Chapter 13
Brigitte, Bernard’s sister started reading the information on the folder. There was a sheet with Bernard’s personal information on it, a document explaining exactly what had been done on him including all the tests, and a sheet with all the instructions that Bernard had to follow in order to make his recovery completely successful. She started reading the document out loud. “You have to rest for the next forty-eight hours,” she read, “and not do anything, absolutely anything, in that time. You must only do one thing, sleep.”
Everybody laughed. They’d never heard or read medical instructions like that before.
“Your body was completely destroyed before the procedure,” Brigitte read, “and it’s in the process of internal and external regeneration. Therefore, you cannot get out of your bed. You must eat fruits and vegetables during this period of regeneration, and afterwards, you can literally eat anything you want.”
They couldn’t stop laughing. Suddenly, Bart, Bernard’s younger brother, said, “What doctor wrote this?”
“It must be a doctor that thinks the way we think,” said Brigitte.
“Is that all it says?”
“That’s all,” said Brigitte, closing the folder. “It seems that our father is going to enjoy perfect health, like many people are doing now, thanks to M. G. Bernaola. Isn’t he a great man?”
“Yes,” said Junior, “he is a great man.”
Patrick contacted Monti for him to fax him a notarized and validated document authorizing him and his people to build the new five clinics; thus at the moment there was only one clinic, at their expense. Mark and Matt were solving that problem, however. As Patrick heard the tone of Monti’s cell phone ringing, Mark and Matt’s helping angels were building the new clinics, one on each state, and Monti’s directors were hiring new, experienced personnel in the field of genetics to get the clinics going. Monti kept his word. Despite the horrible death threat, he didn’t stop. He knew he was going to die because he didn’t know that Bernard’s plans had changed, and he wanted to give billions of people on earth the opportunity to save their lives and enjoy healthy lives, with no more pain or suffering due to incurable illnesses.
Monti finally answered the cell phone. “Monti Bernaola…” he said.
“Hello, Mr. B., this is Patrick Galloway.” Patrick was Amelia’s brother, ironically, and he was fighting to eliminate a great angel without the knowledge of his family, but that was no more. “I want to know if you’d like us to build new clinics in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho and Montana, and if you would, send us a document where you authorize this.”
“Is this Patrick Galloway from the Death to Aliens private, non-profit organization?”
“Yes, it is.”
“First, you wanted to kill me, and now, you want to help me. Why is that?”
“Plans have changed. The head of this organization had terminal cancer and he went to the California clinic for help…”
Monti interrupted him. “At least he has the decency of acknowledging that if it weren’t for my clinic, he would die, and now, he doesn’t want to kill me. He is one grateful sucker.”
“I know you hate him, but…”
“I will write up that document, sign it and notarize it right now,” said Monti. “That way, you will never forget that I helped your boss, your king, and then you’ll hate me a little less, just a little.”
“We don’t hate you.”
“That’s good to know. Thank you for what you’re doing.” Monti hung up.
“Monti…!” Patrick heard the tone and became saddened.
The organization legally changed its name, and its workers went as far as to provide supplies for the new clinics, and even though clinics had already been built in the states that they wanted to build them in, they went ahead and built one clinic on each state, in another city, a total of fifty clinics. To show his appreciation, Monti gave them ten percent of the clinics’ earnings, which was one million dollars a month, and, they also changed, from one non-profit organization, to being one enterprise, the enterprise that helped Beautiful Horizons soar. They would get their earnings by providing Blue Horizons with supplies every month and that made them very happy. They were now millionaires because of the man that they wanted to kill.
Meanwhile, Shirley was alone in her room, in her and Jose’s new house. She was sitting in bed with her laptop on her lap, surfing the Net. Suddenly, she saw a blog on a website where people usually would talk about how they felt about other people. The website was named Let It Out, and there, people would vent against anyone or anything, and they counted on the protection of the website because they weren’t cyber-bullying. They were just telling the world how they felt about certain people. Blogging wasn’t a crime. The website would always make sure that the information on the blog was 100% authentic and that these people weren’t committing libel about other people. People would usually upload photos or videos of what they were talking about, if they talked about things that person would do. If they had no proof, they couldn’t accuse the person of anything… until now.
Shirley started reading a horrible blog about Jose. The author of the blog was an aspiring singer that Jose had refused to sign because he really didn’t have any talent and he couldn’t sing. Jose, just like Heath, would never sign people who couldn’t sing. People had to have extensive vocal training and have proof of it in order to be signed. They weren’t the kinds of record labels that would only accept exceptional singers with high vocal ranges, but they at least had to be able to sing. Shirley became very angry and she started shedding tears.
