THE ZODIAC SOCIETY

PROLOGUE

Those who play the stock market would do well to know astrology, since all sure bets
are written in the stars. If this is true, then why aren't Astrologers nabobs who inhabit
opulent palaces promulgating prophecies from the edge of their swimming pools? It is easy
to say: because the stock exchange is a much more difficult subject than astrology itself.
However, one Astrologer, in recent world history, has managed to conquer much more than
a palace.

You know, the claims must be corroborated with evidence, at least outside the world of
the internet. Some of them are listed below, hoping that the reader will want to relax his
shoulders in reading them, that to get on the defensive there is, as usual, the world of the
internet.

Pluto takes 248 years to complete its revolution. Dividing the data by the twelve signs of
astrology, it can be seen that the slow planet transits for about twenty years in each
constellation of the zodiac. When Pluto is in Capricorn the world undergoes
economic and spiritual revolutions; when instead it passes through Aquarius, then reversals
of social order and power can take place.

When Pluto is in Capricorn:

• 1024 The Song Dynasty issues the first banknote

• 1272 Ends the Ninth and Last Crusade
• 1517 Martin Luther posts his Ninety-five Theses
• 1765 Invention of the spinning jenny, which will start the industrial revolution
• 2008 Financial crisis called Great Recession

When Pluto is in Aquarius:

• 800 Charlemagne is crowned emperor

• 1543 Anabaptist revolt known as “The Münster rebellion”
• 1776 American declaration of independence
• 1789 French Revolution
• 2024 Collapse of the European Union
1 - ARIES

Gianni Gemini Lanza loves his own voice, there's no doubt about that. He is pleased
with the way he uses it, sometimes he continues to be amazed at his own ability to use the
terms suitable for the various interlocutors. A childish smile still emerges from him when
he is certain that he has fished, in the sea of ​lemmas, the most appropriate word at the
moment: le mot juste, to quote the French. The smile is accompanied, who knows if for an
ounce of modesty that still belongs to him, by a delicate pinch on the soul patch. Oh yes,
Gianni Gemini Lanza also loves alliteration. If there's one thing he doesn't love about
himself, it's the name Gianni Lanza: too short and anonymous, however paradoxical it may
be for a name to be anonymous. For this reason, back at the time, he had enthusiastically
welcomed the possibility of adding one's zodiac sign between the first and last names. It
sounded good, or at any rate it seemed more solemn to him. This one man show of
journalism has been at the helm of conducting all the mainstream news broadcasts for the
twelve signs over the last fifteen years, since 2025. It was always his voice that kept the
fears of the Florentines company during the flood of 2027, when the Arno burst its banks
and its waters invaded the city.

A dip in the flood of 2027

The SmartPhone projects Leo TV onto the wall of Gustav's apartment, a fifteen-year-old
who is lucky enough to live in Palazzo Vecchio, whose walls in the past had given home to
Cosimo de' Medici. He has blond hair and blue, almost icy, eyes. However, he has not yet
become a pretty boy, trapped in limbo between childhood and adulthood; the face with
delicate features, which however begins to show splashes of soft hair, shows an unfinished
metamorphosis. The man's frown hardens while looking at the projection. Gianni Gemini
Lanza, on the wall, invites all lions to stay at home on this terrible autumn evening. Gustav
finds the journalist terribly gloomy and affected in his manners. In fact, Lanza usually
reports the news walking around the television studio which looks like a 19th-century
sitting room and moving with excessive ease, as if he was in his own home. Probably the
message he wants to get across is just that: as he lights a hand-rolled cigarette with an
ember and smiles at the camera, his staid spontaneity communicates that he is right there,
where he should be. Gustav brushes the tattoo on his forehead, almost the temple in reality,
representing the astrological sign of the Leo. Lanza recalls the words of the President of the
Zodiac Society, Corrado Barberini. A few hours before, in fact, he invited the population to
calm down, despite the three days of incessant rain and the Arno which has already made
the first people missing in the countryside.

"If calm is the virtue of the strong, you born under the sign of Leo shouldn't be at risk.
For lovers of numbers, however, it is worth remembering that tomorrow November 4th will
be a tragic anniversary, as it will be sixty-one years since the Florentine flood. Stay home,
that's my advice. With the SmartPhone there is no need to go out: I remind to the older
ones too, you can watch old LeoTV broadcasts, call a relative, turn up the volume if you
don't hear and even write your memoirs, and all this with the wheel of this mouse hanging
from the phone! Stay safe in your home, for the Zodiac Society will need you: we will need
the best class of ruler in order to continue to thrive. We have the stars on our side, dear
friends, and we are on the side of the stars: as above, so below!"

The closure is always the same, but Gustav has already moved away from the projection,
preferring to climb the donjon of the tower in Palazzo Vecchio to observe the tumultuous
waters of the Arno which will soon burst its banks.
 Not too far away, in the old National Educational Museum archives in Square Ciompi, a
shot cannot exceed in decibel the noise of thunder roaring throughout the city. The man's
corpse will have to wait for the rain to stop in order to be found, while old laptops perched
on bookshelves will keep him good company.

***

Florence needed just a couple of sunny days to get to temperatures which would be
good enough for a trip to pay a visit to the seaside. However, there was a flood, and if
Alderici had forgotten, there on the ground as he crosses square Square Ciompi there is a
pink shoe stained with mud to remind him. He has a round face which makes him look
overweight. He actually has what's called a big bone, which makes him look fatter than he
really is; the problem is that he has never been a very sporty type, hating even the simple
recommended morning workout. The uniform helps to hide it, deformed and discolored as
it is. He is excessively balding for having just passed thirty, however he can always say that
the broad forehead leaves much more room to the ram standing out there. He could, but
making stupid jokes isn't part of his personality and therefore, more simply, he doesn't talk
about his baldness at all.

Inspector Nocenti, who crosses the square with him, is over sixty years old, even though
at this moment he looks over seventy, with a heavy face dripping with sweat. He swears at
the heavy coat he wears, and takes it out on the weather, which until two days ago made
them drown in the river and today in the sweat. He's still ranting when he enters the hall of
the museum and doesn't notice that the old woman who sits on a chair at the doorway, and
who points to the archive room, is hiding a rosary in her other hand. Nocenti could arrest
her for way less and Alderici, being aware of it, avoids getting the woman into trouble.

Like Alderici and Nocenti, all the policemen surrounding the dead man have a tattoo
representing the sign of the aries but, unlike the first two, these cops have soaked trousers
up to their knees. The only ones with different tattoos inside the room are the doctor and
the deceased, in order Aquarius and Virgo, even if the second one is hardly recognizable
due to the tauruset which pierced half of a inch away from it. Nevertheless Alderici's
SmartPhone can scan the Virgo tattoo as soon as the doctor allows the corpse to be turned
over. It seems a massive dose of testosterone went downstream with the flood: officer
Panunzio, guilty in Brogi's eyes of having lived an obese life, noticing the virgo tattoo
exclaims that the deceased could have been an I.T., observation pretty obvious.

The colleague does not miss the opportunity and sniggers. "Well, it doesn't really look
like the corpse of a beautician to me, does it?".

Meanwhile Nocenti laughs together with the doctor, equal in age, about Alderici who
prefers his phone to the notepad. "The position of inspector, you'll see I'll have to leave it to
the SmartPhone, so there will be someone smart at least" finishing the sentence he slaps
Panunzio’s neck while winking at the doctor.

Alderici, speaking more to himself rather than to his boss, comments: "For around forty
years one can also write on phones, and it's more practical than having pockets full of
carpenter pencils stubs."

No one listens to him, as everyone is grappling with their own territorial piss.

"His name is Luigi Bertelli" and here finally Alderici has everyone's attention "Born in
Florence in 1983 and known by the name of Snowball, a hacker. At least until 2012 it was,
then it seems no more troubles went on.”
 Nocenti involves the doctor again, saying the phone is really good on investigations
"…but they'd better get used to pencil stubs again, as in a few years the phones won't be
circulating anymore. Unless one can make them with Carrara marble," he winks at the
doctor. "But he'll have to use a
chisel instead of a mouse!"
The doctor chuckles at the joke, but does not miss the opportunity to reply "You forget that
Carrara is out of jurisdiction. I think the stubs option is the only viable one."

***

Nocenti, his hubris and Alderici go to the police station, where the latter has finished
drafting the report and is getting ready to grind chicory to make some coffee on the wood
stove.

Less arrogant when he doesn't have a large audience, Nocenti uses a persuasive voice to
make up: "The one who preceded me, my mentor as they say, repeated the importance of
the notes, a hundred times a day. Because one says it for you, of course!".

Alderici is not sure he wants to join the conversation: such an accommodating Nocenti
is generally accompanied by a request for some kind of favour. But it could also be, more
simply, he has just set his eyes on the coffee the officer is cooking. With silence becoming
heavy, Alderici has to say something: "I agree, and I think I can write faster with the
mouse’s small wheel than with pencils and old diaries". Maybe he shouldn't have been
sarcastic, but everybody knows Nocenti, who does not like to spend money, takes notes on
old pocket diaries from past years, otherwise ready for the pulping mill: it’s not like
Alderici made it up!
As the inspector is not replying, Alderici thinks his chief may feel offended:better pour him
a cup of coffee and keep him quiet.

It is also well known how Nocenti never listens to other people talking, however this time
something different is going on; he has just received a message on the hated phone, which
brings him back many years, thirty-five to be exact. Images he has always banished have
now forcefully found their way back into his mind, giving a hard time to the confidence he
built up over the years. He remembers an old Mivar tv with Yeltsin and Bush signing on a
thick book, this image is quite clear to him; his wife instead, her name escapes him for a
moment. Remembering Yeltsin and not remembering his wife's name? Anyway, she is on
the ground, she has finally stopped breaking his balls, as he ordered her a few moments
before. His hands are still around her neck. In the next room Sergio is crying: here's another
one who won't stop breaking balls. What was he back then, a few months old?

Nocenti comes back to his senses and picks up a few words from Alderici on a little
wheel of who knows what device. He also breaks his balls..

"We got him, Alderici. The murderer drowned in the Arno with the victim's phone on
him. The river took him, as nature is always right.

"Yes, but a SP can't last more than an hour in water," Alderici replies. "And it hasn't
rained for the last two days."

"What’s a SP?"

It's not difficult, Alderici thinks, but he explains it means SmartPhone.

"Well, it means he must have jumped an hour ago, for some sense of guilt, who knows.
The Arno has always claimed the dead, with or without floods.
 Alderici keeps asking questions, unable to find a sense, but Nocenti explains it is thanks
to the answers that he became an inspector, not making questions! He gets angry Nocenti,
but in the end Alderici gets away with a slap on his neck, pretty much the same fate already
happened to his counterpart Panunzio a little earlier and which is, in any case, better than
the one occured to Mrs. Nocenti years earlier.

Back to 2040

A thin wisp of smoke rises from a small rowboat. It is the remains of a recently
extinguished fire, which prevented freezing the improvised sailors. They, six men and two
women, are engaged in an escape between snow and reeds, warming them way more than
the aforementioned fire managed to do. The southerners have worn-out clothes and run
away from the seven volunteers who, with black uniforms and balaclavas, run after them
with the encumbrance of a rifle over the shoulder. The fugitives understand each other at a
glance, men and women separate, thus hoping to puzzle their chasers. The girl with the
Capricorn tattoo doesn't seem to have the slightest intention of separating from the
Sagittarius boy, but her companion in misfortune takes her by the arm and whispers "Come
on!", dragging her away. The reeds thin out when the lads find themselves under fire, with
some volunteers yelling at them, calling them “bloody southerners”. A rifle shot at eye
level forces the group to throw themselves to the ground. If the volunteers are out of
breath, the migrants are exhausted. "Damned crossborders, couldn't you have fired earlier?"
. "I could, but I think about your health, and a run can only do good to you." The man in
the balaclava lifts the Sagittarius boy off the ground, when the latter elbow him on the face
and run away once more. However, he didn't take account of the little guy with a small
cigar and a hanging down left arm. He is the only one with an uncovered face, among the
paramilitary army: he tackles the fleeing man to the ground by using his right arm when,
accidentally, the cigar falls out of his mouth. In a snap he is on top of the fugitive, with a
knee planted in his back and his right hand burying his face into the snow. Finally he lifts
the victim's head, pulling his hair as he doesn't seem keen on cooperating, and he scans the
tattoo. The volunteer chief’s SmartPhone shows "No matches found" on the display. "Who
knows how much you paid for this crap, buddy."

It is morning when Big Twin, more mountain than a man, passes a rope around a huge
branch and ties one end around the wrists of the Sagittarius crossborder, who has his arms
forced behind his back. The other end of the rope is firmly in the hands of the giant zodiac
volunteer. He gots an Aries tattoo, as does the volunteer chief who sits opposite him and
who is struggling with lighting a cigar. At his signal, Big Twin starts pulling the rope,
lifting the suffering bridled man from the ground. They can hear women crying not too far
away. The chief made sure his men entertained the cute one with the Capricorn tattoo. He
smokes and mocks "It should be Big Twin complaining as he's lifting you up. Not you. Big
Twin, are you complaining? Do you suffer?".
Big Twin shakes his head.
"Soon the Twins will be famous in your southern territories too, I'm sure." He points to the
five men tied to the ground, whose swollen faces appear to have already undergone the
torturer treatment. "Would you like to be famous, Big Twin?" Again, the big man shakes
his head.

The hanging man begins to cry, looking in the direction of where the screams are coming
from, with the shoulders’ pain piercing his brain. The volunteers leader gets closer and
wants to see his suffering more closely. "It wasn't a nice
vacation, if they fucked your girlfriend and broke your shoulder," he says sardonically, the
cigar’s butt into the snow. Big Twin lets go and grabs back the rope, with the recoil
popping out the scapula of the poor crosser who emits an agonizing scream.

The vacation, as the volunteers chief calls it, ends at sunset. He drives two horses pulling
 a cart from which, once at the border, the eight unfortunates are thrown out. Deep scratches
have taken the place of fake tattoos. Big Twin marks his territory by pissing on their heads
from the top of the cart.

"All's well that ends well," he says while Big Twin, who settles down with difficulty on
the box next to him. "And please," he shouts to the group "make us good publicity with
your loved ones!" The horses pull the cart, which sets off leaving behind a thin wisp of
smoke, the one of the cigar.

***
Aries TV’s theme song is projected on the wall of the police station room. Panunzio, who’s
now in his fifties, pours some excellent chicory coffee into inspector Alderici's mug.
Excellent according to Panunzio, since Brogi always has something to say about it. Sooner
or later he will tell him: then make it yourself! The light bulbs hanging from the ceiling,
next to the cured meats hanging to dry, are off. The room is lit by the oil lamps on the
officers’ desks, useful just to avoid losing sight when one has to type a report. Ricci and
Spertini are the newcomers to the team, even though, thinking about it, the first has already
been hired for five years. They too, it goes without saying, Aries sign. The theme song
ends with the usual parade of policemen, military personnel and prison guards marching
through the streets of Florence. The Volunteers close the cortege, all of them with covered
faces. Lanza, from the chair behind the elegant desk, looks straight into the camera for a
few moments. At the bottom, next to the Aries TV logo, a scrolling news stream passes by,
the same as the one that appears on idle SmartPhones: Prison guard accused of high
treason has confessed - Rebels and crossborders are enemies of society : if you suspect,
report! - Taurus: crescent moon. Plant rocket, spinach, peas, fava beans and chickpeas -
Power will be on today from 6 to 9 pm - Photos of the Valentine's Day couples parade are
now available. Lanza says that the Zodiac Volunteers had a rich fishing in the night, in the
Alvianese region. "There were eight illegal crossers from the southern territories, caught
going up the Tiber. Looking at these pictures you will see their beautifully crafted tattoos.”

Spertini picks up a call on the SP using his mouse as an old telephone receiver;
immediately he forwards it to Alderici, and gets back watching at the journalist on the wall.
The inspector notices that the young policeman has a considerable bruise on his left eye
and thinks he will ask him how it did happen. Actually no, he really doesn't give a damn.

"It is the third group the volunteers intercepted since the beginning of the year. And again,
we have to thank these balaclava heroes for having caught the prison guard who was trying
to leave the country three days ago" keeps on Lanza. Spertini has to silence him, as
Alderici is yelling to mute the noise, not being able to understand a word over the phone.

The call comes from the hospital: Alderici already knew this before answering it. That's
where the early morning calls always come from. Despite the muted projection volume,
Alderici cannot understand what his interlocutor is saying. "But who's screaming? I can’t
hear you!! You say it's a premature baby, right? So what are they fuckin’ screaming, we
don't arrest the parents of a premature baby! I'll send two men, but if you don't calm him
down, they'll really arrest him. Goodbye.”

Panunzio and Brogi are the chosen ones today to go to the hospital, pick up and
bring the newborn to the Relegated Center. The first one is happy about it, the second one
swears and curses. Every time Panunzio is picked by the inspector, it’s a confirmation to him
of how much he’s held in high esteem by his boss holds him; every time Brogi has to team
up with Panunzio, for Brogi it's swears and curses. Already at the door and with the coat on,
Panunzio realizes he has forgotten his smarphone on his desk. As he leaps to grab it, the
officer accidentally knocks the pot of soaked chickpeas. The jeers of those present, except
 for Alderici who pretends not to notice what just happened, make Panunzio forget all the
enthusiasm he had acquired only a few moments before.

Finally Alderici raises his head from his typewriter and tells Panunzio, who is already starting to pick
the chickpeas, to leave the task to Ricci and Spertini, who with their uproarious laughter seem to be
plenty of energy this morning . Panunzio exits, apologizing in a whisper while Ricci, furious, shows
him the middle finger.

Brogi walks in the snow at such a brisk pace that Panunzio can't keep up with him. He wonders if,
maybe without snow, he has ever managed to reach such speed. Running yes, of course. But walking?
Absorbed in his own thoughts, he realizes he has lost even more ground; and on top of that the cheese
and meat sellers, all with Capricorn tattoos, are slowing him down. It is clear why Brogi wanted to
pass through the open air market: it’s a shortcut.

It doesn't matter one has to slalom among the regulars: Brogi goes straight on his way. And no one
walks up, to him, armed with a knife: it is true that it is not really a weapon, with a cube of pecorino
cheese on the tip to make it harmless, anyway it is difficult to dodge the blows. "Officer Panunzio, let
me give you a little taste... oh, why so much haste?"

Panunzio feels guilty when he has to refuse, even though he has his reasons. He's working, it’s not like
he is having fun! And then why offer him food, because he's fat? He realizes he has muttered his last
thoughts and he has lost even more ground. Then he starts running, so to speak, bumping into people,
feeling awkward, apologizing, feelig guilty and starts muttering again.

***

The old National Educational Museum is now an abandoned building. What was once a small garden
is now a tangle of twigs and the large door seems to have been closed for at least ten years. On the
contraryr, it opens, imperceptibly, and a mass of curls peep out for a moment. It is Emiliano, a
thirty-year-old whose Capricorn tattoo is almost permanently covered by his hairs. A quick look to
check that no one is in the nearby and the door closes, hiding Emiliano with it.

"I was right? There was nobody there, was there?” Lorenza asks with a pleased smile.

"Yeah" replies the man laconically, who did not manage yet to calm down.

The large room where Lorenza awaits him is completely bare. The wood-burning stove is off and
there are a few twigs in the basket next to it, which could make it run for no more than half an hour.
The shutters and windows are closed and an oil lamp, hanging from a hook, is there to light the room.
Or at least it tries. The walls are blackened with mold and on the floor lay five blankets arranged like
beds. Ada and Ciuto begin to fold one, with the twelve-year-old with the Virgo tattoo growing
impatient, as the latter seems to have no idea on how to fold a blanket; or maybe she pretends to get
impatient, since in the end she seems to laugh.

Ciuto shrugs: "I have no idea how to do it.". He scratches his head and the Aquarius tattoo, then
admits, "I've never even seen one of these before. At the Relegated Center I wore a sack, and I slept in
it".

Ada smiles "I'm happy you've left that place, even if it took you fifteen years. And do not worry, I'll
teach you the basics, like how to fold covers!” she says with a touch of pride, like a little woman. She
hopes Ciuto, who always asks questions, will not ask her why she mentioned "the basics". She
wouldn't be able to answer what does it mean: better ask her mother, who’s now busy with Emiliano
studying a map of Florence unfolded on the table.

"What was your name before?" Ada asks to get out of the embarrassing moment, someways pleasant,
happening in the final act of folding blankets since the dawn of time, when the hands of the two
folders finally touch. "When I say before, I mean in the Center."

Ciuto thinks about it, but no, he never had a name before. No one addressed him, no one spoke to him.
“I was always locked up in my cell, almost. In the weekly yard time I met other anomalous, but hardly
anyone could speak.

“Anomalous people can't talk? But the newborns or… in short, also the grown-ups like you?"

Ciuto confirms, he says he learned thanks to the fact his cell was in front of the guards office and they
talked to each other but, above all, they had Aries TV always on.

Lorenza too is now following Ciuto's story and invites him to approach the table, where she keeps
studying the map. "I hope you like the name I gave you.".

Of course he likes it! He closes his eyes to enjoy the moment, every time they call his name. "And the
guard who freed you, did you ever talk to him either?"

Ciuto says no while Lorenza, with a stub of pencil, writes Relegated Center right where the map
shows the Montalbano Castle. Lorenza dirts her hand by touching the line previously drawn, which
connects square Square Ciompi to the Castle, passing through the Arno.

Ada is quick pinching the SmartPhone from her mother's old trousers pocket, scanning her tattoo and
switching it on. She can finally click on “Stream TV” and Virgo TV is on, with the usual Lanza
appearing on the wall. Lorenza chases her daughter around the room: it is dangerous to use the phones
when they are not needed, even though the Forger has the tracking deactivated.

"These eight yes, they pushed them back, but in short I would have done otherwise." Lanza drinks
from a steaming cup and makes a slight grimace, he gets up and stretches his back. Grimace, again.
On screen text about the news of the day keeps flowing, about crossborders, rocket salad and traitors.
"I mean, they could have been rebels, couldn’t they?"

Caterina, who entered the room and joined Emiliano at the table, smiles seeing mother and daughter
chasing each other and strokes Ciuto's hair. The fifty-year-old Gemini explains how Lanza does it on
purpose: to smoke, to stretch or to do not stay put… the more one looks at him the more the flowing
news will slip into one’s brain without any barrier, without a critical sense acting as a filter.

"He knows better than us if they had been rebels… far from being pushed back!"

Lanza goes on with his sermon, saying he may be old by now, but he certainly has experience on his
side. Indeed, he was there when the rebels wanted to cut his head and then, fortunately, they were the
ones who lost it.
Ada laughs, she is out of breath and stops to catch it. Lorenza gives her a smack, a hard one, takes
back her phone and stop the stream. Ada is wounded, her cheek hurts but even more she is angry with
herself, still hoping sometimes to have a mother who loves her.
The girl is red in the face, silence falls all around. Caterina replies to Emiliano with "Oh yeah, yeah,"
repeating herself in an attempt to fill the odd moment. She pretends not to have seen, so as not to
question Lorenza's educational methods.

Emiliano instead shakes his head, disapproving that gesture; it is no secret that there is bad blood
between him and the woman, leader of the rebels.

Ciuto gets furious and stamps his feet on the ground, so much that Caterina has to hug him to make
him calm down again and, in a few moments, the attack of hysteria subsides; it's not the violence
disturbing him - as he's used to it - but the end of the stream is. Lanza's voice was his only company
for about fifteen years, despite being the expression of the power that kept him unjustly locked up.
The only friendly voice, before Yuri's providential intervention.

Lorenza has regained the table, sighs and shows the smile of a seasoned actress. She points to the
Castle "So this is where they kept you prisoner." Emiliano raises his head again, happy that the
moment of embarrassment is over, and remembering that he wet himself when he saw Ciuto arriving
wearing a uniform, a couple of weeks earlier.
Caterina tries to defuse the tension, she always hopes that the boy can forget the past as soon as
possible: "A little too young to be a guard!"

For him, however, it is impossible to forget, it will probably never happen. Above all, he doesn't want
to forget who saved him, Ada and the others should have figured it out by now. To their knowledge,
he's the only anomalous who ever escaped the Relegated Center. Same for Ciuto, he doesn't remember
ever hearing Lanza reporting similar news.

***
That evening, as he always did, he was face pressed against the bars in order to be able to see Ariete
TV on the wall of the guards office. When he was lucky, he got to see half the screen, depending on
which guard was projecting it: everyone had his favorite spot on the wall. There was a zodiac
volunteer explaining who the crossborders were. The man had his face covered, or so Lanza had said.
It didn’t change much for Ciuto, as he could only see one boot. This was speaking about crossborders,
calling them parasites.
"We have made plenty of sacrifices to build the Zodiac Society, and we are entitled to enjoy the
results!", the boot uttered.

Pacifico, the jailer, had then left the room, seeing him. He had smiled and muted the sound. From his
pocket he had slipped a key out and he had opened the cell’s door. Ciuto, scared, had retreated till the
bucket, the only piece of furniture present. He didn't trust Pacifico's smile, as he had already seen it in
the past.

"Do you watch some telly before you go to sleep, right?" the guard had asked. But maybe it wasn't a
real question and, before understanding whether he should answer or not, Ciuto had noticed that a
wooden baton had just appeared in Pacifico's right hand. "But this is Aries TV, while here I see a nice
aquarius," added the jailer, hitting the boy on the forehead. Ciuto, in pain, instinctively brought a hand
up to the tattoo, breaking rule number one, at least according to Pacifico: "Rule number one: never
cover the tattoo!" the man had shouted at him. This infraction had cost him a new beating, this time on
the back of his hand, forcing him to bring the other hand to his face as well, trying in vain to defend
himself from the guard. Pacifico was a fury and was taking now on the shoulders, now on the boy's
hips. Ciuto recalls hearing him say that, after fifteen years of eating for free, it was about the time for
him to die.

At that moment Yuri, the eldest of the guards, appeared behind Pacifico and smashed his head with a
shovel. Ciuto was in pain and he couldn't quite understand what had happened, but Yuri had told him
to listen to him, as that one was not the time to be confused. In doing so, he had taken Ciuto’s tunic
and made him wear Pacifico's uniform, adding a few cuffs here and there. Ciuto had needed some
help with sleeves and buttons, as he'd never worn anything but sacks. To escape, they had taken
advantage of the changing of the guard, when four jailers leave the gate of the Castle in indian file and
four enter in the same way. If he had kept quiet everything would have gone well, Yuri thought.

In the dark, the two guards who left together with Yuri and Ciuto had muttered a greeting, put on their
bicycles and after a second they had already disappeared.

"Listen to me carefully, I've just ruined myself, damn it. You go through the woods and hide when you
hear footsteps, because the ones you've just crossed, will soon discover that you're not in the cell.
When daylight is on, you'll have to walk with the sun behind you. If you do as I say, you'll get into
town. Once there, look for a church, it's a large house, smaller than this castle, but you recognize it
due to the cross."

Ciuto wasn't quite sure what a cross was, but Yuri had mimicked its shape with his arms while saying
it. The jailer added that in some churches there are still priests, people who would have helped him
without reporting him, perhaps. Finaly he took a bicycle and ran away. Shortly after, the boy had
heard some screams: no doubt the guards were looking for him.

"Where are you? Come back here, you'll freeze!" they shouted trying to get him out.

He wanted to run, but he couldn't: he had seen it done in the theme song of Aries TV but he had never
tried. He was hearing strange noises in front - which Emiliano would have later labeled as wild boar
grunts - while behind the guards were following the footprints he left in the snow. He could hear them
getting closer and closer, until he seemed to have learned to run; shortly after, however, he slipped and
probably hit his head, or at least this was the assumption of Emiliano and Caterina.

What Ciuto knew was that he had woken up the following morning, in pain, at the edge of the woods.
He had walked with the sun behind him, until he reached a church. But where was this priest, if any?
The door was closed and the boy, exhausted, had fallen asleep in the churchyard. That’s how Father
Sebastiano had found him: the eighty-seven year old sign of libra had caressed him, he had wondered
why that sticky forehead and, having heard his story, had thought of hiding him with the rebels who
he used to call the Ciompi.

What Ciuto didn't know was what had happened to him after the slip. The guards were practically
upon him when he fell: they had heard him tumble down and had distinctly heard the thud of the boy's
head hitting the root of a tree. Without fail they had descended the slope, but they had no longer been
able to find either the anomalous or any footprints. He had been saved by a big fella in his fifties,
perhaps even a little older. The latter had managed, without any effort, to lift Ciuto on his shoulder
and to carry him to his hut, hidden by snow and vegetation. If he had been awake, while he was being
treated lying on a plank, he would have seen the man massaging his bruises with a strange green,
sticky ointment. He would have seen him roll up the sleeves, and would have noticed that he had a
second tattoo, in addition to the Pisces one on his forehead; the first was a tattoo on his right forearm
depicting a fish with legs, and inside the fish the inscription " Darwin". But Ciuto wouldn't have been
able to recognize those six characters, because he didn't know how to read. Without a doubt, however,
he would have recognized the photos hanging from the wire that crossed the room, photos that
portrayed him together with his fellow prisoners as they walked during the weekly yard time. Coated
guards, leafless trees: even Ciuto would have understood that the photos had not been taken last
summer.

***

"Ciuto, Emiliano is talking to you," Ada shakes him off from his thoughts.

"Don't worry, Ada," Emiliano smiles.

"I was counting! We went out and we were one, two, three and four and the guards who came in were
one, two, three and four!"

"Emiliano, there are only four of them!" Lorenza enthusiastically points out.

"No Lorenza, it's us who are only two!"

"I'm in!" Caterina says.

"Thanks, but I can't really see you fighting a guard," Emiliano cools her down. "We need more men or
more ideas, Lorenza."

Lorenza stares at Emiliano: her eyes do not show emotions, maybe because some times she does not
have. “You don't really want to free those kids, you don't care what kind of life they are having! Yet
now we have the proof, Ciuto is the proof!"

“I don't accept your insinuations. I want to free them all, and you can be sure if I could I would, right
now! But we can't be rash, we need a plan, a good one, or we'll fail miserably" he vomits on her,
before gettin back to a calmer tone. "Didn't you hear from Lanza just now? He recalled what
happened when everything went wrong in too much haste. We can't afford missteps, or all the
anomalous will keep be in jail and we'd end up in Piazza della Signoria with our heads in the basket,
as Celestino did."

Emiliano is right, hard to swallow for Lorenza, as she hardly ever loses an argument with that ass. But
she's no idiot, she knows keep replying would only bring her discredit. Better to shut up, and wait for
the right moment to get back on him.

***
Brogi walks through the hospital entrance, as cool as a cucumber. Panunzio, at the opposite, he
sweats, and he's ashamed "Damn me, we're in February!" he thinks to himself; and there are still stairs
to climb, which needless to say the colleague is already at the top while he has taken the first step.
Getting the end of the ramp, Brogi stops to wait for him, between the door of the Psychiatry ward and
the Maternity one; finally he pretends to take the wrong door, taunting him: "Who knows, maybe
there isn't a good guy who can fix your head, Panunzio!", but in a moment he is serious again and
enters the maternity ward. Panunzio thinks back to his mother's words "You have to know how to
laugh at yourself, otherwise you will be teased even more". Anyway that laugh doesn't want to come
out, and yet he is trying hard.

The long corridor full of doors and windows does not represent a problem for the two officers, who by
now know very well which door they will have to knock on, namely the one with the metal plate with
the words "Head nurse". Panunzio stops in the middle of the corridor to look at the usual poster, he
already knows in his heart that Brogi won't let him speak and so he might as well avoid
embarrassment and pretend to be interested in something else. “Love must wait for the right days”,
reads the title, while in the blow-up a man and a woman look at each other in love holding a newborn
in their arms: all three with a sagittarius tattoo. Panunzio wonders what is the point of hanging this
poster up in a maternity ward, when one can’t unscramble a scrambled egg.

He hardly has time to be proud of his acute observation when Emanuele, the new father with sign of
Taurus, who has remained huddled up on a chair at the end of the corridor with his hands in his hair,
notices Panunzio and runs towards him, getting down on his knees. Looking at him all crumpled in,
the officer could not tell if the man is short or tall. However, a tall guy who kneels down would be
taller than Emanuele is now; he is probably short and stocky, like most taurus are. Emanuele begs him
not to take his son away from him; Micaela, the new mother, hears her husband crying and screaming
and drags herself out of the room in her dressing gown, until she reaches him.

“Micaela and I, God knows how much we need help in the fields,” whines the man.

Brogi leaves the nurse’s room and, passing by the small group, murmurs that it is a real pity that God
does not exist then. Panunzio automatically nods with a submissive half-smile to his colleague and,
feeling strong for a moment, turns to Emanuele: he tells him they just have to enforce the law, there's
no choice.

"But we complied with it, the math was correct," Micaela says in a faint voice.

"He should have been born a taurus like us!" adds Emanuele desperately.
Panunzio hesitates: "I understand, but these are the rules. You are already lucky that the parents of a
preemie are not liable to arrest. Unfortunately nothing more can be done for you.”

"Don't take him away from me," Micaela begs, turning her eyes towards the basket Brogi is holding,
"he's my son!"

"Panunzio, what do you think, shall we leave?" Brogi asks him ignoring the woman, and then assumes
a mocking tone. "Come on, if you're a good boy I'll buy you cheese at the market on our way back."

Panunzio smiles, mindful of the story of self-irony, and follows his colleague. He turns away for a
moment, arms outstretched in apology to the desperately sobbing couple. At the top of the stairs he
glances inside the Psychiatry ward, where three nurses sit in the lobby and watch the projection on the
wall.

***
They are Ornella, Vanessa and Anna, all with the tattoo of the zodiac sign of cancer. The first two, the
youngest, both show clear signs of pregnancy, with their bellies. Not huge, but definitely visible.
Anna, the oldest of the group despite her twenty-eight years, but also the most beautiful one, fights
with her blond hair which continues to fall in front of her face: too smooth and too short to hold
behind her small and delicate ears. The device is projecting with unified networks, showing the logo
of the Zodiac Society, including all twelve signs. The scrolling news has been replaced by a fixed on
screen text: “Corrado Barberini - President of the Central Territories.”

The President has wavy light brown hair to complement a handsome face that features green eyes and
a freshly shaved beard. The small ringlets are arranged so as not to obscure the Leo sign tattoo. He
broadcasts from his study located in Palazzo Medici Ricciardi, seat of government. Behind him is a
map of the Central Territories, where Florence, the capital, stands out. Next to it is a print showing the
social pyramid, where the distinctive professions of the twelve signs are indicated,.

