Ana Arce and her two friends of life

1. Book 1
ANA, THE MARTIAN
´¨)
¸.•´¸.•´¨) ¸.•¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` Part 1
It was the night, on the extensive plains, with crops, of the "Provincia de Buenos
Aires", where with its pavement the provincial road extended across such an
extensively uniform horizon.
Darting at high speeds against the almost non existent traffic of that road, at the
steering wheel of a black racing Honda, which had been brought imported to
Argentina directly from Japan, his owner Daniel Cordoba was chanting with the
music, that was coming out of the powerful speakers inside the car's cockpit, from
the radio "Mega", with its permanent broadcast of old argentine hits.
While at that time the song was of the "GIT" rock band, Daniel only distracted from
it, to comment remembering by the way: "My River Plate will be playing in Caracas,
tomorrow wednesday... I just really hope they come back in one piece!... from that
violent country, I mean...".
At Daniel Cordoba's right, in the passenger seat, was travelling his life long
friend Manuel Harriott.
The two men were of an average height, and as young as twenty both.
Much more thin than Daniel though, Manuel was about to speak something, although
the third friend traveling there, Ana Arce, from the back seat perfectly
anticipated his intentions, uttering her: "Yeah! It would be great, to be there
instead... in the Caribbean, I mean... With the yachts, the sun, and the palms...
and everything like that".
Manuel laughed out loudly, and stretched his left arm, to tease the skinny naked
thigh of Ana, under her tiny skirt of a thin white fabric, Manuel then remarking:
"Ditto, to that, Ana!... That's exactly, what I was thinking!", and then with a
gloating smile Manuel turned back his palid face of black hair, with his also black
eyes on the way barely staring left, at Daniel.
Sitting well again, Manuel finally muttered: "You don't surprise me anymore,
Anita!".
Right behind him, one year younger than the two gentlemen, with her age of
nineteen, Ana Arce giggled.
Ana really was an uncommon human being though, with her skinny body, her extra pale
skin without blemishes, her milky irises, and an equally white hair, that she
always kept short, resorting to the most expensive coiffeurs in town.
Both Ana and Manuel were common 'portenio' people of the city of Buenos Aires,
anyhow, from the neighborhood of Belgrano.
There, Ana had an old, very expensive manor of her property, near the Cramer
avenue, and Manuel lived in an apartment, similarly of him, on the third floor of
an ultra sophisticated building, on the Olazabal street, in the corner of Moldes.
Furthermore, Daniel Cordoba was an authentic aristocratic youngster of a
distinguished family, even with ties with the argentine military, and so it always
felt like condescending with Danielito, when treating with others.

2. Anyhow, the three of them were affluent overall, dedicating their time to study
things only for some occasional leisure interest, and so Daniel Cordoba was
dedicated, studying his career of architecture, for example.
Daniel also had a humongous farm in Lujan, to where the three friends precisely
were heading on that night, and so Ana asked casually: "It's two in the morning,
people!... Could we be there, at your farmstate, Daniel, in time for our fucking
asado?... I mean, really in time at noon?".
Daniel blew a giggle, and said quite confidently: "With this new car of me, at two
hundred kilometers per hour, certainly we'll reach there as expected! We'll have
time to play Battlefront with our laptops, and everything... You'll see!".
Manuel Harriott then commented: "Let's hope there's good internet connectivity from
these farms... My Luke Skywalker will do just like in the movies!".
Ana Arce laid her thin hand on his left shoulder, and she teased then: "Manuelito,
my love... You won't escape even here from the might of my Emperor Palpatine...",
to which Daniel Cordoba then added: "And his loyal henchman Dart Vader...".
Even at those high speeds on board the racing japanese car, Daniel then raised his
right muscular hand, to which Ana immediately reacted with her own thin left hand
slapping his, on behalf of the Imperial team, they usually shared, playing "Star
Wars".
Ana then stretched back over her seat, and so distracted she examined inside her
coat, of a thin, red fabric, and short sleeves, over her white blouse, examining
the tiny screen of a mp3 player, which was playing then an audio book of the
"American Psycho" novel, her favorite literature of all times.
With the popular novel being read into her ears, Ana Arce couldn't help then with
her unpigmented milky eyes to examine at the skies of the province of Buenos Aires,
as up there it was all sprinkled with a mantle of shinning silver stars.
Ana so mumbled: "Humph... too much calm, around here, though...".
Precisely at that moment, the left front wheel of the Honda racing car of Daniel,
with an explosive sound unexpectedly suffered a puncture blowout, for which, for an
emergency procedure, Daniel quite dexterously released the speed pedal, totally
ignoring the brakes, and held the steering wheel the most firmly he could, with his
well built arms, attempting to keep control.
At its very high speed, the car pulled sharply to the left though, and soon it
began to spin, with its four wheels screeching over the pavement.
After being traveling well over one hundred kilometers per hour, the Honda of
Daniel whirled out of control five times completely roundly, with the rubber of the
three surviving Bridgestone tires barely gripping the pavement.
The imported car ended up over the hard shoulder of the opposite side of the road,
with the front fallen in a road ditch with water.
Once being totally stopped, Daniel blew air from his mouth, and Manuel Harriott
mumbled: "phew!".
Behind, Ana Arce stopped clawing to her seat, to be the first to speak: "Are we
still alive?".

3. The four portenio friends didn't take long unbuckling their safety belts, and
getting out of the car.
Manuel Harriott was the first one assessing the situation: "Well... We'll have to
wait for a crane, before nothing else".
Daniel Cordoba had his cellphone on his hand already, checking out its GPS, to
mumble pensively: "Hmm... the closest Automovil Club is 35 km from here", after
which he got the phone connection he had been expecting, and began to talk.
Besides, the skinny Manuel Harriott distracted his head from him, discovering then,
that in the middle of the dark night Ana Arce was totally absorbed, staring with
her milky eyes at the skies to the west.
Manuel Harriott walked slowly close to Ana, and then embraced her from behind of
her equally white short hairdo.
Manuel then discovered, that Ana was unusually tense.
Intrigued, Manuel wondered: "What's going on?", to which he got no answer, and so
he attempted following the direction of her eye sight, to the skies.
Up there, Manuel effectively discovered the unusual occurrence, as there was a
blinking light, of changing colors, slightly bigger than the rest of the stars,
moving in a line exactly in the direction of the two portenio friends.
Like somehow expecting an explanation from her, Manuel extremely surprised mumbled:
"Tell me, Ana... What is that thing?", to which he got no response from her part,
though.
At that moment, with his black eyes paying attention only to the LCD screen of his
Kodak cell phone Daniel Cordoba aproached to them, mumbling: "We'll have a rented
car, coming for us in some minutes, from "Tres Sargentos", fifteen kilometers from
here".
At that point, Manuel was as absorted as Ana, in total silence, staring at the
heavens, in those first hours of the day.
Puzzled, Daniel then mumbled: "Kids?", to which he ended up raising his head too,
quickly finding the uncommon phenomena, occurring in the starred skies.
Anyhow, like reacting to the arrival of Daniel Cordoba, in the upper atmosphere the
flickering, colorful luminosity suddenly hastened gaining a shooting speed, in just
a second, and so it finally disappeared.
On the ground, stranded in the middle of nowhere, Manuel, Ana, and Daniel were left
literally open mouthed, and after some seconds of silence an audible explosion also
came powerfully down from the skies, distantly upwards.
It was Ana Arce, who reacted turning around, and squeezing the left arm of Manuel,
she said: "I'm really scared, about being here tonight, my love...".
´¨)
¸.•´¸.•´¨) ¸.•¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` Book 1 Part 2
At breakfast time, the dining room of the sumptuous motel, in the small town at
distant roads in the Provincia de Buenos Aires, was really warm on that winter
morning, even with powerful sun beams invading the place inside, through the glass

4. windows.
On the wooden table, there was a floral arrangement, beside a glossy with caramel
strawberry pie, over which a fly had just lied down its six microscopic paws.
Daniel Cordoba distracted his hand waving it over there, just to bring it back to
the screen of his cell phone, while commenting: "...overall, everything is working
fine, Ana. Yeah! Much better than before. Our clients are making queues daily, to
get all our imports, that you and Manuelito got for my company. I'll be getting
back to Buenos Aires just to take care of all that".
Wearing a thick, red bathrobe over her skinny body, Ana Arce got closer to her
steaming capuccino, getting her elbows over the table, to comment: "See, Daniel?
See? Friendship loyalty always pays off... It's an ancestral rule!".
Ana made a gesture with her white brows, over her eyes of similarly milky irises,
smiled funnily at his friend, and finally with her skinny right hand she brought
the humongous, hot mug to her delicate lips.
Daniel Cordoba then commented: "All in all, it now gives me more time to practice
polo with my team of Coronel Suarez... You and Manuelito will so see me shine on
the Campo Argentino!".
Daniel Cordoba also was a star of argentine polo, in that squad, and so Manuel and
Ana often went together attending those games of their friend, at Palermo.
With her white eyes checking his mug, Ana Arce left it over its little plate to
whisper: "I really like those weekends in Palermo... One of the best places to take
out my Mercedes, with Manuel...".
Daniel Cordoba brought his two hands over the back of his head to say distractedly:
"I'm just enjoying all the extra autographs, I'm handing to the little girls after
each event!... You've got no idea, Ana!".
"...while keeping up the prestige of my own family!"
Wearing a yellow inflatable coat, Manuel Harriott surprised with such commentary,
returning then to the table from the parking lot, outside, which was covered with
leaves and sticks.
Also, Manuel surprisingly had picked a bottle of imported "Chivas Regal" whiskey
from the bar there, even being then the early hours of the morning.
Manuel kissed Ana Arce, and then he sat at her right.
While Manuel was pouring a generous amount of the scottish alcoholic beverage into
his very thin glass, Ana hastened, and she held his hand with her thin right one,
like anticipating, what their friend was about to utter, from the other side of the
wooden table.
Then, Daniel Cordoba didn't care to add: "Oh, well... Your grandfather is my idol
of all time, in Polo. Yeah! His team fellows are, who taught me all I know of the
game".
Manuel's grandfather had been one of the champions of Polo in Argentina, in the
year 1969, whereas he also had been an argentine naval officer, perishing in the
war of 1982, in the sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano.
Manuel indeed had ever been really touchy about the subject, so he then reacted

