It’s called “hiding in plain sight” and it usually works. Pai is correct in that most hourly workers will not go out of their way to make trouble, such as asking their manager, “Why is there a UFO on the roof?”

Was able to write ahead a little, so there will be another update on Thursday and hopefully a teaser for Friday. From what they find in downtown SD, it appears Ildi is a star there, too. I’m tempted to have a quick trip up to Redding where the imperium (idolizing Aurie) polices the DMZ between the Russians (idolizing Reina) and Mexico (starting to idolize Ildi). That, historically, is a recipe for war.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Walking out of Caper, Graf looked around.  “You really think parking here, on top of their Air and Space Museum, is a good idea?”

“Sure!  If anyone notices it, they’ll assume it’s some new display,” Pai smiled.

“The only people on the roof will be maintenance guys.  They might have questions.”

“Hourlies making work for themselves?  You really don’t know the first thing about urban life, do you, Graf?”

He shook his head at his wife and looked east as the sun was about to rise.  “So how to get down?  I bet there are alarms in the building.”

Her answer was to grab him and jump off the three-story building, android knees flexing slightly at their landing.  Hours before opening time, there was no one about at all.

“Okay,” he said, adjusting his satchel.  She wore one, too.  Rucksacks would stand out and guns were illegal for commoners.  “So, where to?”

“Downtown,” she replied, pointing south past a huge highway interchange, “is about a mile that way.  We’ll look around and get you breakfast.  You are still a bit thin from your illness and I worry.  After that, if we’re allowed, we’ll take a ferry over to the Coronado peninsula and look about, there.”

“Why would we not be allowed?” he asked as they began walking south.  The sun had just risen.

“Two reasons,” Pai said after a quick look around that no one was watching or listening.  Not really needed as few were about.  Some cars on said highway but little else.  “One, the tip of the peninsula is a major naval base, first for the long-dead US, now for the Mexican navy.  Second, a hundred years ago, it was an enclave for the rich and powerful.  I don’t know if things have changed as there is nothing I can hear about it.”

“So you’re in signal?” he asked as they paused at a stoplight.

“Yes.  Thank you!” The latter as he took her arm as they crossed the street.  “Their Walls are nothing to me.  But…”

She almost never paused her thoughts or words.  “But?”

“There is something in this area I do not understand,” she said with a tiny tilt of her head.  “I’d send a request back home for analysis, but if it’s intercepted, we’d be in trouble.  It almost feels like another Machine.”

They continued on until arriving at a tall building built in typical early 20^th century Brutalist architecture.  At a street vendor’s cart across the broad street, Pai, in impeccable upper class Spanish, ordered a breakfast burrito for her husband.  While a foreign currency, the man was happy to take her silver coin.

“E, U, M,” Graf said to the letters atop the face of the building.  “They named the City Council building ‘um’?”

Pai laughed then lowered her voice.  “You have a very dry sense of humor, my Beloved, but I love it.  EUM are the letters for the official name of Mexico.  Being Latin-based, the word order is different from English.  And, more to the point…”

“Yeah,” he nodded, looking down the main east-west street.  Every other lamppost had a small banner of Ildi hanging from it.  “Looks as if she’s popular here, too.”

He tossed his wrapper into a trash can and let her guide him west, toward the bay.