The evening before the big day, Avise told Agapita to put on some outdoor clothes.
Agapita stopped fastening her bra and looked at her handler strangely. "We're not eating in the restaurant?" She said in a perturbed voice, expressed not so much as a question as a gangster's deepening lead pit of realisation that the brother who's stood by him ever since they were kids fighting in the street has ratted out the whole job to the pigs.
Avise grinned and hefted up a camo-pattern rucksack that you could guarantee had never been in any quartermaster's store. "No, dear – tonight, we shall dine al fresco."
It was only a short walk from the hotel to the park, a small but pleasant civic garden, surrounded by urban buildings but which muffled the heat and noise of the surrounding city with a perimeter of trees and blinking oleanders – an ordered square setting down stakes against those who'd charge in and overrun it with concrete, Avise thought. The grass was springy – bouncing on deep, proper soil, not merely a thin layer of turf –and neatly quartered by straight paths leading towards the statue of a local worthy at its centre, whose philanthropic munificence kept the drinking fountains at his feet burbling to this day. As it was a bright summer evening the place was busy even though it was midweek, with workers sauntering the scenic route home and fathers pulling out their families for picnics out of an effort to prove that they were not rutted in a routine, the irony it was those very same social expectations needling them to take advantage of the sun apparently passing them by. For his part, Avise's gaze ranged all around the park with a smile of satisfaction, content that all was right with the world; Agapita, however, was more guarded. She shortened her pace to almost a shuffle and hung a close step behind Avise's elbow, flicking her eyes over his shoulder warily and broadcasting "bodyguard" to all and sundry.
"Lighten up, Agapita," Avise chided his cyborg, swinging his rucksack around onto another shoulder with the movement forcing her away a step, "and don't be so tense. This is supposed to be pleasure before business."
"But there's no cover here," Agapita muttered sourly, pained that her concern for her handler's welfare was not being recognised and acted on to increase his protection, "and too many targets." She gave an askance glance at a boy playing with a Super Soaker, as if he was going to spray acid over the fratello.
"Ach, it's okay, Agapita, you're new, you just haven't acclimatised to crowds yet." Avise said this with a gentle and understanding smile to soothe his charge, but inwardly he frowned fiercely. He would have thought that the Technology Department would have already installed socialisation in the girl's conditioning: to leave her anxious and threatened by crowds was a glaring omission, especially seeing as the ability to operate in public and hide in plain sight was half of the point of cyborgs in the first place. This was a poor performance from the medics, and he would be sure to upbraid Belisario for it once the mission was over.
"I understand, sir," Agapita's twitched a nervous smile at her handler's attention, but its little twigs of limbs were only spasming around the bulk of the big fat frown that was sat on top of it, "but there still could be enemies about, it'd be remiss of me if I didn't keep aware of that. I stay alert so you don't have to!" There was an earnest entreaty to her voice, pleading to be let to work – not just to be useful, but to be useful to Avise.
Avise beheld Agapita. As he took her in, he thought back to another case of intransigence that he'd had to contend with. Private Leo Ferri! God! Seditious little bastard. An actual communist, with Das Kapital clasped to his chest the way John Calvin must have drawn strength from his Bible – but whereas Calvin was fervent with zeal and inspiration (even if he was a heretic Protestant), Ferri was just a shrill squawking parrot: a horrid, moulting creature who had nothing to say and who said it too loudly. He'd wanted to "trade unionise the Army" – and had even said it straight to the then-Lieutenant Mancini when the new recruit was being introduced in his office – it took all of the austere and dignified model discipline inculcated into the young officer not to laugh in the private's face. No amount of ablution block-cleaning for giving his section commander backchat could dampen Ferri's revolutionary ardour that the Army's endemic culture of repression required radical militation – never mind that Corporal Santere was the son of a stevedore while Ferri was a university dropout. Fortunately Ferri's droning in the dormitories had isolated him from the rest of his fellow proletariat in the platoon – this was only a few years after the Iron Curtain was drawn back and most were just relieved to never have to contend with endless T-72s grinding up the fields and belching smoke and fire, or Red Brigades fixing bombs to their cars; Ferri's promise to bring it all back was far from welcome. Indeed, between his opinions and all the time he spent in the toilets "Shithead" was Ferri's colloquial appellation amongst his comrades. Consequently there had been little dissension when Avise had arranged it that, during a NATO exercise in Kuwait ("19th Province of Iraq" everyone said tiredly before Ferri had a chance to get it out himself), Ferri could "get lost" with a subtly-edited orienteering map and be left wandering the desert for a night. They'd picked him up the next morning, a heap of nerves, shivering from the cold and sniffling with terror about packs of jackals, and when he'd asked why no-one came to find him the platoon sergeant had shrugged and said, "Working Time Directive." Ferri behaved after that. Avise had put Leo Ferri's name into an internet search engine a few years back on a random impulse and found out that the Faithful Of Lenin was now the manager of a Fiat dealership; Avise had nodded, satisfied at the victory.
