"I can't give you all the details,

  or even any of them," said the resolute man.  "What kind of question is that?" Was wondered out loud on the earpiece.  "Piece of shit magazine type." 

  "They're jockeying for assignments bro." 

  "Because it's an open case!  An act of terrorism no less!  Against our nation!" 

  "He needs help.  I'm going down there." 

 

  Relieved.  Ears still ringing from the explosion.  Sent to see where activists and protestors had had a standoff with "out of touch" politicians. 

  "The footages have not all been pieced together but there's no question that some of the people that were here, were also there at that time, and maybe, hold on, hold on," fast forwarding and rewinding. 

  "Be easy on the tapes boys." 

  "Because it's not a free-for-all," suits had spilled onto the lawn chasing paparazzi-in-disguise out of the building. 

  "Is this a change in tone mate?" 

  A stone-faced middle age man saw the young person being asked that split second doubt the silent strategy and crept up behind the zoom lens carrier questioning.  Knees into backs of the knees.  Camera then hanging down.  Another suit pulled at it.  The strap rubbed against the man's neck.  A third suit, a woman, pulled a pair of scissors from skirt pocket and cut the straps. 

  "Let's get more.  Same way," the suits moved away from the man rubbing his neck. 

Red faces, people barely breathing.

  "It went as a free market lets it go." Said a man of his trial budget.  "We can ask for another disbursement," said a woman sent into the field to help keep things on track. 

  "What we can't do now everyone, is be totally transparent." 

  "About the money?" 

  A sigh and breath out.  Shoulders slumping.  Rubbing a swollen ankle.  "You should cut down on the salt.  Just saying." Said a medical person.  "The money, yes.  And pretty much everything else too." 

  "Why? Anybody want this wine open?" Nobody did. 

  "Overseas, there had to be filtering put in place as survivors grouped up and in some cases moved on to another area.  So what started as (i)you're either with us, or against us(i) was honed into trust exercises and real vetting.  This had to happen in union with our strategy.  And it was fierce fighting so we couldn't be totally open about strategy." The soldier rubbed his temples. 

  "Things get more compartmentalized." Said a woman who also then told about "being in" since Vietnam.  (i)Whoa,(i) some of the people present commented. 

  "They'll also be some division of labor." An older commander eyed a younger commander.  The younger laser focused on the coffee table asked a question.  "Why did the photograph lady get rip shit mad?" 

  "That's not what we're talking about right now." 

  "Yeah, but she did.  Smashed the loop down and..."

  "Let's try to get an answer to that but not right now." 

  "I know why," said another communications person. 

  "It's getting off topic and we don't have extra time.  But keep it brief." 

  "Someone up on the hill had an unauthorized photo published as PR and it was compromising of the Navy and really everything." 

  "Really?" 

  "It was before more careful censorship." 

  "Ok.  Let's try to agree about these points on the Minutes.  And if someone can't we need to know why." 

  "Right." A recorder held up different sheets of paper.  "All anonymous 'voting' since opinions were messing with the minds of the upper ranks." 

  "So why even have this meeting?" 

  "There's so much in the pipeline that needs a going over, this will help the people bringing our stuff to more general meetings." 

  "Wine anyone?" 

  Still no takers.

On and on about GDP...

  It felt like we couldn't get enough oxygen even in the outdoor corridor stuffed with cafè tables. 

  "Almost time to interview your neighbor," a man with bushy eyebrows said in English and this cut through the din of Babylonian-style lunch talk. 

  "Okay." A person turned on the little tape recorder's microphone.  "On my countdown, say (i)fungible(i)." 

  "Why that word?" The French woman asked. 

  "It'll sound good in his deep voice." The Jewish woman replied. 

  "Leave my (i)husband(i) alone.  Don't nitpick on him when he's stressed about making a talk." 

  "I'm not ahstressed." 

  "Here," money for espresso.  An eyeroll.  "Please?" 

  She went to the small line of people waiting. 

  "I just think it might be better to team up." 

  "So you don't think we know what we're doing." 

  "Did not say that." 

  "I'm sure our ineptitude is pretty obvious." 

  "Don't.  (i)Don't cry(i)." The man handed one of the women a linen napkin. 

  "It's obvious how?" 

  "Look at us.  (i)Pathetic(i).  It just took five women to pool coins from around the world to buy one espresso."  Crying. 

  Reaching to safeguard the one espresso and two bean sprouts gleaned from the counter, two women's hands knocked into each other and an unexcited voice reported, "Half an espresso." 

