- What do you mean? - Chang responded - That's just some boring paperwork I had to sort through...
- Boring, but useful - Einstein came closer to the stack of paper.
I, being curious, did the same. The writing on the documents was the most uninteresting thing I've seen during my missions so far - just a log full of dates, departures and arrivals of various shuttles, along with painstakingly long lists of their contents. It wasn't intriguing one bit - even the colors were monnotonnous, only black and white!
And yet, Einstein wanted to investigate this particularly dull stack of documents. He picked up the whole pile in one go, carrying it to Chang's desk, much to the latter's disdain. I saw that the effort was too much for Einstein, so I came over to support him and took half the sheets from him. They were really heavy on their own, so I couldn't imagine how Einstein, an elderly man, must have felt carrying twice as much as this.
I gazed upon my heap. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing of immediate interest. Every sheet was so similar to every other in the mound that they might as well be the same thing copied a thousand times.
- Can someone finally give me a proper explanation on why you bust into my office and dig through the dullest heap of paper on the whole planet without my consent, searching for some villains?! - Chang crashed out, running out of patience.
- They aren't some random evildoers - Dawn stated.
- They're behind the theft of alien life samples and it's not the first time we're crossing them! - Sebastian added, accidentally revealing our failure to stop them during our latest mission.
Those villains in question are known (in the Agency's database) as Vladislav Kilov and Bruise. Kilov impersonated a detective aboard the Hyperspace to lead us into a death trap, eventually vanishing without a trace. Bruise personally interrogated me, being a very intimidating muscular man. I gave him that nickname, as his real identity is still unknown. If anything, he should be referred to as "Bruises" by now, as we've unintentionally added a second bruise onto his face whilst trying to foil the attempted crash landing of the Hyperspace. Both criminals werent't seen or heard from up until our visit on Europa.
They were the associates of the Perseids, a Russian criminal organization which ended up being the evil faction we fought the most, mainly due to having the most members of any group we've faced thus far. Unlike Lim, they weren't sponsored by their government, but still plotted horrible schemes to benefit their nation, earning a quick buck (or ruble, in their case) in the process.
When Dawn and I were busy crashing Icebreaker-5 to prevent the robbery, a mechanical claw extending from Vladislav's and Bruise's space shuttle nibbled upon the struggling spacecraft, successfully snatching a small bit of the alien goo, the extraterrestrial lifeform in question.
As I've mentioned before, the only clue we have is that the two Russians made it to Venus, specifically the All-Seeing Eye, since we've arrived in this particular habitat. However, it seems like whatever value Einstein noticed in the six-inch-tall heap of paper may be the next hint.
- A... aliens? You're serious...? - Chang laughed, but it wasn't out of amusment. Instead, it was a laughter of helplessness - Like, I know that my brother has experimented with life on the Moon, but fully alien creatures?! That must be a joke!
- We couldn't believe in it too, until we saw it firsthand. Whatever those crooks are doing with it can't be good - Arika emphasized.
- What do those aliens look like? Little green men? - Chang still refused to believe us.
- No, they're like a tan goo that grows towards anything that emits heat. My heated spacesuit almost ended up being overgrown by the stuff when I ran into it- I recalled, having grabbed my smartphone, intending to show Chang a picture as evidence.
It didn't take too long for me to find the photo in question. It was made by Anthony, to make sure that my spacesuit was still in a condition good enough to use in the future. There were tan smears all over it. I passed the phone to Chang, who studied the picture before handing the device back to me.
- How can you prove that it wasn't some mud that stuck onto the suit? - Chang asked, still chuckling.
- Europa isn't Earth, there's no mud over there - I responded.
- I still can't believe that this news - he accented that word, showing that he still took what we said with a grain of salt - wasn't published. This is a game-changing discovery. I think the public ought to know about it.
- Not everyone believes what the government says. We've dealt with conspiracy theories before and know how they work. Even if the government says that the goop is safe and nothing to worry about, someone will still think that it's a ruse to prevent mass panic and the stuff is actually a great hazard. Chaos would ensue, along with fear, and those things are the last ones needed right now, especially during the war - Anthony commented.
At the corner of my eye, I noticed that Einstein was already sorting through the stack of paper, along with Arika, Claudius and a very reluctant Captain Nigel. We were playing against the clock, distracting Chang.
However, the word war affected him more than we expected, enough to look away and notice the rest of our team.
- You know, I could just sic the cops on you... You're digging through files that I was issued to sort through... Spies aren't desk jockeys that sift through heaps of paper! Forget space spies! - he said.
- A solid part of our agency consists of analysts, who do the boring paperwork that is vital to the success of pretty much every mission. Analysts are the ones who uncover important data, acting as guides who tell the field agents where they need to go, what to do, who to look for and so on... Without them, we wouldn't have a SINGLE successfull operation... - Captain Nigel replied, which was surprising, considering how he didn't utter a word during our meeting with Chang Yazhu up until now.
- Okay, I get it, but... are you close to finishing it? This espionage is really starting to bother me and I need to fix that window you smashed through! - Lim's brother briefly glanced upon me.
- We'd be faster if you didn't dump questions onto us and allowed us to do our job - Nigel, being Nigel, grumped.
Chang didn't say anything, so we joined the others and dug through the sheets of paper. There were way more than we expected and the whole ordeal was very exhausing...
- Time Skip -
We finally finished sifting through that horrendously tall heap of paper, but I still didn't know how any listing was relevant to our mission. I couldn't even remember what was written on those sheets, there were just too many of them, blending into one massive, very unclear memory.
- Okay, we're done here - Sebastian breathed a sigh of relief.
- What about the window? - Chang asked.
- The Agency of Cosmic Espionage has you covered - Nebula responded.
Chang grinned at this, his fould mood fading in an instant. Instead of forcing us out of his office, he gently led us out of it, like a nice party host. The key difference was that instead of a party, we had tedious paperwork.
On the way out, I noticed a picture of Lim and Chang standing by each other, seemingly on a shared vacation, as the two appeared to be on a pier on a beach. The picture was hanging on the wall in a nice frame. I didn't get much time to observe it, as we left the room shortly after I noticed it.
- Okay, I'm definitely not becoming an analyst - Sebastian sighed again.
- May I learn what the point of that ordeal was? - I asked.
- Good point. I also don't get why we had to suffer through that - Amber supported me.
- That impressive stack was a comprehensive log of every spacecraft that entered and left the colony during the last year. We found a suspicious one with "anomalous biological material" as its cargo - Einstein expounded - So it wasn't a waste of time.
- Plus, we now know that Lim has a twin brother - Claudius added.
- You think that ship is the escape shuttle? - I asked.
- According to the later sheets, it never left the All-Seeing Eye, which perfectly fits the bill for a hidden spacecraft carrying stolen samples - Anthony clarified - Now let's go find it!
ns216.73.216.64da2
and then Add to home screen.