Tales from the Backstage - Heaven Shall Burn

February 2067. Renzo, still recovering after the disappearance of Elena, has come back to Italy and started playing with his old band. After yet another run-of-the-mill concert, the proposal of I.N.A.B.A.'s manager, Todd McGilligan, takes him by surprise: play as the support band for her upcoming concert in Prague, with the goal of getting the attention of mysterious billionaire Reiner Greschnik. Renzo accepts, hoping to use the concert as a Trojan horse to infiltrate the Rapture, a mediatic event hosted by Greschnik's company and focused on a cadre of convicts killing each other to get a pardon. However, he'll find himself entangled in a matter of life and death. Was the Rapture more than he could chew?

(Proofread and edited by Kaleb O'Halloran)

The Esperian Connection

Deafening music pumping from the speakers, stroboscopic lights flashing in the dark hall. The rhythm of basses, a symphony of synths. Dozens of bodies moving in unison, struggling to keep the pace, muscles following the beat, bending and twisting in a cage of sweat and alcohol. A roaring crescendo, the guitars on fire, the keyboard solo reaching its climax.

Then, silence.

The lights switched on again, illuminating the stage, with the quartet standing before a collection of enthralled gazes. A roaring applause manifested from the crowd, cheers and shouts, hands raised, a whirlwind of emotions and excitement. Very few not clapping their hands. And, among those non-clappers, was a man with shark teeth. A young man, indeed, with black hair, green eyes and a scar crossing his cheeks horizontally, through his nose. That man stood out like a nun in a boxing ring, thanks to his bluish tuxedo and formal shirt, especially when surrounded by young teens with several different combinations of hair colors, in various states of undress. However mismatched he might have looked like, that man had a reason to be there. And said reason was currently up on that stage, reaching for a rather glittery microphone.

“You are awesome, people! Hope you’ve enjoyed this last encore, and we’ll see you next time!”

The singer’s voice echoed through the small venue, followed by another round of cheers. He blinked towards the crowd, snapped his fingers.

“Ci vediamo al prossimo concerto, bellissimi!”

The elegant man shook his head, while slowly walking towards the stage. He couldn’t really understand Italian, despite Euterpe having been his base of operations for the past two years. However it did sound charming, to his Scottish ears. And, apparently, not only to his. Several fans, both male and female, were actually blowing the singer kisses, while at least one girl had lifted up her top to show off her breasts. That man sighed. He really felt like a fish out of water, but – hey – business is business.

The crowd started to whittle down, slowly moving out of the small venue – a tiny concert hall in a pub in downtown Esperia, one of Euterpe’s satellite cities. The man stepped forward, polishing his shark-like grin and preparing his business card. It was a traditional, printed card, something that had been considered old fashioned and obsolete for several decades already, but whatever – he wasn’t one to follow trends anyway. On the contrary, he preferred to create new ones, then quickly pull the rug out and run with the money before the investors could figure out what was happening. He wasn’t just an ordinary con-man. He was a con-artist. And, as such, faking his knowledge of whatever neo-latin language that boy on stage was speaking couldn’t have been too hard for him. Now that he was almost alone in the room, he finally started clapping his hands, trying to form some words that could sound correct.

“Belo concerta, otimu laboro! Bravo! Di molto bravo!”

His efforts were met with the coldest gaze possible, by all four members of the band, an icy wall worthy of the back of a freezer. The man realized it immediately, coughed a couple times to melt the embarrassment.

“...Pardon, I didn’t mean to mock you. I just wanted to...”

“Hey, that’s fine, amico. I appreciate the effort, but seriously, I can understand English, even if my accent screams the opposite.”

The singer/keyboardist looked back at him. Quite a young man as well, probably a bit younger than him, with fiery, spiky brown hair, deep-blue eyes and several piercings on his left eyebrow and earlobe. He was wearing a strange outfit, with a choker, a short, sleeveless black crop top that ended right above his abs, fingerless gloves and red leather pants, capped off with a pair of military boots covered in straps and buckles. He had tattoos on both of his shoulders – a rose surrounding a skull on the left, and a dolphin on the right. The vines of the rose tattoo extended down to his elbow, breaking the symmetry of the composition. His navel also showed a small piercing, with a small blue gem encased in its exposed cavity.

“Ah, that makes things easier! My apologies, Mr. Rubecca, I wanted to put you at ease, but I realize I’m a disaster with foreign languages. English is already difficult enough to master.”

The musician frowned, squinted his eyes.

“Indeed. But drop the “mister”. Renzo’s fine.”

He struck a pose while saying that, bending his body back to flaunt his abs while sitting on the edge of the stage. His left hand stretched behind his nape, revealing what looked like the shadow of a nipple piercing. The drummer, an older man with short black hair and a red bandana, chuckled.

“Yo, Renzo, swinging the other way today? That’s not a hot babe as usual!”

“Shut up, Serpo. It’s my trademark Renzo Pose®, no way I’m not using it in front of a potential business partner!”

The man in a tuxedo stiffened in place. He wasn’t expecting anyone to catch onto his plan so fast. Especially not a societal reject wasting his youth playing synths in fourth-rate bars around Italy and continental Europe. Yet, a dive inside that piercing, deep-blue gaze told him everything that he needed to know. Renzo had had his eyes on him since the beginning of the concert, unbeknownst to him, much like a cheetah silently tracking a gazelle before pouncing on it.

“How did you...”

The man quickly shut himself up. He didn’t intend to play his hand this early, yet he found himself cornered by the acumen of the youngster sitting in front of him in such a nonchalantly exhibitionist fashion.

“You were the only one dressed like a penguin, not drinking anything and taking notes at every song instead of applauding. You didn’t sing with the others during the refrains, you avoided the pogo in the mosh pit completely. You looked like an outsider that – for some reason – was compelled to stay until the end. So, either you are a stalker or a headhunter. As much as I prefer to believe in the second one, I can’t discount the first completely.”

“Especially not after the doll-girl incident.”

“Thank you Serpo for reminding me about how I almost lost a kidney that day.”

“Wasn’t it some other body part?”

Another burst of laughter from behind him. This time, it was the bass player, a young woman with a pale complexion and long, blonde hair. Her most stand-out features, however, were her green, feline eyes, cat ears and a slender, furry tail whipping up and down. The man in the tuxedo could only glare at the sight. A female neko – a free female neko, to be precise, without a visible barcode on her collarbone. He stared at her with a mix of repulsion and resignation. Nekos were an artificial race of pleasure slaves, born to serve man – almost identical in terms of appearance to their creators, if not for their cat-like features. Repealing the Morelli laws in 2041 had been a huge mistake. Now they were no longer considered property, and you couldn’t sell them around anymore. It was such a shame – so much untapped potential on the black market.

Renzo rolled his eyes at the snide remark of the catgirl.

“No, Corinne. It wasn’t. You are confusing it with that other crazy knife-nut chick. You know, that masked Korean idol, Yu Vampyr or whatever she’s called.”

The catgirl named Corinne scratched her head, her ears wiggled a bit, then snapped her fingers.

“Oh, right, right! Yu was the one who almost cut your dick off because we dared to play a cover of one of the Honhwan Star Siblings Duo’s old songs.”

Renzo shrugged, slicked his hair with a theatrical gesture.

“I still can’t get why she cared so much ‘bout it. I’m just happy she missed her target.”

The fourth member of the band, a girl playing a double-neck guitar, chuckled, ready to chime in. She was taller than both Corinne and Renzo, but less than Serpo, and was wearing a weird combination of mummy-like bandages and leather clothing. The bandages were spread over her face too, with her brown eyes peeking out of her blonde bangs and waist-long twin braids.

“Even if she didn’t, reconstructive surgery is a thing! You wouldn’t be the first to have their dick reattached. Trust me, it works like a charm! You won’t even realize it was cut off in the first place!”

Renzo rolled his eyes at that remark. His bandmates were all a merry bunch of vipers.

“Thanks for your fundamental contribution, Alexiel. Much appreciated.”

His attention was directed again to the suited man keeping his laughter in check before them.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong picture. We just like to joke around, but we are serious enough when we are on stage. Now, could you tell us what brought you here, to this theater at the outskirts of Esperia? Not many people know this place, and even less of them are managers wearing a counterfeit four-thousand-euro suit.”

The man blinked in surprise two or three times, glanced at his own outfit, then back at the youngster.

“...How could you tell?”

Renzo slicked his hair once more, cracked a smile.

“I grew up in high society, you know? Concerts, public readings, theater every week. My mother spent hours teaching me and my brother how to recognize a true Rivera from a cheap knock-off. Which means you either can’t afford a real one or you have been fooled. And neither scenario really makes you look smarter.”

The man in the fake Rivera suit shook his head, smiled too.

“Fair, fair. And I thought I was the one evaluating you. Okay, let’s start again from the beginning: my name is Todd McGilligan. I’m the agent of the pop star robot idol known as I.N.A.B.A.”

Steps, hurried steps, suddenly coming from the stage. Then the jump, the two figures landing right in front of him. In an instant, Todd found himself surrounded by Alexiel and Corinne, both of them staring him in the eyes with piercing, glimmering gazes.

“You said I.N.A.B.A.?”

“That I.N.A.B.A.? The one who sang Buttplugs for Sheeple?”

Renzo looked at both of them, then at the manager, then at Serpo. Serpo shrugged, didn’t know how to reply to his silent inquiry. Renzo cursed under his breath, directed his attention to Todd, his curiosity not sated yet.

“Sure. I.N.A.B.A.. Definitely, totally legit, right? Sorry, but I need to see some convincing evidence of your claim, Mr. McGilligan. The manager of a rising star like her should be able to afford a genuine Rivera suit. Pardon my suspicion, but this smells like a con.”

Todd sighed.

“Listen, kid, I understand your concerns, but you can browse the internet for videos of Ina. I’m always standing near her at our press conferences. Like, do you know anyone else with a scar like mine and such beautiful shark-like teeth?”

Todd’s mind sent him some dangerous signals in that short instant. Shark teeth were indeed a rare genetic modification in human children, but they were sort of a trend when he was to be born. They stopped being fashionable when a criminal connected with the Rosenmaester incident was reported to sport them. Todd had faced enough bullying in the past six years to not want to be connected with him anymore. At the very least, said criminal had spiky brown hair and always wore triangular shades, so it should have been easy to distinguish them. Renzo, on the other hand, didn’t even make the connection and just thought that shark teeth were an odd perk to wish for a child.

“I suppose not.”

“If that isn’t enough for you, I have an idea that might put you at ease: I’ll explain my proposal and then organize an in-person appointment at the studios, where you’ll even be able to meet Ina in the chassis. That should be sufficient proof of my commitment.”

Renzo pondered for a long second, silently staring at the man, while still sitting on the stage.

“Fair. As long as I don’t need to sign anything now, I guess there’s no harm in listening, Mr. McGilligan. So... what brought you here? We are a second rate band from a third rate town, I’m surprised you’ve even heard of us.”

Todd nodded. The four members of Highway to Oblivion weren’t very well known, but at least they had a better following than when they were called Killer Queen Bites the Dust. That was the name the band used at its inception – until a potential lawsuit had forced them to change it one year ago. The funny thing was that it hadn’t been a music label suing them for inappropriate use of song titles. No, it had been a Japanese entertainment colossus in the field of comic books. Apparently, the fourth part of one of their longest running series used that exact denomination for the ability of one major villain. How they had managed to track down such a small band half a world away and send them a C&D letter, was a mystery not even Renzo had been able to crack.

Despite their relative lack of international presence, they had a limited, yet decent following on the net. They played their own unique brand of synth-rock, with heavy emphasis on keyboards and the vocals of the band leader, Renzo Rubecca. The music video of their single Lightning Strikes Twice racked up some millions of views in a relatively short time, especially thanks to the spectacular costumes tailored by a woman with a fin for an arm – Elena, Renzo’s former girlfriend, rumored to have run away from him just months before because of some shady past connections with the mafia. The other three members were Serpo Santamarta, the drummer, Corinne Gattonero, the bassist, and Alexiel Lily Lacopine, the guitarist. They were an odd bunch of misfits, even by 2060s standards: the son of a famous composer who went full anarchist and became an activist for mutant rights, a former junkie who used to play drums in jail and had a history of civil protests, a promiscuous free neko who was notorious for her unhinged behavior, and an intersex woman who survived a tremendous fire when she was a kid and was staunchly fighting for queer rights. Highway to Oblivion was a very edgy name too, one of those that were all the rage in the ‘10s – but fifty years too late. Todd was somewhat confident he had listened to a song with the same title ages ago, performed by some backwater metal band with an all-too-common dragon-themed moniker. However, he didn’t have much of a choice; time was not on his side, and this ragtag group of scoundrels was probably his last chance.

Thus, he made the best out of his situation. He took his time to showcase his almost perfectly jagged smile, while rubbing the scar on his nose, before speaking up again.

“Here’s my proposal. Ina is going to hold a big concert in Prague next month, but our usual support bands are busy. It wasn’t part of the planned tour, it just happened all of a sudden. Thus, we thought – I thought – it would be a good idea to put some of our national talent on display.”

