The I.I. policy

One of those Fall nights, a tall man knocked on my door: blue suit, yellow tie, bright smile, the complete Insurance Agent panoply. He said: “You shall take a look at our last product, we call: the Immortal Insurance”. I'm not a man of many words, in fact, I'm a little suspicious and, anyway, rather curious, and that last point, the tall guy who was at my front door, calmly waiting to get into my life, knew it for sure.

Life's made of coincidences, and during the few days before my visitor came, I've been working on some tedious report that was ordered by a financial company, the one of a kind often required, mostly written never to be read but steals you hours of a precious time you could share with friends. So, as I have just finished with it and I was looking out by the window, people down there, in the street, passing by, myself dreaming of blue skies, allowing me a few minutes of real internal peace.

And then he came, knocking at my door. I usually close my door in the minute this kind of bird starts singing with the argue they're taught, but that very day, I thought it might be some entertainment, and for he was looking friendly, I let him come into my flat. I let him have a seat, and no longer for me than getting the coffee in the kitchen and bringing it back with the cups, the man had already taken out of his wallet documentations, flyer's, stickers and contracts, the whole, like a rainbow, full of these colorful tables, charts and pictures.

- ' Well, will you first like a cup of coffee? I offered him.

- Still hot? ' He ironically asked.

What we talked about during the following hours I cannot clearly remind and I must admit, against all my habits, I felt like fascinated by the words and expressions he used to clarify the dark points raised by my doubts and thoughts.

- ' The Immortal Insurance Policy has been especially designed for men like you, and its purpose can be resumed in these simple words: immortality, never ending life and unlimited perspectives. The latest and sharpest technology is the spring from which this revolutionary concept flows. '

Shall I say that looking back, it seems to me incredible, but at that specific hour, certainly because it was incredible, I didn't listen to the guy, all my mind suddenly similar to the one of a young boy discovering a world he ignored everything of until the very minute: I was fascinated.

-' What we need of you, is just a small part of your DNA, which will enable our scientists to prepare your clone. A clone is a copy of you, even younger if you prefer, and in that perfect body of yours, your mind might be transferred in case your own body is damaged, or you fall ill. '

I wanted to be entertained and this speech was fit to my wish. I didn't have any objections. Our discussion was kind, we were laughing and the Colombian coffee we were drinking, made this instant one of these warm and friendly hours you like to remind of.

All the documentations were pleasant to look at, because “read” wouldn't be the word: I can't say I'd read them at any time for the good reason the agent kept inviting me to look one and in the same time was giving me another to watch, with its colorful charts expressing the customers' satisfaction, or with another hand, some pictures of world famous doctors and scientists as well as celebrities involved in this wonderful adventure.

And now we were getting to the heart of this nonacademic proposal:

- ' At any time, once your clone is available you'll have the ability to get into this brand new body preserved from any illness. You'll have the possibility to keep traveling into life whereas the others will get old, get tired, one day after another, wither.'

It seemed to me like some fantasy tale and the further I went in the knowledge of this insurance, the more excited I get.

-'Perfect, and now if you will append your signature here...', said the Agent, pointing the bottom of the contract's page with his index, giving me, once more, one of his most seducing smiles. 

Try and explain what happened is not that easy since I'm feeling some sort of lack, like a black hole in my mind, searching for the details of this interview, the Agent and I, had. Had I drunk a full bottle of whiskey, it would be the same kaleidoscope mix of pictures, feelings and sensations. The night that followed, I dreamed of many strange faces, forgotten cities' idols, barbarian smells and silky clothes dancing forms.

I woke up, in my sofa, warm in my trousers and sweater, beside the table with the cups, documentation and the contract, left by the Agent. Since I'm not a scientist myself, I thought I shall place a few calls to some friends of mine who would have more information and would let them provide me a good piece of advice. Some of them seemed really interested by this new technology and asked me to let them know the most I knew about it, some simply told me that I should not get involved in such a stupid swindle.

I was still resting in my armchair when the door was knocked. A Postman wearing the uniform of an express mail company had a parcel in hands and and that was the first time, I remember, hearing the name of the insurance company when pronounced by the man delivering the box:

- “Sent by Eternal Flame.”, and there was a golden torch on the right top corner of the parcel upon the letters of the name.

I opened it and under a letter, there were some test tubes and a notice on how to use and seal them.

