"You look like you've been dragged backwards through a bush."

"Gee, you're a bright sunbeam of gladness in the morning."

"Well, light shows up things as they truly are. Difficult morning.?"

"Morning? Pah! It's still a 'late night'! This moody little shrew here hasn't given me a minute's peace."

"She's being awkward?"

"Awkward, he says! I'm warding her memory centres with a counterset duo-dodecahedric engram, usual textbook deal, but she's resisting it step by bloody step. Look at the monitor, it's impossible to reliably lock any structure. I've already had to reassemble eleven fractured vertices in the past hour."

"...good grief, this is a total shambles! A dodecahedron? It might as well be confetti! I expected better from you – this is no better than pummelling her into submission!"

"I know that it's not exactly a figure of elegance, but it's either that or I go in there and core out her frontal lobes with an R-bit drill. And believe me, when you've come up against as many walls as I have you'd entertain the notion yourself."

"It's to be expected. She did have a feisty, assertive personality after all."

"One I'm going to take great satisfaction mangling, mark my words."

"Open the intercom. Let me see if I can grease your wheels a bit."

"Okay, if you want..."

"Can you hear me?"

"I'm not interested! Go away! I hate you! I don't want this! It's painful! I can't see! I can't move! I want to run away! Stop it! Leave me be! I want my dad! My head hurts! My head hurts! My head hurts!"

"Oh, lass, I'm sorry, but you can't move because the blast took your legs..."

"I thought that not a few seconds ago you wanted to pulp this girl's brain, and now you're mouthing sympathy? You soft sod. Anyway, let me try this – ahem. Lega Calcio, Serie A."

"..."

"...Wow. That's a... striking effect."

"Back of the net, I think. Like they say, 'Give me a lever and I can move the world.' You just need to know where to place the pivot."

"I can't even imagine you any different."

After replacing the covers, Avise could focus on nothing else other than Agapita's quiet face, its skin smooth and creased by no age or worry. He gave the sleeping girl one final wistful glance, repressing the urge to grab and shake her awake, and retreated back to the small chair at the corner of the room.

He had a book in his satchel, the latest Dazieri crime thriller, to while away the time – fifteen years in the army had taught him the value of coming prepared, because any job required you to hurry up and wait – but he made little progress. The book had sagged into one of the obtuse and ponderous monologue sections where the hero Sandrone – a rather blatantly obvious and self-indulgent Mary Sue of a self-insertion fantasy – was quarrelling with his alternate personality Socio. He couldn't focus on the book anyway, as every few seconds he'd glance across the room

After what could have been thirty seconds or as many hours, Avise heard a rustle of cloth. He was at the foot of the bed before the book had hit the floor.

Agapita sat upright. Grey eyes – which could be as heavy as stoneclouds, as sharp as a wolf's pelt, or as bright and fresh as a piazza's paving stones after rain – held his gaze.

"Hello" Agapita said.

There was so much he wanted to say, but all that came out was the official checklist that he had rehearsed relentlessly before arrival.

"What is your name?"

"I am Agapita." She replied simply.

"What are you?"

"I am a cyborg created and controlled by the Social Welfare Agency."

"Where are you?"

"The hospital of the Social Welfare Agency's central compound."

"What is your mission?"

"To follow the orders of my handler and the senior officers of the Social Welfare Agency. To kill whoever they instruct me to. To protect my handler from harm with my life."

Avise licked his lips and took in a breath.

"Agapita—"

"Yes?"

"—Who am I?"

"I recognise you as Avise Mancini. You are my handler," her eyes fluttered, and her next breath escaped from her as a pant, "and I am at your disposal."

Avise had to turn away.

"Is something wrong?" Agapita asked, making to rise out of the bed.

"No, nothing at all." Avise turned back, wiping his face with his shirt-sleeve. "Anyway, what does the name 'Mario Bossi' mean to you?"

Agapita pursed her lips and her eyes wandered – she appeared to be genuinely searching through her mind for an answer. Eventually, she turned out with "Umm, it sounds like a boy's name, but I don't know anyone in particular called that, I'm sorry." Her eyes were wide and genuinely apologetic, as though she was fearful of having made a mistake and was imploring reassurance that everything was alright.

