Judas' Gospel E-Book

Andrea Lepri

• Herausgeber: Tektime
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 464

Beschreibung

Year 2178, the Sky Project is about to begin. Sir Jonathan will use the Time-Space Translator to go and take Jesus in the year 30 and bring him to his time, he wants to give him the perfect world that he was unable to create two thousand years earlier.
Sir Jonathan has chosen Nicole as Jesus' companion,
Jesus, the ferocious tyrant of a distant alien civilization, was exiled and fell with his spaceship on planet Earth. All he would like is to return to his planet to take revenge on the revolutionaries who exterminated his family, but after meeting John the Baptist, the difficult path of redemption will begin that will lead him to climb the cross in the name of Love.
All this while Judas 1091 struggles to defend himself from the intrigues of power that upset his life and The Sect plots to bring down the civilization of the Year 2178.

Jude 1091 is an ordinary citizen of the year 2178. He has a small daughter, Jodie, and his wife Nicole is expecting their second child. Planet Earth has been cured of almost all its ills, Judas lives in an age where there are no delinquencies or diseases and everyone has a home and a job. The Power is managed by a caste of lay priests, who administer it according to simple rules dictated by the Bible and pass on the title by descent.
It would all seem simple and beautiful, but under that crust of perfection and false well-being there is a thread of intrigue, mystery, and falsehood. The most powerful of the priests, Sir Jonathan, carries on the Sky Project in great secrecy: one of his scientists has almost completed the construction of the time machine, he dreams of using it to go and take Jesus in the year 30 and take him with him, to give him the world that he was unable to create two thousand years earlier. In that way, Sir Jonathan will be eternally glorified because he will be able to break down the antennas that keep citizens under a continuous state of hypnosis, giving them the freedom to put them in front of God himself.
Jesus was the ferocious tyrant of an extraterrestrial civilization, he was exiled and his spaceship fell to Earth. Through the cloning of his own memory on a spermatozoon he was able to be reborn in human form, after having abandoned his original body upon death. He would like to see the time necessary to recharge the spaceship's solar batteries pass quickly, to be able to return to his planet and take revenge on those who exterminated his family. But thanks to the meeting with John the Baptist, who will lead him to conversion, he will atone for the sins committed in the other life and will try with a thousand doubts to teach love to men. He will fight ardently and will climb the cross.
Fred is the best friend of Judas, unbeknownst to him he is the head of the Sect, a revolutionary group.
He is the only one who, thanks to his grandfather, knows of the existence of antennas. He wants to destroy them to make men free, to do so he is preparing a group of citizens to lead to the revolt.
Sir Jonathan has identified in Nicole, wife of Judas, the perfect woman who must be the companion of Jesus. By joining in marriage they will give rise to a divine lineage, destined to rule the world over the centuries.
Nicole, by means of a staging conceived by Sir Jonathan and his collaborators, pretends to be dead. In doing so he saves Judas and Jodie from the lethal blackmail of which they are unwittingly the object. After having also taken his daughter from him, however, Sir Jonathan decides to hibernate Judas because he fears that he may discover the deception. Freddy, who is also a member of the Hibernation Unit, warns him. He kidnaps the girl and escapes aboard one of the time machines.
Thus a whirlwind of chases and betrayals, fights and revolutions is born, which develop through time and space. Judas ends in the year 30, there he meets Jesus and joins him to protect him, but due to yet another blackmail by Sir Jonathan he will be forced to hand him over to the Romans. At that

Leseprobe

ANDREA LEPRI

From the Gospel according to Judas

Original Title

Dal Vangelo secondo Giuda

First Edition : August 2017

English Edition

Publisher: Tektime – www.traduzionelibri.it

This novel is a work of fiction. Any reference to real facts or people Is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved

INDEX

PART I

THE AGGRESSION

PART II

NICOLE’S DEATH

PART III

THE ALIEN

PART IV

MAN HUNT

PART V

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

PART VI

THE ATTACK OF THE SECT

PART VII

JESUS AND JUDAS

PART VIII

YEAR XXXIII AD

PART IX

EASTER OF RESURRECTION

PART X

THE LIBERTY

PART XI

FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JUDAS

PART XII

EPILOGUE

PART XIII

CREDITS

PART I

THE AGGRESSION

That morning there was a beautiful sun, Nicole had set the table in the garden. She placed the breakfast tray on the table and sat in front of Judas, without stopping to stare at him with an enigmatic smile on her face. He had noticed that in recent days his wife had something different in her gaze, like a particular light shining at the bottom of her big dark eyes, but he couldn’t explain why.

“Why aren’t you eating?” she teased him amused, seeing him perplexed, he shook himself. “I have decided that until you tell me what you have, I’ll not move from here. So this morning I’ll be late for work and I’ll take a good rebuke … and know that it will only be your fault!” he replied pointing a finger at her, but he didn’t seem as serious as he wanted. She continued to smile amused without answering, while a light wind ruffled her long straight ebony hair. Jodie ran to them and jumped into her mother’s arms.

“So, can we finally tell him?” she asked her.

“Yes, come on,” Nicole replied, giving her a knowing glance “it’s time for him to know too!”

“What do you have to tell me?” he then said, wriggling in his chair, more and more impatient.

The little girl broke away from her mother and approached him very slowly, to intrigue him a little more.

“I’ll have a little brother,” she whispered in his ear. For a moment he had the feeling that time had stopped, he looked for confirmation in Nicole’s eyes because he was not sure he understood correctly. She nodded convinced and he became suddenly absorbed, lowered his head and began to eat, without getting upset. At the end of breakfast, Jodie and Nicole cleared the table and went back into the house, Judas darkened all the windows and joined them in the living room. Only then could they finally let themselves go to their explosion of joy, away from prying eyes and being careful not to make too much noise. In fact, in the year 2178, those who manifested their emotions too openly were not highly appreciated by the authorities.

