History: "Echoes of Eternity"

 

Chapter1: The Man Who Looked Too Much

The room was small, austere, and reeked of old incense and poorly ventilated secrets. The desk was covered in books; he could see an old pen with the ink barely dry. A chair was knocked to its side, as if someone had left it in a hasty escape. And yet, there were no signs of a struggle. No bloodstains, no body lying slumped with the expression of ultimate surprise.

Steve Crettan lit a cigarette. "Missing in the Vatican," he murmured. "Sounds like a pulp novel title, but here we are."

He exhaled the smoke and scanned the room. It was the last known room of Lucas Angeleri, the chronovisor operator. The Prefect of the Vatican Library had called him with the voice of someone who has seen too many miracles to be surprised, but with the fear of someone who knows there are things that should not be made public.

—"Angeleri was a man of faith, but also a man of science," the Prefect, a wiry Jesuit with a permanently furrowed brow, had said . "He took his job very seriously."

"That's never good," Crettan had replied . "People who take their jobs seriously tend to end up dead or worse."

Now, alone in the room, Crettan carefully flipped through Angeleri's notes. At first glance, they looked like incomprehensible scribbles, but he soon detected a pattern: dates, codes, cryptic phrases. And one in particular caught his attention: "History is a well-told lie . "

"What a surprise. The Church keeps secrets!" he snorted, dropping the notebook on the desk.

Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him. He didn't bother to turn around.

"If you're coming to tell me that this room is sacred and that I shouldn't be here, I suggest you save your breath," he said without looking up.

The Prefect cleared his throat.

—"I just wanted to see if you had found anything."

—"A man working for the Vatican, manipulating a machine that looks into the past, vanishes without a trace. All that remains are his notes, which speak of lies and hidden truths. What do you think I found?"

The Prefect folded his hands, with a grave gesture.

—"Angeleri had an inquisitive mind"-

—"Oh, don't tell me! In the past, inquisitive people here were set on fire. Now they disappear without a trace."

The priest frowned, but didn't respond. Crettan held his gaze for a moment before returning to his notes.

—"Let me get this straight. Angeleri disappears. And why are you calling me? It doesn't look like a robbery. There's no bloodshed either. If this were an official story, they'd say he ran off with a nun and a sack of gold from the Sunday collection. But I suspect you know something else."

The Prefect sighed.

—"Lucas had started asking questions he shouldn't have. And worse, he was looking for answers outside these walls."

Crettan left the cigarette in a makeshift ashtray with a metal lid.

—"Outside these walls? Who was your contact?"

The Prefect hesitated. Then, with resignation, he said:

—"Dr. Helena Volken."-

Crettan raised an eyebrow. He knew that name. "Atheist scientist. Famous in the field of quantum mechanics. Gosh, what a surprise! A guy who works for the Church and starts to doubt goes to someone who knows more than the altar boys. And now she's gone too, right?"

The Prefect nodded regretfully.

"I need to find her," the Prefect said apologetically.

—"You need answers. I need whiskey, but here we are. Do you know where you were last seen?"

The Prefect handed him an envelope with an address.

—"That's all I could find out. Good luck, detective."

Crettan took the envelope and stood up. The investigation was just beginning, but he already knew one thing: if someone disappears in the Vatican, the chances of finding them alive are as slim as the meat on a convent menu.

The chronovisor was a closely guarded secret.

Officially, it didn't exist. Unofficially, it had been developed by an Italian priest and scientist named Pellegrino Ernetti in the 1950s. Ernetti, during his lifetime, claimed to have built a device capable of capturing images of the past, something like a quantum television tuned to history. He had developed it with the help of a group of physicists and theologians, but the Vatican soon took complete control of the device.

The official explanation was that the chronovisor allowed one to confirm the authenticity of certain biblical events, verify ancient texts, and dispel theological doubts. But the device's true power lay elsewhere: if one could view the past without restriction, one could also rewrite history at will.

If someone could prove that the foundations of the faith were built on misinterpretations or, worse, deliberate falsehoods, the Church could be shaken. Or perhaps not. Perhaps those who controlled the narrative could alter perceptions of the past to suit them. In any case, the chronovisor couldn't fall into the wrong hands. And for the Vatican, "wrong hands" meant any other than its own.

