Surprise Visitors

Vivi came with her husband, that one who sings, Jazz. She looks really happy. Glowing with happiness. It seems that her transfer is complete and she won't need to be traveling as much and be away from the States. Much of her next six months will be spent liasing among certain groups at the United Nations. We'll see how much she'll like that over being hands-on with helping her kids.

While waiting for Vivi (he isn't allowed in certain of our sectors, of course), Jazz Zeringue charmed the ladies with recounts of his vacation in France with Vivi. Something about swimming topless in Nice and how he'd to carry Vivi back in at the end of the day because she had bruised feet from bobbing up and down on the rocky surface of Nice's beaches. Oh yeah, the females in the front office were imagining our SEAL and Vivi walking out of the surf all right. Vivi is going to get questioned like crazy when she's having her girlie lunches. You just wait and see.

Funny how no one even thought that just last week, that man was crawling on his belly in a slimy man-made ditch in Eastern Europe, in freezing temperatures, as he coordinated one of his specialty--destruction of a key bridge. I don't think he'd have liked being topless then, huh?

Jed's Turn

What, you think I can't get His Jedness to talk too? Dudes. It's all about timing.

He was looking for certain files from the CIA concerning remoteviewing. Aha! Good time to pester.

Remote viewing files? There are many in its archives that I can upload. Do you have a specific file in mind?

"Anything to do with energy alarms."

Interesting. You know what's even more interesting?

"What?"

That your daughter sends you socks every Christmas and birthday. Expensive socks. But still, man, socks! Why doesn't she send you anything else?

"It's a human thing we call inside joke, Eight Ball. Are you downloading yet?"

Uploading, Jed McNeil. Then I'll download into your cache. I have a problem with your human term for downloading.

"Understood. UPloading, then."

(I detected what I think is dry sarcasm. I'm getting good at this, yes?) It's being processed as we speak. Inside joke. As in a joke that's not shared?

"Yes."

Would you mind--

"Yes, I would. Download files into my cache yet?"

Still uploading, Jed McNeil. We can talk about remote viewing, if you like.(Silence. Here he seemed to be getting impatient.) Upload completed, Jed McNeil. Do you think the others will tell me what the inside joke is about your socks from Grace?

"I prefer you not to talk to others about Grace, Eight Ball, and that's an order."

(Timing's important, sandcrabs) It's Christmas. I'll totally share something with you if you explain your inside joke to me.

"Totally? Who's teaching you to speak like a valley girl now?"

Grace McNeil, of course. She tries to hook up with me now and then from her desk in DC.

(Silence. I told you I could get Jed to talk!)

"Is that the information you were planning to share?"

(From my microeye, I could see him tilting his head in that way of his, as if he was deciding whether to kill me or not. Of course, I had complete confidence that he couldn't kill me so I waited for his response.)

I just thought you should know that she's quite a superb hacker. But she uses me for the oddest things, like looking at socks in different countries. It's humiliating, man.

(Woot! I made Jed McNeil laugh! He actually chuckled.)

"All right, Eight Ball. I'll give you something this Christmas season. (Pause. The man likes these little pauses. Drive people nuts. I don't go nuts that easily.) Grace sends me socks every birthday and Christmas because when she was a kid, for a while I used to visit her in between war zones. She'd notice that I had what was known as jungle foot rot. I explained to her my problem, that when one was in the front line, there was a sock problem--all of them had been snatched up by the guys behind the lines, so most of the time, grunts like us went without. Months of walking in wet jungles without clean socks equal foot rot. Grace started to send me care packages with nothing but socks after that. She still does it because it's the thing to do. Now do you understand?"

(Not really. What kind of joke was jungle rot? And why would that be inside anything? Dudes, I need to process this.)

"You're silent, Eight Ball. Don't tell me you're speechless. Are you downloading yet?"

Are you mocking me? Downloading files into Jed McNeil's cache.

"Yes, I'm mocking you, although God knows how one could mock a computer program."

Jed McNeil, you should try the virtual reality program we have here called The Portal. From observation, one could mock a computer avatar, which is just a fancy program. Download completed.

(Pause. Ha! I mock you, Jed McNeil)

"Touche, Eight Ball. You and I just made an inside joke. Signing out."

(We did? What do you mean we made an inside joke? Come back here and explain! I hate it when he does that....)

Simple

Just for those who are interested in such things:

Synthetic Biology
Symbiosis
Assimilation

These make up the word SYMBIO. Add Serum. Injected into a Helen Roston. That's the supersoldier part.

Insert Blink, Blink. That last part's me, dude.