Chapter 13

March 8, 1977

The sun came up while we were driving to Flagstaff. Tomorrow was my thirteenth birthday. The day Carla sold me to some trucker in life #1. Screw her. Oh crap! If things didn’t change much, my first period was due to start.

I told Wolf to get us a room for tonight and tomorrow. I just couldn’t see Asandro believing all this in just a day AND reviewing the drawing and understanding it, in just one day. Well, actually it was a few days. We got there at 9:10. The ‘Intel party’ was already here, having breakfast. There were four of them when we strolled into the restaurant. We walked over and Wolf said hello.

“I’m looking for Mr. Asandro?” he asked, politely. “I’m David Crying Wolf. I’m Miss White Owl’s attorney.”

The guy who looked like the picture Red had placed in my memory stood, “I’m Asandro. Glad to meet you.” He shook Wolf’s hand, and then turned to Desert Flower. “You must be Miss White Owl.” He stuck his hand out again.

“No,” she said calmly, “I’m Desert Flower, Crying Wolf’s wife ... This young lady is White Owl.”

I smiled and said, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you Mr. Asandro. I don’t want to interrupt your breakfast. Shall we have them bring over another table?”

He was good, I’ll give him that. He waved to the waiter and told him to bring up another table, without missing a beat. “So, you are the talented lady who sent me that drawing?”

“I am, indeed.”

After some of the of the junior functionaries rearranged themselves, we sat at the new portion of the table. I tucked a briefcase – borrowed from Chairman Panther Strike – between my feet. Asandro noticed. One of the Intel team was wearing a three-piece suit, but the other members of the Intel team were in sport coats with no tie.

Wolf and Flower just ordered tea, but I was hungry. I looked at the menu, and ordered a Monte Cristo breakfast, and OJ.

Asandro smiled. I could almost see the thought pattern in his head: adolescent = always hungry = eat more food.

“Did your children eat like hungry bears, too, Mr. Asandro?” Wolf asked with a smile. “In addition to her attorney, I am the legal guardian of White Owl. And she has always surprised me ... Who are these other gentlemen?”

“I had a field hockey player and a football player all through the high school years, so I know about the hungry bear appetite,” Asandro said with a smile. “My associates are Robert Stearborne, one of our lawyers, Dr. Archie Hoskins, and Dr. Mark Stone. The latter two are senior members of Intel’s microprocessor design teams.” Stone had coke-bottle glasses, round with metal rims, and a pinched face. His hair was longish: over the ears. If he looked more like a geek, he’d have to have a pocket protector. Hoskins was a middle-aged man, but without the middle-aged spread, salt and pepper hair that was thinning on top, with a big nose.

My food arrived and I put the conversation on hold while I ate it. I finished mine before the Intel team finished theirs, despite the fact that they’d started before me. Bill Clearwater arrived while I was finishing off the potatoes. He was introduced as the representative of the Navajo nation.

I could see the questions floating above Asandro’s head like multiple question marks.

Time to redirect the conversation to the matter at hand. “I hate to talk business with a full stomach, but let’s get started. I assume the hotel has a conference room,” I said.

“Rob, can you check on that, please.” And the three-piece suit got up to track down a room. Wolf insisted on paying for our food, and Asandro signed the check for the remainder.

Stearborne led us to a comfortable meeting room, and the hotel staff bustled in with coffee, tea, and various soft drinks. Bottled water was some decades in the future. Did you ever notice that in the ‘advanced future,’ we paid more per fluid ounce for water that we did for gasoline. Gasoline had to be extracted from the earth and processed in multi-million dollar refinery; the best bottled water came bubbling from the earth.

I put my briefcase on the table, and Stearborne did the same. He passed a copy of the non-disclosure memorandum to Asandro and another copy to me. I laughed, and passed it over to Wolf. “I think Mr. Lawyer would do more with this than I could.”

“Sorry. Of course,” said Stearborne.

Wolf was browsing through the three pages of the non-disclosure. “Lexi, who do you want to include in this?”

We’d discussed this exact point on the drive over, and I gave him the answer we had agreed on. “This should be signed as an individual and in his corporate, or tribal position, by everybody who takes part in these discussions. Also, everybody has to agree not to disclose to anybody else what we talk about.”

“Clear, Mr. Stearborne? That’ll be a modification,” said Wolf.

The Intel man looked to Asandro for conformation. “Obviously,” said Asandro, “if we like the design, we’re going to take this to all our team.”

“No,” I said, “Not all the team. Only to your skunkworks, until we agree to go to full production.”

“Skunkworks?”

“Uh ... your high-level research team. Lockheed has a ‘skunkworks’, and I’m sure you know what it is.”

“Hmm ... All right, I can live with those changes.”

Stearborne said it would take him a couple of hours to prepare an addendum.

“Take your time, Mr. Stearborne,” I said, dismissing him entirely. He was taken aback, having been given orders by a little girl. “My first conversation should be with Mr. Asandro, alone, and has no real technical component. We’ll probably take two or three hours for that. Wolf, I won’t need you at this meeting.”

Wolf was surprised. “Are you sure, White Owl?”

“Quite sure.” He paused to consider things, and then agreed. “Flower and I will check out our rooms. See you at lunch. Or you can call me if you need to.”

I got up to talk with Flower as she walked to the door. “I think I’m going to get my first period in the next few days. Can you get me some pads?”

Asandro and I waited until all the others had left. I waited a couple of minutes and then opened the door, suddenly. I found an empty hall. “Sorry, sir, but I can’t trust anybody. I’ve been advised that I’ll have – quote – enemies before this is all over – unquote. And I don’t know what that means.”