Gunslinger Girl is not (c) to me

This story uses characters and locations based on Gunslinger Girl, additional story elements and characters are (c) to me- ElfenMagix.


Solution's Resolution
An Appology:

Chapter 11 may seem to swerve into a direction that may seem implausable or just trying to promote a single character onto a level above the others. It may appear to be so, but as later chapters are added, you will see that most of the characters are equal in the end. The problem is getting to that end.

Thus, I continue to write. Hopefully you all will understand.


Chapter 11: Good Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

The weekend is supposed to be a time of rest and play, but at the agency, work still abounds but a lowered pace. Fernando tries to take advantage of waking up a bit later than usual. This does not stop Ferro from gaining entrance into his room to wake him up.

Ferro enters the room, turning on the lights to their full brightness, leaving the door open to allow more light to come in. She goes to his bed and tries to call to him to wake him up. With his head under one set of pillows, it was little that could be done to wake him. She reaches to him and removes the pillow off his head, exposing his face to the bright lights. She is quickly met by having an extended arm to her chest with a large bore .45 American Arms fire arm between her breasts, as Fernando covers his eyes with his other arm from the bright lights. She stands there frozen in place, holding the pillow she had removed in one hand.

Fernando: I don't know who you are, but this better be good.

Ferro: Fernando, It's me, Ferro. Rachel checked in to the infirmary early this morning, sicker than she was yesterday.

Fernando slowly draws his weapon and plops it back on the pillow, continuing to cover his eyes.

Fernando: Is she OK? What Time is it?

Ferro: We don't know. Its 8:30 in the morning.

Fernando: What's her symptoms?

Ferro: High fever, and vomiting.

Fernando: If it were just vomiting, its from the wine she had last night. I need you to step out of here so I can get dressed.

Ferro: I'm here to make you to get ready to see her.

Fernando: Ferro… unless you want to see me naked- I'm letting you know now that I sleep in the nude. Now you mind getting me my glasses and a few other items?

Ferro takes the glasses from the night table next to the bed and hands them to him. He puts them on and continues to lay there under the covers. Ferro goes through his clothes drawers and drops a set of socks and underwear for him to put on, along with yesterday's pants and shirt.

Fernando: You mind?

Ferro: Get dressed under the covers.

Fernando: OK then. I get dressed, you feed the cat.

Ferro: What?

Fernando: Feed the cat. If Meeshie don't get fed before I leave the room, she'll trash the place in protest.

Ferro: Where's the cat food?

Fernando: On top of the book case, give her the veal w/rice combo.

Ferro finds a small step ladder to climb upon to find the cat food on the top shelf. As she takes care to feed the cat, Fernando crawls under the blanket to get dressed. After a minute or so, Fernando throws off the blankets off him and sits on the bed. He finishes buttoning his shirt; zippers, buttons and belts his pants and puts on his shoes. He takes his .45 off from the bed and puts it into his waistband. Fernando stand up for the first time in the day, which is a big achievement, for he will go forth without his coffee or food once more for his little girl. Ferro was just putting the empty can of cat food in the trash.

They leave the room and close the door behind them, Fernando race walks through the hall, going faster than Ferro ever could. He stops at the center stair case that separates the children's dorms from the adult dorms, looking back at Ferro who had another 100ft to go to catch up to him.

"I'll meet you over there!", Fernando yells at her. Ferro tries to run to him to catch up, but it was too late as Fernando jumps over the banister and down some 25 ft to the ground floor below. He land with a loud 'BAM!' and he starts off running

Triela wakes out of her bed, "What was that?"

Claes was already at the window looking out at the court yard, seeing Fernando run across to the infirmary. "I don't know, but I think it had to do with him."

The other girls enter their room, asking what had happened.

Claes: I don't know, I just saw Fernando running to the infirmary like if there was a fire.

Henrietta: We just saw Ferro running down the stairs just after that loud nose.

Angelica: You think there something is wrong with Rachel?

Claes: Why don't you go check on her room.