Judas was employed as a reporter at the small local newspaper, he was one of those journalists who go in search of sensational news, in the strangest places and times. He was well aware that his business was not as exciting as that of his former colleagues, but he enjoyed the job very much. The long night watches and stalking no longer existed because each event had been experienced in real time, but he was convinced that, if he worked hard, he would always be able to find something to write a good article about. Along the way he stopped to buy a couple of bottles of “the good one”, to share that fantastic news with his colleagues, but even there the celebrations were limited to a quiet toast and a few cold handshakes.

That evening, to celebrate the event, Judas booked a table in an upscale restaurant. Nicole was enthusiastic about those fish-based dishes, in particular she really liked the first fruits served as a side dish, grown on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Intoxicated by the euphoria enhanced by the bluish, sparkling and slightly salty wine, they indulged in a whole series of projects on the child. They told each other he would be handsome, strong, and intelligent. Maybe an artist, or even a scientist. To end the evening with a flourish, they went to the Total Cinema, where they lived an Interactive Story as protagonists.

Back home they spent the rest of the night making love, drunk with happiness, until they fell asleep tightly.

Shortly after everyday life took over, the following weeks passed peacefully between boat trips and sport, Judas’ work and Nicole’s Dynamic Painting exhibitions, which was the best in that kind of artistic representations. Her belly kept growing and he spent hours looking at her and caressing her, talking to her, or just listening to her as if it were his first time each time. Sometimes, during the preparation of the child’s room, they enchanted themselves staring into each other’s eyes, getting lost in one another, until they felt one.

The sheet came out of the printer accompanied by a short hum, after a jump of a few centimeters it went to settle gently in the binder. Dr. Lorentz turned off the equipment and collected it, then examined the data very carefully.

“You have nothing to fear ma’am, everything is going very well. The parameters are all within the norm, and there is even something more: from the analysis of the genetic heritage it is clear that your son, in addition to being practically perfect from a biological point of view, will be endowed with excellent intellectual and moral qualities.”

The doctor was rather short and stout, had a pockmarked face and lips as plump as a woman’s. His small, close eyes, evasive as if he were always looking away, reminded Nicole of a mouse’s. She overcame a kind of repugnance and rewarded him with a wonderful smile, shaking his hand, then left the clinic.

The doctor made sure that the waiting room was empty, then went back to the office and typed the combination on the panel next to the door. The door closed and locked, he reached the desk and pressed a button hidden under a marble paperweight. A two-meter high mirror slid sideways along a guide in the floor, opening the view to a small hidden room. Inside was a man leaning out of the window, his hands clasped behind his back and he was watching Nicole walk away down the street. Step by step she became a smaller and smaller splash of color, until she merged with the sleepy city traffic. The man slowly turned to scrutinize the doctor, expressing a silent but precise request with his ice-colored eyes.

“You have been able to see with your own eyes, Excellency!” he answered satisfied. “Physically he embodies perfection, plus you know his bio-moral data better than I do. It is undoubtedly one of the best specimens, if not the best ever, of all the ones we have reviewed. His qualities are marvelously elevated both from an intellectual point of view and from a moral, character and aesthetic point of view” he specified. Sir Jonathan nodded gravely and nervously smoothed his strand of his hairs white as the snow, becoming thoughtful. He had personally studied the reports on all the specimens studied and his conclusions coincided perfectly with those of Dr. Lorentz, but he wanted a further, useless, confirmation.

“Are you really sure that that woman is fit for purpose? I would prefer not to delude myself in vain, rather than find myself holding a handful of flies when we have reached a too advanced phase of the Project. At that point it would no longer be possible to change the target,” he explained once again. In response, the other just smiled smugly. The Elder folded his hands behind his back, then lowered his chin to his chest and remained absorbed in meditation for a few moments. He was finally able to reap the first fruits of the long years of his work, all those years spent preparing that enterprise that represented the only purpose of his whole life. He had imagined living that moment thousands of times, he had always thought that this wonderful news would have reached the depths of his soul until it touched his most hidden chords, thrilling him.

“Good! It’s the piece we were missing,” he commented instead simply, marveling even himself at his own coldness. It was as if that little big victory had been the most natural thing in the world, as if he had always known that sooner or later that moment would come, but the knowledge that the obstacles to overcome were still many prevented him from enjoying it as he would wanted. He knew that for a long time to come he would have to spend all his energy in achieving his goal, never getting distracted or letting his guard down.

“The final phase of Project Heaven will finally begin shortly,” said to the doctor.

“I think convincing the woman won’t be easy,” the latter ventured timidly. He knew well how powerful and sensitive the Elder was, he had chosen his words carefully because he absolutely did not intend to make him nervous.

“It will be much simpler than you think. After all, we will offer her something great in exchange for a very small sacrifice.”

The doctor remarked his doubts with a puzzled glance, and then a flash of determination passed through Sir Jonathan’s eyes, making them even livelier, if possible.

“She will accept, one way or another!” he abruptly closed the conversation.

The three Lords of the Order, swaddled in their tight-fitting uniforms, darted out of the parking lot laughing and joking as if they were going to a party. The car’s headlights were reflected on the shiny asphalt, made slippery by the gloomy drizzle.

“Another day of hunting, huh?” said the driver.

“Yeah,” the Patrol Leader, seated beside him, replied absently, still polishing his badge.

“And I wish this time it was really the last!” he added after checking it against the light, to make sure there were no halos.

“When will you stop torturing that poor piece of iron?” Nick teased him, leaning towards him from the back seat.

