Meanwhile, back on Primordial Earth…
There were two types of employees for the Primordial Earth Protectorate – full time pencil pushing bureaucrats like Agent Hulio and part time mission specialists.
Full time agents worked the daily grind in agency offices. They drank coffee, pushed pencils, surfed on social media and complained about off world management.
Part time mission specialists worked in the field, dispatched across the timelines of Primordial Earth – from Homo erectus using its faeces to make cave paintings, all the way through the sands of time to the events that led to the inevitable destruction of Primordial Earth and human civilisation in the Sol star system.
They only undertook their duties when activated to work in the field. Unlike full time agents who were aware of their employment, part time mission specialists lived ordinary lives, blissfully unaware most of the time that they worked for the Protectorate.
The neural implants of mission specialists were designed to block the memories of their alter-egos. It was only when they were selected for a mission and extracted by the Protectorate, did their neural implants unblock the memory of their alter egos. It was best for a mission specialist to live most of their lives in ignorant bliss. Missions were always dangerous and often fatal.
Fortunately, thanks to a union agreement, mission specialists killed on assignment had their mortal remains immediately teleported from the field, reconstituted and resurrected before stepping out of a teleportation pod, respawned to be debriefed and then sent back to their everyday lives.
The union agreement also stipulated that an agent killed 12 times in the field was to be automatically retired from duty with all mission memories and knowledge of the agency unlocked…
I mean, if a retired agent decided to become a whistleblower, it's not like anyone would believe them anyway. Besides, with a digital ocean of yoga pants and celebrities lowering the bar on intellectualism and social decorum, there were always plenty of distractions for the truth to be sunk into the quicksand of cyberspace.
Anyway, I know it's confusing and complicated but it doesn't get much simpler from here I'm afraid…
When Agent Hulio's tracking function went silent a green and beige alert was triggered by the Primordial Earth Protectorate's quark-lepton quantum SI. At several times the speed of light, the SI scanned the global agent's database for suitable mission candidates across multiple timelines. This was a search and rescue mission and the unknowns were well, they were unknown.
Consideration was also given to the location of Agent Hulio's disappearance, Amsterdam. It was a city littered with canals, boats and dazed tourists running into lamp posts.
In a few trillionths of a picosecond, the mainframe selected two young agents in their prime for the mission. A couple of high achievers full of 'can do' and 'gung-ho' majestical mojo.
Both agents were ultra-terrestrial beings, refugees from catastrophes that occurred on their home worlds in their respective universes. Both were granted asylum on Primordial Earth in exchange for 12 regenerations of service to the Primordial Earth Protectorate.
Surveillance Agent code-named Big Budgie, was a Triquillion parakeet. His true form resembled a flightless purple budgie with prehensile feet, standing five feet tall. A hard-light holographic implant used force fields and emitted light to give him the solid to touch, physical illusion of being an attractive but nerdy human male in his mid-30's. Mediterranean in appearance, possibly Greek? No, Maltese for sure. One thing was for certain, his hard light holographic disguise was a dead ringer for a Mediterranean version of Seth Rogan.
Big Budgie was also an analytical prodigy with an affinity for technology that would make Robocop blush. He was a passionate agent and genuinely loved his work. In addition to being cerebrally formidable, which was a polite way of calling him a hard-core nerd, he was tall, solid and with the hard light holographic disguise that if he actually took the time to lift weights, he would be built like a brick unit.
Big Budgie contrasted his technical knowledge and intelligence with a savage temper kept on a thick chain and with a mouth loaded with potential profanity. He also had a sweet tooth for peppermints.
His mission partner was code-named CampDog. Camp-Dog was a Lycanthropan. These beings evolved on a habitable parallel version of Earth's moon. They were humanlike in appearance except during a full moon, when they transformed into werewolves, similar to those described in Primordial Earth folklore. CampDog had an implant as well, a hormonal blocker that suppressed these transformations.
