The Keen and Cutting Stones
Fiction - by Claudio Chillemi and Paul Di Filippo
1.
October 23, 2101 - North Eastern slopes of Etna - 2345 meters above sea level.
Bellini Uno Seismic Detection and Prevention Base
Lava is a keen and cutting stone.
It is said that the Greeks landed in Sicily, saw a large expanse of lava and called it “Katane,” which in their ancient language means “grater.” They founded a city in that arched gulf, exploiting the fertility of the volcanic soil. And for twenty-six centuries that city had fallen and risen dozens of times. And each time it had risen stronger.
Dr. Adele Bruno glanced at the Gulf of Catania, thinking back to the tremendous volcanic eruptions that had generated it. Then she continued to study her readouts, arrayed in the air before her.
"We’re seeing those spikes again," said one of her assistants.
“All too obvious, Doctor Biondi. Almost three gigatons of seismic energy have accumulated, and collapse is imminent." Adele’s face mirrored the concern in her voice.
"Should we notify Civil Protection?"
“We can’t wait any longer. Tell them we’re implementing the Alpha Omega 4 intervention plan. We’re one step away from a level-eleven Big One. ”
Biondi swiped the hologram displays, and the rough, tanned face of a man in uniform appeared.
"Captain Marcelli, we are launching the Alpha Omega 4 intervention plan."
"Damn it all! Are you sure that’s our only option? "
"Absolutely. I realize that the seismic energy dispersion system has never been tested with an event of this magnitude before. But we have no other recourse. Not if we want Sicily to survive, as well as to avert a catastrophic global winter event.”
Captain Marcelli dug hairy knuckles into his furrowed brow, as if trying to exterminate a massive headache. "Up to now, Doctor, you’ve only proven that your gadget can handle small events—three or four degrees on the Richter scale, nothing so huge. "
Adele flashed a grim smile. "Then I suggest we regard this current crisis as the perfect chance to test the upper limits of the matrix!"
Dr. Biondi grinned and raised his eyebrow, while Adele Bruno turned her back on the Captain. Like a wizard, she summoned strange icons into being in the workspace before her eyes. Her hands began a syncopated dance, and immediately a complex map, a network of glowing nodes, flashed into existence.
"The connectivity points are all on and stable," she said. "Lock down the coordinates of the antennas."
Observing helplessly from Army HQ in Rome, Marcelli wrinkled his face in a grimace of ill-concealed tension.
Almost twenty minutes passed, during which a series of numerical data flashed by as in a bingo game. Finally, the third person present in the lab, a female technician named Gabriella Sosio, announced, “Transmission grid is aligned.”
The small hardened bunker that constituted the Bellini Uno Seismic Detection and Prevention Base featured large thick windows of fortified meta-glass on all four sides of the building, designed to offset the claustrophobic dimensions of the place. Biondi looked out toward the top of the mountain: four gigantic dish antennas stood like great metal shields lit by the sun.
They were intended to channel the forces of hell into space.
Over ten thousand connectivity points—that map of glowing nodes—stretched over about one hundred square kilometers along the slopes of Etna. Each point went into the bowels of the earth for over ten kilometers of descent. The connectivity points were intended to capture the seismic energy of the tortured planet, altering tectonic force to gravitic waves, and to transmit the power to the antennas. Those giant radiators would discharge it beyond the troposphere. From there, a series of satellite repeaters would slow down and decompress the energy before dispersing it harmlessly into space.
The lovingly conceived, nurtured, and cherished project of Adele Bruno. Funded by the European Union. Implemented in twelve years of hard work. No wonder the doctor looked at her laboratory—all its technological accoutrements and her small staff—with a mixed expression of love and concern.
"Subsurface tension is approaching the predicted peak values," Biondi said after almost ten minutes of silence.
"Turn on the heat loss devices," Adele ordered.
Gabriella’s husky voice chimed in. "Two hundred seconds to power on.”
The seconds passed quickly, then a long string of green lights glowed before them.
"Passing over mission control to Civil Protection," Biondi noted.
Immediately a dozen technicians appeared in glowing panes of activity. Each of them showed assured confidence with their tasks.
Now that his crew had command, Marcelli asserted himself. "Stand by for the operation.”
Adele counted down. "Peak expected in five, four, three, two... One!"
When the countdown ended, the small laboratory, its instruments, the foundations on which it rested, the mountainside, and even the air around them began to tremble with unprecedented violence. The ten thousand indicator lights of the connectivity points shone intermittently until reaching a peak of pulsations almost imperceptible to the human eye. Adele said something, but the sound waves were distorted and her voice was rendered inarticulate and incomprehensible.
Biondi peered out at the slopes of Etna. A cloud of electric steam was seen coming out of the earth's surface, channeling itself along the immense antennas, climbing them violently, dispersing in the sky with a deafening rumble. The invisible flow of gravitons manifested as atmospheric disturbance.
Biondi, taking advantage of the decrease in vibrations, summoned up the satellite telemetry. He noted with immense relief that the flow of seismic energy released by the antennas bounced from one satellite to another until it reached the free space outside the atmosphere.
Then all the terrestrial activity suddenly stopped.
Destruction had been tamed.
The latest instance of humanity’s long accommodation to, and conquest of, this strange, lonely place.
Marcelli wiped the sweat from his forehead. “We recorded merely a remnant tremor, a five-point-five degree seismic event on the Richter scale. No harm to people or things. We are waiting for more detailed reports. "
Biondi whooped, and hugged both Gabriella and Adele. The former returned the embrace gladly, while the latter stiffened to the point where Biondi realized his transgression. He reverted to formality.
"Doctor, we've averted a catastrophe. We have more than halved the power of the earthquake."
"Yes, it seems so," said Adele Bruno, bowing her head, exhausted. "It seems so ..."
2.
January 17, 2102 - North Eastern slopes of Etna - altitude 1863 asl. Parmitano Due Seismic Detection and Prevention Base
"Have you brought any other specimens of the ore?" Adele Bruno asked, while operating a dynamic scanner on top of a pile of stones that lay in small meta-glass containers.
Gabriella nodded. "Yes, doctor. You’ll find them in the radioactive storage room."
Almost three months had passed since the Big One had been averted. After the weeks of public acclaim and celebrations—Adele had quickly wearied of endless media interviews and banquets filled with boring speeches—the pursuit of pure science could be resumed.
And that resumption brought an immensely surprising discovery.
The elaborate mechanism for dispersing the seismic energy had had an unanticipated side effect.
Hundreds of thousands of kilograms of subterranean material had been transmuted into a substance never before seen on the planet.
Adele sent Gabriella home for the day before she took her next action. No point in involving more people than necessary in what she feared would happen soon. Once the young tech had left, Adele communicated with Biondi through her personal comlink. "Mario, can you confirm the readings on my scanner?"
