ERIC VINCENT

ALEXA SARBACANE, EXTRA-CLEAR-SIGHTED DETECTIVE VOLUME 5

FLIGHT ABOVE THE ATLANTIC

Flight above the Atlantic

Site: http://ericvincent.no-ip.org/

© Eric Vincent 2001. All rights reserved. Every resemblance with having existed, existing or coming situations or characters would be a pure coincidence.

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The calm glasses of star on the tip of the nose, Alexa read the last novel of a famous writer exhausting regularly the scores of sale (Note of the author: by worry of discretion, not to make him the free advertisement, I will only mention his initials: E.V. ! For those that would not have understood, I won't say that he works in the fantastic, the police stories and the science-fiction! For those that would not always have understood, look at the name of the author of the present masterpiece!). She laughed, cried, vibrated while reading the adventures of hers favorite author transformed by the biggest of the mysteries in terrific hero. A deep mutation had granted him the power to make the dish, the household, the ironing and had removed him all grumbling when he had to take down the trash can. These paranormal capacities made of him an extraordinary being of which all women dreamed and he restored Superman to the rank of the obsolete curiosities. On her gaudy beach sheet, she swung her legs in air with the rhythm of her laugh. Sometimes, her minuscule feet fell again in the sand. Precisely to the instant where the tone became more serious, where the author unveiled his feelings, his turpitudes, his pranks (Note of the author: oh there! It is going to become gritty! I must censure myself before it is too late!), Alexa became again the sensitive and touched person that her fans adored. She didn't pay attention to the group of teenagers playing soccer on the part of humid and hard sand of the beach. Her reading captivated her but her mind surprised herself to wander from time to time. Her spiritual wanderings dragged her up there, close to the stars, in geostationary orbit around the Earth. The space called her with strength. She would empty her banking account to acquire a place on Hermes next flight, if it was sufficient to win her ticket for the paradise! The space... Would she return there one day? Would her creator have goodness to grant her two times in her life this immense privilege? She returned the cover of her novel and affixed a kiss under the author's photograph. By this gesture, she presented him a supreme honor, a delicate attention and a prayer to grant! She felt a light draft close to her: a sheet of bath thrown elegantly on the blond and golden sand by the last sunbeams of the day. Marie had just joined her after having finished a marathon day. - Hello Alexa! - Hello my big! Then? This ceremony of fence? - Exhausting! I will blow more or less in one month. Until then, our politics is going to consist in selling our solution like a serious alternative in the American shuttle. And the day where the race to the colonization of the Moon will be thrown, we will lead proceedings. There are billions of euros in game. My mail and my sale force condition a part of the obtaining of the contracts. Do you imagine the crushing responsibility level on my frail shoulders? - I can imagine... You possess a sacred influence! To this subject, besides, if you want to help me for a new departure, I am voluntary! - Did you like? - Marie... To like is a too weak verb to describe the joy that I can feel when I think to the hours lived in zero gravity, close to our planet. There is not anything comparable. What flavor can the terrestrial life have after such an experience? I don't affirm to be made to be an 3

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astronaut. No... I believe to have been conceived sincerely to exercise my talents in the paranormal domain. But to live close to the stars is so charming. I could investigate in the space. Sure that there are some ghosts on the other planets, no? - Surely. - Alexa Sarbacane, extra-clear-sighted detective and intergalactic! It sounds well, I find! I imagine the head of my customers. Some small green or blue men (Note of the author: Alexa confounds with other characters of the comic strip!), with big square heads, full of buttons! - It is the spit portrait of my colleagues! - Oh! You exaggerate, Marie! There is some that are drinkable! - Do you find? Honestly... I wonder if I am going to find finally shoe for my foot! Could not you concentrate on the topic? - I ignore if I can do it. Usually, I use my grants in the professional setting of my investigations. Not for the clairvoyance in direct on the hopes of the heart. - It is important for me. I look for the passion as before but without the violence and the humiliation assorted to the feelings. I feel ready to offer my heart without concession to a kind passionate, present, attentive man, to stretch, enthusiast, beating, generous, lover, chivalrous, imaginative, smart, mad, intoxicating, sensual. - Only that? An advice: embark yourself on the shuttle next flight, your rare bird is inevitably an extraterrestrial! I never met this kind of phenomenon on the Earth. It looks like a character descended of mythology! Believe me: the perfect guys only exist in dream! - Don't you want to try? - Okay... If you want it absolutely! Alexa plunged the head in her book and closed the eyes in order to avoid the daylight. Thus, if there was pictures, better would be their cleanness. She chanted internally that she wished to know the sentimental future of his young friend. Unfortunately, Miss Sarbacane had not been suitable again to the game of the pure clairvoyance. She ignored therefore that the flashes didn't control themselves comfortably; even while wanting to be informed on a precise topic, it was not rare to be dismissed and taken back on another topic, the essential topic for the consultant at the time of the session. The detective was victim of this phenomenon. More she tempted to dedicate herself at the emotional side of the person responsible of the communication, more one showed her the professional future of the young woman. Marie would not exercise her talents all her life in Kuru. She would leave the European space agency in a short time, some months at most. Intrigued by this departure, Alexa wanted to know more. Why would her friend abandon a gold job? She saw her in Paris and in a city of province, a big city that she didn't recognize. In spite of all, the presence of numerous half-timbered houses and a stork glimpsed on a roof let her imagine that it was about Strasbourg. She would frequently travel, would write and would speak a lot. She stood near a man in navy blue costume. At every vision, this young, elegant and beautiful boy was on the front of the stage. A detail pleased a lot to Alexa: his dark costumes contrasted radically with ties made of the quick colors and psychedelic printed matters and he systematically carried fantasy socks like "Titi and Grosminet" or "Snoopy". He dressed of a way as he seemed to want to break the seriousness of his task thanks to these sartorial accessories. 4

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- Then? Don't you see anything? - Yes. I believe that you are going to get a new job. - Ah good? - I think that you will leave in a short time, to work with a politician. You will write his speeches, you will take care of his picture, of his communication, of his rallies. I see him but I don't know him. He has got some funny socks and ties. - Alexa! It is always necessary that you notice this kind of detail before the essential... - And that what is the essential, according to you? - Will he become deputy or minister? - European deputy because I see you in Strasbourg, I think. But also in Paris. I explain: he comes from Paris or he exercises another mandate in the capital. - Do you see something else? - No, I am distressed. I don't manage to connect me on the sentimental domain. There is like a gate. Yet, it happened to me to see events of this nature. For Yann and his wife Juliet, among others. For you, I have a blockage as if... you didn't have the right there or as if... you dreamed of an impossible love and that nothing else existed. Unless... - Unless what? - Unless your deputy's function conceals another reality. - Ah… Do you see a beautiful boy? - Rather... It could be the tree hiding the forest, that his beaming public life occults a more discreet relation... Let’s know! The flashes are capricious! Marie smiled extensively. Then, her smile faded away little by little as if it took a tinge mildly of nostalgia. She plunged her sad eyes in those of Alexa. This vision had not satisfied her entirely. She expected the announcement of a maybe perfect love (Note of the author: it doesn't exist... The loves are only what we make of it... both together! Except if we consider a specimen able to create the magic of happiness alone: me, for example!). Marie was dived again in the meanders of the tumults that had failed to carry away her in the past. - Are you disappointed, Marie? - No... Finally... I don't know... - What do you think about? Did you hope for the charming prince coming astride the Hermes shuttle and bringing you in the garden of Eden? - Alexa! You make me laugh! I imagine the stage... Do you believe that one can recover someone at the garden of Eden, in the paradise? - Hey! Don't put yourself the idea in the head to go to the paradise to find the love! You will find it on earth. About what did you think? - To him. The one that you knew. - He is not in the paradise (Note of the author: I disapprove the affirmation of Alexa. To live near Miss Sarbacane looks like the paradise!). He is close to me. - I believed that he was not anymore your guide?

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- He took the place of my guardian angel. We succeed in communicating at random through the chosen words in my books. I knew it when I took place on board of the shuttle. He helped me to recover the guru's trace. - By what means? - My watch sounded more and more quickly when I came closer of the guru on the card of headquarters. I don't hear his voice anymore as before but to know he is close to me, that he is my guardian angel, secures me. I feel able to dare, to risk my life if it is necessary because he watches over me. - Does he communicate with your watch? It is funny! You should buy one, endowed with a memory. - A memory? - Yes! Some models allow to write down some messages and to make march them by a simple pressure. Or then, you take one of these small devices of Tatoo type or Alphapage that receive the plain text. Can you ask him some questions? - Yes. - Asks to him if he could communicate through this kind of machine! Alexa was not some anymore to a curious experience in the domain. If the answer was positive, he could collaborate then with her in a more efficient way. She could ask him for the advice... She... No... He would not have answer for everything. She should do her own choices as a last resort. Of all ways, she perfectly knew him . If to answer a question bored him , he would present her a sibylline formula that she should shell with a knife during hours. A joke of fifteenth degree or an eloquent silence. In the past, he had played the game of the riddles concealed in his sentences. He liked to play with the words and would not deprive himself of it in the future. She took the time to empty her body and her mind of all outside influence and asked the ritual question with a tip of impishness: - Hello? My guardian angel? Are you there? Marie guffawed to laugh. - Do you always address him in this way? - Yes. - Doesn't he have a first name? - If but my author refuses to unveil it before the hundredth adventure. - Ah! I see! Again a strong head, that one! - Precisely! Then, my angel? Do you sleep or do you open your ears? Proceeding as the use required it, she opened her favorite novel (Note of the author: see higher to know the author) and read at random:

" Still ready!"

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- Brilliant! He answers! Do you believe that I can interrogate mine? Marie said. - We are going to ask him ! Maybe does he know your angel?

" Especially not! It is a peevish!" He answered through the words of another page. - Darn! I told to myself that I would not have as much luck as you, Alexa. - It is true that I have some a lot. Good! I ask him the question: tell me, guardian angel, could you communicate with me by the slant of a perfected watch, of a computer or an electronic text system. The answer was unequivocally.

" I want, my nephew!" Alexa and Marie let explode their joy. A modern, cool guardian angel, cabled on the technique! They didn't let count themselves of it to the paradise! They followed the progress of the technology, probably surfed on Internet and he had computerized the management of the new newcomers surely, of the affectations of guardian angels (he had programmed to attribute himself a place of choice!), of the retraining of souls and the internal promotions. No doubt about it, he had introduced the new communication media in order to improve the connection between the world of the living and the world of the beyond. Alexa immediately thought to her favorite supplier of gadgets on the place of Paris: Ali Gator, a fanciful Egyptian, a real globetrotter furrowing the whole world (that is to say Japan and the United States) in order to find the best material bound to the world of the investigators and other spies. - Do you believe that I am able to ask him a question, Alexa? - What do you want to ask him? The detective inquired while suspecting the nature of the question. - Does he remind me? - Do you remind Marie? She opened another masterpiece of the literature, a medicated test of the interaction between the rarefaction of the underskirts and the decrease of the masculine libido in the twenty-first century world. This work would constitute her new Bible soon because she strove to save alone the sentimental decrepitude of the human relations. The guardian angel appeared in a disturbing way.

" The titmouse with an orange head hissed a happy and lively air then flew off for more ever to land on the branch. Ephemeral loves of the spring, charms thrown in wind, hopes disappointed not to be a lover." Marie plunged the head in her beach sheet, concealing her face with her arms. Alexa put her right hand on the shoulder of the young woman in sign of comfort. Not only he 7

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remembered her but he regretted bitterly that a history was not born the day of the meeting. Merely because of unsaid, because of a lack of communication. A lack of communication! Poor Marie! She didn't certainly think that her specialty would not have permitted her to make the first step toward this man who had touched her. She hammered the sand over and over again while promising that she never would do this kind of mistake again. She would be as direct as possible every time it would be necessary in her life, even though her exemption exposed her to painful returns of stick. * ** Yann had taken the plane since the day following Hermes' landing. He was in a hurry to join Juliet, henceforth future mom. Honors, the polish of pump with the official, he didn't care bewilderedly about it (Note of the author: I was ready to say "He didn't have anything to polish of it" but with this sentence added to the "polish of pump", you would have had the impression that I was dumbfounded and in pain of pompous expressions!). Yet, the President of Republic himself had moved with a cohort of characters all more important the some that the other. Ministers, ambassadors, secretaries of state, undersecretaries of state, microscopic civil servants of state, the whole court of the Elysee and the Bourbon Palace had accomplished the few thousands of kilometers separating Guyana from the metropolis. A godsend for the local trade taking advantage of the crumbs fallen in the wake of these consumers of state-controlled budgets. Alexa had gotten ready for a long time for this evening of official reception presided by the President (Note of the author: the President presides! I give in the original! Hold: I am going to say that Alexa provokes and that Eric Vincent sells millions of books! Only pleonasms!). She had valued her legendary colorful sartorial custom and a makeup in the height of the event. A yellow canary sheath dress and one crimson purse of the most beautiful effect, the quite heightened by a suspicion of rose on the feet, on the nails and on the lips: it would be sufficient to attract the attention on her so that one recognizes her undoubtedly (Note of the author: as if to pass to the television owing one billion of viewers had not been sufficient! I adore this girl's insurance!). Never missing an opportunity to distinguish herself and to share her unlimited knowledge concerning appearance and pace with others, she had convinced Marie to adopt the colorations that the young woman didn't think ever to display considering her redhead mane. The detective had persuaded her to match an orange skirt with a turquoise tank top and had nearly forced her to make the acquirement of heels shoes of a very crunchy salad green color... The two pinup made themselves wait for a long time before showing the tip of their nose (very charming, moreover) at the fiesta where about four thousand people hurried, either the entirety of the staff of the space agency, the official premises, the journalists not missing an opportunity to rinse themselves the throat and to stuff of small pastries to make a paper on the major event of the history of the European space.

