The Last Shadow

         “Would you like some coffee, Mr. Iscarri?”

         Before I can answer, another man comes up behind me and places a cup of the brew to my right. He looks much the same as those seated. The man sitting in the center says, “That’s Ethiopian arabica, roasted fresh off the tree. Believe it or not, it contains no GMOs. It costs four-hundred poullars per pound.”

         I don’t want to insult him by not tasting his expensive coffee. When I take a sip, a breath trembles past his lips like a whisper, as if from a sexual caress. I initially worry he might have a weird fetish for thirtyish men like me sipping coffee before suspecting the true source of his reaction – cell regeneration therapy. The associated drug cocktail produces an occasional wave of euphoria. It explains the youthful appearance of people holding such high positions in The Cooperative. They could all be a hundred years old.

         “Iscarri. Is that Sicilian?” the first man asks, lifting a holopad from the table. He finger-taps it several times and a translucent hologram pops out in the shape of a four-leaf brochure, as wide as his shoulders. His question might be a slight, since Sicily is rumored to have been dominated by Shadow people long ago. I think he wants to see my reaction.

         “No, sir,” I answer, calmly. “My father was a Spaniard, and my mother was Mauritanian.” I resist the urge to also tell him that my jade eyes are like my father’s, and my auburn hair is like my mother’s, a strategy I used to fend off childhood taunts accusing me of inheriting my sandy complexion from a Shadow ancestor.

         He scans the hologram and slowly nods. “Hmm. I see that now. Jude Iscarri and Heather Gabriyon.” I can make out mirror images of my parent’s faces through the rear of the hologram. “So, you were named after your father?”

         “Yes, sir.”

         “It says here that you assassinated a professor of African History at Cambridge University who claimed the entire African continent was originally inhabited by Shadow people.”

         I clear my throat and reply, almost robotically, “I have no knowledge of any such incident and wouldn’t be at liberty to talk about it if I did… sir.”