10-05-2013, 05:22 PM
While Alric waited around to live or die, the majority of the previous two days' schedule was filled with the presence of his Privilege from DV: the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. To call the region dynamic was the understatement of his life. Whereas screen appearances and quarterly trips throughout the remaining Dominances maintained the status quo, flights to Dubai, the DV capital, were on a near monthly basis now.
The Privilege of this increasingly volatile region was a man of Saudi descent and devoutly religious. He appealed to the majority of the region's demographic, and served as a trustworthy link between the Ascendancy and a culture quite foreign to him. According to this man, there were veins of religious unrest arising in areas geographically isolated from CCD influence. Groups were gathering in earnest and an individual man, Muhammad al-Hasan al-Mahdi, was gaining more and more of a following, someone arising from the ashes of the past, perhaps prophesied, perhaps not, and certainly not honored by the entrepreneurial spirit of the Ascendancy's vision of his future world.
Right now, the Privilege was pulling his strings to discover this man's exact intentions. As a Sunni, his prestige and personal network would provide Nikolai with insight that would only add to official CDPS analysis of the situation. If a situation was indeed developing, a tour through the region was going to mandatory; things always seemed to settle down after speaking with the people directly, but he had to be there in person.
In all that, he had not forgotten Alric.
The Kremlin security team saw Nikolai moved from the governance building, the fortress that formerly occupied the Russian Senate, to meet with the man. Yet Nikolai was productive during an otherwise wasted ten minute span of time. While they walked, he read updates on Alric formatted to a relatively simple layout of notes, information, background and pictures. They were fed to a MONI device that projected an image directly to one retina, extremely advanced technology field tested on a thousand anonymous subjects before a surgeon so much as touched the Ascendancy. The META Optic-Nerve Implant was integrated to a sensor on his person that let him swipe through the screens with a subtle and brief wave of one hand -- a cold metal ring circling one finger might have something to do with it. Head held high and staring straight, through dual-distance vision, he saw relatively little of the Kremlin opulence pass him by. In return, all anyone saw of him was a focused sword of power undistracted by bureaucratic minutiae like reading reports.
From the briefings, he learned Alric was in good health, if hungry, but that was not unanticipated by the physicians. More importantly, his state of mind was sharp and loyal.
Nikolai dimmed the MONI image to full opacity before entering the isolation room. The door was opened for him and a sole agent preceded his entrance. The moment Nikolai himself crossed the threshold, a hundred sensors in the room acknowledged his presence. In response, the harsh halogen lights reminiscent of his childhood shifted their short-spectrum wavelengths, harsh in the way old CFL's of his youth fatigued the eyes, to a longer-spectrum wavelength. It immediately released tension on the eyes of the room's inhabitant. Unsettling and sterile before, the wavelength of emitted light was now flattering, trusting and warm. The manipulation was subtle, but it would put Alric at ease. A feeling meant to be attributed to the Ascendancy's mere presence alone. Had Alric been someone to intimidate, the reverse technique would have been employed.
Hands lightly clasped at his waist, he studied Alric a moment before nodding acknowledgement.
Unhurried, Nikolai crossed to the table, smoothed the jacket of his suit and sat calmly. "You must have questions. Trust now that you are safe, and will be burdened with Sickness no more."
He did not dance around the subject. Nikolai never wasted a moment. "I know. Because I had it also, forty-three years ago."
The Privilege of this increasingly volatile region was a man of Saudi descent and devoutly religious. He appealed to the majority of the region's demographic, and served as a trustworthy link between the Ascendancy and a culture quite foreign to him. According to this man, there were veins of religious unrest arising in areas geographically isolated from CCD influence. Groups were gathering in earnest and an individual man, Muhammad al-Hasan al-Mahdi, was gaining more and more of a following, someone arising from the ashes of the past, perhaps prophesied, perhaps not, and certainly not honored by the entrepreneurial spirit of the Ascendancy's vision of his future world.
Right now, the Privilege was pulling his strings to discover this man's exact intentions. As a Sunni, his prestige and personal network would provide Nikolai with insight that would only add to official CDPS analysis of the situation. If a situation was indeed developing, a tour through the region was going to mandatory; things always seemed to settle down after speaking with the people directly, but he had to be there in person.
In all that, he had not forgotten Alric.
The Kremlin security team saw Nikolai moved from the governance building, the fortress that formerly occupied the Russian Senate, to meet with the man. Yet Nikolai was productive during an otherwise wasted ten minute span of time. While they walked, he read updates on Alric formatted to a relatively simple layout of notes, information, background and pictures. They were fed to a MONI device that projected an image directly to one retina, extremely advanced technology field tested on a thousand anonymous subjects before a surgeon so much as touched the Ascendancy. The META Optic-Nerve Implant was integrated to a sensor on his person that let him swipe through the screens with a subtle and brief wave of one hand -- a cold metal ring circling one finger might have something to do with it. Head held high and staring straight, through dual-distance vision, he saw relatively little of the Kremlin opulence pass him by. In return, all anyone saw of him was a focused sword of power undistracted by bureaucratic minutiae like reading reports.
From the briefings, he learned Alric was in good health, if hungry, but that was not unanticipated by the physicians. More importantly, his state of mind was sharp and loyal.
Nikolai dimmed the MONI image to full opacity before entering the isolation room. The door was opened for him and a sole agent preceded his entrance. The moment Nikolai himself crossed the threshold, a hundred sensors in the room acknowledged his presence. In response, the harsh halogen lights reminiscent of his childhood shifted their short-spectrum wavelengths, harsh in the way old CFL's of his youth fatigued the eyes, to a longer-spectrum wavelength. It immediately released tension on the eyes of the room's inhabitant. Unsettling and sterile before, the wavelength of emitted light was now flattering, trusting and warm. The manipulation was subtle, but it would put Alric at ease. A feeling meant to be attributed to the Ascendancy's mere presence alone. Had Alric been someone to intimidate, the reverse technique would have been employed.
Hands lightly clasped at his waist, he studied Alric a moment before nodding acknowledgement.
Unhurried, Nikolai crossed to the table, smoothed the jacket of his suit and sat calmly. "You must have questions. Trust now that you are safe, and will be burdened with Sickness no more."
He did not dance around the subject. Nikolai never wasted a moment. "I know. Because I had it also, forty-three years ago."