"Yes, doctor. There can be no more doubt. We are dealing with a completely novel and stable element, number one-eighty-three. Utterly unforeseen, with properties yet to be determined. It’s the first real occurrence from the long-predicted island of stability on the periodic chart.”
Bruno smiled wryly. "How ironic, given that Sicily has never exactly been known as an island of stability. Are you aware of the implications of this discovery?"
"I'm so aware that I immediately classified all our findings. But apparently I did not act fast enough. One way or another, the information leaked. And I’ve already received, ah, shall we call them, ‘expressions of interest.’”
"From our own secret service? Or foreign agents? Perhaps some eager tech baron?"
Biondi looked nervous. "None of those. Our familiar local family friends."
"Damn, I can’t believe that here in the twenty-second century we still have to succumb to them!" In a burst of anger, the woman whacked the innocent coffee maker at her elbow, sending the glass carafe shattering on the floor. "What’s their exact interest?"
"They know that we suspect the new element has vast potential for revolutionizing several industries. Any smell of profit brings them running. And Sicanite reeks of money to them.”
"Sicanite?" Adele asked, puzzled.
"Oh, I just call it that to myself. It was discovered in Sicily, so Sicanite ..."
"Okay by me, Mario. You’ve done more to godfather it than I have.”
"Did you have to say ‘godfather?’ I suspect the other Godfather is willing to do anything to get his hands on a deal worth billions of New Euros."
The day was splendid. The sea on the horizon was a blue table shimmering with golden stars. The gigantic antennas that had averted the catastrophic destruction of the Big One cast a long and disturbing shadow over the natural beauty of the place. At that moment, Adele made her decision. She opened a floating data-pane, summoned up all the Sicanite data, downloaded it to her personal com, then wiped the lab files clean.
“No one will make use of our research now, without our cooperation. And they can’t access the motherlode of ore, since the whole site is guarded by incorruptible troops. ”
“Unless they catch you and force you to cooperate.”
“Then I guess I’d better not get caught.”
"Where do you think you can hide in this world?"
"I know of a place. And now that I think of it, you’d better come with me. We’re going to hide out with Filippo."
“Professor Stella? But he’s in his tomb!”
“He’s not. You know that his widow had no corpse to bury. He was only presumed dead.”
Biondi was having a hard time taking in this revelation. He hadn’t heard the name of his beloved university teacher for nearly ten years now. If anyone but Adele Bruno had told him that Stella still survived, he would have laughed in mocking disbelief. But he knew that Adele had always been the professor’s favorite student. And if that old genius had determined to fake his own death and go undercover, Adele would be the one person Stella would have confided in.
“So,” said Biondi, “he did not actually commit suicide in the aftermath of Disassembler Days.”
A decade ago, Dr. Filippo Stella had been the world’s leading expert on nanotech. But then a vial of invisible experimental deconstructor bots had been stolen from his lab and either accidentally or deliberately released. Before anyone could stop the rapidly reproducing bots—and it was only through Stella’s heroic efforts that the voracious plague had been halted—the GPS-constrained bots had chewed a deep canal entirely across the ankle of the Italian boot, from Naples to Bari. Neither Stella’s non-culpability, nor the subsequent utility of such a pleasant watery passage, had played any part in alleviating the universal infamy forever attached to his name.
Adele smiled. “Stella would never kill himself, for it would deprive the world of his self-confessed genius. No, after staging a sucide, he just went underground—quite literally. He’s in the Grotta del Gelo."
“The Grotta del Gelo? But that place is always full of tourists and hikers and daytrippers!”
“It’s no matter. You’ll see. Now, let’s get going before a car full of surly goons shows up at our door!”
3.
January 17, 2102 – Etna National Park - altitude 2,030 metres asl.
Her breath showing as a frosty plume, Adele Bruno hefted the satchel containing every last bit of Sicanite that had so far been excavated. It was not particularly heavy, but the treasure inside seemed to require extra effort to hoist. She prayed that the armed cordon around the subterranean deposit, intensely loyal to the state, would prevent civilian intruders from obtaining any further samples. She did not overestimate her own talents, nor those of Biondi, and she realized that the scientific leads she was pursuing, the tentative discoveries she and her partner had made, could be replicated by other scientists with equal skills. But not if they lacked access to the new element itself, for analysis and experimentation. With all the data wiped from the lab’s servers, no second-hand information remained.
Adele smiled as she watched Biondi chafe his gloved hands together. She knew that the man hated the cold, never venturing with fellow students back in their university days to ski trips in the Italian Alps. Well, he would have to suck up the discomfort now, if he wished to be reunited with his former mentor.
As for herself, she felt perfectly happy and at ease in her homeostatic winter smartsuit. She even imagined that the sleek outfit flattered her figure. Not that Biondi would ever notice. He never deviated from pure professionalism in the lab, seemingly in awe of her superior talents. If she had flinched when he hugged her on the day they defeated the Big One, it was only because she had been so surprised by his unwonted fervor. Afterwards, she had mentally replayed the embrace, and wondered what other paths that moment might have taken, had she leaned into his ardor.
She and Biondi stood outdoors still, on the rough and jagged terrain of Etna’s bosom, where sparse dead grass showed in the lee of a frozen boulder in this month of January. The broad entrance to the Grotta del Gelo was a crudely arched natural opening into the hillside. The cave’s famed year-round snows had seasonally retreated some distance from the periphery. But still a chill breeze emanated from the mouth of the Grotta.
Also issuing from the breach were the sounds of delighted visitors, chatter and laughter and shouts intended to test the chamber’s resonant qualities.
Biondi fretted. “Won’t those braying jackasses ever leave?”
Adele shaded her eyes and peered within the darkness. “Just kids having fun. I think they’re coming now.”
Within a minute, a quartet of young adults emerged, slipping on the snow, and playfully grabbing each other for support. They nodded warmly to Adele and Biondi, and then marched off.
Once they were out of sight, Adele said, “Let’s go.” She lowered a pair of AR goggles over her eyes.
Inside, the high ceiling boasted stalactites galore. The copious snow that crunched underfoot was marred with endless footprints, but at least kept its unstained condition. Visitors had refrained from littering or grafitti.
Adele adopted a classroom tone. “This whole lava tube was formed in an eruption during the seventeenth century. It’s about one hundred and twenty meters deep. Stella’s home is almost at the end of the tube.”
“I don’t see how—” Biondi interrupted himself when Adele gestured a stop. “Why are we halting? Nothing is any different here that I can see.”
Adele doffed her goggles and passed them to Biondi.
“Oh, there’s a virtual door outlined on the wall here.”
“Yes, if your goggles have the right handshake codes. And now we open it.” Adele used her personal com to broadcast an encrypted signal. The camouflaged portion of the wall swung neatly open, revealing a kind of airlock, whose inner door remained shut.
