29. Career Prospects
They called her Gina.
It was apparently some sort of pop-culture reference, originally applied to her by one of the Earthborn (and wasn't that a surreal thought?) part-timers working at the prison. Given the context, she rather suspected that the original Gina, whoever she was, had been a fairly unfortunate soul, but the assassin herself had nevertheless been doing fairly well of late.
The staff had rallied round her, their outrage at the attack on their inmates overruling animosity to the point where she wasn't entirely sure whether she qualified as a prisoner or a mascot – though she suspected that she would have found out very quickly if she ever tried to escape. In return, she had started eating and drinking again, reasoning that since the prospect of her former employers actually managing to drag her away for her scheduled fate worse than death was seeming increasingly unlikely, pre-emptive suicide was not quite such an attractive prospect. Admittedly, she had no idea what she was going to do from now on (other than lounging around in her cell for the foreseeable future), but it always paid to keep one's options open.
As if on cue, the cell door opened and two combat mages walked in. Both wore the bizarre mishmashes of clothing the Bureau referred to as 'Barrier Jackets', which stopped looking quite so daft once you realised they could shrug off anti-tank rounds, and both were armed with what could only be Devices. The sour-faced redhead held a grotesquely oversized pistol one-handed in a classic 'this isn't pointed at you but it very soon could be' stance, whilst her slightly shorter companion, who appeared to be against all probability a natural blue, gave her a cheery wave with a bulky, gear-wristed gauntlet. Both of them looked like they were no older than their late teens, but then again, so was Gina, and it hadn't presented her with much of a problem ability-wise.
She raised her eyebrows. "An armed escort? I'm flattered. Was wondering when you'd get to the interrogation – for people with such an elaborate detention system, you're really slow when it comes to processing your prisoners."
The blue-haired girl waved a hand airily. "Oh, you don't need to worry about that. Inspector Acous already took the information from inside your head – it saved quite a lot of lives, actually. Thanks!"
Gina stared at the mage, her empathic senses searching for the slightest hint of mockery or sarcasm... and found absolutely nothing. Good grief.
"So why did you come?" she asked, struggling to conceal her shock at this apparent, unremembered violation. "Have I outlived my usefulness? Seriously, I'm an agent of Chaos – well, I was, anyway – who's gone for weeks without clichéd villain dialogue. A girl's got needs, you know."
Blue-hair looked genuinely appalled. "No, no, it's nothing like that! It's just that you've been listed by the detention centre psychologists as 'having a low potential recidivism rate' – which I think means that whatever you did, you're not likely to do it again. Is that right, Tea?" The redhead responded with an affirmative grunt, and she smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, Tea's the smart one. Anyway, we thought that seeing as there wasn't really much point for any of us in you being cooped up here forever, we might as well let you know about what other options there are. Well, the chief warder thought that. Not me."
"Still volunteered for it, though," Tea pointed out. "Anything to get in Captain Takamachi's good books, right?"
"So why did you come along then, Tea?" Just as before, there was no malice to the question – merely honest curiosity.
For a moment, the colour of the other mage's face matched her hair. "Well, isn't it obvious? Someone had to keep an eye on you, Subaru, or the entire central office would be neck-deep in escaped prisoners. Honestly, I can't leave you alone for five minutes..."
So tell me, 'Tea', do you have difficulties with crocodiles? See pyramids from time to time? "And what make you think I'm not going to turn on you lot, then?"
The redhead shrugged. "Where's the motive? I think it's fairly obvious that your masters don't want you back except in bite-sized chunks, and your psychological profile doesn't indicate serial-killer tendencies – I'll admit that surprised me at first, but I suppose there's no sense in an infiltrator giving themselves away like that."
"Well, yes, that's part of it," Gina admitted. "The other half was that we had to eat those whose identities we stole in order for our bodies to perfectly mimic their physical structure – helped with disposing of evidence, too – and I never really liked the taste. Sort of puts you off casual homicide, you know. Negative stimuli and all that."
Their joint expressions were so very, very worth it. "Hey, you said you read my psych-eval; I'd assume that was mentioned."
"You know," Tea said eventually, "if you're ever going to get rehabilitated, you need to understand the concept of 'too much information'. Anyway, assuming that the powers that be weren't employing rectum-based verbal communication when they did your file, the only way you're likely to cause us trouble is if you decide a criminal career's a good idea, and you don't need to be in prison for us to monitor you on that count. Besides, if we locked up everyone with superpowers suited to illegal activities on this planet, we'd be here all century."
