A/N: Third Time Lucky is, for various reasons, a large time sink and very difficult to write. This is going to be more like the manga – a selection of linked short-stories that will be (even more) irregularly updated as and when I feel the need to just write something quick and easy.

So, naturally, the first one is fourteen thousand words long, written over six months...

VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM

Naples, Italy. 23/10/2005.

There was blood everywhere. The entire room was spatter-dashed from wall to wall, with the occasional patch that had taken a direct hit from arterial spray. Rocco carefully picked his way through the gore, trying to keep his shoes as pristine as possible. Anna was kneeling over one of the corpses, head down.

Again.

'Anna,' he said, walking toward her. 'Anna.'

He reached down and grabbed her long hair, hauling her up. He sighed as a piece of the man's flesh came with her, trailing from the corner of her mouth. He dragged her toward the small bathroom in the corner of the tiny apartment, Anna resisting every step of the way, though obedient enough not to break away.

He suspected it was because solely because she'd learnt that once her hair was gone, it was gone.

Shoving her into the bathroom, he shut the door and squatted down against it, firmly placing a hand on both her shoulders. 'Listen to me very carefully Anna. Ferro is going to be coming upstairs soon. When she gets here, your mouth must be clean.'

Anna nodded slowly, her eyes gradually losing the feral glint now she was away from the terrorists.

'What do you need to do?'

'Wash my mouth out.'

Rocco left her to it, going to survey the damage in the apartment's only room. Not one of the five terrorists had escaped Anna's distinctive signature: All were covered in gouges from her nails, but at least she'd only bitten two of them. The first body was easily rectified: He took his own knife out and stabbed into the wound, widening and tearing until the tale-tale crescents of tiny teeth-marks became indistinguishable from the general mess Anna had made of him. The second she'd killed by ripping his throat out like a dog. He glanced around the room, his eyes alighting on a floor-lamp. He seized the ornately-carved shaft and, tilting it, sent his foot through it in a flurry of splinters. The bulb was dealt with by smashing it into the terrorist's skull.

Raising it above his head, he brought it down across the terrorist's throat. Blood flicked across the room like one of those fancy paintings as he did it again and again, obliterating the evidence. It wasn't perfect, but no-one would be autopsying this lot. He dropped his impromptu staff as the lift pinged.

Ferro.

'Anna, smile at me,' he snapped as he hurried into the bathroom. There was water all over the room, a soap dish and other objects floating in the now full bath. Later - assuming the pair of them had a later.

She turned and grinned. Her teeth had a distinctly red tinge. He squatted down and put his little finger in her mouth, rubbing at her teeth. A trail of drool followed his finger out. Her teeth still looked red.

The apartment door squeaked open.

'Don't talk to Ferro unless she asks you a question,' he whispered. 'Start cleaning your face. We're in here,' he called, turning around.

'She makes Henrietta look stable,' muttered Ferro, looking askance at the carnage as he emerged from the bathroom.

'It's not as bad as it looks.'

'Really.'

He nodded, gesturing at the battered bodies. 'All parts are present and correct, even if somewhat... mangled. And we've been orthodox the whole way through.'

'You're not giving her counselling now, Rocco, or talking to Lorenzo: you can say she hasn't bitten anyone yet today.'

The yet said it all. 'What now?' he said, leaning wearily against the sticky wall.

Ferro shrugged. 'I'll have to report this to Jean. The van's waiting outside for you and Anna.'

'There's always the papers, I suppose.'

'All the research is going to be classified for a long time to come. There's no way Lorenzo will risk any observations getting out. It'll be a political own-goal. And the one with the locked doors too.'

Judging by the splashes and thuds coming from the small bathroom, Anna had begun dropping things into the bath. 'Anna, time to go. Have you got the poncho, Ferro?'

As Anna came out, he pulled the poncho over her head, covering the caked-on blood with clean blue plastic. As they made their way out the back exit, everyone they walked past gave them a look more suited to a hanging. He put an arm around Anna's shoulder. It wouldn't come to that. It wouldn't.

Anna was silent on the ride home, vacantly staring out the window. She got out when the car stopped and trailed behind him toward the medical wing. It was only after they'd been met by the three orderlies and proceeded down to the observation rooms she seemed to emerge from her trance, looking around and moving to walk with him rather than follow in his wake.

'No,' she said, latching onto his arm as she spotted the open door to room seven. 'Don't put me back in the room! Please! I'll be good! I'll kill more terrorists than Henrietta! Pl - plheeease!'

Tea stepped out of the open room and joined the orderlies in prizing the crying cyborg off him, bundling her into the room and forcing the heavy door shut. He spun on his heel and walked away, the pounding on the door echoing in his ears.

SWA Compound, near Rome. 24/10/05

Lorenzo put the report down as they finished rehashing Anna's latest debacle and looked around his office at the interested parties present. 'Why should we not put her down? She's a flawed, obsolete model and is a liability in the field.'

Bianchi gave Rocco a sombre look. 'We'd have to recondition her if we're to continue. That would delay bringing the next crop of type-two's online.'

Jean nodded. 'Operationally, we've the type-ones for the heavy jobs, and the functioning type-twos for more delicate problems.'

With Jean in the room, maybe a different strategy was in order. 'Perhaps,' admitted Rocco, leaning forward and looking around the small mahogany conference table, meeting everybody's eyes, 'but think about what you get if we can make Anna reliable: She's got all the strengths of the type-ones, but barely a tenth of the conditioning. She costs forty percent less to run compared with a type-one, and has a projected lifespan of nine years. Nine. In a few more years, all the type-ones will be gone, leaving us lacking in the firepower that we rely on. Our job is to kill terrorists, no matter what the circumstances: scalpels are all well and good, but sometimes you need a hammer. When we get Anna functional, you'll have longer lasting, cheaper and stronger cyborgs - isn't that what we really wanted from the type-twos before money and time gave us the current compromise?' And Anna's antics, but he wasn't going to mention those.

Lorenzo reached for his cup of coffee, starting to lift it before realising it was empty. 'I might have friends in high places, but the money doesn't magically appear. How much more would we need to spend on her?'

That was the sole good thing about her ongoing problems: the more you spent, the more you wanted to make sure the investment came good. 'Speaking with my scientist hat on... I think I can do it with little more than a memory wipe.'

Jean raised his eyebrows. 'You think you can stop her episodes just by waking her up again?'

Time to once more hope that his mouth hadn't written something he couldn't cash. 'Yes,' he said.

Bianchi gave him a piercing look. 'How?'

'Conditioning. Traditional conditioning.'

Bianchi grinned. 'She doesn't like cages. She's made that very clear.'

'I was thinking more metaphorical than literal.'

'You really think you can Skinner and Pavlov your way to a working cyborg?'

Rocco sat back in the plush seat, forcing his body-language to be open and relaxed and confident. 'It's no different to a dog who wants to go after rabbits. More to the point, we wake the girls up, give them a gun, and then tell them that their mission in life is to kill terrorists. That's how they measure their worth, ultimately: How many terrorists did I kill today? Some are just more sophisticated than others: Henrietta obsesses about it and cries if she doesn't equal last month's score; Triela goes to pieces if she gets beaten. If they kill terrorists, they're good girls. Bad girls don't go on missions and get tested to destruction. We tell the girls they're good for killing terrorists, then punish them by withdrawing the thing that matters most to them: killing terrorists. It's a vicious cycle.'

Lorenzo looked at him over steepled fingers. 'Alright, what are you proposing?'

'Change her terms of reference. Being good isn't killing terrorists: being good is obeying me. Being good gets clear, physical affection from me; being bad gets that affection withdrawn and a time-out. She's designed to want to please me: she can only do that by obeying me. There are no worries about proving that she's useful to me by killing terrorists, because she's being valued for being there and behaving nicely.'

'Bloody shrinks,' said Jean, sotto voice. 'What are you going to do about her? Ferro said she was messing about with the bath when she got there. If she can't focus, she's worthless.'

Bianchi looked up from his scrawled notes. 'It's not focus that's the issue, Jean. She's got plenty of focus: just take a look at the long list of alterations we've had to make to keep her in her observation room if you don't believe me. To produce the girls, we alter the activity in areas of the brain. One of the by-products of the alterations is that we also zap the area involved in impulse control. The same bit that thinks, maybe I shouldn't kill this person - he doesn't deserve death, is the same bit that thinks, I'm on a mission, maybe I should not try and find out how big a splash I can make. The conditioning smoothes those problems out. Unfortunately, her components can't take that amount of conditioning without making it more effective to just put her to sleep.'

