“The victim, Elias Kothas, was found dead by Ropers Unit, Chief Hounsu, at 00:21 A.M. in Borough 31. According to spectronic analysis carried out by Police Officer Vincent Treve on March 9, 2004, at 00.41, no endospiritual system was present.
Elias Kothas, age 45, divorced with children, COE of a Sponge Manufacturing Company, ranks nineteenth in a series of missing endospiritual system cases. Though neither Myers legislation is able to classify them, according to Forensic Unit and Monitoring Council on Endospiritual Affairs’ instructions, we keep filing them as murders. Kothas’ body too doesn’t show signs of abuse, violence or excision. Inexplicably, the localization of his endospiritual system tests negative. His appartement was not robbed nor sacked and no violence took place.”

(Extract from “Missing endospirits: retricted info” by Ropers Head Officer Gerald Laster to the attention of the President of the Monitoring Council on Endospiritual Affairs, Madam Margaret Myers, April 13, 2044.)

S.M.: “Hello?”
A.W.: “ Hi Sarah, it’s me, Anne…”
S.M.: “Hi Anne! How are you doing?”
A.W.: “Fine, thanks. And you? Someone told me about…”
S.M.: “Oh my God! About what?”
A.W.: “Don’t worry…just Jacob…”
S.M.: “ That’s the point…”
A.W.: “…and you…it seems you’re getting more and more nervous these days…”
S.M.: “Who said so?”
A.W.: “Someone who doesn’t lie… So, tell me…”
S.M.: “ The thing is … he told me about his wife.”
A.W.: “ But they’re divorced, aren’t they?”
S.M.: “Yes, they are..but…he…Anne, it’s really complicated…”
A.W.: “All love stories are…”
S.M.: “ Any problem with the prince charming?”
A.W.: “No!…Why?”
S.M.: “Because I know you… he‘s the same asshole, isn’t he??”
A.W.: “Don’t say so!…Anyway, we were talking about you…”
S.M.: “That’s all, I guess…He’ll keep his secret till everything won’t be settled with his wife. I really ignore what it means… Last time we talked was five days ago… It’s weird…Nobody met him at work…I’m worried…You know, particularly these days…”
A.W.: “What do you mean?…”
S.M.: “Anne…don’t you watch the news?? I’m talking about all these people dying…Damn! people are dying!!”
A.W.: “Well…Adam and I, we never think about it!!”
S.M.: “Oh, I see… Happy in your ivory tower…”
A.W.: “…What about Mike? Did you hear from him recently?”
S.M.: “From whom?”
A.W.: “Mike. Michael Valesi”
S.M.: “No, I haven’t… Why?”

(Extract from the transcript of a telephone conversation between Anne-Claude Ward and Sarah Masien, January 7, 2044)

“It’s not my fault.
We couldn’t know what was causing their deaths…it was just the beginning. That’s why I can’t feel guilty.
Now we know or, at least, we’re supposed to know, what everything is about. We hope it’s not too late. We hope so much, it sounds like a prayer…
It’s almost funny…[…] There was a time when the whole world did nothing but talk about this century’s discovery. Now, the interest is lost.
People again walk lowering their heads, they’re silent, sadder. This slaughter brought the fear for God back in vogue into a world that used to be freed by science.
[…] It’s not my fault.
As soon as I could, I took action.
We’ve found out why they are dying. Whatever it is, now we know where it takes place.
At first, we thought it was that cavy fled from the laboratory. It would be so trivial, so obvious. Fortunately, the world is no longer looking at us.
Sometimes, voices raised and made the Enlightened remember that exceeding human soul limits would have been a real tragedy.
We’re not facing divine punishment, as we’re told…this is only the consequence of an evil research.
She…is the consequence.
I do believe in it. What do you believe in?
[…] Once discovered…you were still a young boy….temporary and permanent corrective soul interventions were carried out. The very origin of the techniques we’re using today in our actions.
Then…some years later…someone whispered the idea of endospiritual system transplant…our immortality seemed to be at hand. Quite ironical, isn’t it? Our soul, as we have conceived it for centuries, doesn’t exist. But it is exactly this soul, its very essence, which can be modified in order to become immortal. It’s funny, I know. […] We don’t know why she’s acting like this…we don’t even know what she’s doing. I read her diaries. I can’t understand…everything seems so real. She is scared…she has suffered. She believes she can give us a new beginning…making us be as one. Is she totally crazy? Or the sort of salvific intervention we’ve never stopped waiting for? She extirpated their souls…she killed them…because she believes she can save them. That’s why you still feel the person you loved…his soul, in a way..his endospiritual system…it might be there. With her. You’re the only one who knows. Because you’re like me. You lost something and now you’re not afraid anymore [..]”