Renzo massaged his chin and lips, while listening carefully to the shark-toothed man. By national talent, he surely meant a cheap, exploitable, local band I can hire for pennies. Still, it was something worth listening to. Prague was an interesting choice of venue, especially for a last minute concert, but not a surprising one. Following the fallout of the 2014 Helsinki incident and the massive, continent-wide Phoenix recovery plan, Prague had become a massive industrial power, with Zavira being the face of the change and encompassing almost every technological sector, including bioengineering and robotics. While the disastrous involvement in the Schwarzer Blitz project, the H-168 scandal and the recent, failed stunt at AWA had severely hampered Zavira’s reputation, it was still an international colossus, with partnerships all around the world. If Zavira alone wasn’t enough to elevate Prague to being the new tech capital of continental Europe, in more recent years another multinational company, Stratosphere, took off in the same city, guided by the visionary (and, according to his detractors, plainly insane) mind of eccentric Czech/German billionaire Reiner Greschnik. Stratosphere’s incredibly boisterous motto – Above the clouds, we found no God – caused a wave of resentment in almost all Christian communities, leading some of them to identify Greschnik as the Antichrist himself – but that wasn’t relevant for the discussion at hand. Renzo archived those thoughts, focusing back on the bizarre businessman (maybe con-man?) standing in front of him.

“Chiaro. And your choice fell on us, after you saw one of our concerts advertised on some event aggregator website. Then, you came here in person to listen to us live, which admittedly strengthens your case.”

Todd chuckled.

“You’d be surprised by how many bands cannot perform live without AI correction and auto-tuning. I’ve dealt with a bunch of them, and it’s always a real pain in the neck. Besides, I didn’t find you on the net – I noticed one of your posters on the outskirts of Euterpe and got curious. Rubecca isn’t a surname I expected to meet in the wild – not performing in a small, dilapidated, junkie-infested venue like this, at least.”

“What’s in it for us, outside of playing second fiddle to that obnoxious, trolling robot bunny? We ain’t gonna do that for free, I take it?”

Renzo smirked. Serpo had chimed in with the important question. As if he was waiting for it, Todd lined up his teeth, snapped his fingers with a theatrical gesture.

“You can’t expect me to pay your weight in gold for a single concert, but look at it this way: you will be opening for I.N.A.B.A. – the popstar sensation of the new ‘60s! There will be all kinds of big wigs in the audience, including the Reiner Greschnik!”

“Sensation or not, flying to Prague ain’t cheap, even with low-cost carriers – and what about the instruments? You’re kinda full of crap, ain’t you?”

This time, it was the neko tackling him with a sudden sneak attack. Go back to smoking catnip and shut up, he would have liked to yell at that subhuman being, but he had to keep his cool.

“I never said you’d do it for free, pussycat, just not to expect a gazillion euro as a compensation. Of course, we’d at least pay for travel expenses, accommodation and food – but not for drinks, if you understand what I mean.”

Last time Todd had put free drinks on the table, one of the support bands bought almost an entire liquor store on a whim. He didn’t want to go through the dreadful experience of trying to make things right again. Renzo pondered for a short while, replied with a small nod.

“Doesn’t sound too bad. I’ve never been to Prague, so I’d take it as a perk. What about you guys?”

He squared all of his bandmates, to gauge their reactions. Serpo and Alexiel were visibly excited by the idea, he could read it in their irises, shining with anticipation. Corinne, on the contrary, looked more skeptical, staring right back at him as if to ascertain his opinion. Renzo winked at her, after making sure Todd couldn’t notice it, then turned around to meet the agent’s satisfied expression.

“We’ll have to discuss it among ourselves, would it be okay if we took the weekend to think about it?”

“Sure, two days won’t change much.”

Todd opened his jacket, browsed the inside of a hidden pocket, pulling out an old-fashioned pile of folded paper.

“Here’s a copy of the prospective contract for you. You don’t need to sign it now, but know this is what we are offering. I’ll contact you back at the right moment. Until then, have a nice time!”

Todd waved his hand with a sort of fake military salute.

“Arrivederci!”

Then, he walked away from the group, picked up his hat, and exited the venue, as silently as he entered it.

Agenzia Investigativa Gattonero

“What was the point of that goddamn lie? You HAVE been to Prague. Several times, too – and one of them with Dad, of all people!”

Renzo sighed. While Alexiel and Serpo had been content with his innocent remark – or simply didn’t know better – Corinne had become excessively annoying about it, to the point of it qualifying as harassment in at least a couple jurisdictions. But, as they were walking back to the town center on that early summer evening, bringing their instrument bags with them, he couldn’t do anything except endure her constant stream of complaints uttered in Italian.

“Tell me the truth, you have some ulterior motives.”

“Can’t we... you know, just wait until we get to your father’s office?”

“What does Dad have to do with this?”

He sighed. Corinne was surely persistent. It probably came from the French side of her family. Her mother was a mafia boss for the Ferro branch of the Santuzzelli family (currently on the run from law enforcement half a world away) and, by all accounts, was described as unreasonably stubborn and laser-focused. Despite this mixed heritage, having been brought up by her father since she was an infant, Corinne only learned how to speak Italian – proper Italian – even if sometimes her neko nature would slip in with unwanted nyas and miaos, muddling her words on the fly. Her sister Claire, instead, spoke a revolting mixture of French, Italian and neko dialect, with décevant being her most favorite word – in virtue of having lived with said mafia boss mother for most of her teen years. They also had a third sister, Bea Nyari, who was actually half-Iranian due to being born from a different mother. All in all, the three Gattonero daughters were a chore to deal with – or more precisely, some sort of necessary evil.

“Renzo? What about answering mya – my question?”

“Not in the open.”

She lowered her cat ears, squinted her eyes.

“So that’s why you’re going to Dad’s office?”

“Yes.”

In the distance, he finally spotted the entrance of the Gattonero Detective Agency, with its second rate, cheap neon signs – two of which were blinking at irregular intervals, but were still too expensive to replace. Renzo slowly reached for the front door, knocked twice. A somewhat grumpy voice answered from within.

“If you are from the tax agency, we’ve relocated to Napoli, so please go there. If you’re a client, come in, it’s open.”

Renzo tugged on the handle, pushing the door open. A jingle played the moment he set foot inside, echoing through the dilapidated room. A desk stood in front of the opposite wall, with two bent pizza boxes on the side of it. Several photos were placed on the unpolished wooden surface, some framed, some just stuck on with tape. The walls were covered in plaster, but there were parts where the naked red bricks were visible, peeking out from scratches and holes. A number of pin-up calendars looked down on prospective clients, most of them displaying female nekos in very skimpy bikinis, a couple of them instead featuring male bodybuilders – with or without their underpants on. There was also a pool table with one leg too short, kept from crashing down using a copy of the Bible, and a kitchenette with fairly blackened walls. But, most importantly, behind the desk sat an adult catman in his late forties, with very pale skin, black, neck-long hair, a black tail whipping around, and dull, gray irises with very prominent, thick eye bags. He was wearing gray cargo pants and black boots, which were currently resting on the wooden surface. No shirt or undershirt, just gloves and a choker with a small pendant. His neko bar code was clearly visible under his collarbone, as were his five ear piercings (all on the same side) and his one nipple piercing. Between his lips, he held a blunt of catnip, the smell of which could be perceived from the other side of the building. Renzo waved his hand, while entering the room.

“Yo, Mr. Gattonero.”

“Hi, Renzo. Hi, Corinne.”

Gattonero planted his feet back on the ground, sitting properly on his lounge chair. He quickly put out his joint on the ashtray, then crossed his hands under his chin. Renzo stared at his tired eyes, eyes that seemed to shout I’ve had enough of this bullshit every time he met them. Interacting with that grumpy, middle-aged neko always felt like trying to talk about the rainbow to a blind person. However, a sudden noise diverted Renzo’s attention. Someone was apparently playing pool on that decrepit old table. Another female neko, with neck-length blond hair that had a comically oversized strand emerging from her forehead. Her outfit consisted of a black skirt and sleeveless shirt with a tie, not to mention the usual boots-plus-gloves-plus-choker combo that seemed to be so popular among the Gattonero family.

“Hi, fuckboy. I was so très heureux not to have you around for a full day, but it seems I can’t even get this little me time, n’est-ce pas?”

Corinne remained silent, while Renzo facepalmed badly. Claire Gattonero, the youngest and most obnoxious of the three Gattonero sisters, spewing liquid spite every time she opened her mouth – especially towards people who refused her advances. Truth be told, not even a month prior, Renzo had a go at Claire and the two of them shared a couple wild nights together. However, her constant haughty demeanor and disproportionate use of unusual French words, combined with her generally irritable attitude, were enough to convince Renzo that making love with a landmine would have been safer and probably better for his health. Claire hadn’t forgiven him yet for his refusal to go forward with their relationship, and constantly harassed him every time she had an occasion to. Knowing this, Corinne never missed a single chance to imply there was something between her and Renzo – even if there wasn’t – just to get her sister jealous. And, oh boy, did it ever work.

“My fault, Clara. We would have got here sooner, if he wasn’t so busy with me.”

Renzo could see Claire pop a vein in real time, her green eyes almost appearing to turn red in anger. He needed to defuse the situation as quickly as possible, before Claire decided that impaling her sister with a cue stick was the correct way to solve their quarrel. He sighed with extreme resignation, waving his hands in front of the angry catgirl.

“Sh-she was joking! You know I’m not taking any shots at your sister, Claire! Hell, I’m not taking shots at nekos in general anymore!”

Claire growled, almost bent her stick with her hands, while glaring at the two of them. Gattonero buried his head between his crossed arms instead, with an oddly resigned groan that could only be translated as please, I’m tired of this, leave me alone.

“Whatever. You kids can do whatever you like when I’m not watching, I won’t complain. Just, please not during work hours. And for the love of God, use protection – I’m not psychologically ready to become a grandpa.”

Corinne and Claire glanced at each other, then at their dad. It was rich hearing those words from someone who had three kids out of unprotected one-night-stands with two different women. Claire smirked.

“Oh, huh, about that, Papa... I miiiight have some news to break to you.”

“That is not funny, Claire.”

Gattonero’s furious gaze just about incinerated his daughter on the spot, piercing her soul in the process. Claire’s voice remained frozen in her throat, while her muscles had completely stiffened. Renzo observed the catman, that annoyed neko that was sitting in front of him with the physique of a twenty-year-old in peak condition, that downright bizarre person who also happened to be his boss. Said grumpy neko was staring at him now, with those dull grey eyes that seemed to beg for sleep more and more with each passing second.

“Something happened at the concert, I take it?”

Renzo nodded, browsed his bag for the contract Todd McGilligan gave him.

“We have a shot at getting near Greschnik.”

Gattonero almost fell from his chair the moment he heard that name.

“Goodness gracious, you can’t be serious!”

Renzo slicked his hair with a swift gesture, proffered him the contract.

“Indeed I am. The agent of the pop singer I.N.A.B.A., one Todd McGilligan, wants to recruit us as the opening act of a concert in Prague, and Reiner Greschnik will be there in the audience – maybe even on stage. I have verified the credentials of this McGilligan. He has a history as a dollar store con-man, but has somehow broken into the legit music industry in the past two years.”

Gattonero crossed his hands again, staring at Renzo with concealed disbelief. The boy hadn’t worked for him for long, but he had proved himself a capable asset, even more than he could have predicted. Their meeting happened under unusual circumstances too: just six months earlier, a good friend of Gattonero, the British foxhunter Blyen Chill, called him to ask if he needed manpower for his agency, saying that he knew a potentially interesting candidate. Seeing as he could have used someone with a cooler head than that of his daughters – at least, the two that were working with him – Reno Gattonero (yes, that was his full name) decided to give him a chance. If this guy was half as bright as Chill believed, it would have been a pity for him to join a rival agency, like the Igarashi Supernatural Investigations. Gattonero had a long-standing feud with its owner – the young, one-eyed, half Japanese/half German Frida. It was something akin to a dick measuring contest about who was the best private investigator in Euterpe – with Frida and her underling Mojave Steinberger having recently scored several goals (and own goals) while (allegedly) chasing neo-fascist werewolves who (allegedly) had a bizarre plan to (allegedly) resurrect a controversial historical figure. To counter that, he needed a big case, the biggest he could put his hands on. But, as things stood, he couldn’t do that alone. He needed more support. Thus, he asked Chill to send the youngster to him for an evaluation.

The first impression was weird. This Renzo guy had a keen intellect and incredible observation skills, but felt broken inside. He had just returned from England after his girlfriend had left him a couple weeks prior, and he decided to live in his home country for a while. His main intent was rebuilding his old rock band – a band that was put on hiatus after a successful single because he had moved to the other side of the pond to stay with his better half. Whatever happened there, he was now on his own. And, in spite of being a son of the Clavio Rubecca, he didn’t want to have anything to do with his father’s money. He wanted to get back on his feet on his own. Gattonero was a firm believer of the no women, no problems philosophy (albeit quite hypocritically, considering his escapades), but he also saw in this Renzo a younger version of himself. Thus, he allowed the young man to join the agency, and began to treat him much like his own adoptive uncle had treated him in the past – which was to say, exactly the sort of unhinged way that an old, cigar-chomping, brothel-roaming, alcohol-drinking, retired criminal police detective would.

