"Good thing your folks didn't come," was the first thing out of
Kit's ole head for Jess in the morning. They all had slept in until the
last minute and walked all together from the hotel to the Arche, more
or less waking up as they did, people recognizing Jessy on the way
and asking her for her autograph.
        "This feels kind of strange," she told the guys.
        "Well, it's been almost a thousand years between naked horse
rides...at least for political reasons..." Kit cracked, "...you got to cut
the commoners a little slack."
        "What a thing to be famous for..." Jess answered, sounding
a little proud as she bumped hips with her hero. "Anyway, Hotey...
it sure looks like we've done did it!"
        "You guys did it, all right..." Flece joked.
        "I just hope it works," Kit quietly added, he and Jess pulling Flee
up to them from behind as they walked, putting their arms around her
as the people continued to press Jessy for autographs, touches or
kisses. They made their way to the stands, then ushers escorted them
to Jess's box, all of them surprised that she had a box.
        "Well, seems more like you did it, highness," Kit chuckled as
they reached their seats.
        "You like bein' in my box, Cody?" Jess smiled after thanking the
usher.
        "I guess it's good Kit didn't get a box," Flee murmurred as they
started taking their seats up in front, a little stage right, and she sat
down behind them with both BR and Julio at her side, the others all
taking their seats around them.
        "Uh, yes, majesty...nice, um, box," Kit smiled back as they
looked all around and found Sage, Jasmine and Hon Ni some boxes
away and waved. Then Bill, Bory and Hua, up on stage beneath the
Arche, all caught her eyes and she waved to them and they gave their
slightly concealed waves back to her with their smiles.
        "Nice?..." she taunted Kit.
        "Yea..." he smiled back.
        "Settle it out of court," BR kiddingly advised from behind.
        "Good idea, B. I get everything, OK?" Jess sassed.
        "Duh," Kit ended it. And, dam, what a moment. They had
started the whole darn world on the road to that point and they could
hardly barely believe it themselves. It was IT! And they were even
fairly sober, though the hangovers were pretty drug-inclusive. And
they had stuff with them, in case of real need.
        There had been 188 threats against the ceremony in the last 24
hours. The guys knew it, having picked up on the WPG security over
trusty old Puter. But they knew about all the protection out there too.
Security teams had already dealt with terrorists trying to break
through Paris city limit perimeters on the ground. There had been
some fire fights, but out of sound range of the Arche. The air
perimeter was 1oo nautical miles, and the sky was filled with warbirds
and choppers. There were so many millions there for the signing, big
picture screens seemed everywhere for viewing, and pretty much
everyone in the world was watching on TV wherever they were. The
leaders had all shown up and, right at noon, Sundance opened up the
proceedings, taking the podium and saying, after the crowd hushed:
        "This is history..." and he looked all around. "And together we
are about to embark into a new world..." his voice carrying through
the millions there in Paris and the billions around the Earth. "...All of
us made this happen," he continued, "and we will all remain a part of
it. And know this...we will surely be tested. But if we got here...in
just over one month...we should surely pass any test of it. Then
remember this...we will be giving our children a much greater life...."
And the whole world cheered.
        "WOW! That sure was there..." Jess commented over the
applause after the cheers subsided, then joked, "wish we could have a
puro," more quietly toward Kit, but the others in their "party" had
heard her and laughed, though suppressed it, in honor of the moment.
        Then BR advised, "I don't think anyone would arrest you, Jess."
And they had another quiet laugh.
        Well, Jess was about as excited as a bride. And it was feeling
like one heck of a wedding. And the moment was arriving. Then she
found Lion Eagle and Goldenswan sitting in Bill's - the President's -
box and she waved and pointed them out to the guys. That was
almost taken for granted until reality swept over them and the chills
went up the backs and the goosebumps came out on the ones that
knew.
        "God, this is very incredible, Hote," she said as she kissed Kit's
cheek, Sundance going through the preliminaries up on stage. Kit just
glowed with ecstasy from her affection and happiness as they and the
spirits smiled at each other across the distance.
        What they did not know until later was that the missile aimed for
Paris was launched from western Iraq at that very moment. Very
fortunately, however, it was shot down by US jets patrolling Iraqi
airspace before it had reached 1o,ooo feet of altitude, blowing up that
part of the desert when the warhead slammed into the Earth. Saddam
didn't try another one.
        Then there was the small twin-engined plane flying toward Paris
loaded with Anthrax, the pilots ready to crash themselves into the
stage at the Arche. But the Allies used a magnetic interference "gun"
on the intruders' engines to shut them down - the ignition failing - and
helicopters followed them to their emergency landing in a wheat field
9o miles from Pari. Hello. Brains were in charge. And the ceremony
proceeded merrily along with no one there knowing anything had
happened, except the ones needing to.
        So Sundance introduced the comedian-masters of ceremony,
starting with Bob Hope. Well, Bob and the others covered all the
jokes about war and history - the language barrier just one fine mess.
But radio stations were doing the translating, and the cacophony from
all the radios throughout the sea of people there at the ceremony was
pretty crazy sounding and everyone got in a hilarious mood from it.
Then the orchestra of drums, trumpets and choir graced the hot
mid-July air with a song written for the occasion as waves of flyovers
of World War I planes, then World War II planes (Rockhead's
classics part of the fleet), then today's war planes filled the air, all
preceding the five-minute cannonade from the Howitzers, tanks and
all.
        Then the Redman introduced the Pope, Dalai Lama and heads
of all the other religions and they said a good prayer together for all
those killed by war which, when everyone thought about it, was one
heck of a sum of souls over the thousands of years of just recorded
history; then they offered another prayer for the pursuit of peace
that the world was embracing. And the preparations were finished.

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