Ex Officio (#3 EX TRILOGY)

Chapter 7

Ender's eyes snapped open at once. A quick heads up display on her left cybernetic eye informed her that it was half past two in the afternoon. She was lying in the Vice President's arms in their plush hotel suite at Barj Al Arab in Dubai about an hour after they had left the beach. It had not been easy acting as believably human as she could, and the mission was beginning to drain her because her creator had given her specific instructions to only recharge when she had successfully compelled her target subtly to initiate a move that would make their plan effective. She glanced at the sleeping man for a moment and slowly slid out of the bed covers, put on a bathrobe and sneaked out of bed. She walked into the closet and took out a black briefcase from among her luggage, slipped out of sight onto the balcony and locked herself out. She touched a spot in the centre with her thumb and a fingerprint scanner flashed green over her finger, revealing the Ex Vivo logo that appeared to be absent until she had ran the scan. The briefcase made a series of beeps and click sounds and opened slowly, revealing what looked like a complex charging unit made up of a thick transparent cable with two plugs on both ends and a power generator that was incorporated into the briefcase's interior design. She sat down cross-legged, placed the briefcase beside her and listened to ensure nobody was approaching the door. She turned on the generator, plugged one end of the cable into its socket and bowed her head. The skin on the back of her neck suddenly turned translucent to reveal a port in her neck before it split open. Ender plugged the other end into her neck and closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and sighing loudly as a chain of bright green lights flashed to and fro along the cable during the recharge. She sat still, and all she did was breathe slowly, eyes closed - but while her body seemed to be on standby, her mind was busily travelling through cyberspace to connect to the Ex Vivo base in Ghana where Felix was patiently waiting.

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Meanwhile in Ghana at forty past five in the evening, Dr. Alberta Anane, the new president of Ex Vivo, walked noisily down hallway towards the new office in her high heels and the signature green and grey company coloured dress. The new office was a very spacious open one with glass windows letting in natural light to further brighten the white painted walls, furniture and floor. Somehow, the company had agreed to create job opportunities for young graduates nationwide, and in less than a month, about one hundred and twenty people had been recruited to work in the marketing, multimedia, communications, maintenance and human relations departments. The other departments were termed 'off-limits', since they were strictly designated to machines not even the new employees knew of.

Dr. Anane stood at the entrance and watched the employees bustling around with their final assignments before close of work. She felt pleased that the company's projected image nationwide would make a lot of developments in phase two of the syndicate's secret agenda flawless and unhindered. As she smiled to herself, she turned around and left the office, made a left turn and slipped through a secret door in the wall out of sight. The hidden elevator waiting for her took her floors below the building to the underground base where the syndicate's real operations took place. She whistled an arpeggio in E flat perfectly and unlocked the door to the dark computer control room where the bald bespectacled man, only four feet tall with a bulbous nose, dark cold eyes mismatched with a broad face, pot belly, stubby fingers and legs that moved like Super Mario paced up and down the room with his eyes on the giant monitor observing a data transfer from Dubai.

"Hello, Felix. What's the status?" Dr. Anane asked quickly and stood akimbo.

Felix, the real Ex Vivo boss believed to be dead by the public as a façade to solicit public sympathy as well as sentiment against Ex Gratia, looked up and shrugged at her. "Everything is going as planned. It's all good."

Dr. Anane stared at him silently and could not help noticing anxiety in his voice. She cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak, but paused for a moment when she noticed Felix impatiently tapping his thigh while pacing. She smirked. "What are you worried about, Felix? You said everything is all good."