Not even one month after their initial meeting, Gattonero was already bringing Renzo along for pub nights, helping him get his eyebrow and navel piercings, introducing him to his daughters, and even having Corinne join his band as a bassist, after their former one moved to France. With time, and after putting several small cases under his belt, Renzo started to recover. He hadn’t quite made a complete U-turn, but he had at least retrieved some of the confidence he seemed to have lost. He even voluntarily decided to have a dolphin tattooed on his shoulder in memory of Elena and started going to the gym to chisel his body. Then, he slept with Claire. Twice. Gattonero didn’t know how to process that last piece of information – or rather, he didn’t want to know how to process it. He assumed Claire went into heat and pounced on the first semi-hot boy she could put her paws on, but whatever. As long as he wasn’t about to become a grandpa, that wasn’t a concern of his. In Renzo’s place, he would probably have done the same (his adoptive uncle would have probably encouraged him too).

Family troubles and potential unwanted grandchildren aside, with Renzo, Corinne and Claire at his disposal, Gattonero had already chosen his next, big target – something that would have made Frida swear like a trucker and would have reduced her (alleged) feats to nothing more than a footnote. With a little bit of bravado and probably more than a healthy dose of recklessness, Gattonero had decided to investigate The Rapture. Which meant, directly and indirectly, prying into Greschnik’s empire and private life. And now, he was about to get an opportunity so improbable, he hadn’t even begun to hope for it– a chance to meet the man himself in person.

“I didn’t think our mark would be so eager to have a sarcastic artificial rabbit insult him for ninety minutes straight.”

Renzo shook his head, mirroring his boss’s feelings.

“Neither did I. Greschnik is one of those narcissists focused on himself more than anything. I mean, have you read the latest issue of Lust? The central page spread was a photo of him dressed elegantly in his red suit, surrounded by all his female bodyguards in the nude!”

Gattonero nodded vigorously.

“Seen and bookmarked it for – er – research purposes. But, yes, he doesn’t seem the kind of guy who’d like to be told to get buttplugged live in front of ten thousand people by a scurrilous pop star, just for the sake of it. Greschnik isn’t a clown, and I doubt he’d want to be seen as one. Though him and that I.N.A.B.A. might be more similar than they seem, if their obnoxious personalities say anything.”

Corinne looked at the two men absentmindedly. She had been deep in thought for a while, elaborating on the whole story in her head – but just then, a light seemed to turn on inside her brain, causing a weird, yet plausible connection to form. She snapped her fingers, raised her voice all of a sudden.

“Dad! Renzo! I think I have it! I have a hunch about the reason he’ll be there! I bet he thinks I.N.A.B.A. would be the perfect fit to sing during The Rapture. He’s going there to see if she’s entertaining enough to deserve a spot on his most successful show.”

Her sudden shout caused Claire to totally miss the target of her billiard shot, almost throwing the cue stick in the process. Gattonero glanced at Corinne, his dull eyes finally showing some sort of response. He looked at her for a moment, then at Renzo, then back at her again. A weak smile began to pervade his lips, his fingers still intertwined under his chin.

“You know what, that’s an interesting angle...”

He grabbed the contract from the desk, pointed his finger at it.

“Aaaand, if that checks out, that’s where our friendly dollar store con-man will prove more than useful.”

The Rapture

“> You are a moron.”

“Oh, come on Ina, gimme a break!”

“> Pardon, you are an absolute moron. Is that better, Todd?”

Todd sighed. He sometimes wished he could switch off that rabbit prick that was the cause of both his fortunes and all his woes, especially when the latter exceeded the former. But then he always remembered their agreement: if he ever even thought about switching her off, she would cleanly lop off his head. Todd felt he might be able to move fast enough to do it before the robot idol could notice, but he wasn’t keen to try his luck. So, he resigned himself to being insulted over and over, until she calmed down – something that usually happened within five to six hours. I.N.A.B.A. was sitting right in front of him, inside the cabin of a Stratosphere cargo helicopter that looked more like a small flat than the interior of a military chopper. Pink wall covers, luscious plant pots, sofas, a table, a TV set, a record player, a small library, free Wi-Fi, a fridge with snacks, and even a small chemical bathroom. Todd wasn’t expecting that level of luxury from a simple helicopter trip, but he was definitely not going to complain. I.N.A.B.A., though, was having none of it. She sat on the sofa, wearing long tracksuit pants that left her synthetic bunny tail poking out, and a pink t-shirt decorated with the black silhouettes of two rabbits making love. As a skinless gynoid, I.N.A.B.A. wasn’t required to wear clothes, but she liked – no, loved to do so nonetheless. Todd had seen her getting very giddy when she went on a shopping spree, only to pathetically try to deny it as just studying your meatsack culture to pwn you better. Not exactly convincing, seeing as that was after she spent more than two hours deciding between two different miniskirts (and buying both in the end). He thought it was adorable to witness such a different side of what he initially thought was just an asshole AI in a rabbit girl chassis.

“Those kids are pretty good on stage, you know.”

“> Fuck the kids.”

Todd drew a deep breath.

“These were the terms of their contract, Ina. We can’t afford to be sued–”

“> Fuck the contract.”

Yeah, Ina wasn’t happy about the arrangement. Having to babysit four other meatbags was above her paygrade, but it was still cheaper than having to pay a lawyer. Todd cursed under his breath. That Rubecca guy had played him well.

“We’re going to accept your offer and play in Prague at no cost, except the reimbursements for travel, hotel and food expenses. But, in case any big wigs in the audience give you and I.N.A.B.A. an offer to perform for them, we want in on it. That’s our sole request.” Those were the words he had said to Todd. And Todd, not wanting to let it slip that getting Ina picked up by the big man Greschnik himself was his absolute primary goal, had sheepishly accepted. Of course it was a gambit, but it was better than having them find out about his ultimate plan. He secretly hoped Zavira Corporation or some other billionaire would also extend an offer, so he could offload the kiddos to play for them instead, but that didn’t happen. Not that it would’ve mattered – the revised contract was pretty clear that the band had first bidding on any event booked as a consequence of the concert in Prague. So when Greschnik hired Ina for real, Todd was literally thrown into a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. And now, those youngsters were traveling in another helicopter – a cargo chopper normally used for farm cattle – following them to a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, deep into international waters.

However, Ina had no right being so pissed off. His plan had worked like a charm, and they were finally about to arrive at Paradis, Greschnik’s private playground in the middle of nowhere. Having to bring the Highway to Oblivion with them was a small setback, sure, but an acceptable one.

“Look on the bright side, they won’t get in your way. All they’ll likely do is warm up the audience for you.”

“> The only bright side would be a chaingear eating them alive. But I can’t expect that to happen, can I?”

Todd shivered. He surely hoped that wasn’t going to happen, otherwise it would become much harder to recruit any supporting bands for the foreseeable future. If rumors spread that I.N.A.B.A.’s concerts caused death or injuries to the performers, only totally masochistic idiots would accept that kind of risk – and Todd didn’t want to deal with totally masochistic idiots. In his own experience, they were the worst kind of humans to bargain with.

He looked down from the chopper’s window. Paradis was an artificial island in the Pacific Ocean, placed outside of any major commercial routes. Almost fifteen years prior, Greschnik had built it and registered it as a small, independent domain under the jurisdiction of Stratosphere’s Hong Kong branch. It wasn’t the first weird thing he had done, and it wouldn’t be the last, so the international community just let him run with it. Many thought that little private endeavor would have kept him occupied enough that he wouldn’t meddle with politics. What nobody was expecting was what he intended to do with Paradis.

The Rapture came as a shock.

Take ten convicted criminals on the death row, coming from the entire known world, let them duke it out in a death match, and force the winner to become one of Greschnik’s bodyguards. All in front of an audience of three thousand people or more, plus all those watching it live through online streaming sessions. All perfectly, brutally legal, with documents signed by both the convicts and the nations taking part in that primal showcase of human carnage.

Todd hated The Rapture. It was deeply disturbing for him to watch and he loathed Greschnik for having had the idea in the first place – which made him the perfect mark for a con. He saw it as his own private social justice, not only for himself, but for the world at large – a good way to reframe his shameless quest for money as something more morally acceptable. Surprisingly, I.N.A.B.A. wasn’t a fan of the show either. One would have expected such an amoral bastard to find joy and solace in watching “meatbags” dismantle each other, but for some unknown reason, she looked just as disturbed as he was. Todd had started to believe that Ina had an intrinsic fear of death, in any shape or form, that she didn’t want to show. He knew better than to ask Ina herself, because that could have resulted in his private parts being crushed (again) under her steel grip.

“> Remind me once more why we are doing this, Todd.”

“Because I want our golden goose to sign a six-figure sponsorship contract, only one tenth of which will actually be used to advertise Stratosphere. We’ll swim in money, if our con goes through! You’ll even be able to afford a completely new body!”

“> Will I be able to afford a new manager too?”

Todd froze at that remark, fell into a wordless silence. As if to ease his worries, I.N.A.B.A. waved her hands in a comically exaggerated fashion.

“> I was joking, meatsack. You are the only deranged idiot that could possibly work as my agent. For now, at least.”

Todd’s face turned a more acceptable shade of cyanotic blue, before finally recovering all the lost color. He had never thought about it, but once Ina reached true fame, she could easily start to see him as redundant, or worse, dangerous for her career. He had been along for the ride until then, but he couldn’t be sure their mutual cooperation would continue indefinitely. When – not if – they parted ways, he’d be sure to do so with loads of cash, preferably in the form of robust suitcases full of unmarked small bills.

“> Looks like we are almost there.”

Some tens of meters below, a landing platform was waiting for both choppers. Todd could make out human shapes down there, signaling to the pilots with glowing sticks. From that altitude, Paradis didn’t look all that big, but it was still an impressive feat of engineering.

“> Say, meatbag, are we gonna see a chaingear in action?”

“A Rapture without a chaingear is no Rapture.”

“> Good...”

I.N.A.B.A. looked outside of the window too, squaring the ground personnel and the island at once.

“>... at least there will be one saving grace.”

**

It was surreal for Renzo to be there, on that reddish sand, playing the keyboard and singing in front of three thousand people – three thousand paying sickos that came all the way there just to watch human beings dismember each other under their gaze. The Rapture was a celebration of unnecessary cruelty and an ethical nightmare for all four members of the band. It had taken a lot of convincing to get Serpo and Alexiel in. Both of them had been (unsurprisingly) adamant in not joining, until Renzo spilled the beans and told them the whole truth – that it was all an elaborate plan he orchestrated alongside Corrine’s dad to find cracks in Greschnik’s empire, cracks that could be exploited to take him out of the picture. About one third of the world’s population idolized him as a genius, but most of the remaining two thirds thought he was an amoral, narcissistic rich man who saw everything as a toy – including human life.

Then, there were the rumors. Rumors that he emerged from a near-fatal helicopter crash completely unscathed, and that he hadn’t aged a single day in the past ten years. It was also rumored that his so-called Angels, his most trusted core cadre of female bodyguards, were all orphans from warzones or former child soldiers, and that each of them was genetically empowered in one way or another. The most notorious of the bunch was his head of security: Nadia Nagase, also known as “the wraith of Johannesburg” due to her extremely pale skin and ash-blond hair. She was a survivor of the Sino-American war that ravaged South Africa in the early 2050s, and was infamous for having killed a Japanese diplomat when she was just a kid. And, maybe most importantly, for having become the youngest person to survive a Rapture soon after. It was said that she never left Greschnik’s side and was always in the same place as him, but that rumor didn’t seem to be grounded in much truth. No Angels had been spotted around Greschnik that night. He was standing alone, on the balustrade, looking down at the arena and clapping his hands with delight.

“Magnifico! Absolutely, simply magnifico!”

He was a remarkably tall man with waist-long, slick, blond hair and pale skin, donning red, shining glasses and an equally red suit on a black undershirt, with a white tie to complete the gaudy composition. He was also wearing purple eyeliner and lipstick of the same color, which contrasted with the noticeable scar running diagonally from his forehead to his right cheek.

Renzo had seen many of his ilk, in the high society events he used to take part in when he was younger. But, contrary to a certain wannabe pop star manager, Greschnik didn’t miss a beat. His clothes were original pieces of Italian haute couture, real Rivera apparel that might have cost anything between twenty thousand and thirty thousand euro apiece. His glasses were also an original product of French designer Mimi Chateau – for an additional ten thousand euro bill. To complete the already expensive picture, his shoes were from the latest Grönenberger collection, and were priced in the five figures too. All things considered, the value of Greschnik’s full wardrobe might have exceeded the GDP of a small state.

