Futura : Parallel Universes. Book 3

  Valerio Malvezzi

  FUTURA

  PARALLEL UNIVERSES

  BOOK 3

  Futura: Parallel Universes: Book 3

  Copyright © 2021Valerio Malvezzi

  This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  A story is just a possibility between a prologue and an epilogue

  Friday, 2:32 p.m.

  The woman in her fifties, lean, with blonde hair and a narrow, almost severe face, will get out of the car in the small square adjacent to the university area, after parking it by inserting the car electronic recognition device. It will authorize her as a public official in the performance of her duties. She will cross the old tree-lined avenue and walk in the pedestrian area among flower beds covered with the yellow fallen leaves and still damp with dew, despite the pale sun of the afternoon filtering through the clouds. She will make her way into the group of students heading to the area reserved for teaching, an old building completely renovated and painted an ochre yellow. The woman, on the other hand, will turn left, walking along the small lane paved with porphyry tiles, towards an austere gray building. The thin woman will greet the guard at the entrance, in blue uniform, climb the five stone steps, and enter the atrium fronted by two stone lions placed on low columns on either side of the large staircase. She will not be convinced of her colleagues’ internal investigation strategy and will continue to think that it’s important to understand what the Medoc contract researchers were going to discuss and what the research section’s study topics were. At the very least, she will be determined to make the attempt. She will enter the room and speak to one of the four secretaries of the Bureau, on the second floor.

  “Professor Hatlock is expecting you, ma’am. Please follow me,” she will say, having her cross a second room to enter one at the end of the corridor, above which will be affixed the nameplate of the Department Director.

  “Meredith,” he will say in an unctuous tone, getting up from his chair to shake her hand. “To what do I owe this visit?”

  The little man, with grizzled hair and a round face, surrounded by an old-fashioned beard, will welcome her with a forced smile.

  “Thank you for receiving me at such short notice,” the thin woman will say hastily, taking off her coat and sitting down. “As you can imagine, I’m here for a couple of questions about what happened the day before yesterday.”

  186 days earlier

  The music will gently enter the bedroom via the speakers, in the isolated house of Yeşilköy, in the Bakırköy District of Istanbul. At the same time, the temperature will be raised by a couple of degrees from the ventilation system. The bathroom door, communicating with that of the bedroom, will open automatically and hot water will begin to flow into the tub. The girl will turn the other way and put the pillow on her head, continuing to sleep. Five minutes later, the image of the same girl will appear suspended over the bed, telling herself, in her sleep: “Hi, I’m sorry, but if you haven’t stopped me yet, I’m forced to do it.” The bed will begin to rise, bending at the top. The blankets will be slowly pulled and bunched at the bottom of the bed. In the bathroom, the whirlpool will begin to gurgle.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming!” the girl will protest, holding the blankets with one hand, while the other pressed on the pillow.

  The girl will walk, still dazed with sleep, into the bathroom, wading into the warm water of the small pool, until she reaches the submerged chair. She will touch the space in front of her with her hand and, sitting, immersed in the hot tub, she will look at the holographic sheet projected above her, containing the recordings of the messages. Strange, Black Rabbit hasn’t shown up yet, and it’s almost eight o’clock. Four hours late, at least. The operation will have ended at about three at night. Usually, her contact will give her an hour to check the stuff, then send her a message. That night, the girl will have come back more tired than usual; she will have waited another twenty minutes and then gone to sleep. When she woke up, she imagined she would find the message. Her contact would be so hungry for money, and it is the first really important operation for him. A lot of money. He wasn’t so patient during the operations with tourist resorts across Turkey, when he had simply created some fake reviews, a no-brainer, compared to this. After twenty minutes, the girl will get up and go for breakfast.

  “Terrible,” the professor will say, with a sorrowful expression. “Terrible. We’re all still very shaken by it.”

  “Yes, of course. So are we, and that’s why I need more information about that section.”

  “If you want, I can call Turos,” the little man will say, spreading his arms and placing his finger on a communicator. “He has all the accounting records, payments, and everything. Maybe...”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the thin woman will interrupt. “I don’t need that kind of information, for now. No, I’d like to know something much easier. Something you may know.”

  The little man will move uncomfortably in the armchair. “If I may... Gladly. What do you want to know?”

  “I understand that Prof. Borman was closely following the work of his working group and that a coordination meeting was being held every Wednesday afternoon. Is that correct?”

  “As far as I know, yes. Except in special cases.”

  “And Borman obviously kept a research log, and he knew about the order of business.”

  “Well, yes. He was responsible for it, and he had to report to us.”