"What about 'Triela'?" Avise marched on smartly, not giving the girl time enough to brood.

At this, Agapita visibly brightened, a surge of knowledge flooding over her previous anxiety. "Oh! She's a first-generation cyborg. Her handler is Mr. Hilshire."

Avise rubbed his chin thoughtfully at the response. "Okay then." He then walked over to a corner of the room and trundled the over-bed table over to Agapita. He'd asked the Technology Department to set it up before his arrival – laid across it was his own issue assault rifle, an empty magazine and a couple of boxes of drill rounds.

"Do you know what this is?" Avise asked as he rolled the table into place above Agapita's legs.

"Yes, I do." Agapita nodded.

Avise waited.

Agapita continued to gaze at him steadily.

Avise blinked.

She did likewise.

Avise cleared his throat awkwardly. "Uh, well, tell me what it is." It seemed that she wanted things to be specific, but she didn't seem hesitant – not moving because she was worried about making a mistake – but that she just hadn't inferred any further implication from his command.

"This is a Beretta AR70/90, the standard-issue assault rifle for the Italian Army, and also sold for export." Agapita spoke in a clear, confident voice as a block of memory neatly slotted into place. "It weighs four kilograms and fires 5.56 millimetre NATO rounds, from a STANAG or drum magazine, and can also be adapted to fire rifle grenades. Its effective range is half a kilometre." She ran her hands along the length of the weapon as she spoke, slowly and smoothly, as though she was mapping its contours by the position of her fingertips, or elucidating some essential quality vested in the metal through its cool sensation. Avise watched her, rapt, even hypnotised with the continuous flow of her fingers. It was so quiet you could hear the slip of her skin against its body.

As she explored the assault rifle Agapita spread her arms wide out, from butt to muzzle, so wide in fact that her bedsheet slipped down from her front, exposing her breasts.

Agapita looked up at Avise and gnawed her lip, embarrassed. "It's, um... it's a bit big."

Avise smiled openly at the little bright flicker of personality sputtering and taking hold. "Okay then. Now strip it down – uh, take it apart – then reassemble it and make it ready."

A puzzled expression settled over Agapita as she picked up one of the ammo boxes. "But these are drill rounds, they can't fire. I can't kill anyone with these."

"That's alright, do it anyway – it's just an exercise."

The cyborg set to work immediately, her arms working rapidly and with precision, each shift of her limbs sounding with a smart snap or firm clack of a bolt coming loose or a slide ramming home. She made no effort to conceal herself as she worked – her earlier hint of bashfulness evidently having quickly evaporated as her handler had shown no concern about her nakedness. Agapita completed the task with efficient speed – Avise arched his eyebrows in surprise when he saw that Agapita did not use the quick-loader that he had placed on the table but instead loaded the drill rounds by hand, her fingers working with bewildering, almost blurring speed, just as quick if not faster than if she had used the quick-loader. It was the smallest suggestion of a cyborg's power, flickering through the smallest, most delicate part of her body, and already she had him stunned.

Avise was startled out of his funk by the sharp sound of the rifle's bolt springing forward. Agapita had shifted position so that she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, and she held the rifle across her chest in a guard position, waiting for her next instruction.

"Right then: unload, make safe, and put everything back down on the table."

Agapita did so, working through drill-book procedures in the same exact manner, shifting from pose to pose as though she was the model for the diagrams. The drill round in the breech rang off into a corner of the room as she pulled the bolt back to extract it, and after placing down the rifle she swung out of the bed – again, entirely unperturbed by her naked body – and padded over to fetch it. When she came back, she neatly packed it into one of the open ammo boxes, and then sat down on the edge of the bed, watching Avise silently and awaiting her next instruction.

Come to think of it, Agapita was right – the weapon did actually look rather unbalanced and ungainly in her hands. She was sixteen, but slight – against her relatively small frame the barrel wobbled and swayed about like a vaulting pole more than a very-longarm. She could probably do with something more compact, like a bullpup.

Avise's heart almost stopped as realisation seized him. They could head to the armoury and pick one out. Together.

