The sun hides behind the volcano, and the sky instantly takes fire, in a symphony of reds and oranges and violets. I will never get accustomed to the tropical sunsets.
I am on the roof of the complex, the part, at last, that didn’t get destroyed in the hurricane. There is a small greenhouse, all of his glasses shattered, but inside it some plants still survive. One in particular fascinates me. A flower. Crimson red.
Danny told me that here lived a Turkish guy that stayed with the MBL for a short time. I like this place. I think I will come to live here, when the building will be rebuild. If it will ever be rebuillt.
We are broken. Totally broken. The one called Pete, which was the one to found this place since the beginning, has died, or disappeared in some strange place, as Chance confusingly explained to me, but in any case legally has not been possible to declare him dead, and his fortune will go back to some sort of foundation… not that I clearly understood the thing. But in short… the MBL is broke.
Yes, Grissom has said that he will found for sometime the company… but surely all the works on the building will have to be suspended. Indefinitely.
The lucky part is that my fortune is still intact. Minus the part that I had to spend for the advance. I must say that I though that the part for the MBL was a complete loss, and the fact that a fraction of it would have returned to me was the only good in it.
I was wrong. In the end, it was the MBL to get the book.
Frankly, I had hope only on the Omicron Project. What the Hoods told me about them, was unbelievable. Complete success in all the missions accomplished. Exceptional skill in combat AND in archeological investigations. In fact, at first I wanted to employ just them. Then, this fun loyalty I feel for the MBL made me do a double call… and to give the mission also to the MBL.
I would never though that the Omicron would have returned from the Lost City aboard our hovercraft, beaten and mocked. And I heard their talks on the flight. Whispers, but easy to follow for my eagle hearing. They were talking of breaking up. With the death of their leader, there were no reason to stay together. That, in the MBL, would never happen. At last, in MY team. In this MBL, still I don’t know. But surely it’s better trained, better equipped than my Revolutionaries. Good soldiers, if only if they would be better directed. Although Danny is a revelation. The leader role is tailored on himself.
We let the Omicron guys to take their ways at the airport of Mandelovia. They where surprised that we left them to go freely, after they tried to kill us. But, what could have we done? Spoil us in the process? But they are not really disappearing. Unknown to them, I gave them a little gift, courtesy of Hoods technology. I feel in the future I will need them.
I take out of my backpack my digital camera, the one I bought in Florence. Safely stored in it, there are the pictures of each page of the Book of life, that I shoot when I was hiding at the top of the spring of eternal youth. I never dreamed that the chance would have given my such an occasion.
Now, from both the Omicrons and my comrades, words will spread in the underworld, that the Book has not been rescued, and that it is lost forever, without any way to recuperate it. Whoever wanted the book… Futurists, Collins, the Mafia, Crasher’s father… they now know that the book is lost forever.
And that it’s true. Just, a duplicate of it now exist. And it’s in my hand.
I did it. My mission is accomplished.
Now it’s time for me, Edulcore Cicciotto, to be elected leader.
