/ Chapter 20 – Athena Gets Surprised /

Athena analyzed the pattern of the two security personnel who were watching the forest, guarding a secure area. They would look one way, then another, looking for anything suspicious, but it was clear they weren't too concerned. She waited for them both to look the other direction, then ran very fast from behind her tree into the secure area.

She was currently in Luxembourg, intending to infiltrate a large group of people having a company picnic near Upper-Sûre Lake. The party was for some high-level people in Trans Univex and their families. Her mission was to talk to people and gather information about potential candidates and eventually bleed off more recruits for Plus Ultra.

She waited in the forest, just outside a clearing with the main group of people. She waited patiently for the right moment, then saw a group of people walking through the forest, heading back to the picnic. Athena casually stepped in behind them, following them back in as though she were part of the group. There was a catering table in the center of the clearing where people were getting food. She decided to load up a plate of food herself, as one factor in human trust was "breaking bread," which was a somewhat literal metaphor for eating together.

Athena didn't eat anything, but carried her plate as though she were nibbling as she walked. Around her, she could identify many high-level people in Trans Univex, which were too high risk to try and turn. Her goal was the mid-level people, who were high enough to be useful to Plus Ultra and damaging to Trans Univex, but not so high that there was little chance of recruiting them – and also have the danger of tipping their hand of Plus Ultra's intentions.

She saw one interesting candidate who was on her list. David Ford, one of their intelligence analysts who had an excellent reputation for both competence and morality. There was a good chance he was concerned about the direction the organization was taking, but was in too deep to easily exit.

Moving casually toward him, she saw that he was talking to another colleague. If she was patient, after his conversation, hopefully she could…

Abruptly a man turned around, laughing. "Ah, Petros. We shall see who's right."

Grinning, the man locked eyes with Athena. His grin transformed into a friendly smile at her. He cocked his head slightly, as though he thought of something – a small stray thought. But he simply gave a nod, his smile unchanged, and kept walking.

Athena's outward manner didn't change, but inside she froze. What she just saw was extremely subtle. Normally she wouldn't have worried too much about it; subtle things like this happened all the time, since humans weren't perfectly predictable and her empathy interface occasionally had false positives. But this felt different, because the man she just saw was none other than Eduardo Talamantes, the right hand man to the head of Trans Univex.

She moved away from her original target, feeling like she needed time to consider. She ran back her memory of what she'd just seen. It was still very ambiguous; it could be nothing. But Talamantes had a reputation for being very intelligent and if he was the slightest bit curious about her, she needed to be exceptionally cautious.

Athena casually moved among the picnickers, looking for Talamantes, but he was nowhere in sight. He couldn't have gone far; it was only about five minutes since their encounter. This could also be nothing. He might've just gone to the toilet.

The danger here was considerable. All of this might be excessive worry, but at the very least, she needed to minimize Talamantes's memory of her appearance. Athena disliked when missions failed, but there was no choice. She had to abort. That would ensure their encounter was kept extremely brief and hopefully he would forget about her entirely.

Athena put a bubbly smile on her face and began skipping slowly toward the forest, as though she were going to go play. She twirled around in a little dance, using the opportunity to see if anyone was watching her. So far no one seemed suspicious.

She entered the forest, still doing her little skip, just in case. Athena judged she was beyond sight of everyone and was just about to move to a quicker walking speed when Talamantes himself stepped out of the forest onto the path in front of her.

He looked surprised and smiled at her. He spoke in Luxembourgish. "Hello," he said. "My name is Eduardo. What's yours?"

Athena's internal state went to high alert. She was extremely concerned at this turn of events, but had to determine if this was a coincidence or not, so she played along. So far, her empathy interface didn't evaluate anything suspicious, but he could just be a very good actor.

"My name is Athena," she said, answering in the same language, giving him a very sweet smile. "Isn't it pretty here? I'm having so much fun today!"

"Yes, it's a beautiful day, is it not?" he said. "Who are you with?"

Fortunately, Athena had an answer prepared for this. "I'm with my friend Anne Muller," she said. Muller was a very common surname in Luxembourg, and thus could apply to numerous families. It was unlikely he knew the name of everyone's children and she could plausibly not know the parent's first names.

But Eduardo just nodded with a smile and didn't ask a follow-up question to that, as she thought he might.

"I have to say, child, you have beautiful eyes," Eduardo said.

"Thank you," Athena said, covering a shy smile with her hand.

"Do you want to hear a funny story I heard?" he asked.

This was getting odder. "Yes, please," Athena said, another shy smile. "I love stories, especially funny ones!"

"I bet you do!" Eduardo said with a big smile. "You're just a delightful charmer, aren't you? Well, as you know, often stories are make believe. But I'm very sure this story I heard is absolutely true. So, one day, a man was walking in the forest when he met a little girl. Now, this little girl was so pretty and charming that she could talk the skin off a snake. And this man was so charmed by the little girl that he stopped to talk to her, which was rare for him, because he was quite a busy and important man."

