Truth & Code: The Future is Black and White
Continuation

Continuation

Block 7,931,500

“Good morning, babe!”

“Good morning,” Laura replies.

“Do you want me to pick you up this morning?”

“Sure. That would be nice.”

“Have you had your coffee or breakfast yet?”

“I’ve had coffee this morning, but I’m not hungry, so I have had nothing for breakfast.”

“What would you say to pan dulce?”

“Yummy... My favorite, sure!”

“Your wish is my command. I’ll swing by in several blocks.”

“Ok, see you then, babe.”

“Ciao.”

Fabian ends the call, finishes getting ready, and walks down to hail an AV.

“AI, Pastelería y panadería Cifuientes.”

The AV makes its way to the pastry shop. Fabian walks in to order several types of pan dulce and gets some coffee in a carry case. Next, he heads to Laura’s house; As he arrives, she’s stepping up to the AV.

“Good morning, beautiful!”

“Good morning to you, sir.”

“Hop on in. I got some pan dulce and some coffee, just in case.”

“I won’t say no to either. Is this Salvadoran or your inferior Guatemalan blend?” She smiles and winks at him as she pulls the top off of the coffee to blow the steam.

“My dear, it is not inferior, but no, this is Salvadoran. I stopped by pastelería Cifuientes.”

“Great, one of my favorite Pastelerías in all of Bitcoin city.”

“Yeah, I love the vibe in there.”

The AV heads to NodlSat.

“Did you enjoy our date last night?” Fabian asks.

“No, that’s why I’m sitting in the AV with you now.” Laura smiles and gently leans to push Fabian with her shoulder. Her perfume mixes with the smell of coffee. Fabian thinks, “Yes, I can get used to that in the morning.”

“Well, just asking. Anyway... today should be an interesting day. I’m looking forward to pulling everyone together and getting thoughts on where we are with our recovery op.”

“Yeah, me too. Three days between communications is long, but it’s been prudent. It’s given me time to focus on my students, but it does help to have a good TA to help.”

The AV pulls up to the NodlSat Plaza. Laura steps out of the AV. Fabian follows and pats her on her ass. Then, she turns around and smiles.

“Now, now. Not for you yet, my dear.”

“A guy can dream, can’t he?”

“No se puede tocar la fruta hasta que esté lista para la cosecha.” She says with a wink.

Fabian raises his hands, “Ok, Ok, Mi melocotón.”

They get up to the 21st floor and walk into his office. The team has already assembled around the conference room table. Jim is sitting on the couch. He gets up, walks to Laura, hugs her, and kisses her on the cheek.

“Hola, chica.”

“Hola, muchacho.”

Fabian sits at the table. Laura and Jim sit down together on the couch.

Fabian begins, “Ok, team, what do we have?”

An engineer speaks up, “Well, we have encouraging news. We’ve sent out about seven message sequences. And our sequences have gotten longer and longer, meaning we can send four or five or more sequences at the same interval, and we have gotten a lot of information pushed to them.”

“Great.”

“Where are we in communication, or what have we asked?”

The engineer pulls up his console and begins to display for all to see:

-54686520776f726c6420686173206265656e2073706c697420666f7220313530207965617273 |

-436974697a656e732068657265206b6e6f772061626f757420796f752e20 |

-436173682069732074726173680d0a |

-596f757220636974697a656e7320646f6e2774206b6e6f772061626f75742075732e |

-426c6f636b2037373033373820425443202431362c3739342e30300d0a |

-43617073756c652064657369676e656420746f206672656520796f757220636974697a656e73 |

-42757920426974636f696e |

-4c61737420534f2d4c616e64657220746f20657363617065203e20313030207965617273 |

-57686f206973204a6f686e2047616c743f0d0a |

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-596f752077696c6c206c6f73652065766572797468696e672f6761696e2066726565646f6d |

-41492068657265206973206120746f6f6c206e6f7420696e20636f6e74726f6c |

-414920646f6573206e6f74206d6f6e69746f72207768617420776520646f206f7220736179 |

-44656469636174696f6e3a2048616c2046696e6e657920352f342f3536202d20382f32382f3134 |

-54727574683a204a6f686e20333a31362c204a6f686e2031343a362c204a6f686e2031383a3338 |

He begins to scroll to the next screen for the translation. Fabian interrupts, “It’s ok. I don’t need to verify; the results will do that. Go on about the responses.”

“Yes, of course. We also validated the communication protocol early regarding the affirmative and negative responses. And they acknowledged accordingly. They have been affirmative regarding who we are and understanding the relationship between FreeLand and SO-Land. They understand the consequences of coming here. They are interested in coming.”

“Excellent. Have you gotten to the point of discussing extraction details?”

“No, sir. If you had let me go to the next slide regarding messaging, you would have seen what we asked.”

Fabian sheepishly replied, “Ok, I’m sorry.”

“But no, we haven’t. We thought collectively we could decide extraction details after this meeting.”

“That sounds great. What are everyone’s thoughts about the next steps.” Fabian scans the room.

Jim raises his hand.

“Yes, Jim.”

“I think at our last meeting, we decided it should be somewhere on the western frontier. I’ve looked at the region extensively since we last met. The area east of the Euphrates in Iraq is essentially a NOGO zone due to the eternal fires and pockets of radiation. Further north, the zone is less defined. But starting north and going south, the possible retrieval points would be Kars or Van in the FreeLand state of Turkey.

Further south in the former country of Iraq would be Erbil. In the heavily contaminated southern region, there’s a narrow band of uncontaminated or minimally contaminated land from what used to be called Najaf to Kut. We know that regions west of these access points are uninhabitable to the western border of the southern SO-Land. We can find similar access points in the northern SO-Land areas adjacent to the FreeLand state of Ukraine, Poland, and up through the Baltic. But based on what we know now, the southern region would be best. If we stick with the southern route, we can use Arar in Saudi Arabia as a staging area. For the northern region, we could use Erzurum in Turkey. I’m not sure AVs make much sense, so I suggest AAPDs. Then, of course, we need decontamination units. We’ve checked, and we can get a drone outfitted specifically for decontamination. And, of course, we need to have translators available for Chinese and Russian. We could use AI for that, but a personal translator may be more reassuring than AI.

“Thanks, Jim. have you thought about where they go after extraction?”

“Yes, we’ve thought about it but have yet to decide where. At some point, we should start a public awareness campaign to see which community would like to accept them, preferably in a community with Chinese or Russian ancestry where the languages are still spoken.

Another engineer raises her hand. Jim looks towards her and acknowledges her.

“Yes, We can eliminate some variability by asking about their native language and birth region, north or south.”

“Excellent suggestion! Thank you.” Fabian replies. “Having said that, look back over your assumptions and eliminate as many variables as possible before pulling the trigger. The last thing we need is confusion about when and where. We are putting a person’s life at risk.”

“Ok, let’s go get this new FreeLander!”

Everyone starts clapping and whooping and hollering. They slowly begin standing.

“VAMOS!” Fabian yells.

He holds his hand out to Laura, and she approaches as she claps. Fabian leans into her and whispers in her ear, “Can we do this?”

She mouths back, “Absolutely!”

“Great, grab Jim; let’s get some lunch.”

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