Angelica: Who me? Why me?

Claes: You're the one that asked. Now go check up on her.

Angelica leaves the room as the others looked out the window, watching Ferro run across the court yard.

Henrietta: I did not know Ferro could run like that.

Triela, Yeah, it looks like somebody set fire to her.

Claes: Do you know how hard it is to run in a skirt that tight and in high heels?

Henrietta: Then why does she wear them?

Angelica returns with the news that Rachel was not in her room. Just a trail of puke that ran from her bed to her bathroom. The girls can only look at each other, wondering what to say or do. Eventually, Claes comes up with an idea, though the others are not too keen about it.

Claes: Rachel must be very sick, how about we clean the mess for her.

Triela: Ewww… cleaning up somebody else's puke! You go do that…

Henrietta: Clean it, with what?

Claes: There are cleaning supplies in the maintenance closet down the hall. All we have to do is break into it and drag the stuff to her room.

Angelica: You got the keys to the maintenance closet?

Claes: No, but Triela can pick the lock.

A (disguised) male voice answers from behind.

Male voice: How about asking the custodian to open it for you.

The girls all turn around slowly to see who it was.

Henrietta: Jose!

Jose: OK girls, what's going on here? And why do you want to break into the maintenance closet?

Claes: Rachel might be in the infirmary again, and Angelica says that her room is messed up with vomit.

Jose: So, you ladies want to break into the maintenance and clean up the mess?

Triela (yelling from under her sheets): NOT ME!

Jose: That counts her out. What about the rest of you?

Claes starts to walk out the room.

Claes: That room is not going to get cleaned by itself.

Jose: Henrietta, you helping in this clean up operation?

Henrietta: If its for a good cause, yes.

Jose: OK… you girls wait by the closet, and I'll go get the keys to open it.

Within minutes, Jose comes with the keys to open the maintenance closet, handing out mops, brooms and other cleaning items to the girls. The girls take the items and start cleaning the mess they had found.

45 minutes later Jean comes into check up on Ricco. Instead, he finds his brother Jose standing by Rachel's room, looking inside. Even Triela was inside helping with the clean up. Henrietta and Ricco take the table, and Claes- the chairs, and place them outside in the hallway by Jose.

Jean: What's going on here?

Jose: The girl's are cleaning up Rachel's room. They found it covered in vomit this morning, and from what I'm guessing, Rachel is in the infirmary.

Jean: Girls? They are machine, brother. And housekeeping is for the custodial staff.

Jose: Look, brother, don't go hard on them. They want to do this to be nice to each other, then let them. They may be cyborgs, but keep inside, they are also girls too.

Jean: I'll go check up on the infirmary and see what's going on.

Jean leaves the scene as Claes steps out to talk with Jose, carrying a few of Rachel's personal possessions and weapons. For the time being, the items were placed on the table.

Claes: The clothes, bedspread and blankets are going to be washed, but the mattress is a goner.

Jose: What do you mean by that?

Claes: I don't know what she ate last night, but that dark purple vomit is hard to clean up.

Jose: You said- Dark purple vomit? That has to be the wine she had last night.

Claes: That would explain the smell of bad grapes then.

Henrietta and Ricco leave with two laundry bags to washed at the dormitory laundry mat. Triela and Angelica started to remove the mattress off from the box spring of Rachel's bed.

At the infirmary, Fernando argues at the top of his voice with Dr. Bianchi, more like at the doctor. Ferro was only able to stand by to witness the spectacle.

Fernando: What do you mean she's stabilized? She's in septic shock! What's wrong with you?!!

Dr. Bianchi: If you calm down, we can think things through to help her.

Fernando: Think?!! Where On God's Earth Did You Get Your Medical Degree?!!

Dr. Bianchi: If you don't calm down, I'm going to have to get security and have you sedated and removed.

Fernando: I would like to see you try…

Dr. Bianchi: Don't say I did not warned you.

