This is a fan-fiction. The author does not own the property of the original concept, or any characters from the original.
Invitation to afternoon dinner at Mrs. Galati's house was a highly desired prize for the girls of the Social Welfare Agency dormitory. There were two ways to earn the coveted outing; impress Chief Lorenzo in some exceptional fashion, or kiss the ass of the that red-headed diver cyborg who lived with one of the bomb squad girls. While the elderly lady delighted in lavishing grandmotherly attention, and copious amounts of home-cooked food on all of her "robot-girls" (Antinisca Galati never did understand the distinction between cyborgs & robots) she made no secret of the fact that Marisa was her favorite. The other girls accepted it with good grace and a minimum of jealousy...Mari had, after all, been the one who killed the man who had murdered Mrs. Galati's only son. As the vendicatore of her family, Marisa had the honor of an open invitation to visit any time she liked. "Lucky twerp," grumbled some of the other girls, "it wasn't even a real mission."
________Peppermint Tea________
Elio's BMW carried 3 cyborgs and two handlers that particular day. When Rico's turn had come up Jean was unwilling to go, citing a load of excuses that all sounded fake. An irritated Giuseppe stepped up and volunteered to escort her, and he couldn't very well leave Henrietta at home, so along with Alboreto & Marisa it was 5 for dinner that afternoon.
"I don't understand why he gets this way" grumbled Croce, with the cyborgs in the back seat distracted by a very important comic book. "How much effort would it take for him to just do something nice for his girl once in a while? No...instead he'd rather see Rico left out of something all the other girls get to do! Hell, even Rachel went, and she hates everybody!"
"Not everybody" laughed Alboreto, "she likes Fernando."
Giuseppe was still fixated on complaining about his brother, so he skipped right past Elio's crack; "You know, it's like pulling teeth just to get him to sign the card on Rico's Christmas and Activation Day gifts...which Priscilla & I have to do the shopping for! Last Christmas I did everything, shopped, wrapped, put drops of Jean's cologne on the package so she'd think it was from him, and when I brought the card for him to sign Jean said 'just forge my signature'. He spent 5 times as long arguing with me about it than it would have taken to just sign the damn thing in the first place. I swear, Elio, I know he's my brother, and the Field Commander besides, but sometimes I just want to punch him in the fucking face!"
"Easy mate," reminded the older man, "3 little sets of hyper-ears in the back seat remember." He gave a quick glance to the mirror, but none of the cyborgs seemed to be paying attention to anything but the adventures of Wonder Woman.
Giuse lowered his voice and added "None of the series one girls have a limitless future ahead of them after all..."
Luckily, Elio turned down the last street before the conversation got too maudlin. "Alright, put your game-face on..."
Henrietta & Rico were introduced as the Croce sisters; it was as close to being true as anything (The room-mates had, in fact, stayed awake one night reasoning it out. If our fratelli Jean & Giuse are brothers...and we're their sorelle, that makes us sisters too! As a result they had both fallen asleep in Miss Priscilla's mathematics class the following morning). Once the introductions were complete all 3 girls were greeted with the requisite hugs and cheek pinching Mrs. Galati was famous for. By now Marisa was tolerantly accustomed to it, Henrietta basked in the adoration, but Rico was a bit uneasy. Her discomfort was quickly forgotten though when she caught a whiff of some new and fascinating smell...one she had never experienced before. "You must smell my risotto," said the old woman, clapping her hands as was her habit when she was happy, "it's almost done." Rico walked forward with her nose in the air, following the scent, but she did not turn toward the kitchen where the risotto was simmering. Rico's nose led her through the living room and to the coat closet in the hall. Puzzled, the others followed her.
"Here it is!" announced the blonde girl, "It's wonderful...I've never smelled anything like this before!" The two men gave the air a whiff out of curiosity, and rolled their eyes when they realized what was going on.
"That is mothballs, my dear" muttered Mrs. Galati with a shake of her head. Some of these robot girls were very strange.
Dinner lived up to the old woman's famous reputation. Antipasto, followed by penne in marinara sauce, and a great slab of tuna steak over her risotto as a main course, and always fresh bread & shellfish in case anyone got peckish between courses. The only unfortunate casualty of the meal was Henrietta, who mistook Mama Galati's courteous urgings to eat, eat, mangiarefor a direct order from an adult. Lacking Marisa & Rico's prodigious capacity she seriously overdid it and made herself sick before the pasticcino dessert course was even presented. Even that dark cloud carried with it a silver lining though (at least as far so 'Etta was concerned), as it justified her laying down on the couch with her head in Giuse's lap, his fingers idly combing through her hair as everyone else enjoyed their after-dinner cappuccino. The appearance of Mama Galati's old albums finally sparked Henrietta out of her lassitude, the young cyborg completely forgetting about her upset tummy when offered the chance to look at photographs.
As the day wore on, and visit wound down to a close Mrs. Galati was still concerned about her dyspeptic guest. "My dear, do you drink tea?" she asked. All 3 girls laughed, and confirmed that they did indeed go through large amounts of tea back home at the dormitory. "You should put some peppermint in your tea when you brew it tonight, it will settle your stomach."
"Peppermints?" questioned Henrietta (followed by an embarrassing burp), immediately thinking of hard candies.
"I have some in my garden, ready to pick..." Mama Galati replied, "...Marisa, will you come help me?"
"Of course" answered the red-haired girl, hopping to her feet, and offering her arm to help the old woman. Rico & Henrietta were left to ponder in puzzled amazement the existence of a plant that grew hard peppermint candies.
"I wonder if they grow already wrapped" whispered Rico.
"I wonder if we can talk Claes into growing some" replied her sister. The 2 handlers stifled their laughter.
Marisa acted as a cane for Mama Galati, walking with her out to the small herb & vegetable garden. The old woman pointed out the best bits to pick, and soon Mari had a small bag full of the fragrant leaves. "It's such a nice day out," sighed Antinisca, "there are so few weeks left in the summer...sit with me a while and let's enjoy it." The young cyborg scrambled to fetch her elderly friend a chair, and together they sat in the shade of her olive tree. "I don't enjoy winter" continued the widow, "the days are short, the flowers are all dead, and people don't come to visit as often as you like."
"I'll still come" Marisa assured her, "as often as I can." Being only a few months old she had not yet experienced winter. In a way, it scared her...a cold, gray season when the birds flew away & everything died, she wondered how bad it really was. On the other hand, Rico loved winter because it was the season that brought snow (of course, it was hard to tell what to believe from Rico, she loved everything). Henrietta raved about the Christmas season, but Marisa was ambivalent about observing a religious holiday.
"Thank you dear" replied Antinisca, "I look forward to every one of your visits...but all the same, I don't think I would like to sit through another winter." There was a note of sad nostalgia in the tone of her voice that made Marisa wonder if there was more being said than she was hearing. If only I understood things better...
"I wish winter would never come" sighed the young cyborg, but Mama Galati shook her head.
"No innamorato," she chuckled, "you shouldn't say that. With no winter there can be no spring, no flowers, no Easter, and no re-birth." The old woman's eyes misted a bit, and she added, "Marisa, you understand that nothing can live forever, and we must accept that all things pass away in their time...the flowers, the birds, even people..."
Marisa was puzzled, "But people don't die just because it becomes winter."
"No" replied Mama Galati with a smile that spoke of wisdom Mari would never live long enough to acquire, "but enough about the winter. We still have a beautiful afternoon today, and I want to hear about all of the exciting work you've been doing against those dannato Padania." It always made Mari giggle a little in spite of herself to see the old lady speak about the hated Padania. Normally so cheerful and gentle in her ways, Mama Galati practically cursed and spit when she even mentioned the Five Republics Faction.
"Well," began the cyborg, trying to decide what it was okay to tell her friend and what to keep secret "Elio & I stopped a weapons deal down in Sicily...with our friends Kara & Mr. Pagani." She carefully left out the part about her getting shot and nearly dying.
"Very good, very good!" praised the widow, clapping her hands excitedly.
"And a little while ago I was on a big operation that saved some hostages that were up on the top floor of a hotel. I even helped with the planning of that mission," Mari continued, "but those bad guys weren't really Padania, just a bunch of amateurs." This time she left out any mention of skydiving onto the roof of a 35 story building.
"Bah...doesn't matter if they were amateurs or not..." said Mama Galati, "...how many of the bad guys did you kill yourself?"
The young cyborg blushed a little. Elio had counseled her against bragging about how many lives she'd taken, or keeping a head-count. "I really don't know..." she evaded.
Her friend leaned forward & replied "Nonsense...you can tell me."
With a smile Marisa admitted, "Eleven."
Mama Galati recoiled in surprise. Mr. Lorenzo had explained to her that the "robot-girls" were built for combat, and capable of amazing feats, but this went beyond what she had imagined. The smiling girl in red pig-tails that sat before her had killed eleven grown men in only one attack...Madre Maria! "So...what do you have planned next?"
Mari responded with excitement. "A vacation! Elio and I have a whole week off so we're going to go down to Pozzuoli Bay...that's near Naples...and dive until we grow gills!"
"Wonderful!" replied Antinisca, clapping her hands "But you watch out for sharks, capito?" It seemed funny to Marisa that Mama Galati should be concerned about a harmless fish just after eagerly listening to stories of battles with genuinely dangerous terrorists, but by then they had run out of time for private conversation anyway, as Rico, 'Etta, and the two handlers came ambling out into the garden, the two cyborgs eager to see the vexing mystery of the peppermint bush resolved.
________Guide Book________
"Pssst...come on, time to wake up kiddo."
Marisa groaned and tried to cover her head with a pillow. It was too early. Elio persisted though, "You can sleep more in the car, but we have to get going if we're going to catch high slack tide in Pozzuoli Bay."
That perked Marisa right up. The mention of diving reminded the girl why her handler was waking her up at 4am, and she was out of bed in a flash. "You're already dressed?" Elio whispered (careful not to wake his cyborg's room-mate).
"Umm, yeah...I was so excited last night that I couldn't sleep," she explained, "but then I guess I went to sleep."
"Fair enough, got your bag packed?" he asked. Marisa snatched up a duffel bag full of clothes. Their dive gear was already loaded in the trunk of Elio's BMW. "Good, let's go."
As the 2 crept out of the room Marisa remembered something. "Just a sec..." She tip-toed over to the bunk bed, climbed up a few steps on the ladder, and shook her room-mate. "Amelia...Amelia." The groggy cyborg opened her eyes and sat up. "It's not time to get up yet" Marisa told her.
