The first thing on Orion's agenda after regaining the book was to take down BioPort Labs. They had been dealing in human experimentation and the development of bio soldiers. This specific task was crucial to completing the most optimal outcome as the lab would end up 'recruiting' several important figures. By recruiting, it mostly meant kidnapping them and using their research to start wars.

Ultimately if BioPort Labs weren’t taken down quickly, all of those important people would end up dead for some reason or another. Whistleblowers, escapees, anyone who tried to oppose them. Not to mention anyone they deemed useless. BioPort valued secrecy and results over human life after all.

There was one specific person that absolutely had to stay alive in all of this and it was up to Orion to make sure it happened.

And so, Orion joined the organization intending to take them down, Spectra.

The leader of Spectra was a certain Mr. Spectra, one a generation down from the Spectra that made contact with the Lucidians on account of Orionis Ab’s intervention. He was a youthful gentleman with purple eyes and a pale grey hair which ran in the family.

Orion wouldn't be working directly with him for the most part, but it was important to make a good impression.

"So, you're the one the Lucidians were talking about. Orion, was it?" He paused looking at the file on his desk, "And wow, You're the same age as my kid Viktor. It's nice to finally meet you face to face. I’m sure you already know but I’m Mr. Spectra.” He said reaching out to shake Orion's hand in greeting.

"Yes. It's nice to meet you as well." Orion replied with confidence. After shaking his hand, Orion’s hand slowly drifted towards the pen on the desk in front of him. He picked it up and started playing with it a little.

"You don't need to prove yourself or anything, I know well enough about you without all of that. But I wanted to personally welcome you to our team. So, you intend to join us on the mission at BioPort?" He asked.

"That's precisely my goal here." Orion ran his fingers along the strange texture of the pen, it was smooth but bumpy. The appearance of wood grain gave it an almost natural grain, but it was merely fancy plastic.

"Wonderful. We can have you join up with them as soon as possible. I have some work to finish here, and I will join you for the briefing later today." He said.

"Alright, thank you sir." Orion said. Either Mr. Spectra hadn't realized Orion pocketed the pen or he didn't care enough to question it. He instead got a new pen out from his desk and continued the work in front of him as Orion left.

'Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Everything is going exactly as expected.' Orion thought to himself. 'Now that I've joined Spectra. I'm already one step closer.'

His future involvement with illicit activities would be through Spectra as an undercover operation. Which will prevent certain misunderstandings and difficulties integrating back into society when his work in those places finished later down the line.

This was only one of the many benefits of working with Spectra.

The atmosphere of the place felt almost too casual for a secret agent style gathering. It gave the impression they were going to be doing some manner of icebreakers and team building exercises rather than a briefing about infiltrating an illegal human experimentation laboratory.

A number of people were already in the room when he arrived. He couldn't quite pinpoint what all of them were but not a single one of them was completely human, save for Mr. Spectra himself. Three people at the head of the room appeared to be in charge. They didn't appear to be much older than Orion.

One of the leaders was a wheelchair bound man in a business suit. He was fair skinned, had well-kept dark brown hair and darkly colored eyes with white pupils, a Lucidian no doubt. He wore a dark suit and blue light blocking glasses with an extremely yellow tint clipped to his chest pocket. He said his name was Ricky.

Out of the two girls next to him, one of them, introduced as Claire, was also clad in a formal business suit. She was the guy’s cousin evidently, they looked fairly similar.  She had a pixie cut and a noticeable scar over her eye, a strange feature for a Lucidian. She seemed to be the main leader of the group.

The other was a dark-skinned girl with thick curly ginger hair reaching her shoulders. A human, from what Orion could tell. She also had a businesslike ensemble, but she favored a classy sweater instead of an overcoat. She never introduced herself as she was far too distracted fixing the broken projector, but her name tag said Imani.

This trio was the home base team, they handled all of the information and strategy as well as keeping track of everyone. The meeting mostly revolved around adapting the plan they already had to their new agent.

After a while it was only the three of them and Orion waiting for Mr. Spectra to return and give further direction based on the plan they formulated.

"Orion, right?" Imani suddenly approached him.