5. promptly drinking the whole of his glass of whiskey, and in the end he made a "Mmm"
sound of alcoholic delight.
Disregarding, quite coldly Daniel Cordoba just raised his black eyebrows, to demand
aloud: "So? How's my car, Manuel, there in the Automovil Club?".
Nonetheless, Manuel Harriott reacted equally manly then, to talk to his friend.
Firstly, Manuel extended his left arm over the back of the chair of Ana, and so he
finally said: "Oh, yeah... Your car has suffered nothing else, but some bruises,
beside the flat tire. It's gonna be ready this afternoon".
As Manuel filled his glass with whiskey again, Daniel, with his mouth full of honey
covered cake, disregarding raised his two thumbs, acknowledging aloud: "That's
great! The Automovil Club is so awesome...".
With his whiskey in his right hand, and with a smile on his face, Manuel turned to
his left, asking: "Are you better from your headache, love?".
After examining him with her white eyes, Ana Arce leant fully back on his thin arm,
and putting her white head on his neck, she whispered: "Not, unfortunately... I'm
still stressed, and I've got no idea why...".
Daniel Cordoba brought together his two hands, mingling all his fingers pensively
over the wooden table, to suggest: "You should rest, then, girl... We have enough
time to get ready, until my Honda is ready to go again".
Ana Arce snorted soundly over the neck of Manuel, and then she smiled with her
white teeth, to open wide her equally milky eyes, and voiced: "Yeah, you're right,
Danielito. I'm going to lay down in my hotel room...".
Ana Arce kissed the mouth of Manuel Harriott, who promptly attempted to stand up,
although Ana reposed her thin hand on his left shoulder, with her adding: "Oh,
don't worry, Manuel... I'm perfectly fine. I need some calm right now. I better
walk lonely there. I'll just wait for you, ok?".
Ana Arce smiled, and Manuel nodded in agreement.
As Ana was leaving the table, Daniel, with his head of a black hair of a "taper
fade" cut, approached confidently to his friend.
Daniel Cordoba, then, finally commented in a discreetly low voice: "...and this is
how another of the mysteries of Ana Arce begins!".
Disregarding, Ana Arce then left the dinette of the motel of the isolated town, in
the Provincia de Buenos Aires, stepping with her leather flip flops, and with a
blue topaz anklet in her right foot, over the gravel parking lot, covered with dead
leaves and branches.
Each single porch of the over dozen hovels, in a row, of the hotel, was occupied by
a vehicle, each of a different size, including a large bus at the extreme of the
small park.
Below that big passenger vehicle, there were ten children playing football, with
piles of clothes for goals.
Ana Arce barely distracted with them, as she was tranquilly crossing back to her
cottage room, walking over the macadam.

6. At that moment, though, one of the kids, wearing the green shirt of the Ferrocarril
Oeste club, hit the ball really hard, and it just scored, sneaking through the two
extended arms of the goalkeeper, with the shirt of the Racing Club.
All the children of that team yelled "Goooal!" in unison, while the ball kept
flying at a high speed, and passed in the air right in front of the tiny, round
nose of Ana Arce, who barely managed to pull back her entirely white head, of milky
eyes.
The ball so ended up fully hitting the side of a red Fiat Argo, also there nearby,
causing its alarm to go off loudly.
With her hands in the big pockets of her red bathrobe, Ana Arce smiled at the
kiddos, and she animatedly headed to that place, where she crouched down with her
skinny arms extended, to get the ball.
Ana in fact grasped it, yet getting up again she noticed very weird luminosities,
reflected in the rear window of the Fiat.
Intuitively, Ana Arce quickly turned her white head towards that direction, at the
distance, in which actually was the big entrance of the parking lot of the motel.
There was nothing there, and at that precise instant the car alarm stopped wailing,
aparently by itself.
Despite being very confused, Ana somehow relaxed from the jolt, and then she
mumbled: "Oh, well...".
Nonetheless, a child voice interrupted her thoughts then: "Can I have my ball,
miss?".
With the ball still in her two thin hands, Ana turned around, and she barely stared
down at a little kid, who was wearing a shirt of the national team of Paraguay.
Disregarding, Ana Arce nervously turned her head back again to the Fiat, parked
there, checking its windows.
Then, with her white eyes she discovered more clearly, the shadow of a tall
humanoid figure, looking like two meters tall, whose head also could be
distinguished, surrounded by a halo of a curious orange luminosity.
Ana quickly stepped back on her leather flip flops, with her skinny right arm
protectively dragging the little kid with her.
Always in her red bathrobe, Ana Arce then yelled: "As you've already noticed, I can
read minds! Get out of here, now!".
The little kid then wondered aloud: "Who your are talking to, miss?".
Nonetheless, Ana kept her milky eyes affixed upon the entrance, although still
there was nothing there.
However, then, from the sheer nothingness in the entrance gate, it got apparent a
1.95 meter tall quite slender humanoid figure, with a big head, humongous ocular
appendages, not a nose, a light grey skin, and a mouth of pyramidal teeth, from
which the creature started hissing, in a phantasmal way.
The biped living thing, there, was almost completely nude, just with an orange
robe, coming down from his right shoulder, and fittingo all around his waist.

7. With its two long hands, the creature also was holding an elongated contraption,
which looked just like a motorcycle handlebar, of an orange surface, and with
visible luminous distortions, in the middle of it.
Also, the creature had a golden armband, clasped to its left arm, near its
shoulder, with more phantasmagoric luminosities, coming out of some bizarre
figures, engraved on its surface, looking just like a big "H" letter with a smaller
"x" in the middle of it.
Ana Arce kept stepping back more quickly, while warning: "Don't you dare...".
Disregarding, the orange handlebar held by the creature started shaking for just a
second, and so the whole of his towering body vanished, jumping like an orange
luminosity from its original place, to reappear one second later beside the little
kid, of the Paraguay shirt.
Then, the creature indeed managed yanking the kid away of Ana, and it also laid the
elongated orange contraption over the chest of the child, who started to resist,
violently, with all his energies.
Ana Arce extended forward her two arms, in her red bathrobe, with her claiming:
"Don't do nothing to him, monster! You'll certainly regret it! The authorities here
will chase you down, and kill you...".
With its long legs and paws, the creature forcibly pulled back the kid, while
hissing a creepy and whimsical sound, from its big mouth of pyramidal teeth, which
also echoed phantasmagorically in the minds of all the other people there.
Anticipatedly then, Ana screamed: "Not, my god!", as the long orange gizmo vibrated
again, and the kid got as stiff as a wooden board.
With Ana Arce without daring to get any closer, the almost 2 meter tall creature
pulled, and so the small petrified kid was dragged by the force, while leaving
marks on the gravel, with the black "Puma" football sneakers of his feet.
All the other kids of the parking lot were thronging then, behind Ana Arce, who
desperately told to them: "Do not get any closer to that thing!".
The tall creature of a grey skin so easily kept walking back with its hostage, to a
narrow open space with a wooden fence, at which the big monster of an orange robe
checked briefly behind, and finally stopped, exhaling a hissing noise, almost of an
animal.
There, it finally briefly looked at Ana for a second, and the orange handlebar like
contraption in its two long hands then shook before the kid, right after which both
the grey creature, and the hostage kid, became a single orange luminosity, shooting
in the air to the expanse, behind, from where they had been standing.
Ana Arce rushed desperately there, with her arms extended forward, to finally
protest in her frustration: "Oh, my god. No!".
All the kiddos there, in the parking lot, began to revolt in their desperation,
with many of them starting straight to cry, wondering: "Where is Luis?", "What
happened, here?", "What the fuck is going on?".
After staring at nowhere in the direction of the already vanished luminosity, with
her two hands clenched in her desperation, she finally began running with her
leather flip flops, and her blue topaz anklet in her right foot, back to the tea

8. room of the motel, in the middle of the isolation of the provincia de Buenos Aires.
´¨)
¸.•´¸.•´¨) ¸.•¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` Book 1 Part 3
In the city of Buenos Aires, in the neighborhood of Belgrano, like every afternoon
the wooded sidewalks of the Juramento street were very busy, specially about the
traditional node of humongous supermarkets, sited right there around the small
Noruega park.
In a nearby school of primary education, by the Moldes street, the bell of the day
of studies there had just rang, and so the area quickly got cramped by small kids,
all dressed with entirely white smocks, under a diversity of colorful coats, ment
for such a very cold winter day.
Of them all, a group of seven nine year old kiddos gathered into a candy store
nearby there by the corner, once there unrestrainledy seizing a piece of sweet
pleasure each, and paying for that.
Just so, the whole launched further away, in an unrestrained race for fifty meters,
to muster standing in front of the glass window of a small toy store, under the
placid beams of the heat, from the winter sun, which doused particularly over that
side of the street.
Similarly with a southern european look of a pale skin and a neat black hair, two
of the kids discovered, to have coincidentally bought "Aguila" sweets, one of them
being a big cookie with caramel filling, the other a chocolate covered medallion of
mint.
The two had opened the respective wrappers of those, ready to bite their treats,
yet noticing the coincidence of the label, in their respective sweets, quite
friendly they suddenly took their time to raise the confectionery in their little
hands like in a toast, before finally starting to gobble that.
Minutes later, reaching the corner of the street right there, one of them said
goodbye to the group, to haphazardly begin running, crossing Juramento towards the
public market, right there.
One of the shops, inside that covered area, was selling cheese in particular, where
there was a vendor of a white uniform, and a white cap.
"How's been everything at school, Manuelito, my son?", the man asked, while
squeezing the nine year old kid against his waist.
Wearing a blue cotton coat over his long white school smock, the kid reacted
embracing the big man with his arms fully open, and then he got tranquilly behind
the counter, by his side.
Manuel then tossed his grey knapsack over a surface, over which there was a big
sticker reading "Malvinas Argentinas 1982", with the image of those southern
islands, a few light blue and white stripes, and a big yellow sun, historically the
same of the pre Columbian Inca Empire.
Manuel opened the zipper of his grey backpack, to take out his monthly school
report sheet, and staring at his eyes with a smile he then extended it to his
father, there.
After rubbing his hands with a small cloth, the old man examined the school

