Chapter 15

At 8:08 the next morning I woke up to ‘Good Morning Arizona’ on the TV. Alan Davis was just wrapping up his recap of the news.

Davis said: “ ... the terrorists are reported to be associated with the “Hanafi Movement.” They have taken over the District Building. That’s the District of Columbia city hall. They also overan the Washington B’nai B’rith headquarters, and the Islamic Center of Washington. The D.C. Metropolitan police have surrounded each site and are negotiating, and the D.C. National Guard is on standby. It is not clear what the terrorists’ demands are. Over one hundred people have been taken hostage, and there are several deaths confirmed, so far.”

I padded across the room and turned it off. Where was my remote control when I wanted it?

I listened with my ear to the connecting door and heard Wolf’s baritone. I knocked, and the door opened soon enough. Flower was there and offered me birthday congratulations. “Did your period start yet?”

I shook my head ‘no.’ “I’m going to clean up in the bathroom and I’ll be right over.” The tape wrapping my ribs was a real problem, but I was resigned to wearing it as long as it took. After all, breaking the ribs was my idea.

I stuck my head under the shower and rubbed some shampoo into my shaggy blonde locks. Wait. That was in life #1, in Las Vegas, when I was an escort. This was life #2 and I was thirteen, with long black hair. The Hilton shampoo lathered up pretty well, and my left hand helped a little. I still couldn’t lift the arm much without hurting my ribs.

So I guess I still needed the tape. Sigh.

With my jeans on, and a fresh blouse, I joined Wolf and Flower. Together we went down to the restaurant. Asandro was there, enjoying an omelet. Hoskins and Stone were surprisingly bright and chipper, considering everything. They were having coffee and chewing on some Danish.

Wolf whispered, “Don’t let ‘em fool ya. That’s a lot of caffeine sitting there.”

I decided to give ‘em some slack, because I had a new design for them to look at.

“Good morning everybody!” I was chipper and the Doctors just looked up from their coffee. “Nick, did you see the news today?”

“Yes, I did. You were spot on. I’m moving a few degrees off skeptic and onto believing your story.”

The others looked confused. “Just something I told him yesterday. It’s not important.” I just had some oatmeal with bananas. I was still full from last night’s porterhouse. “I have one more chip design for you guys to look at.” All of them looked up.

“What is this for?” asked the ultra-geek, Dr. Stone. “A way to achieve cold fusion?” If he only knew.

“Nothing like that ... yet.” I laughed, to let him know it was a joke. “You’ll see. I can’t describe it. Intel will do some work on it, but not make the actual chips.”

Nick said, “Oh, come on, Lexi. You can tell us.”

“In here? In the open? You know I’m paranoid about this stuff.”

When we adjourned to the conference room, Stone opened his folio and put the eight-page drawing on the table.

“First, old business. Any questions on that one?”

Hoskins: “About a thousand, but they all boil down to ‘Will this work?’ And your answer is ‘Build it and see.’ So ... Yes, I have questions, but none of them are answerable at this point.”

Stone said, “Are we far enough along that we can send it to the research team?”

Asandro explained, “That’s the skunkworks you talked about. They are very tight-lipped.”

“I thought we were going to have a written agreement first,” I said.

“Okay ... how’s this?” He started writing, and I figured ... what the hell?

I passed out the solar chip design, putting the microprocessor design to the side.

Asandro: “How does this sound, Lexi?”

{blockquote}

This is a preliminary agreement between Alexis White Owl and Intel Corporation, being represented by Nicolo Asandro. It will be superseded by a formal contract within two weeks.

Subject: Microprocessor design created by White Owl

The parties agree that Intel will develop a proof of concept chip for the above captioned chip. If the chip works, the superseding contract will take effect. If not, this agreement will become null and void.

In either case, the non-disclosure document previously agreed between the parties will remain in force and Intel agrees to keep all discussion between White Owl and Intel strictly secret.