Her eyes narrowed. "Not saying you're going to get off scot-free, mind – you've still got at least two murders on your hands plus a whole host of other, more minor crimes, and they aren't just going to go away no matter how much you feel remorse for them and no matter what your mental state at the time. We're just here to suggest an endpoint, a way for you to repay your debt to society – and believe me, you racked one up – in a way more constructive than just staying cooped up in here for the rest of your natural life. Oh, we didn't give you our names, did we? I'm Ser- no, Corporal Teana Lanster, and the professional Modern Belkan melee specialist and semi-professional idiot over there is Corporal Subaru Nakajima."
"Hey!" Subaru protested.
"Charmed," Gina replied. "So, about this rehabilitation program, Lanster. Brainwashing, right? I'll warn you, I'm not sure how well lobotomies work on shapeshifters. If I were you, I'd explore the abilities of that Acous guy you mentioned. Just a suggestion, mind."
There was another awkward pause.
"... If I asked you what the hell kind of planet you come from, you'd just reply with another smartarse remark about your file, right?" Teana asked. "The standard procedure's for some voluntary work with the Bureau until you've served your sentence, plus therapy sessions to help you adjust to life outside evil-minion work, just in case you're unfamiliar with the concept. If you're lucky, you'll even get a few years taken off for good behaviour. We've obtained a lot of our best recruits that way, including both Colonel Yagami and Captain Testarossa-Harlaown. Sound like something you'd be interested in?"
The atmosphere in the small room had not been terribly warm to begin with. Now, though, it dropped to sub-zero temperatures.
"Ah, I see," the former assassin said quietly. "You want to use me as well. I know I mentioned my file before, but you seem to have forgotten what was in it. The gods turned me into a monster, Lanster. I spied for them. I killed for them. I committed crimes which you don't even have names for. I ate the bones of innocents whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time when I needed a disguise. I have so many memories of others and so few of my own that it's hard for me to know who I am anymore. I damned myself for them because it was my role, my function in bringing about the safety and stability they preached. They betrayed me, and I was so fucked in the head at first that I thought I deserved it. I don't give a shit why you want something like me, Lanster. I couldn't care less what mealy-mouthed justification you have for it. It's not going to happen, capisce?"
There was a strangled sob and Gina felt herself caught in a bone-crushing hug, blue hair tickling her nose and warm droplets staining her chest. She had never even seen Subaru move.
"What I think my esteemed colleague is trying to explain in her... ah... unique manner," Teana explained drily, "is that our primary purpose is not to get you on our side as a military asset. The community service program is mostly intended to give you something to do during the rehab process – Bureau-exclusive jobs include everything from administrative work through emergency services to park duty. Funnily enough, it's the first of those that requires the most character assessment and monitoring. Not all of it's government-exclusive either – there's a few businesses and charities that take in ex-cons on a rehab stint, most significantly the Belkan Saint Church and a couple of the other sane-ish denominations. All we ask is that you let us discuss the options available to you."
Subaru looked up at her with huge, puppy-like eyes, but Gina still had her pride, and she was damned if she was going to let this go without a fight. After all, when was the last time I had the chance to be this childish?
"So you... hwee... want me to spend... the rest of the day... getting preached at?" she wheezed, struggling to breathe past the astonishingly heavy mass of overenthusiastic combat mage currently squashing her. "Think I'd prefer the... hwee... brainwashing, to be honest. At least it wouldn't... be as time-consuming. What's in it for me?"
"Subaru, let go before you kill her." Teana rolled her eyes. "You mean apart from the obvious? Look, we want to help you, but if you're just going to be a contrarian little-"
"We'll buy you ice-cream!"
The red-haired mage stared at her colleague's happily smiling face. "What."
Gina just laughed. She laughed until her shoulders shook, until tears streamed down her face. There were certain things in the multiverse that were fundamentally impossible, and one of them, she now knew, was trying to out-childish Subaru Nakajima.
Teana shook her head. "Kids. Why do they always send me to deal with kids?"
The trip to Mid-Childa had been disorientatingly fast – a short walk from the detention spire to the nearest transporter station (which still bore the scars from the Hellhounds' demo charges), a flash of light, and all of a sudden they were in an airy, spacious terminal building beneath a clear blue sky. Gina gazed over the edge of the open-air walkway they currently strolled along towards the low, bulky monorail building ahead, and scratched at the metal collar around her throat. It wasn't that it was particularly uncomfortable – in fact, it was designed not to be – but having a bomb attached to your neck warranted some sort of acknowledgement, in her opinion.