9. document, verifying once more, that once again all the notes of Manuel had been
high.
The man kissed the kid's head, and then he promptly signed the paper, saying: "You
really deserve, all we give to you, my son!", and so he embraced him quite
amorously another time.
A while later, Manuel was walking the Juramento street again, back southwards,
enjoying of some chilean dried cherries, directly from its package.
Some girls of his school remained in the area, talking at the bench of a shop,
offering yogurt, off the corner of Moldes.
All the very young ladies greeted him with their hands, and always walking at a
fast pace Manuel smiled at them.
At the next street, Vidal, Manuel turned east.
At the following corner, Echeverria, Manuel Harriott finally reached home, in the
ground floor of an old, yet picturesque, big building of four stories, with a low
'metal grate' fence and a very thin garden, with grass and a few big plants.
After opening the door with his key, once inside his family residence, Manuel
announced: "I'm here mom... Dad's sent you greetings!".
The mother, a blonde woman wearing a kitchen apron, with drawings of bananas,
promptly got there, kissed him, and clutching him tight uttered: "I'm so proud of
my future argentine astronaut! So studious and good looking!".
After leaving some soft candies, also minty, in his tiny hand, the woman got back
to the kitchen.
Opening and eating one of those, Manuel recuperated his calm breath, and then he
opened his knapsack to get some receipt notes, he brought from their shop in the
market.
Manuel Harriott stretched all his body then, toward the top of a wooden chest of
drawers, where there was a small replica of the Argentine light cruiser General
Belgrano, over which there was a big picture of his grandfather, dead in the war of
1982, hanging of the wall.
The little hands of Manuel left the receipts, laying over that toy battleship.
Eating another of the mint candies, Manuel then tranquilly walked to his own
bedroom, at which he just spread himself on the bed, pensively, finally taking a
breather from all his activities, since very early on that day.
"Some day, I'm gonna be a great man", the nine year old boy was thinking, "the only
owner of the shop of my family in the market, dedicating my whole day attending
each part of it... dealing with the suppliers... with the clients... raising a
family..."
His comforting thoughts were interrupted then, though, as someone unexpectedly in
that afternoon rang the doorbell of the house.
From his bed, Manuel heard her mother rushing to the entrance, uttering: "It has to
be your auntie!".
The ensuing voices coming from there resulted hard to distinguish, and the pace of

10. the footsteps of the new visitor over the room besides resulted quite puzzling as
well.
Through a narrow opening of the door of the bedroom, then, surprisingly showed up
the head, white and of then disordered black hairs, of his best friend, also nine
years old: Daniel Cordoba, who then uttered: "Suh, Manuelito?".
The door opened totally then, by the hand again of Manuel's mother, who commented:
"It seems, that you too have company today...", and with a smile she closed the
door again.
Manuel slowly sat on the edge of his own bed, smiling funnily, because Daniel had
gotten there wearing his white uniform of karate practice, with an orange belt,
while being an advanced student fighter, indeed.
Manuel only said: "Sneaking out?".
Danielito quickly opened his knapsack, and took out a plastic container, with the
disc of the computer game "Burnout Paradise".
Daniel casually then told: "It's just that... I'm so sick of it! This year, they
haven't even respected my birthday!".
Daniel Cordoba got to the big screen in Manuel's bedroom, where there was a brand
new Playstation 3 "Slim" console, just brought from the United States, by Manuel's
parents.
Daniel dexterously turned on the whole, and Manuel slowly approached to his side,
with the game Daniel brought.
Daniel explained: "I bought two Burnout Paradises in Internet, by mistake... You
keep it! I don't mind".
Manuel left the video game beside the console, whose screen was initializing,
mumbling: "Thanks...".
Nonetheless, Daniel had already moved to a shelf of the room, turning on a police
like red revolving light, which quickly affected the whole place.
Daniel whispered: "Red alert", taking a big, detailed toy of a Ferrari 458, and
starting playing with it over the fluffy black carpet of the floor.
Manuel surprised him them, kneeling on the floor with a bigger Lotus Elise, orange
color, and then he knocked both cars with violence, one against the other.
Both kids laughed at it, as the door of the bedroom opened again, as Manuel's
mother was bringing a tray there, with chocolate milk, and Oreo cookies.
Crouching, and leaving the tray over the carpet, on the floor, the woman then
expressed: "Have some milk, Danielito, you must be really tired after your practice
of karate...".
Daniel lied: "You've got no idea, ma'am!", before starting to drink and eat all the
sweet things, just brought there.
As the mother of Manuel left the bedroom, the Playstation game of Call of Duty had
already started on the television set, so Manuelito used a remote control, raising
the volume of the speakers.

11. Soon, he and Daniel were using a wired control each, playing cooperatively in the
same team together, slaying arabic terrorists in some middle east god forsaken
country.
Both kids of Belgrano daily played that way, via Internet from their respective
homes.
Having a break from the game, with his attire of karate Daniel Cordoba finished the
whole of his chocolate milk, and after uttering a loud "ah!" of fulfillment, he
commented: "This' removed out of my throat the taste of the rice pudding of our
lunch at the cafeteria at school... Finally! Ew, those menues are so fucking
hideous, man!".
Always killing arabic foes on the screen, besides with his legs crossed on the
floor, Manuel answered: "I didn't mind the food today, while they showed on the
screens the TV show of our fellow Figueroa, starring in that soap opera of
Television Publica".
Daniel remembered that event in particular then, turning violently his head, and
opening big his brown eyes, to add: "Yeah... You are right, Manuelito!... Yeah,
well... It was an episode broadcast yesterday, though...".
In the Call of Duty game, after finishing a killing rampage against four arabs,
Daniel completed his commentary: "Let's hope, Figueroa fares well as an actor...".
Manuel immediately stared at him with a clever smile, and said: "Figueroa will! He
always does everything good. He has the best grades in our class, and
everything...".
Without stopping killing the foreign guerrilla on screen, Daniel chuckled adding:
"And the prettiest girlfriends... Katy B has just said, that she likes of him!".
Manuel slowly dropped his game controller with his two hands over the carpet on the
floor, to say: "Argh! Do not remind me... It wouldn't surprise me, if that girl is
already being taken there, to the hotel, in the corner of Juramento...", and then
the two kids started laughing loudly.
Before raising his controller again, Manuel commented: "At least, since this month
there is a new girl in our class... That Arce...".
Daniel instantly blew a giggle out, to remark: "Oh, boy! That girl! Only you,
Manuelito, can cope with her...".
Manuel waited to finish an arabic terrorist on the screen, affirming: "She studies
a lot, it seems... Our teacher, Missis Isola, told me the other day, that Arce...".
Manuel made a mental effort then: "Ana? Isn't that her name?", and Daniel mumbled
confirming: "Ana, yeah... Ana Arce is her name...".
Keeping shooting with his fingers, Manuel continued then: "Well, missis Isola told
me, that Ana Arce wouldn't approve another year of school ahead, only because of
her age".
Briefly distracting his head at his friend, Daniel then said: "...and she's
eight... one year less than us... Even so, Arce demands more than my own sister
Debora...".
On the screen, the game finished then, and Daniel promptly started setting the
specifications for a new one, to play together with his friend.

12. Manuel leaned back over his bed, tranquilly adding: "That Ana Arce is very weird,
yeah... She speaks funny, too!".
A new match was starting, as Daniel told: "Yesterday, she helped me out finding a
page of my book... I was in my bench, and my book went down. Arce was talking with
the girl, sitting with her... Arce got the book from the floor... and then...", he
thought for some seconds, "...Ana just opened in front of me... It was the page I'd
been reading!".
On the screen, then, Daniel was killed, nevertheless he added: "Ana Arce then told
me: 'I like daisy flowers, too... And it was the picture, I was staring at, in my
book!".
Manuel was with his black eyes more concentrated on the screen, and with the game
controller vibrating in his hands, when he added: "And those eyes of her! They are
as white as the milk!".
The mother of Manuelito showed up again then, with her head popping in by the door,
and so she told: "I'm leaving with your father's sister now, Manuel. We'll bring
some coffee and pastries to him... Be nice here, sweetie...".
The mother left there, and then the entrance door could be heard being shut.
Daniel Cordoba and Manuel Harriott stared at each other then, thinking in the same
thing.
For this, Daniel used his controller to turn off the Playstation game console,
while Manuelito got to his feet, and got to his toy chest.
There, Manuel scoured with his two arms, until announcing: "Got them!".
As he was awaiting by the door, Daniel by then over his karate uniform was wearing
a white thin coat and some Topper train pants, all borrowed without asking from
Manuelito's closet.
Manuel then tossed to his best friend an "E-11 blaster rifle" toy, from Star Wars,
made of plastic, completely white, and with orange details.
For himself, Manuel kept an "A280" rifle toy, of the same colection, yet light blue
and orange.
Without further word, both kids rushed to the street, playing shooting at each
other, with repetitive "pew pew pew" vociferations, from both parts, in their
imaginary laser shootout.
Just so, they ran a hundred meters to the south west, crossing the Cramer avenue
then, without having slowed their pace at all.
There, over the pedestrian white "zebra crossing", the karate pants of Daniel
distinctly screeched, getting ripped, although keeping springing and "blasting" the
nine year old boy nonetheless didn't care at all, then.
A couple of streets farther ahead, at the turn of a corner, Manuel and Daniel
reached a huge, abandoned manor, nearby the train station of "Belgrano R".
The two nine year old kids quickly sneaked into, climbing and passing in between
the bars of the grate, of that property there, which had become already, the secret
place of them both.

13. Just recently in that place, the filming of a TV movie had taken place, of which
Manuel and Daniel learned via the Internet, to end up attending the event.
The two nine years old kiddos then met with Celeste Cid in person, and they even
got an autograph from her.
In that movie, that actress incarnated a peruvian drug addict, who precisely died
in that abandoned house.
Manuel and Daniel kept getting there since then, to play together for hours with
their toy pistols.
The two story manor was big enough for them both, for sure, built early in the
twentieth century.
As the setting sun of that day doused the whole with its last beams, Manuel
Harriott and Daniel Cordoba kept shooting with their plastic rifles, all the way up
to the first floor, where in a room, looking at the street, they stopped.
There, their attention was distracted with the secret cache of fun, the two of them
together had been raising there for about two months.
Thus, under the autographed picture of Celeste Cid, together with a few stickers of
candies, Manuel and Daniel kept a shoe box with some Star Wars figurines, all of
them old, repeated, and broken.
After staring pensively at that for some seconds, Daniel Cordoba out of the blue
erected his short E-11 white weapon, and demanded: "Surrender your merchandise to
the Empire, bounty hunter!".
Manuel Harriott raised his larger light blue "A280" toy rifle, flaunting it
inertly, and answered: "Over my dead body...".
That was just the excuse for them both, starting running again across the wooden
floor rooms of the first floor, until Daniel, the chaser, suddenly lagged behind.
Standing in the big hallway, up there, Daniel suffered of a chill nervousness, and
lowering his toy gun, he mumbled: "There's someone staring at us!".
Daniel Cordoba first moved his head to his right, and then he turned around
completely, finding at the end of the corridor of wooden floor a little girl.
She looked barely older than the two kids, and she was wearing an old long dress,
with thin vertical lines, light blue and white, very aristocratic, and yet clearly
worn and with some blemishes.
For whatever reason, the girl spoke in russian, and even so Daniel understood her
words, as she said: "How dare you, entering into my house... Get out of here, you
two!".
With his black eyes wide open, Daniel disregarding started to walk at her,
wondering aloud: "Who are you?".
Manuel surprised then from behind, aiming with his toy gun at point blank at the
right side of the head of Daniel.
Daniel reacted pointing with his two arms at the end of the hallway, announcing:
"Look! There's a girl there", to which Manuel turned his head just to find nothing.

