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The siren came on at 23:57 on an unspecified day in a European port city in early 2015. It was not an alarm, but a continuous, low tone slipping through corridors like a thin stream of water. The windows darkened automatically, patrol drones aligned along rooftop edges, and a silence fell over the neighborhood— a kind that had not existed in the city for years. Residents did not know what it meant: a “sanitization” operation was underway. No one was to move, no one was to look. They simply had to wait for the minutes to pass and for the city’s digital bulletin to confirm: “Operation completed. Zero civilian casualties. Total success.”
From the terrace of his fifth‑floor apartment, Marco Santoro stared at the streets below. He had quit smoking years before, but that night he had lit a cigarette just to watch the red ember flicker…