"As above, so below dear friends. Excuse me for entering your homes, I hope you will welcome me
for a few minutes. These days we often learn of intercepted crossers at the borders of the Central
Territories - our borders. This happens because the Zodiac Society works well, the others know it too.
We do not know unemployment and we do not know poverty. Each of us is a perfect cog: together we
are excellence. However, the introduction of outside interference can perturb our perfect balance. This
is why we cannot allow them to cross our borders. It is our duty to report, and it is the duty of our
Aries, of the police, to verify. Because we are right. The stars are. Good day to you all. As above, so
below."

***
Corrado switches off the SmartPhone built into the desk in front of his seat. This way the audience
can't see the President crumple up the paper of the speech and throw it at Gustav, cursing about the
cog part.

“Such a silly phrase, Gustav! I have to find myself a deputy capable of writing a decent speech.”

Gustav remains silent, offended by the president's words; but then Corrado bursts into laughter, and
they both relax.

In the adjoining office instead explode the curses of Bizio, a septuagenarian of the Leo who, with his
short and stubby fingers, interrupts the projection of the president's speech; from the terms he
addresses to him, he doesn't seem to love him too much.

He is so distracted by his disdain that he almost forgets the woman under the desk who is turning it on
quite well, even too much, so much so that Bizio is forced to stop her by pulling her hair.
The poor thing hopes to be able to spare her daughter the final part, but she is wrong. Bizio gives her
his disgusting smile, then in his honeyed voice he orders her: "Undress your little daughter, and kiss
her."

The twenty-year-old forced to observe, sitting in the armchair, tries to refuse; but Bizio likes to watch,
everyone in the city knows it, or at least all those who have gone to ask him for a job.
***
Also at the hospital, the screening is over, and Ornella can finally run to the toilet: in the fifth month,
she needs to pee more than ever! However, the bathroom is occupied and gagging noises come from
inside. Ornella is curious by nature, she holds her right hand on the edge of the sink in the
antebathroom and bends down to spy through the keyhole. There is Anna, bent over the toilet bowl.

28

"Anna, are you ok?" she asks, even if the answer seems obvious, otherwise her colleague wouldn't be
throwing up.

Anna catches her breath: "Yes, everything is fine." And after a short pause she adds: "But I solemnly
swear that I will never eat liver again, never!"

Ornella comes out of the bathroom, and raising her eyebrow replies:
"You'll have to ask the cook in the new ward to make you something different" and she keeps going,
murmuring to herself "Maybe they'll make ravioli stuffed with sea bass, for her nibs."

***
It is already night when Emanuele and Micaela, almost freezing, arrive at the headquarters of the
rebels. She still wears the hospital gown under her coat. Lorenza looks them up, looks at the snowy
deserted Square Ciompi, and lets them in. Finally she shuts the door behind her.
County seats of the Central Territories: map affixed in the office of Palazzo Medici Ricciardi.
*

* pyramids collapse without the base

TAURUS: FARMER, COOK

CAPRICORN: MERCHANT, TEACHER
GEMINI: JOURNALIST, PROFESSOR
CANCER: ARTIST, NURSE
VIRGO: COMPUTER/ARTISAN, BEAUTY CURATOR
ARIES: MILITARY, RESEARCHER
SAGITTARIUS: JUDGE, SECRETARY
LIBRA: ACTOR, ARCHITECT
PISCES: TAILOR, ARTIST:
AQUARIUS: DOCTOR, MUSICIAN.
SCORPIO: PROFESSOR, ASTROLOGUE
LEO: POLITICIAN, LAWYER.
2 - TAURUS

Emanuele has always had a strange way of waking up. It is like a torpor, in which the dream images
are extremely vivid and become one with memories. They overlap to such an extent that he can no
longer set them apart, and it causes him such confusion that he has never felt like telling Micaela
about it. He seems to have these episodes especially when he sleeps soundly due to fatigue from
working in the fields. “Yet I didn't work yesterday. Crying can make me even more tired,” he thinks,
resigned.

He is outside his house, on the frost-covered field. He's loading crates of cauliflower onto a cart tied
to a mule. The owner of the cart strokes the beast and watches stupified Taurus TV, despite being a
Capricorn himself. The images projected on the outside wall of the house show a grape harvest where
all the farmers sport a taurus tattoo: one of the many thematic soap operas dedicated to a single
category. A boy and a girl exchange shy glances, until she flashes a bright smile.

Emanuele loads the last box, tells his buddy off that he could have given him a hand, but the other
with a shrug of the shoulders is already on the driver’s seat and greet raising his arm, without turning
around. Micaela opens the door of the house and goes to meet Emanuele: in one hand she holds the
corners of a woolen blanket covering her shoulders, in the other a paper straw bundle containing
Emanuele's lunch. More interested in his wife's belly than in his sandwich, he bends down to touch
and kiss it and finally attaches his ear to it. He feels happy in this simplicity and turns his head to
catch his wife's gaze, but she is caught by the projection: the two guys from the soap opera are hiding
among the branches of the vine and are kissing at sunset. Micaela smiles sweetly.

***
The cries of a newborn wake up Emanuele for good. For a moment he thinks he's still half asleep but
Micaela, lying on the ground and wrapped in her own blanket, opens her eyes too, unable to
understand what's happening. The two, confused, approach the table where Lorenza, Emiliano,
Caterina, Ada and Ciuto are having breakfast with bread and milk, passing a clay mug between them.

Soon Iole, a sixty-year-old with an aquarius tattoo, enters the room. She takes off her cotton gloves
and announces that it's a nice libra, just like mom and dad.

The rebels also take care of this: helping unwary parents to bring their anomalous children into the
world in total anonymity, to avoid prison for them and for the unborn child.

Emanuele seems shocked: "How can it be Libra? It's February!"

"There's a tattooer who helps us," Emiliano intervenes.

"Of course, the Libra mother must have been good at hiding over the last months, that here in the
Territories there are plenty of informers."

"But the baby is still missing the chip, isn’t it?" Micaela objects, almost hoping that things will go
wrong for that libra, otherwise she would have lost an enormous opportunity.

"You just need to set the chips up," Emiliano replies, enjoying his milk, "you take a profile which no
longer exists, a dead one in short, and associate it with a new chip, but with the name of the unborn
child."

The Forger who, like most virgo men, knows how to deal with technology and craftsmanship, joins
the company: "Tattooed baby, checked! I'm hungry!". He chuckles continuing Emiliano's presentation,
declaring that he really resurrects the dead people. Then he sits down and takes possession of the mug.
"And not just newborns: you won't believe how many ladies ask me for a tattoo of their partner's sign.
Pardon: and gentlemen" he adds addressing a mischievous smile to Lorenza.
He turns to the taurus couple and says their phones are ready and de-geolocalized. Micaela looks at
Emanuele, asking for his approval, and then replies they don't want the phones anymore. This whole
situation is also due to those damned things. Ciuto seems to have taken the couple's suffering to heart
and says that the first years in the Relegated Center are the least tough, thus hoping to bring some
relief to the two farmers.

"And let's try to make it not tough at all" exclaims Lorenza with renewed energy. "Let’s go get him,
Micaela.".
***
At the police station, as usual, Spertini's phone is showing Aries TV. There is Gianni Lanza who
creates his sideshow. He opens and closes the drawers of his desk lighting a cigarette, enjoying the
first puff with extreme calm, as if he weren't on the air. He finally starts talking. Underneath go
various sentences, extracts from the President's speech "Our Zodiac Society works - We do not know
unemployment - We do not know poverty - We do not allow our borders to be crossed".

"President Barberini understood we must stand together against the invasion and he reminded us with
unified networks. Our well-being depends on it. The words about the Union were beautiful, it seems
like a lifetime ago but not even twenty years have passed. Who didn't like the European Union? Who
didn't like to call themselves a democrat?"

Brogi's phone rings, it's the hospital. Using the mouse’ wheel, the officer scrolls through the telephone
directory and forward the call to the inspector. Finally he turns to Spertini, who has the desk next to
his, and with a sardonic smile he says: "This time it's up to the youngest of the team to gain
experience and accompany Panunzio", to then wink at him, "and this is the worst part of the job!”

Spertini sighs while Panunzio, sitting at his desk, hides a painful embarrassment by pretending not to
have heard and continues following Lanza, who claims that probably the younger ones will not even
know which Union he is talking about.

Alderici massages the back of his neck, the only place where his hair is still thick, trying to shake off
the tension, he closes his eyes for a moment and accepts the call. Immediately Panunzio, with an
audacity he shows only when talking to his younger colleague, orders Spertini to lower the volume of
the telephone, at least a little. The latter gives him a hard - not exactly friendly look, but he is forced
to do so because he feels the inspector's eyes fixed on him.

Actually Alderici has his gaze lost in space and replies with apathy to his interlocutor: "Yes, I'll send
someone. Yes, like yesterday. Yes, like the day before yesterday and the day before. Every day the
same story.” Bored by this unrewarding task, Alderici in his heart has never understood heterozodiac
couples, as well as homozodiac couples who bear anomalous children; in general everything related to
love and passion has never really entered his head.

The inspector gets up and slowly approaches the desks of the officers. Lanza is saying that turning a
blind eye and helping a petty criminal may bring the whole society collapse.
"It means going back to starving and slaughtering each other in the streets like in '24! And please don't
think I do not care about the ones fleeing the mafia regions, mind you! But if we have created a
perfect society and they haven't, well, they should have applied themselves better. And if they didn't,
maybe it suited them that way better and now it's too late. Neither the President nor I want to go back
to those scenes! As above, so below!"

Spertini spots the inspector behind him and stops the screening. Alderici says that very morning they
are dealing with a cancer couple with a newborn, obviously a pisces. "Frankly, I'll never understand,"
he adds.

Then Brogi, who knows a lot about love, but above all about sex, explains that sometimes desire
overcomes reason.

"True", replies the inspector, "but it also overcomes the risk of going to jail. Indeed, more than a risk it
is a certainty. Anyway, Panunzio, Brogi!" he calls the two officers, nodding to go.

Brogi raises his hands, with a fake expression of sorrow "I'm sorry, I really can't today: I'm still
writing the report about yesterday. Cannot Spertini go today?".
Hearing his name, Spertini starts coughing and seem he cannot catch his breath anymore.

Alderici shakes his head and decides to go himself. Panunzio tries to hide his enthusiasm: it is true the
inspector will go with him only because the others have refused but, since we all love to tell us the
story as it suits us, he will have done some historical revisionism in his head in a few minutes
convinced that the inspector is walking alongside him through the streets of Florence because he
prefers him to the other colleagues.

***
Alderici's pace is slower than Brogi's. He clutches the collar of the old inspector's overcoat that once
belonged to Nocenti. In the streets, despite the snow, a few carts still circulate, with the drivers buried
in their SmartPhones, and luckily mules and horses take care of dodging pedestrians. The small square
housing the market the day before is now hosting about twenty people practicing gymnastics.

"Do you exercise, Panunzio?" Alderici asks.

"Of course Inspector, I do every morning: it’s mandatory!"

"And why is that?"

"Well, precisely I do them because they are mandatory," he replies perplexed, with the tone of one
who takes everything for granted.

“I mean, why are they mandatory, in your opinion?”

Alderici doesn't wait for an answer, he prefers to go straight to the point: "I'll tell you: the fact is that
we spend the day hunched over the phones, or sitting watching their projections, breaking our necks,
backs and shoulders. Because if we hoed the ground for ten hours a day it would be better."

"So the taurus, who already hoe ten hours a day?"

"Nobody cares about taurus people, Panunzio," replies the inspector briskly who, noticing the shop
with the sign “Hair salon - SP” cannot help but caress the back of his neck, sighing. How many years
will it be without setting foot in a hair salon? Panunzio must have answered something, but suddenly
the inspector's desire to make conversation diminished.

***
In the shop that Alderici stopped to observe with a nostalgic gaze, there is currently only one
customer: Father Sebastiano. The priest sits content in a down-home upholstered chair. In front of him
a long horizontal mirror and two small tables where various scissors and glass bottles are placed,
which is all the necessaire to shorten and take care of hair.

Tiziana, a virgo forty-two year old, is fixing the priest's white beard. Short and dark hair, the woman
has little left of the shining beauty that enveloped her as a young woman, however she is one of those
people who are more and more beautiful from the second glance onwards. Next to the mirror is the
tariff sheet, where 200 lire is charged for a haircut and 150 for a beard.

The two are not the only ones in the room: Giannino sits on the bed at the back and is following a
lesson on tattoo scanning. Virgo children, like those of other signs, are trained in the tasks they will
carry out from adolescence onwards. He takes notes in a scratch pad, struggling with the charcoal
pencil to waste as little space as possible on the page in front of him.

His dad Antonio, who is thirteen years older than mommy Tiziana, is standing behind the workbench,
dealing with Father Sebastiano's telephone: screwdriver in hand and the priest's device open in front
of him.

"Forget the school Giannino, come here to do some practice!" Antonio shouts out in a smile.

Giannino, who observes the projection, turns to Tiziana, undecided on what to do. She promptly
intervenes: "Darling, don't listen to daddy who wants take advantage of you! And you Antonio, you
already know he doesn't want to study, at least don't put the trump of a hundred!"

Antonio giggles and sends a loving kiss to his wife.

"Of eleven, the trump is, it’s briscola!" the priest steps in. "Your dad is afraid that if you study, then
later on you'll become better than him at fixing cell phones!"

Giannino laughs, Tiziana says that it is probably the first time that the child has heard the term cell
phones. Even Father Sebastiano laughs and excuses himself to the child by blaming his advanced age.

"Precisely for this reason it is good to treat yourself to a nice beard cut, because we should always
want to be beautiful, at all ages!" Express her thoughts aloud Tiziana, while she observes the wrinkes
which had appeared on her forehead already for some years; she tries to relax them and finally shakes
her head forcing a smile.

"Tiziana dear, vanity is a close relative of pride, which is a capital vice. But this time it's for a special
event. You know, Giannino, that in three weeks I will meet the Pope!"

"Father, I'm afraid Giannino has never even heard of the Pope either," Antonio exclaims, observing
his son once again focused in his homework. "I didn't even know there was still a Pope. And how are
you going to get to Rome? Or will he come here?”

“The synod will be held in Anagni in three weeks. The Pope hasn't been in Rome for a few years
now" says Sebastiano stroking his freshly shaved beard in the mirror. “And we've got special
permission to get out of the Central Territories. It is clear that we still count for something!"

Tiziana asks if it wouldn't have made more sense then to get him cleaned up in three weeks, but Father
Sebastiano replies that he doesn't want the Holy Father to think that he sins of pride.

Tiziana and Antonio laugh, while the latter hands the device to the priest. “The SmartPhone is ready.
Actually, the cell phone!" he corrects himself with a wink and fading into a last laugh.

Father Sebastiano grabs it in with a sudden movement and scans his own tattoo. The phone turns on
and the Libra logo on the screen gives way to the flow of news relating to President Barberini's
speech.

Sebastiano sighs: he misses that contraption when it's not working.. "But can it be prevented from
breaking again?"

Antonio shakes his head: "There's not much you can do, they're designed to last no more than a couple
of years and we in the Territories have been using them for twenty."

"And you can't find new ones?" asks the priest with a hopeful look.
"As soon as the borders reopen, I'll run to warn you," jokes Antonio smiling at Tiziana, who doesn't
really notice it, absorbed in her thoughts and busy sweeping her hair from the ground with a sorghum
broom.

"I don't know if you'll find me then" Father Sebastiano says, getting up with difficulty and touching
his bad back with a grimace. "I thought of asking the Pope to transfer me to the southern territories. It
seems that they still listen to us, there!"
***
Anna is twenty-eight years old, she is beautiful, yet she is alone. Her little house is so empty, her
friends might think she's making room for a man. But no friend has ever been invited to her home,
also because she doesn't have any friends. The images of Cancer TV appear on the kitchen wall, the
volume of the SmartPhone is muted.

There's a man, a woman, and two little girls, all with cancer tattoos. They have a picnic, sitting on a
blanket in the middle of a meadow. They are cheerful, the woman braids her daughters' hair, the father
pretends to tie the two braids together, the girls play chasing their father, finally the two girls compete
in a sack race while the man and the woman look at them, happy, hand in hand. The writings relating
to the President's speech continue to scroll on screen.

Anna is in the bathroom, in front of the mirror positioned above the peeling sink. She is wearing a
large white dress with flowers, with many small side buttons. Standing on tiptoe, one observes in
profile a barely visible and she touches it with the back of her hand. She seems happy for a moment,
but becomes serious again when her gaze falls on the gold-colored switchblade resting next to the tap.
She looks again in the mirror, raises her hair to better observe the cancer tattoo, shakes her head
thoughtfully and enters the kitchen where she finally grabs the SP placed on the table, interrupts the
projection, puts on an old coat and, purse over the shoulder, she leaves the house .

***
In the hospital changing room Anna unbuttons her dress extremely slowly, in front of the open locker.
Ornella and Vanessa, who are next to her, have already fastened their white coats helping each other,
because of the bellies making every movement more difficult. They close the lockers and ask Anna to
hurry up since the journalists have already arrived, finally they leave the room. As soon as they are
outside, the two give each other a knowing look and shake their heads while Anna can finally take off
both the dress and the frozen smile she had worn.

She takes the coat out of the locker at the moment Ornella opens the door shouting: "The President!
It's already here!" The second sentence slowly dies in her throat, having noticed Anna's belly. The
latter realizes it and puts on the coat agitatedly, apologizing for the slowness. This time Ornella is the
one with the frozen smile, she adds that it's really true that beautiful women keep you waiting, and she
disappears. She can't hear Anna slam the locker door in a fit of rage, hissing a fuck you.
***
Corrado Barberini and Gustav Bertelli are in the hall of the psychiatry ward. With them are a dozen
journalists, all with tattoos of gemini. Gustav is holding a closed umbrella which has a golden handle
in the shape of a lion's head. At the back of the hall, Vanessa has joined Doctors Irani and Corini, both
from the aquarius. Sixteen chairs are arranged in the foyer, four rows of four. Journalists want to
photograph the president next to the writing Psychiatry, prominently displayed on the glass door of the
ward. Barberini accepts and performs a pose where he rotates his index finger to his temple, as if
joking about his own possible madness.

Ornella has joined Vanessa and wants to tell her what she just found out but her colleague has no time
for her, as Dr. Corini has asked her to check if there are enough chairs for everyone.
"We can't take weights, so they will have to suffice," Ornella utters with unusual cheerfulness.

Anna, who has reached the ward, is the only one who knows the reason for her colleague's enthusiasm
and she clenches her fists so hard that her thumbs are aching, as she had imprudently forgotten inside
her closed hands. Suddenly, screams are heard coming from the maternity ward. Corrado and Gustav,
closest to the door, stand on the landing to understand what is happening. Barberini glimpses officer
Panunzio who, seated inside the maternity corridor, tenderly cradles a wicker basket in front of him.
The President asks him who is shouting so loud. The officer's mouth is wide open as he notices that
Corrado Barberini, the President of the Central Territories, is addressing him. "P-President good
morning," Panunzio mutters obsequiously,
"It's a trifle. He's a man, but nothing really, a little thing.'

“I don't understand anything he says. Gustav, do you understand that?” he asks his deputy.

Alderici appears next to Panunzio and drags along Clemente, a thirty-year-old Capricorn who has
handcuffs on his wrists.

"He's the father of an anomalous," Alderici explains, pointing to Clemente and forcing his voice to
exceed in decibels the screams of a woman who can be heard coming from the back of the ward,
"we've arrested him."

"Good, but who's still screaming?"

"That must be his wife," replies the inspector curtly.

Clemente turns to Corrado, the hands joined "President, please help me, save me!" but Barberini does
not deign to look at him.

"And you, aren't you going to arrest her?"

"We can't, the seventy-two hours of hospitalization are not yet over."

'But we have a press conference,' Gustav interrupts, 'with these shouts it's impossible!'

Alderici smiles seeing the eccentric handle of the vice president's umbrella and drags Clemente back
towards the exit, who’s trying to put his feet down.

“I think you'll have to wait for her to stop then. In the meantime, we'll eliminate half of the screaming,
maybe even a little more!" concludes the inspector referring to the fact that from Panunzio's basket the
baby can be heard with its cries. The two go down the flight of stairs while Corrado and Gustav,
angry, go back to the psychiatry ward.

"His name is Alderici, he's an inspector," Gustav says to his friend.

"Which of the two?" asks Barberini.

"The one who spoke an understandable language."

"I preferred the other."

***
The Ciompi, as Father Sebastiano calls them, are around the table, absorbed in studying the map of
Florence. Lorenza observes it satisfied.

"So there will be five of us?" Emiliano asks her.

"No, four. Me, you, Emanuele and Micaela" replies the woman.

"And Ciuto? We need him."

But Ciuto moves away from the table, shaking like a leaf. “No, I'm not going back to that place," he
whispers in terror.

Lorenza crosses the pleading gaze of her daughter Ada, while Emiliano insists: "Ciuto, I understand
that you are afraid, but yet we desperately need you."

Ada comes forward, courageous: "If Ciuto has to go, then I will be also part of the mission!"

Micaela approaches the boy, kneels beside him, whispers something in his ear and finally embraces
him affectionately. Ada wants to join at all costs but Lorenza dismisses her with a few simple words: a
little girl would be of no help.
***
In the hospital, the mom Capricorn still cries, so much so that Corrado is forced to close the door on
the psychiatry ward ahead of schedule. Finally he approaches the two doctors and three nurses who
are standing in front of the rows of chairs. The journalists sit down and Gustav does the same, in the
front row. Slightly to the side, standing by the window, was Lanza, who doesn't like mixing with his
colleagues.

Corrado smiles at the reporters. "Let's say we have already done the symbolic act of closing the door."
Reporters chuckle, someone films the scene with SmartPhones. One of them takes a battery out of his
cartridge belt and replaces it in his phone with habitual gestures.

The Astrologer, a sixty-five year old of the sign of Leo, enters through the emergency exit at the end
of the corridor, taking care not to get noticed. Curly white hair peeks out from under the
wide-brimmed hat. He shakes off the snow, crosses the room and sits next to Gustav, who gives him a
light pat on the shoulder.

Corrado smiles at him and, after clearing his throat, resumes speaking. “As above, so below. This is a
special day for the Zodiac Society. Today we close the psychiatry ward, and this is a victory for all of
us. I am not referring only to us present, the politicians, medical personnel and journalists, but to all of
us, inhabitants of the Central Territories: we, the Zodiac Society!"

Applause interrupts the speech for a few moments.

“Me, I'm not ashamed to say also myself I was a patient in this ward a few years ago,” says the
president with a wink at his deputy. “But we inhabitants of the Zodiac Society have chosen to follow
our nature, and as a consequence mental disorders have almost disappeared. The last family massacre
dates back to two years ago and, in the last year, Psychiatry has had only five patients. It is our duty to
invest resources in other wards. Maybe in the maternity one which, fortunately, seems to have many
patients coming!"

Corrado ends the speech pointing to the bellies of Ornella and Vanessa and getting a laugh from the
journalists. Finally he gives a fleeting loving glance to Anna, who pretends not to notice it. Corrado
continues to joke with the journalists: they have told him that there is a toast but it will be better to
hide the bottle from the present pregnant women!

The Astrologer has already slipped away, leaving where he came from. The President uncorks the
bottle and Vanessa wants to take a celebratory selfie: with the mouse in one hand and the SmartPhone
in the other, she manages to fit her colleagues Anna and Ornella, doctors Irani and Corini and the
President Barberini into the photo, while in the background journalists have started leaving their
chairs.

Anna takes advantage of the general buzz to whisper something in Corrado's ear. He takes a few
moments to decipher what the girl said to him, almost with her mouth shut so as not to be noticed.
"We have to anticipate, I’ve been unvelied." Corrado freezes, swallows, finally turns to look for her
but she has already started tidying up the hall, piling up the chairs next to the wall.
***
Gianni Lanza is smoking a cigarette near the hospital fire escape. He watches the Astrologer coming
down the steps, clinging to the handrail, being careful not to slip.

The journalist rubs his hands and greets him with a half smile.
"I thought I was wrong, but instead what I glimpsed upstairs is the founding father of the Zodiac
Society, in the flesh!" he observes between amused and obsequious.

The latter hoped to sneak away, but he had underestimated the old sharks of journalism. However, he
embraces Lanza with pleasure. "Actually, I was hoping to quietly go home and hunker down in the
armchair!"

"Who knows how worn and uncomfortable the armchairs in Palazzo Vecchio will be, dear Duccio"
jokes Lanza. “Come visit me in my studio and I'll let you try mine. Maybe I can even extort an
interview from you!"

"Another one? But haven't we just had one?”

"Yes, just had one: fifteen years ago."

"Fifteen? It's true that time flies when you're having fun!"

"So can we do it next week?" the reporter asks in a mischievous tone with a wink.

"Holy smoke, I can't next week."

"Maybe in a month?"

The Astrologer suddenly seems to really balance the proposal, becomes serious and looks Lanza
straight in the eyes. Then surprisingly he replies: "And why not tonight?"

Lanza smiles, believing in a joke. Then he realizes that maybe it's not a joke, it could be one of his big
scoops. Which then go hand in hand with his proverbial luck. "Seriously?"

"Sure", says the Astrologer, walking away, "provided that you leave me the armchair!"

"Surely I will: I’ve got two!" Lanza yells after him, in excitement.

***
At Palazzo Medici Ricciardi government meetings are held in the office of the President of the Central
Territories, which is equivalent to saying Corrado Barberini, since no other man has ever been in
charge before him. Bizio, who sits at the large oval table together with the other members of the
government, remembers it well. He remembers when many years before, in that same room, he saw
Barberini for the first time; and he didn't like it right away.

It was very hot, there must have been a hundred people in there, mostly children but also many elderly
people. No one had a tattoo at the time, except perhaps the Astrologer and the secretary. Thinking
about her as she was back then, he almost gets an hard on: he had tried then to look around the room
to avoid focusing on that cleavage. She had remained standing all the time, next to the door that now
opens onto Bizio's current studio, which is where the talks were held. From time to time she would
call a name: the summoned would get up and enter the little door, make his inteview and come out
from who knows where.

Bizio, in letting his gaze wander away from that beauty, among all of them had chosen to focus on
that man pressed against the wall, who tried to be elegant by appearing extremely ridiculous: white
shirt with yellowish collar, pinstripe suit cheap fabric with too long sleeves and too wide trousers and,
finally, black patent shoes scratched everywhere. He had probably started to hate him at that moment,
and he didn't know yet that he was going to steal from him his job! And anyway for him, and for all
the others who now sat at the table, had gone well anyway.

Perhaps it went worse to the secretary: for the last fifteen years she had done nothing but type up the
minutes of government meetings. Even today she was there ticking: she seemed a distant relative of
that splendid woman she once was, perhaps also because Bizio had been in there too many times by
now. “Too bad she does not have a daughter” thought Bizio, laughing to himself.

Even Corrado often thinks about that day and how it turned his life upside down. He was turning
thirty-two, but that wasn't a happy birthday for him, far from it actually. When the secretary called his
name, she had to repeat it three times, he was so lost in his own world. He then remembers sitting in
front of the Astrologer and noticing that strange tattoo with the Leo sign, veiled by those gray locks. A
very old man was leaving from the door across the room, struggling to shut the door behind him. In
the meantime, the Astrologer had found the file relating to Corrado Barberini in the pile of folders in
front of him.

"At last! I was curious to make your acquaintance! May I speak openly?"

Corrado did agree while Duccio Bertelli stood up to shake hands. “Do you know the reason for this
convocation?”

This time Corrado shook his head.

"There is one thing uniting you and the others who are in the next room. Some idea?"

Corrado shook his head again "Not really."

"You know who I am?" Corrado remembers he chuckled and the Astrologer smiled back "Do I take
that as a yes?"

“Let's just say I haven't been locked in a cave for the last two years.”

"Me, instead, I ‘m very much looking forward to end up in a cave and, in short, I'm looking for
someone to put in my place. Because to start a new Society, you need to make some room for the new
that comes forth!" He had clapped for a moment, excited with his last words. "Going back to the
beginning of the discussion", the Astrologer had resumed, "who are those over there and what do they
have in common with you? The answer is the date of birth: you were all born on August 8th. All born
under the sign of command and on the day of command.” The Astrologer had taken a break, to make
sure his interlocutor was following him.
"Your curriculum vitae is the one that seemed to me the most interesting to me: I like it. You have
studied as a political scientist with excellent results. Now, you probably won't be Machiavelli, but who
knows. Furthermore, you are not over sixty but you are over the age of majority, adoes that seem like
nothing? I don't know if you noticed the ninety-year-old who I just had to interview.” The Astrologer
had made another, longer pause, had become serious and reflective, finally adopting a sympathetic
tone: "For our dream of justice we have asked for many sacrifices, I am aware of that."

The future president had bitten a lip and lowered the head.
"However, I don't exclude", Duccio had resumed, "that a good leader could find different solutions
over time. A good president of the Zodiac Society!”

The President rubs his temples, his eyes closed; the voice of Bizio has the same effect as migraine.

"We have been talking about the depletion of resources in the Adriatic for five years but it seems like
a lie to me instead, we never run out of them!"

"It is also true" intervenes the Minister of Economic Affairs Montanini "that we have greatly limited
its use."

"It's due to the of the neighbors across the Adriatic who cheat us on everything," explains the Minister
of Defence, Lucchese. "We are now left with crumbs and, from the Falconara refinery, the fuel oil
arriving at the Livorno thermoelectric plant is exactly half as much as in 2030."

"If we don't open the trade corridors, if we don't open the borders, dear colleagues", Corrado says in a
low voice, hoping to keep the headaches at bay, "in the next five years we will have neither
SmartPhones nor electric lighting."

"Nonsense!" exclaims Bizio not letting him finish.

"It's nonsense not to notice that these borders won't hold up any longer," the President says again.
“How many migrants have we intercepted since the beginning of the year?”

"Over fifty," the deputy President promptly replies.

"Thanks Gustav. And we are only at the end of February. Probably most of them still managed to enter
the territories without us realizing it and they will have settled in some Umbrian countryside, who
knows."

"So let's step up the checks!" shouts Bizio, banging his fist.

"We can put all the checks we want but those, some other ways, they will always find them.". Corrado
stands up, to better reach all the Leo present. “We've decommissioned the coal and lignite mines and
in the meantime we're pushing back crossborders, who would be happy to work there. Isn't that
nonsense?"

Bizio also stands up, while Corrado, who has no desire to prolong the duel, sits down again.
Surprisingly, he doesn't scream, on the contrary, now he uses a calm tone showing a sardonic
expression. "President, you are too young to remember the crisis of the ‘20s. Reopen the borders and
you will see that your memory will be refreshed in a few months."

The older ministers agree with Bizio with their overlapping voices: there are those who say that it is
better to be without light than to go hungry again, those who remember the unemployment and the
vagabonds of those terrible years, together with crime, and etc. The younger ones support Corrado,
saying that he is not even an option to go back to the Stone Age, but the latter is no longer listening to
them, because Gustav is whispering in his ear not to worry, that he will leave soon anyway.

"Sure", Corrado replies with a hiss, "but it would be easier with open borders.".

'Come on time tonight and everything will be fine,' says Gustav, shaking Corrado’s hand under the
table.
***
The police station's office is illuminated by the small bulb that hangs from the ceiling. Ornella and
Alderici sit facing each other. The inspector rolls a cigarette, lifts it to his mouth, notices the nurse's
belly, and abandons the idea. "As far as I know, there are women with small bellies, even five months
ones," he says, tapping his cigarette on the top of his desk.

“Sure,” the nurse replies, “but why not share the good news, then? And where would this cancer
companion be? Neither Vanessa nor I have ever seen him.”

Alderici reflects on the nurse's words, puts the cigarette in his mouth again but stops the gesture
midway and finally puts the cigarette back in the desk drawer.

Ornella smiles slyly. “Not to mention, now that I think about it, when she runs to the bathroom to
throw up. It was my duty to warn you."

“I see… the allegations are serious. Cancer pregnant now, if it's really four months, what would it be?
An anomalous virgo? Or even a leo.”

Ornella lowers her gaze with feigned displeasure. She looks sideways at the inspector and seems to be
talking to herself, putting a hand on his heart "And there is also the jail, am I wrong?"

Alderici begins to hate that woman. He answers coldly:

“Right, for the parents.”

"If it ever becomes known who this father is!" the nurse exclaims, satisfied with the inspector's
answer.

Alderici, with a hard look, opens the drawer, takes out the cigarette and lights it with a match, blowing
a puff of smoke in Ornella's direction.

***
From the wharf Lorenza, Emiliano, Micaela, Emanuele and Ciuto descend into a small rowing boat.
Father Sebastiano, remaining on the jetty, helps the boy and blesses the Ciompi group. "The poor have
to straighten out the unjust world, Father Lorenzo Milani used to tell me when I was a boy."
Ada releases Caterina's hand, starting running off into the night.

The little girl runs up to Square Ciompi, enters the building that has always been her home and shuts
herself up in the archive room where she finally gives vent to tears.

She does not notice the Forger who, tweezers in hand, removes a microchip from a laptop he has
opened in front of him and places it on an aluminum foil. "I hope I don't spoil your tears with my
presence, but I was there first."

Ada dries her tears with the sleeve of her coat.

"With the last tattoo I ran out of chips and you never know if someone who did not find time to
reserve, would arrive at the clinic,” the man jokes.

“You talk like you really care, when it's all about the money.”

"And in fact I do care, I do care about the money," says the Forger, shutting the laptop and placing it
on the shelf, among the others.

Ada takes a deep sigh, the kind typical of children who have sincerely cried. She is drawn to the
printer across the room and tries to touch a few buttons. "Does it work?".

“When there's electricity, yes. So why is this pretty little girl crying?”
Ada seems not to have heard the question as she lifts the lid of the machine. "And what does it do?"

The Forger accepts the game imposed by Ada, and in turn pretends not to have heard. “Sometimes I
watch you, always here among the adults. And I wonder if it wouldn't be good for you to be with
someone of your own age. But then I think about it better, to your peers with their faces glued to their
SmartPhones." He pauses, then resumes:
"But you have imagination, and you know how to think for yourself. So I tell you: stay away from
your peers, well done Ada!"

"There may be one of my own age…"s he says shyly. "And now I'm afraid for him."

"Ah, here," exclaims the Forger, biting back the emerging smile. And he asks her point-blank: "Do
you know why your mother called him Ciuto?"

Ada looks at the Forger with interest, perhaps for the first time since they've known each other.

"What's the name of the square out front?" urges the man.

“Square Ciompi!” Ada exclaims.

"And the head of the Ciompi revolt was called Ciuto. He was the first revolutionary in the history of
Florence. About a thousand years ago, he was the leader of the poor workers and fought against the
overbearing rich people.

"And he won?"

“Not really, unfortunately. His mates let him down, but this will not happen to your beloved.

