It was somehow appropriate that peace hit the SWA during the autumn season. It began as a welcome relief from the heat of another violent summer, and then turned cold, bleak, and tiresome.
Following their huge losses at the villa battle in Croatia, the various branches of the Five Republics Faction sued for a cease-fire & peace talks. These concessions did not come without caveats though. One of the primary demands of the Padania negotiators was that the "demons" would be kept out of the service for the duration of the talks.
For the first time since the beginning of cyborg operations, Section Two was on the sidelines.
_Passing Time_
At first it had come as a huge relief. Training commitments, long neglected, were caught up. School classes went from being tossed in wherever they fit into the schedule (which often resulted in hastily taught, ill prepared lessons, and long hours of homework that ate up the girls' free time at night) to well scheduled & genuinely relaxed lectures, with all the teachers able to provide plenty of time to answer questions and provide extra help. Postponed maintenance, both on equipment and the cyborgs themselves was completed.
Leaves were authorized, provided they be taken outside of Italy to avoid accidental incidents that might scuttle the peace talks. Even for those not taking holidays it was a relaxing time. Over those first few weeks things settled in to a comfortable routine. It did not take long however, for cracks to form in the pleasant facade.
Relaxation turned to tedium. Foul weather did not help things either; forcing the cyborg girls inside, off the training ranges and playing fields. With too much pent up energy and nowhere to release it pranks and mischief abounded. Sandro Rissi was among the first handlers to find himself victimized. Up to a point he had given sanction to the shenanigans with a wink and a nod, but when he finally counseled the girls that they might be taking it too far, his Smart Car was abducted and found a day later on the roof of the indoor shooting range.
The other handlers were not immune either. On one particular night Elio Alboreto was leaving work late (not as a result of overwork, he had been watching some particularly boring evidence tapes and fallen asleep in his office) when he heard the sound of footsteps in the darkened hallway. Instinctively, the old spy flattened himself against a wall enshrouded in shadow and waited. It was no surprise when he saw his own cyborg creeping along stealthily, clutching a large box to her chest. He waited until she passed before stepping out of the shadow and tapping Marisa on the shoulder. "A-hem..."
With a startled yelp, Mari whipped around. She cursed herself for allowing him to sneak up on her. I can hear a human being's heartbeat from 10 meters away! How can he always sneak up on me like that? Even more vexing to her was the fact that Elio was the only person who could do that to her...she could not figure out how that was possible. "Eh...hi Elio...just...going to do some laundry!" She lifted the box of powdered Lanza detergent as proof of her benign intentions.
Elio crossed his arms and regarded her sternly. "The laundry isn't even in this building" muttered her handler, tapping his foot on the floor.
Caught at her roguery, Marisa appealed to her master; "Elio, it's just a prank...I swear nobody is going to get hurt, and nothing will be destroyed!" She looked up at him with hopeful eyes.
"Fine," grumbled Alboreto, "but if someone else gets the blame for it you have to confess. No letting someone else take the fall for your prank, capito?"
"Yes Sir!" the girl chirped, giving him an exaggerated salute before dashing off to whatever malfeasance she had planned.
"Damn" Elio thought to himself, "I should have specified that she was not allowed to prank me..."
At first the agency adults responded to the wave of mischief with good humor, but after the relocation of a few more cars, the sugar & salt being exchanged in the office canteen, and the theft of every ink cartridge from every printer in every Section 2 building, patience began to wear thin. Some of the stricter adults rallied behind Jean's suggestion that every cyborg be interrogated, and the offenders disciplined harshly, but more forgiving heads prevailed. In the hopes of tiring the girls out more activities were scheduled, and lights-out time in the dormitory was actually moved one hour later. "I can't believe this!" objected Ferro & others, "You people are rewarding them for behaving like hooligans!" For better or worse, the changes had little effect.
Left with no other recourse, some of the handlers chose to retaliate. When the cyborgs returned home one evening from a field trip to the Museo Nazionale Romano they found all the linen from all their beds missing. It was eventually located hanging from the observation tower at the outdoor range...in the pouring rain.
The atmosphere of relaxed discipline reached even the highest echelon of Section Two. Priscilla was shuffling around the office building one particular day, dropping off the usual intelligence decodes to the usual recipient's. When she stopped to knock on Chief Lorenzo's door there was no answer. She knew he was inside, so she checked the knob, and found that it was unlocked.
"Chief? Sir...are you in here?" she ventured, poking her head into his office. A haze of smoke hung in the air, and she saw Lorenzo & Mr. Alboreto smoking & laughing. "Sir, I have the afternoon NATO decodes here. Nothing really important, there's...hey, wait just a minute..." The two men only had one pipe. She sniffed the air, and asked "Are you guys smoking weed in here?"
Lorenzo looked at Alboreto, his eyes bloodshot and glazed over. "Elio...did you remember to lock the door?"
The other man stared off into space for a full 30 seconds, then replied "Hey, Pieri...did you remember to lock the door?"
"You are smoking weed!" determined the intel analyst, "You're both stoned out of your gourds!"
Elio turned to her and whispered "Better call the police." Lorenzo burst out laughing at that.
"I can't believe you two old farts!" snapped Priscilla, emboldened by catching her boss in such a misdemeanor, "What if the girls saw you in here like Cheech & Chong! Triela is always hanging around the offices, running errands...what if she had walked in instead of me?"
"We would erase her memory..." laughed the Chief, passing the pipe to his friend.
"...with this shit!" added Elio, taking a drag from it. In their condition, everything was funny. He turned to the Chief and asked "Hey, do you remember that time we did that thing and...hold up, I love this song!" There was no music playing.
"Is the dining hall open for dinner yet?" Lorenzo muttered, "I could really go for a lot of strawberry ice cream right now."
Elio nodded. "With some sushi & tequila" he added, struggling to hold the smoke in his lungs.
Priscilla furrowed her brow disapprovingly. "You two couldn't even find the dining hall right now!"
"Better call Ramsey to give us a lift in that thing he drives" replied the Chief. "What the hell is that thing anyway?" He started talking into a statue of Hermes on his desk, "Ramsey...Mr. Ramsey come in..." Turning to Elio & Priscilla he sighed "He's not answering. Wait…what the hell was I talking about?"
The intelligence analyst put her hands on her hips and scolded "You two are the oldest and most experienced guys in the agency! You're supposed to be the most mature!"
Alboreto finally exhaled a big could of smoke, and replied "I suppose...so are you gonna hit this with us or not?"
With a groan of resignation she answered "Yeah" and accepted the pipe from him.
Kara stared out Petrushka & Allison's window, but it was a futile effort. Wind and cold rain lashed the glass, making it nearly impossible to see anything on the lawn outside. "So what do you want to do tonight?" sighed the red-headed girl, stretching on her bed like she did whenever she was bored.
"What is there to do?" groaned Allison, who lay on the floor tossing a tennis ball up at the ceiling. Occasionally, she would hit it hard enough to knock a few flakes of plaster loose, which fell down into her eyes and nose, but the girl kept doing it out of sheer ennui.
"We could sneak into the copy room and switch the alert-fratello list for this week with the cafeteria menu..." ventured Allison.
