SS:Piazza di Spagna - Part 12 Upd Aug 2nd - Page 2

superb updts

Secret agency...Agents...kick-ass super computer 😲 Out of all theories I could have possibly conjured, this was not the least bit expected!
Poor Maan...watching her from afar, seeing her with another man albeit it be for her safety. The scene were he was looking at her pictures was so endearing, and they're married!
What happens when she wakes up? Can't wait to read on!

Read d three parts in one go & then again reread d parts

wow, this os is like watching a hollywood movie, ofcourse Maan n geet in it makes it soooper cool. Continue please.

love the spanish steps..one of my fav places in rome..the buzz, the energy, the sights...everything...

Part 4: Closed doors

"Hello..." She whimpered, her voice filled with trepidation as she called out again, "Anybody there?"

Seeing as how the room was stark empty with nothing but white walls and a table and chair in the center, she couldn't tell if finding herself alone in that room was a good or a bad thing. She was still wet from the rain and her head felt swollen and murky in its memory of how she'd gotten there. Not again, She thought, wanting to cry then, to push out the thrust of something lurking in her chest, heavy and turgid in its presence.

"Yes..." She heard a response through a speaker the third time she repeated her initial enquiry. The voice was that of a woman, the echo slow and patient in how it bumped against the wide expanse of the walls and fell on her ears.

"I will be in the room in a minute" The woman announced through the speaker, her thick accent giving away her Italian descent.

"Why do you have me here?" She found herself asking instantly even as she walked to the table from one of the corners of the room and sat sitting to face a black wall of glass.

There was no answer this time, and after a few moments of prolonged silence, she heard a motored buzz and the struggling whimper of a metal door. She didn't look up until a strong click of a heel reached her ears and the woman showed up in a black wrap dress that stretched over her tall willowy body. Her golden auburn hair cascaded in billows over her shoulders and her face had small sharp features making her quite attractive and yet there were her comely eyes that toned down her allure so as not to be mistaken for a bombshell.

"You can call me Giovanna...but don't bother looking me up, I don't exist" The woman said while dragging the chair from the table and sat there as she threw a bunch of papers on the table in a careless flick of her hand.

"You don't seem too afraid for a civilian trapped in a very white debriefing room with nothing or no one but me..."

Her shaky hand stilled in her lap for a moment, a slight shiver raking her body just as she fully reckoned what the women had said. Civilian was indeed an interesting choice of word, she thought

"Should I be afraid?..." She asked in a whisper, before thinking through that question, her eyes fixed at the sharp edge of the table corner and only rarely raising them to observe Giovanna's icy, but measured stare.

"You have been here before...in this very room, actually. But that was a very long time ago. Do you remember anything at all?"

So, the woman knew...and seeing how the woman had known her from years ago, she couldn't help but assume that she was also in some ways aware of all that had led her to come to the Piazza da Spagna that very day before the blast.

Her fingers clobbered atop one another and her knees drew tight against each other. Her eyes stinging from having gazed at the corner too long now felt the hot tears take everything out of focus and soothe down the burn. A low hiccup, escaped her mouth and Giovanna pushed a glass of water to be within her reach.

How could she tell the woman that she no longer felt like talking to her, now that her head was clouding with doubts, feeling a distinct hostility rise inside her for the place and whatever it was the woman was involved with.

Her head tilted up in an attempt to push back the tears and look anywhere but the woman infront of her. She swiped at her nose that was about to make her look like a runny rose two year old and closed her eyes, hating how her memories that always seemed to be at arm's length were never quite within her grasp. That she felt like a ghost wandering through the old piazza's of Rome, with always another superimposed scene playing out in her head. More so like seeing the vision of an alternate universe that had happened there long past, while having no means to know if the loss of that memory was a blessing or a curse in disguise.

"Geet...would it help for us to talk, if I tell you we had nothing to do with your memory issue? It was a mission gone wrong...a mistake"

Her gaze drifted to Giovanna, who had a finger pressed to her ear, her forehead scrunched with a tinge of surprise sparking at her eyes. It took her a few seconds to realize that the woman was being directed by someone from behind the dark panel of glass ahead of her and another few more second rolled by before she could place the commiseration in her tone.

