Air

Les Cayes Haiti, September 16 2047

Great to see you back on all two, agent Latour. I could not have possibly have known the real leg from the prosthetic one if they hadn’t sent me over here the day of your, …, uh, …, accident.
They did an amazing job at the hospital now didn’t they sir.

As the young man spoke, Xavier tried to assess his new companion.
He looked like a street thug cleanly shaven and suited up for a family member's wedding. This new one quite clearly had not been wearing the agent-suit all that long. He looked quite uncomfortable in his suit and was apparently always quite busy readjusting parts of his attire that hardly needed readjustment at that time.

Zut alors, so apart from my new prosthetic, this freluquet is also going to weigh me down.

Please young agent Reid, if we are to be working together I would suggest we dispense with the formalities. You may refer to me as Xavier and if you don’t mind I'd rather refer to you on a first name basis as well. I have some reports to file just now, but if you could arrange for passage back to Paris as soon as possible. Nothing personal, but I’m planning to make this partnership a short one. Our first mission and our 'only' mission together will be to rescue agent Bridgewater from New Babylon. We need to get back to Paris for leads.

I trust your training included investigative skill training?”

The young man, getting visibly even more nervous than he had been thus far, took a small step back.

Mr, … Err,... Xavier? I’m hesitant to go against the chain of command, you being my superior and all, but our orders? Weren’t you briefed by the colonel? Mister Xavier sir?
The colonel ordered us to join the beach crew that is investigating the tree incident as soon as the doctor would clear your release, sir.

Enough with the sir already! Xavier exclaimed.

Do I wait for the colonel to brief me on this tree incident? Or could you be so kind to tell me what it’s all about?

Xavier was mildly annoyed by the idea that he had to be bothered with something as dumb as a tree. Surely, young agent Reid had misunderstood his orders. How could a mere tree get priority over what happened to him and John in Paris? John abducted by a new unknown type of New Babylon spacecraft. A disturbed old man using impossible technology and instantly transporting him all the way across the Atlantic through some kind of alien portal sphere. No way the colonel would send him to deal with some tree incident on the beach!

As Xavier and the young agent Reid walked around a corner of the hospital corridors, Xavier noticed two men in white walking towards them with a worried look on their faces.
While both wore white, and both were old and somewhat frail looking gray old man in their mid-sixties, both their clothes and way of walking, but also the way they interacted with each other showed these two were in no way alike.

The man on the right was as close to the prototypical Haitian doctor you could get. A bright-eyed freshly shaved face. The flawlessly-white doctor's coat worn on top of a red and white striped shirt with matching red tie.
The other man in white looked rather out of place in the hospital setting. His stride, while slightly limping and displaying the first signs of approaching old age, still showed a hint of the feline movement patterns typical for New Zion agents. This wasn’t an agent though, at least not anymore, not for a long time. His white suit from the same fabric as that of any agent's, cut by the very same top tailors who had made his own suites.

The suits that agents and mid-level officers wore though, not black, not white. Only higher level officers in the New Zion ranks wore white suits. Brigade General and up.
Then Xavier's eyes noticed the white tie and the white belt. The only non-white part of his attire were his huge black shades.

Xavier stopped in his track and saluted the Army General.

At ease agent Latour. I was just on my way to come and speak to you about your knowledge on the tree incident. Good to see you are on your feet already.

As Xavier looked quizzed at the general, the general put what was left of his small but thick cigar in his mouth. An unusually bright red light emitted from it.
Then the cigar suddenly lit up and the general quickly threw it to the ground, calmly placing the sole of his white shoo on top of it to extinguish the burning cigar.

The doctor looked at the general in a disapproving way for half a second, then remembered his place and averted his eyes towards his own feet.
Oxygen! The General spoke in a way as if it was somehow an explanation of his cigar spontaneously bursting out in flames.

As the general noticed Xavier’s quizzing face, he added:

I will explain agent Latour, I shall explain it all to you later.
But first agent Latour, I believe you are the one who might help us explain what the hell is going on with this enormous tree that followed you in your wake.

---

If you enjoyed reading this chapter, below is an index to all the draft chapters I posted on steemit so far. I am currently running a little beta reading competition/lottery for part one of Ragnarok Conspiracy.

---

Index

If you enjoyed reading this chapter, please have a look at the other chapters I've posted on steemit so far and follow me for more installments from this series:

Part One: Beginnings

1. Dakila
2. John
3. Gwen
4. Bjarne
5. Rachella
6. Pete
7. Wietse
8. Xavier

Part Two: Concequences

1. Gwen
2. Dakila
3. John
4. Pete
5. Bjarne
6. Wietse

Part Three: Robert

1. Carnage
2. Soviets
3. Debrisphere
4. Roughnecks
5. Fiat 500
6. Lecture
7. Caverns
8. Cipher
9. Confrontation

Part Four: Midgard

1. Tables Turning
2. Sleipnir
3. Captured
4. Reset
5. Air
6. Coordinates
7. Forgotten
8. Foreign Dreams

Part Five: Nilfheim

1. Perseus-Pisces
2. Holocene Past
3. Jötnar
4. New Allies
5. Old Enemies
6. Whack-a-mole
7. Aesir
8. Antifragile
9. Cold Start