by thedoctor, The Eurostar, Danny and Grimm
Pisa, Italy:
"Hey!" Danny Hearn called out to the group as they sat in a cafe. "How far is the Leaning Tower of Pisa from here? I never got to see it before it fell over." He kept searching on the map that he bought at the souvenir shop.
Dirk Bell flipped open his Zippo and lit his cigar. Thanks to the time change from flying across the Atlantic, they didn't have to wait long for nightfall. In a couple of more hours, the museum would be empty, except for the security guards. Dirk had already thought of a way around that.
Edulcore Cicciotto was happy to be back in his native land again. Just hearing the language spoken in the way that only a natural-born Italian can speak it made him feel at ease. Yet he still felt a little withdrawn. It was almost like the homesickness that he felt for his native country, but different.
"The museum should be emptying right about now," Chance said as he checked his watch. "We should be able to send Grimm the signal pretty soon."
"Wha...?" Danny looked up from his map. A small look of disappointment crossed his face. "No tower, then, huh? Well, there's always next time." He folded the map and put it in his coat pocket. "I guess we can go ahead and drive over to the museum. But first, I want to get one of those disposable camera things."
"What happened to the camera that Kit provided you?" Ed asked, slipping away from his own curious thoughts.
"Um..." Danny began to blush. "I kind of forgot to pack it. I got distracted with the whole passport thing. Time to go!" He got up and made his way toward the van outside.
"Wait! It's too early," said Edulcore when they exited the cafe. "And, in fact, just like I remembered from the time I studied in this city, even if the museum was closed and empty, the place in front of the main gate was crowded with tourists."
"Fuck," is what came from the mouth of Dirk.
Chance asked, "What about the back of the building?"
"It's on one of the busiest streets of the town," replied Ed. "There is only a safe way to enter. The roof."
"How can we get there? With my broken ribs, I can't turn any part of my body into a bird part. I can't fly over there," said Danny.
"Not to mention that neither Dirk nor I can do that," whispered Chance. "Only you can fly there."
"Actually, it would be nearly impossible, even for me. Without an ascending current of hot air, I can't take flight along a steep wall. But have no fear, there is an easy way. The only thing we need is to go to a restaurant -- a real restaurant."
The faces of his friends looked amused. But quickly they understood Edulcore's plan when he showed them the aerial passage, built in part over buildings, in part over columns, that united the Uffizi Museum with the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the River Arno.
"You see," Ed explained, "the Uffizi were the palace of the state administration, while Pitti was the residence of the great-duke. He didn't want to cross the streets, so he had this peculiar corridor, one mile long, built for him. And we'll use it to reach the Uffizi roof."
Along the way, Danny bought his disposable camera. Edulcore had some of his personal money with him, the souvenir of his trip across America, so he bought a five-megapixel digital camera.
Danny stared for a moment at a mirror mounted on the wall of the restaurant bathroom, noticing the reflection staring back at him. The image showed one man. One mind. One soul. But that was misleading.
Quit looking at yourself.
"I was just... you know... thinking."
Yeah, well, next time... do it in a less narcissistic way.
Danny quickly diverted his gaze downward and went about the business of washing his hands. He turned on the cold water tap, scrubbed his hands with some soap, then turned the tap off again.
Something had always struck him as strange about this whole process, ever since he came to this time. If you pissed on your hands, turned on the tap, washed your hands, but then touched the damn tap again, didn't that kind of defeat the purpose?
But he was finding that he thought about this stuff less and less as the months passed.
He turned and dried his hands under the electric hand dryer. He always found himself impatient with these things. He remembered a time when the entire process would be over in a second. But now, he just knew that he would have to wait for a few moments for it to kick in.
Again, he found that this was bothering him less lately.
Looking at his outstretched hand, he contemplated it once more. Danny knew the back of his hand like... well, he knew it fairly well. And he knew what he would find in its center: a small lump, almost imperceptible to the naked eye. And a slight discoloration for a few millimeters around the lump.
I can't believe you still have that.
"What?"
Your ID chip. It's useless now.
Danny thought about how convenient the ID chip was. With it, he had no need for any identification cards or papers, or bankcards, or holo-disc rental cards, or cash. Any scanner around the world could read it and know anything it needed to know.
He ripped his wallet out of his pants. He found loose change and crumpled bank notes, an ID card (fake, but it did it's job well enough), an MBL Consulting business card, a video rental card.
The whole thing was bulky. He could feel the weight of the wallet in his hand. He could feel it in his pocket when he walked. In his other pocket, he could feel the pressure of his passport sticking against his leg.
Irritating, huh? Having so much crap to carry around...
"You know, Hal... I've barely noticed lately. I only noticed it then because you mentioned the ID chip."
Danny's chip was the last piece of technology he had left from his time. Sure, it was useless. The scanners necessary to read it had yet to be invented. The information it contained had yet to be created. It was a pointless little thing whose sole reason for existing was to be mildly itchy every now and again.
But still... it was the last thing he had.
They're easy to carve out. It'll only bleed for a second.
