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The high-speed train from Rome to Florence takes about an hour and twenty minutes. Still recovering from eight hours of jet lag, Dalton dozed for most of the trip.
Five minutes before arriving in Florence, as the sun was setting and the train was slowing down, his phone beeped. The text from Dorothy Anderson read, “Translation from Arabic. READ FAST. Police waiting for you in Florence. Saudis bribed Rome police. Photo of you in drag. Tracked you to Rome train station and nonstop to Florence. Bribed Florence police to hold you. Saudis sending squad to kill you. RUN. HIDE.”
The train was slowing down. Less than a mile to death. He quickly stuffed his tablet into his suitcase and ran to the door. He hit the emergency release on the door, jumped out, and landed on the rocky roadbed. He fell and rolled, tucking his head, but bruising his right butt and shoulder. Ignoring it, he jumped up and ran like hell. His heart pounded. As he ran he thought, Game or reality? Yeah, I guess it does make a difference.
The blue hat and blue cloak, smeared with hastily wiped five-alarm red lipstick, settled to the floor of the train car between his seat and the door.
A fashionably-dressed woman, about the same age as Dalton, sat across the aisle from where he had just bolted. She sighed and put down her book, Morrison and Boyd: Organic Chemistry. She looked out the train window and, in the fading evening light, watched Dalton run. She got out of her seat and picked up Dalton’s cloak. She looked closely at the lipstick stain. Then she pursed her lips in thought and nodded.
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The railway tracks have never been the prettiest part of Florence. But there is surprisingly little trash on them, probably picked up occasionally for the tourists’ sake. There is, alas, a lot of political graffiti on buildings backing on the tracks. Proof that the revolutionary spirit is alive in Italy. At least until it runs out of paint.
This close to the station, the tracks ran six abreast. The grey steel rails overlaid grey concrete ties set in coarse grey gravel. Dalton was a jean-blue streak zipping over the grey. With enough adrenaline, railroad tracks don’t matter, even when carrying a small suitcase. The low brick wall bordering the tracks didn’t matter either. What mattered was the roll of concertina razor wire strung atop the wall.
But, again, adrenaline helped. In full sprint Dalton lifted his suitcase in front of him, slammed it down on the razor wire, flattening it to the wall and, still holding onto the suitcase, vaulted over it. He stuck the landing with a half twist, facing back at the wall and, completing the twist, pulled his suitcase free of the wire to continue his sprint.
The Swiss, French, and American judges gave him tens. The Romanian judge docked him two tenths because his toes weren’t pointed during the vault.
God, I hope someone saw that, he thought.
Someone did.
Dalton ran for a half mile through claustrophobic city streets. Suddenly, and with surprise, he found himself on the edge of vineyards and orchards growing in fields between widely spaced residential streets. He stopped and panted. I thought Florence would be bigger. This farmland isn’t what I need. I don’t fit in. My best cover is crowds of tourists. He turned right toward the center of town.
He walked fast for another half mile through lush gardens and past plain but well-kept houses. Most were painted either anemic banana slug yellow or gall fungus orange. And all had the same legally mandated kidney-red tile roofs.
Finally, the fields gave way again to a city residential district with small, clean, boxy apartment buildings lining the streets, all packed tightly together.
Dalton stopped at a cramped, dimly lit trattoria. He had seen three or four on every block. Judging by the coats upon coats of less-than-professionally-applied trim paint, this one appeared to be at least eight hundred years old. Each trattoria had two or three small wobbly tables on the sidewalk, and four or five indoors. It was a pleasant evening, getting dark, and he would have preferred to sit at a table on the sidewalk, but that was too exposed. So he sat inside and squinted at the menu by candlelight.
As he looked, he thought, I’m not in America any more. The first step in mastering any game is to master the rules. It always amazed him how few people understood that fundamental fact of games, of work, and of life. He tried to live his life by the RTFM principle: Read The Fucking Manual. And if you can’t read it, write it. He pulled out his tablet, connected to the strongest nearby wifi, and started reading: Maps of Florence. Tourist guides. The local people. The local government. Their customs. Their work and play. Their food and lodging. Their politics. And, especially, how the police operated.
Pandarin epicurean, a game character famous for enjoying fine food.
He took his time eating. He read that that’s how most Europeans dined. Only American barbarians bolt their food and leave quickly to make room for the next barbarian. Europeans treat trattorias like we treat family rooms at home. And they savor their food. He read through ordering, through aperitif, through dinner, through dessert, and through a languid digestivo liquor. A couple of hours passed.
A fine meal. Most civilized.
He needed a place to hide ... and he found it online at Vacation Rentals By Owner. The pickings were rich. One was a small one-bedroom apartment available for rent this week. If it was available now, that meant the owners weren’t living there now. The ad implied the owners lived in a suburb about a half hour away. And the ad did not brag about the apartment being in a high-security building. Most Italians were paranoid about thieves, for good reason. They frequently lived in locked buildings with double locks on their apartment doors. The lack of that paranoia in this ad told him he might be able to break in.