"That will be enough for now." Avise said. He retrieved the clothes bag and placed in on the bed within Agapita's reach. "There's some clothes in there. Put them on, and then meet me outside." He indicated the door. "Then, we can continue the day."

"Certainly, sir." Agapita nodded.

Avise turned and walked out of the room straight away – even though he'd seen Agapita stark naked and not been troubled by it, something still seemed vaguely voyeuristic about watching her dress.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Avise's legs gave out from underneath him as if the sliding door had sliced them off at the thigh.

The strength of a thirty-nine year old officer, a fighter, a killer, a multi-campaign veteran, clenched and seized out of him, draining away as heavy, wracking, shuddering, wet, painful, joyful sobs.

"Oh God."

Avise huddled against the wall by the door, the tears flowing freely, pouring in stinging rivulets down his cheeks.

"Thank God."

"Are you positive that we're not going to be disturbed?"

"Yes, sir. I checked with his company – his compassionate leave's run out, he's got to go back to work. Although given the circumstances I don't think that he'll be in much a frame of mind to extol the Mediterranean splendour of the Pelagies."

"Especially when there's another boatload of immigrants washing up on the shore with every tide. What about the groundskeepers?"

"Paid off. They'll be chasing off headstone-defacing yobs for, oh, the next four hours at least."

"Heh, very good."

"I didn't think you'd ever be inclined to pay your respects."

"You're being awfully familiar."

"Sorry, sir."

"In any case, that's not why we're here. Respects would imply responsibility, and I'm not a murderer."

"Of course not sir, omerta was maintained, you have complete deniability."

"No, I mean it literally. She's not dead."

"Sorry, sir?"

"You lifted copies of the medical reports from the hospital. Did you read them yourself? She was in a stable condition, and then suddenly expires the next day?"

"Sir, if I may, she was very badly mangled by the bomb, it's hardly—"

"She survived the blast. Left crippled and stunted, but alive. She survived it for over a fortnight. If any complication was going to arise it would have already done so in that time. And then one day she suddenly pitches over and that's that? No prior indications of a decline? No medics' comments on any especial fragility? No attempt to revive her? The instrument of our revenge was let go, but not into the earth."

"You're not suggesting—"

"..."

"Dear God!"

"I'm hoping that He answers that entreaty. That's what we're here to check."

"How?"

"We dig."

"Aren't you coming in with me?"

Avise shook his head. "Sorry, Agapita, but this is something that you have to do yourself."

It was late evening and darkness had descended over the Earth and the Agency. The fratello was standing on a path which led across some open grass towards the building which contained the second-generation dormitory. Agapita glanced towards it, and then turned back to her handler, gnawing her lip in mild anxiety.

"But it's only been a few hours." Agapita pleaded plaintively. "It's too soon."

Avise was heartwarmed by Agapita's sense of attachment, but nonetheless it had to be done – even if only because sending the cyborg off to bed was one of the points in the checklist that Ferro had given him earlier in the day.

"Come on, Agapita, think of it as training, like we were talking about earlier. We're fratello—"

The word caught in Avise's throat like a foreign body, still feeling unreal. The moment's pause allowed Agapita to respond.

"Yes! Yes!" She cried, seemingly energised by the mention of the word. "So we have to stay together!"

"—And it's why we have to spend time apart." Avise hastily rallied. Damnit, this stuff was easier when he could just order the company sergeant-major to oversee the barrack-house cleaning. A guilty voice creeping inside his ear insinuated that he could just as easily lay down orders before Agapita and the cyborg would follow them unfailingly, but he hastily thrust that back to the furthest recesses of his mind – it'd be an unworthy cop-out to dodge the challenge of connecting with someone he was pledged to.

"I don't understand." Agapita almost looked upset.

"Well, a fratello is a bond of trust, yes? Trust is an immaterial link, and that's what makes it strong, because it binds everything to anything. If you only have confidence in me when you can see me – well, that's not full trust, is it? It'd hardly be practical in battle – you've got to keep your eyes on your enemy, not your partner!"

Agapita looked unconvinced, but Avise's argument was at least enough for her to nod at for now. With a few more soft exchanges of encouragement, farewells, and reassurances that he'd still be here tomorrow, Agapita hefted her sports-bag of domestic essentials onto her shoulder, and slowly made her way over to the building.