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Their remarkable come-in triggered a salvo of applause, of flashes and a broadside of admiring masculine hisses: the ransom of the glory. They approached as much that possible of the rostrum that had gone up close to Hermes' landing runway. The shuttle sat behind, creating a technological bottom contrasting with the thick green curtain of the surrounding forest. The sun shaved the horizon and its rays dispersed themselves little by little through the branches of the highest summits. In one half-hour, the twilight would come with its cortege of screams of nocturnal animals, its troubling shades and the sweetness refreshing of the tepid air. The night promised to be at a time short and long. Alexa intended well to explode herself, to give free course to her smart imagination and to dance until more thirst. She would find a partner in the height to come with it. Henri Paillant had surprised her enough during the week passed in orbit. He was endowed with a happy temperament, teaser and had waltzed with her in zero gravity to amuse the crew's rest. The President of Republic appeared with his complete headquarters, accompanied of a dozen of ambassadors, of high soldiers officers and of famous industrial. In brief, he provoked a crowd as he could nearly have passed unobserved if he had not measured close to two meters. The silence made itself little by little while most important character of the state brightened the voice before starting his speech. Alexa smelled like the tingles in the eyes. She didn't carry glasses of contact and no winged or rampant animal had undertaken a session of climbing on her pink baby face. She passed the hand finely above her nose while taking the precaution not to spread the layer of makeup underlining the burst of her irises (Note of the author: was this really indispensable?). She ignored the source of these itches. She had had her account of sleeping hours and had paid even for the luxury of a small catnap in a hammock after the lunch. The allergies didn't find a land of proliferation in her, to part the deep allergy to the detractors of Eric Vincent and a deep aversion for the drab colors. In desperation, she lowered her lids in order to calm the irritation. A precise flash occupied her mind during two or three seconds. A drawing. A painting on silk representing an Indonesian Buddha, less coated that the Thai representations. It was painted on a bottom of mountain and was surrounded by the sea. The wealth of the colors was stupendous. Yellow, orange, green, blue, this realization incorporated the whole palette of the rainbow. Its size was perfectly delimited: long and narrow. A tie! Amusing... Why did Alexa see some ties everywhere? The attention that she paid to the President's monologue vanished little by little. She wandered in the aid purified by the promising subjects of a rich spatial future. No far from the official, she believed to recognize a face. Incredible! The man of the flash was in front of her. Shy, the borrowed air, nearly unobtrusive behind the politicians of foreground. He carried an attentive ear, sign of a demanding professionalism. He seemed extremely young, not more than twenty-five years old. In his dark costume, he didn't emerge the share of dressed. Around his neck hung the proof of his originality well, the magnificent tie descended of one journey far or acquired at a very well-stocked importer. He benefited from a chair, like all official. He probably occupied secretary's station, a kind of director of country or controlling member of a section of his political party. When he crossed his legs, Miss Sarbacane perfectly distinguished the pair of socks to the effigy of Batman. A fan of comic 9

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strips... Or a fan of not little discreet socks! A precious quality for the detective's eyes. She would have liked to place two fingers in her mouth to give out a strident hiss and to attract Marie's attention but her wise side took the advantage for some instants. She left in direction of Marie with the firm intention to drag her by choice or not so that she discovers the proof of her visions. - Marie! - Yes? - Follow me! - Why? - I am going to introduce you an unknown person! - What? Are you going to introduce me a man that you don't know? ! Did you fall on the head? - I am a little mad on the sides and it is for this reason that I have so many fans! - I see... Where is he? - There! It is he! - Cute... How are you going to make? - Watches the method and take some notes. Alexa stopped a man no far from there, the arms charged of a tray of champagne cups. She took three of them. She aimed a glass to Marie and told her: - You make precisely like me! Okay? - Okay! Alexa emptied the quantity of champagne of a feature and Marie made in the same way. Then, Miss Sarbacane released her glass that smashed itself in one thousand pieces. Before Marie's astonishment, she pushed her a little the elbow to help her to accomplish the gesture. A good hundred looks converged at the same time toward them. Of which the one of the young man. Alexa didn't even blush whereas her accomplice curled the color of a very mature tomato. She fixed the right man in the eyes and with her gracious and thin fingers, she waived to him to approach. He watched behind him, doubting that the sign applied to him. She confirmed him of a smile that he was concerned. He agreed to rise to make acquaintance with the two charming naiads. - Hello miss Sarbacane! - Hello mister Unknown! - I introduce me: Romain Latin. I take care of the communication of Olivier de Provence, the new technologies secretary of state. - Delighted! Apparently, you know my face and surely my exploits. But you don’t know my friend Marie Curry, the person responsible of the European space agency communication. - I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Marie!

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She stretched him the hand and he skimmed it with the lips while splitting himself of a very elegant kiss on the hand. She blushed until the ears especially as Alexa presented her an accomplice wink meaning that it was tear to the spiced charms of Marie (Note of the author: I know! The spiced charms of Marie Curry, I already made it in the previous episode but I do what I want and I don't resist the pleasure to put back a layer of it! I could have said that Marie Curry was contaminated by the love, that she radiated happiness and that her future husband was called Pierre. But I don't wish to abuse!). - Marie, do you know that miss Sarbacane is going to be honored at the end of the speech? - No... Did you know, Alexa? - I ignored it. What kind of honor? - The national order of the merit. - Lord! For what reason will I get such a distinction? - For your spatial exploits. The whole spatial staff will get the Legion of Honor as well as the person responsible for your arrival at the scene to investigate. - Who is it? - I ignored her face until now. It is you, Marie, who had the idea! - Me? I will never go up on the rostrum in front of this crowd. - Yes, you will! Nobody can refuse a decoration put back by the President of Republic. The only one that would be able of it is near you. The domineering and inflexible character of miss Sarbacane made the tour of the world... - I am flattered by the compliment, the concerned person answered. Alexa observed him in detail. He came closer of Marie, captivated by her flaming personality. He held his hands crossed behind his back. He rubbed his phalanxes nervously the some against the other. "He is febrile. He would like to take Marie's hand in his and never leave it. I can feel it and I see it to his behavior. He is captivated but he doesn't dare to clear the step. Again one of these devilish shy that miss the most marvelous women, that is to say us! It would be necessary that I find a thing to unite them quickly, these two turtledoves... " She stood on Marie's left side and whispered her to the hollow of the ear: - Your rider is held very close to you, Marie. - I know. I am terrorized. - Why? Doesn't he please you? - Oh yes! I am afraid not to be at the height. I am afraid to make the first step. Do you believe that he is going badly to interpret it? - No. He will take it well. It is too shy to accomplish the first gesture but he dies some of desire. - How do you know it? - I know it, that’s all. - I won't do it. What pretext can I seize? 11

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- None. Wait! You are going to see! - What do you want to do? Marie didn't have the time to place the least remark. She was forced to submit to the Machiavellian plan of Miss Sarbacane. This last caught the Roman hand without the least hindrance and threw to him: - I don't have the stage fright! But my girlfriend, you should reassure her! You are accustomed to this kind of ceremony! Watch as she trembles! The most naturally of the world, she took Marie's hand and placed it in the one of Roman so that he verifies that this last trembled effectively. He must surrender to the evidence: she trembled like a leaf! Not because of the discount of the decoration but because this situation provoked a torrent of sudden emotions in her body. Compressed in the chest, her heart beat the measure. It implored its owner to cover its calmness. It didn't take the path of it since Roman declaimed: - It is true that you tremble! You shiver! Are you cold? "Answer yes! " Alexa squalled mentally. "Even though it is not true! " - No, Marie answered. But your cordial presence reassures me... "Pleasantly said, Marie!" Miss Sarbacane commented. "I count the points. You lead 1 to 0. " - You need to get… some comfort? The young wolf with the long teeth asked for. - Your hand holding mine, it is well more that a simple comfort... - What does it inspire you? - Never to release it... - It will be necessary to make only one exception: for your rise on the walks until the rostrum. I won't be able to come with you. - But then... Even though my fright passed after the decoration, you will have again... desire of me... to keep close to you? - Desire... Yes... Unfortunately, my daily work won't be finished for as much... The politics requires a constant presence and availability. Ah! The ceremony of discount of the rewards is going to start. It is going to be to you and Miss Sarbacane to shine under the fires of the rail. - You also, you will shine one day, under the celebrity's fires. While hearing her stated name in the loudspeakers, Marie detached herself from Romain. But she added before moving away: - If you want to see me again, appointment to the door of the hangar at midnight, whatever he occurs!

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He was sounded like a boxer. An elegant appointment... and proposed by a young woman nearly unknown. Decidedly, the twenty-first century would be the century of the surprises. Alexa passed close to him and threw to him: - My girlfriend, Marie, she learns quickly! It is necessary to say that her particular professor is gifted for provocation! He looked at them to move away. He was in a hurry to learn with Marie and would not miss the appointment under any pretext. Even though he had to throw his card of party member to the nettles to hold his promise. * ** The hour of the return had sounded. The presence of the best extra-clear-sighed investigator of the world was not justified anymore (Note of the author: I deposited a patent for twenty years and I broke the mold to manufacture an Alexa Sarbacane to be certain that one won't copy her! I want to stay the unique possessor of the cloning right, the reproduction of Alexa implying non negligible industrial restructurings, reopening of the Mexican factories of installation of the convertible red former version Beetle, multiplication of the stores of disguise renting, extension of the agricultural domain encouraging the culture of the fruits necessary to the confection of marmalades and jams, openings of clinics in order to take care of the fallen men in love mad of Alexa Sarbacane, bang in the products of fixing hairdressing to send myriads of blond wicks toward the cranial summits, etc...). She thought to the ceremony while curling her suitcases. The President of Republic had asked for her presence in the presidential plane. The eve, he had wished to meet her in particular. He had addressed her his quickest congratulations for the success of her investigation. Without betraying truly her professional secrecy, to his demand, she had delivered him some narrations of her vintage. It was not a secret for anyone: the President was especially intrigued and concerned person by the paranormal phenomena. Ex-Centrale School pupil, he didn't yet embody the limited and closed scientist as we could meet some specimens of it in TV broadcasts. On the contrary, he adopted a behavior decidedly turned toward the research of the truth, the curiosity, the interest, the confrontation and the experimentation. This attitude should have been ethics admitted by the scientific community. While the cocktail was in full swing, that the orchestra played music like “in American series", for example "Love boat" (Note of the author: I don't have anything against this series except that it takes place on a boat! In spite of the overflowing imagination of the script writers, for me, a boat, it is synonymous of nauseas and small friendly fish hurrying around my returned lunch in the ocean!), the President had been anxious to know the one of which one noticed less the honorary distinction better more that the color of her clothes. Tempting to leave his sinewy gorillas vainly, he had split the crowd of flies eaters fans (Note of the author: because they had the dumbstruck of admiration owing Miss Sarbacane and that the flies, taking advantage of these unhoped-for openings, engulfed themselves joyously in a non illuminated tunnel, ignoring that they would be precipitate in the following second in a gastric 13

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acid bath!). Succeeded once in gathering with the common of the taxpayers (Note of the author: I use the term "taxpayer" instead of "mortal" because when I receive my leaf of imposition, it is deadly!), the President asked her to join the cohort of official. She accepted willingly, her domineering character having been deadened momentarily by her stay in the space. The setting of quality composed of ambassadors (Note of the author: not the aperitif but the function!), of non corrupt ministers (species in way of disappearance), of productive and efficient secretaries of state (Note of the author: I remind to my readers that I am a whole author of science-fiction), of elected persons with sixty centimeters diameter heads (Ah! Science-fiction...), this astonishing assembly of high characters in color and long in arm impressed Miss Sarbacane hardly. For a simple and unique reason nearly applying to all normally constituted individual: all this beautiful world had something to hide and nothing escaped the eye of Siamese of Alexa (Note of the author: I know! We must say "Eye of lynx" but the lynx doesn't have the blue eyes, according to my information!). A disagreeable reflection on behalf of a person would be worth him a trim and clean retort to trigger a mini Watergate. The big strong man of the state bent toward her and confessed her: - You should counsel my wife on her toilets. - For what reason? - She doesn't know how to dress. It is a disaster! We are the laughingstock of the press magazines. You, at least, you have your style! You even rallied a new adept! He annotated while seeing Marie Curry no far from Romain Latin. - My style is inimitable, mister President! Good! If we came to the fact! Do you have a precise question to ask me? - Nobody is able to hide you anything... It is delicate... Don't you guess? - Oh yes! As all elected, you wish to know if you will be reelected in the next presidential elections, isn’t it? - Of course! - It is natural! She said while closing the eyes some seconds. The pictures paraded very quickly, as the Leclerc assault tanks on the Champs-Elysée a July 14, by fear that they fall in breakdown. Alexa didn't like to be suitable too much to this kind of exercise. She preferred, from afar, to apply her grants to the only research that her investigations implied. To see a person's future required an obligatory tact at the time of delivering the message to the consultant. In spite of the interminable list of qualities of which the young woman was kneaded (Note of the author: I didn't add much to the original model...), tact didn't belong to her encyclopedia of the savoir-vivre. However, she applied to measure out her effects: - Your name will be the one of the future President. - My name, Miss Sarbacane?