“When even your “poor metal piece” will be golden like this,” Joe replied placing the medallion under his nose, so that he could admire it, “and you will be missing six days in retirement like me, you will see how you will torture it you too. Smell it, feel how it smells of freedom!”

Fabien, the driver, had a thin and nervous body. The narrow shoulders supported the perfectly round head, over which the potato nose protruded quite clearly. His long arms held the steering wheel firmly, his slightly protruding green eyes scanned with attention every inch of the road.

“It’s a pity that once again everything will be resolved with nothing done. I’d be really curious to see the devastating effects of this weapon live, rather than in the stupid simulations of the course,” he said, bringing one hand to the gun he kept fastened to his belt. “But unfortunately, or perhaps luckily, we will never have the opportunity,” he concluded, mimicking with the thumb and index finger of his right hand the gesture of firing at an imaginary target.

“That’s right,” Joe agreed with the expression of an old wise man, “once again the bad guy on duty, after insulting us and keeping high the suspense for a couple of hours, will come out whimpering and crawling. No one will get hurt and people will applaud satisfied, because once again Good will has defeated Evil. Everyone will go home happily ever after except us, who will continue to swear because we will have missed the Super Bowl. And as if all this weren’t enough, tonight I was supposed to celebrate my sixtieth wedding anniversary and as always I’ll back home too late. Also this year my wife will shout in my face that I love my job more than she loves her, and as usual she will threaten me with her rolling pin.”

“Hey you, slow down or we’ll get a nice speeding ticket,” Nick ordered Fabien jokingly, in order to play down the situation. Despite all their certainties, as they approached the intervention site they were beginning to feel increase the tension. The three laughed heartily, gritty. Then the boy took the microphone of the radio and brought it to his mouth with measured gestures, performing in the parody of the character of an almost two hundred years old film. Nick and Joe laughed again.

“Patrol Seven here. We are almost on the spot, is there any news?”

“Here Operative Central. No news, the guy is comfortably barricaded in the apartment. It doesn’t look dangerous, but the Simple Guards couldn’t get him out.”

“Well, we’ll make him change his mind!” Fabien said turning on the flashing lights and the sirens, then pressed the accelerator firmly.

“Who knows why all those who refuse to undergo the Treatment are residents of the Fourth Quadrant,” Nick wondered aloud, holding on to the handle.

“Once upon a time, there was a nuclear power plant there. Maybe the fault of the air or the radiation or something like that,” the patrol leader speculated passing in the meantime his handkerchief over the small gold disk again, which continued to mist up due to humidity. A small crowd admired the arrival of the car and the blatant spin with which the boy parked on the meadow in front of the house, raising a wave of mud. Greedy eyes stared almost hypnotized at the light that swirled on itself, throwing blue and red flashes to pierce the hazy veil of the evening. The spectators, aware that the luck of seeing such a show could only happen once in a lifetime, were determined to enjoy it to the fullest.

“Well, the show begins,” Joe announced gravely, after smoothing his walrus mustache.

“Put your weapons in the trunk,” he added, preparing to get out of the car.

“Do you want to go there unarmed? It could be dangerous …” Nick protested, surprised by his decision.

“Dangerous? That poor devil is terrified; didn’t you see how he is looking at us from the window?”

“It is precisely for this reason that he might be doing nonsense,” Fabien objected.

“The sight of guns has always been a great deterrent,” Nick tried to insist.

“Enough now, I told you to lay down your arms!” ordered firmly Joe, he hated being contradicted.

He closed the trunk and walked with a decisive step towards the house, Fabien admired his ability to stop being simply a man to become a policeman in an instant. The Simple Guards who guarded the house greeted them formally, after which they went to reinforce the cordon intended to keep the crowd at a safe distance. Joe motioned for Fabien to stop there, halfway, then headed for the entrance, followed by Nick.

“Is there anyone?” he said in playful tone, by knocking on the door as the other two smiled again.

The door opened slightly and a flicker of light crept into the darkness, accompanied by a creaking. The man beyond the door glanced at Joe without batting an eye, his forehead beaded with sweat and the veins in his neck swollen with tension.

“I want to speak to a reporter,” he announced in a shrill voice.

“Come on man,” Joe snapped, “stop it! We all have our problems, but this does not give us the right to terrorize the citizens. Tonight there is the match of the year and we don’t want to lose it. And then giving up now or in three hours what difference does it make to you? You know you will give up anyway.”

“Are you deaf? I said I want to talk to a reporter!” the other insisted.

Joe was already starting to lose his patience, but the idea of using force against that man displeased him. He told himself that he was probably just a poor devil, who was behaving like that because he had lost everything he had. He was tempted to reply harshly, but when their eyes met again, he winced. In the small and fleeting eyes of the other he had not read fear or despair, only a lucid and cold determination. Immediately after, the sharp metallic click of a safety informed him that the man was aiming a weapon at him from behind the door. Joe felt his blood freeze in his veins, he wondered how he could have gotten it, since the townspeople had no access to the technological tools of offense.

“Don’t be silly, as you see my colleague and I have come unarmed. We can talk about it if you want,” he hastened to say in a benevolent tone to buy time and rationalize the new situation, meanwhile, with a wave of his hand hidden behind his back, he had ordered Fabien to go and retrieve the combat equipment. After hearing the click of the safety, Joe’s expert ear recognized the typical buzz of the micro-turbine trigger. He understood that what kept him under fire was a laser gun among the most powerful, capable of piercing any type of material without any effort or dangerous refractions. He wondered again how that man could have gotten it, seized by an intuition he lowered his eyes and saw the bloodstain, which was rapidly spreading on the marble threshold.