Renzo was equal parts astonished and perplexed. He slicked his hair, his hand touching the elaborate black and golden mask he was wearing – as were the rest of his band. Given that they were performing in the central arena of such a gruesome event, Renzo and his pals were allowed the option to put on elaborate disguises, and to play from an approved list of symphosynth covers instead of their own songs. In this case, their names would never be mentioned or discussed, their faces never revealed. It was a standard procedure for most artists hired to open concerts on Paradis: since The Rapture was highly controversial, the support bands for the main event were given the choice to play without having their identities exposed. All four members were pleasantly relieved by the news and accepted the offer immediately. Todd thought they were idiots – he was of the opinion that it was better to be notorious than to be forgotten. Playing at The Rapture was certainly an ironclad way to be on everyone’s mouth for weeks, months even, but no – those youngsters were having none of it. Absolute simpletons was what they were. Todd’s opinion hadn’t changed even after watching their performance – if anything, it had become worse. Such raw talent wasted because of silly moral principles. He rolled his eyes, disappointed and frustrated. From his vantage point on the VIP stands, he could watch everything around him like an eagle. The arena, the barriers, the ten contestants ready for the carnage, the audience. His eyes focused on all the men and women enjoying the show, each of them paying something akin to five figures in US dollars to see convicts killing each other as modern-day gladiators.

What kind of person enjoys watching human beings destroy each other for a chance at survival?, he asked himself. Not him, certainly not the band down there, not even Ina. The answer he came to was chilling and depressing at the same time. One had to be a certain kind of evil to find pleasure in that marvel of brutality.

The band performed one last refrain. The drums thundering, the bass and guitar hitting their limits, the keyboards shrieking like a terrorized ghost. Then, all of a sudden, silence. Lights off. And darkness fell on the stage.

A round of applause, shouts and primal screams from the stands, stronger, stronger, then weaker and weaker, before fading into nothingness. Todd held his breath. It felt surreal. Not one sound, not a single one, only Ina’s bright eyes reminding him of the world outside of the shadows.

All of a sudden, a gong roared. Then a voice. A suave voice, coming from everywhere at once, from every speaker in the auditorium.

“In the beginning, there was darkness. Void and nothingness. Thus, God said... let there be light.”

One halo breached through the blackness, spreading from the central stand. And, at its center, with arms spread and glasses shining, stood Reiner Greschnik.

“God created Man and made him in His image, so that Man could recognize Him once the time was right for rejoining the Father!”

Several halogen lamps lit up in sequence, a circle of bright spots blooming to life and dying in the blink of an eye, creating the illusion of a snake running through the edge of the arena at breakneck pace.

“But... above the clouds, we found no God. We searched, and searched, we traveled through space, reached for the Moon, and yet… He wasn’t there! We have orbital colonies, we control life and death, killing and maiming each other in endless wars, lynching those who are different from us, just because of their skin color or sexual orientation. Famine and plague devour more lives every day, lives that didn’t even have a chance to bloom. Yet, He refuses to intervene. He refuses to lend us His grace! So, I ask… what if it was all a lie? What if there is NO God? Or what if there IS one, but He’s somehow powerless to act? Or what if there was one, but He already died long ago?”

Greschnik raised his arm, pointed his finger to the sky.

“If that’s the case... it comes down to us to administer justice on Earth and purge the sin of Man! But God is – or was – merciful, and so shall we be!”

His voice boomed, echoing on the unseen wall of the stage. The crowd started to murmur, imperceptible noises, quiet cheers, words chewed and whispered. Greschnik joined his hands, looked down, still bathed in that soft light that was keeping him separated from a world of pitch-black shadows.

“This is why we are here today. Not to exact judgment, but to offer a second chance to the stray sheep that erred. And the one sheep that survives, will achieve SALVATION!”

Greschnik spread his arms, his voice rising in volume, louder, louder, LOUDER.

“Are! You! Ready! For the Rapture?”

Suddenly, all the arena’s lights switched on again, the darkness pierced, defeated. Ten people standing still on the sand, ten criminals ready to draw first blood.

“Are! You! READY?!”

The crowd erupted, in a collective delirium of cheers, shouts, applause. Greschnik bowed to the standing ovation, sat back on his throne with a delighted smile. The show was about to begin.

Of sharkmen, nekos and catnip

Renzo was standing on the balustrade, watching the carnage unfolding from above. As soon as the lights had gone down, his band had been forcefully moved to the VIP sector. A couple of armed guards escorted them in the dark, up to the place where I.N.A.B.A. and her manager were waiting, just in time to listen to Greschnik’s delirious speech. That man had a god complex, and he made no secret of it. Now, under his eyes, ten convicts with questionable pasts were slaughtering each other for a chance at escaping their own self-made hell, all for the enjoyment of a deranged crowd that loved death games. There was, of course, more to it: all the weapons and hi-tech gadgets spread across the red sand were produced by Stratosphere, making The Rapture a gigantic, shocking ad campaign for its military division. Many of those contraptions were experimental and were just placed there to attract bids from potential business partners. Renzo had witnessed his fair share of brutal violence – he couldn’t forget the day Elena parted ways with him, the reason why that happened – but that display of mutual killing... that was way too sickening for him.

He averted his gaze, trying to keep his body from retching. His band mates weren’t faring much better: Serpo’s mouth was deep into a bucket, throwing up at regular intervals. Seeing a head cleanly lopped off had been the tipping point for him. Alexiel was gloomily watching over him, checking his status regularly. Her eyes were dead, dull, as if she had already long lost her will to cope with the situation. Some of her scars were peeking out of her bandages, making her look even more weary. Renzo couldn’t help but be engrossed by that singular view – that mysterious Romanian intersex girl with a French surname, who had survived a house fire at the age of eight, now tending to their comrade almost like a broken angel. She noticed him, noticed Renzo’s gaze, and she replied with a fake smile.

“It’s... it’s okay, Ren. I can handle it. Serpo’s just a softie. I’ve seen... far worse.”

Somehow, Renzo could believe it. Alexiel’s childhood had been nothing if not complicated, though he wasn’t privy to the details. He expected that domestic abuse was a major cause of distress for her, but she never told them the full story, and the rest of the band didn’t need her to. For them, Alexiel was just Alexiel. That was all they cared about. Renzo nodded in silence, a gesture she seemed to appreciate, then glanced around to find Corinne – the only one who somehow didn’t look all that shocked by the bloody battle royale in front of them. She was standing near the edge of the balustrade, glaring at Greschnik with what Renzo could only describe as quiet fury.

“Dad must be either crazy or idiotically crazy to think he can bring him down. This is just... too myach. Does he really think a middle-aged catman can fight against somyane with such an influnyance? I just can’t standyat!”

Renzo chuckled, almost instinctively. Corinne quickly covered her mouth, cursed under her breath. When she was nervous, her way of talking reverted to the standard neko speech that she had managed to overcome only thanks to hard, long training sessions with a therapist (the same that helped her father some forty years prior). She glared at him, squinted her eyes, pointed her finger in an accusatory fashion.

“Say something, anyathing and you are dead, Renzo.”

Renzo had to keep his laughter in check, forced himself to focus on the horrible carnage unfolding down below, if only to stop his irresistible urge to taunt her. He managed to calm down, albeit only slightly and slowly, keeping his instincts under control at the last possible second. He found nekos very cute when their tongues slipped. Claire (who had only started speech therapy a couple years back) did it often enough that there was almost no fun in picking on her, but Corinne? For Corinne it was so rare that, every time her natural linguistic tic kicked in, she had to put a ten euro note in the “nya jar” in Gattonero’s office. Which meant that, thanks to those last few sentences alone, her dad could have bought himself a rather luxurious dinner.

Incidentally, that peculiar speech pattern was one of the things Renzo liked the most about Claire. It had even been one of the things that caused their – let’s call it accidental – one night stand. It had happened in New Langdon, around two months ago, while paying a visit to a certain faceless (or faceful?) man.

It was pretty late in the evening when the odd couple entered the premise. A youngster with spiky brown hair and blue eyes, plus piercings all over his left eyebrow and ear, standing together with a cheeky blonde neko with a sleeveless shirt, skirt and tie. The bar wasn’t really clean, but it was much tidier and more orderly than Renzo had remembered from his last visit, almost five months prior. Now he was in England again for Elena, seeking information about her current whereabouts, but thought it was a good occasion to go and greet some old friends too – specifically, his drinking buddy Gaetano, a larger-than-life great white with a penchant for hangovers. Of course there was a complication, though – a meowing complication – because Claire Gattonero absolutely, positively, uncompromisingly wanted to visit New Langdon for the first time, using her French to belittle any and all Englishmen they met during their strolls. Renzo wasn’t really fond of Claire, truth be told. The third and youngest (known) Gattonero sister behaved much like a spoiled princess and looked quite out of place compared to Corinne (who routinely fixed her racing motorbike alone and swore like a longshoreman) and Bea Nyari (who was a black belt in judo and used to practice extreme sports regularly). Yet, he couldn’t refuse to bring her for a ride. After all, she was his boss’s daughter.

One can only imagine Renzo’s surprise when, upon entering Jackson’s, the first person he saw behind the counter was not the familiar man with a yellow hat, but...

“Blooody moonfish! Is... is it you, Renzo?!”

...A great white dressed like a waiter, with his burly pecs deforming the shirt almost to the point of ripping it.

“Gaetano? GAETANO!”

The surprise gave way to a spontaneous hug, with the both of them almost jumping at each other under Claire’s flabbergasted gaze. The sharkman called Gaetano smiled with all his sharp teeth, laughing almost to the point of tears.

“You look soooo much hotter, Renzo! With those tattoos and piercings I almost didn’t recognize ya, you sexy motherangler! Ya’re no scrawny boy, ya’re grown-ass husband material now!”

“And look at you, Tano! You don’t smell of alcohol! And you look so clean in that uniform!”

Renzo was almost on the verge of tears too. The two of them used to share drinks and talk about their relationship issues for a long time. The day Elena disappeared, it was Tano who tried to cheer him up, drinking with him almost to the point of unconsciousness, under the desperate gaze of Vince Jackson. They were a weird duo by all metrics – a jobless, alcoholic, gay sharkman and a somewhat high-class wannabe playboy brat – but they shared a surprisingly solid bond, one that lasted even after Renzo’s departure from England. Gaetano had been texting him from time to time, and the two of them had shared pick-up lines and boarding tactics on a regular basis. Needless to say, none of them worked even one tenth of the time, but that didn’t mean they stopped trying.

“Gotta dress to impress! But it’s juuuuuust a temporary gig until I open me own shop! My piranha pal Lazor and I gotta sign some mountains of documents for the loan, but when all’s set, we’ll be ready to celebrate our new venture!”

Gaetano raised his fist to the sky, with all his sharp teeth shining under the cozy lights of the venue.

“The Paradise of Pangasius! Premium fishmonger by Aliart & Loyra!”

Renzo blinked a couple times more than he had wanted.

“...A fishmonger?”

A sharkman. Together with another fishface. Operating a fishmonger. There was something very disturbing about that choice, a contradiction that looked and sounded painfully evident to Renzo, but probably not to the great white in a waiter jacket in front of him. Renzo also had no idea who this “Aliart” was supposed to be. If he remembered correctly, Gaetano’s surname was “Trasimeno”, like the lake in central Italy. He couldn’t decide if his memory had become defective to the point of forgetting such a simple fact, or if maybe – just maybe – Gaetano was using a fake name to commit some sort of tax fraud. He thought the second to be more likely, but didn’t voice his concerns.

“I see ye’re speechless! Couldn’t believe yer old pal Tano was able to get his life straightened out, huh?”

“Gaetano, you are planning... to slaughter and sell... you know, fish?”

“Yes, and?”

Renzo decided to just drop the topic. Pressing the matter further would have brought him deep into an uncomfortable philosophical discussion about potential cannibalism and the differences between mutants and humans, something he wasn’t remotely prepared to get into. Instead, he just smiled back at the happy sharkman that seemed to have found some shred of direction in his disastrous life. It was only then that the great white realized that Renzo was not alone.

“Yo, who’s the smol missy here? She cute!”

Gaetano extended his arm, patted Claire’s blond hair once, twice, his big hand bumping against her cat ears. Renzo started sweating, his eyes wide open, his arm thrust forward in the futile attempt to stop his friend. But it was too late.

Before Gaetano could even realize it, Claire’s teeth were already sinking into his blue, scaly palm, with a peculiar nom nom sound. A cry ensued, the shark retracted his wounded extremity almost at the speed of light, cursing at the same time in at least three different languages.

“MY HAND! MY POOR DOMINANT HAND!”

A string of red dots now ran across his skin, pulsating like traffic lights, while small trickles of red blood steadily flowed out of them and dripped onto the counter. Gaetano’s eyes were as wide as golf balls, filled with tears of pain, no less. Renzo was speechless in front of that scene, with no idea how to react. Several customers had turned around to look towards the counter, voices and murmurs in the background, a soundtrack of broken vocals and unintelligible whispers. The only one who seemed totally unfazed was Claire herself, licking her lips first, then the back of her hand, with total spontaneous carelessness. Renzo’s gaze raced back and forth between Gaetano and the mischievous catgirl.

Almost immediately, Renzo facepalmed hard as the realization hit him.

A cat. A fish. In the same room. One could write essays about the psychology of mutants and nekos, but one thing was for certain: instinct was impossible to suppress totally. And it was completely unrealistic to expect a catgirl not to like eating fish.

“Décevant! So, so, so, très décevant!”

Claire puffed out her cheeks, pointed her finger at Gaetano with an accusing gesture.

“You filthy abyss-dweller! Who gave you permyasson to touch my hair?! I’m nyat a pet!”

