It was the talk of the office. When the number missing reached 15, Robert as Lead-Informant knew decisive remedial action was needed to ensure the Department’s survival. It would not be easy to persuade The Council to employ an intergalactic military psychic. In times of austerity for the masses, how could such fiscal extravagance be justified? Fortunately, Supreme Commander Shand of Joint Forces was an ally. Anything that affected the continuity and security of the Colonisation Expansion Programme would naturally silence the naysayers.
Common chatter attributes the memorableness of Vicky’s first visit for her progression to the fourth and final interview. On entering the Questioning Chamber, she had gazed upwards to take in the lofty conical structure from base to apex. Her spatial sensory detectors must have been overwhelmed by the immense volume of vacuousness encountered, resulting in a malfunction. She collapsed over the Questioners’ dais, an unsheathed arm hit a full glass of amrit elixir and it spilt. Neutralising the resulting sweet stench of sizzling hot electrics was the bane of the cleansing team. Called back to interview rounds two, three and four, Vicky solved all Wordle challenges in one line, located 12 of the 15 missing exploratory Ranger Crafts, with colonisers unharmed and weaponry intact, and was thus able to convince the Questioners to appoint her, asserting that her lack of personal psychic awareness in predicting the amrit “accident” was just that, personal. She highlighted her paranormal ability to visualise and geographically locate the Missing12, and reminded the panel that psychic analysis applied personally has a much lower success rate than for matters universal.
“Otherwise”, she ventured to ensuing laughter, “all Financial Advisors, acting for themselves, would utilise their clairvoyant powers to become multi-millionaires.”
Robert had voted against Vicky’s appointment. He hesitated to trust Cyborgs; not because they were a hybrid of human and machine, rather a suspicion of what unknown inbuilt variations could be activated by their creators or current handlers. Vicky’s task was to use her powers to recover The 3 (as the missing Ranger Craft were now known) and identify the culprit. Speculation was rife, one of their own, a double agent, a hostile power? The permutations were limitless. Some even suspected the now rehabilitated Commander Shand. Earlier in his career, before the Grand Skirmish, Shand had formed an ill-advised alliance with The Registered Worlds culminating in slaughter on both sides, the mass destruction of their treasure trove of minerals, gems and metals, and the collapse of Intergalactic Trade and the Universal Economy.
Vicky focused on the earphones’ sounds. As the vibrations on her auditory cortex resonated with her own heartbeat, she achieved syntony with the planet’s vibrational frequency. She “saw” The 3 covered with an invisibility cloak on a dusty far-flung satellite at the edge of the war-ravaged Registered Worlds.
Robert admitted at trial that he had been recruited by the Anti-Shand Army. He was sentenced to hard labour at the penal colony on GN-z11.
It was the talk of the office.