Making her go to bed when she wanted to stay up late... Avise wondered to himself if this was something he'd missed out on when he'd sent Edvige away. Ah well. There was plenty of opportunity still to make up for lost time.

"Baby steps." Avise murmured to himself, without any hint of condescension, as he watched Agapita walk down the path towards the dormitory. He stood there for a couple of minutes even after Agapita had vanished into the building, both in reflection and scanning the upper windows of the building to see if Agapita appeared in them. When she did not he accepted it with a philosophical shrug, taking comfort in that she must be readily settling into her room and interacting with the other girls, which spoke well for her future development.

All in all, he couldn't imagine a single flaw that might have marred the day.

Avise began walking back to the central buildings of the compound. As he did so, his pace began stepping to a beat, and joy springing unbidden from his heart gave voice in a reedy, off-key, but hearty and fulfilling song:

Oh Bersagliere leave happy between one kiss and the next, to the Regiment!

Feathers in the wind, shiny and black, are the pride of the Bersagliere!

Goodbye blondes, ciao brunettes, you are the blossoms of the men,

Your kisses bring joy to the ardent heart of a Bersagliere!

Then, at the last flourish, the sheer energy of the veritable sprint of a march threw Avise into a star-jump of an exclamation.

HURRAH!

"Went well then, I take it?"

Avise hastily pulled himself back in to stiff formal attention, although his attempt at recomposing himself was undermined by his head swinging about for the source of the interjection.

After a few bemused seconds the voice called out again, "Up here." Priscilla was leaning out of an upper window.

"Ah, um, yes, everything matched the expected parameters." Avise blustered, flustered.

"I'll bet." Priscilla pulled a wry, indulgent smile. "Want to come in? We've got some drinks set out for you surviving your first day."

"Damn your impudence, I'm not so green!" Avise protested. "I've been here for months already!"

Priscilla laughed lightly. "Oh, Mister Monsieur Master Marquess Major Mancini, that was just the warm-up."

"Did you put that rosary in her clothes bag?"

"Heh, you're welcome, it was nothing. Thought you'd like it."

"Well, yes, and thank you, but – damnit, she thought the thing was a necklace, a... an accessory!"

"So you'd better teach her how to use it properly, then – just a little something to help you get started. It's important that a fratello has something to bond over, it stops the relationship being one-sided."

"Bond? And you'd know more about that than any other handler, I suppose."

"Jealous, much, hmmm?"

"Screw you!"

"That an invitation? You're even more of a devout Catholic than I thought."

"...heh. No, actually, they'd have had to put me in the Gen-1 herd for that."

"Wo-ooooaaahhh, steady on! Tee-Emm-Eye!"

"And with that, I think I win the round."

"So, this is the place."

While Avise had been walking away, Agapita's own gaze was ranging up and around her.

Agapita looked around the entrance foyer to the second-generation dormitory. The fittings and furnishings were quite opulent, but for all of the brighter polish on the wooden banister and the recessed lighting suffusing everything with a comforting, cushioning golden glow of warm light, it still looked pretty much like a hallway in any apartment block. This puzzled Agapita, because she'd never lived in an apartment block before and couldn't have seen one herself, but she supposed that there were enough apartment blocks in the world to make their layout fairly common knowledge.

There was even a line of postboxes set into the wall near the front door. This was another incongruous detail, as she knew that cyborgs were not allowed to keep correspondence and wouldn't have any need for mail in the first place, but maybe it was there for verisimilitude to help them whenever they went undercover.

The letterboxes were all named, written on little paper chits slipped into plastic pockets on the flaps (it occurred to her that someone could make mischief swapping them around). Petrushka, Vanessa, Piera, Ilaria, Kara, Francesca—

Agapita.

Her breath caught in her throat as she saw it, the wonderful sight of her name – her self, the – banishing her earlier questions about the boxes' purpose. People could contact her this way. People would expect to find her here. People knew that this was where she lived.

Home.

An impulse carried Agapita over to the postboxes, and she flipped up her postbox's flap, craning her neck to peer inside.

It was empty.