“He took off the chip!” Joe said to himself, realizing that beyond the door there was a man ready for anything. With a feline leap, incredibly agile for a person of his age and size, Joe threw himself on Nick. The handrail that bordered the pergola broke and they fell off a kind of balcony. During the fall, Joe had already determined what the next move would be. The door had closed, he was sure that the man barricaded in the house was trying to invent a strategy. Not being familiar with similar situations, however, it would have taken a few seconds too long to make any decision, those few moments suddenly became the most precious of Joe’s entire existence. He would have used them to quickly climb the three steps and knock down the door with a mighty shoulder, the other would have fallen backwards, losing his weapon and they would have taken the opportunity to arrest him. It would be a really great move, the last heroic feat before retiring with full honors. “Maybe I’ll receive even a new gold medal, for avoiding a massacre”, he told himself. He had already experienced that scene dozens of times with his mind, but when he realized that his legs refused to obey him he realized that he was still lying on the ground. No, not yet. Again! And this time he had his eyes wide open in a stupid expression. The blood-stained mustache framed his wide open mouth, now unable to vent the cry that bounced from one side of his brain to the other, looking in vain for a way out. He was surprised how he felt no pain, just a feeling of discomfort from the wet suit he felt stuck to him from his own body fluids. And a sense of annoyance in understanding that he was dying, in the only way he had always thought it would never happen to him. “To die so miserably, six days before retirement after a rather quiet life. Moreover, precisely on the day of the wedding anniversary … what an idiot!” he thought.

He would have wanted to resist, fight with all his might not to succumb, but he knew it would be useless and pathetic. Suddenly his golden diskette came back to his mind, he looked up at his chest but found that his eyes could no longer see. Then he ran to look for the gold disk with his hand, but it fell into a chasm that seemed immense to him, it seemed to him that it was sinking into his own lungs greedy for air, taking away his already too tiring breath. “My disk” he thought one last time. After a few moments, the more daring spectators began to get up from the ground, their eyes wide with fear and their faces covered with mud.

Fabien was running as fast as he could towards the car. The excitement and fear merged into long waves that rising from the bottom of his chest quickly rose to his temples, stunning him. It had only been operational for a few weeks, the sudden perception of danger instilled in him a doubt: he wondered if the baptism of fire was so tormented for everyone or if he was just a coward, because he had already understood that being there at that moment was the last thing he would have wanted. Meanwhile, he kept running as his mind jumped from one thought to another, trying to remember the things he had learned in police school. He realized with some disappointment that the training course had brought him very little, the notions they had tried to inculcate in his head, to the point of becoming conditioned reflexes, had slipped off him like water on a raincoat. He knew that he lacked the instinct and determination that every good policeman must have by nature. Any trace of cockiness had by now disappeared from his contracted face and he cursed himself for having wished, even if only for a joke, to be able to use the tools of death waiting for him in the trunk. “I have to hurry”, he kept telling himself, but his legs didn’t respond as he would have liked. It seemed to him that he was running along a beach and these, immersed in the water up to his knees, were proceeding slowly compared to the arms that were circling like crazy in the air.

Suddenly someone shouted “Down!”, he dived and slid through the mud until he hit the bumper of the car. The collarbone of his right shoulder broke, causing him to scream in pain, soon after he turned towards the house and it seemed to him that he was witnessing at the slow motion scene of an action movie. “Stay down!” Joe had ordered Nick the moment they hit the ground, a moment later he was running again with his shoulder stretched toward the house door. A moment that lasted an eternity, Joe had his eyes narrowed with fatigue and anguish, as soon as he bumped into the door it was as if this, offended, had immediately reacted. A flash of fluorescent green swept through the elderly patrol leader, as if he were a hologram rather than a real person, then continued his course until hit a car parked thirty meters away, which exploded. An invisible hand lifted the man and threw him violently backwards, his golden medal rolling in the air glistening like a small disk of light. Now Joe was lying on the ground again, motionless on his back, his head tilted slightly to the side. The legs resting in a strange pose on the wooden steps moved in jerks, with a last imperceptible movement he brought an arm towards his chest. Fabien was shaken by violent retching, caused by the pain in his shoulder and by what he had just seen, he shouted out the name of his companion and saw everything dazzled because he was crying. Just a moment later, however, he felt something change suddenly inside him. He knew he would never be as brave as Joe, but he told himself he would at least try because he owed him. He stopped crying and wiped his face with his forearm, his eyes had become two narrow slits and his lips were pursed with anger.

“Damn you,” he mumbled as he stood up, “you’ll pay dearly.”

He took the weapons from the trunk of the car, then violently closed the hatch and walked towards the house with a proud step, holding the laser guns. He threw one at Nick indicating the back door, picked up Joe’s badge and squeezed it until the palm of his hand bled, as if that simple gesture could have transmit him all the strength and experience of his companion. After carefully cleaning the gold disk, he pinned it to his friend’s chest, then lowered his eyes as he marveled at not having vomited again in front of that macabre spectacle.

“Get out with your hands up!” he shouted resolutely towards the house.

“It’s not my fault,” the other whimpered from behind the door, “the shot went off when it hit me … it was an accident, I didn’t want to hurt anyone … please don’t try to enter or someone else will get hurt, I just want to see my son again … and I want to talk to a journalist!”

At the newspaper office it was a Thursday like any other, the journalists were busy putting the finishing touches on their drafts. The evening was quieter than ever, amidst the background noise of the typographers and the laughter provoked by some joke or by reading particularly strange news.

“Get a move on, all the material has to go to the press within half an hour!” announced the Chief Editor.

“Hey, what year do you live in? Do you know how many decades the presses haven’t existed anymore?” Daniel, the freelance who dealt with sports, made fun of him.