Crettan knew that to understand the Vatican's inner workings, he needed someone who had been through them firsthand. So he visited Isabella Orsini, a historian and expert on church politics, known for her sharp tongue and utter disdain for the Holy See's power games.

—"Steve Crettan, what an honor!"— Isabella said, pouring two glasses of grappa —"You came to ask about the chronovisor, didn't you?"-

Steve knew Isabella from previous investigations, an attractive brunette, intelligent and suspicious.

—"I'm going for the truth, Isabella. Although I doubt it's pretty."

"Nothing in the Vatican is," she said, lighting a cigar . "The official story says they only use it to see the past, but that's only half the story. Since the 1950s, they've looked into the future. And they haven't just seen it: they've shaped it to their liking."

Crettan looked at her in disbelief.

—"Are you telling me that the Church has written history to suit itself?"

—"That's exactly what I'm telling you. Coups, economic collapses, elections, investments... everything has followed a script carefully revised from the highest levels of the Holy See. That's why the Church is today the most powerful and richest institution on the planet. They don't need faith. They have information."

Crettan took a sip of grappa and smiled coldly.

—"So, if Angeleri disappeared, it's because he saw something he shouldn't have seen."

Isabella exhaled smoke and nodded slowly.

—"Many have seen things on the chronovisor, but that's not why they disappeared. Those who vanished did so because they wanted to reveal something they saw. And if you keep investigating, Steve, you'll probably disappear too if you don't watch your back."

Crettan looked at his glass thoughtfully. But he knew there was no turning back.

 

Chapter 2: The Ghost in the Machine

Steve Crettan wasn't a sentimental man. Emotions were a trap, a poisoned bait that only led to weakness. However, there was something in Lucas Angeleri's notes that made him pause for a moment. They weren't just technical observations, equations, or reflections on the chronovisor. There was something more personal, almost feverish, in some passages.

"It's not just time. It's more. We're not just watching. Someone sees us back. Helena says I'm paranoid, but it's not paranoia when the echoes respond." Lucas had written in his own hand.

Crettan frowned. He lit a cigarette and continued reading. A few pages later, Dr. Helena Volken's name appeared too frequently for her to be a mere collaborator.

"Helena sees it too, but she won't admit it. She's afraid that if we accept what's really happening, we won't be able to turn back. She believes in logic, in numbers. But the chronovisor doesn't follow rules. It doesn't just show the past or the future. Sometimes, it shows things that shouldn't be there. And worse, some of those things are staring back at us."

Crettan muttered an insult. Either the guy was losing his mind or he'd stumbled upon something he never should have found. Either way, he was either dead or missing. And Helena, the brilliant atheist quantum physicist, the only one who might know more about this, had chosen to vanish into thin air.

Then, in the final pages, a name caught her eye: " Luzia Cassini ." It wasn't a random name. It appeared repeatedly alongside phrases like " the only one who knows the whole truth " or " Helena trusts her ."

—"Well, let's see how trustworthy you are, Luzia," Crettan murmured.

Luzia Cassini lived in a modest apartment in Trastevere, with the curtains drawn and more locks on the door than seemed necessary. It took her several minutes to answer Crettan's knock, and when she opened the door, her eyes revealed sleepless nights and suppressed fear.

"Are you a police officer?" he asked, with a mixture of hope and suspicion.

Crettan removed the cigar from his mouth and smiled cynically.

—"Worse. I'm a police detective. Can I come in, or would you rather talk about secrets in the hallway?"

Luzia hesitated for a second, then opened the door wide. Inside, the living room was a mess of papers, empty coffee cups, and a couple of half-drunk bottles of wine. Steve had been around long enough to recognize the atmosphere of someone expecting the worst.

"Lucas is dead, right?" she said bluntly.

—"I don't know, but let's assume so. And let's assume Helena didn't disappear of her own free will. Tell me about the 'Guardians of Time'."

Luzia flinched at the mention of the name. She took a glass of wine from the table, took a sip, and sat down on the sofa.

—"The Custodians aren't a myth, even if the Vatican makes it seem that way. They're the ones who really control the chronovisor. Not the Pope, not the cardinals, or the Prefect. They decide what's seen, what's hidden, and what should never have been observed. Lucas and Helena discovered too many secrets. And when that happens... people disappear."

