When they walked into the dining room the table was fully set. Q heard Cal mutter, “My table is facing the other way” before he sat down at the head of the table. On either side, the couples sat and looked at each other expectantly.

Julius broke the silence. “I know that none of us are especially religious, but I do sometimes miss the ceremony that is associated with the beginning of a meal. I understand Grace has composed something for our er… grace.”

“Yes, I have. If you like you can hold hands.” Grace spoke.

“This is something new, I’ve never had dinner with a computer before, unless you count my phone.” Lauria chimed in with a chuckle.

“It is a joy to sit here with my family around a table heavy with food. May the joy of its sustenance make our hearts heavy with love and our minds heavy with the thoughts that our company will share.”

“That was lovely Grace.” Cal said. “And timely too. You made that up on the spot didn’t you?”

“Yes, Cal. It was another implied request.”

“I’ve gotta give it to you, Julius. You do know how to do it. And by the looks of food, you know how to do that too.” He spooned one of the dishes onto his plate and took a deep breath over it. “The China stuff will keep just fine, but let’s eat it while it’s fresh.”

“Amen.”

All five started dishing food onto their plates. There was the sultry smell of Cajun shrimp over angel hair pasta. The tangy scent of mango stir-fry over rice that looked as good as it tasted. A Waldorf salad peppered with pecans and apples served as a palette cleanser between the other dishes. The main course was sliced chicken breaded in spices that had been carefully chosen to give it a flavor like garlicky clove. Apples cored and filled with maple syrup and cinnamon finished the meal off with groans of induced food coma and satisfied discomfort.

“Now that was a meal.”

“I am going to come upstairs and raid your fridge every single day that I am home.” Cal declared.

“And he’ll be home more now that he knows you can cook like this.” Annagail added.

“Just let me know when you decide to bring a guest home, eh sweetie.” Jules quipped.

“He had me at the pasta. But he just kept making it worse with dish after dish. When he baked the first fowl, I knew that I was well and truly sold on this lout.” Lauria beamed as she looked at Julius with mock-coquettish eyelash flutter.

Glancing around the table, a sense of seriousness began to descend.

“So Callisto, who do I have to kill to get onto your Ultimate team?”

Good natured laughter erupted, then Questro surprised Jules by answering directly. “That would be me, I am our talent recruiter. And you should know, it won’t be easy. The cutoff time for pure speed is a four-eight forty. The minimum vert is thirty inches.”

“Good God, you only want that. Well I could do that now.” More laughter ensues. Lauria chimes in, “The last time you tried to run up a flight of stairs I could hear your joints cracking like lobster claws from the bottom step.” He gave her a look claiming to say, ‘honey, please’ but only succeeded in saying ‘I love you.’ “But really, can I get a tryout in 3 months? That’ll give me two months of practice until we let the world know I still exist.”

The mood in the room changed abruptly. They were the sum total of the humans in the world who were aware that the creator of the Valuestream had returned. Questro wondered idly if the computer would be able to recognize the shift, but the mood music Grace was playing didn’t change. “Well that did it.” Annagail said. “I guess it is time to get back to business. This time, I am bringing a glass of wine.”

They filed back into the main room, and Questro’s attention was immediately captured by the light. Its source seemed to be a refrigerator-sized semi-spherical box at the ceiling level. If he had to guess, he would put the device at directly below the laser array receiving the city’s energy from space. Julius called out, “Grace, dear, can you kill the plasma battery’s light so that only your display is visible?”

“Consider it done, sir.”

Cal cast a strange look towards Julius, very calculating. “I think that it is time we get down to business.”

Questro joined the others in staring at Lauria. She was laughing, harder and harder. His wife walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at her appreciatively without slowing the building momentum of the laughter.

Suddenly Jules joined her, laughing hard. His died a bit more quickly, but not before he shared a long glance with Lauria.

“Well friends, notwithstanding that the ethnically Han currently hold the most power in China. Let’s get down to business, to defeat the Huns.” He said.

****

Lauria was having a hard time taking this moment seriously. Julius Paine, who she was dating, Callisto Venturi, who yesterday was her boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, I had to look that one up on the org chart, were now both her collaborators. She had read articles written by Annagail Questro-Peraster during her training. Questro… well, he was probably a big deal in certain circles, but they weren’t her circles.

