Black Faced & Red Handed

In the war room of a black-site installation two figures, one slender and the other bold, sat at either ends of a long rectangular table the color of naked shoal, exposed by the parting of a great dark sea of empty long-backed executive chairs. The room would have been pitch-dark were it not for the green, flickering light from the holographic projection in the center of the table. The projection was a green-tinged three dimensional image of a man in his early to mid thirties, long brown hair, and glasses. The seated slender figure stood to its full height, and by the jade colored radiation from the flickering projection, revealed itself to be a young woman smartly dressed: dark hair in a bun punctuated with two chopsticks, a tailored blazer, pencil skirt and stockings. Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked to the other end of the table, passing by the empty long backed chairs on her right as she went. With her left arm she held a file to her chest, as if to safeguard it from blowing away in a breeze. Her heels stopped clicking when she arrived at the chair closest to the bold figure’s right-hand side, who by the green light was visible to her as a burly, but graying man in a neatly pressed uniform. She sat down in the chair and cleared her throat. “Director, sir.” She said slowly “I am serious” The Director was loud but his baritone was pleasant to listen to. “Allison?” He asked, “Bah! He’s a ne’er-do-well Williams, a Gamer, a-a pothead! You know there's not a single other candidate from his program alive today? We should have scrapped that project decades ago.” “Director, Sir.” Williams began, “I know he seems a tad...unconventional but I ask that you reconsider, he could be an asset. We’ve been watching him for sometime, take a look at his language aptitude.” Williams put down the file she had been carrying, and slid it across the table towards the Director, who trapped it’s motion with his pointer, middle and ring fingers. He gave a long sigh, “You’re my best and brightest Williams, better not be wa