Agapita blinked quickly a few times, and then turned her head away. She looked pensive for a moment, and then with a flash of realisation scrabbled inside her pocket for the piece of paper that Avise had given her earlier. The paper was crumpled, and frowning at it she pressed it against the postboxes and tried to smooth the creases and crinkles out with her hand. After a few seconds of futile effort trying to flatten it back down to a pristine printer's plane, she regretfully conceded to reading it as it was.

Room 302

Roommate Piera

Be Nice!

302... that meant that it was on the second floor, two storeys up. She turned towards the stairs, but before she ascended she noticed a cork board set at their foot – another detail which looked strangely out of place in a building which looked as though it could be an upmarket hotel. Attached to it by drawing pins were several paper notices.

All cyborgs MUST complete a counterform whenever signing out and returning weapons from the armoury. Omitting to do so is a breach of procedure and is NOT sparing the armourer from more paperwork.

Please remind your handler that the Adult Staff Sports Trials will be held from the 8th August. You may be invincible, but he needs to maintain his fitness!

Whoever's been using my underwear, quit it, now! Your fat ass is stretching the elastic! –X.

At least they've been getting some actual use. You just keep a stack of vanity knickers to pretend you have a smaller waist. –XXX.

Attn. All. This noticeboard is for the exclusive use of formal communications, and sullying it with frivolous – and squalid – personal matter demeans yourselves, betrays your handlers' upbringing and tarnishes the Agency which it is your honour to represent. The above two cyborgs have been identified and disciplined. This notice is to remain here to serve as an instruction and warning. –Ferro.

Receiving it all with a shrug, Agapita turned and padded up the stairs, the deep burgundy carpet absorbing her steps soundlessly, and then emerged onto the upper landing. There had been no-one downstairs, and nor was there anyone around here – one long corridor, decorated similarly to the ground floor and interpsed with bedroom doors, was similarly devoid of activity even though there were supposed to be almost a dozen cyborgs quartered there.

The silence was really a little unnerving, like quivering elastic waiting to snap. Agapita felt that she could hear her heart pulsing in her ears. The scenario seemed wrong – too low-key, too mundane. Part of her she would have been more comfortable with the bare metal of the technology building, as the plain walls could disguise no tricks and messages in their patterns.

Two brass nametags were placed in a frame beside the door.

PIERA

AGAPITA

Another flutter passed through Agapita's breast as she saw her name again, further rooting her to this place, although her sense of fulfilment and attachment retreated a step when she noticed that the plates were slid into position, not stamped in place, to facilitate easy removal. The flutter became a shiver, and then fled away altogether.

Agapita reached her hands up to knock, and then stopped, suddenly feeling ridiculous. What on earth did she have to knock for? It was her room. Home. She'd been nervously fretting about the place since she arrived, as if every step would set off a minefield, and realisation swept over her like a flood of relief as she understood that it was no way to live, jumping not only at empty shadows, but even the absence of them. With sudden decision finally straightening out her lingering insecurity, she firmly grasped the doorknob and pushed the door to her room open.

"—ld you already I'M BUSY!"

Agapita emitted a choking gasp as a missile stabbed into the flesh of her collar.

She staggered, leaning on the door frame for support. Although it was more from shock than the pain her legs still quivered weakly and she pawed at the slender plastic object stuck into her, around which blood was already welling.

Across the room, turned away from a desk busy with papers pushed up against a wall, was a girl of Agapita's age with long brown hair, holding a throwing stance and looking baffled. She was frozen for a moment, like the screen of a slow computer clunking through a complicated process.

"You're..." Her eyes opened wide in shock and her jaw fell open in appalled dismay. With a jolt of horror she was standing, almost tripping over her own chair and legs as she rushed across to the doorway, gabbling in panic. "oh my God I'm so so so sorry I had no idea I thought you were Vanny they didn't tell us when you were coming are you alright—"

Agapita reacted by instinct to a demonstrated hostile charging into close-combat, and wound back her arm to plant a right hook firmly into the assailant's cheek.

