The Academy cafeteria still smelled of boiled vegetables and disinfectant, after all it wasn't normal for someone to already be there at 11:30 in the morning for lunch. Lessons always ended at noon sharp before resuming in the afternoon, but Brando would have gladly preferred to stay longer in class rather than be there at that moment. He stared at his usual bowl as the cook poured in what, with a lot of imagination, could be called soup. The situation was already strange enough with the fact that no other class was present in the cafeteria at that moment, just them.

  The silence was unnatural. Even the usual jerks who made fun of him seemed too tense to open their mouths. Giordano, in line behind him, kept his eyes fixed on nothing, as if he were trying to solve an impossible puzzle.

  "I don't recall Esposito ever ending lessons early," he suddenly said. "He's the type who would keep you chained to your desk even after death. Whatever Bianca showed him on the KryoWatch must be serious."

  Brando grunted in agreement, thinking back to the Lieutenant's face. He had seen him angry, violent, but never scared. His birthmark had pulsed frantically before he kicked them out of the classroom.

  Indeed, because theoretically the lesson about the technical explanation of how the KryoWatches worked should have lasted about 4 hours. Instead, it had only lasted 3 and a half hours. The Lieutenant had deliberately cut it short.

  "Next!"

  After they served Brando his soup, it was Giordano's turn to put his hand on the reader. The usual witch behind the counter was about to do her little show when an imposing figure emerged from the kitchen. Don Gaetano in person, the legendary pizza maker of Nea-Polis. At a good seventy years old, he was still as straight as a pole, with those gnarled hands that seemed to sculpt the dough. His presence in the cafeteria was rarer than a vegetarian Glacial.

  "Uagliò," Don Gaetano said with his chain-smoker's voice. "If it isn't the little Volpe bastard."

  Brando couldn't take his eyes off those kneading hands. He had already heard about Don Gaetano. Who hadn't? He was a living legend, one of the last guardians of an art that had been passed down from before the Cooling Down. Some elderly people had told him how their grandparents would talk about pizza, how it had been food for everyone, not the luxury for the few it had become.

  Moreover, it was evident that this was top quality. The dough had been worked by hand, as the old masters did before the Cooling Down. Water, salt, yeast, and that flour obtained from the protected greenhouses of Nea-Polis, the only place where wheat could still properly mature. Brando barely knew these pizzas. He had only been able to see them from afar, through the windows of downtown establishments where the big shots of Nea-Polis went to dine. It was the type of pizza that cost as much as a month's rent in Rione Sanità. And then the aroma hit him like a slap: San Marzano tomatoes, the real ones, not the synthetic stuff found at greengrocers. Buffalo mozzarella that dripped down the edges in white rivulets and freshly picked basil. The crust was tall, slightly burned in just the right spots in those dark bubbles that the elderly called "leopard spots." Pizza was a tradition that refused to die even after the nanospores had frozen the planet.

  "Don Gaetano," Giordano leaned over the counter with his usual grin, "today I feel like honoring tradition."

  The old man grunted something incomprehensible while his hands danced on the dough in a hypnotic choreography. Brando watched, enchanted: he had never seen anyone make a pizza live. It was like watching a sacred ritual, something that belonged to another world.

  "My grandfather," Don Gaetano said as he stretched the dough with precise, measured movements, "told me about how his father made pizzas in the alley of the Tribunals. He taught me everything he knew, everything that had been passed down to him." His fingers created the crust with a grace that seemed impossible for such weathered hands. "That world is gone now, but I carry it in my hands, uagliò."

  Brando, with his bowl of overcooked soup in his hands, felt his mouth water as he watched Don Gaetano put the pizza in the oven with a fluid movement. The oven roared like a hungry beast.

  "You know it's your right," Don Gaetano said to Giordano. "Omega Rank, right? You can choose any pizza you want."

  "And I always choose tradition, Don Gaetà. A beautiful pizza margherita, exactly like the one you're taking out of the oven."

  The old man nodded approvingly as he pulled the pizza from the oven. "Go, eat," Don Gaetano said, handing the plate to Giordano. "Before it gets cold. And remember that what I do here is just a shadow of what it once was. True art died ninety years ago. We're just carrying on the memory."

  Giordano took the plate with a reverence that Brando had never seen in him. There was something sacred about that moment, as if they weren't just taking food, but participating in a ritual that could easily be lost to time.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Giordano headed to an empty table, gesturing for Brando to follow him. They sat down, and without saying a word, Giordano cut a slice and pushed it toward his friend.

  "Giordano, what are you doing?" Brando stared at the slice of pizza his friend was pushing in front of him. The smell made his mouth water, but he forced himself to maintain a hard expression. "I don't need your charity."

  "What charity," Giordano snorted, pushing the pizza even more. The cheese was still dripping as if to hypnotize Brando. "It's a pizza. Culture. Tradition. I'm not buying you a house."

  "I said no." Brando tried to ignore how the aroma was making his stomach rumble.