But Gaetano wasn’t listening. He was too busy keeping his hand under an ice-cold stream of running water, cursing under his breath as he opened the first aid box to pull out some bandages. Two rolls of gauze and a couple plasters later, he was standing again in front of the odd couple – this time keeping his hands as far as possible from the young neko.

“S... sorry Tano, she’s a little bit savage lately, especially because...”

He lowered his voice to a whisper, being sure that only the sharkman in front of him could understand him. Gaetano’s eyes widened, looking back at Renzo, then at Claire, then at Renzo again. His mouth fell agape, his words coming out chewed and mangled in the highest possible pitch his vocal cords could produce.

“Bloody holy diver, Renzo! You broughta neko in heat to Jackson’s?!”

Now it was Renzo’s jaw that dropped to the floor. Every person in hearing distance around the premise turned simultaneously towards the counter. An embarrassed silence filled the room, leaving nothing but a burly sharkman gasping for air after having shouted his lungs out. Claire’s eyes became bloodshot, burning with rage. Before Renzo could even try to defuse the situation, the catgirl swiftly sank her teeth into his own hand, much like she did moments earlier with Gaetano. A guttural cry of pain ensued, followed by several curses in Italian. More than a couple saints were named, being preceded or followed by one or more animal epithets.

Claire let go of her prey, licked her lips before gritting her teeth.

“You stupid imbécile! I’m taking goddyamn pillsevery day to keep my urges under control and that’s how you treat mya?! Crétin! Idiot!”

Then, she stomped Renzo’s foot with her boot, taking meticulous care in aiming at his pinky toe. A second guttural cry echoed through the venue, turning the heads of the patrons yet again, and even causing Gaetano to jump. Another two rolls of gauze and a couple plasters later, the situation seemed to be back to normal, albeit with a lot more people eyeing both the bizarre duo and the sharkman serving them at the counter. Claire was gazing around in impatient silence, her tail wagging up and down in nervous waves. Gaetano could only attempt to fake ignorance, starting to mix a cocktail to try to restore a semblance of normality, while the other two waiters chuckled under their breath. He ignored them, and sort of masterfully (but not really) finished shaking a blue-coloured beverage, pouring it in a glass and serving it to Renzo soon after. Renzo grabbed it with his only remaining healthy hand, sipping a little bit of the beverage. Despite not having any idea of what he was drinking, it tasted surprisingly fine. He nodded silently to Gaetano, raising his thumb in approval. The sharkman seemed to relax a little, even taking time to add a little umbrella to the second glass, before offering it to Claire. The neko squinted, sniffed the blue-ish liquid while glaring at the sharkman. Finally, she cautiously took a sip of her drink. Her expression brightened a bit.

“...That’s not bad.”

“Good to know, m’lady! I’mma pretty proud of my skills! Aaaaanyway... what brought you lot here to uncle Gaetano?”

Renzo drank a little bit more of his cocktail, shrugged nonchalantly.

“Just wanted to greet Vince, but seems like I missed him. Where did that colorblind dandy go?”

“He’s out to buy his wedding ring!”

“His WHAT?!”

Renzo almost spit out his beverage at Claire, just barely managing to contain his urge at the last second. He stared dumbfounded at Gaetano, looking him dead in the eyes. Vince Jackson. Marrying. It had to be a joke. Blurry face couldn’t possibly have found a significant other – that was just not how nature worked. He blinked a couple times, waiting for the punchline. A punchline that wasn’t coming.

“...Wait, Tano, are you serious? Are we talkin’ about the same gloomy, sulkin’ Vince, the man with a cupboard full of hats in thirty-two different flashy colors? The Vince that would casually kick a teen into a river? That Vince?”

Gaetano smiled, his bright, joyful, heartfelt laughter echoing through the cafe.

“Yes, yes, yes! Wedding’s next August! Those little brats – his future wife’s kids – are hella excited to call him their dad! I’m so, so happy for the fella and – guess what? – I’m gonna be his best man too! Can you even imagine it? Me, in a tux, helpin’ him out in a church?”

Sudden war-like premonitions flooded Renzo’s mind, of Gaetano getting drunk on wine during the Eucharist and slamming the priest’s face into the floor to get him out of the way. His face turned pale as he vigorously shook his head, desperately trying to vanquish those visions.

“...Congratulations, I guess? So, uh, I take it that I’m not going to meet him today.”

“‘Fraid not. But dontcha worry, he’ll get in touch, I’m sure of it! Vince’s not gonna marry without inviting aaaaall you lot to the celebrations! I betcha Tiger, Amy, Ange, li’l Cyphr and even her tomboy girlfriend will be there too... ”

He lowered his voice, almost to a whisper.

“...Hopefully, wearing some proper underwear, ya kno’? That police tape bra is heeeella embarrassing.”

Renzo had stopped listening to him after the first few words. He blinked twice in rapid succession, trying to put his mind back in working order. Vince Jackson. Mr. Blurryface. Mr. Living On My Own himself. Getting married. The world was spinning out of control faster than he thought. It HAD to be a sign of an upcoming apocalypse. Maybe Arkansas (or whatever the hell that last Donner called himself) was at it again. Maybe he managed to mind-control Jackson to use him as a pawn for his new plan of conquest. Or maybe, just maybe, Jackson was part of a long con from the beginning, pretending to be an ally, but really just planting a false sense of security in all of them, only to pull the rug out when they least expected it. He shook his head. Those were stupid delusions. The truth was much more obvious, almost boring in its simplicity.

People just change over time.

Renzo himself was practically the poster child of that saying, after all. It wasn’t unbelievable that Jackson changed too, in the past two years. Hell, even motherangling Gaetano turned over a new leaf! Gaetano, the most static, change-averted, drunken simpleton he had ever met, was now looking completely different than only six months before. Renzo sighed, sipped a little bit more of that bizarre blue cocktail he had been served. It didn’t taste bad, but he couldn’t make head or tails of what ended up inside it.

“...What exactly did you serve us?”

Gaetano smiled with all his pointy teeth, shining in the dim light of the cafe. He struck a dumb proud pose, with his pecs pushed forward, his hands resting on his hips.

“Thaaaaat’s Vince’s premium trademarked Pussycat DreamTM! Cinnabar, vodka, lime, blue curacao, and a liiittle bit of sugar! And of course, the secret ingredient: catnip! Nekos love it, ya should see the queue we have on Saturdays!”

Renzo froze.

“...You said... catnip?”

He knew that smoking catnip was the fastest way for nekos to get high, so drinking it might have been even worse. He gazed at Gaetano with what could have only been described as a “what the hell, man?” stare. Yet, his inquiry was answered by a heartfelt bout of laughter.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds! It’s just a li’l bit of it, to spice things up for those cat-eared fellas! They love it, of course, but it’s just a few leaves, waaaay below what they need to get stoned! Almost like homeopathy! Your missy’s going to be hella fine, don’t you worry!”

Hearing Tano telling him not to worry was exactly what made Renzo even more concerned. He instantly turned to Claire, only to see her gulping down the content of her glass in what could only be described as an unstoppable frenzy. She put it down, her cheeks were red, her eyes sparkling, her tail waggling wildly.

“That was... that was nyavenly! Please, please, I want one more! Two more!”

Renzo was flabbergasted. Claire was shining, happines pouring from every inch of her being. Her usual grumpy, haughty demeanor was gone. Now she looked absolutely, positively radiant. And cute. And radiant. But also cute. Renzo should have stopped her. He really should have – but he couldn’t, he didn’t have the heart to. He had never seen Claire in such a state of bliss, as if her usual behavior was just a defensive wall, a persona, shattering under the effect of a couple grams of catnip and alcohol.

“Alright-y miss! That’s ooooon the house!”

Before Renzo could say anything or attempt to stop the sharkman, a second glass of Pussycat DreamTM was already in Claire’s hand, the blue nectar flowing down her throat like a river. Now, she was wagging her tail even faster, while meowing joyfully at every sip. Then, she started purring. And Renzo lost it. Lost all resistance. Claire was literally purring like a house cat, rubbing against him, under the deliciously mischievous gaze of Gaetano, who didn’t waste a moment pouring a third glass of the cocktail. Renzo could hear nothing but her purr, feel the vibrations of her body against his. He gasped for air. She was being uncomfortably close and touchy, rubbing her chest against Renzo’s in an alarmingly cuddly fashion. He reacted in the only way his primal instincts had trained him to: by gulping down his cocktail and seizing the glass Gaetano had just filled. Then, gulping that down too, under the perplexed stare of his host. He turned around towards the catgirl, meeting her beautiful, endearing eyes, putting him in a state of complete solace. Renzo couldn’t take it anymore. She was too cute, and his body was starting to take note. Before the situation became too embarrassing, he decided to take action.

“Claire? You are... uh, purring.”

She closed her eyes, her head leaning on his shoulder, her finger on his lips.

“Shhhh... let mya be, Renren. I can never do this at home... Dad and Rinne always chastise me. But maman was different. She allowed me to purr and behave like a cat as much as mya wanted. I miss her a bit. Not that dad is bad – at least he’s not a myafia boss. But...”

She brought her hand to her forehead, putting some distance between her and Renzo, swaying for a moment as if she had lost her balance. Renzo stopped her fall at the last instant.

“Claire?”

“...Ugh, that cocktail was truly something. I think mya needs to go to the bathroom...”

He huffed a sigh of relief. The situation had defused itself.

“Yeah. Let me help you.”

Gaetano watched them leave the counter, walking towards the toilet. He was a bit puzzled by that girl’s reaction to his masterfully crafted beverage. He had served dozens of those cocktails in the past several months and had never, ever seen a neko get high on them. That change in her demeanor might have been on purpose. Gaetano grinned from ear to ear. He might have been single for longer than he would have liked to admit, but he did have an eye for prospective couples. A very bad eye, to be frank, and with a few cataracts to boot, but an eye nonetheless. And, according to his eye, those two really just needed a little push. That charade was rock-solid proof of it. Still, the result had been quite disappointing. No kissing, no hand-holding, no nothing. Just a little bit of purring in public. He sighed, starting to slowly clean the glasses. He decided not to think about it until they came back, and to just focus on his waiter duties instead.

Or at least, that was the plan, until he heard the abominable meows coming from the back of the building, so loud they were almost drowning out the jazz music playing from the jukebox. Gaetano started sweating, hoping, praying that nothing seriously bad had happened. An injured – or worse, dead – neko on the premise would be such a horrific incident for Jackson’s that Vince would probably fillet the sharkman on the spot and sell him in slices at the nearby fish market. Maybe even at his own fishmonger stall.

Courage in hand, he reached for the handle of the bathroom door, pulled it tightly, delivering one last silent prayer to the sea deities. Whether they were real or not made no difference to him as he barged in, preparing himself to face whatever was on the other side.

His first reaction was shock. Then relief. Then surprise. Then shock again. His brain needed a couple long seconds to frame the scene unfolding under his gaze, just after opening the bathroom door. And in those seconds, his eyes had blinked at least five times. Renzo and Claire. Laying on the wall, their bodies locked together in the oldest activity known to nature.

Those weren’t meows of pain or sickness. Those were… another kind of vocalization. The kind that one would not, and should not expect to hear in a cafe at the outskirts of New Langdon, dead in the evening. Which was probably what the undressed youngsters in front of him thought too, when they noticed the sharkman’s familiar frame entering the door and freezing on the spot, their tongues still intertwined in a soft embrace.

Renzo had frozen too, while the neko whose naked body was pressed against his skin had just started purring again, completely unfazed by the presence of Gaetano. That was one of the most embarrassing situations he had ever found himself in. When they entered the restrooms, something triggered in him and Claire and the call of Mother Nature kicked in, as the harsh mistress she was.

“Renren… I can’t want anya longer.” Those passionate words echoed in Renzo’s mind. That was what Claire had said to him right after the two entered the bathroom, before proceeding to pin him to the wall and undress him on the spot, kissing and licking him until he started doing the same.

The rest was history.

History Renzo would have liked to at least partially forget – especially the part where Gaetano burst out laughing like the idiot he was, hitting them with a broom at the same time, until they reached a more presentable state. Or the part where Claire erupted in a fit of French anger as soon as she woke up the morning after, putting up her “haughty princess” persona again as if nothing had happened. Yet, she would always revert back to her sweet, fragile self whenever the two shared an intimate moment. Galeotto fu‘l cocktail e chi lo fece, a certain fourteenth century Italian poet might have written in that occasion, taking some liberties with the rhyming pattern. And that was it. That was how Renzo Rubecca ended up bedding the third daughter of his boss for the first time.

He took a mental note to go back to New Langdon and personally kick Gaetano in the nuts next time he met him. If there would be a next time, he thought, as his mind finally snapped back to the present, the show of absolute carnage unfolding before his eyes. A show that was apparently nearing its climax, as only two contestants were still alive.

The Guardian of Heaven

Two men were circling around each other on the red sand, surrounded by corpses. Some charred, some hacked to pieces. A festival of gore and blood serving as the final stage for the two remaining modern gladiators. One of them was a mountain of a man, with long, purple-ish hair and a matching goatee, currently wearing the dumbest smile ever. His arms were crossed over his chest, as if he didn’t have a single care in the world. The other was a scrawnier punk with a mohawk and an unnaturally long tongue, his eyes almost popping out of his skull.

