Chapter XXI: Vicious Paper cuts.

0900hrs, 7 October 2013, "Top Secret" Medical Facility, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan

"This is not just a report, it's a deadly weapon."

"Sir, an M-16 is a deadly weapon. A report is just a pile of paper, unless you're planning to inflict a lot of extremely vicious paper cuts." The Pentagon Wars.

The SAILOR team was back in their safe haven, having killed their way across all of East Asia and part of Southwest Asia.

In the span of thirty days, no less than twenty members of the board of directors for various companies around China, Taiwan, South Korea and the world at large had "accidents" or "mishaps" or had been blatantly killed off. Five CEOs had "collapsed" from "heart attacks" or "overwork", twelve CFOs had "disappeared", "took extended leave" or "resigned" due to scandals and two CIOs had just been plain run over by a car. And that was just counting the ones that the media reported.

But the SAILOR team didn't know that. All they knew was that the people in question were supporting terrorism, supporting dictators, were corrupt, were using the system to their advantage, were outside the justice system and they had to be prosecuted in the most harshest way possible. In the briefings the SAILOR team received, they were told that these people were beyond reproach, beyond evil, beyond the law; the only way to fight them then was outside of the law and to stop this type of behavior from afflicting Japan. Of course, they couldn't leave any evidence of their involvement behind, but killing a bunch of white-collar criminals was no different that killing dictators or even street thugs. Maybe it was even better than that. And besides, in the post-recession world, there was no tears shed for the rich banker or investor who fell victim to vigilante justice of the ninety-nine percent.

In addition, there had been an outcry over the industrial safety of workers as no less than fifteen factories, twelve assembly plants and five mining shafts had suffered catastrophic failures, resulting in the deaths of over two hundred workers in total, just in China alone in the span of a week. There were similar accidents in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. Many workers had gone on strike, protesting the horrid working conditions that they were working in, and shutting down the remaining plants and mines where safety had taken a backseat to profit.

Fifteen terrorist (or potential) cells had been killed off as well, their work credited to the special operations teams of the country they had been found murdered in, but intelligence analysts were baffled to who was conducting these operations. Nobody suspected Japan; they were too pacifistic in their rhetoric and foreign policy. Whoever was doing it, needed a pat on the back for their work.

Coincidentally, the previous fiscal quarter in Japan for Nakanishi Group had been the best ever on record. They had acquired a myriad of companies, ranging from oil shipping, drilling and processing, food distributors, real estate, and a host of other different services. Investors, skittish about the recent decimation of heads of companies, the weakening confidence of other corporations and their inability to withstand strikes and a sudden leadership change, poured their money into Nakanishi. It was a safe, dependable, and profitable enterprise in a time when things seemed uncertain, unclear, clouded, muddled and full of unknowns. Japan was starting to do quite well again.

"Dammit," Amy said, looking at an after action report.

"What is it?" Mina asked. There were in that big conference room, again. This was their week off, supposedly, but it had started with lots and lots of paperwork. Well, Mina and Amy were doing paperwork and everyone else was still sleeping, jetlagged from the exhausting cross country romp that was their first campaign of terror.

"I'm still mad about our first mission." Amy signed off on a report, signifying that it was accurate to the best of her knowledge. Of course, someone with the right clearance could go into one of the massive databases (1000 Terabytes, or one Petabyte, to be exact) that the SAILOR team kept (offsite in a secure location) and view all of the video that their eyepieces captured and see if they matched up with the reports. Not that anyone would.

"Give it a rest," Mina said. "You and Serena made up and it went well. She's got Raye to fight with now."

"What's up with them?" Amy moved on to the next pile of paper. Both Mina's and Amy's stacks of paper measured about twenty centimeters high, and that was after an hour's worth of work.

"She's been a little hotheaded as of late. You remember that guy we were supposed to meet on the Taipei subway system?"

"Yeah? What was his name…? Steven…?"

"No, the other one. Deng." Mina took a sip of tea.

"Oh, yeah. What about him?"

"Well, Raye almost took him out. He being very evasive toward our questions and…"

"…Raye nearly threw him on the train tracks." Amy covered her face in embarrassment upon remembering that event. "Did we ever get that information out of him?"

"Yeah, but it turned out, he was working for us at the Defense Intelligence Headquarters."

"So we had the info, but since we can't talk to other agencies…" Amy looked down at the paper she was supposed to be reading. More reports.

"…we wasted a whole two days trying to find a target that didn't exist, in a building that was locked down by the military, for a mission that was rendered moot." Mina twirled her blond hair around. "That's some messed up shit," she continued.