He was a linguistic genius. He naturally spoke 16 human languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Norwegian, Italian, Russian, Swahili, Dinka, Hindi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Classical Arabic and North Queenslander.
However, his neural chip implant could access the federation's pan cosmic cloud and augment him to be fluent in six million and one forms of communication. It was originally six million but CampDog spent a few months backpacking on an uncharted planet in the Cartwheel galaxy. He learned an interesting version of pancosmic common from a tribe of sentient barking spiders.
This version used flatulence to produce language. It was actually quite useful since not all sentient species communicated with the orifice, they used to consume food. CampDog was somewhat famous for uploading this language of flatulence to the omninet. It is now considered a valuable resource, especially for the legislative branches of governments.
CampDog was quite lanky and somewhat small and fragile for a field agent. In his humanlike form, he had a strong aversion towards unarmed combat. However, he made up for this with witty comebacks a stiff upper lip and the ability to run away.
He could also grow a beard by dusk from a clean shave at dawn and no amount of muscle and ability to 'whoop arse' could match that for masculinity. Of course, without his hormonal blocker, if CampDog transformed then his entire disposition and physical abilities would change as he'd go on a rampage of violence and unbridled debauchery.
Once both agents were selected the Protectorate SI accessed a convenient time and place in space in which to teleport them to the Protectorate headquarters beneath Antarctica.
Surveillance Agent Big Budgie was pushing a shopping trolley down an empty isle in Costco when he disappeared in a blinding shimmer of pink and purple light.
Field Agent CampDog was jamming Thunderstruck by ACDC on his 12-string acoustic guitar and smoking a cigarette on the dunny while blasting a brown October. He also disappeared in a similar blinding shimmer of pink and purple light.
Both agents would be briefed at headquarters. They would then undertake and complete their mission before being teleported back to the exact point and place in time from which they were extracted. At the end of their mission, Big Budgie would go back to pushing his trolley at Costco … and CampDog would finish that 12-string jam session on the porcelain throne.
But that was then and this is now…
After visiting a series of questionable establishments, Field Agent CampDog stumbled into a bar. A live band played a fairly decent cover of Gold on the Ceiling by The Black Keys, CampDog was quite the method actor when on a mission and needing to blend into different environments.
The bartender barely raised an eyebrow as CampDog stumbled and fumbled in a mild daze, towards the bar, bumping into an empty chair and then into the shoulder of a giant Norwegian looking guy, making him spill his stein of Heineken.
"Unnskyld meg, du veldig store mann, tydeligvis nedstammet fra store ass vikinger," said CampDog to the man, "du drikker det trollpisset Heineken. Egentlig opphever jeg unnskyldningen min, da jeg gjorde deg en tjeneste."
"Fortsett å bevege deg lille mann," said the big Norweigan guy, "før jeg får baren øm, hell meg en øl til, og denne gangen blir hodeskallen min til glasset mitt."
"Point taken," replied CampDog as he hurried along towards the bar.
"Ease up on the exuberant substances Agent CampDog," advised Technical Support Specialist Agent Big Budgie from the safe confines of his hotel room. He sat at a cheap desk with five holographic screens projecting from a cube which he had placed in the middle of the desk top.
The fifth holographic screen projected above the other four. Unlike the four screens below which were providing video and sensory feedback from cloaked robotic insects which zoomed around CampDog, the fifth screen was playing The Fellowship of the Ring.
"Hello sir," said CampDog to the bartender, "could I have three shots of your best tequila?"
"I said to ease up on the exuberant substances," grumbled Big Budgie into his mouthpiece, "and be mindful of our expenses budget."
"Nah, blah, nah," replied CampDog.
"Excuse me?" asked the bartender.
"Oh, I was just mumbling to an anal retentive, by-the-books voice in my head and not to you, kind sir."
"Fair enough," replied the bartender. He seemed barely phased by the oddness of CampDog. It was after all, Amsterdam.
