《Fix that reality glitch or God's gonna be angry》


 They found a dead body on the rivers bank

    Another cold and foggy morning, Berto thought absently, moving the duvet from his chest and feeling an icy shiver as his sweaty pajamas came into contact with the cold air of the bedroom. He thought better. It was no longer so obvious that winter mornings were supposed to be cold and foggy, given that the previous year it hadn''t snowed even once and he had almost forgotten what the frost-covered fields looked like.


    But now a whitish and milky light filtered through the window and he was sure that when he looked at the mountain he would find it covered in snow and thickly surrounded by dense clouds. And it was a good thing. The water crisis that had begun in the summer had continued into the autumn and had not yet been resolved. The melting of the snow would have refilled the dry springs and he wondered if those from SASI - the public company that took care of the water supply in the area - would continue with their evening closures. Some towns in the surrounding area didn''t even have water at Christmas, and Berto hoped that sooner or later someone would get seriously pissed off. He hoped that someone would lose their shit and engage in some "demonstrative action".


    Vain hopes. Those were a community of sheep people and the authorities were free to take a dump on their heads, and those people would have just looked up with mild eyes as if to say "Well, that''s how it always goes, just another bucket of shit on our heads.¡±


    But from what pulpit could Berto ever preach? Was he not himself a model sheep of that stupid flock?


    With a grimace, Berto reached over to take his cell phone from the bedside table and took a glance at the day''s news. As was to be expected, no one had set fire to the bins in front of the SASI headquarters, no one had scratched the president''s car or anything like that. But among the local news, one managed to catch his attention.


    A fisherman had found a body on the bank of the Sangro River, just beyond Brecciaio. A middle-aged man in hiking clothes. On the corpse, there was just a clean shot to the head. There was no clue as to his identity, the police were still carrying out their investigations.


    Cool, Berto thought, placing the phone on the bedside table, while a stupid laugh echoed in his mind. As macabre as it was, that was the first exciting thing happening after months in that God-forsaken place.


    Berto stretched his legs and took a deep breath. A stressful day awaited him. It was Friday, and he had several deliveries to make. But the evening would inexorably arrive and then he would enjoy a long, quiet weekend with his friends.


    *****


    Under the greenish-white streetlights of Umberto Primo Avenue, Berto''s sports jacket, made of a synthetic material similar to rubber, glittered with reflected light. He liked that jacket a lot. It was warm and looked damn cyberpunk. It had a high collar of yellow fabric, it was made of striped black segments interwoven with red segments, and fluorescent yellow pendants hung from the zipper sliders.


    Once upon a time, the street lights on the street had been orange - sodium lamps instead of LEDs - and they would have given his jacket an even cooler ''80s look. A lot had changed since he was a child. Some shops had opened, and many more had closed. The square had changed its name: it was now named after the "Maiella Brigade" and he no longer remembered what it was called before. There had been a pine tree at the entrance to the square and they had cut it down, and there had been a petrol pump in the upper part of the square and they had closed it and replaced it with some very simple flowerbeds.


    Not even the bar next to the petrol pump had completely escaped the flow of time. It had changed management and had been renovated, but the name had remained the same and even the slots where certain respectable workers spent their wages every single afternoon were still in the same place.


    The Fraschetta bar, an institution of the small town.


    Berto had grown up in that bar, and that wasn''t hyperbole. When he was a child he bought there the slices of pizza he would eat at recess and as a teenager, he drank his first beers there. At times he had gotten so drunk he had to reach the nearby public toilets to puke his brains out. On Christmas Eve too many years ago in the park next to the bar he had kissed his first and only girlfriend. Gianna. They had both had more than a few shots of vodka and before kissing him she had said something like ¡°I''m about to do something very stupid¡±.


    They broke up a few months later and then Gianna was swallowed by mists very different from those that enveloped the buildings at the edge of the streets that evening. What the fuck had happened to Gianna after that, Berto didn''t know. And she wasn''t the only one. Countless faces that had hung around the Fraschetta bar had disappeared. Some had died, others had fled the province to work in the big cities, and others had just stopped coming. Berto and a few other diehards were still there.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    As Berto approached the step that led to the glass door of the bar, he couldn''t help but dwell on that philosophical idea of ??fog. So soft, so nostalgic. So delicate but so distressing that it caught the breath in his throat. Berto was a prisoner of that bank of fog that enveloped the Sangro and Aventino valleys, and although he had the impression that Gianna was living a new and exciting life outside the fog, Berto could neither see nor reach her.


    Or maybe he was just overthinking: the world was shit even outside that town with no water and streets full of potholes. A jumble of wars, famines, and wicked political choices. They were different hells: the one in which Berto lived was a type of hell that kills with an interminable and very boring agony.


    Berto pushed the bar door open with his shoulder and entered with his hands in his pockets and a casual step. He was greeted with total indifference. The place was full of teenagers who would be skipping class the following day and old geezers who downed their beers or snored with their heads bowed on their enormous bellies.


    None of his closest friends were there. It was to be expected: apart from him, everyone worked on Saturdays.


    So Berto went to the counter, paid for a 66 cl Peroni beer and looked around for someone to chat with. At a small table on the sidelines sat all alone a crazy old man. Giovanni, called Vanni Bretella by the people of the town.


    Even though many avoided the crazy guy, Berto liked him.


    Of course, Vanni wasn''t a nice person. He very seriously called himself a conservative, and this basically meant that he was racist, misogynistic, religiously bigoted and, even if Berto had not yet had the opportunity to explore his opinions in that specific field, he was probably also homophobic. He had a great passion for law enforcement and said he had been a financier. And then he was garrulous and fucking narcissistic. But in his own way Vanni was also good. He was the kind of person who could help a migrant in need by buying him lunch with the last money left of his disability pension while feeling visceral contempt.


    The reason why Berto found Vanni entertaining was that Vanni had a whole series of bizarre theories and, if you had nothing better to do, listening to him for about twenty minutes could be an idea to turn the evening around. He was crazy after all, and probably forgot to take his pills more than once a week. He looked like a character from South Park.


    To name a few of his weird conspiracy theories, Vanni believed that there was a demonic miasma that enveloped the industrial area of ??Atessa that possessed the workers forcing them to carry out obscene acts in public places, or that in the center of the city of Lanciano there was a secret club that had organized a pizzagate in Italian style.


    Anticipating the moment when Vanni would reveal to him that in the woods of Palena there was a wild tribe dedicated to cannibalism of organs taken from unsuspecting tourists or something of the sort, Berto approached him with beer in hand and called him, ¡°Hey Vanni! How come you''re still at the bar at this time? It doesn''t happen often!¡±


    Vanni took his eyes off his mug of beer and looked into Berto''s. In his pupils there was the crazy sparkle of his manic phases and his half-open mouth was bent downwards, like that of a bricklayer who stops halfway through the work to admire the work done up to that moment. ¡°Berto, finally! Someone I can talk to! It''s a miracle you''re here tonight. It''s God who sent you, I know,¡± Vanni slurred with comical seriousness.


    ¡°Huh?¡± Berto replied dumbfounded. The crazy old man had decided him to be the man of providence, and that was not a development Berto could have expected.


    ¡°Berto, something very serious happened today,¡± Vanni continued, agitated, ¡°Do you know the man they found dead near the river? I knew him, he was a friend of mine. He had a hunting and fishing shop in Montemarconi, I went to see him every day.¡±


    ¡°Wait a second, pal. From what I know the man hasn''t been identified yet, maybe you''re wrong and ¨C" Berto started to answer, but Vanni interrupted him by theatrically placing a local newspaper on the table, open to a specific article.


    It was similar to the article Berto had already read on his phone, but here it was written that the man had been identified and that his name was Quintino Liberatore and he was from Montemarconi. Vanni was lucid after all and the guy was really dead.


    ¡°Fuck, I''m sorry Vanni¡­ I don''t know what to say,¡± Berto continued, trying to express all his dismay.


    ¡°The fact that I saw him, Berto. He''s alive. Quintino is alive. I saw him this afternoon under the bridge between Altino and Piane D''Archi. I shit myself so I ran away, but it was him. I can swear to you on my mother, and you know how much I care about my mother,¡± Vanni explained, raising his voice about ten decibels. A couple of teenagers nearby stopped their makeout and turned to look at him.


    ¡°Huh?¡± Berto asked again, even more confused. Vanni certainly cared a lot about his mother, but no, he wasn''t lucid for shit.


    ¡°It was him, damn it! He''s resurrected I tell you! He was sitting on the gravel, under a pillar of the bridge!¡± Vanni screamed.


    ¡°Come on Vanni, don''t be silly. His death struck a nerve and you seemed to recognize him, but he was a different person," Berto tried to explain to him in a reassuring voice.


    ¡°No, no¡­ Berto, you don''t understand, I repeat that it was him,¡± Vanni insisted with a trembling voice, ¡°And I have to go back under that bridge, but I can''t do it alone.¡±


    Berto didn''t know whether or not he liked where this was going. ¡°And you want me to accompany you, right?¡±


    Vanni just looked at him with wide eyes. Crazy eyes. He didn''t even nod.


    A trip on Vanni Bretella''s legendary old white Fiat Panda. A wreck with seats encrusted by liquids of dubious origin whose odometer showed a number higher than two hundred and seventy thousand. ¡°Arbre Magique¡± car air freshener and rosary and holy card of Padre Pio hanging from the rear-view mirror. Maximum travel speed: fifty kilometers per hour. Hell, yes, just what we needed on that boring Friday night.


    Before Berto''s brain could fully consider the implications of his choice, he replied, ¡°I''m fucking in. Let''s go and see what the dead man has to tell us!¡±

 A glimpse of war and destruction

    Theoretically, it would take just under ten minutes to get down from the town to Piane D''Archi, but with Vanni at the wheel, it took a good sixteen. The old man managed the feat - decidedly difficult at ten in the evening - of creating a line of half a dozen cars behind his Fiat Panda, but he didn''t seem to give a shit.


    Berto, on the other hand, was quite nervous. He expected that at any moment someone would start honking madly. The interior of the car was as unhealthy as he expected. It smelled of dust and farts, and the holy picture of Padre Pio looked at the driver''s seat with his epic half-fingered gloves in the act of blessing Vanni. Berto had never thought about it but now he realized that Padre Pio''s drip was sick, he looked like the fighting monk of some fantasy monastic order.