THE REAL JOSE SANDOVAL
BY PEDRO UGALDE
I AM REALLY ANGRY WITH THIS SO-CALLED RECORD PRODUCER JOSE SANDOVAL, WHO DOESN’T KNOW REAL TALENT WHEN HE SEES IT. READ THIS: I WENT TO HIS OFFICE WITH MY DEMO AND WHEN HE HEARD IT, HE SAID THAT I COULDN’T SING. WHO THE HELL IS HE TO TELL ME THAT I CAN’T SING? MY WHOLE FAMILY ALWAYS TELLS ME WHAT A WONDERFUL SINGER I AM! WHO THE HELL IS JOSE TO TALK ABOUT ME? HE’S A GANG MEMBER AND HE TELLS WOMEN THAT HE WON’T SIGN THEM UNLESS THEY HAVE SEX WITH HIM. ALL OF JOSE’S FEMALE ARTISTS HAVE SLEPT WITH HIM! WHEN HE GOES TO AN ARTISTS’ CONCERT, HE SLEEPS WITH THE FIRST FAN HE ENCOUNTERS. JOSE IS NOTHING BUT A PROMISCUOUS AND NASTY SON OF A BITCH!! I AM A DECENT MAN. I DON’T GO AROUND TAKING ADVANTAGE OF PEOPLE, PROMISING TO REALIZE THEIR DREAMS IN EXCHANGE FOR SEX! OH AND YOU KNOW WHAT HE DOES TO MOST WOMEN THAT COMES TO HIS OFFICE FOR THEIR SHOT? HE DECLINES TO SIGN THEM TELLING THEM THAT ‘THEY DON’T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES’! WHAT A SICK MOTHERFUCKER! I HATE HIM.
JOSE SANDOVAL, THIS WILL BE THE END OF YOUR CAREER! YOU’LL REMEMBER ME FOREVER! NOW EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT A FRAUD YOU ARE AND NO ONE WILL EVER GO TO YOUR OFFICE AGAIN!
Even though Jose was now Shirley’s wedded husband, she was pregnant with his baby, and even though she knew in her heart that he would never cheat on her with anyone because he would always tell her that she was every woman that he could ever want, she started to cry bitterly. No one had ever talked so much trash about someone that she loved, and she felt impotent and sad. She called Jose at his office to tell him what was going on.
Minutes later, Jose’s phone rang in his office. Jose picked it up. He knew that it was his wife because, for some reason, when Shirley called, the phone would ring in a different way. “Hi, baby,” he said.
Shirley couldn’t stop crying. “Jose…”
“What happened? Did something happen to the baby?”
“No, the baby’s fine.”
“He won’t be fine if you don’t calm down.”
“This guy named Pedro Ugalde posted a horrible blog about you.”
“Pedro, oh, no...!"
“Yes, Pedro. I’m going to give you the URL of the page so you can read it, the exact URL to the blog.” Shirley dictated the URL address to go directly to the blog, to Jose.
Jose typed that URL on the computer as Shirley dictated it. Then, he read the blog. Ten minutes later, he said, “This is outrageous. This will ruin my career forever!”
“Can you prove that none of this is true?”
“It’s very unlikely.”
“But Jose…”
“I’ll see what I can do. I will talk to my attorneys. They’ll gather the proof they will need to disprove these ridiculous and nasty allegations. Me sleeping with my singers and other hopefuls, what the hell is that about? When I met you, I hadn’t had sex with anyone for over a year!”
“I never knew that, Jose,” she said, surprised.
“Whatever! We will talk about that later. Right now I have to solve this problem. I’m going to call my attorneys right now.”
In the meantime, Pedro Ugalde was looking for a way to get back at Jose for everything that Jose put him through. Alice had posted a blog on her profile, asking people where they could find Jose Sandoval. With tremendous effort, she found his birth-date and his true nationality and so far, everyone that had read that blog, over 200,000 people, replied that they didn’t know where he was, that all they knew was that he was a record producer now; thus Jose was signing artists from everywhere in the world, not just Spain. Alice was frustrated.
