Night. A cold night in Bologna, Italy. Cold winds from Siberia blows over the Po Plain, lowering the temperature under -10°.

A man, in the warm comfort of his small flat, gives a distracted look outside the window, and return to concentrate over his work. His face his lit by a monitor screen, the right hand moves over a graphic tablet, holding firmly, too firmly to give a real good stroke, a graphic pen.

The man is Edulcore Cicciotto, author of "Arriva Eurostar" the only superhero title in the comics line of Bonelli editirce, the Italian prominent comics publisher.

The title main character, a man gifted with supervelocity, takes his name from a class of fast train in Europe, the Eurostar, exactly. Coincidentally Eurostar is also the nickname by which the colleagues of Cicciotto call him; but they gave him that not for his successful character, no. But for the quite less honourable reason that he is ALWAYS late with his deadline; and lateness, sadly, is the main feature of Italian trains.

Cicciotto keeps saying to himself (and to his boss) that it's his painstakingly crafted work, full of details, of telling facial expressions, of vibrant colours, that requires much more work than the average stile of his colleagues, heavy on bold shadows that occupies much than half of the page; he would never admit that what really keeps him always behind is all the time he spends learning useless fact... searching the internet for hours, following though lines suggested by a word heard at the bar in morning while sipping his coffee, or read on a newspaper ad or a billboard.

It's what forage my fantasy, he would tell you if you had the bad taste to tell him what you really think is the reason for his usual lateness; he would never admit that nothing he spends most of his time upon find a way into his pages. But, that is his drug. Its only one, and he is pretty sure it is a harmless behaviour, so he will never try to use his time less spontaneously.

But being always late in depicting the adventures of a speedster it's not the real irony of his life; there is much more.

Because Cicciotto hide, behind his nerdish appearence, a big secret: he is indeed a true Eurostar. Since he was out of adolescence, he started to develop THE power.

Supervelocity.

Like a reward for all had endured before. The fat boy that was always the last at the cross country trials at school. Ciccio, fatty, Cicciotto. First sex at 23 years of age.

It was a reward from heaven.

Cicciotto was smart enough to keep it a secret. An handy secret to use in small, unobtrusive way to make him looking much more smart, and sexier, and friendly, and handsome, and all any thing was not before.

He knew, finally, how to stay among the other people.

But supervelocity is not a a panacea. You can do many things faster, a lot faster, but not all. You can't read faster. Letters on the page blurs and become incomprehensible shadows. You can't draw faster. The pencil always run short of graphite, or simply broke up. Or it's the paper that tears away. The computer remains behind, or simply freeze whenever you try to be faster than normal.

Edulcore was smart and mature enough to accept the gift for what it was. Useful and really a turning point of his life. But working was not going to change. Sure, he could have sold himself to research institutes or media group or the military... but Edulcore was loving his existence... and wanted just to improve it.

Fifteen years later he was happy. He was one of the most talented comics artist in his country, had a good social life, could indulge himself into his time consuming hobby of hunter of useless trivia.

So, Edulcore "Eurostar" Cicciotto was sitting by his computer working late, well into the night, trying to make up with the work due the following day, the first flakes of snow breaking over the frozen glass of the windows, when the doorbell ringed.

Puzzled, Edulcore went to the door, his mind wondering if it was the old lone man from the opposite flat that could need help, or what else.

It were two men in black. Ed had not yet opened the door completely that a cloud of soporific gas engulfed him, and all went dark and cold.