“Using some of your hairs, skin and blood, we'll be able to clone yourself. Once you've sent back the tubes, you shall expect your new body to be available within the thirty following days. You'll be noticed once completed. NB: In the between, we could not provide you the body to transfer your mind to, therefore we invite you not to accomplish any dangerous or thoughtless action until then.”

All this story was getting amusing, and I began thinking of some students' malicious joke expecting some important personalities they've approached would provide them some hairs and small parts of their bodies in the foolish hope of getting an immortal body. Then they might publish on the net the result of their harvest or open some museum of the most stupid men, bright brains, but not humble enough to shut their vanity up.

 

The parcel was sent from California and have flew across the Ocean to arrive in Paris. The hour stamped meant the Agent had transferred my personal address a few minutes after he had left my flat. Computer science and communication technology within this company were at least at the top and I could definitely not imagine some students scheming some international joke around the world.

I made my decision, followed the instructions included in the parcel and walked to the nearest post office to send my DNA to the Eternal Flame Inc.

Back to my personal office, in fact my flat which was also my professional location, I got back to my report and spent the whole day checking each of the sheets and analyses of the study. Something was growing inside me, some idea, beating in some hidden place I never felt before. It seemed to me I had some kind of double heart, some new conscience related to the possibility offered to me: being an Immortal. It meant more than just not to die, not being related to the common reality of life people were daily facing, and all this, for not a many dollars. The Agent explained, there were some experimental parts of the process which needed to be improved and all the customers subscribing to the Immortal Insurance should pay different fees related to their annual incoming, enabling even not fortunate people to subscribe to it. I felt I was a lucky pioneer stepping in a new wonderful era when man shall not fear death anymore. I was like a balloon, a frog proud of itself, full with its own vanity, strengthened by the thought fate has chosen me to be one of the lucky ones. I looked in the mirror and locked the silver medallion around my neck, smiled at the reversed picture of myself with its medal bearing the Eternal Flame torch carved. It was part of the necklace, a magical jewel monitoring the electricity of my body, and will work as a buoy sending an alarm to the local office of the Insurance in any case. On the other hand, I could initiate on my own the process of transfer of mind, hanging off my phone and asking their operators for an interview so as to transfer my mind to the clone.

“The EF medallion: fruit of the last technological advances. The EF medallion is strictly personal. Its built-in computer is both a recorder and a transmitter. The natural electricity of your body delivered by your skin, will empower it and activate it from the first day you'll bear it around your neck. Within the following 24 hours, the data recorded concerning your vital signs, will enable us draw a profile of you. Since this moment on, the EF medallion will be operational and any abnormal change detected will alert our services. You're not to take it off and therefore we asked the most qualified jewelers to design it as some classical necklace your friends will envy. Tested under extreme atmospheric and pressure conditions, the EF medallion is waterproof and will be a loyal companion in any of your activity, bringing you permanent satisfaction.”

 

The Concierge:

-Let me tell you one good thing: forty-seven years, I've been working here for more than forty and seven years. Same location, different people. And be aware that I know my people and during all the time I've been in this honest house, nobody, none of our folk ever had trouble with the Police, during all these years, not a single burglary to report, and that is a fact I can proudly tell you about. Many people don't even notice that I'm living in the building, always in a hurry, they can't see me. But I have my daily tasks, set as a swiss clock. Taking out the dust-bin, taking them in, washing the stairs, waiting for the Postman, dispatching the letters on the different floors.

But you asked about Mr Talbot, and as you know I'm in charge of checking the identity of every soul who puts a foot in our building. I know the Postman, I could say I knew all the Postmen from La Poste, but one morning, there was that strange van stopped in the middle of the street, its lights blinking preluding to the car klaxon cacophony. Unusual things started by the incoming of that guy under his baseball cap. He said he was to deliver an express parcel to Mr Talbot, and had a block of sheets in one hand and a box with a golden torch printed on it under the other arm. The van was quite uncommon, during my forty-seven years working, I have never seen such a van. It made me think of an ice-cream van. Anyway , the guy was to do fast and I couldn't bare the cars in the street to make such a mess. I also didn't want the Police to walk by. I indicated the guy the door and less than a minute after, he was gone with his American van. I know it was from the United-States, I've seen the same van on the TV set since then. I take care of all unusual events. That's my job also. What was in the parcel I never can say but but I suspect there might be connection between its content and what happened to M Talbot from this day on.