  "I'll only put my tongue in it." 

  "Ew." 

  "I meant as (i)my share(i)." 

 

"Pick her up out of there."

  "But you just said not to be under your orders." 

  "That's not nuclear waste fool," the man in jeans and wet sweater pointed down at the girl dog paddling with her feet. 

  "We're not your commanders anymore." Another man on a bicycle but not knowing to get off or go said.  His voice echo'd some in the cement tunnel.  "If we ever were." 

  "Oh God.  Here's a towel." A small-framed woman dug around in the bicycle bag.  "She's lost her arms." 

  "But the water's not bloody." 

  "He just said it's not nuclear water." 

  "Oh Lord," a shallow breath in to sigh.  "Still broken or I'd be in there me self." 

  "Are you English?" 

  "We've been British for a while in our neck of the woods." 

  "Don't look at my butt." 

  "Hard not to I need the leverage." 

  A smack.  "Are you one of those?" 

  "Intelligence?  Dumb as a rock." 

  "Why'd you smack me when she was insulted?" Jeans guy asked while feeling the heat rise in his cheek. 

  "Not insulted loves.  Just out of the loops for a while." 

  "Where have you been honey pot?  My pies are sucking.  Like cardboard.  That one called them cardboardy.  I'll pull, you push.  Aim for the towel." 

  "Don't 

  "Bite me again and I'm leaving you in there." 

  "Pull on my neck." 

  "Push!  Lift the butt cheeks like your a stool!" 

  "Stool pigeon fer sure." 

  Like a cork the figure, mostly metal boned, rose.  Four arms worked to get under armpits and (i)heave, 

     (i)HO(i). 

  "Bloody stuck on a bit of cable or something." 

  "Is my make up fucked up?" 

  "Fuck you for eating all those waffles." 

  "Hold up, hold up." 

  "Johnny cakes they called them." 

  "Shit, shit, tipping over." 

The line of freak veeks stalked the grid

of dirt roads.  Puffs of dust in a smear of sun and soil. 

  Sparse talking.  Budgeting drinks-for-the-day parched. 

  An amphitheatre of parking. 

  "Wait here." 

  A little photograph pulled from a vest with many pockets.  A gruff pull on a shirt collar.  "You claim this man is a friend of yours?" A suddenly worried nod. 

  A knock on the paper thin door.  It creaked open.  People having tea.  "Excuse us, have you seen this man or this woman?" Photographs food stained and crease-crumpled. "I gave them the visitor's pass (i)on lunch(i)." 

  A horn blaring. 

  "I just meant to beep it.  It won't stop." 

  "LOOK!" 

  People creeping low, then stopping in place. 

  "GET THEM I'M SICK OF THIS,"someone hollered and spit out teeth. 

  The getting away made it to partially buried vehicles, dune buggies. 

  A careful chase. 

  Twinkies hitting the windshield. 

  "We're gaining on them!" 

  "Give me the megaphone!  And turn it on this time." 

  Man driving glanced past woman passenger.  Hit the pedal. 

  "Watch it!!!!!!" 

  A hastily written letter: 

     It wasn't your fault.  Ours got squashed between humanitarian out and us coming in.  We got T-boned by the Syrians with chemical weapons.  We miss you. 

  Put with other mail.  

  Catapulted.

"Sprats brats!"

  "Is it the money 'cuz I could buy you lunch." 

  "Toast, tomato, avacado and sprouts.  I actually bring them the stuff from the Farmer's Market." 

  "And they sell it to you?" 

  "Hmmm-hmmm, but by the third bite I need this," she took a packet of mayo out of a skirt pocket. 

  "Where'd you get that?" 

  "Seven tenths of a mile, that way," the sandwich and the man's nose almost collided.  "Convenience store." 

"What's it look like boobula?"

  "Like, like, darnit ya know I suck at poetry." 

  "Like what?" 

  "LIKE SHAMU POOPED." 

  The wind gust clipped the tiny car TV and the man would've gone off the cliff too but for being tied to the others. 

"PUT YOUR BALLS TOGETHER!"

  Some people looked down, some people were staring at the baby fat faced man with the suddenly wild eyes. 

  "I DON'T KNOW WE WERE JUST TALKING AND IT CAME TO ME." 

  "We're not even supposed to have balls," a by-the-rules Science nerd-woman immediately started throwing bags around in her hatchback.  "You're obviously stacking!" A wild haired woman crossed arms, then went towards, then crossed arms, then went towards.  "Ladies! There's no need to fight," the guy with the idea took one end of a climbing rope off the back of a pick up truck.  People started chanting, (i)fight, fight, fight(i). 