    Berto was still lost in those bizarre thoughts when Vanni turned left and pulled over next to the old gravel quarry, then began to go down the dirt road running alongside the factory until it branched off at the base of the bridge.


    Vanni made a sharp turn and launched himself towards the pillars of the bridge, suddenly increasing his speed. The only light in the depression was that of the Panda''s high beams, which illuminated up to ten meters ahead, beyond which there was the blackest darkness. A human figure appeared in their field of vision, and Vanni hit the brakes. Clouds of dust invaded the beams of light from the headlights, and Vanni leaned backward to retrieve something at the foot of the rear seats. It was a double-barreled shotgun.


    ¡°Since when have you had a gun license?¡± Berto asked with some discomfort. He had not noticed the weapon when getting into the car.


    Vanni smiled, ¡°These days you have to think about how to protect yourself, Berto.¡±


    The man in front of the car shielded his face from the dust and was now trying to get up. His eyes were wide, he was terrified. He was probably thinking of running away, but it wouldn''t be easy to hide down there.


    ¡°Well, it doesn''t seem like a great idea to point a gun at him anyway,¡± Berto tried to dissuade Vanni.


    ¡°You leave it to me,¡± Vanni said. He seemed sure of himself. But he was a madman. A madman with a rifle. To avoid getting a blow in the face Berto didn¡¯t protest further.


    Vanni threw the door open and rushed out with his rifle drawn. Berto was amazed by the agility of the gesture. Vanni didn''t exactly have the hunter''s physique.


    Hearing the door click, the man ran away, and Vanni gave chase and shouted, "Stop and hands up!"


    The man had advanced only five meters along the gravel road surrounded by low grasses. Even though it was dark, the probability that a shot fired from the rifle would reach him was high, so he obeyed.


    ¡°Now turn around, slowly,¡± Vanni ordered.


    As he turned around, the man narrowed his eyes, dazzled by the panda''s headlights.


    ¡°Damn it! You really are Quintino!¡± Vanni exclaimed.


    ¡°And who are you, sorry?¡± the man asked.


    ¡°What the fuck is that question? You idiot, don''t you recognize me?¡± Vanni replied in astonishment, ¡°I''m Van ¨C no, wait. I''m the one asking the questions here. How the fuck is it possible that you''re alive?¡±


    ¡°Even though I understand why you''re asking me, I don''t know what the hell to say,¡± the man rambled.


    Vanni looked at him over the barrels of his shotgun, confused by the enigmatic answer.


    Taking advantage of that moment of silence, Berto arrived behind Vanni and Vanni started, then realized that it was only Berto, and stepped aside as if he wanted to give him some space, continuing to keep the man at gunpoint.


    Berto joined the conversation and asked, ¡°Can you confirm that your name is Quintino Liberatore?¡±


    ¡°In the flesh,¡± the man confirmed.


    ¡°You are an impostor!¡± Vanni shouted, then waving the weapon added, "Quintino would recognize me for sure, he¡¯s the one who sold this baby to me!"


    ¡°Did I sell it to you?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Quintino sold it to me at his hunting and fishing shop in Montemarconi. Me and him are thick as thieves!¡±A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°It''s not possible, I closed the shop more than fifteen years ago. During the war in Georgia, after the fall of the Berlusconi government ¨C ??"


    ¡°What the fuck are you raving about?!¡± Vanni screamed.


    ¡°Be calm, Vanni,¡± Berto ordered him, trying to make him lower his rifle, then turned to Quintino, ¡°And you, damn it, are you capable of telling us a story that makes sense?¡±


    Quintino sighed, put his hands in his worn Adidas tracksuit pockets, and began to tell his story.


    *****


    ¡°I don''t know what kind of place this is, but it''s definitely not where I''m from. The sky is blue and the clouds are white, and in the hills, I still see places that should have been razed long ago.¡±


    ¡°Huh? And what color should the sky ever be?¡±


    ¡°Red, as it always has been. Getting to the point, yes, I should be dead. I stepped on some bad people''s toes. I''ve been dealing cocaine to factory workers for a few years, and lately, I''ve thought about branching out a bit. But when I intruded into territory that wasn''t mine I was reckless, and the local pushers beat me up and stole my stuff. I wasn''t able to repay my debt to the suppliers, and when they realized they wouldn''t see their money again they decided to get rid of me."


    ¡°Don''t talk bullshit, Quintino would never sell that shit!¡±


    ¡°Well, back in the day, certainly not. I was once a believer and a prohibitionist. But war, hunger, and poverty put things back into perspective. In the first phase of the conflict, there were riots and the rioters robbed my shop. When the dictatorship took power, they confiscated what I had left to send to the front. Besides, civilians weren¡¯t free to enjoy hunting and fishing in those times. I couldn''t reopen. I was already too old to be sent to the front, and my only hope of earning some bread was to work in the factories in the valley, reconverted to produce ammunition and armored vehicles. The shifts on the assembly line were exhausting. Many other workers began doing blow to survive the stress. It seemed like the only way to make it through. New criminal organizations flourished, with the complacency of the army, and sold their shit cheap. But I wanted nothing to do with it. I knew I would ruin myself. So rather than consume it I decided to sell it. I didn''t have much choice, you know?"


    ¡°War, hunger, and misery? What are you talking about? This nation has not gone to war in eighty years!¡±


    ¡°Uhmpf¡­ yeah, it seems you''re right. The scars of the bombings have disappeared. But I didn''t imagine it. I still remember the day the Eastern fighters took to the skies and unleashed hell, and everything that happened after that. Anarchy, dictatorship, anarchy again, the compromise of the military junta.¡±


    ¡°Quintino, you''re sick. Maybe it''s because of the hit you took on the head. Listen, if you get in the car with us we''ll take you to Lanciano, to the emergency room. I hate psychiatrists, they are just stupid quacks. But you need to see one immediately.¡±


    ¡°He didn''t get a hit on the head, Vanni. They shot him, fucking hell. We need to see clearly into this. What do you remember about these last two days?¡±


    ¡°Let''s see... Rosselli''s men, the mafia family head who sells me the stuff, took me under the Brecciaio bridge and made me walk towards a patch of reeds. Then someone pointed a gun at the back of my head and shot. It''s strange, I heard the shot but I''ve always thought that your brain blows before the bang reaches your ears. I didn''t understand anything about it. I only remember that the world didn''t shut down, so I started running through the reeds. At first, I thought they had missed me, but then I turned and saw that Rosselli''s men were no longer there. I looked up at the sky and saw that it was blue. Not knowing what to do, I walked home. I had some trouble with the lock, but then I remembered that I used to hide my back door keys in a flowerpot back in the day. I hadn''t left it there for years, but I found it there. I ate what I found in the fridge ¨C luxury stuff compared to the crap I can afford in these days. Then this morning the police rang. They thought no one would open the door and were about to break it down. But I opened it and they looked at me with their cop faces. They seemed annoyed. ¡®Are you Mr. Liberatore?¡¯ they asked me. And I said yes. They stammered something, and then it seemed as if a gear jammed in their excellent brains. They started shaking like fan blades, so fast it seemed they had become transparent. They grew bigger and their faces became like wax masks. They started saying something like ''aberrant subject'', ''terminate aberrant subject instantly'', and I got scared. I slammed the door in their face and ran out the back. I heard them breaking down the front door, so I ran into the alley and then in the opposite direction from where they were parked. Thank God they didn''t take the car. So I kept running as if my life depended on it. I went to the river and started following it upstream until I got here. You won''t believe it just like you won''t believe the rest, but coming here on the street I glimpsed at least a dozen identical cops. They were looking for me, I''m sure of it. So I just stayed down here hoping they wouldn''t find me.¡±


    ¡°Fuck, Mr. Liberatore, this is a crazy story. I mean, I realize that you''re serious and that maybe what you say is true, but I can''t make sense of it and I don''t know how to help you. Taking you to a shrink certainly doesn''t seem like a solution to me, though.¡±


    ¡°I¡­ I''m scared. I don''t want to leave here, they''re looking for me."


    ¡°I know what we have to do.¡±


    ¡°Let''s hear your great idea, Vanni.¡±


    ¡°The church of the Seven Sins. We need to talk to Father Geronimo.¡±


    ¡°What place would that be? What the fuck is the point of dedicating a church to sin?¡±


    ¡°I don''t know, but Father Geronimo is a very good priest. An exorcist, a great expert.¡±


    ¡°And what the fuck do we need an exorcist for?¡±


    ¡°I smell the Evil One, Berto. The story that Quintino told us is very serious and diabolical. Only Father Geronimo can tell us what to do.¡±


    ¡°I don''t know, but it doesn''t seem a religious problem.¡±


    ¡°So you have a better idea?¡±


    ¡°Actually, no.¡±

 Out of body experience

    Despite Quintino''s initial resistance, Berto and Vanni eventually managed to load him into the Fiat Panda. They promised to take care of him until his situation was clear.


    Vanni insisted on going to the Church of the Seven Sins immediately. It was almost eleven at night, and Berto pointed out they would find it closed. But Vanni went anyway. He was convinced that priests, doctors, and gendarmes were always ready to listen to the cries of men in difficulty. It was a matter of vocation.


    The church was in Pescara and the journey was particularly long because Vanni avoided state roads as much as possible.


    Traveling in the dark and on bumpy, tangled roads, Berto only had a vague idea of ??where he was. The signs of the towns he passed through helped him make his whereabouts clear for just an instant, before getting lost again.


    At twenty past one, along a deserted street in the hills of Pescara, Vanni turned to take an avenue surrounded by two rows of cypresses and slightly uphill. At the top of the climb, there was an empty square, and Vanni parked.


    Leaving the cockpit in the dim moonlight, Berto saw the church at the end of the square. It was a dilapidated brick building with a large rose window on the facade. A bell tower on the right rose about ten meters above the roof''s slopes. Behind the building, a wall a couple of meters high enclosed the cloister of a monastery.


    Vanni seemed to know exactly what to do. He walked along the wall until he reached a wrought-iron gate, where a bell hung. Without hesitation, he rang it energetically. The place was so isolated that there was no risk of waking anyone except the monks.


    After a couple of minutes, an old man wrapped up in his habit came out. He was trembling from the cold and his face was deeply wrinkled. After crossing the courtyard he removed the latch from the gate, opened it, and scrutinized the three visitors. Berto immediately noticed his gray and cloudy pupils. The monk must have had quite a cataract, or some other vision problem.


