“It is done.”

It wasn’t until he heard the girl-thing’s reassurance that Officer Maloney dared to open his eyes again. He glanced warily towards Maggie, and was relieved to find that his eyeballs did not attempt to vacate his face like before. This mess was far from over, though. There were still half-molten holes in the walls, and Mr. Mulligan looked absolutely terrible. He was still breathing, and his head hadn’t moved from its position on Maggie’s lap, but the officer questioned whether Joe would recover from… whatever had just happened. Not only physically, but mentally as well.

Thankfully, there was an unfathomable intellect within earshot that would surely have the answer.

“Is he going to be alright?”

“He is merely drained,” Maggie answered calmly. “Several days of rest and ample nutrients should be enough to facilitate a full recovery.”

“That’s good. I already called an ambulance so they’ll take care of him. Until then, we need to carefully move him, and you, into the elevator. The titanium-reinforced shaft should make it more difficult for the shooter to try again.”

“Your vigilance is commendable, but unnecessary. I have already dealt with the aggressor.”

“Ah. Is that what the, uh, the eye thing was?”

“Yes.”

Maloney shuddered to imagine what sort of horrid things someone like Maggie had inflicted on the perp, but he still needed to bring what was left of them in.

“Can you tell me where his or her body is?”

“You misjudge me, Officer Grant Maloney. I did not kill the shooter. I merely ensured he will never endanger another sentient life again.”

“That’s… surprisingly merciful, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“I assure you, it was not mercy,” she coldly declared.

A cold chill ran down the officer’s spine, but he screwed up his courage and insisted.

“I… I still need to arrest him. It’s proper procedure, and all that.”

“I comprehend. Kevin Baker is currently located in elevator number three, on the fifty-sixth floor of hyper-scraper 2561-A.”

“Isn’t that… several kilometers away?”

“Yes. Four-point-zero-three-five kilometers, to be exact.”

“Damn. Alright.”

Maloney was momentarily taken aback. To hit a target from that great a distance and through several walls was quite the feat, though the girl’s ability to retaliate so quickly and decisively was no less impressive. In any event, he attempted to inform his colleagues of the suspect’s position, but found himself unable to do so. His earpiece wasn’t responding. He carefully removed and inspected it, only to find that it had been fried into a useless hunk of plastic and wires. Almost all of his electronic equipment was in a similar state, no doubt a side-effect of whatever it was Magh'rathlak had done. It was unfortunate, but there was no rush. It would barely be a minute or two before reinforcements and medical services arrived on the scene.

As he waited in that hallway, the policeman was quietly thankful that the apartments were so thoroughly soundproofed. The last thing he needed in an emergency was to deal with panicking civilians. Things would have gotten very bad if someone dared to poke their head out during the ‘eye thing’ in particular. Thankfully the hyper-scraper’s residents remained unaware of the attempted murder, and if all went well they would never learn of it. The holes in the walls would probably tip them off that something had transpired, but that issue was already being resolved.

Swarms of hand-sized spider-like maintenance droids flooded out of the walls and busily scanned the hallway. The micro-machines filled up the cavities with some kind of insulating foam, sealed them up with a polymer spray, and then painted over them. They even cleaned up the few drops of blood. Once they were done, there was no physical evidence that something had transpired at all. They did, however, document everything before cleaning it up. The repair bot mainframe would compile an incident report that would contain all kinds of images and analyses that would allow local law enforcement to virtually recreate the crime scene.

That would not be the end of it, of course. Maloney was positively burning with enthusiasm to launch an investigation into this mysterious shooter. There were so many questions that he couldn’t wait to tackle. Who was this Kevin Baker? Why did he shoot Maggie? Did he know who or what he was targeting? And, more importantly, where and how did he get an energy weapon capable of such pinpoint destruction from that great a distance? Unravelling mysteries aside, the simple policeman also felt a twinge of opportunity that stoked his ambition. If he was able to crack this case open, there was a chance he’d get a promotion that would allow him to take on truly meaningful police work.

Unfortunately for the aspiring detective, the likely answers to most of those conundrums came to him when three people stepped out of the elevator down the hall. They were definitely military, judging by their uniforms and ridiculously heavy armaments. The one on the left was a ginger-haired woman that seemed to flinch when she looked towards Maggie. The one on the right was a dark-skinned gentleman that was actively typing something on a wrist-mounted console. The one in the middle was by far the most intense and, as the policeman correctly assumed, most senior officer of the three. He was an older, grizzled man with a thick moustache and buzz-cut hair, both grayed out from a mix of age and stress. His left eye and left arm had been replaced with very obvious cybernetic prosthetics, and the look on his scarred face made it clear that he really did not want to be there.

