B.V.C
Cordova is sitting in a meeting that has no interest to him. He’s been asking Mirage for the progress of reclaiming the data. He gets an answer after the meeting is over. Mirage gives the details.
“Once the system restarted, we found a scythe program. While we removed it from our network, the data became corrupted. So we don’t have what her team was working on. The other P.D.A.s weren’t activated, so they didn’t record any of the new data. She has taken or destroyed her P.D.A.” Frustration doesn’t even set in. He simply tells Mirage the plan. “I want you to put out a ping order. We have to have someone somewhere working where she is.”
Mirage vanishes from his vision. While walking back to his office Dr. Lowry cuts him off. He’s upset about his Mindtop being rejected. Dr. Lowry’s voice is childlike to Cordova’s ears.
“Mr. Cordova I wanted to talk about the Mindtop again, I don’t think you really got the full purpose of it.” I guess this is what I get for putting him down softly in the meeting. “I made my point clear, Dr. Lowry. It’s too expensive. We will need human test subject from the beginning. You know how much that runs. We can’t market daydreaming to companies.”
“That’s what I mean, Mr. Cordova,” Dr. Lowry interrupts him. “It’s so much more than that. It keeps information always at the ready. Full and complete retention of information. These experiments that you are complaining about could all be done in our heads without any waste of money or extra resources. I ask you to reconsider the Mindtop, Mr. Cordova.” I don’t want to continue this dialogue so I finish it. “There is no money to be made in it. There is no market for it. I won’t make a product that doesn’t make money. What I do want is the specifics on the T.G.M. in the next four hours.” I motion a young lady over to us. “Please show Dr. Lowry to the helicopter waiting to take him back to the airport.”
Cordova enters his office, and thinks his jacket off. He uses the digit to recall some reports. Data charts the current figures for these new synergy products. He thinks the same thought over and over again. How much money could that be worth?
The Res Nullius 2062
I’ve been running tests for an entire week. The girl is cured. I’m still getting an ear full from Lois, saying that I put her in more danger than the disease. She didn’t want me testing this formula on any other diseases on board. Emilia came to me last night at dinner asking me if I wouldn’t mind teaching, along with doing some resident work, until we get to India. I couldn’t decline. To be honest, I think some of the funniest things happen to people who are in the medical field.
My third year at Saint Francis Medical Center, a seventeen-year old girl and her mother came in wanting a pregnancy test for the girl. It’s blood work, so it’s a hundred percent accurate. I came into the examination room with the results, and there on the examination bed were eight home pregnancy tests that read pregnant. Her mother asked me how could this happen when her daughter’s boyfriend had been pulling out.
There was this nurse at the medical center. One day, she was escorting a patient back to the psych ward. He became violent with her, screaming that he was going to kill her. The orderlies pulled him off of her, taking him back to his room. Our chief medical examiner had given the nurse the next two days off to try to forget about it. The next day in our daily meeting, we talked about new policies when traveling with patients. Another doctor said, “Hell, I’d kill her.” Even with this being said out loud and with me clearly holding back laughter, the meeting continued. I guess we do dig our own graves.
I enter my room. The Ortega family is there along with Lois. “Ally, you being here has made this the ship’s most preeminent passage.” Emilia walks up to hug me.
“Thank you for my daughter.”
I haven’t felt like this in years. This immeasurable joy encompasses my soul. Emilia asks me if I want to live here on the Res Nullius. It isn’t like I haven’t thought about it. I didn’t smile this much even as a child. Before I could respond Emilia heard something in her earpiece. She looked at me. Picking up Hilarity, she starts running.
“Someone is holding a hangar bay hostage. He’s already killed someone. He says if you aren’t there in forty-three minutes, he’ll kill somebody else.” She gives Hilarity to Ortega, telling them to hide. We stop at a hidden garage door. Emilia opens the door using her hail bracelet. A small car with sirens on top is inside. As we speed to the hangar, I can’t hear the sound of the sirens over my thoughts that someone is dead because of me.
We’re met by two of her soldiers who bring us to the door of the bay. They both have their guns drawn. As we go deeper into the bay, we see about thirty people face down on the ground, their hands on the backs of their necks, fingers laced. A man is perfectly hidden behind a woman in a corner. A gun points at her head and another gun points at us. When he saw us, he spoke.
