RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block Hero Revolution Special [Eurostar & Turner: Soaring over madness]

It hurts.

It hurts everywhere.

Skull, ribs, legs, back. The pain is especially hard on the arms.

That damn bastard of Walker. What he has done to me?

How much time has passed?

I was tied to a laboratory table. And he was babbling things… about metas and humans.

And I was… crying? Yeah, I was crying. I remember the pain… I remember how I was feeling.

Guilty. Responsible for the holocaust. Of metas and norms.

I remember it all.

I remember the syringe. I remember how I was hoping for it would be poison. To end my miserable life.

Now not. I was so confused. Walker making me feeling guilty for what Rothman did. Walker making me think he was the hero and me the criminal.

He, who goes around to enslave metas, chaining them with explosive collars, and keeping one years old baby from the only legitimate… relative… he has.

The bastard!

What has he done to me?

I must find.

I run toward the closed door.

And CRASH over it!

Acute pain. What happened? Why I did not cross it, just like every other time, in ghost form?

I touch the wall. Solid, massive. Only, I shouldn’t feel it this way. It should be tender as butter for me.

I punch the wall. Damn, that hurts. I can’t become superdense.

Walker has done it! He has cancelled my powers!

The bastard! The devil. That piece of rotten shit, may he be damned for eternity.

I look at my bare hands, at the flesh, at the muscle and bones that I imagine inside.

I am a normal man?!

A “norm”, like my friends used to call the people from the surface. That’s madness.

I can’t be a norm. I don’t want to be a norm.

Not until I manage to free Eddie.

“Hi man! Still in love with green thumb Blondie?” an unexpected voice comes from behind me, from the inner part of my cell.

I turn.

Raven hairs, a big gun in one hand, a bizarre backpack in the other, blue eyes, but almond shaped like an oriental. I saw her before, but where?

What has just said? Ah, she was referring about Vidalia.

Vidalia. That whore. Vidalia. Vidalia. Vidalia. It seems impossible, but the woman I loved most has died yesterday. And today whatever I felt for her, it’s gone like the wind, like it never was. Lies. This place is full of lies. This place is a lie.

So, it was really her power to keep me chained. Well, at last it was fun. The sex, I mean.

“Well?” says the woman, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I am past that” I whisper.

“Ok. Take this. It works for two person, just take Eddie and go away!” she exclaims, handling me the backpack. I notice for the first time that she wears a similar one.

“How it works?”

“Just put it on, it will connect to your mind!” and saying that, she disappears.

“Who are you?” I shout, and when she is barely visible, I herd a name. Nadia.

OK. Let’s put this on. I want to leave this cell. The backpack is looking alike the one Crasher was wearing when she came here, I guess they works for the same organization.

A zap, and I am on the corridor, outside the door of my cell. Good, it works. Another man could be impressed, but it is not really different than phasing trough the walls.

Now I have to find Eddie. The playpen.

I zap there.

Eddie is walking on his knee and hands across the room. There are no guards.

“Still messing up things, Cicciotto? Raise your hand and be still” says a voice behind me.

Fuck. This time I am dead. Really dead.

Then, another voice: “Don’t dare to touch my buddy Cicciotto.” On the door appears Turner, a sarcastic smile on his lips, his fedora shadowing his eyes.

I can’t believe it, he really has come.

[ 07-25-2002, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]

Agent Turner stepped between Edulcore Cicciotto and the EPS Agent Andrew Reynolds.

“What are you doing Turner?” Andrew asked, already knowing the answer. “You disgust me.”

“You better light up quick little ‘glowworm,’ because as I proved a few months ago, you don’t want to mess with me.”

“Same could be said from me,” the voice was crisp and old, that of William Marcy Tweed, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Cicciotto, get your son, and get out! I’ll do my part.”

“Thank you.” Edulcore said, much to Turner’s surprise, given there past.

Turner than lifted his right arm and sent thousands of volts through the body of Andrew Reynolds, blowing apart his gun and sending the young man’s body to the ground in a heap of convolutions. He’ll survive, but need a ton of aspirin in the morning.

“Tweed, old man,” Turner began, with a smile on his face, “Show yourself.”

The electricity flying around Turner’s body seeped back into him, “How about we do this with no powers.” Turner tightened his fists, “The ex-government agent, verse the ex-mafia boss.”

Tweed slowly reappeared, a grisly smile upon his face. Cracking his neck, “Bring it.”

The two soldiers met in the air, Tweed slightly over powering Turner and crashing him into the doors, busting them apart. Turner fought back with an upper cut and a quick backhanded punch. Tweed spit out a little blood and fought back, catching Turner with a punch to the stomach. Turner clutched his teeth and continued his barrage of punches to Tweed’s face.

Both men fought offensively, letting the other man get shots in. Turner smiled as blood flowed from his own nose, his smile grew larger as the bruises on Tweed’s cheek spread and covered most of his face.

Edulcore watched from across the room his clone in his arms.

Turner landed another punch on Tweed, this one all but taking him out of the fight. With a quick reflex of the hands, Tweed pulled a gun and shot Turner twice in the chest. Turner paused for a second and grabbed his chest with his right hand. His eyes lit up red and electricity shot from his glowing eyes and struck Tweed in the head.

Tweed, for the first time he could remember, yelled in pain before passing out.

Turner held his wounds and fell to the ground, he was half conscious, but couldn’t get up.

Footsteps could be heard getting closer, Walker would not be happy.

Turner is on the ground, his hands over the chest, blood spilling out.

Voices are coming from the outside corridors, I clearly recognize Walker’s.

Eddie, my son, finally in my arms, for the second time in my life. Crying.

Zap.

Eddie was in my arms. It was my best chance, the best chance I ever had, in the few months I have been a “guest” here, to take him and bring him to safety. Away. With me.

But the person I am holding now it’s not Eddie. It’s Turner.

What could have I do?

Leave him there? Could he have defeated all of them? Maybe. Could he have survived? I don’t know.

But Walker is a strange beast. He seems to know all and well in advance, sometime I have the impression that for every thing that he doesn’t like he is able to turn back the clock and undo it. So I made my choice.

I touched Turner, and activated the Gaia Unit, the backpack the mysterious woman gave me. A backpack that is really a pocket teletransporter, and I bet much more. That girls, she and Crasher, have access to a technology much more advanced to the EPS one. Who are they?

And who is this Turner, that first appeared me just after my “abduction” by Malvan X, telling me lies to have me surrendered spontaneously to the MCCA, and then attacked me and the Circus on our way to Thunder. And now he has just saved my life. He knew that I would have brought him, and not Eddie, to safety.

I am too good. It will get me killed, one time. I am sure.

The Gaia Unit burns over my shoulders. A few instants, and the gray nothing that surrounds us disappears, and we are on a meadow, a gentle breeze bending colorful wildflowers, pines not far, a blue sky over us.

What’s this place?

Turner has passed out completely. He is loosing a lot of blood, he has two bullets in his chest.

I shred my EPS suit, to make bandages for him.

Evidently the Gaia unit has shorted out. Made for a man and a kid, didn’t supported the weigth (the masses?) of two adults. If I don’t want Turner meet the same end of this device (what appropriate tough for an electrical being) I need to find a doctor.

There is a small track crossing the meadows, heading down the slope, toward the pine forest. I hope it will bring me to a village.

I take Turner over my shoulders (oh my God, how much he weights?), and follow the footpath.

[ 07-07-2002, 10:44 AM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]

The air is cold, and a gentle breeze brings me the scent of the pines.

I never ever noticed how the world can be so… beautiful.

The empty, blue sky dome, the green, fluorescent grass, the flowers, red, pink, white and violet, the occasionally snake following closely a small mouse, a deer in the distance, and a solitary raptor flying in circles high above me.

The black wall of pines closes the scenario, and after it, only the tall peaks of blue mountains in the distance.

My eyes go back to the hawk hovering me.

It’s… I don’t know. Instantly I realizes that I don’t know the name of any of these things… of these beings… flowers, trees, animals… I would like to call them, but I don’t know.

For all the years of my life, they were a simple backdrop of my existence, now I am aware of their own life. I feel completely ignorant.

A smell. A very singular smell, crossing at right angle the footpath. Footprints, oval, four toe with short claws. Red furs, on a nearby trunk. A fox has passed here?

The run of a moose. I am near a… what’s the English name? Una palude… a bog? A pond? Ducks take flight.

It’s craving from life this place. I love all of this. How could I have never cared for this, before?

Maybe all the months spent underground with the EPS… or in the darkness with the metas in the sewers… who knows.

I raise my head, to look back at the hawk. It’s still there, patrolling the place, looking for something to prey on. It has grace, and power unexpressed. I feel a bond to it…

I don’t know how much I have walked.

The sun was low when I left the meadow up in the mountain, and now it has crossed the sky and is back low, near the horizon. Soon it will be evening.

But something hit my nose.

Smoke.

I follow it.

And I see it.

A log cabin, on the shore of a neat, little lake, big spruces behind it.

A thin thread of smoke coming out the chimney.

[ 07-07-2002, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]

Somewhere in British Columbia, Canada.
The summer cabin of Dr. Henry Quantos:

Henry "Doc" Quantos sat at his computer, waiting curious while an image sent to him earlier in the day began to take form. The image in question was sent to him from Kit Piper, a VHS tape of a news report from the crisis in Chicago. A metahuman who helped to save some people and stop the revolts was allegedly mistaken for the late Edulcore Cicciotto. Henry knows this is impossible, because he saw Cicciotto, the Eurostar, die with his own eyes. The image finally took form, a metahuman in a red uniform was saving a bus full of nuns from another metahuman.

A red uniform. But his face is blurry. Could this really be Cicciotto?

Henry highlighted a small section around the metahuman’s face, and clicked enlarge. The picture slowly enlarged, and got clearer as it got bigger. Most computers would not be able to do this, but Quantos was always able to get the best and latest technology offered. The face was finally clear, right away Henry’s eyes widened.

“Turner?” he said in a whisper, recognizing the man in the picture. Why would the ex-MCCA field leader, who was thought to have been killed in the MCCA Massacre, some how wind up in Chicago saving lives in uniform? The MCCA have not reformed, Quantos would have been notified of such.

Who could he not be working for? How did he survive the incident at the MCCA headquarters?

Henry picked up the phone and pressed the button to be directly connected to the MBL. Shirley picked up the phone, “Hello, MBL Consulting, how might I help you?”

“Shirley, this is Henry, tell the guys I have bad news. The metehuman in Chicago was not Edulcore.

“No? Ok, I’ll let them know.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem ‘Doc’.”

“Have a good day.”

Henry hung up the phone and continued to wonder what was really going on. Before he could react, his front door flung open and two figures appeared for out in the cold. Henry took a gun from his draw and moved closer to the two men.

“Whose there, what do you want?”

“We need help, this man has been shot.”

The voice was recognizable, but who was it?” The Doc couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Stepping into the light, Henry stopped short, at his door was Edulcore Cicciotto, with a very injured Agent Turner over his shoulder.

"Sir, we need help!"

[ 08-06-2002, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: GoozX ]

The face of Quantos had to be seen.

It was like he was staring at two ghosts, after they have ringed at the bell of his front door.