Ada blushes and smiles, she would like to retort something but she understands that maybe it's better
to keep quiet, feeling like a woman for the first time in her life.
***
Emanuele holds a 6 feet long rope, while at the other end Lorenza has previously tied Ciuto's wrists.
Micaela knocks several times at the Relegated Center and a guard, holding an oil lamp, opens the
door.

The soldier looks at the bizarre group and Micaela is the first to speak. "We found this young lad, he
says he escaped from the center."

“We said, 'Maybe there's a reward.' So we brought him back to you," continues Emanuele.

The guard brings the lamp to Ciuto's face and widens his eyes.
"This great son of a bitch, he is really that son of a bitch!" he keeps saying to while studying the boy.

Emiliano takes advantage of the moment to come out from the darkness and grab the guard, pointing a
knife at his throat. "One more sound, I'll cut your throat, I swear I'll kill you," he whispers in his ear.

Lorenza, rifle on her shoulder, joins them while Emanuele and Micaela are busy untying the laces on
Ciuto's wrists and are already dragging him inwards, asking him to lead them to their son.

Lorenza can't scream and, nervously asks Emiliano "Where do you think you're going? There are
other guards inside, I've told you that a hundred times!"

Emiliano drops the knife to the ground, snatches the weapon from Lorenza's hand and hits the guard
on the head with the butt of his rifle. The guard falls to the ground, unconscious, and the rebel rushes
inside the Relegated Center. Lorenza follows the scene, picks up the knife and remains at the door,
undecided about what to do.

The trio runs through the corridors of the Castle of Montalbano and Ciuto finally indicates where he
thinks the nursery is. The taurus couple opens the wooden door and four shots are fired from inside
the room which is lit with a few candles.

Emanuele, hit on the forehead, dies instantly. Micaela, shot in the chest, falls to her knees. In front of
her is a mat the size of the entire room, with about twenty newborn babies laying down, Capricorn or
Aquarius tattoos standing out on their tiny foreheads. Micaela struggles to breathe, tries to locate her
son among those newborns and finally sees him. He has very black hair and an aquarius tattoo. The
mother smiles at him and holds back a tear, before collapsing to the ground.

The two hooded volunteers move towards the door where Ciuto has remained petrified. Emiliano has
heard the shots and runs down the corridor in the direction of the boy, when the chief of the volunteers
emerges from the dark wall and, with his good arm, plunges a knife into Emiliano’s right thigh. He
screams and falls, crying in pain, while Ciuto moves back in terror, whispering like a mantra:
"I don't want to go back to that cell, no, not to that cell..."

Lorenza understands it is better to run away. While fleeing, she does not notice that hidden behind a
bush, with two rifles over his shoulders, the same man who had saved Ciuto a few weeks earlier is
watching her.

The man sets off at a fast pace towards the woods and reaches his hut. Sitting on a stool, in front of
the plank where he had treated the escaped boy, he fishes a battery out of a half-rotten cardboard box
and inserts it into his laptop. He uses the keys to scroll through items on the screen; he ges to open the
“Lessons” folder and the subfolder named “2022-2023” from where launches the video file called "IV
Lesson".

Continuously moving the cursor forward on the playback bar. He is in the center of the fixed framing,
facing the teacher's desk. He's wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a tattoo of Darwin's fish
prominently displayed, and a small microphone pinned to his collar. He helps himself with the laser
pointer to best describe the photos he projects on the wall. He aims the laser at the hand of a newborn
with a particularly elongated thumb, or rather a SmartPhone thumb, as he explains to his students.

A buzz rises in the university hall, but the Professor doesn't pay attention to it and points to the photo
of a second newborn. “Old geneticists will disagree.” he says silencing the buzz thanks to his
scientific evidences. “But here's a dorsal hyperkyphosis, and you can guess the cause. We will leave
the upright position, and that will happen very soon.”

In the shed, the Professor continues to scroll the video forward, he well remembers the image of the
lemur shown in the video, where he explained to the class how that animal had developed very long
fingers to be able to catch insects hidden in the trunks of madagascan trees.

There's a guy later in the video who stands up, yelling that this is antiscientific, that DNA doesn't
change, but the Professor isn't interested in him and just keeps playing the cursor forward again.
Finally he finds the exact point of the recording, the one he was looking for.

A very young Lorenza, with long loose hair and no tattoos to mark her, is standing next to the
teacher's desk and speaking into a handheld microphone. “After only three or four generations?” asks
the girl staring at the tattoo of the Professor who, in a moment of slight embarrassment, rolls down his
sleeve to cover it.

"Not only do I think it possible," he answers gently taking the microphone back and placing it on the
desk, "I'm sure of it.
"Cutlery, for example" he says as Lorenza grabs the microphone again, looking as one who is already
thinking about what to say back, "the introduction of the use of cutlery in the 19th century took ten
generations to start modifying our mouth"

"Precisely!" Lorenza interrupts him.

"Preciselyy", smiles the Professor, "you, miss, how many hours a day do you use cutlery and how
many instead the SmartPhone?".

The Professor, sitting in his shed, studies the image of Lorenza biting her lip and forces a smile. He
closes the laptop, clasps his hands behind his neck, and looks at the photos of the anomalous on the
wall.

***
Tiziana is sweeping the now closed shop, while Antonio and Giannino pillow-fight on the double bed.
On his SmartPhone, placed on the counter next to the scissors, Virgo TV broadcasts a very excited
Gianni Lanza who rubs his hands and walks non-stop in his living room. Meanwhile, words scroll
across the device: Breaking news, rebels strike again! - The attack on the Relegated Center, the
number of victims still uncertain - Stay at home! “We've just received the images of the scoundrels
who attempted to attack the center. We currently know the identity of only one of the four.”

Tiziana reaches out to the small mouse and clicks on the wheel until Virgo TV is projected onto the
wall. On the wall she sees the photo of Emiliano, suffering, and of Ciuto, looking desperate.

“This really is the prisoner who escaped the center a few weeks ago. Gentlemen, he attacked the
center that provided him with food and lodging for all his life. If jailbreaking is punishable by the
death penalty, well I ask you: who deserves it more than him?"

Tiziana freezes in front of the projection with broom falling from her hands. Giannino calls her to
play, but she cannot hear any longer.
*****
Corrado has always lived in the same house. In the last fifteen years he has renewed the furniture, the
stove, the sofa and everything now tends to golden colors. He is very sorry to leave it. He puts two
sweaters into the open suitcase on the bed while Lanza's voice comes from the SmartPhone in the
living room. He has just finished talking about the attack at the Relegated Center and is announcing
that in a few minutes he will have the honor of having the Astrologer as a guest.

Corrado rushes into the room, curious to know what Duccio will have to say and projects the image
on the wall while there is a knock on the door. He lowers the volume of the phone using the mouse
wheel and goes to open the door, thinking it's Gustav. "You didn't say that we were seeing each other
directly at the Forg…" but the President cannot finish the sentence.

Tiziana is there, facing him. The two stare at each other for a long time. He swallows, his eyes are
watery. She smiles and looks down. "Can I come in?"

3 - GEMINI
Gianni Lanza, before having assumed his screen name, and before having a tattoo with the gemini
sign on his forehead, used to be just a simple journalist. A correspondent; good one, nothing to say.
But the better one was Caterina, and he hated her. Not that she loved him, quite the contrary. She had
been missing for some years and he didn't miss her at all.

Perhaps one of the first collaborations together was that of secession. Lanza was at the Quirinale that
day and it was raining cats and dogs. It was sideways rain and the umbrella couldn't help much. His
cameraman had nearly caught pneumonia, or maybe he even caught it. Lanza had been the first to go
the air announcing the ratification of the treaty, and that was enough. The President of the Republic
had finally recognized the independence of the three macro-regions: north, center and south.

"After leaving the European Union last year, even Italy as we knew it for the last 164 years, it does no
longer exist". Here Lanza had jumped because of a thunder, but had put himself together and
continued. "The Italian territory can now be identified only with the city of Rome."

Caterina, elegant in her suit, had addressed him from the studios: "Gianni, technically it is not Italy
that has left Europe. It's Europe that's done.".

Lanza had become very embittered: as if the flood wasn't enough and he needed that bitch too! "Yes,
Caterina," he had said calmly, "we can hypothesize that these ten years will be remembered as the
decade of the popular referendums."
***
Where Caterina once sat, Gianni Gemini Lanza is sitting now. That place is different as he has added a
fireplace and made many other changes, but the study is the same one. The journalist arranges two
armchairs in front of the fireplace, jumps backwards, observes them and finally he brings them closer
together by a few inches. His happy smile is distorted by the cries that come from outside, so much so
that he is forced to go to see what is going on.

Among neon lights, floor lamps and green screens, in the recording room a scorpio fifty-five-year-old,
who poses as a great director, is shouting at a young actor and at the virgo make-up artist. The actor is
wearing a policeman's uniform and the make-up artist, with a sponge in her hand, tries to remove the
aries tattoo that she has mistakenly applied to the young man's forehead. Under the fake tattoo appears
the boy's real tattoo, that of the libra.

"And yet, you big dickheads, it doesn't seem to me that aries and aquarius are words that are similar!
Do they sound the same? Now I'm going to the other room, you shout aquarius and I'll tell you if I
understand aries!"

Lanza followed the scene and approached behind the director without making any noise. He speaks in
a soothing voice, carefully choosing the right terms. "Big dickheads… I like it. So, you big dickheads,
get out of the studios, all of you, now. It's just not allowed to howl like animals tonight."

The director turns around, Lanza's words have transformed him into a little lamb. "Mr. Gemini
Lanza... we must register the tv show for Aquarius TV, we have undelayable deadlines."

"Halt. Deadlines expire when I decide it. And tonight, they don't. Take it as a few hours of unexpected
vacation. Now, get lost! ". The journalist points to the door and the director understands that it will be
better not to answer back if he wants to continue working in the most important television studios of
the country.

***
Tiziana is seated in a chair upholstered in gilt brocade. She looks around the room, visibly
uncomfortable. She didn't remember it that way. Corrado is nervous and he looks awkward, takes two
small glasses and pours some yellow liqueur which at the moment he doesn't even remember if it’d be
some lemon spirit or else. Did she like these kind of liqueurs? He thought so much about some aspects
of her, that the less important ones he completely removed. Or at least the ones he deemed
unimportant.

On the wall, bowing and scraping, Lanza is welcoming the Astrologer into his study and the latter
takes a seat in the armchair on the left in front of the fireplace. The logo of the projection shows the
twelve signs and the on-screen text goes about the attack on the Castle of Montalbano. Corrado downs
half a glass as if it was water, while Tiziana takes a small sip and squints, before starting to speak: "I
apologize to turn up at your house without having forewarned, after so long."
***
Lanza has poured excellent whiskey into the two glasses, so much so that the Astrologer wonders
where he found it; but maybe it's better to avoid indiscreet questions while going live. Lanza cheers
with the Astrologer's glass, brings his own to his mouth, wets his lips and closes his eyes, savouring
the magical moment. “For the younger ones who are watching us. Well, who is the Astrologer? He is a
genius, our founding father.”

The Astrologer pretends to get up from his chair: "Easy with the praise, or I will leave immediately!".
The two smile and savour a new sip.

"Okay, I'll start over. Known as the Astrologer, born Duccio Bertelli. Unfortunately, in 2018, alas, he
experiences the worst mourning for a human being. His sixteen-year-old son dies, suddenly.”

"Right, heroin overdose," says the Astrologer, downing another sip, this time with less lightness.

"Duccio Bertelli begins to look for meaning, he raises his head to the sky and instead of some god, he
finds the stars."

“I discovered that the premature death, well, that kind of death, was already in my son's astrological
chart. Nothing happens unless revealed, potentially, from birth. Religion based its power on the fear of
death, science on that of disease. Astrology, on the other hand, no fear: what must happen simply
happens."

"Alright. The Astrologer begins to study. A little older to do it, the boys who follow us will say; guys,
I know many of you prefer to use SmartPhones to play games rather than study. Instead, by studying
the solar revolutions and the primary directions, the Astrologer manages to foresee the crisis and the
bloody revolts of '24 which took place in half of Europe. The “used-to-be Italy” managed to prevent
the massacre, thanks to the Astrologer’s predictions. Sure, there were some demonstrations anyway..."
Lanza turns his gaze to the wall showing images of protesters throwing stones some banks ‘windows
before being chased and beaten by police officers.
“Well, I wouldn't say thanks to me. I noticed that from the end of 2023 Pluto would have transited
Aquarius, just as it had already happened during the French Revolution. Then in 2008, at the time of
the first crisis to be clear, Pluto transited through Capricorn, as it did happen also before revolution in
France, when the nobility began to refuse to accept the increasingly pressing requests of the third
estate. And astrology is an exact science, no doubt about that.” The Astrologer caresses the Leo tattoo
hidden behind his thick curly hair, seeking confirmation of his statements, and reminding himself –
and the viewers – of his belonging to the top.

"What many considered a booklet in 2019, became a best seller in 2024. With an unforgivable delay,
in my opinion.".

"As a matter of fact", replies the Astrologer, "my book did not meet with much success when it came
out; I was a psychologist, not very much known, who had jumped into astrology, like I was Jung.
Then in 2024, fortune or misfortune I don’t know, my predictions turned out to be correct. To tell the
truth, many predicted the crisis around those years. "

"Sure, they did", Lanza replies, "but after living through the pandemic and the war, such a prediction
was also obvious! Not in 2019, then back it certainly wasn't that obvious; and in any case you have
been criticized, if I remember correctly, for not having predicted the pandemic” concludes Lanza.

"True. Because it was a pandemic, right?” the Astrologer replies ironically, causing the coarse laugh
of his interviewer who drinks from the glass and composes himself.

Satisfied with the direction the interview is taking, the reporter smiles and strokes his goatee. "Thus,
we arrive at the two referendums of 1925, when the social, economic and political theories illustrated
by the Astrologer begin to find consensus on the internet. And the brand new Central Territories
choose to be ruled by the Zodiac Society.". Lanza turns back to the wall, which this time shows
groups of kids collecting signatures in the squares. They wear shirts that read “As above, so below”.
***
"You know better than me, referendums are voted with the belly. Not with the head and even less with
the heart. Some friends voted yes," says Tiziana calmly.

"I voted yes," Corrado adds.

"Well, it went more than well for you, I'd say," the woman objects.

"Do you remember Tiziana, we talked about the redistribution of wealth, of tasks, nothing seemed like
it could go wrong. Really nothing."

"Apart from the segregation between signs and its consequences, nothing."

“I've dreamed of you so much. I had gotten to the point of dreaming of you, saying you were an
illusion but you answered me no; we fell asleep together, I woke up and you weren't there. So I cursed
myself to be such an idiot but you came back into the room saying “you see, it is real and not a
dream?”. Except then, in the end, I really woke up." Corrado is incredulous of having told that
episode, he has always kept it to himself. But maybe it makes sense that the only one he told is the
one who that episode inspired him.
Tiziana takes a sip, this time she doesn't squint. She is sad, maybe to go seeing him wasn't a good idea
at all. But it is what she has to do.
“Fifteen years ago, it was funny to find out that all of a sudden, who had some money and a little
power, was always born under the sign of leo.”.

Corrado listens to her as he looks at the snow falling outside the window. That delightful voice! There
was never a moment when it got on his nerves, not even when they were arguing, who knows more
about what, after all. "I was leaning against this window when I saw you slipping out of my life."

Tiziana shows a bitter smile before losing up "The furniture has changed, but the smell is the same."

Corrado looks at her with irony, ready to dust off an old game resurfaced from the attic: "Still stinks?"

The two smile, and for the first time they manage to hold each other's gaze.

***
The Astrologer strokes his hair back, to best show the leo tattoo. “For centuries men had drifted away
from their own true substance. In my small way I showed how it was possible to get back to knowing
one's nature and behave in a congruous way. There was a short nursery rhyme that my mentor used to
say: those born short they can't play basketball, those born taurus brilliant men you wouldn’t call.
Maybe it wasn't exactly like that. But if we accept this rule, we open the doors to happiness.".
***
“You know, there was the head physician following me, this Dr. Irani. Which then, by coincidence, I
saw again today.".

"The president is treated directly by the head physician, how lucky! " reply ironically Tiziana.

"Look, when one is depressed, whether he is president or the village idiot makes little difference.
However he told me that sometimes we miss some moments when in reality we were not happy at all,
we simply miss our youth, our old habits, rather than the person which used to be with us." Corrado
pauses and looks out the window again: "But I was still missing you."

Tiziana stands up. "Corrado, I'm sorry to be back, I didn't want to reopen old wounds. But it was
necessary, it really is a matter of life and death, and it is about our son."

Corrado hints at an idiotic smile, which fades when he meets Tiziana's stern gaze.

“He was one of the first anomalous. We had already broken up. Better said, we had to break up. He
was born of Aquarius, the wrong sign. And now he is the kid on the news"
***
Lanza turns back to the wall, this time the video shows him sitting at the desk in his studio, a couple
of years earlier. Three men of the taurus, with their faces covered by handkerchiefs tied like far west
bandits, break in and, in an instant, tie up the journalist and stuff a balled-up rag into his mouth.

The journalist cries while the biggest of the three carries him on his shoulder, but is immediately
forced to stop at the door: the famous Twins have appeared at the door, they are enormous and the
taurus man doesn't even have time to turn towards the buddies as he gets a kick that breaks his tibia.
Lanza falls to the ground, but other zodiac volunteers arrive to untie him.

Lanza sighs, shakes his head and turns back to the Astrologer who gives him an encouraging pat.
Then the showman resumes:
"Just a few minutes ago we broke the news of the Relegated Center. I want also to remind the
audience how your brother Luigi was killed by the rebels. "

"We still don't know if those of today were rebels or not. Who knows if this escaped did it all by
himself, with the help of some hotheads”.

"Don't you think there are groups of rebels who want to attack the Society? Do you think they've all
been wiped out?"

"What I believe, dear Lanza, is that if everyone in the world accepted their condition, without
careerism, then there would be no more rebels nor any center dedicated to anomalous. What is certain
is that until the capricorn still wants to become a leo, the problem will never be eradicated.

"So is a world without Relegate Center possible?"

“The Industrial Revolution doomed mankind. The Zodiac Society tries to remedy this, giving
everyone the opportunity to follow their own inclinations. The goal is to close the Relegated Center,
just as it just happened for the psychiatry ward. Some are still reluctant to follow the rules, not
realizing that they were designed for them; and for their children. A taurus will marry a taurus and
give birth to taurus children. We patch up the injustices and psychic discomforts created by the
original sin of the industrial revolution, when once more we chose to leave heaven and screw up our
lives. We also avoid creating chaos, as it happens in the northern territories, where the economy is
strong, right. but there is also a very high percentage of suicides. Another novelty given, precisely, by
the industrial revolution.

"Well, so by heart I remember the cases of Cleopatra and Petronius, to name a few."

“I don't seem to remember they killed themselves for depression. Depression, unhappiness, and the
resulting decision to put end to one's life are caused by the unbridgeable distance between the dream
and the possibility of realizing it. We have eliminated the distance, assigning to each one the task that
he is absolutely able to carry out based on his sign. "
***
"I wanted to save you further pain, so I didn't tell you anything." Tiziana lowers her gaze, almost
ashamed of what she said.

“But how can you be sure? You only saw him when he was born?"

"What can I say? A mother feels it. It's true I saw him only when he was born. And then again today,
but I felt it…it was him! I dreamed of you too, you know. He has the same eyes I've dreamed of for
years."

Corrado is upset, he walks around the room, shaking his head constantly. "If you'd told me then, who
knows, we could have escaped," but he shuts up immediately. An immense distance has arisen
between them, due not only to the years but also to the course of life, which has inevitably taken two
incompatible paths.

“It seemed impossible, and I still didn't know they would have torn my son away from me. I would
have told you otherwise.”

“I have no power over anomalous, or on death sentences. No power."

"I understand. All I ask is that you speak to Antonio, my husband.”

Tiziana approaches Corrado. She ignores he is confronting his worst nightmare, the one that recurred
most often, the one in which Tiziana was getting married to another. But extraordinarily, and this
really amazes him, it doesn't hurt as much as he thought. At all. He had been afraid for years, burying
his head in the sand, and in the end that's all?

Tiziana kneels and takes his hands in hers. She stares into his eyes. “Antonio has an idea. I don't know
if it can work. Only you can help him if there is even the slightest chance.”

Corrado glances at the bedroom, where the suitcase is open on the bed. Now he feels strong. He has
just faced his fear, the obsession of years. He has a beautiful girlfriend, younger than Tiziana, who
loves him and is waiting for him. And what's a child if you've never seen him, if you haven't raised
him? Is he really worth like a normal child? Also, it's not his fault if he didn't know anything about it:
she's the one who hid it from him, there's little to feel guilty about. And that's the law after all, there's
nothing he can do about it. Dura lex sed lex.

Corrado clears his throat and goes to the door: "Many things have changed, I'm sorry. And I can't.
Really, I can't."

Tiziana's eyes widen in disbelief. She thought she was going to meet another person, different from
the one she had loved. Instead, she had met the same man as he used to be. Except for the change of
those last moments. Perhaps he had waited to see her again for a change in worse. Tiziana stands up
with difficulty and goes through the door without turning further glances at Corrado, only a murmured
greeting, while tears rise again to come out into the open.
***
"One last question before we say goodbye. If it were me, I'd keep you here for hours, but our viewers
get up early tomorrow.' Then with a sly smile he asks him point-blank "When will Gustav Bertelli be
president?"

The Astrologer smiles, perhaps with slight embarrassment. “My son is a very good politician, it is
true.”

"And, sorry to interrupt, it is fair to remind our audience that he was born on August 8th. A chosen
one!”

"President Barberini has been doing an excellent job for fifteen years. And Gustav still has a lot to
learn. Really a lot." The Astrologer gets up and Lanza does the same. The last question seems to have
frozen over and the journalist is sorry. Its as above so below final, tonight does not have the hoped
verve.
***
Anna drags the big suitcase with difficulty along the snowy road in front of her house. She tries not to
make any noise, and the snow helps her a bit in this. Finally, she reaches the carriage waiting for her
at the end of the street. The man sitting on the box, numb from the cold, gets out and adjusts the
luggage in the vertical rack at the back of the car, before returning to settle down to take the wheel.
The hatch opens and Anna hastily climbs aboard. An arm protrudes from inside the carriage and, with
an umbrella with a handle in the shape of a lion's head, knocks twice on the outside of the carriage.
The door is closed while the coachman gently spurs the horse.
***
On the opposite side of the street, Alderici and Panunzio trudge towards Anna's house. They do not
notice the carriage due to the darkness, and also due to the fact that all their attention is currently
devoted to not slipping. They arrive in front of the house and knock several times without receiving an
answer. Finally, Panunzio simply turns the handle and the door opens. Alderici pats him on the
shoulder in congratulations and the man can't hold back a smile.

Inside the house, the wardrobe has its doors wide open and contains only a nurse's coat, hanging on a
wooden hanger. Even the drawer of the table is practically empty, except for the presence of a spoon
and a knife. Alderici, who decides to search the bathroom, leaving the small bedroom to Panunzio,
finds a golden box with a finely worked lion in high relief. Inside the box is a razor blade. There isn't
much else in that room, so the inspector reaches the officer who is calling out to him. "I reckon that
nurse was right, chief!"

The officer found some old medical pamphlet related to pregnancy. The printed images show the
various moments of the foetus in the first trimester, highlighted the organs developing over the various
weeks.

Alderici notices a black and white photo used as a bookmark. It portrays a group of fourteen or
fifteen years old kids dressed up as scouts and all of them wear a bandana. Alderici puts the pamphlet
in his pocket, together with the picture.

Now one mile away, Anna bites her lip and slaps her forehead. "That photo." she says in an
imperceptible hiss, so much so that Gustav, who is sitting next to her, doesn't even hear her.
***
Ada is lying on the ground, turned sideways against the wall. The blanket she holds in her arms is the
one used by Ciuto. She cries softly and Lorenza approaches her and caresses the back of her neck. But
Ada is not in the mood for sweetness, much less with her mother and indeed she slaps erh while
turning around, perhaps accidentally, perhaps she just wanted to drive her away.

"Apologize to me, now!" Lorenza commands, just as if it wase an order.

"Me should apologize? And what about you? You should apologize to me! You promised me
that you would all return, that Ciuto would return safe and sound!"

Lorenza does not get involved in this aggressive tone of her daughter. In a firm voice she repeats: "Do
apologise, otherwise I won't give you any explanation."

Ada turns to look into her eyes. "What would you like to explain to me? You're a witch, you shouldn't
have taken him with you. I told you, everyone told you so! But you don't listen to anyone, because
you're the boss!" She saya the last few words with some kind of mockery in her voice. She turns back
to the wall Ada, sobbing more than before. Lorenza turns her back, the conversation is over for her.
For Ada no, not entirely, and she finally says it: "You've never cared about anyone. You never cared
about me.”

Lorenza this time seems impressed, but continues walking towards her pallet. She passes next to
Caterina who, awakened after the quarrel, reaches out to touch Lorenza to get her attention. "Isn't it
risky for us to stay here?"

"They won't talk."

"I've heard of these Gemelli, they torture people..."

"Caterina, sleep now."

Caterina swallows and says goodnight. Once, in another time, she used to be boss.

***
The Forger opens the door to let Corrado and Anna into the house. She's angry and doesn't hide it.
Although it is not the right timing for it. she complains to Corrado, annoyed. “You kept me waiting in
the cold for an hour. And as long as you keep saying I was at warm in the carriage, well my hands are
frozen!"

The Forger observes Anna and meets her gaze. The man of the virgo raises his index finger and opens
his mouth, as if to say something, but she doesn't seem to notice and he keeps silent, shaking his head,
finally closes the door and lets the guests into the living room on the upper floor.

“It's an honor to have the President himself. I would offer you some chocolates if they were still
around,” he jokes.

"Let's hurry, if it's possible," replies Corrado, not at all joking.

Anna observes the bookcase, where books and old videocassettes are arranged. On the table dominate
the television and video recorder, equally old, but well maintained.

"I suppose the tattoo is for the young lady," says the Forger, in another attempt to break the ice.

73

"I've never seen so many books," says Anna with a bizarre childish amazement.

"Nobody cares anymore. It's because the President fills our SmartPhones with things to read and they
keep scrolling!” still ironically the man says.
Corrado glosses over and clears his throat "For when?"

"Four hours. Six for doing it right. Ten thousand lire.”

“What if we do double the price and half the time?”

"It's not easy, I'm not promising anything, but I'll try. And you think no one will investigate the
President's girlfriend? You have to be careful these days!"

“We're leaving. South."

"But then why change?" he stops abruptly, realizing the obviousness of the answer "Ok, I've got it. We
mere mortals cannot travel, but the President is allowed to cross borders for a romantic getaway. Did I
get it?”

Corrado nods meditatively, but the Forger wouldn't swear that the President was listening.

Anna, enraptured by the books, seems not to be at all interested in the conversation that is being held
about her change of identity and her escape. She picks up The Wizard of Oz, looks at the cover and
leafs through it. "I remember this," Anna says in a kind of trance, while Corrado gently strokes her
tummy, “There was a lion. And a scarecrow!”

"And a tin man," adds the Forger, who realizes that Corrado is lost in his own thoughts and only the
girl is listening to him. “My father used to read it to me to put me to sleep. Then he stopped. He said
the whole story was a metaphor, in favor of colonization in Africa."

"Of the whites?" the woman asks naively.

“The blacks were already there. They didn't colonize themselves,” replies the Forger, with the tone of
one who is stating the obvious.

Corrado goes back to caressing Anna's belly, his gaze low. He seems to speak more to himself than to
her. "I have no memory of my father. At all. I'm sorry my love, I can't do it. Not yet," he finally says,
raising his head and meeting Anna's eyes. "I can't leave."

"But this is a big risk, you know!" Anna exclaims incredulously.

The President takes one hundred two hundred lire banknotes from the inside pocket of his coat and
hands them to the Forger asking him in the meantime to prepare everything needed. And not to
mention that meeting to anyone.

*****
Corrado and Anna walk up to the carriage that awaits them. Gustav, wrapped in a thick fur coat, opens
the door from the inside. He would like to congratulate the Forger's speed, but observing Anna's tattoo
and her tense face, he understands that nothing has been done yet.

"At the moment we have had to postpone the departure. I'll explain to you later," says Corrado hastily.
"You'd better explain to me too." Anna says with a grim look. Corrado reaches out her hand to give
her a caress, but she pushes him back, on the verge of a crisis.

“Gustav, can you hide her safely? It's a short time."

"Me? If I can hide her?"

Anna snorts, then intervenes dryly "Safely it would have been to leave!"

"Can you, Gustav?" Corrado pursues, without paying heed to complaints of the woman.

"Yes sure. Palazzo Vecchio is big enough for everyone. She will stay on my floor. My father never
visits it.”

Corrado thanks his friend as he helps Anna up. She says she can do it on her own, she doesn't need his
help. Corrado understands her anger, keeps silent and gets into the carriage, sitting down opposite the
two twenty-eight-year-olds and suddenly feeling old.

*****
Ciuto helps Emiliano by taking him by the arm and placing him on the cot, where the latter can
finally lay down. Although the cell is dark, the boy realizes they are not alone.

"Didn't you walk with the sun at your back, like I told you? Or was it the priests who brought you here
to the Murate jail? Never trust those guys, my father always told me that.”

Ciuto takes two steps in the direction of the cot from which the voice came "Yuri? Is it you?"

“It's me, in the flesh. For now, at least. So, the priests?”

"No, the priest was good. I'm the one who went back there."

“We asked him.” admits Emiliano, in pain. "We wanted to free the anomalous, and Ciuto was the only
way in."

"Ciuto? Which would be you, I guess. Damn’it, I threw away my life to get you out of there. You, not
to those other grubs that were locked up with you. But it made sense as long as I thought you were out
there!"

Ciuto whines, he really didn't want to go back!

"But I am not angry with you" Yuri gets up and approaches Emiliano's cot, easy to find because that's
where the laments are coming from. “I'm pissed off with them. It's them, with their stupid and useless
revolutions. Damn that time they didn't catch and kill them all! Like Suricate, he too was one of
yours!"

"Never heard of him," Emiliano says, snorting pain. His leg hurts more and more and the prison
doctor gave it a rough stitch, asserting that there's no use wasting time on it, if they kill him anyway.

“His name wasn't Suricate, I gave him that name. He didn't even know what beast it was. But he was a
good guy, a young lad but sharp one. He wanted to help me cross the border. He had binoculars with
which he scanned the road ahead, every five minutes, or even less. He hid behind a bush and peered.
We knew we couldn't go by the river so we took the mountain. In Leonessa we were almost freezing,
but he told me that in a few hours I would be warm in Ciociaria, and so I kept walking. He had
already helped some other, he said. Not many, just a few, who usually take the opposite route, right?
But instead the fucking volunteers caught us: we were almost there. When he saw them he ran away,
but they shot him. I was with my face in the snow, there was someone who said they had to bring me
back alive to Florence. Then they took the piss out of me, they told me that the mountains are
beautiful, there's no point on denying that, but Florence can't be beaten. Damn’it! To me they were
telling? Me, that I am the most Florentine of all?"
***
Alderici and Panunzio have no one waiting for them in their respective homes, so it's not a problem if
they stay in the police station for a few more hours this evening to work on a case. Panunzio takes the
opportunity to type the report of the search of Anna's house.

Alderici, with mouse and telephone in hand, projects on the wall the film relating to the closure of the
psychiatry ward which occurred in the morning.

Ornella told him about Anna's presence during the President's speech which was broadcasted at
unified networks: according to the nurse, a keen eye would have been able to notice the belly.

Brogi, unlike his two colleagues, has a beautiful wife and two children waiting for him at home.
Entering the police station, he smiles at the idea that telling his wife that he was late for work will, for
once, be the truth. "There is nothing about Anna Capodimonte before 2037, when she starts working
ar the ward."

Alderici does not turn to listen to Brogi, being focus catching every word of President Barberini who
is mentioning the total absence of family massacres and the drastic decrease of patients in psychiatry
in the previous year, so much so that it would be sensed to close it and invest resources in the
maternity ward. Alderici sees the President indicate the bellies of Ornella and her colleague, finally he
notices the particular look that he reserves for Anna. He frowns, rewinds the images by turning the
mouse wheel and looks back at the President who says that we should focus on the maternity ward
and gives Anna that look, a more than particular look.

"By the way," continues Brogi inspired by the projected images, "a couple of weeks after her arrival,
President Barberini was admitted to psychiatry."

“A crossborder. Can it be possible?" Panunzio asks his colleague Brogi, who usually doesn't even
listen to him.

Alderici is making the President repeating the same things for the third time in a row, keepin’on
rewinding the movie.

"Unfortunately, chief," regrets Brogi, "I haven't been able to find more than this."

"You found instead dear Brogi, you really did!"

Brogi, with a proud face, takes his SmartPhone out of his pocket and begins to write a message
starting with "Ciao bella".

Panunzio goes back to typing, decidedly displeased with Brogi's success, against whom he seems to
have never won a single confrontation.

***
Life at the Relegated Center seems to have returned to normal, if there ever was a normality. The
anomalous take advantage of the weekly yard time and walk in the courtyard in an indian file, with
their bare feet in the snow. Many show strong mental and physical delays. Two warders are looking at
them, from time to time, insult them or kick them. The Professor observes the guards from a distance
through the telescope on the rifle. He does a tracking shot on the boys before lowering the weapon,
slinging it over his shoulder and heading into the woods.
4 - CANCER

Corrado wondered if he would have been able to mention his time in psychiatry so easily if Anna
hadn't been there. He didn't even know if he would be able to get out safely, without her by his side, in
order to be able eventually to tell reporters as he had done the day before. He did not think about it as
a bad experience, but as the time he had met the woman of his life. Or, maybe, the second woman of
his life.

He had just come out of a session with Irani, a conversation as the latter called it. He was in pieces, he
had probably cried. It almost always happened to him in those conversations. In his hospital gown he
had dragged himself along the corridor crossing some real cuckoo ones, but they seemed to be much
better off than him. He had gone through the bedroom door and found the nurse arranging the sheets
on the bed. He was so lost in his own obsessions that he hadn't become aware of Anna's presence until
he was three feet from the bed.

He'd told her then that he could wait outside if needed, but she'd said she was almost done. He had felt
compelled to reply that he could also make the bed himself, as if to explain to her, and even to
himself, that it wasn't in such bad shape.

“But if one can make the bed himself, then they can fire me. I'm just on trial." Anna had deliberately
emphasized the terms one and they. And it had unleashed a smile on Corrado's face. It's true that
unleashed is more suited to a laugh, but given the level of sadness from which the President started, it
could already be considered a miracle.

