"Why didn't the Italian government prohibit the manifestation?" Louis asked.
"It is too late now. When the request was initially filed, it was just one of the many protests being held all over Europe in the last few years. But the re-election of Paul Moreno, with the blessing he received from Benedict XVII, made this snowball into the biggest protest ever planned in Europe. Celebrities and every kind of political activists from around the globe are joining by the day. After a lot of negotiation, all the authorities could manage was to shift the event to the weekend after Easter and have it held at the Circo Massimo, on the other side of the Tiber River, as far away from the Vatican as possible."
Louis could sense the anxiety growing in Valerio's words. Rome was his home city after all, and Louis understood his friend’s fear.
"I see, so you always want to be where the action is. You have not really changed since we met the first time in Passoy, back in the Nineties.”
“You have a point, Louis. Just the other day I realized how I have never actually stopped my media job, even though I could have switched lives several times. Maybe that’s my karma, no matter how long I live,” Valerio replied, as if struck by a sudden revelation, “and this time my guts tell me this is not going to end well. The decision of Paul Moreno to send the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off the coast of Rome doesn’t sound good at all.”
“Yeah, I agree with the Italians on this one.” Louis shook his head. “They made this move as sheer interference, as if they could not take care of their home by themselves. It also shows that in Washington they consider the Pope their puppet, someone that you have to protect and in case be ready to evacuate with the Marines’ helicopters, just like the Latin American dictator of the past century.”
“Louis, I can tell you from my sources at the Vatican that Benedict XVII is furious, way beyond what you can understand from the press releases,” Valerio continued, based on the reasoning that Louis had started. “I have talked to a few high-ranking prelates, and all conveyed that the Pope is starting to reconsider the support he has been giving to Moreno in the last few years. Yet it might be too late, and, even worse, the Pope cannot change a standpoint he firmly believes in just because his most powerful supporter is a moron. That’s why there is a realization that, no matter what happens, things won’t be the same after Saturday. That’s why I have to be there, Louis.”
“I know, Valerio. Just watch out,” Louis’ tone got suddenly anxious, “I do not want to lose another team member.”
Chapter 9
Philippa Bolton woke up in the ‘Gli Ulivi’ bed-and-breakfast, not far from Lucca in Northern Tuscany.
It was the early morning of Friday April 6th. She looked at the clock and once she realized it was around seven in the morning, she kicked her boyfriend out of the bed.
“Come on, Jason, get up or we will never reach Rome by tonight, and I do not want to miss a minute of the big show.”
Jason took a good ten seconds to reply, then said, with a sleepy tone, “Jeez, Philippa, tonight we’re in Rome and most likely tomorrow we will have to sleep in the car. Can’t we just enjoy another hour in comfort? Maybe with a little extra fun?”
“Not now,” Philippa replied briskly as she started getting herself dressed, “it’s not my fault if there is no accommodation available within one hundred miles of Rome for the past three months. This is also thanks to those motherfuckers of hotel managers linked to the Church that refuse to accommodate protesters. If you had at least had a skin chip implanted like me, we could have pretended we were some sort of pilgrims or tourists, and it could have made the trip that much easier by public transportation.”
Jason got out of the bed. He had been dating Philippa for less than six months but he had quickly learned when she was in her non-negotiable mode, and this was clearly one of those times.
“Fine Philippa, we do as you wish but just don’t get me started again on the skin chip. I hate that crap. I do not want to be put on a leash, not even if I can fly through all the security checks in this world. It’s like surrendering to the government, the system, the men in black, you name it.”
“Well, I appreciate your concerns, yet it is very convenient. You can forget keeping in mind all your passwords, for instance, and there are new discoveries popping up every day. Even ‘Voice of the People’, the news and media benchmarking service, says the claim that the skin chip does only what governments advertise is 84% more likely to be true than the one that advocates it has hidden uses.”
“You are an amazing girl, Philippa,” Jason laughed as they walked to the kitchen to have breakfast, “you push me to Rome to protest against the prohibition of Telomerax by the Church and governments from around the world, and you are ready to believe whatever crap pops up on the Internet. For what we know, the CIA might well have developed the ‘Voice of the People’! They use to finance the ‘Voice of America’, after all.”
“Well, that may very well be. Fact is, the chip is free and gives you a lot of benefits. Or maybe you are just not using the skin chip because you have access to Telomerax and you still do not want to tell me. Would you do that to me, Jason?”
“If the conversation continued like that,” Jason thought as they left the hotel and got on the road, “there are high chances this relationship won’t last before getting to Rome.” He needed to brush it off.
“Look, darling, you know things are not like that. Any Telomerax pusher would give you the pills and tell you at least half a dozen proven and safe ways to fool the chip. I mean, without running the risks of trying one of the thousands of tricks you find by googling ‘skin chip cheat’. The bloody problem is that the pusher will ask you for fifty-thousand pounds per year, and neither you nor I can afford it. With our jobs, accountant and shop manager, all we can do in London nowadays is barely survive, let alone dream of immortality. That’s still for the rich, even though there are quite a lot of them.”
