The RehabilitationBranch

The Rehabilitation Branch is a concept created by forum member John_234 about a US version of the SWA cyborg program operated by the Department of Homeland Security. More information can be found at: https://gunslinger-girl.forumotion.com/t3309-the-rehabilitation-branch-discussion-thread

While agriculture and commerce defined the “official” economy of Culiacán, the drug trade controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel and their affiliates generated a significant amount of wealth and luxury vehicles were not an uncommon site on the roads and highways of the municipality. Ethnically, the Sinaloa state had historically seen large waves of immigration from Europe and Asia. Combined, this meant that the Roussillon Red Range Rover Autobiography Ultimate Edition, driven by an Italian man with a female Japanese passenger, did not draw the attention of the law enforcement vehicles racing towards the Church.

The kilometers unwound as the armored British SUV rolled along the autopista through the coastal plain of Northwestern Mexico, scrublands eventually giving way to mesquite grasslands as they approached Mazatlán and the road started to hug the coastline. Michele transferred to a smaller highway that wound along the “Riviera Nayarita”, a string of small municipalities sharing over 300 kilometers of spectacular beaches, great surfing and important historical sites dating back to pre-Columbian times. 

The highway dead-ended at Banderas Bay and Michele turned right towards Punta de Mita, a headland jutting out into the Bay to the south and Pacific Ocean to the west and north. Located in the same latitude as the Hawaiian Islands, Punta de Mita enjoyed ocean breezes and a year-round temperature range that seldom drifted out of the 20s Celsius. This made it a popular, if low-key, vacation spot and several resorts and residential communities ranging from condominiums and town homes to private, single-family villas dotted the area, mostly along the coastal plains.

To the northeast the terrain rose into rocky outcroppings covered in tropical forest and it was here that Michele approached a stout security station guarding the entrance to a private road. Responding to a signal sent from the vehicle, the heavy gate rolled back, and high-resolution cameras confirmed the Jalisco State plate was on file while another used facial recognition to compare the face of the driver to a list of those registered as residents of the community, quickly finding a match. The smartly dressed security guard on duty tipped his hat as the SUV drove by. The vehicle continued down the private road, turning off to pull into the underground garage of a house set into the hills overlooking Litibu Bay.

Unlike the high-performance sports and grand touring cars that made up Michele’s garage in Milan, the vehicles parked along the white walls included an armored Bentley Continental GT and a Jaguar XJ Sentinel armored sedan. Michele’s vehicle choices were dictated both by the need for armored protection when travelling in territory under cartel control and by Noël’s dislike of high-performance sports cars, finding them in general uncomfortable and loud.

Noël dropped out of the passenger seat and removed the Pelican rifle case from the boot of the SUV. This had been her third hit against the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest and most powerful of the Mexican drug cartels and one of those the Rehabilitation Branch believed was seeking cyborg soldiers of their own.

Handler and cyborg climbed a set of stairs into the main sitting area. Constructed from white concrete and floor-to-ceiling glass windows and designed by a San Diego architect for a Mexican banker, the house spanned almost 3400 square meters over three stories. Belying the open-air nature of the design and construction materials, security dominated the design in acknowledgement of Mexico’s high crime rate. Located in a secure housing complex with its own private security force, the house had been built deep into the hillside and the cliffs surrounding it were impassable to all but the most skilled climbers, who would have to pass lines of motion and seismic sensors as well as a battery of security cameras during their ascent. The glass that made up the walls was actually a high-quality thermoplastic polycarbonate designed to provide both excellent transparency and ballistic impact resistance. The white concrete included steel reinforcing bars and para-aramid synthetic fibers to provide strength against impact shock and explosive overpressure.

Unfortunately for the banker, his arrest for corruption and money laundering meant that he never took possession of the home and instead would be living inside a much smaller concrete and steel domicile for the next couple of decades. The home’s location, security and privacy made it a perfect base of operations for the fratello and a purchase contract was quickly drafted and signed.

Puerto Vallarta and Jalisco State sat south of the “Golden Triangle” of the Mexican States of Sinaloa, Michoacán and Durango, all of them major strongholds of the Sinaloa Cartel and their associates. As a major tourist area, the extensive road network made it easy to travel within the country while the international airport and major cruise port made it easy to travel outside of the country when necessary. The state of Jalisco played host to a significant tourist industry centered on the municipalities of Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, making it easy for Michele and Noël to travel freely around the area.

“Are you hungry?” Michele asked. The girl shook her head.

“Sleepy,” she replied.

“Take a nap then. You can leave the rifle out and I’ll take care of it after I report to Moretti.”

Noël nodded and placed the case on the floor before climbing the stairs to her bedroom.

