Epilogue:

Minutes later, the Beluga's pilot was directed to divert the plane to a French airbase near Marseilles. The Marseilles airport was shut down for several hours due to a gas leak.

The flight crew was upset because they were scheduled to fly on to Lisbon as soon as the set was removed from their plane. French authorities, in a moment of seemingly rare cooperation, agreed to help by sending a number of ground crew members aboard to help take down and remove the set. No one commented on the duct taped repairs on part of the drywall and on one of the support members. Everything was dumped into a couple of large dumpsters. These were hauled away on French military trucks even before the plane was refueled and could be on its way.

Those in the back of the plane were spoken to separately by French authorities posing as other ground crew members. Everyone was released with the understanding that they would reveal nothing about anything they might have seen. Everyone was sent on their way later that afternoon.

Two trucks from the Lagarde Sanitation company carrying dumpsters were turned away from the Marseilles airport late that afternoon due to the gas leak. They were told they would have to reschedule for the next day, but neither truck showed up and no one at the airport gave it a second thought. French authorities did, though, but when they searched for Lagarde Sanitation, they found no record of the company or its trucks. Two newly repainted dumpster haulers drew no attention on the streets of Marseilles. Within days, they had weathered to match most of the other trucks in the firm's fleet.

In Milan, Riccardo Paccone was heard screaming into the phone in his office late that evening. Seeing that he was quite upset and didn't seem to be calming down, the employees of R. Paccone Producciones slipped out of the office without telling him goodbye. Since it was a Friday evening and a holiday weekend at that, they hoped he would be back to his normal grouchy self by the following Tuesday.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. Paccone was tragically killed in a hit and run accident just two days later. Certain members of the Italian polizia investigating the accident felt it might not have been an accident after all. Some went so far as to speculate the Italian mob might have been involved due to certain rumors circulating in the underworld community about possible ties between Paccone and the mobsters. It was even rumored that Paccone had welshed on a deal leading to his death, but nothing was ever proven about that or even the possible connection.

With Paccone out of the picture and his firm's credit well beyond its limit, the firm was shut down by the bankruptcy court. Since it was considered an untapped asset, the Italian court allowed the director to use a small part of Paccone's life insurance policy to complete the film and release it under an independent label. It received generally good reviews from critics, particularly on the performance of Signorina Adelina Francini and the incredibly realistic CGI used in the movie (despite the fact that no CGI firm was listed in the credits), but the plot was seen as stilted and tired despite its attempt at originality. Fortunately, a renowned Mexican director later praised it as one of the many inspirations for his later, much more successful film, so it did fairly well on rentals and DVD sales.

~xXx~

"Xander, can't you stay another night or two?"

"Adelina, they're expecting me in Rio. It's a chance for some work as well as that event I was telling you about." He'd received two-thirds of his pay for the just-completed job, but had never received payment for the last part. With R. Paccone Producciones and the Paccone Compagnias shut down and in bankruptcy court, there was little chance he'd ever see the last part so he needed to move on to new jobs and new adventures.

She nodded, understanding.

"What about you?" he asked. "What are you doing next?"

"I don't know. My contract with Paccone Producciones runs for two more films. The court is going to have to sort it all out. I've instructed my attorney to ask for an emergency injunction against enforcement of the contract. He says that will allow me to look for new work, but he's warned that it's going to be weeks or maybe even months before that goes anywhere."

"So you're saying you have some time off?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Ever been to Rio?"

The End

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading. Your feedback in the form of any reviews, comments, follows, or favorites will be greatly appreciated, too.

I really enjoyed the first xXx movie, the second not so much, and I haven't seen the third. Therefore, any errors in interpretation of the original xXx movie are purely my fault. I'm not completely sure but I believe a lightly loaded Airbus A300-600ST actually flying fast enough to perform zero-G dips may also be a figment of my imagination.

Finally, the inspirations for this story came from the challenge of a girl floating on air reading in a story challenge at Caesar's Palace forum in 2018, catching the opening of Barbarella on TV late one night, and stumbling across a video of Kate Upton doing zero-G on a 727.