I think I told you people of our building are all good people. And Mr Talbot also is. But in October, this man who is discrete, who use to give me a word: hello, good morning, good evening, sometimes a few more for holidays, Mr Talbot started to have a weird behavior. When I say weird, I don't say that he was involved in some illegal business or activities. No. He was just suddenly not the same. Forty-seven years, same building, different people, indeed I've never been to university, be sure I've learned a few things concerning men: Mr Talbot lives on the second floor, and the two other flats are occupied one by a couple of old people and the other by a mother and her two children. Nobody smokes there, I know it for sure because I'm everyday there to wash the floor and bring the letters. One day I just thought he might be cooking some exotic food they now sell around the capital and you can bring home, the daughter of Mrs Bostella, on the third floor, once brought back a sandwich with fried potatoes. Turkish it was, she said. I still have the smell in my nose. But day after day there were smokes on the second floor and after a few minutes stepping there with my broom I was certain, this was him. I wanted a confirmation. I waited downstairs and I saw him coming down like an old locomotive, and not less noisy. He was singing, his mouth half open to keep the pipe straight. Gosh! I supposed it was love. For me such a change happens to people engaged somehow in love. I decided not to care anymore. But Mr Talbot seemed to have decided otherwise.

-Arrived at the age of thirty-five, I was healthy, good minded, what is generally considered a calm temperament, with good manners. I had some remembrance of cigarettes smoked with the guys from my squad, drinking beers during nights where women were prohibited. Cigarette was then our little woman, we talked about her, her fire, her thin white body injecting in our blood relaxing poisons. Fire was tasty and it even had a name ringing like some fabulous first name. We shared then more than words, we felt like dragons exhaling our clouds of blue smoke.

Back to the civilians' life I was immediately enrolled in many tasks and the company I worked for didn't want its employees to play the forbidden games with the thin white lady. I stopped smoking as simply as I have began months sooner, I understand, due to the fact my first cigarette came late, said when I was seventeen.

The I.I. asked me to wait a month before the clone will be available and all the services, related to the transfer will be operational for me. In the between, I thought I could engage in some no lethal experience, source of pleasure. Round the corner, there was La Civette some specialist of Cigars and Pipes. I often had a look at all this wonderful bent carved pipes exposed in the window but I've been warned that if it smelled good, the pipe tobacco was not exactly similar to the cigarette. In fact, the way you smoke is different. So I took some piece of advice from the boss and came back to my flat. This time, first smoking was harder than stopping. You have to prepare your pipe and the smoke is not inspired in your lungs. Of course, I ignored it and used my first ”écume”pipe like a cigarette. I was knocked out, and had to take a seat in one of those comfortable armchairs. A few attempts later, I was airborne and then, I was flying in the clouds of my own, like an eagle on his Sopwith Camel.

I had also some cigars but, I will say, they were somehow too much masculine for me. Too strong and not as friendly as my pipe. I kept my preference for the piece of wood I could fill with tasty tobaccos. Boxes, packs were marked with the black and white sticker warning from the potential dangers, that were for me a private joke, it was literature for my past memories now that I was under the I.I. policy.

The Concierge :

Forty-seven years, same building, different people, taught me a lot. But this Mr Talbot was getting weird. Really, one day after another. After he's gone with his tobaccos and singing, as I previously said, I knew everything was a question of love. And what has followed then let me guess there was some love pain. One morning, I met him in the stairs with three four empty bottles of alcohol and we were not on a special holiday or birthday. I've got a calendar in my room with the date of the birthday for everyone living in the building. Not that I'm especially fond of wishing “happy birthday”, but this information is precious for me because it can explain why some of these nights, we had some disorder or some moving tables and dancing chairs noises.

So Mr Talbot was drinking. You see, under the stairs is the container for bottles. Every day e-ve-ry day, he came down and I heard him put his empty bottles inside. Not lemonade or juice fruit, all colorless alcohols, strong liquors. I won't matter for anyone but he's one of our folk. I was since a little upset . The poor man, I thought. He, usually so discrete, now getting daily his alcohol, he'll soon be addicted and what is a man once he's lost in the worst mistress' arms: bottle. How could he simply work, I was upset, I've told you and indeed he's none of my relatives, I kept an eye on him. He sometimes was late in the morning going out, because of that but he indeed wore clean suits, not a single day get out unshaved, even strangely as cute as a young man going to a date, I never noticed his face was scarlet, or red, neither did his mouth let those drunk men smells get out when he spoke to me. Since then, I didn't dare say anything to him. Hear me: forty seven years in the same building taught you many a single things about man's mind. When you do my job, you're not the kind of mice going to and fro. I just stand here, ready in case he'll need. As I always do.