"Uh-huh." Amy signed off on yet another report and placed it in the "finished" pile.

"Wow, you work fast," Mina commented. Her finished pile was significantly smaller than Amy's.

"Yep." Amy didn't feel like talking anymore, so Mina and her continued on in silence.

Another hour passed. Raye, Serena and Lita were still not up to help them.

"Goddamnit, they were supposed to help us," Amy whined. She had almost finished her pile of work.

"Well, they do most of the fighting," Mina pointed out. "We're more support."

"But we can handle our own in a fight," Amy pointed out. "They should at least do some of the paper work."

"What was that Amy?" Serena walked into the room, still in her pajamas. Thankfully, she was still half-asleep so she did not hear Amy's snide remark.

"Nothing Serena, glad you could join us." Serena plopped down into one of the chairs and stared at the pile of paperwork that Amy set in front of her.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.

"Just look at it," Amy replied, trying not to get frustrated. "If you see anything you don't like, then make some notes. Sign off on it at the bottom when you're finished."

"Ughhh." Serena continued to stare at the paperwork for a minute or so, then picked up a pen and started writing stuff. "Amy, am I doing this right?" She held up a report that she had marked.

Amy took a look at it.

"Yeah, you're doing that right."

"Hmm."

Serena did some more work, but she couldn't help but notice that Amy was still in a bad mood. Ever since Korea, she had been like this.

"Amy."

"What?" Amy replied back, rudely. Mina gave a look at her, then at Serena. Shaking her head, she left the room, leaving just Amy and Serena in there.

"Look, Amy, I'm sorry that I argued with you, okay?" Serena was sorry. Some things just tore people apart and ate at them for a long time.

"I…" Amy couldn't think of anything to say. A couple of tears rolled down her face as she struggled to find the right things to say.

"It…it's not you," she managed to say. "This has just been a long month, and I don't know if I can go through this for much longer."

Serena walked over to her and placed her hand on Amy's.

"Remember when you gave us our callsigns?" SAILOR Moon asked.

"Ah…yeah. Why?" Mercury sniffed a little, blinking back all those tears.

"You said I was the caring, feeling one, right?"

"Yeah…yeah I did."

"So, I'm here for you," Serena said. "I'm sorry that our first couple of missions didn't go well. We really didn't plan things out, and we almost didn't make it. But since we're back now, we've learned and I want you to start planning things out more carefully for us. And if that idiot Iwasaki starts messing with them…well, he'll have to deal with me."

SAILOR Mercury looked at SAILOR Moon. "Do you really mean that?"

"Yes, I do. Please believe me when I say this, but I trust you. I trust Raye, even though we fight a lot and she's a hot headed bitch most of the time. I trust Lita because she's a strong, independent woman who stands up for those that can't. I trust Mina because she's…well, she's kind of like me, but with that aside, I trust every single one of the SAILOR team. Luna, Artemis, Dr. Kawasaki…uh, that Dr. Person…yeah, can't remember his name, but he's a nice guy. And Nurse Kuroi. She's cool too."

"Thanks…" Amy sniffled. "I…"

"Don't say anything." Serena hugged her and Amy hung on for dear life.

"Hey guys, what's up!" Raye burst into the conference room, oblivious to the conversation that Amy and Serena were having. All she saw was them hugging each other.

"Uh…am I…" she said belatedly.

"Yes Raye, you are interrupting something," Serena replied, annoyed.

"Sorry. I'll come back later."

Raye closed the door and walked back out.

"What's up with Amy?" she asked Mina.

Mina shrugged. "Amy feels things differently than you or the rest of us do."

"Heh, that's for sure. But you're one to talk."

Mina shot her a look. "And what's that supposed to mean, Raye?"

"I'm not the one who apologizes after killing people. We're supposed to kill people, Mina, and I'm not going to apologize for that."

Mina sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Raye, give it a rest. I didn't want to do this job, but Amy helped me get through the transitional period."

"I just don't see what the big deal is. Amy can't handle herself, and that's why you and her are on support."

"Okay, Raye, are you really trying to fuck with me, or are you just that stupid?" Mina was seconds away from losing her temper with her.

Raye poked at the floor with her foot. "I guess…" She had completely lost that arrogance that had been prevalent just seconds ago. "Look, it's about my grandpa."

"What about him? We're all missing our families here." Mina wasn't buying into it.

"I…I still keep on the news from the shrine. Mina, he died last week." Raye started crying.

Mina was now left feeling like a complete ass. No wonder Raye had been completely batshit insane in the last week of the mission. She was trying to cover up the sadness that was inside of her.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Mina asked. "We could have helped."