"It's not doing any harm," Danny said and left the bathroom. It struck him that the most infuriating thing about having a conversation with Hal was that you couldn't storm away from it dramatically.
Dirk, Chance, and Ed sat around a table in the midst of the busy Italian restaurant, waiting for their food to arrive.
"Y'know, this better be good. If the Italian food in Italy is on the same level as the Italian food I can get in Cleveland, I'd be sorely disappointed," Dirk said.
"I'm sure it will be fantastic!" Ed said, grinning. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Only fifteen minutes earlier, the others had watched with mild amusement while he ordered for them all in his native tongue.
"What'd you order again, Ed?" Chance asked.
"Half the damn menu, it sounded like," Dirk said, with a smile. Chance laughed.
Before Ed could open his mouth to reply, a waiter appeared beside the table brandishing four large dinner plates laden with food. Chance reflected on the fact that even he would have trouble balancing four plates this size, but the waiter was doing it seemingly without thinking. The waiter laid down the plates around the table, and the three companions nodded their thanks. Then he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
"Now where's Danny?" Ed asked as he looked across the table at the empty seat with the large serving of ribollita in front of it. Looking up, he noticed Danny exiting the bathroom.
"Ah. Here he comes," Chance said.
"Less talk. More eat," Dirk added.
"Drinks!"
Dirk dropped his fork in surprise and turned around. The waiter had reappeared behind him, the drinks they'd ordered on his little silver tray.
"He's like Batman," Dirk said. The waiter looked slightly confused at this remark, then placed the drinks down and disappeared once more.
Danny sat down. "Okay, the plan is this: after we finish eating, we can be at the museum in a few minutes," he began.
"Right."
"Once there, we give Grimm the signal," Danny continued.
"How do we...?"
"He's got his mobile phone on him."
"Right."
"We navigate our way through the museum to where the painting is being held. Avoiding security, of course," Danny explained.
"How do we...?"
"We have the information on the museum security system that Dirk got earlier today on his reconnaissance trip. Dirk?"
Dirk pulled a sheet of paper out of his coat pocket and slapped it down on the table in front of Danny.
"Thanks. Once we find the painting, we photograph it."
"How do we...? Oh, right, with a camera. Never mind."
"Got a question..." Dirk began. "Near as I can see it, this is a sneak in, take a couple of snapshots, sneak out, kind of mission. Did we really need five guys?"
"The Liber Vitae, near as I can see it, is one of the most sought-after artifacts in the world. I'm betting that our client isn't the only one after it. And some of the other parties who want it may not necessarily be the right hands for it to be in. This painting is the first clue as to its whereabouts in centuries. This city has now become a prime target for anyone interested. I'd say we keep our guard up," Danny explained.
"What makes us think that we're the 'right hands'?" Chance asked.
Danny shrugged. "We're not the wrong ones... and what our client does with it is none of our business. But as long as he's paying our rent, we do what we can to find that book. It's just a book. I can't imagine it would cause that much trouble, even in the hands of someone less than altruistic."
Dirk laughed. "Famous last words..."
The meal was exceptionally good. Edulcore had hoped it would have cured the strange sensation of outplaceness he felt, which was starting to make him feel dizzy. He enjoyed the culatello, the ribollita, the bistecca, and so did his colleagues. Dirk especially liked the bistecca, similar enough to a Texan T-bone steak to suit his all-American taste.
All went like a normal dinner of a small group of friends. Just, at the end, after they paid the bill, they didn't go to the exit. They went to the bathroom. And there, they opened a small window facing the aerial passage, and after a small jump, they were safely on the restaurant's roof.
Under the full moon, thirty meters above the street level, they walked quickly toward the Uffizi Museum, crossing the paths of a few stray cats.
Then, finally, they were on the museum's roof, where they continued to wait following Ed's suggestion.
After several minutes, a quiet but strange conversation amongst the bored adventurers began to take place on the rooftop of the Uffizi Museum.
Dirk Bell asked, "Isn't that the old broad who married Ernest Borgnine?"
Chance exclaimed, "Someone married Ernest Borgnine?!"
Danny replied, "Guh?"
Dirk said, "Someone had to. Would you have rather done it?"
Chance shook his head. "Now there's a picture I didn't need in my head."
Dirk whispered conspiratorially, "I'm going to let you guys in on a horrible secret: Dick Clark is actually a line of clones that keeps getting replaced every few years."
Everyone stopped to look at Dirk.
Dirk continued walking and talking, unfazed. "That's why he hasn't aged. Do you hear what i'm telling you? Dick Clark is a clone! A CLONE! I'm done."
There was a long pause before Danny cleared his throat. "Maybe we should call Grimm now?" Danny took his pocket radio and signaled to Grimm to come to open the roof window.
After getting the call, Grimm followed the map he was given (he had stashed it in the breast plate of the costume) to the top floor, where he pressed a switch that opened up the skylight on the roof.
I dunno how they're gonna get down here, he thought to himself, but I hope they brought my clothes with them.