-Smoking tobacco has recalled me months spent during my military service. I sometime had a beer, not many. At this time I didn't have any interest in drinking and I was feeling short of time to train myself or read some personal interest book. Once I was freed, I went to University, I got a job shortly and since then I never had the leisure to go out with my colleagues from the office. I have my goals, and I have my proper way of life to go straight to their realization. “No time to lose” shall be painted on my shirt.

Now I have subscribed to the I.I., I have the feeling Eternity belongs to me, nothing is urgent and also, I must admit against my own will, flesh and material life get day after day a more important place in my life, though I should not matter for it since I own this clone body of mine to host my mind.

So, I went to the supermarket, buy me some bottles. First, only one or two. I wanted to taste it, to discover the wonderful, the magical drinks came from all over the small blue planet we share. I was experimenting, I even thought of writing a travel guide called between 15° and 45° North to 50° East, in which I'll explain the different stages of my trips from the first smell, once you proudly took the stopper out of the bottle, its singing melody while springing into the glass, your eyes diving in the melted colors of the flashy label and the honey body of the precious liquid. In a spoon, pieces of sugar as a “canard” or with olives, I was some kind of cook committing to paper all the results of my experimentations looking for the exact and perfect cocktail that would be my grail. In the fridge or the freezer, as ice cream, in every food I cooked, this was my new folly, something I wouldn't have been granted the opportunity to eat or drink still and now was an exquisite sin of every hour.

There were some failures, and I always felt amused meeting the old Concierge of our building staring at me on each of the occasion she stole on purpose, myself, once more a child or a teenager, kidding, happy to see her round eyes wide open like never in her scrutinizing life. Failures were sometime just some bad cocktails, awfully infect and I had to pour them down the sink, sometimes they were more the kind of Renaissance drinks, subtle, nice in mouth but as the night was going on, my stomach expressed the irrepressible wish to let them got out.

One of the most simple cocktail, I do appreciate, I have called the Paladin: fill half your glass with the Porto, you used to eat melon with, and add the other half of cold banana nectar till you get some salmon color using a tea spoon to melt it. It's delicious and can be drunk all night long. Because of banana, a little heavy to digest, but worth enduring it. I don't remember, as a child, having so many colorful glasses on a table at the same time. My kitchen has become the laboratory of mind experimentation. What was the link between body and consciousness, in which area of the brain or of the universe are we walking during the unusual time of drunkenness? I was hardly working when not working hard and the more hard than I have both the charge of testing and recording.

Some of those spectacular nights, I had to let the pen and paper go and I remember then my neighbors kindly saying a few words about how good a singer I was or inquiring about some of my friends who may have come to share some glasses' sparkles with me. Thanks alcohol companies, they often offer you the proper glasses to drink their products and appreciate them as should do. In fifteen more days, I considered myself a good connoisseur of the most world famous drinks and the best way for me to let them invade my cells unleashing their magical people and lands from the country far above the fog of consciousness.

The Concierge:

“Here you come again”, I thought, seeing the strange van turning into our street. I was sweeping in front of our building and I immediately guessed it was for our squirrel of the second floor, but this time, I would not let the Bedlam happen in the middle of our street. I waited it drove in front of our front door and told the guy inside to go upstairs. Under his cap, he just seemed half surprised and promised to hurry up and down so as not to let me wait too long. Anyway, as I always say, forty-seven years taught me a lot about people, and I was then armed with my broom and nobody would attempt to say anything since I was keeping an eye on the chocolate van and the other on all the cars starting to get impatient behind it. The American was back no more than two minutes later and disappeared with his van around the corner for the second and last time. Since then I've never seen it again. I wondered what my squirrel of the second floor could get from the United States and due to his behavior in the previous weeks, I get upset he might order some new pills across the ocean to heal his mind or body. I think it must have been something like that because after the parcel was delivered, he get back to some more normal attitude. Apparently. Forty-seven years, I'm maybe an old Owl, as I heard them say, but I know a lot about man.

