The Meeting

"MacEnroe! Hand me that Geographical Mapper!" Mr. AppleDerry yelled.

"It's Macintyre, Mr. AppleDerry," he told him as he handed him the tool. "I've been you're assistant for a few month's now. Why can't you get that right?"

"Like I said, don't fret the small stuff."

"Calling someone by their proper name is a big deal, Mr. AppleDerry. Edward and I would really appreciate it if you call us by our proper names."

"Sure sure, Macintosh."

Macintyre sighed very loudly and started walking away.

"Oh Macin-whatever, can you go see what Francois, I mean Ed, is doing?"

"Yeah, sure," Macintyre replied. He started walking towards the Earth Rover, the vehicle they used to get around Earth. He saw Ed sitting on top of the vehicle playing with her computer. Ein was lying next to her. "Hey Ed! Wha'cha doing?"

Edward looked up and gave him her signature smile. Macintyre nervously smiled back. "How can such a big grin come out of that girl?" he thought to himself. It's not that he didn't like Edward. He thought she was kind of scary. I mean, a preadolescent girl being able to hack into the most secure mainframes in the galaxy, speak an unintelligible language once and a while, and being able to defy the limitations of human flexibility, well, who wouldn't be a little scared. But, he liked the girl. He stopped in front of the vehicle.

"Hi, Mac-person! Did you come to play with Edward?" she asked.

"No, Ed. Your dad wanted me to find out what you were doing," he replied.

"Looking for Spike-person," she said enthusiastically.

"Uh, Ed… Didn't you say he was dead last week?" he asked.

"Yes, Edward said Spike-person was dead. But Edward wanted to find out where Spike-person is now."

"Well, did you find him?"

"Yesss. Spike-person is an ice cube at ISSP Headquarters."

Macintyre gave her a bewildered look. "Uhh, okay. But it's been about three weeks. Why is he still there?"

"Well, the police report said that they performed an autopsy. But doctor-person couldn't figure out why Spike-person died of. So doctor-person called another doctor-person to figure it out. But he couldn't figure it out, and they called another doctor-person and he said Spike-Person died from blood lost from a sword gash across his stomach," she explained.

Now he was really confused. "Wait, why did it take three doctors to figure that out?"

"Because Spike person had three bullets, debris from the building, and a knife stuck in his body. Plus multiple wounds from other things that hit him and he had a bad liver and lungs. They didn't know which one of those things killed him."

"I see, and it took them a few weeks to figure that out?"

"No, it took them a few days to figure that out."

"Then why is he still there?"

"The police report said that they are waiting for Jet-person to get enough money for a funeral."

"Well, that explains it."

"Yep. Do you want to play with Ed now?"

"Sorry Ed. I need to get back to work."

Ed frowned at his reply. "Oh, okay."

Macintyre turned around and started walking back towards the crater.

"Mac-person. Why are you and Father-Person always working?"

Macintyre paused a moment and answered. "You know already. To bring the Earth back to order."

As he finished his sentence, he noticed a woman walking towards them. She walked up to the car and kindly smiles at both Ed and Macintyre.

For a moment, Ed thought she recognized the woman. Something about her brown eyes reminded her of Spike. She got the thought out of her mind as the woman spoke.

"Excuse me. Are you Edward?" she asked Macintyre.

"No. That's Edward," he replied pointing at Edward.

"Hi!" Ed greeted.

"Hi Edward. I need you're help. I'm looking for someone you know."

"Who?" Ed asked.

"My brother, Spike Spiegel."