The diner Helen found herself sitting in used to be a truck stop decades ago before interstates shifted the traffic from country roads to six-lane highways. A rural Ohio countryside, just next to State Route 224, and an unpaved, almost empty, parking lot that could easily accommodate forty or fifty cars.

Why Lord Eisen had picked this place Helen could not guess. Even though she spent a few years on Earth, the place with endless fields of green corn looked very alien to her.

“I bet the food must be good here,” said Sabrina, Eisen’s agent who traveled with Helen and was supposed to be her guide. “For this place to still be around, the food must be really, really good.”

Helen could see how everything needed updating, looking old, tables and chairs, floor and walls, almost run down, so unlike the fast food places that she got to associate with this planet.

“What can I get you?” asked an overweight waitress in her late forties who approached them swiftly with a smile on her face and a pan and order book in her hands.

Helen mimicked Sabrina’s act and picked an old plastic menu but waited to see what Sabrina was going to ask for.

“I’ll take a cup of coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich. And this, coleslaw… you guys make that yourself?” Sabrina took charge and asked.

“Yes, ma’am. That and potato salad are our customers’ favorites.”

"Good. That will be that for me. "

"And how about you, ma'am?"

“Well, I’ll have that potato salad then,” Helen said and felt like she should have something more. The grilled cheese sandwich did not seem too appealing to her, not after the picture of the sizzling cheeseburger started to stare at her. “And this cheeseburger too. Together with onion rings.”

“Anything special on your burger?”

“No, just make it regular. And… well done,” Helen remembered to add.

“Okay, and what would you like to drink with that?”

“Do you have… like black tea?”

“Yes, we do.”

“I’ll have a cup of that.”

“Okay, that would be a few minutes. If you need anything else, let me know,” the waitress said, the smile returning to her face as she turned around to leave just to come back shortly with two tall dark glasses and a plastic pitcher of ice water she poured inside.

When she was gone, Helen nervously looked around, checking two far tables occupied by locals and the deserted outside through the big window, the entrance doors that remained closed.

“Relax. It’s still early,” Sabrina said, “We still have an hour left to kill. I bet we even have enough time for their pies.”

Helen's eyes passed briefly over Sabrina. Two of them were approximately the same age, same height, same dark hair, but words apart. Helen’s thin and baby-like face, dominated by her big eyes, was in contrast to Sabrina’s rounded face scared with deep facial lines and under-eye shadows.

Not that Helen disliked Sabrina at all, but found rather quickly they really did not have that much to talk about. Sabrina’s constant frowning and looking displeased has turned Helen away, and Helen quickly realized she was not used to dealing with the level of negativity that constantly poured out of Sabrina’s every move. So, there could not have been more than a few words they exchanged in the hours since they met, and both of them seemed to be just fine with that.

Helen certainly did not mind it, leaving her plenty of time to keep herself to her own thoughts. Staring through the window, she remembered the last conversation she had with Lord Eisen.

“So, my next mission… you want me to track what Oliver was doing before he landed on Zarnia?” she asked.

“There certainly could be a lead for us to follow. But, no.”

“The answer must be in his past. Or… someone might have landed on Zarnia without you knowing.”

“Not likely. But… I don’t think you need to concern yourself with Oliver at this time. I changed my mind since we last talked. You'll be off that case for now."

"Why?"

"Whoever was and still is involved in this is way above your class. I’m afraid you will not be able to deal with them.”

“Are you sure?”

“I will not let you in a cage with wolves unless… you’re a tigress who can slay them any way you want to. And you’re not on that level yet,” Lord Eisen said determinately.

Helen could not fight that. “So, then what?”

“You have to know something…”

“What?”

Lord Eisen took a deep breath as if measuring how he is going to proceed. “You did a lot of good things during your last mission…”

“But…?” The way Lord Eisen stopped and looked at her, Helen knew there was a ‘but’ in there, a big one. And she had mixed feelings about it. The subtle approach Lord Eisen was trying to take with her implied he did not want to be blunt and insensitive. But that only meant, even though he appreciated her and she appreciated that in return, he judged her to be possibly emotional and self-insecure. Otherwise, why would he just not lay it all out on her? Did he really think some critique could hurt her?

All of that made her twitch and think of the things she had done wrong. She did in the end what was asked for. Was she to blame for that? Was that a test? Was she not supposed to trust him?