"Thank you, Marisa. Have a nice trip" replied Amelia.
Elio was shocked. "Marisa!" he admonished, "That wasn't nice at all! Why would you do a thing like that?!"
"You don't understand, Elio...she likes that" explained the young cyborg as the fratello walked out and down the hall, "it's like...her favorite thing, waking up & finding out she doesn't have to get up yet, so she can go back to sleep."
The old man was skeptical, "Really?"
"Yeah, really" she told him, "I told you she was a weirdo."
Marisa was fast asleep in the passenger seat of the M3 before she & Elio even left the Section 2 compound. Her handler let her sleep. They had taken days off before, but this was their first vacation together and the fratello was headed 3 hours south to the city of Pozzuoli, the site of the sunken Roman ruins of Phlegrea. On this "mission" there would be no guns, no bombs, no umbrellas that fired poison darts, and no objective beyond fun & relaxation.
At a fuel stop in Teano Marisa finally awoke, rubbing her eyes and wondering about breakfast (that was predictable). "I figured we'd get something in Naples" Elio told her, "but if you're hungry now there's a bag with some fruit & a muffin for you in the back seat." She did not hesitate to go looking for it. Marisa had an unbelievably voracious appetite, and Elio knew it was best to bring along a snack anytime they were taking a long road trip. "There's also a book about the ruins back there...I asked Claes to order it through her book club. Why don't you read some of it aloud while I drive?"
As the BMW cruised down the autostrada Marisa read from the book in-between chunks of pineapple and bites of her muffin. She stumbled over some of the more technical words, requiring Elio to take his eyes off the road to glance at the page, but for the most part she did well. It was a topic that really fascinated her so it wasn't like public speaking in Mr. Hillshire's literature or language classes...which she hated.
"Baiae, as the bay area was known in antiquity, en-com-passed (she had to sound it out) several small communities along these white, sandy shores including Pozzuoli, Arco Felice, Baia, Bacoli, and Miseno. All were located inside the bay along the...prom..en..."
"Promontories" said Elio, "it's a high outcrop of rocks that juts out into the sea."
Mari continued; "...and cliffs. Baiae held many attractions for Romans whose home city was only 200 kilometers to the north. The distance was easily covered either by boat or by land.
Natural springs and thermal baths were a significant draw to the area. Much of the Romans' leisure time was spent in steam rooms and fresh water pools offered at local facilities. Seaside property owners had merely to dig caves randomly into cliff walls to have their own private thermal bath. Vertical...oh man...Elio, what is this word?"
"Oscillation" he replied.
"Os-cill-a-tion...of the land surface caused by volcanic activity below the plates at Pozzuoli Bay has caused continuing sub-mer-gence and emergence of the coastline through the centuries. The most notable transformation of recent times occurred in 1538 when Monte Nuovo erupted from the ground below ancient Laco Lucrinus. The Baia area was totally destroyed. Then, subsequent cooling of the ground over the next two years caused the shoreline to submerge slowly. This shoreline holds vast treasures of Roman architecture, art, and other cultural relics...and that's what we'll be diving on, isn't it?"
"It sure is luv, I even commandeered the Agency's underwater digital camera so we can document our important historical discoveries." replied Elio.
His cyborg laughed. "I doubt we're going to discover anything new."
"Well, you can show the photos in history class at least."
________Elio's Name________
A few hours later they pulled up outside a dive shop that Elio had found well recommended by the training agencies and local divers. "Before we go in, let's review the cover story."
Marisa groaned. "We're supposed to be on holiday! Why do we still need a cover story?"
"Because you're still a cyborg, and cyborgs aren't supposed to exist outside of comic books" replied her handler, "Just use the usual story."
"Alright," she sighed, "we live in Rome...you work in private security...Mom got swallowed whole by a Great White..."
"Marisaaaaa..." growled Alboreto.
"Oh alright! My mother doesn't dive so she is vacationing with her sister in Venice. That's so boring..."
"Boring is better." Elio fished something out of his wallet and said "You'll also need this when we rent tanks." He handed over a card. "It's a civilian SCUBA certification...NAUI Junior Open Water Diver."
Her jaw dropped in horror. "Elio!" the girl protested, "This says I'm limited to no deeper than 18 meters! I've been down past 75 in training!"
"Mari, there's no such thing as an 11 year old tech diver. All Junior certified divers are depth limited. You should feel lucky I didn't get you the PADI certification, you'd be limited to 12 meters."
She slumped in her seat and crossed her arms in a pout. "It still sucks."
"Oh why does it matter?" groaned Elio, "It's not as if there are going to be bloody SCUBA police down there checking cards...once our tanks rented we'll dive as deep as we like." That seemed to put her mind at ease a bit. "Besides, none of the ruins are deeper than 10 meters anyway." With that he opened his door and stepped out of the BMW.
Finally accepting what he was saying, Marisa examined her new certification card as she got out of the car. On the front was her photo...the same official shot that was on her agency ID, and all 4 of her passports. Next to it was her name; MARISA ALBORETO. "Oh my god..." she gasped.
"What's wrong now?" groaned Elio.
"Nothing is wrong!" she exclaimed, "Elio...it's got your name on it! I have your name!"
He shrugged his shoulders, not understanding the importance it held for her. "Of course, you needed a last name, and you're supposed to be my daughter."
This meant a great deal more to her than that; she practically had tears in her eyes already. "But this makes it official!" Mari said, "This is for real!"
"Marisa, your agency ID has my name on it...and so does one of your passports."
"No, my agency card says 'Name: MARISA,' and on the second line it says 'Handler: ALBORETO'. As for those passports, I never get to keep them & they're all fake anyway. Don't you get it? This is my first real ID for the real world, and it says I'm your real daughter!" She threw her arms around him and squeezed way too hard. "I love it...thank you Elio...I mean Papa!"
"I'm glad you like it..." gasped the handler, "...but if you break my spine neither of us is going diving today."
Entering the dive shop was like stepping into a magical candy store. Marisa had never been in a room with so much diving gear, and her first instinct was to rush around like a mad-woman and look at everything. Elio saw the excitement in her eyes, and gave an indulgent nod that told her it's okay. At first it was fascinating, but in only a few minutes she came trudging back to her handler. None of the equipment in the shop was as good as the gear she already had. "So what do you think?" Elio asked.
"It's all crap" she muttered.
"It's not crap," he admonished, "it's just not as good as the stuff we're used to. Not every diver has a secret government agency to buy her a collection of 1,000 € regulators. Let's get our tanks."
"Can I help you?" asked a young man in a tropical shirt and baggy shorts. His tan, sun bleached hair, and the bristly stubble on his chin that hinted at the beginnings of a beard made the clerk look like the perfect movie stereotype of the beach bum who could be found working in dive or surf shops around the globe.
"Yes please," answered Alboreto, "I'll need a pair of 80's...and do you have a pair of 63's for my daughter?"
"I'll look Signor" the younger man replied, and went into back room to check.
Marisa looked up at her master with shocked and offended eyes; "63 cubic foot tanks!? Are you kidding me?"
"It's more than enough for diving the shallow ruins" Elio told her, "remember you have to look like a normal girl. Any normal kid your age would struggle with an aluminum 80."
"I can carry double steel 120's like nothing" she grumbled "you know that."
"Well normal girls your age can't" replied her handler.
"Signor, we have them" announced the young man as he came back to the counter.
"I can handle a full sized 80 if you don't" muttered Marisa, still a bit peeved.
The clerk smiled, and told her, "Aww, I think your Dad is right on this one, signorina. If you're here to dive the ruins it's a long walk from the parking lot to the water. You'd really struggle with such a big tank. I'll need to see both of your certification cards, per favore."
Marisa's mood brightened slightly as she got to show off her new card, and Elio had to sort through his stack of specialty diving certifications just to find his Master Diver card. "Let's get those bottles filled with nitrox, 40% if possible."
"Umm, we have 36%, but..." replied the clerk, looking at Marisa "...is she nitrox certified?"
Elio slid his advanced nitrox card, issued by the prestigious IANTD organization, across the counter and answered "She'll be diving the exact same profile as I am...it'll be fine." The clerk seemed to accept that. Old guy seems to know his stuff...enriched air nitrox is safer for shallow water diving anyway.
As he disappeared into the back to fill the 4 bottles the fratello had some more time to look around. Mari's attention was drawn by a long rack of well worn looking regulators and buoyancy compensator vests. "Who does all this belong to?" she inquired.
"That's the rental gear" Elio informed her, pointing out a price list for rentals.
Marisa seemed confused. "People rent their dive gear?"
"Yes Mari," he replied, getting a bit annoyed with her. "I told you, not everyone can afford thousands of euros worth of kit like you have." That was a lowball estimate...factoring in her rebreathers & weapons the Italian government had tens of thousands tied up in Marisa's underwater equipment. As a man who had grown up poor it irritated Alboreto that his young student often took all her top-shelf gear for granted, and did not understand why everyone didn't use the absolute best stuff available. How many 11 year old Junior divers does she think own a 1,100 € Aeris CompuMask? Christ, she acts as spoilt as Kara some days!
Elio was not completely right about what his cyborg was thinking. It was not money, or quality of gear that was on her mind as the looked at the rental regulators. "People use the same regulators as strangers? Do they at least change the mouth pieces every time?"
"No," answered Alboreto, "they get washed and hung up to dry, and that's enough."
"But a stranger had that in their mouth!" she protested with disgust, "What if it was a boy that last rented it? Ugh! It would be like kissing him!"
Alboreto laughed. "You breathe from my regulator all the time when we do emergency drills...and in case you haven't noticed I am male!"
"That's different," she replied, brandishing her certification card like a badge "we're family."
________Fresco________
Less than an hour later they were under the water, and all the frustrations of the morning were quickly forgotten. Elio had timed their first dive perfectly, catching high slack tide, when the bay was crystal clear. It was also warm enough that they did not bother with wetsuits, diving only in their swimsuits & rash guards. The ruins at Phlegrea were a popular SCUBA site, so there were many other divers, but the fratello did not let the busy waters bother them...even if it did make photography a bit difficult.
