Not Alone

The Steadfast Tin Soldier

The Mutant swung Brown around as he followed Ulysses back down the hall.

There had been so many times over the last couple of days when Brown had been sure he was about to die, but it looked like the end of his story had undeniably come now. He had no emotion left, just emptiness. One more turn on the carousel of pain, then he would check out of the war for good. He supposed he would never find out what happened to Joe and the twins, or Plungerman, or anyone else.

But he had done his best— it wasn't very much, but it had been his best— and no one could ask anything more of him than that.

And if there was an afterlife—

— at least he'd get a chance to say sorry to Gundy.

"Philip!" Ulysses called, "I see you hiding back there pretending to be working! Get over here, I need your help with an interrogation, boy!"

The dark-haired Skibidi unhappily scurried forth.

"How's old stitchmouth?" Ulysses asked carelessly.

"He's not looking good..."

"He never does," Ulysses chuckled. "No mouth and now no eyes... poor fellow."

Ulysses opened a door to a dark, cool room whose floor sloped to yet another wall-sized screen.

"Here we are..." he turned back to Brown, "now's comes the part where I shine a light in your lens and threaten to blow off your little metal kneecaps if you don't tell me what you know. Just kidding, son. I have a better way."

The screen again? They were going to use stolen TV technology to interrogate him?

At least they wouldn't find anything of value in his mind. TV Woman had never cared about him enough to tell him military secrets. Which meant Brown wouldn't die as a traitor.

The Mutant held him in place while Ulysses and Philip fumbled with some dials by the screen.

Funny, they weren't wearing eye protection...

"Soldier, just let me get at the back of his head..." Ulysses badgered the Mutant, a long metal cable in one of his claws. "Oh, this fellow's an old model! He's been around since the start of the war! I bet this little robot's seen some things! Fetch the other cable, Philip!"

Ulysses shoved a pronged metal cable deep into the back of Brown's camera, making him cringe as he his inner mind was invaded. On the wall-screen, the image of a crack appeared, with Brown's point-of-view of the room surrounding it.

Two mirrors looking at each other.

"Now let's see what this he's got in that photographic memory of his," Ulysses chuckled as he held up the portrait of TV Woman to a small sub-screen. "Bring up all footage of this woman."

The screen trembled and began to play a video. One of Brown's memories, dragged from the depths of his mind and displayed in its embarrassing glory. There was no resisting it, no possibility of fighting back. He could only watch the nostalgic image through his broken vision.

An army of TV Men, marching in two rows in their grey trench coats, their boxy heads displaying a variety of smug emoticons.

And, last in line, an outlier— a tall, feminine figure wearing a tight black jacket over a purple turtleneck. Her TV was a different model to the other soldiers, a retro frame with two cute antenna perched atop her head. As soon as she came into view, Brown's camera focused on her, zooming on her face, which wore a confident >:3.

She turned her head and looked straight at Brown as she marched past, and as she looked into his lens, noticing him gawking, her face turned into a playful wink: >wo.