Ana

CH 32

Heidi sat up and grabbed Tom's arm. "Are you sure about that?" she did know about that missile base and if Iran was transporting a nuclear warhead to Venezuela, it would be the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again.

"Yes."

Her grip tightened. "Where is it now? We need to intercept it before it gets to that base."

"There's no need for that. I had Ana infiltrate the computer at that missile base so that we now have complete control of the launch systems. No missile can be launched without my approval."

She let go of his arm. "I thought the plan was to make the nukes inoperable."

"If they are kept in storage, we will, but if they are put on missiles that are controlled by systems that Ana can take over, we'll do it that way because she can do it from here without the introduction of nanobots locally."

She didn't like the implications of Tom being in command of nuclear missiles aimed at the United States. "Exactly what do you plan on doing with these weapons once you have control over them?"

"I'm going to make sure they are never used."

Her eyes narrowed. The thin grin on his face was hard to read. He could easily use that weapon as a barging chip to and she suspected he knew it.

"Sounds like a risky game to me. It would be better to destroy them now," she said.

"That would be an act of aggression and I'm trying to not display aggression toward anyone unless they provoke us first."

Then it hit her like a blast of lava. How many other missile bases did he already have control of?

"You two figure out if we're going to start playing doctor yet?"

Heidi glanced around to see Naomi behind her. She didn't like how easy it was to sneak up on people here. Footsteps made almost no noise because of the low gravity.

Tom said, "We weren't talking about that exactly. We got sidetracked."

"Well, I like Heidi's idea. We need to show the world that we're here to help and there's no better way for us to do that than get down there and start saving lives."

"I'm not completely opposed to it. I do think it's not what we should focus on right now," Tom said.

Naomi slid into Tom's lap. "At the very least, we need to do a test case someplace and see what happens."

Heidi ignored the pang of jealousy that shot through her because this was the crucial part of her plan. "Speaking of which, Dr. Paul Pierpont is the head of a major hospital in Paris and he is also one of my dad's old college friends. We use to go on vacation to see him a lot when I was growing up and I bet he would agree to work with us."

For a second Tom gave her a strange look then his face seemed to darken. She brushed it off as a trick of the lighting.

"That sounds like a good place to start," he said with a hollow voice.

Naomi perked up. "We should go to Paris and talk to him. And, of course, while we're there, we should do some shopping. I'm so sick of being stuck here all the time. I don't know about you two, but I need to spend some time on earth before I go crazy." She took out a green cigarette and Heidi was surprised to see the cigarette light itself when it touched Naomi's lips. Naomi held it out in front of her and said, "You like it, I invented it yesterday. Since I can't go outside, and you both have to smell my second-hand smoke, I made it smell good and it has no harmful chemicals. I had Ana's help of course." She blew green smoke in their direction which had a pleasant mint odor.