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- Yes, your name... But you won't occupy this station... It is Madeleine, your wife, elected of the Var district, who will reach the supreme function. - My wife? - Yes. And... you know... why she will present herself at your place, on your advice and with your most complete support... Won’t you do it? - Tell it me! - Do you want to hear from my mouth in heart a bad news? - From your mouth in heart pricked of a fly as famous as the belt of bananas of Joséphine Baker, all news will be eased... - I know, you know, your doctor knows and the whole world ignores that you are sick and that you won't represent yourselves in the presidential election. I know that you will sustain Madeleine's candidacy and that you will show abnegation and an admirable courage while beating country for her until the victory, despite the pain. I cannot give you any false hopes as for the exit of the sly and long illness, according to the dedicated expression, but I can affirm you that you will have joy to pour your tear of happiness one Sunday evening while learning that all your efforts will have paid. The highest character of the state diverted the head to wipe a tear slipping on the deep furrows that the time had dug under his eyes. The fanciful character of the young woman was famous in numerous regions but how much ignored that it was sensitive to this point. He thanked her with a large smile and promised not to forget her words. He let her return to the feast. As Alexa closed her ultimate suitcase (the fifteenth or the twentieth, she had not enumerated them), she felt some tingles in the nape. He wanted to communicate. She took a book at random in the library in pine bet to her disposition. When she had learned about his message, she didn't immediately understand where he meant.

" Disguise" What did he want to say? That a disguise has remained in a cupboard? She verified a new time her room but didn't discover forgotten hopeless garment. In spite of the flagrant lack of place in her apartments, she had not pushed the plug too far by occupying the storage spaces of Yann room. Therefore, there were no risks that she led astray a holding. Marie had restored the few accessories lent by the detective for the ceremony of the eve. It was necessary that he solved his nebulous thoughts. - Tell me! Could you specify your thought? Because I don't know if it’s because of Pina Coladas or because lack of sleep but this morning, I need matches to hold my lids in open position and explanations for my unhappy brain in marmalade.

" Danger" She read in a random sheet sampling.

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- A danger? Am I in danger? Is it necessary that I disguise myself to put me safe from the danger?

" Absolutely" He answered with a categorical manner. Usually, Miss Sarbacane would have quibbled, discussed, nitpicked, criticized; brief, she would have used her reputation of domineering. There, she undid the devolved magic trunk to the holdings of work and to the make-up without losing only one second. She cogitated briefly to make hardly recognizable and had a brilliant idea. * ** The seagoing whole staff was anxious ready to welcome the official in this special flight on board of a Jumbo Jet, the Boeing 747. Around four hundred fifty emblematic faces of the fifth republic had taken place on board. Even though the beauty of the airline stewardesses was not anymore what it had been in numerous airline companies (because of the multiplication of the flights, simply), the legend lasted within this crew. These big blonds had the pace and a royal port. The most minuscule among them, a delicious Eurasian with a mat skin and green eyes, black, brilliant hair, collected in a subtle assembly under her coif, didn't spoil the team's rest. The charming damsel compensated her beginnings little insured by a disarming kindness and considerate smiles. Miss Sarbacane, hardly recognizable, pulled herself of it with honors for her first transatlantic crossing as airline stewardess. She placed the passengers like her supposed colleagues. She led Romain Latin at his place without he recognizes her. He seemed distinctly cooler than during his arrival and he would have lied while pretending that it was about a delayed-action effect of the time lag. No! It was rather about the devastating consequences of a mad overnight passed in the heart of a redhead tornado. His adieus with Marie were long and cordial. The young man had not regretted his displacement in Guyana. Alexa didn't have the least remorse to have trodden the soil of Amazonia. It was the eyes filled of emotion that she had left Hermes' crew, the tear to the eye that she had tightened Marie in her arms a last time. She would see her soon again. She knew it. Marie had been captivated by Romain and would not linger to join him in metropolis. Alexa didn’t need of clairvoyance to guess that the two specialists of the communication had fallen madly in love. The future deputy had interest to assure with miss Curry because she had the grant to spice the relation. Once the set of the passengers sat to their places, a resonant and visual invitation asked them urgently to girth themselves correctly (Note of the author: the big planes appear very steady, the gesture seems useless, I can assure you that an enormous air hole takes off you of your seat in less than two seconds and that it is truly about an indispensable measure). Alexa was suitable to the game of the demonstration of the life jackets. Evidently, seen their gaudy colors, she was in ecstasies in front of these emergency accessories of which she would have

16

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liked to appropriate a sample on board. She only pretended to pull on the ropes of starting point; otherwise, she had risked flying off in airs while floating like a feather. To the simple evocation of the word "to float", she thought again of her Hermes' fantastic week past on board. She now understood why all future astronauts dreamed to embark on board of the space shuttle. This absolute dream had transported her by the stars... The Boeing aligned in tip of track. Miss Sarbacane as well as her colleagues joined the devolved places to the flight attendants. She waited wisely that the device springs and takes the altitude. * ** The darkness had been achieved in order to project the last masterpiece of Luc Besson on the screen (Note of the author: a masterpiece of Besson, it is a pleonasm. I am an unconditional of this film-maker to not to confound with Bresson, Robert of his first name, who is the only director who succeeded in making me leave a movie theatre with nausea and regrets to have paid out six euros whereas I am usually good public!). In full session of movies, six men had risen suddenly and had cut down the bodyguards of the President with a bullet in the middle of their heads. Now, they surrounded the President while threatening him with their weapons. Panic seized the passengers but their shouts had fast covered the screams. They didn't appear to be led by a chief. Alexa had attended hostage's hold while confessing her impotence. Nothing had warned her from the danger. Not the least flash. The clairvoyance only operated when she solicited it precisely. She understood that the operation had been prepared minutely when she saw armed men coming down from the superior floor of the Jumbo Jet. Up there, the paralysis was also appropriate. A man, a big redhead with black and aggressive eyes, endowed with a scar browsing all his left forearm, held her in cheek as well as her friends of misfortune. The young women trembled like leaves and the stewards didn't dare more either. Alexa, always as hardly recognizable, didn't understand the significance of the warning sent by her dear guardian angel. Why did he have valued this absolutely that she disguises herself? She didn't know the least terrorist acting with discovered face. Even the last man come, their chief, a small guy with short hair, piercing black eyes, the face ravaged by hundreds of small holes, consequences of a disaster chickenpox during his childhood. He addressed the passengers very quietly: - I am Adrian O'Neal, member of IRA. Our movement didn't appreciate your recent declarations, mister President. Absolutely not appreciated. Your support to the English politics of pacification of the Ulster by strength is going to be worth you a serious annoyance. Your deplorable service of security has been reduced to nothing and won't be you anymore of any help. We installed a bomb on board of this device. Sufficiently very hidden and sufficiently complex so that none of your men is able to find it and to deactivate it. It is planned to explode, as we will over fly France, the Parisian district, if everything 17

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occurs as planed. Don't believe that we will be part of the journey. We foresaw the parachutes as well as the oxygen in order to execute an honorable exit. We are going to take the time to tie all passengers as well as the flight attendants. Then, we will leave you and will let the plane continue its road in automatic mode until the place of crash. Of course, we eliminated the two pilots in order to assure us that there won't be any loophole. Our operation has been prepared for a longtime, mister President. As you can note it, some of my men were part of your setting since quite a lot of time. The infiltration was obvious to erase from France the desire to pursue its support to the British intolerance. The only bone, I must say, was this known detective's presence on board of the device. By luck, she is not there. Her arrival could have thwarted our plans. She could have felt the danger, to mark us and to denounce us. Luck is part of the game. Paul, John, Sean, occupy yourselves to box them as anticipated! Alexa, always threatened by a gun on the cheek (Note of the author: what cheeks! We would kiss hem only by greed!), noticed that they were organized truly like professional terrorists. Their backs accused all of seriousness bulges, the proofs of the parachute presence. Their weapons, as for them, were entirely removable. The maintenance parts, made in fiberglass and other non-resonant alloys under the porches of detection, made it some very efficient ghosts. On the other hand, the bullets stayed an absolute secret of fabrication. What matter had been used to achieve them without possibility of detection? Their timed plan took place without tear. For every passenger, the same treatment was applied. First, two turns of armed adhesive roller around the mouth to gag. Then, handcuffs in plastic like necklaces used in plumbing enclosed the hands behind the back and the feet. Of course, the operation ended by an attachment on the seat in order to eliminate all displacement. They were broken in. The operation didn't exceed forty seconds pro passenger. Alexa had the same treatment. She had a fright when her enemy gagged it: she feared that he pulls the wig while surrounding it with the adhesive and that he discovers the swindle. That was the reason why he had asked to disguise herself therefore. She didn't know them but this Adrian O'Neal didn't ignore that she was able to fit the operation with a hood. Terrorists of I.R.A., the Irish revolutionary army. She was at hundred miles to imagine that her mad author would play her such a joke at ten thousand meters of altitude. Did he aim to send her to join ghosts and other twisting minds to prevent her from having to face the bad jokes of her favorite author, an invitation to dine in the kitsch apartment of Yann Delaunay or the feeling anguishes of the demand in marriage from Stéphane. Will she die while sending herself in air in the azure sky of the blue planet after being sent herself in air in the space? (Note of the author: I know; I sometimes yield to the easiness! But I could not stop from making it, this pay of words! Sorry!) Her author made her see all colors. In addition, she liked it, to see some of all colors. Especially when he made her carry turquoise and orange, green and red, yellow and purple. Colors perfectly accorded together... When the detective was reduced to the silence (Note of the author: it is ashamed to mistreat Alexa to this point when we know the impact and the comfort that her wisely words can procure!), immobilized as the set of the passengers, she wondered how the hijackers would 18

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leave the device without provoking an abrupt depression, pulling the seats, making steal all objects fixed and plunging the Jumbo toward the ocean. They surrendered all at the rear of the device, toward the locker to luggage. They would borrow it definitely to leave the ship before he/it flows (Note of the author: I know again that I am going to be the subject of disagreeable remarks, of gibes! We are not on board of a ship on the ocean sinking. However, not having found an expression similar to apply about a plane, I assume the right, to the contempt of the principles of the academy French, to use the expressions as he/it pleases me (Me, I rather follow the academy of the nine...). Here is! End of the commentary on the free expression of the authors of fantastic heroines.). Just before leaving the passengers, the musclemen threw smoke-producing pomegranates. Smoke escaping of these contraptions could let augur that it was about a tear gas destined to cover their flight and to sow a few more the panic on board (Note of the author: as if the fact to be on board of a Boeing without pilot, with a hidden bomb and all passengers tied like roasts were not sufficient...). Alexa felt to falter. Gas proved to be a powerful soporific (Note of the author: as my declarations of love or taxes, I don't know anymore!). * ** How many minutes or of hours could have flowed out? Alexa ignored it completely while taking conscience. Her mates of misfortune were agitated little by little on their seats as the effects of the smoke-producing dimmed. The detective thought that it was urgent to act. She had to get rid imperatively of her belt (Note of the author: don't especially believe that she is going to do a striptease! If you see Alexa one day in comic strips, you will note that I mention the strap of security and no the belt girding on her size of wasp and usually serving her to whip the nasty disobedient machos!). She suddenly had a genius's idea (Note of the author: did you doubt some? I remind you that I am her author...). Since she had the wrists tied up in the back and that the buckle of belt was located before, it was sufficient to dislocate the hip sufficiently (and she was driven to that game since she had danced like a devil girl in Guyana) to return the situation. She put the maneuver therefore to execution. She pierced on herself and succeeded in turning around to the three quarters. She clutched the buckle of belt and unblocked it. Thus, she could get on her legs. While hopping, she came to the seat of Romain Latin, no far from there. Too bad if the stage shocked him! Marie was not present to attend an attitude that can have passed for squalid in other times. The detective sat down on the knees of the person responsible of the communication and rummaged blindly in direction of his underbelly and his fly in order to put the hand (Note of the author: no! Censured!) on the buckle. She freed him at the end of some seconds of vain research. The hardest remained to accomplish. Alexa always had gadgets with her in case where bad people would have wished to cause her some pain or to keep her prisoner. Very fortunately, it was not otherwise the first case. On the other hand, the terrifying reality met the second hypothesis well. However, her dear Ali Gator, supplier of gadgets, had presented her, among others, a belt whose buckle contained a blade shooting switchblade with a simple pressure of 19

