"Checkmate"


Michele didn't return that day. Or the next. Or the day after that.

They checked his apartments in Rome and Milan, but there was no indication he'd been to either. His parents noted they had not seen him and his plane remained at Ciampino.

Marina Cassini went data diving and through credit card records discovered that Michele had taken a taxi to Fiumicino and boarded the Japan Air Lines flight to Tokyo. He'd also withdrawn a significant amount of cash in Japanese Yen. Kara told her to check the Park Hyatt Tokyo, but there was no record of him checking in there or at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo.


"So did you beat him up?" Ilaria asked as she walked into the dormitory room she shared with Kara.

"Beat whom up?" Kara said from the bed, where she was reading a book.

"Michele, silly," Ilaria replied.

"He's back?" Kara said, rising up off her pillow.

"Yeah, I just saw him walking into the Handler's dormitory."

In a flash, Kara leapt off the bed, almost tripping over the pair of boots at the end of the bed. She snapped them up and pulled them on before rushing out the door. She barreled down the stairs and stormed outside, quickly crossing to the Handler's Dorm and climbed the stairs to his room. She grasped the handle and pushed.

She saw Michele standing at the end of his bed, laying down a jacket. Moving forward, she grabbed him around the chest and swept his legs out from under him, spinning him to land on his back on the bed. She straddled him at the waist and hooked her legs and feet over his thighs, pinning him down. Tears in her eyes, she then proceeded to curse him in five languages.

Michele stood mute against her verbal assault and when she finished, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him.

"I thought you had left me," Kara sobbed. "I was so afraid I couldn't focus on anything."

"I will never leave you, Kara. I just needed some time alone. And I am so very sorry I didn't leave word about where I was going and when I'd be back. I didn't mean to cause you stress."

"I'm sorry I failed you," Kara said.

"What are you talking about?"

"I failed to protect you. If Claes hadn't shot her…"

"You didn't fail me, Kara. Caterina had no intention of shooting me. Her goal was to die and that is why she aimed at me. If Claes hadn't shot her, she'd have turned the gun on you to get you to fire at her. Claes shot her to save you from being the one who killed the woman I loved."

Kara pushed herself up onto her knees and then rolled over to end up sitting on the edge of the bed. Michele went into the bathroom and returned with a damp washrag which Kara used to wipe her face.

"How about we have Berlioni's for dinner," Michele offered.

"Okay, but don't think that is enough to buy me off. I'm still very upset with you," Kara said.


After dinner, Michele went back to his apartment. Kara went into the bedroom, slipped off her boots and climbed onto the bed, laying her head on one of the pillow sets.

Michele sat down next to her, reached out with his hand and brushed back her bangs.

"I know you want to be more than just my daughter, but because you are my daughter, I care for you deeper and stronger than anyone else. You will be the most important person in my life no matter what. No lover and no wife will ever lessen my love for you or the fulfillment you bring my life by being a part of it. I thank God every day for allowing us to be together."

"Telling you I love you seems so…inadequate. I want to show you," Kara admitted.

"I have never doubted your love for me, Kara. Over the months we spent together during your convalescence and then the augmentation surgeries you came to own my heart. We've had our share of rough patches, but I've never regretted any of the decisions that brought us together."

"Why were you in Japan?" Kara asked.

"I went to see your mother," Michele said. He saw Kara's body stiffen.

"My mother? Is my father there, too?"

"Your father was French."

"Was?"

"He's dead, Kara. And so is your mother, at least effectively."

"Effectively?"

"She's in a permanent vegetative state due to massive head trauma in the same accident that took your father's life and put you on the path to be with me here and now. I spoke with her doctors and they say her condition is deteriorating and she's not expected to live much longer."

"Why do most of us not remember our pasts?" Kara asked.

"I'm told it's to help you bond with your handler. By making them the only person in your life, you form a strong emotional attachment to them and become more dependent towards them."

"Do you know my past?"

"Yes, I do. Do you want to know it?"

"No," Kara said, her voice strong and definite. "My past is irrelevant. All that matters is my present and future…with you."

Kara reached up and grabbed his hand, pulling him down onto the bed next to her and pressed her back up against him. Within moments, she was asleep and Michele soon followed.


"Victory is mine!" Kara exclaimed as she speared the Aston Martin DB9 into an open parking space in the Trastevere rione of Rome the following day. As part of his "atonement", Michele sent both Kara and Claes out with his credit card to shop for some new summer outfits. He also promised them a long weekend on the Italian and French Riviera.

Michele's 39th birthday would be next month and Kara wanted to get him something, even if it was with his own money. She'd heard there were some nice antique shops in the Trastevere district so after the Via dei Condotti Kara headed there.


While Kara and Claes shopped, a man with a 25x10x10cm clothing box under his arm walked down the sidewalk. He stepped out into the street and continued on, walking close to the line of parked cars. When he reached their DB9, he bent down to one knee and placed the box down and slid the box under the passenger compartment of the car before acting like he was tying a loose shoelace before rising and continuing on.


"I want to run to the bakery and get some dessert for tonight," Claes noted to Kara.

"Okay, I'll get the car and meet you out front," Kara replied. Claes nodded and walked toward the end of the street.

