Page 8 of Gunslinger Girl

“There’s no harm in being careful.” She did another sweep.

Her initial elation was receding, leaving her unable to shake the itch of pursuit. They had left the main road almost immediately, the Ranger taking on the grassland with faultless mechanical grace. Here and there they had passed the skeletons of structures, the cracked remnants of old roads, but mainly the terrain had been flat, repetitive. At dusk they had made camp near a line of trees following a stream.

“Let’s go to Columbia first,” Pity said, changing the subject. “Just to see it. My mother used to say she’d take me there someday.”

“Really? I’m surprised she’d want to go anywhere near Columbia.” Finn tossed the wrench back into her bag. “Given who some people think she was.”

“Stop it. There’s no secret there. Everyone knew she was a sniper, and if she hadn’t been fertile they would have strung her up with the Patriots they tried for war crimes. Anything else is old gossip.”

“Gossip or not,” said Finn, “some folks swear she was a Reaper.”

“They say that about anyone who is a half decent shot.”

“And you think she would have told you if she was part of the deadliest, most hunted squad of assassins in the war?”

“Yes.” Pity lowered the rifle. “I do.”

Did you kill people?

Pity didn’t remember if it was the first time she had asked the question, but it was the time that stuck in her mind. The war had been over for a decade by then yet as ever present as the harvest, visible in scars and missing limbs and endless, haunted stares.

To her credit, her mother had replied honestly. Yes.

How many?

Enough. At first, Pity hadn’t thought she’d say more. Her mother had been quiet about the war, saying little more than she had guarded supply depots until near the end, when the conflict had crested to such ferocity that fighting was unavoidable.

I tried not to kill anyone who didn’t need it, her mother had continued, words sober, shared at a time when she still held the advantage in her battle with the drink. But when an entire battle came down to a moment—to when taking one life might turn the tide and save a hundred—well… that’s when a decision needs to be made.

“By all accounts, the Reapers were vicious, unrestrained,” Pity said to Finn. “My mother was a lot of things, but she wasn’t that kind of killer.”

Finn shrugged. “Columbia it is.”

Pity raised the rifle again and sighted the empty bean can she had set up two hundred yards off. Its contents simmered over the fire next to her.

“What?” said Finn.

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

“Something is still bothering you.”

Pity steadied the rifle. “It’s nothing.”

“Liar. You tell me.”

She sighed. “What currency we’ve got between us isn’t going to last long. We’ve got no contacts and no official transfers. There’s always need for a good mechanic, but what am I gonna do? I kept house and worked in the dairy sometimes. There are no cows to milk in the cities.”

“I’m no expert,” Finn said, “but that doesn’t look like a cow’s udder in your hands.”

The bean can floated in the crosshairs. “There are no walls to walk in the cities. And I’m not joining the military. That doesn’t leave too many options.”

Finn rolled her eyes. “Serendipity Scupps, whatever you find can’t be much worse than what you left behind, right? So stop worrying and—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“Scupps. I don’t ever want to hear that name again.” She thought for a moment. “My mother’s name was Jones. I can get a new name along with a new life, can’t I?”