From the odd interaction with Ninon, and Ai, Eloise is now thrust back into international politics. And her commanding general does not seem pleased.

Part Three shall end with Eloise going north. Plane? Scout saucer? Don’t know yet. Boy, am I going to have to edit and restructure the hell out of this MS.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

“I – ouch!” She tried and failed to sit up with a stab of pain through her skull.  “I know you’re busy and I’m a foreign bother…”

“Just shut up, okay?” Aurelia said with some exasperation.  “You’re my friend.  And anyway, I’m still working in the background.  Ai gave me a heads-up while you were over, so I and a couple of guys went looking for you.  Constructs take getting used to.  Even tribe Tohsaka’s.”

“That’s a word Ai used.  Oh, thank you.” Aurelia handed her a bulb of peach juice with a straw.

“The Machines can create an artificial environment to interact with humans and demis.  Clever, really, and we have no idea how they do it,” Aurelia explained, walking around the infirmary bed as she did, “but it can be very stressful.  Especially for normies.  Ai was the first and is the best.  Ninon?  She worked with Cousin Liz on the listening array on the backside of the moon, so is younger.”

“That,” she held up the empty bulb, which Aurelia took, “that, those words:  older and younger…”

“They talk that way and we’ve picked it up.  To be older is to possess new knowledge or temporal experience.” A shrug.  “They perceive things differently than we do.”

“Is that why Ai glowed?  Like your mother?”

Aurelia started at that.

“She touched you?” she asked.

“Yes.” Is this a big deal?  “She helped me up.”

“Wow.  Aren’t you Fortune’s favorite!”

“What?”

Aurelia chose to ignore her.

“Once you’re better in a bit, right before dinner you and me are going to talk to your General Burghy.  I want you out of here if the Texans get stupid.” She paused to look out the west facing window.  “Not that I think they will.  But after what Ninon tried, you must go.”

“Do you know what that person, Ninon, said to me?  It was a little confu – ”

She stopped at the Regent’s upraised hand.

“Private convo.  Do not get me involved.”

“Oh, okay.” Eloise closed her eyes.  “But it was really confusing.”

“Then think about it.  I’d tell you to pray over it but I already know you are faithless.” She shook her head.  “What a horrible way to live.  I cannot imagine.  A legionary will bring you to me in two hours.”

She was gone.

I don’t get any of this.  But, I’m going home?  Will I be shot?  I need to think about what that that Ninon woman said.  Eloise asked the nurse for a notepad and a pen.

Eloise sat to Aurelia’s left at a conference table with a camera trained on them, the laptop screen before them showed General Burghy.

“Shit,” was his polite beginning.  “I expected this.”