This story uses characters and locations based on the Gunslinger Girl manga written by Yu Aida and published in monthly shōnen magazine Dengeki Daioh. The characters of Kara and Michele are original to myself. The characters of Jessie and Amy are original to Alfisti.
"The Caretaker"
A Gunslinger Girl Original Story by Chris Wallace
SOCIAL WELFARE AGENCY COMPOUND
ABRUZZO / LAZIO BORDER, EAST OF ROME
Claes lay back on the bed, her eyes closed against the sunlight streaming through the windows.
"Remember when we first met?" Michele asked.
"I remember snapping at you as to why you were here," Claes recalled.
"Nobody had told you I was being assigned Captain Raballo's old quarters so you thought I was intruding on 'your' room. And I'd suddenly woken you up. I suppose I was fortunate you weren't Henrietta, otherwise I might not have survived," Michele added with a smile.
"Hilshire once burst into our room early one morning to get Triela up for a snap priority mission. She popped out of sleep and smacked her head against the bottom of my bunk. The impact darn near knocked me out of bed," Claes noted.
"When I had to wake Kara up, I'd tickle the inside of he foot while standing well to one side," Michele noted.
"I'll remember to wear my shoes in bed from now on," Claes informed him. "Still, you were an adult and I was a child. I should have shown you more respect."
"Your directness was one of the things that interested me," Michele replied with a smile.
"Hung by my own petard," Claes said and closed her eyes again.
"Speaking of shoes in bed, I believe you were wearing a similar outfit," Michele recalled.
Claes smirked.
"I am sure my boots were not from Christian Louboutin nor my miniskirt and top from Burberry. I used to curse your name during our first missions together because I had to concentrate on what top went with what bottom and which shoes and accessories matched both and each other. Kara and Petra looked to me like strutting peacocks who spent what seemed like hours agonizing over what to wear and how they looked."
"So what changed your opinion?"
"I was no longer a little girl," Claes replied, simply. "I was 13 when we were first paired. Over the years, I grew more comfortable as my biological age started to catch up with my revised physical age. At 19, I'm now effectively as old as I look. And I realized that I liked how I looked when we were together - the appreciative looks from the guys and the envious stares from the girls."
"'Vanity, thy name is woman'. To coin a phrase," Michele said.
"The actual line in Hamlet was 'Frailty, thy name is woman'," Claes retorted.
"I was thinking of Daffy Duck in The Scarlet Pumpernickel," Michele verbally volleyed.
"I'd like to stop by the dormitory, please," Michele said as they descended the steps.
"Uh, okay," Claes replied.
They walked down the road and into the building where the cybernetic girls lived. Walking up to the third floor, Michele was reminded how the inside of the building seemed like a hotel with long corridors and evenly-spaced doors with numbers.
At the corner door, Michele knocked once and a female voice bid him to enter.
Two girls with short dark hair sat on parallel beds, one with her back to the door. The one facing the door jumped up.
"General Pagani! Welcome home!" she exclaimed. First snapping off a Benny Hill-style salute, she then rushed forward across the second bed and gave Michele a fierce hug.
"Hello Gattonero," Michele said with a smile.
"Michele, this is Agapita," Gattonero added as she pulled away. The other girl snapped to attention.
"Agapita, cyborg to Major Avise Mancini, Garibaldi Bersaglieri Brigade, at your service, General."
"Uh, at ease," he stated and the girl moved into a respectable version of Parade Rest. Michele felt he should know her, but the connection refused to come. He admired her sense of style - a tufted blouse and tie of turquoise silk and an ankle-length pleated dress in a sheer silk dyed bright red. He also noticed that the red color of the beret on her head matched the color of the traditional fez's worn by the Bersaglieri.
"Back in the day, I was roommates with Michele's cyborg Kara," Gattonero informed Agapita.
As they walked back to the car after catching up with Gattonero, Claes noticed the girl and boy from the Caterham examining the Aventador. The girl looked up and smiled brightly.
"Is it as amazing to drive as I imagine?" she asked.
"Uh, it's okay, I guess. I prefer the Veyron, to be honest," Claes replied.
"You have a Veyron?" the girl asked. "A Bugatti Veyron?" she added, as if there might be another car with the same name.
"Yes. It was my daily driver in Milan," Claes replied.
The girl blinked furiously. Beside her, the boy put a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay, Ali?" he asked, genuine concern in his voice.
"Michele here never saw a million Euro supercar he didn't like," Claes said.
"That is not true. I'll remind you that I didn't buy the One-77 or the Reventón," Michele stated, referring to the latest supercars developed by Aston Martin and Lamborghini.
"You bought the Ferrari FXX. And that McLaren," Claes retorted.
"The MP4-12C?" the girl asked, referring to the new car from McLaren Automotive.
"No, the first one," Claes stated.
The girl turned to Michele.
"You have a McLaren F1?"
"His supercar collection is worthy of a museum," Claes noted. "Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins. Even race cars."