—"Let me guess. Helena and Lucas found something the Guardians didn't want known."

—"Something worse. Helena told me that they saw something that not even the Guardians understood," Luzia said in a low voice.

Crettan felt like a bloodhound following the perfect trail. The last thing anyone wants to hear when investigating a murder is that the most powerful men have the situation under control.

—"Tell me what you know, Cassini."

Luzia looked at him with her eyes clouded with fear.

—"As far as I know from Helena, the chronovisor isn't just a time viewer. It's a beacon. And sometimes, when you turn on a beacon, something answers from the darkness."

Crettan needed to confirm the story with someone who knew the inner workings of the Vatican. And the only person he could talk to who would keep their mouth shut was Isabella Orsini.

He found her in a secluded café, with her eternal glass of grappa in her hand.

"You always come when you smell shit in the Vatican, Crettan," she said with a wry smile.

—"Because you always know which sewer it comes from. Tell me what you know about the Guardians of Time."

Isabella toyed with her glass before answering.

—"They are an order as old as the Chronovisor itself. They don't appear in any official document, but they have more power than any cardinal. Their mission is to protect the knowledge that emerges from the Chronovisor, but in practice it means eliminating any risk to its absolute control."

—"Risk? Come on, Isabella! If the Vatican already controls history, what more could they fear?"

Isabella placed her glass on the table and looked at him seriously.

—"They fear the same thing Lucas Angeleri feared. According to what they say in the Vatican secrets, there is something beyond history. Something that moves between the timelines. Something that watches them while they watch through the chronovisor."

Crettan felt a chill. History wasn't just the subject of manipulation by powerful groups. It was becoming something worse: a crack in reality itself.

—"Lucas must have discovered something he shouldn't have seen. And now, Helena is missing, and the Guardians are on the move," he said, putting out his cigarette.

"If you keep doing this, Steve, they'll follow you too," Isabella warned.

—"They're already doing it."-

He'd noticed it over the past few hours. Shadows moving too slowly, cars that seemed to always be in his path. It was subtle, but Crettan wasn't an amateur. Someone was following him.

"If they want to play, I'll play," Crettan said with a dry smile . "But when I play, there are no saints."

With that, he stood up and left the cafe, knowing that some eyes in the shadows were already on him.

Crettan's last stop took him back to the Vatican, to a tense meeting with the Prefect of the Library.

"I don't know what you're talking about, detective," the Prefect said with a tense smile . "There's no order called the Keepers of Time here."

—"Sure, and I'm the next Pope," Crettan snorted . "Are we going to be serious or should I skip this conversation?"

The Prefect hesitated, then looked around discreetly.

—"Come with me to the gardens. It's more... private."

They walked in silence along the gravel paths. Finally, the Prefect stopped and spoke softly.

—"I'm not a Keeper, Detective, but I answer to them. They control more than you know. If Lucas saw something... anything reprehensible, it may not have been just a mistake. The chronovisor doesn't just show history. It also reveals the Vatican's buried secrets. And if Angeleri saw something about our relationship with the Italian mafia and money... then yes, he was in danger."

Crettan clicked his tongue.

—"So it's not a matter of faith. It's about money. The only religion that never loses believers."

The Prefect looked down. Crettan had his answer. And he also had a new problem: the Custodians now knew he was standing too close.

 

Chapter 3: The Fugitive Heretic 

Steve Crettan was tired. Tired of the Vatican, its secrets, the priests with poisoned smiles, and the thugs playing in the shadows. Most of all, he was tired of someone listening every time he asked an awkward question.

The Timekeepers were no longer a rumor. Now they were a tangible threat. First, there were the stares on the street, the cars that seemed to be following him. He followed with an anonymous note under the hotel room door: "Go back to New York, Detective. Or go back to hell."

Like a waterspout, everything had led him to this point: a cabin in the middle of nowhere, in the Abruzzo mountains. Isabella Orsini had given him the address with a warning: "If you find her, don't expect gratitude. Helena Volken doesn't trust anyone, least of all a detective who's searched the Vatican like you."

"Charming as always, Isabella," Crettan grunted at the memory as he climbed the snowy hill.