Biondi shook his head, marvelling. “I feel you could at least have said, ‘Open, Sesame.’”
“Next time. If there is a next time. Quickly now, inside!”
They stepped into the lighted antechamber, and the outer door clamped shut.
The inner door whooshed open, and revealed Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome.
The living space that had been secretly eaten out of the rock by Stella’s disassemblers was the equivalent of a small palazzo in size. Without any interior walls, its volume was nonetheless partitioned into various functional segments: a fully outfitted kitchen, a larder, a bedroom, a parlor, a media center, a gym full of exercise equipment—and of course, dominant above all, a magnificent laboratory, the envy of any university. The inner walls of rock had been artfully concealed with spray-on stucco in a warm peach shade. The lack of actual windows was supplemented by a scattered array of smart-paper flatscreens that afforded any desired exterior view: a tropical beach, the up-close rings of Saturn, the livestream from La Scala.
A stooped-over figure in a dirty lab smock had his back towards the visitors, as the man fussed over a spectroanalysis rig. Finally he straightened up, turned to face them, and said, “Well, don’t dawdle! I want to get my hands on that Sicanite!”
4.
January 17, 2102 – Etna National Park - altitude 2,030 metres asl.
Filippo Stella was an atypical Sicilian. Born in Enna, in the center of the island, he was morphologically what was called the great Norman type because his tall body, his light complexion and his fiery red hair made him much more like a Viking than an Arab. But Sicily had been invaded by both the Vikings and the Arabs, and therefore Stella was a Sicilian in all respects.
Prior to the interruption by his two ex-students, the legendary scientist had been fiddling with an array of dynamic scanners focused on a small series of rock samples. Abandoning this task, he crossed the room to meet his visitors. His only concession to the mystery of his continued existence was to grin at Biondi and say, “Pretty healthy looking for a corpse, you must agree.”
Biondi stammered out a greeting—“I—I can’t believe it’s really you, maestro!”—then dared to ask: “How do you survive here?”
“Pocket fusion reactor. Regular supplies from Catania by an all-terrain drone run by smugglers. They don’t know whom they’re servicing, and would never reveal the GPS coordinates of any of their clients, neither to the cops nor rival groups. Safest method I could devise.”
“But someone could follow the drone to your hideout.”
“Ah, but only if they had any reason to bother. And nothing about the drone’s cargo inspires curiosity. A crate of Etna Rosso wine, some frozen arancini, liters of various reagents and feedstocks. Nothing to suggest that the infamous Monster of the Disassembler Days is still alive!”
Stella grinned at them and took the bag of Sicanite specimens from Adele. The woman bowed her head in respect and submission, as if that old teacher still had authority over her.
"You did well to come here." Stella said. “I monitored both your progress with the Big One and your subsequent experiments, thanks to the backdoor on your server. A most useful conduit, Adele, and I thank you. In any case, my compliments on a thoroughly professional job."
"Your words are more than we deserve, Professor," Biondi replied.
Stella made a generous gesture that somehow encompassed them all as equals in the same fraternity of science. “You brought me a treasure. Sicanite is very promising. Very ... "
The elderly scientist trailed off as he handled for the first time a piece of the new element, whose strange dark-energy luster exerted an almost hypnotic effect.
Adele offered a précis: "It is a stable fissile isotope, a practically infinite source of energy. Our current methods of fusion are okay, but the startup and maintenance costs are still high. Plus, you can only scale down a reactor to a certain size. Not to mention the problems of thermal quenching."
Biondi winced. When thermal quenching occurred, the leashed torrential plasma could breach the reactor walls, setting loose the fury of the sun. Everyone on the planet still shed a tear at photos of the ruins of Vladivostok.
Stella tore his fascinated eyes away from the Sicanite. "Did you want to explain something more to me, little Bruno?"
"No, no," Adele said in a flustered manner. “I realize you are probably already ten steps ahead of us.”
"Indeed. You see, this unique discovery was the missing piece in my own research."
"What’s the nature of your project?" Biondi asked as he approached his old teacher's workbench with fervent curiosity. Ten years in hiding! What miracles had this savant possibly accomplished?
"Nothing less than the next generation of nanites."
“Ah, of course. You wish to impose more safeguards so that no runaway disasters can ever happen again.”
“Not precisely. I wish to make my nanites even more powerful and adaptable!”
Taken aback, Biondi stopped dead in his fussing at the bench.
"How so?” asked a slightly less-perturbed Adele.
"The current model of nanite—the kind that inadvertently dug that canal between Naples and Bari—has limited bandwidth among its peers, and limited power. Sicanite breaks through both those barriers."
“I can easily understand how a few atoms of Sicanite could supply a nanite with almost inexhaustible power. But how does this element facilitate communications?”
“This is the angle you have overlooked, but which I deduced, and shall now confirm.”
Stella brought the shard of Sicanite to his bench and put it through some inscrutable trials. Upon finishing, he nodded sagely. “Just as I believed. Incredible…”
Biondi could not contain himself any longer. “What? What is it?”
“This element fosters sub-Planckian lines of information transferal among every molecule of itself. The bandwith is measured in yotta-baud. Spooky action at a distance. Resonances that I could establish with this piece of Sicanite would be instantly felt by the underground mass of material back at your lab. And vice versa. And the transmission is faster than light. Instantaneous, in fact.”
Adele felt the underpinnings of her universe tremble at Stella’s revelation. “The applications of this property—" Stella grinned hugely. “—are practically infinite. With instant communication among a nanite swarm, they become infinitely flexible and configurable and intelligent. The swarm is greater than the sum of its parts. Imagine a robotic entity capable of changing shape depending on whether it must descend upon an extrasolar planet, or drop down into a mine, or swim into the depths of the oceans, or mount a defense against an alien invasion... And, at the same time, with practically unlimited energy, as Sicanite can guarantee."
Biondi looked at Adele, perplexed and afraid, as he too began to fully envision the possibilities.
"Professor,” said Adele haltingly, “I know you dream only of the benefits that this new technology could grant to mankind. But you also describe the makings of a perfect, unstoppable weapon.”
Stello's expression revealed that his innocent mind had never considered such a thing.
“And unfortunately,” continued Adele, “I have to tell you that we are not here by chance. We have already been approached by a merciless party intent only on power and profit.”
Stella made the jump. "Ah, and that someone, the Eternal Unnameable, would be none other than the representative of those forces who have controlled our island for centuries. "
"Yes, them."
Stella said, “Let me think a moment, please.”
Biondi took advantage of Stella's temporary distraction to draw Adele aside. He murmured in a very low voice: "Are you sure we can entrust Sicanite to him, after his lapses that led to the Disassembler Days?”
