Angel and I walked back toward the trailer and met Avel and Pneuma standing outside chatting with each other. Avel’s radio was sitting right by the door, an antenna pointing outside the door. It was noticeably silent. 

“No global wind angels yet?” I asked. 

“Sadly, no. But I know one will pass by soon. Within the hour. I can feel it.” Avel pointed is index finger directly into the hot summer sky as if to make a point. 

“Well, if that’s the case, Pneuma? Angel? Should we make our way to our next appointment then so our good friend Avel can make sure we don’t miss a global wind angel?” 

They both chuckled and agreed. I turned to Avel, “I meant what I said, Avel. You have a real talent for managing this type of work. The fact that you’re so dedicated to making sure we get the power we need even when the majority of our wind angels are down for the count, speaks volumes. If this work is something you see as a lifelong career, please stay in touch. K? I’ll put in a word to Mr. Voltaire that you should be overseeing more than one of these wind farms.” 

Avel blushed a very deep red, offered a deep bow, then proudly offered the three finger salute. “Yes, Madame President! Anything for my country! And for my people!” I returned a silent bow and salute back to him and returned to the SUV. 

Once inside, Angel was sitting facing the back of the SUV this time while Pneuma sat along the side. She handed me the iPad with the names of the Sheronite Department Heads. I read the names aloud, “Annona Bartlett. Eri Xan.  Addison Voltaire.  Mykeya Mursal.  Nico Amiel.  Tori LaCulcir. Wow, there’s a lot of Department Heads that come from Sherah.” 

“That’s because Sheronite’s work very hard, and they do a great job! Each one earned their position on merit and successful politicking,” Pneuma offered. 

“Successful politicking?” 

“They got to know you very well. You hand selected all of these people for one reason or another. And they did a good job making sure you knew who they were. It’s the nature of democracy and democratic republics. You got to advertise yourself. A lot.” 

“So…I knew all of these people before?” 

Pneuma nodded. “Some of them you knew very well. Like they were close friends. Hopefully their bios will help you jog some of your past memories about them.” 

I looked out of the window as we climbed further up Mt. Harri and popped my ears to adjust to the air pressure, before looking back down at the bios. 

When it comes to finding creative ways to make anything flourish in the desert, Annona Bartlett, of the Digerire Tribe, is a genius. Having inherited and perfected her ancestral practices around farming and surviving in unforgiving environments, Annona has made it her mission that no Sheronite, especially a child, face starvation. After receiving her masters in Urban and Rural Nutrition at the University of Sherah, Annona began the “Full Basket Project”, one of the best known non-profits in USAR.  In the space of a few short years, Annona’s non-profit managed to reduce childhood starvation by over 5%. Annona now leads the Department of Sheronite Agriculture with the goal to ensure all tribes know how to grow food native to their indigenous regions and ensure that no child go hungry.  

I lingered on the image of Annona. She wore a thin orange veil over her face and orange scarf over her head. Gold jewlery crowned the top of her orange scarf. She wore a long sleeved dress similar to that of an abaya that covered just about all skin including her feet. Her eyes were modestly downcast and lovingly looking at a straw basket that she held in her arms. It was full of crops of all sorts like rice stalks, bean stalks, wheat stalks, squash, zucchini, carrots, onions, celery. To the right side of her stood a goat and a lamb. The dusty streets of a desert town were blurred behind her. 

“Annona seems like a very compassionate and loving person,” I mentioned. 

“Ah, that she is,” Angel chimed in. “She and I have had many, many conversations. She’s always asking me to be kind to her people and all of Sherah.  While I can’t control how the crop season works, I do take her requests into consideration and ask my team to handle her people with care. She’s done an excellent job honestly. More and more children are living to see adulthood because of her programs.” 