    ¡°Giovanni, dear son,¡± the monk said with a hint of despondency in his voice, ¡°What brings you to me on this cold night?¡±


    That wasn¡¯t Vanni''s first night visit to Father Geronimo, nor even the second. The old man seemed painfully accustomed to being thrown off his meager cot to soothe the poor man''s spiritual pains.


    ¡°Father Geronimo, something extremely serious happened,¡± Vanni began to explain, pointing to Quintino, ¡°This is a friend of mine and yesterday they found his body on the Sangro river bank. But, as you can see, he lives. I believe it is a spiritual manifestation because he told us of infernal and sinful visions.¡±


    Quintino stood in silence, with a dismayed expression on his face. He didn''t know how to respond to Vanni''s crazy explanation, and his misadventure had exhausted him to the point that he now passively accepted the unfolding of events. Berto also didn''t feel like intervening, even if he disagreed with Vanni''s theory.


    The priest''s dim eyes shone. ¡°Vanni, your friend seems to me to be made of flesh and blood. He does not look like a spirit at all ¨C ¡±


    ¡°I know Father, but ¨C ¡±


    Father Geronimo motioned for Vanni to stop to give him time to finish. ¡°But I see something peculiar in his soul. It has some unusual features. In mean, he has a soul and it is not the soul of a dead person, but it is not like the souls of other men, it is not like yours."


    Berto and Quintino exchanged a questioning look. Was the old monk able to see souls?


    ¡°Please follow me to the church, we''ll talk about it there,¡± the priest concluded, turning and walking towards the opposite side of the cloister.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Vanni followed Father Geronimo, and Berto and Quintino followed him. The group reached the sacristy through a back door, and from there they emerged into the presbytery, behind the altar. Father Geronimo invited the three to sit on the first bench in the nave, then went to get a candle from a niche, lit it, and returned to them.


    Sitting on the mahogany bench, Berto quickly looked around. The church was unsettling. Over their heads hung a row of crystal candelabras that gave off faint red reflections, and the subjects of all the frescoes and statues looked distressed and suffering. The walls and pillars were black with soot.


    Standing in front of Quintino, with the lit candle in his hand, Father Geronimo asked, ¡°Tell me son, what is your name?¡±


    ¡°My name is Quintino Liberatore,¡± Quintino replied.


    The priest trembled. ¡°Oh, Quintino Liberatore¡­ you are not a believer, a model sheep of our flock. Are you?"


    ¡°Not anymore. Where I come from we don''t have many opportunities to be tame and behave like model sheep."


    Father Geronimo was shaken by new tremors and jolts and for a moment Berto thought of getting up and supporting him before he fell. But then the priest began speaking in a two-tone voice, acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world, not even bothered by his dyskinesia. ¡°Yeah, where you come from isn''t nice. Normally I would tell you that the faithful shine the brightest in the hour of darkest tribulation, but I fear that this does not apply where you come from.¡±


    The priest interrupted his speech and began to shake faster and faster until he became almost impalpable. Berto personally witnessed the transformation that Quintino had spoken of in his story and was finally able to understand what he meant. It looked like a glitch from a video game. The monk had glitched himself. His afterimage was still before them, but he was no longer physically present.


    The ethereal figure of the monk spoke again and his distorted voice seemed to come from the void.


    ¡°In fact, you did good turning to me. Not all Celestial Emissaries in a similar situation would have been as composed and thoughtful as I can afford to be. But you have to understand one thing, what Quintino Liberatore has put us in ¨C not at his fault, I want to make it clear ¨C is a big mess.¡±


    ¡°A big trouble? Is it serious?¡± Vanni asked bewildered.


    "Indeed it is. So serious that a reset of the entire penance system may be required, if the Celestial Emissaries cannot restore the logical connections with a debug. Our Celestial Father has revealed to me he would be glad to provide you with the necessary explanations. I should limit myself to sending Quintino Liberatore''s soul back to him, but perhaps you too can help solve this mess. Do you want to meet him?¡±


    A blinding white light began to spread from the monk''s body. After a few seconds, Berto was forced to look away. He noticed that the nave was now brightly lit.


    ¡°The¡­ the Celestial Father? Can we meet him for real?¡± Vanni slurred, barely holding back his emotion. Berto turned towards Quintino. He had terror on his face.


    ¡°I''m happy to see you so motivated to go of your own volition. On the other hand, I fear that even if you hadn''t been, I would still have been forced to send you to him."


    The sounds became muffled and then vanished completely, and light pervaded everything. The tactile sensations of the hard bench under the buttocks and the smell of incense and the cold and the acidic and bitter taste of the reflux of the beer from a few hours earlier disappeared.


    The existing became a white and empty sheet.


    But Berto''s consciousness remained intact, attached to a changing form, which gathered in a point and then expanded into a sphere.


    The features of the existing re-emerged, more essential and geometric.


    Berto could not claim to have recovered his sight, but somehow he could see. He saw that his body had become spherical, and two protrusions were moving away from him, getting lost in other existential planes. He saw that the sphere of his body was surrounded by an aura, which he could only describe as a flame, a flame that had no colors but characteristics, characteristics definable as cyan, yellow, and purple. And he also saw Vanni and Quintino, in the form of spheres, enveloped in auras with characteristics different from his. In addition to Vanni and Quintino, there was an infinity of other spheres dispersed in space, and he personally knew some of those souls.


    And then, Berto perceived something immeasurable in front of him. He perceived that it was a series of concentric spheres that were transparent and opaque at once, but the first of the spheres was so immense that it seemed like a wall devoid of any convexity. It was an infinite wall, insurmountable even climbing it for eternity.


    Berto postulated that the wall was God.

 System GAIAN ver. 173.00475.3

    ¡°Welcome, penitents.¡±


    The concepts of the two words were imprinted on Berto''s consciousness in a clear and defined way. Unequivocal.


    ¡°Are you¡­ God?¡± Berto asked. The linguistic particles propagated in space without sound, and he was certain that Vanni and Quintino had also perceived them.


    The entity laughed. ¡°You can call me that if you want.¡±


    No, that wasn''t God. It was something that filled him with awe, but it wasn''t God. Berto wouldn''t have ever met God. Not in the way he was able to conceive the word ¡°ever¡±.


    Yet there were no words other than "God" to name the entity standing beside Berto.


    ¡°But let''s get to the point. The Soul Fragment KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 should have died in the time coordinates A(1473)B(1178)C(4328)D(4764)E(5537), in the space coordinates UD(231237883283289238938329491) WE(324748273847238423213313) NS(32653491734892274322) of the GAIAN system ver. 173.00475.3. In other words, the man known as Quintino Liberatore should have died the day before yesterday morning, along the banks of the Sangro river in an existential plane different from the one from which Gilberto Calabrese and Giovanni Brevellini (known as fragments ARKAZEL:SLOTH ver. 173.00475 .5.017 and MOLTEKE:SLOTH ver. 173.00475.5.009) come. However, an unfortunate event occurred. At the time of death KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 coincidentally found itself in the same spatial and temporal coordinates as KYZDKYU:SLOTH ver. 173.00475.5.007, who was out fishing in that exact spot, causing a disturbance of the spacetime lattice. The fragment KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 was transported into the GAIAN system ver. 173.00475.5 and synced into the body of KYZDKYU:SLOTH ver. 173.00475.5.007. To maintain the homeostasis of the DAMNATIO program, the material body of KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 was transported into the GAIAN system ver. 173.00475.5. As you can imagine, this single event generated four system errors. To begin with, KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 escaped the reincarnation cycle at GAIAN ver. 173.00475.3. Furthermore, KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 began his penance at GAIAN ver. 173.00475.5, a system that does not belong to him. These critical errors have now been resolved, as the Fragment has been traced back to me and can be returned to the system he belongs. However, two logical errors remain. In GAIAN 173.00475.5 the death of the man known as Quintino Liberatore cannot be explained, in GAIAN ver. 173.00475.3 the disappearance of his body cannot be explained. I am afraid I will be forced to reset the DAMNATIO program for the one hundred and seventy-fourth time because of these two small inconsistencies. Do you understand?¡±


    However convoluted God''s explanation turned out to be, Berto understood it. He didn''t exactly understand the consequences of a reset, but he had the impression that it would mean the end of the world. Not with an apocalypse complete with rain of sulfur and flames, but with a clean and irreparable break. In all likelihood, his soul (known as ARKAZEL), after the reset, would no longer play the role of Berto in his cycle of reincarnations. Berto would simply have ceased to exist.


    Quintino stepped forward. As much as he tried to hide it, he seemed angered against God. ¡°Oh Lord, excuse my impudence, but how could such a disaster have occurred? Shouldn''t the Divine Plan be perfect and infallible?¡±


    ¡°Oh, don''t blame me, KYZDKYU. I wasn''t the one who had the brilliant idea of ??free will. This shit happens all the time.¡±


    ¡°If we''re here, I suppose there''s something we can do to avoid the reset,¡± Berto observed.


    "Correct. I will allow you and MOLTEKE to travel in the system GAIAN ver. 173.00475.3 in the form of Soul Fragments ARKAZEL:SLOTH ver. 173.00475.5.017 and MOLTEKE:SLOTH ver. 173.00475.5.009. Your goal will be to prevent the event that generated the system errors from occurring again. You are free to conduct the operation as you prefer, the important thing is that KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is not killed in the same coordinates.¡±


    ¡°He won''t be killed at all, Lord. I will do everything possible to save my friend Quintino,¡± Vanni stated proudly. Now that he saw his soul free from all its impurities, Berto realized how noble his old and crazy friend was.


    Quintino let out a moan of emotion.


    ¡°Okay, I''ll do my best too, Lord,¡± Berto confirmed, ¡°But is that all? Is it enough to save Quintino? It doesn''t seem very complicated to me."


    ¡°It is, trust me. If you interfere too much with the system GAIAN ver. 173.00475.3 you may generate new logical errors.¡±


    ¡°In what sense can we not interfere? How are we supposed to save him without interfering?¡± Vanni asked, bewildered.


    The boundless wall that Berto had identified as ¡°God¡± grumbled. He was bored by that stupid question.