“Edulcore? How? When? Wheren’t you…” I don’t remember his exact words, but they were along this lines.

I, too, was amazed. How can, of all the place in the world, have gotten right at the door of the only man in the world able to fulfill all… and I mean ALL… our needs?

It was Quantos himself to point me at a possible answer. The Gaia Unit should have been programmed to bring me, in case of danger, to a place where I could have found help.

He said that never actually saw a Gaia Unit, but that Captain Nemo once reported him that the Mandelovian security agency had something to do with an agent wearing one of that, years ago.

Quantos produced a map of the area, and had me indicating the exact point where I left the broken Gaia Unit. “If I recover it, maybe I can restore it, and maybe also reproduce it for the MBL” he said.

The MBL?

And so, while he was preparing the surgery table for Turner, he explained me all that went after my supposed death. The destruction of the Circus, the foreigners ban in Mandelovia, the offer of a young Caribbean guy of having my friends living into his complex, and the set up of a business in the exploration field.

And the name they took.

MBL.

A coincidence? Only Tobias and Mxy should remember that name was appointed to our group from the beings that compose Naecken. And that MBL was the name of the team Nowhereman was constantly referring to. Nowhereman... where he will be, now?

Then, it's my turn to tell: the last minute rescue by the Time Trust, a being that Quantos knows very well, my services at his duty, totally erased from my memory… my debacle during the incursion in the EPS Headquarters, my capture, and the time I spent as an EPS agent, till the end of the Revolution and my escape.

“Well, Turner should be OK. The bullet did no damage to internal organ, he is very tough. He needs some days of rest, and then he will be fine. I also found this chip in the neck. However, it was not connected to the nervous system. ”

" Yes, I did some... work over it. Now, better destroy it, Doc" I explain.

We put Turner in the spare bed of the cabin. I will sleep on the floor.

But first we sit in front of the fireplace, whisky in thick glasses, the eyes wandering over the flames.

“You have been trough Hell, son” whispers Henry.

“Yeah, Doc. But my only regret is that I haven’t been able to rescue my son. Ehy… have you still that picture of him?”

“Sorry, no, it was buried with the building collapsing, back in Mandelovia”.

I remain silent, than I say “The only thing I remember of the time I spent with the Time Trust is that he promised me a new body, help for rescuing Eddie and a place to hide him from Walker. He gave me a new body, but not the rest. And the body, I have lost it…”

“Uhm… well, I can assure you that the Time Trust always maintain his promises… the only problem is that time has no meaning for him, so it could takes months, or years, to see that accomplished, Ed”.

“Yes, I suppose so. But my Eddie, in the meantime is there. He now is over one year old, and I bet he never have seen the sun. At last he had a sort of mother in Vidalia, but now that she’s gone…”

We both remain silent for some minutes.

“It’s time I announce your return to your friends, Edulcore. I have a direct internet2 connection to the MBL.”

“No, Doc!” I shout. “Sorry, but I don’t believe it’s a good idea. The EPS has powerful devices. I don’t know if they know where the MBL is, but for sure they are scanning the whole of the global communications nets to find us. If what you said me before about the PSI Unit in La Perdita, there we should be safe, but not here, and not until we get there. So, no words about our presence, please, Doc.”

“Sure… yes, I see… but that means I can’t get provide you with La Perdita passports. You are an illegal alien here and in the USA as well…”

“I know. I… we will have to reach La Perdita the hard way.”

“You plan to bring Turner with you?”

“What can I else do? Leave him here and go away alone?”

“Why not? In a few days he will be fine.”

“No, you don’t know the EPS. They have invisible agents, metas with uncanny powers over the elements. They are better trained that us “revolutionaries”. At last than how I remember them… No, I want to bring Turner to La Perdita. I want to give him a chance. When we’ll be there, he will decide what to do next.”

“Have you not though that it could be a trap?”

“A trap?”

“Yeah, he could have merely faked a fight to follow you and find the location of the MBL.”

This never stroke my mind before. Could it be? “Nah, Doc. Faked the fight? With two bullets in the chest? No, I don’t believe it.”

“I hope you are right, son.”

I look at the sleeping Turner. He saved my life. I want to trust him.

“Better to go to sleep, son” says Quantos.

“Yes, Doc. But… can I ask you a last thing?”

“Sure.”

“You are a scientist… maybe the better one in the world…” (He smiles) “Do you know the name of all the animals and plants that live around here?

He laughs. “No, Ed. There are hundreds of thousands of species of fungi, insects, lichens. Even specialized biologists are able to recognized only families of those orders… they can manages a few thousands, nothing more. But I am able to identify all the vertebrata, that means mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles and amphibians. And trees and shrubs. There are only a few hundreds of them, it’s easy, with a little practice, to learn to recognize them.”

“How?”

“With books. Like these.” He goes to his library and takes out a few little books. “They are called Field Guides”. He hands me one.

It’s about birds. Pages and pages of illustrations of birds. “All the birds of the world?” I ask.

He laughs. “All the birds of western north America”.

I flip through the book. And I find it. Red tailed hawk. The raptor hovering over me, this afternoon.

“You can keep the book, Edulcore. I have plenty of bird guides”.

I thanks him, and go to bed. I can’t sleep. I am too fascinated by the colourful illustrations…

[ 07-12-2002, 02:54 AM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]

It’s three in the morning when I leave Doc’s cabin, with Turner on my back. I don’t want to wake up Henry, we have given him too much trouble already.

When the EPS will be here… because they will come, I am sure… I know Quantos will have means to defend himself. He doesn’t know where we are heading, they should leave him without harm.

What yesterday I mistake for a small lake, was an inset of a big river, running to the south. The Lillooet River, I read on the map I borrowed from Doc. It run in the Pacific near Vancouver; we’ll descend it with Quantos’ canoe. Fourty miles before city, we’ll cross over to the other bank and then, by foot, reach the USA border.

If I stay clear from town and roads, it will be difficult for the EPS to find us. I have provisions for three days. I hope for then, that the EPS will have lost our track, and to find a way to get a faster mean of travel. In the backpack I have also two complete change of wear, that Quantos prepared for us last evening, before going to sleep.

The night is clear, thousands of stars shine in the black, moonless night. A distant call of coyotes. Gloworms in the grass.

I laid Turner in the canoe, push it in the water, and jump over it. And begin to row.

Thanks, Doc. I hope to see you again, one day.

After two hours, Turner awakes.

“Where… are we?” he whispers.

“Vancouver” I say.

“Eh?”

“Vancouver, somewhere in Canada, and we are heading for the Caribbeans, Turner” I joke.

He closes his eyes again. The he reopens them, and stares at me:

“You saved my life” I say.

He seems to remember. His hands goes to the chest, touching the bandages over it. “It seems you saved me, too” he says in a low tone. “We are even…”

“What do you mean? That I don’t owe you anything more? Sorry, but I never understood that concept, when I read it in books. If I save your life a dozen more times, I would always owe you mine.”

He takes his fedora, cover his face, and soon is back to sleep.

Chicago

"WHERE ARE THEY?!"

A thick hand pounds Walker's desk, causing the scientist to jump a little in surprise. Then, a calm smile spreads over Charles Walker's face.

"Excuse me, Mr. Tweed," Walker said, adjusting his spectacles on his nose. "I wasn't aware that you were standing there..."

"Where did Turner and Cicciotto go?!" Tweed demanded. The man had seen better days, that much was certain. His fracas with Turner had left his face battered and bruised almost beyond recognition, with a minor concussion, two broken ribs, and a colossal headache that would likely last him until the end of the month. He'd gotten off lucky, that was certain.

Walker paused a moment, regarding the man solemnly before he continued. "I don't know," he said finally, picking up an ink pen and beginning to make a note on a data readout.

"You 'don't know'?" Tweed bellowed, smiling incredulously as he shook his head. "Lovely! Just lovely! The man with the plan, Dr. Chuck Walker has lost the world's perfect agent who ran off with a liberation-minded Italian 'superhero' who specializes in delusions of grandeur!"

Walker stopped writing and looked up at the ranting Tweed. "Are you done?"

Tweed scowled and slowly lowered his aching, bandaged form into a chair.

"Now, you say you managed to shoot Turner in the chest before he and Cicciotto escaped, correct?" Walker asked, putting down his pen and steepling his fingers. Tweed nodded. "That means that our friend, the 'Italian stallion' is most likely hauling Turner around to... wherever his destination is. That's liable to slow him down considerably. We must also remember that Cicciotto is a cook and an athlete, not a doctor or a medical professional. That means that, at some point, he'll have to stop at a hospital, which I'm monitoring very closely."

"So, what you're saying is that they won't get far?" Tweed said, raising his eyebrow.

"Maybe they will..." Walker said, raising his eyebrow. "I might intend for Cicciotto to get where he's going..."

Tweed smiled and tapped his temple lightly with his index finger. "Always thinking, aren't you, Walker?"

"That's right," Walker said with a smile. "Now, go check on Reynolds. I want to make sure he's in fighting shape should anything arrise. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Tweed said, standing, nodding his head as he turned to exit.

"Oh, and William..." Walker said, causing Tweed to look over his shoulder at the seated scientist. "If you ever call me 'Chuck' again... don't fall asleep..."

Tweed smiled uncomfortably and nodded. "Yessir," he said quickly and exited.

"Shouldn´t we help him, father?"
"No, dear. He needs this time to heal and find his purpose in life. And besides, you´re not fit for any field operations...my little Crasher." The ancient man smiles and turns the screen showing Eorostar and Turner in the canoe.

Turner opened his eyes once again; they were almost ashore. Using most of his strength, he puled himself upward, leaning on the side of the canoe. He picked up the two extra ores and put them into place, helping Edulcore to move toward their destination, wherever that might be. Edulcore didn’t tell him to stop and relax, knowing in advance that the ex-agent would not.

“So, do you have a first name?” Edulcore asked, unsure if he would even get a response.

“Once I did.” Much to Edulcore’s surprise he got an answer, “But it was nothing but an illusion.”

“Yeah? It seems like the last two years have only been an illusion, or a bad trip.”

“Ironically, that’s about my age.”

“You’re TWO years old?” Edulcore could not contain his surprise.

“Two. Three. Maybe four or five.”

“If you don’t mind my asking-“

“I’m a clone.”

Both men were silent for a moment.

“Ehy? … Knell?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“So.”

“Eddie. You love him don’t you.”

“As if he were my son.”

“But he is nothing but a clone. Made in a lab by a psychopath.”

“He might be a clone. Made from my genetic material. But when I look into his eyes I see much more. He lives and breathes. He is not I, but his own person. He does have a soul.”

“God did not make him. Man did.”

“If God did not want him made, he would not exist.”

“You hold so much faith in something that seems so false.”

“Much like Eddie, you too have a soul. Is that your fear? That you should not exist?”

“I have no fears. I was MADE that way. My powers; unnatural. I should not exist.”

“Yet you do. If God wanted it any other way, that’s how it would be.”

The melodrama of it all suddenly got to Turner, and he could only laugh. After a few seconds, Edulcore joined in the laughter.

Finally, they reached land. Getting out of the canoe, Turner paused for a moment, then left his fedora.