Pedro had scored. He’d just found the perfect opportunity because, although Alice hadn’t told anyone what was her purpose for finding Jose, he had a feeling that Jose owed her something and that Alice wanted to settle the score with him. He had no idea that Alice wanted to kill Jose and Shirley, but he had a hunch that Jose was running away from Alice for a very powerful reason. Only God knows why this bastard is running away from this bitch, he thought, but I am going to reply to her telling her exactly where he is, and then I’m going to get my revenge. I’m going to ruin his life forever. Pedro replied to the blog, saying:
DEAREST ALICE HANSLEY,
I KNOW WHERE HE IS, THE SON OF A BITCH THAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, JOSE SANDOVAL. I DON’T HAVE HIS HOME ADDRESS, BUT I DO KNOW FOR A FACT THAT HE LIVES HERE IN MALAGA, SPAIN. I KNOW BECAUSE I WENT TO HIS OFFICE KNOWING THAT HE’D MADE FAMOUS SO MANY HOPEFULS LIKE ME, BUT WHEN IT ALL CAME DOWN TO IT, THE BASTARD REFUSED TO SIGN ME BECAUSE ‘I DON’T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE IT IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS,’ THE ADDRESS OF HIS OFFICE IS CALLE MATIAS LEBRON 5356, ESQUINA 47, MALAGA, ESPANA. SOMETHING TELLS ME THAT YOU’LL BE ON THE LOCAL NEWS HERE IN SPAIN.
SINCERELY,
PEDRO J. UGALDE.
Alice would check her blog every single day about fifty times a day, literally, to see if someone had given her information on Jose’s whereabouts because thousands of people would read that blog everyday. Her heart jumped with joy when she saw Pedro’s reply to her blog. She wrote down the address that Pedro had given her and then, before packing her things to leave for Spain, she replied, lying to Pedro, but it didn’t matter because by the time that Pedro found out the truth, it would be too late.
THANK YOU SO MUCH, PEDRO, FOR HELPING ME LOCATE JOSE SANDOVAL. I HAVE A ONE-YEAR-OLD BABY WITH HIM AND HE HASN’T PAID ME CHILD SUPPORT. I WANT TO CONFRONT THE SON OF A BITCH AND GIVE HIS ADDRESS TO THE CHILD-SUPPORT ORGANIZATION THAT I’M WORKING WITH SO THEY CAN TAKE JOSE’S MILLIONS AWAY FROM HIM AND GIVE THEM TO OUR CHILD. ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU, AND DON’T WORRY, YOU’LL GET SIGNED SOON.
LOVE,
ALICE.
Five days later, Alice arrived at Jose’s office, taking advantage of the fact that he knew everything about her except what she looked like. Shirley didn’t show him a picture of her because she thought that, despite his fame, Alice would never know her and Jose’s whereabouts. That was the biggest mistake he'd made in his life. Alice shook hands with Jose’s secretary, Mariana. “Welcome to Sandoval Records, I am Mariana. How may we help you today?”
They were speaking in Spanish because Alice had been taking lessons of basic Spanish, second-level, and she could communicate with Mariana well enough to tell her what she was doing here. “This is weird because I want to become a singer, but I don’t have a demo.”
“Oh… ok,” said Mariana, rolling her eyes in confusion. “Believe it or not, you can audition for Mr. Sandoval without a demo, but then you have to make one to give to our other producers so we can get things going, although you’re the first one that’s ever performed for Mr. Sandoval a cappella.” Mariana laughed. She didn’t know what to think.
“When can I audition for Mr. Sandoval?”
“He’s received people without an appointment before,” said Mariana as she took the phone handset in her hand and put it in her left ear. “Let’s see if he’ll receive you.” She dialed Jose’s extension and when Jose answered, she said, “Mr. Sandoval, there’s another walk-in out here with me, and she doesn’t have a demo.”
“A walk-in with no demo,” said Jose and laughed. “Did she bring her ID?”
Mariana placed her hand on the speaker part of the handset and asked Alice that question.
“No, I don’t,” Alice answered.
Mariana put the phone back in her ear and said, “No, sir, she doesn’t have ID.”
Jose laughed again. “Wow,” he yelled, “someone came completely unprepared!”
“Tell me about it,” replied Mariana, laughing.
“I have never done this before, Mariana, but I want to have some fun today. I’m in the mood for a good laugh. Send her in.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Ok,” said Mariana and put the phone in both hands once again, covering the part where she would speak on the phone so that Jose didn’t hear her and Alice. “You can come in, senorita.”
A few minutes later, Alice went in. “Hello,” she said in Spanish.
Jose was stunned when he saw her bright-green eyes. “Wow,” he said, “I mean, are you American?”
“Yes,” said Alice in English. “How did you know?”
“Because you speak Spanish with a noted accent,” said Jose and shook Alice’s hand. “Sit down.”
