Frank felt a jolt. "It's been a while since anyone called me that. | 
mean, MCF people do call me that when they're making fun of the 
stick they see up in my rear, but-" 


"Eh, right," Priscilla said. "Just 'Skipper' then?" 


"Or Frank, yes. | guess they'll start calling you Skipper, too," Frank 
ventured. Priscilla looked around for a moment when she heard that. 
"Although we could keep your past work history under the wraps, if 
you prefer." 


Priss grimaced and glanced around briefly, "That would probably 
work better. I'm with the W-Ph-O, right?" 


"No, don't pronounce it like that," Frank quickly corrected her. "Even 


the Parahealthers themselves usually say it like j(hooo’, sort of like 
what everyone does with the World Health Organization, you 
know..." 


"That sounds stupid. And | know what the WHO is. It's just..." 
Frank nodded. "Wouldn't have one of those over there?" 


"No, it's not that, they probably did. They just wouldn't bother helping 
the people who'd really need help." 


"Then who the hell did they help?" 


"Dunno. Never really bothered learning about it." She walked 
forward, and Frank closely followed her. 


The aisle turned into an open hall. Once it was complete, the gaping 
holes would be covered with secreted hard glass and the floors 
would be beautifully polished ceramic tiles in a checkered pattern of 
dark green and white. However, as the couple walked through it, it 
looked more like a cave covered in moss than a hospital. 


"Isn't it amazing that we are going to build operation theaters in 
here?" Frank wondered out loud. 


"In a third-world-hell-hole like this, it'll be a wonder to see them 
achieve proper aseptic conditions." 


"Asept-right, that too," he grumbled. "Don't call it a hell-hole, Locke. 
Or at least avoid saying it out loud. It might be a mess of a place 
right now, but people live here." 


They stared at the large central opening that would become the 
door. Two large branch-like growths were forming at each side of 
the hole, each one slowly swaying in the wind, looking for its pair to 
grow into a door. 


"Uh, well," Frank started, "the World Health thing? They usually 


pronounce it 'who'. 


Priscilla pondered this in silence for a moment. 


"Sounds stupid," she muttered. 


"Might be. But people keep calling it that, which is why we have to 
do it too, or else-" 


"| was just complaining. | know how to blend in, Westinghouse." 


Frank noticed a certain amusement in her words. "Ah, yes, sorry." 
He stood in silence, thinking. "Crap, we got off track there. Quite 
honestly, | can't put what the volunteers are like in simple words. 
Too many, too different. Besides, you'll meet them these days. I'll 
just tell you Mission Branch 101 over diner." 


They left the maturing hall. 


Outside, the building area was filled with other figures in white-green 
overalls, some of them taking measures and making sure the 
growths were taking the correct shapes. Frank and Priscilla saw 
several pipe-like tendrils slowly burrowing themselves under the 
dusty ground, a few millimeters every second. One of them had 
found a particularly resilient rock right underneath the surface. The 
cracks were clearly audible as the Mason Mold grew through the 
smallest relieves on its surface and pulverized it, turning it into a soft 
but firm support for the pipe itself. 


Priss stared emptily, and gave out a quick giggle, "That's funny. 
Just... letting it sorawl and not containing it." 


He nodded at that. 


"Jacob would tell you that it is perfectly controlled and safe. You will 
come to think of it as cathartic, believe me," Frank said. He felt 
himself smile at the thought; those words came from him? Woah, 
sudden perspective shift. "Although | do understand what you mean, 
it's uncanny." 


They walked towards the perimeter fence exit. The entire building 
area remind hidden behind it, a wall of white-and-brown tarpaulin 
sections hung from metal poles. Each piece of the two meters and 
half tall wall sported the logo of the Manna Charitable Foundation. 
The surrounding terrain was lower than the hill were the Opal-1 


Work Group was growing its project, so a simple fence was enough 
to grant a certain measure of secretiveness to the entire operation. 


Priscilla studied the fence with a critical eye. 
"Hey, Westinghouse. Is that enough?" 


"Standard issue tarp. Never mind its stopping power, Locke, we 
don't need to stop anyone," Frank said. "The ones that would take 
the Assets away from us would not be stopped by any means we 
have. And both locals and refugees know the Charitable is working 
in here, and that it will be best for all parts involved if they simply 
stay away from it until whatever we are working on is ready." 


"They're afraid." 


"Why yes, they are afraid. Of us," Frank stated, matter-of-factly. "Of 
what we can do. There is always some measure of fear and distrust 
when the Charitable comes to town. They know we bring weird stuff, 
like buildings that grow from the ground up. And we had a Work 
Group around past year scouting the area, or rescuing people or 
something like that... they Know what we do, even if they don't know 
exactly what we do. Add rumors at that, and we have a certain, uh, 
protection,” he ignored the times when that had gone wrong. "They 
take it rather well, by the way. Imagine we used this stuff in the 
middle of an industrialized country." 


