---Intelligence---
---Leon’s perspective---
I look into the face of a late 30s Daniel Craig, staring back at me from the mirror, and adjust my bowtie before turning to the young, redheaded Scarlett Johansson in a formfitting jumpsuit next to me and giving her a smirk.
“Yes, yes… very dashing(!)” mocks Ziva with an eyeroll and an American accent.
“You say; with the lips of one of the most attractive Terrans ever born…” I answer, dryly, my British accent right now making me sound a lot wittier than normal.
She tilts her head to look up at me (needing to angle it way more than she ever does in reality to compensate for the 7 inches I’ve got on her in here, instead of the only 3 I’ve got outside of VR) and says “Something you don’t seem to understand, Leon, is that attractive people immediately become a lot less attractive when they preen!”
“Forgive me for enjoying a rare moment of actual glamour when the real life Craft has so few…(!)”
“Yeah… not usually like the movies, is it…!”
We walk down the stylish, mid 20th Century hallway and come out into a semicrowded bar.
With just one exception, none of the ‘people’ here are real.
This is a secure chatroom, so the majority of the patrons dressed in period clothing with their faces all weird superstimuli of both Sapiens and whatever ethnicity they respectively represent (not yet having had the benefit of 6 centuries of their ancestors having the liberty to travel, live, work, and marry wherever and whoever they want (especially not resurrectees)) are NPCs.
I catch sight of the man we’re here to meet and me and Ziva cross the bar to make our way over to him.
I guess… I don’t actually know he’s a man…
Never met our handler in real life so he could be a woman or an enby…
Right now, he’s wearing the face of a man so I’m just gonna keep thinking and saying ‘he/him’.
I sit at the table, across from the (for his era) very tall elder statesman.
Brown eyes fixed on us and sparkling, our handler snaps his fingers over his right shoulder, causing a glamorous waitress to appear, wearing a cheongsam and with a hyper East Asian face.
In a crisp, early 20th Century RP, his voice deeper than Marc’s (the deepest voiced Human I’ve ever met in the flesh) and almost as low as Björn’s, he instructs “A Vesper martini, shaken not stirred, for the gentleman and, for the lady, a black widow I believe. I shall take a glass of Aalborg Taffel akvavit for myself… chilled but neat.”
“Very good, Sir, right away.” she defers, bowing a little before backing away to prepare the order.
Smiling with the mouth of a Christopher Lee in his 80s, our tuxedoed host says “Well… Agent Byrne and Agent Pereira… It will be satisfying to remove the ‘MIA’ markers currently attached to both of your files(!)”
“*Ha*… Yes… a lot has happened, Sir.” I smile, crookedly, the face I’m wearing and the voice I’m speaking with making the line sound way cooler than it would IRL.
“Which surely means a lot to report… doesn’t it?” he smirks back.
“Yes, Sir.” answers my jumpsuited partner, whose early 21st Century, mildly scifi attire looks kind of anachronistic in this Cold War era setting “The first piece of intelligence we have to report is that Jackson ‘Scout’ Stetter is dead…”
The old man blinks a few times before asking “I’m sorry, Agent… would you mind repeating that? I believe I must have misheard you…”
“Wanted terrorist assassin, Jackson ‘Scout’ Stetter, tracked us and took our ship out of commission in a fight that saw both him and (temporarily) us stranded on the new planet. He survived his crash but was later apprehended and neutralized.” she expands.
“I… see… and, from the use of the passive voice there, I take it this neutralisation was not your handiwork, was it?”
“It wasn’t, no. That was the work of the current Empress of one of the new species in a trial by combat she fought against him.”
Our handler’s eyebrows rise slightly but he stays composed as he clarifies “‘One of the new species’?… I had inferred that you had likely made contact with some entity but… you’re telling me there was more than one?”
“Yes, Sir…” I jump in “…the planet AG10790263b, newly christened ‘Graom-Wakhkort’, is host to two, extremely distinct, species.”
“Well!… That’s quite the revelation!… That’s quite a few revelations in fact!” states our host as the cheongsamed waitress returns with our drinks, placing a squared glass of sugared, blackberry vodka-soda in front of Ms Romanoff, a martini glass of cloudy, mixed spirits with a sheen of ice on it and garnished with a spiral of lemon peel in front of me and an ice free, narrow rimmed, tiny wineglass of clear, very slightly yellow tinted spirit in front of the real life inspiration for the character Daniel Craig was most notable for playing, before shuffling backwards away from the table.
She prepared our drinks way faster than realistic… A perk of full dive VR; waiting times can be a lot lower than in real life!
Closing a wizened hand around his glass, our handler raises it across the table to us.
“Cheers.” he smiles.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.” answer me and Ziva in quick succession, raising the drinks he ordered us to *clink* against his.