The recollection replayed in Avise's mind not because Agapita reminded him of Ferri in any way – far from it, for his cyborg did not in the least reflect that reprehensible reprobate – but rather precisely because it was unrelated, contrasting. Avise couldn't treat Agapita in the same way. He didn't want to.
"Try to think of this as training, Agapita." Avise tried to parlay Agapita's disquiet into something more constructive.
"Oh, sir! You don't mean that I'm going to have to do circuits of this park all evening?" Agapita was dismayed.
Avise arched his eyebrows. At least it took her mind off of terrorists attacking her with Frisbees. "Not unless you want to, dear." He said lightly.
Agapita looked pained – she was only three weeks old but even she could elucidate an implicit statement. She could say no, but her handler's expectation was such that she grit and werewithal to not need the encouragement of an actual instruction to leap into action. "Certainly, sir, I'm on my way."
"Joking! Joking!" Avise clapped his hand down on Agapita's shoulder to pin her in place. Good grief – she starts learning not to be so literalist and then she goes and gets the wrong end of the stick. Avise thought with a shake of his head. He then steered her to an empty patch of grass and applied a little pressure to tell her to sit down. Agapita immediately descended vertically into a cross-legged position, folding up her legs neatly like a pre-assembled frame – at least her programmed dexterity worked with machined ease even if her head was still a little scattered.
"Think of it as espionage training, Agapita," Avise grunted as he tottered down into a sitting position himself, "an extension of disguises. You need a certain attitude to maintain yourself undercover. Petrushka can doll you up with enough foundation to turn you into a geisha and Kara can play with you like a Barbie—"
"More like a Lenci, knowing her and Michele." Agapita chuckled.
What the Hell is a Lenci? Avise started, Agapita's intervention disrupting his flow and accentuating his surprise. Not quite an IED in the street, but... eh, whatever it is, if Pagani is involved it's probably something expensive. Avise dismissed the matter with a shrug. "Well, be it Barbie, Cindy, or 'Lenci', no costume she puts on you will be worth anything if you can't strut a pose that lets the folds hang right Or iron a sharp trouser-crease in time for inspection, for that matter.
"It's a question of comportment. You could be a spy in Afghanistan with a towel wrapped around your head, but if you didn't knock head at the right moment during prayers the Taliban would be on you faster than they would a goat's backside." Agapita blinked quickly a few times in mild astonishment at the vivid image, but remained quiet and attentive while Avise continued. "And it's a similar case here. You might not be able to see the enemy, but they may not notice you, either – unless you act so much like a cop you might as well have a penguin waddling along on a leash behind you." Avise smirked to himself, a little rival regimental ribbing between the Bersaglieri and the Carabinieri never going amiss. "Disguise is conveyed in your carriage as much as your clothes – and that's what I want us to practise here, okay?"
Agapita nodded in understanding. She looked about her for a moment. The trees rustled, caught and burred by the evening breeze skating across the top of the surrounding buildings. Droplets quavered in the air and pattered against the rough grain of the stone stoups of the drinking fountains. The grass crackled and crinkled with the footfalls of running children. Agapita turned her head to Avise. "Sir, is comportment another word for 'sitting'?"
"Wha—oh, yeah!" Avise cried aloud. He'd become so absorbed in imparting guidance to his ward that he'd forgotten what he'd brought Agapita out for in the first place. He began to rummage around in his rucksack, excavating a large bottle of water, and then a drab olive plastic pouch which he tore open and began to remove more items from.
Agapita peered critically at the accumulating assembly. A small stove; a pair of mess tins and racing spoons; two plain unlabelled cans - one had "BOLOGNESE" stamped on it, the other "CANNELLONI". "This is dinner." She said doubtfully.
"Indeed, dear, a special treat to celebrate your first mission - Razione Viveri Speciali da Combattimento, fresh from the shelf in the quartermaster's stores." Avise did not look up as he brought out his matchbox, not to light a cigarette this time but rather nose it about the small white blocks crumbled into the bed of the stove and coax a flame from them."Loaded with calories, perfect accompaniment to all your exercise tomorrow. Not only that" - Avise took the two cans and shook them like maracas before Agapita – "but you get a choice of two meals! Now isn't that just luxury?" He finished with a fierce grin.
Agapita was confused and not sure how to respond: she couldn't tell whether her handler was being facetious or making an error of judgement that it was her duty, as his extra set of eyes, arms and armour, to correct him on. Either way, the one thing that was sure was that it didn't look as if she was getting fed tonight. "I'll take the Bolognese."
Avise pouted for a moment, a little irked that the preferred course was being taken away from him, but he didn't pull rank to get it back. Wrapping the mess tin up with a sheet of tinfoil pulled from a side-pocket of the rucksack ("that gets sooty instead and saves on cleaning") and filling it with water, he placed it on the stove before pulling open slight air holes in the two cans and laying them down in it. "I prefer to eat straight from the can," Avise explained, "saves on cleaning again, and if you just protect your hands against the metal with your shemag it helps warm them up, too. It's really soothing on a cold morning."
