Eight years. Eight years of fighting. In the time spent trudging through deserts and forests and cities sapped of their respective liveliness, it was easy for Kruger to forget many things. Many little things. Many orders, many places; they had all disappeared, quickly put behind in the lock-step of combat.

Kruger had even forgotten the cause, the spark that ignited the nation into turmoil. He had forgotten the desiccation of the farmland country to the south, or the diminishing of manufacturing in the industrial sovereign to the north. He had forgotten the day that the frustrations of his motherland's neighbors spilled across their borders into open conflict. Caught in the middle of two desperate belligerents, the sovereignty of Kruger's small, technological home came under threat.

A younger Kruger, wrapped in the flag of pride and duty, threw himself into the fray, ignorant to the weight the years would coerce him to bear. That Kruger wasn't prepared for the devastation, the scorched earth wrought behind armies. He wasn't prepared for the loss of friends and comrades by his side, nor was he prepared for the Mimics that replaced them, and then marched, unflinching to their own destruction on the battlefield.

Kruger couldn't stand the haze of the past, the memories lost and smeared into a blurry stain. Only the needles of pain and grief could pierce the fog, and the heft of time drove them deep into Kruger's mind. But he steeled himself to them. It was an oft grim and lonely task, being a human soldier in an army of dolls. There were few who shared the same struggle.

"You're kinda like them, Boss," Raf once told him over a glass of a forty-year-old Scotch they had scrounged from some liberated rubble. The clean-shaven soldier fidgeted with a smoldering cigarette pinched in his free hand. "You got this face that shows nothing. It's uncanny. Makes me wonder if it's fake, if there's actually something hiding behind it."

"You follow your orders, you do your duty," Raf continued, "In the end, though, it's all just a mask, right? You don't have to take it off for me to see the cracks."

Raf motioned to the Mimic soldier standing at attention a mere ten feet away. "Look at that. R-Model, new type. Two-hundred and fifty pounds of pure technological supremacy. Lucky bastard's got no friends, no family. No mask either. Sure, it remembers shit, but it don't know what to do with that." He swirled the golden liquor before he brought the glass to his lips. "If it ever figured out, if it ever told someone the same shit we tell each other, well, we just tap a few buttons and poof - that head's empty again. Good as new."

With their bodies lit only by a flickering lamp and Raf's smoldering cigarette, the two soldiers drank silently in the night. Raf finished his drink first and tossed the empty glass over his shoulder. It shattered in the black behind him.

"They don't have a single worry in the whole damn world."

"It's almost like you admire that," Kruger said, downing the last of his scotch before setting the glass down on a rock beside him.

"Naw. That would make me something I ain't."

"What?"

Raf stood and took a long drag from his cigarette before flicking the glowing filter into the darkness. "Inhuman."

<<>>

Like clockwork, Kruger found himself, again, amidst the chaos.

He hunkered down in the atrium of one of the towers which, in peacetime, had loomed over the homely roofs. Its concrete walls and narrow windows that resembled medieval archer slits now blended in with the mounds of debris. It was a vestigial appendage from a different time.

The men in the floors above refused to give up ground. Having disabled the elevators and blocked many paths of ascent, they had left only a single stairwell. This route would surely be treacherous and heavily defended, perhaps even a trap, but it was the only way.

Kruger's assault unit had taken casualties. His original twenty had been reduced to seven, then augmented by three in the rush to the tower. Even after reporting the number of his depleted ranks, the order still came to press on. Four of Kruger's Mimics entered the stairwell first, rifles raised, searching for any signs of movement. The absence of gunshots prompted the remaining six, including Kruger, to begin the climb behind them. Kruger followed one with a tuft of blonde hair poking out from its helmet. He was certain it was Ilia.

Nearly forty feet separated the ground and first floors. All ten of Kruger's Mimics had entered shaft before the first group reached the next level. The door closed, its latch echoing through the shaft which spanned the height of the building.

At that sound, the gunfire commenced. A torrent of bullets rained down on the ascending soldiers. The unlucky vanguard found themselves caught in the open, without the protection of walls and stairs above them. The others pressed themselves against the sides of the stairwell, beginning a hasty, scrambling retreat. Suddenly, came the low clang of metal on metal, repeating and growing closer. Kruger recognized the sound, his intuition confirmed when the small round objects jumped into view. Grenades.