Michele hefted the case and placed it on the polished granite top of the massive center island in the kitchen. He opened one of the refrigerator doors and removed a container of chicken salad and a carton of milk. After consuming a quick bite, he climbed upstairs into the office. From a safe in the wall he removed an Apple MacBook Air and carried it to a wood desk with an Apple Thunderbolt Display, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse arranged on it. Michele powered on the laptop and slid it into a holder on the back of the ATD, connecting the two via a cable.

Settling into a leather executive chair, Michele called up a program and waited while it created a secure and encrypted channel. The green light next to the FaceTime camera on the ATD glowed and a moment later Marcus Moretti, a former operative with the Social Welfare Agency and the current head of the Chicago Office of the Rehabilitation Branch, appeared in a window.

“Obiettivo completato,” Michele reported.

“Eccellente,” Marcus replied. “How is Noël doing?”

“She’s…uh…fine,” Michele replied.

“Be sure to bring up any issues or concerns with Doctor Kostas,” Moretti instructed.

“I will,” Michele replied.

“Good. I’ll see you on Friday,” Moretti noted and the channel closed.

Michele Pagani watched an amphibious assault ship sail past his hotel room balcony on her way to her mooring at Naval Base San Diego in the south. Across San Diego Bay two of her larger Nimitz class aircraft carriers stood proud at their piers on Naval Air Station North Island. A soft breeze blew in off the Pacific Ocean, working with the warm temperatures to banish the haze off towards the horizon.

He heard the door slide open behind him and Noël appeared at his side, dressed in a white sleeveless dress with sailor collars and twin rows of three decorative buttons embossed with white anchors down the front, black socks that ended just below the knees and black patent leather t-strap Mary Jane pumps.

“Sleep well?” Michele asked and Noël nodded. They’d flown from Puerto Vallarta to San Diego the previous afternoon, had dinner and then settled in for the night.

“Hungry?”

Again, Noël nodded.

“What would you like?”

“Mápó dòufu.”

“You had that last night,” Michele noted. Having never heard of it when she requested it the previous evening, Michele looked it up on his smartphone, surprised to find it was a Sichuan dish of tofu in a spicy chili- and bean-based sauce, as he considered himself well versed in Sichuan cuisine. The restaurant was located in an industrial park with tight parking, which caused some trepidation in Michele parking the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante. 

“How about we have something light before your examination,” Michele suggested and Noël nodded her head. He had room service bring up some oatmeal for Noël and short rib hash for himself. 

The clatter of his iPhone vibrating on the glass top of the table next to him a half an hour later broke him out of his thoughts. Michele swiped the glass and saw the iMessage informing him his escort and ride had arrived at the hotel. Michele texted his acknowledgement and left his suite to ride the elevator down to the tower lobby and walked to the main lobby that connected both towers. It took him only a few seconds to identify his escort thanks to the khaki Navy Service Uniform he was wearing.

“General Pagani? I’m Lieutenant Henderson. I’ll be escorting you and Miss Tachibana to NMCSD, sir.” 

“Excellent. Lead the way, Lieutenant,” Michele replied. He followed the naval officer outside and settled into the back seat with Noël of a black Ford Taurus with government plates. They exited the hotel onto 1st Avenue and drove north before turning onto C Street, which they then drove east before heading north into the urban forest of Balboa Park and Naval Medical Center San Diego.

Lieutenant Henderson turned onto the access road and flashed his staff credentials at the security gate and the guard on duty verified that both people in back were on the Official Visitors List for the day. Once cleared, they proceeded to the staff parking area across from Building 2. Once inside, Henderson signed Michele and Noël in at the Reception Area and the three walked through the Adolescent Clinic to a door identified only by a plaque with a four-digit number just above a security card reader.

A white corridor extended beyond, with more doors identified only by numbers with a security reader beneath them. Handler and cyborg followed Lieutenant Henderson two-thirds of the way down and stopped at one of the doors where the latter ran his card through the reader, waited for the light to change from red to green and hear the click of the lock disengaging, and then opened the door, the thickness of which did not go unnoticed by Michele.

Americans liked things large and that extended to their hospital rooms. The large windows and lack of furniture did lend the room in general an airy feel, which made the equipment clustered around the empty single bed seem like a physical barrier separating a patient from the rest of the facility.

Hovering over that equipment stood one Doctor Edward Kostas, director of this particular facility of the Rehabilitation Branch of the US Department of Homeland Security. His full beard and glasses gave him a professorial look and his deep tan implied he was able to spend a fair bit of his time out of the office, something the medical technicians back in Rome seldom seemed to have time for.

This was Michele’s second time meeting the doctor in person, his previous interactions performed over videoconference during the selection and configuration process for the cyborg he’d taken custody of three months prior in this very room.

“Welcome back, General,” Kostas greeted. 

He looked to Noël. “And how are you doing?”

“I am fine, Doctor Kostas,” she replied.

“Excellent. Please change into the gown. Once you’re on the bed, we’ll start the examination.”

