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Nubian Desert

Jack ached and his metal leg was starting to seize again. His fur was matted with a mix of desert sand and crusted salt from his and Ophelia's stowing away on a seafaring paddle steamer carrying scrap steel from London. Dust filled his nostrils and teeth. Ophelia looked the same as she held onto the train's undercarriage. Thick goggles and a tawny bandanna hid her expression. Jack looked in front of him and the smiling face of a young, spotted genet - Akohm he said his name was - looked back at Jack, not at all uncomfortable from riding, almost upside down, so close to the wooden tracks. Akohm mouthed words, but Jack heard nothing over the clacking of the metal wheels. Jack just waited, and ached, with Ophelia next to him, for the train to stop.

The locomotive eventually slowed to a stop as steam billowed around them. Jack made a move to drop from the undercarriage but Akohm shook his head. Jack regained his position and waited for Akohm's consent. Ophelia balanced with her back on a support beam. Another billow of steam from behind them signaled the decoupling of the rear engine and it, along with disembodied voices that had floated around them, retreated from earshot.

"Now, Mister Jack," Akohm gave a thumbs-up and lithely dropped to the track. Jack followed, less gracefully, and helped Ophelia down.

"Now, what, Akohm?" Jack rolled from under the train and surveyed the dunes around them. The tracks terminated at the end of the front locomotive and carried on into the distance behind them.

"We wait for the sandstorm, Mister Jack. After that, I do not know," Akhom climbed the open-top boxcar they had hid under, "The behind train leaves and a sandstorm comes. These containers disappear after the storm. I only stayed once to see that. I hid under the whole time."

Ophelia climbed after Akhom, long ago trading in her evening dress with loose slacks and tight vestments, "Is there always a sandstorm?" she puffed.

"I do not know," Akhom reached down to pull Ophelia, then Jack, over the ledge of the boxcar, "I only stayed once. I could hear no voices, but no tribes dare enter the Valley of the Negasi anymore. This is the home of a god."

"Asaraten," Jack stepped over twisted and bent metal that were once shining automations. The metal was hot under his footpads, "Our good friend Manfried mentioned the cursed valley and its god before we left."

"Yes, yes," Akohm nodded, "The god came with the sand. Waters dried up and entire tribes disappeared. Now there is only sand, no rain comes. Camel tribes protect us." Akohm looked West and squinted. His eyes widened and his ears stood. "The sand!" he pointed, "The haboob is coming!"

"You don't have to come with us, Akohm," Ophelia touched his shoulder and he turned to look at her. Her eyes darted to the darkening sky and back to the genet.

"I know, Miss Gidget," Akohm stated.

Jack huddled next to Ophelia, breathing heavy, and Akhom, occasionally shuddering. The white-hot sky disappeared under a blanket of sand as wind howled around them. Jack pulled his bandanna over his muzzle and lowered his goggles. Akohm and Ophelia did the same. Wind whipped grains of sand into his swept-back ears. Jack first felt, then heard a buzzing in the wind until the sound was as loud as the wind around him. The sides of the boxcar shook as something banged into it, but not from below. Jack looked up but only saw sand. The boxcar rocked again, from the top, and then it was airborne. Some unseen force was lifting them.

The box swayed in the wind on, as far as Jack could think, an easterly direction. Again the three of them didn't speak, but he didn't know what to say. Jack focused on the sand above him and saw brief flashes, lightning. There was lightning in the sandstorm. He watched again for the flash, but the light was off. Jack saw it, then, as an after-image of the lightning. Tendrils of static electricity outlined a machine above them. They were flying and the machine did not use a balloon.

By the time the sand subsided, Jack had lost any sense of direction he had. Above him he now saw with clarity, a four-winged pod carrying their boxcar with six clamps. The wings hummed and sparked with blue electricity, not unlike Jack's arc-gun. Filaments reached out, past the edge of the boxcar and Jacked looked over the edge. Three other flying machines carried boxcars and electricity crackled between them. Jack looked at the ground and was surprised to see they had entered a rocky valley covered in swaths of brilliant green foliage and, past the palms and grasses, shone a sapphire river.

"By the gods," Akohm sighed, next to Jack. Ophelia, on Jack's dextral, let out a small gasp.

