"Analysis"


Broken clouds hovered over the frazioni of Monticelli, north of the commune of Teramo in the Abruzzo region of Italy. Standing proud on the top of a 300m peak amongst rolling hills to the east of the Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga, Monticelli and the surrounding frazione were populated mostly by locals, though the occasional adventurous tourist would hike the area and admire the splendid view of Gran Sasso.

As he navigated the winding and narrow roads in his BMW 740iL Protection, Lupa Sandrelli wished he had the augmented arm strength of his cyborg, Gattonero, who sat in the passenger seat beside him, loudly smacking bubble gum as she idly watched the landscape speed by. The car dated back to his time with the Organized Crime Investigation Group (GICO) of the Guardia di Finanza. Combating drugs trafficking, smuggling, money laundering and terrorist financing put him in contact with many unsavory people who often attempted to solve their differences with bullets and bombs. He'd have preferred something smaller, however BMW only offered the 7-Series in their "Protection" line and he enjoyed the piece of mind in having a factory-sourced option covered under a factory warranty.

On this slightly overcast Sunday afternoon in November, Lupa and Gattonero were not in Monticelli on business, but instead pleasure. Teramo held an important weeklong international photography show during October and as budding shutterbugs, both Gattonero and Henrietta had pestered their handlers to take them. The previous day they visited the large market held every Saturday and today, the final day of their three-day vacation, the two fratelli split up.

Jose and Henrietta took the A24 to the beaches of the Adriatic Coast while Gattonero asked Lupa to take her up into the mountains. Both cyborgs would fill their digital memory cards and then compare pictures when they returned to the compound.

Lupa pulled over by the side of the road. Because the forward windows only rolled down 15cm, Gattonero opened the door and stepped out to focus her camera on the Gran Sasso d'Italia standing proud in the distance. They then drove into the town and Gattonero snapped more pictures.


An hour later, they wound their way towards State Highway 80 and the A24 Autostrada.

"Thank you for taking me up there," Gattonero noted as she flipped through the images using the built-in display on her SLR camera.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," Lupa replied. As they rounded a curve, without warning a white first generation Fiat Ducato panel van jumped out and blocked the road, forcing Lupa to stand on the brakes. The side panel slid back and a man dressed in black with a balaclava pointed a Beretta AR70/90 assault rifle at them and opened fire on full-automatic.

The 36mm thick ballistic glass erupted in craters as the 5.56x45mm NATO ball rounds slammed into it, though none penetrated thanks to the glass – and the rest of the armor – being designed to withstand the more powerful 7.62x51mm NATO round. As Lupa put the car in reverse and hit the accelerator, Gattonero opened the mapbox and removed her Brügger & Thomet MP9, an improved version of the Steyr TMP. She slapped in a 30-round magazine and armed the weapon. She lowered the window and hung the weapon out, placing 5 rounds into the shooter's chest, knocking him back. However, the ballistic vest he had under the sweater stopped the rounds and he quickly recovered to start shooting again.

The narrowness of the road prevented Lupa from performing a J-turn and as he went backwards, he overcorrected and dropped the car into a ditch, the rear drive wheels no longer able to gain traction.

"Get in back and stay down!" Gattonero ordered. She opened the passenger door and, hiding behind it, started prioritizing targets. She took aim at the shooter in the van and fired off a short burst into his head, dropping him.

Another shooter appeared behind her and opened up on her. The CFRP plate armor covering her ribs absorbed the impact, but it threw her forward into the door. She dropped down and turned, firing a burst into his center-mass followed by a shorter burst into his skull. As she advanced on the van, the driver fired on her with an Uzi chambered for .45 ACP. Again, her armor deflected the rounds and she fired back at him, hitting him in the head and killing him. She secured the area and when she determined that nobody else remained, she returned to the BMW, giving Lupa the "all clear" signal.

She checked the car and saw that all four run-flat tires remained intact. A few rounds had gone through the hood, but a look underneath showed the engine bay appeared to be undamaged. Lupa ran the on-board diagnostics and the car reported it was fine. Gattonero went to the back of the car and helped lift it to the point the rear wheels could restore traction and Lupa drove it back onto the road. He then contacted the compound and they diverted Jose and Henrietta to his location as well as deploying a police response from Teramo while Gattonero examined the van.


From a hill a kilometer away, Aaron Cicero watched the battle unfold through a set of high-power binoculars. Beside him, another man filmed the action with a Sony HDR-FX1 HD digital camcorder mounted on a tripod.

"This sure is an expensive intelligence-gathering mission," the man with the camera noted as he watched Gattonero quickly terminate the three-man squad.

"Dante wants to know just what we're facing," Cicero replied. "According to the information Franco supplied, the Agency's girls have super-human abilities and seem to shrug off bullets."

"Sounds like a bad science-fiction movie," the man commented.

"That teenager just killed three trained gunmen and shook off being shot with an assault rifle," Cicero noted, putting down the binoculars. "You get everything?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's get out of here," Cicero said.


Lupa and Gattonero were not the only fratello to be tested and observed by Aaron Cicero. They were behind the truck bomb attack against the Ministry of the Interior building that led to Angelica's death and they sacrificed some more low-level operatives in mid-December at the Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples to witness first-hand the abilities of the girl said to have killed Pinocchio.

Attempts were also made to determine just what the girls were. They launched attacks against computers and attempted to bribe workers to gather whatever information they could. They thoroughly penetrated the public side of the Social Welfare Association and learned of the advanced prosthetic and other medical research programs they were involved in.

All of this data flowed back to Dante in Tunisia, who started to analyze it for weaknesses he could exploit.