Stella barked out in the same manner he had employed in the classroom, when faced with student sass or incomprehension. "Biondi, I always told you that it’s better never to speak softly in front of your teacher!"
"Excuse my bad manners, professor," the man replied, blushing with shame. Adele smiled at Biondi’s contrition, which she found rather charming. The man had a rare humility to accompany his intelligence.
Stella patted the chastened Biondi on the shoulder. “No matter your rude secrecy this time, for you are right. I see now that this material has the potential to cause great harm. I will have to be—no, we will have to be—more careful with this new and potentially deadly technology. And our first move must be to distance ourselves from the Unnameable—or render him harmless."
The trio knew full well to whom that euphemistic, masking cognomen referred. And it seemed impossible such a vicious mastermind could be avoided, contained, or defanged.
Mattia Siracusa, a master felon whose criminal record featured nearly every offense codified under law, from arson to drug-running, slavery to murder, gambling to bio-trafficking. Head of the Sicilian mafia, but also with network tentacles in New York, London and other world capitals.
Born into the seething, harsh barrios of Venezuela, where his Sicilian parents had lived as illegal immigrants fleeing criminal charges in their native land, Siracusa had been orphaned at an early age. His survival depended on an utterly ingenious ruthlessness, and he had accumulated a frightening reputation by the age of twelve. At that point, Siracusa had invested in black-market bio-mods that had endowed him with even more personal and professional lethality. Height by height, he had scaled the mountain of global criminality until reaching his current lofty position.
“Is it possible that the forces of the Unnameable trailed you here?" Stella asked.
Adele said, “We took numerous precautions, so we think not. But his resources are huge. He could still learn of our whereabouts somehow. They see where we don't see, and know the words we use in the closed spaces of our homes.”
Stella clapped his hands together as if pleased at this prospect. "Such an eventuality adds spice and impetus to our mission! We must begin work at once! No, not literally at once. There’s something we must do first.”
Stella rummaged under his lab bench and came up with a bottle of red wine.
“A toast to our cause! Gifting the world with progress, not causing it pain!”
5.
Lair of the Unnameable, Scala dei Turchi, Sicily. Thirty six hours later. 50 meters asl.
Wearing only an abbreviated pair of swim trunks, allowing the pale January sun and the chill air to stroke his impervious, battle-hardened and scarred body, Mattia Siracusa sipped an emerald green drink on a veranda by the sea. Before him a cliff as white as a cloud in a clear sky descended like the steps of an ancient church towards the beach. Known as Scala dei Turchi, it was one of the wonders of the island, a legendary favored spot which now only the Unnameable could enjoy.
The man's eyes were bicolored, one purple and the other blue. Just the smallest signifier of all the biohacks installed in his corpulent yet powerful frame. That disturbing chromatic connotation made him even more ferocious and fearful to any occasional interlocutor. His dark skin, sunburnt atop a base of high melanin, characterized him as one of those Sicilians of Arab blood.
"Giuseppe, do you have news of our scientists?" Siracusa asked, turning to a burly man next to him.
"They are somewhere near Randazzo, on Etna. Our men are looking for them."
"What's there, besides an excellent pistachio gelato?"
“I don't know, sir. The region is full of volcanic cavities, including the famous Grotta del Gelo. But it seems unlikely they could hide in a place full of tourists. "
“Scan the area with our satellites. Who’s our chief in that area? "
"Malopasso."
"Warn him. Prepare the helicopter, I want to follow the search in person. "
"Right away, sir."
Giuseppe vanished, while Siracusa finished sipping his drink. Not hurrying himself, he finally rose and stepped to the railing of his patio to admire the view out to sea. Best investment he had ever made, buying this former national park from a money-hungry, easily corrupted government. No sense letting its beauty be wasted on commoners.
Mildly annoyed by the mystery of the vanishing scientists, Siracusa reassured himself that all would eventually end in his favor. Didn’t everything? No way he would allow a small group of mad scientists to get their hands on something that was rightfully his. Because everything that was in Sicily, and was born on the island, was his. Fortunately, one of his best and most ferocious men resided in those volcanic ravines at Etna. They called him Malopasso, precisely because he didn't let anyone pass without a good reason; and he was fierce with transgressors.
Why, then, did those scientists think of taking refuge right there? Everyone knew that this area was manned by relentless men, and under Siracusa’s strict control.
"Sir, your clothes." A supremely deferential Giuseppe had returned, interrupting Siracusa’s thoughts.
The Unnameable nodded and began to dress in a suit of fine Italian tailoring. He considered himself, first of all, a man of style and did not want, even when going to war, to go to war badly dressed. The artificial linen caressed his skin and the whiteness of his clothes enhanced the dark tones of his skin.
"The heli-vehicle is ready on its pad. Should I notify the Chief of Police of Catania of our arrival? "
"Of course, with the usual stealth protocol."
Soon the Unnameable was in the air.
Flying over the long Agrigento coast, jagged by steep white cliffs that bordered wide and sandy beaches, Siracusa smiled to think about the highly rewarding agreement between his organization and the Italian state.
Italy had gotten rid of Sicily, and Sicily had fallen back into his hands, the hands of a true patriot. Not native-born, true, he was nonetheless pure Sicilian. That land was in his blood, as all his family was. He fondly remembered his native country, Venezuela, but even more fondly the long Sunday lunches in which all his relatives participated, and where he ate exclusively Sicilian food.
The heli-vehicle left the shoreline and entered the hinterland, flying over the old Ragusa Ibla, with its baroque buildings, its churches, its noble residences. Mattia Siracusa, for a moment, thought that those scientists, that doctor, Adele Bruno, who temporarily possessed his rightful prize, had in fact rendered a service to him. She had made sure that Sicily did not succumb to a devastating earthquake. But, like everything that lived and worked on his island, she too should not and could not believe that she operated independently. She couldn't think she was free. Everyone owed fealty to him.
The flying vehicle veered and smoking Etna appeared before his eyes. The great antennas that had averted the earthquake could be seen on the horizon, and the mountain now looked like an ancient steamer from two hundred and fifty years earlier, complete with masts for sails and the chimney of a steam engine. Mattia Siracusa had earned a good deal of money from building those antennas. Everything that was built in Sicily had to pay two taxes, a minimum to the island government, and a more substantial one to him. It had always been this way, for at least two hundred years. Everyone was used to it. The central government, that of Sicily, the Sicilians, even the stones knew who really commanded the island.
Over Catania the city appeared as if divided in two. The southern part, a forest of high decadent buildings, interspersed with uncultivated sciara clearings and littered with debris and waste. Almost one million people lived in that area. They were poor, some very poor. But they paid off a lot because they consumed large quantities of synthetic drugs. How else could they survive those extreme conditions of life, without a substance that could alleviate suffering? Siracusa had his own memories of the Venezuelan barrios where he was born, and felt at home. He remembered the many criminal children who crowded the streets of the barrios, and he saw the same ones in that area of Catania. He had been one of those children, and he was proud now to be the king of that area.