I smiled sadly. His statement brought up a past memory of mine while I was in college. I remembered studying abroad and seeing firsthand a child, no more than two years old, lying nearly dead on a dusty city back alley unable to pick his head up. His mother in her all-black abaya pleading with anyone to spare a coin so she can feed her child, his bloated belly protruding from underneath his torn and dirty striped shirt. He wore no pants. Just a shirt. His legs were bowed and lifeless as he struggled to breathe. My heart sank. I reached in my pocket for a coin. Another local grabbed my hand and hissed, “Don’t pay her! She’s just using that child. Besides, that money won’t feed her or her child. It will pay the person she works for.” 

“But what do I do?” I asked desperate. I was beyond disturbed. 

“That child will be gone by the end of the week. It’s not worth feeding it. It would just speed up the child’s death. It hasn’t had food in so long that whatever food you do buy for it will just make it sicker. Just look the other way for now.”  

I broke from the memory and looked at Angel, my eyes misty. “You know, I never want to be an accomplice to a child’s unnecessary death, right?  I have a memory where I walked through towns like Annona’s. The starvation rate is real.” 

Angel bent over and grabbed my hand. The blackline eye tattoos were noticeably open now. “We know, Madame President. Another reason why the people voted for you. They know your intentions are genuine.” 

I nodded, sniffed and swallowed to readjust to the altitude shift. “Let’s learn more about Mr. Eri Xan.” 

“That’s General Eri Xan, Madame President,” Pneuma chimed. 

“Ah… I guess that tells us more about his position, doesn’t it?” I pulled up the bio and began to read aloud: 

General Eri Xan of the Aasim Clan within the Medard Tribe leads the Department of Defense and Homeland Security. Having gone through all of the ranks as an enlisted soldier within the Army National Guard, General Xan has proven himself on and off the battlefield. As a young soldier, General Xan fought alongside his fellow tribesmen during the Battle of the Tribes. He acted as a national peacekeeper and ensured that hundreds of innocent civilians did not get hurt.  After the war was settled and the tribes fell under a negotiated ceasefire, he was decorated with the Medal of Bravery, the highest medal an enlisted soldier can receive for his tireless acts of service. General Xan later received a degree in national peacekeeping and switched branches to work with the military police.  He rose up the ranks until he received his fourth star as General of the Military Police. As the appointed Head of the DoDHS, General Xan oversees all branches of the military which include the Military Police, Secret Service, Army National Guard, Navy and Airforce. Since General Xan’s instatement, there have been no reported skirmishes between tribes in Sherah and no wars fought with other nations. 

“That’s one long and impressive bio.” I said as I looked over General Xan’s headshot.  General Xan wore his navy dress blues with all of the patches and decorations you could imagine on his chest. He wore a red beret the same shade of Sherah’s flag. His smile was nearly nonexistent and his eyes spoke all business. 

“General Xan has had one long and impressive life,” Angel offered. “Anyone who’s worked with him before knows he’s very serious about what he does. Isn’t that right, Frank?” Frank looked through the rearview mirror of the passenger seat and offered a single, silent nod.  He then went back to scanning the environment for any potential threats. 

“True to Xan’s philosophy. When you meet him, you’ll notice that Xan and his crew are just about as talkative as Frank is. The bio does more talking than the military does as a whole. But they’re efficient and effective at neutralizing any potential threats.” 

I found that to be interesting. “I guess they take the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’ quite literally then?” 

“You could say that,” Angel said as he shifted his weight to rebalance himself on the windy roads. Avel was right, the air was getting much thinner up here. 

“By the way, I thought we were headed to the solar farms,” I asked after I popped my ears once more. 

“We are headed there, but the trip by car would take nearly a day. So we’re taking a shortcut,” Pneuma said. “We decided heading there by helicopter would be faster, so we’ll be at the airfields within the next 10 minutes.”  

“Ah,” I nodded in understanding. “I thought we were headed to Ruha for a second.” 

“Oh no, Madame President. Although a trip to Ruha seems lovely. You haven’t yet adjusted your breathing to the environment there and that’s also about a day’s trip from the wind farm to the city itself.  For humans, it requires several rest breaks to feul up, adjust to the altitude and grab some oxygen. Although both Angel and I could get there in one shot. The airfield is about a quarter of the way there from the wind farm.” 