'Which is where making obeying me her goal comes in,' added Rocco, picking the baton up again. 'Now I'm with her from the start, and we're not going to be locking her in a room for want of other means of controlling her, we can nip some of the problems in the bud. I'm not going to give her the chance to be impulsive: She gets a restricted environment, free of interesting objects, until we ingrain that when I give her a set command, she's to immediately stop what she's doing and return to me. That done, then we start broadening her horizons.'

'And we keep her out of the general population: she'll end up obsessed with kill-counts too otherwise.'

Lorenzo leaned back in his chair, the leather squeaking under his weight. 'What do you envisage her role as?'

Rocco and Bianchi shrugged at each other. 'We've accidentally created a bona-fide Hollywood-psychopath here, Chief,' said Rocco. 'Insurance would be my suggestion: There'll be no hesitation whatsoever if we have a repeat of the Pia... incident. Apart from that, it's got to be wet-work.'

'Very wet work it seems,' put in Jean.

Bianchi made a note on his paper. 'If nothing else, it'll give us a different take on the initialisation process.'

'What are you going to give her when she wakes up? A sticker chart?'

Rocco rolled his eyes. 'Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to give her a hairbrush.'

Medical Wing, SWA Compound. 27/10/2005

Rocco was on the other side of a foot-thick wall, buried in Anna's neural-maps, but he still thought he could hear the heavy bolts on Anna's room open. He'd opted to be in his office when they took her, just in case there were any residual memories or anything else leftover when they re-conditioned her. Anna couldn't afford to think of him as the bad guy; this way she wouldn't associate him with her execution if the reconditioning process wasn't as thorough as the research claimed.

'No! No, you can't take me! You can't!'

He used his finger to trace the synapses they were going to try and tweak in her frontal lobes.

'No!' A thud reverberated around the building. Maybe he should have gone. 'No! Don't. Rocco! ROCCO!'

She'd be better, happier when it was done.

Running feet filled the corridor outside the room as the rest of the medical staff went to help. A tiny bit of him, deep, deep down, was perversely proud that she was fending off Lorenzo's cyborg and a half-a-dozen burly orderlies. It was the most animated he'd seen her in months. Hopefully he'd get that back too: The bubbly little girl she'd been before continual failure and progressively worse trips to the medical wing ground her down.

He glanced at the ornate wooden box on the corner of the desk. All wars should be fought with hairbrushes... giving her pistol back to her and demanding she do it again - but better this time - hadn't worked for her original handler, though he was supposedly doing alright with his type two. It was the mark of a fool: trying the same thing three times when the first two attempts have met with abject failure. The cyborgs weren't guns you picked up and shot: they were temperamental aircraft that needed constant maintance for every few minutes of use. And you had to think to win with a hairbrush. Of the thunderbolt, the momentum; He who dares, wins: Note the non-appearance of fill them full of holes. This game was all mental: it wasn't enough to kill your enemy; you had to neutralise him - and killing could just make them immortal.

The sound of smashed glass heralded Anna's arrival in the treatment room. 'I don't want to go to sleep. No. Where's Rocco? Get OFF ME! ROC -'

Rocco half rose before it registered that all the silence meant was that someone'd finally managed to tranq her. Hopefully, she wouldn't remember any of it when she woke up. He settled back into his seat and returned his attention to the operation planning sheets. He might not have wanted a cyborg, but she was his now... and there was no-way he wasn't going to be part of the team that put her back together.

One of the nurses poked her head around the door. 'Dr Aserbi? They're prepping her now.'

He nodded, reaching out to down the rest of his coffee. 'I'll be in shortly.' By shortly, what he really meant was after he'd taken his pre-operation leak, but the nurse didn't need to hear it.

Once he was looking down at the naked body on the operating table, it clear Anna had put up one hell of a fight: Her arms and legs were purpled with bruises, and all of the orderlies had been scratched to one degree or another. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised, really: all the cyborgs would kill to survive, even if all that they managed to do through the conditioning was a few scratches. 'If you leave your poison with admin, I'll see you get it,' he said as he pulled his mask over his face. 'Where are we?'

'I want two bottles after that,' said one of the orderlies, face dripping with blood.

'Two then,' he agreed. 'She's worth it.'

Medical Wing, SWA Compound. 5/11/2005

A tingle of anticipation ran through Rocco when the thin buff personal file was finally passed to him, Anna's serial number written across it in big black letters. As far as the SWA was concerned, he had been a scientist borrowing some-else's cyborg, but now it was official - finally giving him access to the handlers only portion of her files.

'She's about an hour away from waking up,' said the duty-tech for Anna's room, turning back to the monitor's glow. 'Then you can make your bed in someone else's room.'

He slept in his office, not her monitoring room - when he'd slept, anyway. He had no idea what exactly was going to happen when she woke up: wiping a cyborg still wasn't a standard procedure, and Anna was going to be a problem anyway. He'd made it clear to the Chief that he was going to be there when she woke up, and he'd meant it.

'She's Victoire now?' he said, peering through the gloom at the index page of the file.

'You're French now.'

'What do you mean now?'

'More French.'

'Ah am Fronch.'

'Funny. Take it up with Ferro.'

Someone wasn't a morning person. There weren't any other surprises on the file, just the usual medical paperwork for any new cyborg, even if hers came with a thick summary of her medical file. In hindsight, he probably should have made some observation sheets that he could use to make notes on her behaviour. Oh well, he'd have to do that when he reviewed the day for the Chief later.

He quickly read through the file, most of his attention on the small figure in the bed. Apart from discovering that they were being French rather than Italian this time around, there weren't any other surprises. He probably ought to add an "interacting with a Type 2b mark 2 cyborg" crib sheet, given how delicate a path he was going to have to tread, but he could hold off on that until he had a better handle on how An - Victoire was going to react.

As the slight movements from the bed became more frequent, Rocco passed the file back to the tech, swapping it for the black kit-bag full of clothing he'd bought yesterday during his lunch hour. That and the all important presentation box.

The sterile corridor outside stung his eyes after the darkness of the observation room, but he'd long ago been able to enter the codes to each observation room by touch alone. It was a different experience this time: His first meeting with her was as part of the mob running into lab two when the tech there hit the panic button, helping hold her down while the sedative took effect; this time she was serenely sleeping with the face of an angel.

Last time, she'd had bits of someone's face stuck around her mouth.

He put the bag down at the foot of the bed and moved the child-sized chair over from the desk in the corner, placing it at the head of her bed, like he would if any of his children were in hospital. It was a little thing, he reflected as he retrieved the dark wooden box from the black bag before sitting in the uncomfortable chair, but coming in after she'd been lying awake, then looming over her from the foot of the bed, said I've more important things than you, said I'm here to collect my tool.

Being there when she woke up, sitting by her head on the other hand, said You're the most important thing in my life, said I'll always be here, said I'll take care of you.

All of which went a long way to making her a more willing to oblige, thus better, cyborg and a more useful tool.

With Victoire there was no room for the headstrong disobedience that characterised Triella, even if a cyborg with initiative would be better in the long run. It was handler knows best and his way or the highway.

Next time he looked down, there was a pair of blue eyes watching him. 'Good Morning,' he said softly, smiling down at her.

The blue eyes kept watching.

'Well, it's afternoon now. Do you know who I am?'

'Dr Rocco Acerbi, my handler.' Victoire slowly sat up, keeping the warm quilt wrapped tightly around her.

'And what's your name?'

'Victoire.'

Step one of many complete. Time to check the bodged skills upgrade from the current models had taken then get her dressed. 'Good,' said Rocco, switching to French. 'I've got some clothes and toiletries for you in here: you can go and change in the bathroom.'

Victoire stopped her examination of the room and looked at him for a long moment, obviously thinking back to try and remember what had been said while she'd been distracted. 'Okay.'

She swung her legs off the bed, sticking a thin white arm out from her cocoon to pick up the bag as she stood. After a moment's hesitation, she shuffled off toward the door in the middle of the right wall, quilt held tightly shut against the cool air.

So... she clearly understood French, but was she aware he'd changed language? Or was she unable to speak it? Or simply choosing not to?

He marked time by listening to the water in the bathroom: toilet flush; cold tap; spat-out water; filling basin; draining basin. Once that door opened again, he was on the clock properly, with every action moulding his cyborg in the hope they were as much of a success as he'd claimed they could be.

He glanced at his watch: by his estimate, she'd been trying to dress for a little over five minutes now. Hopefully it was the little complication he'd included that was causing the problem. 'Are you almost finished?'