The standard-issue TSAB restraint collar, despite its innocuous appearance, was a frighteningly complicated piece of equipment designed according to documents salvaged from the Infinite Library. It could be imbued with multiple enchantments at once – in Gina's case, seals that suppressed her magical and transformative abilities as well as a conditional attack spell set to explode with sufficient force to blow a hole in the side of a tank and alert every combat mage within a five-mile radius were she to attempt to take it off, venture too far from her escort, or violate any one of half a dozen other conditions. The only thing preventing the collar from qualifying as a war crime just by existing was that it was not designed to kill or even particularly harm prisoners fitted with it, instead simply facilitating recapture were they to attempt to escape. Magical weapons were funny like that.
Despite its presence, though, she was surprised at how little thought she had given to making a run for it. Certainly, getting out from under the Bureau's scrutiny and scuttling off to a life of happy obscurity was not an unappealing prospect, and hardly impossible so long as she was in the open with just two guards on a crowded city-world.
There were certain disadvantages to such an idea, such as the fact that she would be squandering the goodwill she had thus far accumulated with an organisation that seemed to genuinely want to help her (apart from the explosive collar, anyway), and that she knew from hacking into their files prior to the daemon's visit that current Bureau military doctrine when facing Divine Assassins was to pull back all their forces from the area and send in a Humanoid Interface. None of those, though, were the primary reason for her continued cooperation. In fact, she didn't have the slightest idea what that reason was, though she was very interested indeed in figuring it out.
"You know, I'm a cyborg as well," Subaru said conversationally from beside her. It wasn't the most conventional of openers compared to, say, discussing the weather – at least, so far as Gina's many stolen memories informed her – but then, expecting convention from someone like the sunny-dispositioned corporal was an exercise in futility.
"Oh?" she asked weakly. "Well, I suppose the hair was a clue." And the weight, her abused body reminded her.
The mage nodded happily. "Yup. I can't shapeshift like you can – how does that work, by the way? – but I've got enhanced speed, strength, and agility, not to mention durability. Oh – and I can do this."
She pointed her gauntleted hand at the horizon, firing off a ripple of pale blue energy blasts from its palm. When she turned back to them, her eyes were a hard metallic gold before she blinked and they reverted to their usual sea-green.
"No charging time, no incantation needed, and it's got an EMP effect that really does a number on machinery. I don't use it much, since I can't cast spells when I switch to firing mode and it does permanent damage to anything with a nervous system, but it's quite useful for demolition work. Neat, huh?" Her brow creased. "Erm – you are a cyborg, right? I mean, I don't want to... you know, make assumptions."
Gina briefly considered not answering – even if Subaru didn't have the foresight to record a conversation on Divine Assassin capabilities, Teana certainly would – and then decided that she really didn't give a damn. "Sort of, I suppose. My transformation abilities have more of a biological basis, plus a healthy dose of Warp-sorcery, but I'm fitted with several bionic implants as well. The phase blade, for instance, as well as an infiltrator nanite package and multi-spectral recording device. So where are you going with this? 'Hey, we're both soulless part-mechanical abominations, let's be friends'?"
As usual, the corporal proved wholly immune to sarcasm. "Ooh! Can we? Please? I just wanted to say that if I could integrate properly, I'm sure you can. In fact, you might find it even easier!"
The former assassin leaned towards Teana, muttering under her breath. "No kidding. Dye my hair and subtract a few dozen brain cells, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
The look she received in reply was icy. "Are you insulting Subaru's intelligence?"
"Oh, come on, like you haven't done it about seven times since we left the cell. Shall I replay your exact words for you?"
This time, the blush was so intense that Gina rather imagined it could have glowed in the dark. "That's... that's different."
Before the gunslinger could explain precisely why it was different, though, a grey-haired man in a TSAB uniform walked past in the opposite direction, giving her a friendly nod. "Morning, Sergeant – long time no see. How's it going?"
Gina felt a stab of irritation – and guilt, curiously – from Teana, but the mage managed a polite smile nonetheless. "It's 'corporal' these days, Herschel. The Cerberus Incident saw to that."
He raised his eyebrows. "Ah? Makes sense, I suppose. After the eels started pouring out of that truck, I knew someone was going to pay for it. Pity it had to be you, though, Lanster. Well, I'd best get going – duty calls. We should definitely get in touch some time – always good to see a familiar face from the Investigative Branch."
It was not until the other mage was well out of earshot that Teana's mask dropped and she let loose a short, ugly curse. "Why is it that everyone keeps bringing that damned thing up? Can't I at least be allowed to try to forget it?"