Maloney was still running a bit high on adrenaline, so he made the rather risky albeit responsible decision to stand up to these heavily armed strangers.

“Stay where you are and identify yourselves!”

He called out to them with one hand raised and the other on his holstered firearm, and the trio stopped in their tracks. The two soldiers in the back raised their guards, though not their weapons. The commanding officer signalled for them to stand down and promptly introduced himself.

“Major Gordon Archer, 206th Imperial Strike Force, under direct command of the Supernatural Eviction Agency. These are my subordinates, Psionic Agent 2nd Grade Sarah Johanson and Staff Sergeant Damian Benett. Under the authority of Her Immortal Majesty’s armed forces, I hereby order you to stand down and back away from the subject.”

Maloney hesitated. Though they looked and acted the part, there was a slim chance these three were imposters. However, the weapons they had were most assuredly real. Even if they weren’t military, there was little he could do to stop even one of them should things turn violent.

“… Yes, sir,” he wisely stepped aside.

The three soldiers went past him without saying anything, though the Major did reassuringly pat Maloney on the shoulder as he did so. The younger man could’ve sworn he heard the words ‘Good work, son’ despite the fact that the senior officer’s lips didn’t move. Nevertheless, Major Archer, Agent Johanson, and technical officer Sparks approached Maggie with caution.

“Magh'rathlak the Observer?” the man in charge spoke up.

“We meet again, Major Gordon Archer,” the girl said calmly. “For what reason have you come to me in person?”

The man grimaced. He was certain this bloody monster knew exactly why he was there. But, if this was how it was going to play it, then he didn’t have much choice but to oblige.

“I’m here to take you somewhere private. It’s high time we had a face-to-face.”

The girl looked up at them with a stone-dead expression devoid of emotion.

“I refuse,” she bluntly stated.

“I’m afraid I must insist.”

AJ and Sparks raised their weapons towards Maggie.

“This course of action is ill-advised,” she calmly informed them. “I must fulfil my obligations, and any attempts to impede me from doing so will be met with appropriate measures.”

She then went back to cradling Joe’s head in her lap and slowly stroking his cheek.

“Major? Do we start blasting or what?” Bennett asked.

“Hold your fire,” he ordered, then turned back to the girl-thing. “What obligations would those be?”

“Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of Joe.”

“We can provide excellent medical aid.”

Maggie looked back up, her swirling eyes positively oozing animosity.

“It’s your fault he’s like this!”

“I assure you, Lieutenant Baker did not fire on my order.”

The girl’s fury momentarily relented. There had not been even the slightest hint of deception in that statement. She had assumed - apparently mistakenly - that the sniper had been told to shoot her. It made sense that he had acted on his own, in retrospect. When she ‘found’ him, his mental state had been shaken, unstable even. It betrayed a lack of conviction and a sense of self-doubt that should not have been present within a professional soldier who had just executed their duties. However, that did not excuse him nor this Major.

“According to your military’s laws, the commanding officer on the scene is legally and morally responsible for the actions of their subordinates. This includes acts of insubordination or derelictions of duty, in which case your failure is your inability to foresee or prevent such.”

“I know, damnit!” he shouted. “I know. I shouldn’t even be doing this, but you forced my hand when you killed the Lieutenant.”

“Kevin Baker is not dead.”

“… Benett?”

Sparks quickly checked his wrist console, then looked back.

“His neural implant is reporting no vitals, sir.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

“Well, technically it’s not transmitting at all, but the only way-”

“Idiot!” the Major yelled. “Tell me that in the first place! Get in touch with team two and make them hurry up in finding his sorry arse!”

“Elevator number three, on the fifty-sixth floor.”

All three soldiers stared at the policeman that had just piped up from the back.

“It’s what Mags told me earlier, sir.”

And the surveillance team back at base would have known that if the girl hadn’t accidentally fried every electronic device within her line of sight.

“Well, you heard the man!” the Major roared again. “Go find that plonker and get his ass back to base so I can string him up by his damn foreskin!”

“On it, sir.”

“And Benett? If you pull something like this again, Queen help me, I will shove my boot so far up your arse your breath will reek of shoe polish.”

“… Yes, sir. Won’t happen again.”