'Yes,' she called. It was the same response his son gave when what he really meant was: no, but you think I've taken too long and I need to get downstairs now. 'I'm coming.'

'Are you dressed?'

'I can't put the belt on.' Her voice was laced with frustration.

And let the mind games begin. 'Come out here and I'll sort it for you.'

The rest of her clothes he'd picked out in five minutes, but he'd spent fifteen looking for the belt. The buckle was a big metal flower, with two awkward rings the belt had to be fed through before it could be tightened. It wasn't hard to use, but to a newly-awakened cyborg who'd had her proportions changed just enough to cause problems, it might as well have been a delicate piece of jewellery with a tiny clasp.

Victoire's black hair was still tousled from sleep, but the rest of her seemed presentable. The baby-blue t-shirt was the right way around, her socks were on the right feet and she'd managed the button on her trousers. He squatted down in front of her and threaded the belt through the loops, tightening the trousers until they were snug around her hips. 'How's that?'

'It's okay.'

Rocco picked the dark presentation box up from the bed and passed it to her. 'I've got a present for you.'

Victoire reverently took the ebony box off him. She smiled tentatively as she eased the lid back, the light from the high window illuminating the ornate silver hairbrush nestled on the black cloth within. She picked it up, her thumb tracing the delicate scroll-work before spinning it in her hand to run the pad of her thumb over the stiff bristles.

'Climb up on the bed,' he said, holding out his hand expectantly as he made a mental note of the time, 'and sit still so I can brush your hair.'

She passed the brush to him and heaved herself up onto the hospital bed, her eyes flicking between the brush in his hand and his face. All the type ones were like this when they first woke up: responded to stimuli but very little went on upstairs. He'd spent so long in type two development he'd forgotten just how wasted the first day was.

He sat next to her on the bed and took a length of her long black hair in his hand. Sat like this, it was hard to get a good sense of the expression on Victoire's face, which turned the next phase into a calculated risk. He began running the brush through the length of hair, long, smooth strokes from root to tip, ever so gently working the brush through the tangles. He made one quick pass to make sure all of her hair was brushed, then settled in to achieve the real purpose of the exercise. He started all over again, keeping up the close, intimate contact and watching her face like a tech defusing a bomb with a trembler switch.

Which was a worryingly apt description of his circumstances.

The hairbrush was Important: Not only had it come in a box, and was all silver and apparently expensive, but it had been the first gift from her handler. It followed then, that if her handler had given her something like that so he could brush your hair, having your hair brushed properly was Important. If that was true, sitting still like your handler asked was also Important, because he couldn't brush your hair properly for you otherwise.

Which meant that if he was to give her the positive re-enforcement required, he had to time it to maximise the sitting still for your handler, but stopping before Victoire's lack of impulse control caused her to disobey his instruction.

Without being able to clearly see her face, that was easier said than done.

When the fiddling with the hem of her t-shirt turned into the precursors of fiddling with the ends of her hair, it was time to call endex. 'All done,' he said brightly, passing her the brush. 'Now, go and carefully put your hairbrush back in its box, then pop it on the bedside table. Come and stand in front of me when you're done.'

He glanced at his watch as Victoire followed his instructions, treating the hairbrush as if it were a fragile, priceless artefact. She had managed to sit still for five minutes. Hopefully that time would stretch up to at least half-an-hour.

'Good girl,' Rocco said, reaching out and rubbing her upper arm affectionately. She looked at him for heartbeat then a beaming smile blossomed on her face. 'You did what I asked and sat really still for me so I could brush your hair. Good girl.'

So far so good: She accepted him in her personal space, responded as hoped to praise, and knew exactly what she had to do to get more. Precedent and tone set. Now on to the second portion of day one's scheduled activities.

He dug the pouch out of his pocket, the new clacking noise immediately seizing Victoire's attention. 'So Victoire' - something needed to be done about that: far too leisurely to shout in combat - 'do you know how to play marbles?'

The picture was like a five-year-old's. Rocco was almost certain that the drawing was of the observation room, the black inverted 'v' with an amoeba attached to it and the blue inverted 'v' with an amoeba attached to it presumably himself and Victoire. The first amoeba appeared to be venting a brown fluid, while the other seemed to have half of its cytoplasm stained black. He was assuming it was hair, but he wouldn't care to find out in case he was wrong.

And, if it was hair, then why was there a third torso on the bed?

At least it was late enough now that Victoire could go to bed, letting him go and write up his notes in an adult-sized chair rather than sitting with his legs folded underneath him in the midget sized one around the little table. Hell, maybe he'd come in early and write them up in the morning: Victoire was up and functional, so he could go home and see his family for maybe as much as twenty minutes before the children were shooed off to sleep.

'So what have you drawn?' said Rocco, interrupting Victoire as she finished drawing a black body-bag by the bed, presumably for the torso to be taken away in.

'This is me,' she said, pointing to amoeba two with the end of her felt-tip, 'and this is you, and we're playing marbles. And that's the table, with my chair.'

It was a spider who had a very brief and one-sided fight with the heaviest frying pan known to man. 'Where's my chair gone, then?'

'You don't like your chair,' she said confidently. She paused, picking up the brown felt tip. 'I'm going to give you a big chair.'

Rocco hesitated. This was all useful information for his report, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question. 'That's kind of you Victoire. And what's this on the bed?'

'That's my hairbrush, and that's the bag you put my clothes in.'

Not a torso then. It sounded promising, anyway: she'd drawn herself and her handler playing a game together, wanted him to have a chair that he liked, and had considered the hairbrush important enough to draw on the bed, where he'd brushed her hair.

'Bedtime,' said Rocco, picking up the box of felt-tips and holding it open for her. 'Put the pens away and then use the bathroom. There's a nightdress for you to change into in the Coop bag.'

'Yes Rocco.' Victoire quickly had the felt-tips away and, pushing her chair neatly into the table, went over to the end of the bed where Ferro had left the nightdress he'd plucked from storage. She peeked inside the bag as she went over to the bathroom, smiling at the sight of the plain white cotton nightdress.

She was easy to please at the moment, and hopefully she'd become even easier as reward became more and more associated with time with handler.

A minute later the door opened again, Victoire coming to stand before him with a resigned look on her face. 'Rocco, can you do my belt please?'

He reached out and worked the stiff leather until the formerly flat white belt bulged up at the front, letting him flick the end out and manoeuvre it through the loops. 'All done. Well done for remembering to come to me for help.' He rubbed her arm again as Victoire smiled at the praise. 'Off to the bathroom with you.'

'Yes Rocco.'

She seemed to be accepting needing his help to get her belt undone and, thus far, she'd done what he asked, when he asked, without her attention wandering unduly. She seemed to be moving through initialisation quickly too: she was well off the top end of the bell-curve produced by normal initialisation. Day one, then, was a success.

Fifty-nine left before the plug got pulled.

When Victoire came out the bathroom carrying her clothes, he gestured for her to come and stand in front of him. 'Have you been a good girl today?'

She sucked ferociously on her lower lip, her nervous thoughts written in her blue eyes. 'Yes?' she said quietly.

He rubbed her arm again. 'Yes, you have. You've listened to me, done what I've asked when I've asked you to, and you've come to me for help when you couldn't undo your belt. Go and get your hairbrush and hop up onto the bed.'

He checked the time then followed Victoire over to the bed, sitting down next to her on the overly firm hospital mattress. 'Sit still for me,' he said as he took a length of hair in his left hand and began drawing the brush through it. She'd relaxed over the course of the afternoon, her head now lolling about as he lifted and lightly pulled on her hair. She made it five minutes and fifteen seconds before she began fidgeting enough that he stopped rather than risk needing to provide negative re-enforcement.

Besides, fifteen seconds was a five percent increase. It was Progress, and would be written up as such in his report, maybe even in italics.

'Put your hairbrush away, then into bed with you.'

As she put the hairbrush away, Rocco belatedly realised that he ought to have had her fold her clothes. That lesson was going to have to wait until another day.

'Goodnight Victoire,' he said, standing up to let her climb into bed.

'Goodnight Rocco,' she said, Rocco hiding his smile as she responded in faultless French. At some point, he was going to have to take her around Lyon to give her some landmarks to go with the accent. 'You can have my picture.'

It was going straight into the file, but in this instance it really was the thought which counted. 'Thank you Victoire.' He pulled the covers up over her. 'Goodnight. I'll see you in the morning.'

'Goodnight Rocco.'

