On the way to Lanciano a car passed with four workers on board, headed to the industrial area of ??Atessa for the afternoon shift. Berto and Vanni possessed the bodies in the front seats. Vanni took the driver’s seat.

  The other three workers cursed a lot at the driver. Despite all the swearing, the workers arrived more than ten minutes late for their shift.

  One of the three on his way out slammed the door and shouted, "May I know what the fuck is wrong with you today, Peppe?"

  “The foreman will beat the shit out of us!” echoed another.

  The driver, Peppe, didn't know how to justify himself. “Guys, I’m sorry… I had a strange feeling of anxiety while I was driving. I thought I should be careful... it seemed like a good idea..."

  “Fuck your good idea!” the first one blurted out once again.

  As the four workers walked towards the factory entrance, Berto and Vanni slipped away from their bodies while remaining invisible.

  Berto checked the time and Quintino's location.

  1:14 pm. 22 hours, 16 minutes, 45 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is in the warehouse on the third level of the east building of the TECNOSAT AMMUNITION plant. He is tied to a pole and four pushers are beating him.

  Berto commented on the notification with cynical bitterness, “That’s great, Vanni. The idea of ??saving him before they get him has gone to hell.”

  “You saw the traffic there was. And there were a whole bunch of cruise control systems that I had never seen. And if you were driving we would crash into a wall again."

  Instead of replying something smug, Berto remained focused on what to do. “The cursor points to a location less than a kilometer from here. If we're quick we could try to come up with something.”

  Vanni nodded, and they both started running towards the car park exit.

  There was a fence, but Berto sensed he could jump through it, so he didn't slow down. He leaped, and his body passed through the grate without even decreasing speed.

  Berto turned back to Vanni and discovered that he had had the same idea as him. He even kept pace with him without any problems, he was much faster than expected. So Berto accelerated even more.

  There were people on the sidewalk, but there was no need to avoid them. Berto and Vanni just passed through their bodies. As they went on, passersby shivered as if a gust of cold air ran through them.

  In a minute and a half Berto and Vanni reached the Tecnosat Ammunition yard, and they didn't even feel tired. Berto realized that for future travel it would not make sense to possess the SOULLESS on board vehicles, just running was much simpler.

  The Tecnosat Ammunition factory consisted of two gigantic buildings. On one side was the crucible, topped by four chimneys, on the other there was the production line, arranged on five levels. The warehouse where Quintino had been locked up was on the third level of the second building.

  Berto and Vanni hurried to reach the goods loading area, on the ground floor of the second building, and slipped between the lined-up trucks. From above came the rhythmic, mumbling sounds of industrial machinery. Berto tried to figure out how to get to the upper floors, and he spotted a flight of iron stairs.

  They went up ramp after ramp, and when they reached the third floor they found themselves on a steel platform connected to a suspended walkway. The blue cursor pointed to an automatic door beyond the walkway. Without hesitation, the two rushed towards the door, and maintaining their incorporeal form they passed it without activating its infrared sensors.

  The warehouse was immense, and tons and tons of wooden boxes were crammed into the industrial shelves. There was an automatic sorting system, and robot arms hanging from the ceiling moved the boxes onto a conveyor belt raised three meters above the ground.

  There didn't seem to be a living soul in the large room, except for Quintino and his four tormentors. Running between the shelves, Berto and Vanni identified their position. They were in the warehouse manager's cubicle. Through the plexiglass, it was possible to see one of the four punching Quintino in the stomach and the other three watching the beating.

  Berto tried to read the drug dealers' minds. Three were SOULLESS, while the other had a Soul Fragment inside.

  What to do?

  Tackling the drug dealers head-on would have generated a logic error. Manipulating them into freeing Quintino and letting him go with the cocaine batch would have generated a logic error. Distracting them by making noise would have generated a logic error.

  God had talked about a way to influence the free will of Soul Fragments, but he hadn't been very clear about it. Even though he couldn't enter his body, Berto discovered he could read the Soul Fragment's mind.

  “Damn, I'm hungry. This asshole made me miss my lunch break. Jeez, I would’ve killed him myself if it weren't for the fact that getting rid of the body woulda been a real pain.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Berto wondered, “So the drug dealer is a worker from this place?”

  “No, it can't be. I've never seen him round here and I know all the Tecnosat workers. And then what do I care? The important thing is to get him out of the way. We’re the ones dealing here.”

  Taken aback, Berto instantly disconnected his telepathic connection from the drug dealer. Somehow his thought had entered his target’s mind, and he had interpreted it as a sentence from his own inner voice.

  Berto realized this is what it meant to act on the free will of Soul Fragments. It meant putting new ideas into their heads and influencing their actions. But it wasn't that simple. Those were intrusive voices, subjected to the critical judgment of the targets.

  Vanni clenched his fists, unsure what to do. After glancing at him, Berto began listening again, suppressing his own thoughts.