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the ornamental and golden rose situated in the center of the sartorial accessory. The hardest was to accomplish: Romain had to understand that he should turn and push on the rose. How to make understand him? She gesticulated and put her belly forward (Note of the author: what constitutes a physiological impossibility, Alexa Sarbacane being deprived completely of greasy overcharge whereas me, if I had had to play her role, I would have succeeded without pain!). He lowered the eyes on the designated center and pulled a face meaning undoubtedly that he had not understood the message. It was useless to make some more. Alexa rushed on the hard side of a temporary seat what triggered the ejection of the precious blade. Light immediately came back in the eyes of the future politician. He turned to present his hands and the young woman always disguised in Tonkinese must bend forward to movements from rear to top and from bottom to top to decide the prisoner's ties. The decency forbids me to describe the stage because it reaches a degree of very involuntary and completely out of place torrid eroticism in the situation of emergency in which our heroine is. It goes without saying that all graphic, photographic or film reproduction of the liberation should be submitted to the author's whole approval. Suddenly, Romain’s hands freed themselves because he exercised a strong pressure at the same time on the ties of plastic. Thus, he could pull his gag and could recover the precious and magic buckle to finish work. He decided in the quick while thanking the airline stewardess by some judiciously placed blade strokes. When he saw her to withdraw her wig, her lentils and the whole remains (of the disguise, surely!), he was amazed to recognize the most famous detective of the universe (Note of the author: the first in the room that says that I exaggerate, must prove me the opposite!) and incidentally the friend of his tender Marie. - Miss Sarbacane?! - Surprised? - I thought that you remained in Guyana. On another side, I had been assured that the President asked for your presence on board. Why are you clothed like an airline stewardess? - A thin voice told me to disguise me before embarking. - These terrorists would have knocked you down, definitely. - It is not necessary to waste time, Romain. Free the passengers; I reach the cockpit. In a true boy-scout, the politician cut the necklaces of plastic as quickly that he was able to it. Alexa glanced to her watch. They had sunk in the unconsciousness about ten hours! In less than three hours, they would over fly Paris and its vicinity. At this instant, their pieces would scatter themselves above the city like much confetti one day of carnival. They shouldn’t lose one minute. To find and to deactivate the bomb were the absolute priority. How to find it? How to deactivate it? Some pyrotechnics! It would be necessary to contact some of them and to get the guarantee to have business with the best among them. The least false manipulation would send her and four hundred passengers, to join the sky. Although she adored her guardian angel, she was not hurried to give him the accolade! - Romain! She screamed. 20

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- What? - Find me a satellite telephone! She answered. I have a bad presentiment. Her fear proved to be founded. To solve the problem of the bomb stayed incontestably spiny. She discovered the aggravating factors while entering in the cockpit. The two pilots had been cooled cowardly with a bullet in full head. She was familiarized to deathly visions of the morgues where her dear Yann Delaunay had sometimes dragged her to make speak the cadavers (Note of the author: Alexa is so persuasive and adorable that she would succeed there without difficulty!), the slaughter of which she was the involuntary witness raised her heart. She diverted the eyes some seconds to calm hers nerves before daring to look at the control panel. She looked for the radio. She found it. It was in crumbs. It didn't arrange her business and cut the device from the outside world. These rot men had perfectly plotted their stroke. Suddenly, she saw a thing that she could not forget more ever during her life. On the left side of the Boeing, another device came with it. Not a Boeing or an Airbus, nor a Russian Tupolev. This funny contraption had the shape of a top and shone one thousand fires. - What is this... thing? She exclaimed in a high voice. The top flew at the same speed as their plane. It was impossible to distinguish a porthole, a cockpit and even less of pilot. The contraption passed over them to carry itself on the front, very close to the nose of the 747. The maneuver had been executed at the lightning speed, as if it was abstracted itself and rematerialized in another point. The most hallucinating was not the speed it flew but the one it was able to change positioning. She noted that no device was able of a similar prodigy and that no living being could have cashed a neighboring acceleration, visibly, around fifty G! Even a fly would not have survived there and would have finished its glued life against a partition, in a liquid state! As curiously it had appeared, the shape moved away at a lightning speed. In less than two seconds, it was only a minuscule light cell beyond the horizon. Alexa was completely stunned by this apparition worthy of virgin Marie (not Curry but the other, the one that had appeared to... to him ). She forgot the situation of extreme danger in which she was dived personally practically and incidentally the other passengers (Note of the author: everybody will agree to think that Alexa is more important, in size of soul, for lack of size in size, that the common of the future mortals having taken place on board.). She went back the same way while closing again the door of the cabin. The President of Republic coped her. - Miss Sarbacane! Were you disguised? - Yes. - Romain told to me that you had had a vision. - Unfortunately, it was not a vision but a warning. My “adviser” told me to change my sartorial aspect. I thought that somebody would be angry with me. Not with the rest of the passengers. I didn't think anymore about the importance that you donned... 21

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- What can we do? Did the pilots die? - They died. The radio is destroyed. - Misfortune! Fortunately, we detain a satellite telephone with a battery charged for two hours of communication. - While saving, it will be sufficient. It is necessary to start with contacting your headquarters while asking them to foresee the naval means of recuperation, the best pyrotechnic of the world and an exceptional 747 instructor pilot! - Why a boat? - Because if I don't find the bomb, it will be necessary for us to land before the final deadline. By choice or not, it will be necessary to dive toward the ocean before the fateful hour. Not to add some deaths above Paris, to save our skin also. - I understand. We are going to contact. Miss, we are going to clear a part of the device so that you are to calmness. - To concentrate me? I hope that my powers will function today. - I put a terrifying pressure on your shoulders but you embody our unique hope... - I know. She isolated herself in the square of the stewards, near the cabin of piloting. Before all tentative of clairvoyance, of projection on the future or the past, she tempted to recall herself the entirety of the action of the terrorist commandos. Why did they have embarked and to disembarked during the flight, taking insane risks (a jump at ten thousand meters of altitude representing an outstanding sporty exploit)? Why didn't they have placed an insignificant baggage on the carpet or slipped their malevolent object in a bag took at random? Because the luggage passed under the detection before entering in the locker! They could have insured the complicity of a mechanic sustaining their causes. But he could speak. No... The explanation was simpler, necessarily. They had taken place on board to manufacture their bomb, directly, as their weapons. They had introduced the different elements of the bomb, had collected them and had stored the final product in the cabin. Was the locker for luggage totally irrelevant? How to know? She closed the eyes but her powers didn't give her any indication. It would have been too simple. She imagined that her creator, in an impetus of frustration and little adventurous life, liked making endure her the worse turpitudes. She infuriated. - Speak with me! She beseeched while opening a magazine at random. Tell me where is this damned bomb that I show to it that I am the sexiest bomb!

" I don't know! "

His laconic answer let her without voice. She ignored the significance of these words. Didn't he know where the bomb was or didn't he know if she was the sexiest of the bombs? He didn't add the least commentary to this weak bootjack of dialogue while forcing the

sheets of the magazine to glue them together. She lost hope to go back one day otherwise at home that in a bag in plastic. *

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** Facing the breakdown of Alexa’s powers, so dreaded, the passengers had been put to contribution. Alexa had asked them insistently to verify the content of their trashcans, purse, satchels, suitcases (including those under the eyes), and compartments of ranging. In the same time, Alexa had put to contribution the stewards and the stewardesses in order to verify if the cabin of pilots didn't conceal an unaccustomed object. Then, she had imagined that the bomb had been placed in the locker for luggage. The gigantic compartment contained between five or six hundred suitcases, bags gigantic and other diplomatic trunks. Her powers had only indicated her only one thing, only one word: danger. They were in danger, a truly perilous danger. The presence of the bomb was a certainty. It remained hardly two hours before going to introduce her homage to God, Jesus and his apostles. When she thought that all this beautiful world was so-called charged to watch over the humans… The excavation of the locker would take of hours. Each should recognize the precise content of his luggage (Note of the author: seen what I take every time on vacation, the inventory could have lasted some chandeliers). She would run the death ahead, undoubtedly. She felt a change in her body. At the beginning, she was unable to describe it. But at the end of some minutes, she perceived stupidly that she was thirsty! She had not nourished herself, nor watered since too long and the sun of Guyana had started her reserves in water before embarking. She headed then toward the office and opened the refrigerator. There were Cola, orange juices, lemonade and canned beer. Evidently, she had preferred to swallow a good juice of carrots infinitely more generating of kindness (of which she didn't miss). She fell back on a box of orange juice. As the countenance of these boxes didn't exceed thirty-three centiliters, she took the liberty to appropriate one second of it. It is whereas a detail shocked her. The two ducklings didn't weigh the same weight. If the first made the announced three hundred fifty grams well, the second weighed close to the double. She weighed up the set of the boxes of orange juice. All others were equivalent to the first. Only this one challenged the laws of the weight and caused her interest. She approached her ear but she didn't discern the least ticking of old cuckoo of the Swiss clock making. She lowered the lids and had the vision of an infernal machine exploding and volatilizing their plane. In spite of the fright generated by the shock of the stage, a detail intrigued her. The President carried himself to her sides, the dark air of the electoral defeat evenings, ready to resign while assuming his responsibilities fully. He had contacted his headquarters that didn't give a lot of their skin to all. He lost hope to learn good news finally and it was the reason to approach Miss Sarbacane (Note of the author: when we know Alexa, we find one thousand reasons to approach her! But she makes quick to scuttle your boarding if you do it there like a boor!). - The next time, he said, I will measure my words more. - About what subject? - Before denouncing the terrorists and to sustain those that fight them.

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- Don't throw the stone on your head. You acted in your soul and conscience. You don't have to blush of your acts, gentleman. Did you see, as me, what these men achieved? The savagery and coldness used to kill the members of your security, some family's fathers for most. They eliminated the pilots as coldly. These people are worth to be fought. What I don't understand, it is the reason for which they didn't eliminate you. - Simply to torture my conscience until the ultimate instant where this devilish bomb will explode. If we could find it! - It is there... Finally, I believe! Hold! Weigh up these boxes with precaution. The highest character of the state accepted to accomplish the test proposed by Alexa. Seeing the afraid mine that he displayed, she understood that they were well on the same wavelength. The second duckling displayed a completely unexplained ponderal overcharge. - My God! - I believe that God wanted to help us today. We let all in the refrigerator and we contact the pyrotechnics. - Why don’t you go to the locker for luggage to throw this bomb in the ocean? - For two reasons. The first, it is that nobody knows how to operate the opening of the locker without making the set of the passengers take a risk. - And the second? - When I had the vision of the explosion, I held the box. But it didn't explode. I don't understand why. - Is the bomb elsewhere? - I believe it. We need a pyrotechnics advice, an expert; that is the unique solution. They decided to use the telephone for the second time. It was necessary to save the time of speech, to save these flipping batteries that, year after year, didn't always hold more than two hours in conversation. Alexa regretted not to have had the right to take her own material on the site of Kourou. She would have had supplementary assets. She felt alone and responsible. The President relied completely to the scent, to the intuition, to the instinct and to the grants of woman's small tip. She measured the weight of the pressure on her shoulders. She would have liked so much that Yann shoulders her. Or Stéphane. Suddenly, she measured the emptiness let by his absence. She was nearly tempted to call him some seconds to tell how much she loved him, how much she waited that he plays his role of pillar in their couple, that he sustains her in their tests, that he dynamised their relations, that he dynamites the tranquility. While thinking dynamite, she immediately came back to the reality. She was alone in a plane in perdition. * ** Alexa had been right a thousand times to rest the box of orange juice well wisely in the refrigerator. According to the indications provided by the pyrotechnic Daniel Pétard, the box contained a sophisticated detonator made of sodium and magnesium. Alexa had not 24

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absolutely consisted of his explanations; she had kept merely that it was impossible to move away the detonator otherwise of more than five meters the explosion would have place. Besides, if the ambient temperature of the box ironed ten degrees above, the blast off would take place. The deflagration would come from the rear of the refrigerator. Eight hundred grams of Semtex, the most powerful of the traditional explosives, had been fixed on the motor of the electrical device. The expert in explosive perfectly knew this type of infernal machine: it was the signature of IRA and had been used in one half-a-dozen of attempts. - If you perfectly know this product, the President had announced, we are pulled business! - Not indeed, Daniel released. - Why? - I forgot to explain you the way of which we settled the problem to every intervention. We evacuated the zone of risk, placed a load and lets explode the trapped packet. When we had the opportunity of it, once, we joined the refrigerator to a small electric group and we displaced the all in a sure and free place. If you understand our way to act, you understand that it cannot apply in your situation. Eight hundred grams of Semtex, it is four times more that it is necessary to reduce the 747 to nothing. It is not the quantity of explosive that is important, it is the fact that to your altitude, the least hole in the cabin is going to tear the cockle in one thousand pieces. - If we succeeded in flying to three hundred meters of altitude, would it let us for example, a luck of survival? - If the quantity of explosive had been weak, yes. Eight hundred grams won't let you this luck. The only positive point in your case is that the load is placed at the rear of the device. In the worse of the cases, to have a minuscule luck to get some survivors, would be to concentrate you in the front of the device, to create a barricade between the bomb and you with the help of all objects falling under your hand, to fly at the level of the ocean until the contraption explodes. The tail would detach itself and you would dive in water. Evidently, in this case, you are going to flow in some minutes. Very little among you are going to survive. - Why not to tempt to deactivate the bomb? Miss Sarbacane operated. The detonator cannot act if it is deactivated. - It is true, Daniel noticed understandably. Did you observe this bomb? - Yes. - How many cables do you see? - A true score. - It is the problem! To deactivate it, it is necessary to cut an unknown number of cables and in a precise order. Otherwise, the bomb explodes. It is impracticable. Especially because I’m not with you! - I want to try the experience. - It is pure madness! - Maybe not, the President cut. Miss Sarbacane possesses extraordinary grants. I trust her. The pyrotechnic didn't know what to answer. For him, the least disastrous alternative consisted in limiting the number of deaths. Not for Alexa. She was anxious to live numerous other adventures, annoy to discover the fantastic investigations that her Yann friend would 25

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confide to her (Note of the author: Yann! It is said quickly! Alexa forgets one more time that the author, me, imagines the horrors that she must undergo with her smile in legendary heart, pricked of a gracious fly! Let's return to Eric Vincent what belongs to him!). She would not be content with a minimum damages option. She would play the double or nothing. * ** Miss Sarbacane had gotten settled to the orders of the Boeing. Following the instructions of a pilot of Air France, she had disconnected the automatic pilot, had brought the device to an altitude of one thousand feet (Note of the author: either about three hundred thirty meters while taking a normal foot whereas it makes a lot less when I take my foot (that is bigger)... I take my foot to write histories of feet... Laughing, no? No? Good, I will try to make better the next time!). Once the automatic pilot put back in function, she had had to isolate herself to concentrate and to finalize her tactics. She had to put him to contribution in her perilous tentative of defusing. - Listens, my guardian angel. I ask you to help me. The life of a few hundreds of people is in game. All rests on my fragile shoulders (Note of the author: not so fragile because they can bear my jokes...). I need you. I would like that you appear in the same way as when we tracked the guru of Kourou (See the episode "the guru of Kourou" in which we find a guru living not very far from Kourou!). Show yourself through the alarm of my watch. When I get ready to section the good thread, trigger a long beep. If I am mistaken, don't appear. I implore you, don't drop me. She read his answer in a magazine:

" We form a team." She slipped herself until the rear of the device, where the drama would be played if her grants or her guardian angel started faltering. She waited patiently that the barricade made of travel bags, purse, bags in crocodile, bags for potatoes and bags for fleas (Note of the author: I ask for forgiveness to the SPCA) and setting to bag is erected and is strengthened. Then, she made the emptiness in her spirit and seized a pair of scissors. She had a last thought for her friends, Yann, Juliet, Marie, for Stéphane, for her family and for him, persuaded to join him in the beyond in less than one minute. She said herself that she was committing the craziest silliness of her existence and that she would regret it bitterly in a short time. She trembled like a leaf and started perspiring heavily. She took the cables packet with one thousand precautions, closed the eyes and began to separate them one by one, slowly, measuring every gesture. She "had to feel" the danger. The boredom, it was that she only felt it. These cursed electric cables put her blue fear. She was shuttering. The packet decreased slowly between her hands. How much cables would be necessary to decide? How long would this torment last?

