Do you think he’s noticed anything strange?

He should have by now, it manifested in me at a much younger age than he is now. At the very least there should be a few things happening to him that’s he’s unable to comprehend.

You could have told him outright, you know. It feels… disingenuous the way we’re holding it back from him.

How would we explain it properly to him, darling, without upsetting him tremendously? It is better that he doesn’t know, that he believes that he is simply gifted, rather than uproot him from his daily life. There’s no telling the consequences if he should start digging more into things.

Meaning what exactly?

Meaning that there is a non-zero per cent chance to avoid the attention of some very shady people. People none would want to be engaged with in any fashion.

Is he in any danger? Because if he is, and you still chose to withhold this information from him, I swear The-

Shh, dear, no names, no details. And no, he’s not in any physical danger, the worst thing that could happen to him at this stage is overanalysing what is happening to his body and mental faculties. And if worse comes to worst, Cordelia is a big place, and he seems to be surrounded by his friends and peers practically all the time.

Was that why you insisted on me arranging a four-man shared apartment for him to live in? So that he’d be watched all the time?

When you put it like that, it sounds like he’s under a proverbial Panoptikon. I simply asked you to fix him a shared place to stay; I didn’t plan on him having his flatmates as his gaolers.

Be that as it may, what is the next phase in the evolution?

Hard to say, it manifests differently in different cadet branches of the main stock, but don’t be surprised if his grades start to go up significantly.

Are there any drawbacks?

Apart from the obvious?

You know what I mean.

Hmm, there will be a pretty serious jolt to his hippocampus for both better and worse. His entorhinal cortex will be significantly improved, as will his declarative memory. But he will have a very difficult time combating approach-avoidance conflicts, much more than a normal human does; in fact, it might become a serious mental struggle if past indicators and examples are anything to go by.

Terrific. Anything else?

Motor skills will improve as well, but how they manifest is a bit personally.

Personally?

What’s the term… memonoména- individually, varying from person to person.

Will this be obvious to people around him?

It might, it all depends on how much he flaunts it. But it’s not like he will suddenly grow five inches and gain a tonne of muscles overnight. The changes will be more subtle than that. But there might be some, ah, external changes.

Such as?

Change in hair colour is common, as is metabolism.

He’ll get fat?

The opposite, he will have a very hard time gaining weight, and the conversion of nutritional energy during the anabolic state is increased substantially.

Alright, I think I’ve heard enough. When do you think that we’ll be able to inform him of all this?

I don’t know, it all depends on how much he starts to research on his own and if a web is formed around him. At that point, we have to do something.

What options are open to us?

Few, but those that provide them are probably the most reliable people I can think of.

A finger reached out and pressed a button on the grav-mounted keyboard, stopping the playback.

“How long ago was this recorded?” The male’s voice was cold and pronounced the words slowly and clearly in meticulous Farsi.

The other male in the room consulted a datapad briefly before returning it to under his left arm.

“The conversation took place on 13 February Galactic Relative, transit through the network taking five days and nineteen hours. It was brought to our station as soon as it was received by the blacksite relays, Lord.”

His Farsi was, unlike the first speaker, a bit more tinged by his native tongue, but it would only be obvious to someone specifically listening for it. The first speaker tapped a gloved finger slowly and rhythmically on the jeunewood work desk, the sound reverberating in the small office. The small room was very Spartan, with only a desk, the office chair in which the man sat, two shelves filled with folders containing physical mem’disks, a portmanteau, and a viewscreen on the back wall masquerading as a window, showing a feed of a magnificent view of a park that in reality was about four-hundred kilometres away. The walls and floor was cold carboncrete, and the only source of air was a roof-mounted ventilator. There was no discernable door; the automated security hatch was camouflaged as part of the carboncrete wall.

“And our onsite agents remain undetected?”

“As far as is discernable, yes Lord. There are no visible indications that they have been compromised, nor has there been a spike in electromagnetic energy at the targets’ residence.”