"Ilia!"

The soldiers tried to scatter, but were trapped in the confines of the stairwell. Kruger reacted faster, grabbing the Mimic in front of him and pulling it down the stairs. He fell for a flight, crashing into the metal banister before the explosion above threw him airborne and down to the ground floor. Kruger tumbled into the stairwell door before losing consciousness.

<<>>

"You know why you're here, right, Kruger?"

The Colonel's voice was stern and admonishing. Silently, Kruger acknowledged that he would've used the same tone had he been in his superior's position. Seated behind his desk, the salt-and-pepper-haired man addressed Kruger, battered and bandaged after the tower assault. He'd been found against the door, slumped and bleeding, gashed by shrapnel. Kruger was lucky; none of his wounds were severe enough for him to be evacuated from the front lines, but some did require medical attention. He'd come to in sick bay, mumbling for Ilia, "Where is she? What happened to her?" The attending staff knew nothing, but shortly after Kruger became cognizant, he was summoned to face his commanding officer.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

When Kruger arrived at the Colonel's personal quarters, he expected to be alone, to give a debrief of his operation until the point when he was incapacitated. From what he could tell, the assault had ultimately been successful. Reinforcements had been able to locate and pull him out from the wreckage of that stairwell, after all. Stepping through the folds of the gas-lit tent, Kruger was surprised to find Ilia already there, standing at attention opposite the Colonel. The Mimic's uniform was torn, slashed by various fragments launched during combat, and covered in dust and dirt. Her helmet was missing. Kruger thought her to be naked without the goggles masking her face.

"Kruger."

"Yes, sir?" he replied, snapping to attention.

"Answer the question. Do you know why you're here?"

"No, sir, I do not."

The Colonel reclined in his chair. "Your actions worry me, Kruger. Not a single problem in the past, and something like this comes straight out of the blue."

"You'll need to elaborate, sir."

"How long have you been in this division?" the Colonel asked.

"Eight years, sir."

"And how many Mimics do you think you've seen come and go under your command?"

"I don't know, sir. Too many to count."

"Of course." The Colonel leaned in. "Then why'd you try to protect this one?"

The question hit Kruger like the grenade that had knocked him out. He couldn't understand why his actions in the stairwell were being subjected to scrutiny. His answer was straightforward, "I wanted to keep my units in fighting condition, sir."

That response didn't satisfy his commander. Is that so? Near total annihilation of your combat unit. Absolute failure to accomplish tactical objectives. But this one is still here; despite all your sudden...inadequacies of command." The Colonel pointed a thick finger at Ilia. "It debriefed me already. I know about the stairwell, and I know about your little meeting."

"Sir, I don't understand."

The Colonel sighed. "I'm disappointed to have to spell this out for you." He beckoned to Ilia. "L1A, come here."

The Mimic stepped forward and around the table, stopping next to the Colonel's side. "Sit." Ilia hesitated.

"L1A, that was an order."

At those words, Ilia dropped into the Colonel's lap. She hid her face from the man, instead locking eyes with Kruger's, the cold, green orbs expressing voiceless discomfort. The Colonel squeezed the Mimic's thigh before he, too, turned his glare to Kruger.

"Before the Integration, all the jarheads loved Mimics. Found these skinjobs in every brothel off base. You know why we ended up using them, too?" The Colonel waited briefly, but answered his own question too quickly for Kruger to respond. "They were cheap – cheaper than you."

Kruger didn't remember a time fighting without Mimics. He shared that memory with the war itself.

"Isn't there something inherently more valuable about a living being than something that's made? Don't you get it, Kruger? They're toys, dolls, fucking weapons – I don't give a damn. But you know what they're not?"

Kruger remained silent.

"Human. They're not human. They're no different from a god-damned GI Joe. They look real enough, fucks with the assholes on the other side real good." The Colonel's grip on Ilia tightened. The man's actions were painfully visible to Kruger. He tried to stay stone-faced while the Colonel's words poured from his hardened jaw. "But I don't lose sleep when I send these hollow bags into the shit, Kruger. I sure as hell don't get attached to them."