He collected the picture from the table and walked over to the door, a faint buzz sounding just as he reached it, the duty tech in the monitoring room on the ball for once. He turned left toward his office rather than right toward the exit. File the picture, make some preliminary notes so he wouldn't forget in the morning, then home.

All in all, he'd had a success.

Now he just needed fifty-nine more.

Aurelio, Rome.

As usual, it was later than intended when he parked the car in the road outside their apartment. It was just as well it was only a straight shot down the SS1. Having to actually navigate around the junction would have made his habitual lateness even worse.

He could tell the children were both already in bed when he eased the door open, the only light in the apartment the glow from the TV as his wife watched the news: His wife hadn't escaped his time in the military without ingrained habits any more than he had. He turned slightly at the noise of a door being inched open.

'Daddy!'

Sienna shot out of her room, throwing herself at him. He caught her as she slammed into his legs, spinning her around and onto his hip. 'And just what are you doing up at this time of night, missy?'

She snuggled into his shoulder. 'Waiting for you.'

He was sure it was the vibes being sent that made him turn back toward the living room, his wife emerging with her face set to amber. 'I've only just managed to settle her down,' she said, undertones of vexation permeating the air. 'You've seen Daddy now Sienna. Go back to bed, and stay there this time.'

Rocco kissed the top of her head and relaxed his hold, Sienna slowly sliding to the floor. 'Go on.'

She hugged him tightly before wandering back to her room, pausing at the door to look at him again.

He waved at her before turning back to his distinctly unimpressed looking wife. 'But I'm here now,' he said, wrapping his arms around her. She was stiff for long enough he knew she was deciding just how narked she was going to be. She'd forget about it for a couple of days, then it'd come back to haunt him with a vengeance. It wasn't even as though he could come bearing flowers, as, in the back of her mind, she associated them with an apology after seeing a mistress – despite him never having had one.

His work phone buzzed in his pocket.

'You're not answer -'

'I am,' he said, hitting receive as he lifted it out his pocket. 'Acerbi.'

'Alphone – Duty-tech, Doctor. She's in the process of smashing the furniture, and appears to be evaluating the bed for use as a battering ram.'

Of course she was.

He sighed. Based on today, she didn't appear to have an aversion to the room itself, nor the furniture, which meant that it was either a response to internal stimulus, she didn't like the relative dark - unlikely because she'd been fine the three hours he'd been writing up his report, or it was because of the only other factor: his absence. The odds were on it being that, and responding to her tantrum was only going to reward her with the attention she wanted. 'Unless there's a risk of it breaking out, just monitor for the moment and I'll deal with it in the morning.'

'Are you sure?'

'We can just replace what's been broken.'

'Alright, then.' The tech terminated the call.

While he still had an apparently live call, he ought to capitalise on it. His eyes met his wife's: forget ought. 'No,' he said, putting on an irritated expression for his wife's benefit. 'I can't come in again tonight.' He paused. 'And my family's suffered through how many hours of overtime?' Another, shorter, pause. 'Goodnight.'

He unceremoniously dumped the mobile back in his suit pocket and headed along the beige carpet toward the kitchen. 'Do you want a drink?'

Eloisa cocked her head to one side, twisting her blonde hair around her finger. 'Espresso,' she said, her voice beginning to thaw a little.

He turned the light on and busied himself with the coffee beans. 'How's Brando?'

'Pretending he's not excited that his Father's coming home.'

The good thing about the next fifty-nine days was that his time would be much more predictable, and basically office hours, meaning he would be at home more.

But God were the first two weeks going to make him long to be back at work.

Medical Wing, SWA Compound. 06/11/2005

Victoire had really done a number on her room: The bedframe was a mangled mass of metal, its yellow foam mattress scattered over the room like mouldy confetti; the table and chairs would just about do for firewood, the pieces lying against the walls where they'd been hurled; the bedside table wasn't even worth putting on a fire, he should have it given to maintenance to mop-up spillages, perhaps. It was the actions of a temperamental, out-of-control cyborg that was a liability to the agency.

But the heap of clothes was untouched, a little island in a sea of sawdust - suggesting that she'd tried to brush them clean. The ebony box was also pristine, resting next to her where she sat against the wall with her head in her hands. The things he'd expressly given to her had been preserved, and the hairbrush was next to her... potentially as another child would have dropped a comfort blanket.

Or it could be a load of magazine psychoanalysis and he was only seeing what he wanted to see.

'And you really chose to stay at home?'

The morning shift tech looked across at him from where he sat watching the monitor, zoomed in to just show Victoire.

Would continuing to look out the one-way glass indicate a dismissal of the question, or anxiety over the mess his cyborg had made? 'This is a good thing,' said Rocco, turning to face the tech. The tech raised both his eyebrows to DEFCON one. 'I left her alone; she wanted me back. If she's attached to me, she'll want to please me. And going to her would only show her that wanton destruction works.'

The tech shrugged. 'Rather you than me.'

Rocco turned to look back out the window. It always was easier when they were a test subject and a unit instead of your girl. He'd trotted out similar lines on occasion, usually when Bianchi had referred a handler to him so they could tag-team him regarding modifying his cyborg's behaviour. It shouldn't make a difference whether the unit was his or not – and it changed his decisions not one jot... but it felt different.

Today's bag of clothes in hand, he left the observation room and walked around to the parallel corridor with Victoire's door in. Working on the basis that what she really wanted was time with him, the best option was to take that time away. Of course, that might well cause a further meltdown. If in doubt, move the goalposts: if she didn't know how long the punishment was going to last, she wouldn't be able to see him not follow through by returning early to stop another crisis.

He keyed his code into the door, Victoire's head snapping up as the door slid open. She stared at him with raw, red eyes. The lights were on, but the cerebral cortex wasn't at home: Victoire's mouth slack and her body frozen into its huddled position by the wall.

'Good morning Victoire,' he said, his voice firmly in an ominous neutral.

'You came back...'

'I did tell you that I'd see you in the morning.'

She looked down at the tiled floor, apparently swallowing a lump in her throat.

'Come over here,' he said, placing the bag down as the door slid shut behind him.

The speed she covered the five meters between them made her a shoe-in for the role of tortoise were Hillshire fool enough to get the cyborgs to put of a performance of Aristotle's fables.

Rocco paused to make sure his detached psychologist mask was firmly in place. 'Tell me what happened.'

She sniffed loudly. 'I don't know.'

'You don't know, or you don't want to tell me?'

She looked down at her bare feet, small and stark next to his big combat boots.

He left the thoughts build before ever so gently tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. 'If you don't tell me, I can't help you.'

Victoire looked up at him with watery eyes before her head flopped forward to stare dejectedly at the floor.

He'd have another crack at her later. 'Today's clothes are in here,' he said, handing her the bag. 'Use the bathroom, get dressed, and come back here.'

She took the carry-all off him and plodded off to the bathroom, the weight of the world on her shoulders. Or her world, at least. Rocco had warned the brass that there would be teething problems to begin with and, despite what the tech thought, the damage was minor: she'd had a tantrum, but she hadn't tried to escape. It was an I-want-my-handler-back rather than wholesale destruction, even if there wasn't much difference in practice. It wasn't going to be an easy meeting, but it wasn't one he was concerned about.

Victoire didn't have any problems getting dressed today, the belt for the cargo-trousers being a simple slide with a locking bar. 'Pass me your hairbrush,' he said as she stopped in front of him, her nightdress and yesterday's underwear in her hands.

She dumped the clothes on the ground and went to get the hairbrush, running her fingers over the raised decorations as she brought it back and placed it in his hand.

'Turn around,' he said, catching a length of hair as she spun to face away from him. Unlike yesterday, today was quick and relentless: the brush started at her roots and went straight along to the end before repeating the manoeuvre for a second time; then the next length was picked up and subjected to the same brisk brushing, the only concession for knots being just enough of a decrease in speed for it to not pull too much.

'Put your brush away, then stand in front of me.'

The faint surprise on her face indicated that she got the message: only good cyborgs had their handler brushing their hair for five minutes.

He said nothing when she came to stand in front of him again, giving her time to think in the cavernous silence. 'So what do you think I should do?'

'Get a better cyborg,' she whispered to the white tiles.

That might well be bleed-over from before the wipe. Nothing was ever simple. He squatted down to look her in the eye. 'You're my cyborg. I'm never replacing you.' Unless she become enough of a liability she really wasn't worth further investment.

Her face twitched in what might have been relief.