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Suddenly, she calmed herself distinctly. Her watch appeared by a long beep. - This one? The yellow one? Is it the first? New long beep accompanied by an abnormal quietude. The moist hands, she separated the yellow thread from the rest. She opened the blades of the scissors, leaned them against the plastic-coated girdle and inspired deeply. Then, she closed again her hand of a dry stroke. Nothing had happened. It didn’t mean that the part was won. She separated the two elements so that no fortuitous contact occurs. Then, she carried on the terrifying test of nerves while taking the set of the ties. She had counted them. There were seventy-five of them. She consulted her watch, no to see if he appeared but to note that he remained only one hour before the arrival at Roissy airport. In some minutes, they would fly over France. If the explosion had to take place, it should occur above the ocean. She took her two-handed courage (Note of the author: at least two hands were necessary because Alexa was very courageous! Me, I would have let everything fart to go up directly to the sky and to admire the vast plains of the paradise where multicolored flowers grow by billions. I invent all frankly! I will never know what the paradise looks like since I will be going to roast in hell to have broken the thousands of heart while announcing my remarriage!). New tremors accompanied by a fear panics and new silence of her guardian angel. She asked the sky to succeed, so that the continuation of her adventures could come true until the thousandth episode. In this one, she should soak her white and rarefied hair in sugar to hope to see the famous wick taking the altitude! (Note of the author: no one follows what I say! It is nevertheless unhappy to see that there is not a reader to scream "stop to lie!" One thousand episodes! I put, on average, one month and half to write, in dilettante, an adventure of Alexa Sarbacane. Supposing I dedicate all my free time there, that my companion accepts that I dedicate all my free time there (it is not won!) and that I shortened the delay to one month, I would write twelve "Alexa Sarbacane" each year. Either on hundred twenty in ten years. It will be necessary for me about eighty years to reach the thousand of different copies! Considering my thirty-four years, it pushes the meter to hundred fourteen years! It is not necessary to dream! I will never hold the distance! Therefore, dear reader, supervise my words! They sometimes hide monstrous ineptitudes of the kind: a honest minister, a socialist boss, a just tax, a not expensive car, the military genius, when gas will be returned to five francs the liter, I won't drive anymore, etc...). * ** The alarm of the watch authorized of the astronauts had released suddenly, gluing the fear of her life to Miss Sarbacane (Note of the author: except the day where she had left the hairdresser with a dramatic hair cut! The hairdresser had been shorn manu militari in public place in order to wash this affront made to the biggest detective that the Earth carried.). It was not about any daily or exceptional programming but he that appeared. She opened a magazine to know more.

27

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" Finished!" She read at random. The operation of defusing ended. In order to assure herself definitely of it, she opened the door of the refrigerator and withdrew the false duckling of orange juice. In order to reach the fateful temperature and limit more quickly, she made a gesture that gave sudden desire to all her fans to become a vulgar tin box: she placed the object against her belly. She shivered repeatedly but the hoped warming up took place (Don't question the kindling capacity of Miss Sarbacane). On the other hand, she showed evidence of composure, inherited of her young experience of astronaut. The bomb didn't explode. She had succeeded. The terrorists, whatever the place they were, would not have joy (for them, not for the fans of Alexa) to learn that the plane had vanished under the eyes of the sky controllers. Unfortunately, the situation, even though she improved curiously, included even some hiatuses concerning absolute security. Their device spun stomach on the ground to eight hundred kilometers per hour right on Brittany. When Miss Sarbacane had succeeded in paving herself a path in the heap of luggage accumulated to achieve a barricade, she seized a micro and announced with a resonant manner: - The bomb is out of use! A thunder of applause surged in the plane. A salvo of hurrahs was immediately awarded it. Passengers carried her in triumph until the king's powerful throne where she received the canonization from the hands of the Holy Father in person, the enthronement in the order of the big masters of jams and had finally the right to wear the underskirt (Note of the author: I value the underskirt, everybody the will have noticed! I will place it in each of her adventures until Alexa yields to this ancestral custom!). Quiet, serene, sure of her, Miss Sarbacane dared to announce the continuation of the rejoicings. She was hardly conscious to break the ambiance very slightly while declaring straight off: - Is there a pilot in the plane? (Note of the author: the expression is pulled from a movie whose title is this question. It seems welcome to clear this extract of school kid and firstdegree humor in the present situation.) The passengers stared themselves mutually in order to discover in the neighboring look an optimistic and affirmative gleam. Alas! It was necessary to surrender to the evidence: even the minister of the defense, a former soldier, ignored all of the handles of a flying machine. The visit at the superior floor of the 747 gave a result as disastrous. No one possessed the capacities to pilot a plane of line. This ambitious politician loading, crumbling men of state, maggoty businessmen and of a fantastic woman didn't have the least notion of piloting. It is whereas the President made a remark letting foretell what turn the events would take.

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- But you, Miss Sarbacane, you followed Hermes practice on board. You even started a maneuver with the space shuttle. You are familiarized with complicated control panel of the contraption from the most sophisticated space to the world. A Boeing 747 won't certainly put you more difficulties! - Mr. President, the concerned person answered, I didn't vote for you in the last presidential elections and I have just understood suddenly why. You are crazy as a loon! First, I didn't pilot the space shuttle. I especially learned to recognize the buttons on which I had not to push! I had three weeks to make it! There, you ask me to learn to pilot a chest of several hundreds of tons simply in less than one hour stopwatch. Do you give account that you win some elections with speeches of this kind, while asking and while promising the impossible? - I realize it, he admitted merely. But you pulled us from a bad situation until now and there is not a person here that doubts that you are not able to renew your fantastic exploit. I am distressed to tell it to you but even an amateur pilot would make some mistakes with this plane that your supernatural grants will know how to avoid. Besides... - Yes? - Besides... No one doubts that the plane will submit to your natural charm. It will accept your four wills. - Ask the sky especially so that it doesn't accept the crash! She added while heading toward the cockpit under the encouragements of the crowd in jubilation as if the people were happy to learn that the emperor offered them the games of the circus! To the detail near that Alexa had the sensation distinctly to enter in the arena and to act as decoy for the lions (Note of the author: again ineptitude! Not because Alexa is not appetizing but her size and her personal anatomy would make some an amuse-mouth only for big starved fawn! Such Blandine saint, holy Alexa would be saved!). The cabin of piloting had been ridded of the pilots’ bodies. These last rested with the members of the presidential security team in a part of the plane transformed for the opportunity in ardent chapel. Considering the brutal death of which they had been victims, Alexa had hoped for a brief instant that their mind was not even gone, estimating that a work stayed incomplete on earth (or rather in airs, in their case). In summary, she had entertained the mad hope that a ghost was present among them. As she was able to see them and to communicate with them, she would have been guided. Alas! The pilots, the mechanic and the aces of the security had gone to the other world without passing by the slot jail and without touching twenty thousand bullets (Note of the author: one only had been sufficient! I know, my joke is bad! But I put all and you will make the sorting!). She got settled on the seat of the side commander. The coasts of Brittany were not anymore so distant, now. To fly at an altitude of three hundred meters became dangerous. The highest Breton summits curled this altitude: she was not anxious to flatten also on a big hill close to the goal. Romain Latin came to sit down near her, with a handy.

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- I thought that it would be simpler than I glue the compound against your ear while you will execute the maneuvers. I suppose that two hands are better than one in this case, don’t you agree? - It is a brilliant idea, Romain! You will go far! - Did you have some visions about me? - Yes but you won't know more of them! - Tell me at least if they concern Marie? - Yes... His face lightened like a lamp. The soft first name made him the effect. The redhead tornado had caused some devastation during the eve. It was hurried to find her again and to be inflamed by her volcanic temperament. Alexa disengaged the automatic pilot. She pulled the wheel toward her, slowly, without rushing the device. In the same time, she pushed the handle of gases to maintain the speed in ascension. When the altimeter approached two thousand feet (either about seven hundred meters), she repulsed the wheel, brought back the power of the motors to the wattage rating and consolidated the plate. Finally, she switched the automatic pilot to on. She ignored the procedure to follow and the altitude to keep. Everything that she knew, was that the plane computer was programmed to bring them right on the airport of Roissy Charles de Gaulle. The terrorists had not touched to its programming since they wished to see the plane disintegrating itself above the Parisian region. - Do you want to contact them now? Romain asked for. - Let’s go! Call them! They are going to teach me a maximum about the handling of this plane. I am going to try not to crash us in the decor. I like the convertibles well but I would hate to scalp this poor Boeing that only wants to land. - I have this to help you! He exhibited a packet of multicolored self-sealing reminders. - Excellent idea, Romain! We are going to note and to mark each of the essential instruments to put this chest on the track. With a big dose of luck, we will arrive there. Do you have the line? - It is good! It sounds! He plated the compound on the delicate ear of Alexa (and not: he plated Alexa while letting her sleep on her two ears clothed of a delicate compound). The young woman heard the reassuring words of a known voice. - Commander Verse! What a happy surprise! You are not in Kourou? - No! I took a previous flight to join my family in metropolis. I am an expatriate in Guyana. My wife is strongly asthmatic and don't bear the ambient humidity of this territory of South America. Besides, she is suffering of arachnophobia. To an unimaginable point! You know 30

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the kind of specimen full of paws and hairs that we can meet by over there. Then, for her, it was unthinkable to move. But enough spoken of my domestic worries! I exchanged my holidays from afar against one hour of formation on 747. Does it tempt you? - Of course! I need an accelerated lesson! - I am the man you need. I know this contraption as my pocket. I worked during fifteen years at Air France Company. This long experience on this type of device reassured the detective in short skirt. The commander Verse described her the useful instruments, one by one. The altimeter, but also the indicator of thrust of the motors, the maneuver of the landing gear and its order of bolting. He explained to her how to lower the shutters, the speeds to respect, the angle of the turns and the G-Meter. The long mail was all except a plane of acrobatics. Not question to make a looping with a venerable ancestor of aeronautics, nor a tight turn, even less an ascension or a too brutal coming down. The plane didn't support a G and half anymore. Beyond, she would risk to break the wings merely. However, a plane without wing has some difficulties, a priori, to move from one point to the other. A fortiori if the so-called wings support the four reactors blowing the thrust necessary to its progress. All maneuver with a Boeing was like the ride of a dinosaur revolted by the baldness of the script of the second episode of "Jurassic Park": it didn't have anything of a health walk. He retailed even some instruments and finally asked a crucial question: - The radio is out of use; we know it. The cape is blocked on the good direction and locked. While unlocking it, we will be able to verify an extremely important point. - Which? - If the computer can accept some orders coming from us. - To what will it be useful? - To land under our radio automatic control. - What? How is it possible? - Since ten years, already, we are able to land a plane thanks to an expert system. The computers of the control towers are able to put the planes in single file, to indicate them the maneuvers to achieve and to make accomplish them without the pilot's intervention. - For the maneuvers in the sky, I see well. But it is necessary to manipulate the lever of the landing gear, to achieve some operations to the hand, well. - No. All is foreseen to be automated. It is feasible. It is made, actually, miss Sarbacane. The night, when the sky is less loaded, the controllers of the sky sometimes let the machinery order to the machinery without the pilots cannot debate the orders of the computer. In fact, only the computational power in real time of these stupendous power stations to solve the Chinese puzzle stays insufficient to take in charge the Parisian sky in its entirety, even during the peak hours. Otherwise, a long time ago that one would have kicked out the controllers of the sky, always in strike for a yes, for a no, and the pilots of the French national company, too fatly salaried, also in strike at two periods of the year: for Christmas and for summer holidays, the most sensitive months with regard to the sales of the airline companies. Did you mark the button that unblocks the cape imposed by the computer? - Yes. 31