“It is foolish to rely on such easily observable readings. If they are following their field craft OPSEC procedures to the letter, the team should have relocated to a new safe spot by now, but send a missive through the usual channels for them to reposition to the tertiary location anyway.”

“Yes Lord, though that will take about eight days to reach the team.”

“Do it regardless, I’m not risking exposing to the target that they’re under active surveillance. She’s crafty enough to know that she’s probably under some sort of observation, but no need to reveal that we’re practically on top of her.”

“Yes Lord, I will see to it personally.”

“Good,” the seated speaker said simply, accompanied by a satisfied nod, before he stood up and started to look through one of the folders of mem’disks.

“Do we put a team on the secondary target, Lord?” the other speaker asked, who had been standing at attention the whole time, actions crisp and with no superfluous movement whenever he consulted his pad. The first speaker shook his head.

“No, not for the time being. As the primary target said, Cordelia is a very big place and he’s practically surrounded at any given time. Even trying to organise surveillance on him would be a tremendous drain of resources and effort. Better to keep appraised of the situation second hand. Should we lose that access, I’ll consider drafting an OBVS plan, but for now we bide our time.”

He evidently found the disk he was looking for and sat back in his office chair, slotting the disk into the desk’s reader. The integrated computer sprung to life once more, and the holographic for-your-eyes-only display showed him, and only him, a vast spread of data and figures.

“Now, with that little piece of housekeeping dealt with,” he said, switching over to Greek, “let’s concentrate on the really important matters on the agenda.”

“Lord,” the other speaker said, still speaking in Farsi and clearing his throat ever so slightly, “what do we say if the Prince’s Own come asking about the situation?”

“First you tell them,” the senior replied in Farsi, “that the situation is well under control, and if they start prodding, send them to me and I’ll give them some overly detailed explanation which will probably go over their heads. Now let’s get to the real order of business, shall we.”

“Very good, Lord,” the standing speaker answered in Greek, and as if on cue the hidden door swished open to admit a tall woman dressed in a black, gold and violet uniform. It contrasted starkly to the full black uniforms of the two men, which only had a few silver-grey detailing and stripes to differentiate ranks. The woman stopped next to the standing man and saluted crisply.

“Good timing, Lady Vakallaria,” the seated man said, giving her a brief, thin smile before concentrating once more on the holo-screen, “though I suspect you already knew we were done talking about petty domestic matters.”

“Sir,” was all she said in response, continuing to stand at attention, before the seated man made a gesture for the both of them to fall at ease.

“Let us start with the first item on the agenda; Nikos, how is the developing situation on Tschornohora?”

The man called “Nikos” consulted his datapad again before answering, periodically fact checking the details.

“As of 08 February, the Auroran Plenipotentiary has given Mr Saldys temporary residence at the Embassy as a political refugee. The Vice Naval Attaché Barham has been in contact with our own Embassy there in regards to the method Mr Saldys managed to find his way to the Auroran Embassy while being shadowed by local counter-intelligence, and has been very, ah, insistent in his inquiries.”

“He knew immediately it was us, sir,” the woman referred to as “Lady Vakallaria” said, while brushing a few errant strands of long blonde-brown hair behind her right ear, “which means their intelligence types on station have at least two brain cells to rub together. Though I believe you were already informed of Barham’s capabilities, Ilearch Molon.”

Molon smiled that thin smile of his again, but said nothing. After a moment Nikos continued.

“Given the limited resources available to their intelligence services on the Myndowen capitol world, it is broad agreement among the senior analytical staff at Prophylakeion that the Aurorans will try to ascertain what they have gleamed from Mr Saldys through external means.”

“Which in essence,” Lady Vakallaria interrupted in a calm but domineering tone, “implies that the Aurorans will either A; employ local assets in an attempt to confirm Saldys’ claims, B; inquire allies onsite in Lemberg or other nearby locations on Tschornohora to carry out this fact-finding mission, or C; bring in specialists from their own national intelligence services.”

“Hydrakos believes C to be the most likely option, Lord,” Nikos supplemented at the end, and waited for Molon’s response.

