part0015

L uca Spinoza had always struggled to find his niche in life. He was a poor student, a lackluster worker, and didn’t really seem to have much direction in life. His friends and family knew him to have had a decided lack of ambition from the very start. Despite his shortcomings, Luca himself would always attest that the best thing that ever happened to him was his marriage to his wife Esmerelda and the birth of their two children.

He loved his family and would do anything for them. This was his one motivating factor to try and do a little bit better in life. But things took a decided nose dive however, when he became addicted to heroin.

It all sounds rather drastic for someone like Luca to suddenly become an addict. But Luca didn’t set out to be a junkie—if it can be said that anyone ever does. It all began when he threw his back out at the local rubber plant he worked at in Milan, Italy. He was severe pain so his doctor prescribed him powerful pain pills to help him during his recovery process.

The pain would eventually go away but Luca’s new addiction did not. Soon he was seeking to feed his fix however he could and when he couldn’t get a prescription, he resorted to procuring heroin from dealers on the street, which he learned was basically just a more powerful version of the pills he had already been popping.

Luca you see, was just one of the countless souls sucked up in the Italian opioid crisis of the late 2020’s. You would think the world would have learned its lesson from what had happened in the United States in the 2010’s but sadly history had repeated itself.

Luca Spinoza had been an out and out addict for the past few years, and completely estranged from his family he was now working on his final act. He knew his time was short, but he had just fallen into a group of guys that promised him some big results if he just cooperated with them.

If he followed through and did what they told him, they would mail a check that amounted to about 15,000 U.S. dollars to his wife and kids. It may not seem like much to some, but for a family that struggled to put food on the table or even keep a roof over the head—it was plenty. And what did Luca have to do to get this payout?

He just had to strap vials of a deadly biological virus—Ebola no less—across his chest, interspersed with powerful plastic explosives. This deadly payload he was going to carry right up to the very steps of the Vatican. His handlers were a fringe breakaway group from the Catholic Church whose motto was “With Blood we Cleanse”—and they wanted to cleanse the very seat of power where the Pope reigned supreme.

As dedicated as his deranged task masters were however, they couldn’t risk blowing their cover by giving Luca a ride, so he was forced to hail a cab instead. His cabbie was a friendly old guy, and as soon as he got in the backseat, he introduced himself, “Welcome aboard brother! My name’s Alonzo—where are ya headed!”

Luca hopped in the backseat and shutting the door informed him, “To Vatican square please.”

Luca hesitated for a moment, but figuring he would be dead in a few minutes, he decided it didn’t really matter. And as such he openly informed him, “Luca… Luca Spinoza.”

Luca was always a nobody, but somewhere deep in the recesses of his drug addled mind he thought to himself, ‘Pretty soon the whole world’s going to know my name.’

The cabbie Alonzo broke up his dark thoughts by asking him, “So what are you planning on doing at Vatican Square son?”

Alonzo a quick read of character looked at Luca in the rearview mirror and frowned. He knew that something wasn’t quite right with this kid. He asked him again, “I’m taking you to Vatican Square—what are you going to do when you get there?”

Luca in the midst of the symptoms of a terrible withdrawal, was either unable or unwilling to play his cards very carefully, and ended up showing his whole hand as he snapped, “What does it matter?”

The cabbie was used to dealing with some irate customers, but there was something about Luca that seemed positively unhinged. Glancing at Luca in the rearview mirror he saw that the man’s hands were shaking in his lap, and he seemed to be practically grinding his teeth together in angst.

But much more than this were his customer’s eyes that got Alonzo’s attention. Luca’s eyes looked completely soulless and dead. He cynically thought to himself, ‘Unless this guy is going to the Vatican to be delivered of demons—he couldn’t be up to much good.’

Growing increasingly concerned, as he headed down the main drag that led to Vatican City, Alonzo tried a different approach, asking, “So what do you think of the new Pope?” Luca becoming annoyed with having to answer questions, let his subconscious mind completely slip as he muttered, “Who cares… They’re all going to die anyway.”

Luca, who’s chemically altered brain was long past psychosis, found himself in the midst of an uncontrollable free flow of thought as he continued, “The Pope, the cardinals, all of them—they’re all going to die...”

Alonzo not sure what he was dealing with, was hoping that the man was speaking metaphorically as he anxiously muttered, “We’re all going to die someday sure.”

Luca just couldn’t help himself, as he nonchalantly revealed, “But they’re going to die today—I’m going to make sure of that.”

Alonzo a devout Catholic himself, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He didn’t know if the looney toon in the back seat was joking or serious, but he knew he couldn’t take any chances.

At the next signal he made a U-turn and turned the cab right around. Luca startled out of his stupor, shouted, “Hey! Where are you going? The Vatican is the other way!”

The Cabbie knowing now that he was dealing with a very deranged man, informed him, “That’s alright son, I’m going to take you to a nice hospital in Rome where they can take care of you.” Setting his car’s GPS to Rome, he let his car’s AI drive them back in the thick of the ancient Roman capital.

Luca realizing that his big mouth had ruined the plans, practically wailed in despair, “Please! I don’t need anyone to take care of me! I don’t need any help! I just need to go to the Vatican!”

Alonzo felt sorry for the disheveled young man, but he wasn’t about to chauffer someone with murderous intentions, threatening the Pope—and drop him off at the Vatican’s doorstep. He was neither that callous, nor that idiotic.

His car fortunately was built as strong as police cruiser and no matter how much he banged on the glass partition separating him from the backseat, Luca couldn’t do any damage. Alonzo had also locked all the doors to be sure the maniac couldn’t get out until he could get him to the hospital psych ward he was driving to.

Luca realizing that he was essentially trapped, grew increasingly desperate. He knew that if he didn’t do something soon, the whole plan would come to naught. He would most likely be arrested, and either locked up in prison or an insane asylum. And as his family starved, he would be a failure once again.

So it was, that Luca made his decision. And right there in a busy intersection in Rome, while the cab was stopped at a red light, he pressed down on the detonation switch that he had carelessly shoved in his front pocket. A split second later the bombs wrapped around Luca’s chest exploded with fury—flames searing through his skin and melting the upholstery in the back of the cab.

But this was nothing, because in the next second after the blast, a tongue of fire made contact with the fuel tank of the vehicle, essentially turning the entire car into a giant bomb and in a tremendous blast that would shake all of the immediate downtown area, the entire cab went up in flames.

Both Luca and Alonzo were dead at this point, yet the misery was only beginning because the vials of Ebola had been shattered and the viruses they contained were now sent aloft on the flames and plumes of smoke ready to enter into the lungs of any curious passerby.

Luca hoped that his dark deed would help him get his wife one last payday. But in reality, there was no check. It was all a lie from the beginning. He had trusted the dishonorable to be honorable and all he had to show for it was death and destruction on a massive scale.