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     "That’s very sad to hear, but I thought the CDC banned all transfusions of any kind, because of the infection risks." Said the Pope curiously.

     "They did," said Carl. " To be honest, I don’t know where she’s been getting the blood from, she must have a private donor."

     "It’s none of my business, but I doubt that. You can’t keep restocking your blood from the same person, or the donor would soon be ill from lack of his own blood. No, she must have an alternative way of getting blood. At any rate, I hope she recovers fast. We need her desperately now. The supplies are running low and the undead hordes outside are gathering in record numbers. I’m sure they seen your people land here. Now that the know more people are here, they’ll be clogging the street for days." Said the Pope.

     "I’m sorry," replied Carl. "I hope we haven’t made things worse. I know that Vanguard has something to do here. He mentioned a mission of some type, but I don’t know what it is. Whisper and me are here to fortify this outpost. As soon as we get you out of here, this place will be filled with CDC and FEMA military representatives. They’ll secure this place and start exterminating the stenches so that economic trade can come back to the bayou. Were you familiar with her plan?"

     "Yes, I was, but now that you are here, I must tell of the dangerous mission we are to undertake. It’s the mission that Vanguard didn’t tell you about. You see, I ordered Cardinal Hazard to keep the mission a secret, a secret only until you people arrived here."

     "Wait, before you go on. I want to introduce you to my partners." Said Carl. "Since they will be involved in whatever plan is going on here, they should be acknowledged along with the rest of us.

     Pointing to a tall white man with protective goggles over his eyes, Carl introduced them one by one. This is Mike Ryan; the Latino man next to him is Jose Alverez. The others are the Goldstein brothers, Jay, Manuel, and Cole."

     The Audubon team bowed in respect in front of the Pope. They were all Catholic despite the Goldstein brother’s Jewish heritage.

     "I’m very glad to meet you all. I believe we should go to the roof. I can explain a lot of what’s been going on here from there. You’ll need to see the kind of distance and the type of buildings we need to get into in the next few days. Besides, I won’t get into the real details of our plan until we have a sit down with Vanguard and Tom."

     A brief moment later, the Pope gestured for Tom to join him in private near the outside balcony of the left wing of the Ziggurat.

     "Tom, listen to me; I must tell you something. That little girl, Lee Li; she isn’t as normal as she appears." Replied the Pope.

     "What? Good God, is she infected?"

     "No, Tom. She’s not infected…don’t worry about that. It’s just that she is an integral part of our plan and she doesn’t even know it. Did you know that her father, Len Hazard, was a mechanical genius?"

     "No, your eminence. I only knew that he had great wealth - that the man was rich and owned the Coca Cola Company." Said Tom.

     "Well, he was hired by the Vatican to help create the Viverine Vaccine. But he also had a special request. You see; his daughter was born with a fatal disease. She would have normally died by the age of five, but Len took ‘special’ measures to keep her alive. Eventually, he healed her, but by some rather controversial means." Said the Pope.

     "Really? I didn’t know that. It’s too bad, he died; now he’ll never see her grow up. That’s so damn sad. Replied Tom seriously.

     "I know, but you must take extra precautions to keep Lee Li safe. Do you hear me? By all means, if anything is important in this mission, keep that girl safe! More so, she may be our last hope if things go wrong. I’m not sure of it, but I believe she also has a very special connection to the Mechanaut being sent here - the one they call Pinkie." Said the Pope.

     "What makes you think that?" Asked Tom.

     "I knew Len and his brother for a long time. When I first met Lee Li’s father, I noticed that he had a weird nickname for her - that nickname was Pinkie. The odd thing here is that under the President’s code file, the mission we’re on is actually called P.I.N.K.I.E." Replied the Pope.

     "That’s odd. What does P.I.N.K.I.E stand for then?" Asked Tom curiously

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