He approached the cabin cautiously. The old wood creaked in the wind, the fireplace wasn't lit. It looked like an abandoned place, except for one detail: the door lock was new. Someone was inside.

He knocked on the door. Silence. Then, a murmur, the scrape of something moving. Survival instinct kicked in, Crettan stepped aside just as a bullet tore through the wood where his head had been.

"Stop shooting, idiot! I'm looking for Lucas, just like you, but not to kill him!" he shouted, taking cover.

"I don't have any friends!" A female voice responded from inside.

—"Well, then you have nothing to lose by stopping shooting!"

Silence. Then Dr. Helena Volken's voice grew shakier:

—"Who are you? Who sent you?"

—"I'm Steve Crettan, a police detective. I don't work for the Vatican, nor for the Custodians. I came to find answers."

The door opened a few inches. A pale, red-rimmed eye appeared in the crack. Dr. Volken looked like a ghost: thin, pale, with dark circles under her eyes. She aimed a revolver with trembling hands.

"If you lie, I'll kill you," he said.

"If I lied, you'd be dead by now, honey," Crettan replied with a crooked smile as he flashed his badge.

The door opened.

Inside, the cabin smelled of confinement and despair. Papers everywhere, diagrams, equations written in charcoal on the walls. A rusty coffeepot sat on a wood stove. Helena Volken hadn't been on vacation. She'd been on the run, losing her sanity in the process.

"If you came to take me back, I won't," she snapped.

Crettan lit a cigarette and sat down on an old sofa.

—"Listen, doc. I think Angeleri is dead, the Vatican is lying, and there's a secret organization that wants to make me disappear just for asking about you. I don't care about faith, or the Church, or their power games. I just want to know what the hell is going on."— He paused— "And I think you can tell me."—

Helena left the gun on the table near her. She massaged her temples, exhausted.

—"Lucas and I... discovered something we shouldn't have seen."— He muttered.

—"I imagine so. Start there."

He took a breath. His hands were shaking.

—"The chronovisor... doesn't just show the past. It also projects the future. Or rather, all possible futures."

Crettan narrowed his eyes.

—"Explain that to me as if I didn't have a PhD in quantum physics. Because I don't."

Helena sighed.

—"When the chronovisor points back, it's like a security camera of history. It allows you to see the line in the past that corresponds to the branch of history you're currently walking on. But when you point it to the future... it's like a network of roads. Every decision, every possibility, every probability creates a new fork. When you look into the future, it's not just one future, but thousands, millions. Some catastrophic, others impossible."

Steve asked , "But how does it work? Is it some kind of camera or a TV?"

Helena replied, smoothing her hair. "The operator can program that. Sometimes you take photos, other times you can film."

"But what caused all this persecution chaos?" Steve asked impatiently.

Dr. Volkov tried to clear her mind. "Spontaneously, without anyone programming it, and only when we looked into the future, the chronovisor began sending patterns. Hundreds of patterns. Something... or someone, began sending coded messages within the images or videos."

—"Messages?"— Crettan exhaled smoke slowly —"From whom?"-

Helena looked at him with terrified eyes.

—"We thought it was an intelligence from the future. Something warning us about danger. Something telling us we were playing with fire, and that if we kept using the chronovisor to alter our natural timeline, we would unravel time itself."

Silence fell over the cabin. Crettan felt a chill on the back of his neck.

—"What did those messages say?"-

Helena answered, straining to remember , "Warnings of an impending time collapse. It told us that we couldn't control what we were touching. And someone, somewhere in the future, was trying to stop it. But the Timekeepers..."

"They wouldn't stop," Crettan concluded.

Helena nodded, her eyes glassy.

—"Lucas realized it too late. Apparently, the timeline had begun to collapse. And then, he disappeared."

Crettan put out his cigarette against the wooden table.

—"Or they made him disappear. And you think that's why he disappeared?"

—"No. I think it disappeared because someone at the Vatican already knew about these messages and didn't like us discovering them."

Crettan exhaled slowly. He was used to secrets and institutional bullshit. But this was a different league.

—"All right, Volken. Let's assume I believe you. What's next?"

She looked at him gravely.

—"Lucas left a clue before he disappeared. One last message. And I think he's telling us how to stop what's coming."

