While Kylian and Luc discussed world politics, Viviane finished telling Anaelle and Marielle about the catcalling incident that happened right before she came to visit them and how mortifying an experience that was.

“I hope you girls never get catcalled by idiotic men. There’s not a girl that likes that kind of attention. It can also be a bit scary, too,” Viviane told the twins.

“How awful!” they both exclaimed in unison.

Viviane turned her eyes upward replaying the incident in her head. “If Luc hadn’t saved me from those rude STS Agents, I don’t know what they could have done. Kylian thinks we could have been arrested and gone to jail for a night.”

“No! Not you, Viviane!” The girls clasped their hands with worry.

Viviane, still looking upward with her eyes but to the right, recalled, “Luc looked so sure of himself, so confident and commanding.”

“Yeah! All the girls admire Luc!” The girls had eyes that twinkled when they thought of Luc.

Viviane tilted her head and looked up to the left. “But Kylian was kind of cute the way he was so scared,” Viviane gave a small laugh thinking about Kylian’s reaction during the encounter with the STS Agents. “But he still played along with my little plan and when he tried to stand up for me, I should have known it was doomed to fail. He was trying so hard not to let me down. I think that’s admirable, too.”

“That dweeb?” The twins went from starry-eyed to evil-eyed in an instant. “You can do better than him, Viviane!”

“Well, that’s all that happened to me today.” Viviane finished daydreaming and her eye contact went back to the girls again. “What about you girls?”

At this point, Anaelle and Marielle proceeded to talk Viviane’s ear off about all the things happening to them at school, details about homework, tests, teachers and other kids which were unimportant to anyone else, but which a patient Viviane listened to with genuine interest.

Meanwhile, what started off as curiosity about a red armband turned into a full civics lesson for Kylian. For his entire life, he buried his head in the sand in blissful ignorance about the workings of the greater world outside of the UEN’s borders. After Luc described a little bit about the wider world, the tantalizing bits of information whetted his interest to learn more about the other countries that shared the planet everyone called “home”.

Kylian heard of strange and exotic ways of life that other people lived. He heard about different ways in which other countries ruled, such as the “kingdom” and the “dictatorship”, but most strange of all, the one that hurt his head the most, was the “democracy.” He knew from middle school that the countries outside of the UEN were typically poor and impoverished places. His teachers told him that those places were not worth visiting so he never thought about them again. Besides, he was not interested in geography. At that age, he read books about science. But now, Luc told him things that made him question what he learned as a child.

“We were taught in middle school that there’s a symbiotic relationship between he UEN and the CoC,” recalled Kylian thinking back to his days as a kid. “The CoC is where a lot of food is grown, where a lot of our goods are manufactured, where we get the raw materials for our own high-tech industries such as quantum computer fabrication, nuclear power generators and pharmaceutical products like life-saving medicines that cure cancer and medical devices like artificial retinas that can reverse blindness. In return, the UEN supports the poor countries of the CoC by buying their goods and keeping their economies running while they try to improve their standards of living.”

On hearing Kylian’s simplistic view of the world, Luc sneered and became even more sarcastic than usual if that could be believed. “That’s not a lie, pal, but it’s not the whole truth either. That’s what they want you to think – that the world is just one big happy family and everyone is just doing their part. We need to eat, so the UEN buys food from the CoC and the CoC take our money and use it help improve their societies. It’s a big win-win for everyone, right?”

“That’s what we were taught,” said Kylian.

Luc lowered his voice and covered his mouth with his hand. “You wanna know what I think?”

“Go on.”

“Ever wonder why the CoC is so technologically backward?” asked Luc. “I heard they’re still driving around in cars powered by ‘gasoline’ and their air is polluted with smoke from electric plants that still burn ‘coal.’ We haven’t needed petroleum as fuel for decades ever since we switched over to clean power from micro-nuclear generators and started driving around in fully electric vehicles.”

“I’ll tell you why they don’t have as much technology as we do,” continued Luc. “I think it’s because we purposely withhold our advanced technology from them in an attempt to keep them weak and maintain our status as the only superpower in the world today.”

That confused Kylian. “Why would we want to keep them weak?” he asked.

Luc’s jaw dropped and he shook his head. Had he just heard the dumbest thing come from a Ph.D.’s mouth? “Why? Isn’t it obvious?” he demanded. “If the CoC had access to our kind of technology, they’d immediately build high-tech weapons and point them right at us! And then, some of those wacko Dictators or dysfunctional Democracies would start to flex their military muscles and then where do you think we’d be?”

“Where would we be?” asked Kylian, still innocent in his ignorance.

“We’d be in an all-out World War, for crying out loud!” Luc was not being quiet anymore that was for sure. “Sheesh! And you’re supposed to be the brainiac here.”

Luc did quiet down again as he continued to explain. “Anyway, the way I see it, the CoC needs us more than we need them, so as long as we can keep our advanced technology away from them and they can keep selling their stuff to us, there’ll be peace in the world.”

“Is that why there are so many of you stationed here at the National Laboratory?”

“So now you’re getting it, right? Good job, Dr. Brainiac. Let me tell you somethin’ right now, that teleportation technology you guys are working on is the wildest, most advanced, genius-level technology that anyone has ever seen. It’s so freaking mind-blowing that stuff can start off in one place, turn into ‘pixie dust’ and then re-appear somewhere else in the world in a matter of seconds! It’s crazy impossible, but somehow, you guys are making that happen. I don’t know how it works, but I do know that it’s the most important technology that we’re protecting right now. There are spies of the CoC and other enemies of the UEN who would love to steal that technology for themselves and use it for their selfish purposes.

“That’s why we’re here. To protect our country’s advanced technologies and our scientists from being stolen or kidnapped and to maintain our leadership status in the world as the only superpower sane enough not to exploit or to abuse the awesome destructive power of these technologies.”

Having heard everything Luc said, Kylian was impressed with Luc’s sense of patriotism and his passion for service. It was obvious to Kylian that, despite Luc’s cynical and sarcastic exterior, he showed that he was a man with a purpose, a purpose to protect his fellow countryman and their collective way of life from harm. Luc wished for peace in an imperfect world and knew he was on the right side of history. Knowing this about Luc’s character, he now looked quite heroic to Kylian, actually. Maybe that’s what Viviane sees in Luc? guessed Kylian.

Kylian thought about complimenting Luc, but remembered that Viviane kind of liked Luc over himself. Therefore, he decided not to say anything at all.