The wings above them stopped their manic oscillating and became rigid. They descended into a glide, skimming the foliage, and entered the mouth of a large cave. Doors opened up on the bottom of the pod and wheels extended downward. With a click, the wheels locked and the six clamps holding onto the boxcar released. The smooth floor of the cave came rushing up at them and the boxcar landed with a crashing thump. It skidded to a stop and their pod glided to the ground and, through a smaller cavern past where the boxcar stopped, rolled out of sight. Three more loud bangs echoed in the cavern as the other boxcars were dropped and, overhead, the other three pods glided past the boxcars and rolled out of sight.

Jack looked at Ophelia and Akohm. Both held onto the edge of the boxcar with tight grips and were looking at the cavern around them. Akohm brought a paw to his muzzle, muttered in a tongue Jack didn't recognize, and clamped his paw back onto the boxcar.

A smaller rock door slid upward and a half-dozen tall, slender shapes emerged. At first, in the shadows, Jack thought they were Abassidian automata of his childhood storybooks, but as the creatures came forward on two legs with swaying tail, he saw they were spotted felines of some kind he did not know.

"Asaraten!" Akohm squeaked and ducked behind the lip he clung to.

"No, Akohm! Cheetahs!" Ophelia laughed. Her eyes glimmering with excitement, "My father said the cheetah tribes were long extinct! Look, Jack. Their legs!" She pointed and Jack followed. The cheetahs' thin legs reflected silver metal. Instead of the open pistons that Jack's leg displayed, metal plating bent and flowed with every step.

The cheetahs each carried a tall pole that they held in front of them. In turn, they spun a center ring. The top end split and rose into two spears. Yellow sparks snapped. One cheetah prodded the metal boxcar and Jack felt an electric convulsion up his spine, tightening his grip. He gasped and Ophelia and Akohm cried out. The cheetah spoke, unfamiliar to Jack's ears and Jack looked at Akohm. Akohm shook his head. The cheetah raised his voice and pointed to the door he came through. Two cheetahs turned from the cavern and walked back through the doorway.

"Are we supposed to follow?" Ophelia looked at Jack.

Jack shrugged, "Well they haven't killed us yet, but I naturally overflow with optimism." He lifted a leg over the edge of boxcar.

"Jack, I'm scared." Ophelia touched Jack's shoulder.

"Me, too, Gidget," Jack lowered himself to the ground, not looking at Ophelia. He helped Ophelia to the floor, then Akohm, now visibly shuddering. The cheetahs were tall, indeed, standing over a head taller than him, but he followed two of his ushers. Akohm and Ophelia flanked him and the last two cheetahs escorted from them behind.

Where the cheetahs escorted Jack wasn't anything where he expected them to end up. They weren't being tortured, thrown in a jail cell, beaten, eaten, or killed. In fact, as Jack looked at his ceramic and silver dinnerware with crystal goblets filled with red wine, they were to be dined.

"I was so excited to hear I was going to have guests, I hurried to get a dinner prepared for everyone!" Jack looked at his host speaking, a male Doberman at his prime. The Doberman grinned wide and his spear-like ears stood attentively. "I didn't realize my guests were so exotic! What have I? An obsidian Galatea and a bespeckled canine with a mechanical leg?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Akohm fidget.

"You, fellow canine," the Doberman pointed to Jack with a fork, "How came by you, that leg?"

"I lost my leg in the Keffir war in Southern Africa," Jack toyed with the baked fish on his plate.

"A general, were you?" the Doberman nodded.

"A Lance Corporal," Jack corrected and saw the Doberman's ears twitch, "I lost my men during a gas attack that followed the explosion that took my leg. They lifted me into a tree before the gas overwhelmed them."

"Then I drink to their sacrifice," the Doberman took a sip of his wine. He perked up and barked at a cheetah who then turned and left the room, "And you, my dear?" he turned to Ophelia.

"Um, I am Ophelia Danvers, second-cousin to Friedrich Gerhard on my mother's side."

"Then you must know of my teacher Jean Houdin!" the Doberman clapped.

"I am sorry, I do not," Ophelia shook her head, "And may I ask who you are?"

"Where are my manners, indeed?" the Doberman wiped his muzzle, "I am Doctor Franz Von-Riley, former geneticist and archaeologist, currently lord and engineer of all you see around you," he swept a paw around the room, "minus what the train brings me."

"You are a god!" Akohm quivered.