“Agent, keep your defenses up,” he turned to the psi-op next. “Let’s wait and see what the Lieutenant’s status is before we relax.”

Several tense minutes later, which Maggie spent as if she and Joe were alone in the hallway, the Major finally heard back from the rest of his squad. They had found the insubordinate marksman alive and conscious, but screaming incoherently while curled up in the corner of an elevator. He had also soiled himself profusely. The team’s medic had to sedate him in order to bring him back to base quickly and quietly. It was clear he’d been brain-blasted hard enough to fry the chip in his skull, though the severity of the damage to his psyche had yet to be determined.

“What exactly did you do to the Lieutenant?” the Major asked Maggie.

“I embedded a crippling phobia of firearms within his mind,” was her deadpan answer.

In other words, the sniper had been in that sorry state because of the discarded portable particle cannon at his feet. Archer wasn’t too glad to hear that since it would mean that his sniper was no longer fit for duty, but Maloney was visibly relieved to learn that’s all the girl had done. The policeman was imagining something way worse given her earlier comment, which was why he decided to address it.

“Mags, didn’t you say you hadn’t shown mercy?”

“I did not. I retaliated in a manner that my obligation demanded. No more, no less.”

She couldn’t care less about her own person being attacked, but in doing so the marksman had indirectly and unintentionally harmed Joe. By removing his ability to fire a gun, she had ensured that he would never make that mistake again. However, she realized that she had not addressed the root cause of the issue. That man had his sights on her because he was ordered to, likely as part of some contingency. If she left things as they were, then there was a good chance something like this would happen again. Or worse, the military might target Joe to get to her, and she had already shown she was incapable of reacting faster than the speed of light. Maggie also wasn’t stupid enough to think that she could protect him if she entered into open hostilities with the 3BE’s military.

In short, though she hated them for what they’d done, her best bet was to take these trigger-happy soldiers up on their initial offer.

“Major Gordon Archer,” she looked up to the officer. “I have reconsidered my earlier stance and wish to negotiate a long-term non-aggression pact.”

The man was visibly taken aback. He stroked his moustache for a few seconds before he decided.

“Very well. It’ll take time to arrange a formal hearing with-”

“No. With you. Right here, right now.”

She wanted to strike while the iron was hot, as the old human saying went.

“… Fine, but I’ll have to run this through my superiors afterwards no matter what.”

“This is permissible.”

“Benett, lock down the floor, make sure nobody interrupts us. While you’re at it, tell local law enforcement that we have a handle on the situation and to vacate the area.”

“Yes, sir. And the ambulance?”

The two of them looked towards the girl and the injured man in her lap.

“Unnecessary,” Maggie declared, then demanded, “and call off your gunship. I can hear it hovering beyond the outer wall and the frequency of its engines is rather displeasing.”

The tech specialist threw a questioning glance towards his commanding officer and got a firm nod in return. He got busy executing his orders while the girl slowly and carefully picked Joe up off of the floor, brought him inside his apartment, and put him inside the pod. He needed rest, nutrition, and security, all of which the possessed machine could provide for. She really should have done this sooner, but his condition was stable and she felt rather guilty about leaving his side, so she put it off.

Maggie smiled to herself as she watched the pod hook itself up to Joe. She felt as if she had a better grasp as to why humans were so wishy-washy with their intentions. It wasn’t just because they were emotional, but because their feelings were often at odds with their rational side. There she was, about to sit down and talk things out with a bunch of thugs that she could barely stand the sight of after what they had done. It was the best course of action, yet the very thought of it was repulsive. As a creature that had lived solely on logic for eons, this internal conflict was new and foreign to her. However, what was going to happen next wasn’t personal. It wasn’t the time for feelings to have their due, so Maggie did what many people no doubt wished they could.

She forcibly shifted gears on her mental state so that she was in neutral, and walked back out with a calm smile on her lips. Without saying a word or missing a beat, she coerced some of the matter in the walls and floor into a basic yet elegant set of concrete furniture. There was a wide table in the middle, three chairs on one side, one more on the other, and a fifth near the wall. Taking the hint, the soldiers took their seats opposite the girl while the policeman - who, incidentally, really questioned if he should be there - took on the role of a witness.

“Alright then. To reiterate for the record, my name is Major Archer, these are Staff Sergeant Benett and Agent Johanson. We’ve gathered here at the Class-3’s request following the insubordinate shooting perpetrated by Lieutenant Baker roughly ten minutes ago.”

“Magh'rathlak the Observer,” the girl formally introduced herself as well, “though I must insist you refer to me as Mags.”