He walked there after dinner, in the dark, sticking to narrow streets with plenty of crossing alleys that he could duck into if he saw a police car. But he didn’t see any. As one rulebook said, not many police worked at night.
The apartment he chose was located only a block from Mercato Centrale, the two-story farmers market that spanned a city block downtown. In daytime this was the busiest area in town. Crowded even on weekdays, and packed spleen-to-spleen on weekends. Not just because of the food market, but also the crush of street vendors and shop outlets under tent stalls, clogging all the sidewalks and most of the streets for a full block in every direction around the market. Here he could disappear. And it was only three blocks to the train station and bus station. So, if the opportunity presented itself, he could leave quickly.
The apartment building was not locked, as he had hoped. He found the apartment on the building’s third floor, what Americans call the fourth floor. The apartment door was locked, of course, but that wasn’t how he planned to get in. Carefully noting the apartment’s location, he went back outside and found the correct fire escape in a shoulder-width alley. He climbed up. The living room fire escape window was locked. But the bedroom window, about four feet away from the fire escape, was not. The photos in the ad showed that this window slid open, not cranked. He guessed a sliding window would be easier to open from the outside than a cranked window.
He said to himself, Ezio Auditore, naming a game character famous for scaling sheer walls, and stepped up onto the railing around the fire escape. Holding onto the frame of the living room window, he leaned out toward the bedroom window. His stomach turned over and he yanked himself back.
He paused for a moment and shook his head. I said, Ezio Auditore!
He leaned out again, and again his stomach flip-flopped. He yanked himself back again.
Why isn’t this working? The height wouldn’t bother Ezio. Maybe I should try another persona?
He thought for a moment.
Spiderman!
He leaned out again.
He almost lost his dinner.
I don’t understand. This should work. I change personas as needed, like I change from dress shoes to work shoes or running shoes.
Oh, I’ve got it. Batman!
He lost his footing, slipped onto the railing, and came within two inches of castrating himself. He wasn’t hurt, but he was shaken, and ended up hugging the railing to keep from falling.
Something’s wrong. Using game and comic personas served me well as a kid dealing with all the bullies on the playground. And it served me well later dealing with even more bullies on the internet. It even served me well talking with non-bullies ... when I occasionally had to leave my basement. I don’t understand how mundanes, with only one persona, can deal with so many people. Life’s too complex for only one persona.
I need to get in that window.
But I can’t.
Or, that is, Ezio can’t. And Spiderman can’t. And Batman can’t.
Wait. Of course they can.
But.
I’m.
Not.
Them.
He looked down the four stories to the dark alley below. Maybe this persona stuff has its limits.
He hugged the railing a little longer.
Okay. That makes sense. Physics trumps personas. Lesson learned.
But I still need to get in that window.
If I were just me, how would I do it?
He released the railing, sat down on the fire escape, and thought for a while. I’m a micromechanical engineer. Micromech ain’t gonna help me here. He looked around. There were three satellite TV coax cables attached to the fire escape, running from the roof down to individual apartments. He thought some more.
He opened his suitcase and took out a pair of long-nose pliers. He cut about eight feet of coax. He knotted one end to the fire escape frame over his head. He made sure the knot was tight, and he tested the cable for strength. He knotted the other end around his chest, under his arms, as a safety line.
He stood on the railing with his right foot and reached out with his left foot.
He nearly pissed himself with fear but, clutching the safety wire tightly, he got his left foot on the bedroom window sill.
With small movements, he slowly pried off the window screen, then slid the window up and open.
Gripping the window sill with the fingernails of one hand, and the safety wire with the other, he slowly moved his right foot to the window sill.
He gradually loosened his safety wire and eased himself into the bedroom.
Then he sat on the bedroom floor with his back to the wall for full five minutes until he stopped shaking from fear.
Mom kicked me out of the basement for two weeks and told me to get a life. Or did she say wife? Either way, I don’t think this is what she had in mind.
He looked around the apartment. As he had hoped, the keys were laid out on the kitchen table, along with a notebook of detailed instructions for how everything worked in the apartment, such as when and where trash was collected, and who to call for help for various problems. With his phone he photographed these instructions because ... you never knew.
He moved quietly, closed all the drapes, and did not turn on any lights. He brought in his suitcase from the fire escape and did a little more reading. Then he lay back on the bed and thought about the rules. There are lots of players in this game. There are eight different police forces in Italy. All available to the highest bidder through bribery. Plus at least five military groups, already rented by somebody, probably international. Also, the American consulate might want to be involved. And maybe other countries. Heck, maybe even the mafia. Come to think of it, maybe even the media. That could be interesting.
I can’t win against even one bureaucracy. Against a dozen I’ll be well-trampled bantha poodoo. But there’s a rule for this. The only way to fight a bureaucracy is with another bureaucracy. If it works, all I’ll need is a comfortable chair and plenty of popcorn.
He fell asleep ... grinning.