zero hour

Victoria Sanctuary's Many Secrets Part 1

Night, the stars, the moon.

[flyover establishing shot- Night, the camera is moving fast and low, close to the shimmering water, approaching Havana Bay, Cuba]

[music: https://youtu.be/7KJjVMqNIgA Cake, I will Survive]

The moon, hanging low and full, just above the sparkling ocean. The heat and humidity were climbing, and you could see it in the air.

[camera approaches "Castillo De Los Tres Reyes Del Morro", on the east tip of the bay, (mysteriously spared damage during the War), then gently curves to the west, slowing as it flies over the port entrance, towards the towers of La Universidad de Nueva Habana.]

New Havana, Cuba. Approximately 90 miles south of the small Florida Keys Island where Agents Macknally and Lana had been standing, staring at the stars and the massive full moon rising. The camera is literally on a helicopter. Not just a cinematic device. As the silent helio-rotter chopper continues its approach, the AI assisted survey cam scans everything in line-of-sight for 360 degrees 12 times a second. The AI's voice reporting pertinent information to the chopper's occupants, which remain silent the entire journey.

[camera zeros in on the target building, as the chopper banks wide, gently curving to the southwest, roughly following Via Monumental towards the campus of the New Havana University]

"La Universidad de Nueva Habana" a gem of post-war futurism architecture, was constructed directly on-top of the bones of the original University Buildings, in the Vedado district of the capital of the New Republic of Cuba. Originally founded on January 5, 1728, the university was not only the oldest in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas, it was also one of the last to be resurrected from the damage of WWIII. Rebuilt nearly four years after most every other University damaged by final Global Blitzkrieg of war were fully restored. The New University of Havana tripled in size, demolishing and replacing everything between Avenida de Los Presidentes with it's reconstructed national monument- El Segundo Monumento de José Miguel Gómez to the Southwest; and all the way over to Avenida 10 de Octubre marking the eastern edge of the sprawling campus. The largest of the post-War towers, containing the Library and the majority of the school's business offices, loom in the middle distance, as the nearly silent chopper slows down to a standstill. It hovers a few hundred yards from the building. Looking like a vacant hotel, most of the tower's windows were dark, few people were actually in any of the campus buildings on this humid summer evening. The chopper's AI activates its passive detection laser sonar system, bouncing nearly invisible beams of low-frequency laser on every pane of glass on the 15th floor that was in line of sight. The Chopper's passengers could now hear every everything that could be heard on that floor.

[camera zooms toward the Main Records Office at the center of the campus, zooming in through the window on the 15 floor, transitioning from literal Chopper's camera POV to cinematic 3rd person]

You know how there is that stereotype of the "Sexy Librarian"?

Well, setting all the lowbrow chauvinism aside, there is a reason for every stereotype, especially the sexy librarian stereotype. You see, there are always real-world human examples of every stereotype known to man. Why? because those stereotypes are of course based on real life experiences, real life people. So, no matter how diverse any given population becomes, there will always be individuals who, through intent of their own, fully embody the living, breathing example of some stereotype.

This librarian was one of those living examples.

The daughter of an Afro-Cuban father (with revolutionary tendencies), and a French-American mother (with commitment issues), she has skin like an other-worldly Amazonian Queen, startlingly bright emerald green eyes, and a voice like Edith Piaf... not that many people had ever heard her sing La Vie en Rose. Her largest audience so far has been this collection of AI terminals on the 15th floor... and that had been some time ago, before she had decided to put Cake on permanent loop. Since that day she had not really felt inspired to sing.