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- Switch it off! Alexa manipulated the switch. Nothing special occurred. On several occasions, Alain Verse inquired about the behavior of the plane. At every question, he got an unique answer on behalf of the young woman: the trajectory didn't deviate one degree, nor even of one minute of the initially anticipated cape. This notorious absence of reaction annoyed the commander seriously to the other tip of the telephone. The computer perfectly disengaged itself but had been sabotaged in order to stay deaf to the injunctions of its powerful brothers of silicon. The future looked dark for the pilot apprentice and her ill copilot. He dove suddenly in darkness when the battery of the telephone released suddenly. * ** Alexa asked the sky internally to have the kindness not to release her in this day of terror. She called her guardian angel with a high voice, causing the interest and the astonishment of Romain. - Say therefore, my angel... You would do well to call all your colleagues of up there! We will need your wings to land this 747. I don't hope to lose them at the first turns! - Do you always address your guardian angel in this way? - Yes. Why? - You would speak to me like that, I would not answer you. - It is the reason for which you could not take his place. He is unique. - Is he going to appear? - Surely! Good! If I make a blunder, my angel, you trigger the tooting of my watch, OK? A set of beeps to alert me. Especially, don't believe you obligated to alarm me permanently, I would risk to lose my composure! With a chest crammed of passengers, of luggage, of which my personal, and full trunk of kerosene, we could succeed to a great firework! About this subject, as we come closer to the airport, must I empty the reservoirs? A set of beeps sounded in the cockpit. The laughing Romain’s eye turned to speechless and dubitative look. The angel had answered! Could he make some as much with his one? To ask him some news about his delicious Marie Curry with who he had lived a burning and infernal night. What incendiary redhead! He kept some mordant memories of it to the basis of the neck and on different parts of his body. The future European deputy was far from suspecting that the tigress would delight herself of him every night that they would pass together. - I don't empty the reservoirs! I understood! Why? Surely because I risk myself there to take repeatedly before being at the ideal height, in the alignment of the track and before being able to touch soil in all security. A beep confirmed her answer. He spoke of precise facts lived in his terrestrial life, of the rests of piloting course, of notions buried in his twisted mind. The detective hoped secretly 32

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that he would call some deceased pilots wandering in the paradise of the aviation to help her. Only one thing reassured her somewhat: her watch, old of hardly three weeks, would not release her. He could appear therefore with his manner while triggering the alarm. Fortunately because this damned phones had refused to give sign of life, prematurely emptied of its vital strengths. - Look, Alexa! This mass of agglomerations! - It is the Parisian region. We are going to be fixed quickly on our fate. Ask the stewardesses to apply the orders of security that they probably know by heart. The passengers must girth and protect themselves efficiently! We land facing wind, it is my only certainty about landing. As the radio is out of order, we are going to pass above in hedge-hopping the land, to mark the wind-sock and to place us correctly. Try to determine what is the longest track, approximately, just to give us the best odds to save our lives. Internally, she dreaded the worse: a crash to soil with fuel and the cabin immediately scorching themselves. To perish by fire represented the height of the pain and the horror to her eyes (Note of the author: since Alexa is perfect, she is assimilated to the category of the angels and therefore intended to live at the paradise. Consequently, she cannot support the flames of the hell.). She imagined the shock provoked among her family discovering the best pieces of her anatomy in the middle of the debris. The airport would be soon in view. She decided to unblock the engagement of the automatic pilot. She held the wheel, tensing herself little by little on the orders, firmly. She slowed down the motor power while supervising the level of the reactors closely. At the same time, she granted an extreme importance to the speed that fell quickly. It was not necessary to dive too quickly because the turbojets of the house Rolls Royce delivered their thrust with one time of delay. She was held a little above the limit. She was held of it because she should probably execute some turns and risk not the unhooking while adopting a speed too low. She consolidated the device at three hundred kilometers per hour and at four hundred meters of altitude. The beacon always guided her perfectly, according to the indicator in the cockpit. She didn't deviate in relation to the initial cape. It was her big fear: to deviate imperceptibly and to be unable to recover the tracks, to land in disaster in a plain. Even a long portion of freeway, perfectly free, would not be sufficient to receive the Jumbo Jet: too narrow... - Alexa! Watch! I see something on the whole free of the cities in front of us. - Do you believe that it is the airport? - I would put my hand to cut! - God! It could have been worse! Marie failed to meet without progeny by your mistake. - Miss Sarbacane! Ah indeed, your reputation preceded you! - My reputation? What reputation? - The one to really have your own humor! - If you begin to be unpleasant, I disembark you immediately! I open the window, a barrel and there are you outside! No but! You have an incredible luck to be the future husband of my Marie girlfriend! - Her future husband? You told too much or not enough! 33

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- It is necessary that I concentrate. - No, no! You have the time again to confess me what you saw. - Okay! Before we died all, you have the right to know some details on your future life. You will find Marie again, very shortly. As I know her, she just sent her letter of resignation since this morning. The time to do her notice, to organize herself for her returns on the metropolis, you will hold her soon in your arms. She will work for you. - I don't think it... I don't have the means to maintain the staff. - You are particular, you! You want to know what I saw and you immediately refute it! Let me finish the picture! Good! After your reunions, there will be your nuptials, the feast, the wedding night in straw and so forth. Then, she will take in charge the communication of your European campaign. - My European campaign? What for? - To become a kind deputy watering us complicated and castrating laws, of course! - European deputy? Me? Alexa closed the eyes a brief second in order to complete the missing pieces of the future. She was visibly satisfied with her vision. - You will even be minister of the industry, in a future government. - Whaou! It is a sacred scoop! If only it could be true! - Oh! So-called therefore, young man, don't you have finished to insult me? Who dares to pretend that I invent, means to risk his life. You have an extraordinary luck to be helped by Marie otherwise, a long time ago that I would have locked you in the locker to luggage in a cage in, with a female gorilla in lack of love! - What humor, Miss Sarbacane! It is all over the world famous! - Celebrates or not famous, the only positive point that I withdraw from my vision, it is that it will occur. It means that the landing won't cause your death. - By extension, the other passengers will be saved from the death, won’t they? - Not necessarily. You could be the unique survivor of the aerial disaster. Is it happy, as perspective, no? Go! Don't do this head! You are going to live a sumptuous future. You are not to the orders but you must support me (Note of the author: Alexa always imagines impossible to live. It is false! She is merely adorable and misunderstood on behalf of the other...). Besides, you are going to support my maneuvers! We approach... The tracks of Roissy finally showed the tip of their nose (Note of the author: I know, I know! The tracks don't have noses. Except the tracks of circus when the clown loses his red nose.). Alexa made everything that she was able to avoid the dwellings while flying sufficiently low to mark the sense of wind. When she had the wind-sock well in view, it was to note that it was perfectly to the horizontal. Wind blew regularly, a bad point in case of crash and fire. She took a little altitude while pushing the motors to achieve her maneuver. Curiously, but very fortunately, the sky of Roissy was desolate. The authorities of the aerial transit had taken the necessary measures to reroute or to make wait for the other flights. At Orly airport, the devices had to land in single line in this precise instant. She marked the longest track and moved away in order to achieve a turn and to align of best that she was 34

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able to. At the end of five minutes, she leaned the device on the right and made a buckle of lace to put back it facing its objective. She lowered the speed and positioned the flaps at thirty degrees. Then, she looked for the order of the landing gear. - Do you believe that this handful operates the landing gear? She requested to Romain. - I don't know anything of it! You are the pilot! - It is thin like cooking salt, that! Good! "Landing system” is written on. I imagine that it is good! Go! Hop! An electric motor noise started itself and immediately cut. - It is fast, this contraption! At the same moment where the delay of reaction of the floret of the American aircraft industry marveled her, a beep sounded. It emanated from her watch joining her to him. - Has a problem? Romain inquired. - Apparently... On the landing gear? She said while applying to him. The beep persisted. It was regular and obstinate. Its rhythm reminded them a known melody. Romain broke the silence first: - I am not a specialist but... it sounds like Morse. - Morse? Morse! Three brief, three long, three brief. It gives S.O.S. The landing gear is badly or left not. We must land on the belly! (Note of the author: situations of the daily or monthly life ago, or even yearly (according to so lady is gluttonous or not) where the fact to land on the belly is very pleasant...) - Good blood! The gear is blocked and you had not seen it! For an extra-clear-sighed detective, you don't see much! - Then you, if you value what our relations remain cordial, I counsel you to close your cheese box! Besides, although I know that the term "detective" is exclusively masculine, I am anxious expressly to feminize it. You will say "the most gifted detective" of the universe therefore! This literary exception has been required by the author of my adventures at the risk of strike without notice (Note of the author: it is a trick to be able to rest me from time to time, to have holidays, to write the novels that will become literature Nobel prizes, to sleep the day, to write the night, etc...). - Heard, MISS detective! What do we do with a landing gear train which we don't know until what point it is on? - If I knew it, I would immediately start the procedure foreseen in the manual of the perfect pilot in this case! At this second, a melody sounded in the cockpit. A perfectly known air: the theme of "impossible Mission." The handy of Alexa!

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- In my bag, my handy! We are stupid! We didn't even think about the cellular portable. We are not more above the Atlantic, with the zones of telephonic shade that it includes. Here, we capture all! When Romain had unfolded the antenna, taken the line and carried the compound to the ear of Alexa, she could finally identify the origin of the call. - Commander Verse! I am happy to speak with you! Finally good news! - Not so good, Miss Sarbacane... not so good... Your landing gear is blocked entirely. You are going to steal above in circle the airport while waiting for the preparation of the track. - What consists in? - We must place nets of restraint to slow down. Besides, we will flood the track of dry ice and moss. It will allow you to avoid a fire when you are going to touch soil. Evidently, as soon as you are in termination phase of approach, we will make you drop the rest of fuel in order to not to add a supplementary risk. I will indicate you the position of the handle. The way to land hardly varies. One lands as if all was perfectly normal. Except that au last instant, you will push the wheel forward very slightly in order to present the whole surface of the belly of the plane facing the track. Thus, you will avoid dislocating the device. - Of course, it is worth to avoid dislocating our Jet. Until there, we do our best. Did you mark the terrorists who left the plane? - No trace. They vanished. If powerful speedboats waited them, they already regained for ages the Irish coast. Even with your help, it would be impossible to put the hand on them. Ireland of the North is impenetrable. Your terrorist is out of attack... Alexa was saddened some. She had hoped secretly that the chief of the strip, Adrian O'Neal, and his partners, would have been put under the bolts. In desperation, she started some circles without end in the sky, waiting that anti-fire bed is organized to soil. * ** This tentative would be unique. Alexa was not anxious to renew the unhappy experience for quite a while. The drench of the reservoirs had been accomplished; she nearly flew with steams of kerosene. The coming down had been perfected; she presented herself well in front of the track. The airline stewardesses had recommended to the passengers to curl their belts, to curl their cheese boxes (although they have dreadfully desire to scream while wondering that there was not the least pilot on board!) and to curl their ends of month because it is not necessary to forget all the same that they traveled with Air France (very known company for its low service rate, its elevated strike rate, its inflation on the prices of the tickets and on the salary of the pilots). The venerable French institution, constantly flirting with the deficits, would boast henceforth to have among its staff a false stewardess endowed with pilot's false quality. The detective, in spite of an obvious fragility of her thin fingers, was very tempted to hold on to the orders and to tighten them as strong as possible. She fought fiercely this temptation. 36

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She reduced the power of the reactors completely and began to pull on the wheel, by small tractions. The Boeing unhooked mildly. The track paraded quickly, very quickly, although the speed is correct. At the last instant, she wondered that she didn't have a landing gear. The commander Verse had recommended her to proceed then from classic way until two or three meters of soil to push the wheel forward in order to present the nose of the device in the alignment of the tail. Thus, she would avoid touching by the rear and to hit hard by the front. She realigned the fuselage. The shock yet shook the Boeing close to one very earned retirement. The problem to which she would be confronted henceforth, it was the braking and incidentally, the trajectory. No means to brake except the tense nets vivid one after the other, spit and jagged by the score of tons of the cargo with bruise, white and red colors. The accessory problem, the trajectory, appeared after having demolished a dozen of nets of retention: the plane deviated little by little and left the track and its mattress of anti-fire moss. It committed on the grass of the fields edging the tracks of the airport. To the tip, there were other tracks and the main terminal of Roissy. - Lord! Don't now surrender, please! And you, my guardian angel, find me genius's idea! The inversion of the thrust is not sufficient! Suddenly, she felt a truly prominent change in the behavior of the plane in perdition. It slowed down considerably. It was not a consequence of rubbing repeated with the grass mad of the green prairies covered with multicolored and fragrant flowers, green high pastures where some restful bovine grazed in all quietude to give an excellent milk, abundant, serving to the confection of tasty and smelling cheese specialties used at the time of cordial festive evenings between friends then (Note of the author: I have the right all the same to imagine that the airports will make good household one day with the cows! Or that the planes will take off to the vertical! Or that we will be able all to teleport ourselves in a twinkling of an eye to the other side of the world without getting bored to wait in line to register the luggage, to wait in line in the toilets of the device or to wait in line to see the unique nice and comely stewardess in the flying machine!). Therefore, no natural reason explained this abrupt braking. Two hundred meters were not necessary anymore to immobilize the tons of junk. Romain having joined his seat at the rear of the plane because Alexa didn't want that her friend's future mate, Marie Curry, is exposed to the major risks of the piloting cabin, the new pilot didn't have the least witness of this hallucinating stage in her sides. She discerned strengths, living, stopping her plane with the help of their arms and their will. She perfectly felt them although they are perfectly invisible to the eyes of the common mortals. She had invoked God and her guardian angel (Note of the author: the guardian angel of Alexa, not the one of God! God doesn't need guardian angel since he is perfect. The problem, it is that Alexa is also perfect. Why does she need a guardian angel therefore? If a reader finds the explanation, he can provide it to me free and as soon as possible. I sometimes write without mastering my impulses: as the one to attach the services of guardian angel to the mischievous detective). Which of the two did as much arm have monopolized emaciated? Seen the tinkering and the handicraft opened out to stop the thrown top speed monster, Alexa suspected that he had called some knowledge within the Paradise & Co (Note of the author: para disco! I burned desire to place it since some 37