  "You're more stubborn than my father when he has to admit I'm his son." Giordano leaned across the table, reluctantly studying his friend's expression. "And trust me, that's a tough record to beat."

  "And you're as persistent as a mule." Brando looked away, but his eyes kept returning to the pizza.

  "At least I don't play the sacrificial victim every time someone tries to be nice." Giordano bit into his slice with theatrical emphasis, gesticulating with his hands and making exaggerated noises of appreciation.

  "I'm not playing the victim, it's just that—"

  "Listen," Giordano interrupted him, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "I eat pizza at least once a week. You've never tasted it and it should be normal to try something so divine at least once."

  "Normal? I'd say lucky you. Man, I envy you so much." Brando almost spat the words.

  "Exactly! It's a normal thing, right? NOR-MAL. Like when I show up at family dinners just to watch my father try to pretend I don't exist." A little smile curled his lips. "His record is two hours and forty-seven minutes."

  Brando hesitated. The aroma was torture, and his stomach was organizing a revolt against his pride.

  "And besides," Giordano added with a grin, "if you don't eat it, I will. And you know what that means? It means you'll see me enjoying myself like a pig with every single bite. I'll make you regret refusing for the rest of the day."

  Brando looked at the pizza, feeling torn in half. Part of him wanted to accept, the other reminded him that he didn't need anyone's pity. Not even Giordano's. Especially not Giordano's. But the cheese was still dripping, the basil seemed to shine with its own light, and in that aroma was contained an explosion of flavors.

  "Fuck it," he finally muttered, more to himself than to Giordano. "Give me the damn pizza. But only because you're so pathetic when you try to convince someone."

  "And because you're dying to eat it," Giordano snickered.

  "Shut up..."

  The first bite was like a punch in reverse, the kind of violence that makes you want to cry with joy. It was exactly the kind of flavor that made you want to cry, not just because of how good it was, but for what it represented. But the taste of the pizza was still a blessing on Brando's tongue when he noticed that Giordano had suddenly stiffened, his eyes fixed on someone behind him.

  "Oh, shit," Giordano murmured, slowly lowering the slice he was about to bite.

  A classmate of theirs, Marco Ruocco, was crossing the cafeteria as if he owned it. He kept his hands in the pockets of his perfectly ironed uniform. The emblem of his house, a dragon biting its tail, shone on his chest like a point of light. He was the type of presence that made heads turn, but not out of admiration. The Ruoccos were like sharks in an aquarium: beautiful to look at, but better to keep your distance.

  "Fantastic," Giordano hissed. "You can't even eat a pizza in peace in this shithole."

  Ruocco and Volpe. Two surnames that in Nea-Polis were synonymous with open conflict. It wasn't just rivalry, it was pure hatred, passed down from generation to generation. The last time the two families had tried to sit at the same table to talk business, three people had ended up in the cemetery and half of Via Toledo, one of the largest streets in Nea-Polis, had gone up in flames.

  "What good wind brings you here, Ruocco?" Giordano looked up from the pizza with a look of pure venom. "Are you lost? The asshole tables are on the other side, near the toilets. Very appropriate, I'd say."

  Marco remained standing next to the table with his hands in his pockets and a reluctant expression on his face. It wasn't his usual "I'm better than you" attitude that he carried around like a cloak. He almost seemed uncomfortable.

  "You two are..." he hesitated, lowering his voice. "Different. A Zeta and a bastard Omega. You shouldn't even exist."

  "Oh, look at that," Giordano interrupted him, rolling his eyes. "A Beta explaining existence to an Omega. Really a Nobel Prize-worthy conversation. Listen, instead of standing there philosophizing, would you mind moving? You're blocking my view of Don Gaetano making pizzas."

  But Marco didn't take the bait. He remained there, as if Giordano's words had slid off him like water. There was something strange in his gaze, a kind of feverish urgency that didn't belong to him.

  "I need your help."

  Giordano froze with the slice of pizza in mid-air. Brando, however, was about to spit out his mouthful. A Ruocco asking a Volpe for help? And a Zeta, on top of that?

  "Damn," Giordano murmured, setting his slice down abruptly. "You must be really desperate to come asking us for help."

  "I'm not desperate," Marco snapped, but the way his eyes kept darting from one side of the cafeteria to the other betrayed him. "I'm... pragmatic."

  "Pragmatic," Giordano repeated with a smile that promised nothing good. "A Beta from the Ruoccos coming to ask help from a bastard Omega and a Zeta. It must be a new type of pragmatism I wasn't familiar with."

  Marco ran a hand over his face. When he lowered it, his gaze was different. The arrogance was gone, replaced by something that dangerously resembled fear.

  "It's about Bianca."

  The silence that followed was so heavy you could have cut it with a knife. Or with one of those sharp smiles that Giordano used as weapons.

  "Oh," Giordano finally said, leaning forward. "Now it's getting interesting."