"You'd be lighting the biggest fire the Foundation has ever seen." 


"Sure, sure, good old Skippy would be there in heartbeat, wouldn't 
he?" Frank raised a hand as if swatting the idea away. "Well, no. 
Wrong. We have operations in every country of the world, including 
North America, Australia, Japan or Europe. Take Torres, go no 
further. That guy is Argentinian, how do you think he first came to 
us? There was a MCF recruitment post in Catamarca, Argentina, 
population three hundred thousand or so. In the open. Where was 
the other Foundation that day?" 


Priscilla glanced at Frank, brow furrowed. "You take this shit 
public?" 


"No, that's not this. Not anomalies. We are overt about us working a 
non-profit... but our funding methods are so tortuous that not even 
the Foundation, the other Foundation, can follow the money. We 
operate under hundreds of different institutional aliases here and 
there, most of them ephemeral. It's all smoke and mirrors, but the 
Charitable keeps its ears to the ground and recruits people that 
worked for other non-profits or gave the finger to fat cats, champions 
of the establishment and people like the Foundation." Frank stopped 
talking for a moment. "Crap, | didn't realize how redundant that was." 


"Redundant? The ‘fat cats, champions of the establishment-" 


"-and people like the Foundation’ part, yes, that." Frank and Priscilla 
said, simultaneously. They snorted at her own scene as they 
reached the entry checkpoint, a makeshift room made out of a 
prefabricated container with UN logos and surrounded by the 
tarpaulin walls. 


Inside, they discarded their masks, that were picked up by a bored 
Yusuf, who also stored them with their dirty overalls once they took 
them off. 


They walked out into the open. Less than a kilometer away, the 
center of Laascaanood was a busy place, now completely visible to 
them. Until then, the city had been relatively free of the Milking 
Maggot epidemic. It remained an important active population center, 
despite the large number of residents that had left the place after 
Somaliland had attempted to take the place. According to Mission 
Watch reports, it was quite emptier than past year. 


"See that?" Frank said. "Those are forty thousand souls. They are 
hurt, sick, sad, and some times even mad enough about it to pick a 
gun and do something stupid." 


"And?" 
"My point is that we are needed." 


"Spoken like the better man." Priscilla said. Frank's brow frowned at 
that. 


"What? No," he said. "No, no. I'm not here 'cause | am the better 
man, or... I'm just a guy who happened to be necessary here, the 
better ones are, you know," Frank made some gestures at the 
hospital, "in there, growing a surgery room and stuff. And down 
there in town, making certain mothers don't die while in labor and 
children live through meningitis, and... and they don't even realize 
they are the better people. They are here because they feel they are 
not better. And I'm not like them. No, I'm here because they needed 
an unlucky idiot who wouldn't trust his own shadow and happens to 
know how to avoid fights." Frank sighed slightly, pondering what he 
had just said. "I'm not the better man, I'm just a bouncer." 


"A bouncer for 40,000 without a gun? You'd make a shitty bouncer." 


"Right!", he answered, his face suddenly split by a fierce smile. "You 
got how wonderfully ironic that is, didn't you? We don't even have 
budget for guns. Why would we?" 


"| mean if you have no guns, no military personnel, no support of 
any kind..." 


"Then what am | doing here?" 


"Yup," Priss thought for a second, "Gathering intelligence for them, 
then?" 


"That's not entirely correct, but that's sort of what | do, sure." They 
started walking East, following the Southernmost limit of the building 
site. "They expect me to be a security guard without any violence, 
you know why? 'Cause that's not how security works for these 
people. They feel security is secrecy. They aren't threatened by 
locals, or armies. They know we treat them all, no question asked. 
True, some times there are stick ups. True, some times our guys get 
the shortest end of the stick and they get shot by accident, or 
bombed by accident, or accidentally kidnapped for ransom. It 
happens, all NGOs working around here know it and take it like 
champs. You know what makes MCF different? That we have to 
expect others." 


"As in..." 


"Others. Marshall, Carter and Dark cronies trying to buy, extort or 
steal our assets away. People from Insurgent cells trying to 
manipulate the kids into joining their side by telling them ‘oh, sure, 
you are delivering babies, nicely done, how about changing the 
world, really changing it, tipping the balance of power'? Even people 
from local ‘liberator’ groups with ORIA sponsors. And, of course, the 
Foundation. The only way to keep them away is tread lightly." 


"And you just let them use you to keep their shit secret? Why?" 