Kara shook her head and shot down that proposal; "We did that already...twice. God, this used to be fun...now it just seems like we're going through the motions to kill time! We can't even get an unsupervised day-pass off compound because the adults are afraid we'd do something to screw up the peace talks." She flopped down on Allison's bed and groaned "I would kill for a mission...anything!"
"Even a stakeout with Mr. Alboreto in a gross hotel?" Petra teased.
Kara shivered. "Okay, maybe not anything." The other two chuckled, but Kara defended herself "Oh, sure, laugh it up bitches...but if you had seen the size of that cockroach!" Even though it was an old story by now, all 3 loved recounting it. "What time is it anyway? Is the dining hall open for dinner yet?
"I dunno" sighed Allison, "I'm not really hungry anyway."
"Well it's something to do" Kara replied.
Petrushka reached across to the bed where her fellow cyborg lounged and gave her a poke in the stomach. "Eating just because you're bored...that's a good way to get fat." She got socked hard in the face with Kara's pillow for that crack. "Ugh...this down-time was actually fun just a few weeks ago. Remember when we lifted my handler's car up on the roof of the shooting range?"
"Classic," snickered Kara, "they needed a crane to get it down! I still think we should have stuck to the original plan though. It would have been way funnier if we took it apart and re-assembled it downstairs on the firing range."
"Jean would have actually shot at it" Petra laughed, "he hates Sandro's car!"
Allison objected. "I've explained it before. The reason we couldn't put his car in the basement was that I am the only cyborg who knows how to take a car apart!"
"Mari could do it," pointed out Kara, "the Bomb Squad Girls too."
She rolled her eyes. "Okay, let me elucidate; I am the only cyborg who can take a car apart and then put it back together!" The other two girls accepted that clarification, so Allison continued; "The handlers all know I'm handy with a tool box. You all would have gotten away with it but I'd have gotten busted for sure...and ladies, I do not relish the idea of getting restricted to the dorm for a week!"
"Take a look through the window Allie" sighed Kara, motioning toward the foul weather outside "we're already restricted to the dorm."
_The Murder Midgets_
It was another incident involving Priscilla that brought the whole situation to its breaking point. She was just wrapping up her mathematics class one morning. Math was usually a subject the girls grumbled about, but for the last few weeks they had complained little, happy to have something to occupy their time.
Rico was struggling with a geometry problem, and the teacher patiently explained it to her. "See, if you know two of the angles in a triangle, it's easy to determine the third...and if you use this formula you can figure out what the lengths of those sides are too. Now try this problem & determine how much your bullet will drop on a long range down angle sniper shot." While the blonde cyborg went to work on the chalk board, pencils scratched dutifully, all the other girls working out their own solutions to the problem. In a few moments, Rico stepped back and tentatively displayed her answer.
"Is that right Miss Priscilla?" she asked.
"How about it class?" Priscilla inquired, "Is that the same answer you all got?" There was a consensus that Rico's answer was correct, and the young cyborg beamed with pride. "Good job, sweetie, you can sit back down now" praised the teacher. She turned to the class and said aloud "There are all kinds of applications for geometry. It's important for map-making, Marisa uses it all the time when she's navigating underwater, Agapita employs it to calculate her mortar shots & Allison couldn't do her car stuff without it. I think that's a good place to stop for the day...any questions?"
Henrietta raised her hand. "Miss Priscilla, how did you get so good at math?" The class laughed. Coming from anyone else this would have been considered a blatant display of butt-kissing, but coming from 'Etta the question carried an air of total honesty.
The woman blushed a little, but leaned back against her desk casually and explained; "It always came easily to me, but I guess it was a teacher I had back when I was just your age that really made me want to become an expert. Signor Chigalie was his name."
"He was a good teacher?" asked Ilaria.
Priscilla laughed. "Nope...he was a total jerk. He always told us girls are no good at math, they just can't understand numbers." An angry murmur ran through her all-girl cyborg class. "No matter how hard I worked, he would never admit that I was his best student. Whenever there was a competition with another school mean old Mr. Chigalie would always choose the boys to be on the math team. Even though I got straight A grades in his class he wrote something negative on my report card every time."
"That sucks, what a bastardo" opined Agapita.
The teacher shrugged her shoulders and replied "Well, who won out in the end? I've got a great job now, and he's probably still back at that school making a new generation of girls feel bad."
Rico raised her hand and waved it frantically. "Miss Priscilla, Miss Priscilla...we could go find him and kill him for you!" she offered.
"Whaaat?" she exclaimed, as the older girls laughed riotously.
Henrietta joined right in; "We won't even need guns! Marisa can show us how to use piano wire!"
"Sure thing" replied Mari, "I'm dying to go out on a mission. He probably still lives in that town...you're originally from a little village outside Milan, right?"
"We can find him in the database tonight, and go kill him tomorrow!" offered Henrietta.
"And then we can go out for ice-cream!" Rico chirped with equal enthusiasm.
As her students roared with laughter Priscilla looked to Triela. De-facto leader of the cyborgs; the woman hoped she could get things under control. "Triela...help me out here!"
"That's right...Mr. Hillshire has a big car, do you think he can drive us, Triela?" suggested Marisa.
Up to this point the Senior Cyborg had been laughing along with the rest, enjoying the show and Miss Priscilla's dismayed reaction, but now she jumped in and joked "No way! You 3 murder midgets will just drip ice-cream on Mr. Hillshire's upholstery!"
"Triela you're not helping!" exclaimed Priscilla, further entertaining the class. Distraught, she fled the classroom as the Rico, 'Etta & Marisa continued their plans for assassinating the evil Signor Chigalie, and the other girls continued laughing.
_Challenge_
"Hillshire?" Triela announced herself, knocking on his door even though it was open. "You called for me?"
"Oh, yes..." he replied, putting down a file he'd been pretending to read in an effort to look casual, "...come in, and close the door." Triela did as he asked. "Sit down, please" Victor continued, offering a chair. Again, the cyborg did as he wished. Taking his own seat right in front of her Hillshire began, taking a deep breath before saying "I understand there was a bit of an incident in Priscilla's mathematics class this morning."
Triela knew exactly what he was talking about, but she was surprised it had reached his ears. It was just a little post-class joke after all. She decided to play dumb; "Nothing that was out of the ordinary."
"Something about traveling to Priscilla's hometown and killing her old math teacher," grumbled the German, "does that ring a bell?"
"Aww, we were just kidding around!" protested the girl, "Everybody thought it was funny."
Hillshire looked at her gravely and replied "Priscilla didn't think it was funny. In fact she was hoping you'd help her out and get things under control...but instead you just joined in with the pack."
Feeling persecuted for something everyone had been doing, Triela muttered "I wouldn't have done it if I'd known I was gonna get yelled at."
"Nobody is yelling," replied Victor, putting up his hands in a gesture of peace, "I just wish you'd shown a little better judgment. You're the Senior Cyborg after all, and not just because you've been here the longest. Angelica was never called that. That's no slight against her, but she was never a leader like you are, and that's what I'm asking you to be...a leader."
"What am I supposed to do?" exclaimed the girl, "Sir, everybody is bored out of their wits!"
