by The Eurostar
Edulcore Cicciotto:
It's a quarter to midnight on this Christmas Eve without snow, and immersed in a fog so dense that it's impossible to see beyond a yard. I walk among the vans, followed closely by Li'l Jo. Tobias is sleeping, I think.
So, now we are seven. I wonder about this Marv Velo. He seems very confident, but how can we be sure about him? What if he is another government agent, like Turner? Well, for the moment, we have no other chance than to trust him. Sometimes I would like to not be alone in this. Maybe I should have trusted that Dr. Quantos, back in Mandelovia months ago. What I had put in motion is quickly becoming too large for me to manage. Well, I will just try to keep the head out of the troubled waters, so to speak.
In a tent, most of the circus personnel is celebrating Christmas Eve. I see Velo, Nowhereman, Naecken. The cat runs toward them. There is also Lorelei, and for a moment I feel I should go there, too. But no. I am not in the mood.
Today I heard, unseen, the conversation between Tobias and M'xy, and I have kept thinking about Christmas for all day. I have been a lucky man for most of my life, and I never cared for Christmas then. But when my career as an Olympic runner ended, and I was exposed as a metahuman, things changed in my life. I became aware of poverty, of being an outcast. I became a junkie.
I found friendship in a young priest in my neighborhood. He helped me to recover, to find a job and then open my little restaurant. I, in turn, worked with him in raising funds for the poorest kids of the parish. And the true meaning of Christmas found me, I would say. Too bad Tobias was not one of those kids. But there was an ocean between us.
Anyway, it's a quarter before midnight, and I have left the circus to find a church, walking in my civvies among the dense fog. And finally I do. A big, Gothic Catholic church, made by gray stones, gray like all the rest of the city. I enter.
Oh! The church is totally empty. How is this possible? It is a big church, it should be one of the most attended ones. Strange. I kneel on one of the first pews, right in front of the altar, and begin to pray.
"Good evening, sir," a voice says behind me.
I turn. It's a priest. "Good evening. I was expecting a celebration." My eyes go to the watch at my wrist. "It's midnight."
"Merry Christmas, then," says the priest, sitting next to me.
"May I ask why no celebration for Christmas?" I insist.
"You are from abroad?"
"Yes, I'm Italian, and I am with the circus. Do I have to understand that you don't want to talk about the mass?"
"It's a sad thing, Mister...?"
"Sardella. Guido Sardella."
"Father Sean."
"If you like to talk, I would be very glad to hear."
"Okay, sir, just because you asked," says Father Sean. "But is a strange story, really strange, and I bet you will not trust a single word of it."
"I'm all ears."
The priest sighs and starts telling me the story. "Well, it all began not many years ago. At that time, Thunder City was a normal town, a beautiful town, bright and sunny. The whole world was normal, with no metahumans, no talk about aliens, no demons or zombies raiding the streets of cities. But then, the metagene was discovered, and the government appointed TriVext, a little private research center based here in Thunder, with a assignment worth many millions dollars to study the metagene.
"They began to build the tower in the bay for the new offices and labs, but then the environmentalists started to denounce various forms of poisoning in the bay. Some journalists found documents about illegal funding from the gov, rake-offs and such. Add the fact that the whole city hated them for the construction of the tower, that was altering the traditional landscape of the bay, a world-known tourist attraction, and it's easy to understand how the stop to the project was near.
"Well, nothing happened. And all changed. A mist began to spread from the bay, and it has never left since. The people, all the people of the city, have become like mindless robots. They seem normal people from outside, but when you begin to watch them closely, it's easy to see that they are just strange. They watch the same channel on TV, they eat all alike, the drink only one brand of beer, use only specific brands of clothing and other kinds of things. I have done some research, and I have found that every brand is somehow tied to TriVext. But the most important thing, is that any charge toward TriVext has been dropped, and all seem happy about things are now."
"And the mass?" I ask.
"Everybody has converted to a little fundamentalist church, the one frequented by Zachary Knell -- the head of TriVext."
"And do you know how the people are kept slaves in this odd way?"
"No. Not exactly. But there is a little rumor, among the fishermen at the docks. It's nothing more than a fairy tale. They say that the fog is the poisonous breath of a marine monster that lives in the bay. The Leviathan, they call it."
"And why are you not affected?" I ask.
"Well, I hate to say this, but I am a metahuman." His skin instantly turns red, then blue, yellow, green and then normal. "I have this strange ability, like a chameleon. Plus, I guess, the power to resist this mass hallucination."
"Could be. But you shouldn't hate your condition. There is nothing bad about being a metahuman." The priest, at my words, is somehow astounded.
"A man of good will," he says.
"The world needs men of good will," I note.
"This city needs something more," he whispers, with a sad look.
"Maybe," I say, and waving a little my right hand, I go to the main door. Walking away from the church, I repeat, "Maybe."
And then I begin to sing to myself, "You better watch out, you better not cry..."