“Now that you brought her, leave. And they all get to live.” Emilia spoke to him. “Charlie, what’s going on here? You haven’t even met the good doctor, now you want to take her for a joy ride? Maybe you’ve been on the ship too long.
I’ll put you down for some land leave. How about that?” He repeats himself and he pushes forward, shooting at us. After the sound of gunfire dies down all I can smell is blood. The woman he held hostage is crying I look over to see the shooter dead on his back. I move over to Emilia. She’s on her knees, applying pressure to a chest wound on someone on the ground. I told her to move so that I could help. She pushes me.
“How could you help when this is your fault?”
I look to see who was shot. No one had seen Isadoro coming up from behind.
“He pushed me out of the way,” Emilia says.
I tell her that her father has a better chance with me helping him, and to get the people out of here and then to bring the car.
She orders the group of people to get up and keep up. She runs to the entrance with them trailing behind.
While I was trying to save Isadoro’s life, Emilia’s guard comes over to help me carry Isadoro out of the hangar to load him in the car. We are about half way through the hangar bay when the woman that was held hostage comes from behind and starts shooting at us. The guard pulls Isadoro and I into cover and draws his gun. He takes out his earpiece giving it to me.
“Mama’s frequency is the only one that radio is connected to. Tell Emilia where you are, and I’ll give you cover.” He makes his way down the hangar in a fire fight, screaming at me to move. I see Emilia crouch-walking toward me to help put her father in the car. I start probing for the bullet, but he calls to us to listen.
“I put your items along with the cargo into the Comet. It has enough fuel to get you to India. Lois will tell you the rest,” He calls to Emilia. “You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met. Your mother wanted a boy because she hated her sisters but once you were born, we couldn’t get enough of you. You’ve grown out of my shadow and into your own person. Becoming a better leader, a better parent, a better person then I ever could have been. Emilia.” Isadoro dies quietly. Before I could get a chance to say anything, a bullet comes through the car’s rear window, forcing Emilia to drive faster.
She tosses back a gun while rolling down the windows, I target the driver, seeing that it is Emilia’s guard shooting at us now. I fire four shots before I have to take cover.
“Ally, come and take the wheel when I tell you to hit the brakes do it.” Emilia yells over his gunfire. We exchange the wheel for the gun. She hides in the back seat, using her switch blade to cut off the metal buckles of the seatbelt. She hurls them out the window, causing his windshield to crack. I see the ramp that I have to take to get to Ortega’s home when Emilia screams at me to hit the brakes. Both cars come to a stop, he’s a few paces away from us. Her guard exits his car with alacrity pointing his gun at me. I sit in the driver’s seat, anxiously my hand ready at the trunk switch. He comes to the driver side door and asks “Where’s your friend?” I pull the switch, and his attention shifts to the trunk of the car, giving me the opportunity to draw the gun. I shoot him in the skull.
We rush into Ortega’s home. Lois scans us before we enter. She had already put Hilarity into the bedroom so she wouldn’t see the blood on our clothes.
“I don’t blame you for my father. Casualties are something that we are accustomed to. Please try to do something to change that. I thank you again for my daughter, but now you must go.” Emilia says what I need to hear. I climb into the Comet’s cockpit, and Lois begins to amalgamate with the Comet’s CPU. The roof of the home opens, and we fly out of the Res Nullius, not knowing what would become of the captain and her crew.
B.V.C
While sitting in his office, Mirage appears in front of him.
“Sir.” Mirage says. The door opens, and a Blue Tie enters his office and sits in the bonsai chair. His double voice makes it difficult to understand him.
“I took control of the ship when I jumped into our contact’s body.” the Blue Tie says.
“Could you get to the point while you’re still alive,” Cordova says. “She got away. We didn’t get a chance to find out where she was going before she killed the host. The whole ship went on lockdown, which is why I had to return to my body.” Cordova waves his hand. The Blue Tie mistakes it as a sign for him to leave. A vine wraps around his ankle, whipping him at the wall.
“She will have to make a move soon. I want a soldier ready.” He says
Mirage leaves. Cordova couldn’t stop thinking about the numerous possibilities the data could bring. He wasn’t sleeping well. All of his time is spent thinking about the amount of money Vertumnus will make once they get this data. Endless ideas stain his mind. With this data he’ll be remembered as the greatest innovator, a modern day Leonardo Da Vinci. He could already see his name being added to the history division for placement.