Hillshire scratched his chin and conjectured "Do you thinks that's the reason for all the pranks & mischief going on as well?"
"Are you still angry about finding your office filled with laundry soap suds?" groaned Triela.
Distracted by a mystery that was still vexing him, Victor allowed himself to get side-tracked for a moment. "I will find out who is responsible for that! I know I've asked you a dozen times already, but are you sure you don't know anything about it?"
"More like a thousand times" replied his cyborg, her voice full of sarcastic sass, "and no...I still don't know anything!"
"You're sure?"
"Hillshire, I can't lie to you...my conditioning won't allow it" explained the girl "I'd probably throw up or something." It was a half-truth. She could get away with little lies, but her conditioning did make her feel physically uncomfortable while doing it.
The handler leaned back in his chair, and allowed the subject to change. "Alright...so here's the situation; your cyborgs are bored, they're unfocused...they need something to occupy their time."
"Wait a minute!" objected Triela, "How did they suddenly become my cyborgs?"
Hillshire just continued; "You know if this goes on, or gets any worse, the folks like Jean & Ferro are gonna get their way, and thing are really going to suck for you girls. He's already asking for permission to triple the training commitments just to keep you busy. Do you like the idea of all-day range drills in the weather we've been having lately? Furthermore, Ferro wants to search every single room for forbidden items...and laundry soap."
Triela sighed. Her handler was right...this could get bad. She did not look forward to crawling through the freezing mud from morning until night, or cleaning her weapons afterward. On top of that Triela knew she & Claes had enough contraband squirreled away in their room to guarantee them both an eternity of pot-scrubbing detail. "What can I do?"
"Like I said...be a leader...find something for them to focus on, something they'll want to do without being forced" advised Victor. "They respect you & will listen to you...but it's up to you to figure out what that project should be." He put his hands on the girl's shoulders and drew her close so that their foreheads gently touched. "I know you can do this. You are the one and only person in this agency that can."
Triela rolled her eyes like a surly teenager. "Great..." she muttered, "...thanks for the pressure." She knew her handler really had faith in her, but she would never allow Hillshire to know how much that meant to her.
The next morning Triela woke to find her room-mate already awake & dressed, sitting at their round table with a book. Claes' eyes popped up from the page for a second when she saw Triela stirring, but she said nothing. The fact that Claes did not immediately try to hide the book told the blonde girl it was not one of her racy romance novels.
"Morning Claes," she yawned, "Don't tell me you didn't finish your homework assignment last night."
"Be serious; I had that done before we even left class" muttered the dark haired girl, never lifting her eyes from the book. "Honestly, is it so strange to see me reading?"
"I guess not...whatcha reading?"
Claes cast an annoyed glance in her direction and muttered "The Tempest..."
"Is it any good?" Triela persisted.
"I don't know yet I'm still trying to read it" growled Claes. "Shouldn't you be getting dressed? We've got a boring information security class with Mr. Rissi at 0900 and if you don't get ready soon I'm leaving your butt & going down to breakfast alone."
"Fine!" muttered the blonde girl, kicking off her pyjamas and selecting an outfit that suited the cold, wet day. "So what's your novel about?"
It seemed that her room-mate was not going to give her a few minutes of peace & quiet to read so Claes put a piece of ribbon between the pages and closed the book. "It's not a novel, it's a play by William Shakespeare. It's about a struggle for power between the exiled Duke of Milan and..."
Triela interrupted "A play?"
"That's what I said" replied the other girl.
She hopped up and down a few times excitedly; "Claes; you're a genius!"
"Hrumph...I already know that" snorted Claes.
"I've gotta talk to Hillshire right now!" exclaimed Triela, "I'll see you at class!" She dashed out of the room.
Claes hopped up from her seat and ran to the door. "Triela!" she shouted down the hall, "Pants!"
A few minutes late, Triela tip-toed into Mr. Rissi's class, wet from the rain, but wearing trousers at least, thanks to Claes. Alessandro took a look in her direction, and gave a disapproving glance at his watch, but did nothing else. Had it been Ferro teaching the class she would have gotten detention, Jean would have made her stand for the duration of the class, and Mr. Mancini would have held her late, asking a bunch of questions (Where were you? Why were you late? Why the bloody hell are you soaking wet?) in an intimidating manner. At least Sandro was cool about it. "Claes!" she whispered, "Mr. Hillshire loved your idea! He said yes!"
"Yes to what, lunatic?" Claes whispered in response.
Triela continued; "The play, the play! I proposed the idea to him, and he said he'd approve the necessary resources for us to perform a Shakespeare play!"
"Who? Us? Why?" asked Claes, but Mr. Rissi was beginning to notice their conversation, so she just said "Never mind, we'll talk about it at lunch."
Triela, however, did not want to wait until lunch. "I was thinking we'd do The Merchant of Venice, most of the cyborgs know it pretty well because Mr. Jean showed us the movie. We'll do it in Italian though, because only a few girls can speak fluent English...much less 16th century English."
"Triela, are you nuts? A bunch of cyborg assassins are gonna perform Shakespeare? Besides, what are we gonna do about male actors?"
Claes spoke that last part a bit too loud, and Alessandro lost his patience. "Claes, Triela! Go stand in the hall and cool your jets! You can come back in 5 minutes!"
Blushing furiously, Claes protested the injustice; "But...she came in late and started talking to..."
"Don't care," replied Sandro, pointing toward the door, "5 minutes...out!" Triela seemed perfectly okay with the banishment. She grabbed her room-mate by the sleeve and dragged her out into the hallway.
"I hope you're happy!" snapped the cyborg in glasses, "You've got a nice handler, but I'm gonna get chewed out by Jean for this!"
"Oh relax...do you think Sandro is actually gonna rat you out?" Triela scoffed, "Listen, this is good, we need to discuss the play. Lack of boys is no problem, we'll just play those roles ourselves. Young men played female roles back in Shakespeare's time, so we can easily play men. I'll play Bassanio myself!"
Claes leaned back and sneered "Ohhh, only the lead role for the Princess...I see."
"Oh gimme a break, Claes!" Triela groaned, "You can have Bassanio if you want!"
"No way!" refused the shy girl, "I have zero desire to parade myself around on stage."
Triela smiled. "Good, because I was kind counting on you to be the director!"
"What the hell do I know about directing?" exclaimed Claes, "This is crazy...I'm going back to class!"
"5 minutes aren't up yet!" Triela pointed out, "You're stuck with me...and I really need your help with this. You are probably the only cyborg who has actually read the play!"
"That's a load of crap, your own handler had us read it in class!" Claes pointed out.
"That was ages ago! Hell, Elsa & Pia were still around back then...none of the Gen 2 girls had even been created yet. I'd be surprised if 'Etta, Rico or Chiara even remember."
Crossing her arms in frustrated defiance, the dark-haired girl asked "Why are you so fired up to do this anyway?"
Triela forced herself to calm down, and answered honestly; "Hillshire and I had a talk yesterday afternoon. He says the handlers and support staff are getting aggravated with all the shenanigans that have been going on. The balance of opinion is shifting, and if it goes on any longer the jerks like Jean & Ferro are gonna bring the hammer down hard. We need something to focus all the girls' energy, and this can be it! Everyone will be involved, and at the end we'll do one performance."