Fernando takes off his glasses showing off his highly blood eye hazel eyes which seem to glow straight at him. Dr. Bianchi presses a button on his intercom.

Dr. Bianchi: Yes, we have a highly agitated handler that needs to be removed to be removed.

Before the other side could hang up its end, two large guards enter the office. They both have tranquilizer pens in their hands.

First Guard: Alright big boy. Time to relax and walk out of here nice-like.

Fernando turns around to face them.

Fernando: That is all you bought? A couple of dim-witted gorillas?

Second Guard: Lets get this over with.

Fernando: Touch me and that will be the last thing you will remember.

The two guards walk right up to Fernando and stand right in front of him. Fernando does not do a thing until after they make their first move. They grab him by his arms and try to pull him away from Dr. Bianchi's desk. Fernando spins around to break their grasp. As he spins, the guards stick the tranquilizer pens into each of his arms, pushing on the release injection pin. The medication floods into Fernando's system, and he goes limp. The guards catch him before he hits the floor and proceed to drag him to the door. They stop to open it.

The first guard goes squarely face first into the doorway as the second guard grabs at his pants covered reproductive organs and both melts down to the floor in pain. Fernando dusts himself off and walks back to Dr. Bianchi's desk. He stands there staring at him angrily before he removes the injection pens out from his arms and slams them on the desk. They are labeled as 'Fast Acting' 1200mg Thorazine. The highest dose available to the psychiatric market.

Fernando: Now you just pissed me off.

Ferro can only stand there and watch as Fernando reaches over and grabs Dr. Bianchi and lifts him over his desk, and drags him out the room, kicking open the door that the guards stopped to open. A door that swung open into the room. Dr. Bianchi can be heard pleading for all things holy, and for his momma, while Ferro went after them after retrieving Fernando's glasses of the doctor's desk. Several doors later, they enter another room, where the latest of Rachel's X-rays and other scanned photographs hung on a lit wall mounted light box.

Fernando lets go of Dr. Bianchi and grab his hair by the back of his head, pointing to one of Rachel's X-rays, shoving his face to it.

Fernando: DON'T YOU SEE IT?!! THERE, WHERE THE ASCENDING AND TRANSVERSE COLONS MEET- IS A MASSIVE BLOOD BLOT AND EXCESSIVE SCARRING OF THE VEINS AND ARTERIES IN THAT AREA WHERE SHE WAS SHOT!!! I CAN SEE IT, WHY CANT YOU?!! OR ARE YOU TOO BUSY PLAY BARBIE FACTORY TO REALIZE THAT SOMETHING SO SMALL AND SIMPLE CAN ELUDE YOUR SCANNERS?!!

Dr. Bianchi (in a very high and squeaky tone): Alright… now we see it, and we'll operate on her right away to deal with it… just let me go…please?

Fernando: I WAS A 3RD YEAR PREMEDSTUDNT AND I FOUND THE PROBLEM, WHY CANT YOU?!! NOW YOU ARE GOING TO OPERATE ON HER, TAKE CARE OF THE BLOOD CLOTS AND SCAR TISSUE IN HER SYSTEM, EVACUATE HER BOWELS OF THE SEPTIC AGENT AND HOPE SHE RECOVERS 100 AND 10 PERCENT!

Fernando lets go of Dr. Bianchi, who crumples to the floor and starts to cry. Fernando starts to walk away, yelling, "IF RACHEL DIES SO DOES THE MEDICAL STAFF!"

Ferro runs off to check up on Dr. Bianchi as Fernando leaves the room.

Ferro: Are you alright, Dr. Bianchi?

Dr. Bianchi was little more than a whimpering mass of human flesh balled up where the floor met the wall below the wall mounted light box.

Dr. Bianchi: You want the 3rd generation cyborgs to be like that monster?!!

Fernando makes his way to way to Rachel's ward, where she was asleep in the ward bed. Softly he brushes her hair away from her face with one hand, while hold her hand with the other. Jean quietly walks into the room quietly, as Fernando stays by Rachel's side.

