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can't pop in any time they like.
     
    And, to set the outer windows to blur, so the folks
he knows are looking in from across the street can't read the
details on his case.
     
    "I suppose I ought to let that Edward chap find me,
and see what he wants," Millman says out loud to himself. He knows
the young man from Darby's is in the hotel a block away. It's his
job to know when he is being followed. He's an agent. Edward must
have something important, to have come down here from Darby's.
Usually those folks keep to themselves.
     
    "Perhaps I will invite him to meet me for tea, like
he did with that other fellow from the soccer game."
     
     

100 - Bridge of the Tumbleweed

     
    "Did you get another scan?" May asks Philo. The two
of them and Feller have been huddled on the Tumbleweed bridge for
hours, while Dr. Mangrove has found excuse after excuse to walk in
and out of his workshop - and through the scanner.
     
    "Yes, this one is better," Philo says. "But still no
components or alterations present."
     
    "This is ridiculous," Feller says. "It's like, Dr.
Mangrove has something wrong, but he can't tell us, but the Bird
People put something in him, but we can't find it, and if he tells
us, it will crush his head or something. Makes no sense."
     
    "When I saw the Birds' lab, they were doing a lot of
stuff with people's circulatory systems," May says. "Pulling their
whole veins out and stuff. It was disgusting."
     
    "Perhaps we ought to focus there, then," Philo says,
calling up a schematic of Dr. Mangrove's circulation from the scan.
His screen lights up with veins, and blood flow moving through.
Nothing seems unusual.
     
    "Zoom in," Feller says. Philo's screen focuses in on
just one vein, then the blood inside, then the molecules...
     
    "No. Way. Look at this," Feller says, pointing.
"Philo, are you seeing that?"
     
    "It's on my screen, therefore I see it," Philo
says.
     
    "Right. But look here," Feller says. "That's not
blood. That's something else. Something molecular. It almost looks
like..."
     
    "Nanotechnology!" May blurts out. "They weren't
installing an implant, they were injecting him."
     
    "Or infecting him," Feller says.
     
    "The invading agent is operating on the molecular
level," Philo says. "Now we must devise a method to remove it."
     
    "Remove what?" Dr. Mangrove says, appearing at the
doorway.
     
    Philo blanks his screen.
     

About Betsy Streeter

     
    Betsy
Streeter is an author and artist and voracious consumer of books,
music, movies, and more books and music and movies. And TV. Don't
forget TV. She can explain the Infield Fly Rule. She once rigged a
special effect for film using a squeeze bottle, surgical tubing and
dry ice.
     
    She's been published by King Features, The Funny
Times, Utne, Perihelion Science Fiction, Literary Orphans, Fiction
Vortex, Oxford University Press, the University of Wollongong, Jack
Canfield, and a cornucopia of other fine publications to whom she
is grateful.
     
    Her YA science fiction novel entitled "Silverwood"
comes out in March 2015.
     
    Betsy welcomes questions, thoughts, or musings about
her stories and artwork, as well as ideas for Great Women to draw.
You can find her in these scenic digital locations:
     
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