The northern part of Catania, on the other hand, was very rich. Ancient liberty-style villas with floral marble drapes mingled with more recent decadent style buildings of the late twentieth century. These neighborhoods climbed the slopes of the volcano, with modern luxurious homes surrounded by greenery. Between the south and the north there was almost no points of contact, save for the Vecchia Marina, a long ancient railway bridge with hundreds of round arches of lava that skirted the ancient port of the city. But even there, among those rich houses, Siracusa had its business and interests. Financial, above all. But also political, commercial and social interests. In a word, Catania had not become an ultra-modern city as had happened to most European metropolises; but it had remained true to itself. It could afford to remain itself. Finally, Catania was right in the middle of the Mediterranean, and the Mediterranean had always been the backyard of three continents ...
When the heli-vehicle landed, Siracusa saw that some mobile police patrols had already cleared the area, alerted to his arrival. He was the most wanted man in Europe, and among the most sought after in the world; but everyone knew exactly where he was, and the forces of order guaranteed his movements in perfect anonymity.
Siracusa stepped lightly and boldly from the aircraft. Welcoming him was Malopasso, a mestizo man, odd fruit of some cross between native Sicilians and the Maghrebi emigrants who had set foot in Sicily during the 21st century. Nothing particularly unique about that blend. Since time immemorial, the island had harbored multiethnic blendings: Greeks with the Sicans; the Romans with Greeks; Byzantines with Romans, and so on.
Surrounded by a pack of Siracusa’s men, Malopasso greeted his superior with a nod and a hopeful yet frightened grin.
"You found something?"
"We tracked an off-road drone operated by a small independent cell of traffickers. It seemed out of place on Etna’s slopes. Turns out it was ferrying supplies to someone holed up in the Grotta del Gelo."
The Unnameable’s voice carried a glacial tone. "How is it that these penny-ante traffickers have escaped our control?"
The legendary speed with which Siracusa could flip, from valuing one of his subjects to considering him a nullity, was proverbial.
Malopasso hunched his shoulders protectively. "The area’s remote, no value. Plus, they always paid their taxes to us. And they shifted only legal goods to avoid customs duties…” Anyone could tell the underling was clutching at straws.
"Those are not valid reasons to remain ignorant of their activities. Don't you have satellite and drone surveillance? Can’t you leash these bastards with inter-cranial chips? Or are are you still living in the 21st century?"
Without any warning, Siracusa threw a formidable punch, backed by his genetic enhancements. The blow shattered the nose of his subordinate. Then he made a quick sign with his hand at the height of his neck to command the immediate elimination of this man who had disappointed him for the first and last time. Knowing what was to come, Siracusa stepped quickly back from the victim.
A blast of collimated particles from a bulky accelerator rifle hit Malopasso and vaporized him instantly. And while his last request for forgiveness was dispersed in the air, Mattia Siracusa was already ordering others to track down the drone, confident it would lead to the missing scientists.
The men of Malopasso, given the fast and ferocious end of their local leader, quickly obeyed the orders. The fresh and perfumed air was just intoxicated by the stench of burnt human flesh. Who would remember a man who had nothing to be remembered for?
Siracusa slowly started towards a path that climbed in the direction of a small hill from which you could see the valley below. His entourage followed. One of Malopasso’s subordinates spoke.
"We have already inspected the Grotta del Gelo, there seems to be no place where Bruno and company could be hiding."
“You used every kind of detector?”
“Absolutely.”
“These people are smart and technically adept. Could the refuge be shielded against our equipment?”
The man’s jaw dropped, and he began to stutter with fright. “We never—that is, how could they—?”
“Don’t fry your circuits. You could not have anticipated such sophistication from people who set out so quickly on the run. But this hidden base might be of older vintage, well-established.”
“We’ll get right back there with better detectors!”
“No, don’t bother. Just follow the next supply drone and it will take you to the entrance in some unknown portion of the cave. "
Not for the first time, Siracusa regretted the lack of scientific education among his men. They were street-smart, perhaps even clever and intelligent, but definitely not scientists. Cheating them with science was easy, and others knew this. That's why the Unnameable had always focused so intently on culture and science, as a proactive shield against such beguilements. Those disciplines offered powers that brute force and cunning lacked. But it was a constant struggle to stay atop of all new developments.
Like an ancient Hellenic emperor, Mattia Syracusa also had his tutors. He had his host of enslaved scientists who obeyed him in all respects. He paid them well and sucked every single atom of wisdom from them. And now, hidden away behind a rock wall in a lava tube, he intuited that there was a new node of scientific power that he must have.
Because everything in Sicily was rightfully his.
6.
January 18, 2102 – Etna National Park - altitude 2,030 metres asl.
“I’ve solved Goldbach’s Conjecture! That is, the Sicanite Brain and I have solved it! It’s all proven, clear as day! I’ll certainly get a Fields Medal for this! But how can I share it with a lump of ore?”
Someone was shaking Adele Bruno out of a sound sleep, and yelling mathematical nonsense into her ear. Still exhausted, despite being unconscious for some unknown period of time, and lightly hung over as well, she had some difficulty in attaining her full awareness. Even focusing her vision proved arduous. But with grim resolve she pushed herself upright, ordered her thoughts, and took in the scene.
She had gone to sleep on an inflatable smart bed hastily set up in Stella’s “parlor” at around three AM the previous evening. At that time, Biondi, who had been unable to hold his liquor as stoutly as the other two, was already snoring, stretched out with pillows on the floor. Nobody troubled to move him.
The small celebratory glasses of wine proposed by Stella had quickly modulated to an intense drinking session, powered by the dramatic reunion of the three savants. Their emotions of joy and release at their unexpected mutual get-together had superseded all good intentions of work. Besides, it was late in the day. And a sense of safety, however temporary and illusory, had let them lower their guard and relax. Biondi felt he had ten years of catching-up to do with his mentor. Adele, having visited the “dead” professor at regular intervals, still felt they had much to discuss. And so, leavened by plates of microwaved food, they had settled down to steady drinking and conversation. Adele recalled the final moments of that fraternal debauch only hazily. She assumed Stella had crashed like herself.
But apparently not. He seemed to have worked all night, if he had indeed come up with a solution to one of the most stubborn problems in all of mathematics.
Adele rubbed her gritty eyes. “What time is it? How can you live without sunlight? And where can I get a glass of water?”
Stella reined in his excitement. He combed fingers through his wild mass of greying curls, as if to prepare to go in front of a class of students. “I will answer your questions in order. The time is nine AM on the eighteenth. I substitute
regular sessions under full-spectrum sunlamps for the missing natural solar radiation. And what kind of water would you prefer, gas or still?”