Crettan took a sip of coffee. "Great. Because if there's one thing I love, it's saving the fucking universe."

From outside, the crack of a broken branch was heard. Crettan jumped up, drawing his pistol. Helena paled.

—"They found us."-

The detective looked out the window. Shadows moved stealthily between the snow and the trees.

—"Okay, doc. I hope you packed light, because it's time to move. And if you were wondering if it was paranoia or reality..."

The first shot shattered the rear window as if someone had thrown a rock the size of a tire. Helena screamed and threw herself to the ground. Crettan reacted automatically, drawing his pistol while cursing under his breath.

—"Shit! Do you always welcome your guests with fireworks?"

Another shot. This time it hit the ceiling light, plunging the cabin into a bluish gloom from the moonlight filtering through the holes in the windows.

Crettan crawled to Helena and grabbed her arm.

—"Listen carefully, because I'm not going to repeat myself: grab the gun you greeted me with, crouch down by the window, and shoot anything that moves. You don't have to be Rambo. Just keep their heads down."

—"What the hell are you going to do?"-

—"What I do best: screwing up these killers' night."

Before he could protest, Crettan ran to the door and kicked it hard. The mountain cold hit his face, but he ignored it. Outside, among the trees, shadows moved precisely. Two, maybe three.

A flash lit up the darkness and a bullet landed near his feet.

"All right, assholes!" he shouted as he rolled onto a fallen log for cover. "Let's see who has the best aim!"

He fired twice. The first bullet vanished into the night, but the second found its target: a stifled scream confirmed that it had hit one of the attackers.

From the cabin, Helena opened fire. Some of the brush burst into splinters and leaves. Another attacker cursed and crawled back into cover.

"We're leaving, we're leaving!" someone shouted from the trees.

Hurried footsteps mingled with the crackling of branches. Within seconds, everything fell silent again. The sound of a car engine moving away told them they were alone again.

Crettan stood up, still holding the gun. He cautiously approached the area where he'd heard the scream. Dark blood stained the ground, but there was no body.

—"One of them won't be running marathons for a while."

He returned to the cabin, where Helena was trembling with the gun still in her hands.

-"Are you OK?"-

She glared at him.

—"No, stupid. They came here for you. I'm going to need to change my underwear."

Steve couldn't help but laugh . "Okay, add that to the list of problems. Now pack up your things. We're going to the Vatican."

—"Now? After a shooting?"

Crettan loaded his gun and gave him a sarcastic smile.

—"Better now than never. We're going to have a difficult talk with your friend the Prefect."

 

Chapter 4: The Truth That Must Not Be Seen

The Prefect of the Vatican Library was sleeping in his austere apartment when a hand brutally roused him from his sleep.

—"What the fuck...!"-

Before he could react, Crettan grabbed him by the collar of his robes, pulling him out of bed and pushing him against the wall.

—"The games are over, Father. You're going to take us to the chronovisor. Now."

The Prefect tried to regain his composure, but the pressure of Crettan's hand on his throat made him reconsider.

—"Crettan... this is crazy."-

—"Yeah? Well, I just survived a shootout in a shitty cabin with your friends, and I'm in a terrible mood. So before I kick your ass, I suggest you start talking."

Helena, still upset, intervened.

—"We can search the chronovisor for clues about Lucas. We know what he found. We know about the messages."

The Prefect blinked. His gaze shifted from Crettan to Helena.

—"Holy God... they've seen him."-

Crettan shook him.

—"Yeah, we saw it! And you better get us to that damn machine before someone else tries to kill us!"

The Prefect closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his resignation was evident.

—"Okay... follow me."

—"Wow..."— Crettan muttered, finally letting go of him —"Sometimes it works to shout first and ask questions later."-

The Prefect rubbed his neck as he led them down a dark Vatican corridor.

—"You have no idea what you're about to see."

Crettan smiled, but without joy.

—"You don't either. And that's my favorite part of the job."

The Vatican Library smelled of old paper and fermented secrets. Dark hallways, centuries-old oak shelves, and that silent murmur that only the accumulated sins of the Church's archives can produce. Steve Crettan walked with the Prefect and Helena Volken between shelves that seemed to devour them with their shadows. 