The girl swayed backwards from the concussive impact, while her eyes span up into her head and rattled further still. For long, laden seconds she teetered, wavering on the edge of her balance, while Agapita pulled the object – a ballpoint pen – out. She made to throw it on the ground in contempt, but a sudden strong impulse instead had her wipe it down with her hand and then walk into the room and neatly place it on a nightstand by one of the two beds. As she did so, the girl rolled back upright, and blinked her eyes back into focus.

"Yeah..." The girl smiled embarrassedly, although a glassy look in her eyes betrayed that she was actively suppressing the compulsion – or desire – to fight back. "Yeah, okay, that's fine. I really did deserve that." She turned away a little too quickly to be entirely casual, and skipped across the bedroom to the other side of the far bed, before turning around and bouncing her hands on it eagerly.

"Anyway, you're Agapita?"

"Yes." Agapita nodded. "Are you my roommate, Piera?" The hesitant note in her voice was less shyness and more creeping alarm.

"The very same!" Piera cried delightedly. "It'll be great to have a roommate finally, I've felt like the odd man out ever since I was activated."

"Literally." Agapita mused, trying to make conversation. Being stabbed in the neck by an improvised shuriken was hardly the most auspicious start to proceedings, but she was mindful of her handler's order – Be Nice!

Piera looked confused. "Come again?"

"Well, cyborgs bunk in pairs of two, which makes them even, so if you've been alone, then you'd literally be an odd number." Agapita shrugged.

"Right." Piera looked consternated. "You're not going turn out to be some boring, officious type like that muckraker in with the younger ones, are you?" She curled her lip in distaste "That bespectacled" – she elongated the word with mock sophistication – "one which hasn't got anything to do but skulk about the compound all day and get under everyone's feet?" She added by way of emphasis.

"I've just woken up." Agapita ventured. "I think that I'm still working all of that stuff out."

That seemed to satisfy Piera, as after a moment's consideration she continued to pump the bed enthusiastically. "Okay then! This is your fortress right here."

"Furthest from the radiator." Agapita observed.

"Closest to the window!" Piera protested.

Agapita shrugged. "Well," she began breezily, "if it's my bastion against the terrors of the night, I suppose I ought to claim it and begin fortifying the ramparts." She slipped her sports bag from her shoulder and with one heft flung it across the room to land on the bed, causing Piera to jump up, startled.

"Alright!" The other cyborg masked her momentary alarm with a loud shout, as though she had intended to jump up with an energised exclamation. "While you do that, I'll go get the others! Sorry we didn't have a more organised party ready for you, but I'm sure that we can whip something up." As she began crossing the room back to the door, she came near to Agapita and paused. "Oh, how's your neck?"

It said something about cyborgs that Agapita had entirely forgotten about being stabbed after the immediate incident had passed. She felt the small puncture where the pen had struck. While it had bled, the Larraman cells had already clotted the wound over, and with a cyborg's tough hide the improvised weapon had really done little more than pierce the skin. After a wipe with a cloth it would be unlikely to even leave a mark.

"I'll be fine." Agapita nodded.

"Oh, thank God!" Piera cried, although she sounded more relieved than contrite. "I'm really, really sorry about that. I've got a heap of homework to do and Vanessa kept on blundering in and demanding to know if you'd turned up yet. Now it's my turn to give her some grief! Anyway, sit tight, I'll be back in a minute!"

The door clicked shut, and silence flooded back into the room as though Agapita had pulled plugs out of her ears. Although each feature had been built with care and quality, room was simply furnished – there were two wide single beds separated by nightstands against one wall, with a unit of desks, shelves and wardrobe pushed against the opposite wall, across from each bed. Where there was open carpet between the beds, though, the desks were linked together by a chest of drawers – the dull metal circles of the small, unobtrusive locks set into the wood identified it as the chest where the cyborgs could store their personal weapons.

There was a vase of winter-blossoming hellebore flowers on top of it, as well as a framed photograph of Piera with her handler. She had the man in a headlock. She was wearing a bright, sunny smile, enjoying the workout of some playful rough-and-tumble wrestling – the handler's face was beetroot-red.

