The Writer. Danilo Clementoni

This really is a bad time for both of us." Then, laying a hand on his shoulder, he added, "See what you can do. I think it’s very important to retrieve that object as soon as possible."

      "Don't worry Zak. It’s not a problem. I’ll try to think of something, making do with the few things we have left."

      "Only you can do that. We’re in your hands."

      "I’m off,” and, without saying any more, the Expert left the laboratory tent leaving behind only a few small clouds of dust.

      "Will he manage to do it?" asked Jack hesitantly.

      â€œOf course. I don’t have any doubts whatsoever. Petri has incredible skills. More than once I’ve seen him make things that not even a team of the best Craftsmen would have been able to do. He’s an exceptional person. I’m sorry I was a little too rude to him. I’m incredibly fond of him and I’d willingly give my life for him at any moment."

      "Don’t worry Zak," said Elisa in a very sweet little voice. "He’s well aware of that. It’s a difficult time, but we’ll get through it without problems. I don’t have any doubts whatsoever."

      â€œThank you, Elisa. I really hope so with all my heart."

      Pasadena, California – The hideout

      As soon as he opened the door, the decidedly overweight man was hit by a pleasant blast of fresh air. The room’s air conditioner, left running since the previous evening, had done an excellent job.

      "That’s wonderful," he exclaimed. "I couldn’t stand that suffocating heat any longer."

      "Perhaps if you decided to go on a serious diet and got rid of all that fat you’re carrying around; the heat wouldn’t bother you so much."

      â€œWhy are you always so negative about my reserves?"

      "Call them reserves. You could safely spend an entire month without eating," exclaimed the thin guy, breaking into a peal of laughter immediately afterwards.

      "I’ll pretend not to have heard that."

      The décor in the small apartment that the two were using as a base was decidedly spartan. In the main room there was only a simple, light-coloured wooden table with four chairs of the same colour and a heavy dark grey sofa with worn seats and armrests. In the corner near the French window that looked out onto a dismal inner courtyard, a brown plastic pot contained the remains of a small Washingtonia filifera that despite its great resistance to dry climates, had died several weeks earlier due to lack of water. The tiny bathroom also showed evident signs of neglect. Several tiles had fallen off and large dark spots on the discoloured ceiling were evidence of unrepaired water infiltration. Two shabby bedrooms, each with a single bed and a cheap bedside table, together with a kitchenette with a cabinet that was at least twenty years old, completed the furnishings of that anything but pleasant apartment.

      "Well one thing’s sure, in terms of taste in the choice of our hideouts, you really are great, huh?" commented the tall skinny guy.

      "Why? What’s wrong with this place?"

      "It’s a dump. That’s what’s wrong. Here we are always talking about making loads of money but, in the end, we always end up in these damned dumps."

      "Oh, you're always complaining," replied the big one. "Let’s try and clinch this deal then you’ll see, we’ll be able to settle down once and for all."

      "If you say so.... I’m not all that convinced really."

      "Come on, pass me the laptop and I’ll show you something."

      The thin guy pulled a black bag with a shoulder strap out from behind the sofa and took out a dark grey notebook. He looked at it for a moment then passed it to his crony who placed it on the table and turned it on. They both sat still for a while, looking at the screen as the system completed its start-up procedure until, at a certain point, the thin guy blurted out, "I can’t stand these things any longer. I spend hours watching progress bars, hourglasses spinning, miscellaneous updates... Why can’t they just make a computer that works like a television? Press the button and it turns on."

      "Yeah, that really would be nice. Instead, what I hate most, is when you’ve finished using it and want to turn it off to go home, it presents you with a nice little message that says "Do not turn computer off. Installing update 1 of 325..." and you have to wait half an hour while it does what it wants. I mean couldn’t it just do its stupid updates earlier? Must it really wait for me to be ready to leave?"

      "Huh, that’s ‘IT’ for you. The programmers who design these systems probably enjoy seeing us poor mortals as we become more and more irritated when faced with their ‘creations’."

      "Are you saying they do it on purpose?"

      "If you think that nowadays, just to write a letter, we need a computer with a processing power billions of times larger than the Apollo missions used to send a man to the moon, I suppose something must have gone badly wrong in technological progress."

      "Well, you're the expert," commented the thin guy. "For sure, they make us waste a lot of time, but we wouldn’t even be able to go to the loo without these gadgets now."

      "Let’s just leave it at that shall we, it’s better. Look instead at what I’ve discovered during my sleepless nights."

      The overweight man pulled a series of images up on the screen that he must have taken from some archive that wasn’t exactly public. He scrolled through a few then he said "Here we are. I think what you're seeing are a series of combinations of cuneiform characters, that are able to activate additional functions on this little device."

      "And where did you get those?" asked the thin guy in amazement.

      "If I were to tell you, then I’d have to kill you," answered the big guy with a very serious air.

      For a moment, the tall thin guy remained as if paralysed, then he realised that his crony had obviously made a wisecrack and, after clouting him, exclaimed "What an idiot. Come on, let me see this ineffable discovery."

      "Wait, first let me see what the nerd gave us," and he plugged the USB stick they’d extorted from the boy into the PC. He rapidly scanned through a series of files, occasionally opening one at random, until his attention fell on an image he’d already seen. "Look at this," he exclaimed.

      â€œWhat is it?”

      "It’s a character sequence I know."

      "I don’t understand."

      "You really are a dotard. This is the combination that activated the self-destruct command of the spacecraft and I’m sure I’ve already seen it in my personal research."

      To avoid being reproached again, the skinny guy just mumbled something.

      "Here it is," said the big guy again, showing the same series of images they had been looking at before, but highlighting one of them with the mouse. “It’s this one."

      "Yes, so what?"

      "So, if this sequence has already worked, then the others indicated here are probably also active."

      "Your reasoning makes sense."

      â€œHow about trying one?”

      "But won’t it be dangerous? I think we’ve already done enough damage."

      "You're just a coward," said the big guy. "In the worst-case scenario, we’ll simply blow up another one of their damn spacecrafts."

      "And what if we were to blow ourselves up instead? We don’t know anything about that thing."

      "Come on let’s try it," exclaimed the fat guy, with the expression of a little boy about to set off