Subaru placed a hand on her colleague's shoulder, her face the very image of concern. "It's all right, Tea. You know, you shouldn't be so upset about it, it wasn't that bad-"
"Not that bad?" Teana rounded on her with such force that the cyborg almost backed all the way into the wall. "Eight mages were hospitalised due to mental trauma, the Chief Administrator's pet manticore got eaten, property damage was in the high millions, and the main highway to the capital was blocked by a wall of caviar for two fucking weeks! How is that 'not that bad', huh, Subaru? I'm really curious!"
Subaru's eyes were wide as saucers. "Tea..."
Gina cleared her throat. "Ahem – freaky biomantic killing machine of questionable allegiance over here. Just in case you'd forgotten."
Both girls snapped to attention, Teana caught mid-inhalation prior to unleashing another rant. She berated her colleague for failing to pay attention to their prisoner, naturally, but her heart didn't quite seem to be in it, and Gina heard the sotto voce apology she mumbled as they set off again towards the monorail. Subaru completely missed it, of course, but then that was to be expected.
The shapeshifter felt a smile appear on her face. There were some kinds of entertainment you just couldn't buy.
"So," Gina declared. "You and Lanster."
The expedition's two metahumans sat on a low, flat-topped park wall, watching the traffic go by as the third member of their party perused the maps available in a nearby tourist information centre. The monorail had stopped two stations short of their intended destination, its driver citing 'technical difficulties'. Said 'difficulties' had turned out to be a mile-wide, perfectly hemispherical crater where a citykiller mage had apparently decided to live up to the nickname in a last, desperate suicide attack during the invasion. Though Subaru had assured them that what they had come for was still present, getting to it might prove problematic.
Even here, an area largely untouched by the raids, the city still bore scars, and not just the occasional burn patch on the buildings or the very obvious gap in the built-up skyline where the crater lay. The aforementioned traffic, vehicular and pedestrian alike, was uncommonly light, and those who walked (or in some cases flew) past them were far too quiet. It was as if something had taken away just a little of the life from the neighbourhood, to the point where the main reason the assassin was trying to start a conversation was to distract herself from the weird, oppressive atmosphere.
The corporal blinked at her. "Mmm?"
"What is it that you see in her?"
She saw Subaru's eyes light up. "Oh, she's smart, she's brave, she's really pretty..."
"... And she's got the personality of an alligator turtle minus the charm," Gina finished for her. "I mean, seriously, Nakajima, why do you put up with her crap? She save your life or something?"
"Yup. Six times."
"Excuse me?"
"She saved my life six times. Well, seven, if you count that business with the ramen bar. I know Tea's not the easiest person to get along with sometimes, but she's always kept an eye out for me even when she didn't have to. Besides, it's not really my place to say, but she hasn't exactly had the easiest life, you know?"
"Well, that's bullshit right there. You know what I've been through – I've mentioned it often enough – and am I a short-tempered, abrasive jerk? Am I?" There was an awkward pause. "Wait – don't answer that."
"Look, she's really not so bad once you get to know her – and, well, your side did just kick off a war with us that left entire planets in ruins and got billions killed, so you're not exactly going to see her at her best. Me, I just think you're rubbing each other the wrong way."
It was at that point that Gina finally noticed the elephant in the proverbial living-room. "So... about that. You seem to be taking it pretty well – the war, that is."
The ever-present smile faltered a little, and the assassin felt something dark pass beneath the sun-kissed waters of Subaru Nakajima's mind. "Well, someone has to, don't they?"
"I... don't follow."
"A quarter of my unit is dead," the blue-haired girl said in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone that made Gina's skin crawl. "Most of them were fresh recruits, plus our youngest two members, who were both good friends of mine and the adoptive children of two of our most senior officers. Morale is almost non-existent, and that's before you take into account the decimation of our government, the slaughter of civilians, many of them our friends or family, and the reduction of the Bureau's capital-world itself to rubble. Someone has to keep their spirits up, and... well, I know I'm not the brightest person in the First, but at least I can do cheerful."
The smile had returned, but her eyes were unnaturally bright. "Being sad about it won't bring anyone back, right? Might as well focus on what we can do to stop it happening again and help those who are still alive. Besides, what would be the point of taking it out on you? You know what you did was wrong, you said you won't do it again, and your gods don't seem to want you back anyway."
"And that's enough for you?"
"Well, yes. Three years ago, during the Scaglietti Incident, my sister, Ginga, got kidnapped, and in the fight that came after, I hospitalised one of the snatch team who did it. It's how I found out what my IS blasts do to cyborgs... it wasn't very nice." She winced at the memory. "After the Incident, though, about two thirds of the agents we captured got put on the rehabilitation program – the others weren't interested – and my dad adopted four of them, including the three who'd attacked Gin. It was her idea, you see. The guy in charge of them was the same one who'd created us in the first place, and when she was caught, she was brainwashed into being a loyal servant just like them until I managed to stop her. She knew what they'd been through, and she forgave them for it. These days, they're a rapid-response team working for the Capital Defence Forces, and she's in command. They saved a lot of lives during the attack."