Jean: I'm impressed

Fernando: I'll deal with you later. Right now I'm waiting while they prep for her surgery.

Jean: I don't see how. You got the doctor scared to the point where he is an emotional mass of human flesh that had messed on himself. You took out two of our toughest guards, after they injected you with their strongest anti-psycho drug. You wrecked the doctor's office… Gee I can imagine what you would be like out on the field. Not even our Henrietta is that destructive.

Fernando: I followed their orders Jean… now she's septic… all because they are to busy oogling at how the implants are doing and not the patient herself. It is this kind of incompetence that I cant stand. It is this kind of incompetence that I go after and fight.

Jean: I did manage to find a small entry in your records, something about you getting too emotional and involved in your last mission. I think you still have issues based on that.

Fernando: My past has nothing to do with the present situation.

Jean: No? Then why the emotional involvement now?

Fernando just turns to him as stare at him as if Jean was stupid, and probably was. He then slowly lets go of Rachel's hand and takes a couple of steps towards Jean.

Fernando: You don't get it, do you? You are some kind of an idiot, aren't you?

Jean: Maybe I am. But you're the one who allowing his feelings to be involved with a piece of machinery.

Fernando: I'll pretend not to hear that comment, for her sake.

Jean: Oh, like what are you going to do? Beat me up like you did the guards?

Fernando: Do not play with my emotions.

Jean: Oh… so now you're giving orders?

Fernando: You're supposed to be the fratello squad leader. You tell me.

Jean: Let me tell you this. Two weeks ago you slapped me senseless, and threatened to destroy this place. Now you're doing more of the same, because of a machine.

Fernando: She is a person, one who I share a bond with long before anyone ever decided to create this mad facility. One who I am willing to go to the gates of hell for, and yet you say she is a machine. I don't agree with your assessment.

Jean: She died back in New York, even though we kept her alive with our machines and tools- She stopped being Rachel D. Fluty over 2 weeks ago due to a surgeon's mistake in treating her wounds.

Jean reaches into his pocket and pulls out a VHS Video Tape labeled: Metropolitan Hospital, Surgery ward 02; Patient: Jane Doe; Date/Time: 091111-1445

Fernando: What is that?

Jean: Rachel's operation when she died.

Fernando: Why are you giving me this?

Jean: If anyone is to blame here- it is them. We just follow up and clean the mess as much as possible.

Fernando: You have her now. You could have left her alone, and I would have buried her back in NYC, and be grieving for her. You are now responsible for her life when you decided to get involved in making another cyborg. Now you have to deal with the ramifications, and you don't like the taste its leaving you with.

A couple of the nursing staff enter the room, disconnecting Rachel from the life monitors and connecting her to portable ones that they attached to the bed. They wheel her away through another door in the room.

Jean: You would like to be in there, wouldn't you.

Fernando: I would do the operation myself if I could.

Jean: But you're not a doctor.

Fernando: I was a 3rd year Pre Medical studies student. I know enough to do what needs to be done. Unlike your incompetent doctors who only care about what they did to the girls and not of the girls themselves.

Jean: And there you go with professing your belief about the how they are still more human than machine.

Fernando: If she was a machine, she would not be in there requiring surgery to remove scar tissue and clots that is causing her internal organs to be septic. In the least a machine can be replaced. A person- no matter how much of that person's body was replaced with artificial parts, is still a person.

Fernando starts to walk away from the room, needing to walk past Jean to do so. Jean grabs Fernando by his arm as if to stop him from continuing any further. Fernando turns to face him, and then raises his fist to his face, pulling back slowly as if to hit him. He then lowers his fist to his side and opens it.

Fernando: You're not even worth it anymore.

Fernando yanks on his arm to make Jean go, and continues out the room. Stepping out into the hallway, Fernando finds Ferro waiting by the doorway. They exchange looks for a second, as she extends her hand to give him his glasses she had found on the doctor's desk. Fernando refuses to take them, and walks away.

