The morning brought no change to the frozen landscape outside the hideout. Arthur woke to find Alice still beside him, her elevated body temperature having kept him comfortably warm throughout the night. The rest of Team Bravo was already stirring, performing equipment checks and consuming ration packs.
Rapi stood near the cave entrance, her rifle slung across her back as she worked with her communications array. Arthur recognized the tension in her posture immediately.
"Problem?" he asked, moving to join her.
"I can't establish contact with the Ark," Rapi said, her golden eyes reflecting frustration. "The signal keeps degrading before connection completes. It's not equipment failure—something is actively interfering with the transmission."
Ludmilla looked up from where she was organizing supply packs. "That happens up here more often than you'd think. Sometimes for days at a time."
"Days?" Miranda joined them, her tactical mind immediately assessing implications. "That level of interference suggests either deliberate jamming or significant environmental disruption."
"There are stories," Ludmilla said slowly, her expression thoughtful. "Old tales about monsters buried deep under the ice. Things that pre-date the Rapture invasion, frozen in the glaciers since before the war. When the interference gets particularly bad, some of the northern survivors claim they can hear things moving beneath the permafrost."
"You don't believe that," Arthur observed, reading her tone.
Ludmilla's smile was thin. "I believe something causes the interference. Whether it's ancient monsters or just geological anomalies interacting with our technology, the effect is the same. We adapt."
Alice suddenly gasped, her enthusiasm from the previous evening transforming into concern. "Oh no! Ludmilla, we need to check on the sleeping princesses!"
The blonde Nikke's expression shifted, becoming guarded. "Later, Alice. We should prioritize the mission."
"But we haven't visited them in ages!" Alice's voice carried genuine worry. "What if they've woken up and we weren't there? They'll be so lonely!"
Flower exchanged glances with Ocean. V's street instincts made her posture cautious, reading the sudden tension in the hideout.
"Sleeping princesses?" Ocean asked, her calm voice carrying curiosity.
Ludmilla was quiet for a long moment, clearly weighing options. Finally, she sighed. "Alright. We'll check on them. But Alice, let me explain things first."
"Okay!" Alice agreed immediately, her concern apparently satisfied by the promise of action.
The group made their way back to Research Base Seventeen, navigating corridors Arthur hadn't seen during their initial data retrieval. Ludmilla led them deeper into the facility's interior, past laboratories and storage areas, until they reached a section marked with faded biohazard warnings.
"This was a specialized medical research wing," Ludmilla explained as she overrode the door lock manually, careful not to touch the electronic components directly. "The Queen never penetrated this deep. Everything here remained sealed and functional."
The laboratory beyond the reinforced door was dimly lit by emergency power. Rows of transparent capsules lined the walls, each one containing a figure suspended in preservation gel. Arthur counted eight capsules, each one occupied.
Alice bounded forward with her characteristic energy. "Good morning, princesses! I brought new friends to meet you!"
She approached the first capsule, her pink outfit a stark contrast to the sterile white interior. "This is Princess Blue Hair. Isn't she pretty?"
Arthur felt his breath catch. The Nikke in the capsule was indeed beautiful, with flowing blue hair that drifted in the suspension gel. But the top of her skull was completely missing, exposing the empty cavity where her brain should have been. Preservation fluid circulated through the opening, maintaining the body's integrity.
"Jesus," V whispered, her Outer Rim experience not quite preparing her for this particular horror.
Alice moved to the next capsule, oblivious to the shocked reactions behind her. "And this is Princess Yellow Eye! Her eyes are such a beautiful color, don't you think?"
The second Nikke was severed at the waist, her upper and lower halves suspended separately in the same capsule. Like the first, part of her skull was removed, the preservation system maintaining both sections.
Flower's hand went to her mouth. Ocean's calm expression fractured. Even Miranda, with all her Cerberus training and genetic engineering, looked disturbed.
Rapi's tactical mind processed what she was seeing with mechanical precision, but Arthur could see the minute tremor in her hands.
"We're going to wake them all up someday," Alice said brightly, moving between capsules with gentle care. "And then we'll all go to Elysium together. It'll be wonderful!"
She paused at the third capsule, her expression becoming thoughtful. "I share milk and cookies with them sometimes. Do you think they can taste it in their dreams?"
"Alice," Ludmilla said gently, "why don't you go fetch some milk and cookies now? I'm sure the princesses would appreciate it."
"Oh, good idea!" Alice's smile returned to full brightness. She practically skipped toward the laboratory exit. "I'll be right back! Don't wake them up without me!"
The moment Alice left, the atmosphere in the laboratory shifted. Ludmilla turned to face the group, her expression weary but resolute.