This is a warm evening, though. Seeking to investigate more thoroughly this strange concept that her handler was evidently taken with, Agapita bent her head down to the grass to watch the green flame under the stove. It seemed incredible that what looked like dull, inert lumps of chalk could be a source of energy, and indeed the lime-coloured fire only seemed to blend out of the air and come into being some distance above the fuel blocks. It was as if there was a solid but invisible boundary between inaction and action, a metaphysical membrane which restrained the bright, bodiless vastness of energy and through which some seepage was being pressured out into this material world.
Avise watched his cyborg's rapt absorption quietly, until the water in the mess tin began to boil. He brought Agapita back down to Earth with the weight of a foil packet tossed at her. "Ces sont hors d'oeuvres pour mon cher gastronome." He said with an affected accent, curling an imaginary moustache between his fingers. Agapita took the packet curiously and tore it open to reveal a stack of brown, dry crackers. Not quite haute cuisine, but she was feeling a little peckish waiting for the cans to finish off – and was surprised herself when the cracker was pulled into her mouth like an old computer grabbing a punch-tape. It had a full oat flavour, and a filling texture that masticated thickly on the tongue, and it was indescribably moreish. Avise made an appreciative noise as he saw his charge grind through the biscuits. "Best item in the bag," he smiled, "gums up your insides more than Turin at rush hour. You won't need the toilet for days."
Agapita choked on the last biscuit.
"Hey, don't look at me like that," Avise protested, "it's very useful. If you're lying doggo in the pouring rain for six hours" – or sitting on a live landmine for eight – "the last thing you need is to get caught short."
"But I'm not going to be lying doggo in the pouring rain for six hours, sir. I'm going to be playing in an actual deathmatch with a bunch of mercenaries – in Sicily at the height of summer." Agapita dearly hoped that this wasn't going to end up like the sad redundant busywork of the morning fitness training. She dearly loved Avise, but she didn't love some of the things that she had to do.
"Don't be cheeky." Avise hooked out the cans from the mess tin with his racing spoon and, wrapped one up in a shemag pulled from the rucksack before handing it to Agapita along with her own spoon. "Buon appetito!"
Agapita pulled the lid off of the can with her bare hand – a melange of starch and sauce glicked at her wetly. "Avise... you know what you were saying about disguise earlier..."
"Hmm? What of it?" Avise was churning down into his can with his spoon, chopping up the sausage-like rolls inside with the edge.
"Well, you see, everyone around us has their food in hampers or Tupperware, or they're cooking things on disposable barbecues. Doesn't eating from an Army rat-pack really single us out as abnormal?"
...Clever girl. Still, Avise fielded it neatly. "Don't worry, Columbina, this is all part of our cover. After all, your esteemed father is supposed to be a cashiered officer who was found out to be a drug dealer and had to spend every last lira, let alone eurocent, that he had in bribes to avoid a courts-martial and instead be invited to resign his commission. It'd make sense for him to be avoiding wining and dining in the restaurant like someone who still had an expenses account." Avise finished with the accomplishment of a mathematician scratching out a polynomial formula on the blackboard.
"But still, would he really have military rations to hand?" Agapita persisted.
"Oh, heaps and heaps," Avise waved his spoon through the air in a gesture visualising a towering mound of reconstituted product, "I do too. There's been a fair few times, even when at home, when I can just drop these into a pan and be done with it. I really hate cooking, you know." Avise jabbed his spoon towards Agapita to make sure that she did. "Hate it hate it hate it. I actively resent how preparing and clearing away something so fundamental as a meal has to take up half the evening – it's the most tiresome chore." He lifted up a heaped spoonful of cannelloni from and took a wide, fulfilling mouthful from it. "I mean, I can do it, and do do – I still bull my boots, after all." Avise's gaze was starting to drift away from Agapita to wander in the middle distance, as if he was more justifying the niggling suggestion of indolence to himself than continuing the conversation with Agapita. "But still, I would never want to deprive the Catering team of a job, especially in modern straitened circumstances."
Agapita considered her handler's words with studied care – she was here to complement her master, to fit together like a jigsaw, a single unit, a fratello: perhaps there was something that could draw her closer to him? As she thought about it, she automatically began spooning up "BOLOGNESE" into her own mouth – and she widened her eyes into surprise when her lips slicked off the spoon. Despite that unpromising presentation... it tasted really good.
As the handler and cyborg continued to eat, Agapita felt a change steal over her, as if the warmth of the food in her stomach was stirring something within her to wakefulness. Everything about the evening – the evening before the big day – felt... right. The clatter of spoons against the side of their cans sounded like the squeak of nuts being tightened – with everything sealed and contained within her, a tremor of excitement quivered through Agapita, as if bolts were running home, and turbines spun up. Avise's unexpected announcement, to catch her out and raise her awareness; her alertness of the surrounding environment and observation of the people crowding it; her handler's education and instruction, and here, now, performing a soldierly activity – her frame of mind was clicking into place, the things expected of her condensing down from a vague fog to crystallised orders. The air she breathed was charged with a nerve agent to stir her to life. She settled into reassurance; primed herself with confidence; steeled herself with certainty.
Agapita was ready.
(Continued)