Earth 2112
I snap out of the connection due to an emotion overload. The walls around me take shape, and I feel the chair landing. I peel from the chair and fall to the ground. Dr. Funakoshi syncs into my medical application, using my own chemicals to entice my body to calm down. I come to my feet and I can’t help but hug her. I feel a bond that I can’t compare anything to. Unknown to me she was living a memory of my own as I was living hers. She tells me in great detail of the time I went offline for five years to improve my perspective. She agrees with some of the theories I came to in my solitude.
We leave the room to eat. The experience has left us hungry. She tells me of a traditional Japanese ramen shop in downtown Mexico City. We dine ,and I ask follow-up questions. She gives me a recording of both of our memories. She borrows a line car to take me to my lodging and we store each other’s information in our contacts. I write the entire way to my room. Dr. Huerta’s life has this emotion that I wish to spill over to the reader. Certain fears are a nonexistent factor in our lives these day, but isn’t uncertainty the nature of the universe?
The idea of freedom is a cruel goal. It has no end or beginning just an unsavory middle. Knowing that you will have to live a life of your choosing even with everything we possess and finding yourself is still the principal obstacle of life. When I wake up I forgot where I am and it startles me for a second. I make preparations so I can get back home. I unsync from the room, removing the colors of the home furnishings and walls, returning it all back to white. As I leave the room I can see the cleaning automatons come, removing whatever traces of myself I left. I arrive home around 1315, and Oberon greets me when I enter.
“Speculate what has happened to me?” Oberon asks.
“Not until you tell me,” I reply. Oberon chuckles while he talks.
“I finally graduated from my gastronomy school. We are going out to celebrate.” I think into more comfortable clothing and sit down in the living room, pulling up my keyboard and screen.
“I would love to celebrate with you, but I have a lot of work to do. You of all people should understand that.” He has a manipulative look in his eyes. “I can’t believe you are making me do this.” A deck of cards emerges from thin air. They’re labeled Friend Cards. He plucks them from the air, then opens them up. He pulls out one and hands it to me.
“I’m the only person in Earth’s history to have completed twenty-four schools. Why wouldn’t you want to celebrate with me?” I held the card in my hand until I couldn’t hold back the laughter. “Do you really want to list my reasons? All right, I’ll go out tonight to paint it up with you.”
Oberon smiles. He emails me a trail point to where we will commemorate his achievements. Holo-projected bread crumbs will direct me to the location of the party. Oberon asks me what I think of his clothing choices. He has downloaded from a fashion designer he is friends with. He transforms his clothing three times. I like the second option. He chooses the first option. He tells me to be there around 2300, not before.
Oberon’s breadcrumbs lead me to this living community called Nomad’s Place. I can tell by their clothing which people are here for Oberon. The club he rented is a holoroom which he has programmed to mimic Carnegie Hall. Instead of seating, there is a dance floor with tables peppered around the stage for a V.I.P section. Getting to Oberon from the entrance isn’t the easiest task. The place is packed.
“Oberon, you don’t know this many people. You know seventeen people, max.” We sit in the middle of the stage in clear view of everyone.
“I invited our living community plus this one as well. Why squander a grand night with people I already know?” We leave the V.I.P. to mingle. Once we have a satisfactory amount of new acquaintances gathered from the party, we take them back to the VIP area. We speak about our ideologies and our plans for the world. It only take me back to Dr. Huerta and Lois. I can’t stop thinking about their sacrifices. What does my generation know about sacrifices? I can’t stay in a positive attitude. I text Oberon to let him know I’m leaving.
Just a few feet from the E-Mag platform, a man sits on the ground holding his abdomen. There’s blood on his shirt. He asks for help. He had stopped under a health Station. I open the small room laying the man on the table as the room syncs with me. My overwrought condition went away I use small talk to keep the man conscious.
“So how did this happen?”
He speaks loudly I think it’s the adrenaline. He tells me about a fight that he had gotten into for walking into the wrong bar and talking to the wrong woman. I patch the man up, putting him in a line car to take him to a hospital.
On my ride back home, I begin to rethink my opinion about my generation. We still feel anger, we still act out in violence, when there is no other way to express yourself. We can’t blame our parents anymore. God can’t be blamed because that holds no responsibility over us. Some people just aren’t ready to stare their faults in the face accepting them for what they are, the qualities that make you the person you choose to be.