I take a sip of the ice cold cocktail.
There’s not much flavor to it.
Tiny bit of sweetness. Lemon. Quinine. Notes of orange.
I can’t really taste the gin.
I think it would benefit from a few drops of orange bitters to fill the utter void of flavor that is this drink.
Bet I look stylish drinking it though!
Placing down his akvavit, our host starts “So, I suppose I should start by asking why exactly the Empress was giving Mr Stetter a trial by combat?”
“That was due to him having murdered her father, the previous Emperor, in cold blood… He was initially given a jury trial but got frustrated by the deadlock induced by the juries’ structure and opted for trial by combat instead… I think he was joking when he suggested it… mocking their court system.” I explain.
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His mouth twists in a light frown “Not exactly an ideal start to our relations… I assume this business didn’t have a positive effect on this species’ sentiments toward us?”
“There was a significant chilling effect brought on in the immediate aftermath… but our assessment is that it was mostly thawed by the time we departed.” answers Ziva.
“That’s encouraging… and it’s doubly encouraging that we can stand down the search for Mr Stetter… That little embarrassment… losing the man who assassinated our representative when he was nought but a stasised brain in a jar, cost the UTCS Spite and, by extension, the Navy at large a lot of the cachet they had earned by so swiftly resolving that piracy situation with the Jukt!… Though, it is a little unnerving that there are apparently individuals among this species who are more than a match for one of the most dangerous beings alive… I take it they’re quite formidable?”
“‘Formidable’ doesn’t exactly do them justice, Sir… Would you like to see for yourself?” I suggest.
“Please, Agent…” he invites.
I open my console in front of me and select two files to load in.
All three of us look to the doorway as we hear the heavy, stabbing footfalls of eight powerful legs rumbling down the hallway.
The Vrakhand NPC woman appears on the far side and has to bend her upper body forwards and scrunch in her legs by quite a lot to fit through.
The other patrons don’t react with horrified screams and shrieks of terror at the monstrous looking being who just entered the establishment and each of whose footfalls punches a several inch deep hole in the floorboards. Instead, the waitress who brought us our drinks just calmly organizes the customers in moving their tables aside to clear a path.
On her heels follows a (way less striking looking) model of a male Vrakhand.
They both sit on the floor at the table next to us.
“My word… I can see what you mean… I certainly wouldn’t wish to meet one of these in a dark alley(!)” he says, his eyes fixed on the woman.
“They’re called the Vrakhand. That’s a female. That’s a male. These are fairly prototypical examples. The Empress is much larger and stronger than most. They have a heavily martial culture. Conservative in nature. Strict sense of gender segregation. Their armor is thought to be moderately bullet resistant and known to be impressively resistant to plasmaweapons…” rattles off Ziva.
“Plasmaweapons were used on one of them?!” he asks, head whipping to her, alarmed.
I shake my head and explain “Not one of them… One of what we infer to be their closest extant cousin species… much more formidable but firmly nonsapient.”
“Well, that’s a relief… but…” he leans forward, speaking conspiratorially despite us being the only people who actually exist in this digital world “…what about the million credit question?”
“As the situation stands…” starts Ziva in the turn of the millennium DanoAmerican woman’s voice “…neither these guys nor the other species would make any significant difference in the event of a Second War, no matter which side they joined… Their low tech level aside, they just don’t have the numbers!… Sure, they’re individually formidable but they only number in the high tens of thousands and the other species are only in the single digit millions… a drop in the ocean on the scale of galactic warfare… Give them both another 500 years to colonize and multiply and they might become relevant but, I don’t know about you two, I don’t plan to be in this line of work that long(!) I’d say that’s a problem for our successors(!)”
“Yet another relief…” he exhales “…as nice as the thought of gaining a staunch, powerful ally is, the thought of the gardenworlders panicking and attacking them (forcing us to rapidly deploy to the far end of the galaxy to defend them or allow them to be wiped out) is not! If they’re currently so insignificant, it will be much easier to temper the blowback to their revelation. And, of course, it isn’t the nightmare scenario of them being a force comparable to the UTC (and hostile thereto) with the galaxy being caught in the crossfire… but that was already a rather outside possibility… I suppose you should show me this other species as well though?”
“Actually, Sir, there’s one more notable thing about these guys that I want to bring to your attention first.” says Ziva.
“Oh?”
“Yes… You see all those red places? Teeth? Toothplates? Fangs? Claws? Feet? Leg spines? Those are made of a substance known in English as ‘thanatite’ and it has some… interesting material properties.”
“What kind of properties?” queries the deep voiced man.
