Chapter Seventeen

Lee

It was a raging storm.

The boy was in despair. and poked his head above the water, like a dead man coming back to life, tearing through the veil of his shroud.

He fought and struggled against the current. and spat the cold water.

No matter how absurd it all seemed to him. Somehow, he was drowning.

The water surrounded him on all sides, and the current seemed to drag him furiously. He struggled, feeling the coldness of the water drill into his limbs, and his clothes felt heavy. Swim, he would have to swim. But did he even know how to swim?

How had he gotten there in the first place? Had he fallen out of a boat?

Water under him and water above him.

From the sky, clogged with gray clouds, thick raindrops were falling, as if the sky itself was also trying to drown him, along with a choking wind that made the raindrops lash him in the face. He thought he saw flashes in the sky. Lightning? Where was the thunder? No, more like where was the sound?

He heard in a strange way, as if he had something plugging his ears and could feel a buzzing sound.

Fighting against the current, he tried to keep his head afloat, and saw the nearest shore. It was not far away. A hundred meters? Maybe less, maybe more? But he had to try. With numb limbs, he tried to give a few strokes and realized he could swim. He had muscle memory of it, though he couldn't remember how he had gotten there. One stroke, two, three... seven. Slowly, the coast seemed to be growing before his eyes. Through the rain he could see houses near the shore and docks. It must be in the vicinity of a port, but that must surely be a river or lake because it felt like fresh water in his mouth.

He was going to make it. It couldn't be far away.

Suddenly his hopes were swept away, when he saw a small wave come over him and carry him back underwater, submerging him a couple of meters again.

Again he struggled and looked to the surface, it was not far, just a couple of meters and he could breathe again. But the current was fighting to pull him under but, to where this time? The boy stuck his head above the water and, suddenly, his field of vision saw how something dark sticking out of the water was approaching him, growing at an alarming speed.

No. It wasn't that.

It was him, being pulled at full speed against it.

The boy hit his head against the stone and everything went black.

***

Monday, March 19th. 125 S.A.

Rome, Italy.

Lee suddenly straightened up in bed, covered with sweat due the nightmarish dream.

That dream again. Or childhood memory? It had been a long time since he'd had it.

He looked around his bed and looked annoyed at how his shirt was stuck to his body from perspiration, and the crucifix hanging around his neck was also stuck to his body. There was a halo on the sheets, as he had perspired quite a bit from his back as well.

Lee sighed heavily.

From his facial features, and appearance, he must not yet be in his thirties. He had dark brown eyes and also dark brown, slightly long, hair that covered his ears. He was thin and had nothing that stood out too much in his appearance. He was an ordinary human. Beyond his academic rank of university professor, the truth was that his life was rather normal.

He stood up in annoyance and snorted, as he approached the windows and looked out at the streets. The sun was already illuminating the city and quite a few vehicles were driving along the magnetized streets.

He lived in apartment 346, on the 27th floor. The building had its main façade facing the Tiber River, and was part of a housing and commercial complex between the Ponto Milvio and the Ponte Flaminio. Given the location of Lee's apartment, the sun streamed through the window in the morning through the curtains.

The apartment was not too big, but not necessarily small either. Although, due to the clutter of books, sheets and star maps, occupying tables and armchairs, the place actually looked smaller. Although that didn't bother Lee, he certainly saw a certain order in it all, although others would call it disorder. The sight of the sun, streaming through the curtain in the mornings when he woke up, almost made it seem as if the place was some kind of fantasy studio of the ancient magicians or alchemists of the Middle Ages.

Any other day he wouldn't have minded, because it was a sight he liked to see every morning. But that day, as he looked out the windows onto the street he felt as if something had poked him in the eyes. The meeting he had had with other faculty the night before had ended in a gorge of black beer and stupid jokes. Still it had been a good meeting, and everyone was celebrating that they were done with the final part of the student study program for next year. He had been busy with them all day, and night, as part of the celebration as well.

In Lee's case, he was a professor of particle astrophysics at the University of Rome, and also had a faculty teaching at the Castel Gandolfo Observatory, as part of a summer program aimed at promoting interest in virtual astroparticle physics in teenagers, who were attracted to the study of the cosmos. Although, he didn't have to worry about it until the summer, Lee had already developed the study program for that too a few days ago, and only had to submit it to the academic department for approval.

Thanks to the fact that he had advanced work in the past few days, he had almost a week off, until he had to worry about preparing the classes for the students.

He would have had to wake up in a good mood. But that dream had just left a bad taste in his mouth.

Stupid dream.

He knew that dreams, unless they were about people who possessed specialities in deep sleep immersion, and could construct scenarios to create shared dream states, were nothing more than subconscious imagery. Lee therefore ruled out that his dream was a vivid memory of something that had actually occurred.

