Paola talked to Vito. She told him about her day. She laughed. She shared intimate details of her life with him. She told him everything. He drunk it in with boyish fascination. People were guarded. His parents were guarded. His clients were guarded. His friends, for the most part, were guarded. The only two people in the world who would share the most intimate secrets of their lives with him were Paola and Vito’s brother, Salvatore. Salvatore, however, did not need Vito. Paola did. Paola had an innocence to the way she talked that arrested Vito. She trusted him with her every emotion and desire and he intended to earn that trust. Since he met Paola, his business had taken off. He hired a few part-timers. He got a bookkeeper. He had to be a financial as well as an emotional bulwark for someone that he cared for, and that need spurred him on in his endeavors.

Vito’s brother led a more cavalier lifestyle. He was a true seaman. He had a girl in every port on the Mediterranean. Salvatore’s jovial attitude, indomitable work ethic, and quick tongue allowed him to rapidly rise through the ranks of deck officers.

Vito was working in his shop one day when he heard a commotion outside. He went out to find cars, bikes, and pedestrians packing the streets like sardines in a can. The mass of humanity slowly moved in a frenzied manner up the street, away from the city center and the shipyards.

Paola worked as a bookkeeper in a small office near the docks. She worked for a little company that provided financial services to some of the smaller freight companies. When Vito walked outside into the panicked crowd, he began stopping random people. He would hold them for a second and demand to know what was going on. Many struggled and he let them go. Others told him that it was terrorists. One woman told him that aliens had landed on the docks and that they were taking people as prisoners to perform experiments on in their ship. Vito did not know what to believe, but, in any case, Paola could be in danger.

Vito’s father had died a year ago. He had been a retired Genovese police officer. He, also, collected guns. Vito and Salvatore still had not figured out what to do with his apartment, but it was only a few blocks north of the city center. Vito took off on foot for the apartment. When he arrived, he found that Salvatore had already broken into the gun cabinet.

“It’s madness out there.” Salvatore said.

“Have you seen Paola?” Vito asked.

“No, I was on the ship when it happened.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I... I saw flashes of light and soldiers running like a stampede through the docks. Vito, they are wearing some kind of armor. It’s like a robot suit. I don’t know how to explain it, and their faces, Vito, their faces are gaunt and hollow. Vito, they attacked the city center. I think they want to take over the whole city, but there’s more. They are rounding people up. Anyone who they can get, they will take, and they are corralling them into the shipyards. Vito, I saw Bruno Moretti, the captain of my ship, the Sorelle Gemelle, smoking his cigarettes as he always does, but the smoke was black. Something was wrong with it. Vito he looked calm. He just stood there watching it all as if nothing was happening.”

“Give me a gun.” Vito said through gritted teeth.

After arming themselves, they fought the crowd and crept back to the docks. They knew the lay of the land like they knew the backs of their hands.

“That’s my ship.” Salvatore said with anger in his voice.

In front of the Sorelle Gemelle, they saw a crowd of frightened people. Ghouls paced around them and if anyone stepped out of line, they were met with a menacing glare and a raised hand. Strangely, the stevedores were helping the ghouls corral the captives. A group of the workers worked on lowering a gangway to allow the prisoners to board the ship.

“I know some of those men.” Salvatore said.

He and Vito hunkered behind an intermodal freight container.

“Did you see Paola?” Vito asked eagerly.

“No, there are hundreds of people out there. She could be in the crowd or not. I don’t know.” Salvatore said.

He went on, “I am going to talk to the men. Stay here, Vito, and cover me if I get into trouble.”

Vito nodded his head solemnly. Before his brother left, he clasped his hand and squeezed it tight. No words could capture the emotion of the moment. Salvatore left his rifle with Vito, got up, peeked around the corner of the large container, and walked out toward the workers that were struggling with the gangway.

Vito watched as Salvatore joined them without drawing the attention of the ghouls. Three of them were toiling with a crude knot of rope that had been affixed to the loading platform. The knot had been used for some inscrutable purpose and left for the next group of people needing to use the platform to deal with. Salvatore joined in the toil and tried to talk to the stevedores. Vito did not know if he got anywhere with them. He kept one eye on the gangway and the other on the nervously dithering crowd. He searched the frightened faces in a fervent attempt to recognize Paola’s among them. He did not succeed. Eventually, the gangplank was set in place and the ghouls began prodding the crowd toward the ship. Three people panicked and broke away. They ran toward Vito, toward the safety of the stacks of shipping containers. They only got a few feet before they evaporated into nothingness in a bright flash of blue light.

When half of the crowd had boarded, a gunshot rang out. A ghoul dropped to the ground and quivered. The other ghouls leapt into action. They rushed into the crowd and thrashed about in a savage attempt to find the shooter. They found Salvatore’s gun, but not Salvatore himself. He had broken away from the group and joined the stevedores at the gangplank’s end. Vito’s heart skipped a beat as he saw Paola standing next to Salvatore. She turned her back to the crowd and tried to look busy with something. They were both trying to blend in with the other dock workers.

Their plan almost worked. The ghouls jerked their heads around in a leery way as they inspected the scene. They wanted to find the shooter, but they also wanted to finish loading the ship before a full-on riot broke out. As the last dregs of the crowd boarded, a yzorak guard approached the stevedores; he looked hard into the faces of each as he paced slowly. The tension of the situation set Vito’s nerves on end. Vito pointed his rifle at the ghoul, but doubted his marksmanship. He refused to put his finger on the trigger.

When the ghoul came to Paola, Vito’s heart started beating against his chest with the fury of a wounded and cornered animal. The ghoul looked long and hard at Paola. Then he turned and signaled for the others to come over. Salvatore knew that the jig was up. He whipped a small knife from his pocket and jammed it into the ghoul, just above the metal breastplate. Then he grabbed Paola’s arm and they began to run. They did not get far.

Vito shrieked in horror as he watched his brother vanish into dust. Luckily, his shriek occurred simultaneously with the reverberations caused by the charged particle blast that took his brother’s life and the ghouls did not hear it. With Salvatore gone, two ghouls picked Paola up. She was kicking and screaming, but they maneuvered her across the gangplank and into the ship. The stevedores closed the gangway behind them without hesitation and before Vito had time to react, the dock was empty, except for the few stevedores who had stayed behind to close the plank. Vito ran to the scene and started choking the nearest worker.

“What have you done?” He screamed at the man. “How could you do this?”

After those first two questions, Vito’s speech became unintelligible. The stevedores just looked at him blankly. They had met Ghaelvord not long after he had landed and fallen under the influence of his kebaac. With their willpower drained, it would be many hours before the stevedores regained their senses.