On their first dive the pair explored the ruins on the seafloor of Portus Julius, tightly clustered building foundations & marble columns remained from the former resort city. A few of the floors still had their ceramic tiles, and near the end of the dive Mari's sharp cyborg eyes even spotted a rich mosaic under a thin covering of silt. She wanted to sweep the sediment aside and get a better look, but Elio tapped her shoulder and signaled her that he only had 350psi remaining in his tank. Marisa checked her own pressure gauge, and found that she was running out as well, having only 400 pounds left. It was time to return to shore.
As they floated lazily up to the surface and broke through into the world of noise & bright sunshine. "Maledizione! I wish we'd had enough time to check out that fresco" Mari lamented.
"We'll find it again" Elio assured her. "You have your compass, right?"
"Sure" replied the cyborg, looking at the compass built into her pressure gauge console.
He instructed her on triangulation; "Alright, since we're right above the fresco you saw, take bearings on two distant objects."
"Okay...the ferry docks are at 120 degrees...and that castle up on the promontory (she was happy to show off the new word she'd learned that morning) is 225 degrees."
"Good," he said, "now when we change tanks and come back all you have to do is find the one & only point where you get those same two bearings, and drop straight down."
Marisa grinned and answered, "That's cool! I'll race you back to shore!"
"I'm not taking that gamble," chuckled her handler, "you could swim faster than me even if you were towing a small boat."
After a surface interval of around an hour Marisa did indeed re-locate the tile fresco on their second dive. Carefully, they fanned the silt away, trying their best not to stir it up too badly and ruin visibility. Once they had swept it clear (and before more divers were attracted to their find) Mari motioned toward the camera Elio had clipped to his harness. He agreed, and hovered above to take a few shots of the artwork before pointing at Marisa and instructing her to pose for the next shot. She rolled over on her back and carefully stayed at least a meter above bottom to avoid chipping the ancient tiles with her tank. Once the flash had gone off 3 or 4 times Mari ascended, and took the camera from Elio, indicating that it was his turn to have his picture taken. He dropped down and carefully knelt on the bare stones surrounding the fresco while Marisa took the shots. It was not long before other divers showed up to see what they were doing, and the fratello proudly showed off the artwork they had found. It was hardly a new discovery, they were right in the middle of the well documented Portus Julius, but a diver or snorkeler without Marisa's superb eyesight could have easily missed it when it was covered up by the silt. That hour passed quickly, and when Elio & Marisa had finally reached the last few hundred pounds in their tanks the pair realized they'd spent their whole second dive examining that one fascinating artifact. They couldn't have been happier.
After returning the tanks to the dive shop (and making sure they'd be filled & ready for tomorrow) Mari & Elio washed off in the public shower-house on the beach and took a drive out to Bacoli on the Phlegrean peninsula. A lunch of fresh local seafood recharged them, so next they explored the Castello Aragonese which Marisa had used as a position reference just hours ago and visited the archeological museum which housed statues from the nymphaeum of Emperor Claudius. "Triela has a bear named after him" observed Marisa, taking a photo of his marble bust.
"These statues of Ulysses & his men was recovered by divers in the 1980's...they used to be part of the Emperor's banquet hall" explained Elio.
Marisa looked up at the white marble figures with her mouth agape and muttered "It would be so neat to dive on a salvage mission like that!"
"Well" her handler chuckled, "this group is supposed to depict a scene from Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses & his crew are trying to get home to Ithaca after the Trojan War and have to escape the giant cyclops Polyphemus...but his statue was never found. It's said to be close to 3 meters tall, and it might still be down there for us to find!" He was teasing of course, and Marisa knew it, but just the thought of making a major discovery on a dive lit the fires of her imagination.
The next few days went much like the first. Elio and Marisa set up a tent and camped on the beach. Each day they dove at whatever time presented the best tide conditions, during the nights they set up a campfire on the sand and cooked fish, clams or calamari for dinner. They washed it all down with a jug of Spanish sangria (Elio was careful not to buy too big a jug, as both he and his cyborg were equally likely to overindulge) and spent their nights listening to music, telling stories, or just watching the stars.
During their daytime hours above the surface the fratello hiked the hill-slopes and explored the seemingly limitless Roman ruins that Pozzuoli Bay had to offer. From the cliff-top at the tip of Capo Miseno Elio pointed across the wide expanse of the Golfo di Napoli and said "Pliny the Elder watched the eruption of Vesuvius from right about here. When he saw what was happening, Pliny feared for his friends on the other side of the bay, so he took a small sailboat across to rescue them."
"Was he successful?" asked Marisa, knowing from Ferro's history lesson how many thousands had died at Pompeii & Herculaneum.
"Yes, his friends survived, but he died during the rescue" explained Alboreto. "Pliny reached shore and found his friends, but unfavorable winds did not allow them to set sail back across to Miseno right away. He collapsed, and died 33 kilometers from here, in Stabiae."
"From lava?" gasped Mari.
Elio shook his head, "No, only ash, pumice, and poisonous gas reached that far south. He might have died from the gas, but none of his companions were affected, so a more likely theory is that he had a heart attack. He was only about my age...but by that time Pliny was a very fat man. Regardless, it was still a very valiant sacrifice."
Marisa agreed; to the young cyborg, who by either conditioning or the nature of her work thought about sacrifice quite a bit, her handler's story sounded very noble & heroic. "So that's Mount Vesuvius over there?" she asked.
"It sure is" replied Elio, "want to go check it out tomorrow?"
________Vesuvius________
The next day was their only day off from diving, as the pair drove into Naples early in the morning for breakfast & supplies (Marisa's cyborg skin was not prone to sunburn, but Elio insisted on broad straw hats for both of them regardless), thereafter continuing on to the mountain 9 kilometers away. There was a road that led nearly to the summit, but Elio parked the BMW at the base of Vesuvius, and they fratello spent the day hiking up the rocky slopes instead. As the searing sun peaked in the sky they found a bit of precious shade under a rock outcrop and dug into Elio's back-pack. Sheltered under the rocks handler & cyborg enjoyed a lunch of coarse bread, prosciutto, a few roma tomatoes and a pear shaped scamoza cheese, made & aged right in Naples, capping it off with a big bunch of local grapes. That fueled them for the final push to the summit, nearly 1,300 meters high, which they reached in the mid-afternoon.
Mari peered down into the caldera of the volcano and asked "So do you think we can climb down there?"
"Not a chance," replied her handler, "see those steaming vents? They're called fumaroles and they can release toxic gas..." he checked from side to side, ensuring that nobody was around to eavesdrop before adding "...toxic to even a cyborg like you. This is still an active volcano you know."
"You mean it could still erupt?" she asked, with wide eyes. "Maybe I don't want to go climbing down into that crater after all."
"Good god..." laughed Elio, "have we finally found something besides nuns that Signorina Marisa is afraid of?"
"Not exactly," she replied "but with my luck, if the volcano did erupt while I was down there I'd probably get blamed for it!"
The M3 rolled into Naples that evening. Sweat streaked and crusted with dust & dried blood from their day on the mountain Elio & Marisa checked into one of the classiest hotels in the city. Alboreto had telephoned Michele Pagani on the drive over, asking him to recommend the finest place in town; a request the wealthy handler had complied with enthusiastically, thinking he had finally turned his older colleague from his propensity for dodgy hotels and onto the path of 5-star luxury that he & Kara so enjoyed.
"You must stay at the Excelsior, Elio, you'll love it and so will Marisa...there's an excellent view overlooking the seaside promenade & the restaurant is top-notch as well. They know me there, so I'll give them a call and tell them I have important friends coming!" Little did Pagani know that Elio & Mari were stifling their laughter the whole time he was on the phone with them, and that they intended to show up at the hotel desk looking like a pair of back-packing tramps. "I hope this doesn't ruin Mr. Pagani's reputation at the hotel!" giggled Marisa, as soon as her handler ended the call.
After being show to their room by a very nervous bellhop Alboreto telephoned the concierge, asking him to sent someone from the hotel laundry up. As soon as he had sent his bag-wrinkled suit and Mari's evening dress down to be steamed there was time to take showers and heal their various cuts and scrapes acquired during the hard day of climbing. Marisa was particularly proud of a skinned right knee that she had earned while scrambling up a steep escarpment of sharp volcanic rock.
Before the clothes came back there was a brief moment of panic. Mari thought she had forgotten her dress shoes back at the dorm in Rome, but the crisis was averted when Elio went downstairs to the lobby in a bath-robe, located the parking valet, asked him where the BMW was, and located his girl's flats in the trunk. Upon his triumphant return a relieved Marisa cast aside the last vestiges of professional distance between the two and rewarded his gallantry with a grateful kiss on the cheek. She immediately recoiled from the act, fearing she had gone too far, but an indulgent, almost grandfatherly smile told Marisa that everything was okay.
Once the clothing finally did return from the hotel laundry they each dressed for dinner at La Terrazza restaurant, which was located on the rooftop floor, and renowned for their Mediterranean & international cuisine. Marisa stared at herself in the bathroom mirror with trepidation. She had a lavender silk dress with a knee length flared shirt, gathered just above the waist, topped off by thin shoulder straps that crossed in the back. She nervously adjusted her sheer opaque shawl and thought "is that really me in the mirror?" Marisa was accustomed to wearing skirts, but they were usually coarse pleated things, nothing like the outfit she was wearing for the first time tonight. When it came to the assignment of missions requiring grace, and an ability to blend in at the opera, or a fancy restaurant Mari was usually near the bottom of the list, so silk dresses and perfume (borrowed from Henrietta) were alien and slightly scary to her. "I certainly hope I'm doing this right..." she said to herself.
There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door. "Are you ready kiddo? Our reservation is for 7:30."
Marisa took a deep breath and whispered "Okay, don't screw anything up" to the unfamiliar girl in the mirror. She stepped out of the bathroom slowly, unsure of what Elio's reaction would be. Will he recognize his own cyborg? Of course, Elio looked magnificent as usual, his silvery grey hair combed back, beard expertly trimmed, and sporting an impeccable dark suit with a silk neck-tie. That didn't make things any easier.
At first Alboreto did not know what to say. He stood next to the balcony and nearly dropped his before-dinner cocktail. For the first time he could remember, Marisa's long red hair was released from its usual braided pig-tails, draping luxuriously over one shoulder. The dress looked lovely on her, which was a huge weight off the handler's mind. Petrushka & Alessandro had helped her pick it out, and although it looked acceptable on the hanger he had been unsure about it until this moment, when he was relieved to see that not only had they chosen something gorgeous, but stayed within the tricky confines of age-appropriateness.
