Adriana did find Helen at Rosie's. The university science club had asked Helen to represent them at the junior high school because she was the youngest and the university wanted Helen to be able to transfer her experience home to Palestine. Adriana volunteered to help with lunch rush hour, during which she and Rosie developed a plan. A reserve clean-up person was called in so Adriana could go find others to help secure use of university buildings for the constituent assembly. Rosie and Adriana had decided the constituent assembly would operate completely independent of all present government agencies. Rosie said there would be no negotiating. The constituent assembly was independent and any objectors would be sent to Rosie.

"Don't worry; I will explain the way I understand Puerto Rican history and modern Latino political theory to any expert, professor or politician on Earth," Rosie concluded.

Adriana was on a bus to Sandy Beach University as soon as lunch hour at Rosie's was over. Adriana smiled as she watched the bus window vista slide by; multitudes of people, small buildings, big buildings, rusty metal roofs and pretty small gardens. Rosie had said she cared for Helen as a daughter and was pleased her daughter was on an international team headquartered at Rosie's political hangout. Adriana was calm with high energy when she stepped off the bus and was almost immediately immersed in a human sea at the university.

At the high school. Howie and Maria shared their lunch break with Kevin Ribeira and Lavanda Sanchez. It was there and then when they first saw the diagram of a seven facet government. "It does look like a six petaled flower with a permanent constituent assembly as the center," Lavanda mused.

"Where did this schematic diagram of a modern government come from?" Kevin asked as he avidly read the descriptions on each flower petal facet.

"It is the first idea that bloomed after the morning announcement was to do something real and take one step at a time." Maria said. "This entire happening started at the junior high school. Those kids asked brothers and sisters in the senior high school for computer advice and now even university students are involved."

"The idea of a government that looks like a flower just bloomed?" Lavanda asked. "My brother Enrique told me about this but I didn't find out whose idea it was." Lavanda concluded, with a slightly perplexed expression.

"It came from everyone at once," Howie mentioned quietly. "I am beginning to think the unidentified rumor spirit is involved." He concluded solemnly. Maria nodded agreement with that possibility. "It certainly is mysterious," she said.

"There is an unidentified rumor spirit at the junior high school?" Keven asked. He laughed. "I think there was one at my last two schools, in Venezuela and Nicaragua." Kevin concluded, he was smiling about his memories.

"Our parents know about this one," Howie said. "You wouldn't know, Lavanda, but your brother went to the junior high school when your family came here from Cuba to help with the pandemic. He sounds like he is figuring things out fast"

"It's almost time to go," Maria pointed out. "Pay attention when you walk into the room between floors. It's a strange room and a strange door. I put my hand on the wood and pretend I'm doing a palm to palm high-five with the spirit."

"That's how it works for me, too. Howie said. "And it was the same with my mom when she was a junior high student." He concluded, stood up and nodded toward the back exit. "Out that door in back is the way to the intermediate high school," he said. The larger doors in front of the cafeteria led to hallways and various school rooms in the high school building. The four of them filed out the back door; Maria, Howie, Lavanda, and Kevin.

They stopped in a bunched group on the cafeteria back porch. Before them was white fleece spotted blue sunlit sky. The porch was well carved stone. it was built to last for many generations. The four of them looked out from a small mesa bluff a little bit higher than the tallest trees. They spread out a little upon leaving the doorway so each of them could see the vista unobstructed.

An urban forest filled with buildings stretched to the sea. They could actually see the curvature of the Earth, distant clouds aimed their lower underneath surfaces at them from over the horizon. The view was enough to hold them for the rest of the day. it seemed to change with every passing second. It was Maria who broke the trance with practical directions.

"Down this hill and across the street is a park between the two schools. The roofs you see buried in trees, beyond the park and athletics fields are the junior high school. We go in the back door there just like we came out the back door here."

"This going to be fun," Howie said, extending his hand to meet Maria's. The two of them ran down the steps and then down the hill. Kevin and Lavanda trotted along with them. Lavanda noticed that Kevin moved like wild-life, he loped along as if sensing everything. Although Lavanda is an athlete and didn't feel intimidated, she noticed the graceful way Kevin moved and was impressed.

Puerto Rico is hot. The four high school students slowed to a walk when they reached the shade of urban forest at the bottom of the hill. They were all young and strong and had carefully not exerted themselves enough to be overheated. They walked without hurry shedding body heat in the shade until they reached the school building and then a bit further along the side to the back door. The porch was slightly smaller than the one at the high school.