Claes gave a sigh, and thought about it for a few moments. "I will consider assisting in an advisory capacity."
"Great!" squealed the blonde girl, throwing her arms around her new adviser. "Let's go tell the others about it!" Disregarding the final 2 minutes of their exile from the classroom Triela rushed back in, dragging Claes by the wrist.
Alessandro noticed them immediately. "Welcome back, ladies. We're discussing the various means of safeguarding the data in your mobile phone, unless you have something more important to discuss."
"Actually, I do!" announced Triela, scampering down the steps to where the teacher stood, still dragging Claes along behind her. With her disgruntled room-mate by her side, the Senior Cyborg took up a position in front of the assembled class, and began to explain; "This morning, Mr. Hillshire has given permission, and promised logistical support for an all-cyborg production of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice." The previously drowsy audience began to perk up. Not every one of them was convinced, but they were at least interested.
"That sounds great Triela, but you can discuss it after class" commented Alessandro, trying to steer the conversation back toward information security. She did not let him.
"Everybody is going to scatter and go to their various afternoon training sessions after class," contended the girl, "we have to discuss this now. Mr. Hillshire is supervisor of academics, and he has agreed to suspend regular classes for 2 weeks while we work on the play..." That won more cyborgs over to Triela's side. "...we'll still have to keep up on our combat qualifications, but that leaves plenty of time in the day for rehearsals, set construction, wardrobe, whatever we need to do."
Sandro was losing patience, but he kept his cool, "Alright, have fun with that, but we need to finish this class first. Are there any questions about what we've been talking about?"
Agapita raised her hand. "Yes...is Mr. Hillshire going to help with the play?"
Rissi tossed his chalk over his shoulder and groaned "I give up." He grabbed his coat, and walked out the side-door of the classroom, leaving Triela in full command of the room. She answered the question; "No...we will have no outside help from the adults...this is a 100% cyborg production. Claes has already agreed to be the director..."
"Whaaat?"
"...and we'll figure out the rest from there."
Giada was next with a question; "This play can't possibly be all-female...what are we going to do about the male parts?"
"No problem," Triela assured her, "we'll just play them ourselves. I will personally take a male role. In fact, I have some rough ideas for who should play certain roles already. Marisa; I'd like you to play Shylock. He's a sympathetic character in the modern context, but in this play he's the villain...I figure a schemer like you would be perfect for the role."
Mari scratched her chin and took on an aspect of sinister delight. "I get to be the bad guy, eh?" She was already getting into character.
Triela continued; "Rico, I figured you would be good for Lorenzo..."
"Do I have to smoke a pipe?" asked the cyborg, with a little concern.
"No...Rico, you'll play Lorenzo the character...not Chief Lorenzo" explained the older girl, "They're two different people, they just have the same name, understand?"
Rico nodded, "Okay. But does the character Lorenzo smoke a pipe?"
"No Rico, nobody has to smoke a pipe" Triela groaned. She moved on; "'Etta, you can play Lorenzo's lover, Jessica."
"That's Shylock's daughter, right?" inquired Kara, who was familiar with motion-picture versions of the story. Claes nodded.
"Marisa...is my dad?" puzzled Henrietta. The red-head seated directly to her right immediately made a joke out of it.
Sitting bolt-upright in her chair and putting one hand on her hip Mari wagged a domineering finger at her fellow cyborg and barked "Clean your room! Walk the dog! And wipe that smart look off your face, Missy before I really give you something to cry about!"
The class roared with laughter, so Henrietta jumped right in on the jest. She threw her arms around Marisa's mid section and begged "Daddy...buy me a pony!" to which Mari sternly replied "No!"
Once the laughter had died down Triela handed out a few more roles, and they discussed jobs like set construction (Allison practically tore her desk from its mountings enthusiastically volunteering for that duty) costumes and lighting until lunch-time. It did not take long for all the cyborgs to get caught up by Triela's enthusiasm, and soon even the hold-outs were lured into the project.
_Day One_
It was decided that rehearsals & the actual performance would be conducted in the classroom, which was the only room with enough seating to accommodate the audience they hoped to get. Conflict popped up almost immediately, but Claes & Triela felt well prepared to deal with it.
"My set crew can't work if we're tripping over your actors!" protested Allison.
"Okay...okay" thought Triela out loud, "We'll move rehearsal for the actors over to one of the unoccupied dorm rooms."
"Eh, alright" replied Allison, "but if you all go to rehearse I won't have anyone left to help with sets. We need more people!"
Claes shook her head, "We're already tapped out. Every cyborg is being used for at least two jobs. A lot of them are even playing multiple roles. There's only me and the bomb-squad girls that don't have lines to memorize..."
Triela interrupted "Eh...correction to that," she laughed nervously, "The bomb-squad girls all have parts now." She'd been keeping that secret from her room-mate as long as she could.
"What?" exclaimed the dark haired girl, "Triela, what are we supposed to do with them? They're so heavily conditioned I might as well put blocks of wood on the stage!"
"Which is never gonna get built if you don't clear out of here" reminded Allison.
"I'm sorry!" pleaded Triela, "But they all showed up so eager to act!"
Claes slapped her forehead. "Eager?" she replied, "How the hell can you tell what they're feeling!"
"I just couldn't tell them no!"
"I could have!" growled Claes.
"Yeah," Triela replied, "that's why I kept it secret from you. None of them have many lines...it'll be fine!" The dark haired girl was still not happy about it, but she accepted that the bomb-squad girls were in her cast and there to stay.
"The problem of set construction still exists" pointed out Allison.
Triela felt a headache coming on, and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "Eh, yeah...the sets" she groaned.
"Allison, you can use everybody today..." Claes declared, "...by tomorrow I'll have a schedule worked out, who is in what scenes, and what scenes we're rehearsing on what day, alright?"
The older brunette girl nodded, and said "Sure, that works for me."
"Claes that's a really good idea;" her room-mate praised, "making you the director was the right decision!"
"Don't get too excited blondie," she growled in response, "this schedule is gonna be a massive job, and you're helping! Now move your skinny butt...we've got work to do!"
It took Triela & Claes all evening, and a good part of the night to finish the rehearsal schedule. The pair were up well past official lights-out time (even with the one hour extension) but they had it complete by morning. Like zombies they staggered down the steps to breakfast, and found their troupe of cyborg performers waiting.
Kara spoke for the group "Did you finish it?"
"Breakfast?" growled Claes, "No, we haven't even started it."
"No! The schedule!" Ilaria exclaimed, "Somebody go get Claes & Triela some breakfast so they can show us the rehearsal schedule!" In a flash, there were 4 full trays of food thrust before the room-mates. Claes regarded it all with a sneer and muttered, "I have a vascular test today...yoghurt only if you please."
Accepting that they would not be left alone until they produced some results Triela unfolded the paper she and her room-mate had worked on all night. It wasn't pretty, there seemed to be more eraser smudges than actual pencil marks, but the other girls crowded around it enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically it turned out; as Rico squirmed her way into the knot of cyborgs for a look she bumped Petrushka, who in turn stumbled into Alba, who was knocked off balance and spilled her coffee...all over the schedule.