  “Besides, what the fuck, they pay me crap, why go to all this trouble for a poor asshole? Look at that fat Santino. He pocketed half a kilo of coke without doing anything. And selling it will be up to us. And with the revenue, he will make himself look good in the eyes of the boss.”

  Berto shifted his gaze towards one of the men witnessing the beating. He was fat and he held a small cardboard package in his hand. Was he the boss?

  “What the fuck. The funny thing is that I was the one who caught this asshole in the parking lot. Hadn't I been there to stand by, he would have just run away with it. I fucking deserve a reward too!”

  Berto stopped listening for a moment. Now he had something to work with.

  “Enough, untie him,” Santino ordered. The torturer retreated, and the other two men advanced with cutlasses in their hands. They bent over Quintino and cut his bonds. Quintino fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  “Vanni, I have an idea,” Berto whispered to his partner, “I think I can start a fight between those four. If I succeed, I'll make them drop the package of cocaine on the ground. When this happens, you have to enter Quintino's mind and think these words intensely: 'take the drugs and run'. Repeat this thought endlessly.”

  "Huh?"

  “Just do as I say,” Berto ordered, and moved to the side while Santino threw open the door and went out among the shelves followed by his men. Berto immediately began rereading his target's thoughts.

  “But no. No reward for me. I will skip my lunch and continue earning my meager percentage.”

  “I could take the cocaine and sell it myself.”

  “What the fuck am I thinking? The others will kick my ass. Have I become suicidal?”

  “Well, but the others are in the same shit as me, it doesn't mean they would be on Santino’s side. Besides, we can share it. This is the time to make the fat fucker pay.”

  “Yes, it's true! Everyone hates Santino. And Filippo and Luigi will certainly be on my side! If we get rid of Santino, we'll take his place! We'll make the rules!”

  The drug dealer with the Soul Fragment touched Santino's shoulder. “The drugs, let me sell them.”

  Santino stifled a laugh. “What do you say, Rino? Of course, you will have your share, like everyone else."

  Rino insisted, “No, you don't understand. I'm the one who found it. It's up to me to decide who keeps it. I'll split it with Filippo and Luigi, and we'll keep what we pocket. The boss doesn't have to know."

  “You are a damn imbecile. Who do you think sold the stuff to the trespasser?” Santino retorted.

  “I don't give a shit who sold it to him, I want it!” Rino screamed, and squeezing Santino's shoulder he stretched his arm towards the package.

  “Give this asshole a once over!” Santino screamed, trying to shield the package against his chest.

  Filippo charged at Rino with his head down and punched him straight in the face, but Luigi hesitated. After thinking about it, Luigi landed a knee in Santino's belly.

  “Have y’all lost your fucking sanity?” Santino shouted, gasping for breath.

  A confused turmoil began, and Berto entered Rino's mind and suggested, "I have to throw the package on the ground, Luigi and I will retrieve it when we have knocked them out”.

  Rino reached out and took several punches, but managed to grab the package and throw it far away between the shelves.

  When he saw the package of drugs flying, Vanni sprung into action. Through the plexiglass he hammered Quintino's mind, repeating to himself, "Take the drugs and run, take the drugs and run, take the drugs and run – ”

  It worked. Quintino got up and ran out of the booth, slipped among the thugs, bent down to retrieve the package, and without even straightening his back he launched himself towards the warehouse exit.

  But Santino noticed him, and as he twisted Rino's wrist, he screamed at the top of his lungs, "That son of a bitch is running away with the stuff!"

  Luigi and Filippo instantly stopped fighting, pulled two semi-automatic pistols from their belts, and ran after Quintino. Rounding the corner, three shots were heard and Quintino screamed in pain.

  Feeling a little guilty but also relieved, Berto thought, “Damn, we did it! Quintino will die here! The universe is safe!”

  But Vanni didn't like that epilogue. There was a forklift along the rows of shelves, he ran on top of it and resumed his material form. He pushed the accelerator of the forklift to full throttle and lunged at Filippo and Luigi and shouted, “Leave him alone, you fucking bastards!”

  Vanni hit the two drug dealers and then the forklift crashed into a shelf full of wooden crates.

  Santino only had time to say, “Now, where the fuck did that dude come from?”

  As expected from an ammunition factory warehouse, the crates were full of gunpowder. Everything blew up. Berto's immaterial body found itself in the middle of the chain reaction and saw the explosions from inside. Smoke and flames hurled pieces of concrete and debris from all sides in an intricate mandala.

  The mandala glitched, going back and forth for a few moments before its shapes recomposed the now well-known landscape of the road to Lanciano.

  Debug system activated. Logic error solved.

  2:08 pm. 21 hours, 22 minutes, 27 seconds remaining. KYZDKYU:WRATH ver. 173.00475.3.012 is leaving the TECNOSAT AMMUNITION factory hiding from security. He suffered numerous bruises in the struggle.