Alice and Jose sat down simultaneously. “So,” he said, “who in the world are you, and what makes you think that you have what we, the producers, want in an artist?”
“Oh…”
“I don’t mean any disrespect. I’m sorry if I was rude.”
“You weren’t. I am Shannon Whitaker. I am from the United States, Wisconsin, to be exact.”
Jose believed her! “What’s your date of birth?” he said, not being able to take his pretty eyes off her beautiful breasts, flat abdomen and killer model legs.
“My birth-date is February 18, 1985.”
“You are going to audition for me with your voice like in these superstar-search shows, right?”
“I don’t have the money to make a demo.”
“Ok. You may start singing."
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Alice was planning to sing for Jose and then kill him, find the address to his and Shirley’s house and go kill Shirley, too. As a matter of fact, Alice had a gun in her purse. She started singing,
“I’m in love with you, desperately in love
You turn me down; I don’t know what to do
I feel like I’m going to die
All these memories I have of you
They’ve all been a lie
I am so in love with you
And I don’t know what to do
I am out of control there are deep scars in my soul
I feel I’m dying without you
Oh why do you do this to me?”
She was finished singing and just when she was about to pull her gun out to shoot him, he said, “Wow, I’m impressed.”
She smiled and pulled her hand out of her purse. “You think I can sing?”
“Not only that, but I love the way you sing. You’re definitely a Spintosoprano. You don’t need a demo. You can get signed right now. You have a voice like few I’ve heard so far.”
“Have you ever signed an artist without a demo?”
“I would sign you if I knew who you really were,” said Jose, looking at his computer, “but I just looked you up using a special people-search service that gives me information about people based on their name and their birth-date, and to be honest, you’re not on here. Who are you really? Tell me the truth.”
Alice didn’t know what to say, so she just pulled out her gun and shot Jose five times.
Amazingly, Jose was full of blood, but he wasn’t dead. He was laughing. He’d been completely unharmed. He’d been turned into an angel hours before when an angel he didn’t know somehow had the cook at the restaurant place one of her tentacles in Jose’s breakfast disguised as an omelet, thus that was one of few angels that could shape-shift their body parts into anything they saw that wasn’t a bomb or anything of that sort. Mark and Matt could do that, too, and so could everyone in the Manning family. Now, Jose was practically invisible just like them. “Alice, it’s nice to see you. It’s a shame you were pretending to be an aspiring singer because you’re a wonderful singer. Believe me, if all the information you gave me had been real, I would’ve signed you, and to answer your question, no, I’ve never signed an artist without a demo.”
“Why aren’t you dead, son of a bitch? How do you know who I am?”
Jose got up. “Aww,” he said, “look at this, now I have to change my clothes. I’ve got an appointment with a real hopeful that is going to earn me millions. You know how it is, Alice. We’ve got to make the money.”
Alice was crying.
Jose walked out of the office.
A few minutes later, the police, the firefighters, and the ambulance were outside, and so were the news trucks. As Jose walked out of the building and paramedics assisted him, a reporter said in Spanish, “We’re here at the Sandoval Records branch here in Malaga, where an attempted murder against Jose Sandoval, the renowned record producer just took place. According to our sources,” the reporter said as the camera focused on Jose, who was tied down with a respirator put on him and being loaded into the ambulance, “a woman came here pretending to be an aspiring singer, auditioned for Mr. Sandoval, and then shot him numerous times.”
Now, the camera focused on Alice, who was no longer disguised, and was now handcuffed, and the police were taking her to the patrol car as she covered her face.
“You’ve just seen the woman covering her face. The condition that Jose Sandoval is in right now is not known.”
Hours after this chaos, the news was still talking about Jose. Now they were talking about how quickly Jose recovered from his injuries and the fact that he was no longer human, but an angel of the universe, an angel from the moon. They were also talking about how the evil Alice had been locked up, and days later, they sentenced Alice to twenty-five years to life in prison and Alice was extradited to the United States for this horrible crime. Even though Jose wasn’t horribly injured or killed, this still counted as attempted murder because the sole intention of killing someone, and executing a murder plan counted as attempted murder. Alice shot Jose five times and although he wasn’t brought down or killed, he still walked with difficulty when he was shot and he still needed a respirator to be able to breathe. Doctors operated on him to remove the bullets from his body. Jose’s family was thankful that Jose had made it. Now, he and Shirley could feel safe and they no longer had to hide and live far away from their country. Even so, they decided to stay in Europe.