"Secret? Ah, no, that's what they do back home at the Continental 
Branch offices. Cover our activities as if other NGOs did it, create 
misleading or false media reports, stuff like that. What | do is keep 
them Mission kids discreet enough, just in case a field agent goes 
into the area and casually hears about us." 


Frank suddenly felt very tired. He stopped and turned to admire the 
sights. Priss did the same. Laascaanood extended before them. 


"Look, every Work Group takes their own decisions in the field. They 
practically make procedures as they go. Some of them are good in 
keeping a low profile, and some others have anomalies or talent for 
stealth. But a Work Group that builds hospitals?," he let out a 
guffaw. "Right, hiding thatis a tough one. And you don't even get to 
buy the terrain and cover Laascaanood in amnestics, right? So, 
what to do? Well, | visit the local officers, people from other NGOs, 
let them know that we are here on a little tour. And what they have 
to answer if anyone complains. And drop a few well placed shillings 
in the hands of any agents of higher ranking players that | think will 
be around." 


"That's it?," Frank watched her vaguely amused face. "No 'Thank- 
You' card with a five dollar bill?" 


"And the Charitable's 'good' reputation,” he nodded. "That's about it, 
yeah. We trust each other enough not to give ourselves up, trust that 
the locals know they want us to be around instead of selling us out, 
trust the other major players to think there is nothing around here 
and, if you like to do that kind of thing, pray." 


He started walking again, with a tiny sigh. 


"Sometimes it doesn't work. It's all a very thinly disguised lie, partly 
successful because nobody is looking for us and because looking 
for us is not worth the effort. Not unless we screw it up big time, 
anyways. The world is a big place and they don't mind us being here 
and using some breadcrumbs to save a few victims of tragic 
circumstances, for as long as we do our let's-all-be-friends gig 
instead of getting them to rise up in arms against the 
‘circumstances’. Our biggest defense is that they prefer to work 
closer to home." 


They reached the corner of the construction area. Beyond it, in the 
northern side of the city, there was a nascent displacement camp. It 
had begun to form last evening, the inexpressive faces shocked with 
grief and confusion, sometimes anger, already gathering there. The 
Work Group workers were already erecting some large tents for the 
refugees with the AMISOM troopers. 


Frank knew Jacob's specialists would be there too, discreetly 
planting prototype underground Vestan Seeds that would create 
sewage facilities and an irrigation system for crops further north. 


Frank knew Opal and her own specialists had been there all day, 
quickly finding every single case of the Sour they could find and 
supplying any relative of the patients with prophylaxis. 


Frank knew Olympe and his guys would be there about now, 
patrolling the newly born dirt roads that separated row after row of 
tents filled with displaced people. 


Frank wondered if anything they could do would be enough. 
Hundreds were coming into the camps' limits as they watched. 


"The worst part about them staying home instead of coming here, 
though?" He said, looking back at Priscilla. "It kind of works for us, 
too." 


Night was falling in Laascaanood. Frank had shown auditor Priscilla 
Locke, the special WPhO — pronounced johoo'— delegate for the 
local Manna Charitable Foundation Infrastructure and Health 
Mission for Laascaanood, all the impressive work the volunteers 


were doing to get the refugee camp up and running, and prepared 
for the hundreds that were sure to come over the next days. Upon 
the Work Group's arrival, a coordinated chaos had erupted within 
the camp its outskirts, where a handful of mobile clinics, operating 
from jeeps, and food distribution centers, run from the large MCF 
semitrailers. 


They had time to talk to the AMISOM commander, the acting chief of 
the Federal Republic and the elder council of Laascaanood. All of 
them were concerned about the affluence of refugees to the camp, 
which housed three hundred people already, all of them fleeing from 
the Sour outbreak. Frank conferred with them in the name of the 
Manna Charitable Foundation, assuring their commitment. He 
warranted that the epidemic would be stopped in Laascaanood with 
no risk to the town or their operations and told them the hospital 
would be ceded to the city whenever it was staffed by non-MCF 
personnel. 


For free. 


From there on, all powers that be in Laascaanood were bent on 
cooperating with the nice, helpful people from the Charitable. 


"Giving away our stuff like it wasn't planned!," Opal would say later, 
in that rare cynical streak she occasionally displayed, "The best way 
to make friends!" 


« Who Are You? | Hub | Cubes On A Slope » 
\\Programme Las Anod-1// 


Cubes On A Slope 


The expanse behind the hospital's hill was filled with people. 
Priscilla allowed her escort to guide her again between the tents that 
housed them that last night. People were preparing their move to 
their new, temporary quarters, grown-built from the mass of Vestan 
moss of the hospital. Volunteers laughed and chatted, carried their 
stuff in cases, bags and boxes and flocked to the road cleared 
specifically for the Programme.