(Extract from the transcript of an audio-file recorded by Hounsu Smith, Ropers Unit Chief, 13 November, 2044)

“Mike worries me. I cannot help it. I keep worring about people. Everything has changed, but I keep doing what I used to. I guess it was not a vocation, just a vice. Today, we went to the beach…and we started talking. Quite a long time since we last chated. He worries me. I’ve always been worried about everyone. Can you imagine with my brother?! Why am I so anguished about people’s lives? About choices I’m not concerned with? Isn’it a clear sign? I don’t believe it anymore. God is dead for me as well. Supposing that he has ever existed. Do I feel envy? Am I envious of what I’ve never had? Of what I’ve been deprived of? Tha’s why I’m desperately trying to live others’ lives…through their stories…giving people advice about the choices they need to make…making them mine, in a way.
Anytime I think there’s something wrong with me, I stop. Maybe this should be the very starting point.
Mike keeps talking about the intervention… To him, it seems such an easy solution. All his uncertainties would disappear…he’d be more confident. I’m not sure he’s really doing this for that girl. He says he loves her, but she doesn’t even remember his name. He may only want his coscience clear. I strongly oppose this behaviour, though I couldn’t say actually why. I have impressions…but I hate them all. I’m afraid of changes, I guess. Maybe, that’s why living in this new world is so hard to me. Maybe I’m envious…and I’d rather change myself but I’m not resolute enough. Or…or this is what remains of the wrong life I lived till not long ago. I’m still scared of feeling happy…grasping things…loving them instead of hating me.”

(Extract from the private diary of Ben Valesi, March 27, 2044.)

“Talking with Adam Ward definitely isn’t easy. Nothing is easy with him. RarelyI’ve met someone so steadfast in his ideas. Admirable? Resolute? Stubborn? His public can keep flattering him. Me…I just wanted to understand who this man was.
When I was asked about the possibility of interviewing the most famous pianist in the world, I wasn’t that happy. Everybody knows how artists have been considered in the last twenty years. But this isn’t the point. I’ve never liked Ward. I read his biography (half of it has been denied by his press office), I saw some TV shows about him…I found he wasn’t a very stimulating person.
Then, Agnese Baileen, my assistant, had me listen one of his pieces. And something changed.
The same old question, you’d tell me…“Can such a mean man be do such a wonderful work?”
The quest for an answer to such a dull but essential question brought me to meet him. Adam Ward was born in 2009 in Stockolm. When he was seven, he wrote his first work. Since then, he became Nantes Music Academy’s new enfant prodige. In 2031, while all major disc labels are in trouble, he kept selling millions of copies. “Semper Elysium” was the best-sellling album of the decade. He divorced and reconciliated three times with the same woman, Anne-Claude Ward. They had no children and he spent five years far from the scene. The 2039 world tour saw him lead spectacular concerts and blaze provocative speeches on stages all over the world (it’s quite difficult to forget his famous “I’m proud of hearing applauses for this shit music you seem all to need in order feel someone” or the coinciser “the more you love me, the more you’re all useless”). Then followed a period of complete silence.
This is the information I want to share with you. If you need to know more, you can do it yourself. To me, this was enough to realize the kind of person Ward was.
A sort of “sketch” to start with.
Still today, I ask myself why he decided to break his silence (what’s more, nobody knows what caused it) and chose me. I see him arrogantly enter the studio followed by the two body-guards he’s always quarrelling with because they don’t allow him enough freedom. Rushing to his dressing-room, he nods authomatically. I wonder if he even knows who I am.
During the make-up session, I hear him screaming from the dressing-room next to mine. I can’t understand if he talks to his wife or what…but I’m sure it’s a woman he’s talking to and something is wrong. I’m sure…if he had the chance to read this, he’d be pissed off. But this is how things go.
The interview flows smoothly until we touch the topic of the recovered souless bodies that apparently are becoming the new national plight. At this point, he hipes up and what in the beginning were prefigured-dull-suggested-PR answers turn into a personal and passionate mission to explain his point. Wards starts telling us about himself (he doesn’t say a lot but tries to make his point…), fingering us, crying we’re responsible for all of this. If people could get him, they‘d figure he could do what 24 march 2024 didn’t completely accomplish. He could kick our asses and say it’s time to wake up and live. I must say his nervous answers made me suspicious. In our opinion, it’s not a coincidence that 24 hours later some law officers showed up out his mansion and questioned him.
Nonetheless, affirming that Adam Ward may be involved in all endospiritual murders (as some “collegue” did – please, note the quotes) is completely nonsense. How can I know it?
It’s easy. I’ve just listened to his music.”

(Extract from “They say he’s the Guest of the Year… What do I say?” published in No TV Magazine, March 2044.)