'That would be a big mistake,' he had replied, 'since you are the first who brings me a smile, here. And
this hospitalization, in the end, has the purpose of making me smile again. You are better than all the
doctors who have treated me in here.”

"If you'll call me Anna I promise I'll try to make you smile again!"

And Corrado had smiled again. Almost relaxed in the face.

***
Seeing her there in Palazzo Vecchio, by candlelight, it doesn't seem possible to Corrado that three
years had already passed since that meeting. The ones elapsed between the end of his relationship
with Tiziana and his hospitalization had seemed like a century to him. A dilated and endless time. The
last three years, instead? Those had flown!

“I'll have to stay here, locked in a cage. Like a criminal. When by now we could have already been on
the road to Naples" Anna complains sitting on the bed that Gustav has made for her before going to
sleep.

"There are worse cages than Palazzo Vecchio," Corrado tries to smile, sitting next to her and risking a
caress.

"Fuck you."

"I didn't mean that, it came out wrong. But please listen to me. I found out I have a son." Corrado
stares at the opposite wall and moves his gaze to the ceiling, which has wonderful frescoes.

Gustav has chosen a delightful and extremely discreet little study for Anna, it must be said. He
catches his breath as Anna looks at him inquiringly. “At the moment this boy is risking a lot. And I
have a duty to try to help him, please understand me.” He touches Anna's hair, who lets him do it this
time. “Then we leave, you and I.”
Anna looks at her belly and touches it, while processing Corrado's words. "It seems we have children
to spend our time protecting them, then" the girl thinks loud.

Corrado kisses her on the lips and touches her belly. “I will always protect him too. Or her. You
know." Corrado adds passion to the kiss, touching her knee and then her legs after lifting that little
floral dress that has always intrigued him. But Anna doesn't seem of the same opinion, she feels
uncomfortable, after all they're guests, sit does not seem right And then it will also be pregnancy, who
knows.

Corrado doesn't insist, he almost feels guilty. And here is a great part of the confidence conquered
only a few hours earlier slipping away. Better go home before losing it altogether.
***
It is dawning when Corrado knocks on Tiziana and Antonio's shop. Tiziana is amazed, she didn't
really hope for it. She makes Corrado sit in the customers' armchair while Antonio sits opposite him,
on an uncomfortable wooden chair. Giannino is prone on the bed and continuously scrolls his index
finger on the screen of the SmartPhone in front of him.

"Don't make me angry, use the mouse!" Antonio says to Giannino without taking his eyes off Corrado.
“Here he is in front of me” thinks the 55-year-old of the virgo: the cumbersome presence he has often
felt has now manifested itself in the flesh. He didn't know who he was, at least until the day before,
but he has always found it in Tiziana's silences. Better not think about it now, and pour some good
milk in the mug.

Even the President accepts a good cup of milk, with Tiziana who seems to be much colder towards
him than the previous evening. "And yet I accepted your proposal, didn't I?" he thinks. Or maybe he
should learn to step aside for once, and understand that in front of her husband and son she can't
afford to be too romantic with others.

Neither one nor the other really: a mother always thinks about her children. One is there at home, one
in jail. There isn't too much time for kindness right now. In fact, Tiziana wants her husband and her
boyfriend-from-a-previous-life to talk to each other, and quickly. Indeed, better to leave them alone
and take Giannino outside to play.

But Giannino doesn't want to and screams as soon as his mother takes the SmartPhone under his nose.

"Who wants to make a snowman?"

The child screams, his arms reaching for the device that the mother is already hiding in her pocket.

“Yes yes, today is perfect snowman weather. A beautiful snowman!” Tiziana takes a coat from the
coat hanger and makes Giannino put it on before he realizes it; finally she does the same trick with the
two gloves. She too covers herself up with an old heavy jacket, which Corrado is convinced he has
already seen, to the point of remembering its smell perfectly. They must have had a really different
life since their paths ended.

Tiziana opens the door while the child is still whimpering: "Enough now, Giannino, what will the
other children say when they see you like this rascal?"

Proud, the child calms down in an amen, and the two men are left alone in the hall.

Antonio drinks a sip of milk, snorts in annoyance and begins by asking Corrado if he remembers what
happened after the referendum.

"Which one?"
"That of the Society. It looked like nobody voted in favor.” Corrado has a skeptical expression, but
Antonio continues:
However, the results proved otherwise. Three-quarters of voters voted in favor."

"Seventy-eight percent," says Corrado smugly.

Antonio takes another sip of milk and nods, concentrated on how to explain the rest. "Seventyeight."
Antonio still needs a moment to collect his ideas and present his project, so he takes the opportunity to
empty his cup. He wipes his mouth with the collar of his sweater and is finally ready. "Two years later
there was the flood. And I see that at least this time you don't ask which one.'

Corrado smiles, every rapport between people hides a power relationship. With this last outing,
Antonio could find himself ahead. But again, he'd promised himself that he'd step aside for once. So
it's better to concentrate on the words of his interlocutor who keeps going.

“They hired me to migrate data from the Zodiac Society's central server to a new one. The central
computer was watered down, completely damaged by the rain. In short, on this server is a database of
election results for the last 150 years, maybe even more. And there was a folder called something like
Snowball, are you following me?”

Corrado nods and spreads his arms, not having the faintest idea of ​where Antonio is headed.

"And here comes the fun part. Or at least, my theory. The folder could not be copied or opened.
Unless you have a password. I've tried them all."

"And did you succeed?"

“Nope, zero. And I am convinced that there are results there, the real ones."

"The real results, of what?"

“Of the referendum, of course.”

Corrado throws his head back and rubs his neck as Tiziana and Giannino come in through the door,
their coats covered in snow.

"Sorry", she whispers guiltily, hoping he hasn't interrupted at the climax, "it's really too cold outside, I
wouldn't want Giannino to get sick."

"Besides, that folder was inside another folder relating to the referendums from 1974 to 2025. And all
the other files were accessible," continues Antonio, who observes the eyes of his interlocutor, to probe
how seriously his words were taken.

Giannino takes off his coat and throws it at Tiziana, takes advantage of his mother's busy hands to
take the SmartPhone out of her pocket and happily dives on the bed where he starts playing with the
device.

"It may seem silly," says Antonio who can't stand being considered silly at all, even more by the one
sitting in front of him at the moment. “However, why have such a secure file if the results have
already been made public?”

"Sure", Corrado replies, shaking his head, "but how many protected folders will there be on a server? I
imagine a lot, right? I'm not from the industry, but anyway".

'I forgot to add that the Secession referendum results file was in the referendum folder, but the Zodiac
Society’s results were not there.

"The referendum on the Zodiac Society was held for the Central Territories, while that on the
Secession was the last referendum for Italy, as a country. No wonder the Society's results are not
included among the results of the referendums held in Italy."

"The date the folder was created," Tiziana reminds Antonio.

"Yeah, the date. The folder was created two days after the Society referendum.”

Corrado raises his eyebrows, amazed for the first time by Antonio's words.

Tiziana looks at him for a moment with the eyes of the previous evening, and nods. "Two clues are a
coincidence…" the woman intervenes.

"…but three make a proof", concludes Corrado, smiling melancholy.

Tiziana can't help smiling sweetly at Corrado but she immediately bites her lip and turns abruptly in
Antonio's direction, trying in vain to give him the same smile.

Antonio swallows and brings the cup to his mouth, realizing the cup is empty . And if he can't stand
being considered silly, he also understood who won the power relationship.
***
Ornella and Vanessa, huddled in their coats, grope for the handle of the police station door. They had
been summoned before lunch, but had spent the morning in the hospital to collect their things and say
goodbye to all their colleagues: given the closure of the ward, they had decided to go on early
maternity leave and they would think about reintegration later.

The light bulb in the police station is on, so that Ornella, seeing Alderici, laughs to herself, imagining
that the poor soul has remained seated at his desk without moving since the last time they met.

He stands up on seeing them and points to the chairs he has prepared in front of the desk, where the
two nurses take their seats. The inspector sits down again and introduces himself to Vanessa, telling
her that he has already had the pleasure with her colleague. But hearing to the tone, it doesn't seem
that pleasure was so great. Alderici leafs through some documents while Vanessa, surprised that
Ornella knows the policeman, tries to settle down in the chair, unable to find a comfortable position.
Ornella, for her part, with a sigh of pleasure, takes off the right boot and start massaging the foot.

"I'm collecting some information about your colleague Anna Capodimonte."

Vanessa suddenly seems to relax, and then assumes an exaggeratedly worried expression: "Did
something happen to Anna?"

Alderici observes it, a glance is enough for him to understand that the two in front of him are
cookie-cutter. He sighs bored, then replies: "No, I collect information. Did she tell you about her
private life, did she tell you something about herself?"

The two exchange a knowing look and smile. Alderici is disgusted. "As I told you…" but Alderici
stops Ornella and says that he would like Vanessa to speak. Ornella shuts up, visibly annoyed.

Vanessa looks at her, as if asking for advice. "Anna? Well, no, not Anna. We know practically nothing
about her. I don't even know if she has family."

Ornella can't help herself: "Well she'll have it, since she's pregnant." Vanessa looks at her in surprise.
"Is she pregnant?"
Alderici decides to take over the conversation, in a staid tone. "Didn't she tell you a story about her
childhood, or about a possible boyfriend?"

"So many stories," replies Ornella, "but they were all excuses for avoid to meet up."

“We do like to meet,” Vanessa confirms. “To one or the other's house. We cook mushrooms, meat if
there is: everything!"

Alderici prepares a cigarette while listening to Ornella and Vanessa recite the excuses that Anna made
from time to time:

"I don’t know how to cook, I have to clean the house, I don't feel well, I'm allergic to mushrooms, I
didn't sleep well last night".

"But isn't 'I didn't sleep well last night' the same as 'I don't feel well'?" jokes Vanessa who begins to
have fun in that new role.

Alderici decides that the time has come to light up a cigarette. "I saw that President Barberini was also
in your ward."

Ornella forces a few coughs and with her hand she waves away the smoke that is reaching her face.

"Yes, it's true," replies Vanessa, now serious, "it's a relief we can finally speak about it. It had always
been a secret we were supposed to keep.”

"And that doesn't seem like your strong suit," says the inspector, sniffling. Ornella continues to cough,
so Alderici decides to put out the cigarette without damaging it, pulling the embers away with his
fingers.

"If I remember correctly," resumes Ornella who is no longer coughing, "Anna had just joined when
the President was there."

"I think she did maybe a month earlier," adds Vanessa.

"It's true, I remember too. And they entrusted her with the room of the President!"

"She wasn't very good..."

"And not much has changed," closes Ornella while Alderici goes back to lighting his cigarette.

"A few more details about Capodimonte's life, ladies?"

The two would love to be able to continue, but unfortunately they have no other information. Alderici
dismisses them and it takes Ornella a while to stand up, because she bought those boots when her feet
didn't use to swell up like that and putting them on isn't easy at all.

Once they have left Alderici goes to Panunzio's desk, the only officer still at work. "Go get Barberini
and bring him here."

Panunzio rolls his eyes and shouts without realizing it "The President?"

"What do you yell, just go!"

Panunzio is mortified by the nasty reply received, but what a task the inspector just assigned him! The
chief must think highly of him, no doubt.
The mission unfortunately fails. Panunzio knocks several times on the President's house. He waits ten
minutes every knock, despite the bitterly cold weather. From the dark windows he can't see anything
inside, the curtains must be closed. The fourth time he knocks vehemently, but nothing. He kicks the
snow out of anger and almost slips. Better to declare defeat and walk away, before freezing or
breaking a leg.
***
Antonio, behind the workbench, carefully folds four sheets of aluminum foil into a toolbox. Tiziana
leans on the counter and with a smile that makes him melt asks him if he has drawn on his priceless
aluminum reserves.

Antonio smiles as he places small screwdrivers and pliers in the same box. "It's possible the hard drive
demagnetized over the years, and to bring it back to life for a few hours, one can wrap it in aluminum
foil and put it in the snow."

Tiziana's voice is broken. “I feel terrible. You don't have to go if you do not feel like."

Giannino, not accustomed to seeing his mother moved, puts his arms around her leg in an embrace.

Antonio smiles, sweetly at his family this time, slips off the workbench and strokes his son's head. "Of
course I'm going. I wouldn't forgive myself for seeing you sad and for not having done anything to
avoid it."

"Yes, but if it were dangerous, if you were right..."

"If I would shrink from battle now, a coward. Nor does the spirit urge me on that way" Antonio
declaims, ending up making fun of himself with a funny face.

"I didn't understand anything," Tiziana smiles as tears begin to flow.

"Well, my grandfather used to tell me that. He couldn't read, but he knew classics by heart." In the
meantime the computer technician, turned SmartPhone repairman, has put on his coat and grabbed the
toolbox. He moves his lips to say “I love you” right before closing the door behind him.
***
Antonio and Corrado walk at a fast pace through the dark streets in order to hurry, warm up and avoid
making conversation. They cross the garden behind the museum and take the stairs leading down to
the boiler room.

Antonio lights up the chain locking the door. When they had hired him for the migration that door was
always open and one only had to cross the boiler room to get to the archive. It was a quicker way than
entering the main entrance, walking down the corridor, crossing the hall, taking a few steps and finally
entering the archive room. Unperturbed, he puts the toolbox on the ground, picks out a large pliers
with which in less than a minute he manages to break the chain.

Corrado finally pushes the heavy door opening it. Antonio looks at him sarcastically: "You were right
I really needed you. I was wrong to think you didn't trust me."
***
Lorenza, in the garden of the old Museum, is collecting sticks in a basket when, hearing a noise, she
looks out from the balustrade of the stairs leading to the boiler room and she sees the two man sliding
into the building. In a moment she throws the basket on the ground, hurriedly takes the smart phone
out of his pocket, opens the contact list and, among the recipients, chooses 12QW to send a message
to.

***
With the SmartPhone’s torch Antonio lights up the door at the end of the boiler room. Corrado just
needs to turn the handle to find himself inside the room where the body of Luigi Bertelli, known as
Snowball, was found thirteen years earlier.

Antonio heads towards the computer’s desk, where he is sure the old server was "It was here, it was
right here."

Corrado observes the printer, with the stand-by light on. "There's electricity," he says, turning on the
light with the switcher on the wall.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"I turn it off?"

"No, it’s ok," says Antonio, who has noticed some laptops perched on the bookshelf.

"I haven't seen a printer in I don't know how long," thinks out loud the President as he keeps walking
around the room.

Antonio starts moving the computers, he hopes to find somewhere at least the hard drive, maybe half
rotten, but still salvageable. At the time of the migration, most of the files hadn't drowned in the flood.
So he thinks, with the cables he took with him, it should not be difficult to connect the disk to one of
those laptops.

“Were those computers there?”

"Yes, they were there then too, but they weren't like this. Someone have cleaned them up, most of all.”

"They remind me being teen," sighs Corrado.

Antonio moves aside other laptops, on his tips trying get to the devices at the back of the shelf, and
suddenly he lights up. "But if I have a database..."

"I had."

"Yup. I mean I would take a backup, I would not risk the flood taking everything away from me. Or
the earthquake, whatever it is.”

Antonio tries to switch on the first laptop still untouched that comes to hand, but without success.
Behind the laptops, on the top shelf ,he finds old mouse, keyboards and electrical cables. He grabs one
of the cables and connect it to the laptop, plugging the other end into the wall socket. With his knees
on the floor, he turns the computer on. Corrado sticks to Antonio, his eyes fixed on a black screen that
shows C:\>
"It's empty," he whispers in disappointment.

The fifty year old virgo doesn't think the same way and after a few moments of bewilderment he types
Dir and presses the Enter key. The screen shows Directory of C: and below a list of only three items,
or rather one item, excluding the two configuration files Autoexec.bat and config.sys. The file in
question is called part12.arj. Antonio watches the screen with his mouth wide open, smiles and claps
his hands, as he did as a child when reading an exam he discovered a difficult question to which,
however, he knew the answer. But i a moment he clears his throat and gets serious again.

"It's been a while since I've seen an arj file."

"Which is?"
"When Fifa '95 came out, it was a wonderful soccer game," says Antonio, noting that the cable is long
enough for him to regain an upright position with much pleasure. "However, I think I spent more days
unpacking and installing than playing with it. Could you pass me the untouched laptops, the ones
which have not ben cleaned up, please?”

Corrado sets to work and finds six.

"I had these ten floppy disks," continues Antonio. “Some friends lent them to me. But once one
floppy, then another one, each disk ended up with some error. And I had to start over. I still remember
the joy when the installation was finally successful. But maybe you weren't even born."

Corrado creates a stack of laptops on the shelves, placing them carefully on top of each other. "I guess
I was a couple of years old, I was born in '93."

"And until I was able to install them," says Antonio focused on typing on the keyboard, "I typed a
hundred times a day, closed in my bedroom, the formula for unpacking these floppies again and again,
which if I'm not mistaken was arj x minus r minus va… in my head it sounded like a poem,” and
while talking Antonio has make Arj X -R -Va C:\ Part12.Arj C:\*.* appear on the screen, ending
clicking the enter key. The screen shows “extracting…”. "A forty-year-old program for partitioning
and packing." Antonio turns to Corrado. "They'll have something to hide, or not?"

Corrado stares at the screen, which shows Extracted 1 folder, 1,583 files.

Antonio checks the directory, which this time shows a new folder called Holy See Agreements
1929-2024. He closes the laptop’s lid and unplugs the cable which he then connects to one of the
laptops that Corrado has arranged. And turns it on. I ac-

"It's basically a program allowing to divide a server into equal parts, compress it and also keeps it
away from prying eyes."

The new laptop shows a file is called part16. arj. Again the computer technician writes the formula to
decompress and three folders appear: Political Elections 1861-2023, Referendum 1974-2025 and
Local Elections 1914-2025.

“Referendum folder. Found it!” exclaims Antonio unable holding back his enthusiasm. Immediately
afterwards, he types CD Referendum 1974-2025\snowball, mindful of the path where the inaccessible
folder was hidden, on the old server. A small window on the screen shows Password and three dots to
be filles. “And I think we found the password, too.” Antonio types Arj and hits enter. The screen
shows C:\Referendum1974-2025\snowball.

"Is that the right one?" Corrado asks in a mix of panic and excitement.

Antonio writes Dir and hits enter. "Yep, the right one."

The screen shows the file Final Results.Bat. Antonio types the same file name and opens it up.

A list of numbers appears under the heading Zodiac Society Referendum Results which Corrado
mutters aloud. "Umbria district thirty-six percent yes, sixty-two percent no, two percent null. Lazio
district forty-six yes and fifty-one no. Nonsense, you were right." Corrado puts a hand on Antonio's
shoulder and continues reading. "Marche forty-four yes and fifty-five no. Tuscany forty yes, Emilia
forty-eight yes. Total yes forty-three percent and no fifty-five.”

Antonio takes Corrado's hand off his shoulder, gets up with the laptop in his hand and goes to the
printer. He connects the laptop to the printer cable and press the print key.
***
Lorenza observes them from the outside, crouched behind the vasistas window positioned almost on
the ceiling of the archive room. Ada, behind her, is freezing and swipes her finger across the screen of
the SmartPhone, angry at her mother who forced her to wear a coat and leaves in a hurry.
***
Antonio smiles proudly looking at the sheets on the printer carriage. At the same time, the door that
connects the living room to the archive open wide and Big Twin breaks in together with three zodiac
volunteers.

The latters are hooded and aim their rifles at the President and his cronie. "Don't move, we are
allowed to shoot the rebels."

His mate adds satisfied: "And we do like doing it."

The two instinctively raise their hands, while another volunteer approaches the shelf of laptops, then
turns to Antonio with a suspicious look. "Cleaned them all huh?"

Antonio opens his mouth to reply but a dirty look from Corrado convinces him to desist.

***
Lorenza understands it's time to leave, and quickly. She turns to her daughter, grabs her hand and
starts running. Ada whines, Lorenza has dropped her phone, but she doesn't listen to her and the two
continue running across square Square Ciompi and getting lost in the streets of the city.
***
Father Sebastiano and Caterina are on their knees: hands tied behind the back, feeling cold on their
knees pressed against the snow in the courtyard. A fourth volunteer is keeping an eye on them, even if
he doesn't believe those two may really escape as they seem so harmless.

Antonio and Corrado are pushed to the ground next to the priest and the journalist. Finally Corrado
tries to react "I am Corrado Barberini, the President of the Zodiac Society! How dare you treat me like
this?” incredulous question of what he is undergoing.

Big Twin, bored by the chit-chat, plays with the slingshot to break through the glass windows of the
Museum. Once the facade of the building is finished, he begins to go around it so as to get all the
glasses as he wants to finish the game he has started. He also finds a SmartPhone on the ground,
sneakily slips it into his pocket. He might be able to sell it to some crossborders, who knows.

Antonio turns and recognizes Father Sebastiano, kneeling beside him. "I'm afraid that the Pope, this
time, will have to do without me," the priest jokes, winking halfheartedly.
***
This time it's Ricci and Spertini who work overtime. They escort Corrado, Antonio and Father
Sebastiano in the corridors of the prison. Caterina has been already deposited in the women's wing.
The prisoners next to whom the new convicts parade are dirty and shabby. Their zodiac signs are
mainly Taurus and Capricorn but there are also some Virgo and Cancer. Everyone wears a tunic. A
prisoner spits through the bars in Corrado's direction and calls him names. Another inmate threatens
the President saying he will wake up dead in the morning. Clemente, who has the least dirty habit of
all, yells at Corrado that he is cursed and that he enjoys seeing that they have taken away his grin.

Finally the three reach the cell where Spertini releases them from the handcuffs. Ricci lights up the
interior with an oil lamp and Ciuto, lying on the cot, meets Corrado's gaze. He stretches his forehead
and attempts a weak smile. The boy sighs, turns towards the wall and goes back to sleep.
***
Lorenza's lungs burn when she knocks on the Forger's door. Square Luigi Bertelli 1983 - 2027 is
engraved on the stone on the wall. Lorenza forgets for a moment about the lungs and runs her hand
through Ada's hair, managing to finish that caress she had tried to give her hours before. Ada is so
tired she sleeps standing up and doesn't perceive the gesture of affection, or maybe she confuses it
with some dream. The landlord makes sure through the peephole that they are friends and lets them
into the house. Ada doesn't even respond to his greeting, her arms extended forward like a
sleepwalker. The Virgo man takes the opportunity to give Lorenza a kiss on the mouth even before
asking for explanations about that visit, but she makes him understand that it's not exactly the right
moment.

“I have a client, but we're almost done. Wait for me in the kitchen and eat something in the
meantime.”
***
The three volunteers, after handing over the rebels to the police, have gone searching at Antonio’s
home. They throw the SmartPhone repair tools in the air, they turn the bed upside down, looking for
chips and evidence proving that Antonio is the Forger who has been creating fictitious profiles in the
city of Florence for years.

Tiziana and Giannino are terrified and embrace each other on the ground, locked in a corner.

"But really, where is he hiding them?" they ask threateningly, waiting for a confession.

"I told you, there are no microchips here," Tiziana says in tears. “He only fixes smart phones.”

"There really isn't anything here," admits the volunteer who had returned to rummaging behind the
workbench.

"Big Twin will manage to find out where he keeps them."

The three leave the shop, they've had a long night.

Tiziana hugs Giannino to her chest. She sent them all to slaughter, it was her. She has only Giannino
left, she thinks looking at the overturned tool bench. And she cries until she falls asleep exhausted
there on the ground, her son in her arms.
5 - LEO

Square Luigi Bertelli was not always called that. No square, or street, has always been called
something. There is always an antecedent moment in which someone dies and then the square takes
its name. It may be that the square was first dedicated to someone else who, poor thing, was
considered a hero a hundred years earlier and now no one remembers him.

It may also be, especially in dictatorial regimes, that the name of the old hero or politician - the two
rarely go hand in hand - is replaced because it recalls values ​little appreciated by the current leader.
And maybe while he's at it, he puts his name on the square, because it's not a rule that only the dead
can have their name on the plaques in the streets. Anyway the other ones a plaque with their name
they have it already in the cemetery. Square Luigi Bertelli had previously been called Square of
Italian Unification and confirmed the above hypotheses, apart from that relating to the dictator who
was still alive.

It had been inaugurated three years earlier, on the tenth anniversary of Astrologer's brother death.
***
"How much pain for those who loved him, to have lived ten years without!" said the elegant
Sagittarius addressing the small standing crowd which numbered among those present the Astrologer
Duccio Bertelli, his son Gustav and Bizio. Lorenza, hair in a bob and a scarf hiding her face, had
remained in the rear, confused among scorpion and the Sagittarius men.

"But there are beings who only know how to hate," had continued the one who had been addressed to
celebrate the ceremony, behind him the obelisk dedicated to the fallen for the country.

Bizio followed the man's words but his mind was already wandering to the obelisk, to that carved
crown that would have looked great with the images of the twelve signs all around it. As a city’s
history lover, he also knew that where that obelisk was, in Napoleon's time, there was a guillotine.
This thought gave birth to another idea so that a smile began to appear on that round face; lucky that
everyone was looking down, otherwise: what a shame!

"I don't feel like calling them men, they hate us today and they hated Luigi then," keep going the
Sagittarius, raising the volume of his voice, and clenching his fist. "And that's why they killed him!"

Lorenza had adjusted her scarf, realizing that it was slowly slipping under her nose almost revealing
her face.

"But Luigi did live every day, he does live every day in our Society!" said the heated-up orator,
probably the only one given the cold. "He was the inspirer and we… we live in his dream!". Finally,
the man pointed to the new plaque, already hanging on the wall. "A dream that from today will have a
square that bears his name at its centre: Square Luigi Bertelli, at the centre of Florence, at the centre
of the Zodiac Society, at the centre of our being!"

The man had finished, the crowd had applauded Luigi, but he had slipped a half bow of which he was
immediately ashamed and had improvised a fit of cough and emotion. Two Libra girls, they sure were
cold in their white linen shirt and black trousers, passed among those present with two trays of wine
goblets. The Astrologer and Gustav were the first to be served, as relatives of the commemorated, but
the latter refused, joined Lorenza in the rear and the two left together.
***
Corrado was not present on the opening ceremony of square Bertelli. Those were the days of his
hospitalization in the psychiatry ward, probably the first happy days after that falsified referendum
onwards. The merit, more than that of Dr. Irani or of doctors in general, went to the nurses, and to one
in particular. They made love the third time she'd entered the room to tidy it up. The third or fourth,
Corrado couldn't be sure.

Lying on the cot in the cell, with Father Sebastiano snoring nearby, the President tries to lull himself
into happy thoughts. Happy Pictures, Tiziana called them. No, not Tiziana, she doesn't belong to
happy thoughts. Better go back to Anna and focus on the first time they made love. Or, better yet,
bring back images of the last time they did, more vivid and romantic.

***
The Astrologer walks the corridors of Palazzo Medici Ricciardi with sure-footedness. Gustav walks
beside him, visibly tense.

There is an image that always comes to Duccio's mind when he thinks of his childhood, the first
image he remembers from his own life. He was a quiet child and his father had taken him to the
cinema, even though he was only three years old. He was daddy’s boy, not for long though, and mom
with that belly didn't have the slightest intention of sitting in those uncomfortable armchairs for two
hours. Duccio always laughed with Alberto Sordi on television, which is why his father had decided
to take him to the cinema to see the roman actor's new movie. The story wasn't funny at all, Mr.
Bertelli soon understood this and therefore proposed Duccio to leave, but the latter did not agree with
his father's decision. It had not been easy to carry him away, as he screamed and clung to the chair,
with those present in the room complaining because they wanted to see the film. Duccio too, he
wanted to see it more than all of them put together!

Anyway, the scene he remembered was not this, but the moment in which Sordi takes his son to the
test to be hired at the ministry. He is proud of his son and did everything to ensure that he could have
such a respectable occupation. But a stray bullet kills the lad, just when Sordi character was about to
enjoy success.

The Astrologer turns to make sure that Gustav is still there: after the death of his first son that scene
has often come back to his mind.

"Relax," says the Astrologer more to himself rather than to his son.

"Sure, relax," replies the son. “Well, maybe a little stressed I am."

"You must not. Those inside have been waiting for you for years" says the Astrologer pointing to the
study which used to belong to Barberini. “And those out there too. You know what you have to say,
you know it very well.”

"Sure, I know," Gustav replies hesitantly.

“Prove then, for once, that you have a thick skin.”

"Sure, Duccio." Gustav says regaining his coolness and entering the room where the other members of
the government are waiting for him, together with the journalists.

The 28-year-old leo is greeted with an applause. Bizio walks towards him and shows him the free seat
at the head of the table. The secretary starts typing while the journalists' questions merge into an
indecipherable buzz.

"The questions, if you don't mind, at the end," the lad manages to say, in an authoritative tone.

"Tell us what will become of Barberini at least," a journalist bursts out when the others have already
kept silent.
“It is more important to talk about our policies. The priority today is a better control of our borders. If
in the past someone in the Southern Territories has thought there might be a possibility here, then we'll
let them know that such possibility simply doesn't exist."

Gustav is seized with a coughing fit and drinks water from a glass, while Bizio pats him on the back
and turns to the journalists and their phones which are filming the scene. “We can therefore declare
the danger of an opening as averted.”

Gustav takes another sip and is finally able to speak again. "It's correct. Crossborders will not be
tolerated. To answer the reporter's question, the rebels won't be tolerated either." He takes another sip
and finally communicates what everyone present expects. "Those arrested in the Relegated Center and
those in Square Ciompi, belonging to the same cell of rebels, will be executed today in Piazza della
Signoria, at sunset."
***
The condemned are unaware of their fate but no one hopes for a miracle, there. Maybe Father
Sebastiano does, but he keeps sleeping and snoring all the time, so you can't ask him. A warder invites
the former President to leave, while he opens the cell door.

"There's traffic this morning," Yuri observes, addressing Ciuto who is lying on the cot next to his, and
referring to the fact that an hour earlier the dreaded Twins had come to pick up Antonio. Corrado gets
up and, feeling a twinge of pain in his back, throws a friendly glance at Ciuto, although the kid doesn't
seem willing to become his mate at all: he has seen him too many times over the years on Aries TV
and has heard him talk too many times about the anomalous to be able to become his friend.

Along the corridor, the prisoners once again insult the one who holds the power who chains them
there, aka the now ex-President of a Society which has branded them as subordinates since its
foundation. along with their children and their children's children. One of the most agitated yells at
him that he thought his head had already been cut off; the jailer laughs, then replies "If you are not in
a hurry, tonight you will be satisfied."

And even if the jailer was detested up to the previous instant, with that comment he wins everyone's
sympathy and the only one to be hated remains Corrado, who staggers slightly at the thought of being
living his last day.

Waiting for Corrado in a damp little room is Alderici, seated at a table. An oil lamp illuminates the
windowless room, and the inspector invites the former President to sit on the chair and the jailer to
leave them alone. Corrado observes Alderici doubtfully, not that he had anyone special in mind, of
course he had not. Or maybe yes, he hoped to find Gustav but he also understands that he will have
drawn his conclusions and will not come to save him.

"Inspector," Corrado greets him with an imperceptible nod of the head.

"President," says Alderici, looking down at the cigarette that is rolling.

"You are quick to make them," exclaims Corrado sincerely amazed.

Alderici lights his cigarette without particularly appreciating the compliment. "Where?"

"Where what?" Corrado replies with a new question.

"Where is Anna," Alderici explains, blowing out the smoke in a cloud.

Corrado is lost and clings to the chair. "I don't think… I don't know anyone with that name."

"President, let's not put up a scene if you have any dignity left. We know everything. All we need is
the current position of miss Capodimonte."

Corrado gets up and turns to look at the door. "No scene, I have very little desire for it, I assure you."

“President, come back to your seat and let me remind you that you are no longer in the position of
power that you have had for many years. In fact, I'm sorry to be the one to inform you that tonight you
will all be executed,”says the inspector, throwing down his cigarette.

"They told me." Corrado replies, trying not to show emotion. "Anna has left. She'll be in Naples by
now, her family was from there.'

"Of course," the inspector nods, exaggerating the movement. "But I know how to recognize when
someone lies to me. You know how it is, many years of interrogations…”

"Well, let's see if you believe me now!" exclaims Corrado having an epiphany. "In the old National
Educational Museum, you know, Square Ciompi? Well, there's a printer there. There is a sheet in this
printer, we printed it yesterday.". Alderici seems to follow the story and Corrado continues "This sheet
shows the evidence that our Zodiac Society was born from a lie. The results of the 2025 referendum
were distorted.

The inspector cuts him off. “And who are the villains who have been plotting behind our backs?
Because you have always been the president of the Society, so if I had to mention a name…" The man
takes a puff on the new cigarette, made perhaps faster than the previous one, but this time the
President did not notice is and Alderici feels a little sad for this .

"Snowball," exclaims Corrado.

Alderici is impressed and looks up from his cigarette.

“The folder that contained this file was called Snowball. It was inaccessible but then Antonio
managed it, somehow.”

Thoughts, many and old ones, crowd Alderici's head. “Snowball. And you printed it.”

"Yes, just before being arrested.". Corrado understands the inspector believes him and grabs his hands,
burning himself with the embers of the cigarette but not caring much. “You are the only person who
can save us. If you find those papers and make them public, I'll have no problem telling you where
Anna is.”

The inspector frees his hands, lights up the cigarette and inhales a long puff.

"If you doubted sometimes about Zodiac Society’s justice..." adds Corrado.

"I have no doubts," Alderici cuts short. "I do my job."

“I saw you at the hospital, I know what you think”.

"My job," the inspector reiterates, emphasizing each word. Corrado understands that it will be better
to end the conversation here: he doesn't want to risk losing the points he has earned so far.

"Good, Good job then. Can I go now?"

Alderici nods imperceptibly and points to the door of the room with his cigarette.
***
The resurfacing of memories linked to the name of Snowball and to a case that has never been
resolved – even if Nocenti dear departed would not have agreed – convince Alderici to give it a try.

Dear departed my, he thinks as he crosses Square Ciompi. The snow has melted even if some piles
remain here and there. The pink shoe that had impressed him so much after the flood was obviously
no longer there, for the rest the buildings in the square had been falling apart since that part of ​the city
was abandoned years before, guilty of being a hotbed of one of those viruses, but which one the
inspector now cannot remember.

Lorenza comes out from the back of the Museum, traveling again through the same path she ran the
night before with her daughter. Alderici enters the building from the main door and neither of them
notices the other.

