Year after year, my life changed until I became everything I wanted to be. It was a cold morning like many in New York and, as before every trip, I was intent on completing the preparations for the departure. Where was I going? Well, to explain it we need to go a few years back.
My name is Espedito Petracelli, I come from Switzerland and I have expatriated to Manhattan ten years ago to follow my passion: acting. I am twenty-four years old and I recently won four Academy Awards. But I'm not here to talk about my spectacular film career, but about the secret and shady side of my life.
Two years ago, I received a call from my father Huldrych's secretary. I admit, before that I wasn't interested at all of what my father combined with the Secret Services, but that call marked in me a turning point. Oh, maybe I should also explain what my father did when he wasn't earning billions by making the entrepreneur: he is the founder of the so-called WCS (Worlds Communication Services), a secret organization that deals with contacts Diplomats and non-combatants between continents. And guess who took his place to save the world from an intercontinental war? Exact. Apparently, my old man just got out of his depth, poking we all in a lot of trouble: far away from our continent (we'll call "bourgeois lands" for convenience), a very peculiar continent was discovered: it was inhabited by never seen animal species, giant plants and humans very similar to us, but with the peculiarity of being much more trained to combat and physically strong. Then, in my blissful ignorance, I discover at my own expense that some of them are very strong and use a particular power called "Nen". They are regarded as "Hunters", they hide absurd powers and live adventurous and super interesting lives.
Huldrych died during an expedition, his tracks were lost a few days after his landing. And those idiots of world organizations have liquidated everything by saying it was an accident!
Today I am, after a year past – my spite – to try to understand how this blessed Nen worked and learn a little something to avoid crap out on my first expedition. Will it be a suicide? Absolutely yes, but it must be done. And now, after twenty-four years spent in science fiction adventures between Bed and walk-in closet, when I thought that walking on the largest stages in the world and be covered with awards was the culmination of all my dreams, when my desires had all Dior signed and prices with the four digits up (which I realized immediately thanks to my economic possibilities), I should throw myself in a completely different world, where my black card will no longer be the solution of problems, where I'll have to test hard the body but especially the mind.
After I fixed my ash blond hair by adding more litres of lacquer and looking and regarding the mirror on the hunt for every little flaw, I turned my Saint Laurent suit and sunglasses. After I locked the door, I sneak in the elevator and try to stay calm (and what the heck, I can't afford to be seen scared).
Outside the apartment building I was waiting for the only person in whom I invest a minimum of trust, my only true friend and a shining girl that I have the fortune to know since Grandpa Pedro took us all to Sicily to taint the Italians (the plebeians who speak the same language of us Ticino's but with ways of making much more crude) and enjoy, meanwhile, their fabulous beaches that are there to remind you that those whoever has bread has no teeth. Gracie Petrovsky, that's her name, had come with me to New York to become the pop star she has always wanted to be, I think the fact that every year she manages to bring home a Grammy means that she has succeeded. Partner of a thousand adventurous hunting sessions in the Prada shops, a golden uvula that made me shoulder in my first (and last, for now) musical, the only person I could ask "Hey, do you want to come and die in another continent?" and that as an answer she told me "Yes, of course!" instead of laugh at me, well aware of the fact that venturing in the midst of the Hunters was not just like the red carpet at The MET Gala or the walks in Wall Street among the most powerful men and women of America, but something quite different. Do not be deceived by his pink dress and her straight black hair, she has a strong and determined character that is also obvious. Gracie also has a double life: She's my right-arm woman in the management of WCS, nothing has ever made me doubt how this choice was wise.
We both get on the limo that accompanies us to the JFK airport where we were expecting a secret flight that would lead us to the slaughter. During the journey, we were both super excited, we had no idea of what was waiting for us, but in front of that gigantic world to discover even death seems a subtlety. I lit a cigarette, she ripped a bottle of the best champagne in the minibar under the seat, it was a very beautiful day.
Arrived at JFK, we enter from an unusual and way more shabby entrance than the main one but deserted. The guard, recognizing us, goes through various disused or maintenance runs, until we reach a little one, where we were waiting for our private jet black as pitch. Waiting for us there were two Secret Service agents in plainclothes with paperwork to sign (I'm not here to comment on all the crap that governments do to conceal this whole thing otherwise we would do night).
We entered the jet and we sat on the comfortable armchairs placed near the windows. I couldn't believe it was really happening, it really seemed like a dream. At our okay, the pilot starts to get off the plane, while Gracie had been passing me a mint to avoid problems during take-off.
Unable to wait like two children in the restaurant, we decide to assault the minibar to make the "iced tea" (codenamed that we used as teenagers to say "Long Island" cocktail) and drink to the new adventure that was waiting for us.
We landed at seven o'clock in the morning, stunned by the jetlag, in a field not far away from Yorknew City, defined by someone the Hunter's "New York".