“We’ll see about that. Thing is, we don’t know what your motives are, so why don’t you help us out and tell us why you’re here?” he got straight to the point.

“I am negotiating a non-aggression pact.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

The girl slightly tilted her head without letting her uncanny smile waver.

“No, I do not, Major Gordon Archer. Perhaps you should phrase your queries with greater care.”

“She is very literal, sir,” the policeman offered from the side.

The soldier exhaled roughly.

“Why did you enter this reality?”

“To study it,” she replied simply.

“For what purpose?”

“I am a seeker of knowledge. It’s what I do.”

Major Archer sighed. He honestly wasn’t sure what he expected, but there was no way he’d buy that seemingly innocuous response. Frankly speaking, he didn’t want to be having this talk at all. Unfortunately, the Class-3 had gotten quite demanding all of a sudden, and he didn’t want to tempt fate by blowing her off. Its kind usually got quite touchy whenever they didn’t get what they wanted, and if Major Archer knew his cosmic entities from beyond the veil, which he thought he did, that never ended well. He may have been willing to start a fight earlier, but that was before he knew that his man wasn’t actually dead but just… thoroughly incapacitated.

Therefore, much like Maggie herself, he had to disregard his feelings on the matter and do whatever he could to make the most of this mess.

“What happens once you’ve gained all the knowledge that you can from us?”

“Uncertain. I will most likely move on to the next unknown.”

“Let’s say you do that, and that you keep learning things from all manner of worlds and dimensions until you know everything. What then?”

“Then I will have obtained omniscience, and my purpose will have been fulfilled.”

It would appear the mega-nerd’s ultimate goal was to become all-knowing. Though certainly a terrifying prospect, it was a motivation the Major could actually believe.

“You said you wanted a non-aggression pact. Why is that?” he changed the subject.

“To ensure Joe’s safety and wellbeing.”

“Why do you care so much about that random plonker?”

“I have an obligation to him. I will not divulge the specifics, but know that I am bound to protect him from harm at all costs.”

“That right? So, theoretically, what would you do if we refuse your pact and try to subdue either him or you?”

“I would retaliate through whatever means I deem necessary.”

“What sort of means?”

“In order of ascending severity, they would be negotiation, bribery, cyberwarfare, brute force, psionic assault, and disintegration.”

“Oh, please. Why would you bother talking when you can just wave your hand and throw us through a wall or two?”

“Because, Major Archer, while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. Alan Moore, 1983.”

The soldiers looked at each other rather puzzled at that incredibly obscure quote from several centuries ago.

“Oh! I get that reference!” Maloney called out from the side, then immediately remembered the situation he was in. “I’ll shut up now.”

“Right,” the Major graciously ignored that interruption. “Thing is, I’ve taken part in over fifty missions that had to do with your ilk. Would you like to take a guess as to how many of them ended with just a pleasant chat over tea and bikkies?”

“… That’s sarcasm, isn’t it?” the girl noted.

“Very good,” he kept at it. “Guess they don’t call you the Observer for nothing!”

Some might question whether it was a good idea to smart-mouth the Class-3 like this, but the Major felt it was necessary. If this girl-thing’s ego was so fragile that it would respond negatively to such a weak provocation, then she was liable to go full Cthulhu at a moment’s notice. There was absolutely no way any sort of arrangement with a creature that volatile would last. Thankfully Maggie didn’t take offense to those words. Just the opposite. Her smile widened and her eyes narrowed, though it was difficult to tell if that expression was one of mockery or mirth.

“Indeed. I have been studying the subtleties of sarcasm recently. I believe I will soon master this elusive concept.”

Nobody in the room could tell whether she was genuinely saying that or if she was actually attempting a bit of ironic banter herself.

“Such distractions aside,” she tightened her expression, “I now comprehend the reason for your hostility towards me, Major Archer. You have a fundamental misunderstanding regarding my nature.”

“Hah! This’ll be good. Alright, let’s hear it. In what way are you different from all the other sentient fucking nightmares that I’ve had to deal with.”

“I am a being of order, not chaos.”