Mount Baker, 3285 m.

USA.

We have just crossed the border, travelling trough a virgin forest of spruces and other kinds of evergreen. Luxuriant, imposing, and humid.

It always rains. We are wet through.

We have walked for two days, after we left the canoe. Avoiding roads, choosing the wildest places, finally we have reached the US land.

But now we have ended our provisions, and we can’t reach La Perdita walking. On the other side of this mountain there is a medium sized town, Bellingham, north of Seattle. There, we’ll need to find food, and maybe a car. We can’t use trains or planes, we would be too easy to be seen.

But now, we must pass the mountain.

Turner had not say anything for all the day. I would ask him many questions, especially why he attacked me and my friends, way back when we were travelling with the circus. We had just find a home there, finally belonging to something, after many days of running away from our many enemies. And the sense of peace and rest that the circus gave us, was taken away all of a sudden by Turner.

I hate him, then.

Now, I don’t know.

The revelation of him being a clone is… overwhelming.

I could imagine how he could have felt when that was revealed to him.

Yet, I still don’t understand why he attacked us with such a rage.

But I am not asking. I am beginning to understand him.

It’s strange, I never have been a good judge of people. Many managers have stolen my money, back when I was an Olympic star, without me even noticing.

Now it’s different. It’s like my instinct has changed. I feel… the world, I would say.

What I am saying? Maybe I got a fever. With all this rain.

We are out of the forest, we are at a quote too high for trees. A big meadows extend in front of us, reaching the rocks and the glacier of the top of the mountain.

And there is a tent. A campfire.

And a man waving to us.

I look at Turner. Without saying anything, he nods his head. So we go toward the man.

*****

The man is Frank Line, ornithologist. He welcomed us with a pot of hot soup, and a dry place to rest, his spare tent, where sometimes a colleague of him stay when joins Line in his researches.

He is studying the eagles of this place.

“The bald eagle?” I asked, proud of showing my few, recent notions on wild birds, due to Quantos’ field guide.

“No, the golden eagle. Are you a birdwatcher?”

“A novice”, I responded.

After the dinner, the sun peeped out of the clouds. Turner had just got to bed, finally giving up to his fatigue.

I was looking at the setting sun, when I spotted a distant bird flying toward east. “That’s an eagle, Frank?”

“Where?”

“There”. I pointed my index finger toward the right place in the sky.

He raised his binoculars: “I still can’t see anything”.

“It’s there, I see it clearly”.

He went to the tent, coming back with a long telescope. He settled it, on a heavy tripod, and after a minute: “Yes, it’s there! But I can see it only at sixty enlargements! What kind of vision do you have?”

****

After the night came, we sat at the fireplace to talk. Frank was alone from more than a week, and was happy to have someone to chat with.

He inquired about my provenience, my Italian accent is heavy. I explained that we are hikers, Turner is a friend of mine, burglars stolen our backpacks days ago and now we need to reach the next town.

He talked me about his life, his son, his ex-wife, his job as a researcher at the Seattle University and such.

Then I notice a small wooden crucifix hanging from his neck.

I hesitate, than ask: “Do you believe in God? I was thinking that biologist are all atheist…” My last talk with Walker springs to my mind.

He looks at me perplexed. “What make you believe that? I was atheist, and I came back to faith as I began to delve into nature. The might of creation for me is a proof of the existence of Gods.”

“Ah, so you are a creationist. This explains…” I stop, because he is laughing mad.

I look at him, puzzled.

“No, I am not a creationist. I believe in evolution, and I believe in God, too. In our Lord Jesus Christ. Is that strange, for you?”

“Actually, yes. A… friend… (the idea of calling Walker friend send chills along my spine)… a friend of mine considered evolution a proof of the inexistence of God…”

“I don’t see why. I’m not sure, but I think in the Bible is told that the sun rotates around the Earth, Galileo was condemned for that, and we know that is not true. On the side of evolution, we have fossils that tell us that many animals of the past… of millions of years ago, have become extinted, replaced by new ones…”

“But it could have been God to have created things this way, as… as a challenge to our faith…” I say.

He pauses for a minute. “Good point. But I have an objection: we are currently experiencing evolution. We have species of plant and fungi that didn’t existed two centuries ago, and that have appeared differentiating form old species. An occurrence quite common of little island. Plus, there is human selection. From the wolves, man has select all the races of dogs, small, big, heavy, light, long, short etc etc. A dalmatian or a corgy have not been created by God. It’s man that has chosen to reproduce some animals to propagate some characters. Evolution just works the same way: natural selection. Not by man, but driven by adaptation to changing environment.”

I don’t know what to reply. But in the eyes of the man I see the passion for the natural world I am so attracted now, and the genuine faith in God AND man that has driven me so far.

The dark castle of machiavellism and selfishness that Walker build in my heart finally collapses under his unsustainable weight.

And although the sun has set two hours before, I see it at the end of my road.

Last night, I had another strange dream. The dark dwarf, the being that so often come to visit my dreams, arrived, took me by his hand, and brought me outside the tent.
There, he began to fly, and I was up with him. Then, he disappeared, and I was falling, until I noticed that I had wings, and that I was flying by me.

That wouldn’t be really strange, I had at last a similar dream before (or was it reality? It was when I discovered I was able to leave the “elemental body”. But this brings a question: the dark dwarf is a product of my imagination, or is it real?).

The unexpected thing was when I woke up, because in the sleeping bag I found a feather.

An eagle feather, said Frank Line, but of a species not American. He was marveling at how it could have been there, but I wasn’t able to give him an explanation.

We left the ornithologist’s camp early in the morning. Now it’s four hours we are walking. We have gotten to the other side of the mountain, and now we are coming down, toward the city.

Just before to leave, Frank Line, clearly embarrassed, said us to be very carefully desecnding the mountain.

When we asked why, what could have been there so dangerous, he said only one word: “Bigfoot”.

Turner began to laugh in an uncontrollable manner; Line was deadly serious, and I was staring at both of them without understanding.

The Turner grimaced, and looking at me, said: “American Yeti. Abominable Snowman! Buhh buhhh!!!

“When local people told me his presence here, I said the same. But then, he destroyed my first camp. I haven’t actually seen him, it was a moonless night, but the footprints all over the place were quite telling…” said Line.

“Bah. If we’ll meet him, I know how to take care of him” said Turner, still laughing. It was a closing sentence, and he departed, followed closely by me. After a few steps, I turned back, to see Line still shaking his head.

Now, we are walking across another piece of virgin boreal pluvial forest, with spruce taller than seventy metres.

The ground is a carpet of mosses, very wet from yesterday rain.

Every one in awhile, I spot wildlife. A woodpecker hitting a trunk, the steady flight of a goshawk.

I flip trough the pages of Quantos’ field guide to give a name to every bird I say. Turner makes jokes of me for this. I don’t care.

There is something else than the birds, tough. It’s something that blurs from a tree to the next. It’s always in the remote corner of my eye, when I tunr to see it clearly, it’s gone.

It’s nearly three hours that I am experiencing this.

“Someone is following us. And it’s not a bigfoot” says Turner.

“So I am not seeing things” I say. “It’s three hours that I see something behind us”.

Turner looks at me impressed. He should have noticed quite after. He is looking around, trying to find some evidence in the growing dense mist, that raises from the ground.

“Are you sure it’s not the bigfoot” I ask. I don’t see why in a world where demons pop up every months or so, a bigfoot should be regarded as a child thing.

“Bigfoot doesn’t exist. It a man. Someone who’s stalking us from the dark.”

What a day, this day.

In the morning, we become lost in the mist when we tried to find any clues about the mysterious man stalking us.

Turner suspected it was someone from the EPS. I don't believe it, because taking the tracking chip from him, Walker shouldn't any way to find us. He kept saying that I still don't understand how many resources Walker has. I believe that they, the EPS agents, are all overestimating Walker.

After all, Crasher and that Nadia have means far superiors than that of the EPS. I am not able to imagine who could they are, but still they seems to work for the good of the metahumans, without harming the norms. Who knows?

After all, what happened today reassured me of my choices and of my beliefs, the ones that always separated me form Walker.

It was around noon, when we arrived near a log cabin at the rim of the forest. Just outside the door, there was a corpse. The dead body of a man on his fifty, torn to pieces from the action of what could have been a wild animal. At last that was what we though at first.

Then, we found them. Footprints. Big footprints. I looked at Turner, but he didn’t say anything. He, too, was worried.

The footprints were following the footpath we had to walk in order to descend the mountain. Then, in a steep and rocky part of the track, they became less evident to the point they disappeared altogether. The sun was hitting the hard surface, making it hot as fire. We had to took away our shirts.

We were, at that point, walking on a narrow ledge on a rock-face, when the unexpected happened. From above, a furry man jumped over us, howling and growling and roaring.

I remember being thrown out the ledge, and falling, and then nothing.

I didn’t know how much time passed when I opened my eyes. Turner was near me: “I wonder how could you have survived” he said. I get on, and he showed me the point from where I fell off. At last two hundreds meters straight down. It tooks two hours, to him, to come to the place of my fall.

And I had not the slightest bruise.

“Are you cold?” asked, then, Turner. I looked at him, unable to understand the joke, since the atmosphere was still very hot. But it was no joke, Turner pointed his finger to my harms. My skin was like goose flesh.

We slowly reached the point from which I fell down, on the footpath.

The cadaver of the bigfoot is there, killed by the usual shot of lighting produced by Turner.

“See? The Bigfoot doesn’t exist, Cicciotto” said Turner.

It was his black eyelids to explain the truth. It was a victim of the Pathogen.

“Maybe it one of the ones I infected at the SideShow. So that I can have also his victims on my conscience” I whispered.

“The Pathogen is proven harmful only over normal humans, Cicciotto. This had to be not a metahuman” said coldly Turner.

I looked at him. “Who said that? Walker? He doesn’t know all. The Pathogen is lethal over norms, but on metas makes the metagene to manifest at full potential. It’s a catalyst for the alpha class metas; but it also made them mad.”

“How do you know?”

“I have seen that in the Revolution” I whispered.

Turner looked at me deeply, but didn’t said anything. He knew that I am still not ready to talk about it.

We buried the madman under a pile of rocks, and resumed our walks toward the foot of the mountain.

And now we are still walking.

“Maybe the stalker was on the Bigfoot tracks, not ours” says Turner. “If it was really one of the one we infected, Walker should knew about him and should have sent someone to stop him killing norms. Maybe it was Steve Richards, or Tweed.”

“Anyway, he spotted us. We should take some unexpected turn. But not before we reach Bellingham. We need to buy food” I respond. And then, an idea suddenly hit my mind.

“Turner, what do you need to buy a car in America? Beside the money, I mean.”

[ 07-19-2002, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]

“Nothing.” Turner answered as they made their way towards the streets bellow.

“What?” Edulcore asked, curious to Turner’s answer.

“We don’t even need money.”

“But?”

“Trust me on it.”

Turner walked away and Edulcore followed.

“Wait, Turner, you don’t mean?”

Turner approached a Jeep Wrangler, a ’99 model, new but dirty from the off roads.

“sorry, but desperate times call for desperate measures.” Turners eyes lit up and energy surged through the car and its engine started.