    ¡°As you know, the DAMNATIO program advances in parallel on seven different existential levels, driven by the free will of the soul fragments that populate them. You can act on the other soul fragments and their free will without problems. In fact, that''s exactly what you are supposed to do. However, not all humans living in an existential plane have a Soul Fragment within them. There are also SOULLESS, the NPCs of the existential planes. Their behavior is deterministic, and simulated by the system. If you influence the behavior of a SOULLESS in an existential plane to which you do not belong, you will generate a logical error. Well, you have to avoid that. This doesn''t mean you can''t show up or talk to SOULLESS, but you can only manipulate them to a certain extent before you irrevocably change their lives. Do you understand?¡±


    Berto nodded. ¡°I''m no longer so sure we can do it. It''s impossible to save him without making a mess."


    ¡°It''s complicated, not impossible,¡± God replied, ¡°Or I wouldn''t have entrusted this task to you. You will be in debug mode and you will have twenty-four hours to save KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012. Every time you commit a logical error, you will start again from the moment before the error from the spatial coordinates of arrival, and everything up to that moment will have happened as if you had not acted at all. This means that every time you fail the time you spent in the previous attempt will be lost. But you will have a whole series of advantages, linked to the fact that you are Soul Fragments not belonging to that system. For example, you will be able to enter the body of the SOULLESS, read their mind, and direct their movements. You will be practically invulnerable. You will be material and immaterial at the same time and you can make yourselves invisible. Furthermore, the Celestial Emissaries will not hinder you. Finally, you will be able to locate KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012  at any time and you will know at any moment how much time remains until the event occurs. Is everything clear?¡±A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡°It is,¡± Vanni confirmed.


    ¡°Good, then you can go. Good work."


    God and all the small spheres of souls surrounding him faded until they disappeared, and Berto was immersed in white again. Then its spherical body shrank until it became a point, then re-expanded until it took on human form. The white became a glow, which faded until the world appeared again in its usual spaces and shapes.


    *****


    When he had control over his body again, Berto rolled his eyes at the sky of system GAIAN ver. 173.00475.3. It was red, as Quintino had described it. The sun was high and white, proving that this was not the color of sunset, but the true color of the sky. It was cold and there was a smell of petrol and smog.


    Berto turned around and saw Vanni on his left. They were on the edge of a busy road, and in front of them, there was a disused IP gas station. Berto didn''t need a map to figure out where they were. That was the straight segment of the road to Lanciano. But there was something different. The road was narrower than it should have been, and the distributor should have been of a different brand and fully functional.


    The field at the edge of the road was full of weeds, and in the distance, he could see the industrial area of ??the Sangro Valley. That view, once modest and drab, had become intricate and claustrophobic. The rows of low warehouses had given way to hundreds of iron towers and tightly barricaded chimneys, which incessantly spewed lumpy trails of thick black smoke.


    The distressing vision of that alternative reality distracted Berto for only a few moments. He thought back to the last instructions God had given him and Vanni.


    God had claimed that there was a way to locate Quintino immediately. Berto tried to focus, and white writing appeared in his field of vision.


    11:32 am. 23 hours, 58 minutes, 34 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is heading to the TECNOSAT AMMUNITION factory to sell a batch of cocaine.


    The writing was not in the Latin alphabet, but Berto could still read it. As the writing dissolved, a light blue cursor appeared in the west, and it moved eastward. The hill covered the tip of the cursor, but Berto guessed that it pointed approximately to Atessa. He concluded that this must be Quintino''s position.


    ¡°Right now Quintino is going to sell his drugs. We still have time to stop him!¡± Berto observed, ready to take action.


    ¡°Huh? How do you know?¡± Vanni asked, confused.


    ¡°Concentrate! It was God who told us we can do it! Ask yourself where he is and you will see it too!¡±


    Vanni looked around with wide eyes and then fixed his gaze in the same place where Berto was looking. Berto realized that he too was following the cursor.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ it''s so far away! We''ll never make it on foot!" Vanni exclaimed desperately.


    ¡°Then we have to hitch a ride,¡± Berto replied suggestively.


    A motorcycle rumbled closer on the road. A slender guy rode it, and a curvy woman hugged him from the back, her long raven hair swaying in the wind. Instinctively Berto knew that they were two SOULLESS. Trying to read their minds, Berto discovered they were heading to Vasto. Not exactly their destination, but they''d make do.


    ¡°You remember that we can be hosted in the SOULLESS bodies, right?¡± Berto asked Vanni.


    ¡°Yeah, but I have no clue how to do it¡­¡±


    ¡°Me neither, but I suppose it will come naturally to us like everything else. You take the woman, I''ll take the man."


    ¡°Hey, why should I take the woman?¡±


    ¡°Because you''re a slug!¡± Berto said, then darted to the side of the road and reached out. A tentacle-like protrusion emerged from his palm, sank beneath the motorcycle driver''s helmet, and his conscience was then sucked into the man''s body.


    Berto immediately pressed the brake lever to give Vanni time to reach him.


    The girl elbowed the driver, ¡°Luca, what the hell!? Don''t brake like that!¡±


    ¡°Sorry, honey. I think I got distracted for a moment,¡± the man justified himself.


    Berto had felt the nudge, but his host responded spontaneously. His control over the SOULLESS was not complete. As the motorcycle picked up speed, out of the corner of his eye Berto saw Vanni imitate his movements and get sucked into the girl''s body.


    Being sure that they were both on the motorcycle, Berto accelerated.


    He launched himself down the straight road, then took a bend, and on the climb that followed he stepped on the gas even more. He downshifted the gears, passed the tobacco shop, and kept at full throttle until the Sant''Onofrio crossroads, overcoming every vehicle on his way.


    "Luca! What the fuck is wrong with you now?! We¡¯re just going to my parents for lunch!¡± the girl shouted angrily.


    ¡°Don''t bust my balls, Martina! I feel like having some fun! Is that a problem?!¡± the man shouted in response.


    Berto agreed. He was having a blast. He braked again once he reached the sharp bends leading down the hill, and veered dangerously to stay on track. Then he reached the straight before the Brecciaio bridge and hit the gas again.


    He sped past a speed monitor, and the red message ¡°Slow down!¡± flashed ominously on the sign. With the icy wind shaking his jacket, Berto didn''t care, and accelerated even more, taking the bridge at almost one hundred and thirty kilometers per hour.


    Over the bridge, there was a fruit stand. A girl was sitting in front of a crate of oranges, and Berto noticed she was hot. She had a light pink jacket and her busty breasts almost made her checked shirt explode, in the slits of which her white bra showed off.


    The fleeting apparition wasn''t enough for Berto, who turned his head back to look better before the fruit stall disappeared from his vision.


    ¡°Luca, what the fuck are you looking at?! Pig!" Martina yelled and elbowed Luca again.


    The blow came unexpectedly, and Luca lost control of the motorcycle. He tried aimlessly to regain control, and the bike crashed at lightning speed into the underpass wall right after the bridge.


    Berto felt Luca''s body crushing against the concrete and the sheets of metal from the motorbike piercing it, and then everything slowed down and jerked forward and backward as if the whole reality was glitching. The walls and beams and asphalt lost their materiality, turning into geometric shapes and then deformed, recreating a guardrail, a straight road, and a disused petrol station.


    Berto and Vanni found themselves on the road to Lanciano again.


    Debug system activated. Logic error solved.


    11:51 am. 23 hours, 39 minutes, 27 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 has reached the TECNOSAT AMMUNITION factory and is waiting in the car park for the workers to come out for their lunch break.


    Vanni, breathing heavily, turned to Berto with a trembling voice, ¡°I may be a slug, but there¡¯s no way you¡¯re driving next time.¡±

 TECNOSAT AMMUNITION

    On the way to Lanciano a car passed with four workers on board, headed to the industrial area of ??Atessa for the afternoon shift. Berto and Vanni possessed the bodies in the front seats. Vanni took the driver¡¯s seat.


    The other three workers cursed a lot at the driver. Despite all the swearing, the workers arrived more than ten minutes late for their shift.


    One of the three on his way out slammed the door and shouted, "May I know what the fuck is wrong with you today, Peppe?"


    ¡°The foreman will beat the shit out of us!¡± echoed another.


    The driver, Peppe, didn''t know how to justify himself. ¡°Guys, I¡¯m sorry¡­ I had a strange feeling of anxiety while I was driving. I thought I should be careful... it seemed like a good idea..."


    ¡°Fuck your good idea!¡± the first one blurted out once again.


    As the four workers walked towards the factory entrance, Berto and Vanni slipped away from their bodies while remaining invisible.


    Berto checked the time and Quintino''s location.


    1:14 pm. 22 hours, 16 minutes, 45 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is in the warehouse on the third level of the east building of the TECNOSAT AMMUNITION plant. He is tied to a pole and four pushers are beating him.


    Berto commented on the notification with cynical bitterness, ¡°That¡¯s great, Vanni. The idea of ??saving him before they get him has gone to hell.¡±


    ¡°You saw the traffic there was. And there were a whole bunch of cruise control systems that I had never seen. And if you were driving we would crash into a wall again."


    Instead of replying something smug, Berto remained focused on what to do. ¡°The cursor points to a location less than a kilometer from here. If we''re quick we could try to come up with something.¡±


    Vanni nodded, and they both started running towards the car park exit.


    There was a fence, but Berto sensed he could jump through it, so he didn''t slow down. He leaped, and his body passed through the grate without even decreasing speed.


    Berto turned back to Vanni and discovered that he had had the same idea as him. He even kept pace with him without any problems, he was much faster than expected. So Berto accelerated even more.


    There were people on the sidewalk, but there was no need to avoid them. Berto and Vanni just passed through their bodies. As they went on, passersby shivered as if a gust of cold air ran through them.


    In a minute and a half Berto and Vanni reached the Tecnosat Ammunition yard, and they didn''t even feel tired. Berto realized that for future travel it would not make sense to possess the SOULLESS on board vehicles, just running was much simpler.


    The Tecnosat Ammunition factory consisted of two gigantic buildings. On one side was the crucible, topped by four chimneys, on the other there was the production line, arranged on five levels. The warehouse where Quintino had been locked up was on the third level of the second building.


    Berto and Vanni hurried to reach the goods loading area, on the ground floor of the second building, and slipped between the lined-up trucks. From above came the rhythmic, mumbling sounds of industrial machinery. Berto tried to figure out how to get to the upper floors, and he spotted a flight of iron stairs.


    They went up ramp after ramp, and when they reached the third floor they found themselves on a steel platform connected to a suspended walkway. The blue cursor pointed to an automatic door beyond the walkway. Without hesitation, the two rushed towards the door, and maintaining their incorporeal form they passed it without activating its infrared sensors.