I open the local news feed of my Mindtop. The space station Nausea has announced that the radiollite Sagan has reached sixty-two billion light-years past our solar system. I do believe that there is intelligent life in the galaxy. The simple fact that I’m here is enough of a reason to believe as any. Our reasons for searching for life beyond our system is no different than our ancestors moving from place to place seeking warmer climates, safer regions, better food.
What a marvelous learning experience for the species as a whole. In most of the twenty-first century space travel was limited to animals and a few thousand people due to the ludicrous idea of a budget. Once that was eliminated, space travel opened up to anyone who had the desire to get us into space.
I finally got clearance to have my next interview. She lives in a remodeled agrarian home that is now mobile. She had sent me an email telling me to be at the top of my living community in about an hour. I waited on the roof, surrounded by children playing. You don’t get your Mindtop and tragus chip until you are ten years of age. It’s when certain areas of the brain start to develop, The Mindtop helps nourish the imagination along with logic. The children me if I could imagine Mars. There is a projector that I sync into, giving the children the red planet for their playground. Their play was that a team of Earth’s scientists with the local Martians had discovered an old evil that was sealed away millions of years ago, planning to infect all of us. Some played as Earthlings, some as Martians.
A red ship hovers down to us, landing on the children’s Martian playground. It is the Comet that Isadoro Ortega had given Dr. Huerta and Lois for their escape. It opens in the way I imagine. I can’t believe I’m getting a chance to meet her. Lois soars out of the cockpit, giving the children quite a scare.
“So you ready to get this show on this road? In a manner of speaking.” Flying in the Comet isn’t as rough as I thought it would be. I can’t stop talking about how great it is to meet her. Lois tells me to save the compliments until I know everything about her. Standing in the sky, with the help of solar-hover panels, is a beautiful twenty-first century home. We land in the garage and walk into her home, which is furnished for a machine. The only furniture is a chair for me to sit in. She lands in her docking station, and an image of her and Dr. Huerta in the Comet appears on the wall.
“Just let me know when you are ready, I’ll start my memory.
I open my notepad, pulling up my keyboard along with my camera.
Maharashtra, India, 2062
From the cockpit of the comet staring down at this enormous city, the colors, the building, and the people moving in and around overwhelms my perception. The only thing I can think about is all the death I’ve created, not just Amanda, Lukeman, and Ortega but also the weapons I’ve made. Even in my attempt to help, I hurt. What I should have done was just revel in my success of being a monster. No one was encouraging me to be anything else.
A call comes into the Comet’s video screen. A man with a full head of black hair appears, he has a full beard and he’s younger than me.
“Dr. Huerta, my name is Khazana D’souza, leader of Samsara. Captain Ortega must have filled you in on everything, including the location of our headquarters. We have a Samsara painted on top of our building. We wait for your arrival.”
We are now in India, in the city of Maharashtra. From the sky you really can’t tell what you’re looking at because of so much color and movement. He was right. We can see the large painting on the roof of a colorful wheel with images inside the wheel. Lois lands us on top of a seventeen-stories high building.
“Hey, sad sack, I don’t have hands so get what we need. It takes me a while to unhook from all this.” Lois says.
I remove my seat belt grabbing my backpack exiting the ship. Lois opens the cargo hold and, as I start to unload the cargo, the door to the building opens. Out comes a mix of seven twenty-somethings, maybe younger, with automatic weapons. They’re dressed in traditional India garb, and behind them is D’souza. He speaks to them in Indo-Asiatic-Burman. They take over hauling the cargo. He walks over, speaking English and escorts me into the building.
“Where is your friend Lois?”
She meets up with us at this moment.
“You two are on the fast track now. My army Samsara has been holding out the best we can, but this P.M.C. Olive Branch has very good propaganda. They’ve successfully turned our people against us, but we are in luck. Another small militia in Mexico is fighting the same P.M.C. so we are going to launch a co-op counter strike on their home base in Los Angeles. I’m sure you are aware of who the owner of Olive Branch is? The Vertumnus Corporation.”
As we walk through the building, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. We have just walked into a farm. I see mangos, bananas, pineapples and onions. There are fields for lambs, poultry, rabbit, and pigs, and buffalo. As we pass this farm, we hit the stores. Electronics, grocers, self-made toy stores, and clothing. I’d never been in the middle of a bazaar, especially one inside a building.
We go down another level. It’s clearly residential. We can see a children’s playground. We walk through a door with Sanskrit written on it, and he welcomes us to his home. We sit enjoying tea as he goes over his plan.