“What can I do if I’m nostalgic?” I’ve always liked journalistic jargon! Even if we live immersed in technology, no one will ever be able to take it away from us,” replied the Chief Editor with a shrug.

“I wouldn’t bet that much, given the times we’re living in …” Daniel commented.

Right at that moment, the atmosphere inside the room became suddenly chaotic. The telephones began to ring continuously, the fax machines connected to the news agencies spit up sheets after sheets, to update them on a serious piece of news that was happening in those minutes. After quickly scrolling through the contents of the first sheet, Roxanne shouted with all her voice to restore silence to the room.

“A fourth quadrant citizen refused to undergo to the temporary hibernation and barricaded himself at home!” he announced almost breathlessly, shocked.

In the room there was a slight shouting due to the intertwining of indifferent and superficial comments.

“I don’t see the reason for so much agitation; it’s not the first time that happens! No one would gladly accept being locked in a glass cylinder for a few decades, waiting for an event that would make it possible for him to be reintegrated into the community. In any case, every time it always ends the same way … in the end, the disobedient always gives up,” considered the expert on economic issues.

“Shut up! Here it says that the man managed to extract the chip and used it to open the Personal Equipment Box!”

“… you mean …” someone started to ask, incredulous, but she didn’t give him time.

“He opened his box and took the weapons that would be used to defend against any extraterrestrial attack … he used them against the Lords of the Order.”

“My God!” exclaimed the Chief Editor.

“He killed the patrol leader of Squad Seven … he killed old Joe like a dog!” Roxanne finished in a trembling voice. The buzz stopped abruptly and a feeling of chill filled the editorial office, old Joe was known to everyone. Now the journalists were staring at the girl worriedly, there had not been a murder case in the city for over half a century and everyone had understood by now that the news had not ended there.

“He wants to be interviewed by one of us,” she continued after an interminable pause. Frederick winced; his expression became somber and thoughtful at the same time, almost as if the news had upset him more than it should.

“I’ll go there,” he said, jumping to his feet, he was impulsive and had made up his mind in a flash. Judas looked at him almost disappointed because his friend Fred had anticipated him, the opportunities to write a real article were not many and he had almost thought to offer himself. Well, I’ll be faster next time, if ever there is one, he considered resigned to himself.

“I’m sorry, but this is not possible,” Roxanne replied, he blazed her with his eyes. Being commanded to do or not to do something literally sent him into a rage, and that was just one aspect of his character that made it difficult to be around him. In a moment he had gone red with anger, the girl noticed it and instinctively took a few steps back.

“It’s not my fault,” she then stammered in a faint voice, showing the sheet with the news. “Here is written that he wants Judas!” she pointed out.

Fred looked at her disoriented, then looked his friend from head to toe and finally back to stare seriously the girl, as if she were responsible for the situation. He emitted a deep grunt of dissatisfaction and sighed, then began to forcefully hurl every object he had at hand to the ground, cursing with conviction. The red led, the one for important calls, flashed on his phone just a moment before it crumbled against the floor. Fred switched the call to another phone.

“Hey, you! The last word has not yet been said!” he warned Judas by pointing a finger at him as he was about to sneak out. Intrigued, Judas stopped on the threshold with his raincoat in hand. As if he had his interlocutor in front of him, Fred pulled himself together and straightened his shoulders, then pulled back his wavy hair that seemed to want to escape from his head in every direction.

“It is me Your Excellency, … it is not possible to send him, this service can be classified as high risk percentage and Judas hasn’t the necessary experience … and then the responsibilities … I know that he specifically asked about him, but I can go by pretending to be him … how could him recognize me, that man will have read his name at the bottom of some article … if you put it this way I can do nothing but obey …” he said lowering the head as a sign of defeat. “No Excellency, I promise you that I will not do anything on my own mind … of course, I will send you those reports … Always Be Praised … carrion!” he then added through gritted teeth after hanging up.

“It doesn’t end here,” he finally growled angrily at his friend, throwing him a dirty look. He hinted a smile of circumstance and walked down the corridor, where some colleagues showed themselves generous with words of encouragement and pats on the back.

Driving toward the Fourth Quadrant, Judas discovered to be both excited and worried. He wondered why that fellow had asked for him and if he felt ready to face the situation, after all that madman had just killed a policeman in cold blood. It was true that that interview represented by far the greatest professional satisfaction he could ever get in his entire life, but he was not at all sure it was worth the risk so much. The phone on the dashboard suddenly rang, ripping him abruptly from his thoughts.

“Hi honey, you’ll never imagine what’s happening,” he told his wife with not quite sincere enthusiasm.

“Don’t go there, please!” she cried in a tone that turned his blood into the water.

“This is the chance of my life and shouldn’t I go there? … and then how do you already know everything? … yes, television … but what have you got?” he asked while trying to dispel the anguish that had suddenly gripped him, his wife’s sweet and musical voice seemed hoarse, as if before calling him she had cried for hours.

“Anyway, I’m not the one to decide, I have to go because I was ordered,” he explained after delaying a moment, in order to find a normal tone of voice.

“Let them go, if they care so much about that damned article!” You can’t risk your life for a stupid newspaper page!” Nicole replied angrily, lighting a new shiver down his spine.

“What’s wrong with Nicole, I’ve never heard you like this … I told you I have to go there … what does it means it is precisely for this reason? Explain, please, you’re scaring me! … just a bad feeling? Come on, what do you want to ever happen? I tell you that everything will be fine, try to be calm. In a couple of hours I’ll be home waving my beautiful article” he tried to reassure her as he was already beginning to believe it less,

“I love you too.”