The young cyborg stood before him, awkwardly shifting her weight from foot to foot, and peering up at him with uncertain eyes. Come up with something memorable to say, he ordered himself, and don't screw anything up. "Marisa my dear" said Elio, "I have done many things in my life, but tonight I am in a hotel populated by movies stars, the rich, and the famous, and I will undoubtedly have the most beautiful girl on my arm. That is a first for me."
"You really like it!?" she exclaimed, forgetting her poise for a moment and slipping back into her old self.
Alboreto answered with a smile, and offer of his hand, "Shall we go to dinner?"
Elio & Marisa's entrance into the dining room was met by a relieved sigh from the maitre d', who had been warned by the concierge about the odd pair staying in Suite 67, who had checked in wearing half of Mt. Vesuvius, one of whom was the same odd gentleman who had wandered around the hotel lobby in a bathrobe looking for the parking valet.
The maitre d' seated them at an excellent table, overlooking the harbor promenade, but still well positioned to hear the jazz quartet that was playing that night. After ordering, Elio pointed out to his cyborg the various glitterati that were dining at their own tables. Marisa smiled, and pretended to be impressed, but the truth was she did not recognize any of them, even the movie stars that had been in films she liked. None of them could hold a candle to her handler anyway. "Famous adventure writer?" she thought to herself, "Can he dive down to 100 meters? Action movie star? He's never stormed a single real terrorist hide-out. Super-model? Bet she's jealous...I have Elio and she doesn't."
The sommelier presented Alboreto with a wine-list. He gave it a brief look-over and asked "Can you recommend a good Lambrusco?" The steward was eager to do so, pointing out his favorite from the wide list of choices. "Very good" confirmed Elio, "we'll also have a bottle of Prosecco Spumante after dinner, so could you have that chilled at the appropriate time?"
With a genuine smile & a courteous bow the sommelier departed to see to Signor Alboreto's requests. Elio leaned over the table and said softly "You will see a lot of people try to bluff their way through a wine-list, and make it look as if they know everything about every vintage, but unless they are really educated about wines the sommelier can usually provide a better choice if you just ask. In fact, they really appreciate it when you ask their advice instead of slinging a bunch of under-informed nonsense. All that's really important is to know what category of wine you'd like." He wasn't sure why he was explaining this to Marisa, who would be locked into her physical appearance of 11 years old for her entire life, and therefore would never be ordering spirits without him by her side, but the information might prove valuable to her someday.
The wine arrived at the same time as their first course, a tray of chilled oysters & mussels, closely followed by an excellent pasta primavera. Having had their fill of seafood over the last few days, they both selected a Bistecca Fiorentina for their main course, along with white asparagus, freshly imported from Germany. A salad came last, dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Modena. The waiter kept a courteous & professional bearing, but could not hide his astonishment as he observed Marisa finish every single course laid before her, even the huge steak. Showing no signs of distress, the young girl nodded and thanked him politely when he came to remove each empty plate.
With dessert came the prosecco, Italy's answer to champagne, and after a few glasses Marisa worked up the nerve to ask Elio to dance. He too was feeling the effects of the wine, and to her delight, agreed, so the fratello joined a number of other couples on the floor. Once again Mari felt like the center of attention as the various rich & famous denizens of the Hotel Excelsior looked upon the charming scene with smiles of approval. The cyborg could tell that, to their eyes, this was nothing more than an indulgent father (or more likely grandfather) having his daughter out for a special evening. A few sharp eyed guests noticed with amusement the 2 adhesive plasters that covered Mari's skinned knee, poking out from beneath her lavender skirt; the only indication of her true tomboyish nature. Beyond that there was nothing to betray the fact that the resplendent middle-aged gentleman and his red-haired dancing partner in the silk dress were in fact vicious sentinels against the worst terrorists in Italia. She looked up & smiled at her handler, enjoying the secret they shared.
La Terrazza closed at around 11pm, and the fratello retired to their room, Elio carrying a second bottle of prosecco. The unrelenting heat that had threatened to roast them on the slopes of Vesuvius earlier that day had given way to a warm breezy evening, so the pair sat on their private balcony with champagne flutes and a bucket of ice, and watched the ships glide past in Napoli harbor. Marisa only lasted one more glass of prosecco though, before she began to slip away, her head bobbing awkwardly in an attempt to fight off sleep. "I think it's time to call it a night" chuckled Elio, helping his cyborg to her feet.
"I'm okay..." she objected, but in her condition she did not have the will to resist.
"You've never had this much wine in one night" replied Alboreto, "I really should have stopped you sooner, sorry."
"Nggghhaaa, I feel wonderbhul" the cyborg muttered, her speech slurred.
"Let's see how you feel in the morning," he told her, "here, drink this." He offered her a full glass of water, which she sucked down quickly. He filled it one more time, and set it next to her night-stand for the potential hangover that would come with the dawn. Her head spinning, Marisa flopped down face first on her bed and tried to wrap a sheet around herself, but Elio gently pulled her back up into a seated position. "Shoes" he reminded her, and she lifted her legs up one at a time to allow him to pull off her flats. She drunkenly lifted her arms next, silently appealing for his help getting her dress off. He obliged, pulling the lavender frock up over her head and carefully hanging it in the closet. She had flopped over on her side by now, fast asleep with a head swimming in sparking wine, so Elio pulled the sheet over his girl.
On a night like this it was possible to forget what she really was, and what she had been built for. Although she was not even one summer old Alboreto had lost track of how many lives she had taken, this freckled kid snoring lightly into the pillow she hugged. Alone with his thoughts he wondered; Being Marisa's handler...is this the worst thing ever I've done in my life, or the best? The old spy fetched the bottle of prosecco and his glass from the balcony, sat down on his own bed and finished it off. He watched her sleep for about an hour before going to bed himself.
________Pompeii________
"Time to get moving" declared Elio, tapping his cyborg on the one bare foot that poked out from under her bed-sheet...a groan was his only answer. "Come on, it's nine o'clock. We've got a boat-dive this afternoon so if we want to see Pompeii before that we can't spend all day sitting around the hotel.
The mention of diving roused Marisa, and despite an aching head she managed to roll out of bed, her feet landing on the floor with a heavy thump. "I feel like that time I got kicked in the face" she moaned. "Why aren't you crawled up under the covers feeling this bad?" She was not accustomed to a normal human, even her mighty handler, being more resilient than a cyborg. "You drank way more than I did...and holy crap, you finished that second bottle of champagne after I went to sleep too!?" She shook the empty bottle to confirm her finding.
"Prosecco Mari...champagne comes from France...cava comes from Spain...prosecco is Italian," he corrected "and for better or worse I have a lot higher tolerance for alcohol than you'll ever have. Drink some water, take those aspirin I left for you, and wash up a bit, you'll feel better." For the most part Elio ignored the Medical-Technology division's edict of No over the counter medications for cyborgs. Aspirin was well tested on artificial bodies, and posed no risk anyway. "There's a breakfast buffet until 10:30...some food will help too."
"Yeah" groaned the girl, going into the bathroom to wash her face and get more water, "food would be good right about now."
Elio chuckled, "See, you're just a little worn down...if you were really hung over you'd have turned green when I mentioned food. Now hurry up and get dressed, you can't go see the ruins in naught but your knickers." Alboreto had gotten up before his student, and packed both of their bags, leaving a set of clean clothes at the foot of her bed; after washing her face she came out and got dressed in them. Last night had been wonderful, the dinner, the wine, & dancing in the silk dress that had made her feel like a princess, but all the same Mari was happy to be back in the short pants & rugby shirt that felt like a second skin to her.
"Almost ready" she announced, pulling on her socks and sneakers, "I just have to do my hair."
"It looks just fine" Elio assured her, "you should wear it down more often."
"I guess" replied the red-head, running her fingers through her hair, "I just don't want it flying all over the place in the breeze when we go to the ruins."
He nodded and picked up one of the elastic bands that she usually used to secure the ends of her braids. "Okay, then just tie it back in a pony-tail like Claes does when she works on her garden." Mari turned her back and offered him her hair, so he could do it while she tied her shoes. "All set," the handler told her, twisting the elastic band into place, "let's get going."
The same recuperative powers that enabled SWA cyborgs to catch bullets and keep on fighting proved a tremendous blessing to Marisa, and her hang-over was forgotten before breakfast was even over. Leaving her to down a second plate of waffles with strawberries, Elio completed check-out and summoned the parking valet so that his M3 was waiting out front just as they stepped out of the Excelsior Hotel lobby.
It was just a little over 22 kilometers down to the archeological digs at Pompeii, back south toward Vesuvius; the mountain towered on the horizon, only 8 kilometers North-West of the ruins. Unlike the scorching & desolate volcanic slopes Pompeii was filled with tourists, and the fratello found themselves blending in with some of the two and a half million who visited the site every year.
Elio parked near the Circumvesuviana rail station in the nearby village of Pompei (spelled with one less "i" than its ancient counterpart, as Mari observed), from which it was just a short walk to the vast excavation site. Many of the ruins had been closed to the public since the 1960's, and although Alboreto could have easily bluffed his way into the restricted areas with his all-access government ID they chose to stay on the paths with the ordinary tourists. It would have taken days to explore even the 1/3 still open to the public, but the fratello managed to hit the important spots, such as the Temple of Venus, the House of the Faun & the Amphitheatre.
At the Garden of the Fugitives Marisa gazed through protective glass at the plaster casts of 13 unfortunates, the titular "Fugitives" who had perished attempting to escape the second day of the eruption. To either side of her Mari saw fellow tourists moved to great emotion by the ghostly figures of men, women & children frozen exactly in the spot of the final agonies they had suffered over 1,900 years before. Some turned away, some prayed, a few even wept, but the young cyborg was disappointed by her own inability to feel much more than curiosity. Whether by conditioning or apathy born of her grim duties Marisa had a great empty spot inside her where others could feel sympathy for the dead.
She walked back to Elio (easy to spot in his wide brimmed straw sun-hat), who was reading from the guide book he'd purchased at the gift shop. Once they returned to the compound he intended to donate it to La Biblioteca di Claes, as thanks for her securing the Pozzuoli Bay guide they had used. "Looks like we've covered the major sites," he told her, "is there anything else you want to see?"
"No, but maybe we can go see some of the artifacts in the Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli Museum before our vacation ends," she suggested. That made Elio go a little pale...he knew the National Museum contained a considerable collection of Roman erotic art. While it was a very significant assemblage of classical art the old spy did not relish the idea of taking it in alongside his young cyborg, with whom he had not yet even discussed the particulars of male-female relations. The girl rescued him by continuing "but don't we have a dive scheduled today?"
