Rama shook his head again. "It's a gamble unjustifiable. You can't assume that your counterpart here had the same history as you. They could know things you should be supposed to know, but that you actually don't".
"Yes, it's a gamble. Should I remind you that our adversary is just that? A gambler? We must play his own game if we want to win. Besides, I was a public figure here as on our world. My history is recorded in books and magazines. I have just to read it" said Euro. And with that, he opened up his book and started reading, flipping page after page while outside the window the outskirts of Copenagen were replacing the flat country.
Chapter 1 - Make way for the Eurostar
Son of the owner of restaurant in Castelluccio Bolognese, in the Apennine Mountains of Italy, the first part of the life of Edulcore Cicciotto, born the ten of March of 1967, would be the same of an ordinary Italian kid grown in a small village. And probably it would have remained the same, if not for the day in which the young Cicciotto, in his freshman year at the University, decided to register to the Sports Club of the Atheneum, worrying about the ever-increasing size of his belt-circumference.
That casual happening started the career of the most incredible athlete of the late XX century. Because the fat, pimpled kid, in less that a year of training, broke all the established track records, including 100, 200, 400 m, by seconds. Even more incredibly, the boy revealed to be a marvel also at long distances, including the marathon. In the following years Cicciotto won the gold medals for the 100, 200, 400, long and triple jump in the Olympic Games of Barcellona and Atlanta.
He was nicknamed by the press "The Eurostar", a class of fast train in Western Europe. He was the main aim of anti-doping investigations, but he always come out perfectly clear, while the same doesn't apply for his main rival, American-naturalised Cuban Eduardo Frederico, whose silver medals from Atlanta were retired just after mere hours from the medals ceremony.
America did not stayed on the window, and trough its Olympic Committee decided to find the reason behind the superhuman exploit of the Italian sport-hero. They requested a blood sample of the man, and had it studied by the Nobel awarded Professor Zachary Knell, head researcher and CEO of 3VX Research Center, a private genetic lab heavily founded by the Pentagon. In 1996, it was announced to the world that in the blood sample of Edulcore Cicciotto was found a special genetic trait, called the Metagene, responsible for the activation of other genes, gifting the Eurostar with increased muscular power and stamina.
Following the revelation, the Olympic International Committe retired the medals won by Cicciotto, and part of the prizes. After a legal battle of two years, that Edulcore loose, the man retired to the family restaurant, embarking in a fortunate cooking career that kept alive Cicciotto's fame.
Edulcore closed the book, as the train was entering the station.
It was his same life.