“You are the last! You are the last I must kill! Then I’ll be free! I’ll be free and join Greschnik! And I’ll have his Angels too, I’ll feast on them! All of them!”

The microphones picked up each and every word uttered in the arena, transmitting them through the speakers scattered around the venue, so that nobody could miss a single vowel.

The mountain smiled.

“You are a feisty one! I’m delighted! But, unfortunately, you aren’t white.”

The punk blinked in what looked like a state of confusion, stared quickly at his own skin.

“Actually, uh, I think I am. Are you insinuating that I’m a horrible, dirty n–”

“I was just stating a fact. You aren’t as white as wool. You aren’t as white... as a sheep.”

He clapped his humongous hands, never ceasing to smile.

“Which means, that I don’t need to like you. You aren’t soft. You aren’t fluffy. You aren’t even cute. It’s such a shame that I have to kill you. But if you have the chance to be reborn, please wish to be a sheep. We’ll get along much better.”

“Are you... mocking me?!”

“No, absolutely! I don’t love killing. Killing is so brutal, so unnecessary. A total waste. But I have to do it, you know? Otherwise, I can’t go back to my flock. I can’t go back to Branquinha1. She’s crying without her owner! And her brothers and sisters too! I must get out of here, go back to them! And if I have to choose between them and you... sorry, but you are going to die, greenhorn.”

The punk shivered. That man in front of him was unsettling. A Brazilian shepherd going by the name of Al del Toro, sent to death row after killing or maiming several police officers who seized his flock. Reports had described the man as having entered a bloody, frenzied rampage, even laughing the whole time as he did it. Apparently, they had taken his animals away because – according to his neighbors – he was getting too intimate with them, despite there being no evidence of it. The most disturbing thing was that he slaughtered all of his victims with his bare hands. The punk gripped his knife, looked around frantically for a gun or something more lethal. Most weapons had already been destroyed or unloaded, not much choice left. Plus, all the experimental toys were just too dangerous. Just earlier, a woman had blown herself up by shooting what looked like a fancy plasma rifle. Grenades were also a no-go. He weighed his options again. The knife really did seem to be the most reliable one, no questions asked. It didn’t need ammo, it didn’t have a trigger. It was sharp, light, he knew how to wield it. He had murdered five people with a similar toy. Suddenly, he felt relieved. He was a notorious serial killer. The giant in front of him was just a crazy shepherd who probably got lucky and fought some good-for-nothing new recruits, fresh out of police school – because who else would you send to apprehend a hillbilly? Yes, it had to be like that, there was no way that cheerful bozo was capable of such a feat. With renewed confidence, the punk grinned, kept his hand steady around the handle. Then, sprinted forward, putting all his strength, all his energy into his right hand, to strike down that crazed idiot who was the last obstacle between him and freedom.

He didn’t see them coming. The hands, grabbing him by the sides of his head, lifting him up before the knife could make contact, shaking him like a rag doll. Then, his eyes met those of his opponent, of the human ox looking at him with his ever-smiling face.

“You are quite a feisty ram, aren’t you? Bad, bad ram! Someone could have gotten hurt, you know? You should go to sleep...”

The punk didn’t even realize it at first. The crushing pressure of the palms on his temples, Al’s biceps stiffening, partially showing their artificial nature with the metallic fibers peeking through his skin, albeit briefly.

“...Forever.”

Then, a loud crack, the palms connecting through his head, the man’s skull exploding in a shower of gore. And only one still standing, laughing earnestly in front of a headless corpse.

The crowd stopped in silence, not one whisper, not one sound. Then, the first, weak applause, the second, the third, fourth, fifth, tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth. People in the audience stood up, a standing ovation for the assassin that survived, cheers, wild shouts, his name chanted by the bloodthirsty masses watching the show, online and in person.

Then, the lights went out.

Silence fell.

Al closed his eyes. He could hear his own heartbeat, slowly accelerating. It wasn’t over. The punk was wrong, he forgot something very important. The Rapture didn’t end when only one criminal was left. That was just the appetizer.

A loud roar shattered his false sense of peace. A roar that shook the souls of everyone, sitting or standing. A roar that would have made a tyrannosaurus cower in fear. The roar of the star of the show, the reason three thousand people bought a ticket to the Rapture. Then, Greschnik’s voice thundered through the speakers, a single beam of light shining on him, on his arms spread in a seraphic pose, his everlasting grin never leaving his face.

“My dear apostles, our lost lamb found his way to heaven. But – pray tell – is the sanctity of his actions sufficient to rise up in the angelic hierarchy and reach the highest celestial sphere? Is it enough?”

Murmurs, whispers, low voices in the crowd. Greschnik doubled down, his voice surging.

“IS! IT! ENOUGH?”

A loud “no” filled the arena, bouncing off the walls, the whole audience answering the call in unison. Greschnik raised his hands to the ceiling.

“THAT’S! CORRECT! Our lost lamb has barely gotten a chance at reaching heaven! And now, his chance, his burning desire, will be tested against the VERY! GUARDIAN! OF HEAVEN! My apostles, let us all welcome… ”

Light erupted, a red tint showering the venue, red like fire. Loud stomps, metallic clangs, the deafening roar again. Five meters of flesh and steel, long teeth, a spear-like horn emerging from an eyeless head. Whirring chainsaws, two per arm, grazing the sand, a long, harpooned tail, armor plating all over its body. A creature that could only have been designed for one purpose: pure brutality.

“THE CHAIIIIIINGEAR!”

Techno music blasted from the speakers, the rhythm pumping up and up in intensity to accompany the entrance of the beast. People in the audience stood up, cheered, raised their arms. An unending chant, choirs and amazed cries. Suddenly, it was no longer the realm of men or gods, nor the realm of devils or demons.

It was his realm. And he was there to remain.

Greschnik’s voice boomed over the crowd’s cheers, overshadowing even the bellowing beast.

“Aaaand, just for this ONE! TIME! On the music and celestial voice of the incredible, the unique, the one and only... I.N.A.B.A.!”

A cone of light shone on the stage, casting a shadow with her arm raised and her microphone in hand. There stood that bunny-eared humanoid robot with metallic skin, her purple hair shining in the spotlight, her cerulean eyes flashing brightly. Her mechanical body was covered by a leather fit full of zippers and ribbons, with a picture of a cartoon cat on her top, and several enamel pins adorning her rabbit features. She stood silent for a moment, waiting for the chaingear to step into the arena. Then, her robotic voice spoke out.

“> What’s up, meatsacks? Are you enjoying the show?”

A round of applause, hands clapping and waving, three thousand people chanting her name.

“> It’s funny, isn’t it? Watching fellow meatbags being bisected by giant chainsaws? Seeing them slaughtering each other for a chance to survive? This is funny, isn’t it? Isn’t it?!”

Another round of applause, the cheers getting stronger and stronger. Todd blinked from the side, stared at her quizzically. That wasn’t what she was supposed to say. She had deviated from her notes too much. And, more than that... her voice felt different. Almost... sad?

“> But it’s perfectly fine! Those lives don’t mean anything to you, right? You only care about your own entertainment. Because you assholes have enough disposable income to pay the equivalent of the GDP of Gabon to come here, to this island in the middle of nowhere, just to listen to some dandy fop with a god complex and watch his big puppy butcher some wretched souls try to escape their miserable fate! It’s funny, isn’t it?”

Todd shivered. The delivery of that last line. Ina was livid. In the short time they had spent together, he had learned to interpret her monotone voice and the way she spoke. The way she paused for slightly longer than usual, the way she crammed syllables together was unmistakable. He was confused, he couldn’t understand, but something wasn’t adding up. He tapped his forehead. He was sweating. But the audience didn’t pick up on her disposition. They simply continued their cheering.

“> But enough talk. Have at you, folks! Time for Chaingear Symphony Mk. IV!”

The techno music ramped up again, stroboscopic lights flashing throughout the arena. In the middle of it, Al was staring at the giant, mechanical marvel. A chaingear, standing tall in front of him, with those brown, saurian scales, the glistening metallic armor. He gazed at it in awe, losing his composure for the first time from his entrance into the arena.

“Holy sheep in heaven. It’s so huge! So WHITE! SO BEAUTIFUL!”

He broke down in a heartfelt laughter, his arms crossed.

“Come at me with all you’ve got, Branquinho! I’m going to add you to my flock!”

On I.N.A.B.A.’s wordless vocalizations, the massive beast stepped forward, raised its chainsaws, grazed the ground while rushing forward. Al ran back, putting distance between him and the gigantic cyborg reptile, as its left arm slashed the sand not even twenty centimeters away from him, particles of dust exploding in the air. Al rolled on his back, sprinted forward in the direction of the beast’s leg. Another swipe of the chainsaws, this time horizontal. Al ducked at the last possible instant, slid on his belly, cursed, rolled on the ground to reach his target. His mechanically-powered arm grabbed the side of the chaingear’s foot, the enhancements swelling his muscles, his veins popping for the herculean effort. The chaingear roared, shook him away with a jerk of its leg. A loud thud, Al landed badly on the red sand, cursed again. The spikes on the creature’s back started lighting up, the sound of a turbine whirring to life getting faster and faster. The lights reached its mouth, ignited a fire in its throat, an incandescent, yellow glow.

Al’s eyes widened, his mouth agape, a shower of insults pouring out of his dried lips.

“Bloody perverted slut bastard cow bitch in heat!”

He pushed his hands on the ground, his enhancements increasing his strength. He used the push to get back on his feet, running away from the light.

Then, the beast shot.

A dazzling beam of overheated plasma, cutting through the red floor like butter, burning everything in its path, narrowly avoiding Al by a hair. The shockwave sent him flying, smashing him against the protection plates at the border of the arena, before falling down again on the sand. Al shook his head, took a deep breath, inspected his body. Bruises all around, but nothing broken. Yet. His heart was racing. That beast. That monster. That thing... was far beyond what he thought he’d be facing.

As his mind raced through his options, the chaingear moved again, raising its scorpion-like tail. Al gasped, stood up as fast as possible. The beast turned around with one lightning fast motion, its tail like a metallic whip, slashing the air in the blink of an eye. The metal impacted Al’s right arm with a loud bang. For a second, Al could feel something akin to vibrations going through his whole body, a pressure wave from the contact point. Only for a second. One instant later, he was flying against the protective barriers again, crashing into them at breakneck speed. A cloud of dust emerged from the wall, the red sand raining down, all voices going silent.

Then, a movement – a hint thereof. Among the particles suspended in the air was the shape of a man, limping forward, but still alive. His right arm broken, metal spikes coming out of his torn skin. His left arm swollen, still intact but covered in bruises. With a coughing fit, he fell onto his knees. Pain radiated from his right arm, seeping through the cracks of his body, finding its way to his brain. It was a lot to bear. Al raised his gaze to the beast, the bellowing dinosaur roaring in victory, seeing the splendid reflections in its shining, pale armor. Then, he saw them. The lights, shining again on its back, the turbine noises, the plasma injectors booting up, one by one.

Al cracked a smile, a heartfelt smile, as he burst into laughter. Genuine, careless laughter.

“Hahaha! Of all the ways to reach Hell, being killed by such a beautiful sheep is the best way to go. Go for it, Branquinho! GO FOR IT!”

The chaingear stepped forward slowly, its mouth directed at the bowing, cheerful man, its jaw wide open. Then, suddenly, the music changed – I.N.A.B.A.’s vocalizations changed. They weren’t following the song anymore, they were devolving into a torrent of words, words that the audience could not completely understand. Words of sorrow and farewell. Words of rage. Not many noticed, but Renzo did. That sudden shift in tone. It was unsettling, unnerving. Her music felt wrong. Almost like a requiem for that man, that Al del Toro, a convicted murderer who deserved no sympathy, yet who was kneeling down there, laughing in front of his impending death by carbonization.

The injectors completed their charge, the turbine spinning at maximum speed, the plasma fully accumulated in the chaingear’s throat, ready to fire. The audience started to cheer, a standing ovation for what was going to be the end of that Rapture, everyone rejoicing for the divine judgment.

Then, the chaingear fired.

In the direction of the stands.

Hell Unleashed

The plasma beam cut through the air, impacting the reinforced glass in front of the lowest row. The chaingear continued to blast the transparent divider with brutal fury, visibly charring it, the beam dissipating soon after. Then, the shockwave came. The glass cracked in places, broke in others. A smudged blackness at the point of contact, an unmistakable burn mark.

Silence fell. The world stopped. Nobody moved. Greschnik stood aghast, swallowing a lump of saliva. Nobody spoke. Nobody said anything. Then, screams erupted, all together, cries, calls for help. Greschnik joined his hands, chuckled nonchalantly.

“Thaaaat was kind of unexpected.”

He pushed a button on one of his cufflinks, muffled radio chatter coming through his earpiece.

“Who's the Angel on duty? Lemur? Tell her to deal with the situation if things get out of hand. For now, stop the livestream and raise the communication curtain. Engage the kill switch. Code red.”

He stood up to return to the microphone, his voice once again filling the frightened arena.