“Okay…”

The veteran soldier nodded slowly as those words sunk in. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that statement. He threw questioning sidelong glances to AJ and Sparks, but they seemed just as clueless as he was. The only one who seemed to understand what this Class-3 was saying was the nodding policeman on the sidelines, but the Major wasn’t quite convinced if he wanted to hear his insight. There was a chance Magh'rathlak had put him under its thrall, and if Archer was going to be spoon-fed repurposed bovine waste, he’d rather get it from the source.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I do not wish to spend the next fifty six hours adequately explaining the difference between these cosmic forces. In the interest of brevity, I will summarize my point. There are two types of cosmic entities - two factions, for lack of a better term. Those who transgress into this reality are most often born of chaos. They desire senseless destruction and often partake in wilful deception and encourage a malicious violation of obligations. Those like myself, who have arisen from order, have diametrically opposed sensibilities.”

“So what, you’re the good kind of unspeakable horror?”

“You’re very good at sarcasm,” she pointed out, then carried on. “But no. Some of my kin would be deemed tyrants, oppressors, and slave masters by your standards, though it is very rare for them to cross the veil as I have. They prefer to control things remotely, from the other side. It is more efficient that way.”

“All I’m hearing is, ‘I’m not like other sentient calamities.’ It’s not a sound argument.”

“I know my words alone will not convince you, so I will instead request that you consider them alongside my actions.”

The Major hated to admit it, but now that he thought about it, the reports from Staff Sergeant Benett and Agent Johanson did indeed corroborate her claims. Yes, Magh’rathlak had caused several minor disruptions and had manifested some anomalous phenomena, but nothing that warranted retaliation from his team. His psi-op had also made it abundantly clear that the entity was aware of their monitoring activities, yet it had done nothing to impede their investigation or obscure its own movements. It had been so well-behaved that it genuinely drove the Major batty. Watching her was unnerving, as they had no idea when and where things would go tits-up. In some ways, this ongoing surveillance was more stressful than the usual fare of solving things with excessive firepower. It wasn’t as if he wanted to level an entire hyper-scraper or two just to drive this thing back whence it came, but some small part of him was actually glad that his moronic subordinate had given him the excuse to do something.

A thought then occurred to Major Archer. He had never quite understood why the Supernatural Eviction Agency had ordered him to take such a passive wait-and-see attitude with this creature. Normally they did not hesitate to have him subdue Class-3 threats through force even if they knew full well that doing so would result in severe collateral damage. Such orders were given and carried out under the notion that, unless dealt with swiftly, those monsters would cause far greater harm in the long run. However, in all such cases, the entities in question had already shown themselves to be extremely hostile towards sentient life.

This one clearly wasn’t like that. In fact, its presence had arguably been more beneficial than detrimental. Whether intentionally or not, it had highlighted a potentially catastrophic vulnerability in the 3BE’s digital banking services. Being able to patch that up before any foreign powers or nefarious individuals could abuse it was well worth a few hundred poundingtons of ‘ghost money.’ Actually, that was putting it lightly. That trade was so skewed in value that it was downright criminal.

The point was that maybe, just maybe, the restrictions that had tied the Major’s hands thus far had been placed there to avoid unnecessarily provoking a ‘being of order?’ And if that was the case, then how come he hadn’t been informed that those things apparently had factions? These were uncomfortable questions, though the jaded soldier already had a hunch as to the answer. It was because the Supernatural Eviction Agency was run by a bunch of self-absorbed knobends who thought their precious secrets were more important than countless lives. Admittedly there were certain things that humanity was never meant to know, but the idea that not all cosmic entities were lumps of madness and murder didn’t seem like one of those.

After a few minutes of awkwardly silent deliberation, Archer made up his mind.

“Right, I’ll be frank.”

“Did you not say your name was Gordon?”

The man’s train of thought was then disintegrated on the spot by the Class-3’s first genuine attempt at sarcasm. It came so completely out of nowhere that Maloney had to stifle a laugh in the background. Agent Johanson just looked on in utter bewilderment while Sparks winced and wiggled his hand as if to signify that it needed work. As for the Major, he took a deep breath and skillfully pretended that none of that had just happened.

“What sort of terms did you have in mind for this pact of yours?” he asked the big question.

Maggie held her hand up and an ominous parchment materialized above it. The soldiers had already seen her do that once or twice so they were expecting it. The Major took the conjured document and looked it over. It detailed in no uncertain terms exactly what the girl wanted. She wished to be granted 3BE citizenship, along with all the rights, privileges, and protections that came with it. It implicitly demanded that the military abstain from hostile actions against Maggie and her acquaintances. Being who she was, the girl had also explicitly outlined that condition on the next line while also including Joe in it, eliminating any wiggle room in the contract. In return, she promised to abstain from any harmful actions against the Empire and its people, except in cases where her existing obligations demanded otherwise.