The bartender poured three shots of tequila.
CampDog waived his Protectorate issued tricorder, which was disguised as a phone and paid for the shots. He then proceeded to smash each shot, slamming the shot glasses onto the bar.
He placed his elbow on the bar, leaned over and said, "Hey buddy, I know you get a lot of people in and out of such a fine establishment as this, but I'm wondering, if I showed you a photo of my mate I'm looking for, do you think you might recognise him?"
"I might," said the bartender.
CampDog leaned over the bar a little more and showed an image of Agent Hulio on the screen of his 'phone', "That old bookstore around the corner, the one that sells obscure works of Soviet literature, they told me that my mate said in passing as he left the bookstore, that he was going to this bar to rendezvous with,"CampDog made quote marks with his fingers, "the love of his life."
The bartender stared at Hulio's photograph, "Yes, I know of the bookstore, Lenin's Literature. I don't think they do very well. We are the closest bar from that store, I guess … but I'm sorry, I don't recognise your friend."
"Shame," replied CampDog.
As a linguistic expert, he had subtly read the bartender's body language. The man had clearly recognised Agent Hulio's mug. CampDog was about to put some verbal heat on the bartender when Big Budgie interrupted…
"CampDog! Abort mission! I repeat – abort mission!"
CampDog smiled at the bartender and then turned away, he took a few steps, "Why? This guy definitely knows something."
"It doesn't matter anymore," Big Budgie pushed up his big square spectacles, "I'm receiving an urgent recall order through emergency encrypted chains of quantum entanglement."
"Well, I'm not receiving anything."
"The entanglement doesn't involve our neural implants," Budgie was busy reading streams of code appearing on all screens, "like I said, it's encrypted. I'm translating the code at the moment with assistance of my neural impl… Faaar out fudge me righteous."
For the next 30 seconds, all Agent CampDog heard, well, 'heard' as a result of the signal sent via an electrode extending from his neural implant to his auditory cortex was Big Budgie going ballistic like, well, like a budgie going ballistic at its own image, head butting the mirror and all of that.
"BB, BB, BB mate, calm down for a second and tell me what's wrong?"
"Crap, it's not good mate."
"What's not good? Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?" CampDog was becoming quite concerned and somewhat irate.
"The Protectorate HQ is under attack."
"What?" now CampDog was quite alarmed and irate, "who was it? The Russians? The Chinese? The Union of Jamaican Punk Rockers? The Freemasons? The Illuminati? The Tasmanian Royal Family? The Build-a-Burgers? The Bogan Militia?"
"Nope," replied Big Budgie, "it's an attack from off world."
"Off world?" questioned CampDog, contemplating for a second, "Was it the Gerbil Mafia or perhaps the Ninja Gorillas From Beyond The Moon? Maybe the Samurai Toads? They're launching terrorist attacks against the machines from Victa 4 at the moment. Surely not the Felines of Fondue? I know they're really fired up over the assassination of Tacocat, their patron saint of palindromes. Oh no, don't tell me with the global Vegemite shortage right now, that it was the Uranium Powered Drop Bears from Titania, largest moon of Uranus!"
"Nope, none of those, it's a combined Minger/Daemon-Shihtz attack and it's bad, like … really bad."
"Bartender," said CampDog, a pint of your finest Mexican pilsner and keep them coming, "hey, fellow on stage with the black and white Charvel," he said while rolling a cigarette, I'm commandeering that guitar!"
"Get your game face on CampDog!" bellowed Big Budgie, "we're about to be teleported back to headquarters to help to repel the attack."
CampDog smirked in denial, "Naaah mate, I'm a lover not a fighter."
"We have no choice! Beaming back to HQ in four, three…"
CampDog sculled his beer in nervous gulps.
"Two, one…"
CampDog dropped his beer glass, closed his eyes and let out a loud and inhuman, wolflike howl…
But nothing happened.