Noël nodded and walked over to the gown hanging on a closet. Michele followed Kostas and Henderson out of the room to an adjoining room, Kostas dimming the one-way mirror to allow Noël her privacy. There was a knock on the door and a Filipino male in a junior enlisted Navy Service Dress uniform with Petty Officer First Class rank insignia on his collars entered.

“General, PS1 Panlasigui here will walk you through the debrief process,” Kostas noted. “We’re very interested to see how you feel Noël compares with the two SWA cyborgs you have experience with.”

“This way, General,” Panlasigui requested and they went down the hall and into a small office dominated by rows of metal filing cabinets that allowed just enough space for a desk and two chairs. Michele took the chair across from Panlasigui who removed a manila folder with a thick sheaf of papers inside.

"Let us begin," Panlasigui requested.



In the mid-2000s the United States became aware of the Social Welfare Agency, the fratelli and the cyborg program. Some speculated it was one of the many SIGINT programs run by the NSA while others thought that the various technology trades made for the benefit of the SWA had laid a trail. Whatever the reason, groups within the US quickly saw the value of having a cyborg program of their own and this program - christened The Rehabilitation Branch - was modeled in part on Section 2 of the Social Welfare Agency and the two agencies started to formally share information and technology on cybernetic enhancement of pre-teen and teenage girls.

The Rehabilitation Branch based their conversion and conditioning process on those originally developed at the SWA, though the Americans chose to be a bit less stringent with the latter. As with the SWA, the RB loaded a general compendium of weapons information along with basic firearms knowledge and operational proficiency. After taking custody of Noël, he’d had her spend two weeks honing her skills at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Prince William County, Virginia.



A few hours later Michele was allowed back into the hospital room.

“We’re just about ready to reactivate her,” Kostas indicated and Michele nodded his head.

The doctor flicked some switches and turned some knobs on the machines next to him and within moments, Noël snapped awake and popped up like a monster in a teen horror movie. Michele noted that, unlike the Italians, the Americans appeared to cover their cyborgs in a hospital gown.

“Identify yourself,” Kostas ordered.

“Noël Tachibana. I am unit series 053; block 8; age set 17; attempt 1. I am an agent with the Rehabilitation Branch, Department of Homeland Security, on temporary duty assignment to Brigadier General Michele Pagani of the Italian Air Force.”

“Excellent. We’re all set here, General,” Kostas observed. “We’ll see you again in three months, Noël.”

As he turned the Aston Martin DB9 onto the access road that led to the Social Agency Welfare compound, Michele reflected that it had been almost two years since his previous visit. Pulling up to the security gate, he handed over his old credentials. While no longer valid, they made confirmation of his name on the official Visitor’s List for the day easy and the guard raised the security boom and waved the sleek British GT through.

Michele took advantage of his visitor’s status to park in front of the Administration Building. Walking into the lobby, he approached the wooden and marble reception desk and identified a familiar and welcome face waiting for him.

“Ciao, Ferro,” Michele greeted with a wave of his hand.

“The Prodigal Son returns,” the elegant and attractive operations chief noted with the hint of a smile.

“I think your confusing me with your predecessor,” Michele verbally jabbed back. “How is Jean doing, by the way?”

“He’s good. The Director is ready to see you,” she added and Michele indicated for her to lead the way.



“I’m surprised you said ‘yes’,” Elio Alboreto noted as he handed Michele a glass of Irish whiskey. 

“To be honest, so was I,” Michele replied as he took the drink. “I suppose I could blame the jet lag, but as with Kara, I knew what I was getting into.”

The day that would lead to his pairing with Noël started at his condominium in Dubai, flying to Milan to visit his parents before driving to the Prime Minister’s private residence in Torino. Now in this third term as President of the Council of Ministers of Italy, the years had not been kind to his schoolyard chum though only those who’d known him for as long as Michele had could detect the subtle cracks in the persona Renato presented to the country and world at large. The Italian government’s battle against the separatists of Padania and the Five Republics faction, now tagged by the media as “The Years of Blue”, continued to rage. However, new threats were raising their head and the clandestine side of the Social Welfare Agency had been tasked to take them on, as well. 

One of those threats was the drug trade, especially cocaine. The 'Ndrangheta, or “Calabrese Mafia” after their stronghold in the Calabria Region, had become the most powerful – and one of the most violent – criminal organizations not just in Italy, but the world at large, over the past few decades and by some reports their illicit activities accounted for a measureable, if small, percentage of Italy’s Gross Domestic Product. A fair amount of the cocaine distributed throughout the European Union entered via the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro and they were also deeply involved with the producers in Columbia and the distribution cartels in Mexico.