Athena was starting to become concerned about where Eduardo was going with this.

"The man talked to the girl for some time, then she disappeared. The man searched and searched and searched – because he liked her and wanted to reward her and her family. It was no use. But he remembered her – oh yes, he did."

Athena was becoming very concerned.

"Do you want to know just how charming that girl was? She was so charming that she changed the face of global politics. One might say she was inhumanly charming. About her, the man only knew two distinctive things. Her name was Afina and she had vivid blue eyes."

It was time to go. Athena prepared to launch an emergency escape plan. She highly suspected that while all this was going on, she was being surrounded by security forces, though she neither heard nor saw anything suspicious around her.

"If I wanted you captured, I would've tried already," Eduardo said, still smiling at her. "But then, I highly suspect I wouldn't be able to, would I?"

Athena stopped, startled at this turn of events. She decided to drop the charade, since he obviously knew something, and it was worth trying to see what information she could get out of him. Though, it was very interesting that he doubted they could capture her, and he had emphasized 'inhumanly' in his story. Surely he didn't know her nature…

Athena switched to English, hoping to knock him a little off-balance by taking control of the conversation. "It's true that you would have likely engaged security by now," Athena said.

Eduardo's smile faded and he stared at her, wide-eyed. "The mask drops," he said, also switching to English. "I knew you had to be something other than what you appeared to be. But... I still almost can't believe it."

"How did you know? Eyes are not much to go on," Athena asked.

"You're right," Eduardo said. "But you see, moderately important people have been mysteriously disappearing out of Trans Univex. In investigating this, one thing kept coming up when I talked to people. A small girl with vivid blue or blue-gray eyes, whom people remembered because she was so pretty and sweet. And recently, I read a report regarding Brezhnev, and oddly, he looked for a girl of the same description. Then I see a pretty little girl with striking eyes who didn't seem to be with anyone, though she was seemingly with everyone. On a hunch, I decided to wait in the forest where I figured you would go if you wanted to exit, and sure enough, there you were skipping along, the very picture of innocence."

Athena nodded. This was extremely useful information. She needed to keep a lower profile if her description was being noticed like this.

"I should say, by the way, that I believe I'm the only one who noticed the pattern," Eduardo said. "You are extremely effective at what you do. I didn't tell anyone."

This shocked Athena. "Why?"

Eduardo cocked his head, considering. "Would you say I've been very honest with you?"

Athena evaluated his facial expression. "Yes, though I can't be absolutely certain."

"If you would, please answer me a few questions truthfully in exchange. Are you an agent for Plus Ultra?" Eduardo asked. "I think it costs you nothing to admit this, if true."

She considered her answer. It was true that he clearly knew that she was an agent of some sort, and Plus Ultra was pretty much the only answer. He apparently wanted to confirm it. In theory, she shouldn't admit anything and confirm his knowledge. But the opportunity to talk to the second-most important man in Trans Univex was priceless. If she lied to him, he would most likely know or at least highly suspect she was lying. Establishing a bond of trust now was possibly worth the risk.

"Yes, I work for Plus Ultra," Athena said.

Eduardo nodded. "And you have been offering our people asylum and protection?"

Again, Athena decided that she was just admitting what he already knew. "Yes," she said.

"Are you human?" Eduardo asked.

Though he had dropped several hints that he was suspicious of her nature, Athena was still stunned at this question. She was conflicted on how she should answer. Clearly he had suspicions, but he couldn't be sure, and thus she shouldn't admit it since she was considered a secret of Plus Ultra. Lying to him would be risky, however. He'd already proven to be highly perceptive and she was getting extremely important information out of him. To some degree, the secret was out since clearly he wouldn't ask if he didn't have some evidence, conclusive or not. Importantly, she didn't need to admit her level of physical superiority. She again decided that further extending trust was worth the risk.

"No," she said simply.

"Thank you for being honest with me," Eduardo said. "That gives me confidence to continue, because I need confidence. Let me answer your original question. I didn't tell anyone that I noticed the pattern of your behavior because I wanted to find you. I want to join Plus Ultra. I seek asylum and protection."

"We can't trust him," Nix said coldly, looking around the table at the gathered group.

Athena sat next to Caroline, among a full meeting of the advisors of Plus Ultra, including various recruitment personnel. The meeting was led by Governor Sulzer. They were in a large conference room below the ground level of the Plus Ultra Complex, which was considered one the most secure spots in Tomorrowland. There were about thirty people at the table, some quite old, going back to the early days of Plus Ultra.