"The only divine being in this room," Von-Riley looked at Ophelia, "is the perfect Galatea gracing my presence. Now, you two must be tired. I've prepared rooms for you two to rest and clean yourselves after you've eaten. There is much to be discussed, but that can wait, for now."

"What about Akohm?" Jack looked at the genet.

"Him?" Von-Riley cocked his head at Jack, "if he is yours, he is free to do what he wants. Now come, come. Let me show you to a room."

Jack and Ophelia were ushered out of the room while Akohm sat at the table, frozen. Heavy paws of cheetahs guided them down worked-stone halls, stairs, gardens, and into separate guest rooms. Jack inquired about Akohm but Von-Riley simply smiled.

Waiting in Jack's room was a small replica of a cheetah leg. With Von-Riley's insistence, Jack tried it on. Jack was surprised to feel it move smooth and quickly respond. "A much better improvement," Von-Riley had commented and Jack agreed. Von-Riley complimented and examined Jack's arc-gun, brought out a small tool kit, and minutes later the arc-gun no longer needed ammunition, just a burst of air from the hammer. "Let the very air be your power," Von-Riley wound the arc-gun and fired. A ball of blue shot out and smashed against a vase of Impala Lilies.

When Von-Riley left, Jack helped himself to a shower to erase the sand and salt in his pelt and, to his surprise, put on fresh clothing that fit him perfectly. It wasn't until much later, after he dozed, exhausted - and after he accidentally tapped his new leg with his arc-gun, the leg kicking back from the surge - that a knocking sounded at his door.

"Jack, we have to leave," Ophelia said when Jack opened the door. She also wore a clean, new outfit and smelled of flowers. Behind her, still gritty, Akohm grasped her blouse. "Von-Riley and I talked about his machinations and discoveries - he has aeroplanes! But Akohm found me and, may we sit?"

Jack ushered them into his room and closed the door. Akohm clung to Ophelia like a nursing kitten.

"Tell Jack what you saw, Akohm," Ophelia wrapped an arm around the genet.

Akohm sniffed, teary-eyed, "M-monsters!"

Jack listened to Akohm in his broken English, but between the rudimentary pidgin and his state of mind, Jack could only understand a smattering of words. "Akohm, can you show me?" Jack suggested. Akohm nodded.

"The cheetahs ignored Akohm," Ophelia explained as they walked down stone hallways of varying work, "It seems Von-Riley also ignores Akohm, perhaps because genets are nonthreatening. As it is, I am not entirely convinced the cheetahs are alive. You saw how they acted at dinner."

Jack nodded. The cheetahs only moved when Von-Riley called to them, or otherwise walked dutifully. Their eyes only alighted when the doctor spoke. "I'm not sure the doctor is in his right mind, either."

The stone hallways led to metal catacombs, giving Jack the impression of a buried airship. "Like our transport ship in southern Africa," Jack muttered. He followed Akohm, who seemed to know where he was going, stopping to listen to doors and around corners, until they came to a lonely riveted door like all the others they passed. Akohm sniffed at a tumbler lock and placed an ear next to it. With deft fingers he spun the tumblers until each one clicked into place. The door unlocked with a deep thunk.

Akohm creaked the door open, sniffed, and looked at Jack, "In here. I spied the god-man go inside. It smelled bad. Very bad. The god-man left and I went inside. Don't let the god-man take me, mister Jack."

Jack walked into the dim-lit room. Stone tablets lined the walls, jars littered the ground next to sarcophagi, and an upright form, the desiccated remains of a mummy, hung in the middle of the room, held upright by plating attached to pipes in the ceiling. It was a museum. "I don't see," Jack began.

The mummy moved and Jack drew his arc-gun. The earless head turned to Jack and Ophelia squeaked. Akohm ran up to the mummy and held its bandaged paw.

"What is it?" Ophelia breathed through her mouth, staying close to Jack.

Akohm looked up at the mummy and to Ophelia, his tail swaying, "Miss Gidget, this is Mister Von-Riley."

Jack stepped closer to the mummy, pulling away fro Ophelia. The mummy was of a very old Doberman pinscher. It looked at Jack with sunken, mute eyes.

"I'm sorry," it rasped with a dry, sulfurous, breath.

"Sorry?" Jack repeated. "What are you sorry about?"

"Everything," the mummified von-riley looked down at Akohm, "You are going to die if you stay here."