    The warehouse was immense, and tons and tons of wooden boxes were crammed into the industrial shelves. There was an automatic sorting system, and robot arms hanging from the ceiling moved the boxes onto a conveyor belt raised three meters above the ground.


    There didn''t seem to be a living soul in the large room, except for Quintino and his four tormentors. Running between the shelves, Berto and Vanni identified their position. They were in the warehouse manager''s cubicle. Through the plexiglass, it was possible to see one of the four punching Quintino in the stomach and the other three watching the beating.


    Berto tried to read the drug dealers'' minds. Three were SOULLESS, while the other had a Soul Fragment inside.


    What to do?


    Tackling the drug dealers head-on would have generated a logic error. Manipulating them into freeing Quintino and letting him go with the cocaine batch would have generated a logic error. Distracting them by making noise would have generated a logic error.


    God had talked about a way to influence the free will of Soul Fragments, but he hadn''t been very clear about it. Even though he couldn''t enter his body, Berto discovered he could read the Soul Fragment''s mind.


    ¡°Damn, I''m hungry. This asshole made me miss my lunch break. Jeez, I would¡¯ve killed him myself if it weren''t for the fact that getting rid of the body woulda been a real pain.¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Berto wondered, ¡°So the drug dealer is a worker from this place?¡±


    ¡°No, it can''t be. I''ve never seen him round here and I know all the Tecnosat workers. And then what do I care? The important thing is to get him out of the way. We¡¯re the ones dealing here.¡±


    Taken aback, Berto instantly disconnected his telepathic connection from the drug dealer. Somehow his thought had entered his target¡¯s mind, and he had interpreted it as a sentence from his own inner voice.


    Berto realized this is what it meant to act on the free will of Soul Fragments. It meant putting new ideas into their heads and influencing their actions. But it wasn''t that simple. Those were intrusive voices, subjected to the critical judgment of the targets.


    Vanni clenched his fists, unsure what to do. After glancing at him, Berto began listening again, suppressing his own thoughts.


    ¡°Besides, what the fuck, they pay me crap, why go to all this trouble for a poor asshole? Look at that fat Santino. He pocketed half a kilo of coke without doing anything. And selling it will be up to us. And with the revenue, he will make himself look good in the eyes of the boss.¡±


    Berto shifted his gaze towards one of the men witnessing the beating. He was fat and he held a small cardboard package in his hand. Was he the boss?


    ¡°What the fuck. The funny thing is that I was the one who caught this asshole in the parking lot. Hadn''t I been there to stand by, he would have just run away with it. I fucking deserve a reward too!¡±


    Berto stopped listening for a moment. Now he had something to work with.


    ¡°Enough, untie him,¡± Santino ordered. The torturer retreated, and the other two men advanced with cutlasses in their hands. They bent over Quintino and cut his bonds. Quintino fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.


    ¡°Vanni, I have an idea,¡± Berto whispered to his partner, ¡°I think I can start a fight between those four. If I succeed, I''ll make them drop the package of cocaine on the ground. When this happens, you have to enter Quintino''s mind and think these words intensely: ''take the drugs and run''. Repeat this thought endlessly.¡±


    "Huh?"


    ¡°Just do as I say,¡± Berto ordered, and moved to the side while Santino threw open the door and went out among the shelves followed by his men. Berto immediately began rereading his target''s thoughts.


    ¡°But no. No reward for me. I will skip my lunch and continue earning my meager percentage.¡±


    ¡°I could take the cocaine and sell it myself.¡±


    ¡°What the fuck am I thinking? The others will kick my ass. Have I become suicidal?¡±


    ¡°Well, but the others are in the same shit as me, it doesn''t mean they would be on Santino¡¯s side. Besides, we can share it. This is the time to make the fat fucker pay.¡±


    ¡°Yes, it''s true! Everyone hates Santino. And Filippo and Luigi will certainly be on my side! If we get rid of Santino, we''ll take his place! We''ll make the rules!¡±


    The drug dealer with the Soul Fragment touched Santino''s shoulder. ¡°The drugs, let me sell them.¡±


    Santino stifled a laugh. ¡°What do you say, Rino? Of course, you will have your share, like everyone else."


    Rino insisted, ¡°No, you don''t understand. I''m the one who found it. It''s up to me to decide who keeps it. I''ll split it with Filippo and Luigi, and we''ll keep what we pocket. The boss doesn''t have to know."


    ¡°You are a damn imbecile. Who do you think sold the stuff to the trespasser?¡± Santino retorted.


    ¡°I don''t give a shit who sold it to him, I want it!¡± Rino screamed, and squeezing Santino''s shoulder he stretched his arm towards the package.


    ¡°Give this asshole a once over!¡± Santino screamed, trying to shield the package against his chest.


    Filippo charged at Rino with his head down and punched him straight in the face, but Luigi hesitated. After thinking about it, Luigi landed a knee in Santino''s belly.


    ¡°Have y¡¯all lost your fucking sanity?¡± Santino shouted, gasping for breath.


    A confused turmoil began, and Berto entered Rino''s mind and suggested, "I have to throw the package on the ground, Luigi and I will retrieve it when we have knocked them out¡±.


    Rino reached out and took several punches, but managed to grab the package and throw it far away between the shelves.


    When he saw the package of drugs flying, Vanni sprung into action. Through the plexiglass he hammered Quintino''s mind, repeating to himself, "Take the drugs and run, take the drugs and run, take the drugs and run ¨C ¡±


    It worked. Quintino got up and ran out of the booth, slipped among the thugs, bent down to retrieve the package, and without even straightening his back he launched himself towards the warehouse exit.


    But Santino noticed him, and as he twisted Rino''s wrist, he screamed at the top of his lungs, "That son of a bitch is running away with the stuff!"


    Luigi and Filippo instantly stopped fighting, pulled two semi-automatic pistols from their belts, and ran after Quintino. Rounding the corner, three shots were heard and Quintino screamed in pain.


    Feeling a little guilty but also relieved, Berto thought, ¡°Damn, we did it! Quintino will die here! The universe is safe!¡±


    But Vanni didn''t like that epilogue. There was a forklift along the rows of shelves, he ran on top of it and resumed his material form. He pushed the accelerator of the forklift to full throttle and lunged at Filippo and Luigi and shouted, ¡°Leave him alone, you fucking bastards!¡±


    Vanni hit the two drug dealers and then the forklift crashed into a shelf full of wooden crates.


    Santino only had time to say, ¡°Now, where the fuck did that dude come from?¡±


    As expected from an ammunition factory warehouse, the crates were full of gunpowder. Everything blew up. Berto''s immaterial body found itself in the middle of the chain reaction and saw the explosions from inside. Smoke and flames hurled pieces of concrete and debris from all sides in an intricate mandala.


    The mandala glitched, going back and forth for a few moments before its shapes recomposed the now well-known landscape of the road to Lanciano.


    Debug system activated. Logic error solved.


    2:08 pm. 21 hours, 22 minutes, 27 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is leaving the TECNOSAT AMMUNITION factory hiding from security. He suffered numerous bruises in the struggle.

 The system node

    ¡°You''re such a stupid old geezer, Vanni Bretella! We had almost made it! You screwed everything up!¡± Berto screamed, clutching his head in his hands in a fit of anger.


    ¡°I was fucking clear! Quintino will not die!¡± Vanni fought back fiercely.


    ¡°What the fuck are you babbling about?! That''s not the Quintino Liberatore you know! He''s not your friend! Your friend will die if we can''t stop this mess and, by the way, we will die too!¡± Berto shouted, not accepting to listen to reason.


    ¡°I don''t give a shit, Berto. Quintino for me is always Quintino. Besides, you''re turning out to be a coward! We promised him that we will save him!¡±


    Berto kicked a stone on the ground. ¡°You promised him that.¡±


    ¡°So you would just let him die? In the name of God, you found that man under a bridge in desperate conditions! Don''t you pity him?!¡±


    ¡°That man is shit and this place is shit. Whether he dies or lives doesn''t make a difference to anyone,¡± Berto replied acidly. But he wasn''t completely convinced of his words. When he heard the shots that hit Quintino he felt relief, but it was a bitter relief. Even though he knew that KYDZKYU would be reincarnated and perhaps live a better and more righteous life, Quintino''s death would still weigh on his conscience.


    ¡°Don''t talk bullshit! We still have more than twenty hours, there must be a way to make it,¡± Vanni reiterated, trying to rack his brains.


    Berto crossed his arms and approached the edge of the road. The sun was already getting lower. ¡°Why do you think Rosselli ordered his men to kill him?¡± Berto asked Vanni.


    "Why? Because he lost half a kilo of cocaine, didn¡¯t he?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but in this reality drugs cost less than in ours. And then, even assuming it''s a nice sum, if he kills him he''ll never see that money again.¡±


    ¡°Quintino told us that ¨C ¡±


    ¡°Forget what Quintino told us,¡± Berto abruptly interrupted Vanni, ¡°There¡¯s something that doesn''t add up here. Have you heard Santino? He asked Rino ''Who do you think sold him the stuff?'' as if he meant that his and Quintino''s boss are the same."


    ¡°But it doesn''t make sense. Quintino went to that factory because he wanted to expand his business! Why go there if that territory already belonged to his organization?¡±


    ¡°Because he didn''t know. They made him believe it was another family''s territory, but it wasn''t. They want to screw him over.¡±


    ¡°What you say is very serious,¡± Vanni considered thoughtfully, ¡°But I understand your reasoning.¡±


    Berto smiled. For a moment he thought he recognized old Vanni Bretella. ¡°And I don''t think the head of the family is aware of this subterfuge. I think his men of honor are the ones who want to get rid of Quintino. Now we need to understand why.¡±


    ¡°So we have to find this Don Rosselli.¡±


    "Yup. If we talk to him, we may avoid Quintino''s execution."


    *****


    Finding Rosselli''s villa wasn''t particularly complicated, but it wasn''t a walk in the park either.


    Berto''s initial idea was to sneak into a house to find a PC and do a web search. From the street, they saw a group of houses. Upon reaching them, they had to explore three before finding an old Windows laptop on a dusty desk.


    The PC operating system was Windows XP. When starting up the PC emitted the familiar chime "tu-ru-tu-tutu" and Berto had a fit of nostalgia. He clicked the green start button and searched for a browser. Windows Explorer and Mozilla Firefox were installed. Berto chose Mozilla Firefox.