“I can’t do this, I don’t need another thing on my conci-“

“This is what they pay insurance for. Not only will they get a nice sum of money, but they will be able to buy a NEW jeep.”

“Oh. In that case.”

Edulcore jumped in and they began driving down the road.

“Where to?”

Before Edulcore could answer, the beast was back with a vengence, it jumped directly in front of the Jeep. In a split second, Turner pushed Edulcore from the car. Upon impact with the beast, Turner and the car went up in flames.

Edulcore could only watch in horror.

[ 07-19-2002, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: GoozX ]

I look at the jeep in flames.

I feel fear. I am scared.

Only days ago, I would have jumped right in the fire, to take out Turner.

Now I can't. I am a normal human, now.

And the monster? We buried that bigfoot under a pile of rock! How could have he returned? There are more of them?

Cicciotto got to his feet wiping dust and dirt off his clothes. Than he noticed a figure rising from the firey blaze of the jeep, the "bigfoot," the monster, the madman.

Could it not be stopped?

Cicciotto was frozen, was this creature able to take out Turner. Possibily, one of the world's most powerful men?

Than anothr figure rose from the fire. The smaller figure grabbed the larger one and electricity erupted from his hands, blowing the figure at least 20 feet away into the side of a building.

By now the public was in fear. Small town cops began the circle the two figures in. Cicciotto knew that this was NOT good.

“Fire! Fire” I shout, pointing at the “bigfoot”. “It tried to kill me”.

Soon, all the crowd is screaming. The hate for metahuman, after Chicago, is maybe at the highst point ever in this part of the world. Sadly, it’s evident that Turner, also, is a meta.

While the cops begin to shot repeatedly the madman, I run toward Turner, followed by many bystanders, now determined to make justice by themselves. It’s a gamble, I know, but what else could I do?

I am still the faster one, like in the old time. I jump over the former MCCA agent, and faking a fight, I whisper in his ear “Don’t make resistance and trust me. I beg you”.

Soon the others are over us, and begin to kick Turner. Hate is a stupid thing, they are so blinded by fury that don’t understand that he could fry them like he did with the bigfoot.

I shout: “Let’s kill him! Any of you have a gun?”

“I have one!” “Me too!” “Me two!”

Fuck! This is America, not Italy. Improvise, Edulcore! “Ok, ok, let’s kill him, but in a safe place. We don’t want the cop to arrest us”.

“Yes, he’s right!” “True!” “But he has a funny accent, don’t you think?”

“Where do we bring him?” I shout.

“There!” “Behind the trees!” “There’s Old Pete’s cabin” “Sure, good idea!” “Let’s go!” “Cool!”

We bring Turner there. Before even a single gun could be produced, all my “buddies” are electrocutioned, barely alive and reversed on the ground.

“You though this from the beginning, Cicciotto?” asks Turner, wiping dust from the coat.

“Almost” I say, smiling.

From behind the trees, we look at the police finally taking down the monster. He is really dead, this time? Who knows.

The rest of the day is easy to sum. We exchanged dress with two of the knocked out guys, and went to the town. Turner wanted to steal another car, but I stopped him. That would have easily gotten the police on our tail. Instead, with the money found in the pocket of our new trousers, we bought two Greyhound ticket for Los Angeles.

Now we are sitting on two of the last seats of the bus. We have just passed Seattle, next stop is Tacoma. I have no idea how many hours it will take to arrive in California. And then? Would Mexico be safer than the USA? It would be easy to enter illegally from North to South? Or would be better to arrive, who knows, at New Orleans and then find a job on a fishing boat to arrive at La Perdita?

Well, there will be time to think that later.

Turner have been silent until now. “You didn’t hesitated to push the police into killing that meta, Cicciotto…”

I looked at him, surprised. “It was him or you, you know. You believe they have really killed it. Him. Whatever”.

“It has survived a charge of millions volts. I don’t know if bullets are really useful over him.”

“He has the plague… the Pathogen. It could spread to the population, and infect the normal people”.

“If it was one from the Sideshow, Walker knows, and he is thinking up something right now, Cicciotto”.

“Yeah, I can imagine. Probably he’s going to nuke up the whole county”.

“The end…”

“…justify the means. Shit.”

“Why did you left, then?”

“I had to save you. And me. You know what could have happened, staying there?”

“I know, but one week ago you wouldn’t have said the same, I believe. You would have tried to save all the town by yourself”. He smiles sarcastically.

“Then, I could have. With my powers, you know.” I pause. “And probably it would have ended in a disaster.”

He laughs.

“I have changed, Turner”.

“I know, Ed”.

It’s the first time he call me by my first name.

[ 07-25-2002, 03:46 PM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]

Los Angeles

We walk down the darkened streets of the city of angels, a unique name for such a city. Working with the government I learned all too well the secrets of such a place. Things that would make normal folks go nuts, put bullets in their own heads. This City holds such dark secrets.

Murder. Rape. Kidnapping. Suicide. Muggings. These are the crimes of a normal city, town.

I WISH those were the worse things I have seen here. The title City of Angels. So very ironic, as with the demons I have seen in people here.

The Metagene? Maybe. Hell demons? If I believed in hell I would say so.

I wonder how Cicciotto would react to the truth of this city. In a twisted way I believe it would reinforce his faith. I wish I could see things through his eyes, if only for a day. I have seen too much pain, have gone through too much. Faith. People reinforcing what they think they should believe. If they really believed these so called facts, than they wouldn’t need “faith,” they would simply be content with what they know.

“Follow me” I tell him, the first thing I have said in the last hour. We are both tired and healing, slowly at least.

We enter a bar, I can think of NO better place to relax for a little bit. If we stay in the shadows, we will not get unneeded attention from the local police. Something I don’t think we can afford now. Not until my jobs finished at least. Hopefully, we can stay away from what hides in the shadows. I doubt it, but I guess I can hope for the better. Even if I don’t believe it.

We finally make it to the bar, I place two finger up. The bartender knows what I want from the look in my eyes. Eddy doesn’t agree to my surprise.

The whiskey is poured. The bartender leaves the bottle close. I can’t wait to see how he reacts when he finds out we can’t pay for it. Ed half laughs, he is thinking the same thing as I am. “Cheers,” We both drink. When our glasses hit the counter top, I sense Cicciotto curious about something. But he stops himself from asking it. He has done this multiple times over our travels. I know what he wants to ask. I just don’t think I have an answer he wants. I guess I could give it a try, in a way I owe him that.

“You want to know why I attacked you and your friends.”

I am straight to the point.

“Yeah, I would like to know.”

I take my time, pouring us both another glass.

“Truth be told. I didn’t plan on attacking you.”

This raises an eyebrow from he, but he doesn’t question me.

“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Isn’t that how it always is?” his voice only half serious.

“I guess so.” We drink again. “I had found out the truth, about myself. My past was a fairly tale. I was a creation of a madman for a madman. Everything I ever believed was false. Ed, have you ever lost everything?”

He nods his head, “My metagene. It cost me the honor of my country. It cost me my faith for a time being. I turned to drugs to ease the pain.”

It appears we are a bit more similar than I would have ever thought.

“I lashed out to say the least.” I pause and pour us another drink. “In a dark twist, I fought back at the world that created me. Truth. Justice. Faith. I lost everything. I could only hope for revenge. After all I lost myself, I never even had what you would call a soul.”

He attempts to interrupt me, but I sign for him to give me another minute.

“Ed, I killed my ‘father’ and hundreds of other people. I took down the whole MCCA complex. Who knows how many of them were just as innocent as I thought I was. Family men, working to support their families. Also fighting for truth and justice.”

Ed is silent. I drink again. He doesn’t, he’s in deep thought. I guess it’s a bit of a surprise to him that I took down the MCCA.

“So. Still think I got a soul?” I ask.

I pour myself another drink.

After a brief pause he answers me.

“Yeah, I do.” I don’t answer, how is he gonna explain this? “Turner. We are not perfect. We only do what we can. What we believe is right. We all have darkness within us, that is what being human is. A soul does not equal good, but gives you a choice between good and evil. What direction you take is up to you.”

Now, he drinks his glass, and then continues, “In the arena. I saw you kill children. I would have never done that; years ago I would have thought you were a soulless bustard. Recently, I have found out that the world is not as black and white as that. Our soul is what causes the gray area. I couldn’t have killed those children. But for their own sake it NEEDED to be done. If you were soulless as you say, you would not have thought twice about just leaving. Or killing mass amounts of people with no guilt.”

I listen. Taking everything in.

“When I look into your eyes I see pain. As you just told me about those you killed, I could feel the guilt that you feel. If you’re soulless, so am I. Every life taken in Chicago is on my shoulders. Til the day I die, I will be fighting to redeem who I am and what I stand for. Now the question needed to be asked, is will you do the same?”

I am silent, I raise my glass with out saving a word. He knows my answer even without the words spoken. We drink and slam our glasses onto the counter. I turn and the bartender has a rifle to my face.

“You meta freak! This is for my fellow HUMANS from Chicago!!!”

The bartender goes down, as the ashtray from our table ends between his eyes.

The peoples in the bar freezes, surprised. Turner looks at me, stunned by my aim. And I, too, am stunned. In the endless EPS training session, aim has never been one of my quality.

This time, I reacted without thinking, and the ashtray ended exactly where I hoped it would end. Only, I never even took aim. I throw it, and it happned.

It seems that I have still some skill, I am not a norms, hopefully.

I look at Turner. He looks around the room, smiles and whispers: “RUN!”

We are out the bar and in the shadow of the streets in a spiffy.

Some of the people from the bar are running behind us, but a few turns and Turner manages to have them lost.

In the distance, we heard police sirens. They are looking for us.

“What do you think? We head for Mexico?” I ask.

Turner pauses, thinking: “No, I don’t think it would be a good idea. We need money, if we hope to get to the Caribbeans. And the place to make moneys is not far.”

After a few minutes, we “borrow” a car, and head for Las Vegas.

Hours later, we are on the Strip, when a police car comes besides us and order us to stop.

“Shit”, whispers Turner, and…

Turner’s hand lights up in a fury of electricity. A crooked smile upon his face. After a look from Cicciotto, Turner lets the electricity disappear into the air.

The officer steps up to the car. Tilting downward, the very large dark man looked into the car. After a brief pause he lowered his glasses.

“What’s the problem sir?” Ed asked from the passenger seat.

“I don’t know if you men know this,” The officer looked both men over, his facial expressions never changing. “But your taillight is out.”

Turner just laughed as Ed made up an excuse.

“Sorry sir, we have been on a long road trip. A rock must have shot up and hit the car or something.”

“It’s ok. I’m going to let you off with a warning this time. Get it fixed because next time you will not be so lucky!”

With that the officer left.

Turner stuck his head out the window, “Have a NICE day!”

With a laugh, Turner speeded off.

The officer returned to his car to her his radio blazing with information.

///”Two dangerous metas have been spotted moving toward Vegas in a stolen car. A gray civic with it’s taillight out. Please be advise that they are living weapons and are extremely dangerous.”\\\

Quickly turning, the car with Turner and Ed was gone. Only a trail of smoke was left in their wake.

