Just as they got in line for food, Eon texted Mary.

  “Mary, go to headset, please.”

  Mary turned her interface on, and inside her glasses, small indicators started to appear as the generalized HUD (Heads-Up Display) came online. Outside of Eon and Greg, they served little purpose, and too much use did seem to burn screen spots into her vision, so she was hoping to hold off until much later in the day.

  “Hi Eon, what’s up?” Mary spoke softly into thin air to seemingly no one, and from the frame of her glasses, a projection sensor recreated sound and projected it into her ear. Without looking very closely, you wouldn’t be able to report on anything strange about these glasses. 3D printing technology made it easy for about anyone to design and print gadgets of any sort.

  “Mary, there are a group of nine men following you and Greg.”

  Mary had assumed Eon would help himself to some of the local networks and cameras, but what she saw next impressed even her, his creator. Photos, police resources, and patterns of movement since the men had all arrived together very early this morning all overlaid on a blueprint of the conference center. All at one moment, she could see through all the walls, floors, and ceilings to dial in metrics on construction, construction materials, conduits, key communication and energy wiring, or zoom back to see the entire layout in a top-down view where she could see the patterns of movement over time with color intensity making it instantly curious if not worrisome both on the situation and on Eon.

  “Eon,” Mary said, “slow down. Deep breathing like we practiced.”

  “Are you nervous, Eon?” Mary asked.

  “Well, I did my best not to think about it like you said to, but I calculate you are correct, I do appear to be nervous.”

  Eon continued, “Nervous or not, Mary, would you please bring Greg online also? I do wish to discuss the suspect behavior of your pursuers with him.”

  Mary looked to Greg, “Eon wants you, Greg.”

  Greg, looking over his shoulder, “Yes, of course, I should have already…”

  To stop Greg from continuing, Mary put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to her. “Greg, not you too. Eon and I need you to at least seem to have it all together. I fear he and I are both a mess this morning. He is already off on some theory we are being followed. Paranoid, I tell ya, paranoid!”

  That did not seem to ease Greg as was her intention. He attached himself to Mary’s elbow, tossed on his shades, and pulled them both to a nearby table. With calm intensity, Greg said, “Act like I just said something funny while I boot up, just as we practiced.”

  Mary, struggling to dismiss an entire year of training with him, sat and adopted the posture. Then as she began to say, “Greg, I am sure…”

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  Greg, holding to his role, never let his face or tone expose the seriousness in his breath, interrupted, “Now, Mary.”

  “Ha ha, sooo funny, Greg,” Mary did a convincing job of seeming humored and engrossed in what Greg was saying as he booted up and began working through the scenario and strategy options with Eon. Given her real-life demeanor, he did note she might be doing too good of a job playing a role slightly bigger than her real-life self.

  Since no one was supposed to even have video recorders inside the main event halls, they had extra reasons to be careful with their covert tech. It could easily be used to record video even if that was not their intent; it would begin a whole string of unwelcome inquiries. Greg got up, pulled out her chair, and escorted her towards the least popular area of the food court. As they walked, he began streaming text to Mary over their interfaces. This gave them a very fast, very secret way of communicating at any distance. It was entirely done by thought and worked much like texting but faster and multithreaded where conversations spun off others and were all tracked and dismissed independently.

  “We need food either way and don’t appear to be in any immediate danger as they are all holding their distance. Sorry about not getting you Sbarros; they are just too busy. Let’s get food on the table in front of us so we can chat more easily.”

  Walking and not looking ridiculous while mind texting was IMPOSSIBLE! Your face contorted in some just silly unnatural ways as they had both observed by accident one night during experimentation when Greg had pulled off his gear and faked the system into thinking he was still there. He stepped away from his HUD (Heads-Up Display) and silently moved across the room to surprise Mary for her birthday. He had successfully faked the goggles into thinking he was still there and had stepped away only to see for the first time what your face looked like while mind texting. Let’s just say his laughter ruined the entire surprise, and they learned at that moment to be very careful about using it in public.

  They ordered, gathered their food, and found a seat that gave Greg great visibility, several known exits, and a strong wall behind them. They knew as they got closer to today, there was always the possibility of many different groups taking up an unhealthy interest in what they were doing. What made this so unsettling was probably Eon and how he was treating the entire situation. It was unsettling.

  No sooner than they sat, Eon, Mary, and Greg were all linked and had stepped into a world Eon had been constructing over the past few minutes to include everything from data on their would-be pursuers to building evacuation plans. What was even more impressive was the way Eon had injected himself into every camera, cell phone, hotspot, Wi-Fi, and 14 trash-can-robots to provide audio, video, and logistical spying on those he thought to be after Mary and Greg.

  Mary could also tell Eon was spooling up several ounces of Nano Filament. Worried, she asked Eon, “What are you doing with the Fiber, Eon?”

  Eon acknowledged he was preparing batches on the edges of the networks at his disposal. Just in case Mary gave him the okay if it became necessary to protect her, Greg, or the project.

  Mary agreed but insisted he could not provide any materialization decisions without Mary or Greg confirming it. If they were indisposed, Eon must choose to destroy the program and not let any of it fall into the wrong hands over taking a self-preservation stance.

  Eon reluctantly agreed and continued to brief them both on his findings. The men, nine in all, spoke Russian with an odd dialect. Eon translated with no problem. “Brother Kartov has them spotted in the food court”, “We still seem to have the advantage, children unaware, moving Phase II”, “Cook the chicken then get home in time for dinner.”

  With that, all of a sudden, the three closest to them began running for their position. Two had knives drawn and visible, the third kept his hand in his coat.