14. Manuel claimed: "Don't invent things, Daniel. Ladies are a pain in the neck. We are
fine here, just you and me...".
Daniel got quite surprised with such a response, and widening his arms walked to
that spot of the corridor, claiming: "What?! Where has she gone... She was here...
She spoke to me!".
Manuel laid his long light blue toy over his own right shoulder, saying: "Don't
invent things, Danny... For god's sake!".
Daniel reacted almost desperately, pulling of the blue coat of Manuel, by his right
arm, and then Daniel insisted: "It is true! There was a girl there!".
As in a response to such reaction, after an unexpected gale of wind the five doors
of the hallway shut by themselves, altogether.
Still there was light filtering into the corridor, from the empty window of the
other side at the hallway.
Thus, as Manuel instinctively gave a step behind Daniel, it resulted clearly
visible for them both, when all the five door handles there started moving, up and
down slowly, by themselves.
Mumbling: "This place is fucking haunted...", Daniel stepped back, carelessly
stumbling into Manuel.
Then, the door handles began beating much faster, all at the same time,
exasperating the two nine year old kids of the neighborhood of Belgrano, who
wouldn't attempt to flee from there, though.
All the five doors then also started opening and closing violently, to which Daniel
and Manuel just stayed put in the corridor, witnessing such scene.
Like giving up to the guts of them both, the doors suddenly got shut again,
stopping to stay completely calmly finally.
Like coming with the wind of that winter, the voice of the russian girl was
hearable again, this time for them both: "You shouldn't have dared me...".
Suddenly, then, the door of the room, up there in the first floor, with their toys,
opened wide.
Daniel slowly walked there, with Manuel behind, and effectively under the window to
the street, it was again the little girl of the old aristocratic dress.
She then said, again in an uncannily understandable russian language: "I'm Nadezhda
(Надежда)... I was born in Moscow, early in the twentieth century".
As Manuel Harriott stood still behind, with his light blue toy gun in his right,
and his left hand in the pocket of his blue coat, Daniel started walking slowly at
the strange appearance.
The little girl then turned violently her blonde hair head at him, to stare at
Daniel with her blue eyes completely affixed upon him.
Then, the shoe box with the old toys rose in the air, by itself, and turned around,
discharging all the Star Wars figurines on the wooden floor.

15. Daniel barely stared down at that, and kept walking, even with his Umbro athletic
shoes stepping onto the old toys.
Manuel then said: "It was true, then... There was a ghost around here!".
The little girl looked at him to say: "I am Nadezhda (Надежда) Rasputin!".
Daniel then quipped: "She can't be a ghost... It's like in the movies... Some
holographic communications...".
The girl stared at Daniel again, to say with even some air of superiority: "The
american 'Versed' were supposed to be much stronger than this... You really know
nothing, at all...".
As Manuel reacted then wondering aloud: "What the heck are you talking about,
girl?", Daniel had stopped already standing by the side of the so called "Nadezhda
(Надежда)".
Daniel started playing then, extending his arm, and aiming with his toy "E-11"
white gun at the head of the girl, and playfully pulling its orange trigger
repetitively.
Answering to Manuel then, nonetheless, Nadezhda (Надежда) said: "You have pulled
the whole universe, down here to Earth... You...".
At that point, Danielito was also carelessly waving his hand and his white toy
through the luminous consistency of an aristocratic dress, dirty yet in fairly good
conditions, of the ghost girl, who finally seemed to be concerned with that,
turning her blonde head, to stare at him with her blue eyes.
Nadezhda (Надежда) Rasputin finally said: "You are so imperfect!", and so she
finally vanished into nothingness, from that manor of Belgrano.
Articulating again: "pew pew pew" nonetheless, Daniel indifferently with his white
rifle toy of plastic started doing like shooting at that empty space, while Manuel
got there too, commenting: "Ghosts weren't that scary, after all...".
´¨)
¸.•´¸.•´¨) ¸.•¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•` Part 4
Unlike the rest of the Argentina, eternally tied up, because of remaining submerged
in political and financial violence, the carpeted aisles of the traditional Harrods
shopping center, in the intersection of the Florida street with the Cordoba avenue,
in the city of Buenos Aires, comprised a series of quite sophisticated, and
sumptuous trade areas, like belonging to other, much better times...
To another reality, indeed...
With her fine, skinny appearance, and at her age merely of eighteen years, Ana Arce
walked inside there, wearing like occasionally a very formal, entirely red dress,
showing her shoulders, and of a long skirt, almost reaching the thin ankles of her,
of which the right one was bearing a silver bracelet with blue topazes.
After checking out all fine products, being sold there, most of them imported from
afar abroad, Ana Arce ended up picking up a French "Chanel No.5" perfume.
Ana raised its flask, and finding delight in staring at herself through a mirror,
she sprayed some of it over her thin neck, to end up raising her delicate right

16. thumb in approval, while whispering: "This' an eternal winner, for sure...".
Ana Arce promptly acquired it, and next she took upwards a flight of mechanical
stairs, to the first floor of Harrods.
There, Ana Arce stopped in the boutique area, where really stylish clothing was for
sale, and where without hesitation she got her delicate fingers onto an entirely
red coat, with a big hood.
Ana distracted herself for a moment trying out that scarlet wrap, wearing it, and
playing with its hood, on and off many times over her short, very expensive, and
natively white hairdo.
Ana Arce then claimed: "The finest combination in Argentina, for the prettiest
Argentine woman...".
To that in particular, the female salesperson, for no particular reason, started
talking about politics: "Now... that in our country we can finally say, that the
clowns have definitively left the government!".
Disregarding, Ana Arce undisturbedly sought her Visa Platinum card from her tiny
red purse, and handing it to the vendor, the eighteen year old girl from Belgrano
clarified: "Oh, well... I've never had any idea about politics... Haven't even
voted yet, in my life!".
Handing a ballpoint pen and a ticket, for Ana to sign, the seller then opined:
"Good for you! Keep that innocence in your life, while you can, young girl...".
After bidding her a farewell with a smile, already wearing her new scarlet coat Ana
Arce with her white block heel shoes walked then her way downstairs to the exit of
Harrods.
By there, there was also a stand, with a myriad of products from the Harry Potter
franchise, to which Ana dedicated only a tiny bit of her attention, and then
whispered: "How stupid's all that, for god's sake!".
Disregarding, closer to the exit, there were other racks, promoting instead a new
installment of "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movies, to which Ana Arce got
totally magnetized, affixing her chalky iris eyes upon that toy collection, for
then walking to that place without thinking much.
Once there, with her skinny hand, Ana Arce snatched a small, light grey, lustrous
figurine of "Marvin, the paranoid android", with its round head, and a raised right
thumb, with the whole of it having the same design, as in the first feature film of
the franchise.
Ana tried a button on its plastic chest, after which brightening its green,
triangular eyes with each of its words, Marvin uttered: "Don't panic!".
Minutes later, leaving a parking lot on the Paraguay street, Ana Arce driving at
the steering wheel of her own Mercedes SLS left the zone, eastwards.
While next heading south by Reconquista, Ana was forced stopping before a red light
at the Cordoba avenue.
There, she used that occurrence to good advantage, quickly unwrapping her plastic
figurine of Marvin the android, out of its container.
Then, she placed it, in the middle of the dashboard of her Mercedes Benz, above its

17. LCD computer screen.
Like so, Marvin was left standing there, with the upped thumb of the tiny hand, of
its extended right arm, meaning the characteristic gesture of an interstellar
hitchhiker.
With the traffic light again in green in that intersection, then, Ana Arce as
usually made the V8 engine of her Mercedes Benz to aggressively roar several times,
before accelerating gently, though, across the Cordoba avenue.
However, Marvin then couldn't help tumbling down from over the dashboard, forcing
Ana, to chortle.
Half an hour later, Ana left her imported Mercedes Benz sports car in the
underground parking lot of the Alem avenue, within Buenos Aires' banking and
administrative area, downtown, and then she simply walked crossing the avenue to
the centennial building of the Stock Exchange of the city.
Even being merely eighteen years old, Ana Arce had an office space of her own, for
those financial businesses, which she and her boyfriend Manuel Harriott had been
building indeed for years already, by means of some figurehead brokers, who
followed Ana's prodigious intuitiveness.
Thus, in a small office space with many desks, and a window overlooking the "25 de
Mayo" street, Ana Arce was sitting on a simple swivel chair in front of her
computer, while her secretary, Katya Mamani, was with her tushie over the edge of
the table.
Ana had a picture of Manuel Harriott, stuck to the wall there, to which Katya
chuckled, and said: "You really are doing good to Manuel. You know. I'm close to
his complicated family, and know all about him, since I am also from there, the
same streets of Belgrano...".
Katya in fact was much older than both Ana and Manuel, and for a long time she had
been one of their financial "front persons", in their so successful enterprises.
With her head of a naturally white, expensive, and short hairdo, then Ana Arce
audibly insufflated some air, and smiled.
Keeping typing in her own computer, Ana told: "Manuelito has a great loyalty to me.
I really adore him!".
Ana Arce then dropped tranquilly her thin hands over her quite formal red dress,
and widened open her unusual "entirely pearly iris" eyes for adding: "Sometimes...
I feel, that he would die for me. You know?... He's so romantic!".
Always with a calm tone of voice, Katya laughed, and said: "Really? Oh, well... For
now, you are making him to live, and he has become really very possessive, about
you".
Both gals then laughed aloud, and from the nearby desks, everyone briefly turned
their heads at them, with sympathetic smiles.
Nonetheless, an old man with a red bow tie and suspenders, who actually was one of
the directors of the Stock Exchange of Buenos Aires, showed up unexpectedly then in
that corner of the office, with the intention to speak directly to Ana Arce.
Ana stopped working, and then she attentively stared at him with her chalky eyes.