    The connection was damn slow.


    On Don Rosselli, Berto could only find a couple of articles from local newspapers. They were more than five years old. He learned his full name, Gianpietro Rosselli, and that he was born in Atessa, but there was nothing else. Obviously, there was no information on his residence. ¡°After all, criminals who are not in jail, aren¡¯t because not even police know where to find them,¡± Berto thought fleetingly.


    As he scoured the web, reality glitched. Berto and Vanni found themselves at the starting space coordinates once again.


    Debugging system activated. Logic error solved.


    Apparently, messing up that PC''s history was all it took to generate a logic error. The system was much more susceptible than Berto had anticipated.


    Vanni was disappointed. ¡°Fuck! We haven''t discovered anything useful!¡±


    ¡°Maybe we should go around and ask some questions. If Don Rosselli was born in Atessa and does business here, he cannot live too far. Someone will know something,¡± Berto proposed.


    ¡°We don''t have that much time and almost fifteen thousand people live in Atessa! It¡¯s like looking for a needle in the hay!¡± Vanni objected.


    ¡°We just need to ask the right people.¡±


    ¡°And how do you find the ''right people''? No, there has to be an easier way. Didn''t God tell us about the Celestial Emissaries?¡±


    ¡°Right, he said they would help us. But how do we find one? We certainly cannot go to Pescara to ask Father Geronimo for help.¡±


    ¡°The carabinieri who interrogated Quintino were Celestial Emissaries,¡± Vanni observed, ¡°Perhaps all law enforcement agents are Celestial Emissaries. We could go to the Atessa carabinieri station, for starters.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t hurt to try,¡± Berto agreed.


    Berto and Vanni left at 3.17 pm and reached the barracks at 4.40 pm. They rang the intercom and were greeted by an officer at the counter. It was clear from his face that he just wanted to finish his shift and go home.


    ¡°Are you a Celestial Emissary?¡± Vanni asked point blank.


    ¡°Huh?¡± the policeman replied.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°It''s not working, Berto!¡± Vanni whispered to his partner.


    It was normal that it didn''t work. God had told them that the Heavenly Emissaries would not hinder them, not that they would serve them. But they no longer remembered his exact words.


    ¡°Listen,¡± Berto said, standing next to Vanni. ¡°Do you know where the drug kingpin Gianpietro Rosselli lives?¡±


    The policeman laughed out loud. ¡°What the fuck is that question? If we knew, we would have locked him up long ago. Are you stoners or somethin¡¯?¡±


    To be scrupulous, Berto tried to read the officer''s mind.


    CELESTIAL EMISSARY: Of course I know where he lives, we cops all fucking know. ¨C mental image of an isolated villa in the Lame district, Atessa ¨C What the fuck do these two crazy people want? They don''t seem like kids to me, they should have understood how things work around here. Should I teach them a lesson?


    ¡°Well, if you came here just to ask me this, I would advise you to leave,¡± the policeman suggested.


    ¡°Oh, we won''t let you repeat it again,¡± Berto replied, and taking Vanni by his wrist he walked to the door.


    Once they were on the porch of the police station, Vanni protested, ¡°Holy shit, Berto! We didn''t discover anything this time either! Couldn''t we have insisted a little more?¡±


    ¡°You''re wrong, my friend,¡± Berto winked at him, ¡°Now we know everything we need!¡±


    *****


    At 5.54 pm Berto and Vanni reached Don Rosselli''s villa. Couldn¡¯t they become invisible, getting past the fence and the security around it would have proved a real pain in the ass. By now it had gotten dark, and an illuminated glass wall caught the gaze of Berto and Vanni, in that immense and dark garden on the solitary hill.


    Berto and Vanni approached the window, passing a pair of gigantic Rottweilers dozing on the villa¡¯s patio. They saw a group of criminals holding a meeting in the boss'' living room. There were nine of them, sitting at a long solid wood table.


    Berto and Vanni entered and began to eavesdrop on their conversations.


    Berto immediately identified Rosselli. He was undoubtedly the middle-aged man in the carmine red nightgown sitting at the head of the table. Berto tried to read his mind and understand whether he possessed a Soul Fragment. Strangely, he was unable to do either of those things. Then he checked the other eight men sitting on either side of the boss. They were all SOULLESS.


    They were talking about the arrival of a new shipment of drugs. A man on the left side of the table said, ¡°Yes, I checked the container last night. They delivered the agreed quantity. I''ve tested the usual amount of samples. Shit is passable.¡±


    ¡°What the fuck, shit is always passable. I''ve never heard you say ''that''s quality shit,¡± a goon on the right side of the table complained.


    ¡°Who the fuck are you? The nose candy connoisseur? Our job is to give the usual losers their usual fix. What do you care about the quality of the product?¡± another retorted.


    ¡°Is everything organized for transportation?¡± the boss asked, ignoring the trivial bickering.


    Berto quickly probed the consciences of the eight gangsters. The one who was plotting Quintino''s assassination must have been among them. But Quintino''s name did not surface in anyone''s consciousness. They were all intent on thinking about their role in the logistics chain for the sale of the drug consignment.


    The man to the boss''s right replied, ¡°Yes, mastro Vincenzo will take care of it as usual. I sent to the cops their bribes. The shipment will leave from the port of Ortona at half past six in the morning and be here at twenty past seven. We will distribute it in the usual proportions among our men.¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± said the boss, ¡°I expect an increase in revenues in the Servantis glassworks section. Tell me, Pablo, are you sure your new man is ready to take service?¡±


    A guy with bleached hair replied to the boss, ¡°Yes, my nephew has balls and can be very persuasive. He¡¯s cold-blooded and has no problem using his gun.¡±


    ¡°The fact that he is cold-blooded does not exclude that he is hot-headed. Have you worked on it?¡± the boss investigated.


    ¡°I did, he''s ready. I can guarantee for him,¡± Pablo reassured the boss.


    ¡°I hope so for you. Quintino''s liquidation is now irrevocable. The old man is cooked, we all agree on that. Buyers don''t respect him and he''s a terrible seller. But I have to recognize him this: he''s prudent. He never got us into trouble. Pablo, I swear to you, if that idiot of your nephew messes up, I''ll shoot you first and then him,¡± the boss spoke slow and cold, weighing every single word. It wasn''t hyperbole.


    Berto was wrong. The boss knew everything, and he had a precise reason to get rid of Quintino. He wasn''t happy with his performance and had found someone to replace him.


    Before the conversation moved on to another topic, Berto possessed one of the boss''s men and made him ask, "But... Quintino has some... experience... do we really have to liquidate him?"


    All the eyes of the men at the table fell on Berto¡¯s host. An agonizing silence arose.


    ¡°What did you just say, sorry?¡± asked the boss.


    Berto gasped. He strove to maintain total control over his host, but the host seemed to rebel against his influence. ¡°I mean¡­ he''s been working with us for years. Wouldn''t it be better... to just find him another job?¡±


    The boss laughed politely, then pulled a gun from under his robe and without a moment''s hesitation fired a bullet exactly in the center of Berto''s host''s forehead.


    Berto was spat out of his host''s body, and when he looked around he realized that everything in the living room was still, even the corpse. A stream of brains splashed from his forehead and he was frozen in mid-air. Berto thought it was the usual system error glitch, but the scene didn''t change. Time had simply stopped.


    Vanni began to breathe heavily, and Berto followed his astonished gaze. Something was still moving. Gianpietro Rosselli weighed his weapon and scrutinized the two intruders, passing his gaze from one to the other. ¡°Look, visitors from another system.¡±


    ¡°You¡­you are not a SOULLESS¡­and¡­nor even a penitent,¡± Berto stammered, ¡°What are you?¡±


    ¡°If life is a soup, I am the ingredient that gives it flavor. I am a System Node,¡± the boss revealed.


    Although God had not mentioned System Nodes to Vanni and Berto, the meaning of that definition was immediately clear in their minds, as if they had known it all along. And they instantly felt a visceral hatred towards him. Yes, the entity that stood before them was the ingredient that gave life its flavor of crap. In an instant, they saw the true enemy of their immortal souls, but they were also well aware of their helplessness against him.


    Even though he knew the answer, Berto asked, ¡°If you want to get rid of Quintino, why didn''t you just kill him?¡±


    ¡°You know what my job is, young man. Without pain, without a sense of guilt, without terror for the inevitable approaching, what would your atonement be?¡± the boss paused briefly for effect, and then added, ¡°What are you here for?¡±


    ¡°Quintino''s death will generate four system errors. God sent us here to avoid it,¡± Berto explained.


    Don Rosselli laughed. ¡°Oh, that''s all? Call him God, call him Devil, it''s all the same. I don''t care about his problems."


    ¡°Don''t you understand how serious the situation is? If the system errors occur there will be a reset,¡± Vanni intervened.


    ¡°And so?¡± Don Rosselli asked, ¡°If a reset occurs, it''s your problem. You will have to start your cycle of reincarnations all over again. For me, it is completely irrelevant. Tomorrow Quintino Liberatore will die, as planned. I am adamant about this.¡±


    Berto and Vanni watched the boss smooth the barrel of his gun, with the awareness of having failed once again.


    ¡°If we''re done, time can start flowing again,¡± the boss concluded.


    The brain splash smeared the table surface, and the henchman remained with his head tilted back on the back of his chair, while faint convulsions shook his body.


    Reality began to glitch.


    The space-time disturbance immediately engulfed Vanni and he disappeared. But Berto opposed the debug system furiously. Lagging, he lunged towards one of Rosselli''s men, grabbed him by the throat, and pulled his gun from the holster at his side.


    He shot him in the head, while the remaining six grabbed their weapons. Their bullets passed through Berto''s body without wounding him and Berto responded to their shots, killing them one after the other.


    The glitch became increasingly unstable.


    Berto reserved the last shot for Don Rosselli. The boss greeted the bullet with a mocking smile and his brains stained the wall behind him.


    Then Berto succumbed to the glitch, and the debug system put him back on the road to Lanciano.


    Berto sighed. At least he had gained a small amount of satisfaction.

 Guardian angels

    Debug system activated. Logic error solved.


    6:51 pm. 17 hours, 38 minutes, 56 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is desperate about its failure. He heads to the Bar Libra in Montemarcone to drink a beer alone.


    ¡°We are desperate, too,¡± Berto noted, reading the message. The night sky was black, and the stars were yellowish¡ªnot much different from the night sky Berto was used to.