Kara arrived at the Aston and unlocked it. She sat down and reached to close the door.


Thirty meters away, hidden from sight by a stone vestibule, Franco removed a disposable cellphone from his jacket pocket once he saw Kara open the door and sit down. He stepped back inside the vestibule and powered on the cellphone, waiting the few moments it took for it to find a signal. He then dialed another disposable cellphone, waited for it to connect, then hung up again. He immediately hit the redial button.


In Hollywood, a car bomb explodes in a huge gasoline fireball, leaving behind a recognizable, but impressively burning hulk.

In the real world, high explosive shreds due to extreme pressure as opposed to burns due to extreme heat. An explosion does generate a prodigious amount of heat, but that heat is transmitted into the gaseous products of the explosion reaction and the surrounding atmosphere to generate extreme overpressures.

When the bomb in the clothing box detonated under the Aston, the pressure wave it created tore into the passenger compartment, effectively vaporizing it and cleaving the car into two separate pieces, which moved away from each other, slamming into the cars in front and behind. The force of the explosion ruptured the fuel tank and atomized a good portion of fuel, which ignited in an impressive fireball. The remaining fuel spread out in a large burning pool along the street, setting fire to nearby cars.

While a powerful device, the explosive material had been arranged to take advantage of the Misnay-Schardin effect to focus the majority of the explosive force directly upward. Therefore, while the shockwave blew out store window fronts for hundreds of meters and shrapnel from the disintegrating Aston wounded scores of bystanders, compared to a conventional explosive event which vented much of it's force outwards parallel to the ground, the collateral damage was mercifully light.


Claes had just rounded the corner when she saw a bright flash in the large glass window of the store across the street from her. A nearly instantaneous moment of time later the heat pulse arrived at close to 300km/s and one-thousand of those moments later the sound and pressure wave of the event arrived, spider-webbing the window before blowing it inward in small pieces. People on the street were either knocked down by the blast or dived to the ground in fright.


Franco stepped out onto the street to admire his handiwork. With a body and frame composed of aluminum, the DB9 burned fiercely, putting out waves of heat. He'd hoped to kill both cyborgs with his bomb, but as a pragmatic man, he knew when to accept the cards as dealt. There would be time enough to try again, he knew, as he stared directly at the second one.

A move that became his undoing as from across the way, Claes saw him and a moment later made the connection with his identity. She immediately charged towards him, reaching for her pistol.

Franco saw the cyborg girl charge towards him and he turned to run. Claes' much higher sprinting speed allowed her to quickly close the gap. She considered shooting him, however crowds were gathering everywhere due to the explosion and she feared she might hit someone. So she put on a final burst of speed and slammed into Franco, sending him sprawling onto the pavement as she pin-wheeled her arms to stay standing as she decelerated.

He'd pulled his own gun out, but hadn't time to turn and aim it at her before she knocked him down. He maintained his grip on it as he fell, however, and as he tried to bring it around Claes stamped on his wrist, her foot crushing the carpals and shattering the distal ends of his radius and ulna. Franco cried out once in pain as Claes grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and dragged him into an adjacent alley. Even with a shattered wrist, Franco's face was a mask of pure hatred.

"You took that which is most precious from me and I have paid you back in kind many times over. I told Giacomo Dante what you are and he used that information to kill your…sisters…in Venice. And he's not alone. Your secret is out now, demon. The Five Republics knows you're not immortal and they will find a way to kill the rest of you as I just did those two back there. You can kill me, girl, but I'll die with the satisfaction that I caused you pain."

Claes lifted him up and smashed him face-first into the wall, breaking his nose and knocking him unconscious. Franco dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut and she used her foot to push him back against the alley wall. She then pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and dialed a number.

"Michele. It's Claes. Something terrible has happened…"


Knowing she could do nothing else, Claes waited in the alley with the unconscious Franco. Within three minutes the first police forces arrived – two Polizia Municipale on foot, followed by a Polizia de Stato officer on a BMW motorbike. Within six minutes the first Fiat Multipla medic-car arrived and the two medical staff aboard started to perform triage.

Within fifteen minutes the emergency response was in full-swing and Claes pulled farther back into the alley, hiding herself and Franco, who remained unconscious, behind a large refuse bin. She heard the wail of a racing bike's engine and turned to see a red Ducati 998S screaming towards her. The bike screeched to a sideways halt and Claes tightened her grip on her pistol, which she kept concealed behind her back. The driver, dressed in a black leather racing suit, removed his helmet.

"Michele!" Claes yelled, disarming her pistol and sliding it into the back of her jeans.

"Is that him?" Michele asked in a dead voice, but with murder in his eyes as he pointed at Franco. Claes nodded and Michele turned and unzipped the tankbag, his body position blocking Claes' view. She thought he might be going for his pistol so she stepped away from Franco, but when Michele turned, he tossed Claes a set of Kevlar hand and leg restraints.

"What happened to his face?" Michele asked.

"He resisted arrest," Claes deadpanned.

"Good girl. Truss him up," he ordered and Claes proceeded to do so.