18. He then announced: "Hey, Ana!... Our president of the Argentina is here in the
building, for our annual lunch... Want to meet him? He has demanded some
extraterrestrial exchange!".
The old man giggled then, with his blue eyes always affixed upon Ana Arce, while
Katya widened her black eyes, and narrowed her mouth like blowing with her thin
lips, with surprise and admiration.
Within the Stock Exchange of Buenos Aires, the large hall for the event of such an
official dinner was really lavish, with three glass cups, before each one of the
forty guests, round a sinuous shape table, with an immense, sober mantle, and with
the whole laid under a big, gilded chandelier, suspended overhead.
At the middle of the many people there, at one the big, central sinuosity of the
table, it was sitting the very same president of Argentina, on an old, centennial
chair, which indeed had been successively shared, already, by each of his
presidential colleagues, right in that same place, in similar occasions.
Whereas the Argentine chief of state was an old person of a blanched head, he was
quipping: "The problem with the one dollar for one peso was, that we were dropping
our trousers, for having a Ferrari, while we didn't even care to manufacture simple
things, such as cookies".
The forty distinguished people there gently dropped their eating utensils, and then
all started half laughing, half clapping their hands, at such a witticism of the
Argentine President.
At one of the extremes of the table, Ana Arce was sitting together with some
Australian investors, just arrived from their country, and staring at them with her
'pearly iris' eyes she snapped: "What Argentina really needs are fortune cookies!".
The handful of foreign visitors laughed out loud at that, and so the president of
Argentina couldn't help turning his head at Ana, who then smiled at him, shrugging
with her skinny, naked shoulders.
After the dinner, the Argentine president was smoking of a curved pipe, and thus he
approached with curiosity to Ana Arce, while the head of state was walking with a
cane, with a handle of a golden consistency.
Widening his blue eyes, the national leader inquired: "And you... are a reporter
from...?".
Looking even younger than being of only eighteen years then, with her unusual,
white appearance Ana Arce quickly smiled kindly at him, and answered: "Oh, no,
mister president. I'm just a successful girl of the financial world", reciting all
formally.
Ana found herself then, waving her delicate hand at the smoke of the pipe of the
man, nevertheless the Argentine president just nodded politely his ashen head at
her, and turning around to start walking away with his cane, he whispered: "That is
so good for our country! We really need young, enthusiastic people...".
After smiling at that remark, standing in her place, Ana Arce nonetheless then
turned back to resume talking to the Australians, there.
Of the foreigners, a fat person of a blonde hair, with a ponytail, tied up by the
back of his head, and of an also blonde beard, was already smiling at her, resuming
saying: "Oh, well, Ana... That's what 'Tecnologias Centenario' will be about! We
have already a warehouse of a half of a block in the middle of the city of Buenos

19. Aires, and a terrain for our factory in the Patagonia, in Tierra del Fuego...
There, we'll soon start producing our televisions, tablets, and cell phones. It's
gonna be the best of the best, for the Argentina!".
With her formal red dress of a long skirt, Ana Arce with her eyes of frosted irises
above the hypnotic smile of her mouth, stared at the big man for about ten seconds,
the two of them in a complete silence.
Finally, she grasped the thick left arm of him, taking him away from his fellow
foreigners, visiting the Argentina.
Ana Arce started telling in a low voice: "Oh, well. You look just like a good man,
my friend. How do you like this offer?".
With her skinny hands, Ana Arce finally showed her tablet computer to him, where
the Australian read the actually ridiculous figure of "fifty thousand euros".
Disregarding, the blonde man immediately shrank his blue eyes with a funny smile at
her, and then with his right index he just inked the screen, after which the
computer chimed, together with the appearance of the logo of the Stock Exchange of
Buenos Aires.
Grinning reciprocally then, formally, Ana Arce quickly shook her own skinny hand
with the robust one of the Australian, as furthermore he then surprisingly reacted
over Ana, embracing her quite tightly, while even raising her off the ground,
altogether with her two block heel shoes.
Without having much idea of the situation, the other Australians witnessing the
scene indeed got quite surprised, at all that.
Nonetheless, the big blonde Australian of the transaction quickly returned to his
own fellows, then, with open arms.
Embracing them all, the bulky Australian of the blonde beard and ponytail hair was
shouting: "Oh, my god... The South Americans are really so beautiful for making
businesses with! Let's go my men, we'll celebrate all night long!".
Other Argentines from the world of money, also there, all around, stared at them
unbelievingly, to which Ana Arce shrugged with a smile, and raising her milky
eyebrows.
Nonetheless, with no one else around, Ana examined her tablet computer, under which
she then was also holding with her skinny fingers a big chocolate bar, whose white
package had written "Chocolates Centenario", in red letters.
Ana Arce had stolen it, from the inner pocket of the jacket of the Australian
businessman, and then she spent a moment examining the big candy, cackling, and
smiling with her pretty cheeks.
At that same moment, in the offices of the second floor, within the Argentine Stock
Exchange, there was another broker, talking by his phone, being a thin person, of a
somehow swarthy skin, and a short, black hairdo.
His name was Ezequiel Fernandez Moores, and he had just slurped some yellow
foodstuff of a big, shinny spoon of actual gold, to say: "Look, Alicia... On
Monday, I was visiting my kinesiologist. On Tuesday...", he was counting with the
smallest fingers of his hand, also holding the eating utensil, "...the '9 de Julio'
avenue was jammed because of a political rally on the streets. Today, I will really
be in time, with you, my love! I'll make sure of it... I swear!".

20. Under his right arm, Ezequiel Fernandez Moores was pinning down a plastic package,
with a half million actual dollars in paper money, laying beside a catering plastic
container of potatoes, with Huancaina dressing, all over.
Ezequiel plunged once more the auric spoon into the yellow food mixture, and
holding it before his nose he kept talking to his phone: "Please, Alicia... Do not
be as obnoxious as my first wife! I will really be there with you, today... I
promise!".
Right then, Ana Arce careleslly dunked her very thin fingers into the Huancaina,
bringing those into her own delicate mouth, to whisper fully joyfully: "Mmmh...!
Long live, for the Peru!".
Reacting to such an unexpected entrance, Ezequiel Fernandez Moores repositioned
himself over the plastic package, full of dollars, for staring at Ana with his
black eyes, wide open.
Then, Ezequiel said to his phone: "I've got to hang up, Alicia. Please, excuse me.
I'll meet you tonight... There's something very important taking place here, right
now!", and then he definitively hanged up.
Ana Arce knew, that the Peruvian Ezequiel Fernandez Moores was an extra annoying
person.
Since growing in his country of birth, the Peru, Ezequiel had belonged to the
circle of interest of the former president Alberto Fujimori, as in particular their
Peruvian investments most usually ended up failing to succeed in the Argentina.
By chance, in those days Manuel Harriott, Ana Arce's boyfriend, had gotten indebted
to Ezequiel Fernandez Moores, after a financial swindle of him, and so Ana would
attempt, on that same day, to fix all that.
Within his nook, Ezequiel sat back, and raising his brows over his black eyes of
dark shadows, underneath, he attentively asked: "So, Ana... What can I do for
you?".
Smiling, with widened milky eyes, Ana Arce propped her butt against the desk, and
then she told: "Look, Ezequiel... I've got a whole Australian company, expecting
for a new owner, for a fine price. It's only one million dollars...", Ana nodded at
the plastic package of paper money, over the desk, "...for the whole of it".
Using only her right hand, Ana then Googled with the desk computer, there:
"Tecnologias Centenario".
As Ezequiel Fernandez Moores also used his electronic mail, and made a phone call,
Ana Arce gave a brief rundown of her proposal: "These Aussies handed me their
operations, although...", she lied, "I'm really lacking the required time for that.
You, Ezequiel, would be getting the keys of that company, here in Buenos Aires,
plus all their current office space, in Sydney. Also, you'll get a certain number
of their additional investments across North and South America, in fact meaning the
true whole of it".
At that point, Ezequiel had been listening to his phone as well, nevertheless he
then hanged up, and laying back he examined once more the sheets of documents,
printed beforehand, that Ana brought there for accomplishing the operation.
Ezequiel Fernandez Moores mumbled thoughtfully: "Hmm... Yeah... Yeah... Yeah...
Very good! It's a very impressive offer!".

21. Ana Arce was clutching the edge of the desk with her two skinny hands, while her
pearly irises were affixed upon Ezequiel.
Ezequiel Fernandez Moores took a deep breath, and after drawing his gold pen from
the pocket of his jacket, he began signing each one of the contract papers.
Ezequiel was saying: "Macanudo, Ana! It's exactly what I was looking for! My
japanese girlfriend Alicia's gonna love it. We always talked about opening an
office in the Pacific Ocean, and to move there. Now, we are going to finally do
it!".
Ezequiel Fernandez Moores then accommodated well the sheets of the contract,
holding those with both hands, and hitting rapidly his own desktop with the whole,
he said: "I will finally marry Alicia, then!".
To that, Ana Arce tranquilly asserted: "Congratulations! You see... That's what
friends are for!".
Ana then showed to have also carried the chocolate bar, she'd found during the
lavish dinner event, whose white paper wrap was written with red characters,
expressing: "Chocolates Centenario", for a brand.
However, underneath, the original pack of the sweat treat bore evidence, of being a
confection of a Colombian origin.
Ana Arce left the big sweet beside the plastic container of Huancaina potatoes, and
then she approached her milky head at the swarthy Peruvian broker.
Ana then said: "Here you go... Some advance profits for your new Pacific company. I
hope, you enjoy it!".
Ana Arce took the half million dollar stacks, in their plastic wrap, from the
table, and silently she then stood up.
Turning around the door, out of that office in the Stock Exchange of Buenos Aires,
Ana mumbled for herself: "Now, Manuel and I are even, with this motherfucker of
Ezequiel!".
Although Ezequiel Fernandez Moores hadn't realized it, the Australian technology
company actually was an international scam, in reality selling Colombian
chocolates, while issuing phony receipts of electronic products in each of those
transactions, evading thus all kind of international laws, for a considerable
profit.
Ana Arce quite intuitively had managed learning of all that during the presidential
lunch, while the Australians were attempting to bring such a corrupt model, down to
the Argentina.
A few minutes afterwards, again taking seat at the steering wheel of her own
Mercedes Benz SLS, within the underground parking lot of the Paseo Colon avenue,
Ana Arce quickly slipped the package of the half million dollars into the glove
compartment, at her right.
Also, Ana had brought from her own office a tiny tube of Poxiran glue, with which
she stuck her "Marvin, the Paranoid Android", to the center of the dashboard, by
her right, under the rear view mirror.
With the thin fingers of her right hand, Ana Arce took the trouble to hold the