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time. It doesn't mean to say but I have fun as I want!). At the moment she thought to this explanation, hers watch sounded. Did he confirm that he was the author of this miraculous lifesaving? Not of the all! She remembered that she had programmed her watch in order to not to forget to take appointment at her regular hairdresser: an Italian, real virtuoso of scissors, the razor, the brush and the wick. Her prolonged stay in Guyana had accelerated the shoot of the Golden Fleece: enough to believe that the hair had taken the rhythm of growth of the Amazon Forest! She didn't wish to resort more abundantly to the lacquers and other fixing products, propelled by harmful gases contributing extensively to the pollution of the atmosphere that the forest previously quoted, lung of the Earth, fairly decimated by fire and the systematic slaughtering, had difficulty digesting. She was lost in her thoughts when she felt a hand to land on her shoulder. - Romain! - Alexa! You are a champion! Bravo! Nobody is wounded! It is a true miracle! Everybody left; we wait only for the star of the year! You are not going to take root here; a risk of fire subsists, in spite of the watering of the firemen. It would not be necessary that a spark doesn't transform the miracle in a disaster. Outside, the passengers are going to cheer you, I am sure of it! They are not anxious to see to leave you in smoke and to the sky! (Note of the author: that woman is a saint, she will be canonized one day, I am convinced some! Hold! Canonized... It gives me an idea... And if I propelled her through the space toward the Moon while writing a remake of the "Journey toward the Moon", of Jules Verne? A celebrity propelled to the firmament of the glory of the mystical investigations simply propelled to the firmament of the stars... An idea to put immediately on orbit!) - A miracle... You don't believe so well to say, the blond tornado released. She decided to leave her seat of commander but she felt the worse difficulties to stroll in the passageway. Curiously, this experience had exhausted it more, emptied, that the return of the space flight. Thinking to it, she found natural the reactions of her body. The nervous tension had been maximal during several hours, so intense that she had omitted some to eat. This oblivion of contribution of saving calories made itself feel cruelly as she committed on the emergency toboggan. She slipped quickly until the soil where she was welcomed by the practiced arms of two firemen in uniform and by the hurrahs of the crowd in delirium. Yes, the crowd! Because to the numerous passengers of this special flight, in head of which one recovered the President, was attached itself an immense left of the users of the airport happy to discover a star in the flesh and witness privileged little of a landing banal. She was carried in triumph to the palace of the festival of Cannes where she received the first price of feminine interpretation for the movie “Is there a cheap pilot in an Ari France plane ?” under the ovation of the standing public on the seats for the opportunity and applauding to all to break (Note of the author: how many words to explain what English summarizes with “standing ovation"!). She needed her small glasses of reading to decipher the thirteen pages of completely scratch acknowledgments in the event she would have had the palm (Note of the author: the tuba, the mask and the bottles of oxygen (although the bottles of 38

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Romanée-Conti are better!), etc...). The ceremony did begin only when the detective made star's caprice: she asked for a portion of shabby carrots and a slice of bread covered with plum jam. People thought that she had the big head whereas her small stomach was hungry. She was framed quickly by a sanitary cord (Note of the author: there is an expression that amuses me a lot: "sanitary cord." Where can one buy some? In pharmacy of hospital? At a supplier of mountaineering material? The sanitary cord, is it also the chain of the water flush that one pulls in the sanitary?). An armada of policemen melted on the one that the venerable institution had liked to elect like muse. At the head of the helmeted and shoed men, a familiar face appeared: inspector Delaunay. - Yann! It’s nice to welcome me! Did you come with a bag for trashcan to recover the pieces? Sorry! The explosion didn't take place! Your colleagues jurists will get off to spend a calm weekend without having need to play the puzzle while reconstituting my body from remnant scattered on the tarmac. - This possibility didn't skim me! - Oh! Juliet also came! Say therefore: are you sure that she is pregnant? I don’t see anything! - Miss Sarbacane... What do you want to see at the end of six weeks of pregnancy? It is too early. - Sorry! I am not specialist of the procreation and the raising of the kids! Since my Stéphane of love didn't consider the topic again. - Exactly, Alexa... About Stéphane... - Where is he? Didn't he come? He is inflated! You come, Juliet comes and he, gentleman, he remains alone home cushy before the television to look at her stretch half to fight with a refractory plane! He could have come; it would have given me pleasure! - Alexa, I... I... - Hey well what? - I don't know how to tell you... Last night, with Juliet, we wanted to invite him for diner, before your return. He was not there. We went by his workplace. He didn't put the feet there since three days. I contacted his parents and it didn't give anything. - What are you explaining me, Yann? - That Stéphane... disappeared! * ** Aboard the Volkswagen of service, the silence was appropriate. Yann drove carefully above despite the blinking beacon on the roof. Juliet's state, six weeks of pregnancy, justified his extreme vigilance. His wife had taken place, being victim of the pain of the transportation; logically, Miss Sarbacane had thrown her claim on the rear bench. She was very pleased of it: it allowed her to let sink tears of concern. Finally! The time had not passed quickly because the official had been anxious to question the detective before her departure and to celebrate the event. Then, she had to have attended a second receipt, foreseen since her spatial return and organized to big reinforcements of

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personalities, this time. A second test while she had already taken knowledge of a missive stretched by inspector Delaunay meaning her mate's disappearance. Yann had like a sort of premonition when he had wanted to return a surprised visit to Stéphane. As the sieve of entry was open since the cleaning woman scoured soil, Juliet and Yann had gone up directly to the apartment, without taking the precaution to sound to the intercom. They had knocked at the door, the small bell being in breakdown. There, they got off with an unexpected phenomenon. The door opened up slowly under the strokes received. It was not locked. The inspector had moved back Juliet and seized his weapon of service: it looked like a burglary without obvious trace of break-in and the thieves were maybe again at the scene of their forfeit. He penetrated carefully in the minuscule apartment. All was in place. So thieving had occurred, robbers had forgotten hi-fi, television, video recorder and computer. Some unforgivable oblivions or the work of addicts in search of cash exclusively. Then, Yann began seriously to doubt the hypothesis of a robbery. All was arranged. He opened a cupboard. The clothes were in place; the shirts and other pants occupied their respective sites in the part of the closet. He verified the washing machine: it was empty. Nothing dragged. Stéphane had left maybe simply to accomplish a fast errand and had not taken the wise precaution to lock the door of the apartment. Yet, Yann constantly felt the doubt. All was perfected too much, even for a hyper maniac guy. He picked up the telephone. No tonality resounded in the earphone while the device was perfectly joined to the wall socket. He discovered the handy nearby. It was turned off. He advanced until the bathroom. It was as emptiness as the kitchen, the toilets and the room. - Yann... - Juliet, you can enter. Stéphane is not there. I have a strange feeling. His telephone is out of order, his portable also. All his clothes are there. Where can he be? - I believe that you will find an answer in one of these two letters... - What? The inspector, following his idea, had not even noticed the presence of the two missives on the table of the kitchen. He learned about it. The first was old: it went back up to the departure of Alexa. He understood while reading it why the young woman had dreaded that her mate had ideas of union officialization. The second letter dated of one day. Its content didn't have much to see with the first and it revealed some elements more disturbing. Of all ways, for the policeman, the content of the words didn't let any doubt as for the outcome of this business: Stéphane had disappeared and would never be recovered. Finally... so Yann believed what he read of it. Immediately, he had called his colleagues of the judicial identity in order to pass the apartment with a fine-toothed comb. He was anxious above all to separate the possibility of an abduction or a murder disguised frankly in disappearance incredible. He gave Stéphane's description to the police of the frontiers, to Interpol, to the state police. Then, he waited patiently for the return of Alexa to relate her the terrifying news. 40

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The concerned person always sobbed in silence on the rear bench of the Polo. The decibels of the motor covered the light noise of her sniffling. She read and reread the content of the copy stretched by Yann on the tarmac of Roissy, some hours before. In spite of the belated hour, the fallen night and the quick cold weather of this winter end, the young woman exclaimed sudden: - Stop here, Yann! - Where? Here? This district is not very sure, Miss Sarbacane. I know that you are not in a wonderful mood at the present moment (Note of the author: she won't be there ever, except to the one of the other (mine, for example), because Alexa is vowed for the eternity to make vow of celibacy, of piety, of chastity, of charity, of poverty (I exaggerate slightly)...) but it is not a reason to stroll in this back alley! - I want to go in this store, there, at the corner of the street! - There? This cheap electronics bazaar? - This merchant is my first supplier of material and gadget, Yann. Stop the car! Considering the tone little jolly taken by the detective, the cop obeyed without discussing more. She descended and threw: - I won't move so much from there that you won't have gone back up in the car! - You can stop the motor; I have some for a small quarter of hour! Yann complied and lit car radio to furnish the remaining time to flow out. He supervised an eye the dark and narrow entry of the stall dived in the obscurity. Only a thin net of light filtered a door situated to the bottom of the boutique. Miss Sarbacane advanced and knocked at the door. She made it several times, appearing to compose a sort of rhythm or secret code. The scratch tambourine session on the window made its effect: a chubby fellow immediately came to the meeting of the future purchaser. - Miss Alexa! How are you? Badly, I guess! You composed the code of emergency on the door of my store. - Yes, Ali. I need a precise gadget to contact a… very near…friend. His advice will be precious to recover my mate's trace. - Your mate's trace? You worry me, Alexa miss. Come in! Ali Gator, importer of electronic products in all kinds, handyman at his lost hours, attracted her until the kitchen where Samira, his wife, cooked dine for the three young children. He introduced her wife, extremely proud to know the famous extra-clear-sighed detective. - It is miss Alexa Sarbacane! My most famous customer! You realize, hey, she went in the space! Soon, she will walk on the Moon, like Louis Armstrong and Phil Collins, the Egyptian assured while confounding the astronauts and the musicians. 41

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The wife split herself of her most beautiful reverence and relieved information by the children. Whatever Alexa touches, the object would immediately be qualified of religious relic for the same reason as the holy shroud. Whatever she says, her words would compete the Bible or the Koran, no matter. Her words would be immortalized in the minds. - I offer you mint tea! Ali indicated with a tone offering no hold of refusal. Alexa accepted this extremely sugary drink gladly. The hot liquid warmed her stomach, her body chilled by the quick and mordant cold weather, her heart bruised by the news of the disappearance. When she had swallowed some mouthfuls, she had courage to thank Ali for his hospitality and undertook to depict the dark picture to which she was confronted. The concerned person, standing, ended up sitting down and to collapse on his chair and on the table. The distress that he read at the bottom of the Mediterranean color eyes of his young friend shriveled him as she progressed in the narration. How could a similar tragedy hit this heroine who, today again, did have shown evidence of courage and an extraordinary composure while putting a plane in perdition? Passing the hundred kilograms gleefully on the balance, Ali decreased visibly in his gandura. His clothes, his slippers, all became suddenly too large, too big for him. His miserable problems flew off facing the gravity of the facts breaking the young woman. In this case, what could he accomplish, he, small shopkeeper, to help with his weak means the most famous investigator? He didn't linger anymore to ask her: - What can I do for you, miss Sarbacane? - I am looking for a special watch. She must be endowed at least of a billposter of message of the biggest possible capacity, an alarm and a chronometer. - Miss Alexa, you knocked at the good door! I have what you need! A Japanese manufacture of high reliability, I swear it to you on the head of my children, you are going to be wrapped. Come to see! Ali unpacked a small marvel, a real Japanese technology extract. Since he had extracted it of his personal case and no of any cupboard of the sale place, the serving instrument to shell the time, he had to possess a big sales value (Note of the author: Alexa didn't specify that the watch had to indicate the hour, the minutes, the seconds as well as the day and the month. Would you specify this essential point if you had just learned that your spouse had disappeared? I know, some are going to answer that they would like to see to disappear their wives provided that Claudia Schiffer or one of her model colleagues replaces them. Certainly... But that they make sure there! Did they wonder that they should sustain some conversations then nearby with the substitute of which the dialogues of "The fires of love" or "Santa Barbara" will resemble to the pure and deep philosophy?). - Has, miss Alexa! I give you the list of the functions. Don't interrupt myself: it is long! As you can note it, there are only three buttons. They only function to adjust the watch. The first allows to access the menus, the second the options of the menus and the third serves to 42

