Futura: Parallel Universes. Book 1

by Valerio Malvezzi

  The Vietnamese woman will loosen her trendy windbreaker, unbuttoning her belt.

  I’d like you to get a lot more comfortable than that.

  The black man will continue to speak in a doctoral tone.

  “Which we did,” the overweight man will add. “According to our recording, at some point something went wrong. Someone ordered the route change, but our operator still changed that of the mobile explosive in real time. We were close, very close.”

  The dog on the shoreline will join the two young people, the girl evidently its master. The boy will throw a wooden stick about ten steps away, and the dog will run to pick it up, pulling it from the surf.

  “Good, great theory. Too bad the top floor of a building in the center of Rome was devastated. A van crashed into the crowd thirty meters below, with six injured, including a one seriously, not to mention one of our good operators becoming nothing but a grease spot. Jesus Christ, and you call this our best option?” The woman will stare her interlocutor in the eye.

  “It could have been worse,” the man with the tie will respond curtly.

  “Ah, really?”

  “Of course. What’s in their hands? An explosive you can find in the last bar on the Egyptian border. The wreckage of a stolen van, as well as the monolifter. Electronic devices that can be purchased in any specialized center and a corpse that, barring unforeseen events, will not reveal much of the operation to them,” the man with the tie will respond, poking the stick in the sand.

  “I find your sarcasm out of place.” The woman with dyed hair will approach, lowering her voice. “What do they have in their hands? The initiative. That’s what they’re holding. Now all the services of the world know that someone tried, for unknown reasons, to kill the Pope. They will all be on their guard, they will exchange information with the police, and the Vatican Gendarmerie will receive reports. They’re going to change the programs. What’s in their hands?! Holy Christ.”

  The overweight man will rise, sweeping away the drawing on the sand with his shoe.

  “Go on. At this point, discussing what happened is useless. The news reported it as a failed attack on a gold currency value carrier. The police themselves helped to keep the truth from being divulged.”

  “The problem with a quarter opening report is that some students do not consider that the style can’t be journalistic. It is necessary to use a logical sentence structure. The methodology of structuring the text is as important as the management of sources and footnotes, you understand. It is never advisable to present a personal opinion to a committee. I suggest instead shielding yourself behind the opinions of the author, almost looking at it in a detached way. By the way, what was the exact step you wanted me to look for?”

  The black man will look, smiling and surprised, at the black cylinder thirty inches from his right eye. The woman will pull the trigger, and his face will shatter like a broken egg on the wall.

  Whiley will run down the alley and go out into the street full of people. People will take to the sidewalks, entering and leaving the shops, trying to shelter themselves from the rain. Whiley will raise his eyes to the sky. It will be raining harder. In the air, the colored stripes of the flying cars’ headlights will be seen painting arched trajectories as they enter the road branches. After a few meters, he will reach a small square not far from the silo, running under the trees, and enter the building entirely of glass, inside which dozens of students will be reading at common tables. Dozens of video screens will be embedded in the antique furniture that adorns the place with classic taste. Shaking his jacket in the entrance, he will wipe his feet and enter, stopping to talk to an official behind a mahogany desk. A terminal will be pointed out for him. Whiley will take a card out of his wallet and put it in. Sitting in front of the monitor, he will look absent-mindedly at the clock. The watch will mark 10:23 a.m. when he looks to the person in charge. A little ugly girl, with freckles and a headband in her hair.

  A shot fired from a 44 pulse with a silencer will produce no more noise than a loud cough. The Vietnamese woman will open the door and see the girl with raven hair with her back turned, working at the holographic projector in front of the lit fireplace.

  The overweight man will shake the sand from his shoe before resuming talking.

  “Throughout the episode, the press was silent. There’s no evidence of an attack. And we staged the news well to give it to the press. One of our guys recorded the fake hologram from under an attack on the value-carrying van. We fell on our feet.”

  “But we fell into a sea of shit,” the redhead will repeat, “and judging by the wave you have raised, gentlemen, I would say that it looks like a tsunami.”

  The elegant man will descend from the pier, among a group of tourists, holding only one carry-on bag. He will climb into an airtaxi parked just outside the pier, pressing a button on his translator embedded just beneath the skin in his left forearm, and tell the driver the hotel address. The Greek’s answer, a simple “All right, sir,” will come to his ears translated into his requested language, English, spoken by British Southeastern male voice number eighteen. The taxi will move to the altitude reserved for these vehicles, which in town can travel just twenty meters above the ground. From the airtaxi window, the elegant man will see, a few meters away, a blue dome on an octagonal tower, with windows on each side.

  The building will stand out, very white, against the blue of the sea, and the white cross will be confused for a moment with the white of the waves raised by a hydrofoil departing in the distance. On the parapet at the foot of the monument, a group of four tourists will watch the scene. The modern reception antennas and support ramps for the aircraft will be the few signs of modernity in a place that will seem anchored to the past. The airtaxi will pass over a neighborhood of pink houses, with rounded shapes like cakes, the elegant man will think, that seem to remotely recall a human appearance with mouths of brown doors and eyes of windows framed with white. The taxi will then move along the island, flying over a complex of houses downhill to the sea, with the prevailing yellow and white colors, broken by the gray of the stone staircases. The man will enjoy the landscape, relaxing without thinking about the reason for his visit.