"No, we can't," an older man, a very famous scientist, said. "But is that really the issue? The question is whether it's worth the risk. Talamantes has information of immense importance. If we had him in our organization, it could turn the tide in favor of Plus Ultra for decades. And he's not just a source of information. From everything we know of him, he's an incredible strategist who would be extremely helpful to Plus Ultra's goals."

"He could be extremely helpful to Plus Ultra," an old woman said, who happened to be a very famous aviator. "Or he could be a plant to destroy it entirely."

"Exactly my point!" said Nix, talking over someone else who said, "We're not making a lot of progress as it is," talking over still another person saying, "We need to stop being so cautious!" overlaid with, "We need to be more cautious!"

"Hold it! Simmer down!" Sulzer said loudly. The room quieted. "We're not going to solve anything shouting over each other."

He turned and said, "Athena, we've all read your report, but perhaps give us a summary from the perspective of whether we can trust him. We know that your empathy is capable of quite subtle measurement of human responses. What is your sense of the man?"

Athena considered her answer. "His background is that he's a very principled man. He grew up with the leader of Trans Univex, Alphonse Mayer de Rousceld, so they have a tight emotional bond. On the surface, this would imply he would be very unlikely to turn. Knowing this, I asked him some very specific questions. My sense was that he was extremely intent on convincing me of his sincerity. Of course, this could mean that he knows that he must be very persuasive to convince us, or it may be that he feels desperate for us to believe him because he truly wants to escape.

"In my opinion, and of course I can't be certain, he is sincere in wanting to escape Trans Univex. I base this primarily on the detail in which he talked of his reasons for wanting to turn. He is extremely concerned about the long-term goals of the organization. He's worried about the world under control of one power, for the reason that he believes it's an inherently unstable form of government. The turning point for him was the destabilization of the nuclear powers, which significantly risks global nuclear war. He doesn't believe the ends justify the means. His reasons seemed well considered."

"Or well-rehearsed," Nix pointed out.

"Yes, it could have been well-rehearsed," Athena agreed to Nix. "But I asked very specific questions to test the depth of his beliefs. If they were false beliefs, he's certainly put a lot of thought into them to quickly give insightful answers. I didn't get the impression he was inventing things on the fly."

Athena addressed the rest of the table again. "I'll also add this. When I inquired about his relationship with Rousceld, he seemed genuinely distressed about betraying him. If his feelings were an act for my benefit, it was a very subtle performance. He actually seemed to want to convince me that he had little relationship with him, as though he thought we would distrust him if he came off as too emotionally tied to him. But in my view, it was the opposite. It was subtly difficult for him to talk about his friend, which suggested his actions had significant emotional consequences."

Athena gave them time to digest her short speech. There was silence around the table as everyone considered her words, though some seemed more convinced than others.

"To summarize, in my opinion, he is genuinely turning and we should take this opportunity," Athena finished.

After a pause, Caroline chimed in. "I'm biased," she said with a thin smile. "But since I know the most about Athena's capabilities, I'll just say that her reliability with evaluating emotions is well established. She's not infallible. But she's also not given to wild speculation. Her analysis is the conclusions with high probability and she filters out others she's less certain about. In other words, she has no dog in this race. If it was all ambiguous and uncertain to her, she would tell us that."

The group nodded at that, considering her words.

Sulzer drummed his fingers on the table, then looked at Athena. "Caroline said something interesting. Athena, speculate for a second. What are the conclusions you sense are correct, but you're not confident enough to say with certainty?"

Athena thought this was an interesting question. "Many things struck me about Talamantes, but one in particular stands out. I believe he's an immensely astute and observant man, capable of remarkable leaps of insight. I was extremely impressed with him. If he was just someone out in the world, I would consider him a top priority candidate."

Sulzer nodded. "Thank you, Athena." He leaned back in his chair, considering. Everyone looked at him silently, giving him time to think.

"I've heard everyone's opinion. No doubt there is significant risk here. If Talamantes's intent is to infiltrate Plus Ultra, get our secrets, then go back to Trans Univex, it'll be extremely damaging to us, and yes, perhaps even fatally. But I believe we have to recognize that despite our win with Brezhnev" – he nodded at Athena – "that was only one battle, and I fear we could lose the long-term war. I propose the following. We extract Talamantes, but we do a very slow, phased integration into Tomorrowland and Plus Ultra. He's only asked for asylum; we've made no promises about delivering the kingdom to him. And we'll certainly take our time planning the extraction. Would that suit our objectors here?"

Everyone looked around the table, particularly at Nix, who was nodding. "I believe that's sensible. I do recognize the huge upside here. I just fear the downside."

"Which is sensible as well," Sulzer said. He then grinned. "Is this what consensus feels like? It's such a refreshing feeling. If only we could feel it more often among us humans, eh, Athena?"

"The novelty of the rare times it occurs is always quite interesting," Athena said seriously.

Author's Note: Please Review!

The official story site is at www. frankandathena .com for discussions of the story! - T.K.