"Who is that? I can't recognize the voice... can't have been at the reception." Sharon was absentmindedly trying to make the loose fabric of her dress at least cover her breasts, even as they didn't need support.
"That's a Man in Grey, they all speak like that precisely not to be told apart from one another." Henri explained quickly, then shouted, "What do you want?"
"Agent Tills here, John Tills. I monitoring CC when the grid fractured and haven't been able to go home since, thanks for the exit, by the way."
"So you're not here in any official capacity?"
"I am. I have information for your command echelon... what of it you geeks have anyway... concerning CC's activities. I also must propose a temporary alliance between our two factions."
"I thought you guys hated each other!" Jim blurted out.
"We do... but it's a bit beneath the MiG to use this ruse as a trap." Karen explained, moving a bit closer to whisper in Jim's ear and getting her side elbowed by Sharon while doing so.
Henri didn't answer, but turned towards the other UNA agents and made a quick hand sign, raising both hands to shoulder level and holding the thumbs inwards. Quickly, each agent gave either a thumbs up or down. Henri scanned the room to count the votes, stopping for a moment to look at Jim and making him realize that he had expected his vote as well for a moment.
My alternate self must have had quite a double life... Jim thought.
Henri nodded, and the two UNA agents who were training their weapons on the CC people aimed them at the door. "Come in. Back to us. Walk in backwards. If we see your face when the door opens, we shoot."
"Agreed."
Karen swiftly opened the door and stood back, and a somewhat small man in a grey suit walked in backwards, awkwardly. A moment later, he let a rather ordinary looking gun drop, which Karen retrieved. Sharon wondered why she had the same impish grin she held when her own dress burst for a split second, then understood when the MiG was finally allowed to turn around.
"Look, I'm FTM, okay?" Agent Tills said in what was a remarkably ordinary voice, a slight British accent to it. His breasts, quite possibly into the C cup range, were straining his suit very visibly.
The whole room burst into laughter, more due to Tills' annoyed expression under the thin mustache than to the incident. Henri was the first to get a grip. "I thought the MiG did brain redirection on transsexuals."
"We still do, I joined after and hid it for almost a standard year. O'Brien was so impressed by that that he decided to keep me. Also, that would make me more suited for this sort of job since, well, everyone knows MiG's do brain redirection." Tills answered allowing himself the slightest grin. Score one for them Jim thought as Henri nodded.
"Uhm, sorry if we were rude then" Sharon interjected "but what does this have to do with us? I mean, I thought you two were arch enemies, from what I understood."
"We're a very centralized faction and when the grid fractured, some of our hierarchs started desyncing with themselves, it caused endless problems -- we still cannot access half our alts and O'Brien fears a schism. We ought to work together to restore the grid. Possibly, minor factions such as you - I mean, less centralized factions still have a grip on things."
Henri nodded when Tills corrected his jab. For the protocol-obsessed MiG's to break that tradition, things were probably serious. "So basically, you're saying that you can't travel freely because your technology is so rigidly structured that you haven't adapted it to the new conditions yet."
"Hang on a minute, didn't you guys mention that we need magic to open portals now?" Jim asked, feeling that this was making a little more sense as things went along.
"That is exactly the problem. Allow me to make my peace offering... information. What ChangeCorp did was successfully integrate technology and magic in such a way that has never before occurred. I know this is supposed to be impossible, but apparently they found a loophole by being extremely gradual about it. Since this is a tech-oriented reality..."
Another UNA agent, a woman in her mid-twenties who was approximately as tall as Henry, interrupted. "Do you mean that the Divine Order did this?"
Thu May 27 09:29:06 2004