“I wish we had time to show you the sights of my beloved country, but we are gathering for our surprise attack. We have three An-225’s fueled and ready to take us tonight.” A feminine voice from the other room calls to Khazana, and in steps a woman in her third trimester.
“Oh, I didn’t know that we have company.” He stands by the woman introducing her. “This is my wife Vajramani.” Once I saw her I couldn’t help but go in physician mode. I get her off her feet, checking her vitals, asking her the simple questions. She assures me that everything is fine. Her ob/gyn gave her a clear bill to fly.
“What? She is not going with us,” I say.
Khazana held his wife’s hand. “Vajramani hasn’t left my side in fourteen years. She was there when I was building the Res Nullius, and she will be there when I build the Nausea. She is my everything. My hands go to my hips.
“There is nothing I can say that can top that. She doesn’t leave your sight until we land. She stays hidden and guarded.”
“Is there any other way?” he replies. “Do you mind if we borrow you, Lois? We have a huge deal of computer details we need to go over. Do you think you could help us?”
I ask Lois if she might transfer data or accidentally trip into Vertumnus servers? She tells me that it’s safe. She will only work with computers that don’t have a feed. She’ll walk them through whatever is connected.
I stay with Vajramani and she gives me a full run of the facilities leaving me a Banarasi Saree to change into. She tells me not to worry, she had sown in pant legs to help her run. I haven’t felt this pretty in years.
“I see that you are not without your shine Doctor,.” Vajramani says to me. We all get into a Tata Nano heading for the air strip. I sit in the back seat talking with Vajramani. “How did Khazana get into all this mess? Isn’t he an architect?” She chuckled while playfully tapping my hand. “Gandhi was a lawyer. That didn’t stop him. Khazana’s first project was the living communities. He didn’t get enough funding due to American companies buying each area he had a stake in. Then Mr. Ortega and his people asked him for the Res Nullius. It changed him. He came home one night, and I thought he was drunk. He couldn’t stop talking about what this ship could do and what it will do. He said. ‘“I’ve been focusing on India too much. The world is our home.”’ Since then he hasn’t stopped trying to help the world.”
We pull into the airstrip. Three massive airplanes wait one behind the other. I walk with Vajramani to our plane. I buckle her in, and she thanks me.
I head to my seat in the cargo hold with Lois. On my way I bump into Khazana.
“I forgot to tell you about the man who will be helping you get into Vertumnus. His name is Galtero Vasquez.” I fall into my seat. Galtero fills my head. I haven’t seen him since I was eighteen. He grew up in a war orphanage and studied philosophy when school grants were only given to people who would join the army or the police. He stopped going to school. Why would he help me? I’m responsible for the state of his world. The F.C.M just happens to be my best weapon in a long line of weapons.
The sound of Vajramani stumbling to the bathroom woke me. I got up to help her to the toilet and we talked through the door.
“Khazana told me that you are a designer and that you pretty much revitalized the home when you two were working on the Res Nullius. What are some of your designs?” She hummed while she was thinking. “Presets for the shower so you can save water temperatures. The hail bracelet is my design, along with the wall stacking on the ceiling so you could design how you feel. Most of it was from the living community idea he had. We just made it to fit form.” She came out of the bathroom and I helped her to her seat saying good night. I see Khazana waiting for me at my seat.
“Ah Ally, I wanted to ask you about Ortega. How is he doing?” I forget that I haven’t told him.
“Khazana, sit down.” I tell him about what transpired on the Res Nullius. He sits still for a while, and then begins telling a story about when he met Ortega.
Ortega invited the best and brightest to Galicia to mingle ideas with people from other nations. He was giving a speech at the arrival dinner and had told a horrible joke. Khazana was the only one who laughed while the room was dead silent. Ortega came to him after the dinner, telling him, “Kissing a little ass never hurt anybody.” Two years later Ortega adapted Khazana’s living community into a ship. The rest was history. He turns away, asking me to give him a minute.
Lois joins Khazana and me. She asks him about the name of his space station.
“Are you familiar with the novel Nausea?”
Lois said no.
“The author Jean-Paul Sartre’s themes are the reason I keep reading it.”
“Like what?” Lois asks.
He goes on with detail about why he chose the name. “Antoine, one of the main characters, has a sickness he calls Nausea. While sick, he starts to consider his reality. Why we are here even if we are here? After meeting the Autodidact, Anny and Francoise, he comes to the realization that people are free to make themselves. This Nausea is something we all have to live with. I want my progress to reflect how far we still have to go, and how hard it will continue to be. Now if you will excuse me, I have a wife to check on.” He walks up into the cockpit. Lois and I talked about what is to come.