"No, you couldn't!" Raye yelled. "Like you said, we can't go back! I never wanted this, just like you. I wanted to be the head priestess of Hikawa Shrine and take over from Grandpa, but after the explosion…"

"Raye…" Mina reached in to hug her, but Raye pushed her away.

"Fuck you!" Raye tried to run down the hall, but tripped and fell. She lay there sobbing hysterically on the floor.

"Fuck…fuck…" she cursed underneath her breath and she lay there, looking at the stupid tiles on the floor. Mina walked over to her and put her arm on her back.

"I'm sorry Raye." She comforted her as best as she could.

Raye looked back at her. Her eyes glistened with tears, the hardened killer part of her wiped away by the torrent of emotions that she was experiencing right now.

"Dad never wanted me at that temple," Raye said. She sat back up and cuddled up to Mina. "He wanted me to be like, a Christian like himself. That's why he sent me to Catholic school. But I don't really care about that part, I didn't really hate going there, it was just the intent behind it."

Mina held onto her, wiping Raye's tears away. "Dammit," Raye muttered. "I've been such an ass these last couple of months, so angry at everything."

There was a couple moments of silence. Mina could hear Amy sobbing in the background.

"I have an idea," she said to Raye.

"And what would that be genius?" Raye mumbled back.

"Let's hold a funeral for him. It can be with all of us, or just you alone. But I think it would help."

Raye looked at her.

"Come on, let's go get something from the cafeteria. Make you feel better."

"I think Serena would feel better if she went to the cafeteria," Raye snickered, through the tears.

Both of them laughed at that. "I wonder if they're serving doughnuts," Raye wondered out loud. "I kind of like them."

"But not nearly as much as Serena."

"They have doughnuts today?!"

Mina and Raye turned around to see Serena and Amy standing there.

"Well…uh…"

"Amy, we're going to the cafeteria. Let's go!" With that, they dashed off to the cafeteria, leaving Raye and Mina there on the floor.

"Alright, let's go join them," Mina said, helping Raye up. "By the way, where's Lita?"

Lita was cleaning her room. Again. This was probably the third time that she had ripped up her entire room and put it back together. She couldn't stop cleaning; she had to keep going, had to keep her mind off of things.

Knock knock knock.

"Lita! It's us!"

"Who the fuck is 'us'?!" Lita yelled. This was not a good time.

"Mina and Raye," was the response.

"I'm really fucking busy right now, come back some other time," Lita hissed back.

She continued to clean her room, making her bed, ensuring that the sheets were tight, so tight that you could bounce a quarter off of them.

"Lita," Mina said through the door. "Come on, let us in."

"Yeah, we just wanna talk," Raye echoed.

"Just leave me the fuck alone!"

Mina sighed and looked at Raye. "How long has she been doing this?"

"Last night. I don't think she slept at all."
Mina pounded on the door again. "Lita, please, we just want you to come to cafeteria and have some lunch."

"I'm not hungry."

"That's bullshit, you haven't eaten since Saturday," Mina replied. "I know, because you didn't take dinner with us then."

There was silence. Finally, the door opened and Lita stepped out.

"Fine. I'm coming."

Mina peered inside the room. It was completely clean, again.

Lita was about to close the door, then she remembered to take her pills that Dr. Kobayashi had given her.

"Hold up, I gotta do something." She rushed back into the room and popped open two pill bottles, taking one pill from each.

"What's that you're doing?" Raye asked. She had followed her into the room, along with Mina.

"Mind your own goddamn business," Lita replied.

"No, why are you taking pills?" Mina asked.

"Drop it," Lita snapped. She opened her mouth and swallowed the pills.

"For crying out loud," Mina said. She tried to reach over Lita and into the desk, but Lita whipped her left arm back to stop her. Unfortunately, she forgot how strong she was, and sent Mina flying in Raye and onto the bed.

"OW!" she cried.

Lita put her hand over her mouth. "I'm…I'm sorry guys…I…"

"Watch what you're doing!" Raye snarled back. "You don't know how strong you are!"

"It's okay, Raye, back off." Mina got back up, not too badly hurt (although she had a bloody lip). "Lita, we want to know what's wrong. Just tell us."

Lita looked back at them, unable to find the right words to say for a moment.

"Alright…but it's kind of silly."

"Try me," Raye said.

"Alright, when Kobayashi was doing some medical checkups on me…he found something."

Mina and Raye silently gasped.

"What…what was it?" Mina asked cautiously.