Jean starts to walk out of the room, finding Ferro there holding Fernando's glasses. They both watch as he walks down the hall and out of sight once he reaches the stairs.

Jean: You going to follow him and give him his glasses?

Ferro: He did not want them, he knows I have them, he can see me to get them when he's up to it.

Jean: Sounds to me you want him to make the first move.

Ferro looks at him for a second before slapping him senseless and then walks away. Jean yells down the hallway to her.

Jean: I DID NOT MEANT IT IN THAT WAY!

Several minutes had pasted. Fernando makes it back to his room, carrying a brown bag lunch from the cafeteria. But he was not hungry. His coffee machine has made it brew and has been sitting there waiting for him. But he remembers that he did not set the machine to brew any coffee. He leaves the door to his room opened as he steps to his bed. He places his brown bag meal onto the night stand, next to the bed. He takes his gun from the holster and places it back under the pillows, then sits down, kicks off his shoes and list onto his pillows. He takes one from the pile and covers his head with it. No matter how dark it might get, Fernando still sees the brightness of the room getting to him.

Meeshie walks up to the open doorway and sits in front of it, as if guarding the area. The sounds of tiny footsteps can be heard approaching the doorway, then a light knock on the door. From under the pillows, Fernando gives his answer.

Fernando: Who dares.

Claes: It is I, Claes, Mister Fernando.

Fernando: What can I do for you?

Claes: We cleaned up Rachel's room, and I have a few of her personal belongings.

Fernando removes the pillow from off his head and slowly gets up to sit on his bed. He keeps his eyes closed.

Fernando: Come.

Claes enters the room, and approaches him. She stops, just being at arm's reach to him- her arm's reach. Fernando reaches out in front of him, where Claes moves her hands filled with Rachel's belongings onto his. Fernando feels the various items, and identifies them in his mind.

Fernando: Put the guns and their tools into my gun locker. Put the rest on my desk, next to my laptop.

Claes complies without saying a word. She then looks about the room. She takes to his coffee machine, and fills his cup, preparing it as she has seen him do before a couple of times before Rachel entered the dormitory. She then walks back and hands him the cup. He takes it and then places it onto the night stand by the bed.

Claes: Is Rachel going to be OK?

Fernando: She better, or else I will destroy that so called medical facility.

Claes: What happened?

Fernando: I followed Dr. Bianchi's orders as to dealing with Rachel's condition. Only to have Rachel go septic and almost into toxic shock.

Claes: What do you mean- 'go septic?'

Fernando: When you eat- food gets process and waste goes out the other end. If that waste does not come out- it starts to build up poisons in the body and the body can die.

Claes: So, Rachel could not get rid of the poisons?

Fernando: Right.

Claes: Can I ask- how?

Fernando: She had something block her internal organs- scar tissue and blood clots from a previous operation she had to deal with her gun shot wounds. The doctors here were too preoccupied in dealing with her cyborgnetic implants and not dealing with Rachel herself-seeing how she was. So they did not see her falling apart in front of them; I did, and I pointed out to them their mistake, and demanded that they correct the situation or I would correct them.

Claes: Are you OK?
Fernando: I'm not worried about me.

Claes: We are. Or at least I am.

Fernando: Why?

Claes: The doctors will do what it takes to get Rachel healthy again. But if something happens to you while she is recovering, she is going to end up like me- without her Fratello.

Fernando: I'll be fine.

Claes: For her sake, I hope so. One of me around here is enough.

Fernando: You don't have to be that way, you know.

Claes: What do you mean by that?

Fernando: You can go on missions as backup or to add an extra set of eyes and weapons support to the Fratello team involved.

Claes: I have already bonded to my fratello.

Fernando: Having a bond is one thing. Something nice to have. But being useful and productive is another. Testing and enhancing one's skills, doing missions, being more than what you are…

Claes: My training was never completed.

Fernando: Care for me to finish it?

Claes: No.

Fernando: Why?

Claes: You're not my fratello.

Fernando: Maybe I'm not. But why did you choose the dark navy blue bathingsuit when I gave you the black one?