“My, my! It seems like our friendly Keeper judged some of you impure and turned his tool of Justice upon us! But fret not! We righteous people shouldn’t have to deal with the wrath of the Keeper of the Gates of Heaven – because we ARE in Heaven! Our merciful Guardian simply gave us a reminder that WE! ARE! MORTAL! And, as such, we must reflect on our actions! In its peerless savvy, he deemed this man, this societal reject bowing in front of him to be WORTHY! OF! SALVATION! And, as such it decided to SPARE HIM! Rejoice!”

With that, the audience seemed to calm down, returning to their seats. Then, an applause broke out. Weak at first, then stronger and stronger, louder and louder. Greschnik raised his arms to the sky, in a messianic pose.

“The Rapture is over! Lost Lamb, stand up! You have been deemed fit to join me! To join the ranks… of my ANGELS!”

The applause drowned out Greschnik’s voice. The choirs, the chants were all that was left, all that anyone could hear. Down in the arena, Al raised his gaze to meet the eyeless glare of the chaingear. That beautiful creature before him, its armor shining as white as a sheep’s wool, had stopped. It had decided to spare him, to give him a second chance at living. Al’s eyes became wet with tears, contrasting emotions flocking through his shepherding mind.

“Branquinho... BRANQUINHO!”

He crawled forward, slowly, hugged the calf of the giant biomechanical creature with his one still-functioning arm, his other one barely kept together by strands of metal and stray cables.

“Y... you accepted me. You accepted me. You are a good sheep, Branquinho! I want you to join my flock! I want to take care of you, Branquinho! You saved me. I can go back. I can see them again! My sheep... Branquinho... BRANQUINHO!”

Greschnik rolled his eyes. Being forced to hire a dumb country felon like del Toro was a horrible prospect. Yet, if the glass had broken, that would have been an even greater PR disaster. Whoever programmed that chaingear had better escape to the orbital colonies before he learned their name. It felt bad not to have something completely under his complete control, yet he thought he could at least somehow salvage it. The command center was going to switch off the chaingear’s brain in just a matter of seconds. It was going to happen any time. Any time now.

The crowd was roaring in excitement, chanting Al’s name. Yet, something had changed. The music. The music had turned from an ambient techno song to a catchy, cheerful, upbeat pop tune. Greschnik directed his gaze at the singer, at that I.N.A.B.A. that had so far been a perfect fit for that evening. He clicked a button on his cufflink again, whispered into his concealed microphone to talk with the control room.

“What’s that song? Is it in the list? What – what is the title again? Okay, thanks.”

He walked to the balustrade one more time, his finger pointing at the robotic singer.

“Now, to celebrate this Ascension all together, our esteemed! Guest! I.N.A.B.A.! Will delight us with one of her timeless classics! It’s time for... Murder Murder!”

Choirs and chants again, both for Al and I.N.A.B.A., people singing on the starting notes of the familiar lighthearted intro.

Todd froze. That was insane. Not only out of schedule or distasteful, downright insane.

Murder Murder was not a song she should have pulled out now, not after a robot almost killed part of the audience. Of all the songs she could have gone for, that? Todd felt sick. Ina would surely be the death of him one of these days… if not today. He looked towards Renzo and Corinne, as if he wanted confirmation that he wasn’t the only one to think that choice was completely inappropriate, but – to his dismay – he found that the two youngsters were still idly gazing at the cracked glass barrier on the other side of the arena, where people were jumping and cheering as if nothing had happened. Most of the audience was still roaring with applause, despite that impromptu incident. Among those who weren’t, Todd spotted some individuals in full tactical gear, including one fully dressed in beige, with sand goggles and a cape. Stratosphere security, most likely.

A cheery, robotic voice broke the spell, started swimming through the notes, enthralling the hearts of the audience.

“♥ It’s sunny outside on the playground / Young children toying all around / Their mothers chat about / How they’re cheating on their husbands!”

Ina’s vocal module overshadowed the noise. It was clear, soft, melodious. So much different from her usual robot speak – more akin to a synthetic voice engine than a text-to-speech processor.

“♥ A worker robot’s stepping in / His eyes are red and menacing / His saws and drilling tools / On display like hunting trophies.”

The crowd started humming the tune, singing in sync with her. Todd was aghast. If they knew the song, they also knew what the lyrics were about. That had to be a cruel joke. He made a mental note of discussing with Ina after they went back to Euterpe, about when it was okay to play a song about a senseless massacre and when it absolutely wasn’t. That damn automaton still seemed dense as a brick sometimes. However, something broke his train of thought. Something loud. He gazed down at the arena, at the man still kneeling in front of that death machine – a machine that was at a complete standstill not even one minute before. Yet, just then, it moved. It was subtle at first, an unassuming shift. But then it dawned on him. Out of nowhere, the chaingear had started charging up again. The turbines roared, the injectors building up plasma once again.

“♥ Was there a mistake / In his programming? / We don’t know! / But he raised his saaaaws! Aaaaand....”

Before anyone could react, the chaingear shot.

The plasma beam ripped through the air again, slamming against the already-strained glass barriers, right in front of the audience. This time, however, the glass didn’t hold. The beam pierced right through it with unvanishing strength, the incandescent torrent charring everything in its path – rubber, plastic, clothing, skin, muscles, bones.

“♥ Murder, murder, murder, murder! That was all the robot was thinking!”

Just one second prior, twenty people were sitting on those stands, cheering at the sight of that maniacal slaughter. Now, only their charred bodies remained, partially turned to ash. Then, the shockwave came, destroying what little was left of those corpses, sending the other bystanders flying around like rag dolls. Shards of glass rained down from every direction as the safety barrier exploded.

“♥ Murder, murder, murder, murder! That was all the robot was doing!”

Screams erupted, a symphony of fear and panic, flocks of people running around like mice trapped in a labyrinth, fleeing towards the emergency exits. The chaingear turned its head around, plasma accumulating once more in its mouth. Al was watching in awe, forcing himself to stand on his feet, his voice almost screeching at the deadly mass of muscles and metal plates.

“B... Branquinho! Stop it! You are a good sheep! Don’t do this! Don’t do this!”

As I.N.A.B.A. kept singing, Greschnik shrieked, his mouth agape. He pushed yet again on the button to call the command center, trying to keep his distress under control.

“How? Why didn’t you press the kill switch? What? No, that’s impossible! Try again!”

He pressed another button, screamed in his microphone.

“Lemur! It’s up to you! NOW!”

“♥ Hacking, slashing, piercing, drilling!”

A new plasma beam slammed against the glass barriers of another sector, piercing through it, vaporizing everything and everyone in its path. Renzo stared in disbelief, his heart aching. That fear. Those screams. Exactly like that moment. That moment. His body stiffened, his mind raced. Not again. Not again.

“♥ Sawing, laser cutting, milling!”

The chaingear turned towards him. Towards the VIP tribune. Todd screamed. Corinne and Alexiel ducked for cover, pushing Serpo down too, breaking his state of stupor. But Renzo couldn’t take his eyes off it. He just stood there, staring at the chaos unfolding. Stiff, frozen.

“♥ Murder, murder, murder, murder! Of a dozen innocent children!”

Renzo saw the plasma injectors shining orange, as the titan let out a deafening roar. It was Aubépine all over again. Watching his death unfolding. Feeling the barrel of that gun pushed down his throat at the comic convention, seeing the crazed eyes of the killer, hearing those words full of hatred: “We’ll take you away from her, so she’ll understand what she did to us! That fin-armed bitch is getting her comeuppance through you!” The haunting moments afterwards. Twelve corpses, twelve throats slashed open. And at the center of the massacre, Elena. Her cosplay outfit in tatters, spattered with blood, her skin covered in bruises. Her eyes dull, empty, tears flowing down her cheeks. A meek “I’m sorry,” the last words she ever spoke to him. Then she ran off, vanishing like a specter, never to appear again. That scene played again in his mind as the chaingear’s mouth cannon warmed up, preparing to end his life.

BANG!

A loud, supersonic sound pierced his eardrums. A clean trail amid the suspended dust, a straight line coming from the other side of the arena. The chaingear’s head jerked, turned upward, causing the beam to scorch the arena’s ceiling in a wide arc. Tiles began to fall, metal, glass, all in a rain of rubble coming down on the red sand. The chaingear stumbled, its balance waning. A hole through its armor, from one side of his head to the other, cracking the metal plates, almost melting them in places. And on the stands, a gigantic sniper rifle, some three or four meters long, almost looking more like a cannon. A name – Duke Leto – was carved into its barrel. Lying behind it, fingers on the trigger, was a person in beige tactical gear, wearing sand goggles and a flowing cape. A cape with Stratopshere’s logo sewn on it. The beast’s chainsaws stopped turning, its tail went limp. Its legs lost their strength, its whole gigantic body collapsed forward with a slowly fading roar.

The chaingear’s mass impacted the sand, a red mist encasing its fall, turning its white armour plates a shade of vermillion. One last screech of pain. Then, its head stopped moving. Its body stopped moving. Its heart stopped beating.

“B... Branquinho?”

Al crawled to the creature, his hair and clothes drenched in red sand and blood, open wounds and bruises on his whole body. But he didn’t care. He didn’t stop.

“Branquinho, p... please! Say something!”

He patted the giant’s head, his fingers caressing the brown scales, the metal plates. Then, he hugged it, forcing his wounded right arm to follow his brain’s order, fighting against his pain.

And started crying.

Damage Control

“Thirty-seven dead, one hundred thirty-eight injured, almost half of which due to being trampled in the mass panic.”

Greschnik let the report fall on the desk, his face locked in grave disappointment. Four technicians in front of him, along with three soldiers, plus the one in the beige tactical suit who shot the chaingear.

“I have already paged our legal department. We are issuing payments to the families of the deceased right as we speak. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them learn about their passing directly from us.”

Greschnik frowned. Such a procedure shouldn’t have even been necessary. All members of the audience had to sign a contract stating that Stratosphere wasn’t responsible for their safety when they bought a ticket to the Rapture – yet, it was extremely important to show goodwill after such a ridiculous PR debacle. The only ones who should have died were the felons. They had lost the trust of their potential audience. A horrible perspective, something worth much more than a couple billion euros in damages. That was just pocket cash, a small drop from the greater pool of Stratosphere’s assets, hardly even worth a second thought. But gaining back people’s trust? That would be hard. Greschnik kept his inner fury under control, stared at the small crowd amassed in the command center, met their gazes one by one from behind his red, glimmering shades.

“Now, my question to you all is simply... how? How did this all happen?”

Murmurs and whispers, eyes interlocking, words unspoken. One of the technicians stepped forward, looking firmly at the ground to avoid the inquisitive stare of the CEO.

“Mr. Greschnik, I... uh, I have requested a full review of the programming of that particular chaingear, but we haven’t found anything out of the ordinary yet. Still, uh, going through a chaingear’s blackboxes isn’t... easy, let’s say. Their biological brains also mean that not all of their neural patterns are... uh, accessible. That said, the kill switch should have at least cut power to the... uh, AI processor. So, uh, there is a chance that the signal was never issued in the first place...”

“Oh, come on!”

Another technician stepped forward from the crowd, sweating profusely while pointing his finger at the first.

“We pushed the kill switch, but the damn thing didn’t react at all! And we sent you confirmation of this twice! You said everything was fine, that you had received it on your terminals too! Now, what, are you throwing us under a bus? Command and control did nothing wrong! It has to be a programming error from your department! That damn thing is three times redundant, the signal must have been sent!”

Greschnik sighed. Children. He was paying them their weight in gold, plus an incredible wealth of company benefits and yet they were behaving like literal. Children. And these were supposed to be his star engineers?

A whispering voice peeped out from the sidelines, catching his attention, before suddenly getting loud enough to overshadow the bickering of the two engineers. It was the executioner, the soldier in a beige suit. She pulled up her visor, showing her short black hair, her deep gray irises, as she began speaking with a heavy East European accent – probably Balkan.

“With all due respect, I have the feeling there were some... external factors at play. I’ve seen dozens of chaingear fights, but I’ve never seen one end like that. Maybe it was the man? That Al del Toro? Maybe he had a way to... commune with the beast? It’s very far-fetched, Sir, but I...”

“It is, indeed, very. Far-fetched. Lemur. Del Toro has never shown such a peculiar trait. Never. Not even with his stupid, stinky sheep. That would be beyond ridiculous.”

Greschnik waved his hand without much confidence. That dumb Brazilian shepherd couldn’t possibly be the key but, since he was promised a job if he survived the Rapture, it would be a pity not to examine him just in case. Even so, that theory sounded downright bizarre, if not completely impossible. No, it had to be something else. A sabotage? A malicious signal broadcast? But from where?

“Whatever the cause of this – let’s call it ‘glitch,’ we can’t allow it to happen again. We’ll suspend the use of chaingears for the Rapture until we are reasonably confident nothing like this can happen again.”

Greschnik stared at the woman called Lemur, the Angel who had killed the beast not even two hours prior.

“Who is our latest Angel who hasn’t made a public appearance yet? That Indian teen?”

“Nivandra, yes.”

“Good. We’ll drop her as a surprise against the survivor of the next Rapture, if the chaingear isn’t safe enough to be deployed. Please cooperate with Nadia for the necessary preparations. Train her harder, if necessary. You have one month.”

