Life, Liberty, And…
A Gunslinger Girl fan fiction by:
Sintendo
Chapter Seven: Reality
Social Welfare Agency: Training Grounds, Rome, Italy; 0900 hours, July 5, 2005
The same building that Claes and Bradley used the other day – now dubbed "Lorenzo's Alley" by Bradley – was prepped once more. Jose, Henrietta and Ferro were reprising their roles as the surveyors and technicians, and Bradley and Claes were again in the shoes of attackers.
However, there was a slight change in plans.
"Yesterday, I led throughout the entire exercise," Bradley said as he and Claes geared up, "Now it's time for you to lead me through. I want you to shoot for at least 15 minutes, just like our fastest time yesterday."
"Well, I'll do the best that I can." Claes said unenthusiastically.
"You can do better than that." Bradley nudged her arm.
"You want me to lie and say something like, 'We're gonna beat that time and then some!'." She mocked the older man's voice.
"There ya go!" He patted her back, "Remember: morale is the beast weapon you can give to your teammates."
"General," Jose interrupted via radio transmission, "The attack targets have been placed; everything is set to random configuration, random target placement, random obstacles, and random aggressiveness. We're ready on this end."
"Good—"
Claes interrupted him, "Wait! Everything's changed! How can I beat your time when I don't know enemy placements? There's even randomly placed barricades!"
Bradley's attitude changed in that instant; from a cheerful one to a completely serious tone, the man was different in every sense of the word.
"Tell me: do you expect every situation to be neatly laid out before you?"
"Of course not."
"Then deal with it. The more you get used to checking, rechecking, and triple-checking your surroundings, the faster it becomes second nature."
Claes wasn't expecting such a harsh response.
"Well if that's the case, why didn't you set everything to random yesterday?"
As quickly as it appeared, Bradley's serious mood disappeared.
"I'm old remember?" He joked, "You can't expect me to be paranoid all the time, can you?"
Claes was furious, emotionally hurt, and mentally tired; yet for some reason she laughed out loud. The sheer wit the man seemed to store in his head gave him such a natural vibe that she couldn't help but not be angry with him.
"Alright, time for equipment check," she said between laughs and sniffles, "Radio: loud and clear. Armor: strapped in and solid. Weapons: loaded," She waited for Bradley to repeat her words.
He did so and she said, "Jose, sir, we're ready."
"Alright, you two, "Jose replied, "Time starts… now."
Social Welfare Agency: Training Grounds, Rome, Italy; 2200 hours, July 4, 2005
(Bradley: Narrator)
I didn't know whether Claes was unsociable at the time, or whether she was mesmerized at the bursting colors in the sky, but she kept to herself that night, only taking short moments to refill her glass of soda, or juice, or whatever it is that little girls drink in Italy.
From the time she excused herself from me, up until the fireworks stopped launching, I kept a close observation on her. Her eyes would always trail the nearest flare until it exploded; in which case her mouth would jar slightly, obviously in awe at the size, sound, and vibrancy of the colored flames.
Only when the mortars ceased did I approach her.
"How'd you like them?" I sat down on the dirt next to her, but far enough to not make her feel uncomfortable (a tactic I learned from raising 4 daughters).
"You must have spent a lot of time preparing this," She adjusted her glasses, "Thank you."
"No problem," I lied, "I do this every year: surprising my men with some sort of display for Independence Day to celebrate something we achieved the few months before, and set new goals. You know; kind of like a middle-of-the-year new year's celebration - a sort of day for reflecting, but looking ahead at the same time."
"I see."
I hoped that she caught the symbolism that I half-assed and pulled out of nowhere. When we first partnered up, she only did so to prove that she could be an effective member of the SWA, aside from being a guinea pig; so I figured that a celebration of independence would be a good start…
The smirk on her face was all the confirmation I needed…
Social Welfare Agency: Training Grounds, Rome, Italy; 0901 hours, July 5, 2005
Approaching the entry of the building, Claes signaled for Bradley to stay as low as possible whilst keeping up with her pace. A few seconds later, she realized that what she ordered fro him to do was easy for her to accomplish, but difficult for him.
She reissued another set of orders via hand signals, "Stay low. Take point. Scan for activity."
Being the well trained soldier he was, Bradley instantly obeyed. He rushed to the side of the entrance, stopping only to lean against the wall and peer inside. When no targets were sighted, he signaled for Claes to come over.
Once at his side, she signaled another set of orders with her hands, "Stay low. Take the left side. I'll take the right."
Bradley nodded, and began to go to work in sync with Claes' movements.
"Impressive," Ferro noted from within the monitor room, "Where'd she learn all that?"
"Gen—excuse me—Bradley taught her a few weeks ago." Jose almost forgot that he was never to be referred to as "General", since he was posing as an agent of the SWA, and that he was reminded by Bradley himself last night.
"Seems like we'll have to implement this as a standard part of all the cyborg's training from now on."
"What makes you say that?"
