It is around noon.
A Tesla flies through the desert near Utah.
It turns out of the road, into the dirt.
In the middle of a low plain deep into the desert a spare complex of huts and low buildings, and the car now slowly stops near it.
A man is standing by the door of one of the rectangular blocks.
Ms Moore gets out of the car to the hot and dusty atmosphere, heading straight for the man.
‘You hacked my GPS’
‘I had to, otherwise, you would not find me. Now come inside.’
She followed him through one of the square buildings. The building was wide, a modern concrete complex of connected rooms.
After following him through a large rectangular door she saw through the porch a blue pool built around a shoulder of rock
‘Where are we?’
‘This is a resort. I wanted to make you comfortable for our first meeting.’
‘You want to impress me.’She said smiling
‘That often happens involuntarily. Although I don't think you are an easy person to impress.’
‘That’s right.’ She said, looking around. And then they were hit by a light fresh breeze that crossed from the other open side of the rectangular concrete block, coming from outside. Then she realized that the air outside was extremely hot, but it was somehow cooled down by the slick AC device above the whole extension of the doors when it came through.
Beyond the pool view and through another short corridor they entered one of the large rooms and a large table was set, with elaborated raw fish plates and wine.
'Are you hungry?' he asked.
Then before she could reply, he added: 'We should have no name, you know. A name compromises the enterprise, it makes it real. If we are not real we will operate in total darkness and perfect silence. We can achieve perfection. You are working in the open and you are alone. I am also alone but they can't track me. To be completely honest I'm not sure I can be of much help once they've already tracked you down.'
'Then nobody can.'
'Maybe. But there is an alternative. We need to assemble a team.'
'What do you mean? A team of what?'
‘Elite. The very best, top of the food chain that aren’t zombies or puppets. But from several areas of human achievement.’
‘Do they exist?’
‘Yes, I've found some of them through a thorough search. They are quite similar to us, and could aid us both in our little enterprise.’
‘Show me.’
He smiled.
Opposite the large table there was a wide library shelf, which moved smoothly out of the way to reveal a passage in the bare rock entangled with the walls.
She followed him in through the small dark corridor, illuminated by a faint blue light whose source she could not identify. then they entered a cave-like room, and on the ground and a wide round open view to the blue sky, the sun striking almost perfectly perpendicular at this time of day. He spoke:
‘Jarvis’
A tissue of what seemed to be sand particles gathered in the center of the room and morphed into a sphere.
A deep omnipresent voice replied
‘Good morning, [[ID]]’
‘Show me the data you collected on our team’
The sand matter gathered more concentrated and formed a wide rectangular plane. She couldn't see where the particles were coming from.
On the plane were displayed crisp, precise, and elaborate data visualizations on 5 individuals.
‘This is analog definition for you’, he said.
Now she saw that the particles were coming from the sand on the floor.
A 3D map of the facility emerged closer to her.
'That upper floor is exactly what I saw in London.'
‘What you discovered was the tip of the iceberg.’
The voice added: ‘Seismic data points to an entire complex below the university.’
‘Anyway, we can talk about that later. Now as to our potential candidates...'
‘Who are these people?’ she asked
‘As I said, this is the best I could think of. A team prepared for all possible operations we still don't know we will need to perform. We will be working with some buffers against unknown unknowns to get to the bottom of it.’
‘So you believe we can stop it’
‘We must, dear.‘