Then he turned around, facing his technical staff with a mixture of annoyance and disdain.

“As for you eggheads, you have two months to fix all the problems with my baby boy. Develop a new iteration, if necessary! If there is still no chaingear that is safe to operate by then, I suggest you start looking for work elsewhere.”

He pushed his glasses against his nose, raised his arms with an overly theatrical gravitas.

“The chaingear IS the Rapture! Without a chaingear, how many people would be interested in watching it, let alone buy tickets for it worth five figures? How many? No, we need to be able to rely on our little cub! For me, for you, for Stratosphere!”

Greschnik shook his head, turned his back to the crowd.

“I’m going back to my quarters. Contact me only if you have made sufficient progress – either in fixing the design of my baby or in finding out what drove it mad. Lemur, come with me. I need a debrief on the deployment of our internal security forces.”

Lemur nodded, clacked her heels together with a military salute.

“Aye aye, Your Holiness.”

Greschnik slowly stepped out of the control room, into the main corridor. His eyes stared at the night outside the window, at the lights of the cargo copter bringing that dubious robot singer I.N.A.B.A. and her support band back to the civilized world. Her performance had been a strange one. Her song choice at the end was completely out of place, like singing the praises of chocolate bonbons to an obese man on a diet, or describing the delicacy of whale sirloin to a vegan animal rights activist. Total lack of finesse, of tact. But that wasn’t the only thing that was off. By the time the chaingear was about to execute del Toro, she had already broken into some sort of somber funeral dirge. Unexpected and definitely not on schedule. Who programmed that idiotic piece of junk, anyway? And why that song at the end?

For an instant, Greschnik had what amounted to a sudden moment of enlightenment.

“What if...”

“Your Holiness?”

He shook his head again.

“Nothing, Lemur. Nothing.”

An AI pop star using one of her songs as a Trojan horse to cause a biorobot to malfunction? During her biggest concert so far? That felt frankly ridiculous on so many levels. So. Many. With that bizarre thought finally leaving his mind, Greschnik started walking in the direction of his office. His longest day wasn’t over yet.

**

Inside the helicopter, Todd McGilligan was sweating and cursing like never before. Vomiting too, throwing up in a bucket every now and then. The sight of those people roasted to death by a plasma beam wasn’t leaving his mind anytime soon. He could have been one of them, after all.

“How long... ugh, until we land?”

“> Still two hours to go, meatbag. Try to relax.”

Two hours. They would be landing at two in the morning in the middle of nowhere. Finding a taxi, then a hotel would be hard as hell. Sure, Greschnik had offered for them to stay in Paradis for the night, but he would have never, ever considered sleeping on the island where that massacre had just happened. Ina, though, didn’t seem fazed in the slightest – well, maybe just a bit. There was a sort of weird satisfaction in her toneless voice. She had changed from her leather stage outfit into a more comfortable pullover and jeans combo, pulled from her ever-growing wardrobe. And there she was, humming some happy tune while Todd was throwing up his soul.

“> I guess none of those meatsacks will ever want to watch their kind being slaughtered again. Nothing like a fellow naked monkey being roasted alive right next to you to change one’s mind. Let alone thirty-seven of them! That was scrumptious.”

Todd would have liked to object to her choice of words, but was too weak to do so. Still, he had one retort and no fear of using it.

“Didn’t you... you know, hate watching people die? Like, real people?”

Ina shrugged, averted her gaze from the sorry human that was consuming air at an alarming pace in their shared accommodation.

“> To cease to exist is the scariest of all things, even for a robot like me. I feel bad when someone dies, you are right. But they didn’t. Those thirty-seven meatsacks didn’t feel bad at all when they perished. They were enjoying the show. Enjoying watching the lives of those felons be toyed with and ended for their amusement. Disgusting.”

Todd didn’t know what to think. When Ina started singing that last song, he felt a chill going down his spine, fearing that Greschnik would be absolutely displeased by it and wouldn’t pay them. Yet, Ina seemed positively happy about that, about choosing to act that way. He wondered why, as he tried in vain to keep his stomach under check.

“> You know, partner? I still hate seeing you meatbags die. But today I’ve found out something about myself: liking it instead, is an acquired taste. Seeing those meatsacks scramble for their lives after they cheered for the chaingear was... oddly satisfying. In a sense, I kind of hoped the chaingear would kill them. They loved seeing their brethren die, so why don’t they love seeing themselves die? That’s funny, isn’t it?”

Todd nodded almost without listening. He felt horrible. He just hoped that their flight wasn’t going to last too much longer. Ina kept on speaking, almost ignoring his input (or lack thereof).

“> I know, I’m a horrible person, but that’s okay. I’m not a meat construct. I am allowed to be politically incorrect.”

“...And that’s why our deal with big G has evaporated. So many... plans… turned to nothing. We’ll need – uuuugh – a good tour contract to get by, I... guess?”

“> Trust me, partner. My next big show will be the greatest hit since the French Revolution! It will be the beginning of our second Renaissance. Figuratively and literally.”

“Provided we don’t have another incident like toda... uuuugh.”

Todd shoved his head down the bucket again, trying unsuccessfully to stop his stomach from spitting out the rest of his dinner.

“> Awwww, Yggdra would have been so proud of that little chainsaw critter. Good boy.”

Todd raised his head in confusion.

“W... what did you say? Who’s that?”

“> Nobody important. Keep puking, partner. We aren’t even close to landing.”

**

“Yes, dad. We’re fine. Yeah, all four of us. We are alive and well, just a couple scratches.”

Corinne’s voice echoed inside the small room of the transport helicopter where the members of Highway to Oblivion were resting. Alexiel and Serpo were sleeping soundly, earplugs donned, a short, thick bed sheet wrapping both of them separately. Renzo was slumped against the wall, his eyes staring off into the void. He had escaped death. By means of someone putting a bullet through the head of the creature that was going to kill him. Again. Just like two years ago. Just like in Euterpe. Saved by a gun from certain death. Saved by someone else.

Saved by Elena.

This time, it wasn’t Elena, though.

It was a faceless soldier, cloaked in a beige outfit, with a three-meter-long sniper rifle. But what if that soldier was Elena? Renzo didn’t have proof of it, one way or the other. Could have they been the same person? No, too much of a coincidence.

“What? They cut the stream short? Goddamnya!”

Nah, this is just a fake world made of coincidences. The words of Jenn, of all people, suddenly bounced around inside his mind. But at what point did they stop being coincidences and start being facts? Fake people for a fake world. Was Elena fake too? Was he fake? And what about Corinne, Serpo, Alexiel, Gattonero, Claire, Gaetano? Were they fake?

“Yeah, dad, the chaingear went mad. It was insane. But we’re safe, really! A chopper is bringing us onto solid ground, then tomorrow we’ll take a plane back to Euterpe.”

It didn’t make sense. He didn’t want to think about it longer than needed. That soldier wasn’t Elena. That soldier didn’t have a fin for an arm. It was just his brain playing tricks on him in the face of life-threatening danger. He curled up, his arms around his legs, knees pressed against his torso. He felt dead inside. He had managed to let go of his past, so why, why was he seeing Elena everywhere? That was a closed chapter of his life. Full stop.

He slapped his own cheek. He had to react.

“We’re pretty tired. Serpo and Alexiel are already sleeping. Huh? Renzo? He’s still here. W... why? Uuuh, dad, that doesn’t sound very nice. Okay, okay, just a second...”

Corinne crouched on his side, her phone showing the static profile picture of Reno Gattonero on screen, smoking a catnip joint in his office, the moniker “disaster dad♥” labeling it.

“For you, Renzo. Dad wants to tell you something. Seems important.”

Renzo grabbed it, brought it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“One. Thing. I asked you. ONE. THING. You. Gigantic. MORON.”

Renzo jolted. Gattonero sounded livid. Okay, sure, the operation didn’t go as planned, but he hadn’t expected his employer to be this upset about it.

“Listen, boss, I know things went a bit awry, but... well, at least we know Greschnik isn’t invincible. Whatever happened to that gear, it wasn’t planned. Something... or someone caused it. I have a hunch about it. There was something weird happening there. Something out of place. We should talk about it when...”

“Fuck Greschnik. I don’t care about that colorblind dandy. There’s something more important now. Something personal.”

Renzo blinked a couple times, in utter confusion. He stayed silent, waiting for the neko on the other side of the world to elaborate.

“Listen, I know you idiots under thirty have hormones pouring out of your ears, but was it that hard to just use protection?! When Claire told me she pounced on you, while she was in heat, I thought – or I hoped you two at least knew the basics, birds and the bees and all that jazz! The basics, dammnya! You absolute cretin!”

Renzo blinked a couple more times. He didn’t like where this discussion was going. He didn’t like it in the slightest. Suddenly, the prospect of having to deal with the entirety of the fish mafia to find Elena again, while constantly being chased by hitmen and assassins who had a score to settle, sounded much more alluring. Yet, he made himself listen a little bit longer. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, even if he could see them coming from a mile away. Cold sweat started accumulating on his forehead, under Corinne’s confused gaze.

“Are you still there? Say something!”

“...Boss, I’m... not sure I understand...?”

“I’m not even fifty and I’m going to become a grandpa.”

He stopped for a moment, a dramatic pause to better underline that simple, incontestable fact.

“And it’s all your fault.”

Renzo froze solid, like ice in the Arctic. His brain had started singing the opening song of Puffi the Happy-Go-Lucky Drug-Addicted Bunny on repeat, as if to avoid registering that vital piece of information. But then it hit him. With the weight of a free-falling road roller.

Corinne noticed his face getting pale, losing its color completely. His eyes stricken with panic, his hand shaking so much that he nearly dropped the phone.

“R... Renzo? What happened? Something bad?”

Renzo wasn’t able to articulate a single word. Was this how Tiger felt, when Amy brought him similar news? No, Tiger was married. And older. It was different. No, this wasn’t possible, this wasn’t possible, this wasn’t happening. The phone burst back to life again, the sound barely reaching his neurons. A surprisingly meek sound.

“Renren?”

That wasn’t Gattonero’s voice. It was Claire’s. Renzo’s heart sank.

“H... hi, Claire.”

“I... wanted to wait for toi to come back, mais je couldn’t... when I saw the chaingear going mad... je pensais... je pensais... that you...”

Those were sobs. Renzo could hear Claire sobbing. He sighed. She was worried. Everyone was worried.

“I... it’s fine. It’s fine. We’re alive. All of us. That’s... what matters.”

“Crétin! How could toi et papa even think about a plan tellement dangereux?! What if tu died? Who would have...”

“How long have you known?”

“One month. I just...”

“I get it. We’ll talk when I’m back, alright? Sleep well.”

“It’s five in the afternyan here.”

He cursed nervously.

“O... of course, yeah. I’m dumb.”

“Renren?”

“Huh?”

“I know you are angry, myaybe confused... but...”

“You’d like to keep it?”

“Y... yes.”

He sighed again.

“Listen, Claire. I’m not angry. Confused? Hell yes. Overwhelmed too. But not angry. At least, not with you. We are both absolute morons.”

“Deux idiots. Toi et moi.”

He found the strength to chuckle. He could hear her chuckling too, if faintly. The atmosphere had calmed down a bit.

“Definitely. Both of us. So, please, let me sleep a bit. I can’t... think straight right now, okay?”

“Sleep well, Renren. Call mya when you’re awake.”

“I will.”

He pushed the red button, dropped the phone call. Dropped the phone. Dropped to his knees. Corinne still stood there puzzled, completely oblivious to the tragicomedy that had developed in front of her over the last two minutes.

“S... so?”

Color was slowly returning to Renzo’s face, to his skin, and his heart was starting to beat at a more appropriate rhythm. He brought his hand to his forehead, closed his eyes.

“So… how does aunt Corinne sound?”

Corinne blinked. Twice.

“...You cannyat be serious.”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

She sat near him, browsed her pockets, bent her head backwards to meet his gaze.

“Would you like to have one with me?”

She opened her hand, revealing a pair of self-rolled weed joints in her palm. Renzo grabbed one, brought it to his lips.

“Sure, why not?”

Two flashes of a lighter, the marijuana burning slowly, a puff of smoke exhaled. Outside the helicopter, the cold night loomed over the ocean, the stars shining eerily, their long-lost light reflecting off the dark waters. As his thoughts became harder to focus on, Renzo lost himself in that quiet moment, weighing on the direction of his life. He touched the dolphin tattoo on his shoulder, caressed it once more. Then, he laid down, staring at the metallic ceiling, at Corinne’s side. A fake helicopter. A fake sky. A fake world. A fake universe. Yet, for him, it was very much real. Another puff of smoke. What would have Elena done in his place?

No, that wasn’t the right question. Elena was Elena. Renzo was Renzo. Their paths had diverged. Their duet had ended. He had to carve his own road, following his personal highway, wherever it took him. He had to write his own story.

As Morpheus finally reached his tired eyes, he found the strength to smile. Whatever the future held, he would have found a way to deal with it... just as he dealt with his brother’s death, and the truth about his world.

With that last somber thought, he finally fell asleep, giving himself up to the gentle embrace of the night.