7

At 9.30 on Thursday night, in an apartment on Viale Gran Sasso, the doorbell rang. It wasn’t the usual annoying noise. Instead, the intercom emitted a sound more like a mobile-phone ring tone of the Rocky IV theme. Marco Draghi pressed a button on a small green remote control, and the front door opened. Alex ran upstairs and entered the apartment with a basketball duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

‘I got your message,’ his friend shouted from the bathroom. ‘Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on?’

Marco pressed the button on the remote control again, and the door now closed. Alex was accustomed to these ‘tricks’, as his friend liked to call them. The tricks of a genius.

In Marco’s apartment, almost everything was operated by switches, remote controls, or even voice commands. Doors, heaters, kitchen appliances, stereos, and lights all responded to a remote control, like certain modern apartments designed according to the laws of domotics, with the difference that, in this case, every single microchip had been patented and built by Marco himself.

In February 2004, more than ten years ago, his parents had decided to head up to the mountains for a long weekend. They were thinking about buying a holiday house, and they’d turned the house-hunting trip into a family weekend. Marco’s father, a former professional skier, had infected both his wife and his son with his passion for the slopes. They were expecting a weekend of magnificent freestyle descents and lavish dinners at the alpine hut, high atop the mountain.

It was drizzling when they drove out of Milan. By the time they got to Piedmont, they were caught in a fully-fledged downpour. When they left the tollway and turned onto the local highway that would take them up into the mountains, the rain had stopped. The worst seemed to be over. But as they climbed higher, the weather got worse. A violent blizzard was lashing down onto the tight bends that ran up the mountain slopes. The gusting winds started to make their Jeep fishtail. Weighed down by snow, a tree had collapsed onto their windshield, pushing the car over the side of the cliff. Marco, shaken around in the back seat, never even knew how his father lost control of the vehicle. He’d only heard the crunch of impact. Then, silence.

Marco’s life was never the same after that. His parents were killed instantly. He survived, miraculously, and was sent to live with his maternal grandparents. He stayed with them until he was nineteen. Then he decided to live on his own in the apartment on Viale Gran Sasso.

For the first twenty years of his life, he’d dedicated himself entirely to the study of computers and electronics. He loved to take things apart and study their components, and he filled the house with mechanical devices. He could operate them from an array of remote controls scattered throughout every room. There was the green control, for doors and windows. There was the blue control, whose buttons were linked to the electric oven, the microwave, and the stove top. The yellow control governed the temperature inside the apartment. The red one, meanwhile, was designed to control the lighting system: a panel with changing colours in the bedroom; rows of blue neon bulbs in the living room to give a futuristic appearance to his ‘domain’, as he called it; and a vast array of tiny lightbulbs scattered throughout the apartment, transforming it into a sort of gigantic pinball machine. Marco was immensely proud of it.

For the past ten years, his brain had been operating considerably faster than the average speed, which meant he was able to design and engineer increasingly sophisticated devices, from the controls he used at home to a diverse array of software. When it came to computer technology, he was a prodigy, a freak. Whatever problem his friends might have, Marco was the solution. As Alex always liked to say, he was ‘light-years ahead’.

But the difference between the two of them was not confined to the five-year age gap between Alex and his friend. It was also their legs. Marco had left his at the bottom of that ravine.

Marco’s electric wheelchair emerged from the bathroom and turned down the hallway, heading for what he dubbed the ‘engine room’.

‘You’re looking good,’ he observed, turning his back on his friend. Alex was radiant.

‘In a way, this is the best time of my life.’

‘Do you want something to drink?’ Marco turned his head towards Alex, who was looking around the room. Every time he came into that apartment, the first thing he looked at was the photograph of his friend’s parents, happy and smiling on their wedding day.

‘Yes, thanks.’

Marco had a small red refrigerator, shaped like a Coke can, next to one of the three computers that occupied the table in the middle of the room. He pulled out a couple of cans and handed one to his friend.

‘I need your help,’ said Alex, getting straight to the point.

Marco smiled, and with one finger he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His stubbly face, his unkempt hair with long fly-away locks: for Alex, that was what he’d always looked like, ever since the two of them had met at the finals of the PlayStation tournament.

‘Quit staring at my wheelchair,’ he’d said to him that day. ‘I don’t want to win because you feel sorry for me. My legs don’t work, but my hands sure do.’

Alex had been struck by the confidence of his opponent, who he’d initially pitied. Then they’d exchanged a handshake, before starting to play. Marco had won the match in overtime. Since that day, they’d been like brothers, with an enduring bond between them.

Alex tried to snap back to reality. That memory was burned into his mind. It was one of the most important moments of his life: a simple twist of fate had led to the start of a wonderful friendship. He often stopped to reflect on the fact that if he hadn’t happened to see the ad for the competition in the morning paper the day before the tournament, he’d never have met Marco at all.

‘So talk to me. What can I do for you?’

Alex stared at the row of blue neon tubes on the opposite wall and found himself having to rub his eyes.

‘Do you keep them on all the time?’ he asked, tilting his head in the direction of the lights.

‘Only when I’m here, working on the computers.’

‘Ah. Which means all the time.’

‘Exactly.’

