Danny stared for a moment at a mirror mounted on the wall of a 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… doesn’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 it’s centre. A small lump, almost imperceptible to the naked eye. And a slight discolouration for a few millimetres 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 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 a 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 it’s 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 book. I can’t imagine it would cause that much trouble, even in the hands of someone less than altruistic…”