At first there was a chorus of shrieks, and frantic calls for "more napkins," but that was followed by angry finger pointing, and accusations as to who's fault it was. Triela, who had not even had the chance to grab one bite yet, sprang from her seat to play the peacemaker. "Cut it out!" shouted the Senior Cyborg, bringing the riot to a fast halt. She took a few calming breaths and continued in a softer voice "Claes & I will get copies of the schedule made up in time for rehearsal this afternoon...until then, everybody back off and let us eat, okay?" Triela looked down at Claes, who had not said a word. She was ignoring the whole scene, quietly eating her yoghurt.
_The Mad Scientist_
Despite Triela's original plan that the cyborgs would do the play with no outside adult help, Priscilla made a priceless contribution by converting the coffee stained, hand-written rehearsal schedule into a convenient spreadsheet document which could easily be printed and amended as necessary. That afternoon things actually began to move smoothly. Claes had finally dispensed with her previous reservations about the project & stepped into the role of command as director, working her actors so efficiently that Triela actually found herself with nothing to do for the first time. As the scene at Jessica's window was rehearsed (Henrietta tossing caskets of ducats in the form of shoe-boxes down to her lover Rico from a top bunk) the blonde cyborg wandered over to the classroom to check on Allison's progress.
"Things are going great, Boss Lady!" reported Allison, offering Triela a cup of coffee (Triela got the feeling Allison was on at least her 7th), "By this evening we'll have the holes cut in the main wall for the hydraulic lines."
"Whoa...come again?"
"Holes," explained the brunette, "we need to cut holes in the building to run the hydraulic lines in. Can't run a diesel powered hydraulic pump inside...we'll asphyxiate our audience in the first act!"
Triela went pale. "Allison, you can't cut holes in the walls! What do you need hydraulics for anyway?"
"Lots of stuff" she replied, "It'll move the gondola's through the canals, control all the special effects, and operate the curtain...trust me it'll be awesome! Besides, I have to cut holes to drain the water out anyway."
"Water?" muttered Triela, afraid to ask.
Allison nodded and answered "Well of course there has to be water, silly. This play takes place in Venice after all. The sets are going to be surrounded by water, and so will the audience...it's really gonna set the mood!"
Triela stood there, jaw agape, unable to process everything that was going through her head. On one hand, she was sorry she had come over at all, but on the other she was glad she'd caught Allison before things got really insane. "You can not flood the whole classroom! For one thing there's a basement underneath us!"
"Yeah, good point..." muttered the mad-scientist of the dormitory, "...I might have to re-enforce the floor to take the extra weight, and the whole place will have to be cofferdamed."
"No it won't!" snapped Triela, taking her sister-cyborg by the shoulders and shaking her. "No hydraulics! No cutting holes in the building! And absolutely NO flooding the classroom! Plywood...cardboard...paper-mâché...that's all we need! Don't get crazy Allison, the performance is less than 2 weeks away and you're trying to build a Broadway set! This isn't New York...this isn't London...this is just our classroom!"
"Paper-mâché?" Allison snorted in contempt. "That's lame! I don't see why we can't make this play the best it can be."
Convincing Allison not to go insanely overboard on the sets would take a different strategy, so Triela asked, "Allie, if you flood the entire room, and the extra weight causes the whole building to cave in because you cut holes in a load bearing wall, what do you think Jean is gonna do to you? Let me re-phrase that; what do you think he's gonna do to us, because anything you get blamed for I'm gonna share in. Think about it for a few hours if you have to...what's the worst, most awful, horrible thing the Field Commander could do to you? Once you've decided, consider this...Jean is way meaner and way more imaginative than either of us...so it's gonna be worse than anything you can dream up."
The brunette cyborg stood silent for a few moments, but her blonde haired counterpart could practically hear the gears shifting in her mind. Finally Allison replied "Ya know...I think I could do a lot with paper-mâché."
One crisis averted, Triela walked back to the rehearsal room, feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She would still have to check on Allison and her work daily, to see that things did not slip back into the realm of coffee-fueled insanity, but at least she'd won the first battle.
"Good, you're back," said Claes, "we're ready to run through the scene where Bassanio asks Antonio for 3000 ducats. Agapita, Triela, you're on!"
"Aww damn...does anybody have a script I can read?" asked Triela, "I haven't memorized this scene yet."
Her room mate gave a heavy groan of disapproval and growled "You were just gone for nearly an hour, what the hell were you doing, screwing around?"
_Casting the Doge_
A whole week of rehearsals & preparations had passed, and the strain was wearing on both Claes & Triela. Even with some cyborgs playing 2 parts, and some even taking on 3 it was clear that the cast was at least one cyborg short. "What about Donatello?" muttered Claes, as she lay in bed one night, exhausted by the day's work.
"No, she's still kinda catatonic after what happened in Milan" sighed Triela.
"We could use her for old Gobbo...he just kinda mumbles his lines anyway."
"I already asked," admitted Triela, "and Dr. Bianchi is still afraid she might try to kill everyone."
The next morning Triela walked back from her morning practice at the outdoor range alone. She desperately needed some time alone to think. This project had gone beyond Mr. Hillshire depending on her...now all the cyborgs were counting on her to figure things out and make this work as well. If she had just one more actor this could all work out. At that moment, a miracle solution appeared.
"Hey! Monty! Wait up!" At the sound of her voice the slim short-haired brunette sped up, although laden as she was with an awkward arm-full of files it was difficult. All she wanted to do was get the reports from she & Jethro's last trip turned in without running into any other cyborgs and getting tied up in a long, meaningless gossip session. The girl calling to her could not be avoided though...she sped up to a full run in order to catch Monty. "Almost missed you" panted Triela, "I didn't know you were back from Egypt yet."
Amongst all her fellow cyborgs, Triela was the one Monty disliked the least, so she consented to stop and talk a few minutes. In truth she felt like venting anyway. "The Skipper & I got called back we did, or else we'd still be down there! Some bloody rot about peace talks or something. Damned inconvenient time for peace to break out if you ask me!"
"Yeah, we've been out of action for a couple of weeks because of that," Triela explained, "I'm surprised it took them this long to recall you & Jethro as well."
"Well," admitted Monty, "truth is we got the order a few weeks ago and conveniently forgot to reply. Old Lorenzo got rather cross by the third warning. We arrived on compound just last night."
Feeling that she'd conducted enough small-talk Triela got to the point; "So, you've only been home a few hours, I don't suppose you've heard the big news."
"About who?" muttered the brunette, fearing that this conversation was sliding into the kind of gossip she wanted to avoid.
"Well, Shakespeare" answered Triela, who hoped she could entice her fellow cyborg by being a bit evasive. Monty was not very sociable, but she did have a curious streak that Triela wanted to use to her own advantage.
It worked, if only a little, but Monty tried not to let her interest show. "What could be news about William Shakespeare? That geezer's been dead near 400 years now."
"We're performing one of his plays right here on the compound!" announced the blonde girl, "We cyborgs are playing all the roles...in fact we're doing everything!"
"Really?" replied Monty, cocking her eyebrow, "You'll have to tell me how it all went."