'I now need to go and see my boss, and his boss, and try and explain what you've done. You can play with the marbles, and there might be some paper left for you to draw on. Some food for you will be put through the hatch: you're to eat it and then put the tray back in the same place as you got it. Do you understand?'

'Yes Rocco,' she told the floor.

'Because you've destroyed all of the furnishings in the room, you won't see me today -' her head jerked up and her sad eyes bored into his '- because I need to try and sort this incident out. Can I tell my boss that we're not going to do this again Victoire?'

She nodded.

'I'll see you this evening, Victoire.'

He turned and left, not acknowledging her any further. He collected her file from his office on the way to the observation room and settled down in front of the window to write-up his latest report and prepare for the noon meeting with Lorenzo.

Victoire managed an hour and a half before deviating from his instructions, messing around with the broken pieces of table and chair. After a while it became apparent that she actually had something in mind, apparently trying to construct something out of the bits. Whatever it was was never going to work as she had nothing to keep them together with.

In the end, his chores were never going to take all day, even if the grilling Lorenzo had given him had seemed to go on for an eternity, so he spent most of it in the observation room watching Victoire while preparing his training plans and corresponding forms for the next three weeks. They'd all go out the window, he was sure, but most of them could just have the dates changed.

And a week should be long enough to get her ready to run the obstacle course, surely?

He could have had all the furniture replaced immediately, but he'd only asked for a replacement bed to be left outside Victoire's door. Actions had consequences so, as a consequence of having destroyed the furniture, she wasn't going to get any more for a week.

Not that Victoire cared about that. As soon as he opened her door at half-past seven, her eyes lit-up and she scampered over to stand in front of him, a piece of paper clutched in her hand. 'Good Evening Victoire.'

'Good Evening Rocco...' She glanced behind him at the still open door, interested but not running off to look.

'Come over here and help me with the bed I manage to persuade the boss to let you have.'

He'd positioned the bed directly behind him as he entered, filling the doorway to avoid her being able to leave without clambering out. He let her dawdle as she took hold of the rails around the head of the bed, easily rolling it in as she drank in the details of the world outside.

He still closed the door promptly, however.

It took a little help from him, but the bed was soon back in its corner, made with hospital corners and sheets you could bounce cents off. You could take the man out of the military, but you couldn't take the military out of the man, no matter how much his wife tried to tone down his obsession with fine detail.

'Rocco...' Victoire stood in front of him, clutching the paper like a shield. She started to lift the paper then her arm dropped back to her side.

Time to be the reassuring, comforting father figure. 'Is that for me?'

She nodded, her eyes flicking up to his and then back down.

Two days in and her hand-to-eye co-ordination was vastly improved. Hamstrung slightly by the only available implements being felt-tips, she'd drawn what was recognisably a bust of himself, his neatly combed hair a vast improvement to the brown effluent had bestowed on him in yesterday's picture. He wouldn't be hanging it on the wall, but he'd make a note on her file to encourage her drawing.

Praise for a skill that didn't involve killing people was an opportunity to be seized at all times.

'That's really good Victoire,' he said, reaching out to rub her arm, re-enforcing the link between praise and physical contact. 'Thank you.'

The change was immediate, Victoire's head coming up and her eyes bright as she beamed at him.

'Bedtime,' he said, picking her nightdress off the floor and handing it to her.

He spent a bit of time tidying up while she got ready for bed, neatening up the room and piling the detritus of destruction into one of the corners. Military standards of tidiness were going to need to take over soon, but for the moment there were more important issues to deal with.

The bathroom door opened, Victoire coming out and putting her clothes in a heap on the table.

'Come here,' said Rocco, pointing in front of him.

She inched her way over, biting her lip and not meeting his eyes.

He stood in silence, watching her until she finally raised her head. 'Have you been good today?'

There was the faintest sound, a gentle susurration from her mouth as she dropped her head to study her feet.

'Pardon?'

'No.'

No, she hadn't. But given that he suspected that he was the problem, leaving her to go to sleep on this note wasn't one conducive to cementing and stabilising their relationship. 'I think you've been a good girl today,' he said, the faint stress on today still broadcasting the message loud and clear judging by how her hopeful face faltered. 'Go and get your hairbrush.'

Victoire made the trip to the box and back in record time, placing the brush in his outstretched hand like a crown upon a cushion. She stepped back slightly, looking up at him with big blue eyes.

'Thank you Victoire,' he said, lightly grasping her shoulder and facing her toward her bed. 'Go and sit still for me so I can brush your hair.'

Rocco glanced at the clock, starting a mental timer before he sat down beside her, Victoire sliding around to perch diagonally on the edge of the bed. He slowly ran his hand through her hair as he isolated a section of hair to brush, Victoire pushing back against his hand to turn it into a fond stroke of her head.

There was nothing else but the careful strokes of the brush and his tender manipulation of her hair. One stroke after another, a soothing rhythm of intimacy as she received her reward for being good – for instant obedience. If she was initiating contact, no matter how subtle, she felt safe and comfortable with him. Based on her behaviour, she'd wanted this, had seen it as desirable and hopefully thought of it as 'her' time with her handler...

Thus emotionally vulnerable.

'What happened last night?' he said softly, rolling the dice.

She tensed, the lengths of hair in his hand pulling slightly until she forced her shoulders back down and her head up. 'You left me alone,' she said, her voice thin and watery.

'I told you,' he said, allowing his fingers to gently graze the skin of her neck as he moved to the next section of long black hair, 'you're my cyborg... I'm not going anywhere.'

Victoire sniffed, the prelude to a bout of Sienna tears. 'I woke up and you weren't there.'

He slowly made one final stroke, wishing he had a mirror so he could see her expression rather than gambling on voice to ensure he stopped before he had to discipline her for not sitting still. He held the hairbrush over her shoulder. 'Go and put this back in its box and then get into bed.'

For his part, he retrieved her picture from the floor where he'd left it, saving it from being a sacrifice to the bean-counters for a greater purpose. He walked back to the head of the bed, smiling to himself as Victoire made herself comfortable, her bare legs thrashing around as she kicked the covers to the foot of the bed lest she boil in the poorly ventilated room when the air-conditioning went off at one.

'This,' he said, holding the picture out to her, 'is for you.'

Her stricken face stabbed him in the gut. 'You can just throw it away.'

He shook his head. 'I wouldn't do that to my favourite picture.' He let the confusion reign for a minute, watching her think furiously. 'When you wake up and I'm not here, look at the picture and remember that I'm coming back. This is my favourite picture, but it's not the most important thing in my life.'

He put the picture down on the floor next to the box. 'The most important thing in my life,' he said, walking to the door and gesturing for the duty-tech to buzz him out, 'is you.'

He left that ringing in her ears as he left the cyborg wing and made tracks to his office and then home to the most important three people in the world:

His family.

Medical Wing, SWA Compound. 10/11/2005

The worst thing was that Rocco knew Victoire actually could hear his heart thundering in his chest. But today was milestone number one: the first hurdle to fall at. He watched the final delay... Victoire placing her hairbrush back in its box... then psyched himself up as Victoire crossed the patch of moonlight from the high window on her way back to him.

'We're going outside today,' he said, giving her new sports kit one final once-over. 'What's our rule?'

'Be a good girl,' said Victoire automatically, eyes locked on the door. 'Are we really going outside?'

'Yes: come on,' he said, holding out his hand for her to take.

As soon as they stepped out into the corridor, Victoire didn't know where to look. Her head was constantly turning, his arm stretched forward and backward as she moved around to get a look at everything. Despite her intense curiosity, she never stopped walking in the direction he did; the moment his arm could stretch no further, she was back at his side.

Before long they were at the doors to the lobby... and test one. No matter how ungodly the hour he'd got her up at, it was impossible to avoid contact with the guard on the door. Holding her hand wouldn't stop her from doing anything, but it would buy slightly longer for the guard or himself to grab their injector.

The doors swung open, the guard, already warned, slipping a hand beneath the reception desk as they walked in. Victoire's gaze scoured everything: the slightly grubby white floor-tiles, the hospital-green paint on the walls and the government-issue battered grey sofas in the small waiting area. Then she spotted the doors leading outside, immediately moving quicker toward the two squares of sodium-orange burning themselves into her brain.

'Victoire,' he said as his arm jerked to a halt, unable to stretch any further.

She slunk back into step with him.

The doors opened automatically, the vista of the Agency's grounds opening up before them. He stopped at the top of the steps, letting her take it all in. This early in the morning, it was a world of grey, the crescent moon just bright enough to be able to see by. He could see her scan the arc around her: scrutinising the few cars left in the car-park, following the road around to the bulk of the main building, then out over the lush grass and the trees that studded the expanse, watchtowers against the world outside the Agency's four walls.

