THE ANGRY INTELLIGENT WOMAN

Jeremy wakes up with a jump in a bed and a bedroom he doesn't recognise. He panics, then remembers the events of the day before.

'Are you awake?' Stephan asks, poking his head through the door. He is wearing his uniform.

Jeremy jumps out of bed without answering and hurriedly puts on his clothes. In the rush of the day before, he didn't think of taking a uniform from his locker. What will happen today? What role is he going to play this time? That of an extra in the film of heroes who belittle him?

When the two young men arrive in the kitchen, Nina greets them with a broad smile and a well-stocked table.

'You're spoiled for choice, but you'd better eat light,' she says as she takes a seat at the table.

'I'm not hungry,' Jeremy says, embarrassed by the generosity of his hosts.

'Oh, but neither am I, except we have to eat,' she says calmly, grabbing her fork, 'With what coming later,' she adds as she takes a bite of her omelette, inviting the young man to sit down with a smile and a hand gesture.

She sighs then smiles tenderly at Stephan and Jeremy before plunging her head back into her plate. She used to try very hard to keep up with the fast pace of the world, and her children, but since her husband died three years ago, she no longer feels like running after either of them. It isn't so much the effort as the absurdity of the race that tires the woman. She was in her forties when she saw the world turn on its head, laughing heartily in the face of mankind while the powerful of the world of the early 21st century pretended all this time not to see it coming. First, there was a succession of great natural disasters in the 2020's followed by the war of the rich countries, then the colonisation of artificial intelligence in rich countries.

As a result, mankind was forever traumatised by themselves and what they were capable of, supposedly to make the world a much better one. Black, White, Asian, Muslim, Christian, men, women, gay or straight, trans or not, A.I. didn't discriminate except for the oldest and weakest members of rich societies. Why? To this day, A.I. still been able to provide an answer that the human mind comprehends. Once the big multinationals had abandoned the rest of the world to its fate fleeing to Mars, humanity eventually agreed to put together all their knowledge, science, and resources they had left to shape the world more sustainably for all. Sadly, very much like in the years 2020, the big project was in fact a big scam, designed to enslave the majority of the world population while allowing a new elite to emerge. In human history, mankind has never aspired to live in a more sustainable, balanced, and fairer world, and this didn't seem to change. This would imply giving up the idea of being separated, unique, special, and ultimately superior which humans need to survive.

She puts all her hope on young people, and more particularly those of the Ancestor Peoples because unlike the more privileged youth, they have experienced the greatest fall. Unlike their forefathers then, now, they know the price to pay to achieve anything. Nothing is due to the Ancestor Peoples except perhaps, failure and doom. For them, everything is the fruit of resilience and hard work, a source of gratitude and encouragement. Above all, this youth knows the names and stories of those who have once encountered the same obstacles before them. They have the humility to admit that without those strong roots buried several metres underground, they would have never been propelled so high where human dreams become accessible.

Nina still considers herself to be part of the Ancestor People despite the erroneous definition that today's society gives to the term. In her youth, women like her, Black women, had the same treatment as women of the Ancestor Peoples today. Even if the Great Catastrophes and the discovery of the Babel gene seemingly reversed the trend, she sees only an exchange, and not a change in the events that followed. Until the death of her husband three years ago, her choices and work at the government level have always been to awaken others about the aberrations of today's society to inspire true change.

***

Shortly after their meal, Borys rings the doorbell, followed a few minutes later by the president of Togo and his bodyguards. Nina welcomes them with a solemn expression on her face like the day before when she was listening to Jeremy.

'Mr President, thank you so much for coming,' Nina greets the official as she gives him a firm handshake, 'I can't believe in more than twenty years as a senator, this is the first time we meet... and in what circumstances.'

'Thank you, Mrs. Xi-Huang. Please call me Kofi,' the president says gravely.

'Please call me Nina,' she resumes almost immediately.

After brief introductions, the group go to the living room to sit down for a moment and agree on how they are going to start the negotiation with Libra Justice. Stephan and Jeremy listen quietly and stony-faced. They don't really understand what Nina, Borys and the president are saying. To the two young men, they seem to talk in some coded language. Jeremy knows from Sarah how much the young woman's mother hates Libra Justice and often refers to the organisation as a company of professional killers. However, he's not sure if she's referring here to the sudden death of his mother. He has been thinking about it a lot too.