- It was on the twenty-seventh, or twenty-eighth day, anyway, what I perfectly know is that a month was not completely passed when the Baseball cup guy from the Express Parcel company knocked once more at my door. They've made it. “They've made Him”. I was absolutely drunk and I sat in my armchair, the little brown box in my hands. So there it is, and I unwrapped it carefully like holding a matches box or a carton cake box in which is enclosed a living beetle or a frightened small bird. There was nothing alive inside, no heart beating but first came a card: “Congratulations! Recording your vital signs during the last few weeks, we've been able to profile you: your clone is perfectly operational and now, you're totally protected by your I.I. policy.”. Then came some details about the documentation sent and about the main item of the package. Shall I say that it still makes me shudder, both horrified and fascinated. On a little booklet with colorful pictures, entitled : your clone body came a large picture of a Cristal coffin in which was bedded a man in white satin suit, his eyes closed, perfectly cool, not dead, like sleeping. Other pictures were details from hands, chest, distinguishing marks, and the face.

Though I learned about science and medical technology in revues during the previous years, what I was now seeing was more than incredible. There was another me, asleep, somewhere on the Earth, waiting to host my mind in any case something bad would happen to me. Imagine what it could be, buy you some kind of fantasy subscribing to some incredible Insurance policy is one point, but to wake one morning and get the parcel telling you had never dreamed and now you could use your clone, this was not the same. I offered me a Paladin, one Kentucky tobacco pipe, deeply seated in my armchair and let my mind climb the sky. The I.I. was the best thing I have never bought in my whole life, it made me feel free, crazy, creative, amused, once more in a lifetime, I could be a teenager and for as long as I wished. My clone, it was written, was customized for age thirty, that meant a little younger than I was, because I didn't mention some specific will and thirty is well known to be the perfect age for a body as well as mind. I had some spare money and my work didn't force me to go everyday to the factory, therefore I thought time has come to allow me some kind of sabbatical, some special holidays and become the man I should have always been. Time has come for heroic days.

Rescue Man:

Exactly. This is one of the exceptional cases we had to handle. Being Rescue Men, we daily face unusual situations.

What happens is that every year, when the first leaves are falling down, we observe a recrudescence of desperate actions committed by isolated people, feeling depressed. Precisely, consider from mid August till the end of Fall and then a second wave at the end of the year. Fall's period is characterized by the romantics, maybe due to the colors of the sky at the end of day, the smells of trees in town. We don't have the scientific explanations yet but we do observe that it is a fact: Fall attracts romantics characters to strange issues.

Now thinking of our very man, I should say, that he was not the kind of victim we are to help every day. Because in fact, he didn't need our immediate help. He needed us to stop him because his behavior was some way abnormal but he didn't appeared to me as a person in danger. We Rescue men in Paris are soldiers. As soon as I could talk with him, I clearly understood he was not a fool. He seemed to me more like some kind of exalted man. Once we took him back to the rescue center, our process is strict, we got to do some analyses, ordinary stuff research: alcohol and drugs. He didn't protest, he seemed real interested, he didn't lose a second of our men's work. His eye's pupil was just the way it should be for some man, and he was the one, excited. He kept asking questions about our vehicles, the way we operated. Could he be some weird guy, some crazy man? Certainly not, he looked to me more like a journalist who would have offered himself a free interview being the victim of an accident he himself prepared. I will state it clearly: this man, never did what he did because of mental trouble, and this diagnosis was the one of the doctor who examined him at the hospital where he was invited to stay for the rest of the night until he would have been freed in the following morning, eleven o'clock . We, rescue men, consider protecting life is a serious matter and we could not stand joking all day with this same kidding people, we have a duty that calls us. This man was to me a joker, and the fact it was the third time he jumped from the bridge into the river Seine when we arrived with the boat and caught him in the water. Passing by people first thought of suicide but when they saw him with his goggles swim like special Ops scuba, run to the side and then go back up to the bridge, they reported, they looked out for a team shooting a new movie, some entertaining program. Some suspected something was not exactly as it should have been to be shot, they talked about missing spotlights, we got two phone calls, and our men were immediately in their boat, and at the delta point less than a minute later. Mr Talbot was on the bridge, saluted them before he jumped off. This man has his own M.O. , for sure.

-You're a kid, then you become a teenager and before you had the time to realize what happens, you were called by the Army. In my time I mean, we had to go to the Army. But before that year, you spent your youngest years with friends from the neighborhood, girls and boys. Because I was full of hormones, I was the typical mad dog and both because I was well mannered, and had never forgotten what my parents told me, I was not the one would could get in troubles. The II, was the injection, the catalyst of a chemical reaction now propagating its extraordinary strength within my veins and, like a virus changing any of my own cells in some new supernormal cell, part of some non human creature. I was getting in a new body, and it was a weird feeling because I was not in the clone yet, I felt the curiosity of young people for their body when getting an adult body. That's how it came to my mind.

