Boys and Their Toys

Button Samuelson was sitting in the Georgetown Saxby's with a hazelnut frappucino and a WIFI-fed laptop to keep her company while she waited for her client. She was doing the same thing she had been doing for three days: trolling the internet for stories related to the recent lawsuit by an Argentine woman against the parents that adopted her after she was stolen from a political prisoner thirty years earlier. Button's older brother had been born in Argentina during the same year of the Dirty War--during their father's second Foreign Service assignment... which she now knew was a CIA cover. Her brother bore no noticeable resemblance to anyone else in the family. Was he adopted? Button bit her lip. She wished her father had never told her their whole past was a lie. But surely he has a birth certificate? She had never had occasion to examine her brother's birth certificate, but he must have by now. She was torn between contacting her brother or going directly to her father. What are you going to say--'Did you torture and kill his real parents?'? "Henrietta Samuelson?" She snapped the laptop closed a little too violently as she stood up to greet her new client, who wanted her to sell his three-story townhome above the university. He was in no hurry, and wanted to get the highest possible price he could get in the current market. She assured him that the Georgetown market had not suffered any decline, even as she secretly rejoiced that his patience would allow her the time to refurbish, redecorate, and market as she saw fit. A hundred grand. She smiled at him, thinking of the commission goal she was setting for herself. Washington real estate was making her rich, and she liked it.

A few miles east, Henry Samuelson was attending his first session with psychiatrist Ermann Esse. Counseling of any type had not been an option for decades, and Samuelson could hardly contain his eagerness to start spilling: for the first time in his life, he could tell secrets, and there would be no repercussions. "What brings you here today, Mr. Samuelson?" Samuelson said he had been having disturbing dreams. "Tell me about your dreams." Samuelson hesitated, not sure which one to talk about first, then finally decided to talk about the one where the Loch Ness monster eats his son.

"It's a boy!" Not too far away, Momzilla had just returned to the International Development Machine with her ultrasound picture, and was taking the picture door-to-door, office-to-office, cubicle-to-cubicle. "It's a boy!" Liv Cigemeier had already heard this announcement half a dozen times, and now realized there was no way that Momzilla was going to help Liv meet the grant application deadline. She phoned over to Prince and Prowling to tell her husband she would be home late tonight, but got his voicemail. She turned back to the Better Bungalows Foundation application trying to figure out a way to convince them that Pakistan's recent election clearly signified growing democracy and stability, and this was the perfect time to start a bungalow-building pilot project there. Safe and affordable housing remains the-- "IT'S A BOY!" Momzilla was in Liv's face, flashing the ultrasound picture; Liv congratulated her, then started to ask Momzilla if she had finished the budget for the proposal, but Momzilla was already gone. Why am I doing this? There is no way this foundation is going to send volunteers to the mountains of Pakistan. She had tried to raise this concern with her boss, but had been shot down. We should be doing this pilot project in Haiti or Brazil or Bangladesh. Why was IDM always following the narrow lead of USAID on where to spend foreign aid? It was so political.

A few miles to the west, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Anti-Fecklessness was reading a memo from "C. Coe Phant" on why the time was right to resume diplomatic relations with Castro-lite and set up some USAID programs in Cuba. What the--? He rolled his eyes and picked up the phone to tell his irritating coworker in bureaucratese what an idiot he was, and what the State Department's next move would be regarding Cuba. Phant took careful notes of the phone conversation from above his paygrade to pass to Charles Wu later this evening.

Several miles north, Charles Wu was on his computer, replaying the video of the U.S. spy satellite shot out of the sky. He knew some of his Chinese contacts thought it was a fake or that the missile had been launched for a very different reason than the one stated. Either way, the Chinese were not the only ones unhappy about it. Wu had his own theory, but no proof....Wu was still thinking about Moon Township.

A few miles west, Ardua was slumbering in the Potomac, but the foul weather to come would happily wake her soon enough.