  The Vietnamese woman will walk silently, trying not to creak on the wooden floor, and open the entrance door. The blond man with the light raincoat and the man with the leather jacket will pass in front of her.

  With the barrel of the weapon, she will indicate the door to her right, the one with the fireplace, and the one further to the left of the corridor, in front of the large meeting room. The blonde will pull out the pulse machine gun from under her raincoat and quickly enter to the right. She won’t even need to wait for the collimator, as the girl will be less than three meters away, intent on observing a plowed field in the holographic projector. The silenced burst will project the young woman in a crimson cloud into the holographic images, causing her to gasp violently. For a moment, the flames of the fireplace, the images of a plowed field, and the girl’s body will merge.

  Whiley will observe the files projected in front of his face, and begin to move data and information with his hands, moving catalogs and lists. In the end, he will find the text. An old essay on the world’s demographic projections, dating back at least twenty-five years. He will get up and go to the physical shelf, where he will find the copy of the book. He will briefly consult the index, verifying that the content is that requested by his colleague. He will stop, sticking his hand in his pocket, but will not find his personal device. Then he will look into the other pockets and stop as if to reflect. Slightly annoyed, he will go to the mahogany table.

  “I would like to send a copy of the book archived with number 1252, shelf seventeen, pallet A, in digital and holographic version, to the following address: Dr. Richard Palmer, Department of Social Research Methodology, office thirty-six, please,” he will politely tell the girl behind the counter.

  The girl will smile courteously under the freckles.

/>   “Code?”

  The brush-cut man will pull out the machine gun from under his jacket, casting a look to the right in the large, empty meeting room.

  The overweight man will straighten his shoulders, still shaking the sand from his shoes.

  “Well, I mean, besides giving us operational management lessons from behind your desk, would you have any better ideas?” the man in the tie will ask.

  The woman with dyed hair will look at her nails.

  “Certainly. I’ve had it before, to make up for your sins.”

  The man with the tie will remove the stick from the sand, shaking it, and then absent-mindedly tapping it on his cream-colored trousers.

  “And are you going to share your thinking, or have you made us take this trip to show us this pleasant beach?” he will ask, steepling his fingers.

  “The operation got out of hand. We can’t use any other usual resources. I have eyes on me, and a rifle at my back. The other day with the committee, a couple of ministry inspectors asked awkward questions, although, of course, they were striking out randomly. Officially, our section does not exist.”

  “Come on, a couple of inspectors have never scared you so far,” the overweight man will assert, then stand up and look at the sea in the distance.

  A girl will run to the beach in a sports outfit.

  “You’ve never put me in a position to be afraid, so far,” the redhead will reply dryly. “I would still like one thing to be clear, gentlemen. If I fall, you will follow me on wheels, straight down. And if we continue to follow your best options, I’d say that the chances of that event happening are considerable.”

  The two men will look down.

  “So, I’m taking command of the operation. No plans will be presented by the section without my review.”

  The man with the tie will stop moving the stick and approach the woman. “I don’t think you have the authority to make such a statement, Martha,” he will say softly.

  “Apparently the old man doesn’t think so. He gave me a special level six authorization yesterday,” the woman will answer, lowering her voice, and approaching in turn. “Do you want to see it?”

  The Vietnamese woman will follow him, with the long gun in her hand. The man will open the door ajar to his left, shooting several bullets, almost instinctively, emptying the magazine, pointing the barrel all over the room. Eight pulse shots will send Ricky rolling over objects on his desk, causing many red spots to bloom on his back and chest. Ten empty shots will break the plaster on the wall while the barrel rotates with a loud hum. At the end of the run, fourteen more shots will make little Sue dance for a long time, ripping into her breasts, arms, throat, and face. The Chinese woman will collapse to the ground like a pile of wet rags, dragging down a small table with some metal figurines and flower pot.

  The girl with freckles will be very courteous. “I’m sorry, sir, but such old texts don’t always have a digital version. We need a holographic scan, but if you can wait, I’ll do it with the machine in the back.”

  Whiley will look at the clock. “Will it take long?”

  “No, let’s see.” The girl will gently leaf through the old volume with expert hands. “It’s almost three hundred pages. With the automatic, I would say less than twenty minutes.”

  Whiley will shrug his shoulders, looking at the dispenser next to the counters at the bottom of the hall, among dozens of students.

  “All right, I’ll have coffee in the meantime.” He will sigh.