Three months later…
Jose and Shirley were settled down in England. They had bought a mansion there, and with the help of the Manning twins, Sandoval Records was international now. Day by day, a new branch of Sandoval Records was built in a different country, and now, it was known worldwide, just like Manning Records was. Every day, one new hopeful would enter Sandoval Records and Manning Records for their one chance of fame, and even though not everyone was signed, the ones who weren’t would be assigned a vocal coach to get better, so they weren’t rejected. Right now, the millions that the Manning family was making were incalculable, and the children they were having were incalculable, too, one thousand new babies every week. This was great for the angels because this encouraged all of them to reproduce, too, and now, there were as many angels as there were humans on Earth. The population on Earth was sixteen billion people, eight billion humans and eight billion angels. Day by day, the angels were coming up with ways to make our life better, inventing new products, and helping to restore the ozone layer and reducing global warming.
Meanwhile, the deaths around the world were being reduced every single day because Beautiful Horizons Genetics were saving people’s lives by the millions. Just for $1,000, anyone could be healed of any disease and save money on hospital and prescription bills. If the doctor said that he could do nothing to save the person’s life, that person could go to Beautiful Horizons Clinics and be saved from death and suffering.
Some humans were scared. The fact that humans with terminal illnesses were becoming healthy made them fear that there would be a whole new human race, humans that would never die. They would very much rather have people dying of cancer, AIDS, and other terminal illnesses than have completely-healthy humans. They were worried that these human beings would conceive perfect children somehow. Still, there was very little that they could do to stop it. These damned aliens were making Planet Earth a very strange place to live in.
Tonight, Daniel was entering a nightclub. This time, he went alone. He just wanted to move to the music and forget about the world and the universe altogether, to become immersed in a fantasy world, just for a few hours. He heard the loud music instantly. He paid the guard $25 to get in and then he walked until he found a table to sit down and settle down. He sat down for a few minutes and since no woman had noticed him so far and invited him to dance, he called the waiter over and ordered an orange soda. As he waited for his soda, he suddenly felt a little sleepy and decided to take a nap for a few minutes.
Suddenly, he started to dream. There was a war between humans and aliens because these humans were unhappy with everything that aliens were doing on earth. Blood was everywhere, and people were dying by the thousands. The worst thing of all this was that aliens weren’t using weapons, while humans were. They were using their own bodies to kill humans in different ways. They would literally split a human body in half by impaling the person with their tentacles or destroy the human internal organs with their horrible long nails. It was a really gory sight. Daniel started fighting with a human being that looked exactly like him. He didn’t want to kill him, but the damned human wanted to hurt Daniel horribly, so he placed a homemade bomb on Daniel’s belt and ran away as Daniel’s body exploded.
Daniel woke up, terrified, breathing heavily. There was another man right next to him worried about him.
“Are you ok?” asked the man, concerned.
“I don’t know how it happened,” said Daniel, still breathing heavily, “but I fell asleep in here and had a horrible dream.”
“It’s ok,” said the human man, patting Daniel on the shoulder. “It was just a dream.”
Daniel got up. “No, it wasn’t. It was a premonition, and I’ve got to do something to stop this from happening.” Daniel walked away from the man.
The man went after him. “Wait!” he yelled.
Daniel turned around to face him once again. “Yes.”
“Can I do anything to help?”
“You can, but you won’t,” replied Daniel. “You’re human. You’re supposed to be against me.” Daniel walked away from the man once again.
The man grabbed Daniel’s arm as he walked after him, made him turn around once more and said, “I’m supposed to be against aliens and on humans’ side, but I’m not. I’d like to help.”
Somewhat shocked, Daniel asked, “Why are you on our side?”
“I’m grateful for everything you guys have done for us,” said the man, “and I’m not the only one. We don’t have to take action right now. We have to make plans, know what we’re going to do before we do it. Let’s meet some girls and have some fun. Tomorrow’s a brand-new day, and we can start planning what we’re going to do.”
“Are you sure about this?” asked Daniel.
“I am one hundred percent sure,” said the man.
They walked back into the club. Danny sat down on the table once again. His drink was there at the center of the table.
“Don’t drink that,” suggested the man. “Someone might’ve put something in it.” The man picked up the drink. “I’ll bring you another drink. I’ll be right back,” said the man as he walked away.
Although Daniel had just met this man, he trusted him and decided to take his advice. He knew that the man’s intentions were good. Angels had the gift of knowing who was trustworthy and who wasn’t. That was another of many reasons why we were afraid of them. We couldn’t fool