She nodded with mild acquiescence and Giovanna didn't wait to push forth with the questions.

"Why were you waiting for nearly three hours at the Piazza? Did you know you were putting yourself in danger, attracting unwanted attention?"

"Was I?" Was all she could manage.

Giovanna fell back in the chair with a certain resignation and pushed the papers around. She thought, she sensed a kind of crude protectiveness in the mild censure she heard when Giovanna spoke now.

"I don't know why..." She had Giovanna's attention as she spoke, "but I have this inexplicable belief that, the Piazza is where my answers await..." she paused and shrugged lightly, "though I'm never really sure what I'm looking for..."

Giovanna's eyes were fixed on her, assessing and she couldn't tell if she believed what she'd said just then. She realized they didn't have any real questions for her, when they knew more than what she did that moment.

"Am I going to be wasting my time, if I ask you how I have come to be in the middle of all this? Would you help me if I want to know what happened or why I was there the blast day?"

Now, she met Giovanna's eyes and the woman looked away the same instant, shuffling in her seat and cleared her throat a moment later.

Once again with an index finger pressed hard to her right ear, she leaned into the table and removing the finger from close to her ear, she laced them, resting on the table.

"You were out there..." Giovanna coughed and reached for a napkin. She slowly wiped her nose, clearly indicating that she was buying time then. Closing her eyes, she drew a breath in.

"You don't have to make up a story for me..." Giovanna's eyes flickered up to her and she could see that the woman's reserves of patience were seemingly beaten at whatever game she was playing then. "Its ok...you don't have to tell me anything, if I can't have the truth"

Something about the fight she saw in Giovanna's face and the line of conversation between them hinted that official protocol wasn't being followed in that room. A dragging of the chair, and she raised her head to catch Giovanna up on her feet and tilt her head sideways, struggling with something there. A second later a thin white capsule fell to the table and she turned to give an angry stare back at the wall. Giovanna snapped her head forward and bending down with her hands splayed over the table, she lowered herself to her eye level.

"I want you to know that you were at the Piazza..."

The mechanical whirring of the door caught both their attention and they turned in that direction to find a gaunt looking blond haired man jut his head into the crack.

"Arthur wants to see you..."

"I'm talking here..."

"Now" The man finished before she could raise a cry of complaint.

Giovanna shook her head and gave up...and she looked back and forth between Giovanna and the man at the door.

"Please..." She felt a curious urgency build inside her.

"Please..." She urged again and got to her feet.

"Nothing is ever right...I have never brought this up with anyone, but..." She was breathing hard, tugging at the table, visible in her pleading, "but...I feel someone is always watching me. Always..."

Her tears were flowing freely now, "Dev...I mean, he is a professional bicyclist, but he gets hurt, his car gets keyed...he has an accident so often that I don't think its normal anymore and its always...more so when he is on his way over to my apartment or if we are going out together on a date...All this can't be coincidence, can it?"

"Why not?" Giovanna challenged, folding her arms.

"And this man, who services my apartment...No one has seen him. He is not the one who shows up when the neighbors call for maintenance...Its the super who shows up at their homes and to add to that contradiction, I hear from the corporate office that no one besides the super is employed there...Isn't that a little strange? People tell me I have lost it and you still think I have no right to know what happened then?...why I was there?"

Giovanna turned in profile to eye the gaunt man who was still at the door and he nodded in response. Even as the silent exchange carried on, through the opening came a loud boom of something heavy crashing against the nearby floor.

"Shit!..." The man cried and vehemently shut the door at once. She flinched from the vibration she felt through the table where her folded hands rested and she drew them far back into her lap.

Giovanna's eyes remained scrunched until the last of the grating sound died down and she appeared contemplative then.

"Geet...there isn't much I can tell you. But, I can assure you that you are safe. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. There were only a few people caught in the blast and so we had to keep a tab on everyone involved. If you think about it, each one of you could have been easily mistaken to be associated with the agency and regarded as targets..."

Giovanna said, straight and resolute, without a waver. The last of the tears that had obscured her view, slid down her cheek and she nodded slowly, albeit reluctantly unable to push past the unease she still felt inside her.

