Fifth Chapter The Secretary

The worst part of Robert Gerhart’s job was a monthly holographic conference with the United States Secretary of the Interior.

The current secretary was a short woman named Alexandra Garfinkel. The secretary of the Interior doubled as director of the BAA, and a dozen other agencies most Americans had forgotten about several generations before.

To Gerhart’s relief, Garfinkel at least wore a blouse. One of her predecessors had always gone bare-chested, something he never understood. Despite that, Gerhart considered Garfinkel, a former US Representative from…