The inspector remembers well where the archive room and the printer are. He crosses the room as he
thinks back to those days fifteen years ago, to the flood, to the aftermath, to his hair that was more, to
Nocenti's chant repeating “notes Alderici, notes: without notes problems cannot be solved”.
Unfortunately, the sheet is not there. It's not in the tray, it's not under the lid, the inspector even moves
the printer, making an enormous effort, to see if the document could have slipped under there.
Nothing. And then he thinks again of Nocenti, of his notes, of his haste to close the Snowball case.
And he decides he wants to read those notes. He's curious and excited: he's back to those days!
***
Sergio Nocenti is already drunk and it's not even lunchtime. He is forty-eight years old and with a
scorpion tattoo. The house seems to have been visited by burglars: there is no furniture except for an
old table and a single chair. Seeing the demijohns piled up on the ground, Alderici thinks that even
Panunzio would have understood that the poor fellow had sold everything to buy wine.

Sergio is servile and his perpetually watery eyes seem to express shame for his condition. He is
seated, he would like Alderici to sit on the chair in his place, but the inspector politely refuses. The
other insists and Alderici replies that no, that it does him good to stand up, since he spends the day
sitting in the office.

Sergio stares at the glass he had filled before receiving visits, then forces himself to look away and
focus on the inspector.
“It's been a while, huh? How long has it been since we've seen each other?"

"Nine years. From the inspector's funeral.'

Sergio swallows and his eyes become even more watery. “Since dad is gone.” he says unable to resist
the temptation and downing a sip. He also offered it to the inspector earlier, but he said no. He didn't
insist: there's more to drink for himself.

"I think it was also the first time Sergio, that we saw each other. Your father…"

Sergio takes another sip, it seems a Pavlovian reflex linked to the words father and dad.

"Your father didn't like mixing family with his job."

"Oh yeah, not him." Sergio drinks again and empties the glass. Perhaps Pavlov has nothing to do with
it.

"It was a form of protection," concludes the inspector.

Sergio smiles at Alderici, deeply moved, and wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his old sweatshirt.

The inspector goes around the table and strokes Sergio's head, as if he was dealing with a child.
"Sergio, I remember your father liked to take notes. He did it for every case he worked on.”

"Yes, yes, that's how he was indeed. Everything had to be written down.” The man leans in to sniff the
Alderici's coat and is moved again. "Was this his coat?"

Alderici nods but doesn't want the conversation to move on topics he doesn't give a damn about. He
takes a deep breath and brings up the soothing voice he had used so well up to that moment. “Do you
think I could take a look at those notes?”

Sergio stares at the empty glass and strokes his head as he continues the relaxing massage started by
the inspector. "I had decided to sell everything, as a gesture of separation from him I guess. To suffer a
little less." He looks at the inspector from the bottom of his seat, he looks like a dog that has just been
scolded.

Alderici starts to get nervous but tries not to show it: it's more important at the moment to find those
damned notes. He sighs: "Sure."

“I found a collector and I put everything in a box.”

Alderici returns to the other side of the table and looks Sergio straight in the eye with a hard look.
Now the conciliatory tone is no longer needed, he needs to get back the tough cop. "And who? Do you
remember?"

"No, I didn't know his name," Sergio says in a frightened tone while Alderici looks ready to bang his
fist on the table. "But I know where he lives!"

Alderici raises his eyebrows, calms down in a flash and gives Sergio a relaxed smile when the latter
confirmed he delivered that box himself: for a few cents more he gladly did.

"Your father would be really proud of you." Yes right, and of what exactly? But the inspector omits
this part while Nocenti's son thanks him in tears. We all love to play in games with ourselves.
***
The Forger does his best to show Lorenza a life together is possible. Especially now that Square
Ciompi is no longer an option for her. And they're the same age, and they're virgo: what can go
wrong? Right, it's not easy to understand Lorenza, but he likes her, he likes her a lot! She's forty-four
but has boobs and ass of a twenty years old girl. She makes love like a tiger and with each orgasm she
seems she is taking revenge on centuries of abuse. She also scratches him, at times. But then nothing
more. Not even a knowing look or a hidden caress. Probably because of Ada, the Forger had thought
at first, only to later realize how incapable Lorenza was of having any feeling for her daughter or
anyone else.

Though he's not exactly sure of that either, since he'd found her sometimes moved, but always when
she was lost in her own thoughts. He had once approached her in one of those moments, he had
touched her hand, and in a flash, she was once again the ice sheet she always was. He had known her
for twelve years now since that torrid early summer day during which he tattooed Ada. He was the
only one who knew her other secret: it had happened in Celestino's time, he had discovered her
sending a double-dealing message. But then their story began, and who cares about the
double-dealing: a tiger!

The Virgo man is not used to having guests and has improvised bread and cheese for lunch. He had
thought of cooking a bread soup, only to realize that he only had some celery and a garlic in the house
and so he had given up on it. Therefore, he had decided to focus on quantity, cutting six large slices of
bread and three large pieces of cheese, as Ada had commented, forgetting for a moment the fate that
was about to befall her beloved.

But Lanza was on the wall to remind her: "Curious that the Ciompi revolt of centuries ago ended in
the same way."

The on-screen text relates to the previous evening’s arrests: Sting in Square Ciompi, the former
President Barberini was among the rebels – Identity Forger arrested along with the former President –
​Rebels will be executed at sunset – President Gustav Bertelli swears allegiance to the Zodiac Society.

Lorenza turns off the projection of the Forger's SmartPhone, to whom she turns to begging him to play
along. "Do you think it was Emiliano and Ciuto who confessed?"

The Forger doesn't have time to reply as Ada precedes him: "They would never have done that; you
don't know him!"
"Ada, sometimes the best intentions collide with torture," explains Lorenza indifferently pouring
herself some water.

Ada wants to scream, the tears are already flowing, but there is a knock on the door downstairs.
Everyone immediately falls silent. The landlord looks out the window and recognizes the police
inspector.

"You go and hide in the room upstairs, if he's looking for you, I do yes deny it even under torture,"
affirms the Forger, seeking a knowing look with Lorenza, who never gave him one and she would not
start now.

The latter grabs Ada's little coat and her coat, from whose pocket stick out the papers she retrieved in
the printer tray that morning, and starts climbing the stairs leading to the bedroom, with her daughter
following.

Alderici is made to sit in the dining room and observes the set table in amazement. "You are in great
shape, despite all the bread you eat."

The Forger smiles, or at least he thinks he is smiling. If he had a mirror, he would have seen a tense
expression, quite far from being a smile. "Thank you, you're not bad either," he jokes trying not to
sweat. If anything, he will blame the wood stove: there is a solution to everything, he just has to
remember it for the next few minutes.

“But I didn't come to compliment you on your physical appearance. Or to receive compliments
neither,' explains the inspector who appears completely harmless behind that professional actor's
laugh. “At least, not just for that. I understand that you bought a colleague of mine's belongings a few
years ago.'

The Forger breathes a sigh of relief: the cop didn't come to look for Lorenza. He regains his usual
confidence in answering the inspector. "It could be," he spreads his arms indicating the living room,
"as you can see, I hold dear the memory and the fact that it won't be lost. Videotapes, books,
televisions and so on and so forth, as they used to say in the old days!"

“I'm interested in some notebooks that were among those personal effects. They would be useful for a
case I'm working on.”

"I don't know, I probably threw them away. The things which do not seem to interesting to me,
they usually end up that way.”

Alderici knows that it is a lie: the use of “usually” in that sentence does not convince him much. "We
can look for them together, just in case."

The Forger fears that the inspector wants to start rummaging in all the rooms and so he says that he
has kept some boxes of not interesting things - or things that he wouldn't exhibit next to the
encyclopedias in the living room - and all those boxes should be downstairs in his carpenter's
workshop.
***
In the small windowless room there is a workbench where a plane, a saw and a carpenter's pencil are
placed. Next to the bench a few chipboard and plywood boards. In the center of the room hangs a
small light bulb, not turned on since there is currently no electricity, so the two have to use the torches
on their phones. Across the room is a shelf plenty of cartons, some the Forger admits he still has to
check. Each box has a surname written in pencil on one side, so Alderici can easily find the one
containing Nocenti's personal effects. Just two boxes further on is the cardboard box where the Forger
keeps the reel machine to make tattoos, the ink and the chips to be rewritten, therefore the latter offers
to take Nocenti’s box down himself, so as to prevent the inspector makes unwanted discoveries.

Alderici, bent over the box and skims the diaries’covers which had belonged to his former boss. On
some covers Nocenti had changed the year in pencil, since after the great crisis no one had published
them anymore. The inspector picks up the one that says 2021 where Nocenti had managed, with some
skills actually, to transform one into seven. Satisfied, he quickly leafs through the pages until he
reaches the month of November. He carefully reads the notes left by Nocenti in the days relating to
the flood and the discovery of Snowball's body, but after a few minutes he closes the book in
annoyance. “Too bad, all things I already knew.”

He puts the diary back inside the box while the Forger lights it up and a glint catches the policeman's
attention. It is the smart phone that belonged to the late Nocenti. “Shouldn't you return these? If I'm
not mistaken they should be reassigned to the newborns.'

The Forger is in trouble again, but he remembers someone else has been arrested in his place and he
can be sure the inspector certainly doesn't want to accuse him of anything. "Sure I will. With the mess
in here, I have to look around at these boxes and see if there are any SmartPhones inside.”

Alderici studies the SmartPhone in his hands, without listening much to the carpenter. And he realizes
he has never seen a carpenter with a workbench so far from the light bulb. Even more in a windowless
room. If he saws and planes in the dark, he’s lucky you still have all his fingers!

"And this, can you make it work?"

The Forger spreads his arms and improvises. "I collect the stories that happened, otherwise I'm a
carpenter, I know nothing."

Alderici stares at the man with an icy and hostile gaze, without saying a word..

The Forger understands that it will be better to help the policeman finding what interests him, and do
it quickly, if he wants to save himself much worse trouble. "I can try though, sure." In saying this, he
grabs Nocenti's phone and connects it to his own, using his mouse cable which, once the wheel is
removed, shows a mini USB socket.

Alderici observes the Forger clicking a few times on the screen of his phone which begins to compose
a long alphanumeric sequence. "Some of us have hidden abilities: Me, for example, i am very quick to
make cigarettes. Not that it's useful in life, or healthy."

The Forger nods, focused on the screen.

“Anyway compared to the others who share with me this bad habit, in the end I will have used
differently the time it takes them to roll cigarettes."

The Forger unplugs the cable from Nocenti's phone and hands the device to the inspector. "It was just
a stroke of luck," explains the carpenter manqué without having the courage to cross Alderici's eyes.

The latter is too engrossed in the reactivated device to give a damn about the Forger. He opens the
messaging tool by clicking on the screen. First messages displayed are from 2021, but fortunately the
old inspector didn't like much smartphones, reason why he didn't send or receive more than a dozen
messages a day. Finally Alderici gets to the messages relating to fall 2027. And he finds it: November
6, 2027, two messages received. The first has Alderici himself as a sender, where he explains Nocenti
that since they have to go to Square Ciompi they can meet in Santa Croce in half an hour. The second
has a code as sender: 12QW.
The message is a threat addressed to the ex inspector, where he is ordered to quickly close the
investigation about the murdered man of the old National Educational Museum. It says that the
inspector will have to communicate that the killer drowned in the Arno and was found with the
victim's smartphone on him. It won't be difficult for him to find someone among the piles of drowned
people from the previous days and slip a phone into his pocket, the sender adds.

If Nocenti hadn't followed the instructions, the sender would have announced that in 1992 the old
inspector had killed his wife. And it would probably have ruined his pension, Alderici thinks as he
strokes his bald head, which perhaps he had never done before, except in his sleep.

Finally he shakes himself and realizes that he has the Forger attached, also with his eyes on the device
which he brought back to life..

"Can the identity be traced back? Find out who this twelve qu double u is?”

The Forger shakes his head with excessive ardor "There are few, very few, able to use an alias despite
identification by tattoo. And those who are able are good and leave no traces. Or if they should leave
them, well: not for thirteen years!”
***
As soon as the inspector leaves, the Forger runs to Lorenza and Ada, taking the stairs two steps at the
time. He opens wide the door and when the old alarm clock on the bedside that shows three o'clock.
Did the inspector stay only two hours? It looked like ten. The second thought is much more dramatic:
"Where is Lorenza?".

"She's gone."

"Gone where?"

"I don't know."

"I call her."

"She lost it."

"Shit! I'll be right back, don't move." And again running on the stairs.

Ada awaits to hear the door slam downstairs to put on the coat and leave the house too.
***
Panunzio may seem childish at times, but today he really looks like a schoolboy. He sits at his desk
with his ankles crossed, holding a charcoal in his right hand, sticking out and pulling back his tongue
like a chameleon in slow motion. The french lad who had first deciphered the hieroglyphs was
undoubtedly more relaxed than the officer dealing with the 12QW code.

He was trying them all. On one sheet of paper he had written TWELVE as the title and underneath he
had written: Signs of the zodiac, Months of the year, Noon, Midnight, Eggs, Apostles. It was a way of
saying: twelve like the apostles. The second sheet was dedicated to Q: Quarantine, Quality, Quintal,
Quiz, Quotation. The third and final one was on the letter W, but ideas were scarce here: Wafers,
Wurst, Wisky. Very focused, the officer mouths the charcoal, getting dirty with black.

Brogi approaches him from behind and taunts him by telling that charcoals are not to be eaten and that
a h is missing from the whisky word.
Agitated, Panunzio adds an h at the end of the word.

Brogi could beat a dead horse, but he knows that his ace in the hole will bring him a juicier victory;
therefore he stretches out his arm to hit on Pnunzio’s typewriter the keys 1 2 Q W in succession.
"There's really nothing to decipher. One two qu double u are simply the first two numbers and first
two letters on any keyboard.”

Hatred is a total, complete feeling; and at this moment Panunzio finds it out.

Alderici doesn't hate Brogi, but he certainly doesn't tolerate these kind of games. "Why did you make
me waste half an hour if you already had the solution? Do you like wasting my time?”

Brogi doesn't reply: he could say he's just get to that conclusion but no, he prefers to take the laurels
of victory having his boss telling him off.

Alderici no longer pays attention to him and falls into his chair: he hasn't stopped for a moment since
the morning and has even skipped lunch. He thinks back to the bread and cheese on the table in the
house where he found the smartphone, he should have had asked for some: there was enough for two
people. These are the thoughts crowding his head as he relaxes his legs under the desk and starts the
projection of his own smartphone.

On the wall appears the video relating to the closure of the psychiatry ward, the last one he had
watched. In the pocket of his coat hanging from the chair he finds the mouse and connects it to the
phone, intending to see anything neither reminding him of the two cases he's been working on for the
last few days, nor the beheadings which will take place in the evening.

But then he freezes: something in that image on the wall hit him. The frame is about Vanessa taking a
selfie with the former president, the doctors and the nurses. Alderici slowly approaches the wall, his
gaze fixed on the display of Vanessa's smartphone.

With the mouse wheel he zooms in on the nurse's phone showing the big faces of the photographed
ones. Behind them the journalists can be seen, some standing, others seated. And in the center of the
front row is the object catching the inspector's attention: an umbrella with a golden handle in the
shape of a lion's head. Alderici brushes against the wall, he wants to touch that handle… In a trance,
the inspector sends the video a few minutes back, stopping it when Anna gives a sweet, loving and
spontaneous smile towards the journalists. "Here's who you were smiling at," the inspector murmurs
to himself.

He throws himself on his desk in search of the pamphlet taken at Capodimonte's house. They're at the
top of the pile, immediately below Nocenti's notebook. He leafs through them until he finds the black
and white photo, the one of the scouts, and helps himself with a pencil to circle two of the boys in the
photo which he finally recognizes as Gustav and Anna.

"I know where the Capodimonte is!" he exclaims excitedly to Panunzio and Brogi. The latter starts to
get up but the inspector tells him no, he seems to be good at doing research while sitting down. He
wants the other officer to accompany him. Panunzio, full of enthusiasm, jumps up and almost salutes.
***
In the prison cell the atmosphere is not the best. Antonio has been back an hour ago: his face isn't in
bad shape but he showed his ribs to Corrado and that's where the Twins got furious. And on the back.

"But I didn't speak," Antonio tries to joke, "also because I have no idea what they were accusing me
of."

Ciuto puts the bowl on the ground where once there was tomato soup, but there is no trace left.
Antonio has no appetite – with all those beatings – so the former president offers his partner's bowl to
the boy, who still seems hungry. Ciuto shakes his head vigorously, he doesn't want any favors from
that man. Slowly, mainly due to the back pain that the cot causes him, Corrado approaches the young
man and sits down next to him, handing him the full bowl. Ciuto cannot resist and starts eating. Even
a thank you slips him out, with his mouth full. And Corrado responds with a smile, enjoy! And he talk
while his son is eating.

He tells him that thirty years before he was his age. And he saw people becoming poor: it was 2010.
Friends, acquaintances, neighbors and relatives lost their homes, their jobs, some committed suicide.
Ciuto stops for a moment and looks Corrado in the eyes for the first time, trying to understand the
reason for that speech.

“I thought I had a duty to change the world, to eradicate poverty.” Corrado invites Ciuto to continue
eating and touches him with a caress. “A few years later, the Zodiac Society seemed like the perfect
solution. Perhaps only now do I realize that to take away suffering from some, I have given so much
to the anomalous. I gave so much to you. And I'm so sorry."

Ciuto has finished eating, he turns to Corrado and nods slowly.

"I know that forgiveness is impossible..."

"Dead men walking" yells the warder who opens the cell door.

Corrado, interrupted in the phrase that had been repeating in his head for the last two hours, squeezes
a frightened Ciuto to himself, who lets him do it.

Yuri, Ciuto, Emiliano, Corrado, Antonio, Father Sebastiano and Caterina follow the jailer in single
file. This time the convicts do not inveigh against Corrado, since respect for the dead also goes
beyond the insurmountable walls of prisons. Outside, a cart awaits them with bars on the sides and
two horses tethered in front. Someone in the group help Emiliano, who is limping, crying and cursing,
to get on the vehicle. They help him sit on one of the side benches, and finally everyone does the
same.

The guard locks the cart with a padlock and repeats t: "Dead men walking!"

"He yelled it louder than the first time," Corrado whispers to Ciuto who sits next to him. "He must
really like it! They wouldn’t fire him if he doesn’t say it, would they?"
6 - VIRGO

Until a couple of hours before, Lorenza was sure she had nothing to fear; but then the inspector had
knocked on the Forger's door. Hiding in that bedroom with her daughter, she had killed time and
tension by reading and re-reading the sheets she found in the printer tray on that very morning. She
was ready to hide them under the mattress if she would have heard that policeman approaching the
bedroom. Until she understood that it was not going to happen.
She had opened the door a little, to make sure that there was nobody. She had gone down to the dining
room and heard the Inspector and the Forger arguing downstairs, in the workshop where her lover
performed clandestine tattoos. It didn't sound like the policeman was arresting him. So she went back
to the bedroom, put on her coat, grabbed the papers, and ran down the stairs.

Now that she's on the street, she wouldn't swear she said goodbye to Ada before going out, too
focused on what to do. She heads towards Palazzo Vecchio but with no intention of passing through
the most crowded places, on the other hand she no longer feels as safe as before. Better to take a
detour and avoid Giotto's bell tower and Brunelleschi dome, although the road may be shorter. Thus,
she finds herself passing by the old university: it hadn't happened for a long time.
She decides to enter, five minutes won’t change her life. The desks and projectors are gone, as are the
chairs. "Only the stools built into the steps of the hemicycle, they failed to steal" thinks Lorenza
seeing herself in that same hall seventeen years younger. She remembers the embarrassment of that
day: she had never had the courage to take the floor before and, if she had sometimes, it had certainly
been a brief speech while sitting. It had been during a lesson of the final course before graduating, that
of evolutionary anthropology that, taking courage with both hands, she took possession of the
microphone.

There was a reason: the Professor didn't allow interventions from the seats since he recorded all his
lessons. Unless one would have yelled, off-mic passages wouldn't get into the recording. That day she
stewed in her chair listening to the absurd theories of that bizarre Professor: for twenty minutes or so
she had desisted from getting up and approaching the desk, but eventually she had ended up doing so.
Excited, she asked the Professor how it was possible to assert that, after only a very few generations
of using telephones, the hands’ fingers could change. And looking up, she had seen Luigi watching
her in amusement, standing next to the door. It was the first time he had come to pick her up at class,
and Lorenza had felt like smiling: probably he had thought that her provocative questions into the
microphone were a constant.

Why did Luigi never go? The age difference made him uncomfortable, even though he explained that
he didn't want to embarrass her in front of her friends. But to her it didn't matter at all that he was
forty, and he looked younger anyway. His hair was always tied up and the ponytail was particularly
taut, who knows if it also pulled his expression lines. He was tall, and according to him "chubby", but
that belly that he said he had she had never really seen it. Or maybe she was looking at him with eyes
of love, that's all. Those were the years of the crisis when everybody began to pay the price.
The two used to stroll through the streets of the city that had once been wonderful and looked then
like an open-air dump.

There was violence, too much, with that repatriation operation that neither she nor Luigi found right.
It is also true that more and more Florentines found themselves starving on the streets. That’s way
they started going to the soup kitchen. He cooked the mashed potatoes in large pots and by dint of
cutting potatoes he had modified his fingers without having to wait three or four generations. She used
to bring a plate of mashed potatoes to the table, going back to the kitchen, kissing Luigi, filling
another bowl, kissing Luigi, bringing the mashed potatoes to the table, and so on. She was happy.

***
Lorenza realizes that she has arrived in front of Palazzo Vecchio. In Piazza della Signoria the
preparations are already underway and in the loggia three Capricorn arrange the logs where the heads
of the rebels will be cut off. About fifty people are already flocking to the square to see the show and
a virgo man drives a cart carrying a dozen elegant chairs with gold upholstery. Two zodiac volunteers,
covered faces, are guarding the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio and let Lorenza pass without causing her
any problems.
***
Tiziana, outside the prison gate, waits for the prisoners' cart to pass. Inside the vehicle, which moves
slowly due to the weight of the prisoners and the iron bars, Caterina holds Father Sebastiano's hand
with whom she recited an Our Father in a low voice. The cart begins to travel the dirt road that will
lead the condemned to their fate, when Tiziana throws herself against it. Antonio notices her, struggles
to turn around on the bench and tries to hide the grimaces of pain behind a loving smile. He manages
to give her a caress while she, clinging to the bars, tries to keep up with the horses.

"Don't cry Tiziana, we must be happy, we were right! For a moment I had the evidence of fraud before
my eyes!" jokes Antonio, his eyes wet too at seeing her suffer like this.

Tiziana caresses his cheek, brings both hands to his face, trying to enjoy his contact until the last
available moment; moment that comes when the coachman spurs the horses. Tears blur her vision
and,as she wipes them away, her gaze falls on Corrado and Ciuto, with the former holding the second
tight. She looks back at Antonio and the cart is already far away when he sends her a kiss half hidden
in a cloud of dust.
***
The Forger runs as a cheetah to get to Piazza della Signoria, where finally the crowding people forces
him to slow down. He pushes his way through but, for two he moves, he has another hundred persons
ahead of him. Eventually he reaches Palazzo Vecchio but, between Michelangelo's David and
Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus, the two zodiac volunteers have no intention of letting him through
the gate. Luckily for him, the Astrologer leans out of the window to observe the sea of people which
has come to see the beheading of the traitorous president; he nods to the two in balaclavas to let him
pass.

Lorenza, poised on her toes behind the Astrologer, peeps from the second floor of Palazzo Vecchio at
the cart of the condemned as it enters the square. She thinks it's a good thing there are bars to protect
them, otherwise that angry mob would lynch them without waiting neither for the executioner nor for
the sunset. Instead, they have to settle for a few spits and punches, with the risk of hitting the iron bars
breaking a hand. Looking out better to see the Loggia della Signoria, the stage where the executions
will take place, Lorenza finds out that Gustav has already taken his place on the bench behind the logs
together with the other members of the government, all wearing their golden tunics. There is only one
empty chair, which she imagines has been placed there by mistake, counting Barberini in the group
while this time he will have to kneel down.
***
As a matter of fact, the absentee is Bizio. It was he who promoted the motion of beheading in the
square. Corrado had returned from a long stay in hospital and had found the resolution to sign, given
that all the members of the government had already approved it.

Bizio will never reveal the reason for his delay today, even if someone is aware of it, and it is the
attendant at Palazzo Medici Ricciardi, to which the septuagenarian eventually had to resort to being
able to fasten that tunic that had become too tight. The incident saddened him a bit but he quickly get
over it, as today is the day he will be able to enjoy seeing that asshole's head roll down.
Tiziana, still out of breath from running, bites her lip nervously; she opens her mouth to say
something, but feels like this will take a hige effort. Not only is Bizio part of that elite that destroyed
her previous life, by being the architect of his son's imprisonment, but he is also one of the high
offices of the Society. Finally, thinking back to the desperate run began outside the prison gate, she
takes courage. "Minister…" she calls him in a weak voice, still insecure, but then decides to take the
plunge and tries louder: "I need to talk to you urgently, can I steal two minutes?"

Bizio is struggling with the lock on his office door, unable to lock it. "I'm in a hurry and I'm busy," he
replies hastily, finally pulling the key out of the lock and turning away. But he has to admit, the view
isn't half bad. A beautiful woman, sure eyes, with character: it drives him crazy when he manages to
get those with a character to kneel. She insists, it seems she cried. He too would love to make her cry
and already imagines three or four tricks in order to achieve it.

"I'll give you two minutes, but I'm really in a hurry ma'am." Bizio opens the door again and Tiziana
follows him hopefully, quickly reviewing the words to say.

“You can help me, please. You can't kill innocents," she blurts out in one gulp managing to hold back
the tears, since crying would waste her precious time.
"Antonio is not one of the rebels, he has never even stolen the pieces they accuse him of."

“Give me the phone please. Did you say Antonio?" asks Bizio feigning interest in the cause..

Tiziana hands the phone over to the leo man who stuffs it in his pocket. “Yes, he has been falsely
accused and he found evidence that the Zodiac Society referendum was faked!” says Tiziana, unable
to resist tears this time, with hands joined to beg the man.

"Sure," he replies bored, "maybe you'll be surprised my dear, but you're not the first to come asking
for favors in here.". He touches her neck and breasts and Tiziana shivers. “Unfortunately I'm terribly
late for your husband's execution but I'll see what I can do. Andrea you said, right?"

"Antonio," sighs Tiziana, now desperate.

"Right right. You wait here for me and when I get back we can celebrate."

Before Tiziana can reply, Bizio locks her up and runs away through the corridors.
***
If Lorenza had nimbly crossed Piazza della Signoria, and the Forger had managed to prevail on the
crowd pushing with hands and shoulders, Alderici and Panunzio after ten minutes of excuse me and
please are still at the beginning of the square. The inspector fears fainting, although the cause should
be attributed to hunger rather than to the crowd. It is with enormous effort that they reach the entrance
to the Palazzo Vecchio, where the two Zodiac volunteers guarding the building appear in front of
them.

One of the two can't stand the gaze of the inspector who orders the men with their faces covered to let
them pass. The inspector notices a bruise around the left eye. "Panunzio, do you understand why
Spertini is never at the police station?" says Alderici recognizing the young officer.

"Inspector," Spertini greets in embarrassment.

"Double work? What’s up, are you getting married?”

"I believe in our Society and I am willing to defend it…"

"I'll wait for you tomorrow morning at eight o’clock to report to the office," Alderici interrupts him
dryly, to then open a gap between the two volunteers, and Spertini nods to the other masked man to let
the policemen pass.

Spertini stares at Panunzio with an intimidating attitude but the latter holds his colleague's gaze, as if
to mock him. "Eight o’clock!" Panunzio repeates to the officer.

***
Lorenza does not understand why the Forger has followed her. Maybe he is jealous, is that possible?
She doesn't know and doesn't care, she wants to leave Palazzo Vecchio as soon as possible to avoid
witnessing the death of her former companions. Her lover will do as he pleases. With Celestino it had
been easier to see them die: he detested him and his worthy cronies. But this time it was different.

"Back to the point," she says as soon as the Astrologer has welcomed the Forger into the apartment
and invited him to sit down in an armchair, “Better get rid of those computers. Especially now, when
we can no longer use Square Ciompi for the rebels." In saying so, she hands the sheets of fraud to the
Astrologer who nods convinced.
"I also imagined that Luigi was trying to get rid of it when he was killed." Lorenza says, scrutinizing
the Astrologer who spreads his arms, since he would not be able either to answer this question.

"Or he really wanted them to be found," the Forger interjects standing up and joining the two by the
window.

"Don't be silly, please," Lorenza admonishes him in embarrassment. But that doesn't stop him, even if
it hurts.

“Imagine if Snowball, or Luigi, as you will. Imagine if at a certain moment he had wanted to reveal
the truth, perhaps even knowing he was in danger. Then he would have left evidence around, hoping
they would be found. Am I wrong?"

“And who could have known? He never mentioned it to me either," replies Lorenza, annoyed by the
new allegations.

"Who could have known it? The same person who made you hate the rebels and made you believe
they killed Snowball" the Forger says to his beloved.

Lorenza slowly turns to the Astrologer as she asks the Forger for further explanations, saying that he
is surely insane.

"The same person who, on the day the body was found, sent a message to the inspector asking him to
stop the investigation. Sender twelve qu double u.”

"It doesn't make sense, it was his dream," says Lorenza shaking her head and asking the Astrologer
for confirmation. "Why should Luigi have given up on the Society?".

"Because he couldn't bear the conditions in which the anomalous were living, especially when he
realized that his daughter would also be one of them", admits the Astrologer ironically winking at the
Forger. "The Society was putting an end to poverty, but it was doing it in exchange for some sacrifice
and some suffering; he couldn't accept it. He didn't see the bigger picture: that's how he was."

Lorenza bends over, she feels like vomiting. The Forger stares at the Astrologer, proud of having
cornered him. But the latter doesn't seem concerned.

Anna enters the room and holds a gun in her right hand. She wears a purple dressing gown, her no
longer straight hair is now a lion’s mane and a leo tattoo has taken the place of the cancer one. If
possible, she is even more beautiful. She hands the weapon to the Astrologer and kisses him on his
lips.
“She is my partner, Anna. If I'm not mistaken, you've met her at least on three occasions," he says,
turning towards the Forger.

"Congratulations, as usual a great job," he congratulates the Forger caressing Anna's tattoo.

"With my sister-in-law on the other hand," he continues, giving Anna an amused look, "I don't think
you had the pleasure, dear."

"In fact, I don't think so, pleased to meet you" Anna exclaims with a radiant smile.

"But wasn't she with Barberini?" asks the bewildered Forger, forgetting the pistol for a moment.

"Yes, she was with Barberini. But it was at my kind request. And anyway, I saw her first.” he turns
back to Anna and blows her a kiss. “She was in the Leo cubs with Gustav, and he never noticed her!
You know your step-nephew, don't you?” The Astrologer shakes his head and smiles in the direction
of Lorenza, who has no intention of laughing with him.

Lorenza shakes it off and looks at the leo man with hatred. “You lied to me all these years, all the
people you made murder when you were the one I should have killed!” The last part comes out in an
animal voice, which scares the Astrologer for a moment, aware of what Lorenza is capable of.
However, he is the one who is armed and has nothing to fear.

He regains control of the situation by turning his gun on his guests; he forces them up the dark stairs
until they return to the light, gaining the top of the watchtower "No doubt we will enjoy the show here
to the fullest," concludes the landlord.
***
Everything is ready in the loggia and in a few minutes the executioners will drop their axes. Usually
on these occasions it is Bizio who likes to declaim to the crowd the crimes of which the convicts are
guilty, but he is not there, and the new president is encouraged by the ministers to take the floor: it can
be a way to make him loved by the people.

Amidst the cries of the crowd, which parrots Gustav's words, he pronounces the sentences: a prison
guard who was entrusted with the protection of the Zodiac Society and who instead did not hesitate to
stab it in the back will be executed; five rebels will be executed, including an escapee from the
Relegated Center where he was cared for and fed for fifteen years; also, not least, the one who was the
leader of the Society, who was entrusted with the lives, destinies and happiness of the citizens of the
Central Territories and who turned out to be a state bomber. Gustav struggles to pronounce the last
words but manages to find support in the crowd that praises him and throws insults at his predecessor.
***
"That boy, that anomalous", explains the Astrologer pointing to Ciuto from the top of the tower "he is
Barberini’s son. Of course, neither of them ever knew. Three years ago I went to the Relegated Center
for an inspection and I saw him. I noticed the resemblance right away and a couple of right phone
calls confirmed it.” The Astrologer points the crenellated walls to Lorenza and encourages her to
climb on them. "I know Barberini well: had he found out, he would have screwed everything up. And
in fact I was not wrong.'

"That’s why Duccio," Anna intervenes, "thought of sending the president to the southern territories
where he would have found a less gruesome death at my hands than the one awaiting him today, poor
thing."

The Astrologer smiles at Anna and asks her to warn him when Gustav will kick off the executions.
"By your little hand, my beloved Anna. What better reason than to believe that the most beautiful
woman in Florence is expecting a child from you, to run away?"
Anna blushes and blows a kiss to the Astrologer who approaches her and caresses her belly.

Lorenza got lost in the dialogue of those two, in her mind are crowding the faces of those who she got
killed over the years, and all those messages sent to the Astrologer with the certainty of carrying on
Luigi's will and their love story, forever. She was damned wrong, all the time.

"You could have killed him here." exclaims the Forger trying to buy some time. “As you did with your
brother.”

“Oh no, for him to have died in the southern territories he would have died a traitor. Here, and as
president, he would die a martyr and overshadow Gustav's reign. And, unfortunately, the strongest
reigns begin with a tribute of blood."
***
On the first floor of Palazzo Vecchio, the policemen Alderici and Panunzio roam the wonderful rooms
without being able to find anyone. They also enter a small study with a small single bed. In the room,
in a wicker basket acting as a rubbish bin, they find a white dress with flowers, a bar of soap and a
razor with a lion depicted on it.

“Do you remember its cove?” Alderici asks the officer in a low voice.

"At Capodimonte's house," replies Panunzio with childish amazement.

Alderici indicates the staircase leading from the small room to the second floor of the building and the
officer follows him. It is on the upper floor that the inspector finds the fraud sheets lying on a table.
He understands these are the data Barberini was talking about that very morning, however he doesn't
have the slightest idea why those papers are there or who brought them there. Perhaps Capodimonte
herself: with that sheet she would certainly have the power to save Barberini. But since she loves
Gustav, the inspector thinks, she might want to keep that sheet hidden; Barberini will be executed and
she will be able to enjoy a clandestine affair with the new President, probably the father of the child
she is expecting.

“Yeah,” he keeps thinking as he wanders through the beautiful salon and looks out the window at the
sun nearing sunset, “It would still make an illegal couple with she being cancer and he…” but he can't
finish this thought due to a shot they hear, which seems to coming from the upper floor, meaning from
the tower.