Soon, the now usual sirens of the police begin screaming behind us.

“Uh uh” I say.

“Stay cool. Have you seen what happened before? Who knows who they are pursuing!” says Turner.

A bullet crashes our rear window.

“I believe they are pursuing us” I state.

“Fuck!” is Turner’s answer.

I never liked those American movies and serials where dozens of polices car pursue a single car, that always manages to avoid the capture. Now I am right in that situation. And still I don’t like it.

But Turner doesn’t seems afraid. I wonder how many time he has been in this same situation, maybe only on the other side, being a pursuer and a not a pursued. It’s strange, I should care about other things, but I cannot notice that’s the first time I use the words “pursue”, and I now I am saying it every second word.

I am sweating cold.

“Jump out!” scream Turner.

I open the door and roll out. The car continues straight his run, ending in a fountain shaped like a giant pyramid. The police cars stops around it, but we have jumped out while the car was crossing a narrow street between two blocks, so we were in the shadows and they didn’t see us.

Now we are hiding among some trash bins.

“We need to stay covert for some time” whispers Turner. He hand me some money.

“Where did you find those?” I ask, but he make sign of stay silent.

Still whispering, so low that I can barely understand him: “They were in the car. Now, listen. Find a whore, and go to her apartment. Make sex or just talk to her, I don’t care, but stay at her apartment for at last three hours. We’ll see again here, at midnight!”

I would reply, but he runs toward a busty brunette, walking on the other side of the street. They contract for some seconds, and then they left.

Shit. I never went with a prostitute, before. Well, in truth, I did. Vidalia was a whore, Walker revealed. But I didn’t know, and, anyway, right then he was an agent like myself. A prisoner, like myself…

There is a small blond girl, not far. Great legs, great ass wrapped in tight plastic pink shorts.

I run toward her, she is looking at the opposite direction, I touch her shoulders, she turns back to me.

A face I know well.

Lorelei!

Las Vegas, Nevada

A skinny man in a trenchcoat and fedora leaned in a back alley of the Vegas strip. It's always difficult to find a dark spot in a city so well lit with neon lights, but this time, he managed. The man reached a gloved hand into his trenchcoat pocket, pulling out a sheet of paper. One the paper were sketches of two men as described by several eyewitnesses in a bar in Los Angeles. They were the two escaped metas, names of Edulcore Cicciotto and Turner... just Turner.

The man glanced across the street at the place where, just seconds before, a grey Honda Civic with California plates crashed into the fountain outside the Mirage Hotel and Casino.

The same make and model that was being reported mere seconds ago over the police radio, which the shadowy figure had been listening in on through his earpiece...

And that could only mean one thing: Cicciotto and his friend weren't too far away. Taking a turn around a corner, the man adjusted his dark sunglasses, ensuring that his eyes were covered. Cramming his hands into his pockets, he walked in the opposite direction of the car accident.

He hadn't walked far when he saw a man in a trenchcoat meeting Turner's description walking away with a hooker at his side. A few feet away, Cicciotto cautiously approached a hooker in a leopard print shirt and pink pleather pants. Pressing a button on his earpiece the man whispered toward his chest, "You got 'em?"

"Affirmative," a voice whispered into his ear through his earpiece.

"You take Turner, I'll tail Cicciotto..." the man whispered through the mic on his lapel.

"Roger that," the man's earpiece echoed. "Maintain radio silence. 2B02 out."

Agent 2B10 nodded as the quiet static began to hiss in his ear. He casually sidestepped into another dark alley and awaited the former Eurostar to make his move...

“It’s Loretta, now” whispers the young woman, staring at me like she’s watching a ghost. “They... they said you died”.

What should I say? Reveal her all? She didn’t knw my secret identity, back then, in the circus. Thinks, Edulcore, and fast.

But it’s her to take me out of the trouble. “Edulcore Cicciotto, ex Olympic runner and superhero”, she says, smiling.

“You know?”

“I believe I knew right then. You and your friends always disappearing in the strangest moments, and the stunts of the Revolutionaries always in the same place visited by our circus...”

“Lorele... Loretta, sorry, can we talk at your place? Right now I should be away from the street...”

She looks at the police lights, in the distance. “Always with cops on your tail, eh?”

“It seems” I whispers.

A few minutes later, we are in her apartment. A dirty hole, I would call it.

“Why are you here, Lori?” I ask, after she closes the door.

“Wong dumped me out of the show, Ed. After an... incident... here in Vegas, I lost my powers. You remember. I was a contortionist, but my ability was metagene induced. And it went away just like it come. Wong didn’t think for a minute of keeping me with him and the show. I was on the street, and I am still here”.

“Come with me, Lori. I am looking for my friends, they are somewhere in the Caribbeans. Leave this life. With the help of a friend, I am planning of making a lot of money quickly, and leave.”

She looks at me, puzzled by my offer. “Eddie, are you a thief, now? It makes sense, with your powers...”

“I, too, have lost mine, Lori. No, I am not a thief. We want to play a little with the slot machines. My friend has a ace up his sleeve”.

Her face, that for a little had lighten up, like he had a sort of revelation, is back at the sad smile she sported since the first moment I saw her on the street. Yet, my offer seems to interest her.

“What Casino do you plan to visit?”

“Boh? I don’t know, I mean, I never have been here before. What Casino? All! Many, at last. I want to make a lot of money.”

Lori looks at her watch. “We go?”

“No, it’s too early. I have to wait at last three hours here, before. The police is looking for us.”

“Three hours? To stay here you must pay me, Ed, I am sorry, but my pimp will disfigure me if I not bring him the money!”

“I have the money, Loretta” I whispers, taking out of my pocket the roll of dollars Turner gave me.

“It’s OK, so” she says, looking at the money. With a gesture of the hand, she invites me into her bed. “You seems tired, Ed. Come here, hon..”

This is the moment I feared. What I should say? Back at the circus, just before my “death”, I was in love with this woman. Back then, the word was our big top, and I was thinking that life would have been mine forever. I could have never been so wrong. Now what I felt for her is gone. There is still... tenderness... for her, but the love is gone.

So much I have seen since her. Above else, a face keeps returning in my mind.

Vidalia.

Oh, how much I loved her. And it was all a fake. She was enchanting me. But I would have given my life for her.

And then it come the Revolution, and all those deaths on my shoulders. Metas, and norms, and among them, Vidalia, killed by one of the man of Rothman, and her body used as a bomb by Walker.

I have been through so much madness.

For the first time, I realize I am so tired. So tired of running, of fighting, of talking.

Who am I to always judge what’s good and what’s bad? What difference I could ever hope to make?

I am sot tired... and this woman invites me to rest in her bed.

I unzip my pants.

And she quickly kneel in front of me.

Oh well, I will rest later!

He awoke from the best sleep he´d had in in years, to the noise of sirens and someone knocking on the door.
The knocking was hard and persistent.
In a hazy state of mind he looked around and took a bearing on his situation.

Loretta was beside him, covered in blood.
Her abdomen had been opened and the knife was still in the bed.

The knocking on the door was joined by a sharp voice;
"This is the police...open the door!!!"
******
Outside on the street a young man on a motorcycle smiled as he talked into his comm unit;

"This is Giorgio, the old man´s new future recruit will be out of the game before he even knows about it."

"Well done, come home and await further orders."
"Yes, Sir!"

He starts the bike and leaves, satisfied with a job well done...

There is blood everywhere, all over me.

Loretta is dead.

I am naked.

And the police is ramming at the door.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Fuckety fuck!

There is only one way out.

And no time to think.

I jump.

Outside the window.

The ground is four story down.

Three.

Two.

One.

One.

One.

One.

I am dreaming?

I am dead?

I AM FLYING!

I am totally naked, and I am flying in the Vegas night, under me millions of colored lights, and three cars of the police in the alley next to a five story building, where my ex lover has been killed.

By whom?

Why?

Why I am flying?

Then I notices.

I have wings.

No, better, my arms are wings!

I have feathers sprouting out of my arms, rows and rows of feathers, like the birds in Quantos’ field guide.

I am a bird man.

A human eagle!

This is not making any sense!

Flying is not easy. It’s like I ever did, but still it takes a lot of struggle. It’s like swimming, I feel the resistance of the cold desert air over the complex surface of my wings.

I feel the microscopic streams of air flowing trough the opening between each feather. I observe how I can change direction simply making slight movement with my feather covered fingers.

It’s like the dream I have in the mountain.

Yet, this is reality.

Turner!

I forget about him.

I look at the city below me like a map.

Easily I find the appointed spot for the meeting.

I close my wings, and I dive.

And just a few meters above grounds, I open the wings, like a parachute, braking in the air, and landing softly (well, not too softly, I have to work over this) right in front of an amazed Turner.

“?”

“Long story. Now I am wanted for homicide. I bet the police has my fingerprints, too”.

“?” Turner doesn’t seems able to say a word, but his index finger points at my wings.

I look at them, and instantly the feathers disappears into the arms, leaving only a pronounced goose skin. “Ehm... well, this is a surprise to me as it is for you!” I say. “I need a shower and something to wear, if you don’t mind”.

A hand of Turner goes to his head, but a second and he is cool as always. “Fly over the Mirage hotel top, the place with the Pyramid, and wait for me there. Don’t move for any reason. I am going to win the first money at a slot machine. I will buy you some cloths and find a room for us. I will be back in three hours.” He runs away, shaking his head.

I am in the dark alley, naked like a worm. Fly there, he said.

At the tough, the feathers sprout out of my arms. Cool. It’s a little painful, but not like the transformation I remember Danny having.

Danny... Tobias, Nae, Mick, Mxy, Llance, Kristogar... how are them? I think about them so few time...

Fly there! Fly to the Caribbeans? Can I do it? Leaving all behind, the killing, the police, the EPS?

Turner? No, I can’t do that.

The Mirage Hotel. The Pyramid. Easy to find, even from above. Turner is smart.

OK, let’s take flight.

How?

I jump, waving the arms.

I am ridiculous, I bet.

I try many time. No, this is not the right way.

There is a fire escape stairs, coming in the alley. I jump over the ladder, and have my way to the top of the buidling.

Then, without thinking too much, I jump out of the roof.

This time it’s easy, I open my arms and slide over the breeze.

I am at the Mirage rooftop in a few minutes. I sit there, wrapping myself in the wings, fighting the cold air.

Who has killed Lorelei?

[ 07-31-2002, 08:43 AM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]

"What is he? Crazy?" Agent 2B10 whistled as the form of Edulcore Cicciotto dropped out of the fourth story of the whore's apartment building and plummeted to the ground.

2B10 gasped suddenly as Cicciotto, mere inches from the ground, sprouted feathers from his arms and began gliding naked across the busy Vegas street.

"Well, what do you know?" the man said, shaking his head. Pressing a button within his earpiece, he whispered fiercely as he began trying to follow Cicciotto on foot. "Come in, 2B02. Come in, Agent 2B02. This is 2B10..."

"I thought I called for radio silence!" 2B10 hissed.

"This is an emergency!" 2B10 insisted, before his higher-up could say anything more. The pause on the other end indicated that he was listening. "Cicciotto has gained some new powers..."