"That's what has me looking at my watch," answered Elio with a sigh of relief, "but if we head back over toward Miseno now we can catch lunch in Pozzuoli, rent our tanks at the dive shop we've been using all week, and make it to the boat with plenty of time to spare."
The seafloor of Pozzuoli bay dropped off sharply at the base of the heights below the Castello Aragonese, making that an excellent spot for drift-diving. The objective here was to jump off the boat, drop down to depth, and be gently pushed along into the bay by the incoming tide. Once the tanks were empty and it was time to return to surface, all the divers would find their boat waiting for them, having been pushed along at the same speed by the tide.
For this occasion Elio had consented to rent an 80 cubic foot tank for his trainee...an 11 year old wearing a full sized bottle on a boat trip was more realistic, as she would only have to carry it from the bench to the stern, instead of 50 meters of sand. Elio himself was using a steel 100 for his breathing supply.
There were 4 more divers on this boat, all adults, plus a guide who would dive with them. She checked the certifications cards of everyone aboard, and expressed a little concern at taking a Junior diver into such deep water, but upon seeing that the father's certifications were higher than even her own she consented to just let him use his own judgment. "I'm not going to be picky about any maximum depth limits" she told all the divers aboard her boat, "just be careful and stay with your partner."
Out of curiosity the strangers all sized up each others gear, and discussed their experiences with various pieces of kit at great length. The adult divers seemed very impressed that young Marisa was diving with a technical harness, back-plate and inflation wings instead of a normal buoyancy compensator vest like the rest of them. "She says she wants to tech-dive when she gets older, so I'm getting her started with the right kind of equipment for that" Elio explained, "I dread the day she turns 16 and can get her full fledged open water certs. The old man won't be able to keep up with her!"
"It's 15 Papa!" protested Mari with a grin, "I can get my adult certification when I turn 15." As the others laughed Marisa & Elio shared a conspiratorial smile. Nobody here would ever know that the little red-headed Junior diver had already been to deeper depths than any of them would experience in their entire lives.
As soon as the small recreational boat left the sheltered waters of Miseno harbor the ride got rough, swells pounding the fiberglass craft and drenching everyone who did not stay sheltered. Marisa of course sat nearest the back and let the crashing surf drench her.
"We're here" called out the white bearded boat Captain, cutting the engines. "If anyone surfaces and finds them-self separated from the boat just inflate your safety sausage (a roll up marker buoy that all the divers carried) and I'll come fetch you. The tide is coming in, so you won't get swept out to sea, but you can get run over by other boats, so keep your eyes open when you're on the surface!" Once he'd completed his safety briefing the cheerful Captain announced "Okay, water's open, have a good dive!"
Marisa was the first one in the water, plunging down into the cool dark waters, and turning to wait for her partner. Unlike the shallows of the bay the bottom was invisible here, and the young cyborg floated above a seemingly limitless depth of blue & purple until her handler arrived. With no visual reference it seemed like all 7 aquanauts were floating motionless in a featureless ocean, but the current was indeed pushing them toward more interesting features. To their left the steep embankment that made up the bottom finally loomed, covered with huge boulders, corals, and multitudes of fish. There was far more marine life here than in the heavily trafficked shallows of the archeological park, and Mari's sharp cyborg eyes were usually the first to spot it. As they all cruised along at around 20 meters without so much as a fin-kick she pointed out moray eels, barracuda and even one octopus.
As the group drifted under the castle the wall got its steepest. From the shoreline it dropped to 23 meters where they now cruised along, then quickly down to 40 meters, and an eventual bottom of more than 60. It was a spectacular feature, literally swimming with exotic life, but it also signaled the end of that dive. The wall gradually flattened out...tank pressures were getting down to around 800psi, so the group began its slow ascent to the surface. Although the maximum depth for Elio & Marisa had only been 25 meters, and they were well within their "no-decompression" limits they took a 3 minute safety stop at 4 meters before popping up to the realm of air. As expected, the boat was right there waiting for them. Marisa climbed the ladder first, allowing the white bearded Captain to think he was helping her with her "heavy" tank. In minutes all 7 divers had climbed back on board, so the Captain fired up his engines, turned the bow out to sea and headed back to the starting point so they could do it one more time.
_____A World Without Fire-Bombs_____
It was back to their tent on the beach that night for Marisa & Elio. Tonight they chose no luxury hotel or gourmet restaurant, but music found them anyway in the form of a group of young Dutch hippies who were backpacking through Europe. They had a guitar and some bongo drums, but not much talent. Still, it was a good time, and Elio bought a big jug of sangria that night to fill the tin camping cups of their new friends. After her experience with the prosecco the night before Mari was reluctant to drink (ever again), but after an hour or so of laughter, stargazing and bad guitar playing she consented to having a small glass.
As the night wore on the young backpackers broke out a single cigarette and shared it amongst themselves. Elio even took a few puffs, to the delighted applause of the others, who declared him a groovy old dude. Everyone around the camp-fire seemed to be laughing a whole lot more now. "They must be very poor if they can only afford one cigarette" thought Marisa, "but then again, maybe it's some kind of special, rare tobacco. It certainly doesn't smell like the cigarettes Mr. Jean or Mr. Avise smoke." A young woman in her 20's tried to offer Mari the cigarette next, but Elio shot the woman a warning glance...not unkind, but firm...that told the youths that he wasn't quite that groovy. Marisa wouldn't have taken the cigarette anyway. As a diver & a cyborg of the SWA she considered her lungs government property, and also accepted as fact that the rules for human adults and cyborg kids were often very different.
The travelers had come to Pozzuoli to see the ruins, but were completely unaware that the marvelous sights extended even into the deep. Marisa had them enthralled with stories of the dives she and Elio had done over the last few days. In time, the night and the camp-fire began to die down, and the conversation turned to philosophy & politics. The troubles with separatists such as the Padania inevitably came up. Although it was a topic that concerned Mari deeply she chose to remain prudently silent, and listened with her head resting in Elio's lap.
One of the backpackers, the oldest looking, and their de-facto leader dissertated; "It's all just so damn tragic, man...people are fighting and they don't even know why. Even if their side wins they're not gonna win...the same rich bastard fat cats who play both sides of the coin are the only ones who win." That sounded very relevant to Marisa...if the Italian government did win its war with the Padania, what future could possibly await the cyborgs & handlers who had fought the battles?
"The only way we can ever break out of this senseless cycle is to get together..." continued the young man "...break down the barriers we set up to divide ourselves and get together to find some solutions. It's unity that's gonna solve this, not more separation." That sounded just like what the girls were taught back at the SWA compound, albeit, this young man made it sound way more laid back and cool than Chief Lorenzo ever could.
"You can't solve hunger, or homelessness with a fire-bomb, but we're spending way more of society's energy & resources on the bombs than the real solutions. Is it working? No, because the hunger and the homelessness just fester & turn into more violence." That one struck a chord with Elio. He looked down at the cyborg in his lap and imagined the life she would have lived if the money spent on her construction had instead been used to revitalize the drug-addled Dublin neighborhood she had been born in. Would she have lived a long & happy life as Gwendolyn Doyle? Maybe, maybe not.
"That's the reason we're taking this trip" finished the young man, "all of us have spent our entire lives in school, being taught that people & things are a certain way in foreign countries. Now that we're actually going to these places, and meeting these people we're learning that most of what we were taught is wrong, or at least incomplete. The ruins, the museums, the sights, they're all a good excuse to travel, but in reality it's getting to know the truth that's the real reason. Only after going out and seeing what that real truth is with our own eyes can we start working to change things for the better."
Having finished his speech, the young man, and indeed all the backpackers looked to Elio for his reaction. The grey bearded man was much older than any of them, but he had been cool enough to listen instead of cursing and lecturing like most people his age. They were eager to hear what he had to say now...so was Marisa.
"Well, you're up against a system that has existed as long as civilization. People probably sat on this beach drinking wine 2,000 years ago and had this same conversation. But change does happen, trust in that, and it never happens by giving up and doing nothing." Elio lifted his glass and toasted "To a day without firebombs." Glasses and tin cups clinked together in agreement.
It was late, and the party broke up soon afterward. Brushing the sand off their clothes Elio and Mari retired to their large cabin tent to rest in anticipation of the next day's diving. As she curled up in her light summer sleeping bag the girl turned to her handler and asked "Elio, what did you really think about what that man was saying tonight?"
He sighed. "Mari, you know I've spent the majority of my life with blood on my hands, as have you. We've both witnessed...and participated in...a kind of savagery that he hasn't factored into his noble plans. I honestly wish that pure idealism was capable of greasing the wheels of progress...maybe it is, but much more slowly than we'd like. But remember that for every million idealists it only takes one Giacomo Dante to poison the well. And then you have the Jean Croce's of the world pushing the other way. Men like that are not going to give up their vendettas because of some guitar & bongo music on a beach." Elio paused for a few moments, thinking about what to say. "The things that kid said tonight were right...but you and I both know that in the real world the right things don't always happen. All we can do is our best, and hopefully, when the day comes that our time in this world is up, we've moved at least a little bit closer to the kind of world those young folks envision."
________Telephone Call________
The following afternoon Mari & Elio could be found at a cafe in Torregaveta, on the west side of the cape, opposite Bacoli, looking out over the Mare Tirreno. They had just enjoyed a few boat dives into these waters, their deepest excursion of the trip so far. With their lunch plates empty and stacked for the waitress to remove, Marisa was busy updating her lifetime things to do notebook, which she had neglected for a few days. "We climbed Vesuvius, we saw the ruins at Pompeii, we did some drift dives...but we've done those before. What else have we done?"
"How about that fresco you spotted?" asked Elio, "Discovered an important piece of ancient art..."
"We didn't actually discover it" she giggled, but recorded the experience anyway. She did not say it out loud, but the cyborg also wrote down Danced with my handler, knowing how furiously envious that would make the other girls in the dorm. It was then that Elio's mobile phone rang. He seemed confused at first...he had not gotten a single call since they left the compound, and the only outgoing call he'd made was to Mr. Pagani 2 days ago.
The old spy looked at the LCD screen and let out a slight groan. "Mari, I have to take this" he said, getting up out of his seat, "go ahead and order some dessert of something. I won't be long." He took a few steps out onto the sidewalk, hopefully out of earshot of his cyborg.