He rushes running, still up other stairs, with Panunzio who is now struggling to keep up with him.
***
"Me too!"

While the crowd is silent, waiting for the last sliver of sun to disappear behind the buildings and for
the executioners to be ordered to lower their axes, a little girl voice rises and repeat “Me too”. The
voice getting louder.

Ada fights her way to the loggia, among the curious people who let her pass and even help her. But
they don't know what she means by that "me too" until, at the foot of the loggia, she shouts at the top
of her lungs: "Me too I am a rebel! I ran away at Square Ciompi, but I was there too!"

In an instant the crowd changes its mind about the little girl and the tenderness she aroused turns into
ferocity when the whole square cheers her death, so no one can hear Ciuto yelling at Ada to leave, to
save herself. Just as no one hears Lorenza yelling at her daughter to run away, but she's really too far
from up there to prevail over the roar of the crowd.

"You've always lived alone," Ada says to Ciuto as she is made to kneel besid a log next to him. "You
will not die alone." She's not sure he heard her, but the important thing is that he knows he's loved.
***
Lorenza is desperate, she doesn't know how to make herself heard, far a three hundreds feet high from
her crazy daughter: but what is she doing, doesn't she realize that she will get killed? She screams
again and again, but the crowd covers her screams, as well it covers the shot.

But Lorenza hears it. She turns slowly, afraid to look. The Forger is on the ground, blood pouring
from his head. It's dark in color, which reminds her of the ink he jealously keeps and uses for tattoos.

“There is nothing personal. Even if it may seem to you that I kill all your lovers on purpose,” the
Astrologer explains to Lorenza, running his fingers through his own hair showing his tattoo. "Two
rebels," he says, hugging Anna, slightly shaken by the killing of the man who had been working her
forehead a few hours earlier. "Yes, two rebels try to save their comrades. One is surprised and killed.
The other" and points the gun in Lorenza's direction "throws herself down rather than fall into enemy
hands. It should work!"

"Ada! Ada!" Lorenza keeps repeating her daughter's name and it seems she hasn't even noticed her
lover's body lying on her back.

"Indeed," the Astrologer continues, "Ada's astrological chart suggested a later death, but who knows."

Alderici opens wide the door of the tower rooftop and seeing the Astrologer with a pistol in the hand
and the Forger with a bullet in the head, he realizes that the shooter must have been the founder of the
Zodiac Society at whom he instantly points his weapon.

Duccio Bertelli raises his hands and smiles, releasing his embrace with Anna.

"Drop the gun!" the inspector yells twice, while Panunzio finally reaches Alderici, trying to catch his
breath due to the many stairs climbed running. The officer also points his gun at the Astrologer, so the
inspector can bend over to check if the Forger is still alive.

Lorenza, for her part, cannot take her eyes off the logs of the condemned, where her daughter's little
head is laying. She is in a trance, unable to think or breathe and even her vision blurs for a few
moments.

"They are rebels, I defended myself it's true," the Astrologer justifies himself to the inspector who, on
his knees next to the corpse, takes out of his pocket the evidence of the fraud that he recovered
downstairs. The Astrologer can't help but give up and drop the gun.

Alderici turns to Panunzio to inform him the man is dead.

The Astrologer takes advantage to push Anna over the parapet without even looking her in the eyes,
without even apologizing. With a strong shoulder to Alderici who falls forward, Duccio is in a flash
already halfway down the flight of stairs while Panunzio throws himself to grab the Capodimonte.
And she succeeds, thanks to the fact that Anna instinctively clung to the battlements.

"Inspector, come and help me!" says Panunzio appealing to all his strength not to let the girl slip away,
however managing to maintain a formal tone of voice even in this circumstance.

Behind the houses the sun is setting, and in the loggia the executioners, on Gustav's orders, raise their
axes. Lorenza turns, her gaze has abandoned the catatonia, however she doesn't seem to care about the
fact that 10 feets away from her there is a woman suspended in the air. She turns to the two policemen
who are currently struggling and not a little to save the woman. “You have to stop all this, please!
They'll kill Ada and it’s my fault! They'll kill my daughter and it’s my fault!" Lorenza cries, she got it
all wrong and repeats it like a broken record. Because deep down she's always known it: continuing to
love those who are no longer there takes away the energy necessary to love who is really there, in our
present.

Perhaps this is what happened to Anna too, loving the Astrologer and plotting against the one who
wanted to make her happy every day. Who knows, maybe this was Anna's last thought, to whom the
memory of the Astrologer's cowardly act gives unbearable pain. And then she smiles at Panunzio, as
if to tell him that she is grateful to him for that kind gesture but, unfortunately, it's all over: she puts
her feet against the balustrade and lets herself fall; because if there is now a meaning that she can give
to her life, it is to save the one who really loved her.
***
The whole square looks up, to observe the last remnant of the sun which will put an end to the day and
to the lives of the eight condemned. Someone sees it out of the corner of their eye and thinks it is a
shawl while others, from the back of the square, they could swear they saw something big fall, but
what they couldn't say. Gustav, standing inside the loggia ready to give the order to lower the axes,
clearly sees a human body crashing in front of the main door of Palazzo Vecchio, a few inches from
the David. Those in the audience positioned nearby try to get as close as possible to the corpse: it
won't be a severed head but it's still a good story to tell in the gloomy days that, as always, will be
back.

Gustav glances at Corrado and rushes off, convinced that Anna wanted to take her own life before her
beloved was beheaded. Finally, making space, he gets there and for a moment he believes he was
wrong, he thinks it is someone else: that elegant purple dressing gown is not like Anna, and neither is
the leonine hair! But unfortunately it's her, now that he's two feet away from her, he's sure of it.

He kneels down and caresses the mangled body, turning again to look for Corrado with his eyes. He
shakes his head, because if Corrado had gone south two days earlier none of this would have
happened. Someone is calling him loudly but with all those people he doesn't understand who he is.

Lorenza beats everybody to be able to pass through and no one has the courage to oppose her. She
reaches Gustav, throws herself on him, exhausted, hands him some papers. The new President doesn't
understand, there are numbers, data, names of regions.

"Gustav was fake, it's all fake," she catches her breath, it seems she completely ran out of it. "The
referendum, Gustav, it was never won. There is no Zodiac Society, it is not legit, save them!” Lorenza
concludes pointing to the condemned.

Gustav scrutinizes the papers and looks back at Lorenza who nods her head solemnly, breathing
normally again. He is the President. Those sheets don't mean anything, they are ink on paper.
Especially since they are now in his hands. But he wants to prove, for once, that he has thick skin.
"The sentences are postponed!" he yells at the crowd, who would lynch him if he was not the new
President. But a dead has been seen, surprisingly more, so the audience can be satisfied.

He reaches Corrado, who like the other condemned can now get up. The latter would like to get to
Anna's body but Gustav hugs him and tells him it's better not to. The friend tries to console him and
asks him for some explanation, advice, while people murmur louder and louder. Corrado mumbles a
few words and points to Antonio who struggles to get back on his feet because his ribs hurt like hell.

Finally Gustav takes the floor, and asks that the citizens present repeat what he has to say to those
positioned behind them. He asks Corrado to be next to him, he hugs him, while explaining to the
crowd that there are allegations of some problems relating to the 2025 referendum. The crowd does
not agree, many objections are raised, and boos. They clamor for Barberini's death again. Gustav
understands that maybe it's not a good idea to continue on that line, accidents could happen in the
square. They could even kill him, Bizio who has just sat down and all of them, if he goes on talking
about fraud.

He cuts it short and explain that an investigation will be made but that executions are postponed until
doubts will be dispelled.

The gathering in the square remains while the members of the government are escorted to Palazzo
Medici Ricciardi by the zodiac volunteers who had improvised executioners for the occasion.
***
Father Sebastiano and Caterina sit in silence, in front of the fireplace of the refectory of Palazzo
Medici Ricciardi. The janitors brought cold cuts and cheeses with bread, which the two
however refuse preferring a hot infusion.

The priest takes a deep breath and turns to the ex-journalist. “We should pray to give thanks.”

Caterina is happy to have saved her skin, but if she has to be honest with herself, she doesn't like the
idea of ​having succumbed to terror and having started praying. "Sebastiano, I believe that some rituals
can give us security and alleviate fear, for this very reason in the past…" but she interrupts herself,
seeing the priest staring at her with the smile of one who knows the facts of the world and knows who
walks on it and , this time, will not give way. "Sure, let's pray!" says the woman returning the smile
and making the octogenarian happy.

Ciuto, seated at the table, continues to gorge on bread and cheese. He says he doesn't like cured meats,
it is certain that he has never eaten any. Lorenza and Ada joke with him, making fun of him. "Ada's
great-grandfather used to say you cannot make everyone happy: you are not cheese!"

"He'll become cheese himself if he keeps this up," the twelve-year-old exclaims and laughs with her
mother, who she's never felt so close to. And so she embraces her and due to some strange mechanism
of the brain that mostly happens to children, that laughter becomes tears, a cry that asks for all the
attention that Ada has never received. Lorenza caresses her gently: she knows she'll have to work a
lot, but she's ready. In fact, she wouldn't want to do anything else in the world, even though she knows
she has to do it from a prison cell.
***
Gustav proclaims an Emergency Council and asks Corrado to help him. He'll need him, also for a
report of how he came to know that data. Corrado doesn't feel like it. He's devastated. He will sit in
the room, at his desk, but not at the government table. Anna is dead, and their child too, and it is his
fault. Corrado racks his brain, Gustav told him about her tattoo. And she did well, indeed very well, in
going to the Forger in the meantime to get the leo tattoo. The man had already been paid and had
everything ready: why shouldn't she? Had she killed herself then for fear that her son might be
anomalous? Yet there were chances that he was going to be born a leo. For the pain of seeing her
loved one killed in Piazza della Signoria? Perhaps that could be the explanation, it is also true that
lately he had felt her very distant.

The meeting hasn't even begun when Corrado hears knocking behind him. The noise seems to come
from Bizio's studio, who seems particularly agitated and is constantly scrutinizing Gustav, trying to
probe his intentions. The noises continue and a woman's voice is heard crying for help. Only then
Bizio remembers that he has forgotten that woman inside. Corrado recognizes her voice and while
Bizio pretends nothing is happening, claiming that it is a relative of his who is waiting for him in his
studio, Corrado pounces on him and slams him against the wall, his hands around his neck. In no time
at all, the seventy-year-old, who is sweating and looking around in embarrassment, deposits a key in
the palm of Barberini's hand.

Bizio smiles and catches his breath, while Corrado inserts the key in the lock, and he adds: "I calmly
was going to open it. It's a cursed lock, I thought I wouldn't waste time on it now that we have
important things to discuss."

"Antonio? Is Antonio alive? asks the panicked woman as Corrado unlocks the door from the room.

"In the infirmary," Corrado smiles at her. "The room at the end of the floor." He is happy for her that
she still has her beloved. He wonders if during all the years he lived obsessed with her and her
memory, he ever thought of Tiziana's happiness.

And she runs down the corridor, happy to have a new chance, where she can put aside the ghosts of
the past and can simply love her family.
***
The four guards of the Relegated Center have parked their bicycles outside the Castle of Montalbano
and, ready to start the shift, exchange comments on the exceptional events occurred the previous day.

"I still don't know if I was more sorry that they didn't kill the escaped prisoner or Yuri," comments the
eldest of the four. Indeed it is not an easy choice, the others agree. But it's six o'clock and the other
guards are nowhere to be seen.

"No overtime pay!" the veteran shouts in the direction of the castle, realizing however that the prison
door is ajar. The four think of a new attack by the rebels, even if no one mentions it, and with a nod of
understanding they enter without making any noise, their hands on the batons hanging from their
waists.

Inside everything seems as they had left it twelve hours before, but approaching their box they realize
that some cells, those of the oldest anomalous, are empty; inside the box three of their colleagues are
lying on the ground, shot dead. It is useless to ask the other anomalous people what happened,
because the only ones who had any capacity for speech were those who disappeared from the center.

Two of the guards take rifles from the rack, begin to search the woods and it's not difficult, thanks to
the snow, to follow the footprints of about thirty people, presumably the anomalous ones who are
missing.

Near an escarpment, right where the first escaped got away from them a few weeks earlier, they find
Pacificus with the rifle barrel still in his mouth, and a hole in the back of his skull, far worse than the
one Yuri had made to him. No trace of the anomalous and no more footprints.

They were gone, forever.

TEN YEARS LATER

7 - LIBRA

What does it feel like to be on your deathbed? What are the thoughts that crowd the mind, when it's
almost time to go? Father Sebastiano had often asked himself, or rather always, when he happened to
administer the anointing of the sick. And now, at the age of ninety-seven, lying on his deathbed, the
only thought he had had for half an hour was about the painting hanging in the room, which depicted a
trumpet laying on a sheet of music. A nice picture? No, far from it.

"Aren't you falling asleep?"

"No, Ciuto, you asked me three times in one hour. Sooner or later you'll have to let me sleep though!"
the priest had said, alternating in between a few tired coughs.

It had been Corrado, who had been hosting Sebastiano in his house already for some years, who had
informed Ciuto three days earlier. He had told him that according to the algorithm, Sebastiano had
only one week left to live. And Ciuto had done what anyone would do on learning of such news: he
had wanted to spend as much time as possible in the company of his friend. Corrado had opened the
door for him and had disappeared saying that he had to help Antonio, who had caught something big.
Entering Sebastiano's room, Ciuto had heard Antonio cursing, a sign that the fish had escaped away.

"Help me to pull me up a bit," the dying friend had whispered after greeting him with a slight nod of
the head.

"Sure," Ciuto had promptly replied, gently embracing his friend to be able to help him. A long silence
had followed that Ciuto felt he had to break, but in the end there was no need.

“I was thinking about that painting. A relative of mine gave it to me a long time ago, before he moved
away. As a child, up in Barbiana I had learned to play the trumpet. It is clear that I then told it to my
family, and I no longer know on what occasion this painting arrived to me." He had paused and turned
to look for the mug on the bedside table: "Perhaps you remember it, it was hanging in my old room, in
Ada's room."

"No, I don't remember, I'm sorry." The boy had stood up from his chair for a moment to take a closer
look at the picture, and then sat down again.

"It's normal, that's what I was thinking. A painting that means a lot to me and that as soon as I'm dead
will become an object devoid of value and meaning." Slowly Sebastiano slipped further and further
down, until he found himself completely laying down. Ciuto had cleared his throat, not finding much
to reply to.

“Is all this sad? Perhaps it is worse to have given so much importance to an object that reminds me of
the family, when instead I should have made a family."

"But priests can't, I know that also myself."

"It is true. But just now, before thinking about the painting, I remembered the people I accompanied
towards the end. The only serene ones were those who had their own families at their bedside.

Ciuto had tried to smile and lighten the atmosphere as much as possible, explaining to Sebastiano that
he, Ada and Corrado were his family. He had finished the list by gently touching, with the palm of his
hand, the cold and taut forehead of the former parish priest, who seemed not to notice the gesture of
the twenty-five year old.

"How is Ada?"

Ciuto, satisfied at having succeeded in diverting the conversation towards less gloomy topics, had
answered in a ringing voice: "Very good! She wanted to come but ended up staying home. At home
I mean your home."

"It is now yours, and I gladly left it to you. Though I honestly hoped you'd use it to raise a family."
Sebastiano had finished the sentence by leaning to one side with his back to the lively young friend.

"With the bracelet there is little to think about, the relationship was over. And in fact neither of us
suffered and we are closer than ever.

However, the story of the bracelet Sebastiano had never managed to stomach, and he turned back to
Ciuto with an unexpected vigor given his physical condition, that he almost found himself screaming.
“Love should be a choice! As our Lord chose to die. Did an algorithm tell him it would have been
better to die?”

Ciuto did not know if so much energy was a good thing or a bad thing, but he had imagined that it
would be better to calm the sick friend and, in a calm tone of voice, he had explained that the
algorithms know very well what is best, for him, for Ada and for anyone. It's science: it measures
hormones like dopamine and oxytocin, pulse, breathing.

“And still that thing found you Irene.”

"According to the bracelet, we are the perfect match!"

“Sure, until it makes you break up with her too, silly that you are! It seems to be hearing of arranged
marriages, it seems.”

Ciuto had thought, a few minutes earlier, of making a call with Ada and Irene, to give Sebastiano the
opportunity to say hi, to talk to someone else. He had opened the communication without letting his
friend notice, in a corner of the room he had reduced the holograms but from the gestures of the two
he understood that they were bickering, as often happened, and he had immediately hung up. Irene
usually monopolized the living room to go through all her vital signs, compare them with those of the
day before, and check her general state of health. Ada couldn't bear all this, as she too wanted to take
advantage of the most spacious room in the house. One Virgo, the other Sagittarius. Ciuto continued
to bless the moment when the Zodiac Society was over. Despite this, he never ceased to have fun
looking at Irene and Ada who, despite belonging to different signs, were very similar in some
respects. This did nothing but desecrate the Society in his head.

“Pull me up please. I knew the mother."

"Lucia?" asks Ciuto helping Sebastiano..

Yes, how many mothers does Irene have?" he had asked sarcastically. “She came to mass very little or
nothing. And so did I, when I accepted San Martino parish. I had lost my faith and found the bottle.”

“Did you drink alcohol?” asked Ciuto in amazement.

"Yup. Well, people used to do it back then. Not that it was a good thing, of course. And
however, I knew her because she had been in a relationship with the priest's”.

"How do you mean, weren't you the priest?"

"No, I'm talking about the young one. Who returned from Congo used to say Mass in my place
luckily. And he had gone to Congo precisely because they had split up.' Sebastiano, helped by Ciuto,
had paused to take a sip of water. “And also because his mother had died.”

"I don't get it right, was my mother-in-law with a priest?"

"She was, when he wasn't a priest yet. Then they broke up, he became a priest and went to Congo for
a few years. He had foreseen the danger technology represented well in advance, he spoke to me
constantly about it when he came to the confessional." Sebastiano lay down again on his left side,
facing the wall.

"And what did he tell you?" had pressed Ciuto, determined not to let the conversation end.

“Are you just asking me out of fear I'll fall asleep? Because I die when it pleases me and Jesus Christ,
not when the algorithm or the bracelet tells me, mind you."

"No, I'm curious. And you see that you are full of energy, enough with all this story!

"Okay," Sebastiano had turned to Ciuto, letting the tension accumulated in the last minute slip away
and had given him a smile. Ciuto's tattoo, very faded, seemed to contrast strongly with his libra’s,
which instead had seemed very shiny when he had observed it some time before. A sign that the skin
of young people reproduces more quickly.

"So this priest, if I'm not mistaken, more or less returned from Congo thirty years ago, it must have
been 2020, or maybe just before."

"Is that in Africa?" Ciuto knew a bit of geography thanks to Fantascudetto, and thinking about it, he
couldn't wait to go home to play a match. Rationally he knew that it was more important to spend the
last few days with his friend and that he could have played who knows how many matches in life; but
at that moment, in his heart, he would still have preferred to be with his team.

"Yes, some priests went to help in the poorest countries. Luckily it's no longer needed today. However,
he returned after five years and in the parish of San Martino they had organized a big welcome home
party for him. Can you help me?"

Sebastiano slipped again and Ciuto helped him sit up on the bed once more.

"But the priest was not in a festive mood. He told me that as soon as he got back here he realized how
much technology had taken hold, how in his eyes everyone had lost control always being engrossed in
their cell phones, including children. And then he explained to those present that he had seen how the
raw materials were extracted to build those contraptions, that he had seen people die for very little
money in makeshift sand mines, even children working there were devoured by the soil. Or they died
of fatigue. And then, as if he were St. Francis, he asked everyone to throw away their phones. And it
won't surprise you if I tell you that no one listened to him, they even got angry." Sebastiano had taken
a long break to catch his breath, and only his rattle could be heard in the room.
"But what was his name?"

"You can't say the penitent's name, it's a confessional secret."

"If you don't tell me, I'll ask my mother-in-law."

Sebastiano had pointed to the mug and Ciuto had filled it again.

"His name was, and I guess still is, Father Mario." Sebastiano had escaped a smile: Ciuto had gotten
smart! 'Until a boy died,' he went on, 'one of the parish. It happened one night, in a car accident, and it
seems that the telephone was to blame. The mother, I knew her well, she never forgave herself
because Alessandro was replying to her message at the moment of the collision. I remember the pain,
at the funeral she screamed that because of her desire for tranquillity, to fall asleep with the certainty
that her son was well, she herself, with her constant messages, had caused the boy's death. And that
was when everything changed. It must be said that at that moment Mario questioned his faith much
more than I did, and Lucia certainly didn't help him. She on the other hand, poor thing, with that
misfortune..."

"Gianmaria," Ciuto had murmured, nodding slowly.

Sebastiano had his eyes closed, he had said the last words with a weariness that made Ciuto remember
of the reason for that visit. The boy raised his voice and asked the priest to continue.

"I hear you Ciuto, I was rearranging my thoughts. I don't remember exactly how it happened but in a
short time there were no more telephones in San Martino, and Mario with his brother and a couple of
friends created this group of people happy to abandon cell phones, I mean, the smartphones. They
used to say that due to these things the ability to think was lost, that everyone was faced with the same
information, spoiling the memory and damaging the brain and also that all this has made us puppets.
They also organized a demonstration in Rome, big stuff. It would be like a promenade, where people
who disagree on some things shout it out loud." Sebastiano had clarified this last point, seeing an
amused expression appear on the anomalous' face.

Ciuto laughed at the idea but quickly he puts himself together as for some reason Aries TV’s theme
song had come back to his mind.

"It was serious stuff, someone died in it. Not in that one specifically, but in some other
demonstrations. I remember that I had met Mario's father while I was at the bar that very day. We
talked, even though he was more one who grunted than a talker, and the bartender told him there was
a call for him. And in fact Natale, hung up the phone, ran into the car. I knew immediately that
something was wrong.”

"Natale? The feast?"

"No, no," Sebastiano smiled. "Not a man who enjoyed feast, it was just a name. And that day he told
me that, despite being a communist and anti-clerical, he wasn't as angry with his son as I thought. He
told me that his late wife, Mario's mother, was also a practicing Catholic and Natale had never
discussed it. He couldn't bear that Mario had become a priest out of fear, due to his inability to accept
his mother's death and the end of the story with Lucia. And he said it broke his heart, it pained him to
see his own son running away from life.”

"Or perhaps it was fate that this gentleman should be a priest." Sebastiano raised his eyebrows in a
skeptical expression.

"If bracelets were already around, then he would have known immediately!"
Ciuto had nodded convinced but the priest hadn't noticed it, concentrated as he was on remembering
the story. His health was not very good nowadays, but his memory had never let him down.

“I remember that the demonstration had turned violent. On television they showed hooded boys
throwing stones into shop windows, especially those selling telephones. Mario told me that he had
seen one of these injuring his hand, and that he had then seen a policeman with a bandaged hand the
following day at the police station."

Ciuto was nodding, to please his interlocutor, but for him the story was becoming more and more
difficult to follow. Sebastiano, who knew him well, had decided to try to explain the events better.

"What happened is that Mario had tried to reassure the demonstrators, he called them to order using
the loudspeaker he had with him. And finally the police had arrived. The boys had escaped, they had
dispersed, however some had been arrested and taken to the police headquarters. Lucia and Enrico,
Mario's brother, had managed to escape. But not him, he had let himself be taken without offering any
resistance. He expected a walk, to show the world that there were people who didn't need to use
telephones; instead he found himself guilty of the devastation of one of the most beautiful streets in
Rome. And while Enrico called the bar in San Martino, and told Natale about Mario's arrest, the latter
stayed in a small room, sitting on a chair for interminable hours, without anyone coming to speak to
him, or question him.

Ciuto had lowered his eyes with an expression on his face that recalled a childish pout while the
images of the years spent locked up in a cell had returned to his mind.
Sebastiano, after a pause of a couple of minutes, seemed to have fallen asleep, but had finally
resumed.

“Well, what happened next is confusing. It was for Mario, and imagine for me after all these years. To
tell you about it, I mean. He told me that it was already dawn when a man entered the room. Elegant,
not in uniform, it was never known if he was from the police or a politician. Mario was destroyed by
fatigue and the man had started showing the photos of the arrested demonstrators, some taken a few
hours earlier, others instead joyful and festive, taken months, years in advance and which filled their
profiles on the internet. He told him that revolutionaries, even revolutionary priests, I remember this
well, ask for nothing more than to have a power to fight, because a revolutionary is lost without, in
fact, a power to confront. It is a paradox, my dear Ciuto, but the revolutionaries are power’s
staunchest supporters. And alongside the revolutionaries there are the others, those who are madly
afraid of freedom, who always need guidance, and perhaps find it in the revolutionary of the moment.
You used to find them in the streets, cheering for freedom, and they didn't realize they couldn't tolerate
it." Here Sebastiano had started coughing so much that it seemed he could no longer catch his breath
and Ciuto had been frightened, until a few sips of water had soothed the cough.

"Are you alright Sebastiano?"

"Yes, well," he had continued, clearing his throat, "I was telling you about those who do not tolerate
freedom. And in fact, according to that man, first gin and drugs, then cell phones and the internet, up
to your new technological devilries, these are not tools to silence the masses, but are instead
lifesavers. At least that's what the gentleman said. So Mario was right when he said that those tools
limited freedom, but they were also the only access to happiness for those who did humble, sad jobs
and could thus take their phone out of their pocket, get lost in the thousand nonsense they found there,
and feel more happy. It remains to be seen whether freedom or happiness is more important. Mario
chose happiness, or at least certainly not freedom. He was forced to close everything, with the excuse
of being disappointed by the violence of the demonstrators. In reality, at first Mario tried not to accept
the man's order, but the latter told him that he was aware of the fact that a certain missionary, in
Congo, had lured some children."

"Was that true?" Ciuto had asked, his eyes widening.

“No, it wasn't true. The problem is that, in our century, doubt becomes more real than the fact itself!
And so, end of the revolution.”

"I'm free, despite the devilry you say," Ciuto joked, "I haven't been free for fifteen years, and that was
certainly enough for me."

“The problem is not much about freedom. But it seems to me no one is capable of doing anything
anymore. Up there in Barbiana Father Lorenzo Milani taught us how to do math, read and all the
various subjects. But he knew and we knew, that they were useful notions for a redemption in society,
for surviving a given historical moment. But on our side we had concreteness, real life. We knew
woods, plants, seasons: we knew our world and we would never have died of hunger. This knowledge
has been lost and we have given more importance, much more importance, to the other knowledge,
the useless one, the one we invented. And one can no longer distinguish a branch from a leaf.

“But progress has brought us to the society we know, I know that also myself. There is no such thing
as fatigue, everyone's life is exceptional."

"Yes, but you are not even able to understand if you like one girl or you don't.
The computer has to tell you.”

Ciuto had lowered his eyes; in fact, Sebastiano's lucidity had often found him unprepared to elaborate
an answer.

"Remember that progress is not something natural, inevitable. That's evolution. Inventions, on the
other hand, have a direction and, usually, it's towards the wallet of the inventor himself."
***
Dying at ninety-seven was acceptable. Leaving Corrado's house, Ciuto had made the decision to find
the priest Sebastiano had mentioned, this Father Mario, and take him to his old friend's deathbed. The
boy had accessed the list of inhabitants of Florence, filtered by priests, and had found a couple of
Mario.

And tonight, when according to the algorithm there are only two days left, Ciuto takes leave of
Sebastiano and reaches the two parishes where the two Father Mario live. He finds them easily, but
can immediately see that the older of the two will be roughly his age: certainly too young to think to
ave found the missionary friend of Sebastiano.

Leaving the parish house, Ciuto notices a door at the end of the corridor that communicates with the
sacristy, beyond which the illuminated church can be glimpsed. Despite the fact that it was a church
that had saved Ciuto ten years earlier, despite his friendship with Father Sebastiano and despite the
fact that the Catholic religion has gathered many adherents in recent years, Ciuto has never managed
to believe in God. Those who believe in God they didn't spend the first fifteen years of their lives
locked away because of an original sin, did they?

But it's a whistled tune that draws him inside the church, a tune he knows only because Yuri usually
hums it and which, at times, Ciuto was able to hear during the Fantascudetto matches when playing
against Fiorentina.

Without thinking, convinced in his heart of finding himself in front of his friend, the former jailer,
Ciuto crosses the door of the sacristy "Yuri, are you also here for Sebastiano?"

A boy intent on tidying up the altar turns around smiling. He seems the same age as Ciuto but the sign
he has tattooed is the Scorpio one.

"I don't know any Sebastiano unfortunately, and a Yuri yes, I actually used to know one..."
The young man approaches Ciuto, who, embarrassed at having made the wrong person, mutters some
excuses, but the first continues.

"Now that I see you up close, I remember you too."

Ciuto looks at him questioningly, until he recognizes a fellow prisoner in his interlocutor and, without
adding further words, the two embrace.

"I'm happy to see you, and to see that you're well! And the others, too? I don't even know your name
then..."

“Gerardo, Geri. And about the others, I don't know. We separated almost immediately after Pacific
shot himself.”

"I had already escaped for a few weeks thanks to Yuri, that one I confused you with. But I know what
happened."

“The others didn't even know how to talk, not even me. We were completely lost and each one went
on his own, I think. I found myself in the south, I stayed there for a few years, but now I was missing
home I guess.".

“Do you have the chip? You know, we hugged..."

"Of course, zero current illnesses. Want to check?” laughs Geri showing the bracelet.

"I'm sorry, it's just that they say they don’t pay much attention in the south: I know that also myself!"

"And that's true, but if you want to live in the Central Territories, you need a chip."

"And you, are you becoming a priest?"

“No, but I didn't know anyone when I got back here. You don't meet many people even on the street. I
didn't have a house and Father Mario took me in."

"Yeah, too bad it's not the Father Mario I was looking for."
***
Later Ciuto would not have been able to say whether he had formally invited Geri or whether, while
chatting, they had left the church and strolled, finally finding themselves in his house. As a matter of
fact playing Fantascudetto Geri immediately proves to be good, the motivational speeches he gives to
the players are excellent, and they follow him to the letter, as never happened to Ciuto.

Ada seems to be having a blast with Geri, as the two make fun of Ciuto's childish attitude who never
accepts defeat in videogames, and in the end, Ciuto gets the distinct impression that Geri let him win.
Actually the latter seems more interested in Ada than in the match. Irene, for her part, doesn't
participate at all: Ciuto would have greatly appreciated hearing her cheering for his team, but she got
lost in the bracelet, sifting through all the vital signs, far be it she’s about to catch a summer cold.

The players, so real it seems one can almost touch them, have just returned to the locker room: Ciuto,
as coach, would have liked to say a few words to thank them, but a hungry Ada interrupts the
streaming and the room goes back to being a normal living room.

"We are hungry, Irene is hungry too. Right Irene?” asks Ada screaming the last words.

Ciuto's girlfriend rouses, raises her head and nods with conviction. Ciuto is silent, he thinks that those
two are in agreement only when it comes to ganging up against him, but in any case he goes off to the
kitchen from where he comes back with steaming pizzas with tomato sauce on top.

"You'll see that we won't make you miss Naples," Ciuto says to the hungry guest, as he rips the pizza
for the diners with his hands, burning himself and constantly blowing on his fingers.

"I've been drinking soup three times a day for a year, you don't know what a joy this evening is for
me!" smiles Geri "It's a pity they banned cutlery, you would have avoided burning yourself."

“Oh yeah, for security reasons. Do you still use them in the south?”

Geri nods, laughing with Ada at the expressions of pain that Ciuto does due to the burn.

“I was wondering how it's possible that we’ve never seen you on TV. The revived anomalous still has
charm. We have seen hundreds of them pass on the screens in recent years, which came from the
centers scattered throughout the Territories. Ciuto was a star a few years ago, he was the first to have
the chip implanted. Live!"

"We also told ourselves that it wouldn't work," Ciuto continues, "and instead it was the chip that told
us that our relationship was on the ropes."

"And to start ours," Irene whispers to Ciuto who holds her hand under the table.

"The dawn of a new society, they wanted to start it with the victims of the previous one. And at the
time I was the victim par excellence, having escaped from the castle of Montalbano and from the
guillotine in Piazza della Signoria."

"Let's say I didn't tell the whole truth, I preferred to stay out of it. I said that I had lived in Naples for
many years, because my family had fled the Central Territories when they understood that my sister
would be born anomalous. So they left me alone."

"Avoiding saying that instead you were the one anomalous in the family," Ciuto thinks aloud. "And
actually it was a good idea, you avoided ending up as a regular guest on Caterina's talk-show."

"And I'd rather continue like this, so we're in agreement," Geri smiled wiping himself with a napkin
and holding his hands palms together to thank Ciuto for the excellent dinner.

In an instant the latter makes appear at the end of the room the silhouette of the journalist who had
managed to regain her job as a presenter, once the Zodiac Society had dissoluted and Lanza had been
ousted. The silhouette looks like a person in the flesh, as real as the football players had seemed an
hour before, and she is joined by the mothers of the missing anomalous, founders of the “Help us
finding them” committee. As usual, in the show, possible leads are mentioned, they say some
anomalous may have been spotted in the northern territories, that a genetic test will have to be done
and that one must not get caught up in easy enthusiasm.

"Who knows, maybe your mom is sitting among them too," Irene asks Geri who shrugs. "Don't you
want to meet her?"

"I think I could give her more problems than anything else, they seem very serene and quiet as they
are" Geri giggles receiving the amused applause of Ada.

"Caterina always hopes that Ciuto will surprise her by returning to the show. They were using him to
see if he could recognize possible missing anomalous among random suspected people.”

"And how many did you recognize?" Geri asks amused.

"Nobody. There were a couple I thought I recognized, but the tests didn't prove me right."

“I don't think I'd be able to recognize anyone either. We used to see each other… how long? An hour a
week? And ten years have passed, most of them were children. But there were other centers also,
right?”

"Yes, those from there there are all free, and often she still invites them. And even in yours center, it's
not that everyone has disappeared," adds Ada, "the little ones were all found in the castle. One I think
was said to be missing. They were the oldest ones that had been taken by Pacifico.”

"He found a way to be famous forever, that assassin: people still keep talking about him," Ciuto says
as he fills a glass of water nervously.

"Well, he only killed the other guards in the end," Geri says.

"Yes, but before he had tried to kill me!"

The three laugh, while Irene goes back to observing the vital signs in the bracelet. The conversation
then turns to Sebastiano, with Ada who, having reset the volume of the emission, asks Ciuto how she
found him, while admitting that she doesn't have the courage to go there, being afraid of bursting into
tears.

"Of course, we're talking about different ages than Sebastiano," admits Geri. "But with a friend in
Naples the same happened to me. We don't have the chips identifying precisely how much longer
someone can still live, but with him it was clear that it was not much. And he was young. But I
couldn't: just the idea of ​talking to him thinking it was the last time I'd do it… well, I couldn't."