22. figurine in place for about a minute, whereas "Marvin" with its upped right thumb
was kept, thus, standing above the LCD screen, of Ana's Mercedes Benz' computer.
With her chalky iris eyes, Ana Arce stared at the android, giggled, and so she
mumbled: "It seems, that you've brought me good luck, today, my friend!".
Next driving her Mercedes Benz SLS along the Paseo Colon avenue, with the typical
arcades on the ground floor of its buildings, there, Ana Arce whispered: "I've got
to celebrate this day, for myself!".
Thus, after reaching the Libertador avenue, Ana Arce turned left, climbed the Maipu
street, and then went all the way to the right, around the block of the Circulo
Militar, to finally get into a parking lot on the Esmeralda street.
Some meters from there, at the corner of the Santa Fe avenue, Ana sat at a sidewalk
table of a cafe, with a superb view of the San Martin park.
With a mild smile, Ana Arce tranquilly stared at there for a moment, silently
enjoying such a green panorama, to finally start drinking of her coffee.
Ana then lowered her pearly iris eyes at her tablet computer.
In the Internet, the site of the Clarin newspaper bore only unexceptional news, for
example highlighting problems with the price of the beef in the Argentina, as one
of the bureaucrats, in the government, was warning about periodical official
scrutinies, to be implemented over all the retail butcheries, across the country.
Highlighting on that sidewalk, under the warm sun of the winter, with her chalky
skin of no blemishes, and her naturally white, short, and very expensive hairdo,
Ana Arce then whispered, chaffing: "Oh, well. It won't matter... I'm feeding myself
only with dietary supplements, daily, and also some occasional Huancaina dressing,
so...".
On the screen, held in her skinny fingers, the Internet page of Clarin suddenly
changed, though, announcing the unforeseen occurrence of a growing tension over
eastern Europe, with Russia assembling its armies, along its western frontier off
the Baltic Sea.
Ana Arce widened her pearly eyes, shook her equally snowy head, and mumbled: "I
don't know, what to think about this!".
Then, however, a hefty man, of a curled hair, of a white and grey dye, arrived to
the place, pushing his bicycle, which he then propped against the low grate, there,
of the Santa Fe avenue.
Quite rudely, without else the man turned around, and snatched the thin right hand
of Ana Arce, demanding, while spitting his saliva quite rudely all over her and her
coffee: "Come with me to my office, baby!... We are hosting a lunch party, there.
You know?".
Ana quickly stood up, while angrily, yet fruitlessly, started pulling her own arm,
exclaiming: "I'm not your sister, or whatever of you, mister!".
Disregarding, the face of the beefy man got suddenly stupid, then, with his round
blue eyes keeping staring staticly at Ana Arce.
Next, the man released Ana's hand by himself, and then he unreasoningly turned
around, to end up stumbling against other of the tables there, of which, peanuts,
fries, drinks, and whatnot, all got straight down to the sidewalk, of the Santa Fe

23. avenue.
A moment later, before three of the waiters of the cafe, already there, and all
complaining at him, the blonde harasser finally "pulled round" from his
disorientation, shook his head, straightened up his big body, and turned back at
the table of Ana Arce.
Ana wasn't there anymore, though.
Instead, Ana Arce at that moment sounded the horn of her silver, and of a low
framework, Mercedes Benz SLS, bidding her farewell to him, with Ana already leaving
that place, driving around the corner of the Santa Fe avenue.
Soon afterwards, northwards along the wide and arboraceous "9 de Julio" avenue, Ana
climbed the Umberto Illia highway, which soon shifted to the left, with a
magnificent elevated view of the portuary zone of the city of Buenos Aires, and of
the vast mouth of the Rio de la Plata.
Stacks of giant shipping containers dominated the scene, there, while within the
cabin of the Mercedes Benz SLS, it was playing the audiobook of the "Imperial
Bedrooms" best seller.
As a matter of fact, Ana Arce would only listen to that kind of smart English MP3s,
for most of her leisure time, while then Ana couldn't help snickering, and
mumbling: "Oh, my god! Now, I'm a very pretty gal of eighteen... So superior!... I
shall start killing street prostitutes!".
Concordantly with such a declaration, Ana usually was an aggressive driver too,
always going at the highest allowed speeds, with her silver European racing car,
over the asphalt.
Thus, after driving her Mercedes Benz SLS at eighty kilometers per hour, exactly,
by the port area, when reaching the Salguero avenue, Ana Arce with her right foot
pushed the pedal beyond that, and so she soon got to one hundred, avoiding all
slower drivers, while intentionally bothering others with sharp maneuvers.
"...but for now, I'm only going to meet Manuelito, my love, to spend an enjoyable
afternoon with him!", Ana then declared, finishing her previous statement.
Nonetheless, about one kilometer ahead, driving normally again Ana took the avenues
Sarmiento, to the south, with a magnificent view of hemispherical building of the
Planetarium of Buenos Aires, and subsequently Libertador, westward, across the
groves and lakes of Palermo.
That area had also been a favorite place, for Ana Arce to walk lazily with her
friends, in her recent years of secondary school.
During those years of her life, in fact, Ana usually spent most of her time having
fun, although in occasions she would evidence to also have a quite impressive
knowledge in a diversity of professional fields, including engineering indeed, and
also a powerful intuition for business.
Thus, together with Manuel Harriott, her romantic interest since ever, Ana Arce had
managed organizing several financial figureheads, at her own personal service, and
thus in just few years she had raised a millionaire fortune, which she had just
legally reached, with her recent eighteenth birthday, on the twenty ninth of June.
Anyhow, "turning up" with her Mercedes Benz in the intersection of the two railway
bridges, over the Libertador avenue, Ana knew about the Muslim mosque, located just

24. there by her left, which indeed was the biggest one of South America.
Almost intuitively, and paying more attention to her MP3s, continuously playing
audiobooks, in English language, Ana Arce then mumbled: "Shitty peronists!".
Disregarding, also in that area, in front of the traditional horse race track of
the city of Buenos Aires, it was located the "Campo Argentino de Polo", also known
as "The Cathedral", to which the family of her boyfriend Manuel Harriott had
belonged for almost one hundred years, by means of the Coronel Suarez Polo Club.
Thus for years since knowing Manuelito, Ana had been attending, accordingly to
social protocol, every important gentlefolk event, taking place there during the
weekends, together with her boyfriend.
Next from that place, beyond the immense apartment buildings of the Virrey Vertiz
avenue, Ana Arce drove her Mercedes Benz SLS by the traditional grassy hills of
Belgrano, off the ultra modern train station of the Mitre railway, there.
The beauty of that area, specially with her having attended secondary school
nearby, for five years just until recently, aroused the cherriest memories of Ana,
who couldn't help singing, mumbling: "Nothing could change you. Set and sure of the
way...".
Next, driving along the Juramento avenue, and the streets of Vuelta de Obligado,
and Olazabal, it aroused as usually some thoughts in Ana, out of the great
intuition of her, while at the same time her heart started to feel a bit withered,
as daily getting there...
Those streets full of tall buildings, of Belgrano, for decades had been victimized
by a savage, and merciless commercialization, all over there, with which everything
in the area ended up grey and dull, unlike what the family of Ana used to tell,
with respect to their own neighborhood, regarding decades ago.
Nonetheless, Ana Arce soon reached with her Mercedes Benz SLS the corner of Moldes,
at which was located the sophisticated and innovative six-story building of her
romantic interest, Manuel Harriot, who lived in his own 'whole floor' apartment, on
the third floor.
Indeed, even at his age of just nineteen years, Manuel had acquired such a spanking
new property, thanks to the money of him and Ana Arce, attained by means of her
extremely impressive intuition for businesses.
Ana Arce and Manuel Harriott had been doing important financial operations, by way
of figureheads, even since studying together in their secondary school, thus
managing both to make an actually big fortune.
Nonetheless, finally crossing the Moldes street, Ana then drove her Mercedes Benz
into that building, on the left sidewalk from her, on the Olazabal street.
After Ana Arce steered her silver racing car through the lifting doors of the
garage, she therein stopped it over a round elevator platform, which then descended
to an underground level, while gyrating clockwise.
Thus, Ana Arce ended up oriented in the direction of one of the corresponding
parking spaces, owned by her old friend Manuel Harriot.
Driving her Mercedes Benz SLS, Ana then just advanced some meters forward, stopped
her car, and finally turned it off.

25. After unbuckling her seat belt, Ana Arce opened the Mercedes' gull wing door, with
its roof hinge, upwards, and exited the vehicle.
It was the early afternoon, at that time, as Ana Arce with one of the elevators,
there, reached the third floor, on which the whole 'floor apartment' of Manuel
Harriott was located.
The sturdy entrance door of mahogany, there, opened before Ana, without the need
for her to even announce her arrival.
Before her, it was the always slim Manuel Harriott himself, with a bit disordered,
then, 'combed over' hairdo, and with one of his hands holding a bottle of the
imported Scottish whiskey "Chivas Regal" by its neck, and with a tumbler cristal
glass, of a wide rim, in the other.
Manuel as a matter of fact was inebriated, hence Ana Arce hurried embracing his
lean torso with her two thin arms.
Still wearing her red hooded coat, she purchased early on that same morning, Ana
Arce with much effort mumbled: "Got you, Manuelito!", as she also took the imported
whiskey bottle away from his hand, and then she started helping him.
Walking the hallway of the sumptuous apartment, there, carrying Manuel with much
effort, Ana was whispering: "It's OK... I'm here to help you, now... That's what
good friends are for!".
Crossing the door of the kitchen, which was over the Olazabal street, Ana
distracted her white iris eyes examining the bottle, quickly verifying then, that
Manuel Harriott had drunk half of its whiskey, during that morning.
Ana had also been familiarized with that bottle in particular, from having seen it,
the previous day, totally anew, and full.
Manuel then uttered: "Oh, don't worry... I watered the whiskey down, Ana...", as
Ana Arce helped, and so he with his skinny body took seat on a wooden counter
stool, at the 'similarly wooden surface' bar of the kitchen, where disregarding Ana
kissed his mouth long, and with all her resolve.
Ana walked out of the kitchen then, while Manuel, snubbing her, then finished the
glass of whiskey, in his hand.
Ana Arce returned a while later, without her coat, yet still wearing her formal red
dress, reaching down to her thin ankles, with the right one bearing a blue topaz
ornament.
Indeed, Manuel Harriott was still lucid enough to tell: "Our contact Shirley Mamani
has called. She told me, how well our investments, in local oil companies, have
been faring...".
Crouching then, Ana unbuckled her white block heel shoes, slipping out of them,
while affirming: "Oh, well... That information was easy for me to get... Within the
stock exchange building, people don't know how to keep their traps shut!".
Ana Arce finished her statement, dedicating a warm smile to Manuel, with her being
simply happy, that Manuel was enjoying of his life with her friendship, there in
their neighborhood of Belgrano.
Manuelito Harriott then managed, uttering another coherent statement: "Whatever...
With other tip of those, Ana, the Argentina will pay the whole of its external