The door lock melted under the heat of the laser and Nick began to walk slowly through the dark, his heart pounding. He had just seen his companion die and was terrified, if by chance he hadn’t obeyed his order to stay on the ground he would have met the same end. He walked trying to hold his breath so as not to make any noise, but it seemed to him that the rumble of the beating of his own heart in his chest resounded throughout the house. Until then, Nick had always been destined for simple surveillance assignments, now that for an absurd series of coincidences he was close to death he seemed to even smell it. Meanwhile his eyes had become a little accustomed to the darkness and he continued to advance without even a shred of conviction, he felt suffocated and was certain that somewhere, sooner or later, his assassin would have suddenly appeared in front of him surprising him. Cold sweat dripped into his eyes to cloud his vision, he had just stepped into a room when something cold touched his bare neck. Suddenly he stiffened and feared he would not even be able to beg for mercy, his throat was tightened with fright.

“Don’t hurt me, please,” he begged in a faint voice, dropping the weapon, then started walking again, pushed behind him by something terrifying. “I don’t have to be afraid, Joe defeated it and sacrificed himself to defend us. I have to avenge him, I have to be able to stop that bastard”, Fabien said to himself, but the blood continued to pound his temples while much of the initial impetus had already vanished. He was aware that if he wanted to hope to survive he had to kill that man, he wondered if he would be able to do it. If he had been in front of him just three minutes ago he would not have hesitated to fire, but now he was no longer even sure of his aim because he had to use his left hand and was afraid of making a mistake. In addition, the pain in his shoulder had returned to be felt badly, stabbing him with pangs so excruciating that he staggered. And when he turned around, the sight of the bone protruding from his bloodstained suit seemed to take away the few emotional forces he had left. A shadow suddenly pounced on him, emerging like a ghost from the basement door, without thinking twice Fabien raised his arm and fired. Immediately after the light came on and he saw that the corpse lying on the floor was Nick’s, he started to stammer some words of apology but something hit him violently on the back of the head.

As soon as the rain stopped, Judas abandoned his caution and pressed the accelerator pedal with enthusiasm. Despite the anguish that gripped him, he was anxious to face what awaited him to go home to Jodie and Nicole. When he arrived at the scene of the crime, he found that everything was immersed in an unreal and artificial silence. A car was rapidly turning into a heap of smelly scrap of oil, with a succession of small explosions, the thick black smoke rising straight against the now clear sky. Lords of the Order, Simple Guards and Sharpshooters were stationed everywhere. A small crowd was gathered at a safe distance and people were jostling for seats in the last row, from where they could still see well and risk less. Judas got out of the car holding his breath and walked cautiously across the lawn, lit only by the moonlight, keeping his eyes fixed on the door. When he reached the entrance steps he almost tripped over something, lowered his gaze and an overwhelming sense of nausea rose in his throat. Flaps of charred flesh held the lower and upper halves of a man together, strips of bloody fabric protruded from the perimeter towards the inside of a hole the size of a large clenched fist. An arm rested on it, the hand lying on the pavement where poor Joe’s back should have been. The disgust and horror made him want to escape as far as possible, but he knew that he was now there and had to perform his part to the end. During the journey he was informed that the madman was holding two other policemen hostage, he shouted to the Lords of the Order that if they did not satisfy his requests he would have killed them too. So he had no choice, if he didn’t want to risk having to carry such remorse within his entire life. He took a deep resigned breath, like a paratrooper about to jump from the plane, then threw one last puzzled look at the cordon of deployed guards and crossed the threshold. He had images of Nicole and Jodie fixed in front of his eyes, he knew that it was too late to wonder what would become of them if something bad happened to him.

An absolute order reigned into the house, as if it had been uninhabited for some time; the quiet was disturbed only by the damaged domestic robot, which continued to turn on itself. “Something to drink … something to drink …” he repeated obsessively in his cold and unnerving metallic voice. Judas turned it off and went inside, near the staircase leading to the rooms he found the lifeless body of another Lord of the Order. He was lying on the floor with his helmet visor splattered with blood, Judas walked past him, trying hard not to look at him, and cautiously peered into the living room. He saw the madman settled in a corner, overlooking the window, he was shielding himself with the body of a boy in uniform and had a dark stain of congealed blood on his shirt, corresponding to the left side. The hostage could have been up to twenty-five years old, had short dark hair, a face covered in mud and eyes swollen with tears. He held his right arm and continued to stare in dismay at the protrusion of the bone on his shoulder. The man greeted the newcomer with an indecipherable smile, accompanied by a furious and frightened look at the same time, Judas wondered what else he would still be able to do.

“I have to hold his gaze, - he thought anyway to give himself courage, - I have to make him believe that I am not afraid of him.”

“Let the boy go, he was just doing his duty. You know very well that he is not the cause of your problems, “he suggested, trying to keep a neutral tone.

“I haven’t done anything wrong, I just want to live my life … but you want to stop me!” replied the killer.

“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t want to stop you, but apparently that doesn’t matter to you. You wanted me and I’m here, now let the boy go,” Judas insisted.

“We don’t talk about it! The boy stays here with us, and if you just try to cheat me …”

“Even if I wanted to, how could I? I’m just a journalist and I’m unarmed.”

“Come closer!” the murderer ordered him showing him the gun, he obeyed and the other thoroughly searched him. Then he quickly checked his journalist’s card, when he felt satisfied he pushed the hostage away.” Go away, before I change my mind about it!” he said accompanying the words with a shove. The boy looked at the newcomer as if asking for Judas’ permission to go, he nodded and then walked with his head down towards the exit, shuffling his feet.

“He is one of those who should guarantee the safety of us citizens,” the murderer commented in a contemptuous tone, “and he was not even able to look after himself!”

“Why did you want me here?” the reporter went straight to the point without replying, he did not intend to be drawn into useless and dangerous discussions.