'It's pretty,' she said. She turned to look up at him. 'Where are we going?'

'This way,' he said, leading her down the steps and west along the path.

It wasn't a smooth walk. It was apparently impossible to walk past a flower or plant without stopping to experience the new scent, then gravel became an object of fascination. Eventually they left it behind as they walked down the dirt track toward the obstacle course.

'What's that?' said Victoire as they emerged from the concealing conifers and the under-and-over logs came into view.

'That's the obstacle course... we're going to be running it this morning. But, first, let's blow some cobwebs off.' Time to see what happened when she was let off the leash... 'I want you to run, as fast as you can, over to the logs and wait for me there. Ready?'

'Yes Rocco.'

'Go!'

At the barked command, she shot off, pounding over the grass. Despite having done nothing more strenuous than moving furniture, everything seemed to be working properly. She covered the hundred meters in good time and was beaming when he jogged up to the logs. Her complexion was normal and her breathing was slow and regular. Nothing catastrophically wrong with integration there, then...

'Quick warm-up for you,' he said, gesturing at the dirt path stamped into the grass around the perimeter of the course by years of fratelli. 'Jog ten laps of the track.'

On the last lap he jogged slowly around with her, talking her through each of the obstacles: the under-over logs, the barbed-wire crawl, half-submerged tunnels, cargo net and all the other obstacles you'd find on every military assault course the world over. He finished by placing her in the small dip formed by all the other cyborgs by the railway-sleeper serving as a start line. 'Do you understand what you need to do?'

'Yes Rocco.'

He placed a hand on the stopwatch. 'Go!'

He jogged alongside her as she made her way through the course. The over half of the under-and-over logs caused her problems: she was on the shorter side and they were designed so that even Petra had to haul herself up to clear them. Victoire took the traditional run, leap, pray approach that seemed to be the preferred choice of the shorter cyborgs. She scrabbled to haul herself up and roll over, landing after each one in an ungainly all-fours thud.

Once through the tunnels, her white T-shirt and pink shorts now a muddy-brown, she started on the second net, this one leading to narrow planks over a high drop with a pole at the end. Despite the wet hands, she swarmed up the net as easily as the first one, hauling herself up to the highest point on the course. Head down, she eased her feet out onto the first plank, making slow but steady progress forward, one foot in front of the other, arms out for balance.

After the first three, she became comfortable enough to start looking up... and stopped. Rocco's initial rush of worry disappeared as it became clear Victoire was in perfect control, and what she wanted to do was look around. After a moment she focused on one of the trees to her left, staring intently into its needles.

He glanced down at the stopwatch, the seconds ticking away before his eyes. If she wasn't on the balance beams with a fall below her, he'd shout her out of her distraction and back on task, but he didn't want her jumping and losing her footing.

Ten seconds later a bird flew out of the tree, Victoire's gaze following it as the bird flew out of sight.

It was going to have to be mentioned in the file... it wasn't the biggest problem, but pausing to watch the birdie would result in their targets escaping or Victoire getting ventilated.

Victoire continued on, confidently walking over the boards before leaping onto the pole and sliding down. While she wasn't back on form, that was almost certainly down to lack of practice. No matter which of the components the obstacle was designed to test, she rose – or dropped – to the challenge. She had the full range of movement, the components withstood the load, and she was fully in control of her limbs. By the time dawn was glowing on the eastern horizon her time was respectable, if not good. She could have just been exhumed: caked in slowly setting mud, all traces of white and pastel-pink long obliterated, she shuffled away from the finish line, shattered.

And now they just had to get back in one piece.

'You need a shower,' he said, almost but not quite putting in arm around her to guide her back down the path toward the medical annex.

Being a mark one cyborg, Victoire lacked the low-light and other enhancements of the newer models: but it was daylight now. As soon as they were out the forest, she was pressed against the inner perimeter fence, staring out at what, when he strained his eyes, appeared to be some sort of mouse.

'Walk with me please, Victoire,' he said, continuing on without stopping. 'We ask for permission before we do things.' There was a moment's hesitation but then she moved back to his side. 'Did you like the obstacle course?'

'Yes!' she said, a big grin on her face. 'It goes so high! You can see for miles. There was a bird all the way at the top of the tree and it was right next to me.' She paused, looking down at her clothes then waved her arms at him. 'I don't like the tunnels: I'm soaking wet.'

He hated the tunnels too. 'You can have a shower when I drop you off at your room. If you leave your exercise gear on the floor, someone will swap it for some clean clothes for you.'

She nodded as they continued down the winding path, the faint noise of a 206 heli the only thing breaking the pristine stillness of the new day.

The next time he looked across, she'd gone.

Turning around, he found her fifteen meters behind him, staring up at the sky. 'Victoire!' Her head snapped down, her eyes locking onto his. 'That's a warning: I've asked you to stay with me twice now.'

She hurried back, eyes still roving over what she could see, drinking it all in. The main buildings, silhouetted against the dawn's rosy light, came into view around the curve of the path, wild ground giving way to neatly manicured lawns and trees. He indulged her when she asked to look at the flowers in Claes' garden, partly because it was all new for her, but mostly to re-enforce that if she asked permission from her handler, she got nice things.

After dropping her off at her room, he went to file the report he'd pre-written. While his earlier confidence had been slightly excessive, he only needed to tweak minor details. He couldn't avoid mentioning the times she'd lost focus, but they were understandable and he was reasonably confident that they wouldn't happen again – the one on the course, at least.

Twenty minutes later, report filed and tentative progress meeting with the other interested parties scheduled, he returned to Victoire's room to start her off on her Italian lesson – though he'd ditched the classic literature he'd been given: at this point magazines and other current material would give her a leg-up for when she left the compound and teach her skills with more immediate use. If she was unsure what to do, he didn't want her using Romeo and Juliette as a guide.

Victoire was still in the bathroom when he got there, so he sat in his seat – she'd been adamant that he needed a handler-size seat – and began planning the next phase of training: firearms. No personal arms – just ones 'borrowed' from the armoury for her, cleaned and returned after practice. Minimise the emphasis put on killing to keep her focus on doing what he asked her, but do it often enough that her reflex response was to draw and fire rather than rip their target's throat out.

The bathroom light clicked off and she emerged, a cloud of steam puffing out into the room. Seeing him, she went pink, spreading her elbows and trying to shake the straps of her white sailor dress back up toward her shoulders. Moving with slow, careful steps, she stood in front of him, the dress now merely gaping rather than falling off her chest. 'Can you button my dress up please?'

'Of course Victoire.' If she was uncomfortable, it needed more re-enforcement. He reached out and rubbed her arm. 'Well done for coming for help.'

She spun around, presenting him with her bare back. Apparently someone, probably Priscila, had dashed into the clothes store, grabbed the cute sailor dress, and not thought that the tiny buttons started barely above her hips. Henrietta would do up what she could, preserving her modesty, then seek help with the rest. Victoire knew that if she was struggling with her belt, to come to her handler; if she had stiff little buttons on the collar of her dress, to come to her handler; if a dress has buttons you're somehow expected to do up behind yourself... to come to her handler.

He tucked his fingers under the straps and lifted the dress onto her shoulders, Victoire relaxing as he pulled the dress on properly and eventually fumbled the little pearlescent button into its hole to close the dress around her neck. It took him several minutes to get the sadistically small buttons sorted, Victoire standing perfectly still with no prompting from him.

'All done,' he said, tapping her shoulder.

'Thank you Rocco,' she said, stepping away from him and spinning on the spot, grinning happily as the dress swirled around her legs.

'Sit on the bed with your hairbrush, and while I'm drying your hair, you can tell me what you were writing for your cyborg magazine yesterday. How to choose appropriate arms, wasn't it?'

Armoury, SWA Compound. 16/12/2005

With one last flurry of activity, Victoire put the SIG back in its case then stowed away the cleaning equipment littered either side of her on the wooden bench. She looked up, noticing the clerk now on duty at the issuing-desk. 'Shall I hand the 239 back in now Rocco?'

From the first phase-two training meeting, he'd known the day when Jean managed to get the medical staff overruled would come. 'No,' he said, still smiling as Jean undermined the last month's work, 'it's yours to keep now.'

Her eyes pinged wide open, her mouth going slack. 'Thank you.'

'You've done well,' he said, plucking the bag from the floor beside him. 'The pistol will live in a gun-safe that's being put into your room, but we need it for training now, so...' He offered her the bag.