The Colonel removed his hand from the Mimic's leg. "Out. Go," he muttered in her ear. Without a word, Ilia rose and left the tent. The Colonel locked eyes with Kruger as the Mimic slipped through the canvas folds.

"If you've decided to make that one your plaything, then so be it. But I cannot have my operators be psychologically compromised." The Colonel wagged his finger toward the entrance. "This is your only warning. Slip up again and that one gets wiped. Are we clear?"

Kruger nodded.

"They've got it easy, Kruger. I hope you understand that. They're still here because we command them to be. It's harder for us." The Colonel leaned forward. "Maybe you're a stud at running a bunch of these skinjobs into the shit and bringing half of 'em back. Or maybe you're just fucking terrible at dying. Maybe you're still here just because you're afraid you don't know how to live outside of hell anymore..."

"These tools were made to be thrown away. Their only dignity is in fulfilling that end. It'd be cruel to deprive them of that. Dismissed." As soon as the Colonel finished his sentence, Kruger saluted and did a quick about-face. Only when he was past the folds of the tent did he notice his fists were so tightly clenched his palms had turned white. He unfurled his fingers, stretching them while the blood crept back into his hands.

Ilia stood no more than ten feet from the Colonel's tent. Kruger approached and the two strode away. "You told him?"

Ilia's eyes gazed off into the distance, not meeting his. "This unit's duty is to observe and report, the actions of this unit and its direct superiors included." Ilia turned to Kruger. "Was that incorrect?"

Kruger jammed his hands into his pockets. "No, it wasn't – Fuck! I want to smash the face on that sonofabit-"

Until then, Kruger hadn't noticed that Ilia's hands, too, had been balled into fists. She looked to him, expecting him to continue talking, but realized what he had seen. Copying his earlier motion, she allowed her fists to slink into her fatigue jacket pockets.

Kruger saw and chuckled. He could've sworn the Mimic blushed in response. The edges of his lips, though, quickly turned downward, the fleeting smile disappearing. "You're mad, too."

"This unit does not comprehend that emotion."

"But you do. You're angry – you wanted to lash out. I could see it." Kruger jumped in front of Ilia, stopping her in the middle of the soggy camp. He pointed directly to her forehead. "What's going on up there?"

The Mimic was silent. Though she turned away from him, the visible half her face betrayed deep contemplation. Ilia's swampy eyes slowly moved back to his, cutting him, sawing into his soul with a serrated blade. "This unit is conditioned to never harm a superior." She stopped. Her face contorted into a grimace, clearly struggling for words. "This unit did everything it could to not defy that directive."

"You're hurting, Ilia."

"This unit has no injuries that would exceed the threshold for pain in a human being."

"Not on the outside." His finger once again made a line to her head. "Inside. You've got some conflict tearing you apart. Morals, orders, logic, behavior – they're all clashing in your head and you can't sort them out."

Kruger smiled again. "Goes to show all there's some human hiding in there after all."

The two resumed walking in silence. They'd nearly reached the middle of the encampment when Ilia spoke up again. "What were the provisions of Rafferty's promise?"

"It was silly," Kruger said, chuckling. "When we got dropped between all these mountains, first thing on day one the guy says, 'When we're out of the shit, we're going to my folks' place on the ocean. No more of this fucking snow.' Never shut up about it - about his home and his folks. Can't blame the guy, though. He really loved them."

Kruger grew quiet, thinking for a second. "I never got around to writing that letter to them, either."

Neither spoke until they stood at their destination. This time Kruger broke the silence. "Operators can request that Mimics that've seen extended service be decommissioned and reassigned to civilian duties. When my rotation's up, how about I put the order in for you? I'm sure even you'd get some good out of getting away from this. We'll go to Raf's folks, give them that letter."

Ilia stared at Kruger. Her normally wooden expression had given way to one that could only be interpreted as shock. She quickly mustered up the composure to continue.

"Is that a promise, sir?"

"Yeah, that's a promise!" Kruger laughed, loud enough for the quartermaster on duty to glance up from his stack of pressed uniforms. "How does that sound? Would you like that?"

"I would like that very much."

To that, Kruger was speechless, and he allowed the Mimic to go on with her tasks alone. It was not her words that floored him, but the contortion of her lips into what was unmistakably a smile.