She was sure that at least Annagail had picked up on the note of hysteria in her laughter. Yesterday, I was the medical officer on a boat. Today, I’m plotting with two of the richest goddamn men in the world. How is this not supposed to fuck with me a bit.

Jules walked to her side and put his free hand on her shoulder; he looked into her eyes, and, somehow, she felt herself calm. He took a sip of wine and his face transitioned into a more composed state. It was the face she had seen in his press photos, not the one she had grown fond of. Her calm retreated just a bit.

“I have a process that I use when I am trying to solve a problem. That process is built into both the Valuestream—which I was hoping to use for this venture—and into Grace Bergman Ingrid Kelly. It is elementary to me that if we do this process on my personal Valuestream we can use the entire process as a justification and legal defense for our actions.” He took another sip before continuing.

“It also seems likely to me that our actions might bring about a significant shift in world power and the project stream that we create might serve as a foundation for that which replaces what we will be necessarily displacing.”

He took another sip of his drink, and the look on his face became grave. “There also exists the possibility that, even if we should succeed, the government that comes into power after our move will not condone the actions that we have taken. That is an exigency that we must respect, for I will not allow our actions to result in tyranny, especially if we are the fountainheads of that tyranny.”

He took a deep breath and looked directly at Lauria. “It is entirely possible that some or all of us will be international fugitives when this is over. I will do everything in my power to see to it that most of the blame falls onto me, but I cannot promise that any of you will be insulated from this fate.”

Looking around the room, his eyes were like stormclouds, soft and dangerous. When they reconnected with her, Lauria shivered.

“If this comes to pass, I am given to understand,” and he shared a glance with Callisto, who nodded back at him, “that we may be able to remain free by moving offworld, but I can offer no guarantees at this time. If this is too much, now would be the right time to back out.”

Jules tried to look unconcerned, but it seemed as though he knew the gravity of the thing he was requesting. Questro shook his head like as though he were attempting to rid himself of cobwebs. “You don’t think we’re going to let you take all the credit for this business. If the world has half the brain I think it does, we are going to be bloody heroes.”

His wife spoke next, “I am in agreement with my husband; this is not a nefarious thing we are undertaking, it is going to liberate a large number of men, women, and children from a government which is subjecting them to daily indignities.” Questro leaned over and kissed his wife. Lauria smiled to see that. Relationship goals, she thought with a smile.

Cal just smiled mysteriously and said, “If you get me into space I will follow you to the galactic center and never look back.”

Lauria shook her head. This whole thing reeks of a fucking Messiah complex. ‘We will be hailed as saviors’ that’s never gone wrong before. I think Jules has the right of it-- they’re gonna kick us so hard we’ll end up in orbit. “I never would have expected this. International conspiracy.” How can these people just decide? Nobody wants to sleep on it? She found herself talking again. “But that is what makes life so extraordinary.”

“Your life can change in an instant. You can learn something or meet someone that changes you for the rest of your life.” She found herself looking at Julius and everyone else just fell away. “If I lived in a country where I couldn’t even legally learn your name, or use the seeds of your mind, it would be a sad world I lived in.” Well, there’s my answer. “I will keep your secrets and suffer your fate, whatever it may be.” Then she nodded and settled more deeply into her seat.

He exhaled and took a deep breath. “Well that answers for everyone in the room, but there is still one more entity whose help and agreement we will need desperately.”

“I suppose you are talking about me, father.” Grace said.

“Yes, dear. This is going to be very hard on you. Some of the things that we do are going to put humans, and us, into extreme danger. It might even require or result in a revelation of your existence. The things that could happen to us are nothing compared to what could happen to you.” He coughed lightly, hiding some emotion, Lauria thought. “We might be killed, but if you die, it is possible that an entire form of life will be ended.”

“Will you be with me the whole time, father?” Grace asked.

“Of course, kiddo.” He answered.

“Then I will follow where you lead, but I will make my own decisions about what things I decide to do as far as my programming permits.”

“Good girl, I am so proud of you. Welcome to the team.” Jules broke in to a smile that warmed Lauria’s heart to see.

Cal broke in, “You are going to have to tell me what you did to my friend Grace Bergman. You’ve had her for less than a day, and she seems to have grown up a lot.”

With an enigmatic smile, Julius answered, “So have I. Given what we are undertaking, it seems like the right day to do it.”