Life, Liberty, And…

A Gunslinger Girl fan fiction by:

Sintendo

Chapter Eight: Eureka

Social Welfare Agency: Training Grounds, Rome, Italy; 1100 hours, August 6, 2005

Following a short time after Bradley's little mishap; training was resumed within Lorenzo's alley. Claes eventually got comfortable with the idea of leading Bradley around with hand signals and, when the time came for speech to be implemented into the exercise, Bradley thought it would be best for him to stay in the sidelines and be replaced by a handful of Claes' peers.

"That's what I'm here for; anyway," Bradley told the abnormally nervous girl, "It'll be like leading 3 of me around."

Claes faked a dry heave.

"Oh, ha ha. Very funny."

Claes sighed, "So who's tagging along?"

"Rico, Baldasarre, and Angelica."

Claes dry heaved again, "Baldo? Why him?"

"You need to get used to squad mates that differ in personalities. You aren't going to be assigned the same person all the time, so learn to adapt."

"Ok. But why Angelica?"

"Chief Lorenzo is encouraging Marco to gradually reintroduce her into combat. Your first time being in a squad is also hers."

"Wait," Claes said, "This isn't my first time in a squad. I've done a handful of missions where I worked together with the others."

"In those particular missions, you were directed by someone in what to do. In this particular case, the steering wheel is yours. You have one goal; how you go about reaching that goal is completely up to you."

Claes gulped.

"Eventually, you'll be the one setting the goals."

(Bradley: Narrator)

Saying I was nervous about this exercise was only the half of it; if it were not for the air-conditioning, the sweat that I was producing would have drowned the four of us in the monitor room.

The four of us being Jean, Marco, Beneditto, and myself.

Since the past few weeks, Beneditto and I have become quite good friends. We opted to share notes about our respective child was handling the situation presented before them. Marco, apparently dissatisfied with Angelica's behavior, leaned against the wall closest to the exit, not bothering to take notes, and grunting whevener he found the slightest error that she made, even though this was her first time obeying the orders of a fellow cyborg. Jean sat with Benedittio and I, though was not interested in adding to our comments.

Speaking of Jean, I came to find out that he and my son seem to be the best of friends. I often find them chatting together with Jose during lunch, and many times during dinner. Jean and I have had a rather shaky start between us, and whenever I try to approach join my son for lunch, or approach the man, he magically has "work to do".

Apparently he likes to hold grudges.

My thoughts were interrupted when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw on one of the monitors Angelica being repeatedly shot upon by mobile targets. I quickly sent a command to the 'bots to cease, effectively restarting the entire exercise.

I sighed, "Sorry about that. Everyone head back and reload. We'll start from the beginning."

Claes and Rico rushed to Angelica's aid, while Baldo groaned and complained, forcing me to lower the volume of my headset.

"I can see he's enthusiastic about this." I said.

"Nah," Beneditto said, "He just has this thing against Claes; just doesn't like being around her, you see."

"The flower thing?"

"How'd you find out?"

"A little bird…"

I was interrupted from my thoughts once more, only this time by the angry voice of Marco, who was growling into his microphone at Angelica.

"How could you trail that far behind? Are you stupid? You always keep up with your squad! Always!"

I didn't have access to Angelica's mic signal, but I could tell from images I saw on the monitor that she was apologizing, almost tearing up while doing so.

"'Sorry' ain't gonna cut it. After this shit is over, you're going to run 'till you drop dead."

I couldn't take any more of this foul conversation, "If you want her to be a good runner, then you might as well take her out now and train her to be an Olympic sprinter."

Marco chose to ignore me.

"Running won't do shit, Marco. You ever heard of 'Practice makes perfect'? Angelica just needs more practice; not everybody gets stuff down in an instant."

"Bull," Marco spat, "They're cyborgs, they should get this stuff down the instant they hear it."

"Then tell me why is it that every one of the fratellos continues to practice on the range? Why they continue to run drills, through this building?"

He had no answer.

"You're too much of an impatient man, Marco. Settle down a bit, and she'll be in top shape before you know it."

Just as I expected (and truthfully, what I wished), Marco stormed out of the room. I had a gut feeling that he was headed where Angelica was resting, so I took a moment to caution him.

"Touch her and I'll make sure you pay for it," I saw him pause on one of the monitors, "If you don't want to continue training her, then I will."

Needless to say, I had no idea what I got myself into.

Social Welfare Agency, Rome, Italy; 1800 hours, August 6, 2005

Wandering aimlessly around the complex, Bradley wanted to be with his own thoughts, so he dismissed Claes for the rest of the night.

After Claes' first taste of leading a squad, he approached Angelica, who patiently waited outside the locker room for Marco to retrieve her. She didn't know that Bradley excused her handler.