"I'm listening..." 2B02 answered thoughtfully.

"After jumping from a four-story window, he sprouted wings and began gliding into the air..." 2B10 said nervously. "I'm trying to track him on foot, but, at the rate, he's going, I'll lose him for certain!"

A short pause.

"Hello?" 2B10 whispered, scanning the skies desparately for any trace of Cicciotto.

"...I don't think we need to worry at all..." 2B02 said, suddenly. "I've got a bead on Cicciotto. Apparently, he's fitting to rendezvous with Turner. Gimme a second and I'll get a bead on their conversation..."

Agent 2B10 leaned on a brick apartment building, looking across the street as policemen poured upstairs, attending to something or other.

"Alright," 2B02 said quietly. "Patching you through to their conversation now..."

Suddenly, the man heard two voices that were not his colleagues. Though he had never met either of them, he recognized their voices. Especially the one with the thick Italian accent.

"...am wanted for homicide. I'll bet the police have my fingerprints, too."

"..."

"...Uh... well, this is as much a surprise to me as it is to you." A pause. "Look, I need a shower and something to wear, if you don't mind!"

Another pause, then, for the first time, the other man spoke. His voice was gristly and deep.

"Fly over to the roof of the Mirage hotel - y'know, the place with the pyramid - and wait there for me. Don't move for any reason! I'm going to win the first of the money there at a slot machine. I'll buy some clothes and a room there for us. I'll meet you on the roof in three hours..."

Another pause as Agent 2B02's voice came over the line. "Did you get that?" he asked.

"On my way to the Mirage now..." 2B10 answered.

"Wait a sec," 2B02 said quickly. 2B10 stopped his already slow gait and waited for his partner to say something. "What's this about being wanted for homicide?"

"No idea," 2B10 said. "The police arrived about a minute before he jumped, but that's about all I can tell you..."

"You didn't follow him up the stairs?" 2B02 asked. "You didn't even get a bead on the police radio?"

2B10 remained silent.

"Look, find out what you can about the homicide," 2B02 said finally. "I'll tail Turner. We know where Cicciotto'll be, so you just leave that to me as well... got it?"

"Yeah, I got it," 2B10 said begrudgingly. "2B10 out..."

As Eurostar contemplates his fate, a soft voice behind him speaks;

"Hello Eurostar."

Shocked to discover that he´s not alone, he almost loses his balance and starts to fall backwards...but the blond girl takes his hand and steadies him.

"You better be carefull up here." she says with a smile, that´s covered with stitches.

"Crasher! What...? What are you doing here? And what happened to your face?"

"The Scorpion Brothers happened..." she says looking down.
"I came to see if you needed any help?"

“Help? What do you think? That’s obvious I need help! Have you a spare Gaia Unit for me and my friend? I need to go to the Caribbean fast!” I exclaims to the petite blond girl.

“Your friend? Turner? I am not instructed to help him too. I have to ask, before... Wait a moment!”

The girl in red boots talks to a little hear-mouth-piece. But her eyes widen up, she whispers a “What?”, and then, after a few seconds, turn to me. “Sorry, I gotta go. Other problems are arising. I will return whenever I’ve done with them. And, look, there is a Hood on your trail, trying to seize you. The one that has killed the hooker”.

“A hood? What’s a hood?” I ask, but the girl has vanished altogether.

I am back to be alone, under the sky dome lit by the millions light.

Waiting for Turner, to come back with some clothes...

Elsewhere, in a dark dungeon...
Four men stand around a pool of water, showing a man riding a motor cycle.

"It appears that our ancient enemy has started to become a bit more offensive against the Neanderthal and his minions. This...Eurostar character...what do you make of him? Should we consider approaching him, and try to recruit him before he does?"

"He certainly has abilities that would add nicely to our organisation. Yes, do it."

"Okay, now over to more international topics. Should we give Bin Ladin to the americans?"

Turner moved down the dirty streets of Vegas, a vortex of lights illuminating the area. Crowds of people moving in and out of the many casinos. Stopping, he looked around and finally chose which casino he would make lucky.

Entering the Flamingo Grand, Turner eyed the four corners of the large room, checking all entrances and exits and keeping an eye on the amount of bouncers and security. Discretely, he makes his way toward a slot machine, his view blocked by other machines and people.

He grabs a cup and whistles as he sits by the machine. He nods his head and smiles at the old woman next to him.

“That machine is unlucky son.” The woman said, warning Turner of what she has witnessed over the last few weeks with that machine, “At most two dollars has been won.”

“Thanks for the advice ma’am, but I make my own luck.” Turner said with a laugh and a half smile.

Turner took a quarter out of his pocket, his last quarter to be exact. Making a fist he covered his hand with his other. A ball of energy formed inside.

Placing the quarter into the machine, a surge of energy unseen by the eye was sent throughout the slot. Turner pulled down the lever and waiting for a second. Three smile faces stopped in a perfect formation. Three hundred dollars fell from the machine.

The old lady was surprised, “Well, I’ll be. I guess you do bring your own luck.”

Turner smiled and nodded his head, “You never know when that luck might rub off.” With a blink of an eye, an unseen bolt of energy shot into the old woman’s slot machine.

With her next coin drop, five thousand dollars fell from the machine. A jackpot. The old lady’s eyes lit up and a smile formed across her face. She turned to thank Turner, but he was no where in sight.

It’s two AM when Turner shows up.

Utterly cool looking, at first I don’t recognize him. The long coat is gone, just like the clothes Quantos gave him.

He wears a black suit, of fine Italian making, and sleek black sunglasses. He hands me similar clothes.

“I have bought some clothes” he explains.

“We are gonna be James Bond?” I ask.

“I was thinking about the Blues Brothers” he says, smiling. I have never seen Turner smiling so often, at the EPS. Although he seemed more at ease there than me, still that place is like a prison for people, like him, used to travel across the globe. It’s evident that he is enjoying our crazy run.

He continues, while I put on the clothes. “I have emptied some slots here and there, just to be not too evident. Now it’s time to pull it off”.

“You mean?”

“Roulette. We break the bank at one casino, and then we run, before we have everybody on our tail”.

“Cool. But… roulette are simply mechanical devices… how can control them?”

“Simply mechanical devices? In your dreams, Ed. All of the roulettes in Vegas are electronically controlled devices. They play dirty, kid”.

I smile at the kid remark. Coming from a man that revealed me of being only two or three years old, that’s fun.

When I am ready, we left the rooftop and take the elevator to the ground level. We leave the entrance, and Turner stops for a moment. Suddenly, a sleek black Ferrari stops in front of us. A boy get off, and hands the key to Turner.

“I forgot to say that I bought something else, Eddie”.

The Black Ferrari glides down the busy streets, every eye turning in amazement of the beautiful car.

“So much for staying out of sight”

Ed’s comment was met with a smile from Turner, “Trust me, no one will see us.” Ed laughed at his point and the two continued forward. But where to? So many casinos.

“Let’s go there!” Ed just blurred out, pointing to a casino named Lil’ Italy.

“You sure?” Turner asked, only to be responded by a simple head nod by the Italian born fugitive.

The black Ferrari pulled to a stop in front of the casino, both men stepped out from the car. Each looking like a million dollars. Putting on his sun glasses, Turner turned to Ed, “Time for the big score.”

Ed only responded with a head tilt as he put on his shades. Stepping in an even pace, the two men walked into the casino. Lights flashed in a fury all around, people crazed, hoping for the American dream in one night spent dollar after dollar, not even realizing that they were really loosing their dream as they played. Ed and Turner walked through the casino; people “parted the seas” as they passed. They stopped at the Roulette tables.

With a smile Turner took out a $1000 chip and placed it on the table. Number three.

“All bets.” The man behind the counter announced before finally beginning. As the little ball rolled around the device, bouncing and moving without grace. No one knew the true secret that the “house always wins,” unless you had connections. Turner for many years was a connection. He knew everything that was going on in HIS country. Finally, this knowledge was coming into use.

An invisible surge of energy shot from Turner’s right eye, unseen to all but taking over the electronically controlled Roulette. With a newfound grace, the ball stopped in the shot for three. The man behind the counter was shocked and scratched his head. After a brief pause he finally yelled, “Winner.” Before adding a huge sum of money in chips to Turner’s single $1000 chip. Turner piled the clips and placed them all on the number 9.

The man behind the counter squinted his eyes before yelling once again, “All bets.” Unseen to the public, he punched the number 22 on a pad under the counter. And the game began once again.

Turner smiled as the ball stopped on number 9. The man was forced to once again announce “Winner” to his once shock and fear. This occurred once again, this time with the number 20. Turner split the huge pile of chips amassing into two. Handing one pile to Ed and leaving the other on the table.

“Cash out.” He told Ed and he turned back to the table. The man behind the counter began to sweat.

Ed smiled as he made his way towards the booth to cash out. Upon handing the chips in, he received just over two million dollars. He smiled and paused, letting everything sink in. Getting back to the table, Turner’s pile was three times the size it was. The man behind the counter was sweating furiously as he announced “Table closed!” His underarms showing just how nervous he was. Turner began filling his pockets as Ed returned. “Table closed?” He asked in a joking manner. The man behind the counter stared at Turner.

“You’re not going anywhere” These few words were followed by the echo of a gun clicking, “You cheater. I don’t know how, but Mr. Tony is gonna be very upset.”

Before Turner could even react, the man hit the ground hard, his nose broken by Ed’s fist.

“Time to go?” Ed asked as Turner simply nodded his head and lifted the table onto its side. $1000 chips flying everywhere, causing a riot of people to block their escape.

“We should have enough, no?” Turner asked Ed who was lost for words.

As the men exited the casino and speeded off in their Black Ferrari.

In the upper levels a man paced to and fro. He was not pleased, not pleased at all.

“I am not pleased.” The large Italian man said to the skinny counter boy who nursed his broken nose. “I am not pleased at all.”

“Sir, Mr. Tony, I didn’t- It was broken, they jammed, I”

“Shut up.” Mr. Tony stopped his pace, and nodded to the large man in the corner of the room. The man, suited in one of the finest Italian made suits stepped towards the smaller man, who knelled in fear. With no words, the large man shot him in the back of the head.

“No one beats the house.” Mr. Tony stated, “I want those two men dead. I don’t care how much it costs.”

He turned directly facing the large man, “Bring me their heads.”

“Hand me the keys” I shout, laughing and runnig.

“No way!” laughs Turner.

“Hey, I had one of this beauty!”

“When?”

“Well, seven years ago!”

“And when was the last time you drove any car?”

“Seven years ago”

“No way!” laughs Turner, sitting at the wheel.

The Ferrari speeds on the Strip, while many men, holding guns, runs out the casino and get on tree black Mercedes.

I am looking at them from the rear windows. “No match!” I laugh.

But on the crowded streets of Vegas, the edge of our car over the dark Germans one is not showing. Turner slips among cars stopping at traffic lights, but our pursuers manages to not loose us.

“We need a less busy road” says Turner, his eyes dancing from the driving mirror to the main window.

Suddenly, without braking, he turns ninety degrees on a secondary road. The sign reads Albuquerque-Flagstaff-Kingman-Henderson.