"It's actually acceptable to die at ninety-seven," Ciuto admits shutting off the TV with a yawn.

“How can you say such a thing? And of a friend of yours, how?” yells Irene, who suddenly seems to
have become a dfferent person than the shy girl Geri had met that evening.

"Of course he's a friend of mine, what I'm saying…"

"Death is the end and it can't be acceptable, ever!" cut it short Irene, angrily heading towards the
bedroom.

Ciuto glances at his ex-girlfriend, lowers his eyes and shakes his head while she winks to encourage
him. He murmurs a "goodnight Geri" who has time to reply "thanks again" and disappears behind
Irene.

Left alone, Geri and Ada tell their stories. Actually it is more the first one to speak, prompted by her
numerous questions. He says he had worked in Naples, cutting hair, and Ada informs him that Ciuto's
mother also does the same and who knows if Geri can work for her, which is actually one job that
artificial intelligence and algorithms are unable to perform. But he admits that he has little interest in
working, as everyone receives an income even without having to do itt.

"Why don't we take advantage of the nice evening, and take a walk outside?" Geri asks, changing
subject.

"Outside? Now? To go where?” replies Ada falling from the clouds.

"To go for a walk, nothing specific."

"I'm not used to going out at night, I don't really like the idea, sorry. And I don't think anyone is out
walking right now."

"Sure, old habits, sorry."

“What if we go to the roof? It's not dangerous there."

Geri is not at ease with heights and the roof itself is very sloping due to the spring and autumn
downpours but, with a good dose of courage, he reaches Ada and sits down next to her. The two look
around and listen to the cicadas, the only ones who do not respect the nocturnal silence. The full moon
shows the tower of Palazzo Vecchio wrapped in plastic sheets, so as to prevent anyone from entering
places where more germs can nest. Rather than making the effort to climb on the roof to see
monuments wrapped in cellophane, it may be more romantic to stay in the living room admiring their
holograms.

"There was a story that a friend's grandfather, actually the friend I mentioned before, had told us, he
told many. He said that as a child he didn't have a television at home unlike his friends. And at school
they would talk about what they had seen on TV the night before, so he would feel he missed out."

"Poor thing."

"Right. Parents didn't have enough money to buy it. So he would go out on the balcony in the evening
to listen to other people's TVs. And the next day, hearing his schoolmates talking about the television
programs of the previous evening, he really felt like he knew what they were talking about and he no
longer forced himself to stand aside. But in reality some time later he had to confess to himself that
the only sound he could hear from the balcony of his house were the cicadas singing. Now that I think
about it, I don't know why he told us this story, but he told us many.”

"It's very sweet."

"Yes, he suffered a lot for his nephew."

“Perhaps he meant that we are lucky to live in a world without disparity.”

"Perhaps. In the southern territories it's not quite like here, but you could be right," Geri smiles
sweetly at Ada, who reciprocates, but doesn't do the same with the kiss that follows.

“I don't know how you're used to it, but here we kiss when we're in a relationship. And I think I like
you, yes. Don't think I don't."

"Then let's be in a relationship!" Geri pushes with a smile.

"We cannot decide, I mean, yes we can but based upon the bracelet’s confirmation."

“Is it illegal to kiss or be with someone the algorithm doesn't want to?”

"Oh, you’re funny", laughs Ada, "it's not illegal but it's obvious that it knows perfectly well what's
good, or not, for me. He knows when I'm happy, when I'm not, what I like, what you like and if we
can be happy. Or at least if I can be.”

"And you depend on it?"

“I wouldn't put it that way. Because I am the chip, but I don't depend on it. In fact, I'm freer than
ever."

"And could it not be that your happiness and your serenity come about as a consequence of the events
of your life, of the teachings received, rather than for what is your nature?"

"I think you can't lie to the chip."

“It's your body that can do it. Let's pretend that you are a person, for example, selfish by nature. You
were born so" jokes Geri. “Then your life led you to be selfless. And you are so convinced of it, that
you are happy when you are selfless. But in reality at that moment you are an enemy to your nature.
The chip, which side will it side on?”

“For what is right, right now. My nature is what I am now. They have forced us for years to be bound
to the day of our birth, as if that could really define us for life. You know this better than me. The chip
frees us from that vision, notices how we change day by day and shows it to us, in case we don't
notice. Even the nostalgics of the Zodiac Society are convinced, seeing the benefits.

“If you had been born a thousand miles from here, raised with a completely different mentality and
another language. What does the algorithm choose? Your nature, what you are now, or what you
would be a thousand miles from here?”

"This is more complicated, but the answer is always valid: what is right for me at that moment in that
place. I don't see anything strange about it."

"Okay, I give up. No, actually not. Let's assume that you are right on everything. And that the
algorithm should tell you who you're in love with, or at least who you could spend happy time with.
But it won't be able to stop you from kissing whoever you want, right?"

"But I'm not an animal. I just kiss the one person with whom I can be happy."

“You say happy. But Ciuto was telling me about the path he had to take to be able to accept
breaking-up with you.. He was happy? Pornography and masturbation all day, was he happy?”

“He could pick the pills, like I did. For him at the moment it was better to satisfy his sexuality”.

“With holograms banging in the living room?”

“Gross.”

"Excuse me."

"I don't know if over there you handle sexuality differently, but it's the easiest way to transmit
disease."

"Yeah, it's true," Geri admits defeated.

"Thanks to good habits we have none."

“And to the chip, right?”

"And to the chip," confirms Ada satisfied, but observing her interlocutor to see if he is being sarcastic
about it. On the other hand, he could be used to living with illnesses. Who knows what his friend had
died of!

"So," Geri had resumed jokingly, "where did you go when Ciuto was having his therapy?"

“Well, I was there, often. There's nothing bad. It's also my home. And anyway, most of the time the
actors stopped. I mean when Ciuto was near its peak.”
"I don't quite understand."

“They disappeared, waiting for him to calm down. Let him be less aroused, then they'd start again."

"Still not getting it."

"Males, after the orgasm, are a little more rational. And one who was sad comes back to be sad. If, on
the other hand, the arousement remains without ever reaching the orgasm, the sadness does not return,
it is postponed.

"And by dint of postponing, two months go by, and one feels better. All clear now. So the actors were
controlled by Ciuto's bracelet."

Ada smiles and covers her mouth to hide a yawn, for which she apologizes immediately. But even
Geri realizes he's very tired, yawning in turn with less grace than the girl. He follows Ada as she
returns home, less uncertain about his steps, forgetting his dizziness.

Gerardo falls asleep soundly and continues to sleep for many hours, feeling as if he had a fever to get
over of.

And he dreams, vivid dreams like he hasn't had in months. He dreams of Ada, dreams of making love
to her, with a desire he had never felt before, neither in dreams nor when he was awake. And the
dream activity of that hot summer night continues intensely.

"It is true that gibbons are monogamous," explains the Professor “but they are the exception
among the apes. Unfortunately science has become the exception today, thanks to humanity's
continuous exposure to communication. Suffice it to recall the theory of germs, where one person out
of ten may get sick, but that exception becomes the rule. It is conceivable that there was a moment,
located in the period of the invention of agriculture, our first expulsion from paradise let's say, where
a contract between male and female became necessary. And this shows how, unlike what they think
out there, inventions don't always increase man's happiness."

"One could think of something like this", says Geri, "only by believing in some deity who guides men
to the discovery of gifts that the same god has previously hidden from them…"

"Exactly, great!" replies the Professor. "And that's more or less the case."

"But then why do you want to send them out there?", Duccio comments as he enters the courtyard
where once Pacifico and Yuri used to watch the anomalous stretch their legs, "when here they can live
according to nature?".

The boys and girls, seated on the ground in front of the Professor, welcome the words of the
seventy-five-year-old hairless leo with nods of agreement, but the Professor asks Italo, the youngest of
his students, the child with the sign of the Aquarius, and asks him if he wants to answer.

"Because we must think of the species before ourselves, I mean, before the individual!" Italo exclaims
standing up and looking into the eyes of the bald old gentleman whom neither he nor Geri had ever
been able to appreciate.

"Correct," the Professor confirms calmly. “The species has evolved over millions of years, always
sacrificing the individual. While today the opposite is being done, protecting the individual who
obviously does not accept to fall ill and die. In doing so we have distorted our behavior and the
species will hardly be able to survive.
8 - SCORPIO

Prisons around the world, or those back in history, probably don't differ much from each other. The
climate can be different, or even the material of the walls and the light that filters inside, but the
common denominator is always the impossibility of going out and the idea that whoever is out there
has the right to be there. Which is an established fact for those out there, but to those who are inside it
may seem absurd.

Geri reasons that he's probably in his twenty-fifth year of imprisonment in his life and that, if health
assists him, and he hopes not, there will be just as many. It was easier at the beginning, when he was
locked up because he was guilty of being born an anomalous, when he didn't know freedom yet. But
not now: it's much more difficult to survive after having lived those ten golden, joyful years that came
back to his mind every minute. Right from the start, at the beginning of his second detention, he had
decided to relive his freedom every day in sequence, so as to escape at least with his head from those
walls.

On the first day of detention, he had remembered and relived his first day of freedom, with the
Professor who opened his cell and Pacificus' faked suicide. Now he got to the day of the meeting with
Ciuto, the day of the walk on the roof. In some moments it seems to him that a thousand years have
passed, in others a minute: in reality, ten years have passed. Ten years since the happiest awakening
of his life.
***
“Wake up Geri.”
Ada is sitting on his bed and he, who usually sleeps very lightly, hasn't noticed her presence at all. He
opens his eyes and feels different, as if that feverish night had marked a watershed. She smiles at him.
He mutters that he's sorry he slept so long and asks about Ciuto.

"He wanted to go to see Sebastiano but he decided, or rather Irene decided, that they should go to her
mother's for lunch. But there's another thing." Ada whispers with a big smile. A new suggestion has
appeared on the display of her bracelet, where Geri's name appears. She doesn't look for confirmation
in her boyfriend's bracelet: she is certain that she would read her name there. She kisses him gently,
then passionately, every now and then they stop, look at each other and laugh, almost unable to
believe the luck that has befallen them. And sex is wonderful, but in retrospect, Geri would call it
somehow painful. It's not like with the girls he was used to, with the anomalous at the castle let’s say.
It's not animal sex. It's like sex is civilized too. Ada observes him, takes his head in her hands, kisses
him and looks at him again. The tongue is used exclusively for kisses on the lips and on the neck, and
all the sexual positions they experiment cannot be done without looking into each other's eyes.
Different, no doubt, from what Geri knows. Pain, for him, comes at the moment of maximum pleasure
for Ada: the idea that in the past, or worse in the future, she could or will be able to look at someone
in the same way and have such an intense orgasm, causes him an anguish, an emptiness, that he has
never felt before.
***
Ciuto does not like meetings with Lucia. In a world that has chosen health and joy, he’s atuck with a
depressed mother-in-law. The medicines, on which she depends, don't seem to work, or at least not
anymore. But this time he hopes she can help him finding Father Mario and therefore he has
consented to Irene's request. Furthermore, the latter was very angry with him the night before and
Ciuto hopes that pleasing her would be the prelude to making peace.

"Irene has already told you about Gianmaria, hasn't she?" asks Lucia who feels compelled to remind
everyone the reason for her depression. “He died 7 years before she was born.”

Ciuto nods and Lucia is silent as she serves bread with baked tomatoes. Ciuto knows that this is the
maximum of culinary skills Lucia can exhibit. He waits a long time before addressing the subject
interestsing him.
"Yesterday Father Sebastiano told me that once he knew you quite well, he had been appointed parish
priest in your village."

"Did he know me?"

"Yes, and he knew Father Mario also, a mutual friend."

"Mario, sure," Lucia murmurs, almost smiling. "Who knows what happened to him."

"Ciuto wanted to ask you this, mom," adds Irene.

"I had left him for Gianmaria's father, they were best friends.". Lucia adjusts her chignon as best she
can and her gray hair leaves room for the Sagittarius symbol. "Did I tell you he was texting a young
girl while my sweet Gianmaria was drowning? He was too concentrated to get up from the beach
chair and run to save him.”

"Yes mom."

"Mario returned, years later, he stayed for some time and left again I don't know for what place
anymore. Asia maybe? When your grandfather died, maybe he was already gone."

"Didn't he celebrate the funeral mass?"

"There is no funeral mass for suicides."

"He killed himself for debts," Irene explains Ciuto, lowering her eyes in shame.

"Not really," rebuts Lucia ipushing a release of medicine with a flick on the bracelet. “Or at least that
was the version I told you when you were a child. Gianmaria's death had destroyed him. And to make
matters worse, he got testicular cancer. The whole village rallied around him, they also raised money
for the surgery. He was retired, he didn't have enough money. Luckily everything went well and he
recovered. So he thought he wanted to thank whoever had helped him.” It is obvious that these
memories are difficult for Lucia to swallow and her gaunt index finger looks for the bracelet again.

"He invented this shuttle, it was a voluntary job that also allowed him to be busy and not spend the
nights tossing and turning in bed: by car he used to pick up the young clubbers on their way out of the
discotheque and brought them home safe and sound. Shortly before, a twenty-year-old had died in a
car accident and it had been a tragedy for the whole San Martino, we all knew him.

Irene is very attentive to her mother's story, nevertheless she can't resist checking her vital signs every
two minutes: since she woke up she has noticed a slight increase in leukocytes, not to suppose an
infection in progress but better to keep them under control.

"Grandma wasn't very happy about it," she continues looking at Irene,
"She liked that your grandfather was respected and well-liked, but she thought his desire to avoid
thinking of Gianmaria and keep living was unfair. To tell the truth, she seemed to have some pleasure
now that everybody recognized her as the one whose nephew had died, and felt sorry for her.'

"What are you saying, mum…" Irene murmurs, looking away embarrassed as distant as possible from
Ciuto.

"Anyway one night your grandfather picks up these four outside of a club and drops each one to their
place. In the car is left just the granddaughter of one of our neighbors, an old friend of your
grandfather, who had celebrated her eighteenth birthday that evening in the club, she got drunk and
had fallen asleep in the car. Th security camera of the villa recorded the whole scene, a video that the
father of the birthday girl will deliver to the police."

An embarrassed Ciuto is staring down at the table while Irene seems terrified in the grip of an anxiety
which, on her, translates into hives, so she starts scratching everywhere.

“He masturbated while sitting in the driver's seat, immediately after pulling up in front of the girl's
house. She was sleeping behind, her legs uncovered, and your grandfather's vital torpor had
awakened, for an instant, to then destroy his life. Do you want more Ciuto?" asks Lucia noticing the
empty plate of the boy, who out of kindness and old memories related to hunger, doesn't usually leave
leftovers "There's still some in the oven."

"No, thank you," replies the boy while gently caressing his partner.

"Just ask, if anything. And so, I was talking about your grandfather, Irene. The village learned about
it, before he did as he was unaware of the camera. Everyone despised him: the one who had been a
hard worker, and for whom the village had rallied around in the last few years, immediately became
the worst human on earth. Grandma was ashamed of what had happened, she no longer had the
courage to go out even to do the shopping. At home she avoided meeting him, they started living in
different rooms. He tried to justify himself: he said he hadn't use any violence, he said it had been a
frenzy, he said that a wrong moment cannot erase a honest life, an upright life... but by then he was
alone. Me too, I was ashamed. The village idiot was the one who found him, he was the only one who
didn't seem to despise him. And perhaps daddy did not want to be found by one of us, and decided to
kill himself in the house of the only one who remained his friend.

“What a shame, and why didn't you ever tell me? I even felt tenderness for my grandfather."

"It wasn't a story for a little girl."

Ciuto prefers not to comment, he is thinking over Lucia's words as he continues to caress Irene. A
frenzy. Could it happen to anyone? He had met some villains, for example Pacific. When he wanted to
beat him to death with a baton, it certainly wasn't a frenzy.

His thoughts are interrupted by Corrado's text, just received on the display of his bracelet "I'm afraid
it's today...".

Ciuto jumps up and shows Irene the message as she keeps asking her mother for further explanations:
she asks if she had then apologized to the girl's family and how they went through that thing. Ciuto
leaves them like this.
***
In Corrado's house, Ciuto finds Antonio and Yuri at the priest's bedside: the three had become very
close after having risked beheading in the Loggia della Signoria. Alderici is missing, he will arrive
only later: of all he is the only one who still has work commitments.

"I forgot to warn Ada," Ciuto begins, greeting sadly Corrado who opens the door for him.

"She's over there, I wrote to both of you. She's with your friend."

Indeed, in the dining room Ciuto finds his ex-girlfriend crying, embraced by Geri who consoles her.
He nods to the two and rushes into Sebastiano's room. He understands that those two have become
very close and he is pleased, especially for Ada: a sign that the therapy has worked well for both.

Sebastiano breathes noisily. It is the first time that Ciuto hears something like this. The others, who
gave him a weak nod, don't seem so shocked. Sebastiano is asleep, or is unconscious, and Ciuto's
thoughts turn to Irene as he would have needed her in that moment but she certainly would not have
been able to witness a similar scene.
A young priest arrives shortly thereafter: it is not Father Mario but one of those who live in the
neighborhood. Sebastiano continues in his unconscious struggle with the final rattle. Until the
neighborhood priest leaves, Sebastiano opens his eyes for a moment, sees his friends around him, the
painting on the wall, and expires.
***
In the evening in Father Sebastiano's old house there isn't much conversation. Ciuto makes some
comments about the love that blossomed between Geri and Ada, but Irene doesn't seem to like it and
therefore he shuts up.

Geri cannot hold back a question that he has been wondering about for the all day: he wants to know
who is that person with the tousled gray hair that Caterina has often shown the previous day and, with
the volume turned off, he has not been able to catch the name. He thinks back to that face and is now
convinced that it was Duccio, the Professor's right hand man. The anomalous had found him hiding in
Montalbano's castle, shortly before deciding to all move there instead of staying in the woods. For
health and safety, there is no longer anyone who dares to enter the forest and the abandoned castle, so
the Professor had decreed it useless to continue hiding crammed into the huts he had built.

"He's the one who locked us up where we met," Ciuto smiles, forgetting the mourning for a moment.
Geri tries not to show his astonishment and feigns a certain detachment.

"Oh really?"

“I suppose in Naples you will have understood why you were an anomalous. And you will know of
the Astrologer's existence.”

"Of course, I've studied the story!" Geri says forcing a smile.

"Good."

"What?"

" He is that man. The one of the photo you saw on TV. And he's also my uncle, unfortunately,” adds
Ada.

"I thought he was in jail," manages to say Geri lost in a thousand thoughts and not very lucid to say
more than six words in a row.

“My mother does. Not him: he managed to escape.”

In the moment in which Ada begins to tell about Lorenza, the rebels and how the relationship with
Ciuto was born, Geri feels that unpleasant feeling of jealousy again, and that is the moment when he
makes the decision not to return to his army to announce who Duccio was. On the other hand, the
Professor should know: sure,, of course he does. Better to continue with the mission entrusted to him
by the Professor, he blindly trusts him, he who had saved him, had taught him to speak, to reason, to
live. Or maybe he just wants to be with Ada and everything else seems less important now.
***
And what was the Professor supposed to do, once he recognized the Astrologer in that bald, aged and
emaciated man from a diet based on berries and some fruit?

He could have reported him to the police, but he certainly wasn't in a position to show up to Alderici
and his colleagues; he could have told him to leave, but if he had been caught and told that the
anomlaous were hiding in the woods with the Professor, the latter's ambitions regarding the creation
of an army that could change society would have foundered; he could have, and had decided, to make
the Astrologer his ally. On the other hand it was thanks to him, the maker of the anomalous, if the
Professor had in his hands a group of kids not manipulated by technology and in contact with their
essence, with their nature, or rather the only ones who could have save the species. And again, both
the Professor and the Astrologer had always aspired to respect humanity for its own nature: the first
from the biological point of view, the second from the point of view of the stars.

The Astrologer appreciated the Professor's ideas on wanting to free humanity from the slavery of
technology: it is true that the society he had created was centered on the constant use of smartphones,
but the old psychologist was ready to change idea, about it, especially since he had no choice. At the
beginning of their cohabitation in the castle, he had confided to the Professor that he had asked for
help from a trusted man to escape from the territories, a young boy who knew the Apennines well. He
had shaved his hair but the interview he had given to Lanza a few days before his escape had been
seen by everyone and everyone seemed to recognize him, even in the mountain villages. After so
much wandering, they had had to return to Florence as checkpoints multiplied in the areas to the south
where they attempted to cross the border. They then thought of breaking through to the north, but the
lad had abandoned him and he certainly couldn't blame him, not even having enough to pay him. Then
he thought that there was a place he knew well and which he believed was now uninhabited: the castle
of Montalbano. But he had found the Professor there.

In the evening it happened that the two entertained themselves to converse on the Professor's lessons,
on his vision of change, and also on what had become of the Zodiac society. The final lessons
represented the culmination of the Professor's project, or at least of the first part: he had started ten
years earlier with kindergarten lessons, if ever kindergarten has ever had real lessons, which aimed to
teach the anomalous to speak. In fact, many were not able to. The Professor knew little about
pedagogy but he soon understood that more than teaching, he had to be imitated. In fact, even children
who live in families grow up imitating their parents; this is confirmed by the fact that if they really
learned to speak, they would not use exactly the same vocabulary and syntax used by their parents.

He had subsequently given lessons where he explained the outside world to boys who had never
visited it: bravely he had made sorties into the city, at most with a couple of anomalous people at a
time, to ensure that they could at least have some pictures. related to the realities he described.

Finally we had arrived at the lessons relating to the critique of current events, where the Professor
often compared the life that they were leading, very close to human nature, with the one that the rest
of humanity was ,iving, extremely distant from it.

The second part of the project had been in full swing for a year now, with the insertion of Geri: the
violent attack suggested by the Astrologer, with an army of about thirty elements and some newborns,
was not conceivable. It being understood that societies born out of violence are immediately destined
to coexist with a host of enemies who want to take revenge, or instance those who previously held
power in their hands. Instead, the Professor hoped that his boys would slowly be able to integrate into
society and introduce the worm of doubt among their interlocutors. A second point of view on the
world, this would already be a good start. And even Catholicism, which had been so successful, hadn't
it started with the apostles going on the streets? But this the Professor avoided saying: comparing
himself to Christ would have sounded ridiculous to the ears of the Astrologer.

The latter had therefore abandoned his idea of ​guerrilla to embrace the more fruitful, he hoped,
non-violence of the Professor. The important thing, for the Astrologer, was that the mediocre people
whom the end of the Zodiac Society had allowed to power should be brought down, those Tauruses
and Capricorns with whom the Central Territories seemed to have to apologize and to whom Gustav
Yeltsin, as he now called his son, had given roles at the top of the state. And the mediocre, unable to
govern, had not resisted the flattery of banks and pharmacies, throwing open the doors that the
Astrologer had slammed in their faces. Being subjugated is in the nature of Taurus and Capricorn,
there is little you can do. It is proven that those in pharmacies and banks had remained quietly
waiting, they had not accepted defeat but had waited for their moment to return: what for me could be
twenty very long years, thought Duccio, for Rothschild are a blink of an eye.
***
Gustav spies at the window at that bundle that had once been Palazzo Medici Ricciardi, a building that
had seen him make a good deputy president, a position he probably held better than the current one of
president. There are those who are better at operating behind the scenes, and he, to be honest, was one
of them.

Emiliano, seated at the desk behind him, is intent on observing faces materializing on the table. Some
are the same ones that Caterina shows in her broadcast.

“How long have you been dedicated to the cause now?”

“The search for anomalies? A couple of years, I'd say.”

"And yet you already have a job."

"And then I want to do two jobs, to earn my bread. No one works anymore, but we all get the same
money. It's not fair!"

"But no one is poor."

"As a child I was poor, my friends were full of games, my father worked harder than theirs, but I still
didn't have any game. Now I work harder than them, and they have the same games as I do, but above
all the free time to play them. And you know they should be thanking me.”

"It's just that you like being in the office, dear Emiliano."

"When the algorithm will separate me from my wife, hopefully soon, I may be spending more time in
the house."

"And goodbye anomalous and desperate moms!"

"I'll be able to work on it from home."

"Well, about being desperate…"

"But I do it for Caterina. It's her fight, not mine. I have mine at home," the Capricorn had said with a
bitter smile.

"Good luck then, I'm leaving for today."

"Take the umbrella, I feel the wound hurting me!"

9 - SAGITTARIUS

Irene was over thirty, she remained quite beautiful in her own way, but she never took her eyes off the
bracelet anymore. Lucia, the only person with whom she had any relationship, deprecated her
daughter's way of life even though, in terms of addictions, she was certainly not the best example. She
had hoped for the last ten years that the algorithm would have found a man for Irene, but it hadn’t. It's
hard to be attracted to such a zombie, to someone so obsessed with death, that she avoided living.
Even if, in terms of living, she was certainly not the best example either. Anyway, it was up to her to
look after her daughter, and not vice versa. She often said it out loud, anyway Irene was like she didn’t
even hear anything: "How I wish Gianmaria were here, and not you!".
The only time she got rid of Irene was in 2050, when her daughter got engaged to Ciuto. But then he
had become the second most hated man in the Territories and Irene hadn't felt like staying with him
one more day. The shame, joining the family, once again.
***
Ciuto does not know all this while is anxiously waiting for Geri, with whom he has an appointment
for a match at Fantascudetto. After more than an hour of warm-up, even the team seems to be getting
impatient and frowning at their coach. The bracelet locates those two in the house, but Ciuto can't find
them anywhere. Until he understands and, having climbed onto the roof, sarcastically asks if it is
possible to play the famous match and stop kissing for a moment. Geri prefers kisses, but he also
knows how important it is to maintain excellent relations with Ciuto for the success of his mission:
sowing doubt among the observant people and Father Mario is one thing, but succeeding with one of
the heroes of the new society it's a another kettle of fish.

"It is important for your interlocutors to think that they have got to any conclusion on their own as
they do not have to realize that they have been led there: nothing is more difficult in the world than to
convince someone else of one's ideas, no matter how good they are”, the Professor used to repeat up
in the castle.

It was the Astrologer who had taught the boys the technique of lucid dreaming, so that once on a
mission they would be able to converse with the Professor and ask him for advice. It wasn't telepathy,
but the ability to be able to dream what one wishes and to bring back into the oneiric world all the
characteristics that one knows about a place or a person. That way Geri could never feel lost. But
since he met Ada, Geri prefers to dream only of the lessons, avoiding dialogue with the Professor,
since he probably feels he doesn't have his blessing.

"Ada showed me Square Ciompi, unfortunately the building is inaccessible," Geri begins after
suffering a crushing defeat.

"Sure, it's an old building."

"Do you think she'd like to go back?"

"Every now and then she streams it indeed, she walks around the rooms, and often she ends up going
to see her mother.”

“More or less what she did today: she went to visit her as soon as we started the match,” Geri says,
pointing to the bracelet.

“They didn't execute her, but I don't think she will ever get out. And yet, according to Ada, she is
happier than ever.
***
Lorenza seems to rejuvenate every time Ada meets her. She's about to celebrate her fifty-fourth
birthday and she always has a radiant smile that accompanies her throughout the day.
She is not expecting Ada's visit, just as she doesn't expect her daughter to be so cheerful: it is clear
that she is in love. And Lorenza discovers that he is one of a kind, one who ten years earlier was not
even able to put two words together which made sense. And that she could also have met him, if still
ten years earlier she had crossed that door instead of sending Micaela and Emanuele to their deaths.
Oh yes, they are national heroes, but they would have preferred to live and enjoy their child, as every
parent should be able to do. But enough to get lost in thoughts and memories, better to enjoy Ada in
love and happy; and keep that secret, since she says no one can be told that Geri is an anomalous. Not
that Lorenza is visited by many people, but she promises not to mention it.
***
When Ada comes home, she finds Ciuto and Irene taking a walk in the Black Forest, while remaining
in the living room. Geri is not there and the two do not know where she is. Sometimes it happens that
he is absent for a few hours as he goes to help Father Mario on some works. Ada always believed him,
but one day she wanted to check with the tracker if it was true. And it was: Geri's bracelet was located
in the parish house next to the church. This discovery had made her find a temporary serenity, only to
then fall back into fears that she can't explain well, but which little by little distress her. At the same
time she misses her boyfriend and a she craves of being with him. Every time he comes back home he
brings her a flower, some beautiful ones, who knows where he finds them, and she feels safe again.
But Ciuto doesn't want flowers in the house, and each time Ada is forced to experience the pleasure of
the gift for a few moments: “They may contain germs, and who knows what! Might as well bring a
mouse or a mosquito into the house next time!” Ciuto had said, the first time Geri had shown up with
a bouquet. Ada had then reluctantly nodded and Ger each time had got rid of the hyssop, of the lily,
the white clover and the forget-me-not.
***
The Professor had talked about the total absence of mosquitoes, in one of the many lessons on viruses
and infections.

"Twenty-eight years ago, during summer, there was a scientist who reminded the whole world of
something obvious, something that had been forgotten in the circus of masks and vaccines: he said
that mosquitoes could be heralds of contagion. All it takes is one to sting a person carrying the virus,
then someone who doesn't have it, and that's it. And you couldn't put masks on mosquitoes. What do
you think happened next?”
“Did they question the contagion itself?” Geri had asked. Duccio had laughed at Geri's comment and
the boy had silenced.

"Actually this would have seemed logical to me too", continued the Professor "instead a campaign
was put in place to exterminate the mosquitoes. On the other hand, there had been other experiments
that had denied the sanctity of the germ theory. There was a group, there were a hundred thousand of
them, disciples of Francesco Redi in their own way, and they isolated themselves. Everyone locked up
in their own homes, with food supplies and tests for various viruses, tests that were negative at first.
Weeks went by and some of them began to have episodes of respiratory insufficiency, others suddenly
lost sight, still others felt pain in their bones and many had intestinal problems. Now the tests were
positive. From their point of view, they had denied the theory of contagion. Did anyone listen to
them? No, somhow viruses had snuck into the house and infected them. Well, even so, what's the
point of staying at home to defend from the viruses? Obviously science replied that statistically, if you
are safe away from others, viruses find less fertile ground to attack us.

"As if they lived to attack us, then…" Duccio had suggested, who as an assistant used to widen the
Professor's dialogue and vision.

"Here, exactly. The idea that a virus is a living being is already wrong in itself."

For a moment Duccio had sent a look that had very little of a friendliness in the direction of the
Professor, but he immediately recomposed himself.

"But such an idea is certainly very frightening," the Professor had admitted. “But the idea that it aims
to make us humans sick and kill us, to expand, is an even more ridiculous one. The theory goes on to
say that if it fails to attack us, the virus mutates to pierce our defenses."

"Being aware of the existence of infinite universes", Duccio had tried again, checking with the corner
of his eye that the Professor agreed, "this anthropocentrism is more reminiscent of an era of flat
earth."

The Professor had spread his arms, as if to embrace the words of his VIP assistant.

"Not to mention that since the beginning of the century we have known that the most feared viruses
have been present in us since birth. We weigh more in viruses than in cells. We have hundreds of
trillions of them, including the most feared ones of the last fifty years, such as HIV or the many
coronaviruses. Still, I don't know about you, but I'm in great shape!" concluded the Professor.

The Astrologer had balanced on one foot, confirming his excellent health. The class had laughed,
someone had applauded, together with the Professor.
***
Learning to drive that thing hadn't been easy. The bicycle, again the Professor had told him, was the
most used vehicle a century before, but then the car had been preferred to it. It hadn't been easy for
Geri to get used to the speed. Running itself, at first, scared him. But as he did he learn to run, so he
learnt to ride a bicycle. The one he had learned to drive years before, must have belonged to Pacifico
or some other guard, wasn't as worse for wear as Sebastiano's. A few weeks earlier Geri had seen in in
the cellar, where the others didn't go in due to their usual fears, and thus he had made the decision. A
bike ride for Ada's birthday. Romantic, isn't it? He had taken Sebastiano's tool bag and put it over his
shoulder, then he had grabbed the velocipede and had decided to repair it at Father Mario’s, not to
spoil the surprise. He'd had to drag it all the way as the rims were tarnished and rusty. Also the chain
was broken. In the following days he had oiled the handlebars, the rims and the cassette where the
chain is threaded and turns; he had finally made a makeshift repair of the latter, which seemed to be
able to hold. Then he devoted himself to the simplest things: he inflated the tires with a small pump
found in the bag attached to the bike and dusted the vehicle thoroughly. It wasn't like new, but it could
make a good impression in a world where no one had seen any bicycles around for years, due to their
dangerousness. Yes, because if safety was the watchword, hurtling at 20 miles per hour without any
protective armor wasn't exactly synonymous with safety.

On Ada's birthday, September 1st, the bicycle is finally ready.

***
Ada misses Geri, she can't understand why even on her birthday he prefers to go to his friend the
priest… but as the sun goes down she hears a strange sound of a bell and, looking outside of the
window, she sees Geri astride a bicycle inviting her to come down. Soon she would have cried, partly
out of fear and partly out of joy, leaving the city behind her sitting on the barrel of the bicycle.
Perhaps also due to the pain that everyone before her had felt in keeping their legs raised for a long
time so as not to hit the pedaling.

They travel five kilometers, always skirting the Arno, while the full moon begins to color, until Geri
decides to stop, as the stretch of river they reached is far enough from the city. Hardly anyone lives in
the countryside anymore, even if in fact the expansion of the city is swallowing it up.

Exhausted and flushed they dive in the river. Geri uses the base of a small bridge as a trampoline.
There's no need to tell about Ada's reluctance to bathe in the river, but the heat is so heavy and the
desire to share everything with him is so big... On the other hand, if he had caught some disease he
would certainly have infected her too, even more tonight as they can't stop kissing.

"Are you hungry?"

"With this heat?" replies Ada running her hands through her wet hair "Not at all!"
"Too bad," he complains looking serious, opening a wrap he had kept under his shirt, "it means I'll eat
them all!"

The package reveals a handful of berries, some deep red, some dark blue, some black. Ada shakes her
head in disbelief as she closes and reopens her eyes, her mouth wide open, shaking herself to make
sure she's awake.

“But how did you know? I absolutely adored them!"