Most likely, his dream was simply a subconscious reconstruction of the story he had heard so many times, of when he was rescued from the lake. Nothing more than a way for his memory to make sense of his lost childhood.

He shook his head and headed for the bathroom, trying to forget about it. He had days off and could do whatever he wanted. He took a shower to wash off the sweat, and put the clothes he wore as pajamas in the washing machine and activated the roomba to clean the floor, which had not been done for several days. He dressed in dark dress pants and put on a turtleneck sweater with a jacket, since, despite the welcoming sun, the mornings were still chilly.

He could have breakfast in the hotel dining room, before going for a walk in the surroundings.

But he was forgetting something. He went to the refrigerator and took out a small container. From it, he took out a small bottle of ophthalmic solution and put it on, then put in some contact lenses. He made several movements with his hands and the submenus of his interactive device appeared in his eyes.

It was his own Neurowire, although it could not be called that because Lee did not have one in his brain.

When he had been rescued from the lake, they had found that he did not have a Neurowire, and because he was already more than ten years old, inserting a Neurowire with all its capabilities was an expensive procedure and, therefore, he had to settle for a somewhat old-fashioned and external interactivity device. But that didn't bother him, as he had gotten used to it rather quickly. The orphanage where he had been cared for, after his rescue, had tried by various means to get him to have one, but the age for a fully functional Neurowire had passed and he had to make do with it.

The contact lens type device also had a small terminal to help with the functions and he had customized it in such a way that it was practically as if he had a Neurowire, like everyone else. At the same time, he had two devices that could be inserted to help him with language comprehension. The only operation he had been able to undergo.

Lee checked the mail quickly and had nothing of interest, apart from a few messages from his friends, regarding the previous night, and some suspicious spam that hadn't made it through the filter. Without further ado, he went down the disco-elevator to the hotel dining room area.

It was already nine o'clock in the morning, and there were still some people having breakfast at the hotel dining room tables. He asked the service robot for orange juice, a cornetto and some bread spread with jam. He took his time, while watching the people passing by on the streets through the glass, while checking the news of the day, somewhat bored, apart from the news of the science section, that he always read with more interest. Even though the headlines were often misleading.

He was drinking the remaining half of his orange juice, when he looked at the street and saw a black vehicle, with some yellow stripes on the side, parked in front of the hotel. He followed it with his eyes without worrying about being too indiscreet, since the windows prevented from the outside to see those inside.

Four people with berets on their heads, dressed in dark blue suits and looking serious, had gotten out of the vehicle. But what caught his attention was the coat they were wearing, with white on the cuff, lapel and lower part of the coat, and dark metal shoulder pads with two crossed keys. The boots they wore were black.

Lee knew that uniform very well. Because at the Observatory of Castello Gandolfo there were some of them during the Pope's vacations at the Papal Palace, although the summer uniform differed a little from the winter uniform they wore. Not to mention that it was the so-called night service uniform. Although the night uniform was just a name, it was already worn during the day as well.

Pontifical Guard? What are they doing here?

The Pontifical Guard, also commonly called the Swiss Guard, were in charge of papal security and the Apostolic Palace inside the Vatican. Seeing them in that part of the city was strange, even more so wearing the service uniform.

The four uniformed men entered the hotel and disappeared from Lee's sight.

He drank what was left of the juice and continued watching the news for a moment, when the view outside clouded over and everything was blue with some white tints. His eyes unfocused from the contact lenses and gazed at the men looking at him serenely.

"Yes, can I help you?" Lee asked.

"Professor Lee Reubens?"

"Yes."

Obviously the question was protocol, since if they had addressed him, it was because they must have known who he was, although Lee couldn't imagine what the Pontifical Guard wanted from him.

"I am Gian Egger, Lieutenant of the Guardia Svizzera Pontificia," introduced the somewhat elderly man, with a solid face, short gray hair and blue eyes.

Lee accepted the hand salute the man was offering him, and glanced sideways at the beret where he saw the three yellow bars insignia that effectively distinguished him as a captain. Those accompanying him had the shoulder markings which identified them as junior grade officers, which corresponded with their younger appearance as well.

"How can I help you?"

"We are here on official business."

"…"

Gian Egger nodded and asked in a courteous tone. "Do you think you could accompany us? It was His Holiness himself who asked for you."

That couldn't have been weirder. Lee had only met the Pope on rare occasions, although he had always shown interest in the studies, and summer courses taking place at the Castel Gandolfo Observatory. Towards the back of St. Peter's Basilica, there was also an observatory, although, Lee doubted that it was called by any name since the observatory had its own staff.

"How can I help?"

"We think we'd better explain on the way, there are people waiting for you."

"W-where?"

"At the Holy See."

"Do you need something from me?"

"We think so... do you think you could come with us, please?"

The tone was polite, but Lee couldn't shake the feeling that no matter what, he couldn't refuse the invitation, even if he wanted to.