    ¡°At this point, why don''t we go and have a beer with him?¡± Vanni proposed.


    Berto sighed. ¡°It seems like a good idea to me. We need to talk to him. It is now clear that we cannot save it by acting on external factors. The boss... the System Node has decided that he must die, and money, intimidation, and persuasion will not make him change his mind. Quintino must save himself. He must flee far from here. It''s his only chance."


    Vanni nodded. ¡°It seems so simple¡­ in fact if he ran away everything would be solved. But if it were that simple he would have already done it, right?¡±


    ¡°Well, then we''ll find out why he didn''t escape and then we''ll convince him to do so,¡± Berto retorted.


    After a nod of agreement, the two friends galloped towards the Montemarconi roundabout.


    The Libra bar was built on an open space on the right side of the roundabout. Even though it was bitterly cold, Quintino drank his beer at one of the outdoor tables. There was no one else out there but him.


    Berto and Vanni entered and asked for two 66cl Peroni beers. When they placed four euro coins on the cash register plate, the barmaid looked at them with a questioning expression. ¡°What the fuck is this, a joke?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Huh?¡± said Berto. There was nothing wrong with those two euro pieces.


    ¡°Where did you find those coins, in some toothless old man''s piggy bank? Bring me my two thousand lira if you want your beers,¡± the barmaid said.


    ¡°Oh, I hadn''t noticed,¡± Berto apologized, and put his coins back in his pocket.


    Leaving the bar, Vanni whispered, ¡°Fuck, they still have lira here.¡±


    ¡°Or maybe they have lira again,¡± Berto replied.


    They both turned towards Quintino. They could ask him to pay. Vanni came closer, ¡°Hey bud¡­ sir¡­ we''re broke. By any chance would you have two thousand lira to buy us a couple of beers?¡±


    Quintino placed the two banknotes on the table and sighed, ¡°Why not, strangers? Have a drink on me."


    Berto took the money and went to fetch the beers. Vanni sat down next to his old friend. It was hard to pretend he didn''t know him.


    ¡°You have our gratitude, you''re very kind!¡± Vanni thanked him, "Since you''re alone, we¡¯ll repay you by keeping some company."


    ¡°You don''t have to repay anything. I¡¯d rather be alone and you don''t need to be out here. Go inside, in the heat,¡± Quintino refused.


    ¡°You seem rather upset,¡± Vanni observed.


    ¡°What a roving eye!¡± Quintino muttered sarcastically.


    ¡°I''ll tell you more, you seem to be in pretty deep shit,¡± Vanni added.


    ¡°Did he send you?¡± Quintino asked scared.


    ¡°No, but we might know something about your problem,¡± Vanni said suggestively. Berto returned and placed the two beers on the table. Vanni took one and sipped it.


    ¡°Are you cops? Who the fuck are you?!¡±


    ¡°We are not cops and we are not enemies,¡± Berto replied reassuringly, ¡°But I strongly advise you not to investigate our identity, or hell will break loose. See us as two guardian angels. Imagine us as if we were your little inner voice.¡±


    Quintino hiccuped and spat a lump of phlegm onto the ground. ¡°Ah, here it is. I understand. Then you don''t know shit. You''re playing mentalists. I''ll tell you clearly: yes, I have a money problem. But I will solve it, I have always solved my problems.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°No, it''s not a money problem,¡± Vanni insisted, ¡°To hell with beating around the bush. Today you went to sell your shit in a different place than usual. You thought it was someone else''s square. But are you really sure it was?¡±


    ¡°Of course, they guaranteed it!¡± Quintino exclaimed.


    ¡°But can you be sure of it? What if someone wants to screw you over? What if they sent you to turf that already belongs to Rosselli?" Vanni asked.


    ¡°Oh no¡­¡± Quintino realized very quickly, ¡°No, no, no! It can''t be! Do they want to cut me off?¡±


    ¡°They want to put you off,¡± Vanni corrected him.


    ¡°Oh, fuck! Who the fuck are you?!¡±


    ¡°I repeat that we cannot reveal our identity to you,¡± Berto reiterated. ¡°But rest assured, we are here to help.¡±


    ¡°But why do they want to get rid of me?¡± Quintino asked desperately.


    ¡°It''s not important. The point is that now you have to think about covering your ass. You have to get out of here,¡± Vanni tried to keep the conversation in.


    ¡°Is there any place far from here where you could hide?¡± Berto investigated.


    ¡°My wife ¨C my late wife ¨C had relatives in the mountains, near Villa Santa Maria. Maybe I can hide there for a few days. But then what will I do? I have no money, nor a job!¡±


    ¡°You''ll think about it when you get there,¡± Berto advised him. ¡°Do you know how to get to Villa Santa Maria? Do you have a car?¡±


    ¡°No, and I can¡¯t get there through public transport¡­ at least not until tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, and the bus routes are too predictable,¡± Vanni added.


    ¡°Look, I have a solution, but you have to trust us,¡± Berto proposed, ¡°Tomorrow morning at eight o''clock sharp, come to the statal road and start hitchhiking. A car will stop. I don''t know what model it will be and I don''t know who will be on board. The driver will ask you where you are going, and you will say Villa Santa Maria. You go up. Then don''t ask questions. Stay quiet during the entire journey. The driver will drop you at the exit for Villa and you will walk to the village.¡±


    Quintino seemed to have grasped it. ¡°Okay,¡± he replied.


    *****


    It was Thursday morning, and a family of four was merrily traveling on a station wagon. They had just left their terraced house in Atessa to spend a very long weekend on the ski slopes of Roccaraso. The father, Pasquale, was in the commercial division of one of the factories in the Sangro Valley, and the mother, Assunta, had a beauty center. Kevin and Beatrice were in the back seats, eight and six years old respectively.


    The children, firmly secured in the back seats with their seat belts, played with their phones with the volume turned to maximum.


    Descending towards Montemarcone Pasquale¡¯s vision blurred, but it only lasted an instant. Then, along the straight, he saw an elderly gentleman with his hand raised.


    Pasquale felt a little nostalgic. He hadn''t seen anyone hitchhiking for ages. That didn''t mean he would stop.


    But unexplainably, at the last moment, he decided to pull over next to the gentleman. He didn''t understand why he did it but since his wife didn''t protest he rolled down the window. "Where you go?"


    ¡°At Villa Santa Maria,¡± the man replied.


    ¡°Oh, perfect, that¡¯s on our route!¡± Pasquale exclaimed lively. ¡°Come ahead!¡±


    The man opened the back door, and Assunta told Kevin, ¡°Kev, make room for the gentleman.¡±


    Kevin obeyed, moved to the middle seat, and reattached the seat belt. The gentleman sat down and closed the door. Pasquale drove off again.


    ¡°Dad, won''t you tell the gentleman to fasten his seat belt?¡± Beatrice asked her father.


    ¡°Right, Bea. Sir, would you please put your seatbelt on?¡±


    The gentleman nodded, then attached the belt.


    Pasquale turned left at the first roundabout, then right, then took the Sangro Fondovalle main road towards Isernia. He reached a speed of ninety kilometers an hour and maintained it on the long straight.


    ¡°Mom, the gentleman stinks,¡± Kevin observed.


    ¡°Kevin!¡± the mother thundered, ¡°Sorry, he''s such an impertinent kid ¨C Kevin, we¡¯ll come to terms with you later!¡±


    The gentleman smiled and pretended nothing had happened.


    At the LEX petrol station before Archi''s exit, two souped-up Vespas appeared in the rear-view mirror approaching at high speed.


    ¡°Damn, they''re crazy fast,¡± Pasquale commented.


    Then there was a bang, and the car spun. It hit the guardrail and the airbags exploded. Despite the airbag and seat belt, Pasquale hit the steering wheel with his head and lost consciousness, his glasses flying off. Assunta put her hands over her mouth and screamed. Kevin and Beatrice were screaming too.


    On the fly, the gentleman unfastened his seat belt and jumped out of the cockpit. He started running along the busy road, but the two Vespas accelerated and cut off his escape. The rear passenger of one of the Vespas raised a pistol and fired a volley of bullets into the gentleman''s knees and chest.


    Two more guys appeared out of nowhere. An old man in a military green trench coat and a young man in a red and black jacket. The old man jumped on the thugs on the Vespa, while the other shouted at him as if he wanted to stop him.


    Then time got laggy. The old man, frozen in his leap, advanced and retreated a few centimeters.


    There was a fade, and then the street reappeared. There was no sign of the men fighting anymore; there were only cars driving in both directions. The station wagon was on the road, and Pasquale was driving alertly, the speedometer showing ninety kilometers per hour.


    Pasquale asked, ¡°Kids, are you sure you don''t have to pee? The road to Roccaraso is still long.¡±

 The boar and the hunter

    Debugging system activated. Logic error solved.


    8.17 am. 3 hours, 13 minutes, 4 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is having breakfast at his apartment in Montemarcone.


    Berto and Vanni were on the road to Lanciano again. Berto was crying and screaming, Vanni stood with his hand stretched out towards him as if he wanted to make him stop.


    ¡°No, no, no! Fuck!¡± Berto sobbed in despair, ¡°Vanni why? Why did you do it?! We don''t have any more time!"


    ¡°Berto, listen, we still have time. We can still do it. We have to try again,¡± Vanni tried to persuade his partner.


    ¡°It is not true! We had staked everything on this last opportunity! Already last night we risked triggering a new logic error by talking to Quintino, now it''s completely impossible to do it!¡±


    ¡°I told you it wasn''t a good idea to spend the night doing nothing! But now we must use the time left to save him!¡±


    ¡°And what would you have done during the night? We had hypothesized that perhaps Rosselli''s men were already tailing him! Quintino had no way to escape! Fuck Vanni, you gave me your word! If they had managed to kill him, you wouldn¡¯t intervene!¡±


    ¡°We can convince him to hitchhike again, and find someone who goes faster!¡±


    ¡°You stupid old bastard, do you understand he''s done for? We only had two choices: try to make him die somewhere else or wait for him to die in that shitty reed patch as it should be. And maybe now it¡¯s too late for the first one. In short: we''re screwed.¡±


    ¡°I''m not giving up!¡±


    ¡°Well done Vanni, don''t give up. I¡¯ve had enough. I''m going somewhere to wait for the world to end."