She opened it a crack, then dived in, yanking out a brown belt with a black small-of-back holster already threaded on. She stood, her empty hand starting toward her flower-belt. 'Can you do my belt for me please?' she said, turning toward him.

It only took a moment for him to undo the complicated buckle and whip it off. Victoire craned her neck back to look at him, a beatific smile on her face. He knelt down and threaded the brown belt through her jeans, a hand on her hip turning her around so he could put the holster through the belt in the appropriate place. It took her a few attempts to get the SIG in right, but then she was ready... pseudo-armed and dangerous.

'We're going to be doing some hand to hand combat today,' he said as they left the armoury, leaving out the fact that it was only over his strenuous protests. 'I'm going to be teaching you some basic moves to begin with, and then we're going to be sparring.' He absently reached down and fixed the hem of Victoire's jacket, making sure it covered the pistol properly. 'But when we're on a mission, what do we use?'

'Pistols first, fists second.'

'Good girl.'

'Are we going to the obstacle course?' she said as they turned onto the dirt track around the perimeter.

'We are.' He let them meander along the path bringing the distance down. One final confirmation – however unnecessary according to the available data, if only for his own peace of mind. 'Sprint to the start of the obstacle course, then run it. Three... two... one... go!'

Victoire was gone in a splatter of mud.

By the time he got there, she was a good distance through the course, running along the beams over the four storey drop. He supposed it was as good a place as any. He walked along the oval path around the course well behind her, watching... watching... she leapt onto the pole. 'Check!'

She responded instantly, her hands clamping down on the plastic pole, violently and painfully arresting her plummet to the ground.

'Come here,' he called, moving away onto the grassed area.

As she came up to him, clothes covered in cold, wet mud, it occurred to him that she wasn't going to be the only one in the shower after this – assuming his faith in her was rewarded and he didn't end up in a hospital bed. 'Are we doing hand to hand now?'

'Yes... this is the part where you get mud all over me.'

She giggled, a sound that, after Sienna learnt to walk, was hardwired to make his spine shiver in foreboding.

'Let's start with the basics: how do you make a fist?'

She bent all of her fingers around into the palm of her hand, thumb locking neatly over the top.

'And how do you hit?'

She punched her palm, striking with a flat fist.

'Good girl,' he said, lightly touching her shoulder. 'Never punch people in the chest, never punch them in the head, and think twice about punching them anywhere else there's a bone. Punch the groin, punch the gut, punch the throat.'

He squatted down on the muddy grass, looking her in the eyes. 'When we practice hand to hand, you'll be given permission to engage members of SWA staff, just for the purposes of training. You must never use what you're shown on them outside of this training. Is that clear?'

'Yes Rocco.'

'You're a lot stronger than we are, so you must never, ever, hit a member of staff. You can gently touch them – pull your punches – but never strike them properly. Do you understand?'

'Yes Rocco.'

He heaved himself back up, Victoire's serious little face following his all the way. 'Right,' he said, praying his qualifications were worth more than the paper they'd been printed on. He patted his abdomen. 'Punch me here, very slowly.'

Her arm came back slightly, then moved forward, ever so gently pushing into his stomach.

Test one passed.

'And again, a little bit quicker.'

The arm came back, then punched forward, stopping at the last moment and repeating the same soft touch as last time.

'Full speed.'

He instinctively braced for impact as her fist shot toward him. There was registerable impact this time, but still no more than he'd expect sparing with a human partner.

'Now I'm going to block your attack... when I do that, I want you to punch with your other hand. When I've blocked that one, it's my turn to punch you twice. We'll keep going until one of us hits the other. This isn't a full speed exercise. Do you understand what I want you to do?'

'Yes Rocco.'

'Begin.'

She'd slowed sufficiently for him to be relaxed as they fell into the rhythm. Block – block – punch – punch. One repetition after another, over and over as he gradually increased the pace, a metronome going in his head as he monitored the pace of the blows. They'd both fallen into the soothing beats of the exercise, a sepia world with vibrant hands.

'Check!' he shouted.

She stopped immediately, his punch continuing on to hit her neck.

There'd been no signs of target fixation – she'd stopped immediately despite knowing there was a blow coming toward her. They might pull this off unscathed.

'Good girl,' he said, gesturing for her to come and squat down next to him facing the under-over-logs. It was muddy enough he could just walk around rather than draw stances and movements. 'Fighting is all about footwork...'

Main Building, SWA Compound. 04/01/2006

Rocco used the arrival of the pastries and coffee to delay beginning the meeting, taking the cafetiere and making a point of filling Jean and Bianchi's cups, Lorenzo's too full for a refill to be reasonable. Then he went after the pastries, retrieving a pain au chocolat before reluctantly returning back to the matter in hand.

'She's progressing apace,' he said, pausing to try and get comfortable again in the hard board-room seat. 'Her marksmanship is firmly within the required levels, on both her side- and long-arm, and she's putting up good times on the obstacle course.'

'And integration?' said Jean pointedly, putting down his black coffee to give him a cold stare.

You played the card you were dealt, and in this room the trump card was the dark arts that went on in the laboratories. 'We're getting there. Based on her developmental profiles and her previous service history, extra-ordinary stimulus can cause significant problems unless it is managed carefully. On page ten, you can see the timetable through to post-verifica status for a gradual introduction of her new environment. Given the multi-million euro asset, we need to ensure we do not break it again.'

That bought him thirty seconds while the other people around the table put their gold-rimmed plates to one side to flip through last night's report.

'You've had a reprieve of two months,' said Lorenzo, going back to his coffee. 'A cyborg being trained from scratch should now be almost ready for her test. She's also taking up valuable space in the medical wing, plus staff time in laundry, retrieving clothes, toiletries... I know you're both concerned about her being exposed to undesirable influences,' he added as both Rocco and Bianchi began to present their rebuttal, 'and I'll concede that, but if her skills have been regained as quickly as they have been, she should have been ready a month ago.' He glanced at Jean. 'If control is a problem, better we cut our losses sooner rather than later.'

'I'd prefer to be overly cautious, Sir,' said Rocco, leaning back in his chair to seem at ease. 'The Verifica requires her to engage a member of staff she's previously had no interaction with. I'd rather not have them turn out like the terrorists have.'

'She's had no interaction with anybody,' said Jean, looking at Bianchi for back-up. 'The only people who have interacted with her have been two of the armoury staff. That needs to change: introduce it slowly by all means, but she needs to be weaned off her isolation immediately. Limit her ability to converse with the other cyborgs if it'll help, but she needs to be a functional team-member or she's useless to us. That involves interaction and being able to take orders from all members of staff.'

Rocco nodded.

'You've a month to get her operational, Rocco,' said Lorenzo, putting his coffee down like a gavel. 'There's always been an unofficial three month limit on the Verifica... in this case, the only thing holding her back is the uncertainty over control: we can't have that in this organisation. It'll either be solved in a month, or it'll never be solved and we need to move on.'

'A month, then,' he said.

'I've also scheduled a hand-to-hand combat session with Amadeo in ten minutes,' said Jean.

Arsehole.

Seven minutes later, he'd collected Victoire, who'd managed a one-minute change into exercise gear by strewing her other clothes all over the room. 'You're going to be training with Amadeo today, Victoire,' he said as they walked briskly away from the medical wing into the crisp December morning. 'All the same rules that apply with me, apply with him.'

'Yes Rocco,' she said as she watched something move in the long grass the other side of the perimeter fence.

She'd never flipped yet... but that had always been sparring with him. He was confident in her ability to plink away at a target with no problems, no matter who was running the range, but it had always been hand to hand combat she eviscerated people with.

He glanced down and she'd gone. She was ten meters back, face pressed against the perimeter fence, still lacking control for the world to see. 'Victoire! Heel!'

It took a moment to process what had come unbidden from his mouth, complete with clicking fingers and a sharp, stabbing point, the exact same frustrations as with his parent's disobedient dog snapping him back to the past and the beginnings of this convoluted journey.

But what the hell, it produced the best response he'd ever got: Victoire running over to him and not leaving his side until he told her to go run a few laps of the obstacle course while he spoke with Amadeo.

'So you're the unlucky one with Psycho-borg,' said Amadeo, grinning at him.

'Her name is Victoire.'

He shrugged. 'Fair enough. Jean says she is competent in the whole training programme?'

'She is.' They both watched as she ran past, a fog of breath trailing behind her. 'She's trained to immediately stop whatever she's doing on the command check. Before you do anything, make sure she's responding to it. I've never had to use it for real, but...'

