Flavio Mancini is a brilliant but lonely student from Rome who has a crush on Claudia, a wild and reckless girl. He doesn't know that he is the result of a genetic selection by the Interdimensional Assembly, a group of beings who can manipulate quan...
As the Drunk Teddy Pair welcomed customers in the warmth and noise, sheltering them from the cold and dark of a full winter night, a clandestine event of galactic proportions was taking place in a desolate area of the countryside around the city. A group of elderly aliens had landed and was conducting their affairs in hiding, like thieves, from every interstellar authority. The said group was deliberately eluding every star surveillance system set up around the Earth, and had parked their vehicle on a cultivation field, without the slightest shame of having violated several interplanetary treaties, as well as the private property of the unaware farmer who owned that field.
The ellipsoidal spaceship, shiny like a mirror, came from the planet of the Interdimensional Assembly. It was camouflaged in a perfect way, which also happened to be quite expensive in terms of energy, so that the travelers could disembark without being noticed by anyone, especially by those whom the earthlings called Elohim, or Annunaki, one of the commissioner civilizations of the Assembly, as well as the legitimate custodian of the Earth and creator of its current and remarkably ignorant occupants.
Protected by the life support field emanated by the spaceship, four Executives set foot on the plowed clods of the bare ground.
«Be careful» Wilol recommended, «they are prone to crucifying outsiders around here.»
Clyella shook her head amused. «I'm pretty sure they stopped doing that kind of thing several centuries ago.»
«I wouldn't swear on it...» Sleeld commented, as he wrinkled his sleepy face in thought. Wilol looked at him and, in turn, wrinkled his own forehead, perplexed at seeing that Sleeld's discomfort was authentic.
Kidhe ignored them both as he devoted all his attention to Clyella. «Are you sure you don't want a ship nearby in case of trouble?» he asked, caringly.
«Sure» Clyella tried to comfort him for the umpteenth time, and her warm and chirping voice contrasted with the seriousness of the words. «We have to minimize the risk of being noticed.»
«To know you here completely isolated... I don't know. If only we could communicate from time to time!»
«Please, no, we've already discussed this. I know how to handle myself in case of emergency.»
«Don't get me wrong, I have no doubts about your abilities,» Kidhe hurried to apologize. «It's just that I know what it means to be stranded on a foreign planet.»
Clyella laughed in an attempt to convey as much tranquility as possible. «I know» she said, «but these things don't happen anymore, right?»
«But it's true!» Wilol justified himself. «Macro-cosmic accidents on non-technologized planets are always a possibility!»
Sleeld spread his arms and looked up at the sky. «Please, not on this planet. It's the last thing we need...»
Completely oblivious to certain pessimistic paranoias, Clyella chuckled again. «I'll take the risk.» she declared with unwavering conviction.
«No, really!» exclaimed Sleeld. «Don't talk to me about risks, if something else happens to this jinx-struck planet, I'm resigning, I'm serious.»
«Clyella» Kidhe said again, «if at any time you ever feel in danger, please, do not hesitate to break radio silence. We'll establish a connection and get you to safety.»
«But the commissioners...» Clyella disagreed.
«Screw the commissioners! I order you to give priority to your safety» Kidhe insisted, even though he knew he had little chance of being obeyed.
He looked into Clyella's brown eyes, so lively and seemingly naive. Then he threw himself to hug her and caressed her honey-colored curls. Her perfect Sphere champion physique wouldn't be of much help in keeping her safe on a barbaric planet like the one they were on. If nothing else, they had managed to provide her with a tiny interdimensional computer, with minimal functions, but at least she could use it without being detected.
«Don't worry, Kidhe, what could possibly happen to me?» the Executive smiled carefree, reading his fears on his face.
Shaking his head uncomfortably, Sleeld pursed his lips in a grimace of skepticism and concern. «You're risking death... I don't even want to think about it,» he whispered without addressing anyone in particular.
Clyella however took his words into consideration as if he had confided something personal to her and, with uncshakable almness, she wanted to comfort him too. «You know what they say here, sooner or later we all have to die» she downplayed.
«We don't!» Wilol flared up. He had lost his perennial mocking smile when he approached Clyella to bid farewell. Before embracing his friend, he could not hide the glisten that veiled his eyes, as black as the darkness of the sidereal distances that would soon separate them.
«You have earned eternity!» his voice quivered, struggling not to break, trying to express the intensity of the storm that stirred in his heart. «Damn it, if there's ever been someone who's earned it more than anyone else, it's you. You deserve it... more than I do, that's for sure.»
«So... we're leaving now. But the distance will not prevent us from being by your side in some way» Kidhe finally said placing his hand over his heart. «Good luck.»
«Thank you» Clyella replied, «but I hope I won't be needing it.»
After a last gesture, laden with an unfamiliar heaviness in their chests, Clyella's friends climbed aboard the ellipsoid. The ship vanished into the cosmos at a speed that, within a few minutes, would have brought it across light years of interstellar space.
Clyella commanded the microcomputer to adjust her appearance and dress her in earthly attire. The computer instantly materialized what was asked of it and the Executive, beginning to feel the cold of winter for the first time in millennia, headed towards the Eternal City.
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