"You've realized the truth," she said to Rapi, who stood rigid with understanding.
Rapi's voice was quiet. "These are the Nikkes you've rescued. The ones Squad Unlimited has been saving."
"Yes," Ludmilla confirmed. She moved to the first capsule, looking at Princess Blue Hair with something approaching tenderness. "They appear deceased to most observers. Technically, they are. But the definition of death for a Nikke is more complex than for humans."
Miranda stepped closer, her analytical mind engaging despite her emotional response. "Their neural cores are still active. I can see the minimal power signatures. But without their brains..."
"If a Nikke's brain stops functioning, they die permanently," Ludmilla explained, her tone taking on the quality of a medical briefing. "The neural core can sustain basic body functions indefinitely, but consciousness, memory, personality—everything that makes them who they are—resides in the organic brain."
Arthur moved between the capsules, seeing each one contained a similarly damaged Nikke. Bodies preserved but incomplete, waiting.
"I've encountered this pattern repeatedly in my operations," Ludmilla continued. "Nikkes who faced situations where death was certain. Overwhelming Rapture forces, catastrophic system failures, terminal corruption. In those final moments, some of them make a choice."
"They remove their own brains," Rapi said, her voice steady despite the horror of the concept.
"Exactly." Ludmilla's hand hovered near the capsule, not quite touching. "They extract their brains and hide them, usually in reinforced containers designed to maintain viability. Then they hope. Hope that someone will find the brain. Hope that it can be returned to a body. Hope for a miracle."
V's expression was haunted. "That's worse than anything I saw in Outer Rim. Choosing to literally tear yourself apart on the chance someone might save you later."
"It's pragmatic," Ocean said quietly, though her voice shook slightly. "Maximize probability of survival by any means necessary. We're designed to be weapons. Some of us weaponize even our own deaths."
Flower looked at Ludmilla with new understanding. "And Squad Unlimited's priority is finding those hidden brains."
"It is," Ludmilla confirmed. "The brains are kept in secure storage elsewhere, maintained in optimal conditions. Alice and I have successfully revived dozens of Nikkes this way. We find the brain, locate a compatible body—sometimes their original one if it's recoverable, sometimes a new frame—and complete the restoration."
Miranda's professional curiosity overcame her discomfort. "What's the success rate?"
"Survival rate is one hundred percent so far," Ludmilla said, and Arthur could hear the pride beneath her careful tone. "Psychological outcomes are more varied. Some experience mental breakdowns from the trauma of disembodiment. Others suffer partial or complete amnesia. A few remember everything but can't reconcile the experience with continued existence."
She paused, looking across the row of capsules. "But they all survived. Every single one. They're alive, functional, and capable of making their own choices about their futures. That's an outcome I'm satisfied with."
"How much have you been through?" Miranda asked softly, seeing past the tactical briefing to the emotional toll such work demanded.
Ludmilla's smile was brief and sad. "More than I care to quantify. Less than I'm willing to endure. This is my purpose, Miranda. Finding the broken ones, the discarded ones, the ones who made impossible choices to cling to existence. Giving them back their lives."
"You didn't intend to show us this," Arthur said, understanding the vulnerability in this revelation.
"No," Ludmilla admitted. "But Alice's concern was genuine, and these princesses deserve to be checked on regularly. And perhaps it's better that you know. You understand now why Squad Unlimited operates autonomously, why we can't simply integrate into Central Command's structure."
Rapi approached one of the capsules, studying the suspended Nikke with clinical detachment that didn't quite mask her empathy. "This work requires resources, discretion, and freedom from command oversight that would question the expenditure."
"Deputy Chief Andersen sends us resources to continue the operation," Ludmilla said. "He all but forced Central Command to approve, the same Central Command that sees Nikkes as military assets. Damaged beyond repair means scheduled for recycling. They don't account for the fact that we're people first, weapons second. Or that some of us refuse to accept death as final when alternatives exist."
Arthur stood in the center of the laboratory, surrounded by sleeping princesses awaiting their miracles. He thought of Anne's memory fragmentation, of Mary's confession about harvesting brains, of every Nikke he'd known who carried trauma from being treated as expendable.
"I'm back! Time to share breakfast with the princesses!"
She moved between capsules with practiced care, placing a cookie and milk carton beside each one, talking to the sleeping Nikkes as though they could hear every word.
Arthur watched her innocent ritual, understanding now that Alice's cheerful demeanor masked the same steel resolve that drove Ludmilla. Two Nikkes who had found purpose in the frozen north, saving those everyone else had abandoned.
The sleeping princesses waited in their capsules, preserved and protected, while Alice promised them all that someday soon, they would wake up and see Elysium together.