“So your appetite is back? Happy birthday!" Geri smiles softly. She kisses him and he pretends he
choked on the raspberry he just put in his mouth. And they laugh together. Still half-naked, by the
river, they finish their food and then immediately go back to kissing. The scent of the grass seems to
become more intense as night falls. The full moon lights up like a beacon and Geri sees Ada so
beautiful: this time there are no lights off or sheets hiding her. His kisses become longer and are
accompanied by caresses, sometimes painful, which seem almost like pinches to her. It seems he
wants to grab her. She drives him away and he gives up, then returns to the attack. Ada lays for a
moment her eyes on the bike, she remembers what he did for her, and this time she abandons herself
trusting him completely. Without understanding how it happened, she finds herself completely naked,
with his head in places she would never have imagined, stuff she hadn't seen done even by the actors
who haunted the living room during Ciuto's therapy! She's out of breath, she doesn't know if it's
pleasure or pain, she can't think. Aroused as she's never seen before, Geri rolls her to her knees and
penetrates her in an instant, completely. This she never imagined either. She calls him, asks him to
stop but he seems to be light years away, or to be terribly present, but the result is that he doesn't seem
human anymore. Only after having reached orgasm he does apologize: he suddenly came to his
senses. Tears well up in the girl's eyes, she sobs something on her knees that hurt, and on closer
inspection the marks of the crushed grass are left on her skin. He offers to massage them but she asks
to go home instead. Then Geri understands and embraces her tenderly, so Ada lets herself go,
allowing herself to be consoled between sobs and at the same time discovering the subjection of
someone who lets herself be consoled by the creator of its own suffering. Exhausted, she falls asleep
in his arms in a few moments, after getting dressed.

The sun wakes them up at dawn, first Geri, then Ada. She opens her eyes, tries to smile, but sees
Geri's frightened face as he stares at her bracelet: the device announces the end of their relationship.
The news also appears on the boy's device at the same time. Ada is more upset than him.

"I hope you don't want to…" he begins.

She cries, for the third time in a few hours, and can't answer. to Geri's pressing questions.

"Ada this device is not you. You know what you want."

"I think I know, while the bracelet knows for sure," she manages to say without breaking her words
with tears.

“But it's based on who you've been before, on the rules you've been taught, that this artificial
intelligence society has taught you. Or even on the bible, the gospels, everything that created all the
values ​that have brought us to this point in history. But you, you are a constant change, a continuous
evolution…"

"And the bracelet reads my emotions, the chemistry that takes place in me. And he knows what I
want,” she says, completely calmed down now.

"Let me tell you what is true, then the bracelet will change its mind, because you will totally change
your mind!"
“If you hadn't been a beast last night, we'd probably still be together. If you hadn't been bad." He is
about to reply something, but immediately understands that it is better to keep quiet if he still wants to
have any chance. Better to wait, but distant thunder accompanies the clouds that have already covered
the sky, revealing the arrival of the rainy season, and the sun would be just a memory for the next two
months. What did he want to tell her? That being beasts is what is most human and most true. But no,
really better to keep quiet.
***
According to the Professor, wickedness did not exist. What is good, what is bad, he began by asking
his boys. Mostly it depends on the historical period, on what is functional to society. An indefatigable
worker, once, was by definition a good person. Except then living in a society where no one works
anymore. So, who is good then? Men, who have always been convinced that they are the center of the
universe, want to be sure that their life has meaning. That is not a coincidence. And then there must be
good and bad, right and wrong, because otherwise we would admit that we are equal to any animal
species. And that's where the importance of creating a god comes into play, One who tells us what is
good and what is bad: it would be unacceptable to realize that we find ourselves leading the world
following fictitious values. But what is right and wrong if in nature a mother eats her puppies? Sure:
for a greater good, the good of the species, so be it. Therefore we may say that religion is the obvious
of the people, meaning that men could not do otherwise than invent it, to justify their excessive power
without being terrified by it. And they thank God for having created them, when they were the ones
who created Him. Paradoxical, right? And even more paradoxical: what would happen if humanity
ended? Would God survive? Without anyone spending time glorifying Him? Without anyone
acknowledging him as god?
10 - CAPRICORN

Emiliano looks at himself in the mirror longer and longer in the morning. Before the age of 30 he had
never done it. From the age of 30 to 40 he looked at himself in the mirror pleased with the position he
obtained, hoping that the algorithm would soon lead him to a divorce. From 40 to 50 he kept his
hopes up, but he noticed wrinkles creeping up his face. Now at 50, there are only wrinkles left. He
begins by staring at the faded Capricorn tattoo. And from there wrinkles branches off filling his
forehead. Once it was enough to relax it to make them disappear, but now very little changes, whether
the forehead is tense or not. If he'd managed not to frown over the years, then maybe those wouldn't
have come. But he, when he's angry, you can see it right away on his forehead. And angry he had been
and still was. And disappointed. With the wife he doesn't love? With the daughter who doesn't respect
him? With Gustav? Of course, but especially with the algorithm. He who had been a supporter of the
first hour, could he be the only one in the world betrayed by the device? Why did it keep him tied to
that witch? Thanks to his role, years earlier, he had managed to contact one of the developers of the
device, a German lad. The expert had explained him that in those bracelets there was now very little
of human genius, as pretty much it was all an autopoiesis of artificial intelligence, so nobody around
understood it anymore. What is certain is that the algorithm is not wrong and, if it keeps you two
together, there will be a bigger reason that you don't see, the German had said. In fact, he doesn't see
bigger reasons, but bigger wrinkles yes, he does. And everyone will notice them today that he is a
guest at Caterina's show along with the army of anomalous, damn it!
***
Geri is confused. More and more confused. Too confused. The suffering of abandonment does not
allow him to think straight. He has been working at Tiziana’s for a couple of months and he has
moved on the upper floor of the hairdresser's shop. He is no longer able to live in the same house as
Ada, terrified of seeing in her eyes the indifference towards him. And terrified of seeing her living
with her new boyfriend in the same places, the same rooms where their love had lived. He had
remembered what Ada had told him on the roof about Ciuto's mother.
Tiziana is happy, because at fifty-two she starts to tire easily and there is a lot of work, given that most
of the hairdressers in the city have closed up shop, still receiving an income anyway. Furthermore, for
years she got used to Antonio's company, but with the disappearance of smartphones, he had quit
working and in place of his workbench there are now comfortable fabric armchairs, where customers
can sit while waiting for their turn. Antonio is not far away, physically at least. He spends his days
fishing with augmented reality, together with Corrado, Yuri and Alderici. They are not really there,
but Tiziana hears them talking to each other all day long about fish, lines and floats. He fishes in the
room where their bed once was and where Giannino used to do his homework: he has little use for it,
now that he does spend the whole day playing. She had tried to teach him the business, but he hadn't
wanted to learn. Honestly, how can you convince an 18-year-old to work when it is not needed? This
Geri, on the other hand, seems to love the job. He's not talented, but he wants to work. The skills will
come later. He never sits with twiddling his thumbs: if there's no haircut to do, he’s shampooing or if
there's no shampoo to do, he's sweeping the hair, as the robot vacuum cleaner leaves a lot of hair lying
around .

Geri is certainly not full of energy, but he can not be called depressed. The Professor told him about
the condition of depression, which is a total lack of energy accompanied by enormous sadness.
Biologically, for example in groups of animals where there is an alpha male, depression is necessary
for the survival of the species: if the beta males did not get depressed, if they always had the same
energy, even sexual, then they would keep contending females with alpha male the all time, and
leadership. Their depression allows the group to take care of something else, such as getting food. Or
at least that was depression according to the Professor.
Geri has the enormous sadness, but energy has not left him, at all. He needs them to win back Ada,
and being one of the few in the western world who is still working can make him earn some points.
And in the meantime, the more he works, the less he has time to get sad.
Still they meet with Ciuto to play Fantascudetto. Everyone from their own apartment, of course, since
Geri has no intention of meeting Ada with her new partner. When the connection begins, he
immediately tries to find out if Ada can hear him. "You're alone?" he asks Ciuto. Or: "Is Irene with
you?" so as to understand if in addition to Irene there is also Ada. Once he ascertains Ada's absence,
he spends his time trying to understand from Ciuto if things between her and her new boyfriend are
going well or, as he hopes, badly. He is unable to hide his pain from his ex-prison mate, so much so
that Ciuto is getting sick and tired of him.

"Why don’t you masturbate like everyone else," Ciuto tells him without taking his eyes off the squad
he is putting up. Geri doesn't answer him, as there are too many things he doesn't agree with in this
method of pain relief. Not that he approves pills, mind you.

"Forgive me for the tone I used, but you are not the first one breaking up. I've been there, my mother
has been there with my father. And as you see we survived.”

“You're probably right,” Geri lies. “Many have already been there, and I’ll get over it as they did.”
Actually he cannot believe that the same amount of pain he feels has been endured by others as well.
He has no intention of sweeping it under the carpet, which anyway it would come back later in some
other form.

Next to Geri, during his Fantascudetto games, there is Giannino, grappling with his video game. He
seems almost hypnotized, so much so that Geri doesn't have to fear for his privacy, certain that the boy
doesn't listen to a single word of what he and his half-brother are saying. Giannino's video game
revolves around murders that have occurred in Europe since the beginning of the twentieth century:
the player must repeat the murder and get away with it, despite the fact back at the time the murderer
had instead been found and arrested. Or maybe he had killed himself, like it happened to Pacifico
according to the script of the game. Geri, looking at the well-reconstructed scene down to the smallest
detail, smiles remembering how it was the Professor who planned the escape of the anomalous, killing
the guards and placing the blame on Pacificus. The latter, the weakest of the guards due to the attack
suffered a few weeks earlier by Yuri who had almost crushed his skull, had been taken hostage by the
Professor and taken away with the anomalous.
***
"With your son we mentioned your separation of many years ago", Geri starts hesitantly, after they
worked hard for a whole day with Tiziana and did not have any time to speak to each other, except to
send customers to each other..

"I guess it was Ciuto, since Giannino hardly even speaks anymore," smiles Tiziana bitterly, as she
clean the hair left on the sink.

"Right. There were no algorithms at the time, so you had take the decision on your own?"

"No, there were no algorithms indeed, otherwise I guess we would have stayed together. We had two
different zodiac signs, as you can see" adds Tiziana, brushing her nails against the tattoo on her
forehead "and we were forced to."

"And?"

“And I can tell you that I know your pain. Plus I know Ada well and I imagine it's not easy for you.
But as you can see, one can be happy, time helps.” Tiziana smiles towards the room where Antonio is
having a virtual game of cards with his usual friends.

"And how long does it take to fade down, to do not hurt anymore?"

"Not much," sighs Tiziana, looking back at Antonio and without really believing her own words. “One
day you wake up and you don't think about it anymore." She picks up the broom, lowering hier gaze
and starting to sweep.

"And maybe I'll find a new match in the bracelet!" tries to make fun Geri, to relieve Tiziana of
embarrassment. But Tiziana has plunged into her world, as sometimes happens to her, and Geri
understands that his working day, like the conversation, is over.
***
For Geri the worst comes at night. If during the day he can be distracted with work, there isn't much to
do at night. Giannino is over there, killing people who are already dead, but he can't get fascinated by
video games. Like porn or all the other drugs made to postpone pain, remove it and thus worthily quit
earthly life. But he has to admit that the hours of the night, for those suffering from love, pass really
slowly. And one of those nights the suffering became intolerable for him. Imagining her with the other
one, imagining she showing him the same eyes, the same pleasure. Yet he has had many women,
among the anomalous ones. They exchanged them, as nature teaches. This damned civilization of
possession has now corrupted him, certainly it cannot be otherwise. But with his mind clouded by
obsession he is too confused for rational analysis. And he calls her. And she replies, her mouth pasty
with sleep. In a moment Geri is in Ada's room, and Ada in Geri's. If they weren't holograms, they
could touch each other, assuming Ada wants to.

"Is he there?”

"No, Gerardo. He doesn't live here."

"Sure, I know, Ciuto told me. Do you call me Gerardo now?”

“Did you want to tell me something? I was sleeping. It's two in the morning."

"Yes, I wanted to know, since I've been thinking about you a lot, if you also did."

Ada sighs and sits up on the bed. "It happened."

“Oh. And with him, I mean, do you enjoy time with him as it was for us?”

"It's different, he's older, and I really don't feel like talking about that."

"Are you going to continue?"

"Continue with him?"

"Yes, since from what you say you think of me…"

"We have already talked about it."

"Yes, it's true."

"If you regret what you did..."

“Yes, of course, really, I don't know why I did it, really. But do you remember what a beautiful
evening, the bicycle, the river?"

“Let me finish. If you regret what you did, then youI know I'm right."

"The algorithm you mean."

"It's the same thing."

Geri swallows bitterly and looks for something to say, but now it doesn't come to his mind nothing but
Ada naked with her new partner.

"It is not. You delegate to a tool, which just interprets. It's not you. It's not direct. It doesn't take the
whole you into consideration."

“Geri, I was sleeping. You'll give me the philosophy lesson another time. Good night."

Thus the communication stops. And he remains to rewind the communication, continuously on the
bracelet, he goes back from the beginning and listens to the whole dialogue, trying to catch some
positive signals. But to be objective, there aren't many.
***
The days go by and Geri, out of a spirit of survival, is gradually learning the suppression: he works
even harder and in the evening and part of the night he keeps busy playing with Giannino. No
conversation is held with him that could bring Ada to mind, on the contrary: there is no conversation
at all! According to Tiziana, her youngest hasn't set foot outside the house for a couple of months and
the last time was to go to the pharmacy to get some eye drops that his mother had refused to buy for
him, as he had eye inflammation caused by too many hours spent playing. Pharmacies are the only
place where you have to go to buy products, since the home delivery of medicines has been banned
due to a risk, it is said, connected to the conservation temperatures of the products. One day, while
Antonio is upstairs spoon feeding Giannino, Geri notices Tiziana who, in a moment of pause, takes
the place of her husband and engages in conversation with Corrado, or with his hologram, dressed as a
fisherman. . In that moment, seeing Tiziana's eyes and Corrado's embarrassment, Geri realizes that he
would never get over it, as they did not do either.
***
The foul deed takes place on Sunday afternoon, with the shop closed and the fantascudetto match on.
Geri is listening to Ciuto who at the end of the first half encourages the team that is losing. Suddenly a
noise enters the microphone, a sound, perhaps a cry, which Geri recognizes as Ada's moan that he had
provoked many times. Ciuto realizes this and turns up the volume of the stadium chants, but it's too
late for Geri. Needless to say, his team loses, but Geri never cared much, let alone now.

Ada is in her room, in the room where a picture with a trumpet once hung, in the room where she had
loved Geri, in the room where they smiled looking into each other's eyes, she is there with another one
and she has an orgasm. Looking into that man's eyes. It's an unbearable pain.

He no longer knows if he said goodbye to Ciuto, or if he simply turned off the communication: in his
head there is only her climax, and the horrible words that Geri addresses to her. But then the pain
comes back, and with it Geri starts crying. To then leave room for anger again. It is absurd that she
will never be with him again, but even more absurd is the fact that she belongs to someone else. Yet
he goes down to the shop, for a moment it seems he has forgotten how to walk: he has to tense the
muscles of his thighs to be able to make them move, as if the automatic mechanisms of his brain had
disappeared. He grabs the scissors, relying on the forearm muscle. And walking like a robot, he leaves
the house, in the dark.

He waits a long time until late morning, when he sees a man on his forty coming out of the house
where he also had lived. He smiles, he seems happy, kind of proud one would have said. The curly
hair that falls on his forehead hides his astrological sign. He sees Geri sitting on the sidewalk, and
ignoring him and continues straight on. A little further on, the forty-year-old crosses a bald gentleman
in his seventies who walks briskly and occasionally stops to caress the tattoo of the sign of leo, as if
this gesture gives him the strength to continue towards his destination. He looks like a familiar face,
who knows in which video game they met.

Geri finds himself in Ada's room. On the floor the blue towel, dirty, the same one he used to dry
himself with after sex. She sleeps, naked. Se wakes up. She sees him staring at the towel.
"Geri?"

"I have betrayed everything for you, I have given everything. My life was for you."

"I'm not following you," she replies trying to put on the shirt she keeps under the pillow and regaining
a firm voice.

"The ones your friend Caterina is looking for. I know them all. It’s us and the Professor, it was he who
took us away from the castle. We are the army."

"I still don't understand what you're saying," declares Ada thinking that Geri is raving.

“I say I'm the one the Professor picked to get us out, but I let him down. Only because I wanted to be
with you, for your love."

“But I didn't ask you to do anything. And now I feel like I was with someone I didn't even know. And
what would be your task, for this Professor?"

“My task? I don't know anymore, it made sense before but now I'm just in pain." Geri starts crying
and Ada intends to pet him for a moment but she convinces herself not to, even though they are sitting
on the bed next to each other.

"Then you showed me the Astrologer, and what was I supposed to do? Going into the woods, telling
the others that who we have been feeding for years is the same person who has locked us up since we
were born? That would have been correct, but with what consequences? I would have risked losing
you, not being able to come back here."

“But are they holding you prisoners? What is going on? Do you want to talk about it with
Caterina?”

"No, I don't want to talk to anyone about anything. Only with you I want to talk. Of us, yes."

"But I've already told you: enough of us!" replies Ada showing the bracelet. “What were you hoping
to come up here with this ridiculous story, telling me about the army, telling me you're the chosen one
of who knows what to get the algorithm to tell me to leave my boyfriend and get back with you?”
A smile surfaces on her lips with these last words. She smiles. Maybe to challenge him, maybe a
mockery. And Geri takes out the scissors and slits her throat. As he used to do with wild boars in the
woods, after shooting, so as not to spoil the meat.
11 - AQUARIUS

Ciuto now lives in Sebastiano's old house, the one in Barbiana. It's risky to live at the country, but he
fell ill right in the city. And if his great friend, ten years before, had died at ninety-seven and that, he
was still convinced, it was an acceptable age to leave, well dying at thirty-five is not fair at all. After
Ada's death, after Geri's arrest, Ciuto had become hated by the whole city. Many had connected to the
funeral, and booed him when he was framed. Lorenza was angry with him too, she told him that he
had introduced them. And from being a hero, he had become hated by all. A year later he got sick, and
now the time for extreme unction has come for him too. Not that he has become a particularly
believer, but he has found out that the only priest who roams around those countryside is Father
Mario, that Father Mario.

It is Tiziana who welcomes the priest into the house, keeps him company while he dries and warms up
in front of the fireplace and she finally shows him the bedroom. Hard to go wrong since in that stone
house there are two rooms in all. At night, she sleeps in the kitchen on an old sofa. She has decided to
follow her son until the last days, so much so that there is nothing left for her in the city. Antonio died,
a heart attack while fishing, and Giannino became a vegetable hospitalized in a hospice. More and
more young people, unfortunately, end up like that.

"I looked for you, long time ago," Ciuto tries to smile, speaking with difficulty.

"Your mother, over there, mentioned it to me. I understood that you knew Father Sebastiano.'

“Yes, we were friends. He held you in high esteem." He stops to rest his voice and drink some water
that Mario passes him. “He said you predicted everything.”

“Right, the phones! Oh yes... I thought it wouldn't come to that, then, but yes, the technology was
already advancing there" smiles Mario bitterly scratching his bald head.

"I also know Lucia," adds Ciuto.

"Lucia... How is Lucia?" asks Mario, afraid of receiving any answer which may be hard to digest.

"I haven't seen her for many years," Ciuto cuts short, glossing over her depression.

“I understand that, of course. Me twenty years sice the last time. But sometimes it seems like
yesterday. We said goodbye when I left San Martino." Father Mario is lost in his thoughts but
immediately composes himself. "Sorry, I came here for something else."

"No father, I'm the one who is sorry. I had longed to see you, but perhaps the unction would frighten
me ttoo much before I’m gone.'

"Of course, it's not mandatory," smiles Mario, toning down the atmosphere and getting up from the
chair next to the bed.

“I'd like it if you could stay here for a while. I like to think of the mutual friends we've had."

“I know your story too. They crucified you as our Lord. You weren't at fault, but people..."

"Yeah, people," but can't finish due to a fit of coughing.

“A story came to my mind the worst night of my life. In the morning, indeed. I was the victim of a
somewhat peculiar interrogation.'
"Yes, I think that's the one Sebastiano told me about."

"Right. As I was leaving there, gutted, I don't know if more in the body or in the soul, three or four
ideas came to my mind and coming here today one came back to me. The idea is that our Lord returns
to earth. But He's old. And yet He died at the age of thirty-three.”

"Yes, I know that also myself," Ciuto replies, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“There was a reason why he got old, I can't remember which one though. In any case, everyone
recognizes him immediately, he is interviewed by all the TV stations in the world, they ask him about
death, they ask him what he thinks of humanity and, among other things, he says that there is a devil
on earth and let's say he names Father Mario to be the one.”

"Ok."

"Yes. Here, let's make it me. And then people, all over the world, will begin to hate this Father Mario.
Maybe those who know him will remember some things he did, which yes, could make one suspect that
he was the devil. Violence will begin, they will look for him to kill him. But even Father Mario himself
will be shocked by the news: he had never thought he could be the devil, at most he had sometimes
doubted his goodness, his good faith, but from there to being the devil that’s a pretty big leap. Hidden
away, the poor fellow will remember some moments of his life dictated by anger, where he had
experienced feelings such as envy, jealousy, the desire to hit someone, and he will finally be
convinced, reluctantly, that he is the devi”l. The priest drinks from the glass of the dying Ciuto, almost
without realizing it, and continues to tell.

"So, I was saying about Father Mario, that he is ready to give himself up to the angry crowd, since
having preached good all his life, he cannot accept being evil in person. But at that moment Jesus
returns to TV, breaking news. He apologizes, it might be due to the age, but he was wrong: it wasn't
Father Mario the demon, but someone with a similar name, let's say a certain Father Dario. And this
is the moment when Father Mario crosses the door of his house to surrender to the crowd, led by
Father Dario. However, thanks to the smartphones we used at the time, everyone got to read about the
breaking news. Father Mario is dizzy with happiness and is about to enjoy the embrace of the crowd.
Unfortunately people were by now convinced that Father Mario was the devil, some don't even
believe our Lord's denial, who knows if he was forced... and therefore, led by Father Dario, they lynch
Father Mario."

But Ciuto is already asleep and Mario realizes that he has told a large part of the story to himself.
***
Geri is still smeared with blood, while Alderici is studying him. He entered the Police station on the
morning of the 23rd December 2050, at approximately 12.30h. The thermometer is on 25 degrees.
Seeing him like this, Alderici has quickly said good bye to the other fishermen and has asked
Panunzio to turn off the gym class and join him in his office. The old police station had been razed to
the ground and a prefab had been installed in its place where every policeman had his own cozy
office. Panunzio walks briskly down the corridor, feeling fit thanks to the exercises he has just
performed with the help of a personal trainer hologram. He is very proud of having lost two kilos in a
year and Alderici has heard him say it at least twenty times.

Panunzio finds Alderici lighting up a cigarette while staring at the boy sitting across the desk. He
waits for the biy to start speaking but the latter keeps staring at the back of his right hand, which he
keeps making into a fist and then reopening it. The officer sits in a corner of the room, so Geri doesn't
even notice him. The inspector, seeing the boy more and more rapt, breaks the ice.

"You're Ciuto's friend, we met wehn Sebastiano died, do you remember?"

"Yes." Geri replies without letting a moment pass from the end of Alderici's question, so much so that
he is not so sure the biy is really replying to himi. He casts a questioning look at Panunzio, who gives
him a nod of assent, to let him understand that he is ready to do anything his superior would command
him.

"You look like you got some blood on yourself," he says conciliatory.

"I am failure."

Alderici gives another look to Panunzio who approaches at Geri from behind and asks him what he's
referring to.

"The Professor's experiment. The return of humanity to its nature, the animal one, the survival of all
of us. I have been corrupted, because civilization and technology cannot be stopped, because man
willingly distances himself from his own nature, even if this makes his existence worse. I was happy
in the woods, here I feel bad, very bad lately." Geri throws up all these words almost without catching
his breath, in front of the confused interlocutors.

"You talk about woods," asks the inspector, "but I can't follow your speech. Would you mind
explaining better?”

"With the Professor we were in the woods, me and the other anomalous. Living according to nature. I
sacrificed myself, to come and explain to you people that there is nothing good in being segregated, in
constant fear, in the artificial intelligence setting up every action for us."

"So you were with Ciuto in the woods?" asks the inspector who, mimicking a crank, commands
Panunzio to record everything.

"Yes, but I stayed there ten years more with the others. The Professor told us that it is difficult for
those who have spent years living with technology to grasp the idea that it is our enemy. And what
could I do, if it was technology indeed to making me lose Ada? Two hundred years ago machines
could be destroyed with a hammer, but how do you destroy an algorithm, which is capable of
self-generation and becomes more powerful every day?"

"I don't know, it's a difficult question", replies Alderici stalling "These anomalous, as you say, are they
still there? Alone?”

"With the Professor and the Astrologer, but I didn't know he was the Astrologer before I came here."

"The Astrologer?" Panunzio exclaims, jumping to his feet, but the inspector scolds him with a glare
and the officer sits down again.

"They say that artificial intelligence is the masterpiece of the ruling class. All the others, who no
longer have to work, think they are in the best possible era, the one with the most freedom. And they
even receive money to buy what they want, they think it's an achievement. But who control the
algorithms, control all of us too. And the more they give us money, created by themselves, the less
chance there is that someone will riot. We depend completely on them, and meanwhile they own the
whole world. They have already allotted among them all the african countries, lying, saying they are
helping poor populations. And European countries are next. Because those who know human nature,
also know well that what matters is the possession of the territory. And the submission. The rich
return, after so much wandering, to a state of nature, and they are happy. The others don't, they move
further and further away from themselves and embrace an all-encompassing depression. And we don't
even own our lives anymore. I took Ada's life, but I wanted to take it away from the algorithm. But
she thought she was one with it…”

"Ada? Is this blood Ada's?" now it is Alderici who stands up suddenly.

"It's Ada's," confirms Geri, coming to his senses just then and holding back tears with difficulty.

The conversation is interrupted by Ricci who, throwing the office door wide open, exclaims the
inspector must absolutely turn on the TV. Alderici tells him it's not the time, but Ricci repeats that it
has to be switched on: Brogi and Spertini are live on.
***
The two policemen are the responsible of the morning raid which led to the arrest of a former
university teacher, Patrizio Biondi, who has been missing for about twenty years and of the
twenty-eight anomalous whose mothers had founded the “Help us finding them” committee. The live
images show the two policemen leaving the castle of Montalbano with the Professor and the other
anomalous handcuffed in single file. It occurs to Geri that he has seen that scene before, the day his
freedom started. And the tears begin to flow, seeing the Professor defeated.

Gianni Lanza is in the television studio, aged badly, but with a tattoo which seems to have been
polished as new. Who knows where they dug him up from, thinks Alderici: it had been years since he
had been seen around. Together with him is the Astrologer. Panunzio is almost on his knees in front of
the projection of the holograms in Alderici's office, shaking his fists in the direction of the old leader.

"That explains who informed your colleagues!" the inspector exclaims contemptuously, while Ricci
shakes his head.

"I've tried," says the Astrologer. "I wanted to make them understand their mistakes and I thought I had
partially succeeded. Unfortunately one of these guys escaped me, he was hiding in Ciuto Barberini's
house, and there he killed his victim. I didn't have time to stop him… she was my granddaughter, you
know…" ends the Astrologer with a broken voice, while caressing his tattoo, a habit he has never
been able to abandon.

"My condolences." replies the moved journalist. "Aren't you afraid your generosity might backfire?"
asks Lanza who in a few minutes seems completely at ease again in the role of interviewer. "You're
wanted for murder and..."

"I'm not afraid because I've always acted for my people." the Astrologer interrupts him, "and if I have
to pay, but I have saved my people from violence, then I will pay. And then, let me tell you: I didn't
kill anyone. It was that woman who had fallen in love with me and was squatting my house for a few
days, who killed that man on the tower."

"That's not what the cops said back then, I’m sorry to say..."

"In fact, those policemen should be investigated and it should be understood the reason. A beautiful
girl, of my zodiac sign, as was due under the law of the time, enters my house... I would also like to
remind you that we had been attacked by the rebels, even if it is true that the girl was crazy, a
megalomaniac, I certainly should have noticed it, but we elderly people sometimes prefer not to see
certain things. But as I said, if there is to pay…" The Astrologer smiles for the first time, in the
direction of Lanza who reciprocates.

"Let's get ready for the worst, my Panunzio," Alderici sighs in a tired tone and rubbing his temples.
***
Lorenza receives the news like everyone else, from TV. In the prison room she sees the hated Duccio
announcing the death of her adored Ada. She cries, she thinks back to Ada's love for the man who
would later have murdered her. Shortly before, in the images, she had recognized one of her old
university teachers and remembered that many among the students made fun of him for his crusade
against technology; she herself had criticized and mocked him several times. But then Duccio talks
about Ada, and in Lorenza's head there is only the echo of her daughter's words of love for the man
who has just killed her.
Duccio continues to speak, pressed by Gianni Lanza. He says he believes in the chip, that he wants to
have it implanted as soon as possible, which is an excellent tool for avoiding pandemics, as has been
demonstrated in recent years in the Central Territories and in his native Florence, which he missed so
much.
***
A few hours later Caterina goes on the air with the mothers of the anomalous in the studio. And in
every home in the Central Territories, everyone watches the show. Emiliano is also in the TV studio to
represent the government, and also because he has been dealing with the missing anomalous for some
time. In reality he and Caterina are shocked by the return of the Astrologer and whenever she starts
talking about the army, or the imprisoned teacher, they end up agreeing that the Astrologer must be
arrested immediately for his past crimes. The mothers of the anomalous, on the other hand, are angry
with their own children, guilty of plotting against the most evolved society that has ever appeared on
the face of the earth. How much ingratitude is there in these kids, towards those who have always
been looking for them and would have liked to embrace them again? But the way they've behaved, the
mothers agree, they deserve the worst punishment. Also, but no one says this, so as not to tarnish the
reputation of the mothers themselves. Furthermore, a death sentence for their children would certainly
have granted them a few more interviews. And Emiliano agrees: the army, the teacher and above all
the Astrologer must all pay the most severe penalty.
***
Ciuto also is watching the broadcast that many times has seen him as the protagonist, while Alderici
and his entire team are searching the house. And Caterina's attack was terrible to digest. She accused
him - since the Astrologer is right about this - of never revealing to her that he had this anomalous at
home, who he is now a murderer, and that Ciuto refused to help them discovering the truth, to help a
mother to meet her own son. That maternal love could have prevented Ada's death, says Caterina. And
there is the moment when Irene distances her hand from Ciuto's. He looks at her for a word of
comfort, but she feels ashamed. And the bracelet immediately delivers the verdict: their relationship is
over. Irene then goes to bed having packed her things, ready to leave for good the next morning.
12 – PISCES - Epilogue

On 21st of March 2060, the Professor officially takes office at the helm of the Central Territories,
becoming the fourth President in history.

A few days earlier, on March the 17th, one hundred and ninety-nine years after the proclamation of
the kingdom of Italy, President Duccio Bertelli, previously known as the Astrologer, died. Saving the
Central Territories from the threat of the Anomalous Army had allowed him, ten years earlier, to be
pardoned by the President, his son Gustav. Previously, the latter had always expressed words of fire
towards his own parent, both for the crimes he had committed and because he had felt betrayed. But
with his father back in town it didn't matter to him anymore, and he didn't even care if Duccio lied
about Anna's story and how they met. Lorenza, from prison, had repeatedly begged him to tell the
truth, but he hadn't heard of it, especially since a lot of people interviewed by Lanza had shown
enormous affection for the inventor of the Zodiac Societyy. And again, following the resignation of a
more than offended Emiliano, many had clamored for Duccio Bertelli to return to the position of
President. Having said that, Gustav had willingly demoted himself, returning to the office he had held
when Corrado Barberini was president. And Duccio Bertelli, in 2051, had been chosen as President of
the Central Territories. Being able to vote from home, and since there were no political opponents,
there had been a plebiscite in favor of the Astrologer. It was Barberini himself who had toyed with the
idea of ​running as a candidate, so as to prove Duccio’s lies, also because the Florentines and all the
others deserved better, but he had preferred to stay close to his son who had fallen ill since Ada's
death. And then, did those people really deserve better?

The Professor, for his part, had spent a few years in prison, while the soldiers of his army had got
away with a few months: in a short time they had turned out to be great fan of technology, especially
appreciating the absence of fatigue in having to find food and surviving in general. The Professor had
not recanted, but it had been the Astrologer who wanted him out of jail and who made sure that the
media made the general public forget the reasons for that arrest, such as the creation of the army and
the instigation to murder in the case of Ada Bertelli; and for this purpose Lanza would tell from
behind his desk of when, forced to flee, the Astrologer had found refuge, a bite to eat and friendly
words in Mr. Patrizio Biondi and his team of adventurers. The President had wanted the Professor by
his side in the last few years that remained to him to live and had indicated him as his successor: in his
old age he had softened, he was the first to admit it, and had picked the only person he respected.

To convince the Professor, the Astrologer had disclosed the possibility of curbing Artificial
Intelligence, once he would had come to power. Sure, the war was lost, they both knew that. But the
Astrologer had shown him that the end of history, which part of humanity had dreamed of since
Napoleon's time, had perhaps come. This was a theme dear to the Professor, the idea that one day
there would no longer exist servants and masters. If the master exists, it is because the servant
recognizes him as such, and the master himself likes to be recognized as dominant by the subordinate.
In a world where artificial intelligence is the great master and will end up ousting all men including
the powerful, making them slaves too, then everyone is slaves. And the only master left has no interest
in being recognized as such, since it is a machine.
***
Geri, in recalling his life outside prison, manages to change history. Ada returns to him, together they
are happy and plan to get married. The army is still hidden in the castle of Montalbano, but little by
little he begins to see his former fellow soldiers around the city. They don't say hi, but he knows that
the project is going on. There are some demonstrations of people who no longer want to submit to an
algorithm that knows more about them than they know themselves. All this, in a reality of infinite
universes, Geri is convinced that it is really happening, somewhere. Because there must be, for him, a
possibility of redemption.

There are two ex-cops who visit him from time to time, who knows why, they talk but he can no
longer hear or understand their words. He just wants to go back to that place, with Ada, waiting for
the Professor.
***
On the first day of November Ciuto dies. Tiziana and Corrado decide to bury him in the small village
cemetery. Corrado digs the hole in the pouring rain, next to the church so that it can be at least
partially repaired. They are the only ones who live in the area and it is not necessary to make any
official request.

Somehow they have become accustomed to the inevitability of the event, as their son's health has only
worsened in recent years. However the pain is terrible. As they seek each other's hands, in front of the
grave, their newfound love amplifies that pain, rather than alleviating it.
***
In Florence the water continues to rise. The banks of the Arno, reinforced and raised several times,
could not however contain it on this November the 4th, 2060.

The water, creator of life, the water of which men are largely composed, the water which determines
moods and characters being it attracted by the moon and the stars, is ready to sweep away a humanity
which is by now too much weakened: a humanity that has forgotten water.