"I was hoping you'd be there to see for yourself."
Monty breathed a heavy, exaggerated sigh and conceded "Alright, save me a seat in the back row." She could tolerate a few hours in a room with her fellow cyborgs.
Triela had her sights set higher than that. "Actually, I was thinking of giving you the best seat in the house...right up on stage!"
This time Monty looked at her as if she were completely insane. "Are you on a bad batch of conditioning? What makes you think this is something I would ever consider doing?"
"Come on!" pleaded the Senior Cyborg, "Monty you're the biggest Anglophile I know, and Shakespeare was England's greatest playwright! Isn't it your duty to the Queen or something?"
Monty rolled her eyes. "That is the worst pitch I've ever heard" she muttered in response.
"You'd be doing me a huge favor" Triela continued. "Let's go inside...just give me a few minutes, I know I can convince you that this will be fun! Here, I'll even help you carry your files."
Monty dumped all the files into Triela's arms and growled "I'll give you 5 minutes."
"You're late" growled Claes, as Triela showed up for rehearsal. "You shouldn't have taken a lead role if you're too busy to show up and practice your scenes."
"Sorry" she apologized, sitting down next to her room-mate as their fellow cyborgs rehearsed a scene with Portia & Nerissa "how are the others doing?"
"They're awful, what did you expect?" Just as Claes said that Rico stepped forward and spoke a line from an entirely different part of the play.
Claes called cut and corrected her; "Rico, you don't say that until act 3...Lorenzo isn't even in this scene!"
"Sorry!"
"Pick up right where you left off..." muttered Claes.
"Listen, I solved our actor shortage," whispered Triela, "I talked Monty into playing the Duke of Venice. That frees up Ilaria to play Gratiano like we wanted to do from the beginning."
"Hold on!" objected Claes, "What do you mean you talked Monty into doing this? Is this the same Monty who called me a piece of furniture the last time she was on compound? Has she been re-conditioned since the last time I saw her?"
"No" admitted Triela, "she's the same old Monty...but it's okay...she's agreed to be in the play and I didn't even have to beg much."
Claes did not look happy. "Alright, we're running through the trial scene today, where is she?"
"Eh, heh heh, funny thing about that;" Triela laughed nervously, "she doesn't wanna rehearse with us. She says she'll learn her lines and show up on time for the performance, but that's all."
"Triellllllllaaaaa" growled the girl in glasses, "If she screws up or bails on us I'm holding you personally responsible!"
"She's only in that one scene...it'll be alright, I promise!"
"And who are we going to use as a stand-in during rehearsals for the rest of us?"
Triela smiled nervously and suggested "Eh...how about you?"
_ Capitoline Hill_
Neither Triela nor Claes slept a wink on the night before performance day. They each lay silent in their bunks, wondering if the other was sleeping but unwilling to speak up and ask.
As usual it was Claes who got out of bed first when the sun finally came up. She climbed down from her top bunk, walked to the window to have a look at the weather but did not open it. It was gray & overcast as it had been for weeks, but at least it wasn't raining. Triela yawned and sat up in bed when she saw Claes up. "Did you get any sleep last night?"
"A few minutes maybe," sighed the dark haired girl, "not much."
"Me neither" Triela replied. "Big day today."
"I'll be glad when it's over."
Their conversation was interrupted by a sound they had not heard in weeks; the telephone rang. Looking a bit confused Claes let it ring 3 times before answering. "Hello? Yes...she's right here...no, we're both already awake..." Face pale, she held out the receiver to her room-mate and said "It's Mr. Hillshire for you Triela...you have a mission."
Triela exploded out of her warm bed, scattering the pillows, covers and two teddy bears. "Hillshire, this is Triela, what's going on?"
"We've gotten orders," he informed her, "just a simple one day thing. The Prime Minister is giving a speech today at the Palazzo Senatorio and they want us on the rooftop covering watching for snipers."
"B-but what about the peace talks?" she stammered, still in shock, "Won't this violate the agreement?"
"Nobody will see us up there, it's not like we're doing an assassination or raiding a safe-house" explained her handler. "If all goes as expected we'll spend a few hours on a rooftop and go home without ever firing a shot."
"Hillshire! This is the day of the performance!" protested Triela, "What if we're not back in time?"
Victor tried to reassure the frantic cyborg. "Calm down, the Prime Minister's speech begins at noon, we'll be back home in plenty of time."
Triela was unconvinced; "What if we aren't?" she snapped at him, "The PM is always late, and always long winded!"
"Watch that tone of voice, young lady" warned Hillshire, getting a little bit annoyed. "I know the play is important to you, and know you've worked very hard, but we have our orders. Even Chief Lorenzo tried to pass this one off to Section One but the Minister of Defense specifically requested Section 2 and specifically requested you & I. Now get dressed, get some breakfast and get your equipment together, now!"
There was nothing else to say but "Yes Sir."
As soon as she hung up the phone Claes asked "What's going on?"
"Hillshire & I have to go to Capitoline Hill today to cover the Prime Minister's damned speech!" spat Triela, roughly yanking a small duffel bag out of her wardrobe and tossing the things she'd need into it. She then selected an outfit she knew Hillshire did not like, and topped it off with her well worn beige trench-coat, in case it did rain.
"What if you're not back in time?" demanded Claes, "You have one of the lead roles...and we don't have an understudy to take your place!"
"I'll do my best" sighed Triela, "but orders are orders. You might have to stall for time, or we might just have to postpone the performance."
"What about the preparations?" continued an increasingly frantic Claes, "It's going to take hours to get everything assembled and get everyone into costume. I can't do this all by myself!"
"Sorry Claes, you have to" was the only answer Triela could give, "you're the director, I know you can do it...and I'll be back as soon as I can to help!"
As Triela left she got one more great idea. Hillshire had told her to bring whatever equipment she needed, so she made a quick stop to grab one last, important piece of equipment.
Victor Hillshire was already waiting in front of the dormitory when Triela came running down the front steps. He gave a disapproving glance at his watch to indicate that she had taken longer than expected. "Triela, why are you dragging Allison along?"
"Yeah?" yawned the sleepy brunette, whom Triela had just moments ago yanked out of bed and forced to get dressed, "Why are you dragging me along?"
"I just thought we might need another cyborg along...just in case" explained the Senior Cyborg, pushing Allison into the back seat of Hillshire's Mercedes. "Besides, Allison was telling me all about how eager she was to see the Prime Minister for the first time."
"I was?"
"Yes...you wouldn't stop talking about it!"
Victor Hillshire knew his cyborg was up to something, but they were running late already, so he simply replied "Fine. Did you clear this with McDonnell first?"
"He didn't object" answered Triela. Because I didn't even call him. It was only a little lie.
Just as Triela had predicted, the Prime Minister was late. It was already 2pm, and the rain had started to fall on she, Allison & Hillshire as they sat on the roof of the Palazzo Senatorio, sheltered only by their raincoats.
"You dragged me out of bed for this?" growled Allison, chewing on a cold sandwich, "I thought we were going to see the Prime Minister. Come to think of it, when did I ever say I was eager to see the Prime Minister anyway? That doesn't even sound like something I'd say!"