“Gas, please.”
Her kindly host provided an individual sized bottle of Ferrarelle. While Adele chugged it, he tried to bring her up to speed.
“After you fell asleep, I consumed a handful of neurotropes and restored my mentality to peak functioning. And then I set out to establish full communication with the Sicanite. I began by installing a standard operating system into the motherlode. This allowed me to begin programming it with various heuristical algorithms. But soon the Sicanite took over the process. It began bootstrapping itself to higher and higher levels of consciousness and intelligence. A totally emergent phenomenon! Before I knew what was happening, I found myself in a First Contact situation. I was now conversing with a fully sentient alien being!”
Adele regarded Stella with stunned amazement. “You enlivened several thousand cubic meters of fissile material, creating a being that never existed before?” she said, pointing to a container of hyper-titanium. “And the first thing you decided to discuss was Goldbach’s Conjecture?”
Stella shrugged. “What can I say? The problem has been on my mind of late, and I thought the Sicanite Brain might offer some non-human perspective on the matter. After all, mathematics is a universal language. What better way to get acquainted with our new friend?”
Now Biondi had awakened as well. Suffering equally with Adele, he levered himself creakily off the floor. “Water,” he croaked. “And then coffee. And perhaps one or two of those frozen cannoli I saw in your fridge last night.”
Stella regarded the two younger scientists with grandmotherly solicitude. “I can provide breakfast. But I also think you both should have a dose of ‘tropes, to get back to full functionality. We are going to be very very busy in just a short time. You see, I think the Unnameable is onto us.”
Adele shot to her feet. “No! What makes you say that?”
“My scheduled supply drone never arrived, but it provided no failure message either. Then, all of a sudden, came an update that another was on the way. This second one, I am sure, is a traitor.”
"Professor, do you have a way of seeing outside?" Biondi asked, taking a quick look at the ranks of inscrutable instruments in front of him.
"Of course." Stella flipped several switches, and projected a holographic image on the wall opposite.
In the morning light, satellite imagery showed the vast space around the cave to be seemingly deserted. Only a few black and grayish dots moved rapidly, so quickly that they were not traceable by the naked eye at this resolution.
"Enhance B4!" Stella ordered the security system’s smart agent.
The image enlarged and one of the dots appeared for what it was. A small terrestrial drone that moved as if probing the surrounding area.
"They are zeroing in on our lair!" Adele exclaimed.
Biondi grew distressed, his hangover and desire for cannoli forgotten. "Here's another one, and ... another one. What can we do? We are three followers of science, not trained soldiers. We have no weapons, we have no means of defense. " The scientist continued in an increasingly feeble voice. "It would be enough for him to besiege us for a few days. Then we’d be forced to surrender out of hunger and despair."
Stella interrupted him. "Okay, okay, I don't want to hear cowardly words anymore. They are here and approaching, but we have our minds—and one potent ally."
Adele was thoughtful, her expression neutral, as she continued to gaze at the holographic image spelling out their doom.
"What are you thinking?" Stella asked his former pupil.
"I'm thinking we have the Sicanite Brain."
Stella became even more animated. "Yes! I knew you’d see it! Brava, my protégé!”
Adele mimed a small bow.
“But what an intellectual, philosophical and moral dilemma you propound!,” Stella said. “Unprecedented! We create life, an independent sapient, then immediately enlist it as a weapon against our enemies. And who’s to say the Sicanite Brain will even consent to help us?”
"Well, assuming it has some innate moral sense, it might consider our cause worthy of help."
“But it's still very unstable. It is like the Frankenstein monster: born, conscious, reactive—but uncontrollable. "
“But you two already discussed Goldbach's conjecture! That level of communication has to imply mutual understanding and sympathy.”
Stella massaged the bristles on his chin. “I suppose we did get along well. But only on a scientific plane!”
“Nonetheless, we have to try something. What if we ask it humbly to take us out of this place?”
Biondi seemed obsessed with those dots that were getting closer and closer, but managed a response. “Take us out of this place? How?”
"By digging!”
"Digging?”
"Yes, a tunnel to take us far from here."
Stella chimed in. "It might work. We will flee, following behind the Sicanite. The Unnameable’s men will discover only an empty hole."
Biondi took heart. “Bring up a geological map of this area, maestro."
"Of course," said Filippo. With a gesture of his hand, the old man raised up a holographic map.
Biondi, an amateur fossil-hunter, took over with certitude, after getting Stella’s consent.
"As you can see, there is a long basaltic fault interspersed with quarries and caves. If we show the Sicanite the straight path we desire, we could exit about ten kilometers from this place, right next to some ruins I've been to." With a wave of his hand, Biondi put up the satellite shot of a small urban area. "It’s an abandoned village. The volcanic eruption of twenty-two years ago partially destroyed it."
"And from there?" Adele asked.
“From there we will just have to improvise. The area is quite rugged, and there are plenty of places to hide."
"Would the Sicanite register on our enemy's detectors?” Adele wondered.
“What Sicanite has become,” responded Filippo, “is now something quite different from what it was. It also has the ability to camouflage and mask its emanations. The operating system which I installed is capable of doing this.”
"Then let's get started," Adele said. She took up the hyper-titanium cube that held the Sicanite which she had \transferred there from her satchel. She dumped the metallic contents in a heap against the south wall of the refuge. Stella added several hundred kilograms of raw inert nanites to bulk up the creature that was to arise.
“Professor,” she asked, “how have you been communicating with the Brain all night?”
Stella held up his personal com unit. “I inserted a chip of Sicanite into the circuitry of my device as a resonance crystal. It’s the only link to the Brain that exists in the whole world.”
“Does the Brain understand spoken Italian?”
“Not yet, but I expect it will soon. I preferred to teach it a perfected form of Bertrand Russell’s logical atomism language, to avoid paradoxes and misunderstandings.”
Adele shook her head at the whimsies of her mentor. “Maybe Esperanto will be next! Well, please convey our needs and desires and kind solicitations to the Brain!”
While Stella keyed in the formal propositions, Biondi kept a nervous eye on the exterior view of the drones, now very visible. And behind the drones the men of Syracusa swarmed like angry ants. They were no more than a hundred meters from the cave.
“The Brain has agreed to everything! Stand clear!”
The fissile material and the human-created nanites which were piled up against the wall of the cave experienced a violent tremor, and flowed together into a seamless mass. That shapeless blob swelled, extended, stretched, as if to find its shape. The final metamorphosis resembled a traditional industrial mining machine—all arms and shovels and grinding teeth and a short conveyor belt and chute—melded to a fusion reactor. It loomed about the size of three people.
