<div class="floatleft"><div align="center">(https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/cdc1/04s7432n614occi4g.jpg)<br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">Chloe Dawson<br/>  ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾  </span></span></div></div><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>… holding Kimmie’s hand with one hand and the locket in the other, we leave the dining room with Ulla in the lead … locked doors unlock for us … from behind a window which I assume is a one way mirror, we observe a number of people watching monitors … they sip coffee and chat among themselves in what I assume is Swedish … and their eyes follow scan patterns from monitor to monitor … pause to observe movements of each car and each pedestrian … other monitors seem to be for radar … blips on a screen … the outside of our building and streets leading to it … these folks are serious! … we do not see their faces … all seem well aware we are here and have been trained to not reveal themselves …</em></span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">  “Ulla, can Kimmie come here sometime and watch? I’d be willing to bet this building is under surveillance from out there as well. She may see something your people haven’t yet. Defense in depth, right?”</span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>… we leave the room and are ushered into a conference room … a briefing chart appears on a screen … a disembodied voice explains that all identification here is biometric … that we have each been scanned and measured and profiled and they wish each of us to provide additional reference points … finger prints and voice prints and iris scans … Ulla begins to speak and I hold up my hand … she stops …</em></span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">  “I will submit to these scans. Consider, sisters, that the Shadow is assembling profiles of each of us and may be able to train imposters to appear as any of us. A friend a few years ago remarked to me that they knew they were paranoid but weren’t sure they were paranoid enough. We need to help our hosts and ourselves be calmly paranoid to the extreme. Lives are at stake, ours and many others. Remember our training and and remain calm and hypervigilant. If we see something, we say something.”</span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>… squeeze Kimmie’s hand … Huguette will teach her to remain calm in crisis …<br/><br/>… Ulla thanks me … I take the lead as she opens a door … one at a time we enter a scanner similar to those founds in airports … press our eyes to openings for cameras … offer our fingers for printing … … our faces receive a very thorough scan … turn this way and that … raise your eyebrows … look up … down … tilt your head … about 20 minutes each and I wait with Ulla for Kimmie to emerge … she seems grateful for my encouragement to our companions … my heart follows Carlotta as she boards a commercial flight to Rome … Foresight has never been so specific before … I am meant to be shown her future and her present and to observe when those merge … ‘goddess, must I’ … ‘yes child, you must. you will focus her gift and give it to Isis who will wield it’ … Kimmie emerges …</em></span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">  “Not so bad, eh Kimmie? They see you when you’re sleeping, they know if you’ve been bad or good, right?” #<em>Giggle</em></span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>… hold her hand and wait for Huguette and Tangie … Tangie seems shaken … Huguette is taking care of her …<br/><br/>… we next tour the building roof where greenhouses are homes to vegetables and a few fruit trees – citrus and Avocados …  winters here see the low 30s in both Fahrenheit and Celsius that are the same at -40 … and we will continue to have some fresh fruits and plenty of vegetables … many other buildings we can see also have similar greenhouses on their roofs … back inside, part of the top floor has been given over to hydroponics … experimental and beginning to show yields … seaweed in our salads … and a fish tank … someone asks about poultry … ‘not yet,’ we learn … too expensive for the effort yet possibly coming down … a mention of laboratory grown protein … Kimmie and Tangie seem to not look forward to that … such is our American food culture …<br/><br/>… then back down … how we evacuate our rooms for more secure places in the basement … how we will learn of the need … how to behave in case of fire … ‘basement, not outside where our enemies want us as targets’ … hold Kimmie’s hand and take it the minds of the security people … Daddy often said to trust the experts, if indeed they are experts … these seem to be all of that …<br/><br/>… Carlotta has been in the air for about an hour when we return to our dining room for lunch … what the Swedes would call a smörgåsbord … I prepare a plate with vegetables and more vegetables … and a bit of protein in the form of pickled fish in a light oil … a few crackers for carbs … Carlotta is being set up by another passenger … and she knows it … somehow I see the twinkle in her eye as she goes along with the setup … harassment that will lead her to report it to the police …<br/><br/>… after lunch, Kimmie and I separate … she to go with Huguette for lessons and I with Tangie to take an initial trip to the nearby clinic and drive by the university labs … hug Kimmie…</em></span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;">  “Learn well, my love. We have this evening alone after dinner, just the two of us. Such times will become rare.”</span></span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><em>… kiss her with a bit of passion … feel a stirring inside … my lust and also Isis connecting to her other parent … interesting, a part of my consciousness abstracts from the whole little scene … Ulla leads Tangie and I to a door that opens to a garage … the door to outside is closed … a white Saab 9-7X and a black Toyota Tahoe are parked in the space … Ulla indicates the Saab … tells us it like the Tahoe has special features … and that there are several Chevrolet Suburbans farther back … we will use the Saab for the time being …<br/><br/>… we climb into the back … Ulla takes the front next to the driver … the door opens and we emerge into afternoon daylight … the city seems strange through the blacked out windows … this is the first chance I have to get to know this strange sister Tangie who has been dropped in our laps as my Ob/Gyn and Isis’ midwife and Kimmie’s physician … I express sympathy at her being uprooted because of her associate with me through Kimmie … her smile is accepting … she mourns her companion … asks Ulla if pets are permitted in our building … yes, that would be nice … Ulla will ask …<br/><br/>… we tour the clinic … and speak briefly to the researcher who knows womb transplants … their skill will be later … first we need a womb for Kimmie and that is mine to make … the other facilities for childbirth are all I expect … will ask Ulla later about security here in 8 plus months … perhaps we need birthing support back in our secure facility … we talk too to the head of the clinic about Tangie joining their staff … acceptance of necessity seems to lead his thoughts … we are to be coddled and he will do this because he’s been told … note that Ulla recognizes his attitude …<br/><br/>… we leave and drive around the University which we’ll tour tomorrow … buildings are pointed out and described … one where they would like me to set up my lab and another if I don’t like those facilities are pointed out … we make our way back to our building … Tangie seems resigned … talk about how to retrieve her credentials … may not be possible without giving away whoever inquires and therefore us … one of the tragedies of what has happened …<br/><br/>… Carlotta deplanes in Rome … escorted to the police space to report her harasser … her inner smile is serene as she is mugged … bound … and transported out of the airport to a rural setting … they drug her … and the interrogation begins … the story she tells is an amazing piece of deception … perhaps someday I can lie with such facility … they put her in a cold, bright cell with a hard surface for the night … a cement slab to sleep on … I clutch her locket …<br/><br/>… Tangie recognizes something is distracting me … as we return to our building, she asks … ‘Carlotta is doing wonderfully! These are hard times.’ … and turn inward … Carlotta refuses my offer of strength … what she does is to give me and then Isis strength and we both understand that it may be barely enough … my brain images Frodo on the edge of the cliff with the ring … will he have the strength? … this, this is like that except that may have been fiction …<br/><br/>… back at our building, we have a half hour until our meal … I return to our rooms … Kimmie is not back … compose myself to wait and prepare to discuss my research tomorrow … a cusp is there somewhere and I cannot see it in detail … so many forks out from that … and not many are what we need … breathe and await inspiration … no options so relax and accept …</em></span></span><br/>