Standing in the shade on the porch were two more students. "Hello," they said we are first year students from the university. We were sent because we are the youngest in our science club and it was felt elder students might inadvertently dominate and alter direction of the happening at sandy beach intermediate high school." At that point they did not take time for introductions and kept moving. "Follow them," Howie indicated Kevin and Lavanda. "Introduce yourselves and do what we do." Howie and Maria pushed the heavy door open with a bang and strode into the junior high school.

Maria and Howie led the group a short hallway to the ramp with a door half-way up at the U turn, the door to the room between floors. Howie opened the door. He lightly touched the wooden door frame as he stepped inside and held the door open for the others. Maria placed her hand on the door frame briefly and walked in, Kevin and Lavanda came next. Howie noticed Lavanda seemed to swell larger and the drop back to normal when she placed her hand on the door frame. The college students saw Lavanda do whatever it was she did and also put heir hands on the door frame. Howie did not see them swell but they were wide-eyed when they passed him and he let go of the door. Howie followed them to their reserved seats in back of the gathering. The college students looked at Howie questioningly as he squeezed by them to sit next to Maria. He smiled, shrugged and said, "Hi, I'm Howie." There was no time for them to tell him their names. He knew he'd hear them soon.

Pamela banged her gavel for order. She was once again at the center of the meeting leadership table. "I am the facilitator again today and before we meet any new people, we listen first to Gloria, she has a really cool map to show us. Now we can see together where all the contest entries originated. Take it from there, Gloria."

Gloria smiled at Pamela's introduction as she briefly concentrated on pressing computer keys. She looked up just as a central space command style three dimensional Earth globe projected in a flash on the white wall above the front table. Gloria made the projected Earth rotate. Deep oceans and close in for buildings and farm fields. Bright yellow and red arrows marked where contest entries originated. "It is surprisingly uniform spacing from all around the world, Gloria said, somewhat unnecessarily. Her latest map was her best so far and she was obviously proud of it. The room cheered for Gloria and also for the entries. They were on live stream connection to the school world and it spun on its axis on their wall.

Gloria knew many students were up and watching in the middle of the night from the other side of the world, she was over being shy.

"I realize no one can quickly count the many entries around the world we have received so I'll summarize. There are 101 red markers for computer program entries before the contest cut-off date. Bright yellow markers indicate another hundred that arrived late but have been checked for functionality. We now have 201 computer programs that calculate political boundaries of equal population size and add up to a minimum sum of their boundary distances. Each one is different but they come up with the same answer. I find this scientifically intriguing but it presents us with a problem; a world-wide contest started here and concluded as a tie. We are here to decide what to do in full understanding we are international. This event could have started anywhere. Even so, we are here and Pamela is our facilitator."

Pamela banged her gavel and grinned. "It is impossible to know how many of us are attending this meeting by remote connection so we continue as we have been doing. Judging by Gloria's technical map magic, our meeting system will progress rapidly with time. New observer participants from different schools accompany Howie and Maria today. Please introduce yourselves."

Howie and Maria looked at each other. "You start it," Howie said to Maria, "They already know us so one of us should begin the introductions."

Maria started to resist being first and then realized the world was tuned in. Maria did not visibly hesitate. Word had spread rapidly through Sandy Beach schools that Howie's mother had been fired and the United States was already attempting to annul their vote for independence. That had been the main topic at lunch in the student union. Maria knew she wanted to express Puerto Rican grace under stress and she was still thinking about how when she stood up to introduce the student representatives from other schools.

"I am Maria. To my right is Howie. It is his mother who was fired from the newspaper for writing about food sovereignty and Puerto Rico as an independent nation among other independent Caribbean nations. We have been neighbors and friends all of our lives and went to school here when we were younger. Howie and I were here yesterday. Please stand up, Howie."

Howie rose to stand with Maria. The room began to fill with applause and Maria was ready for that. She held out her hands for silence as if she was a police officer directing automobile traffic, "We are the world and have no time for applause right now." Maria did not hesitate as she turned to the next introductions, "To my left are Lavanda and Kevin. Lavanda is here from Cuba with her parents who are part of a program helping Puerto Rico with health programs. Cuba and Puerto Rico were two wings of the same freedom struggle against colonial Spain and Cubans are with us today." Maria raised both arms and then brought them down relaxed. She took a breath and indicated, "Kevin arrived just last night from the border of Nicaragua and Honduras with his parents and sister Anna. Their family works as an interesting team helping with regional food sovereignty and human dignity. Please stand with us Lavanda, Kevin and Anna."

Maria held up one hand to make sure there was no enthusiastic applause and glanced to Howie. Then looked to the college students. "We just met the two new representatives from Sandy Beach university seated to Howie's right and do not know their names, please stand and introduce yourselves."