I had a very good friend, we were like those Laurel and Hardy, he tall, me small. We were always betting on most incredible issues and how to go farther than man has ever been before. Moon has been colonized, Oceans had their Commandant Cousteau. We knew that we had to pass the inner gates, the frontiers of the common world to get into the epic world of heroes. We made every day of our lives the best it could be. One day he fell in love with a gal: friendship, promises, explorations were ended. “The world needs to be populated”, he echoed. I thought we should first create the man to inhabit a new world that would look more like we always expected it to be. So I joined the Army sooner than I should, before I went to University. Adventure in khaki world was limited to walks in the woods, playing with weapon, all the things I had done when I was six. I felt limited and opened the books of the library.

Now, with the I.I. , reopens a door of mine, a secret laboratory of my ethology research. The night was a little cold and I went to the river Seine. I have chosen a bridge located not in the middle of Paris, so that the river is deeper and rescues are not to close. And I jumped off into water. That was a great fun for a first attempt, but not perfect, twice was good and I felt perfection would be the third. During my many years spent in Brittany swimming during Summer or Fall, I could say water was friendly, not icy, just cold as I like it. People passing by seemed interested because I prepared myself, I had my swimming goggles on and only a swim suit I wore under a trench coat. The guys from the Rescue Men surfed on their black boat, called Chronos, to congratulate me at my last attempt. Third attempt. “Paris didn't get the Olympic games, but I'm here anyway.” They didn't like it. Just let me think of some rude Sergent I had years earlier, and called me Platon because I had, what was for him, some relation with abject objects: books. They spoke loud and they first thought of a physical shock or some thermal shock that might have damaged my brain, but excepted that I was a man full of happiness, everything was OK and Paris' lights, seen from the small boat were beautiful. They took me to their center and asked me to do some tests, maybe for ratification, so I kindly helped any of them get what they need, and that may be some interesting records in case the book of records would like to ratify my performance. Too talkative, one said and I was sent to hospital to sleep under the maternal blue eyes of a nurse. And my eyes on her. Quiet, I must admit, for they've given me some pills to make me sleep. The morning after I was freed and after thanking Daisy, that's not her real name, but her skin was so white and her hair so golden than I couldn't imagine that this beauty in her white dress was not but anyone of this Spring flowers.

The Rescaped family:

-It was night. I woke up. There was a weird smell. I cried. I shouted for Mummy and I couldn't switch on the light. It was some nightmare. I wanted light. I didn't know how to escape.

-I was sleeping, I must have slept deeply because I didn't even hear my child shout out for me until he get into my room, this man. A small man, I've never seen before. That's him who woke me up, he asked me if I could walk, he said the building was on fire, we had to go and get my little boy. He answered my boy telling him we were coming. I'll never forget his face in the flame lights, he put his shoulder under mine, made me walk faster, I asked him who he was, he just answered me he was just passing by. Don't know if he was a rescue man, a fire man, but he acted courageously and didn't seem to care about the flames though he just wore ordinary trousers and a T-shirt. We get in Ben's room and ran downstairs. It was Hell's fire inside but he didn't care and he helped me make my way through out the building. We were at the door and firemen cars were already at work with fire hoses. Then a call came from inside the flames. He told us to run far away and shouted he'd be right back. Ben and I were with the firemen and that is the last time I saw him. One minute later, the building collapsed and there were only metal bars and stones and a white cloud of dust the flames turned to orange. We don't know what happened to him, maybe he get out by another way.

The Bureaucrat:

- “I must confess, after the story of the Seine, there are some missing parts in my memory. I was walking in the street, a building was on fire, I get in, I get in and helped a woman and her son get out. And... you know, it's funny because, this is exactly the kind of adventures I should remember of. Let me think... And, what are we doing here?

- M Talbot?

- Yes

- M Talbot. After listening to the witnesses testimonies, elements that were brought to our knowledge by our agents, we find you not involved in the I.I. project and declare your I.I. policy contract is canceled, and shall be turned to an Eternal Blue Sky one and, you, shall be released.

- My I.I. policy, canceled? What do you mean? Where's my medallion? What is all that stuff? How can you simply change it to another contract I've never heard of? Let me talk to the angelic guy who sold it to me? Who are you to change the rules?

- M Talbot, for an angel, your agent was. For Fallen, he has. And his name upon the bottom of your contract was Louis E. Fur. M Talbot, now you're safe in our hotel, pray relax and enjoy our company.