"Lina" Avistra said barging complete uninvited into the small laboratory she was working in, her hair pulled back under a silver headband with a giant blue gem in the middle and her black boots clunking loudly on the floor.

"What is it, your highness" Lina said more as if talking to her daughter than her princess.

"Did you not know that the human you used to access the hyperplane was a CIA agent?" Lina looked at Avistra, not even seeming fazed by the angry elfess talking to her.

"No, I didn't know that" Lina said cooly and with no sign at all from intimidation. "I just assumed he was one of the Network's operatives. You'll have to talk about that with Royal Intelligence about that."

"I just had a conversation with the Union CIA director Roy McGrath" she said ignoring the advice. "They are also looking for this human and his humaness partner. He visited the Adaforbus branch of the Humanology Lab under medical custody apparently for some kind of brain-warping procedure." Lina took a look at the paper.

"That's strange" she said looking perplexed. "I would've guessed that if he had full course of this particular treatment he'd lose his ability to see in the hyperplane. This human is a pretty fascinating specimen indeed." She handed the paper back to Avistra.

"You didn't even think to run more tests on him or question him?"

"It was hard enough to get him to agree to come. I had to make a concession to him that there'd be no tests on him."

"Well" Avistra said sounding impatient, "can't you get him to just come back again?"

"I could try, but I can't promise anything. It was Azari Yuler who found him for me, and if he suspects I want him for you he might not help. Besides, in his stay at the Humanology lab the human had a brain scanner on him for a full day. Probably not anything more we can learn from him in any more tests." Avistra was silent for several seconds.

"Do you think that my baby son might have inherited his visual cortex from this human?"

"It's possible" Lina said continuing her work and not looking at her. We will have to wait until he gets older to test him. Just know that elf genes tend to supersede oddities and flaws in the human gene pool in half-breeds. I wouldn't get my hopes up, honestly."

"Lina" Avistra said firmly seeming to have noticed her stolid and somewhat indifferent attitude, "please do not make me feel uneasy about your overseeing of this institution. I hope that you are sensitive to my concerns and are being wary about human snoops in the HL."

"Your majesty" Lina said in a way that sounded deliberately slow and assertive, "this institution has the unique burden of walking the tight rope of investigating truths that must be respected and yielded to but not spoken. And there's no one more qualified than me for that delicate balance." Avistra paused for a moment to stare right into her eyes, as if to remind her of who she was.

"If there's anything you can do to get this human to me, then do it" Avistra walked out the way she came, the sound of her boots clonking on the floor filling the room again.