'I've seen the pictures. Are you staying, or...?'

Rocco shoved his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat. 'I've been ordered not to. Jean will be here with Rico shortly, just in case. If Victoire tries to bite you, stop her immediately and do something else for a while. If she continues to try, shoot her: her favourite trick is to rip your throat out.'

Amadeo made a funny little laugh in the back of his throat. 'But she's fine now, right?'

'She has been with me.'

Amadeo didn't escape unscathed from Victoire's training session, but that was largely his own fault: he'd decided that her balance needed improving and that the best way to achieve that was to practice on the balance beams. Victoire got a lucky shot in and he'd lost his balance, hitting his head on the way down. But even that had served a useful purpose: Jean having left – deciding that she was safe – meant she was presented with an unconscious member of staff, no handler and no communications.

Victoire had kept her head, checked his vitals, sprinted to the nearest cleared adult, in this case the guard-post on the main gate, and had him call the accident in.

It seemed that she was learning from Rocco's anecdotes, no matter how poor a substitute from actual interaction with people and situations they were.

Jean said she was ready, Amadeo thought she was ready, Bianchi said she was ready and, most vexing in Rocco's opinion, his own damn reports said she was ready.

'Still here Rocco?' said Priscilla.

He looked up from 'his' desk in the shared handlers' office, stretching slightly. 'Yes?'

'Her VdCo started ten minutes ago.'

Rocco looked down at the map of Rome's subway system one last time before giving Priscilla his undivided attention. 'Yes...?'

'I thought you at least would be there to support her.' Priscilla leaned against the desk next to him, gesturing with the hook of her glasses. 'You're so good with her, but yet her big day comes and...'

Good was a strange euphemism for manipulative, but then he used the same underlying techniques on his children too, and raising children to be the very best they could be was what love was. 'And she's going to big school for the first time: she's being assessed on her ability to survive in the world outside these four walls, her ability to function without input from her handler and, in my little girl's case, her ability to play nice with the other children and staff. If I'm not there, she has no choice but to be independent.'

'Until bedtime, and then she can get her handler to brush her hair for hours.'

'It's cheaper than a kaleidoscope, and ten minutes of hair-brushing is a small price to pay if it ingrains the habit of coming to me before she does anything whenever possible.'

Priscilla smiled impishly. 'When are you going to let me teach you how to plait her hair?'

Rocco rolled his eyes. 'I don't even plait hair for my own daughter.'

'But she needs pigtails.'

'No she doesn't, Priscilla.'

'I kept Olga away from her for you.'

'Ballet at least teaches you to kick like a mule.'

'Pointe.'

He smiled faintly in acknowledgement.

'I'd heard on the grapevine that you'd been seen with subway maps out,' she said, moving to look over his shoulder, overpowering fruity perfume assaulting his nostrils. 'If she passes –'

'Of course she'll pass: she could have been through in a month if I thought I could trust her not to eat the SRT tester.'

'– we'll probably recommend that she be used somewhere on the south west end of the B line. Laurentina, maybe.'

Rocco took a long, fortifying pull of his drink. 'I'd best get planning then: she'll be finished in an hour, and if Lorenzo is pushing us through this process, I want to hit the big one in two days time.'

Viale America, Rome. 07/01/2006

Rocco slid the van door shut behind her as Victoire hopped out, the quiet noise of the door sliding home loud in the cold, desolate night. Most people were long in bed as they and their SRT escort cruised the streets and scouted the underpasses of the silent city, searching for trade. The bustling stalls were empty and the lights in the looming apartment blocks were long since out.

No witnesses, no harm, no foul.

The non-descript white van slowly pulled away, leaving them alone on an island of concrete, the nominally white stairs down to the metro a burst of brightness in the dim sodium-orange lamplight.

'There are three thugs hanging around in the metro,' he said quietly, slipping a hand into his pocket to turn the volume on his radio up now he was out of the van. 'We're going to go down, through the station and out the other side. The thugs may try and take advantage of us, so be ready if that happens.'

Victoire nodded, a hand worming its way underneath her coat to touch her pistol.

He pressed the push-to-talk button on the radio, feeling like he'd just started lasing for a cluster munition. 'Blue one to Blue two, inserting now. Be ready to run interference. Over.'

'Roger,' said Amadeo, his voice distorted almost to the point of incomprehensibility by the earpiece. Sod's law said that they were going to lose reception in the metro.

'By me,' he said, interrupting Victoire's wide-eyed capture of the insalubrious vista he'd given her. He took what his wife claimed was a cleansing breath, then advanced into the metro.

They heard them before they saw them, their laughter and cRap Music echoing off the graffiti-covered walls. They were sat on the floor by the wall, empty bottles strewn about their feet and a pungent smell of marijuana filling the grimy space. The one on the left had a knife inexpertly concealed down the side of his black boot, the other two appeared unarmed.

All three had identical smiles due to be wiped off their faces.

'What are you doing out so late, mate? And with your little girl too.' said the one with the knife as the group stood, blocking the passage. It was narrow and lined with grimy tiles that would send shrapnel in all directions if the wall caught a bullet. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, but Rocco had spent time training for multiple oncoming targets in a confined space for just this situation. Her instinctive response should still be for the firearm, despite the restricted area.

'Just let us through, arsehole,' said Rocco, doing the exorbitant tuition fees for his psychology qualifications no justice whatsoever.

Predictable as operant conditioning, the apparent leader snatched the kitchen-knife from his boot, making Rocco's follow-up legal under this evening's rules of engagement. 'Engage,' he said, voice pitched for cyborg ears alone.

Victoire ran forward, arm coming back to retrieve –

As her left foot planted two feet away from the leader, her trailing leg and gun-hand snapped around, her booted foot cracking his knee, her left hand grabbing his right wrist to brace it an instant before her right palm slammed into his elbow to make him double-jointed.

He crumpled with a scream, Victoire kicking the dropped knife away, sending it skittering into the shadows.

Whirling onto the next one, she kneed him in the groin as she lazily blocked his rabbit punch. Having brought him down to her level, she thrust her fingers palm deep into his eyes, using his pained backward stagger to set herself up for a palm-strike to the chin that severed his spinal cord.

He keyed his radio as his heart sank. 'Blue one to Blue two, initiate CAMORRA.'

Victoire turned back to her first victim, stamping down hard on his throat.

The third finally reacted, lunging toward her.

She reversed direction, nails out as she swept her hand around, catching him in the side of his throat. Ignoring the blood spatter, she followed up by snapping his radius and ulna in one violent jerk, jagged white bone bursting into view like a stripper from red-velvet cake.

His tibia made a surprise appearance next, making him crash to the floor. Victoire was on him immediately, smashing his nose with a punch, pausing to catch his weak attempt at a left hook – breaking his arm into two distinct pieces, one length of shattered bone dangling by a thread of muscle from the other. Seizing the opportunity, she detached his lower arm with a huge wrench, then repeatedly plunged the knife-like broken bone into his throat, arterial blood fountaining into the air.

Finally dead, poor bastard. 'Check!' he yelled futilely.

She froze, grisly weapon raised above her head.

'Come here.'

And she came. Arm dumped by the corpse, she jumped off its chest and trotted over to him, blue eyes bright in a bloodstained face.

As macabre as it was, a huge weight left his shoulders, evaporating into a golden halo. 'Good girl.' He reached down and ran a hand through her gore-caked hair, Victoire pressing her head against his hand with happiness radiating from every pore. He'd even buy her a bloody kaleidoscope if it would re-enforce this. 'You came when I called you. Good girl.'

A woman gasped. 'Oh my God.'

Ferro.

He had to get Victoire out of here before Ferro knocked down what was, for Victoire, a good outcome with positive feelings attached to it. 'Can I have the poncho please, Ferro,' he said as he turned toward her, waving procedure under the woman's nose like a phial of smelling salts.

She passed it to him, eyes still on the carnage.

'Arms up,' he said before pulling the blue plastic down over Victoire's beaming face, hiding the bloodstains from prying eyes. 'Amadeo's in the van outside...' he glanced at Ferro, who nodded confirmation. 'Go up the stairs and go straight into the van. Don't approach or talk to civilians.'

'Yes Rocco,' she said, practically skipping to the stairs.

'That's it then,' said Ferro, watching Victoire disappear up the steps, a trail of bloody footprints behind her. 'She's just as bad as ever.'

'No. This, Ferro,' he said, satisfaction oozing from every syllable, 'this is success.'