  The thin woman will pull her shirt sleeve over her wrist, nervously. “Precisely. Had he sent the meeting subject file to your office, as usual? I checked the procedures before I came.”

  The little man will release a malevolent smile. “Well, if you’ve already checked, you wouldn’t be wondering if he sent the file. Obviously, he had to do it, as a practice.”

  “In fact, I didn’t ask you if he should do it. But if he did this time.”

  The little man will raise the communicator, raising his shoulders. “As far as I know, I think so. It’s not like I meticulously check all the reports, Meredith. I have a lot of activities to coordinate, you know? I’m not sure if you have any idea what it’s like to run a department as big as this,” he will say, dialing a short series of numbers in the space in front of him. “I read those reports once every two or three months, for the quarterly report that we have to send you, not every week. Anyway, Turos knows for sure. For accounting reasons.”

  Half an hour later, the girl will still be having breakfast on the veranda when she receives the message from Black Rabbit, containing only one word. As always, the word will refer to the name of a commander of a department of his battle order in the holographic war game. The girl will put down the bowl of milk and cereal, get up, and turn on the projector, which will transmit the uploaded images of Black Rabbit’s move. The images will flow transparently on the blue of the sea, unusually calm that morning. The girl will sit down, swallow a spoonful of cereal, composing her own move. She will wait patiently, then search the battle order list until she can find the name of the department commander indicated in the message. She will search for the token of the
unit, open the orders of the command token, and launch the decryption program, reading the message.

  Everything’s fine.

  The girl will take a sip of milk, observing the two words. Something will seem wrong to her in Black Rabbit’s move. She can’t say what; it will be a strange, unexplainable feeling. On the right side of the holographic screen, a green button will allow reviewing the opponent’s move. The girl’s index finger will scroll through the screen to tap the button. In the kitchen, the wagons will advance in the dust, the half-tracks following fast. The infantry will throw themselves to the ground when the explosions raise craters on the coffee and milk. Everything will seem normal. Until the end of the move. He didn’t place the counters for the artillery spotters. And no aerial scouts. As trivial as it seems for the purpose of playing the game, she won’t remember Black Rabbit ever missing that stage before. It’s almost like he’s not playing the same way. Not that it matters, but it will be strange. The girl will think about whether to send a message with a few questions, just to check. She will think for a long time. A grenade from an 81 mm mortar will explode, lifting a cloud of dust in front of the trench on the bread basket. The work will be complete, and she will feel like a professional. Her instincts will finally suggest that it’s better to give the usual confirmation.

  The hologram of a man in his fifties will appear, black hair combed back and a thick goatee streaked with white.

  “Can you come for a moment with this week’s Borman section meeting file, please?” Hatlock will ask. “Yes, now, thank you.”

  “And then after you receive the card, where does it end up?”

  “If you have read the procedure, you should know,” the little man will say harshly. “Mine is just a formal check more than anything else. Borman insisted a lot on the research autonomy of his section, and sometimes we also discussed it thoroughly. And then, I seal the document and pass it on to you for information and in a copy to Turos for collection from the accounting documentation.

  To you.

  Hours worked, group activities, and so on. For reporting and payments at the end of the month.”

  “I hadn’t read in the procedure that you also send a copy to the agency before the meetings,” the thin woman will say. “I only knew about the reporting in the following month.”

  “Because it’s not in the procedures, in fact. This is an informal practice. It saves time, working in advance, on reporting at the end of the month. Something Turos asked a long time ago to speed up reporting operations.”

  The tall man with the goatee will enter the room with a card in his hand.

  “Meredith, hello,” he will say. “I learned of the tragedy on the web. Horrible. There are no words.”

  “Hello. Yes, it was horrible. We’re investigating, actually. I’d like to see the file.”

  “Yes, of course, here it is,” the man will say, standing and inserting the file into the holographic space. Only two paired white sheets will appear in the space, with a synthetic ratio. The woman will observe the letter, a page and a half long, written by Borman to Hatlock, containing a very brief account of the working days, an indication of dozens of books, articles, essays, and reports not published or the publication of which had created legal or political disputes around the world and were examined by the section.

  But instinct will also tell her to be careful. She will stand by and watch the tired and frightened face of the hologram of the German soldier in the trench next to her. Debris from the 81grenade explosion will rain in a cloud of dust and soil on his helmet. More careful than usual.

  Five hours later, the girl will be projected into the holographic space in the fifth-from-last row of the university classroom. She will not be very interested in the lesson, distracted by looking at the wooden benches with the other students, the large white windows, and the light that filters from the windows to the walls of the programmers’ depiction of a lecture hall in Paris. Only at the end of the lesson, the bearded young man will approach the old professor, available to receive him as always.