“What’s your plan, Ally? Once you get me all blocked up, what next? They are going to strap you to a chair and rip that information out of your brain.” I shout her name. After the shock of it waned, I speak.
“You know what I have to do.” She flies in closer to me. “What are you talking about?” I look away from her while I explain my plan. “While this Dr. Lowry puts up your walls, I’m going to slip out and get caught in some crossfire. It seems like a reasonable death for someone like me.”
A red light fills the room. Khazana comes through the overhead speaker.
“We are landing. Get ready.”
Lois explains their plan to me with great excitement.
“It’s a Trojan horse. Khazana and Galtero have moles inside Olive Branch. They have been sending them uniforms and other equipment helping them. Even got them clearance to land at Ciudad del Carmen, also L.A.X. You’re from Tamaulipas, right?” I’d never really seen poverty until Galtero took me to the poor side of Tamaulipas. We spent two years in college together. To this day, I’ve never been so involved with a man. I did my best to find out everything about him, and he would be still full of mystery. “Yeah, I grew up in Reynosa.” We’ve been mobile for so long the new routine of everything is fastened into our daily lives. It makes me think maybe I can just keep running, fake my death, and live on an island. If it all could be that easy. Khazana tells us that we are refueling and picking up the Mexican militia. It gives us time to step out, stretch our legs. “Smoke’em if ya got’em.” I step out with Lois to look at the sunrise.
After my fill of the scenery, I turn around to head back to the plane bumping into someone behind me.
“Do you have to stand right behind me?” I say.
“I didn’t think you would be able to speak Spanish so well, Ally.” That voice. It’s Galtero. His voice is deeper, more masculine. He has a curved scar going down his right eyebrow. I don’t notice that my hand is touching the scar until his hand touches mine.
“Never mind that, Galtero, how did you become the leader of a militia?” As we walk back to the plane, he tells me about his life. The orphanage he grew up in was turned into a front for gangsters. A few of the orphans came back older and trained by Lukeman and freed the orphanage. They gave him control and also taught him how to be a soldier. The orphanage became a military school.
Vertumnus has been selling the water at a constantly rising price in Mexico, also in the lower parts of the United States. The militia, Los Sombras, has been liberating dams and reservoirs, giving the water back to the people. It makes my work on the F.C.M seem egotistical, futile. So many people have been giving before me. Galtero simply tells me that it doesn’t matter when you start helping people. It matters that you do. We land in L.A.X. posing as Olive Branch P.M.C.s. We motor move toward the headquarters of Vertumnus in downtown Los Angles. Khazana and Vajramani have been taken to a warehouse that will be command central. Lois, Galtero, and I are in the same van.
The route we are on takes us to the house of Dr. Lowry. Galtero tells me that they’ve had surveillance on him since he came back from Vertumnus in New Guadalajara. He lives alone, making it easier to enter his home. Then he can fix Lois while they get authorization codes from him to attack Olive Branch in all directions. Galtero and three soldiers get out of the van, all dressed in plain clothes. One stands with Galtero while two go to the back. Galtero knocks on the white door of the doctor’s designer home but forcefully lets himself in. We wait for our radio command. After what I assume to be fifteen minutes, a voice from the radio tells us to pull the van into the garage. Lowry had been thrown into the van so he takes his time getting up as we drive out of his garage.
“I can’t believe that Cordova is going to kill me over one complaint. I mean, you call a guy a money-hungry fiend, but I presumed a man of his stature has heard that a lot.” He looks down while dusting off his clothes and cleans his glasses.
“I’m sure if we were sent to kill you by Cordova you wouldn’t be winning any brownie points with your would-be killers.” Lois says.
He looks up in surprise. “What is going on? Why is one of my P.D.A’s here?”
I look into Dr. Lowry’s blue eyes.
“Hello. My name is Dr. Arantxa Huerta. I was working in the New Guadalajara offices.” I went on about my work on the F.C.M, Lukeman, the Res Nullius, and then tell him why we need him.
“There’s one problem with wanting to do a block. My phone is with me. It’s connected to Vertumnus, Lois might have already hooked up and submitted the F.C.M data into Shirley. It could be in all sectors of Vertumnus now.”