"This is Alboreto...what is it Jean?" he answered, making no attempt to hide the annoyance in his voice.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your holiday, but I have an urgent mission for you and Marisa" replied the Field Commander.
"Fine" muttered Elio, "we can discuss it in a few days when I get back."
"It's not like that...this is very urgent, and needs to be done tonight. You're still in Naples, right?"
"I'm 25 kilometers or so from Naples" growled Alboreto.
"Good" replied Croce, "There's a yacht in the Bay of Naples that needs to sink with everyone aboard. Intel suggests it will depart in the morning for an unknown destination, so we have to move on this tonight. You two are the closest fratello."
"We aren't even armed!" Elio protested, "Marisa and I each have a sidearm only, with a single magazine each. How do you expect us to sink a boat with only two handguns? You can't just pull a plug out of the bottom."
"Improvise!" ordered Jean, "We can't afford to let this one go...this is the boat that's been ferrying P.R.F. terrorists in and out of the country. After reviewing communications intercepted from that line she & Claes tapped a few months ago Priscilla has estimated there may be 15 Padania agents on board."
Alboreto slapped his own forehead in frustration. "Oh, that's good news..." he growled sarcastically, "...15 terrorists, plus the boat crew, plus we have to sink the boat. That'll be easy."
Croce snapped back "This hasn't been easy for me either! I had to track down Mario Bossi & ask him for a favor just to get you a boat. Do you have any idea how much I hate talking to Mario Bossi, much less owing him a favor?"
"Who the hell is Mario Bossi, and why should I care, Jean?"
"I can tell you're upset" Jean understated, "but we only have a narrow window on this. I need you to figure something out."
"I expect this is a direct order?" the older man muttered, resigning himself to it.
"I expect you'll do what needs to be done" replied Croce, "I'm sending you the details via text message."
Alboreto walked back to the table where his cyborg waited. She had not ordered anything, and had a sour look on her face. "That was Mr. Croce, wasn't it?" she asked. Elio nodded. "What did he want?" Marisa asked.
The handler looked around. He did not expect Marisa to be happy, and wanted to avoid a scene. "Let's go down to the sea front to talk about it." Not waiting for the check, he tossed a few euros on the table, enough to cover the bill and a good tip.
"But Elio, we're on vacation!" protested Marisa, "We have days left!"
"I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way" he sighed. They had gone down to the beach, but still had to keep their voices down, as the sea-side promenade was just above them. Alboreto was aware of how much this time of meant to her, and how hard she had worked to make it happen.
Two weeks before their scheduled time-off arrived Jean Croce instituted a new policy. Before leave would be granted to any fratello the cyborg must demonstrate a minimum score of 70% in all combat skills qualifications. That presented a problem for Marisa, whose sniper skills were far below the average, and almost 10 points beneath Jean's standard. Alboreto had been furious, and resolved to walk straight into the Field Commander's office to tell him what an asshole he was being. Even if Croce did not relent Elio was pretty positive that he could go over Jean's head, and convince Chief Lorenzo that Mari's unique conditioning circumstances (a necessity of her diving mission, not a choice) should exempt her from certain combat skills standards. That however, would set up an unwanted showdown between he & Jean, and place his old friend in the awkward position of being the referee. As the days counted down all parties involved were walking on eggshells.
Marisa managed to surprise everyone by unexpectedly defusing the situation herself. On a day when pouring rain cancelled all outdoor training, she trudged out to the shooting range and lay prone in a mud puddle for 5 solid hours, pounding away at the targets with a Dragunov rifle. Her stalwart room-mate Amelia acted as spotter, and remained by her side the whole time. At last Marisa produced a score card with the desired results; 71%, duly witnessed & signed by the day's range officer, Victor Hillshire. The proud cyborg, with Amelia still at her side, had marched straight into the handler's office building and deposited the wet score card right on Mr. Croce's desk, turning and exiting without a word from either of them, but leaving 2 pairs of muddy footprints all the way down the hall. A relieved Elio took them both out for a congratulatory dinner that night.
"You told me they'd leave us alone during our time off!" Mari continued to pout, crossing her arms and leaning against the concrete sea wall. "Why did you tell him yes?"
"Because it's our job" muttered Elio gruffly, "we are the only ones who can do this, and if we fail to do our duty a big group of terrorists get away. Believe me, they'll be back, and that means innocent people will suffer...you know that."
She kicked the sand and replied "But couldn't they just send the alert fratello down with a MILAN missile? It would work just as well!"
"No time" sighed Elio, shaking his head, "believe me, I gave Jean a piece of my mind, but he's right this time, we have no choice in the matter."
"I wish you were Field Commander instead of Jean!" she snapped, "You should be!"
Alboreto was surprised by that twist in her argument. "Where did that come from?"
"You're way more experienced, everybody knows it," she muttered, "and I bet our vacation wouldn't be ending early if you were running things!"
His patience wearing thin, Elio raised his voice at his cyborg. "Marisa, if I was Field Commander we wouldn't even be taking this vacation. Tell me...how many holidays have Jean & Rico taken lately?"
"I don't know!" she muttered stubbornly.
"Not many. In fact Chief Lorenzo tells me he practically has to order Jean to take time off" Elio explained.
Mari looked up at her handler and declared "That's just because he's a fucking jerk. He's been trying to ruin our trip for weeks, making up stupid new training rules right before we leave!"
"Watch your mouth Marisa..." warned Alboreto, "...he's still our supervisor, and you've got the story about those training rules very mixed up. He made that rule because we have a few fratelli who are constantly taking time off, even when they're behind on training...his own brother being one of them." Elio took a deep breath and brought his tone down. "Do you remember me telling you that I was a Field Commander back at the British Ministry of Intelligence? I was the one denying leaves and making up the stupid training rules that ruined everyone's plans. There is no way I want that job again...but if I ever did take it, you wouldn't be getting me for a Commander, it would be more like getting Jean for a handler...do you understand?"
Mari was silent for a few moments before confessing "I'm really mad at you...and Mr. Croce, right now, and I don't like it. It makes me feel nauseous, and it's becoming really hard to concentrate." She was slipping into an episode, and it was a bad time for that.
"Breathe deeply Marisa" Elio tried to calm her, "remember your mantra." He desperately looked around for some water to pour over her hands, but the waterfront was 50 meters away. The cyborg launched her fist into the concrete sea-wall, cracking it and bloodying her knuckles. Already the tears were pooling up in her eyes.
"Elio, I need your help, it's bad!" she wept, falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around herself. The old handler had to be careful...conditioning prevented the girl from intentionally injuring him, but in this state there was still the danger of an accident, he'd suffered black eyes and even a broken rib in the past.
Marisa was trembling all over, and unable to get a full breath of air into her lungs, so Alboreto's urge for self-preservation had to take a back seat. He dropped down on his knees behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and whispered, "I'm right here Mari...now concentrate on just one point in front of you. Focus on my voice...not the other noise around you." She seemed to be trembling less, so he placed a hand on her back and began giving her breathing cues. In a few moments she locked onto them, and began to take a few ragged but full breaths. "Control your muscles individually...move your diaphragm up and down...you're in control, not the chaos."
Just as she was starting to get back to normal Marisa was hit by a spasm, and threw up most of the lunch she had just eaten. Luckily her handler was there to hold her pony-tail back while she puked. Mari relapsed a little bit into panic, but Elio caught her, "It's okay, that's just the conditioning making you sick...once you're back in control it will all become manageable." Slowly, she became her normal self, but it took a full 5 minutes of sitting in the sand, meditating and doing breathing exercises before she could stand up and converse normally again. It had been her first episode since the withdrawals she'd suffered in the SWA hospital almost a month ago.
"So what do we need to do?" she finally muttered, kicking some sand over her puddle of vomit.
The first thing for Elio to do was rent SCUBA tanks for the dive. He went to the shop they had been using all week, and found the young clerk, whom they now knew as Paolo, getting ready to close up. Mari was still in a foul mood about the unexpected abbreviation of their holiday, so she waited in the BMW, putting her hair back in its usual braids. Her handler sensed that there was a symbolic gesture being performed here, but said nothing.
"Back again Signor Alboreto?" he said cheerfully, "Did you forget something earlier today?"
"No, I just need to rent 2 more tanks and keep them overnight. Have you got two steel 100's, filled with 32%?"
Paolo looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah, I've got them...what are you planning to do?"
"Just a little night diving" replied Elio.
"With your daughter!?" objected the clerk, "Signor, I know she's very good for her age, but night diving is an advanced specialty. I don't recommend this at all!"
"We'll be just fine" Alboreto tried to assure him.
The clerk struggled with the dilemma. He did not want to turn away a loyal customer, but he genuine felt what the man wanted to do was unsafe. "Sir, respectfully...I can't consent to this."
Elio had not anticipated this problem. He weighed his options...shoot the clerk? Wait until later, break in and just take the tanks? No, do what you're best at old man...lie. "Look...it's not for Marisa!" he hissed, "The truth is, I met a woman. We're going to do a little night diving, and maybe some other stuff if I'm lucky. Mari is staying with some friends we met at the hotel and I'd appreciate it if she didn't find out about this. What she learns eventually reaches my wife, capito?!"
"Ohhh" muttered the embarrassed clerk, "eh, yeah, sure...your secret is safe with me!"
Proud of his quick thinking, Elio walked out with the pair of heavy 100 cubic foot tanks and slipped them into the trunk. Mari, apparently resigned to her fate, and gradually becoming more focused on the mission at hand was reading the text message from Jean. "Vessel name is Bourbon, registered in Corsica." she said, "It's a 37 meter custom built motor yacht...Mr. Croce says she's anchored 500 meters off the Santa Lucia docks."
"Bloody hell, she was right under our noses at the Excelsior two nights ago" muttered Elio. "That's gonna be busy, dangerous water to dive in."
Mari shrugged her shoulders. "We'll just go deep as we can, and stay clear of it all...we have to do that to hide our bubbles anyway, since we don't have our rebreathers. What are we gonna do about our weapons? We have no dry bags."
"We wouldn't be able to use them anyway" said her handler. "Once we climb aboard do you think the Padans are going to wait while we unwrap our pistols? No, these Beretta's are tough, they'll fire just fine once we shake the salt water out of them."
