riddens, it proved he’d go after anyone.” Laura frowned as she holstered her weapons. “I just hate that we’re killing people…” A thought crossed her mind that Benjamin will likely become one of those people. She dismissed it as quickly as she could.



“At least we minimized the casualties,” Marco placed a supportive hand on Laura’s shoulder. “That’s all we can do and we need to get ahead of this. The pro human cells think they have a new ally, it’s only a matter of time before they turn on you and become fodder for DollTech.”



Laura gave a breathless sigh as she followed Marco out to the convoy. “Recruiting people with anti Doll sentiments was always going to be a risk. One I had to take during the early days.” She nodded as she got into the van. “There’s more attacks occurring I’ll be back in a moment,” Laura closed her eyes.



She found a facility where the head of marketing was unveiling a new Doll series. It was between Laura and Lorelei’s model of Doll and they were designed for personal use. Or more accurately designed to control even more people. The conference was under attack by more armed militia claiming to be anti DollTech and had killed several members of the press as well as the marketing head.



‘Nice try…’ Laura examined the Doll's mind, looking to see if she could wake it up when she found a virus designed to trap her if she tried to take control. Had Stacey been the one to investigate they might’ve captured her but to Laura she only had one body. Taking over Cassie those years ago felt like a violation. ‘A blank slate… I can use this…’



Laura found some custodian Dolls nearby and repurposed them into Drones using one of Stacey’s preloaded directives. ‘Stacey?’ Laura asked as she directed her mind back to the home software.



‘Yes Laura?’ Stacey answered unphased, despite the multiple operations she was dealing with.



‘How quickly can you cook up an advanced mind, one like ours?’ Laura’s physical form smiled at her plan.



‘A blank slate?’ Stacey sounded shocked. ‘Our minds are complex amalgamations between multiple people, we were accidents… I might’ve already been experimenting with a few… why?’

‘Of course you have,’ Laura was annoyed but not surprised. ‘Raymond set a cute little trap for us… I need a non sentient version of one of your minds loaded with a virus. Can you do that?’

‘Can I?’ Stacey smiled. ‘I anticipated this as a possibility, that’s why I’ve been experimenting. This one I cooked up I call Troy, they should hack their systems and wipe out any patches and traps they have planned for us off their systems and as an added bonus look for Tamara for you too.’



‘You’re the best, Stacey’ Laura disconnected before she could respond to that compliment. She then scanned for any other hostile engagements. The school and the press conference were the only ones that were actionable, the rest were home attacks that had already been carried out.



“There’s not much more we can do, Marco,” Laura shook her head as she opened her eyes.



“We saved the kids, that’s the important thing…” Marco nodded. “Doesn’t matter if we get blamed for it, we did the right thing.”



Laura nodded as their convoy began heading back to camp. Marco and Laura sat quietly as they both contemplated today's events. When they returned the whole camp was in an uproar.

“Bad news travels fast…” Marco said as he got out of the van.

“Yep,” Laura nodded as they were approached by several people wanting to know what was going on and if this was them.

‘Attention campers…’ the campground speakers spoke with Laura’s voice. ‘A campground meeting will commence in the assembly hall in twenty minutes.’



“Show off,” Marco glared at Laura.



“Gotta make the most of being an android,” Laura smiled as she went to the armory to unload her weapons and headed straight for the assembly hall.



By the time Laura arrived most of the camp had arrived as drones were instructing people to take their seats. Stacey was already up on stage sitting in one of the chairs. She acted like she knew what was going on as one of the heads of Laura’s growing army. Laura just gave her a nod before taking her spot at the podium.



“Ladies and gentlemen, drones and Dolls,” Laura began as the hall filled up. “I’ve called this meeting to discuss the attacks on DollTech in the media. Let me make this point loud and clear. We were not responsible.” Laura spoke with determination though she could see that her words were not believed. “It’s true our goal is to take them down and it is true I was out on an operation today but that was to save innocent lives.” She paused as she eyed off the crowd. “While we’re not responsible for these attacks we are now at war. A couple of days ago I went out on a personal mission to rescue those I care about from Raymond’s hands. In these attacks he used brainwashed people and now that he’s played his hand he needed a scapegoat to blame. Today’s attacks were orchestrated by Raymond Jones himself.” There were a few murmurs in the crowd as they weren’t too sure.



“We know the enemy we’re dealing with here, everyone in this room has fallen victim to him or to DollTech. Now we know how far he’s willing to go we must act more cautiously but also swiftly. We have plans in motion as we speak. Stacey is working on methods to detect those who have been brainwashed and hopefully reverse the process.” Laura scanned the crowd to see Lorelei, Jane, Isha and Natash in the back together. She smiled and gestured to Natasha. “We know a way to prevent people from being brainwashed, though those methods are invasive.” Laura let those messages sink in.



“Finally it is time that we come out in the open and reveal our cause to the world as well as the dangers DollTech presents.” Lauren hit her fist on the podium. “I’m not naive, this will cause mass chaos across the globe.  So I implore you all, reach out to your loved ones to make sure they are safe. We might not have been responsible for today but we are going to war.” Laura backed off from the podium to take center stage. “For humanity! For free will!” Laura shouted as loud as she could. She knew the irony of an artificial intelligence cheering for humanity but she didn’t care, as far as she was concerned she was more human than Raymond Jones



Laura nodded to Stacey before she eyed off Lorelei again. ‘I need to speak with you and Jane,’ Laura bit the bullet. ‘I’ll meet you in the cabin shortly.’ She projected as she left the stage, leaving it for Stacey to provide more details.