Within the past year, reports started to reach the US government that those Mexican Cartels, perhaps as a pre-emptive measure, were seeking to obtain their own cybernetic technology, ironically in part through corrupted contacts within the Rehabilitation Branch and medical firms working on developing and producing cybernetic parts for the RB.

This brought the governments of the US and Italy together to enter into an agreement to cooperate on a mission in Mexico to disrupt the cartels efforts to secure cyborg technology. The Rehabilitation Branch found itself temporarily in the situation where it had more cyborgs than handlers and a former SWA operative now working as the head of the RB branch office in Chicago, Marcus Moretti, suggested that feelers be extended to the SWA to see if they could provide someone to temporarily serve as a handler until a permanent assignment could be found.

As he had done almost a decade prior, Prime Minister Renato Pisano went to his school-hood chum Michele Pagani and asked him to become a temporary handler to NoëlTachibana. And because he was one of Pisano’s oldest and closest friends, Michele had agreed.

After agreeing, Michele drove back to Milan, dropped off his car, and boarded another Emirates A380 to New York’s John F. Kennedy International. From New York, he settled into the back of a Mercedes S Class that drove him to Washington D.C. where he met with James West, the Rehabilitation Branch Chief of Staff, and Dominica Reyes, his right-hand woman and the person who he’d been communicating with in regards to his assignment and Noël. 

As the man who determined who was hired and who was fired, James had thoroughly vetted Michele’s resume and bona fides. His conclusion was that Michele had the skills and the experience to make an excellent handler, but he was not comfortable with the fact that his loyalties lay with Italy and his presence here was because it was felt by those higher up The Chain that closer cooperation between the Rehabilitation Branch and the Italian Social Welfare Agency would benefit both.

“Well, we both know the influence ‘old friends’ can exert, don’t we,” the Director of Special Operations, Section Two observed, indicating the office around him. Unlike the Prime Minister, Elio Alboreto did show the effects of his job, though Michele assumed a fair bit of the additional grey hair he’d added since they’d last seen each other was thanks to his cyborg Marisa. As a close friend of Pieri Lorenzo and Monica Petris as well as a senior handler, Elio had been the natural choice to become the next head of the agency.

“I was under the impression that the Rehabilitation Branch had their own facilities to train their operatives,” Elio stated.

“Yes. There are a number of military and law enforcement training facilities in Northern Virginia that they make use of and Noël trained at the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School. However, I’m more familiar and comfortable with Italian institutions so they cleared me to bring Noël to Italy to help sharpen her skills and let the Medical Branch have a look at her to compare her to our own cyborgs.”

“It was so much easier when it was just us with the cyborgs,” Elio noted.

“I’m surprised we kept it quiet as long as we did, but now I fear we might be at the cusp of a new arms race,” Michele observed.

“An arms race using modified children,” Elio added.

“Children have been on the battle field since Antiquity,” Michele noted.

There was a courtesy knock on the door, which opened to admit Priscilla Meleori, her cyborg Jay Valentine, and Noël.

“Your cyborg has some…interesting…ideas about food,” the blonde analyst and handler informed him. “Lucky for her it’s ‘Wacky Wednesday’,” she added, referring to the cooking team on duty who were big believers in the concept of “fusion cuisine” – the combining of elements of various culinary traditions into new concoctions.

“So I’ve noticed,” Michele replied. Back in San Diego, when asked how spicy she wished her mápó dòufu, Noël had held up five fingers so Michele expected serious heat when Noël held up her spoon for him to try a bite. Yet even though his personal motto when it came to spicing of “if I’m not crying, the chef is not trying” did not prepare him for the dish, which he expected swallowing molten lead might feel like.


Before heading back to their hotel in Rome that evening, the fratello drove over to the far side of the compound where the church, bell tower and cloister and chapter house of the old monastery were located. 

“What’s in here?” Noël asked as she and Michele approached a building with an ornate door crowned by a stained glass window.

“Ghosts,” Michele replied.

“Ghosts?” Noël said, immediately moving behind Michele.

The inside of the monastery’s mausoleum was spotless - the Agency cared for its dead as well as it did the living. 

“At least there shouldn’t be any spiders,” Michele added.

“Spiders don’t scare me,” Noël remarked.

That earned a wry grin from Michele, and he made his way to a section and slowly ran his hand across a specific row of plaques.

Angelica Toni…
Kara Michelle Pagani…
Fleda Claes Johansson…

Surprising everyone, including herself, Claes had almost reached her tenth year as a cyborg before her brain finally gave out, outliving not only her Generation One sisters, but also the first tranche of the Second Generation girls. The Medical Branch hoped that the data they had collected over that time would allow them to extend the lives of the current tranche of Generation Two girls beyond the current average.

“Who were they?” Noël asked, leaning forward to read the names.

“Think of them as your sisters-in-law,” Michele replied.

Hoo boy. Now I'm going to have to gin up a version of John's storyline so I can insert my material.