-Contract Closure-
By Chronic Guardian

-For TaerKitty, Prince of the Pithy and Champion of the Concise, and TheScarredMan, Rico's Real Guardian. Thank you both for everything-

Prologue: Covalence

Winter winds ghosted over gold-laced morning waves outside the porthole. A misty outline of Italy's west coast hovered across the east horizon. Not a town Claes recognized, but given their last port in Elba she placed it somewhere between Tuscany and Liguria. A little longer and they would be stopping over at the naval port in La Spezia.

Not quite a year at sea and this was their first true return to the mainland.

No missions waiting for them, no Padania. They had completed their purpose in the eyes of the government, now they just watched and waited.

Settling back into her chair, Claes retrieved her reading material for the day then sat for a moment with the cover closed. It was an open secret they were waiting for a "natural retirement". Some of the Gen Twos talked about staying sharp for their next assignment, but they all knew what was coming. Claes just had the courage to actually articulate it. While the others were only just now coming around to the idea that they were dying, Claes had already made up her mind not to worry too much.

Not until she had to, anyway. She went about reading and painting and practicing the piano, just as she had when Angelica made her last contributions to their medical literature. It wasn't combat that would kill them at this point, it was the conditioning. The drugs that kept their cybernetic implants working also ate at their brain tissue, starving off the sections related to motor control and eventually hampering memory formation and retention. Given how far along they were, the only real way to fight that now would be to stop taking it altogether.

Unfortunately, that would also mean surrendering the use of one's body.

Claes squared her shoulders and parted the pages to a pressed chrysanthemum keeping her place. They would either die in delusion or live a little longer as implant rejection set in. Framed in those terms, a functioning death on the battlefield seemed like a mercy.

The time for that choice ended with the Padania, however. The best they could do now was make sense of their remaining options and die on their own terms.

Folding her hands under her chin, Claes found her place on the page and began reading.

Or rather, tried to. She paused as the door behind her unceremoniously belched with banging knuckles, then creaked open.

"Hey, Claes?" A Gen Two girl with shaggy dark hair—Gattonero, if Claes was remembering it right—poked her head into the cabin and addressed her with a light frown. "Bergonzi wants you."

Claes raised an eyebrow.

"Look, just hurry up," Gattonero muttered, glancing to the side. "He said he wants to talk before the Terminator gets back from shore leave."

"You mean Jean."

Most of the Second Generation didn't particularly care for the head of the Handlers. Not to say the Gen Ones like Claes felt the opposite, of course, but professional courtesy had been more of a standard back when ex-military types filled the Handler roster.

"Okay, fine, sad Terminator," the older girl allowed with a huff. "What's his deal these days, anyway? You think he got bored babysitting us?"

Claes took a breath of bracing patience. "Probably legal work." Even with the Padania gone, Jean Croce was a man of action. Whatever had taken him away from the ship, she suspected it was something more pressing than watching them die.

"Bet he's doing mop up missions behind our backs," Gattonero went on, "Hell, that's what I'd be doing if I weren't stuck here."

Claes gave her fellow cyborg an evaluating frown. Not likely, considering the Pisano administration was trying to move away from violent solutions, but logic didn't seem particularly relevant to the argument. "You think he would do that without his cyborg?" she offered instead, taking a moment to set her desk in order before heading for the door.

"Rico?" Gattonero rolled her eyes. "If he brought her, he'd have to hold her hand the whole mission." With Claes almost to the door, the Gen Two girl backed off and braced her hands on the frame, forming a human arch for Claes to pass under. "That girl has the worst sense of direction like, ever."

"Oh?" Claes ducked under the arms and moved on. She posed the question more as a matter of etiquette than anything else. Complaining about Gen Ones' shortcomings was just something the Gen Twos did, more so now that they didn't have anything better to do.

"I mean, we've been here for like a year already," Gattonero muttered, flanking Claes as they started off down the hall. "You'd think she'd know which room is hers by now. I mean, she seemed like she got it for the first part of the year. You think she's trolling me?"

Claes gave the older girl a sharp glance. "...When did this start?"

"Just like…" Gattonero grimaced and scrubbed at the back of her head, ruffling her dark mop like a bird trying to dry its feathers. "I dunno, start of last week? Why?"

Claes adjusted her glasses and resumed as if nothing had happened. "Bergonzi might want to know." Two weeks… now that she thought about it, she hadn't been running into Rico as much around the ship. How long had Jean been gone before that? It seemed about a month now...

"Naw, I already told him," Gattonero said, waving the suggestion off. Then, after a beat, "you think that's what he wants to talk about?"

"I think he's going to ask about my reading," Claes answered evenly.

"Yeah? You going through his reports for him or something?"

"Belisario's, actually."

"Beli—? Oh, Doc Cue Ball," Gattonero nodded. "The guy in charge of conditioning, right?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, bleh, that guy gave me the creeps. Is Bergonzi taking that over for him? I hope so."

Claes set her eyes forward as a chill tickled at the base of her neck. "We're looking at the terminal stages of a Gen One's life cycle," she said. "Belisario compared them to rapid-onset dementia."

Gattonero slowed to a stop. Claes kept moving until the older girl spoke up again.

"Well… yeah, good luck with that, then."

"Thank you." It wasn't much, but it was about what she would expect. The Gen Twos had lighter conditioning; they still thought like regular teenage girls when left to their own devices. With the conditioning they did have going through their brains, though, death was a subject purposefully kept away from continuous scrutiny. As government assassins, Belisario had conditioned them to face death, not live with it. The sooner it was out of sight, the better.

"H-hey, Claes?"

Claes glanced over her shoulder. "Yes?"

Gattonero fidgeted with her fingers a moment before closing her hand in a firm fist. "You can still get to Bergonzi's office on your own… right?"

Claes gave the older girl a quiet, assuring smile. "Don't worry. I'm alright."

For a second, Gattonero stared with customary Gen Two discontent: too dull to count as contrary, too engaged to be satisfied. She opened her mouth, a question almost forming, before closing it again and turning to leave.

Letting out a long breath, Claes kept on her way.

Death would catch up with them eventually, but so long as it wasn't her yet she could always step back and deal with it later. Maybe by the time it started approaching the Gen Twos they would even be able to do something about it.

In the meantime, death had sunk its claws into one of their own, and the best they could do for her was hope it was merciful.

Beneath Claes, the ship groaned with a crashing wave, then sunk back into silence.