"Just like my asshole of a boss," Philippa continued, "he uses it for sure. I took a picture of him a few days ago, pretending I was taking a selfie of the team, and I fed it to "MatchIt", the new image-matching app. Guess what, after a few days of processing the search I got a string of pictures of him taken from a number of websites. Some were dating as far back as 2007 and what’s crazy is the son of a bitch looked older, so he is using Telomerax for sure. It's not just the celebs, Jason, if it is your boss, it can be your colleague, your friend… we are being left behind, shit!"
Jason grinned and snapped back, as he sped along the highway.
"That’s why the app developer immediately got suited, and most likely this application will be declared illegal in a matter of weeks, if not days. So before this happens, please try it on me. I am sure you would not find any nasty surprises.”
No answer came from Philippa, and Jason realized she had already run the test with his picture. She was believing more in the search results than in his words. “Was this enough reason to break up?” Jason thought, “it would be best to wait until after the trip.”
These thoughts diverted his attention, so when the car in front of them suddenly braked, it was the scream of Philippa that brought him back to reality. Jason managed to avoid bumping into it by a fraction of a second. "Well, at least I won't regret saving the extra pounds for the automatic collision avoidance system," Jason whispered to his girlfriend. A traffic jam was now building up, and Jason saw some flashing lights in the distance, about a couple of miles down the highway. A checkpoint, possibly. He looked up in the air, to see there were already a few drones hovering over the line of cars. Philippa was already typing on the car display screen, looking for live video feeds.
Then she commented for Jason,
"Pretty decent drone owners, most of them set their broadcast to clear so that everybody can see. It is a security checkpoint, there are a couple of vehicles of the Carabinieri, the military police. It looks like they are stopping and searching all cars with foreign license plates."
"Jeez, we are still more than one hundred miles away from Rome and security starts tightening...I wonder what it is going to look like in the city center."
"C'mon Jason, it's just one day," Philippa objected, "then it's back to normal again. Unfortunately for us."
"Well, who knows, Phil," Jason added. "You never know what's going to come out, when a few million people gather together."
Chapter 10
Charles was relaxing on a beach bed, taking full advantage of the warm spring sun. From time to time, he would admire the slim figure of Sally, who had fallen asleep next to him after a swim. The past week was full of tough negotiations. All he had to look forward to was this evening’s dinner and a night spent with Sally. He was still contemplating, when Sally broke the silence and reached out to pat him on his shoulder.
"You see I was right to pretend you take a long weekend for the two of us on the Red Sea, after your meetings in Tel Aviv."
"Absolutely, my love," Charles whispered in response "and at the end I got all I was aiming for. I could not be happier about how things are panning out this year."
"I suppose I cannot ask you about what you discussed," Sally stated nonchalantly.
"Well, would it make any sense? Your friends for sure took part in the meetings. Maybe I better tell you my impressions about them, for you to report." Charles ended his statement with what he wanted to be a ironic laugh, but Sally did not appreciate it at all and frowned.
"Charles, I am starting to get fed up with your continuous remarks about me being a spy just because I am a Jew. At least I am a spy that loves you, and you should be more interested in that last fact."
"True," Charles noted, quickly regaining full control of his emotions, "as much as it is true that I am the informant that loves you and I might have already saved you from unwanted attentions from the CIA.”
“What do you mean, Charles?”
“I mean that you have been under surveillance for years, which means that I struggle every day not to tell you things you are not supposed to know, because I do not trust the affirmations I was given that you do not run any danger of being accused of espionage. You should point this out to your team, but as we are very likely being recorded right now, I will stress it again for the audience.”
Sally kept silent for a while, turned on to her back, away from Charles, and then asked aloud,
“Is this really that bad? They record each and every thing we say? At any time?”
“Well, I guess so,” Charles replied, “to some extent, we deserve it. Don’t forget that our companies make billions every year by selling to governments the skin chips and all related applications. You can’t sell guns and pretend nobody will ever have you at gunpoint. Have a look at this. Click on the CrowdWatcher icon,” Charles said, handing over his tablet to Sally.
Sally took the tablet. A map of Rome was displayed on the screen, and suddenly different shades of green and yellow started appearing along the streets. She zoomed in to see, the clouds were made of single, individual dots. She clicked on one of them, and a name with a string of data appeared.
“Those are the skin chip bearers, right? You track them down, but what does the color code stand for?” Sally asked.
“Indeed, that’s the big news. We have been able to track individuals with mobile phones since the beginning of the century, but having a chip under their skin gives you access to their emotions. You just have to measure the chemicals associated with rage, fear, happiness, and send them back to figure out what is going on. For example, whether a peaceful gathering is turning into an angry mob.”
“And of course this application is secret. It is buried into our bodies for the good of the government.”
“It is secret, but it is legal. The contract that people sign to get the chip clearly says that the government reserves the right to modify the software and to inform the bearer of any material risk to their health. Information is not material. Tomorrow we will also have the inside view of the protest, besides the usual CNN coverage.”