Claes: I don't like black.

Fernando: But in taking a bathingsuit, means that you want for me to teach you more advanced swimming skills.

Claes: I already know how to swim.

Fernando: With that heavier cyborg body?

Claes: Never had the opportunity.

Fernando: Would you want me too?

Claes: Would I want you to… teach me how to swim in this body? I ready know how to swim.

Fernando: OK, when classes start, you will be the first one I test.

Claes: Test, how?

Fernando: Swim the length of the pool without stopping, starting from the deep end first, then swim back to the deep end from the shallow end.

Claes: Sounds simple.

Fernando: What if you cramp up and fall to the bottom of the deep end?

Claes: You have to get me out.

Fernando: And if I don't?

Claes: As my teacher- your responsible for my safety.

Fernando: If this were a mission, I may not have time to go after you to save you.

Claes: But its not a mission.

Fernando: Its training… for a mission.

Claes stood there trying to digest the realization of that statement. There she was not willing to accept further training from anyone, and yet she was about too from the man in front of her who is not her fratello.

Claes: I think I have to go.

Fernando: You don't have to go.

Claes: I think I must.

Fernando: Then do as you must.

Claes walks to the door, then stops before she steps out. She turns to face Fernando.

Claes: When do we start?

Fernando: As soon as they repair the pool and Rachel leaves the infirmary.

Claes: I hope Rachel gets well soon.

Fernando: They still have to fix the pool.

Claes: The pool is not important, Rachel is.

Claes starts walking out of the room, looking at Ferro who was standing by the side of the doorway out of view. She stops and looks at Ferro for a second, before continuing in her way. Fernando reaches to the nightstand and takes the cup of coffee and starts drinking it. It has gotten cold over time, but that is how he prefers it. Ferro walks into the room quietly, though Fernando had already heard her steps entering the room.

Fernando: Yes Ferro?

Ferro: You left your glasses at the doctor's office.

Fernando: Funny- I did not think Fetch and Gopher were part of your responsibilities.

Ferro: Just think of it as doing you a favor.

Fernando: Thanks, but no thanks.

Ferro: Why are you being so….

Fernando: So hard?

Ferro: I was thinking- stupid.

Fernando: Because I want to be.

Ferro: You're better than that.

Fernando: Unfortunately- you seen what I did. Want me to continue on this rampage and wreck this place? I can do that, you know.

Ferro: Why? The person I read in your file is not like…

Fernando: The person in my file does not exist. I, however, do. I do not know what they put into my records, but I can tell you that he is not me.

Ferro walks about the room, looking over his desk, and then to his bookshelf where she sees the coffeemaker with a 1/2 filled pot.

Ferro: May I?

Fernando: May you what?

Ferro: Have some coffee?

Fernando: Take what you like.

Ferro looks over and finds a smaller cup to Fernando's large mug, washes it out in the bathroom sink and then prepares herself some coffee. She then sits on the bed by Fernando and takes a sip.

Ferro: Hmmm… strong. What blend is this?

Fernando: Its Bustello Espresso- a Puerto Rican coffee.

Ferro: From the Caribbean island?

Fernando: Where else would it come from.

Ferro: I might have to come here more often… for the coffee.

Fernando: I'll get Leon to mail you a bag every month.

Ferro: Coffee is better around the company of friend.

Fernando refuses to answer to that, instead switching subjects.

Fernando: Why are you here?

Ferro: I was returning you your glasses, but you were talking with Claes, so I left you two to be alone until you were done.

Fernando: You could have entered the room at any point.

Ferro: It was better that I didn't. No one else has been able to get through to Claes like you have.

Fernando: So?

Ferro: If Rachel does not make it, want Claes to be your cyborg?

Fernando: You are touching a raw nerve here.

Ferro: I was just asking…

Fernando (interrupting Ferro): If Rachel does not make it, I am going back to New York City to bury her, and I wont be returning to this place if I can help it.

Ferro: Never?