Marisa scrolled down and read the rest of the message. She was much more skilled at operating Elio's mobile phone than he was. "Says we're to rendezvous with a Camorra member after dark, and take care of him. We then take his boat out as close as we can get and dive over to infiltrate the Padania yacht...and sink it. Elio, how are we gonna do that with no explosives?"
"I'll tell you as soon as I figure it out" groaned the old spy.
________The Attack________
Darkness fell, and the fratello got into position.
15 minutes late, a 6 meter sport fishing boat pulled up to the seawall on the opposite side of the Pozzuoli ferry docks. "You two the ones I'm picking up?" asked a skinny mafiosi with a scarred face.
"You're late" growled Elio, catching a line and tying the boat up. Marisa hopped down next, but said nothing.
"Mario of Vesuvio didn't tell me there'd be no kid involved" muttered the gangster, "I thought he left the Camorra 'cause of that stuff. Ha...I guess the leopard shows its true stripes after all." He leaned in and whispered to Elio "So this is some kinda love-boat cruise, eh? You think it might get noisy & wanna take her someplace nobody can hear her scream? Listen; I'll knock half off the price if you let me get a piece too."
Alboreto looked to his cyborg and ordered, "Mari, take care of him."
"Right now?" she asked.
"Right now!?" exclaimed the excited mafiosi, just before Marisa smashed his skull with the aluminum anchor.
"Idiot;" muttered Elio, poking the corpse with his toe, "a leopard has spots, not stripes."
In minutes they had loaded their tanks and dive gear on board, so Elio cast off the lines and allowed his cyborg to drive the boat away from the dock. He stripped down first and squeezed into his wetsuit, then took the controls and allowed Mari to change. "There she is" pointed out the girl, her sharp eyes picking out Bourbon long before Elio could read the name. "Wanna circle her?"
"No, they probably have lookouts who would get suspicious of a circling boat" answered Alboreto, "the best thing for us would be to have them lazy, off their guard."
"How many do you think are aboard?"
"Jean said 15 agents, plus we can expect at least 7 boat crew" he answered.
Marisa continued her questions "Are we killing the boat crew as well?"
"Kill everybody who sees us, send the boat down with all hands" Elio told her.
They tied off to a buoy about 100 meters from the target vessel, camouflaged amongst a knot of other sport boats. Just as the fratello had feared, this was a high traffic area, with boats zipping back and forth across the harbor every few minutes. As they donned their harnesses and tested their breathing regulators Elio asked "Do you have cash on you?"
Marisa had a puzzled look on her face. "Yeah...back in the BMW...what do I need money for tonight?"
He counted off 5 bills, 20 € each, and thrust them into her wetsuit. "In case we get separated, we meet at the dive shop we've been using. You'll need money for dry clothes and a taxi." The cyborg smiled. My handler thinks of everything.
Minutes later they plunged into the dark waters, dropping straight down to the bottom to avoid boat propellers. Elio tied his wreck penetration reel off to a piece of trash. It was marked with a small knot every 20 meters, and a slightly bigger knot at 100. They would spool off this cord until he hit the 100 meter mark, and as long as they'd held to their compass bearing they would ascend right beneath the yacht. This was familiar territory to Marisa, total pitch darkness, not even an underwater flashlight to guide the way. Luckily her compass glowed bright enough to see whenever she wanted to check her heading.
It only took 5 minutes to swim the distance, now came the moment of truth. Elio & Marisa began rising to the surface, and like an apparition the massive 37 meter hull appeared above them. They spotted a dinghy tied off to the stern and decided that was the best way to gain access.
After ditching their breathing rigs, and clipping them to the stanchions which held the cutlass bearing (through which the propeller shaft passed) they moved to board the vessel. While Elio remained hidden in the shadow of the boat's port side, Marisa held her breath and swam to the dinghy. There were two men on the back deck, a member of the crew and a guard, both smoking cigarettes. Only the guard was armed, with an MP4 machine gun. Mari reached up without making even a splash, and untied the dinghy.
"Aww shit!" muttered the crewman, "The fucking boat's come loose! Bear a hand, will ya?"
"Not my job" muttered the other man, tossing his cigarette in the water and lighting another. Cursing, the crewman picked up a boat hook & tried to reach for the dinghy as it drifted away. He leaned as far as he could reach, but with a quick shriek, fell into the water and disappeared. "Clumsy pezzo di merda" muttered the guard, putting down his machine gun and finally walking over to help. The crewman had not yet popped up to the surface. "Nani! Quit fooling around...where the fuck are you?" he called out, kneeling and peering into the black water. It was then that Marisa struck again, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him to his doom. She dragged the struggling man down under the stern, and smashed his head against the propeller just as she had done with Nani the crewman. Elio waited nearby with extra lead weights they had brought, cutting both men's lungs & stomach open with his dive knife and weighting them down to sink.
Mari climbed aboard and scanned for danger before reaching down to pull her handler up. Elio drew his Beretta, but signaled Mari to take the MP4. She gave it a quick check, it had a full magazine, plus one round already chambered.
They crept into the vessel as silently as they could, and began searching for the path down to the engine room, where Elio hoped to find some way to destroy the boat. Despite having the exterior appearance of a luxury cruiser, the interior was very spartan, obviously having been stripped down to carry a maximum load of passengers. The pair opened each door cautiously, and found mostly empty rooms, but behind one Marisa found a shock. At 6 men lay in their bunks, smoking cigarettes and reading magazines...all of them armed with machine guns. Nobody even turned to look at who had opened the door though. One man uttered gruffly "No open bunks in here...check the next cabin!" Marisa shut the door and looked at Elio with disbelief.
"Sometimes we just get lucky" he whispered with an amused smile. The old spy found a piece of wood that had been cut as a door-stop, and jammed it into the bunk-room door (which opened out instead of in). Now if all hell broke loose, those 6 men were trapped, and out of the fight.
The next door they opened had someone inside as well, but he had his back to the door, typing on a laptop computer. To Marisa's surprise, her handler attacked, leaping into the room and slashing the man's throat with his dive knife. She was shocked, but followed him in a flash, closing the door behind her. "Why did you do that?" she asked, "I thought we were only gonna find the engine room and sink this thing!"
"Keep an eye on the door..." muttered Elio, "...I want to see what's on this laptop." The young cyborg's mind raced...he was spending too much time, every second wasted puts us closer to getting caught! "This is great!" he whispered, "We've got to get this data back to HQ!"
"We can't dive with a computer!" protested Marisa, "Let's just sink this thing and get out of here!"
"We need to take this; it's too important," he replied, "go find the galley, see if you can find me some zipper-lock plastic bags...at least 3. I'm gonna remove the hard-drive." He was already struggling to rip it out with his bloody knife.
Marisa couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Wait a minute...when Jean says we must end our vacation early, we have to obey his orders explicitly. But when Jean says sink the boat it's okay to blow him off and make up your own mission parameters?"
"For me...yes, for you...no" answered Alboreto, "that's because I'm the boss. Now get moving...find me those bags!" Shaking her head in frustration, Marisa decided it was best to comply.
She came back minutes later with a smear of blood on her cheek, and carrying one and a half muffins. "Mari, what the hell...did you stop for a snack?" muttered her handler.
"Well, I had to kill the cook," she explained, "but he'd just taken these out of the oven, & it seemed like a shame to let them go to waste...I got you one too."
"It's okay, you can have it" groaned Elio, fucking cyborgs! "The galley is a high traffic area; did you at least hide the body?"
"I dragged him into the freezer and wiped up the blood." she reported, handing over the plastic bags her boss had asked for.
"Good girl" praised Elio, triple wrapping the hard-drive and tucking it into his wetsuit. Marisa happily finished off both muffins, feeling she'd earned the treat, and followed him back into the hallway. This time they found the engine room door, a heavy watertight hatch with 4 brass dogs securing it. When they opened it there was a rush of noise & air, the ventilator fans sucking air from the open hatch down the staircase. The fratello scrambled through quickly, and shut he door behind them. It was noisy down there...Marisa felt vulnerable with her cyborg ears overloaded by the pounding sound of diesel generators. Both she & Elio cautiously scanned for hostiles, but the engineer saw them first, dashing to sound the alarm. Elio had no choice, he raised his Beretta and shot the man dead (confirming that the 92FS was tough enough to be fired after immersion in salt water) as he ran.
They both waited for a response to the gunshot, but none came. Another stroke of luck, nobody aboard had even heard Elio fire through the thick engine room insulation. "So do we just start tearing things up?" asked Marisa.
"No...that would definitely get us killed" Alboreto warned, "what you can do is cut all the wires to that alarm panel." As his cyborg went to work with a fire axe, Elio tried to make sense of the complicated plumbing in the engine room. "Okay...this should kill the bilge pumps...cut that wire, Mari."
She happily complied. "Will it sink now?" she asked.
"In about a week" sighed her handler, "we need something more dramatic."
Marisa thought for a minute, and suggested "Well, as long as you can make up your own mission parameters, who says we have to sink her...let's burn it instead."
"There is a lot of diesel on board," agreed Elio, "but it's bloody hard to light."
The cyborg scratched her chin and guessed "There's probably more volatile stuff in the paint locker."
"Good thinking" he said, "I think you're onto something, but there isn't enough of it to burn the whole boat. You wait here...I'll go up top and look for the paint locker."
"No, I should go!" objected Marisa, "I'm way smaller & stealthier than you...plus I can carry more stuff."
"But do you know what to get?" he asked. Mari had to grudgingly admit she didn't. "Just let me take care of this one. Hide down here in the engine room, don't touch anything, and kill anyone who comes down." Elio left her, and went back up to the accommodation deck. It was just as empty as before, so he was able to creep around the halls without being noticed.
Outside, he found a metal locker with a rusty padlock that was easy to break. Inside was a lot of primer, white marine paint, spray paint and....jackpot! On the bottom shelf sat gallon sized cans of acetone. Elio quickly unloaded all he could carry and hurried back down to the engine room. "This will light a fire for sure" he told Marisa, as she hurried to help him with the 6 cans.
"Elio, look at these" said Mari, having popped the magazine out of her captured MP4. The old spy frowned. Armor piercing bullets. The Padania was getting wise to the weaknesses of the cyborgs' armor.
"Alright, that means be careful" he warned her, "you can't take a hit in any critical areas."
"I wasn't planning on it anyway" she assured him, "getting shot hurts way more than it looks like!"
"You don't need to tell me" replied Elio, remembering the bullet he'd caught in the gut years ago. "Now we need to figure out a way to light this fire without getting ourselves killed as well."