It was that last caveat that drove the Major to ask something that, in retrospect, he really should have looked into harder.

“Joe Mulligan. What is the nature of your connection with him?”

“I refuse to answer.”

It was the first time Maggie had done that. She enjoyed spreading knowledge and information, and therefore did not hesitate to address any and all questions directed at her. However, revealing that Joe was her anchor and that their existences were linked would only put him in greater danger. The commandos were already aware that she had somehow resuscitated herself through him, and no doubt planned to eliminate him to prevent that from happening in the event that things turned violent. If they also knew that Maggie would be left severely weakened without Joe, there was a chance they would go after him immediately.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” the Major said ominously. “Moving on, about these pacts you’ve been making. I assume something terrible will happen if someone’s stupid enough to break their side of the deal?”

“There will be consequences, yes.”

“What kind of consequences, specifically?”

“I will be forced to nullify the pact altogether, freeing me from its obligations.”

There was a brief silence as the Major waited for the girl to continue, only to realize that she was done.

“… That’s it?” he asked to be sure.

“Yes.”

“Seems a little… light, doesn’t it?”

“This is the logical response to having one party violate the terms of an agreement.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re a bloody Class-3. Shouldn’t you flay them alive or eat their soul or something?”

Maggie’s calm smile curled into her usual vaguely smug yet partly joyous smirk.

“You what, mate?” she borrowed one of Cullen’s phrases.

“… Huh?”

“Such acts of violence provide no benefit and do not advance my goals. They are a misuse of time and energy, and I strive to avoid wasteful expenditure of either. Unless my other obligations demand it, I see no reason to resort to such means.”

“Then what’s the bloody point in making pacts and contracts?!” he threw his arms up in exasperation.

“Statistically, humans are 153% more likely to adhere to the terms of an agreement if it is presented to them in a formal manner.”

She wasn’t completely sure why that was, but she couldn’t argue with the data. Which wasn’t to say that she was incapable of making soul-binding contracts. She merely saw no need to employ them when dealing with humanity. The same was true in Joe’s case as well. The supernatural bond he and Maggie shared was neither enforced by nor dependent on their deal. Even that document he signed with his blood served little purpose beyond making him feel better about the whole thing. Well, that and it would function as an official record that would make things easier should Maggie’s peers or elders inquire into her actions and activities.

“But then, what’s to stop you from going back on your word?!” Archer pressed.

“I do not have that option. Once I have agreed to an obligation, I am compelled to fulfill it to the utmost of my abilities. It is also why I will refuse terms that I am either unwilling or incapable of adhering to.”

Well, that and she’d seriously piss off Yagraactah the Adjudicator, but she judged that invoking the name of an elder one would needlessly complicate things.

“As if I can just believe that!” the man opposite her roared.

“Your belief or lack thereof does not change the facts, Major Gordon Archer.”

Those calm words helped the old veteran realize he was perhaps getting a bit too heated. He took a mental step back and reminded himself that this sort of deal really wasn’t within his authority to make. In fact, he and his team had been forbidden from making any sort of pacts with the Class-3 entity. Something like that should have been obvious, yet his superiors had explicitly disallowed it. Considering what he’d been told today, Archer realized that there was probably more to that order than his bosses being redundantly thorough.

“In any event, I’m incapable of agreeing to your demands, whether personally or on behalf of my nation. As mentioned previously, I’ll have to run your proposal through my superiors and get back to you.”

“I comprehend. You have my thanks,” she bowed deeply.

“Your gratitude is unwarranted, and not at all appreciated,” he replied mockingly.

“You jest, but I sense that this was an enlightening encounter for both of us. Farewell, Major Gordon Archer.”

“Hmpf.”

The three-man commando team stood from their seats and rapidly departed the scene. They piled into the elevator and ascended towards an exterior landing pad where their gunship was waiting for them.

“Sparks, you recorded everything, right?” the Major asked on the way up.

“Yes, sir.”

Not just video and audio, but also every type of measurable output that thing gave off. That had been his unspoken job during the impromptu meeting. As for Agent Johanson, she was there to shield her team against any potential telepathic assault. She wouldn’t have held out long against a Class-3, but it would have bought her allies enough time to at least fight back. The psi-op was, of course, relieved that it hadn’t come to that. Much as her silence during the proceedings indicated, she hadn’t sensed any suspicious psionic activity.

Well, aside from the way Maggie kept winking at her without anyone else noticing, but that was already par for the course at that point.