"Do tell, Doctor Von-Riley," Ophelia cautioned a step forward and the dried head turned to her.

"Decades ago I heard of this valley and sought it out with my colleagues. Look at the tablets, what do you see?"

Jack walked to a tablet on the wall. It showed a tall jackal in profile with kneeling - what he could guess - were bald simians at its hindpaws. "I don't know, a canine and, are they apes?"

"Humans," the mummy wheezed.

"What are those?" Ophelia looked up from examining a sarcophagus.

"We were once gods to them," Von-Riley coughed. Pumps in the ceiling whirred to life as fluids sloshed down the pipes, and into the mummy. "They worshipped our ancestors before becoming extinct. In these caverns are the vestiges of their machinery that we began to experiment with. We pulled in water to the valley via aqueducts and replicated some of the technology. We used citrus trees and the ore underground to create electromagnetic vessels. And from those vessels, we were able to pull water from the very air to automate the machinery. We didn't realize, however, the toll it took on the land. We became surrounded by desert. We studied the bees that pollinated our citrus trees to harness flight and from the dust storms we captured static electricity. We became masters of technology!"

"Where are the other scientists?" Jack examined golden carts.

If Von-Riley had ears, Jack would have expected them to be swept back. The mummy dropped its head, "I killed them."

Jack's paw squeezed around his arc-gun instinctively, "How?"

"Slowly," Von-Riley twitched as the pumps quieted. "What you see in this valley is no less than the future of our existence. Others disagreed with me but with those who were on my side, I found a way to control them. No doubt you have seen the cheetahs? That's the continued result of my augmentation research."

"Then who is the other Doberman?" Jack walked back to the hanging mummy.

"That is Von-Riley, also," the mummy chewed, "After time, my body began to fail me. I enhanced myself but I went too far. I could transfer my intelligence, but I couldn't transfer my conscience. The tubes you see in me circulate throughout this ship and that other one connects to them received my own electrical input. Once filled, he disconnects and refuels this shell you see before you."

"Wait, ship?" Jack looked around him, "We're in a ship?"

"An aeolipile. I wanted to share our discovery with the world, but when I saw the land dehydrate with the drones we sent out, I wanted it stopped. The other one continued and I am afraid when it lifts off, the valley will be destroyed along with the others."

"Others?" Ophelia held an urn in front of her, "What others?"

"Mechanical workers could only take us so far. We needed labor," Von-Riley continued, "So we took it."

"The lost tribes," Akohm looked at Ophelia, whimpering, "in the mines. We must free them or they will die!"

The pumps grinded to life and the mummy took a breath. It looked at Jack with its wide, dead eyes, "He knows; you must run!"

Jack looked at Ophelia and Akohm, "I have a plan, but I can't promise we're not going to die." Ophelia swept her ears back but nodded gravely. Akohm stood from his kneeling position and followed suit.

The room boomed with an electric voice sharp in Jack's ears, "The humor of the flesh is at its dusk. Receive now, your amaranthine bounty." It was the sound of the Auto-Riley filling the air.

"Kill me," the mummy pleaded.

The entire room, hallway, and very air rumbled to life with hisses and grinding. Jack raced forward, alone, as Ophelia and Akohm broke off to take care of their part of the plan. Jack just needed to buy them time. He wound up his arc gun, instinctively reaching for ammo, before pulling the trigger. He heard an electric snap and followed the after-image to a now blown-out steam vent. Jack cranked the dynamo of the arc-gun and fired another shot as he continued run. Steam rushed to fill the hallway.

The hallway bucked and Jack flew forward. He stuck out his metal leg and absorbed his landing into a roll. As he stopped, he heard metal clanks similar to his own leg and quickly wound his arc-gun. Two cheetahs turned a corner and ran up to Jack with blazing speed. He fired, hitting one in a leg and watched it slam into the ground at a backbreaking angle. The other cheetah activated its spear and Jack furiously wound his gun. The running cheetah jumped as the hallway bucked again and aimed the sparking spearhead at Jack.

Jack lifted off the floor with the bucking of the hallway, aimed, and hit the cheetah in the face. It dropped the spear and landed beside Jack in a heap. Up close, Jack saw glints of metal under the spotted fur. He got up, grabbed the spear, and ran.