    ¡°Yeah, go lie somewhere and wait for death, you little bastard!¡± With these words, Vanni left and fled down the slope toward Montemarcone.


    Berto sighed. He felt a weight in the center of his chest. It was anguish. But he hadn''t lied about being tired of trying. Maybe, from a certain point of view, it wasn''t such a great tragedy to be erased from existence.


    He had no idea what his past lives had been like or what his future ones would be like, but Gilberto Calabrese''s life had been bland and forgettable. And looking ahead, things could only get worse.


    There was a place where he wanted to go to wait for everything to end. A bar in Lanciano. He had often been there with Gianna. Gianna said that it had belonged to her grandfather but that he had then sold it. Berto had never believed her. She was too low class and that bar was too fancy.


    In any case, they made some amazing Chantilly cream donuts at the Savoy Bar, and Berto wanted to eat one before disappearing forever.


    He walked towards the center of Lanciano, but after half an hour, when he was almost there, the debug system brought him back.


    Debugging system activated. Logic error solved.


    ¡°Sucked wind, huh?¡± Berto asked Vanni.


    Vanni grunted and ran away again towards Montemarcone. Berto shrugged and set off towards the bar again, but once more he was sent back just before arriving.


    Debugging system activated. Logic error solved.


    This time Berto didn''t even bother making a joke to Vanni. He simply went on his way.


    Debugging system activated. Logic error solved.


    ¡°You''re a pain in the ass, Vanni! Get it over with! At least let me die in peace!¡±


    ¡°Fuck you!¡±


    Debugging system activated. Logic error solved.


    ¡°Enough, I give up!¡± Vanni exclaimed in defeat.


    ¡°Fucking finally! There''s an hour to go, if you don''t stop I won''t even be able to get to that damned place!¡± Berto replied unnerved.


    ¡°What? What place?¡± Vanni asked, genuinely intrigued by Berto''s exasperation.


    ¡°The Savoy Bar in Lanciano. They make amazing Chantilly cream donuts.¡±


    "Oh. Does it bother you if I come with you?¡±


    ¡°Do as you like, as long as you don''t get in my way.¡±


    At five minutes to eleven Berto and Vanni reached the porticoes of Lanciano. Under them was the Savoy Bar, with its gold and black sign.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°How do we pay for the donut?¡± Vanni asked naively.


    ¡°What the fuck do you care how we pay? In half an hour the world will end!¡± Berto replied laughing.


    Vanni went to sit at a table in front of the bar. ¡°Will you get me one too?¡±


    Berto nodded and entered. He looked at the refrigerated counter, and then at the bartender. He blinked a couple of times. The bartender was Gianna. She was a little different from how Berto remembered her, but there was no doubt about it.


    ¡°Excuse me, could you give me a couple of Chantilly cream donuts?¡± Berto began.


    ¡°Oh, we have a connoisseur I see. They''re my favorites,¡± Gianna replied with a smile.


    Berto waited for the barmaid to put the two donuts on a saucer. He wanted to ask her if it was really her, but he felt ashamed. She looked for his gaze as if to say she could take the plate.


    ¡°Listen, is your name Gianna by any chance?¡±


    ¡°Do we know each other?¡±


    ¡°Yes ¨C well, no. I come from another dimension and I knew you there. We even were in a relationship for a while. For like three months.¡±


    Well, why not screw it at this point?


    Gianna laughed. ¡°Tell me, has this pick-up strategy ever worked?¡±


    ¡°I promise you it''s not bullshit. Like, this was your grandfather''s bar. You told me while sitting at that table over there,¡± Berto stretched out to point to a green leather sofa in the corner, ¡°That day too you had taken a Chantilly cream donut. You let me taste it for the first time and told me it was the bar¡¯s crown jewel.¡±


    ¡°Are you a stalker?¡± Gianna asked him, squinting as if she wanted to look at him better. When she was joking she always did this. "What is your name?"


    ¡°Berto.¡±


    ¡°Berto? Alberto or Roberto?¡±


    ¡°Gilberto.¡±


    ¡°It''s a peculiar name. But my dad came from a place with many people called like that.¡±


    ¡°Yes, your father is from Casoli, and the Patron Saint of Casoli is Saint Gilbert. So, there¡¯s a lot of people from there with that name."


    Gianna laughed again, ¡°There were. Casoli was razed to the ground quite a few years ago.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well, not where I come from. Different dimension, remember?¡±


    For an instant, Gianna looked at Berto and seemed to see something in him. It looked like she had seen a dead person. Then reality started to glitch. As the existent began to change shape for the last time, Gianna said, ¡°The Gianna in your dimension must be stupid. You''re cute, you know?¡±


    Debugging system activated. Logic error solved.


    11.07 am. 0 hours, 23 minutes, 15 seconds remaining. The hitmen took KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 and are taking him to the place of execution.


    Berto darted away as fast as an arrow. Suddenly he had a very good reason to avoid the apocalypse.


    "Where are you going?" Vanni shouted at him.


    ¡°I''m going to save the world,¡± Berto replied without looking back.


    ¡°Didn''t you give up?¡±


    ¡°I''ve changed my mind,¡± Berto''s words reached Vanni like an echo. And Vanni, who had seen him chatting with the waitress before the debug, thought "Oh yeah, the proverb¡¯s right. One hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen.¡±


    Berto ran at breakneck speed, in his crazy fight against time. He didn''t know his exact speed, but he could swear that as he passed the Brecciaio bridge the speed detector activated and ordered him "Slow down!". But he couldn''t slow down. There were only five minutes left.


    At the end of the bridge, Berto jumped below, chasing the cursor a few hundred meters away. It was pointing somewhere along the riverbank.


    Running among the elm and plum trees, Berto crossed a large wild boar. He had an idea. Maybe not a brilliant idea, but it was the only one his brain could come up with. Berto resumed his material form, caught the boar''s attention, and then let it chase after him. He ran towards the cursor, and an instant before emerging from the vegetation he became invisible again. The boar charged out of the bramble thicket and then towards the reeds.


    Quintino was there, and with him, there was a young guy who pointed a gun at the back of his head, Pablo, and three other criminals. The game seemed to be almost over. When the boar appeared, everyone turned towards the beast.


    Berto listened to Quintino''s mind. ¡°What? A wild boar? How long has it been since I saw one? I used to like hunting wild boars once.¡±


    Rosselli''s men squealed in fear, and the young guy pulled the gun from Quintino''s head to aim it at the boar.


    ¡°What a bunch of clowns.¡±


    ¡°Stay fucking calm!¡± Pablo screamed and fired a shot into the air, but the boar ignored him.


    ¡°I was a hunter and fisherman twenty years ago. I shot my prey in the head in cold blood, and with one shot they fell to the ground dead.¡±


    ¡°Go away you shitty beast!¡± Pablo fired another shot at the boar, wounding its leg, and the beast fled into the vegetation. ¡°Good, now let''s get back to us¡±


    ¡°Can I really accept being killed by these imbeciles?¡±


    The young guy moved the barrel towards Quintino''s face again, but in a split-second decision, Quintino darted forward and grabbed the gun, brought it out of his line, and snatched it from the guy''s hands. Then he grabbed him by the throat, holding him as a human shield.


    ¡°Don''t fucking shoot! That''s my nephew!¡± Pablo screamed in terror. And Pablo was the first to get a bullet in the head.


    ¡°Shoot, holy shit!¡± shouted one of the three criminals. Taking cover with Pablo''s nephew, Quintino responded blow for blow, and when the three were on the ground he let go of the lad''s body, riddled with lead.


    The human shield had not been enough to protect Quintino completely. He had quite deep wounds that were bleeding profusely, but he was still alive. Quintino dabbed his wounds and shuffled along the white road along the river, leaving red puddles behind.


    ¡°And what do I do now?¡± Quintino staggered forward muttering to himself ¡°I''m going to Archi, I''ll take a bus, and then ¨C ¡±


    Berto would have liked to follow him, he would have wanted to find out whether Quintino would have been able to save himself or not. But the world began to fade and turn into an infinite white sheet.

 Epilogue

    The morning was cold and foggy, but when Berto opened his eyes he wasted no time formulating that stupid consideration. He lunged for the nightstand and grabbed his phone.


    Friday morning, rain and fog banks are expected.


    Berto opened the news app and scrolled to the local ones. No demonstration actions against Sasi, no corpses found along the bank of the Sangro river. Only schools that were falling apart and stupid exhibitions of little-known local artists. He breathed a sigh of relief.


    In the instant following his sigh, Berto realized that it was cold. He got under the duvet and stayed there for a good twenty minutes doomscrolling on social media. There was a specific thing he wanted to do, but, afraid of interrupting that moment of bliss, he kept scrolling through Instagram reels. In his reels, there were a lot of dogs doing stupid things. God, how he loved those dogs. How he loved his reels. Excellent humor.


    Enough of that bullshit.


    Berto clicked on the search bar. He looked for Gianna. Maybe she was back in town, even if he hadn''t seen her for a long time. Perhaps he could DM her something casual and ask her out. After all, she had told him she was stupid for leaving him because he was cute. Even if the Gianna who had told him came from another dimension tormented by war and dictatorship¡­ ¨C lives in Rome, so it was written on her Instagram page. Then there were a whole series of photos that were very indicative of how she was doing. One at her graduation, one in front of the Eiffel Tower, one where she was making out with a guy, and so on.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Now that he thought about it, a couple of years earlier he had already checked Gianna''s profile and the situation was already more or less the same. Stupid to delude himself that anything had changed. He was the only one stuck in that little village of old people and teenagers, and the rest of the world went on. No prospects and no future. That was the atonement of ARKAZEL:SLOTH ver. 173.00475.5.017, right?


    Speaking of perspective and the future, he had a long day of deliveries ahead of him. Then, the weekend would begin, and he would relax with friends at the Fraschetta bar.


    Berto steeled himself, got out of bed, and went to the bathroom. He turned on the tap. The tap let out a long sigh, but not even a drop of water came out. That was a classic Sasi move: unplanned water supply interruption. Damn, there was snow in the mountains! How could there be no water? The springs should have been full by now!


    Berto peered at his reflection in the mirror for a moment.


    System Nodes, natural enemies of Soul Fragments like him. Was the president of Sasi a System Node? Most likely yes. And the mayors, the road workers, and the managers of the local health company must have been System Nodes as well.


    Berto wondered what was worse. Fearing that hell awaits us after death or having the awareness of already living there.