The room between floors was beginning to rumble with barely contained energy when the college students stood to introduce themselves. Howie thought he could hear the door rattling in the rumble. Maria unobtrusively held up her hand and it stopped. Even if it had been rattling everyone was too excited to notice; most everyone who happened to look saw Maria's hand as inviting the college students to stand with them. Howie looked at Maria and grinned. She also smiled with growing excitement. People power made the room spirit rumble. International people power was turning on. It was exhilarating for everyone.

Pamela banged her gavel and the first university student spoke. She had an accent and a still limited vocabulary yet could be clearly understood. Her voice was strong.

"Hello," I am Helen, a first year university exchange student. I am Palestinian and was thrilled to see one of the first one hundred and one solutions is from Gaza. I know how it was done is as top secret as how my friends and I escaped and I reached here is also top secret. My escape was unplanned and almost accidental. You, on the other hand, concentrated and succeeded against a police state that imprisons Palestinian souls in order to silence them. And you quite obviously could not be silenced. Congratulations on your solution breaking out of prison and into world recognition. Now help us decide what to do next so we may help you and all oppressed people to personal freedom and dignity."

The room turned silent, there it was, stated in just a few quickly spoken words. The challenge was wise yet as unplanned as Helen's escape from genocidal apartheid to university life in Puerto Rico, and it was just as real. Helen had challenged world-wide tuned-in humanity to help save itself by first working out what to do about a school contest tie. It was straight from their first operating principle, "Do something real. Take one step at a time."

The arrows on Gloria's globe started blinking as Helen turned to the noticeably strong and handsome university student who had accompanied her on the bus ride from Rosie's cafe to the junior high school. "Now it's your turn," Helen said quietly.

"I am Lee," the second college student announced himself clearly into the still silent room. "Raul Lee. Born right here in Sandy Beach and just returned from six years with my father's family in Hong Kong. During school breaks I worked on my uncle and aunt's farm towards the border with Vietnam, almost to Nanning. My Chinese ancestors have farmed river bottom land along the Yong river since the last ice age. I lived two of my six Chinese years on the farm. My mother's ancestors are Taíno. I am glad to be independent of US colonialism here in Puerto Rico for all of our happiness. Helen and I are your Liaisons to the top scientists of Puerto Rico. We follow the prime directive to not interfere with what you are accomplishing. You are doing now what we could have done technically many years ago. What will you do next? You tell us. The university is here to help in some way that we cannot yet see. Your computer expertise is deep and possibly beyond our ability to help. Even so, we are here to help with that, now. Again, you tell us what to help with if you need it. I think I remember Howie and Maria from grammar school but am not totally sure of that. The university will feel more free about helping high school students help you. We understand them to be part of your bargain with school administration elders."

Then Lee turned to Helen and addressed her alone; "Helen, will you work within the prime directive of noninterference in the evolution of this social effort centered at this time here in the room between floors?"

"Yes," Helen responded solemnly. "But we must remember there's more than one facet already. The office at Rosie's Cafe and the facet six press. I've only worked in the restaurant so far, until now."

Helen bowed to the students and thanked them. The room rumbled and the observers sat down.

Pamela banged her gavel. "I'm the facilitator and I have to be clear about our high school helpers. Will they still be in the discussion with us?"

All four high school students nodded yes in unison.

Pamela asked if there were objections to the high school students being part of the discussion. There were no objections. "Some of us will be talking with them at home anyway," Pamela said. "Here we go on new ground. Gloria has been at the computer communicating with the world and wants to tell us something. What is it you want to tell us?"

Gloria felt a bit overwhelmed and she said so. "This set up I have is for recording locations. Very smart programmers all over the world say they are already in a contest to figure out how we take the next step with the idea of a distiller of ideas for us to see where we fit in with each other. I've lost track of who said what."

Nobody said anything. Everyone looked at Gloria waiting to hear what else she had on her mind.

"They want us to run the new contest to make a distiller of distributed intelligence so we can see where we fit in with each other. The distiller is an applause meter for an online world. It's not a new idea. Shall we run the contest? If we don't, Who will?"

"Are we talking about rank choice voting?" Someone called out.

"No." Several voices replied.

"This is different than voting. It's not winning or losing." Gloria said as she looked at her computerized map making results. And if we are ranking unfinished ideas, those are for thinking about not winning. It's not the hybrid system where there's a winner even if the people don't want a winner."

"This is not instant run-off voting. Here we are ranking choices to develop our species self awareness." Topics were beginning to come up fast.