Alex smiled and started sipping his Coke. On the shelves around him were a vast number of books about the cosmos, science books, astronomy journals, and sci-fi comic books. His attention zeroed in on a book by Stephen Hawking. He pulled it off the bookshelf and leafed through it at random until he came upon a photograph of the physicist and author himself. For a moment, he stopped to think about the life story of the British cosmologist, the sad physical decline of such a great thinker. Then he put the book back where he’d found it.

‘You know about those headaches I get,’ said Alex. ‘Those “hallucinations” of mine.’

Marco became alert, gazing at his friend curiously. ‘You’ve never really told me about them …’ he said, hesitantly, ‘in full detail.’ He knew how painful the topic was for Alex.

‘Well, I think it’s time to tell you more.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘There have been some new developments.’

Marco put his three computers — a PC, a desktop Mac, and a Dell laptop — on stand-by. All three machines worked in sync.

‘Well, you see,’ Alex began, knowing that he was confiding in the one person on earth he’d trust with his life, ‘it’s now clear that Jenny really does exist.’

He told him everything.

His encounters with the girl, his fainting spells, their telepathic conversations, and his certainty that she, too, wanted to meet him more than anything else in the world.

He told Marco how he’d managed to figure out where Jenny lived, and how he’d been able to check that what she’d told him was true.

He told him about the video.

About the little boy with a blond fringe and his memo for the future.

At last, exhausted, he stopped talking. He stood up and walked over to the window, as his friend’s keen gaze followed him. He looked out and realised that night had fallen. The lampposts were illuminating the city streets; the traffic had given way to deserted roads and desolation. A homeless man was doing his best to push a shopping cart. I wonder what that man’s life has been like, he thought. Maybe he used to be rich and now he’s begging on the street. Sometimes all it takes is a single thing …

‘Alex,’ said Marco. ‘I believe you, I’ve always believed you, but the problem is that I really don’t know how I can help you.’

‘I have to go to Australia. I need you to help me get to Australia.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding. You want to go to Australia, just like that? Right now?’

‘That’s right. I can’t wait a minute longer. I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t face up to this. I feel as if I’m living a double life; I … have to find her.’

Marco sighed, pressing his lips together. Then he reactivated his Mac with a tap on the space bar and started an online search.

‘Do you have a valid passport?’ he asked.

At first, Alex didn’t understand the point of the question.

‘Well?’ Marco insisted. ‘Do you have a valid passport or not?’

‘Does that mean you’ll help me?’

‘Of course I’ll help you. What kind of question is that?’

‘Yes, I have a passport. I used it for the class trip in January.’

‘Perfect. Let’s see what I can do.’

Alex moved his chair over next to his friend.

‘Hmmm,’ said Marco, his eyes glued to the computer screen. ‘It’s not exactly cheap to fly all the way to Melbourne.’

‘I know.’

The list of available flights ran from a minimum of 1350 euros for a round-trip ticket. If you booked further in advance, at least three months ahead, the fare dropped by about three hundred euros, but Alex had no intention of waiting.

‘What do you plan to do?’ Marco was taking this very seriously. Anyone else would have told Alex he was crazy. If he had confided in his parents or in any old friend, they would have recommended he go see a shrink. But, as he already knew, Marco was special. Marco had taken him seriously ever since the time he told him about his first fainting spell. That had been four years ago.

‘I don’t know. I don’t have that kind of money.’

‘That’s not a problem.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Marco smiled. As if the answer was obvious. ‘Let’s just say that I have certain resources …’

‘Listen, I’m not asking you to lend me money.’

‘I have no intention of lending you money. And anyway, it wouldn’t be my money …’

Marco sniggered and started rummaging through a dishevelled stack of paper behind the Mac. He found a folder and passed it to Alex, who started leafing through it as his friend explained.

‘These are some files that I’ve been able to hack into. They’re bank accounts that I can manipulate pretty much as I like.’

‘You never cease to amaze me.’ Alex thumbed through the pages without understanding the list of sums and names that he had before him.

‘I can deduct small amounts from these accounts, the way any company would if you made a credit-card purchase online.’

‘But is it safe?’ asked Alex.

‘Of course it isn’t, but I have systems in place, don’t worry. First of all, they have to be sums of money that aren’t likely to arouse anyone’s suspicions. I’m not looking to become a millionaire with this — it wouldn’t be possible anyway, and sooner or later I’d be caught. Plus, I don’t put this money into my own account. I send it to a series of prepaid debit cards in the names of nonexistent companies that …’

‘Do you think I actually understand any of this?’ Alex furrowed his brow and stifled a laugh.

‘Long story short, I have no problem getting my hands on a considerable sum of money without involving my own bank account, and I can draw on that sum through the debit cards that I keep in the safe over there.’ Marco pointed to a small metal cube on a mantelpiece, right next to his parents’ wedding picture.

‘Tomorrow morning, go get a prepaid debit card. I’ll take care of the three thousand euros that will be credited to it by tomorrow afternoon.’

Alex was speechless.

‘You don’t have to say a thing.’ Marco’s eyes came to rest on a photograph hanging on the wall behind the computers. It was of an elderly woman knitting. ‘Do you remember 2011?’

‘Yes.’ Alex smiled sadly. ‘I remember it clearly.’

‘If it hadn’t been for you during my depression, I’d never have made it. My grandmother’s death nearly finished me off. She was like a second mother to me.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ll never forget that year as long as I live. Three thousand euros don’t even count for a tiny fraction of what you did for me.’