“I don’t want to be hibernating, I don’t want to lose my son,” the killer whined, Judas thought of Nicole’s belly and felt a cold grip in his stomach.

“You know very well that this is not possible,” he replied after a moment, trying to piece together the little information they had given him along the way. “When your wife died, your son was placed in a regular family. There he will be able to grow with all the points of reference he needs … I know this hurts you, it would hurt anyone, but you also know it’s only for his own good.”

“This isn’t fair, and you know it! I want you to write in your damn newspaper that I’m suffering an absurd injustice!”

Judas imagined that pretending to go along with him would be the best solution, but he feared that if he lied to him, the other would have understood it becoming furious, generating unpredictable consequences.

“I can’t write such a thing. Doing so I would express a judgment and you know that I am not allowed; such an article would not even let it out. All I can do is tell the facts as they happened… moreover, if you want, I can put your protests in writing and try to get them to those who are higher than us” he proposed then, to look for a compromise. “I can’t argue The Law, none of us can. All that is allowed to us is to respect it … like all laws it will not be perfect, but at least it guarantees Order. If this were not the case, if each of us tried to fix it as we see fit, things would be back in a short time as they were two centuries ago. It would be chaos again,” he said. The killer looked at him skeptically, and then motioned him to continue.

“I think I understand how you feel. I have a little daughter, when the thought that one day I might lose her touches me, I feel like I’m dying. I can tell you that I am very sorry, I am really sorry, but for you I cannot do anything more or different from what I have told you. Anyway, you won’t lose your child forever. You know that the initial cycle of Transitional Hibernation lasts only seven years, hopefully, at the end of that period he can go back to live with you.”

All the while the killer had listened to him, continuing to scrutinize him with that hallucinated look and the pistol in his hand.

“No, it is not true that you understand my situation … you say this only because you are afraid … but I guarantee you that you cannot understand … look at this!” he answered suddenly raising his voice, took a photograph out of his pocket and abruptly placed it in front of him. “This is my son! I will not see his first tooth come out; I will not see him take the first step. The day he first says “dad”, there will only be strangers in front of him. But I want to be there … I have to be there, you understand? Because when he grows up he will begin to ask where his parents are and he will be given vague answers, then he will wonder why I abandoned him and he will hate me. And in seven years he won’t even want to know my name anymore. You are not risking all this, so it is not true that you can understand me! I don’t want to be hibernated, I don’t give a damn about what might or won’t happen next, “he concluded, then he began to sob nervously and in spite of everything Judas almost felt sorry and supportive with him.

“And then,” he resumed, and now he looked really frightened, “you know the strange stories that are told about hibernating!” It is said that they will no longer be woken up because they are being used for experiments, that their organs are removed to replace the battered ones of the Elders of the Council.”

“What are you saying, these are just rumors. You know that lonely people are hibernated exclusively in order not to alter the social balance. And then, they constitute a “reserve of human beings” in case an unexpected event should drastically lower the demographic levels “objected the reporter.

“Oh yes? So tell me how much ex-hibernation you know personally! And while you’re at it, also explain to me why the subjects who are chosen are all healthy, young and strong,” objected the killer.

“Because one day they could become soldiers, to defend us in the event of an alien attack,” replied the other as if repeating a lesson learned by heart.

“And do you really believe it?” the other retorted with the tone of someone talking to a child, that simple question was enough to make all his certainties waver in an instant.

Judas felt the sudden urge to look out the window, looking for something reassuring. The snipers were stationed on the roofs of nearby buildings, the flashing lights of the cars continued to play with the black of the night. The many onlookers were still crowded with bated breath behind the cordon of Simple Guards, intent on savoring that absurd tragedy to the last emotion. The sudden perception of real reality shocked Judas, he realized that he had slipped into a dead end and had done it with his own legs. He thought that the similar stories he had experienced at the Total Cinema, impersonating some hero, did not do the slightest justice to the whirlwind of sensations that were tormenting his mind and heart. He found himself locked in a room, in the company of a distraught man waving a laser gun in his face, a maddened man who had nothing more to lose because he had just killed two policemen. He wondered if he would be able to get out unscathed and he began to feel bad, his family came to mind and he understood that he had to find a way to shake him, to make him understand that he had not a single chance to get what he wanted.

“You killed two men and maybe you will do the same to me, but that won’t change things,” he said with conviction. “You will not be able to escape anywhere and you will forever lose the chance to see your son again. The Law will never be changed and the world will always keep turning in the same direction, without worrying about you and me. And anyway you will end up in hibernation, or worse still, you will be killed by the snipers” he concluded pointing out to the window. “They are all out there for you, just waiting for you to make a mistake.”

He paused to give him time to think about it, hoping he finally understood that he had no way out, then resumed.

“If you give up now, maybe you can still get away with it. Perhaps you will be able to prove that the death of the two Lords of the Order was really just an accident, an unwanted thing.”

“Shut that mouth!” the other ordered, angrily tapping one foot on the ground, furious, he had just been cornered. He came within an inch of Judas’ face, who felt the hot gusts of his stinking, panting breath invade his nostrils. “Shut up, you’re just talking bullshit!” he said, took a step back extending his arm and began stroking the power button with sadistic slowness.

“It’s over!”, Judas thought resignedly, but the killer didn’t shoot him. He took his finger off the firing button and turned to the window, staring at what was happening in a secluded part of the garden. Under the hazy light of a street lamp, a man with snow-white hair was scolding Nicole bitterly. She kept her head down and stared at her arms folded across her chest, shook her shoulders rhythmically as if she were crying. Judas instinctively took a step towards the window but the other stiffened his armed arm, preventing him from taking another step. Soon after, Freddy also appeared on the scene, pushed Nicole aside in a gentle manner and took his place in the discussion with the white-haired man.