Stella explained. “The raw chewed rocks will be fed into the onboard furnace, where they will be transformed into power. Were this a traditional furnace, the conversion of mass to energy would create so much heat that we poor humans would be instantly fried. But the furnace is some alien design of the Brain’s devising, and runs at room temperatures. I don’t quite understand it myself. It involves Bose-Einstein condensates or antimatter or stargates, or perhaps all three!”
“Just so long as we don’t get fried!” Adele said.
Biondi asked, “Can we pull some kind of self-destruct on all your files and equipment, maestro, like Professor Bruno and I did back at our lab?”
“I’ve had that option installed for ten years already, my son. Just one command should accomplish it. And…done! Also, I have an excellent go-bag ready.” The professor hastened to fetch a duffel bag bearing the insignia of the Calcio Catania football team. He patted the bag affectionately.
“Ah, just think! If we survive this harrassment and I reenter the world of the living, I might actually get to attend a game in person once again! Clamoroso al Cibali!”
The Sicanite device was quivering as if eager to get started. Adele said, “Time to pick your stadium seat later! Tell the machine to go!”
In the next second, the tunnelling device was three meters deep into the rock, leaving walls and roof and floor as smooth as glass. An ashy, basaltic, granitic smell like active lava filled the air.
Biondi dashed first into the tunnel. “Mind your footing, it’s slick! Quickly! In the holo, I saw that Siracusa and his goons were already entering the Grotta del Gelo!”
7.
January 18, 2102 – Beneath Etna National Park - altitude above sea level, unknown.
Stella and Adele raced after the younger man. Soon, they had all caught up to the Sicanite engine, which was progressing at a speed of roughly six thousand meters per hour, a brisk walking pace. The ruins should be reached in a bit over an hour.
A steady light suddenly glowed from the top of the machine, illuminating everything very nicely. A cool wind flowed backwards from the machine.
“I do believe,” said Stella, “that the Brain is transmuting some of the rock into oxygen for us. How very considerate! I must thank him.” He fussed with his com device to transmit his sentiments. “Also, I wanted to ask the Brain some questions about the Riemann Hypothesis. I really believe that should be the next challenge we tackle!”
Adele chastised her mentor. “Really, Professor! Is this the right time for such a pursuit? Let the Brain focus on its tunneling.”
“Oh, I’m confident the Brain can multitask. I rated its capacity at ten zeta-flops.”
“I feel as if I’m in a Jules Verne novel,” said Biondi, with a bemused air.
Adele herself felt so disoriented at the unreality of their situation—all the cumulative stresses, from averting the Big One, to media acclaim, to the discovery of Sicanite, to going on the run, to this current impossible flight, all too much!—that she began to ramble in a stream of consciousness fashion. “If this were the Disney version of Verne’s novel, from the twentieth century—did I ever tell you how I used to amuse myself in the AV archives when I was stressed out as an undergraduate?—well, then, we’d have to have a duck with us. Gertrude, I think her name was. Can the Brain get us a duck, Professor? Perhaps it could make one from the debris. Even a mechanical duck would be fine!”
Shouts began to echo down the tunnel. Emerging from her fugue, Adele looked back down the straight bore. Only ten minutes had passed, making a distance of roughly five thousand meters from the refuge, so the tunnel entrance showed very small. Nonetheless, figures could be vaguely seen there: the forces of Siracusa.
“What can we do, maestro?” said Biondi urgently. “They could overtake us quickly.”
“I have no idea, my boy. We will just have to wait and see what the Brain does.”
The digging leviathan came to an instant stop, so that the humans almost fell over it.
The next thing they knew, they were encased in a transparent sphere. Perhaps some type of meta-glass. Oxygen continued to flow into the globe. The Brain had spun the construction around them.
The trio waited silently.
Soon the drones and thugs of Siracusa’s army were practically within reach.
A jet of white-hot plasma erupted from the digger’s furnace, almost blinding the trio before they could instinctively close their eyes. When they could see again,
the tunnel was empty, with not so much as a fragment of ash or bone or alloy to show what had been there.
The bubble dissolved, depositing the stunned humans on their feet.
Professor Stella interpreted a new message from his communicator.
“The Brain is now speaking Italian. It said we should walk now, rather than ride in the bubble. It’s healthier for humans to use their muscles, rather than be coddled.”
8.
January 19, 2101 - Ruins of the village of Montelaguardia - altitude 730 metres asl.
The Sicanite Boring Machine emerged from the hillside as smoothly as a spoon through a mound of ricotta. It came to a stop, and promptly lost its shape. It devolved into an all-purpose matte-black blob, awaiting further instructions from its parent Brain beneath the soil, some kilometers distant.
Right behind it emerged the fleeing trio.
Biondi regarded the quiescent lump suspiciously. “I was just getting used to its simple digging and mobster-killing functionality. It seemed limited and useful and comprehensible. But now—who knows what kind of thing it could become next?”
Professor Stella remained unflappable. “Be calm. The Brain has no human failings. Purely a creature of logic and deduction and extrapolation. Although, in truth, its alien mentality might sometimes result in actions that could be mistaken for malign.”
Adele said, “Maestro, you are not being as reassuring as you imagine.”
Looking around, the three scientists found themselves in a hostile and violent environment. Lava mountains were interspersed with ruins of destroyed houses. The past violence of the volcano had swept away the small village of Montelaguardia in less than one night, and only the heroic efforts of the Civil Protection men and women had made it possible for the few inhabitants of the place to escape.
Adele felt proud that such a disaster could never happen today. Twenty-two years ago it was still impossible to predict and divert volcanic eruptions; only the technological progress of the last decades had finally made it possible to tame Etna's fury.
Stella consulted his communicator. “Adele, the Brain asks if you still have your AR goggles?”
Adele rummaged in the satchel. “Yes, let me put them on… Oh, wonderful, there’s a path marked for us to follow!”
Not quite noon on the eighteenth, and the sun was high over the waters which shone about thirty kilometers from them. From this height, they could admire the sparkling Ionian Sea, while the Eternal Mountain, on their left, emitted a thin thread of smoke that twisted towards the sky. The sun also glinted off the large antennas that projected their gigantic shadows like a small army of Cyclopean Monsters waiting for their Odysseus. The beauty of the scene lulled them for a moment, and they made no immediate move to follow the virtual footsteps outlined for them. It was as if they were reluctant to shatter this quiet arcadian moment.
"Are we finally safe, Professor?" Biondi asked, trudging near what had once been the bell tower of a church.
"For the moment, perhaps. But I can't help fear that Siracusa will be on our tail again soon. He certainly did not die in the tunnel. He’s never at the forefront of any attack."
Adele said, "Now that you’ve named him again, let's talk about Mattia Siracusa. I don't think there is a stone on this island that doesn't respond to his orders."
Stella responded: "That may have been true in the past. But the Sicanite Brain is a totally new development, a game-changer. Siracusa does not control it, nor does he even know of its existence. It’s the X Factor in his plans, the monkey wrench that will undo them.”