The girl thrust her hand out at Michele.
"Allison McDonnell," she introduced herself. "This is my bo—my friend, Jay Valentine."
"Michele Pagani."
"Claes Johansson."
The light of recognition dawned in Allison's eyes.
"You're the Caretaker!" she exclaimed to Claes. Beside her, the boy's face registered surprise at the sudden revelation.
Claes frowned. Petrushka had given her that nickname and it appeared that it had circulated amongst the new girls.
"You seem familiar with high performance motoring," Michele noted. "I saw your Caterham on the way in."
"My specialty is high-speed pursuit and mobile-attack operations," Allison replied. "Though I wish we had cars like this in the motorpool," she added. "It's just Fiats and Lancias, which are so boring."
"Doesn't Jean Croce still have his CL 500?"
"I wish!" Allison cried. "The government gave him a Lancia Thema, which is evidently some re-badged American car now – and it has a diesel. Having to act as a chauffer for him is torture! At least I have my Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione II for the weekends."
"We should be going," Claes noted and Michele nodded.
"It was a pleasure to meet you Miss McDonnell; Mr. Valentine," Michele added and moved around to the passenger side and Claes settled into the driver's seat. She fired the V12 to life and motored off.
"Who was that?" a tall blonde girl sucking on a lollipop asked.
"Hey, Laine. He's evidently one of the original handlers," Allison replied.
"Michele's back?" Laine exclaimed.
"How did you know it was him?" Allison asked.
"That's the latest Lamborghini," Laine replied in a tone as if that made it obvious who it would be.
"I need to invite this man to lunch," Allison mused.
TAKEHARA
HIROSHIMA PREFECTURE, JAPAN
SATURDAY
"Well I'm glad I wore boots," Claes noted as she watched a river of water flow past her on the street of inlaid grey square bricks as they stood under the awning of the Hoboro okonomiyaki restaurant. She'd just had her first experience with "Japanese pizza" and overall found it enjoyable.
"If this keeps up, the teru teru bōzu won't be washed in sake," Michele noted, referring to how the hand-made dolls made of white paper or cloth hung to prevent a rainy day are treated if they successfully perform their function.
"And I was really looking forward to seeing the lanterns after dark," Claes noted wistfully. They'd arrived in the afternoon and the air was filled with the smell of cut bamboo shoots and the candles glowing inside them. All of the shoots had been laid on their sides to keep the insides dry, a few with candles still burning throwing out pools of light in front of them across the glistening bricks.
"I guess it won't be much of a lantern lighting festival," Claes mused.
"Have faith. There are still a couple of hours until nightfall," Michele stated, hopefully. "Let's head up the hill," he added and both of them deployed their umbrellas and stepped into the street.
The rain continued to fall as night approached. Claes and Michele returned to town at four and decided to have coffee at a place called Café Tamayura.
"Worst case we can catch an early train back to Tokyo," Michele noted as he sipped his coffee.
Claes turned towards a group of high school girls at a table, one of them with pigtails reminiscent of Triela's shouting at an elementary school girl.
"Not quite the tea parties you and Triela used to host, eh?" Michele said and Claes shook her head as she returned to her tea.
After about thirty minutes, the rain finally stopped and the skies began to clear, allowing the stars to come out. Workers and shopkeepers rushed to right the bamboo sticks and re-light the candles. Tarps were removed from the larger displays and quickly lit. Soon the entire city was enveloped in the soft glow of candlelight from the bamboo lanterns that lined the streets.
In addition to the bamboo lights, there were paper lanterns that people had written wishes or drawn pictures on. Michele and Claes each took part and created one, which they then lit and placed on the ground with the rest. A large public area held a stage and rows of plastic chairs where people could listen to musicians.
Michele noticed one of the high school girls was snapping pictures with a 35mm film camera. While he had his own digital SLR, he asked if she could take a picture of Claes and himself below a tunnel made entirely of bamboo strips and lit by scores of bamboo lanterns. After a good bit of nervous stuttering, the girl agreed and Michele left her his address in Milan and a ¥1000 note to cover the postage. He also used the camera, a Rollei 35S, to take a picture of the girl and her friends under the same tunnel.
ABOARD ALL NIPPON AIRLINES JA801A
12,000M ABOVE ISE BAY
Claes looked out the large oval window of the Boeing 787-881 down on the lights of the city of Nagoya as they passed to the east. In the seat beside her, Michele used his left hand to sip from a can of cola while he swiped a finger of his right across the surface of his iPad, flicking through the photos he'd taken in Takehara.
"That was a beautiful event," Claes noted. "Kind of a cross between the Luminara di Santa Croce and Festa della Rificolona." The former was a festival of lights performed in the city of Lucca in Tuscany and the latter a feast with paper lanterns celebrated in Florence. Both took place in September.
"Yes, Kara found it very beautiful, as well," Michele replied. "She also enjoyed the Lantern Festival that ends the Chinese New Year. Shanghai and Taipei both put on amazing displays with neon lights and such, but I prefer the more traditional displays like Chengdu holds in Culture Park."