"If we meet a cardinal at midnight, I swear I'll strangle him with his own cassock," Crettan growled, feeling the oppression of the place. 

The Prefect, with his demeanor like that of a saint in penitence, led them to a metal door hidden behind a sliding shelf. Entering a code on a hidden panel, the door opened with a dull click. 

"Here it is," the cleric whispered, his tone sounding more like resignation than pride. 

Inside, the room was cold and lit by yellowish lights. In the center, like an anachronistic fossil, rested the chronovisor. There was nothing mystical or magical about it. It was a metallic contraption with knobs, buttons, vacuum tubes, and a convex screen that looked like something stolen from a 1950s television. Antennas sprouted from the back, like an archaic insect trying to capture signals from beyond. 

Helena approached without hesitation. She turned on the device, ran her fingers over the control panel, and began turning dials with surgical precision. 

—"Before disappearing, Lucas left me a calibration sequence," she said without looking at them, immersed in the machine. "He wanted me to see something at a future date." 

Crettan crossed his arms and watched her work. 

—"What if what we see is a boring mass from the year 3000?" 

—"If that's the case, you can shoot yourself. But I have a feeling Lucas left something more interesting." 

The chronovisor began to vibrate. The vacuum tubes lit up with an orange glow. The sound of static filled the room. On the screen, after an intermittent flash, an image of Lucas Angeleri appeared. 

But it wasn't a recording. 

Lucas stared straight at the screen, as if he knew they would be watching him at that exact moment. His face was marked by exhaustion and despair. 

—"If you're seeing this, Helena, it's because I've made the only possible decision," he said in a tense, almost cracking voice . "The chronovisor... it's not what we thought. It wasn't built by humans. It's alien technology." 

Crettan felt a chill run down his spine. 

"Shit," he whispered softly. 

Lucas continued , "The 'Timekeepers' have known this for decades. But instead of using the chronovisor to learn from the past, they've tried to manipulate the future... to rewrite history in favor of the Catholic Church. Every time they bend reality to their advantage, they destroy the timeline of our universe." 

Helena covered her mouth with one hand. 

"The messages I found in the anomalies," he murmured , "were not system failures. They were warnings." 

Lucas nodded from the screen, as if he had heard her. 

—"Exactly. The encrypted messages don't come from the past or the present. They're warnings from the creators of the chronovisor, from a civilization that understood too late the dangers of manipulating time. If we continue altering the future, we will destroy this universe." 

The Prefect paled. "This can't be..."

Lucas took a deep breath. "The custodians won't stop. Then there's only one way to prevent time collapse. The chronovisor needs an operator trapped in an infinite loop... someone suspended at a fixed point in time, recording and neutralizing any future tampering." 

A freezing silence fell over the room. 

Crettan ran a hand over his face and gave a dry, humorless laugh. 

—"Let me guess. You volunteered, didn't you?" 

Lucas smiled sadly from the screen. 

—"It's the only way. By the time you see this, I'll no longer exist in your timeline. But time always seeks balance. Trust in the future." 

The image flickered and faded in a shower of static. 

Helena collapsed in the chair. 

—"Lucas sacrificed himself to stabilize the timeline..."- 

Crettan gritted his teeth and glared at the Prefect. "And you sons of bitches knew all this." 

The cleric swallowed and looked away. "I'm not a Keeper, Detective. And no... I assure you, I didn't know that." 

Crettan felt a dull anger building in his chest. "You son-of-a-bitch custodians. This mustn't end here." 

Deep down, Steve knew it. History is written by those who control time. And he had just discovered that the owners of the chronovisor were centuries ahead of schedule.

The hiss was barely audible. A mechanical whisper amid the dying static of the chronovisor. Crettan frowned and tilted his head. A thick, metallic scent seeped into his nose. 

—"What the fuck...?"- 

The Prefect blinked, confused. Helena tried to stand, but stumbled and managed to grab onto the console. Crettan felt the world become heavy, as if gravity had doubled in intensity. 

—"Sons of bitches..."— He muttered before collapsing. 

Steve woke up with a dry mouth and a pounding in his temples that echoed like a war drum. He tried to sit up, but the dizziness made him curse under his breath. 