"Hey there," He approached her, "Marco's gone, I'm here to pick you up."

"Hell, sir. Do you know where he went?"

"I don't really know, but he said he'd be back later on tonight."

"Ok," She seemed cheerful, "I'll just wait here until her returns."

"Actually, he'll be gone for a while, so he told me to keep an eye on you."

"I'll be fine sir," She smiled, "I can wait."

"I think it's better if you just come with me."

"Marco ordered me to wait for him. I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to wait for him, or else he'll be mad at me."

Bradley was going to continue bartering with her, but was interrupted by a passerby.

"It's no use, Bradley," Jean said, "Unless the situation calls for it, these cyborgs will not comply with anyone else's orders other than their handler."

"Thanks for the tip," Bradley said, "But Angelica is a smart little girl. Aren't you?"

The girl smiled, but didn't respond.

"You're a fool to treat them like real children. They don't think; they only do."

With that, Jean exited the building with Rico following closely behind; no emotion was found on her face.

After reflecting upon today's events, Bradley found himself in the cafeteria. With only a few other agents scattered about, he decided that this would be a good place to stop and rest. His rest was short lived, though, as Hillshire joined him.

"How's life?" Hillshire asked a rhetoric question.

"Biting me in the ass," Bradley joked, "Seems like Marco and Jean seem to have taken a disliking toward me."

"Really? I haven't noticed," Whether Hillshire was being sarcastic of not was unknown, "I understand why Marco is the way he is, but I don't see Jean being spiteful towards you – as unsociable as he is. He and Percival get along pretty well."

"Oh? Why is Marco the way he is?"

"Frustration," Hillshire said, "Angelica is one of the first to undergo conditioning, so the old bugs that were worked out later on were never implemented."

"Bugs like?"

"Long term memory loss, muscle failure, epileptic seizures, the list goes on."

"Why not just forego the usage of the drug?"

"Well," he hesitated a bit before continuing, "She's sort of dependant on it."

"Bullshit."

"No it's true."

Bradley shook his head in dissatisfaction, "Any addiction can be overcome with time. I'll have a word with him whenever he gets back," He then changed the subject, "Hey, are you going to use Triela tomorrow?"

"No, we're off for the week. You have something in mind?"

Vatican City, Italy; 1100 hours, August 7, 2005

(Bradley:narrator)

Now here was an odd situation: 2 adult men and 5 children (namely Henrietta, Claes, Triela, Rico and Baldo) walking the premises of the Vatican for Sunday mass. I missed every mass since I arrived in Italy and what better way to make up for it than to show up for one at the home of Catholicism?

I also took the opportunity to discuss to the children the advantages of religion, any religion, not just this one. Although there was no regulation against bringing a cyborg into curch, I was warned by Hillshire last night that introducing the aspect of religion to the cyborgs was not recommended, since it might cause them to question their roles as killers.

However, he retracted his statement when he allowed Triela to come along, saying something along the lines of, "She curses Jesus and god so much that she practically knows them."

Beneditto also had no objections for having Baldo come along. In fact, he often times brings Baldo along to their local parish, saying that that's what he used to do when Baldo was "normal".

Jose's opinion on the matter was that it would do more good than harm, so instead of just acting as my assistant, he brought Henrietta along as well. Claes was of the same opinion.

And then there's Rico, the girl who happened to be so curious about this place that she decided to tag along. Jean was away for the week, and she had nothing else to do. However, her reason for coming was not for the sermon, but to be the third pair of hands to keep the cyborgs in line.

Not fully content with that reason, I asked her about the sermon once it was finished.

"What do you think?" I asked, "It was very violent back then, no?"

"I think so," She pondered, "But I think the point of telling us about all that violence was to show us what would happen if we did something like that, and how we could repent for it."

I recoiled at her answer. It wasn't something that I expected; she was actually listening to the sermon and had actually formed an opinion of it.

"I also think that since not everyone studies the sciences," She continued, "Religion helps ease the feeling of the unknown and explain a phenomenon by way of supernatural behaviors. So instead of say, explaining how we came to be through the big bang theory and the introduction of carbon into other elements, sombody out there just created us from scratch because he wanted to."

"'They only do', indeed," I remembered Jean's quote, "Jean'll have a field day with this."

"Is that why you think people still believe in 1,000 year-old stories?" I asked her.

"Pretty much," Was her only response. I suppose she would have continued, were it not for Baldo's antics. I decided to let her restrain him.

I asked what was on Claes' mind after the mass.

"It was nice," She said, "A good way to waste a Sunday morning. I'll have to buy one of those bibles next time we go to the bookstore."

Eureka.