Agapita turned back to her bed and unzipped the sports bag, removing each item, however mundane, with almost reverential care. A map of the Agency compound; An army drill-book; A booklet of base emergency procedures, along with a timetable for the refectory and laundry; a page-a-day diary; a small can of gun oil with a rag (but no weapon, yet); a set of training clothes and shoes with a towel and assorted toiletries; and then an unusual, non-issue item. She recognised it as a crucifix – quite a large one, fully ten inches tall and set on a base so that it could stand freely. The wood of the cross was dark brown and varnished so that her hands slid across it easily; the corpus that hung from it was made of pewter. Unease shivered through Agapita as she considered the thing – while her mind told her about all of the myriad theological and symbolic roles of the device, she found the image of a man wracked perpetually in torment disturbing, and wondered what sort of solace incessant suffering was supposed to provide. Agapita set the crucifix down on her nightstand, and looked at it again. Even if it was uncomfortable, it held her attention with a morbid fascination – however much it depicted something repellent, she could not deny that it somehow felt familiar.

At that, there was a loud bang as the door swung open and noise burst back into the bedroom.

The rest of the night streaked together into a blur. There were names, smiles, hands passing from person to person. Chatter about cars, clothes, cannons. Petrushka plucking at her dress and cooing appreciatively about how Agapita wore it. Embraces which aggregated together into one great rolling mass of endearment and encouragement. A bottle of wine. Poking and prodding and prattling about where she'd take her first bullet – peeling back sleeves to show off scars. Questions about her handler. Questions about herself. About the room. About the grounds. About anything and everything - except for the other girls themselves. Agapita wasn't quite smothered, but amidst the swirl of activity it was difficult to get a firm appreciation of the other girls. They doubtlessly meant well, but in such an environment Agapita felt that she was not being introduced – she was being inspected, and so despite the surge of excitement which animated the other girls, Agapita felt detached from the impromptu party, only seeing and feeling the others murkily, as though through gauze.

Eventually, things wound down. The other girls drifted away, citing tiredness, training, mission preparation – but always with a parting nod and smile – until only Piera and Agapita were left.

Agapita inclined a head guiltily towards Piera's desk. "I don't think I've let you finish your homework."

Piera grinned. "That's no biggie. If anything, your coming couldn't be better timed – I'll be able to plead exceptional circumstances and get an extension. As I said, it's great to finally have a roommate."

The two changed for bed. Piera walked to her wardrobe and donned a set of pyjamas, and she turned her head in surprise when Agapita simply undressed and slipped between the sheets naked.

"You really sleep like that?" Piera asked, tugging at the collar of her pyjamas uncomfortably.

Agapita glanced down at herself, and then across to Piera, taking in the other girls' bedclothes but feeling no sense of bashfulness herself. "Well, I was like this in the last bed I was in, so I suppose that it's what I'm supposed to do."

Piera frowned, thinking back to the day of her own activation, the hospital sheets scratching at her skin. Strength of recall was one of the privileges of being a cyborg. The infant years of an ordinary human were lost to a blur or forgotten altogether, but each cyborg received her day of activation with her eyes open and with perfect clarity, tasting the sweetness of air and appreciating the full wonder of each new sensation gifted to her by her birth. But that very same fact that it was a privilege made it exclusive – private, and deeply personal. She was uncomfortable with such experiences being spread even by other people, as it seemed to cheapen the very concept.

With a perturbed frown, Piera got into her own bed and turned over to go to sleep. She couldn't manage it for a while though, as Agapita still had her bedside lamp on – she was sitting up in bed and reading through all the paperwork that her handler had laboured her with.

"Are you going to sleep at all?" Piera was unable to keep the sour tone out of her voice.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to be awkward." Agapita reached over to switch her lamp off, but as she did so she caught sight of the crucifix that Avise had given her. A sudden unknown impulse made her switch her hand from the lamp to the icon – she shifted the base slightly, and suddenly the dull pewter gleamed brilliantly like silver. Agapita smiled to herself as the light from the corpus shone in her eyes. It wasn't such a bad thing after all. Nothing might be perfect, but there was nothing to say that they could never be improved, with a little effort – and a gift of inspiration.

Agapita switched the light off, and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

...The jangling bell of the room phone which announced Avise's 6AM wake-up call threw Agapita out of bed with a horrified squawk and made Piera brain herself against the wall in her tumbling rush to respond to the emergency action drill.

THE END