-What were you thinking? One wrong step and you would have ended up with a bullet in the head.
-Like many of those present if I had not intervened. Thank God those men were aware of the impasse they were walking into.
-Giving thanks to God at a time like this sounds more like sarcasm than anything else.
-Don't sing victory yet, all I did was buy us a little bit of time. The Supreme Pontiff is not an easy person to convince. If the decision has already been made, I don't think he will let us go in holy peace.
-Then we only have this break to find a way out of this place.
-Or a solution to the dilemma that is presented to us.
Do you think there is a solution? All you did was tell those men that it was best to give them a timeout so they could come back to the meeting with a cool head and a clear conscience. Appealing to a change of heart on each side was a one-time card that worked against all odds. That and a solution are two very different things.
-And even so we must manage to find one, or else the chaos will return. His Holiness seems to be more prudent than it looks, I think the death threat is a strategy to apply pressure.
-That does not mean that he doesn't intend to carry it out if they oppose his will. You already saw what happened to The Man of Green.
-Even a greater reason to think of a solution.
The Woman of the Jasper and The Man of Blue were back in the Royal Hall, after the disorder in the Golden Room and the threats from each side it was a miracle that they had managed to stop the situation in its tracks. Thanks to The Man of Blue they had obtained about thirty minutes before the spark of war that had been generated minutes before would fire again. The evacuation of the room was carried out when the military lowered their weapons before the proposal and it was at that moment that The Man of Blue confirmed what he had known since before intervening: neither of the two sides seemed to want to start a world war; and rightly so. The worst case scenario for all participants was one in which death, loss and destruction reigned indiscriminately. Human beings could be idealists but not idiots, utopias are useless if no one lives in them.
The Royal Hall contained an additional pressure added to the one that the characters who occupied it had manifested on their arrival. The faces of men and women showed expressions of terror, anxiety and other similar gradients. The place gave the impression of having been frozen in time but all those present were witnesses of the opposite fact: before their eyes the hands of the clocks turned with a fatal speed. In a few moments they would once again be at the mercy of an international confrontation.
The Man of Blue turned the matter over in his head, that incident was not in his plans for today and it was a complete disaster spinning out of control. If he wanted to salvage what little remained intact of his agenda he had to sharpen his thought pattern. If he failed many lives would be in danger at the whims of that religious man. And he wasn't going to allow that, he preferred anything but that.
The Woman of the Jasper remained calm on the outside but her internal machinery was signaling her with alarms that all of this was the worst possible scenario: A world war was looming, The Supreme Pontiff would escape from the thick of it and hide behind impenetrable security barricades. Innocents would fall to the envy of a man who seemed to have everything and wanted even more. If she allowed that fateful end, she would be failing again, and this was not the time to refrain in the face of a crisis; not when her angel was watching her, not when her will was about to be fulfilled. It was not time for doubts, it was time to act.
-We must confront him directly, and The Prime Minister must come with us. This must be discussed behind closed doors with The Supreme Pontiff where he cannot create a massacre. If we reach a consensus with The Prime Minister and we retain The Supreme Pontiff long enough to make him give in to a negotiation, perhaps we can reach an agreement where both parties feel satisfied. We must defeat an impossibility with an improbability. The sooner the better, before His Holiness loses his temper again and changes his mind about this truce.
-Speaking of which, where is he at the moment?
The two exchanged glances and instantly scrambled for any sign of the pontiff. In the midst of the eagerness and stress they discovered his absence in the place, and that could only mean bad things. If His Holiness went into hiding before being able to retain him with The Prime Minister, none of their plans could be realized. The religious man was one step closer to bringing about the end of the world as they knew it, and they had to shorten the distance as soon as possible, no matter what. The Woman of the Jasper was the first to utter a word when she regrouped with The Man of Blue.
-He is not here! If we don't do something soon we may be saying goodbye to being able to fix this mess!
-Not only that, I can't see The Prime Minister in this hall. The two people with the ability to cause a pandemonium are absent from the room. At this rate we're going to lose before we can even start.
-We must separate, with the little time we have, if we look for them together, the clock will ring before we locate both of them.
-We have no alternative, one must find The Supreme Pontiff and the other The Prime Minister.
-See you in the Golden Room, as soon as possible.
-Do whatever it takes to bring the pontiff. If something happens, improvise.
-Good luck.
The Woman of the Jasper ran towards the balcony from which they had witnessed the first appearance of His Holiness. In her mind the possibility of finding him in the areas off limits to guests was a logical starting point from which to begin. She hurried up the marble steps and disappeared between the red curtains, possessed by an inhuman urgency. On the contrary, The Man of Blue had decided to go in the opposite direction and, swiftly crossing the corridor through which they had been guided on their first visit to the Golden Hall, began to cover great amounts of distance moving with the speed of someone who flees from his greatest fear and who pursues what he most desires. As the man's silhouette faded into the corridors and warm-toned lights, much of the Main Hall was plunged into confusion at what they had seen. The men and women who witnessed the marathon race of The Man of Blue and The Woman of the Jasper feared the worst and let their primitive brain interpret what had happened.
A red light illuminated the minds of the leaders and envoys, now prey to uncertainty and frozen in the face of an unknown stimulus. They did not know the reasons for the rush of the two individuals who had just left the site, and they had no information by which to make a decision. The location towards which those two characters were heading was plunged into an impenetrable gloom that the witnesses in the Royal Hall could only guess at.
Little was the time that those present in the Basilica had to react, and soon came the wave of chaos that became an even greater disaster. As a colossal crash rumbled just outside the Basilica individual thoughts were uprooted from their place. The walls and ceilings of the building shook violently and particles of dust and plaster fell on the distinguished guests of that fateful day of the ninth month. The crowd collapsed to the ground, motionless in response to the shock of an unknown crisis. And in the midst of the deathly silence a mechanically distorted voice was raised; outside the Basilica, in the Sacred Plaza, an irrevocable proclamation was issued from the rooftops.
-Ladies and gentlemen, from this moment the Basilica is kidnapped! No one enters or leaves until further notice!
Inside the Royal Hall a cacophony of voices exploded, and what little order remained in the composure of the now kidnapped shattered.
And the Basilica became a pandemonium.