"I've got another idea!" exclaimed Marisa, thinking she was on a roll, "The diesel tanks are on the other side of that bulkhead, right? We just fire the armor piercing rounds into that wall, it'll bust open the tanks, and the muzzle flash will ignite the acetone you found at the same time!"
Her handler shook his head. "The part about not getting ourselves killed as well is fairly important, Mari."
"No, I have an idea for that too...just give me a few minutes!"
"Fine" agreed Alboreto. He had mixed feelings about her plans, they were usually pretty insane, but he needed time to think anyway. "There's 4 more gallons of acetone upstairs, you can work on your idea while I go fetch them."
Again, the old spy left. Before sneaking to the paint locker to get the last 4 cans of solvent he did a little reconnaissance. There were 2 guards on the bow, but no one had yet noticed the missing man on the stern, who was now laying alongside Nani the crewman at the bottom of the harbor.
The watchman on the bridge was asleep, so Elio crept in and cut wires running to the radios and satellite phone. He also stole the man's cigarette lighter, which might come in useful lighting off the acetone. By then 5 minutes had passed, so he exited as silently as possible, and gathered up the last 4 gallons of solvent before returning to the engine room.
Mari was just putting the finishing touches on her plan. "How do you like it?" she asked him, pride evident on her face.
Elio slapped his forehead when he saw the contraption she had put together. "Oh jeeze, have you girls been watching Wille E. Coyote cartoons during Jean's classes again?"
"This will totally work!" she argued. The MP4 was secured by heavy zip-ties to a pair of cooling pipes. 1/4" yellow polypropylene line ran from its trigger, through several pulleys & running shackles, eventually ending at the top of the stairs. "We flood the floor with acetone and let it evaporate, making this whole room into a vapor-bomb. Then we raise some hell while we escape. When the Padanians come to check the engine room, they'll open this door, which will yank the rope, and fire the MP4! Not only will the vapor explode, but the gun will punch holes in the tanks, and now pressurized diesel will spray into the fire!" She scrambled to the top of the stairs and yanked on her rope to demonstrate. It does work, Elio had to admit, the line does pull the trigger.
"Only one problem," he told her, "we can't flood the floor with acetone without suffocating ourselves. Those vapors are extremely toxic."
"Only if you breathe them!" replied the cyborg, "And I can hold my breath for 20 minutes."
Grudgingly, Elio admitted that she had a pretty reasonable, if crazy, plan. "Alright, shut down the ventilator fans and block the ducts" he ordered, "Your idea will be more effective if we let heat & pressure build up."
"I'm on it, boss!" she exclaimed. Elio positioned 9 of the acetone cans, but kept one with him. While he did that Marisa replaced the magazine in the machine gun, and made it ready to fire. "We're all set up...you have to go now" she told her handler.
Elio nodded. "Don't waste time...you can only hold your breath for 20 minutes if you've been hyperventilating with pure oxygen...I don't want you in here with that vapor for more than 5."
"I'll be out in 3, sir!" she assured him. He gave her a pat on the head and left her to do the work, creeping up the stairs and slipping out the door with his last can of solvent.
As soon as her master was gone, Mari took a deep breath and got down to her job. One by one she slashed the metal cans open with her dive knife and dumped the liquid onto the floor. It was shocking to watch how quickly it evaporated in the hot, dry engine room. As soon as she ripped one can open it seemed like the last puddle was all but dried up. The solvent began to sting her eyes, and she really got an impression of how dangerous this was. Any spark could blow this whole room into a fireball right now, so she touched a piece of bare metal pipe every few seconds to dissipate her own static charge.
Soon all 9 cans were empty. Mari went up the stairs slowly, touching bare metal every chance she got. As she opened the hatch Elio practically dragged her through, and she finally got to take a big, deep breath of non-toxic air. "You ready?" he asked, lighting a rag on fire with the cigarette lighter he'd stolen. Mari saw that it was jammed into the last can of acetone, and smiled. "Do it boss!"
Alboreto stepped into the hall and hurled the fire-bomb. It exploded in spectacular fashion, dousing the passage in flames, and catching the carpet & paneling. A few boat crew members and Padania terrorists ran down from the upper decks to fight the fire, but Marisa & Elio gunned them down with their Beretta's. "Let's get the hell out of here!" he told her, and the fratello made a rush for the back door.
By now the whole vessel was alerted to the presence of infiltrators. Those who could actually get out of their cabins (not trapped by fire or wooden doorstop wedges) rushed out to attack, and the fratello had to fight their way past 4 armed Padanians just to jump off the stern. A rain of machine gun fire followed them, but both Marisa & Elio dove deep, and under the boat to where their breathing rigs were hidden.
"Fuck!" one of the lead PRF terrorists growled, as the boat crew fought the hallway fire, "the bastards got away! Search the boat! These might be more aboard." A group of armed men checked each cabin, and came to the engine room hatch.
"Wait!" yelled the vessel Captain. He was the only one who spotted a yellow piece of line tied to the outside door handle. He was too late; the men opened the hatch, setting off the chain of surprises Marisa & Elio had left for them. The rope pulled tight...the MP4 fired and in an instant the vapor bomb exploded, killing the search team and the Captain instantly. Bullets pierced the diesel tanks, delivering more pressurized fuel directly into the flaming engine room, atomized in a fine spray that was easy to burn.
Down below, cyborg & handler barely had time to reach their gear when a huge shudder ripped through the hull. As it twisted and flexed from the explosion the propeller shaft was violently torn from its bearings. The shaft packings were blown out, and the stanchions that held Mari & Elio's equipment snapped like sticks. With the sea water intakes & packings blown out the vessel took on water fast, flooding the lower machinery spaces of the doomed vessel. Bourbon listed badly to port, and began a rapidly accelerating death-roll as the fratello struggled to get their gear free from the broken stanchions.
Elio's harness & tank came loose just as the yacht rolled onto its side, dragging them out of the water. They had only seconds, so Mari did what she was trained to do, and threw both her handler and his breathing rig clear. By the time he surfaced, the dying vessel had pitched forward, and was sinking bow first. In the darkness he could make out Marisa, fighting to get her own equipment untangled. "Just leave it!" he shouted at her, but the yacht went down with her still hanging on.
Frantic, Alboreto jammed his regulator in his mouth and dove after the wreck. Visibility was zero...he had no light, and the boat crashing into bottom had stirred up an enormous mud cloud. The best he could do was fumble around the hull, trying to locate anything recognizable by touch. Finally, he hit the keel, and then solid mud. It became apparent that the vessel had rolled back closer to even keel as it hit bottom. Pulling himself hand over hand he found the mangled prop shaft, and near it, his cyborg...breathing from her regulator, but tangled in twisted metal by her own harness. He cut the strap with his knife, and they both swam free.
Cyborg & handler popped to the surface just as fire-boats arrived to look for survivors (they found none). "Time to get out of here" he said, "are you okay?"
"I thought I was a goner" she panted, "thanks for coming back for me."
"Be serious" muttered Elio, "what did you think I was going to do? Leave behind my favorite weapon?" She smiled, and the fratello disappeared back beneath the dark waters to find Elio's reel-line and follow it back to their own boat.
________Souvenirs________
The mission was complete, so the fratello spent their last night in a hotel in Pozzuoli, one considerably less posh than the Excelsior, but comfortable none the less. Priscilla and her Intel team were eager to get their hands on the captured hard-drive, so Elio & Marisa had to return to Rome the next morning. Still, Elio set aside a bit of time to do some shopping before they left.
During their last hours of freedom the fratello visited a touristy beach shop to pick up a few trinkets & souvenirs for Marisa's friends back in the dorm. Claes had specifically asked for a few post-cards of the sea that she could paint from. Marisa looked at a shelf full of picture frames and asked "Elio, what do you think of these? I thought maybe for Mama Galati."
The 6"x8" frames were decorated with sea shells and dried up starfish, very tacky looking, but then again, Mrs. Galati's home was filled with tacky keepsakes. "I think she'd like it very much" he replied.
She picked one out and put it in the plastic hand basket she carried. "Maybe she can put a picture of her son Doriano in it. You know, the Section 1 agent who was murdered."
"Mrs. Galati already has a lot of photos of him around" said Elio, "I think she'd rather have a picture of all you robot-girls who've come to visit her."
"Really?" asked Marisa. The thought of giving someone a gift with her own photograph in it seemed awfully conceited.
Her handler nodded, and continued "Trust me, she'll love it far more than an empty frame. Have Henrietta take the shot...her Nikon has an automatic-timer."
They browsed a bit more, and as they came close to finishing Elio took a stuffed dolphin toy off the shelf and dropped it in the basket. Mari gave him a queer look and asked "What is that thing for?"
"Mari, when I came to wake you up for the trip down here I noticed that you don't have one single stuffed animal in your room" he answered.
She crossed her arms and muttered "That's because I'm not a dork."
"Well it's just not natural for a girl your age" he argued, "it's not so bad to be a little bit of a dork. Triela has a big collection of stuffed bears, and she's cool, right?"
"Triela..." she explained, "...is a serious collector of high-end stuffed bears, not toys from tourist traps. Besides, dolphins are assholes."
"Language, Mari," groaned Elio, "besides; you've only met two dolphins in your whole life."
"And....?" she challenged.
Elio admitted "Okay...Romeo & Juliet at the Dive Training Center are assho.....jerks, you can call them jerks."
"Good enough," the cyborg agreed, "dolphins are jerks."
"Fine, you can give the stuffed dolphin to your room-mate," conceded Alboreto, "but I'm not giving up until you own at least one stuffed animal." Marisa gave him look that would have curdled milk, but knew she wasn't going to defeat him. Without even a glance she reached out her right hand and randomly picked a stuffed shark off the shelf, its red mouth ferociously agape and filled with soft rubber teeth. Silently, she dropped it in the basket, never breaking the annoyed gaze she had locked on her handler. "Very good" acknowledged Elio with a smile, "now we can go home."
From the passenger seat of the M3 Marisa watched the sea coast disappear behind them and Mount Vesuvius fade away over the horizon. In a few hours they would be back in Rome, back to training, to school, and to work. She seemed lost in thought until the reached the A1 autostrada, when the young cyborg drifted off to sleep. Her handler regarded her with a chuckle. The assassin in red pig-tails had her head resting comfortably against the seat-belt, and in her arms was cradled the stuffed grey shark.
END