"Yeah, and you're Imani I gather." He answered her. She was, to put it simply, gorgeous. He hadn't said anything else, nor was he going to, but Imani put her hand up as if to stop him.

"Before you ask, no I'm not interested." She gave him an odd look.

"In what?" Orion was startled.

"Dating. After what my ex did I have absolutely no intention of that." She explained.

"I wasn't going to ask?" He was still confused.

"Oh, huh?" She looked equally confused.

They both stared at each other until Claire walked over.

"Orion isn't human, you're probably not reading his wavelength correctly." Claire told her then turned to Orion, "Imani is an empath, she's an escapee from BioPort."

"A what?" Orion asked.

"You're not human?" Imani asked in succession. “But you look human.”

"Well not quite, that is, well what are you?" Orion half explained but was still too confused to give a proper answer.

"She's an empath, like, can read emotions and stuff. And not in the simple body language sort of way but like some sort of psychic stuff." Ricky chimed in. "It was a part of Bio Port's Alpha Eta experiments. I'd explain more but I'm sure you'll find out all about it when you arrive there."

"Oh." Orion tried to process it for a moment. "Well why would it be off when I'm mostly human?"

"Mostly." Claire emphasized. "Her power is more like soul reading; human souls are tied in flesh localized closely to the head and spread throughout the body.”

“That's right.” Imani agreed.

“For Lucidians like me and Ricky, our souls exist either in our bodies like humans or in lucid in an almost digitized fashion, but shadows souls are more densely packed into their cores.” She waved her hand over Orion’s head. “Orion’s core is in his brain, so it likely resembles the appearance of a human to you.”

"Oh, so he's a person I can't actually read." Imani nodded.

"It's not that you can't read him, its more that, what he's actually experiencing is likely less intense than what you can perceive." Claire continued.

"I just think she's pretty. Dating is definitely not something I have in mind." Orion's face flushed a bit, he was a bit stiff about it, but it was obvious he was embarrassed.

"Ooo Orion's got a crush." Ricky taunted giving Imani a look.

"Stop messing around." Claire sighed.

"He thinks Ricky is pretty, too." Imani stated glaring at Ricky, it was clear they had some beef with each other, and Orion was now an accessory to it.

"Enough." Claire commanded.

"I'm not pretty, I'm handsome." Ricky pouted. "Orion you think I'm handsome right?"

"I don't see how this is related to the mission." Orion stared at him blankly. He was kind of on the pretty boy side, but he wasn’t going to be rude about it. Even if he was the one who made this conversation weirder.

"He hates you now." Imani stated.

"What did I do? You're the one trying to read his emotions off to everyone." Ricky scoffed.

"Maybe it's because you're annoying." She suggested.

"No, no..." Orion laughed, "Maybe..."

"What?" Ricky started pouting again. Imani and Ricky continued to fuss with each other while Orion mostly sat back watching them going back and forth. 

Orion was able to deduce from the bickering that the last person to quote, 'profess their undying love to Imani' was in fact Ricky. And like what she assumed Orion was going to do, did so shortly after they first met. Their squabble was mostly in jest, but Claire clearly found it quite vexing.

"Quit acting like a bunch of teenagers." Claire said sternly.

"Well, I do regret to inform you that they are a bunch of teenagers." Mr. Spectra said, coming into the room.

"This is a serious mission; I can't let them play around." Claire sighed. She was the oldest out of the lot of them, and probably the most mature. She still struggled at times like these, when things get off track or at least from what Orion could tell.

"It's alright. They can manage themselves fine when they need too." Mr. Spectra said, he himself wasn't anything special. A human, but a good judge of character. An important skill to have in this line of work. “Hey breaks over."

"Hi Mr. Spectra!" Ricky and Imani greeted him in unison, quickly returning to their positions around the table.

Claire was still uneasy, but she managed to slide into her leadership role well with the help of Mr. Spectra. The meeting continued on quite efficiently. Most of it did not concern Orion so he didn't quite absorb any information. He had other things to focus on regardless.

They still had to assess Orion’s capabilities and train him in any aspects he may be lacking in order to increase the chances of success.