The foot of Turner is heavy on the accelerator. The Mercedes now are far away, but they don’t leave us.

“Why don’t you fry them?” I ask.

“Faraday cages”.

“Uh?”

“Cars are like Faradays cages. Just like you are safe from a lighting staying inside a car. The electrical charge dissipates trough the metal frame to the ground. I am no physicist, I don’t know how it really works. But they are safe from my power”.

“But you cold stop their engine?”

“No, I can start engines, controlling the electrical plant, but I have not powers over internal combustion engines. Sorry!”

“Well, it seems we don’t need them, after all” I says, just as the cars disappears in the long distance. We are running through the desert.

“I don’t think they will give up so easily” says Turner, while I stuff all the money inside a bag, that prudently Turner bought with the car and the clothes.

Turner was right, now we see three Corvettes speeding toward us. “Junk” I whispers.

“Uhm, seems you are right, they don’t stand our speed” says Turner, half smiling. But the black dressed men inside the cars began to shot at us. The rear windows breaks, hit by a bullet.

“Who are them?” I ask.

“Mafia. Tony’s kids.”

Mafia! Now we have the police and the Mafia on our tail. And how did Crasher called it? A … hood… too.

The sun is setting. The Corvettes are still behind us, when Turner gulps.

“What’s now?” I ask.

“Gasoline’s ending” says laconically Turner.

“Shouldn’t you add fuckety fuck?”

“Maybe. Could work. Gasoline’s ending, fuckety fuck! Happy, now?”

“Yes, it sounds better. What’s that?”

“What?”

“That line. Near the horizon. Seems that the plain ends abruptly”.

“It’s the gorge. The Colorado river runs down in it. There is a tall bridge over it.

“I see something there”

“I didn’t see nothing. It’s too distant”.

“I see it clearly, now. It’s truck. And there is one standing above it. The truck is closing the way, right at the mid of the bridge. A trap”

“Not Tony’s style. It’s someone else.”

I see it. It is like I have a magnifying vision. It’s a man, with a Gaia backpack, a strange looking rifle at his said, looking at us with a binoculars. Could he be… the hood?

Our car is loosing velocity. The Corvettes are coming close, bullets whistle everywhere around us.

We are on the bridge. The man on the truck is aiming the rifle.

I hand the money bag to Turner.

“Jump!” I order.

He stares at me. I take the wheel, and turn it suddenly toward me. The car flies off the bridge. I her the crash of the Corvettes over the truck, the bangs, the explosions, the screams.

I see Turner jumping outside the falling car, opening his arms and legs to somehow slow down the fall, the bag of the money still in his hand.

I, too, exit the car. The air is my element, I smile. The gentle push of the air over my face. The rays of the raising sun stroke my skin.

I calmly take away the jacket, untie the papillon, unbutton the shirt. The I spread my arms, and the feathers sprout out. The underside of the wings, white, glows in the sun.

I am born again.

I close the wings and dive. I reach Turner.

“Hang fro my legs” I shouts. He takes the bag with his teeth and embrace my legs.

I spread the arms, the feathers fully spread. I feel the hot, raising air pushing them from the underside. And slowly, making wide circles, we gain altitude, flying away, far toward east.

Below us, the magnificence of the Grand Canyon.

The sun is setting when I open my eyes.

This morning we landed here, on this rock pinnacle, in the mid of the Painted Desert. Flying to this place has been easy, yet it was taunted.

I soared over the hot ascending currents, among the vultures.

It was cool.

I felt a bond with them.

Dancing on the air.

But Turner, hanging from my legs, was not happy.

Yet, he resisted. We have to be away from the roads, from any place where the Mafia, the police, that Hood could have found us.

Here, in the middle of nothing, at last we can have some rest.

And a lot we slept, in the shadow, repaired from the burning sun.

Turner is still sleeping. It should have been harder for him that for me.

But soon we’ll have a problem. A big problem. We have not any reserve of water.

“Take this, He-Who-Came-From-the-Sky”.

A voice, behind me.

I turn.

An Indian!

I know, I should say Native American.

But for me, grown with Western movies, this an Indian. A true one.

I am a child again.

He is handling me a flask.

I take it.

“How do you know we need water?”

The man smile. “Everybody needs water here”.

Then he points his index finger toward east. “Your father is there” he says.

I look at that direction. “My father died...”

When I turn my head back, he has disappeared.

Turner wakes up.

“Where did he go?” I ask.

“Who?”

“The Indian!”

“What? Ed, you must buy a cap. You can’t fly with your bald head under a sun like this. I wish I had still my fedora”.

I stare at him.

“I don’t know what you have seen, but it was an hallucination, Ed.”

“Take, drink from this hallucination, Turner” I say, giving him the bottle.

He raises an eyebrows, but doesn’t speak.

I take the map from the money bag, orient it, and read what’s on the direction the man pointed at. I can’t figure out what he was meaning talking about my father, who die in a car crash in Italy, many years ago. Yet, the experiences of this past year have taught me to not skim over the words of a man that can disappears. What many encounters like this have signed the last months? The dark dwarf, that bearded man in Chicago, the Naecken beings, the Time Trust… now this man.

The map flaps in the strong wind. I spread it, placing four stones at the four corners, to let it stay open.

We are here, the Painted Desert.

With a finger I follow the direction to which the man was pointing at: Gallup, Grants, Belen, Roswell, Lovington, Hobbs, Midland, San Angelo, Austin, Huston, Galveston. Then the sea, the Gulf of Mexico. And then, Cuba, Jamaica, and… La Perdita?

This is quite a coincidence.

There should be some hidden meaning in the words of that Indian. But what?

Turner takes the map. “We need to reach the coast and find a boat to La Perdita. Let me see.”

He reads the map, his eyes quickly running from one place to the other.

“There’s a railroad crossing this desert. See?” He points his finger on the map.

“Gallup. Belen. Clovis. Amarillo. Springfield. Memphis. Jackson. New Orleans. We need only to get on a freight”.

Walking to the railroad proved tougher than it looked on the map.
The desert air was hot and dry, and pretty soon the water was gone. Their foreheads ached with sunburn and they were getting wearier by the minute.
It wasn´t until sundown that they first heard the welcoming sound of the train chugging along the now cool, breezy dunes and tumbleweeds.

Somehow they found energy to pick up the pace. And soon they saw the wonderfull freighter train coming towards them.
They smiled at each other and knew at that instant that this trip had changed them both, a new relationship of respect had grown between them.

The blood red sky with it´s orange clouds gave the scene a sense of destiny. they were supposed to be here...right now...

The cool breeze helped them find the strenght to run towards the trailers...the sound of their running feet were somehow the only thing they could hear...as if the world had paused to watch them catch that train...

“You know, Turner?”

“What, Ed?”

“In the movies this kind of trains always travel very slow, but this is fast moving”.

“This is not a movie, Ed”.

“I could fly both of us over, I think. But I can’t left from the ground, we need to find a raised place.”

“Don’t worry, Ed, and be happy”.

“Why your eyes are glowing, Turner? Ehy! Cool! You have stopped the train!”

“That’s an electric engine, I can control it. Now, fast, get on the train before the driver spot us!”

“The door is open on that wagon. Jump on!”

“Umph! I am getting old, Ed:”

“Nice place, this. An empty wagon where have been transported cows. Mxy would have been happy.”

“Who?”

“Don’t you remember? The one who turned MCCA agents into cows, in Chicago”.

“Oh, him. Eh”

“Well, apart all of this manure, it seems right.”

“Sit down, Ed, and sleep. New Orleans is very far.”

The soothing sound of the train rolling along the tracks, soon sent both men to a restfull sleep.
Moonlight replaced the hazy sun, and gave the desert a air of cool unfamiliarity.
Eurostar woke up a couple of hours later and sat watching the landscape go by.
He felt as if he could just sit there forever and look at the world change in front of him.
New vistas every day...new sights and smells...but the same everlasting trundle of the train.
The wind was cold...and he suddenly felt a longing for his son, to hold him, to show him the wonders of the world, to share this moment of clear harmony.
A moment of profound sadness came over him, as he recalled his normal past life, the past that was now forever gone.

"You really should stop that sniffing noise. You will wake your friend." a soft female voice behind him whispered.

Startled, he spun around, ready for anything...anything but the sight of a girl with a backpack and sneakers. her T-shirt had the text; "I am a Berliner!".
She had brown hair and a pair of round black sunglasses.

"Who are you, and how did you get in here?"

She sighed.
"I climbed in as you did, and imagine my surprise when I found the two of you sleeping here."
"And why don´t you think we will harm you?" Eurostar raised a sceptic eyebrow.

"I looked at your sleeping faces...the face of a sleeping person reveals a lot of secrets you know. It tells who you are. I am Jackie by the way." She raised her hand and Eurostar took and told her his name.

"See, now we´re intoduced and we can carry on sleeping...if you want I can take first watch, which is what you should´ve done." she snickered.

Eurostar looked at her for a long time, and decided that she was no trouble and went back to sleep, this time with one ear open...

Suddenly, I wake up. The train has stopped altogether.

There is an heavy smell of brake lining, the brakes have been stressed beyond capacity.

Something is happening.

The girl is standing next to the door, Turner, like me, is trying to understand what’s happening.

“There has been an explosion, Ed. The engine is on fire.” Says the girl, watching toward the head of the train.

It’s still night. I look in the same direction. Standing out against the flames, I see dozens of men, holding rifles, running in our direction.

“It’s an ambush!” I shout.

We jump out the train, to run away, to find some corner.

Explosions, all around us. Men. In uniforms. Soldiers.

Soldiers that begin to burn. Screaming.

Turner’s eyes are glowing.

The girl seems to have disappeared.

Then I see it, jumping and kicking at some soldiers.

I notice that many soldiers are circling me, without aiming their gun. They don’t want to hit me.

They want me?

Turner and the girl, Jackie are near me, now, still fighting. More soldiers coming, and many of them dying burning.

Suddenly the fight stop. A strange shaped helicopter is above us. It throws a big net over us, made of strange metallic wires.

“Fuck!” shouts Turner. The net seems to neutralize his power.

Soon we are handcuffed. Turner has a strange device that embrace both his arms, and is connected to a band around his head. Something that, like the net before, succeeded in cancelling his electrical powers.

Among the soldier, there is a man in civilian clothes. Turner look at me, then look at him, and whispers: “CIA”. The girl is looking very deeply at the man. And on his lips, I see forming a word, that makes no sense to me. “Giorgio” she say, frowning.

Now we are on a van, moving toward south, very fast, across the desert. It has been at last two hours, since they put us here.

From the little window, we see that we are entering something like a military base.

Turner’s eye are sticking to the glass. Then he smiles, a smile that is more a grimace, and whispers: “I know this place. It’s the Area 51”.

I am in a cell, with no windows.

Alone.

I haven’t seen anybody, after the soldiers put me here. Jackie and Turner, I believe, are in cells like this one.

I don’t know how much time has passed. They have stripped me of anything I had, and without a watch it’s difficult to tell how much I have been here.

Then, the door opens. It’s the man I saw giving orders to the soldiers, back at the train. The one Jackie called Giorgio. There are two soldiers behind me.

