“Me? That’s ridiculous! I didn’t know that Kraken. Why I should have killed him”
The Futurist looks at me deeply. “Your though are shielded, Cicciotto. Nor my magic, nor the Hoods’ science can read your mind. That’s one of the thing that bothers us. That’s one of the thing that we both can’t explains. It’s a product of your special heritage? It’s your status as the Eternal Champion? We don’t know. That upset us.
Why you should have killed him? From what I know, and that is not much, Kraken was not thrilled… well, he was plainly adverse… to have him joining the Hoods. That’s why they tried to kill you during your escape from the EPS.
You see, the future has been altered… well, it has been destroyed in all of his paths… just mere months ago. Obviously, after it has been cancelled, it just began to rebuild itself from the present. New paths, similar or different from before…
But every paths that has reformed since then, converge in one point, not so may year from now… a path in which you become a world tyrant. There are factions, in both our two organization, that works to avoid that.
But after you gained Ladnikia, that option has faded. Your blade is known to be unstoppable, from every parallel reality in which she exist. Now both our societies want to accomplish it, having you at the head of one of the society. Actually, your coming will be the thing that will secure total and absolute victory to one of our party.
Only fools like Kraken…” the man lower his voice and comes closer to me “…or Aurochs among the Futurists want you dead”.
Words. Like always in this place, so many words.
Tyrant of the world. That’s a joke, I hope.
Aurochs. Where I heard this name?
“If I was the killer, why a gun, and not my blade? And where is the gun?”
“The answer to the –why?- is obvious, Cicciotto. Your blade is unique. The marks she leave are unmistakable. It would have been like you signed the killing. The gun is currently searched by our joined commission. In fact, either a Futurist, a Hood or one of the accursed Neanderthal’s bitches could have it teleported in and then out of the place. If we don’t find it, it’s a point for you, you are the one that less likely could have it disappearing.”
“Are there any other possible subject to be investigated?” I ask.
“You have someone in mind?” he asks, piercing me with his blue eyes.
“The woman… Demeter?”
“No. She is the guest, here. In fact, what has happened affects her the most. It strips her of much of her power. There is not any possible reason for her to do the killing.”
“Why? Who is her?”
“Just what she said to you. She is the mate of the Eternal Champion. She is your balance.”
“Ok. What I want to know is who she WAS, just like I was Edulcore Cicciotto, ex Olympic champion, ex junkie, ex owner of a restaurant. And how she has been endowed with the mission to host this gathering, and why and how the killing would affect her.”
The mage looks at me, than pull back on his chair.
“I don’t understand you. One second you seems the most ingenuous of the men, the next you asks the right questions. You are amazing me, sir.”
Uh? What does it mean? What he is trying to make me believe? Is he trying to gain confidence? Can he really think I am so easily deceivable?
“To respond to you question, Cicciotto: she has been found after a long research across the whole planet. Who she was is of no importance. She has been found when she was an infant, two years old, by a joined expedition of Hoods and Futurists, and then raised to be host of our annual meeting. She is empowered to be the guarantor of the neutral ground. Now, with what has happened, her role will be revoked.”
Annual meeting? “Annual meeting, you said?”
“True” he says, nodding.
“But… you are fighting from the beginning of time itself. How is possible you have annual meeting?”
“It’s just from four thousands years ago we have. It’s needed, since the world became so complex. Until the beginning of the bronze age, we were doing just our business, clashing here and there, putting one tribe versus the other, making people moving and discovering inhabited places… but when empires began to be built, there was a need to planning far in advance. And when we both discovered the way to look to the futures… we had to start to agree on some rules… not to wipe away reality itself. A thing that sometimes happens even today. Not many moths ago, one parallel Earth got destroyed during one of our uprising… we unleashed to many mythic creatures on that Earth… after a giant appeared in Paris, the planet got destroyed… strangely enough, two human managed to escape… one of the girl of the Neanderthal and the Georgio which was stalking her. We lost their tracks, sadly.”
Nadia! Her story is true, so?!
“So, you meet to secure some future and disregards other?” I ask. The man says he can’t read my mind, but it’s that true? What if he is able to, and told me that just to have me thinking to things he shouldn’t know? Nah, he wouldn’t try to make me feeling fine, like he’s doing.
“Basically, yes. We bring what we know about futures where we both societies disappears, mostly thanks to the effort of the Paleolithic bastard. We study them, find the origin point of the temporal path and make sure there is one of us, Hoods or Futurist, to avoid it when it should happen” he explains.
“You change the future operating in the present, you mean?” I ask.
“Yes, that’s a lot more convenient… and safe… than traveling the timestream”
Silence.
“Can I go, now?” I ask.
“Sure. You are still the suspected number one, tough.” Then he comes closer, just like he did before.
“Rest assured, that if you are the actual killer, the thing will be highly appreciated by the Futurist Society, and you will be granted secure refuge from the fury of the Hoods. Remember it” he whispers in my head.
I leave the place. When I am back in my room, I look outside the window. Just like I suspected, my room is exactly one store over the room where Kraken has been killed. The man died in the same moment Nadia left me, jumping outside the window. And nobody seems to know she was here.
Just when I am thinking this, I raise my head.
On the outside wall, standing at an impossible angle, a man is looking at me.