26. debt, for sure!".
Ana had been listening to him, with her right hand over the counter, and then she
laughed out loud, taking a step forward, embracing Manuel, and quite lovingly
rubbing nose against nose, with him, while smiling with her white teeth.
It was then precisely, that Ana Arce left, there on the wooden kitchen bar, right
in front of the black eyes of Manuel Harriott, the plastic package, with the stacks
of a half million dollars, beside the bottle of "Chivas Regal", after Ana on that
same day by the morning had skimmed the idiotic broker of Ezequiel Fernandez
Moores.
Ana explained: "I've canceled your original debt, Manuelito, with that Peruvian
fuckup, while I've educed an equal amount of the original sum, only for profit, for
the two of us...".
After listening to that, Manuel reacted, raising the stacks of dollars in the air,
and then opening his hand, dropping the whole again, over the wooden kitchen bar.
After chuckling, Ana Arce kissed Manuel Harriott fervidly once more, and, keeping
her mouth against his, she widened her chalky eyes, and mumbled: "Oh well... I
forgot...".
Ana walked then to the wall of the Olazabal street, in that kitchen, on which there
was an humongous flat television screen, which then was playing YouTube music at a
low volume.
With her skinny right hand, Ana Arce made the screen to slide away, bringing then a
series of graphs, with financial information from the "City Portenia", of downtown
Buenos Aires, where all the banks of the Argentina were located.
After pensively scrutinizing the statistics, there, Ana mumbled: "Hmm... This
country hasn't changed in eighteen years!".
Nonetheless, with her fingers Ana Arce then slid away that screen too, finding the
Internet page of "Clarin", which was reporting, that Russia had dared crossing
already its own western frontier, invading some kilometers into the territory of
one of its neighboring countries, off the Baltic Sea.
For that, Russia had used the excuse of humanitary reasons, supposedly for
providing a set of spanking new electrical lines, of Russian public utilities, for
the population there.
While all those operations, of Ana with the screen, had been occurring, Manuel
Harriott was pouring even more "Chivas Regal" whiskey into his tumbler crystal
glass, which in this occasion was bearing a whole new, big ice ball.
Manuel calmly stood up, bringing his glass with him, and then embraced Ana, from
behind her.
Manuel was wearing a silver bracelet in his right wrist, made of big links, in a
way like being some sort of a slave, as he was pointing at the television screen,
with the index finger of that hand, at the images coming from eastern Europe.
Manuel Harriott, so, whispered with his strong alcoholic breath, wondering: "Do
you, Ana, have had anything to do, with all that?".
After some seconds of a meditative silence, Ana Arce with her skinny hands seized
his thin right arm, which was laying then over her delicate naked shoulders.

27. Ana then chuckled, and finally answered: "Boo hoo!... Oh, well...".
Ana turned around, and still wearing her formal red dress of a long skirt, she
passed her two skinny arms around the waist of him, and, 'vis a vis' with him, Ana
Arce then whispered: "What do you think, Manuelito? Was it me, or not?".
Always amused examining the pearly irises of Ana, Manuel Harriott ended up giggling
too, and affirming: "You don't surprise me, anymore, Anita...".
The two of them then started kissing fervidly, standing there, in the kitchen.
Half an hour later, both Manuel Harriott and Ana Arce were laying on the full sized
bed, of the bedroom of that 'whole floor' apartment, by the side of the Moldes
street.
Both best friends were then completely naked, sweaty, and totally embracing
together, only with some romantic music, softly playing out of a set of MP3
speakers, with colorful, and titillating LED lights.
Still recuperating his breath, Manuel was teasing Ana's short, naturally white, and
expensive hairdo, while she was insistently kissing his perspired chest.
With half closed eyes, Manuel Harriott was noticeably about falling asleep,
nevertheless he then started muttering: "Cordoba... Eh... Danielito wants to see us
both. It's been a while since we don't meet him personally... since almost an
entire year... for my birthday, after our graduation party".
Ana Arce rose with her back over a pillow, and laying vertically with a brief smile
she shook her head mildly, pointing out: "Beyond being a violent goon, Danny is our
only friend of the secondary, who hasn't yet left the Argentina, to go to live to
the United States".
Manuel gently pulled Ana's skinny right hand over his own chest, and quite drowsily
he said: "Daniel is also a friend of our primary... Our pastime occupation with the
money has kept me... us... away from him... Not that he isn't occupied, with his
family of the army, and everything...".
Manuel Harriott fell asleep then, making Ana Arce to chortle, and Ana then extended
her neck to her right, and kissed Manuel's mouth for a long time, while also
feeling his usual whiskey breath.
Ana Arce then got to her feet, slipped into her red bathrobe, and calmly walked to
the kitchen, taking a bottle of Villavicencio water there, out of the refrigerator.
In the living room, then, Ana dropped herself onto the fluffy large couch, there,
with a loud thump, and positioned her naked skinny legs, out of her red bathrobe,
with her naked feet over a small coffee table of marble, in front of her.
Ana Arce then took a figurine, she brought in those days from her own nearby manor,
of the comic character of Rogue, from Marvel's 'X Men', with a green spandex suit,
of white details, including a big "X", within a circle.
Staring with her pearly iris eyes at her doll, Ana voiced: "Let's continue, with my
little fantasy tale... Shall we?".
Ana Arce then left the figurine over the coffee table, and from there she nabbed a
silver 'bag sleeve', with a decor of aliens, from within which she extracted her
Acer laptop, of a silver color surface.

28. Putting comfortably her naked feet again over the thick, wide, and low marble
furniture, Ana started working upon a text application, although after barely
adding a single paragraph to it, she sighed, and shrugged.
Ana Arce then audibly insuflated some air, and mumbled: "I better rest a bit for
now...".
Thus, after carefully saving correctly her computer file, and laying down the
laptop, Ana instead fetched indifferently a game controller, of an "Xbox One X"
console, she recently bought as a gift to Manuel Harriott, instead of the
Playstation, he used to play with.
Ana Arce confortably then turned on the game console, and resumed her saved game of
"Fallout 4", on an humongous TV screen, there in that room.
In the story of that game, Boston city had been torn down, after suffering a
nuclear bombardment.
In that imaginary world, Ana was the biggest crime lord of that area of the United
States, and accordingly she engaged some tribes, from nearby regions, for attacking
and subjecting all local survivors.
Extraordinarily, in her adventure Ana Arce traversed the whole region, ever aided
by a 'yellow painted', spheric, floating android, she baptized "Inti", after the
sun god of the Incas.
Disregarding, in that afternoon Manuel Harriott didn't take too long to wake up
from his nap, and thus just half an hour later, he was having a black coffee,
together again, with Ana Arce in the kitchen.
Like that, both were sitting on the wooden counter stools of there, facing each
other.
"No, Manuelito! It wasn't a sham...", widening her chalky iris eyes Ana defended
then her financial actions of the morning of that same day, while the paper money
stacks of a half million dollars, of that clever operation of her, still were
laying besides there, over the wooden kitchen bar.
Comfortably with the warming heat of the apartment, despite the winter season
outside, Ana Arce had already changed, wearing then a red cotton 'T shirt', of long
sleeves and a high neck, together with her red panties, below her thin waist.
Accordingly, the skinny legs of Ana were totally naked, except for a pair of white
Umbro running shoes, on her feet.
Ana Arce explained: "but... the papers were all in order!... It only happened, that
those Aussies were of the bully kind... Like them all, when coming down to this
part of the planet!".
Believing, to have already given a proper defensive rationalization, on her own
actions, Ana Arce then tranquilly drank of her bottle of Villavicencio water,
sipping through a pink straw.
In front of her, definitively enlivened again after finishing his big cup of black
coffee, the ever thin Manuel Harriott notwithstanding still asserted: "...but, for
what you've told me, Ana, that Australian company was totally phony... I really
enjoy, that Ezequiel Fernandez Moores got what he had coming... I even wish, that
it was me who did that... but...".

29. Remembering something else, though, Manuel interrupted his own words, and showily
pulled his torso back, while raising his two arms.
Already wearing a yellow 'T shirt' of short sleeves of the Ramones, with the design
of the round 'USA national shield like' design, a pair of blue jeans, and his usual
'chain like' silver bracelet in his thin right wrist, Manuel Harriott with his
black eyes then checked his Hublot watch, on his left, which was a Big Bang Unico
Titanium Ceramic.
It was fifteen twenty then, and Manuel voiced: "Danielito will be waiting for us in
nothing but half an hour, there in Nuniez!".
Ana Arce reacted getting to her own feet, walking with her naked legs to the
bedroom, while uttering: "I better finish getting ready, then", while with a smile
Manuel's black eyes enjoyed staring at Ana's elegant, feminine walking, from
behind.
A minute later, Ana had taken seat on the edge of the full sized bed of the
bedroom, with her then bearing a pair of white pants over her laps.
Then, Manuel Harriott joined her there, with him hurrying and announcing: "Here!
Let me help you with that, girl...".
Smiling at him, Ana Arce then stretched her naked, very thin legs in the air, and
Manuel started untying and removing her white Umbro running shoes, while Ana
continued telling: "Besides... That company, I've sold to Ezequiel Fernandez
Moores, actually exists with all its patrimony, while I simply transferred the
whole to him, the new owner...".
Manuel Harriott was about buttoning the white pants, already dressing Ana Arce's
legs, when standing she added: "It wasn't that much property though, despite the
fact, that they also had bought some very cheap terrains in Paraguay, promising for
titanium mining".
Ana cackled and grinned with her white face, of no blemishes at all, at Manuel, who
reacted raising his black brows, and commented: "Huh? How queer! Oh well... The
good news nonetheless are, that Ezequiel Fernandez Moores won't bother us anymore,
here in Buenos Aires".
The business debate continued minutes later, as Ana Arce's Mercedes Benz SLS was
leaving the garage of that sophisticated building, by the Olazabal street.
By then, Manuelito Harriot was claiming: "...I mean, Anita... I have just sold the
cheese shop of my parents, for us both to do our businesses together without
interferences, and then the dumbass of Ezequiel bilks me!".
Reaching the Cramer avenue, Ana whispered: "With me around, he didn't go to far,
though... He just messed with the wrong person... Me!".
Manuel Harriott clearly heard that, acknowledging: "Yeah, that's right Ana!
Anyway... The point is, that to have red numbers for me in these moments, it's not
exactly the best thing to happen!".
Ana Arce with her Mercedes Benz was driving to the northeast by then, along the
Mendoza street, as she cackled: "Oh, don't worry, Manuel. I'm like a spider in
businesses. I can simultaneously take care of any crisis, happening... Specially
for you, my best friend of life".