“Oh wow… I didn’t know it took so much.” I looked out of the window. Based on where we were at, it already looked like I could see the world from here. Or just lots and lots of mountain to climb. 

“Before we get to the airfield, why don’t you read the next bio.” 

I looked down at the iPad and pressed the next tab. “It’s Addison Voltaire!” His curly golden hair stuck out of a white hardhat.  His pale blue eyes looked up with pride.  He wore brown leather overalls, workboots and a blue dress shirt.  He stood with arms crossed in front of a solar panel field in the middle of a vast desert. 

“He looks so proud in this photo,” I said. 

“Oh, providing power to the tribes, especially the desert tribes is one of his greatest accomplishments. He’s incredibly proud of his work there.” I read his bio aloud: 

Based on the border of Sherah and Alma, Mr. Addison Voltaire and the Department of Energy have made it their mission that each household within USAR receive fair and adequate power. Having taken over his family’s electrician business after the passing of his grandfather, Mr. Voltaire applied his knowledge of electricity with his passion for travel, trade and investments. Mr. Voltaire started a solar panel installation business along with his electrician work that provided enough profit for him to start his own non-profit to lay solar panels for the many villages throughout Sherah and lie outside of the current gridlines. As Head of the Department of Energy, Mr. Voltaire is now working on a progressive project to extend the current grid to many of these off-grid villages so all people can have equal access to electricity and power.

“Seems a little ironic considering that we’re now telling the whole country to not use their power unless its an essential service,” I sighed. 

“Yep,” Angel said. “And it’s got the entire nation very upset with both you and him.” 

“Wait…are you saying that I was the one who shut off their power?” 

“Well, Voltaire ultimately made the gut-wrenching decision, but you appointed him and so therefore, yeah… you did shut off their power.” 

“But remember, it’s for a good reason,” Pneuma countered. “The power was shutting off everywhere randomly anyway and we really need the power to stay consistent for the essential services that we have. Like the hospitals and the library.” 

“Right… Ughh…” I ran my hand through my locs and groaned. “I mean, those off-grid villages should be thriving though, right? They’re not on the grid yet?” 

“On paper, it seems like that should be the case. But we’ll visit Voltaire’s solar techs to verify what’s really going on,” Angel said. 

The SUV turned left into a medium-sized airport. The airport building itself looked humble but it did the job. I couldn’t help but notice that many cargo planes and passenger planes sat on the tarmac, not flying. The only commercial airline that seemed to be operational at the moment had white plans with words written in purple script. A purple crown sat on the top of one of the peaks of the script. “What’s that say on the plane?” I asked aloud. 

“Oh, they say Kingdom Air, the single commercial airline between USAR and the UKH.” 

I looked back down at the tablet and then at the plane. “How come I can read the bio here but I can’t read the script on the plane?” 

“Well…you don’t speak Heaven’s language yet. It has it’s own writing system and its own language. You speak universal spirit which all people in the UKH can speak, read and understand, but speaking Heaven-tongue… that takes some time to learn and understand. It’s the language the planets and stars speak. No worries, though. If ever you decide you want to travel to the UKH, we’ll provide some interpreters for you. Or if you really want to learn it for yourself, you can spend time with any of the angels in Ruha. It’s their native tongue, so they’ll offer classes.” 

Huh, I thought to myself as we slowed down next to a large black unmarked helicopter. The more you know… 

“Sure, Pneuma.  Remind me to ask…Aio, was it?…to see if he can find me a Heaven-tongue tutor, so I can speak it for myself should a delegate from the UKH ever come down to visit.” 

“Sure thing, Madame President,” Pneuma wrote down a note on her phone. “I’ll make sure Mr. Camara gets the memo.” 

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Words: 2,411

Total Word Count: 50,148