“Cicciotto, follow me!” he says, coldly and determined. He has a very strange uniform, something very futuristic, I don’t know, like kevlar but more shiny. And he holds a funny shaped gun, like a revolver but without the barrel.

They put me back into handcuffs.

Giorgio walks away steadily, I follow him, while the two soldiers are behind me.

There are many cells, all closed. In front of two, yet, there are guards. That’s where my friends are, I am sure.

So, our run ends here?

They are five, I am alone. One time, it would have been a child’s play, to knock them down. Supervelocity, superforce, ghost form... power over the elements. There would have been at last a dozen ways to take care of them, without having them not even noticing.

Now, the only thing I could only do is to fly away, but only if there would be a window somewhere, to jump off.

Merda. It can’t end like this.

I scream, as louder as I can. At the same time, I jump in air, just as the Giorgio turns and fires. I am behind him, while one of the soldiers is screaming, hit by the bullet of Giorgio. I land with my foot of the face of one of the guards, a step and the other one is down. But I am still handcuffed, and the second soldier and Giorgio are aiming at me.

“That was stupid, Cicciotto. Don’t you really think you could run away from me?” shouts Giorgio.

“I tried. Where are we going?”

“That’s not for you to know” he whispers, while from a pocket takes a dart, and put on top of his gun.

He aim at me... and the door behind me opens.

Inside there is Jackie. I don’t see her, because it’s very dark, but I recognise her smell. But something is strange. There is a slight breeze, almost non-existent, but i feel it. This is not a cell. And Giorgio and the soldiers should have been entered right now.

“Ed, I have nearly done it...” whispers the girl, then there is a “snap” and the handcuffs break open.

“Where are we?” I asks.

The light suddenly is on, we are in the cell and Giorgio and the soldier are right in front of us, staring at us like we are ghost.

This not make any sense, but while I am thinking, my fist ends, like all by itself, on the jaw of the soldiers, that went down.

I turn, and what it went between Giorgio and Jackie is something it takes by breath away. They are fighting, but it’s like a dance. Every hit is stopped by a counter-hit, a leg stops a kick, an arm deflects a fist. They jump one above the other, and at some point Giorgio is standing on the wall, at ninety degree. Him, a meta? And a meta seems also Jackie.
Meanwhile, I open Turner’s cell. He frown at my sight, I throw away the strange containment apparatus that neutralise his powers.

“It was time!” he says, smiling.

I point at the fight, that from the cells has moved to the corridors. “Could you...?”

“My pleasure”, says Turner. His eyes lit up, and Giorgio screams in agony, his suit sending sparks and clouds of smoke.

Jackie, with an hand, wipes away the sweat from her forehead. “That was hard. Thanks, Turner!” she says, smiling mischievously to the man standing near me.

The smoke, in the meantime, has started the alarm and the fire sprinkler.

Under the dripping water, and the clouds of vapour, we run toward the end of the corridor, just as the door at the end is discarded by one of Turner’s bolt.

“Have you never been to this place?” I ask to Turner.

“Many time.” He looks around, like he is trying to determine our position in the underground structure. “We are very deep... This way!”

Many soldiers are on our tail. Bullets flies away, but like in a movie, no one hits us.

Then, an explosion. And all becomes black.

I open my eyes. I dropped from the ceiling, it seems. I don’t know what caused the explosion, but luckily I didn’t got harmed by it.

Where am I?

It looks like another cell, but wider.

A man. In the far corner.

He turns.

And I see... my father!

“Edulcore! Ti hanno preso!” he says, in Italian. They have got you!

Who is this man that look like my father and knows my name? How that Indian knew he was here? I remember him, pointing toward south east, and the places on the map. Roswell, among them.

“I have seen you die. Who the hell are you?” I shouts.

“It’s not like it seems, Edulcore. It never has been, it never will be. You must leave. Find a place to hide. And find your son. They must not discover what he conceals!”

What’s he saying? How can he knows so much things?

“Dad, tell me what happened. I have seen you and mom on the road, there was blood everywhere...”

“Don’t you understand! You must immediately leave!”

“How?” I shout, my head hurting from the shock of seeing him alive, and from his resolution, now evident, to not respond to my question.

Then, Turner appears at the rim of the hole in the ceiling. “I have cleared this level! Can you fly here?”

Thank God, he is alive. And Jackie, too, which has just appeared next to him. “Who’s that man?”

“You wouldn’t believe” I whispers to myself.

I have never been able to take flight from the ground. But maybe I was wrong that time. This time, instead of trying to jump in vertical, I run toward the other end of the room, waving my arms, feathers full out. And I am in the air, it’s really hard, but I do, and next I am standing near my two friends..

Now I need only to find a rope to throw at my father, to bring him here, too. But a door opens in the level below, where’s dad is standing, looking at him. He turns, to see three man in white lab coats running toward him, holding guns.

“Run away, Eddie! Go there!” he shouts, just as a bullet hit him in the head. Bloods erupts from his right eye. I am very shocked, I thing, because I see the blood GREEN.

The lab guys are firing at us, too. Suddenly they burns. “You could have acted quickly” I say, bitter, to Turner.

While we run toward the exit, my mind is deep trying to process all that I have just experienced. A Native American able to disappears at will, a day ago, has told me that my father was still alive. I have found him, in fact, in the Area 51, where he, not at all surprised by my presence, has warned me to find a place to hide and to rescue my son. And that Eddie should hold some secrets. Suddenly he has been killed, and like the last time, I have seen the blood.

And the blood was green.

When I was a junk I never had a trip so unbelievable.

Then I realise where are we. A giant flying saucer is standing just in front of us, covered by dust and spider’s nets.

“What a beauty” whispers Turner.
Round and sleek, all black and finished like satin, it’s really beautiful.

“They have never been able to fly it. Well, they have never even been able to get inside” explains Turner, looking for a door to continue our run.

Jackie doesn’t seems as surprised as I am. Who is this girl which was able to hand to hand fight that meta, the one I heard her calling Giorgio?

I can’t stop my hand to stroke the surface of the UFO.

And a noise begins.

Lights begins to dance over the surface, like it is the metallic surface to emit them.

An hole opens on the side.

“Inside!” order Turner, jumping in. I follow, and Jackie is behind me.

“What do you think of doing, Turner?” I ask.

“Hide. But maybe you can pilot this thing out of here!”

“Me? How do you think I can drive this thing?!”

“You have succeeded in opening it, maybe you can also have it to lift up”

How could it be, to fly on a saucer?

A saucer!

I am on a flying saucer. A fucking real, true UFO.

I would really be able to fly it.

And as I think this, the world jump down.

Clouds of debris wraps us. And them, too, GO DOWN.

I mean, we are still. We don’t experience the gravity push of acceleration. Yet, from what we are saying, it’s obvious we are speeding toward the sky, destroying level after level in our vertical flight.

“Well done, Ed!” says Turner, for the first time since I have met him, visibly delighted.

Jackie is surprised, too, but it’s also very interested in the spaceship, her eyes going from one panel to the other, on the command deck.

Question: why there is a command deck is the ship is piloted by the will? And, what’s this ship? I mean, who has built it? Aliens? Technologically advanced nation, i.e. Mandelovia? Why my father’s blood was green? Was he really my father?

How can be my father has been alive, this afternoon?

Yeah, it’s afternoon, the sun it’s setting, we have been in the cells for all the morning, it seems...

The saucer is falling down, back troughs the level. There are many soldiers firing at us, but the bullets never even touch the surface of the ship.

“Ed, CONCENTRATE yourself! You are sinking the ship!”

Fuck, I must think only about the ship. This will be harder than I imagine...

Up Up Up Up. Level after level, destroying all that is above us. Soldiers, scientist, CIA agents, dead body of aliens in freezer.

Who knows if there are really aliens.

Quantos at Mandelovia said so. There should be an invasion...

“Ed, shit! The ship is sinking anew!”

Merda! Up Up UP! OK This way. We are out now. Desert all around us, only barracks to cover the giant military base concealed in the desert. The sky is blue, the sun setting, at west, behind the mountains.

La Perdita should be right there, toward south-east. Speed up. It’s funny how we are standing here, there is not at all acceleration inside this thing. Outside, the country is speeding up behind us. Desert, swamps. Flocks of geese, they seems.

“Ed, how I must tell you! Think only about the ship” yells Turner.

“How can you read my mind?” I ask, puzzled. He never showed any mental ability, before.

“The ship is slowing down” says coldly Jackie. “It’s obvious that you are distracted!”

It’s obvious that I am distracted. Nah nah nah nah. Miss I-know-it-all.

“Why did you knew the name of that civilian in the base. Giorgio, I have heard you calling him!”

Ah ah, now what you will respond, lady?

“Ed, you fucking loon! That’s not the time to talk! PILOT!” Turner is really mad at me. The saucer has nearly stopped, and at mid air.

Ok, then. Fast, to south-west!

Fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly Fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly Fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly Fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly Fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly fly .

“Hu hu! We are followed!” exclaims Jackie. There are six USAF fighter behind us. Firing at us. When one missile hits our saucer, we shakes a lot. It seems to have not damaged us, but I don’t know how much more we’ll be able to sustain.

Fly fly fly.

“Ed, you are flying this thing like a plane. But it should be able to do things differently...”

“Yeah, but what? How?”

“Thinks!”

Dive! The saucer dive, and just a moment before crashing on the ground, it holds back. But the fighters, albeit slowly, are able to follow us.

“No no no, not like YOU fly. Thinks different from how an Earthly things fly!”

“I can’t!”

“Go back!”

Go back? Go back!

The saucer instantly goes the opposite ways. Cool! How is this possible? How can this thing defy gravity? I mean, everything should be subjected to gravity, I think.

“We are slowing down! What are you thinking, Ed?”

Merda merda merda. This is weakening me.

There are many more fighters.

“I will try to blow them” says Turner.

No!

“Not from inside here, Turner!” I shout.

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“So?”

“I mean... I know, just not why. And how... It’s like the ship has told me.”

“We must stop them. We can’t escape so much planes, if you don’t pilot this ship how you should!”

Fuck off, Turner. You are not even able to make it opens the doors. How can you...

“Hey, we are still, now! ED!”

Oh my God. Fly fly fly fly. I must find a solution, or I will snap. Fly fly FLY FLY FLY! Uhm, maybe....

Fast. Good. Good ship. Faster, if possible. Now change altitude. Lower. Ok. Now slower... OK, there! Now land.

Turner and Jackie are without any words. I landed the ship right in the middle of Lafayette, Lousiana. There is a big crowd gathering around the ship, and when we get off, at first many tries to stop us, asking question. But the crowd is getting huge, and we easily get lost among the people.

The fighters soon flies above the city.

We hear the noise of the police’s sirens just when we are getting on a Jeep Wrangler, whose engine Turner has started from afar.

As we leave the town, Jackie asks: “Why do you steal a car when you have the money to buy some hundreds?”

Only now I notice that the bag with the money is in the hands of the girl. I am sure it wasn’t until a moment ago.

She laughs. And soon we all laughs, relieved.

A few hours later, when the sun has completely gone and thousabds of stars glows in the black night, on the side of the road, a sign announces New Orleans.

[ 08-12-2002, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: The Eurostar ]