"That sounds wonderful," Claes said.
"I'd like to show you them," Michele said.
"I'd like to see them," Claes replied.
DIPLOMATIC SUITE
PARK HYATT TOKYO
SHINJUKU-KU, TOKYO
In the bed next to Michele's, Claes tried and failed to fall asleep. She flipped the covers aside and, emulating Scarlett Johansson from the movie Lost in Translation, sat on the inside ledge of the center of three large picture windows and looked out on the bright lights of Shinjuku and central Tokyo.
"Are you okay?" Michele asked from the next bed over and Claes silently cursed at waking him up. She didn't know how long she'd watched the lights of cars go by.
"Go back to sleep," she ordered.
"Too late," Michele said and turned on the bedside light.
"I was wondering what to do next. Go home with you to Brisbane or return to Rome," Claes stated.
"Rome?"
"Jean asked me to stay and help with the new girls," Claes admitted.
"Aren't the current senior teams sufficient?" Michele asked.
When Henrietta, Rico and Triela passed, it was decided to replace them with girls of a similar age and younger than the first tranche of Second Generation girls, who were 15 or 16. The first was 14-year old Monty Blacker and when Elio Alboreto's original cyborg was lost in a training accident, he chose 11-year old Gwendolyn Doyle as a replacement, renaming her Marisa. And as one of the goals of the program was to make the technology available to adults, the Medical Branch wanted to try someone older and a 19-year old blonde was approached to become a cyborg and form a fratello with Clayland Stanaway.
"The Blackers and Stanaways are mostly on long-distance field ops. And really, do you think Monty or Laine would make good role models for the girls?"
"Point," Michele admitted. Both cyborgs, while excellent operatives, were polar opposites in personality and each staked the more extreme end of their respective poles.
"The Riccis operate almost exclusively undercover and now that he's Jean's Field Commander, Mr. Alboreto is busy trying to oversee the day to day activities of the other fratelli to try and shape them."
"Keeping Marisa in line would be a full time job," Michele joked.
"She's actually matured quite a bit now that her handler is the Field Commander," Claes replied.
"She was wearing shark socks this morning," Michele noted.
"Point," Claes conceded.
"How many new girls have been added?" Michele asked.
"Another five, ranging in ages from 9 to 18," Claes replied.
"What do you think of this new class of cyborgs?" Michele asked.
"That McDonnell girl reminds me a bit of Kara," Claes observed.
"Kara was more interested in how the car looked than how it drove," Michele replied. "That's why she preferred the Ferrari 458 Italia even though the McLaren MP4-12C was faster."
"More like how she looked in the car," Claes quipped, which earned him a smile from Michele.
"Are you seriously considering Jean's offer?" he asked.
"I owe him, Michele. Not as much as I owe you, but he did take care of me between Mister Raballo and yourself." She shifted her gaze out the window.
"You don't approve," she said.
"You're an adult now, Claes. You've earned the right to control your own destiny. But having worked so hard to free yourself, I don't understand why you'd want to go back."
Claes continued to stare out the window.
WiP ROASTERS
16 TURIN STREET
WEST END, BRISBANE
FOUR MONTHS LATER
"Order for Pagani!"
With the formal examinations over, the students of Queensland University of Technology turned their thoughts from studying to relaxing – at least until their scores appeared on the University Portal in a few days.
"Are you really moving back to Italy?" Amy asked. Even though February was late Summer in the Southern Hemisphere, Amy wore black jeans tucked into brown knee-high boots and a scoop-neck white t-shirt under a cropped denim jacket. Scattered around her were various shopping bags from her latest excursion to the Queen Street Mall.
"For a little bit. Claes accepted a winter position at a local university and I want to check on my apartment and cars. I'm keeping my place at Riparian Plaza as I intend to come back."
"I'd be happy if I could be able to spend time in a different country," Amy stated wistfully.
"Any chance you can take her with you?" Jesse asked.
"That would be awesome!" Amy said, completely missing Jesse's jab.
ABOARD ETIHAD AIRWAYS A6-EHD
12,500M ABOVE 24°36'25"N 128°19'13"E
DECEMBER
"Thank you," Claes said to the flight attendant as she handed her a Collins glass with orange juice in it. In the First Class suite beside him, Michele quietly slept.
The moving map display on the back wall showed their Airbus A340-541 was crossing the point where the corners of the States of Western and South Australia and the Northern Territory came together. A dotted line showed the remainder of the trip to Abu Dhabi International Airport. From there, they'd continue on to Milan Maplensa Airport.
When the other cyborgs started to refer to her as "The Caretaker", it had been a moniker she'd disliked. But now, aboard this plane, as she looked at him under the soft blue LED lighting that simulated the coming dawn outside, she knew she wanted to spend her remaining days with him. Not out of a sense of obligation or loyalty, but because he was someone who understood her, respected her and accepted her.
He was someone she wanted to take care of.