Dolls in Neverland
Chapter Three - Fra speranza ed insanity.
Between Hope and Insanity.
Jose couldn't watch.
There were at least a dozen tubes and wires coming out of Henrietta's arms, legs, chest, head, and stomach hooked up to at least another dozen machines surrounding her. Her chest was rose and fell sporadically even though the bullet had completely gone through it, slicing everything in its path, including a part of her heart...a partly synthetic heart, that is.
Her body seemed much too small to bear the weight of all the mechanized things that were keeping her alive.
Dr. Bianchi, looking very glum and disheartened, came out from the operation room with blood stained rubber gloves. His hair was mussed and the black-rimmed glasses were tilted to one side. Jose wasn't the only one who had this hard. He himself had large bruises and a sprained shoulder from the impact of Henrietta crashing into him and landing twenty feet away, but he could not feel anything. How was he supposed to, when Henrietta couldn't, either?
"Jose, the sniper was a good one," Bianchi said with a pained frown. "The assailant knew where to hit you, but also managed to instantaneously decide the other and hit Henrietta instead. He was too quick for her."
"All I want to know is if she can be healed." Jose replied mechanically.
Dr. Bianchi sighed tediously, a sure sign it was bad news. "I'm afraid not." Jose looked up as if he were crazy. "Not here, anyway. Not in Italy."
The handlers of the Social Welfare Agency were called to an immediate meeting first thing on Saturday morning. Everyone sensed intuitively that something big was coming their way.
When the fratellos silently and gravely took their seats in the meeting room, Lorenzo ordered the lights off and turned on the projector screen. On it was a picture of a young, handsomely featured man, his face expressionless and almost glowering. Most people in the room, especially Hillshire, soon identified the man as German.
Lorenzo fixed his glasses. "This man hypothetically goes by an alias of Gustavus Ferlich. His age could range anywhere from eighteen to thirty-six," he continued. "He apparently has smuggled himself and some of his elite buddies into Italy from Berlin not too long ago."
Marco interrupted, his patience nearing the bottom. "Sir, what exactly does this pal want from us?"
"He's a part of German Radicals Federation, a fancy name for people who had been trying to exploit our cyborgs to use them against us. The point is that he's the likely suspect of assaulting Jose and Henrietta, provided that he's an excellent sniper with superior precision." Lorenzo's expression went grim. "They're clever enough to know that our cyborgs are not easy gamble."
"So," Jean pointed, "the GRF are going through this much trouble just to get their hands on our cyborgs?"
"Basically, yes." Lorenzo replied simply. "And, we like to keep our cyborgs for ourselves."
Jose was forced back into his room. If it wasn't for Priscilla yapping at him for watching Henrietta for six hours straight, he would've spent the night sitting in front of the glass wall, staring until he couldn't see anymore.
He distractedly ran his hand through his uncombed black hair, as if he could wash everything from his brain that way. He thought of Dr. Bianchi's words.
"The only other country that we know of with the technology available is Germany. Their knowledge may even outclass ours, as far as I can tell," he said dejectedly but with hope in his voice. "We might be able to send Henrietta over there without causing too much difficulty."
Jose repeated these words to see if they sounded too insane. He decided, after a long and deep contemplation, that nothing could be too insane for him any longer.