Fernando: Ever.

Ferro: Even if we go to you on your terms?

Fernando: There will be no terms.

Ferro: That would be such a waste.

Fernando: Tough cookies, chew harder.

Ferro: A man of your skills and abilities- wasting away in some room all because he cant go beyond what happened to him in his past.

Fernando: And what's wrong with that?

Ferro: Everything.

Fernando: I don't want to feel the pain anymore, I don't want to mourn any longer, I just want to be left alone and those who I care about to be cared for.

Ferro: Don't we all want that?

Fernando: I do not know nor care for what you want.

Ferro: But we all want the same thing, don't we?

Fernando: I said, I want to be left alone and have those who I care about to be cared for. No where else does it say that I want to add to the list of those I care about.

Ferro: Unfortunately, you did.

Fernando: With whom?

Ferro: Claes for one. Henrietta- two.

Fernando: You do not know what you are doing to these children…

Ferro: I do. I don't like it at times, but compared to the rest of this world, it's a lesser evil.

Fernando: Devoiding these girls of a life to be girls, turning them into machines, sending them to kill people when its our job to do so… That's not a lesser evil. It's a greater and perverted evil, no better than pimping these girls out into a life of prostitution, but instead of sex, you have them kill for you.

Ferro: If you have issues with that, you can leave.

Fernando: I'm not leaving without Rachel.

Ferro: Then we have a problem.

Fernando: Rachel is not yours. But she is mine, and like they say about never getting between a mother and her child- the same applies to fathers and their daughters.

Ferro: She is not your daughter.

Fernando: Not biologically, but she is to me otherwise. And right now you have gotten in between us.

Ferro: I suggest you start packing.

Fernando: Not until Rachel walks out of the infirmary.

Ferro: You're leaving here- alone.

Fernando: I leave here alone- I will return with a force you think is inhumanly impossible to obtain. Then I will take what is rightfully mine and leave with this place smoldering in ashes.

Ferro: You are just 1 man.

Fernando- You ever heard of UN Resolution #A/RES/54/263?

Ferro: No.

Fernando: UN Resolution #A/RES/54/263, states:

'…it is a war crime to use children as armed soliders for combat resolution, for conflicts internal or external by any nation, agency, group or organization'. If the UN finds out about this little program of yours, Italy will be invaded and turned upside down until the SWA is no more- No Section 1. No Section 2. No more cyborg program.

Ferro: You know you just made yourself an enemy of us.

Fernando: I am just showing you what I know, what can be done, and the possibilities thereof.

Ferro: I suggest you leave while you still can.

Fernando: Make me. Kill me if you must, but before you do, you need to know this much- every 12 hours I have to report to my servers. If I do not report to them, and miss out on 10 log in cycles of when I should have- the servers are programmed to think that I have been eliminated and everything gets dumped into the news media and to various governmental agencies- including the UN. In short, eliminate me- and Italy will be invaded by the UN Police force within a week.

Ferro sits there unable to answer for the moment.

Fernando: I would advise you to leave things alone and hope that little girl I care for in the infirmary gets well enough for me to finish her training and to conduct those missions we get assigned too. Other than that- I do not care for your threats or demands. I do not care what kind of shark you are, for I have teeth too, and I do bite back. And its only because I care.

Ferro slowly gets up and places her 1/2 empty coffee cup on his desk, then starts to walk out of his room. Once out in the hallway, she stops for several seconds before continuing. The silence in the hallway of only broken by her footsteps as she goes to the stairs in the middle of the hall and walks down the stairs.

A tiny voice outside of the door speaks: Why is it that you care?

Fernando finishes his coffee and places the empty cup on his night stand before getting up and stepping out onto the hall. The rest of the cyborg girls were there, lined up by the wall outside his door.

Fernando: Care… why is it that I care? Maybe its because I want to be able to come back from all missions. I would want to be able to believe that I managed to do some good in this world. Maybe because I believe that there is something better to this life than just existing. Right now, we are all just existing.