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confirm the choices. The watch is vocal. That is to say that it functions voice-controlled and answers by the voice. All the screen is vowed to the display of the graphic data asked. Of course, you have the complete hour. Better than it, it gives it to you according to the time zone in which you are. Thanks to a midget G.P.S beacon, the famous system of positioning by satellite, it can show the right hour because it knows where you are. Imagine... You are victim of kidnapping, you don't know where you are: it provides you the precise coordinates of the place where you are jailed. To give you an idea of the geographical place where you are located, it indicates you four names of big cities in the north, to the south, to the west and to the East with the mileages. It is also a billposter of messages that you record vocally and that you display or listen at will. The capacity is of sixty-four millions of characters. Enough, I think. It is also a diary, calendar, alarm, etc... it is endowed with the features usual of an electronic diary. Finally, it is a telephone and allows connection on any telephone network therefore, Internet to consult sites specialized on the portable and to receive some messages. Did you see its size? Hardly bigger than a normal watch! And yet, with regard to its function telephony, you are going to be dazzled! It is a satellite! - What? Ali, do you joke? The smallest satellite phone takes as much place as two bananas coupled one to the other! (Note of the author: hold! Did you wonder if the phallic fruit obsessed me? Answer: yes!) - I know... What you hold between your hands, Alexa miss, is the only copy in Europe. About ten of them have been sold. It is worth... about ten thousands euros. Miss Sarbacane immediately became pale while hearing the sum. She expected an extortionate price however according to the stated features. She was stunned by the long list of advantages recited to a fast pace by the merchant. Undoubtedly, the device overflowed with supplementary functions that it would discover in the thick operator manual like a dictionary! - Ali... I cannot buy you a similar jewel! It is not because I don't have money, I could find it but ten thousands euros represent a huge sum for a watch! Is it anti-shock, at least? - Fortunately, Alexa miss, fortunately! It is made of titanium. Matters absorbing the shocks isolate the interior electronics. Besides, it is insulated to two hundred atmospheres and insensible to the electromagnetic radiances. - Ah good? Would not a nuclear bomb to electromagnetic impulse destroy it? - No. - Ali... From where does this material leave? Is it military? - Professional secrecy, miss Alexa. - It is a pure marvel but I cannot buy it. Don't you have something simpler? - But who spoke about buying? To order and to import material at my supplier, it is necessary to test the product. I know myself there in electronics, in material but I am not capable to say if the product will fill all requirements of my most serious customers. Then, I confide them the mission from time to time, to test my novelties. I let it to you one month to the test. In one month, you give me your opinion. As it won't be newer, I will make you a good price for the opportunity.

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- Ali... I don't know what to tell you... How to thank you for your confidence and your generosity? - Hey well... If the watch helps you to solve an enigma, only say where you had it... - Sacred Ali! I will make you the advertisement, don't worry! One thousand thanks! I am going to take care of it. One thousand thanks once besides... The gracious Egyptian had pulled himself by a commercial and humorous pirouette. But in his soul, he had said nothing about the real reason: Alexa was so bruised by her mate's disappearance that the seller could not speak money decently that evening. To go back up him the state of mind and to change him the ideas, he had immediately thought to this so special watch. While lowering the metallic curtain before the store, greeting a last time his detective friend, he had smiled internally: the young woman detained the future work tool of the American spies. Exclusive, in preview. He had dazzled her more than usually. She enjoyed gadgets and had been stunned. In his way, he had given her the courage and it was sufficient for him merely to conclude that this day had been an excellent day. * ** Yann and Juliet had deposited her earlier at the foot of her building a quarter of hour. The tears didn't stop flowing at the corners of the eyes, nearly in spite of her. However, she had decided to go to Stéphane since the following day to activate her paranormal senses at the scene of the disappearance. She would go over there without conviction. Yann was persuaded that it was about an abduction, of a perfect production. Not Alexa. When she had read the letter, she had immediately known that he said truly. If the first letter had been a call to the help, the second evoked the definitive departure. Seated on her bed in a suit (Note of the author: in the position, not in a Chanel suit! Past some hours, it is worth to get better in pajamas to be in bed!), she unfolded the paper slightly crumpled by dint of being read again. The lachrymal glands accentuated their production while she had not started reading again. She knew the words by heart and their simple evocation was sufficient to pull it from the pain tears (Note of the author: I counsel you to take the handkerchiefs in cloth. In cloth because the handkerchiefs made of paper contribute to the destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest and its colleagues. I know: an author is printed and also contributes to destroy the forest. But, me, I am not printed since I don't write my memorials of former prisoner having raped about fifteen women or my autobiography relating the miles and one ways to divert the money of the cases of my political party... Therefore, while writing the histories that don't interest the publishing houses, I act in real environmentalist! Thank you the publishers!). The beginning of the letter had immediately alerted it. It started with an impersonal "dear Alexa", sign that the content of the missive would not conceal that of the kindness. "Dear Alexa,

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In a dictionary, we sometimes meet strange words. Some words that we would not like to pronounce ever. As the words "to leave" or "to quit.". Words that I would not have liked to write, to say, ever. Yet, I go tonight, to use them, to draw them on this white leaf. I am going to blacken the immaculate whiteness of this paper and to blacken the future of our love. A long time, I believed that our destinies constituted two parallel lines according themselves indefinitely. Little by little, I understood that it was not about rights but of parabolas. Our lives approached one of the other so near that I thought that they would form one only and same line only one day. And then, with the passing of the days, we moved away one of the other. You followed your path, this extraordinary destiny making you a to be bathed of celestial light, enclosed of fantastic grants that you put to the service of all. I could not fight with a destiny as powerful. When I wrote that I wished to unite to you, in a disguised way, you answered while fleeing far away. I only needed three weeks to understand it. I should have understood that I was not made for you and that you were not. In my deep soul, I knew it. I didn't want merely there to believe, I denied the evidence. When you didn't come back with Yann, I understood that you were afraid to hire you because you knew that you had to not make it with me. It was necessary for me to take the decision that you would refuse to take, satisfying you of the existing status quo between us. I agree that this situation agreed to you more or less. You saw myself when you were able to, you gave me what it remained, you slowed down the progress of our feelings to protect you. Alexa, sometimes, the love is like a fight of boxing: it is necessary to lower his care, his protection, completely voluntarily, to win the confidence of the other. To offer his face and his heart to the uncouthness of the strokes. To fool, to bet, sometimes is necessary to bet... No matter that you didn't act of the sort while opening your heart completely to the feelings. Henceforth, it is too late. My head ended up arguing my heart, even though the pain is quick and intense. I took the decision to leave. Of course, while slipping your key in the lock of the door of my apartment, you won't understand. You will wonder, for what reason my dwelling doesn't have the least retired piece of furniture understandably, why my clothes are again in the cupboards, why the store that uses me received my resignation letter without notice, why my parents received a brief missive explaining to them that I disappeared, why the telephone is cut and why electricity it will also be in two days. So very legitimate questions and short time to answer you. Know that where I go, I will be well, happy, occupied. I won't forget you. I can’t forget six long years of common life, Alexa. I’ll never forget. We make some cardboards of memories, we pu them in a corner of the memory, the most remote possible, and we take care by all means until the time passes and alter the memory. The brain is not like a hard disk of computer, erasable at will. It remembers; only the time alters the quality of the memories. One constantly blames it but it is sometimes useful. I hope to age quickly to keep a faraway and marvelous memory of six long and beautiful years only with the softest of the pharmacists, the most tender of the blond girls with the famous wick all over the world. The feelings... the feelings... a lot of new sensations will be necessary to arrange them in a dusty corner of my brains... I know that you are going to tempt, with Yann's help, to recover my trace. It is lost pain. You would spend your whole life there and it would not be sufficient. Dissuade Yann to make some as much. I remember that a certain evening where you were in bad shape, very in bad 45

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shape, a being gave his life to save it yours. I had a lot believing in this insane history. Yet, the result was there, very visible, in front of me: you were healed and nothing counted more that it. Tonight, me also, I was control of an inexplicable phenomenon. Some beings came besides to take contact with me. Some beings having judged that I was worthy to communicate with them, to exchange my culture with theirs, worthy to represent the human race in their confraternity. I know that you think that I am stamped, at least as much as I could think it in the beginning, when you were healed, when you used your grants. Yet, I don't ignore that you will be the only one to believe me. You know that I say the truth. I leave with them, Alexa. More nothing keeps me on the Earth. Is it curious, this is not? I was always prohibited from pronouncing these words, nor even to think of it. And has than tonight, they wait that I finished to draw these black lines while crying all tears of my body. They wait that I break the last invisible thread joining us again. Nothing keeps me. Your departure was the last stroke of chisel in our relation. Tonight, I have appointment in the country to embark me for one flight without return... without return... The opportunity is too beautiful to let spin it. I am going to know an extraordinary destiny, to your picture. But no one will ever know anything of it. Everybody will think that I gave myself the death or that I disappeared to escape the IRS, like any good citizen should make it. You will be the only one to know the deep truth, Alexa, how to know that I didn't lie. For it, it will be sufficient you to make as I saw you achieving it always so much time with this precision as fascinating: it will be sufficient you to affix your hands on your Vidal, to wait that the soft heat invaded you and to close the eyes as the temperature will be ideal. You will have the vision of the reality then. Henceforth, I keep you close to me in thoughts, only. My feelings are those that you imagine. It’s up to you to imagine. Stéphane" The Vidal had been put on the rose and violet sheets. Miss Sarbacane observed it curiously: as if it was now about an enemy... It was sufficient to let the sensations to slip in her and to materialize the answer. There would not be a hindrance to the vision, according to Stéphane's terms. For the first time of her life, she dreaded her powers. The strength of their destruction capacity. If she used some, she could destroy her heart for numerous years. Would she have forced her to survive there, her that had need so much to express her joy with intensity, her, the smart ever not hesitating to yield with complaisance to the provocation and to the madness? This revelation would make her an "arranged" detective, driving in a big limousine of very mediocre quality (Renault, Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, etc...) or of excellent quality (Mercedes)? Would she dress in black, gray and white, forgetting the colors of the rainbow making her legend definitely? The risk was not negligible... She raised the medical dictionary and always placed in a suit facing her knees (Note of the author: to see higher for the definition.). She inspired deeply, put the hands on the cover, closed the eyes and waited patiently that her internal motor reaches the temperature of good working.

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Suddenly, the picture appeared in her field of vision. Nothing sneaky, as usual. No, a picture as precise as a photograph, as intense as possible, a vision of three or four seconds, the necessary time to raise the doubts. A luminous top, shining one thousand fires. Identical in all point to the one seen when she had met alone on board of the cabin of piloting of the Boeing 747. She broke contact with the Vidal. He said truly. * ** Two months had gone by without Miss Sarbacane came nearly out of her apartment. Since eight long weeks, she had only agreed to return a visit in Ali Gator to acquire the famous watch. The device allowed her some surprising vocal conversations with her guardian angel. She had ordered another model in the event the first would fall in breakdown. When Ali had questioned her on the level of her state of mind, she had avoided the question elegantly and had slipped out while letting the somewhat distressed Egyptian. The answering machine had been disconnected; it didn't take the least business in charge anymore. We were in the beginning of the spring and for once, the season looked beautiful. This morning, Alexa left the bathroom, opened the shutters and let enter the rays of the sun in the apartment. The sky was as limpid as the eyes of Miss Sarbacane, that is to say of a bruise perfects, without the least cloud. Was this a sign? She headed without word to say toward the refrigerator, taken of a legitimate enough early hunger. She pulled the door toward her, receiving a dose unaccustomed of freshness. Food shone by their absence. Normal! No race undertaken since two months… It could not succeed to a miracle in the compartments freshness, conservation and congealment. - Darn! I don't have anything to eat, nor to drink! Not even the least marmalade! Miss Sarbacane, you soften, my daughter! It is going to be necessary that you have a small conversation alone together with your author to explain to him that you cannot disappoint your public, your billions of fans! She slapped the door furiously. Two months that she ordered her shopping by Internet by the hypermarket of the corner, two months that the deliverers followed each other to the door and two months that perishables sometimes rotted in the ferry because she didn't have courage anymore to eat. Two months of her life where she didn't want the least contact anymore with the world of the living, so disappointing. - I have enough! I have enough! Do you hear, Stéphane? I am going to live! Too bad for you! She consulted her wrist. The screen was empty of all information. Some words marked in a sentence were sufficient so that the innumerable functions speed up. - What day are we? - We are Tuesday April 1st. It is nine o’clock and fifteen minutes. - April 1st? Hold! My guardian angel, are you there? 47

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- Of course, Alexa. - Happy Birthday!

- Thank you! Didn't you forget?

- No. There are some events that... I cannot forget... Give me an advice! I have an urgent need of it!

- Screw! Be yourself! Make pleasure to your author!

Alexa smiled extensively. The first time since eight weeks. To give pleasure to her author... He always had good advices standby when it was about lavishing them to others. She gazed at in the mirror and interrogated it on her beauty, on her beautiful rests. The mirror can only split itself of a sincerely laudatory remark (Note of the author: the mirror splits itself of a remark! Is she good, no? A mirror that splits itself? Did everybody follow, hey? I don't pursue my explanations more.). She opened a flap of cabinet and took some clothes. After having threaded underwear, she slipped herself in an underskirt that she covered with an in bloom and ample dress. An underskirt! Finally! (Note of the author: one thousand thanks, Alexa! I am obliged to stop history to this point because the materialization of this typically masculine fantasy made me drool to one point as I risk electrocuting me with my laptop computer! All men will understand why I drool while seeing Alexa, all women will understand why I drool while knowing this admirable detective, only one woman to the world will know why I drool while writing...). * **

To be continued…

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