  Other teams had gone for morning walks, shared strips of chewy fruit, swapped spit.  Still other people were self-isolating, various reasons like not getting movie stars and singers sick, conflicts of interest. 

  "She said," a young man pointed all around at the milling about group, "It had to do with the pace of everything speeding up and, and, a vagueness in the locust." 

  "Did you smoke the while scooby snack brother?" 

  The man did the (i)squish your head(i) finger thing.  "Only two tokes.  Not the point." 

  "Let him talk, he's a zero." 

  A team lead who'd gone off to "take a piss" to "where you gonna take it" came walking out of a dust devil.  Brushed the sand off his shoulders.  Adjusted his belt buckle.  "What are we talking about here?" 

  "Ixnay on de bawlsie idea." 

"Our reading was, well, uh,

  it was," the dried bloody faced man leant towards and whispered, "from the Bible."  A nurse swabbed the blood and put it in a cradle of many swabs.  Asked the man not to "donate" any bodily fluids.  "But I just did," the man's calm eyes furnaced mad.  He (i)hummmmmph'd(i) and flapped a long leather glove onto the arm holding the horse's reigns.  He shuddered his disdain.  "Around what?" A woman asked.  "Around (i)field politics(i)," the man scanned the horizon. 

  "So you all were reading the Bible?" The labeled Reporter looked around at a vast assortment of humankind. 

  The man waved people out of the way with both gloves in one hand, revealing a palmed pen, and dismounted.  "Help the Nurse get off her horse," another mounted man ordered. 

  "Most likely not all of us.  But the point is that," seltzer water handed to the man.  "One point on a 360° out here I would guess.  What was the passage? In the Bible?" 

  "It was (i)gospel(i)." 

  "Here's our inner circle's journal," a weathered woman with stern-looking lips started to hand it over when several lawyers stepped forward and body blocked the pass.  One wagged a finger. 

  The man tried to snap his fingers but they'd gone numb.  "Turn your back to them," he heard and complied.  "Everybody stand still while the crime scene is photographed." 

  "Crime scene?!" The man croaked like a bullfrog. 

  "Stand still." 

  An Army man thumbed through the datebook.  "There's readings everyday.  More than one." 

  Tears streamed down the man's face.  "Was it the night of the gunshots?" 

  "Yes," the Army man closed the leatherbound thoughtfully. 

  "Corinthians 14." 

"So, wait, you think

  "Us all thinks, Sir." 

  A finger in the air to magazine people.  "They tanked us in the market, but that's not the lead." 

  Receiving the thin portfolio, "Sorry, you all, would that be y'all, y'all think, maybe of course, that 'someone'," the man held up hands and marquee'd quotation marks, "Perhaps might be staging (i)last resorts(i).  Let them know, okay?!" He waved an open palm toward the real U.S. Army people seated at a folding table. 

  "What'dya give this guy to make him so much more personable?" 

  "Jesus, where the hell you been Mississipp?" 

  "Just orange juice," a Red Cross worker checked on a clipboard. 

  "Here's my Introductory Paragraph," she handed the looseleaf page up to the man on the soapbox.  "Guts of the Scientific Research on this are somewhere back there." The line of people changing their minds about ordering their lives went out the lobby door and around a block. 

"He's not really," the man

  threw something from a dumpster to a recycle bin, "One of these." A girl wretched.  Everyone was in plastic suits, gloves, booties. 

  "He just doesn't have normal emotions back yet." 

  A radio crackled.  "Got something.  Could be related." 

  Someone looked at a screen of symbols.  "That's like half a mile away.  I doubt it." 

  "That's not really what I'm saying." 

  "What are you saying then? And why be a dooshbag?" 

  "I'm saying we need you over here Sir." 

  "That's more like it." 

  The special vehicle's tires rolled over electronics smashed to smithereens, food bought in bulk but squished, and dozens and dozens of hospital gowns.  "You think they're all on the loose?" 

  "PULL OVER!" Someone in the backseat rattled the driver's seatcage.  Got out and bagged a gown.  Got back in.  "These are new." Thrown into the wayback with other shards of "the puzzle".  

  The baseball game on low sported a bat cracking and a loud crowd cheering.  "Did you know they pipe in the crowd these days?  For moral support." 

  "It should be here."  The intersection was not yielding the co-worker.  "Look!" Everyone turned heads to the right.  The co-worker.  Obviously arguing with a tow truck carting off a jet engine.