Pamela banged her gavel. "Are we going to run this contest that evolves as a distiller of distributed intelligence? Yes or No."

The room began to rumble more than before. The door was rattling like crazy. Solidarity of international people power made the room rumble.

"Yes." Pamela said and banged her gavel.

Maria stood and Pamela asked her to speak. "I suggest we adjourn this meeting, look at the bus schedules, and then go check out what's happening out in back of Rosie's cafe." Maria said using her strongest voice.

"I second Maria's suggestion," Enrique said with both hands raised. He had no idea that when he reached Rosie's back door he would find his mother working alongside him to ensure his school's project is successful.

The assemblage of students pulled bus schedules from their backpacks. They spread them out on the center table and figured out they should disperse to several bus stops on different streets near the two schools. One bus would probably suffice yet they wanted to be sure. Everyone chose a bus. Each step they took built solidarity.

"They are using solidarity as a communication channel," Lee said. "They're going by feel."

Helen agreed; "These younger students seem to subconsciously use solidarity both as a compass and a gauge." Lee nodded his agreement.

Lavanda mentioned the school day was ending within minutes. Howie pointed out that the back door was closest and they could go that way. Every one agreed and they walked down the ramp then a few short steps and out the backdoor. The door to the student government room between floors behaved exactly like a door should, and the school's back door is actually quite well used. More students were waiting for them there. Those who had been waiting wanted to know what had been decided about the contest tie. Almost all the waiting students wanted to go to Rosie's as soon as they found out a new contest was started and the junior high student government room remained world central without title. The new arrivals also picked a bus. everyone headed to their chosen bus stop en route to Rosie's cafe.

It would have been a long hot walk even in a small city like Sandy Beach, the bus rides were short. Excited student chatter filled the bus and time didn't matter anyway. Older people on the busses smiled with memories of student outings in their younger years. Some of the elder passengers closed their eyes and let their ears drink in the young voices as if listening to a fun and refreshing fountain of youth. For them, the trip was over all too soon. Time that the young barely noticed was a memory that would not stop ringing in some elder's ears, quite a few serendipitously got off the bus with the kids. They were thinking, "This is too good to miss."

Lee and Helen were among the first to step out of the first bus. They didn't think about it yet other students were stepping into busses headed for Rosie's as they walked away from their bus. Other buses were arriving at the same stops their parents had arrived at earlier in the day. Helen told lee that she would inform Rosie of their arrival and meet up with him in a few minutes. Lee spotted Maria, Howie, Lavanda and Kevin and joined them. There were two younger students with them and they soon met. Lavanda introduced them, "Raul Lee, meet Anna Ribeiro and Enrique Sanches."

"I heard what you said about noninterference as college students," Anna said. "Are you really going to keep quiet and not share with us?"

"Helen and I and the entire university are not sure what to do. The prime directive is designed so we don't interfere and change the path of cultural evolution in any way. On the other hand, if humanity becomes extinct, social evolution will stop. And call me Lee, that helps my Caribbean half stay connected to my Asian half. People mostly called me Raul when I was in China."

Anna and Enrique smiled at the idea of two names for two countries and told Lee they were glad to meet him.

Helen excused herself to go find Rosie and tell her she was back and working with the growing crowd of students and interested bystanders outside. She was rudely shoved aside as masked mercenaries pushed open Rosie's front door from the inside. They were guarding a lone policeman who was dragging Rosie out of her restaurant.

"Beware, they are Columbian mercenaries trained in the US." A voice from the crowd called out the warning.

Nobody moved but one old man who ran out of the crowd and tackled the policeman. The old man who tackled the cop died with a smile on his face. He had been one of the happy elders who closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the bus filled with students. His motive was pure, his last vision was Rosie pulled free of the falling policeman and disappearing into a protective surrounding crowd.

The struggle turned angrily silent yet everyone backed away from the heavily armed mercenaries as fast as they could. Even so, the surly crowd appeared a venomous serpent to the masked Columbian mercenaries and they backed into Rosie's cafe. When the outlaws discovered the back door was locked, they came screaming out the front door as a group firing their guns. Now even the people in back who had been pushing forward to see began to flee in panic. But it was too late. More people died and several were wounded.

It was a massacre. People were screaming for doctors. The gunmen escaped but the crowd had captured the policeman. Almost everyone saw US ambassador James Wayne step into a black limousine and leave the scene. It was the second US overthrow of democracy on their island paradise. The difference this time was many educated people who knew the United States was a totalitarian military empire witnessed in broad daylight what its heartless paid mercenaries usually did sneaking in the dark of night.