Jack ran up stone steps, giving way to grated-metal stairs, and he climbed. Everything around him shuddered and he heard the cliffs give way. Metal opened up to falling stone, the caves they were in previously were now collapsing. The steel frame of the building was pulling away from the rocks and Jack dove away from the avalanche. Akohm's path from their rooms to the mummy's chamber disappeared. Jack was running blind.

He sniffed the air. Although faint, under the dominating scent of metal and dust, he smelled the Auto-Riley. It was the same as the mummy, only less decayed, less alive. His improved leg gave him new balance in the listing building and he tracked down the scent until he found himself in the center of concentric halls.

The Auto-Riley, a different unlife than the poor bastard half-mummified deep below them, turned away from what Jack could fathom was a gigantic pipe organ. "Jack," the Auto-Riley gave a discordant smile, "It is about time for our ascension. I never would have expected such pristine specimens would fall out of the sky; my envoys wouldn't be slaves!" It turned back to the organ and pressed keys. Pipes above him rattled and boomed like a foghorn. Metal panes began to retreat from the walls and sunlight poured in. Jack looked around the domed room. There was a fair distance between him and the Auto-Riley, he wouldn't be able to hit the creature from where he stood. Jack didn't like the paneling of the floor but he walked forward.

The Auto-Riley pressed more keys and the air filled with bellowing. Hoses snaked from the ceiling to Auto-Riley and it began attaching them to its body. "Although I had wished dear Ophelia would be joining us for this moment, I simply cannot delay this any longer." It shook a claw at Jack, a black hose on its wrist wriggled, "You two conversed with Amun, that unfortunate pinscher, and now I must commence."

"Where are we going?" Jack spun the ring of the spear and felt the coils inside the shaft charging. He inched forward, the metal below his footpads betraying a deep hollowness.

"Why, England, my good dog!" Auto-Riley pressed keys and the panels around Jack fell, halting his advance. Hot, dry air rushed up from the pit below. "With this aeolipile I shall fly over the Red Sea. From there it's a hop over the Suez Canal, through the Mediterranean, over Paris, and finally to take my place as the Western world's new god, Asaraten. I am become Eternal," Auto-Riley lifted from the ground and Jack's panel fell. Jack caught himself on a cross-brace and watched as the spear fell into darkness. "And you, my example of augmented perfectibility" Auto-Riley, Asaraten, looked down at Jack, "like Amun, shall be honored stewards to Eternity."

Jack fired his arc-gun and watched as the electric bolt dissipated into the air without reaching Asaraten. The organ played by its self and Jack felt the structure rising.

Asaraten howled a cry of frustration and despair. It echoed above the organ and blasts of air below Jack, "You killed him!" Asaraten gaped at Jack from its vantage, "You severed Amun!" It screamed and flew at Jack as hoses either constricted or relaxed, moving the creature closer to Jack.

Jack cranked the arc-gun like mad as a sea of pipes and hoses drew closer to him. Asaraten was within the range of the arc-gun, but Jack still wound it, feeling tiny sparks crack and the hair on his paws electrify with static. If the gun overcharged, it would blow up in his paws. He looked past the oncoming machinery and searched the ceiling. A spark snapped at his natural footpad. The creature above him screamed and steam hissed. Jack looked, and then he found, in the frames of the ceiling, Ophelia. She was aiming a rail-rifle at Asaraten and following its descent towards Jack. The gallimaufry surrounded Jack and Asaraten's clawed for him. Jack crouched and touched the end of his arc-gun to his metal leg and fired.

The incurring zap jolted his leg like a piston and sent him skyward. Flares of spent electricity ricocheted from his artificial footpad and connected with the truss below and the metal pipes around him. He flew past Asaraten's grasp and reached for a rubber tube. Jack chanced a look down at the creature below him.

A missile of ball lightning ripped past Jack and pierced a metal plate covering Asaraten's occipital bone. Asaraten seized and the hose attached to the metal plate burst, spewing milky fluid. Jack felt the hose he grasped, the burst tube, retract and pull him towards the ceiling. He rose past the trembling cadre of pipes towards Ophelia. Jack reached and Ophelia's paws met his own. "I didn't think you were going to make it," Jack embraced Ophelia.

"I didn't think you were, either," Ophelia smiled and took off running along the high beams. Jack looked down and saw the slack body of Asaraten uncoupling from the pipes. It fell, unresisting, into the heated deep.

