No, the stares of the group were not lost on John, but he chose to relish it, taking no small amount of encouragement from Neal’s obvious amusement at it all. Yes, thought John, you should learn to deal with it. Because if you think this is strange, my friends, you should try waking up one day in an alien body, feeling every bit like the person you had always been, but now having these strange hands, flexing your legs and having the knees bend unnaturally forward. If you knew how disconcerting that was you wouldn’t complain at having to just meet a humanoid robot for the first time, John thought. He’d had to deal with being a robot.

But the strangest thing had been meeting himself, the real him, the Mobiliei who had volunteered to have his personality inserted into this machine to govern it. They had exchanged a few code words. The real John Hunt had needed to check that this copy of his personality retained the secret purpose it had been put there to serve. It had been the strangest of days for both of them.

Of course there were perks. There are few people, either Mobiliei or human, who would not enjoy the power the machine body gave the Agents. Never hungry, never tired, never struggling to recall a memory. The weapons, the speed, the sheer unadulterated power. It was a heady feeling right up to the moment you remembered the genocidal purpose behind all those abilities, and the danger of your mission, not only to your quarry, but, in John’s case, to everyone he knew and loved, were he to be discovered.

Setting the thought aside John turned to the three remaining members of the group, “While the colonel had been mentioned by Neal and Madeline when last we met, I am afraid I do not know the three of you at all, which, no doubt, is a very good thing.” John said, inducing frowns on the group’s faces.

But Neal nodded and smiled at John, explaining it to the group as he ushered them all farther into the hangar, “If John here doesn’t know who you are it means you have not been flagged as being associated with Madeline and me. Trust me when I say that is definitely a very good thing.” They all nodded appreciatively and Neal continued, “John, let me introduce our three new friends.

“Ayala here has been with us since soon after you first approached Madeline and me. I hope she will not mind me saying she is uniquely qualified in the art of both discovering and keeping secrets. I think it is safe to say she is a very big part of why Madeline and I are still alive.”