"Oh, I don't know," Ferro had a sheepish grin, "You can't rely on radio communication all the time. Plus there have been mission that required complete silence."
"Hmm," Jose thought, "But then… we'd be out of the job, now wouldn't we?"
The hair on the back of Henrietta's neck stood straight up, "If that's the case, then we don't need to learn hand signals, because we're already doing a fine job as it is!"
Jose smiled, "I was just joking, Henrietta."
The girl relaxed in her seat.
While their conversation went on, Bradley and Claes already reached the halfway mark, passing the middle rooms of the 3rd floor and making their way to the other end where the stairs leading to the 4th floor waited. Along the way, Claes discovered that Each of the two stairways only gave access to certain floors. The first stairway only reached the 2nd floor, which meant that they had to run through the second floor to get to the other stairway, which only allowed for them to reach the 3rd floor. Such zigzagging was very time consuming, also causing her to be a little disoriented in the process. A brief pause was in order.
Claes ordered a halt; the area ahead was a maze of cubicles: a prime location for an ambush. At the wall to her left was the room that she remembered was used as a rendezvous point for the boys' team a few days back. To her right was what appeared to be a cafeteria of sorts. She ran through several scenarios in her mind.
The right path was certain doom; open space is dangerous for stealth assignments. The left would be the safer route. However, if her instincts were right, then an ambush by paper targets armed with paintball markers would be inevitable, yet it was still the safest route, giving them a slight chance of surviving the attack by taking cover inside the office and returning fire when the targets needed to reload. Another hazard was that since the targets were extremely aggressive, radio communications between attacking targets and idle ones would be sure to happen, forcing the pair to either "Hail Mary" the rest of the building to the heli-pad, or the simply give up and start over. Failing her first practice run would definitely bode well for her.
Though advancing toward the 4th floor access using the most obvious routes was not a well planned out strategy (and who could blame the first timer?) she was determined not to fail. Another option – besides moving forward, was to retreat back to the 3rd floor stair access and scale their way toward the 5th floor. Too much time would be wasted, however, and that was something she didn't want. Then again, it was her first time leading someone through this course without speaking, so maybe Bradley would give her a bit of leeway?
"At least finish the god damned thing!" She repeated in her mind, while mentally banging her head against a mental wall for not thinking about other routes.
She chose to move along the left and into the office to fend off an attack. Probably not the wisest of decisions, but it was at least a decision; she had already spent too much time figuring out which way to go.
She signaled for Bradley to sit and wait at the edge of the cubicle walls, covering her while she entered the office along the left wall. Once she was in, Bradley followed, only to be discovered by a trio of wandering paper silhouettes.
Immediately they began their attack, spraying a volley of paint rounds in Bradley's direction as he scurried his way into the room from which Claes returned fire through the open doorway. She easily disabled the targets, but more would surely be on their way.
Once Bradley sat next to Claes, he furiously rubbed his forehead and made several other gestures of disapproval including smacking his helmet, flicking hers, and gesturing his arms in a "What the hell?" manner.
Claes was obviously hurt; her goggles began to fog up, either from heavy breathing, or from warm tears. That sadness only lasted for a few minutes, however, as another wave of wheeled paper men advanced toward their position.
Instinct now told her to take cover.
A round object suddenly flew past her head, landing on the floor next to where she and Bradley sat. She shut her eye lids, reacting to the flash bang grenade.
Bradley was not quick enough.
With his vision impaired (his hearing was not of importance in this particular exercise), Claes pulled him away from the open door, returning fire without any regard for her own safety.
Once the wave of 5 or so targets was subdued, she turned her attention toward her injured partner. Following procedures that Bradley lectured her on, she removed his goggles and parted the eyelids of one of his eyes. His pupil was contracted to its most minimum size, begging for whatever source of light to disappear. Bradley wiped her hands away from his face. He was obviously in too much pain to go on.
"So much for completing the run…"
It was only a matter of time before more targets wheeled themselves into the cubicle maze and toward the office in which they sat.
Claes bore the brunt of the salvo of paintballs.
Social Welfare Agency: Hospital, Rome, Italy; 1000 hours, July 5, 2005
Claes, still dressed as if she just came from an urban battlefield, stood beside Bradley, who lay – also fully clothed, on a hospital bed. Injuries to his eyes were minor, but the pain she felt was a million times more severe.
"Don't worry 'bout it," Bradley kept telling her, "I've been the victim of a few flash grenades in my time."
Claes could not remove her fault from her mind, "It's my fault you're like this."
"Actually, I blame father time…" Bradley tried a shot at a joke, though it failed horribly.
"I saw the grenade coming a thousand miles away, but I only covered myself."
"Basic instincts," Bradley laughed, "Not your fault."
"But I'm supposed to be the one who protects you."
"And why is that?"
"I am the cyborg, and you are my handler," Though Bradley could not see, Claes never looked up from the floor, "I'm supposed to protect my handler at all times."
"Well there's your problem."
Claes lifted her head, "Huh?"
"I never said I was your handler."