"It wasn't so much 'it' as a condition," Lita said. "It's really embarrassing…really. It's…hypertension."

"Ah...what?" Raye had never heard of hypertension, and neither had Mina.

"What's that…?" Mina said. "It sounds kind of dangerous."

"Well, it's not like it's going to kill me now," Lita said, "But it just means that my blood pressure is higher than usual. And it's pretty unusual for people our age to have hypertension."

"Oh. That's it?" Raye said. "That's nothing to be embarrassed over."

"I know but taking pills for something like that…"

"Jesus Lita, you gave me a scare there," Mina said, smiling. "I thought you might be on hormone therapy or something like that."

"Oh, ha, ha," Lita sarcastically said. "Those rumors about me being a transsexual were completely unfounded."

"But you have to wonder…" Raye started.

"Don't make me hit you again," Lita threatened, jokingly. "Plus, I'm not the one who looks at porn all the time."

"Hey, I told you to never mention that ever again!" Raye protested. Mina giggled at that.

Lita's stomach gave a loud grumble. "Oh fine. Let's go get something to eat."

"I think Serena's eaten all the doughnuts today," Mina said.

"They have doughnuts?!" Lita was gone so fast that Mina and Raye had to run full sprint to just to keep up.

Serena had eaten all of the doughnuts.

"I hate you so much," Lita said, looking at the empty tray. "You're a complete fatass."

"Oh hush," Serena said. "Kuroi is bringing out some more for us."

Nurse Kuroi sometimes doubled on the cafeteria staff, due to the high-security clearance needed to serve food here. Even at top secret facilities, getting work in a cafeteria was difficult.

"Here's some more girls," she said. "We used your recipe from way back to make these."

"Thanks Nurse Kuroi," Lita said, picking a maple flavored one from the stack.

Kuroi turned around to leave, but Amy stopped her.

"Hey, we've been hearing about…well."

"Me and Kawasaki?" Kuroi blushed. "It's been going on for a while now."

The girls giggled. "How long?" asked Mina.

"Perhaps two months, maybe three." Kuroi looked at the girls. They had aged a little bit; the stress was taking its toll a bit, but they were still young, ready for what the world had to throw at them.

"How are the missions treating you?" Kuroi didn't really want to ask that question, but it was part of her job to make sure that everyone was still in good health, physical or mental.

They quickly became quiet, staring at her like if she was from a different world.

"They're…fine," Serena replied tersely. "We're fine, you know. I understand you have to do your job and such, but please."

"Sorry," Kuroi replied. "It's my job to keep tabs on those types of things."

"It's alright." Mina said, slowly eating a glazed doughnut. "You followed our recipe pretty well."

"Thank you." Kuroi stood there for a second, then left. She was walking down the hall toward the kitchen when a voice called out to her.

"Hey, wait up." It was Amy.

"What's going on?" she asked her.

"I just wanted to know…anything. More information about this place…just…"

"Just what?"

"I always have this gut feeling that somebody is holding out information on us," she said to Kuroi.

"I…I'm shocked that you would think that," Kuroi said in a hurt fashion. This had all been planned though, and she read the pre-scripted lines carefully, as she had done when Amy had first woken up in the medical facility.

"I didn't mean it like that," Amy replied, backing off. "I didn't mean you. It's just that…"

"Oh, so you mean, Dr. Kawasaki? Dr. Kobayashi? Luna? Artemis? Is that who you mean?" Kuroi snapped at Amy.

"No, no, that's…that's…" Amy was sorry that she had ever brought up this conversation topic. "Forget I ever brought up this up to you. I'm sorry."

She stalked away, irritated, but sad that she couldn't get anything out of anyone here. It was getting so frustrating to accept the excuse that she was doing all of this "for her country". It didn't explain why she tried to dial her mother on a phone, or VOIP, even using TOR, came back with a busy tone. Just one time…one time to tell her that everything was going well. The emails and SMSs she sent, even from overseas never went through…the information was always terminated before reaching her mother's email address or her phone. There was nothing she could do about it. Yeah, she might put her mom in danger, but for once…for once…

She couldn't understand it. Every program she ran to figure out why data wasn't being transmitted, every line of code she programmed, every command she entered into the command line seemed to lead her in circles, with endless log files and error reports, dropped or obliterated packets, phone calls to nowhere…the government couldn't have security everywhere, so why was every attempt to circumvent these restrictions met with failure?