"Just bear with me Allie" replied Triela, "I'm pretty sure I might really need you before the day is over."
"Well has it occurred to you that today is the day of our play?"
"Of course it is!" Triela muttered, "Do you think I planned for this to happen? I had to leave poor Claes in charge of all the set-up! Your sets are all ready to go I hope."
Allison answered "Finished them 2 days ago, all I need is an audience."
2 more hours passed and the girls were getting nervous. Every 5 minutes they badgered Hillshire to radio for an update on the Prime Minister's status. "No new information, all security teams stand-by" was the reply he got every time.
"Arrggghhh! This is ridiculous! We're supposed to raise the curtain in less than 2 hours!" growled Triela, "Where is that jerk? You think he could be on time for his own speech at least once in his life!"
"What is he supposed to be speaking about today anyway?" Allison asked.
"Security & terrorism" muttered Hillshire.
That surprised both girls. "Right in the middle of peace talks?" asked Triela, "Isn't that kind of provocative?"
Shifting into teacher mode, Hillshire made the situation into a lesson. "What does that tell you, girls?" They both thought about it for a minute, but neither Triela nor Allison ventured a guess. "It means the talks aren't going well" Victor explained, "The PM is making this speech to put pressure on the Five Republics Faction...show them he's ready to walk away from the negotiations."
"So we might be back in action soon?" asked Allison.
Hillshire did not provide a straight answer; "We'll just have to wait and see."
Just then the rooftop door popped open. In a flash both cyborgs had their weapons drawn, Triela covering her handler like a shield, Allison rolling into a flanking position. "Hold on...don't shoot!" called out a nervous security guard, "I just came to tell you...the 3 of you might want to come in out of the rain. The Prime Minister has canceled his appearance today because of the weather. It's already on the TV news."
"Damn it..." growled Allison, "...4 hours on a rooftop, soaked to the bone for nothing! And now we're gonna be late for the play too."
"No we aren't!" replied Triela, already breaking down the sniper rifle and packing it away as fast as she could. "Why do you think I dragged you along?"
Just under an hour later Hillshire's Mercedes came sliding up to the Social Welfare Agency's front gate, but it was not Victor Hillshire driving. Allison had made record time getting out of the city and driven the rural roads at ludicrous speed, sliding the big Benz E-class estate wagon through the wet corners like a rally car. To the chagrin of both cyborgs, the gate guard took his time donning a raincoat and slowly exiting the guard shack.
"Come on...come on!" growled Triela, shoving her laminated ID badge over Allison and out the driver's side window, "You too Hillshire! Show him your ID!" Up to this point Victor Hillshire had been sitting, rigidly braced in the back-seat, thanking providence for the gift of survival after a 45 minute ride with the manic Allison. Shaking hands fumbled with his wallet, but the German finally produced his identification. That did not speed the gate guard up any, who seemed intent on examining every square centimeter of the three Section 2 ID cards. "Flavio, you know who we are, what's the damn problem?" protested Triela.
"You know the rules, Miss...coming in from a mission?" he replied lazily, rain drops bouncing off his hat and into the Mercedes.
Triela groaned and tossed herself back in the passenger seat. "Yes! A stupid, pointless mission that's making us late right now! Can we go now?"
"Don't see why not" answered Flavio, handing back the 3 ID cards and waving to the guard-tower that controlled the gate. As soon as the yellow & black bar was raised Allison took off, spinning the rear tires on the wet asphalt. "Hey!" Flavio protested, "40 kilometers per hour limit on compound!" but neither Allison nor Triela could hear him, or even cared what he was yelling about.
"Claes, we're back!" announced Triela, who had gone straight to the classroom, not even changing out of her wet clothes. "How are we doing?"
The dark haired girl gave a mighty sigh of relief when she saw her room-mate. "About 50-50. The sets Allison built are gigantic, I don't know how we're going to move them, and Monty still hasn't shown up...but the rest of the stuff is falling into place."
"Costumes?" asked Triela.
"We've got almost everyone in their outfits for the first act...and the rest of the stuff is on hangers, arranged by scenes." Claes explained, "You better get ready! Bassanio is in the first scene & he comes up quick! Agapita, Cora & Alba are already on stage...Rico & Ilaria are waiting for you."
With a nod, Triela rushed to the storage room that had been set aside for wardrobe and quick changes. "How's everyone doing?" she asked the cyborgs already getting dressed and having their make-up done by Petrushka. The red-haired dancer had drafted her handler in to help as well. Despite her previous edict that this would be a cyborg's only production Triela could hardly object to Sandro's help...it was obvious that they certainly needed it, and his skills were as polished as those of any girl.
"Everything on schedule" Kara assured her, helping the wet girl out of her clothes and handing her the costume for Bassanio's first scene. Nobody was officially in charge of wardrobe, but Kara had taken charge of this important area by default, and done a good job of it in spite of a non-existent budget.
Triela gave a grateful smile as she squeezed into her outfit. It wasn't perfectly accurate for Venice in the 16th century (she was sure Mr. Hillshire would point out the anachronisms tomorrow), but it was good enough. She regarded herself in a full length mirror and despite being dressed as a young man, was pleased with what she saw. I should wear tights more often.
A short figure with a red hat (as Jewish men were required to wear in Venice during that period) covering red hair passed behind Triela and caught her eye. Marisa had one of the most important parts, so the Senior Cyborg turned to ask if she was ready. "Hey Mari...OH MY GOD! Marisa, what did you do?"
"What do you mean?" asked the 11 year old nonchalantly.
Wide eyed with horror Triela exclaimed "I mean your face!"
Mari shrugged her shoulders and replied "Shylock should have a beard, right?" She had a beard...scribbled directly on her face with black marker. Triela lunged forward and tried to rub it off, to no avail.
Attracted by the commotion Claes appeared, "What's going on...oh god! Marisa, what the hell did you do to your face?" She spit on a handkerchief and joined Triela's efforts to rub the magic-marker beard off, but their efforts were futile. "Did you use permanent marker?"
"My life for the theater!" replied Marisa with an exaggerated flourish.
"All 3 of our lives are gonna be finished when Mr. Alboreto see's this!" groaned Claes, still trying to scrub the marker off. "Ooohhh man...we're dead!"
Marisa was not being helpful, squirming and fighting her efforts. "Relax Claes!" she protested, "It's not a big deal...I get permanent marker ink on my fingers all the time...it'll rub off in a few days."
"Mari, you know we have fake beards...right?" Kara muttered.
"Oh..." replied the younger girl, "that would look a lot better. I think I'd like one of those instead."
Triela slapped her forehead in frustration and said "Claes, we're only a few minutes from curtain...you're needed backstage. Kara, see what you can do with Marisa, please. Maybe if we get lucky Mr. Alboreto won't have us all re-conditioned. I have to find Monty!"
"Did somebody call?" asked a self confident, slightly smart-ass voice. Triela gave a mighty sigh of relief and threw her arms around the brunette girl. "Hey! Back off...personal space invasion! I don't want these boffins thinking we're a couple."
"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show up!" exclaimed the blonde girl breathlessly.
Monty leaned back and replied "I told you I would be here. Bloody lot of lines I had to memorize though...but I'm ready."