Ophelia took point and Jack followed her out a higher doorway. He could feel the building, the aeolipile, stuttering in its ascent. From far below them he felt a rising set of consecutive tremors.

"Not to make you hurry, but can we hurry it up, Gidget?" Jack called forward.

"Some of the pathway's been destroyed, I'm trying to remember if there were any alternate corridors to the hangar!" Ophelia yelled over the continuous rumbling of the ship.

Ophelia flew open a door and bright sunlight spilled onto Jack. Fresh air enveloped him, cool compared to the warm air from inside, now humid from the numerous breaks and bursts of steam piping. The hangar sat on top of the entire structure, large boulders crowding the runway and piles of the drone planes mashed together, having fallen from tall, metal struts.

"I have a vesp started," Ophelia sprang over smaller rocks, "They were housed where the mummy - Von-Riley - said they'd be."

"Is Akohm waiting with it?" Jack stumbled, his metal leg twitched with spent electricity.

"No, I haven't seen him since we separated," Ophelia climbed up the side of a bronze, ovoid plane. On either side, two sets of wings thrummed. "I hope he is with the tribes, safe."

Jack looked at the pilot's seat and the cockpit. He was surprised there were hardly any differences between the controls in front of him and those of his old airship. The vesp listed and rolled on its wheels and Jack's paws flew to the yoke.

"The ship's falling!" Ophelia gasped and fondled for her seat's harness.

Jack briefly registered he had forgotten to strap in and pushed the throttle as hard as he could. The wings whined and sparks spat from the edges. The vesp's list halted. Below them the drones slid and crashed together. Large boulders on the runway smashed into overturned planes and the heap cascaded over the edge of the hangar. Their vesp hovered as the aleopile crashed back into the floor of the valley.

"How do you know how to fly this?" Ophelia called forward.

"I don't!" Jack looked at the controls, "But it's similar enough to my old airship only, you know, without a balloon and with wings!"

The aleopile tilted into the citrus orchard and river of the valley. The water diverted around the dam and careened over the edge of massive, deep pit. A tiny, moving line of dots undulated across the far side of the valley and processed to the top of the cliff. "There!" Jack pointed, "Akohm!"

"Hippos and buffaloes!" Ophelia chirped, "The lost tribes, Akohm got them out of there!"

Jack piloted the vesp over the valley, past the smoldering remains of the crashed aeolipile, past dried-out vegetation forming a perimeter around where the building once stood. Jack saw that not everyone made it to safe ground. Scorched fish littered a dried creek bed; dried-out husks of hippos and buffaloes traced a failed path to manumission. Jack landed the vesp next to a whooping Akohm.

"We did it!" the genet jumped up and down. His tail wagged spasmodically, "Thank you, mister Jack, miss Gidget!"

Ophelia jumped down and embraced Akohm, giving him a kiss. "Thank you, Akohm. You braved all the warnings for us and, see, you've saved the missing tribes."

"We should head to Cairo to catch a ship back home, Gidget," Jack held his paw out to Akohm, "Want to come with us? You'd be welcomed with us."

Akohm shook his head, "Camels scout the edge of the sea. I'll go with the tribes and meet up with them. We will gather food and water before we leave. We are safe, now. What will you do?"

Jack looked at the idling vesp and to Ophelia, "We will have to land outside of Cairo and destroy this machine so that no one can reverse engineer the engine. This... stuff, this valley, has already caused enough damage. We can't allow it to spread."

Akohm turned to a water buffalo, taller than him, taller than Jack, even, and spoke. The buffalo answered Akohm and nodded to Jack. "He says they will destroy what they find in the valley," Akohm translated, "I will help and then we will find home. Nobody will know of this place."

"I will need to find a home, too," Jack smiled to Akohm, "I have my own family to take care of."

"Well this should help," Ophelia reached inside a pocket and withdrew a sparkling, crystal-clear diamond. "Von-Riley said the mines produced diamonds that ran the machines. I thought one or two of these could help us fund a new orphanage, Jack."

"By the gods!" Akohm exclaimed, "That is more spectacular than the Koh-i-Noor!"

Jack stared at Ophelia, slack-jawed, and shook his head to clear his thoughts, "Well, yeah that should help. And when we get back, let's get Andy and Charlie."

"Splendid idea, Jack," Ophelia's eyes glinted, "Also on our way back, may we go through France? I've always wanted to see Paris."