Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Apotheosis

The armored hovercar appeared early that morning while Kay was still asleep. Ramirez offered to stay behind and hang out with "the little dude" while they were away; when they showed some hesitation, Maverick offered to stay as well saying, "I don't do kids, but if anyone tries to hurt him I'll turn their brains into a blood smoothie."

With that image in mind, and with some trepidation Sunny and Adam stepped into the vehicle. Adam was wearing his Arcadian Army uniform, black with green highlights, and a high waisted belt. The decoration of the uniform was minimal, but obvious. He wore an eyepatch over his mechanical eye now that his Maker vision was under control. Most of his new powers were relatively easy to ignore in non-stressful situations. He only bemoaned the fact that his life wasn't without stress these days. He caught a look of himself in the rear view mirror and was almost shocked enough to pause.

Did he look that old?

He groaned. With his white hair he looked sixty,

Curse the Makers for making him prone to stress induced loss of pigmentation. It would be find if he had a cool sci fi character to compare himself to, but neither Hon solo or Captain kirk had ever gone grey. Generally TV shows tend to stop once the characters start looking old, and unfortunately for Adam he had started looking old very early. Though he had to admit the white hair would be very cool with his jedi aesthetic.

He was lost in that daydream, trying to decide what color his lightsaber should be when he was interrupted by a voice.

"Adam Vir." Adam shook off his daydreams and nodded politely to he two people in the car with them. A man and a woman, both of them wore suits,. He recognized one of the men as one of the previous GA ambassadors, while the woman was new. Glancing past them and out the front windshield, Adam was surprised to find Arcadian flags sticking up from the front two corners of the car.

He smiled and held out his hand to shake.

"Its good to see you back again Admi- Adam, sorry force of habit even after all these years."

"Sometimes I feel the same."

The ambassador reached out a hand to Sunny, who took it and shook as well.

"I'm going to be honest." Adam said, I thought Hunt would have gotten rid of you once we succeeded from the GA?"

The man sighed deeply, "Turns out he still needed a diplomat, though I certainly did find that my office had been relegated to a room no better than a broom closet, and that was I the basement of the UNSC headquarters in Mericanda."

"He couldn't have forced you further away from him, could he."

"Yes but that is politics. Anyway, Adam, I would like you to meet, Ms. Rayis, she has been appointed the new ambassador to arcadia."

Rayis reached outa hand to shake his, "A pleasure Mr. Vir." She did the same to Sunny, "And a pleasure to you as well... What do you prefer Sunny, Chalan.... Do you even go by Mrs. Vir that certainly doesn't seem like it fits, or is it St of Anin?" Her questions certainly seemed genuine at least on the outside.

"Sunny will be fine, though Chalan works too. They mean the same thing."

The woman smiled, "Oh I suppose I never thought of that. Silly of me as it makes sense human names often meant something in other languages too, we just forgot about them."

Adam tried, he really tried not to get into the woman's head, but she had been appointed by Hunt, so he couldn't help but suspect there might be more to this woman than here seemed. Her thoughts came into his head in a trickle at first and then a torrent. A part of him wanted to stop feeling like this was a horrible invasion of privacy, but another part of him felt that it would be stupid not to do soemthing.