"Dr. Lightman?" Anna's voice rang through his office, distracting him from whatever he was doing beforehand. Dr. Lightman became agitated, yelling out, "Oi, you can't just barge into my office whenever it suits you." Lightman exited his study to find, in addition to Anna, two well-dressed gentlemen. "Ah, the government. You still can't barge into my office whenever it suits you." He strolled over to his desk and fell into his chair. "Alright then, out with it."
The first gentleman, dressed in a typical black, blue tie, suit, approached. He appeared mid-40s, white, short blond hair. He also seemed rather distressed. He began speaking in a mildly thick French accent, "Dr. Lightman, we are not here on part of your government. The government of France is requesting your services."
"Well, the entire government of France? Bonjour, monsieurs."
"It is a matter of national security, sir."
Lightman was instantly amused by the very reference of the term, national security. "Oh, so you have that over there, too. We have tons of national security matters here. What is it that makes yours so special, snowflake?"
The second man, dressed in an identical suit, wearing glasses and appearing only slightly younger stated, "We would like to investigate security matters involving a rogue piece of technology, previously lost a decade, only to reappear within the previous few years."
"Ah, missing technology. Fun for all ages. Do you have people? I read faces, not code. That would be Loker's area of profession."
The older man briefly looked down, before the younger man quickly filled in a very short "Yes." Before Lightman had a chance to comment on that lie, Gillian entered the room. "I was walking by your room, and I see lying government agents. What's happening here, Cal?"
"These two gentlemen are trying to sell me tickets to France. Do you think it's a good idea, Foster?"
"Well that entirely depends on what we'd be doing there," Gillian said, rather perplexed. The Lightman Group is mostly a local or federal agency, not an international one.
The older man took the opportunity to recover, stating, "We would like you to investigate the sudden usage of rogue technology. Who and why. We will pay you for the investigation, flight, and your time."
"Sounds like a good deal to me, how about you, Foster?"
"Well, we would have to leave someone here. We can't just leave the office abandoned," Foster said, rather concerned.
The older gentleman injected with a short notice that the presence of Dr. Lightman, Dr. Foster, Ms. Torres, and Mr. Loker have all been requested. "Well then, we'll just leave Anna, those two interns, Wallowski, and that fellow Torres brought to me a bit ago. I'm positive D.C. won't burn down while we're gone." Foster began to speak but was cut off by Lightman asking the gentlemen to get them flights to France. They nodded and walked away. "Anna, you're in charge!" Lightman followed the gentlemen out of the room. Gillian looked back and forth between Cal and Anna and eventually followed Cal. Anna stood, stunned in confusion.
"So, why are we flying out to France?" Torres asked, again, now that they were mid-flight. "Yeah, uh, we aren't being told anything," Loker followed. Lightman just sighed frustratedly, but Gillian cut him off, "We are heading to France to investigate a national security issue of theirs involving missing technology of supposedly advanced sorts. All we know so far is that a while ago, some man named Waldo Schaeffer went missing. He had qualms about the project he was working on, but he eventually broke off. He was never seen again. He had access to extremely powerful technology, and there are concerns he replicated it for his own purposes." Torres took this in, then realized, "Wait, we're doing jobs for the government again?" Cal then piped in, "Oui, but it's not for our government. See?" Loker and Torres both glanced at each other skeptically. Lightman was Lightman.
They remained silent most of the flight. There wasn't really much to talk about. It was just the four of them, in a foreign country. Cal had arranged for Emily to stay with Zoe. The remaining had no real attachments to keep them from going or to otherwise arrange. The office was under control, and this case was likely to be unique.
"We are arriving at Paris-Orly Airport. Nous arrivons à Aéroport d'Orly."
