The Writer. Danilo Clementoni

waiting for his crony to go and hide in the adjacent bedroom, the big guy took a deep breath and using his thick index finger, traced the first sequence shown on the monitor onto the object’s surface. Immediately afterwards, he tossed the device onto the sofa and threw himself to the ground with his hands above his head. He waited several seconds without moving, but nothing happened. He stayed there a little longer lying on the floor and only after having definitively established that there didn’t appear to be any imminent danger, he lifted his head slightly. The remote control was still lying on the seat of the sofa and didn’t seem to be working.

      "So? What’s happened?" asked his crony, peeping cautiously around the semi-closed door.

      "Absolutely nothing."

      "Perhaps you made a mistake typing the sequence?"

      "I don’t think so. I think I did everything correctly," said the big guy as, very carefully, he stood up and approached the alien object again.

      "Go on, try again. I’ll stay here."

      â€œThanks for the help. What would I do without you?”

      This time, the fat guy decided he wouldn’t throw himself to the floor again and composed the sequence simply sitting on the chair. He repeated the operation several times, but there didn’t seem to be any reaction at all from the object.

      "Absolutely nothing," added the big guy.

      "Perhaps we’re destroying all their spacecraft," commented the tall thin guy as he peeped round the door again.

      â€œDon’t talk rubbish. The nerd said this thing only has a range of a few hundred thousand kilometres. Who knows where Nibiru has got to by now. Instead, I simply think this sequence isn’t operational."

      "So, let’s try another, no?"

      "Let’s try another? I’d say it’s only me doing all the ‘trying’."

      "Oh, don’t nit-pick. After all, who’s the more technologically-minded between the two of us?"

      "Okay, okay. I’ll try the second one now."

      The big guy spent the next ten minutes composing almost all the combinations that had been displayed on the computer screen, one after the other, but nothing strange happened.

      Meanwhile, as the situation seemed anything but dangerous, even his crony had joined him, and they were making conjectures and assumptions of all sorts together.

      "Perhaps the images are the wrong way around," said the thin one at a certain point.

      "No. The cuneiform characters on the remote control are in the same order as those on the screen."

      "Then your amazing ‘sources’ must have dried up."

      "That’s not possible. It has to work. I’m sure of that."

      "There’s only two left to try. If they don’t work either, we’ll throw this thing in the bin and go and have a nice cool drink."

      The big guy snorted and, without adding anything, composed the penultimate sequence, without much conviction. As soon as he’d touched the last symbol, he sensed a very slight shudder and an instant later, a sort of unnatural glow was released from the front of the device. There was a slight cracking noise and, a new, perfectly circular window, of about half a metre in diameter, opened up in the blank wall in front of them.

      "What the hell..." exclaimed the thin guy with his eyes wide-open.

      "For crying out loud..." added his friend equally amazed.

      With their legs still trembling with fright, they stood up and cautiously approached the hole in the wall. It was the taller one who, having stuck his head inside the opening, exclaimed "That’s incredible! The wall’s gone, and we’ve even made a hole in that big advertising billboard for cars over there. It must be at least a hundred metres from here!"

      Planet Kerion - The Supreme TYK

      "Supreme TYK,” announced RTY in the internal communication system of the planet’s equatorial structure. "Unfortunately, I am the bearer of terrible news."

      "RTY, my trusted friend. Fear not, nothing can disturb my serenity and that of our people."

      The Supreme TYK was, in actual fact, the largest and oldest exoskeleton of all Kerion where, thousands of years earlier, the soul of the one who had ruled the planet in the pre-machine period had been transferred. With time, his physical structure had become immense. His current extension approached two square kilometres with a height that, in some points, exceeded five hundred metres. TYK was a multi-purpose technological agglomerate with the peculiarities and efficiency of a million Japanese factories all joined together.

      "I’m afraid that, this time, what’s happened is truly atrocious," continued the Kerian in charge.

      "Speak, what’s happened?"

      "Laboratory /\ was attacked and destroyed. Ten million souls were annihilated. Only nine-hundred and ninety launched through container (|), a few instants before the explosion, were saved."

      "Explosion? What are you talking about? Who was it?" TYK’s voice, always calm and relaxed, had now taken on a decidedly much altered tone.

      â€œYou can view what was recorded by the capsule as it moved away from the satellite, directly on the central system, reference |^|."

      TYK remained silent for a long time as he repeatedly watched the images captured by the container, then he turned off the view and said, "That spherical bomb was designed by that alien race that inhabits the blue planet called |o|.”

      "Or by the inhabitants of the other planet that belongs to the same solar system," added the one in charge.

      "It was an attack brought without mercy by that primitive species on our race. Millions of our brothers were annihilated before they could transfer. Why?"

      "We’ve always thought that those beings didn’t represent a danger to us, even if I have always opposed the creation of /\ on their satellite."

      "What’s this other planet you spoke of?"

      "We call it |O|. It’s very similar to |o|. But its orbit is considerably larger. It performs one complete revolution around the sun every 3600 revolutions of |o| and its inhabitants are of very similar origin. Indeed, according to studies carried out some time ago, it would appear that the inhabitants of |O| genetically modified certain species that lived on |o| to make them similar to them."

      "So, we can say that they belong to the same race and are even more evolved?"

      â€œYes, I’d say so,” replied the Supervisor. "I would also add that, in this period, |O| has intersected the orbit of |o| passing really close to it."

      "Therefore, the inhabitants of the two planets have seized this opportunity to form an alliance and attack our structure. It cannot be otherwise. What I still do not understand is why."