Stella bent down to pick a sprig of broom that grew luxuriantly among the keen and cutting lava stones. “And don’t underestimate our native resilience and tenacity. Do you think this flower surrenders when magma invades its space? Never! Somehow the plant takes root and rises to the sky. The Sicilians are like that. Maybe circumstances—an eruption of Etna, or mankind’s own violent nature—temporarily overwhelm us. But in the end, we are reborn! ‘Now all around is one ruin, where you root, gentle flower, and as though commiserating with others’ loss, send a perfume of sweetest fragrance to heaven, that consoles the desert.’"
Adele smiled. "Professor, are you quoting Leopardi? Actual poetry! How does that translate into Russell’s language of logical atomism?"
Stella pointed to the heap of Sicanite. "Poetry actually translated quite well. I input huge quantities into the Brain, and it expressed a particular fondness for Leopardi.”
The Sicanite appeared to be in a state of rest, or perhaps mulling over Shakespeare. It did not seem at all to be that terrible weapon that had vaporized Siracusa’s men, and dug a tunnel of more than ten kilometers. It was simply lying inert on the rock, almost imperceptibly trembling, as if animated by an irregular and uncertain breath.
"That thing, whatever it is, has gone beyond the limits of its programming," Biondi mused.
And even as he spoke, his words were proven. Without human orders, the Sicanite began to morph and flow, faster than could be apprehended by the humans. Suddenly in place of the blob a sleek all-terrain vehicle stood.
Stella interpreted the latest message he had just received. “No pleasant walk across the countryside for us. We dallied too long. Now we are to get on board and be driven back to the motherlode, to the parent Brain. It appears that Siracusa has somehow learned the essentials of the new situation, perhaps from reconstructions of one of our imperfectly destroyed files. He and his men are assaulting the troops that are guarding the motherlode. Heavy construction equipment is waiting behind them. They mean to excavate every bit of Sicanite and make off with it!”
Adele tore off her AR goggles. “Then let’s move! We have to offer whatever help we can!”
The trio piled into the unroofed car..
The speedy jouncing journey across the trackless landscape was so intense and discomforting that no conversation was possible. The humans clung to oddly placed rollbars and handles for dear life, as the remotely piloted buggy tore across the slopes of Etna.
Scenery became familiar, and Adele soon spotted the hills where the buried connectivity points had worked their magic, the land beneath which the Sicanite Brain dwelled.
Chattering sounds of automatic gunfire reached their ears. Shouts, screams and commands.
The vehicle came to a stop at a vista point where they could see everything: the lab, the antennas, the outnumbered and outgunned troops, Siracusa’s army, and the construction battalion that awaited, its engines idling, to carve and despoil the earth. Adele could distinguish Siracusa himself, based on a cordon of bodyguards. The Unnameable was gesticulating, mimicking the assault orders for the benefit of his minions. His were gestures of a frustrated and desperate man.
Stella was busily interpreting the latest communication from the Brain. “It appears that we three were brought here to act as witnesses. There is little else we can do. What the Brain really needed was its extension here, the jeep. The nanites in the jeep, the feedstock I provided, must fuse with the motherlode, so as to give the rest of the ore the same mobility and capacity to change. Otherwise, the pure Sicanite is helpless.”
The buggy started to shiver, and the humans hastily jumped out. In a second or two, it had taken the familiar shape again of the drilling apparatus, and plunged into the ground.
“It will travel unseen, beneath the battlelines,” Stella said.
The waiting was extremely hard, especially watching the killing below them. Adele found herself instinctively clutching Biondi’s hand. Stella contented himself with humming one of the fight tunes associated with his football club.
Then the ground at the center of the battle began to crack and heave, sending the combatants tumbling. Siracusa scrambled to safety in his helicopter and ascended, to hover over the scene.
An ebony hemisphere emerged from the earth. Rising higher, it became the crown of a humanoid head. The head came fully into view, its generic features expressionless. Then came the neck, the shoulders, the arms. When the hands emerged,they were placed palm down on the keen and cutting stones and used to lever up into the open air the rest of the mannikin’s body.
Here was all the Sicanite ore that existed, enlivened by the contents of the jeep, and fashioned into a Colossus of Rhodes. It towered over the scene, nearly thirty meters tall.
All fighting ceased.
With a booming voice, the Colossus spoke—not in Russell’s symbolic jargon, but in pure Italian.
“Citizens! My presence among you provokes too much greed and anger and jealousy. I shall disperse myself, so as not be an alluring prize anymore. But this does not mean my death. All my parts, however tiny, will remain in faster-than-light communication. My essential self will continue to exist, just distributed among you.”
“Maestro,” Adele asked, “does the Brain mean what I think it means? Total atomization?”
“I believe so. Every atom of the Sicanite possesses all the inherent qualities of the macroscopic mass. With its sub-Planckian network of thought, it does not need bodily contiguity, as we do.”
The Colossus continued. “I now initiate my dispersal.”
Siracusa’s copter dove at the Colossus, as if to intimidate it, to halt its mission. But the Sicanite Brain was no peasant or shopkeeper to be frightened into submission.
It casually reached up, grabbed the copter in midflight, and compressed it into a ball, before letting the crushed mass fall to the ground.
Biondi let go of Adele’s hand and burst into applause, as instinctive as it was naive. “Sicily is free at last!”
The next instant there came what Adele could only later categorize as a forceless slow-motion explosion. It was as if a mature dandelion seedhead big as a galaxy was suddenly blown apart by the wind, all its seedlets emanating outward. The Colossus simply evaporated in all directions, in a process that seemed both instant and infinite, its components radiating out in an invisible shower.
And then Adele felt particles of Sicanite entering her. There was no pain, only acceptance.
The moment of dispersal ended.
Adele looked at Professor Stella, and then at Mario Biondi. All three of them were grinning broadly. There were no words needed, since information, channeled by the nano-slivers of Sicanite within their bodies, flowed unrestricted among them. This surface stream of consciousness comprised the foremost layer in a welter of messages from every human across the island. For the Sicanite, true to its name, had limited its distribution to the island and to its people alone.
Immediately every selfishness, every division, every fragment of hatred, vaporized. Every single inhabitant of Sicily was interconnected with each other, in a communion that was both conscious and unconscious at the same time. The Sicilian mother earth, the one that was born from the keen and cutting lava stones, and that had generated the Sicanite, returned herself to her children.
Realizing finally Biondi’s feelings for her, and the depths of her responses, Adele came eagerly into his embrace. She felt a little embarrassed that the Sicanite within her was voyeuristically watching, but that chagrin soon passed.
Professor Stella cast an approving avuncular eye on his two ex-students as they kissed, and said, “Who would ever have guessed that Russell’s logical atomism was the language of love?”