What goes around … Part 1
(2/9/09)

“Sir,” Tracey corrects herself, “Uncle Ben? Where are we going? Our base of operations is here.”

Ben looks back at her like she hasn’t though the whole thing through, “We are going to be visiting everyone in the war.”

Doc looks startled, “What?”

“Shouldn’t we be taking anything with us? The rubbers, the picos’s?”

Ben laughs, “No. Of course not. We are flying the white flag of peace. We won’t be attacking. We’ll be getting our name out there.” He pushes a button on his armrest and a screen lowers from the ceiling. On it blips a little red dot on the green screen. “Driver, Let’s move. Let’s head to our first stop.”

The two inventors would have shaken their heads in frustration, but watching the red dot is mesmerizing. Soon it is in the center and two more are near it. The car stops.  Uncle Ben hops out with the other two tagging along behind. The suited nut pie reaches into his breast pocket.

Everyone freezes. Until he pulls out the small cards. Then it’s business as usual. He hands a card to a woman and continues on. Tracey stops as Doc continues on after the financial backer.

Tracey offers her hand to the woman, “Hi, I’m Tracey.” They shake.

“I’m Leila.”

“It’s nice to see another woman in this war.”

“You are in the war, too?”

“Yeah, my boss is forcing us to be a part of Team Pi. This is our first mission, passing out our information.” Tracey sees Doc disappearing around a corner, “It was nice meeting you, but I’d better catch up. Bye!”

Doc stops as he spots a man with a black and white face in a red hoodie. Tracey races by. “You appear familiar.”

The checkered faced man smiles. Doc continues, “Have we met before?”

The man’s shadow rises up and joins the one sided conversation. “Yeah, we know you. You were in the race with us. We gotta score to settle with you.”

Doc’s eyes go large. But the masked man speaks up, “Ego, not now.” The shadow sulks. “Are you apart of this team?”

Doc’s head goes down with embarrassment, “Indeed. Would you like us to leave?”

Ego gets excited and starts to say something, but the leader of the pack stops him, “No. There’s not many of us here at the base. You’ll be leaving shortly anyway.”

“Thank you,” Doc says as he hurries off to catch up. He finds Tracey and Uncle Ben at the Limo. The three of them get in.

“We’re passing out cards? Tell me they’re good cards,” Tracey says looking at their benefactor.

He hands over a card. On the full left hand side it has a covered fruit pie. From the right edge of that to the right side of the card it has four words. Centered on the top in red, the word “Team”. Below that left justified on the right side of the pastry with Initial Caps in red are the words, “Problems Instantly Erased”.

Tracey face palms and hands the card to Doc. “It doesn’t even have the two legged table symbol for Pi,” he mutters.

“Oh? You think the pie needs a table?”