"I must tell you the truth, more than New York it looks like Napa." I commented sarcastic. Actually, I liked that place a lot. It was a metropolis, but definitely quieter than the chaotic cities I was happily accustomed to.
Of course, there were no iconic places like Broadway, Wall Street, Empire State Building or Studio 54... But who said Yorknew didn't have any?
I took my phone to check my notes, I had marked things to do for that day. First, we had to go to Swardani City, which is a few hours from Yorknew, to talk to the president of the Hunter Association and then go back to Yorknew to meet a so-called "Blacklist Hunter" for information on my father's case.
We decided it would be more convenient to separate ourselves and do both at the same time, since we were two. Gracie offered to go to the association and explore the place in the meantime.
"I'll call you a cab." I told her, reluctant to make her go around alone into a completely unknown world. Upon arrival of the yellow car, I told the driver to leave it exactly under the Hunter Association building.
"Stop being apprehensive. I'il call you as soon as I arrive!" She answered smiling.
After that, I went into the hotel to check in and get ready for the meeting that was waiting for me. I was there representing an entire continent, I absolutely had to be perfect. After having done a refreshing shower - discovering at my expense that in this new continent people use the red circle on the faucet to indicate the cold and the blue one to indicate the heat - I opened the suitcase and pull out one of the many designer clothes found in it. I decided that it was the turn of the Valentino red suit with the sequins - to remind myself and others who I am – and, after the usual hunt for imperfections in the mirror, I rushed down.
I searched on the phone the mail - that the genius of the secretary had put in CC with all the WCS members instead of sending it only to me - where there was written the place and the time of the meeting with this mysterious Hunter.
"Akihabara Place – 12:30 AM"
At the first taxi that I had in the corner of my eye, I started running and screaming "Taxi!", and then I reminded that I wasn't in New York anymore.
Surprisingly, the driver stopped and made me go up. On the way, I notice that these were staring me through the rearview mirror. Did he realize I wasn't local? I don't think, since Yorknew always seemed full of tourists. Evidently he had noticed something too different from the people he usually accompanies. At that moment, I did not particularly notice and got out of the car.
Akihabara Place seemed like just one of those locals that I usually attend in Manhattan, very wide and with a nice jazz background. The curiosity to try their "iced tea" assaulted me. Because you need to know that Long Island is a cocktail that varies greatly according to the place: there are already substantial differences if you go to Staten Island from Manhattan, let alone between one continent and another what kind of differences there may be. I remembered soon after, however, that the reason for my presence in that place was worth more than just iced tea.
While I wondered how I could find this Blacklist Hunter, I saw in a table more secluded a boy with blond hair and horrible clothing beckoning me with his hand. I slowly approached, trying to figure out if he was turning to me, until he called my name. At that point I went up to his table and I showed up while he got up to shake my hand.
Showed up, he had a pretty hard name: Kurapika. I knew immediately that it was a guy with the sense of humor of an Ayatollah, so I struggled to avoid making bad puns.
"I made you contact from my secretary because I know you deal with the bounties." I told him, without losing myself in too many pleasantries.
"You know well, Mr..."
"Petracelli!" I interrupted, not wanting to listen to the agonized violence that he would have perpetrated against my surname.
"How can I help you?" he asks me fairly dismissive. He was the kind of person who doesn't like to waste time.
"I think that my secretary has already introduced to you my provenance and the organization of which I am chief Executive officer. I would like to ask if there was a bounty on Huldrych Petracelli. "
"Ah, I've already got it." He interrupted me, beginning to show more interest than before.
He did not speak, he took out from his bag a sheet with the photo of my father showing a bounty of twenty million Jeni (the local currency).
"Is it possible to trace the author of this crap?" I asked, trying not to make my tone look too angry.
"See... The value of the size increases according to a kind of auction. There may be more people behind this. " He tells me in a compassionate tone.
We kept talking about my father, about the crime scene situation and the possible causes of his murder. Kurapika was an interesting guy, completely different from all the people I've ever met. His way of doing and his bashful character inspired me to want to know him and his story better. Even his way of speaking I found it so interesting that the title of "Mr. Crosswords", bestowed by the undersigned, he deserved it all.
After a long time spent babbling about criminals and hunters, we both started to get out of the table to go to the counter.
"I thank you infinitely," I said – we must see each other again. Here's my business card. "
"There's no such." He always answered with detachment, but decidedly to a lesser extent than when we met.
"Oh, don't worry! – I stopped him, while he was pulling out his wallet – it's for the time I made you lose. "
I did not know yet that Kurapika was the kind of guy that hates to be offered things, in fact the situation was going to turn into a marathon to those who first reach the cashier. I won, taking advantage of a moment of his distraction.
"I cannot accept." He protested, always maintaining a calm tone.
"Then we'll have to see each other again!" I answered, with a friendly grin, while I put on my sunglasses. For the first time, he showed something remotely comparable to a smile and we greeted each other.
