Jaime Pineda was his name. That was the name his papers showed since 12 years ago, when he changed them legally with he money he saved after his top surgery.

How had he landed a job there was a mystery for many. The only transgender person in many miles, Jaime seemed like the total opposite from the kind of guy that ends up secretly working for the government. Maybe that was exactly why he'd been selected. But even without that in between, there was just one reason why he was there: the man had talent, and he proved it in how he fulfilled any order, whether it was innocent or bloody.

Unfortunately, to favor end over means wasn't always what his superiors wanted. Jaime collected warning calls as if they were stamps, either because he was too rough with the objectives or because he was with his teammates. Because of that he used to work alone, and he preferred so. He'd been fired thousands of times already if he wasn't one of the best at obtaining information, tracking, and following people, and because his vast knowledge of the operations done there gave him connections that made a lay–off the stupidest thing someone could do to him.

That didn't save him from gaining enemies, and he supposed that being sent as one of the two guards for the alien was a type of punishment that one of them had planned for him. If so, they'd be very disappointed: Jaime didn't think that a more interesting chance existed.

"What's this?" he asked, getting his finger close to the membrane around Kaussen.

The doctor backed away immediately, visibly scared. His eyes changed color for a moment from brown to yellow, and then again brown.

"It's a protective suit", he answered a bit calmer. "The oxygen concentration on Earth is too high for my biology, so I use it daily. I'll, uh, I'll kindly ask you to not touch it. Or me. Please."

"So that's why our orders are see not touch, huh?" Alan spoke from a chair near the wall. He had bad posture, with an arm over the back of the chair and a leg over the other, under the shadow of what Jaime couldn't identify beyond 'tree'.

"You're still here?" said Jaime, arching an eyebrow. "I thought your job was to hide behind daddy."

"And I thought yours was to be a stalker gorilla, but it seems we both were wrong."

Jaime knew Alan Zepeda, so did everyone. Alan also knew Jaime, everyone did so. That was their first time seeing in person, and at that moment, they decided they didn't like each other.

"If you're going to fight, can you do it outside? I don't want my plants neither my samples to be compromised." Dr. Kraussen pointed at the door for both. His tone showed he was so frightened as he was tired of his new bodyguards.

"What are you experimenting with anyway?" Jaime asked.

"Bioengineering", the doctor answered. When he didn't get a response, he continued. "I'm fabricating a new species of plant."

"A plant?"

"The first one of many, I hope. For that, I'm combining and modifying DNA of diverse Earth flora."

"And what will you do with that?" Alan asked.

Kraussen looked at them both, and then smiled. He took one of his test tubes, that contained a purple substance, and raised it as a glass for a toast before them. His golden face marks shinned under the white lights of the room.

"Save the world, of course."