Michele walked past her and out into the street and out of her field of view. When she'd finished, she ran to the end of the alley and saw him approaching the car, his security identification in his hand to get past the police cordon.

Another police motorcycle appeared and behind it trailed Jean's CLS500 and an unmarked Iveco Daily van. Claes waved her arms to get his attention and he pulled to a stop next to the entrance, the van coming up behind him. She saw Amadeo behind the wheel, with Nihad and Giorgio next to him. Ferro exited the passenger side of Jean's Mercedes and Rico scrambled out of the back, her hand going inside her jacket as she quickly scanned the area.

"Do you have him?" Jean demanded without preamble.

"Yes, he's back here," Claes said and Jean brushed past her, Rico in trail.

Claes swore in her mind at his indifference to Kara's death. She looked to Ferro and saw her trying to look stoic as she surveyed the scene. She turned to Giorgio.

"Check the Aston," she ordered and he headed off in that direction, flashing their identification.

Jean stood before the unconscious form of Franco. Part of him wanted to pull out his pistol and shoot him while another part of him wanted to beat him to a pulp.

"Rico, take him to the van and secure him," he ordered.

"Yes, Jean," Rico replied. She picked up Franco and tossed him over her shoulder and carried him out to the van.

"Where's Michele?" Jean asked Claes.

"He went to examine the…scene."

Moments later, Giorgio returned, shaking his head. "There's nothing left," he reported to Ferro.

"Wait for the recovery vehicle to arrive and escort it back to the compound," Jean ordered. He turned to Ferro and Amadeo. "Return to the van," he ordered. Amadeo got behind the wheel and Ferro took the passenger seat.

Jean reached into his pocket and placed the key to his CLS in Claes' hand. She looked at him questioning.

"Don't let Michele leave alone. Have the police secure his bike and then bring him back to the compound," he ordered. Claes could only nod as she watched him enter the back of the van, sliding the door behind him. Amadeo started the vehicle and with police help backed out.

Claes watched them go, then flagged the attention of a Carabinieri officer.


Michele walked towards the steaming remains of his DB9. An aluminum fire could not be extinguished with water, so the Iveco Grizzly fire truck had smothered the wreck in foam to deny it oxygen and cool the metal, which had melted into some horrific modern art sculpture. Even the aluminum V12 engine block had sagged into an unrecognizable lump of material. He turned away, tears stinging his eyes, and looked at a row of white plastic legs ending just above the feet in the display box of the shop before him. He realized that they belonged to mannequins whose feet must be anchored to the display case so the explosion toppled them over, shearing them at the weakest point. He saw one of them blown half-a-dozen meters inside, lying upside down against a counter, the dress it wore falling down over the chest and head, leaving the hips and abdomen area exposed.

Michele's eye was drawn to an upper thigh sticking out from under a bowled over clothes rack and smashed acoustical ceiling tiles. At first he thought it just another mannequin, but he noticed that the thigh was flesh-colored and that the sole of the shoe was a brilliant red. It took a moment for his mind to register that the Christian Louboutin shoes Kara wore had brilliant red soles.

He rushed through the open door, flinging debris away as he crawled and clawed his way forward. He threw off the tiles and with a burst of adrenalin he heaved the rack off to reveal Kara and his heart leapt into his throat. He pressed the side of his head to her chest and heard her heartbeat and felt her take a breath. He pulled his head back and examined her. The blast appeared to have thrown her through the window and into one of the mannequins before they both crashed into a rack of clothes and then covered with the ceiling tiles. All her limbs looked to be in the proper positions and her skin had multiple slight lacerations from the fragments of tempered glass, but she appeared to have been just knocked unconscious.

Too overcome with elation to either laugh or cry, Michele lifted her up and carried her outside, staggering a bit under her 100 kilogram weight.


After informing the officer of Michele's bike, Claes started walking towards the remains of the Aston Martin. As she approached, she saw Michele appear in the door with a woman dressed like Kara and from the way he struggled, probably weighed as much as her.

"She's alive," Michele said as Claes rushed up. "And I think she's relatively uninjured."

"Let me take her," Claes said and Michele placed her into a fireman's carry position on her back. "Jean left me the keys to the CLS," she added.

"God bless that sonofabitch," Michele replied. "Put her in the passenger seat and drive her back to the compound. I'll follow on the bike."

They reached the car and Michele held the door open while Claes put Kara in and then strapped her down. A policeman came over, but Michele flashed his ID and noted they would take her to a medical facility. Claes started the car and drove out, followed by Michele on his Ducati.

They clawed their way out to the Lungotevere della Famesina and drove south along the bank to the Viale di Trastevere and then the Via della Magliana on to the A91 and then A90. Claes used the size of the big Mercedes coupe to intimidate people out of her way, though she herself was intimidated by Michele riding on her tail, urging her to go faster. They peeled off the Autostrada and made their way to the complex and hospital.

As soon as Claes came to a stop, the medical staff moved Kara out of the passenger seat onto a gurney and rushed her inside. Michele knew from experience that he'd get nowhere with them at this moment, so he instructed Claes to take the Mercedes back to the Handler's Dorm and he followed her.

After that she went up to Michele's room and they waited together for the medical team to call.