"What do you mean a lot of lines?" asked Triela, "You're only in one scene."
"I'm the Duke, aren't I?" asked Monty, "I'm in practically every scene!"
"What are you taking about? The Duke of Venice only appears during the trial scene where Shylock wants to cut a pound of flesh from Antonio."
"Duke of Venice?" muttered Monty with a blank expression, "I thought I was the Duke of Milan...we're doing The Tempest, right?"
"No! The Merchant of Venice! Monty...did you rehearse the wrong play?" gasped Triela, "Please tell me you didn't rehearse the wrong play!"
"Oh my..." Monty replied, "...well that's embarrassing."
"EMBARRASSING?" shouted the horrified Triela, "This is a disaster!"
Monty shrugged her shoulders and answered "Well, I'll just have to wing it...I'm sure nobody will notice." Before Triela could say anything else Monty disappeared behind a rack of costumes, and Allison came to fetch her.
"Come on" Allison urged, pulling Triela along, "The curtain goes up in just a few minutes."
_The Merchant of Venice_
A quick peek at the audience confirmed that all of Section 2 had shown up for the performance. Chief Lorenzo had the position of honor, front-row center, and at his right hand was Jean Croce. Triela got the feeling he was under orders to be there...if Jean had come on his own he'd have selected a seat nearer the exit so he could slip out for a cigarette. Next to him was his younger brother, and Mr. Hillshire sat next to Giuseppe. Filling the rest of the seats were all the other handlers, and all of Ferro's support staff. Even Mr. Ramsey the groundskeeper was there...the only one to catch Triela peeking through the curtain, he gave her a thumbs up sign and a toothy smile. It was a much bigger turn-out than anyone had expected, and folding chairs had to be brought in for the overflow. That just made the Senior Cyborg more nervous.
"Relax" came the calming voice of Claes. The girl in glasses stood with a smile on her face. "We've done all we can; whatever happens...happens. Let's just have fun with this, okay?"
"I suppose" Triela replied, matching her room-mates' smile, "I'm sorry I dragged you into all this, but I couldn't have done it without you."
"I'm glad that you did" admitted Claes, "I'm not a part of so much that you and the other cyborgs do...it was fun being right at the center of the storm for once. Thank you."
"Eh, Claes..." Triela ventured, not sure if she should speak the next few words "...would you feel the same way if I told you Monty rehearsed the wrong play?"
"What the fuck?"
"Too late now...curtain's coming up!"
The great all-cyborg performance of The Merchant of Venice earned its place in history as one of the monumental disasters in the history of theater. One thing that became apparent quickly was that Allison's sets...while brilliantly constructed out of sensible materials...were too large to be moved around backstage. Triela had managed to talk her out of hydraulics, fireworks, water effects, and structural changes to the building, but she had not succeeded in shrinking the scale of Allison's coffee-fueled imagination. Lengthy gaps between scenes were necessary, with some of the audience being required to get up out of their seats so the massive sets could be maneuvered into place. It was hardly Broadway or the London West End.
On stage things were not much better. Henrietta never took her eyes off Giuseppe in the audience, causing several of her fellow actors to miss cues. Rico shouted every one of her lines at the top of her lungs, and when Avise Mancini whispered to a fellow handler "We can't hear you Rico" she failed to understand the joke and turned directly to him, repeating the line even louder for his benefit. Even the stoic bomb squad girls laughed at that.
Marisa turned out to be one of the worst hams in the history of acting. She strutted around the stage like a pantomime villain, stroking her beard and delivering every one of her lines with in bombastic fashion, making them sound comically over the top. She did impress her audience when she came to Shylock's soliloquy about justice and revenge...by actually pricking herself with a hidden dagger when she came to her line "if you prick us, do we not bleed?" The sight of real blood on stage surprised even her fellow cast members...she had not given any indication of her plan to do that during any rehearsal.
Even Triela screwed up at one point. She was playing Bassanio and the Prince of Morocco, both suitors to Portia. When it came time for the foolish Prince to select which casket contained the portrait of fair Portia, Triela accidentally chose the lead casket instead of gold...which she was not supposed to do until later when she was playing Bassanio.
At last the trial scene came...the test of Monty's plan to "wing it." Claes & Triela watched nervously, expecting the worst, but their sneaky cyborg-sister delivered her lines perfectly, exposing that it had all been a prank...Monty had known the correct lines all along. "I don't know whether to thank her or kill her" confessed Triela later on. Monty escaped from the compound the next morning, so Triela's plans to do either would have to wait until another visit.
Capping it all off there was an uncomfortable moment when Gina, playing Portia, held her final kiss with Bassanio way too long for comfort, only releasing Triela when she started to squirm. All through the performance both Triela & Claes had cringed at the overall horribleness of their work, but when the final curtain fell they were greeted by the unexpected sound of tremendous applause. Their fellow cyborgs were all laughing, smiling and giving each other congratulatory hugs as if they had just premiered the greatest play the world had ever known. It did not seem to matter that it was terrible...everyone, audience & participants had considered it great fun.
Triela joined her fellow cast members for a final bow and another round of riotous applause. Claes waited in the wings until even the director was forced out on stage, blushing furiously. To the sound of cheers from her actors & adult audience members she was presented with a bouquet from the Chief himself. At a loss for words, Claes could only give a courteous bow.
As the handlers and staff members left their seats and the mixed with their cyborgs nobody noticed Jean slip away quietly. He came back a few moments later, and pulled Chief Lorenzo aside. The two men spoke gravely for a minute or two, beginning to attract attention from all of the collected Section 2 members. Finally, Lorenzo addressed them all: "Ladies & Gentlemen, for better or worse, I have some news. We've all had a fine time tonight, thanks to the hard work of our cyborg members and all those that supported them, but it's back to work tomorrow. The Minister of Defense has notified us that peace talks with the Five Republics Faction have broken down. We should have specific information on our missions and targets by tomorrow...until then, everyone get a good night's rest. Our down-time is over."
The news was met with mixed responses, but for the most part nobody was very upset to be getting back to work. One by one the fratelli left the classroom/theater to get the good night's rest that Chief Lorenzo had ordered. Last to leave was Hillshire. When Claes saw him approach she made a courteous exit, allowing her room-mate a private moment with her handler.
"That was probably the worst performance of any Shakespeare play...ever" laughed Triela.
"Nonsense" replied Hillshire, "it was the finest example of adolescent cyborg assassin theater I or anyone else has ever seen."
The girl rolled her eyes and muttered "Jeeze, you really know how to give a double-edged compliment" but she still smiled. "I think everyone had fun."
"They did" Victor assured her, "and most important, you stepped up and solved the problem I gave you...in a way I never would have imagined." He put his arms around his cyborg and embraced her. "You did great...congratulations." Although she would never admit it, Triela felt wonderful when he said that, and wished he would never let go.
When he finally did let go, and left her alone, Claes walked back up. Without a word the two girls sat down, and then flopped back on their backs on stage. "So that's it" sighed Triela, "seems funny that it's all over."
"I know" agreed Claes.
For a long time they were both silent, until the dark haired girl in glasses finally said "So, I think we should do A Midsummer Night's Dream next, what do you think?"
END