The Ilearch resumed his rhythmic tapping on the desktop. A group of small children and a few accompanying adults could be seen congregating around a fountain in the park shown on the feed behind Molon.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Lord?”

“Barham will want to get to the bottom of this on his own, without getting in touch with Bower-Henton and Royal Naval Intelligence. I think he already suspects he won’t like what he’s about to find out, and the less Auroran witnesses, the better.”

“Especially since they’d be obligated to get the Royal Intelligence Service involved,” Vakallaria said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Exactly, no naval officer wants the Ghosts involved unless they can help it. That the RIS will at some point in the future be directed to take a look is a given, if our hunch is correct.”

“My Lord, please,” Vakallaria scoffed, “Her Majesty’s Naval Intelligence Division’s information on this is rock solid. We were the ones who fed the Myndowen students with the code they required to make their breakthrough after all. We could have done it ourselves months back, the Myndowen Imperial Navy’s security algorithms are laughably porous, but to lend it credibility it had to be domestic non-state operators who made the actual cracking of the code. What we’ve gleaned through the info packets we’ve externally probed for code-cracking purposes has provided us with more than ample circumstantial evidence to form a coherent picture on what’s going on in Tschornohora orbit.”

“I cannot say I approve of the method the HMNID chose to employ in this particular case,” Molon said, swiping a particular set of data from the holo-screen to his ‘com. “It seems… wasteful.”

“My Lord, surely you cannot bemoan the loss of a handful of Myndowen students when weighed against the intelligence gained.” Lady Vakallaria sounded genuinely surprised, but Molon shook his head, his grey locks swaying a bit as a result.

“You misunderstand me, Helena, I don’t care about the students who were sacrificed during this operation, I simply feel HMNID could have gone directly to the Aurorans instead. The whole cracking ordeal the locals carried out took the better part of three weeks. And if you say the NID sat on good circumstantial evidence already, I think I speak for the whole Prophylakeion when I say that was valuable time wasted for something that is essentially window-dressing and unnecessary plausible deniability.”

“I don’t think you will be saying that if the Aurorans blow this whole thing open and start mentioning how they came about this information.” Vakallaria’s tone was ever so slightly testy, and Molon smiled internally at the knowledge that he’d managed to hurt her professional pride.

“We all know full well how punctilious the Aurorans are about ‘doing the correct thing’, and being all damned self-important ‘gentlemen’ about interstellar affairs. We’re talking about the same people who made obvious that the Greens had bugged the St. John system.”

Lord Molon flashed a quick smile at the mention of ‘St.John’ and pointed to his computer display, which none of his subordinates could see.

“You’re catching on, Lady Vakallaria. The Aurorans are predictable to a fault, and that is what makes them such valuable allies.”

“I’m not sure I follow, Lord,” Nikos commented, and Lady Vakallaria shot him a sympathetic glance before answering for him.

“It makes them predictable. If they conduct themselves according to a social code, it makes their future movements and activities easy to predict. I wonder how you reached this level in the Aulikon without being aware of this.”

Vakallaria shot Nikos a withering glare, and the analyst focused intensely on his datapad.

Lord Molon slapped his hands together, startling the other two in the room.

“Be that as it may, we want the Aurorans to pick up the lead we’ve laid out for them, They will most likely bring in their own specialists to both confirm the situation, as well as send an operator on the inside of Katharinamond…”

A beeping sound distracted Lord Molon.

“Mea magna culpa,” Lady Vakallaria said as she shut down her handcom.

“I don’t care about interruptions,” Lord Molon said as he stood up from his office chair, “just make sure that your distant relative is placed under proper surveillance.”

“Your will be done,” Lady Helena Automa Aniketas-Doukas Vakallaria said, as she bowed to the Commander of the Royal Dionysian Secret Intelligence Service. She exited the hidden door, running a hand through her long blonde-brown hair.

“Send a missive to my cousin,” she said seemingly into the empty air, but a small communications drone bleeped a confirmative noise.