Danilo Clementoni - The Writer

All four broke out into a roar of laughter at the end of which Petri slipped the helmet out of Azakis’ hands and said, "Wait, you ungrateful old thing. First, I need to change a setting. The system was programmed to call us on the poor old Theos and I don’t think anybody will answer you there now.”

The alien fiddled around for a bit with the controls of the portable H^COM then, when he was satisfied with his work, he passed it back again to his companion saying "Try now. Hopefully my memory hasn’t betrayed me, and I’ve been able to configure it to connect you to the right person.”

Azakis didn’t doubt his friend’s memory even for one moment and put the helmet on. He pressed the start button and waited patiently. Almost a minute went by before the three-dimensional image of the bony face of his direct line Elder was projected directly onto the retina of his rather tired eyes.

“Azakis, how nice to see you,” said his white-haired contact, raising his slender right arm in greeting. "But where are you calling me from? Your picture looks a little strange and rather distorted."

"It's a long story," answered the alien. “I'm using a makeshift device for long distance communication."

"But aren’t you on your ship? Don’t tell me you still haven't left. You know that your time limit for reaching us has almost run out now, don’t you?"

"That is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.” He paused briefly to try and find the most appropriate words then continued saying, "There’s been a setback... Our spacecraft’s gone."

“Gone? What do you mean?"

“It exploded. The self-destruct system was activated, and we only just made it to safety in time, before everything exploded into thousands of pieces."

“But only you could activate that procedure with your personal remote-control system. How could something like this happen?” asked the stunned Elder.

"Let's say there were a series of particular events, and I must have dropped it.”

"And someone else found it and activated it for you?”

"We still haven't been able to determine what really happened but that's a distinct possibility."

“And now? How do you plan to get back here?”

"That's exactly why we're contacting you. We could do with a nice quick solution to this little problem.”

“Little?” replied the Elder jumping to his feet with surprising nimbleness. “Do you realize what you're saying? Your time frame is already almost at its maximum limit. You should have already left and you’re telling me that the Theos no longer exists and you’re pretty much stuck on earth. What are we supposed to do now?"

“Well, I don't really know. You're the Elders. We’re trusting that, with your experience and your infinite wisdom, you’ll be able to help us out of this unfortunate situation."

The old man sat down again, letting himself fall heavily into his soft grey chair, then he leant his elbows on the table in front of him and put his hands in his long white hair, remaining in complete silence. He remained still for a few seconds then he lifted his gaze again and said, "I’ll try summoning the Council urgently and I’ll put all our best Experts to work. I hope to be able to give you good news very soon” and he ended the communication.

"Is that all?" exclaimed the big, decidedly overweight guy, as he observed the strange device that the young nerd was holding in his hand. "You’re not going to tell me that you’ve made us wait more than a month just to show us this thing flashing."

"I can assure you it’s working" replied the terrified boy. "Indeed, I think it’s already done what it was designed to do."

"Yes, but are you going to tell us what?” yelled the tall thin guy as he jumped to his feet. "Now I really am losing my patience."

In the basement bulging with equipment, monitors and computers of all kinds, lit by a dim led light which was reflected off the worn walls, the boy’s emaciated face looked even paler than it really was.

"Listen here, if you don’t tell us what this thing’s really for, I swear I’ll make you swallow it whole" exclaimed the fat guy grabbing the nerd by the scruff of the neck.

"But I told you" answered the ever more frightened boy. "It’s a system to activate a procedure remotely."

"But what procedure? What is it?" continued the big guy, as he shook the boy as if he were mixing Margaritas.

"I'm not sure” the young man tried to answer. "But I think we’ve activated something very particular and dangerous, given the protection systems I had to bypass."

"Explain yourself," said the fat guy still continuing to shake him.

"If you let me go, I'll show you.”

"Okay. But I hope it’s convincing, or else the biggest bit of you that’ll be found will only be visible under a microscope."

The boy straightened his shirt, readjusted his long hair that hadn’t seen any shampoo for quite a while and headed towards a workstation with two keyboards and a series of half-dismantled computers. He quickly typed several incomprehensible commands and, after a few seconds, a three-dimensional image of the strange object that slowly revolved upon itself, appeared on a giant screen that hung from the ceiling.

"This is our mysterious remote control.”

"Ah, now it's become a remote control?”

“Well, considering its function I think we can safely call it that."

“Go ahead,” said the thin guy as he settled himself on a shabby chair in order to better observe the large monitor.

“Well, the main problem was how to reactivate it. I struggled quite a lot because, most likely, not only had it been turned off but the owner did not want anybody to ever turn it back on again.”

"See it wasn’t the batteries that had gone flat, you silly old fool," exclaimed the fat guy, turning towards his crony.

"No, there’s no batteries inside,” continued the nerd. "I think it works with an external power source, a sort of electromagnetic flow that it manages to capture and transform into pure power.”

"Interesting" commented the skinny guy. "But what’s its scope?"

"In theory, perhaps even several hundred thousand kilometres."

"Blimey" exclaimed the fat guy as he held the strange object in his hand. "Are you telling me that this little thing might be capable of transmitting a signal from here to the moon?"

"I think so and it probably already has done."

"And what’s it supposed to have transmitted?"

"Well that’s the interesting bit" continued the boy as he brought up a new picture on the big screen. "These are the symbols that appeared on the front of it after it had been reactivated."

"It looks like some sort of ancient language" commented the thin guy. “I'm sure I've seen it somewhere before.”

"In fact, it’s cuneiform. The Sumerians used it several thousand years before Christ."

"And what’s it doing on such a technologically advanced instrument?"

"It’s the language of our alien visitors."

"Are you telling me that those brutes who captured us speak cuneiform?" asked the big guy somewhat surprised.

"Well," the boy tried to explain, "it’s not exactly that you speak cuneiform. It’s a form of writing. But I think this is their language."

"And have you managed to translate it?"

"Actually, for the command to be sent, I had to insert a kind of password. In practice, by touching the symbols in the right order, I entered operational mode."

"Basically, like the system you use to unlock your phone?"