  “Today I noticed you immediately,” the professor will say. “I haven’t seen you at the last two lessons, I think.”

  The bearded young man will look at the other students walking away, greeting each other.

  “I had a little bit to do,” the boy will say. “May I say a few words to you?”

  The old teacher will store his material in the bag, as always, neatly closing the panels and greeting the students.

  “Certainly. Everything all right last night, with your studies? Looking at you, I’d say you were up till all hours.”

  “It was all right. Yes.”

  “And have you completed your exercises?”

  The young man will observe a couple of girls who will pass by, greeting him and then vanishing.

  “I’ve solved it. I have the solution.”

  “Splendid,” the professor will cheerfully comment. “Splendid. And when would you like to take the final exam?”

  The young man will look around. Some students will have already left the classroom; others will linger in pleasantries with classmates, mostly exchanging impressions and greetings.

  “In five days.”

  “Fine. Still an evening test?”

  “Yes. At nine p.m. It’s when it’s busiest and it’s better that way.”

  After all, those Borman deemed of interest were a very small number. A novel by a Scotswoman, an article about the energy sources of a Russian researcher, an essay by a Chinese doctor. But how important could this stuff be? The thin woman will look at the bottom of the page at a handwritten note, under a signature. He will read the note in pen: transmit to Daft and Turos as appropriate.

  “Is this your signature?” she will ask the seated little man.

  “Of course.”

  “And so the document was sent to the internal administrative directorate and to our operational coordination of the agency in Chicago, right?”

  “As always, as usual,” the little man will confirm nervously.

  The thin woman will not show any emotion. “The document is for Monday. If the meeting was Wednesday, when did you sign it?”

  “Our procedures are very strict, Meredith,” the tall man with the goatee will say condescendingly. “The Director sealed it on the same day and sent me the copy that same day.”

  “And when did you turn it over to the Agency’s operational coordination?”

  “I don’t remember exactly; I’ll check right away,” the man will say, standing, opening a small holographic sheet from his personal display. “Here, look. I turned it over to you for information the next day. Tuesday, 12:02 p.m., to be precise.”

  The thin woman will nod, looking at the sheet. “May I have a copy?”

  The thin woman will walk along the small road with porphyry tiles, turning into the tree-lined avenue, heading for the car. So, Daft knew. He knew the subject of the meeting, by unrecorded informal practice, as early as Tuesday. Yet, even at the meeting a few hours earlier, he had said that it wasn’t important to know the reason for the meeting. On the contrary, at this point, the reason for the meeting will be more important than ever. From that precise moment, the woman will act alone, without informing her colleagues of her moves.

  “Very well, I’ll tell the Commission to prepare,” the teacher will say cheerfully, greeting another pupil with his hand.

  The young man will watch the companion walk away and disappear from the virtual room.

  “I have a recommendation, for the Commission, Professor,” he will say, seriously. “I think I have a problem with preparation.”

  “Tell me.” The smile on the teacher’s face will dim slightly.

  “I would like you to recommend that the test be very quick.”

  “But is there any problem?” the teacher will ask in a low voice.

  “I don’t know. Only it’s better for the test to be fast. Although this is mainly up to me, I know, I have to study. However, please advise the Co
mmission not to ask too many questions if possible.”

  The old professor will look around. “All right. I’ll take your request into account, young man. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, something important.”

  “What?”

  “Tell the Commission that the next test must take place in person. Don’t use the holographic network. I’ll take the final exam directly, in person.”

  The professor will seem astonished and will nervously turn to greet a student coming out of the second row.

  “Is there any particular problem?”

  “I’m not sure. But if I were in the Commission, I would do that. Tell them.” With a nod, the young man will disappear from the classroom.

  In the late afternoon, the small man will be standing at the board and will look at the Chief Commissioner sitting in his office in Rome, at the Federal Counterterrorism Directorate. The light will still filter through the window, illuminating the whiteboard.

  “I’m rather optimistic, Commissioner. Until a few days ago we had nothing, and now we do.”

  Her qualification will allow her to launch investigations and she will decide to do so. Starting with the last two places where Whiley had been seen: the sandstone house and the library.

  The little blonde woman in the green coat will climb the wooden staircase to the fifth floor of the old building and turn in a narrow corridor to the right. She will walk all the way along it, reading all the signs on the doors, until arriving at the last one on the right, on which she will find the name that Whiley had indicated: Sam Galloway. The woman will knock and will go in when she hears the baritone voice.