“Is this what the Israelis wanted? They want this technology to control the Palestinian crowds and to prevent the occasional riots in the West Bank?” Sally enquired, knowing she would get no answer.
“No, it was quite the opposite. We actually want something that they have, a kind of weapon I cannot tell you about. They let us use it from time to time, but now we would like to build it ourselves. I was just here to negotiate the terms of the technology transfer. Apparently they have found an agreement at the top level in Washington and got something in exchange, which I will ignore for the rest of my life, or at least until the secret is let out fifty years from now…” Charles’ voice subsumed, as one of the guests from the resort was walking to their spot on the beach. She was a tall, slim woman, her face showing clear Asian features yet with a fair complexion that gave her a somehow ghostly appearance. Sally greeted her first, she returned the greeting and then greeted Charles with a smile. All of a sudden, she started talking to Sally in Yiddish. Charles was so puzzled that Sally felt compelled to switch back to English for a short explanation.
“Charles, let me introduce Svetlana to you. She is from Russia, from the Far Eastern Jewish District close to Vladivostok. She can only speak Yiddish and Russian, and is now learning English and Hebrew as she has just migrated to Israel with her boyfriend. I heard her speaking Yiddish yesterday at the breakfast buffet, and she reminded of my grandparents in Brooklyn, so we started talking right away.”
Svetlana smiled as she followed the conversation. The women continued for a while in Yiddish and then Svetlana left.
“I hope you were not making arrangements for the eve of Shabbat?” Charles asked, “I am not exactly excited at the idea of spending the evening with a couple of newly-arrived immigrants who can barely speak English.”
“Well, you should at least feel a bit sympathetic,” Sally reproached, “She was just telling me how bad the situation is getting in the Russian Far East. They had to flee due to the increasing ethnic tensions. The rate of the illegal Chinese immigrants is rising by the day, Russian authorities are not able to control the border, and all minorities are being pushed out by the confrontation between the Russians and the Chinese. They moved first to Moscow, and then here, as soon as they get the chance to expatriate.”
“Um, I heard something about that in Washington last week. Apparently, Russians are seeking help from US companies that supply technology to control the Mexican border. The problem they have is the border with China is three times longer than ours with Mexico, and there are ten times more illegal Chinese migrants trying to sneak in. I think your friend made the right decision to come here.”
“You know what?” Sally continued, “She told me she was not happy at all with where she lives, in the outskirts of Jaffa. Too many Arabs, she said. They are considering moving out of Israel. It seems they have an opportunity.”
“Moving out of Israel? A couple that just immigrated? And where would they go? To New York City?” Charles looked at Sally in disbelief.
“Maybe,” he thought, “the conversation at the Shabbat meal would not be so boring after all.”
“They still do not know. They might even stay in Israel but it looks like her boyfriend got a good job offer to work for a Russian real estate company in Cyprus.”
“Cyprus….now that you mention it.” Charles suddenly connected the dots in his mind, “I remember reading some articles in the Economist, about the economy there booming after the development of the natural gas fields. Still a bit politically unstable though. If I remember well, the island is split in two parts, the Greeks on one side and on the other side…hmmm, it should be the Turks or the Arabs, I do not remember. Anyway, I will google it after taking my shower.”
Charles stood up, took his towel and started walking towards the cabanas. Sally waited a few seconds, and then followed him.
Chapter 11
The Rear Admiral William Murdoch, Jr. looked around the holosurface,
to make sure all was ready before the final briefing with the Pentagon. He was standing with the US Marines battalion commander, the chiefs of air and naval operations, and the head of the fleet cyber security. They were buried three decks below the hangars, in the communications room of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which was cruising in the Mediterranean Sea, twenty miles off the Italian coast.
At exactly 5 o’clock in the morning of Saturday, April 7th, the holograms from Washington materialized on the far end of the table, while its surface got covered with icons of all the meeting files. William Murdoch immediately recognized the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor and Skip Ross, the chief of national intelligence and former CIA director.
“Strange enough,” William thought, “there is no representative from the Department of State. Yet we might have to deal with two states at once, Italy and the Vatican. It does not look good.”
The Secretary of Defense opened the discussion.
“Alright, Bill, we went through your plan in the worst case scenario, and the Pope’s life is endangered. You are asking us tough questions.”
“I am, Sir, but my Navy servicemen and the Marines we have on board need crystal clear rules. I am sure you understand.”
“We do,” the Secretary of Defense replied. “Basically, you are authorized to move the Marines as soon as you see the development of a clear and direct danger to the Pope’s life. Like, for example, terrorists seizing the opportunity to attack the Vatican while Italian security forces are busy controlling the protest. We have warned the Italian authorities. You can fly in up to three assault helicopters with associated troops, so in other words a full company. We think no air coverage is needed, as the Italian Air Force is patrolling the skies and Rome is a no-fly-zone for now.”
The Last Enemy - A history of the present future - 1934-2084 Page 26