Dina Chapter 3: Keeping Up

In the darkened observation room, Priscilla and Olga remained after Raballo took his leave. Olga was there because Priscilla was there. Priscilla was there because she couldn't move.

With a forced grin, Olga said, "Well, she is too undisciplined to be a dancer, but she could be a singer with her voice."

Priscilla said nothing, still staring at the little girl sitting on her bed, studying the room.

"Priscilla? Are you well?"

"That's ... that's not her. That's not Alessia. I mean, I mean, that is her, but she's so different." With that, she bolted out of the room.

The door to Dina's room was locked by a keycode known only to the medical staff, but Priscilla had long added override codes to the doors. She burst into the room.

"Hi, Signorina Meleori!"

"Uh, hello, Dina." Priscilla took a deep breath. "Do you know who Alessia is?"

Dina looked stricken. "No, should I?"

"Calm down, calm down. No, I was just wondering. You ... you ... you look like a friend of mine, well, the daughter of a friend of mine. Her name was Alessia, that's all."

"Oh, okay. She must be a nice person. Uh, they must be nice people, I mean."

Priscilla approached the bed. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, you're a nice person, and if they're your friends, then they're nice people too, right?"

"Can I sit down?" Priscilla noted a rectangle where the blanket's nap had been disturbed, one the size of a large shoebox.

"Of course, Signorina Meleori."

"Priscilla, please. Call me Priscilla."

"Uh, okay, Sig... I mean Priscilla." Dina hunched as she corrected her mistake.

"It's all right. It's all right. Look. See? I'm not upset about it."

A timid grin surfaced on Dina's face.

Priscilla sat down at the foot of the bed and smiled back at the little girl. "Yes, they were nice people. Very nice people. Do you want to hear a story about them?"

The bed bounced as Dina clapped. "Yes! Oh, yes! Please!"

"Well, this was back when I was about your age, and away at school. I met this older girl named Favianne..."

Ξ§§§Ξ

Paolo sat in the office chair his sparse dormitory room. Captain Raballo leaned against the desk. A bed and a freestanding armoire comprised the remainder of the furniture.

"I'll be honest. I don't like this. It's like you said, say the wrong thing and she goes to pieces. Or she starts dancing with joy. Or something. She's too excitable."

Raballo nodded. "Each girl reacts to the conditioning differently. Also, they had to do some more replacements with her. From what I understand, her organs also failed, so she has more than just replaced arms and legs."

"Oh? What happened?"

The older man pointed at the shallow desk drawer above the footwell. "It's in there. Her file. She's a good kid."

"You knew her from before?"

"Me? Oh, no. After what happened to her, if I knew her then, I'd be out there hunting down those bastards."

"What ha... Oh, I'll just read the file."

"A good idea. They've all had their memories wiped clean, but little things still show up. Take Claes, for example. Before her accident, she loved to paint and read. Last week, I set her up with an easel and some paints, and she's quite good."

Paolo nodded. They watched the setting sun. Like Captain Raballo's room, Paolo's also overlooked the training fields. In the reddish light, small flashes from the rifle range seemed like oversized fireflies.

"As I was saying earlier, each handler is responsible for his girl, and has a great deal of leeway in her care. She's right now heavily dosed with the conditioning drugs to help her body adjust to all the replaced organs and limbs, but it's up to you how much to give her."

"How much do you give Claes?"

"The minimum."

"Is that why she's so calm?"

The Captain looked at his cane for a few seconds. "No, I think that's something that carried over also. I mean, most of the other girls get calmer the heavier the dose, but Claes has always been this way, no matter how much or how little she gets."

"Why drug her at all, then? If you stop, you'll know for sure."

"Hm, looks like making you read all those books did help you after all."

"Well, you told me that the difference between the SISMI and the Carabinieri was being allowed to ask why."

"Actually, I said required.A good soldier needs to be aware of more than his rifle. That's why even though they have the girls, they keep us around."

"I'm not sure I'll stick around." Paolo pushed the chair back from the desk and swiveled it to face the door. "I don't think Dina will work out."

"Give her some time. Once less of the drug is in her system, maybe she'll be less flighty. Give her a chance."

Paolo sighed. "I will. Maybe she'll be calmer once she's off the drugs."

Raballo rested a meaty hand on Paolo's shoulder. "No, there's a minimum dose for a reason."

"Organ rejection?"

"No. It's addictive. Not that I've tried that with Claes. But the medical staff have said that these girls will become very unstable if they're not regularly given some of it."

Paolo stiffened. "You're addicting them? It's bad enough you're taking away their childhoods, their memories, their names, even. But you're addicting them like a wharfside pimp?"

The hand clamped down on him, keeping him from rising. "With most of them, taking their memories away is a blessing. These were not happy little girls before we found them. Ask yourself: what would make an eleven year old girl jump off a bridge? Twice?"

"That still doesn't make it right."

"No. It doesn't. But it gives them a chance to live a happier life."

Paolo deflated.

Raballo took his hand off his once-protégé's shoulder.

Paolo slowly turned the chair back around to face the Captain. "Twice?"

"Hm?"

"You said that one of the girls jumped off a bridge twice."

Raballo's face darkened slightly. He nodded. "She broke her leg the first time. Once out of the hospital, she rolled her wheelchair back to the same bridge and jumped again. This time, she landed head-first, and paralyzed herself from the neck down."

Paolo sat back. "They can fix that?"

Raballo nodded. "At a cost." He raised his hand, palm up. "It's too great a cost for most people, and the implants work best when the bodies are still young. What they learn from these girls goes on to improve replacement limbs for the outside world, the normal world."

"I can't imagine anyone would mind being addicted to this drug if they could walk again." Paolo gave a low whistle. "Why haven't we released this yet? There are thousands of people out there who could bene-"

"Because the drug is also killing them. Those girls aren't expected to live more than five years."