Did the microchips implanted in her brain have something to do with it…? But they said…

Listen to yourself, she thought. They said this, they said that. You believe them? You said yourself to keep watch on what they're doing. And now you have part of a computer in your brain that may or may not be interfering with your thought processes. The curse of technology…

Amy shook her head, trying to get all the cobwebs out, but it was no good. She was stuck at an impasse, and there was no good way to resolve it unless she moved forward. That was the only way to solve anything anyway. She walked back to the cafeteria, to her friends, oblivious to her dilemma.

"It's getting worse," Kuroi said to Kobayashi in the conference room. There were still papers there that the girls had signed off on, scattered and full of red pen marks.

"I know."

"You know?" Kuroi leaned forward and looked Kobayashi in the eye. "You know? All the girls had a mental breakdown today."

"That was to be expected!" Kobayashi replied. "We took into account mental fatigue and stress that this would incur upon the members of this program."

"But like this?" Kuroi leaned back and folded her arms. "Amy is getting smarter by the day. The programmers can barely create algorithms that can keep up with her thinking. She's tried no less than twenty times in the last two weeks to contact her mother."

"And the others?"

"Raye just lost her Grandpa, and we know she was very close to him. On the CCTV video, Mina and her were talking about holding a funeral later on this week. She's in a mentally unstable state and starting to exhibit antisocial behavior. You saw how Serena reacted to Raye and Amy; she's tense, and although she cares and can give condolence to others, she's suffering inside. Lita is starting to isolate herself; she cleaned her room three times last night and didn't sleep at all."

"Any prognosis for them?" Kobayashi rubbed his eyes. This was really going south.

"Amy is barely keeping it together, and when I mean barely, just by a hair. Mina is the only one that seems to be in a mentally healthy state. She is kind of like Serena, but her mental health and hygiene is significantly better. The others…well, you know what I just said."

Kawasaki entered the room, opening the doors to the conference room extremely loudly.

"Good news everyone!" he announced.

"What is it?" Kobayashi and Kuroi stood up and approached him.

"I have this." Kawasaki handed Kobayashi a tablet computer that he had been working on.

"Uh-huh…hmmm…uh-huh. Very interesting," he said, scrolling through the data that the microchips had collected in the past several months. "Oh…wow." The information that was on the tablet actually wasn't interesting at all. Kobayashi had to feign some sort of interest at the data that he already knew meant nothing.

"Oh wow is correct," Kawasaki said, beaming.

"Let me see that." Nurse Kuroi took the computer away and looked at the data. "This is very interesting indeed," she said dryly. Sensing this, Kawasaki tried to explain himself in greater detail.

"The behavior of the SAILOR team has become more cooperative during these last couple of months," Kawasaki began. "Their success rate is basically a one to one ratio in terms of completed operations. But that's not the part that interests me, it's the microchips that we implanted that made them stronger and faster."

"And they did just that," Kobayashi said. "I designed the damn things."

"Exactly, they're working. They're helping to control the SAILOR team in the direction that we want them to, completely passively with the subroutines that were preprogrammed into the microchips beforehand."

"Kawasaki," Kobayashi replied. "This is all well and good, but how does this help us?!" He shoved the tablet computer back to him.

"What do you mean?" Kawasaki said, confused. "The microchips are doing their job, perfectly."

"I beg to disagree with you there," Kobayashi responded. "Have you seen the girls recently?"

"Well, I did a physical on them when they came back, and I've seen them in the halls and such."

"And did you notice their mental health when they came back?"

"Well, I'm not really trained to be a psychologist," Kawasaki protested.

"I know you're not, but I don't think you've noticed that the morale around here has plummeted in the last month or so. These microchips of ours are working, but it's causing a very bad reaction from the girls." Kobayashi stood up again, and started pacing around the room.

"So what do you want me to do about it?" Kawasaki said. "I think we shouldn't do anything. Let them talk to each other, rely on the team for help, and let the passive subroutines do their work. Less work on our part."

Kuroi shot him a look. 'How can you be so cruel? These girls have done so much for us, seen so many things that we will never see in our lifetimes, and all you can come up with is to 'leave them alone' and 'let them deal with their own problems'.

"That's the whole point," Kawasaki said. "The more we interfere, the more problems we will cause."

Kuroi continued to stare at him.

"Enough you two," Kobayashi interrupted. "I agree with Kawasaki, albeit reluctantly." He gave Kawasaki a look of disapproval though. "Further intervention via surgery or any other means to affect the thought patterns of the SAILOR project is too risky, and things the way they are now…"

"I don't believe this," Kuroi said. "You two are unbelievable."

She stalked out. "Yuki!" Kawasaki started after her, but Kobayashi stopped him.

"Leave it be for now," he said.

"Dammit," Kawasaki muttered.