  “Can’t you stop all this noise?” Professor Borman will suddenly come out of his room on the right at the end of the hall. Harpsichord music will invade the now silent hallway. For about two seconds the man will consider the scene of an Asian woman he has never seen before, dressed in black and with a long gun held in her hand, kneeling in the middle of the hallway. Then, somewhere in his brain, his military training will induce him to run towards the bathroom door to his right, opening it and quickly turning the lock behind him. The Vietnamese woman’s boots will produce a loud noise as she runs along the wooden floor down the hallway, reaching the door.

  The man with the tie will stand up, throwing the stick in the sand a couple of steps away.

  “Tell us what we came here to do, Martha,” the overweight man will intervene diplomatically, returning to sit gently on the deckchair, which will sink into the sand. “Why did you bring us here?”

  “I didn’t choose the meeting place. Our resource chose it,” the redhead will answer dryly.

  “Do you mean that the resource is not at our branch?” the man with the tie will ask in astonishment.

  “No. The old man decided to use an external one. He instructed me to search for the best. I’ve been working on it for the last couple of weeks. I’ve heard a little bit of the usual, Chinese and Israeli, but also the Indians. In the end, a shortlist of only seven candidates came out, and the old man chose this one.”

  “Shit, two weeks. And you didn’t tell us anything!” the man with the tie will shout.

  “Should I have?” the woman will ask. “You know how these things are. We’re not a committee, and we are not even in the context of a Democratic congress. The fewer the people who know, the better. And judging by how you two handled the Rome operation last month, I’d say the old man wasn’t wrong not to trust using an internal resource.”

  For a few seconds, the two men will be silent.

  “One by contract, then. One for rent with the other services,” commented the overweight man, brushing his breeches.

  “A whore, then,” the man with the tie will snap.

  The redhead will burst into a bitter laugh.

  “Oh, I am very sorry to have bumped into your deep sensitivity. I didn’t know you were going to the Ursulines again.”

  “And what would be special in your prize list,” the overweight man will ask, reclining on the deckchair, “to merit the old man’s attention?”

  The woman will look at her perfect nails again.

  “Simply something that you two are lacking,” the redhead will answer. “This one has never made a mistake, so far.”

  She will shoot two shots at the lock, and follow with a violent kick. The door will open with a crash. The man will have already opened the bathroom window on the courtyard balcony, and with surprising agility for his size and age, will already have his left leg on the windowsill. The Vietnamese woman will think for a fraction of a second, knowing that she shouldn’t shoot into the glass. She will suddenly aim the weapon. The shot will reach the man’s right knee, shattering it into a thousand fragments. The man, shot in his supporting leg, will collapse with a terrible shout backwards in the center of the bathroom, grabbing his wounded leg with both hands. The woman will walk to the window while the man screams, writhing on the ground. The woman will quickly look into the yard, closing the window calmly, then lower the gun. The man will continue to scream, writhing on the floor. She will shoot the two shots that will stop his heart and look at his eyes opened towards the ceiling, then up at her two armed companions looking at her from the bathroom entrance.

  “One is missing,” the blond will comment in a German accent, calmly reloading the machine gun.

  The woman will climb over the corpse, avoiding placing her boot in the blood on the blue tiles, pass by the two men, enter the corridor, and look around the rooms. In the end, she will sigh. He will look at the clock: 10:25 a.m.

  “We’ll find him. We have already wasted too much time.” The woman’s voice will be dry, calm and rational. “Clean up. Three minutes.”

  Outside, the rain will beat monotonously on the shiny sandstone tiles.

  The airtaxi will fly over the white houses, following the line of the hill sloping into the sea. The elegant man will look at the stairs winding down between the palm trees. The vehicle will pass by a double white column, with two horns bending outside, surmounted by a square cross, under which is a bronze bell in a gentle arch, brightened by a ray of sunshine. The airtaxi will fly over a
road descending with a series of elbow bends outlined by brick walls, passing two white buildings with blue spherical roofs.

  Next, it will gently fly over a square with some palm trees on the sides, full of people, with a white building with many windows surmounted by an octagonal dome with a blue roof, and on one side a triangular structure with six bells on three floors. The taxi will land shortly afterwards on the roof of a prestigious hotel. The elegant man will pay and descend, then follow the gray brick stairs that will lead to the reception desk, positioned in a hallway with a beautiful view of the sea, sparkling in the reflections of the afternoon sun.

  “Good morning, sir, do you have a reservation?” The girl at the counter will not need the English translator.

  “Booking GL384,” the man will answer affably.

  “Thank you, sir. International identification code?”

  “EUD278783HR13KVPLMR,” the man will specify, confirming with the first 3 letters that his origin is from the political area of the Eurodollar.

  On the girl’s video screen will appear the face of a man about thirty-five years old, light brown hair combed to the right, a pair of well-groomed sideburns on a slightly elongated jaw.

  “Welcome, Mr. Palmer. Your friends left a message,” the girl will smile. “They say they are waiting for you in the beach area, behind the pool.”

  “I’ll catch up with them soon. I want to take a shower in the meantime.”

  The man with the tie will observe with disinterest the Greek riding the first of a row of mules, tied together by a hemp rope, which will cross the beach amid the curiosity of rare tourists, in the distance.