The Prefect was to her right, his cassock in disarray, his eyes half-closed, as if he were still processing what the hell had happened. Helena was leaning against a bookshelf, her head in her hands. 

Crettan was the first to react. He forced himself to his feet and looked around. 

The chronovisor was gone. Not just the machine. All traces of its existence had vanished. 

Lucas's papers, the checks, even the marks on the floor that indicated something had once been there. The room now seemed like just another room in the vast Vatican Library. 

—"Shit..."— Helena exhaled. 

The Prefect closed his eyes, as if he had expected this outcome. 

—"They took him away."- 

Crettan turned to him with a sharp look. "And where, exactly?" 

The Prefect shook his head, genuine regret evident in his expression. "I don't know. The Custodians don't take orders from anyone in the Vatican. There are no records, no names, no recognizable structure. They operate in the shadows."   

"How convenient," Crettan muttered, bringing a cigar to his lips with still-shaking hands . "You know what I love most about conspiracies? There's always a group of hooded assholes who think they can control everything." 

Helena stared at the empty space with a lump in her throat. "This means... he never existed." 

Crettan lit the cigar and exhaled the smoke with a bitter laugh. 

—"No, Helena. This means we got our asses kicked so elegantly that they didn't even leave a trace." 

They left the Library without exchanging another word. The Roman early morning air was cold and biting. A black car drove slowly down the street and disappeared into the mist. 

"They're watching us," Helena said in a low tone. 

Crettan gave him a sidelong glance. 

—"They were watching us from the moment you put your hands in that damn machine." 

Steve and Helena got in the car. The detective drove aimlessly for several minutes. Finally, he took the road that led to the cabin. When they arrived, the scene was the same: complete emptiness. 

The bare walls, Helena's missing boxes, the documents, the computers, everything. There wasn't even any dust on the floor, as if it had never been lived in. 

Helena sank down onto an old sofa, staring into space. "There's nothing left." 

Crettan stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe and gave a dry laugh. 

—"At least they let us have the sofa." 

Helena glared at him. "This isn't a joke, Steve." 

—"That's true. No, it isn't. But when everything goes to hell, there are only two options: either you resign yourself or you shoot yourself." 

Helena ran her hands over her face, exhausted. "What now?" 

Crettan looked at her. "Now, we'll try to find another way to screw the Keepers."

The café was half-full, the aroma of espresso and tobacco wafting through the air like a stale perfume. From the window table, Crettan watched the comings and goings of tourists and locals with the same indifference a predator displays to its prey before deciding if it's worth the effort.

Isabella Orsini absentmindedly stirred the sugar in her cappuccino, lost in thoughts that probably involved Vatican conspiracies, covert murders, and secrets too big to exist.

Helena Volken, on the other hand, had her gaze fixed on the table, absorbed in some mental calculation that not even Einstein could decipher.

Crettan took a sip of his black coffee, bitter as life.

—“So what’s the bet? Do we back off and let the Guardians play God, or do we keep ruining their party?”

Isabella exhaled slowly. “If the chronovisor is still around, sooner or later someone will find it again . But this time, it won’t be us.”

Helena clicked her tongue in annoyance.

—“That’s not an option. We know too much. Do you think you’re going to let us walk around Rome, or anywhere else in the world, without making sure we keep our mouths shut?”

—“That’s a good point. But we have no proof of anything,” Crettan said, lighting a cigarette . “And if I’ve learned anything from this shit, it’s that it doesn’t matter what we say or who we are. Without proof, we’re just another lunatic with a conspiracy theory.”

Isabella looked at him as she said , “The Keepers have operated in the shadows for decades. They leave no trace. They are ghosts.”

—“Ghosts that need to move money, that obey someone, that operate in physical places,” Crettan replied, blowing out smoke . “And at some point, one of those bastards is going to step on the wrong ground.”

Helena looked at him with a mixture of tiredness and determination. “So, are you going to keep doing this?”

Crettan smirked. “I never liked stories without endings.”

A silence fell between the three of them. A heavy silence, laden with possibilities, uncertainty, and danger.

But also of promises.

From some corner of Rome, the Guardians of Time were probably watching. Waiting. Calculating the next move.

Crettan crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray and leaned toward them.

—“So… where do we start?”-

END