“Who is that woman? Do you know her?” asked the killer.

“She’s my wife,” Judas immediately confessed, a moment later cursed his inability to lie.

“I surrender,” the killer then announced, lowering his arm, Judas looked at him in bewilderment and he dropped the weapon to the floor. He bent down on his knees holding his side, he looked destroyed.

“You are happy?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Yes, I think I am,” he admitted, feeling a little ashamed with that man.

“I would like to meet your wife,” the killer asked almost politely, completely disorienting him. Judas did not intend to expose Nicole to such a risk, but he feared that in the case of his refusal, the other would lose his head again.

“Damn, why did Nicole come here? And who is that man who was berating her? Damn, just now that this man had decided to give up …” he thought as he tried to make a decision.

“Come on, I don’t want to fight windmills anymore,” the killer insisted in the tone of someone asking for a favor. Judas hesitated, he was convinced that the killer could still be capable of anything, but he picked up the weapon and gently placed it in his hand, as if he had read his mind.

“Come on, what are you afraid of? Now the one armed is you!”

He went to look out the window, praying he hadn’t made the wrong choice.

“Stay calm, it’s all right” he shouted, someone ordered the policemen to lower their weapons and he called Nicole, who in the meantime was left alone under that lamp because Fred and the other mysterious man had disappeared.

Judas had picked up the gun and stood in front of the window, from there, in case of need, he could easily have asked for help. Meanwhile, waiting for his wife, he tried with a trembling hand to keep the killer at gunpoint, who had settled in the center of the room.

“I have no intention of hurting you,” he hastened to tell her as Nicole appeared in the doorway, as if he feared that her change her mind. “Don’t be afraid, come closer,” he then added in an all too affable tone, to reassure her. She made a surprised face and barely held back an exclamation, her husband had the feeling that somehow those two already knew each other. Nicole noticed that he was looking at her puzzled, shook her head and went to hug him without responding to his questioning look.

“You really are a beautiful couple!” commented the killer after taking a step back, to better observe the family picture. “You must be proud of your husband, he is an intelligent and courageous man. I think there are very few who would have agreed to enter this house tonight. And then he is wise, because he says that we all have to respect the Law … and in a while we will see if he still thinks this way, or if he said this only to keep me good “he continued, approaching a small sofa at the back of the room. He lifted one of the pillows and grabbed a baseball bat.

“Put that club down!” Judas ordered him stiffening his armed arm, but he turned and continued talking to Nicole as if he hadn’t heard him.

“Do you see this? It’s my son’s favorite game, he’s only a few months old but you should see how he watches games on television. I promised him that one day I would teach him how to play, but unfortunately I won’t be able to. Judas told me that you also have a baby girl and that she understands me, but in my opinion it is not true. In my opinion he can’t understand, because he has never been forced to choose,” he explained, meanwhile he had started to move nervously. “The Law is sometimes cruel… too cruel. Sometimes we can’t just ask for what we are entitled to, we have to fight with all our strength to get it. Maybe in a while you will understand what I mean, because some things have to be tried in person” he announced more and more excited, Nicole started to run away but he blocked her way with the club.

“Stop!” Judas ordered him again, he replied with a shrug.

Nicole began to crawl along the wall to keep him away, the killer followed her step by step as in an absurd choreography while her husband looked at them in terror, he couldn’t make up his mind. He didn’t know what to do, he wanted to shoot that man but was afraid of hitting his wife. Suddenly the killer got into position like a real hitter, with his legs apart and the bat in a horizontal position at shoulder height, then Judas dropped the weapon and rushed at him.

“Don’t do it, don’t do it!” he shouted, but the killer performed a half twist of the torso.

“Now you will understand!” he ruled, the club quickly split the air and hit in the belly Nicole, who fell to the ground out of breath. Immediately afterwards he raised his club to hit her again and the other charged him like a bull, they fought by rolling on the floor until Judas managed to punch him in the side, in the exact spot where he had the bloodstain. The killer collapsed with a groan and he got up to help Nicole, convinced that the pain would keep him good for a while, but the killer chased him and punched him to the temple from behind. His vision became dark, he turned to react but his arms suddenly went limp, the chip connected to his adrenal glands had begun to do its duty. At first a vague sense of numbness took hold of his muscles, just a moment later it came the turn of pain. Judas stiffened, fell down and remained motionless, unable to move not even a single finger. He felt like hungry sharp-toothed worms were feeding on his flesh and bones. Meanwhile, the killer had run into the kitchen, now he was walking back towards him laughing like a madman as he showed him an electric knife.

“This is just the beginning,” he growled bending over Judas, who was terrified of having completely lost control of his body. He tried to ask for help but he couldn’t even open his mouth, he could hardly even breathe. The killer plunged the sharp knife into his chest until it touched his ribs, after which he began to slide it horizontally.

“Sometimes you can’t choose, now you’ll understand it too,” repeated once more the madman, then he lost interest in him and got up to go back to Nicole. He advanced towards her, pointing the knife in the direction of her belly, he had just begun to lower it when the glass of a skylight shattered, crossed by a bullet. Splinters with sparkling reflections flooded the room, a red spot spread rapidly on the assassin’s back, taking away his strength. Judas saw him fall down without saying a single word, then he was able to look one last time at Nicole, curled up on the ground with the eyes dirty with horror.

Finally, everything got dark.

The ambulance carrying Judas and Nicole quickly set off in the direction of the hospital, the onlookers began to disperse lazily. They were still excited about that unscheduled show, slightly thoughtful because this time the villain had risked winning. Some went away gathered in small groups and told each other the most intense moments of the whole story, exchanging opinions and gesticulating as if at the end of a football game.