Gina processed this. "So I..."
"Everyone has a chance to be a good person. Nobody's beyond redemption – it's just a question of whether they want it and what we can do to help. That's why it's so sad when someone doesn't take that chance – whether because they like hurting people, because they feel that they don't have an escape, or just because they feel they don't deserve it. That's what I think, anyway."
There was a blur of motion, followed by the terrible, crushing pressure around the assassin's pseudo-ribcage and slowly spreading damp patch on her shoulder that indicated another patented Nakajima hug. Despite herself, she was rather reassured. Having Subaru act serious and mature for more than a minute or so was profoundly disconcerting, like a goldfish quoting Proust, and all the more so since it had pretty much come out of nowhere. Clearly, her empathic abilities didn't work quite so well on part-mechanical brains.
Besides, some of the girl's comments had hit just a little too close to home.
"So that's it," Subaru's muffled voice said. "I don't care whether you become a combat mage, an asteroid miner, a nun, or whatever. Just promise me you'll try to have a good life, won't you? Please?"
"Gkht," Gina agreed. She was no wide-eyed idealist, and had no idea whether she was in fact willing or able to do that, but there were some people you simply couldn't say no to. Even when they were rapidly turning your internals into puree.
Subaru disengaged herself, beaming happily again, though her eyes were still a little bit red. "Good! Oh, hey, Tea's back. Hi, Tea!"
The other mage looked remarkably composed – Gina barely even saw the flash of orange light as she deactivated her Device.
"Hey there, Subaru," she said distractedly. "Mind if I talk with the prisoner a moment? I'll be right back."
At Teana's gesture, they wandered out of earshot. Gina was the first to speak.
"Those cybernetics of hers – they really didn't include a sensory upgrade package, did they? So how long were you watching?"
"Long enough. I took a few cues from Earthborn special-ops while I was working with the CDF – Cross Mirage is equipped with a long-range microphone, like a laser-mike that doesn't require a sheet of glass to listen in, if that makes sense. Very useful for surveillance work – you know, like when a self-confessed 'freaky biomantic killing machine' is alone with your squad-mate and you want to be sure she's not about to get a knife in the guts. Just as an illustrative example."
So I wasn't just being paranoid. The assassin grinned. "Oh? Must have had quite the case of burning ears, then. Like what you heard?"
Teana gave no indication of listening beyond a slight pinkening of her cheeks. "You realise, of course, that under any other circumstances making her cry would have resulted in me turning your life into a living hell?"
"Sure, sure. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt..."
"... And can't resist bringing it up at the slightest opportunity. So you had a traumatic past. We get it already."
"Corporal Lanster, Miss Sensitivity. Do you give seminars? I'd love to attend. So how are we getting where we're going, then?"
Teana held up a hand. "Ah... one question first – sorry if it's embarrassing. The hug. Did she... um... grab anywhere inappropriate?"
Gina's eyebrows practically vanished into her hairline. "Warp's teeth. Is that a legitimate concern?"
"With Subaru? Almost a certainty. Don't think she quite gets the whole concept of personal space, to be honest. Had to check – we've actually had a few complaints about it, in Colonel 'Grabass' Yagami's unit of all places, and guess who's had to deal with them? – but I'll take that as a 'no'. Suppose there are some advantages to being under-endowed after all."
"Oi!"
The redhead just smiled serenely. "Anyway, yeah, I've got a route planned out. First we'll go down New Adler Street, then take a left at..."
The assassin took a cursory look at the map before filtering her out, busy thinking up a cavalcade of witty, cutting comebacks that would have been oh-so-useful about a minute ago.
This ice-cream had better be damned good, that's all I'm saying...
Author's Notes: That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the week once more. Two more chapters for the pile.
Yes, Gina's name was indeed taken from a certain other blonde, not-quite human infiltrator. It's pretty much inconceivable to me that Mid-Childa's Earthborn population wouldn't include a sci-fi fan or two, given the nature of the place, and the chronology (according to my calculations, the Nanohaverse's sections take place in about 2019, based on their Earth's calendars) ensures that the Battlestar Galactica remake fans would have had plenty of time to go forth and multiply. Whether this required mass-production and/or a kilometres-long resurrection ship is something I leave entirely to your imagination.