"I'm sure you would agree that by having you watched, however uncomfortable at times and by invading your privacy, we were only doing our duty. I don't think you should think too much about your boyfriend's accidents or the maintenance man. If there had been any suspected activity of the sorts, we would have gotten to you before them" Giovanna paused for emphasis and she met her eyes, "We can't afford to have civilians and innocent people get tangled in our mess"

There was something about Giovanna's last words that resonated deep within her, an induced coerciveness and a distant but familiar voice inlaid over that of Giovanna's echoed inside her head. It surprised her, the clarity with which she heard it then and she fell into her chair with a suddenness that further shook her from that unforeseen shock.

"Here...take this.." Giovanna handed her a pill and said, "You will wake up in your home tomorrow...Safe. And..." She drawled now, collecting her papers with a small smile lingering at her full lips, "You let me take care of everything else"

Her hand inched forward to grab the pill without her knowledge and Giovanna was already at the door, when she stopped and turned again.

"Oh! Yeah...So I'm assuming we won't see you at the Piazza anymore...now that you have your answers..."

"We?" She asked with the curious tilt of her head and Giovanna straightened from her lax stance, her smile gone now.

"I meant the agency" Giovanna shifted her weight on her foot and began smiling just as she let the door close, to leave her alone in the room once again.

Taking the pill, she gulped down the water from the glass in its entirety. A hollow in the place of her chest, somehow a downreaching betrayal in everything she'd heard from the woman. All those years, she'd never considered that the simplest of explanations could fit with all that she felt compelled to go in search of. It wasn't like she expected to feel any gain from having discovered the truth, but the sense of loss remained, firm and emptying in its presence, while it ate its way into the deeper recesses of her body, spreading and fading like the insipid taste of the pill on the palate of her tongue.

Her hand pushed against the hair that was falling over her eyes and she saw the black of the wall, gazing back at her, imposing in its existence. She got up from the chair and covered the distance to the wall in a few lazy steps. Once when within a feet from the wall, she simply stood there, her eyes implacable as she looked on, impelled by an unknown, desiring weight to remain rooted there.

***

The wheeze of the door distracted him and he caught Giovanna throw her eyebrows up and puffed out a mouthful of air.

"G, undoubtedly that just made it to the top of the worst briefings in the history of the agency..." Thor said, laughing and swiveling, while he raised his feet to cross them above his desk.

She slapped the papers at the table and had her arms raised up to her waist. Nodding she added, "F***, I make a fool of myself every time I'm addressing a friend at a professional capacity..."

"Maan...Her pill should kick in, in a few minutes. Take her home then..."

He gave a slow nod of the head without looking back at them as he continued to stand at the one-way mirror. She was on the other side too and though he knew it was a given, she couldn't know his presence on this side he felt his palms spring a cold sweat. As was expected with people in the observation room, she didn't draw herself too close to the mirror or push hard at it, making fish faces to glean into the dark that had its share of mysteries. Precisely the reason, her repose and her studying gaze propelled a small restlessness inside him. They were at their places for a while, feeling a stir from their inaction, as if their bodies were subdued from a sedating inertia.

She eventually moved, splaying one hand lightly over the glass and he stepped back, concomitant in reaction. It didn't take him long to arrive at his decision and without another look at her, he began walking to the door calling at Thor.

"Thor...here" He threw a bunch from his pocket as he passed the duo sitting at the desk, "The small gold one is her house key. Drop her home...take agent Alistair if you need help"

The door shut behind him with more than a necessary thud. A sign, he said to himself. Some doors were better left shut than opened...And some never to have opened at all...

Originally posted by: pushpi

SURPRISE

Truly is...I have to say...😊

Originally posted by: had2bu

I feel like I have put a movie on pause. Cool! Waiting for more.

I'm hoping that the writing being paralleled to that of a movie is a good thing...

I'm sorry to say that the crowd on this thread is very discouraging...

(Or is there a conspiracy that I'm missing out on?...Because I never seem to find any crowd at all in the other thread either 😒..Lord! Just give me more patience with IF )