“It’s not quite as tough as durasteel but it’s close. It’s lightweight, it’s biological and it might have the same plasma resistance as the rest of their armour.” I explain in my British accent, taking a sip of my martini before continuing “It could be the basis for a whole new style of battle armour… if certain cultural and ethical issues can be navigated tactfully.”
“It’s highly prized by them and by the other species, the Twigg, but it doesn’t naturally shed, so, the only ways to get it are by dismembering their dead or by dismembering their living… As a consequence, it holds a… I think the best word would be, ‘venerated’ position in their culture. Growing suits of the stuff shouldn’t be a challenge, it’s just not clear how the Vrakhand would react to that kind of appropriation. It might alienate them, especially if it came to light that we’d done it covertly without clearing it first.” elaborates Ziva.
“Hmmm… I see. A thorny issue indeed… If it were so much better on balance, it would near instantly put every durasteel foundry worker in Terran Space out of business… might also be perceived as provocative by the rest of the GU… This will require some careful consideration…” muses our host “…but that’s something I’ll probably need to bring the politicians and diplomats in on, not the UTCIS’s decision to make… For now, please show me this second species…”
Wordlessly, I reopen my console and load in two more files.
Appearing at the door come a male and female Twigg, padding down the wide channel through the tables to join the Vrakhand.
Quizzically, the brown eyed man asks “You’re… certain these two species are from the same cradleworld?”
Ziva grins with her borrowed face and says “Like Agent Byrne said, they’re very distinct but none of the data suggests xenogenesis for either of them… They are related, however distantly(!)”
“I see… the ‘Twigg’ you said they were called?” he confirms.
“Yes, Sir… Male. Female. Prototypical examples. Easy going nature, generally. Classless. Egalitarian. Propertyless. Communitarian. No gender segregation. Staunch practitioners of free love(!)” she smirks.
“Night and day… comparing the two!” opines the graybeard “Are they anything like as fearsome as this Empress apparently is?”
Ziva and I both hesitate over that question.
I’m the first to articulate “They’ve… got quite a different skillset… but they’re not to be taken lightly, whatever their size might make you believe.”
“Show me.” he invites, fixing his deep brown eyes on me.
“Alright, Sir… Hey, excuse me…?” I call the male Twigg NPC.
He gets down from the high stool he was sat on and plods over.
“Yes?” he asks, staring blankly at me.
“See that wall over there? I want you to run to it and back here as fast as you can!”
“OK.” he agrees, unquestioningly, getting down on all fours.
He streaks across the bar, rebounds off the far wall with all four of his limbs meeting it and springs to run back, skidding to a stop at the precise point he left from, all inside of a few seconds.
“Now, I want you to jump as high as you can into the air.”
From a standing start, he jumps easily high enough to put his toes 6ft off the ground.
“Now do that with a triple backflip.”
He does so, easily.
“Now… Err, Ziva, could I borrow a kni-”
She instantly produces a long, deadly sharp blade out of nowhere and places it into my hand
“Thanks.”
I turn back to the little green skinned man and hand him the knife.
“I want you to throw this up in the air so that it does 15 ½ revolutions over its end and catch it on the back of your hand without getting cut, cutting anyone else or dropping it.”
He immediately flicks the blade upwards, spinning way more rapidly than it would need to if he were making use of all the space above him instead of only half of it.
It comes down as he sticks his hand into its path, accommodating for it’s momentum to prevent it bouncing off him.
Wobbling slightly but perfectly balanced across his knuckles is the blade he just threw.
“Thank you, Sir. That’s everything.” I say as I take the knife and hand it back to Ziva, seeing the shock in our hosts eyes as I look at him.
“You didn’t programme that? Those are natural abilities?”
“Yes, Sir… Natural abilities. These guys just became the fastest, most dextrous, most kinaesthetic and most agile species in the galaxy…” I smile “…not to mention having working and procedural memories much better on average than any Human lineage, even Neanderthals.”
“Well… that’s… quite something!… You have included these files in the data parcel you’re leaving, haven’t you?” he asks, gesturing over the table of NPCs.
“Yes, Sir.” answer me and Ziva in unison.
“Good… I think further testing is required.”
“Oh… err… Sir?” smirks Ziva “Before I forget, a word of warning: unless you are abnormally interested in screeding techniques… I’d skip the building section… Gamoiwoth may be an expert architect but an engaging writer he is not(!) The Vrakhand live in silk tents, the Twigg live in small earthworks… There! I just saved you several hours…”
“Thank you for the warning, Agent… Perhaps I can skim that part(!)” he chuckles “Now… tell me, you two… we’ve only made preparations for one department to be allocated to this new species. Knowing there are two species, what would you recommend? A second allocation for this second species, splitting the existing department into Vrakhand and Twigg teams that still closely coordinate or forging ahead as planned with one department in charge of both species?