30. Ana then distracted her head to her right, reassuringly smiling briefly at Manuel.
The traffic of the Mendoza street, early afternoon, was as usually very dense, so
the Mercedes Benz of Ana Arce could barely manage along there, getting almost
stuck, while traveling at a walking speed.
Disregarding that, Manuel Harriott then told: "I know, I can count on you always,
Ana... but my father isn't that forgiving, after what I did to our family business.
Neither him nor my mom would talk to me anymore. It's really hard for me!".
Keeping her thin hands, seizing the steering wheel of her own Mercedes Benz, Ana
Arce reacted laughing, showing her white teeth: "Don't lie to me, Manuelito! You
don't really care about your parents. You don't even share our money with them...".
With the slow traffic there, occupying the passenger seat Manuel sneaked his left
arm over the shoulders of Ana, and with his own black eyes very near to her pearly
ones, he promised: "What is ours it's ours, Anita... I'm not gonna share that with
someone else".
Manuel Harriott then smiled with his palid, white face, staring romanticly at Ana.
Worsening the gridlock situation, also then, the traffic lights of the intersection
of the Amenabar street, with the small Noruega park right there, were in red, and
so Ana reacted distracting herself, showing again her white teeth, and romanticly
rubbing noses with Manuel.
After, moreover, giving him a sounding kiss on his mouth, Ana Arce smiling calmly
told: "Oh, well... After all... It's the same story with me and my own father! I
manage keeping my cool, as long as he stays with his big, Spanish company, he works
for, there in Lima, Peru...".
Manuelito Harriott then removed his arm from her, and he sat back, well, on his
passenger seat, voicing: "Don Nicolas...".
Disregarding, Ana's Mercedes Benz SLS then was crossing the Cabildo avenue.
The usual street bustle right there, like in every early afternoon, distracted Ana
Arce, raising the thoughts in her, about what to do later, on that same day.
Thus, talking about something else, Ana proposed: "Anyway! I feel totally like
celebrating, hence we should get to the Mars disco, tonight...".
Manuel Harriott shrugged about that, mumbling: "That would be cool, yeah! We'll
definitively manage to dispel all our bad thoughts, that way, there in Puerto
Madero...".
After snickering, blowing air from her mouth, Ana Arce voiced: "...and Danielito
Cordoba could come with us, too, this time around...".
To that, Manuel affirmed: "Oh, yes... It's gonna be so cool!".
Descending to the area of near the Rio de la Plata, within the "Lower Belgrano"
area, the traffic had lightened up already, and so in few minutes driving her
Mercedes Benz Ana reached the intersection of the elevated railway, and next of the
Libertador avenue.
Several streets from there, already into the neigborhood of Nuniez, Ana Arce left
her Mercedes Benz SLS, parked into a garage on the Olazabal street.

31. Ana then was wearing again her new, red, hooded coat of Harrods, and she thus
started walking toward the proximate Monroe avenue, holding hands with Manuel
Harriott, who was clad in a black puffy coat, over his yellow "T Shirt" of the
Ramones.
In one of the five corners of the intersection of Artilleros and Monroe, the
"Macanudo" bistro was located, which had just been inaugurated by Debora Cordoba,
its owner, whereas she was the 'twenty three year old' sister of Daniel Cordoba.
The building of the "Macanudo" bar had the shape of an acute angle, in one of the
street layout distortions, within the curious area, nearby of the River Plate's
stadium.
"Macanudo" also had a 'far west saloon' look, with its wooden entrance doors, and
its surrounding pergola, all made of wood, with a brief sloped roof, and an
horizontal rod, all around.
Wearing a blue 'T Shirt' of no sleeves, with the images of Wacky Races' Dick
Dastardly & Muttley The Dog on the torso, the nineteen year old Daniel Cordoba had
been having a beer, at a four chair table, there, from where he hurried getting to
his feet, for greeting his two old friends.
Also, his elder sister Debora got there from the counter, with Debora wearing a
blue jean mini skirt, and an old jacket of her secondary school, of the "Instituto
River Plate".
Minutes later, the four friends were playing an "8 ball Pool" game, on the table of
the "Macanudo" bistro.
It was the turn of Ana Arce, for striking the ball, and so with much concentration
she stretched her very thin body behind the cue stick, that she was holding, with
her high neck red cotton 'T shirt' of long sleeves, and raising almost horizontally
her right leg, of white pants, and white Umbro running shoes.
Ana indeed managed, firstly pocketing the "solid colored" orange ball, number five,
after which she also did the same, to the 'number three', red one.
Ana Arce missed then her third try, though, with the blue, 'number two' ball,
nevertheless her three good friends there, reacted then spontaneously, clapping
their hands at her.
Even more, despite belonging to the rival team, Debora Cordoba discretely got close
to Ana.
Then, with her 'sleek, long bob with curves' hairdo, big black eyes, and shorter
stature than Ana, Debora of an usually funny demeanor affirmed: "Oh, my god! You,
Ana, always do everything so awesomely! I hope, someday I could fare exactly like
that, as a journalist!".
Beside owning, and managing the "Macanudo" bar, Debora at that moment was studying
journalism in the "TEA" school, the traditional 'workshop, academy, and news
organization' of Buenos Aires, for future reporters.
Indeed, Debora Cordoba already was about graduating, from there.
Also coming close to there, after already having played in his turn with his 'cue
stick', Manuel Harriott said to Debora, taunting: "Debora... Perez Volpin...
right?", making reference to the famous TV reporter, who had died years before.

32. Before preparing herself for striking the balls in her turn, Debora Cordoba smiled
and got flushed on her face, to comment then: "Oh, well... Yeah, of course... I
really wish, someday! I mean... I did a report, about the work of her, my namesake
Debora Perez Volpin, in the tube... and Carlos Ulanovsky himself felicitated me...
So!".
Debora had begun walking to the '8 ball' pool table, when she was interrupted also
by his own brother Daniel, who suddenly embraced her.
Then, Daniel said: "Just remember us all, mere mortals, Debora, when you are a big
celebrity of television, OK?".
After staring at each other with Ana Arce, snickering both, Manuel Harriott
quipped: "Can I have your autograph, Debora?", with which the four friends exploded
laughing heartfeltly.
Holding her cue stick vertically on the floor with her right, Debora Cordoba moved
her left hand down, like dismissing her three friends in jest, and quipped with a
smile: "Yeah, alright!".
For the second '8 ball' pool contest, both Ana Arce and Daniel Cordoba called it
quits, by virtue of their respective, yet so different, individualities.
Ana was a lady of a mainly scientific mind, due to a vast knowledge about a
diversity of interests, so pastimes such as the "spots & stripes" usually resulted
somehow stupid for her.
For his part, Daniel was of a violent character, with little patience for simple,
playful things, except when spending time with his best friends of life, Ana Arce
and Manuel Harriott.
Thus, Ana Arce and Daniel Cordoba found themselves chatting tranquilly at the
opposite sides of their table, with their backs propped against one of the big
windows of the bar.
Daniel had just gobbled a big clump of peanuts, when he began drinking cool Quilmes
beer of a dimpled pint glass, with his voice being still hearable despite the
liquid, being swallowed almost simultaneously: "I also came here today... Ana... to
go to Ciudad Universitaria, for resolving some... administrative issues".
Daniel Cordoba was then an architecture student, of the University of Buenos Aires,
in the monumental buildings, over the margins of the 'Rio de la Plata', a few
streets from there, also within the neighborhood of Nuniez.
Ana and Daniel then stared at each other in silence, until Daniel added: "My
college is right here, Ana, and my car is being repaired, 'at the moment'!".
With the milky irises of her eyes affixed upon him pensively, Ana Arce sipped
through the straw of her plastic bottle of Villavicencio water, blew some air from
her mouth, and finally smiled showing the tip of her white teeth.
Ana then answered: "Yeah... I know where 'Ciudad Universitaria' is, Danny, although
I'm not leaving my Mercedes, parked there!", as she also made a gesture with her
hands instead towards the garage of the Olazabal street, nearby.
Daniel briefly distracted himself some seconds staring at the pool table, in the
center of the "Macanudo" bistro, and after drinking more of his beer he insisted:
"So, what? Then, let's go walking there, Ana! You and I. We'll come back afterwards
in a taxi!... It's just five streets from here".

33. With her natively white, expensive, and short hairdo, Ana Arce reacted staring at
him, widening her also chalky eyes, smiling, and telling: "You know well,
Danielito, that 'Ciudad Universitaria' is more distantly than that!".
By the '8 ball' pool table, in the center of the "Macanudo" bistro, Manuel Harriott
then nodded at them both, with a giggle at Debora Cordoba.
However, Debora grounded her cue stick as well, and instead she then distractedly
opened her black eyes at the silver chain bracelet, on the right wrist of Manuel.
As playfully as ever, Debora Cordoba started acting wildly, with her little fingers
seizing the plated wristlet, and starting pulling it.
Debora bantered: "I want one of these for me!... Would you give me this one,
Manuelito?".
Manuel Harriott shook her right hand as elatedly, answering: "Perhaps, Debora...
Once you are in the TV news".
With her jean 'mini skirt' and her school jacket of the "Instituto River Plate",
Debora Cordoba laughed, and getting ready to use again her cue stick at the pool
table she assured: "I'm gonna be there, Manuel!... and then you will want me more
than your girlfriend...".
Getting by Debora's side, Manuel Harriott then tranquilly said: "That will hardly
happen...".
From the table of the window, Ana Arce unexpectedly reacted to that, yelling: "Hey,
kids! Take me seriously, and don't be mean at me!", for which the four friends
laughed, with Manuel Harriott shaking his head amusingly, while smiling.
At her table, Ana Arce then lowered her head, of a perfectly white skin without
blemishes, and with a very expensive white, and short hairdo.
In such a way, Ana checked her lady 'Royal Oak' watch, which was an Audemars Piguet
imported from Switzerland, specially for her, and then she finally told: "OK,
Danielito... Let's do that!".
The two got to their feet, with Ana donning back her red hooded coat of Harrods,
and Daniel hurrying to help her, in doing so.
Ana Arce thanked Daniel, staring at him at close quarters, and then Ana mumbled
completing her own remark: "...after all, what are good friends for?".
Next, after bidding Debora and Manuel their temporary farewell, the two old friends
of Belgrano stepped out of the "Macanudo" bistro.
Ana Arce and Daniel Cordoba thus started their way, walking down the Monroe avenue
through the neighborhood of Nuniez, to the north east, under the warm afternoon sun
of that winter day.
Ana was wearing her entirely red coat of Harrods, all buttoned, and with its 'self
tie' belt, fastened around her very thin waist.
Whereas the big scarlet hood of Ana Arce remained suspended, loosened on her back,
inbetween the collar of her coat, it was visible Ana Arce's also red, and
unembellished 'T shirt' of high neck.