“Please tell me, where did I go wrong?” Helen asked, seeing how indecisive Lord Eisen suddenly became. “I need to know. Otherwise, how can I get better?”

“Well, that is a good approach. I will not sugar cone it then,” he said it, but still fell silent.

“So, then don’t. What did I do wrong?”

Lord Eisen nodded his head and stared through her eyes. “You misjudged Mat, completely.”

“Oh,” Helen said, suddenly surprised. She did not think that could have been a problem, not ever.

“You completely misjudged him. Nearly killed him in the end when he faced Oliver.”

“I know, but-”

“Yeah. ‘I know, but-’. That is the problem. The reason I was not sure I should bring it up is because I was afraid you would try to defend yourself. And-”

“You did not want me to defend myself?”

“Well… it’s hard for me to explain. So, I will lay it out for you. You have not been around people very much in your life. Even your previous missions, the ones you did very well, you did secluded and separated from others. It worked well for you not to trust Oliver, but you can’t do that with everyone. That is not what being objective is. The bottom line is you are just a novice. So novice you're not to be even able to see how weak you are. In a way, that is how it has to be. But… you need to gain more knowledge, more skills, so you can be more objective.”

“I can be objective. I can be very objective.”

“I know you can. But, just stop. Stop now. And just consider your own tone of voice right now. It’s elevated. Full of stress. Ready to defend yourself. Maybe not ready to accept that I’m not trying to hurt you. Maybe you need to see how… suddenly you are hurt because you could not conceive you did something wrong, you could not conceive how you are not perfect. I thought you were raised differently, to strive for perfection but accept that you do not need to be perfect to be all right. To understand that it’s okay to make mistakes. They can guide you to become better. It’s hard for me to explain it since I’m not a good teacher, but… that’s what’s needed.”

A lot was said, but one thing stayed with Helen. “So, I should have analyzed Mat better?”

Helen’s words lighted an extra spark from Lord Eisen’s eyes and he said, not hiding his pleasure, “Yes. That’s right. And then, you could have seen if he was a threat and you needed to deal with him, or if he was an asset you could have used. You spent enough time in the dungeon with him to dissect his mind good enough to know what is what. In the end, you did not do the worst thing which would be killing him. You did help him out. But it was not the most optimal solution either. Two of you working together, communicating better, joining your strengths to eliminate the threat of Oliver. That would have been the most optimal solution. The one which might have resulted in saving thousands of lives.”

“I see. " Hard to fight those words. Thousands did die. "So, then what?”

“That means, you need to learn more. You’ll be ranked… someplace between an agent and observer, working on your shortcomings to see if you can improve them. The important part is that will need to be circled with people, learn to be more relaxed with them, learn to think and analyze everything on a higher level. You are super intelligent. If you work to control your emotions, you will get to the point of being extremely rational and objective. And that’s what I want from you.”

Helen nodded her head. It made sense. She could not deny it. For the first time, she actually thought there was something that the Core might do for her.

“What’s going to happen to Mat? Have you judged him? You know he saved-”

Lord Eisen interrupted her. “He has… a tough path in front of him.”

“Why?”

“He had a year to accomplish things. A lot of people, including a very important lord, have been killed, because he… “

“But it was the infection! His PIA was screwing with him.”

“I know. That’s why he is going to be given a fresh start. I think that’s the best thing I can do for him. Let him find his own way again. I certainly would not like to lose him. Not you either. We can’t afford to lose good people. We need more of them, actually. And that’s what I want you to do. This part you will like.”

“Which part?”

“You will work with your father. I've already mentioned a part of my plans to you. You will select possible candidates and see if they have what it takes to become one of the Core’s agents. Naturally, the final selection will not be up to you.”

“So, it will be like a double test. For the people who I select and for myself as well.”

“Yes. Of course. We have to see the results of your judgments.”

“Hum. And I get to work with my father?”

“You will be the first filter, selecting possible trainees. He will be in charge of the training.”

Helen liked that, liked it enough that she even smiled back then.

So, she readily accepted the mission, and, less than ten hours later, she and Sabrina walked through the portation gate that Lord Eisen controlled, and ended walking in the heart of New York City. Then, it was a private plane flight to a small airstrip where a dark, long sedan was waiting for Sabrina to drive.

And now she waited, not so much for the food that seemed to be already in the hands of the smiling waitress, but waiting for the diner’s front door to open and her father to walk through.