Eagle X, Mission 21: CTRL

Part 12: Chillard

According to the building registry the majority of the building's residents were engineers and pilots, the station's party crowd. A small gathering filled the first floor lobby, music and drinking filling the empty spaces between mingling bodies. No one looked up as Chillard and the felarnian agent walked through the front door and into the stairwell.

"What do I call you?" he asked as they reached the second floor landing.

"Patricia."

"Ah, yes. The name was popular for felarnian's your age who were born in EC territory." Chillard expected appreciation for his historical knowledge, not the scowl that slid across her face. "It's smart. Traditional felarnian names trip up the human tongue."

"I'm aware," she grumbled.

Chillard gleaned from her surface thoughts that her birth name hadn't been Patricia, but it was changed when she and her brother fled-

He pulled away before she noticed his mind-work. Mind Pacts opened the participants to each other's telepathy, allowing for easier sharing of thoughts. She was no mind-worker which gave him an advantage in their interaction. Chillard contemplated revealing this side effect in a show of full candor, but decided against it. Pact or no pact, he was an agent of the Armada, a Special Diplomat, and she was an unknown foreign intelligence operative. Caution was still his best tool.

"She lives on this floor," he said, grabbing the nob to the fourth floor exit.

The door opened and a group of young engineers filed down the steps, laughing and joking. Apparently, their project had been placed on hold due to a stationwide data node test and they were on paid leave until further notice. Patricia gave him a knowing look as they left the stairs and walked down the hall.

"Bringing Mastermind-308 online is tying up the station's data nodes and the system can't risk other projects interfering with the bandwidth." Patricia wrote a note in her datapad. "Interesting."

"How much processing power does CTRL need? A station this size should theoretically have more than enough nodes for three or four Core AIs."

"Usually this is for redundancy. A single super thinker is more than capable of running a station with the standard array."

"This is interesting."

Patricia was clearly a tech specialist, but the way she moved and her combat prowess far exceeded any information expert he'd ever encountered. It would have been impressive if his beak wasn't still sore from their confrontation in the service tunnels. Chillard was no neophyte when it came to hand to hand combat, but she made him feel like he was being schooled by the instructors back in training. He glanced over his shoulder. Chillard had to admit, she was quite the specimen.

"This is her apartment," he said, stopping in front of the last door at the end of the hall. "Her name is Hortensia."

Out the window beside it, transports and pedestrians move about the bustling station as if it were just another day, as if a fugitive were not on the loose and eluding the authorities.

Chilard pressed the intercom and stood in front of the door sensor. A moment later the small panel came to life with a woman's voice.

"Chillard?" The door slid open. "Chillard! My gosh, what are you doing here?" Hortensia stepped into the hallway and embraced him.

"Hortens, it's so good to see you."

Hortensia Zoraida was a little woman with poor hearing and an eye for symmetry. She had a talent for design and a small crush on Chillard he was careful to occasionally nudge. Special Diplomats were taught to cultivate assets early in their training. They were expected to get into people's heads with both mind-work as well as more traditional efforts.