Pandora's Noah's Ark Box
Butter Wouldn't Melt

So then, a little while later on, I also get this phone call from Vera – who is back in her office in New York again – and she tells me to prepare for the visit of some Beijing trade envoy or something, who will take up long term residence right here in Western Australia. Something to do with the iron ore mining, or maybe the rare earth metals or whatever.

Vera said she was going to get me an embassy function invite, to where the Chinese envoy would also be attending – to meet and greet.

And even just from the sound of Vera’s voice I could tell she was running a game on me. It was just so obvious. Why do they even try this stupidity, I wondered. Especially after all that had already happened. Obviously, she had the heads up from ‘somewhere’ that something was going on with us down here.

She asked me of course, to keep her updated on where I was at all times during the function. She was another one who prolly thunked her phone call right now was her own idea.

What were they being, in her office – afraid maybe, that I was going to brief the Chinese about something? Ha! What a laugh. Like, they, the Chinese, were even going to even listen to me or something.

Well but then again, the Australian spooks – some of them – had thought for the longest time since the original Jay thing with the Asian twins, that I must have been a deep cover Chinese agent. And yeah I had lived and worked in Hong Kong for awhile and had grown up in Asia but so what, really? Never mind the sheer cultural illiteracy of the idea, and that, despite there are complexities to the whole Hong Kong/China ‘who is really who’ in there story. Vera should have known better too because of the Iran nuclear satellite weapons incident. I couldn’t have been a Chinese agent and assisting the Americans with that.

Never mind, we’re only dealing with profoundly big-headed stupid people.

Time to teach them a lesson. Maybe. Maybe high time, in fact.

Oh well. The burn would certainly hurt this time.

*

I watched a briefing video that Vera had at first seductively dangled, and then obligingly offered to send me, on the Chinese high level operative – her name was ‘Xue.’ Above average height, Western-leaning curvaceousness, extremely well dressed and groomed all the time. Facial expressions were instructive however; comfortable when she was in Shanghai, serious and business-like when she was in Beijing, and very very disdainful, upset even, when she was told about her posting to this backward, far-away place where crass gwai-lo ran around the place like little white savages. Just because this place was easy-picking for the raiding of its raw materials and agriculture and fishing produce... ...was no good reason to send Xue the highly-trained, partly Western-educated upper class Han woman there and do, what, exactly? Fish for who? There was no one important down here.

The reality was Beijing wanted to establish a significant long-term foothold down here, and actually run the place behind the scenes, really. And in the end be able to loop back to wield military power and very effectively project that power and influence from as far South as the Antarctic and all the way back across through the South China Seas.

So Beijing thought it was important. But Xue was personally miffed. That was obvious. And I did not require any ‘special information’ to anchor such an impression in my head.

...Now speaking of people with funny names and slanted eyes – or at least eyebrows in this case – and names that began with ‘X,’ Xan, the ‘sky goer,’ told me pretty much the exact same thing about what was going on in the Chinese spy’s mind.

I suppose though, she wasn’t a spy, but an actual ‘dynamic operative.’ There’s a subtle difference. One has some active aggressive tasking going on, often. The other just gathers information, albeit that can involve a few dexterous stunts too.

Chinese agents, at least all the very good ones, and there’s many of those – are trained from early youth just like circus performers. They can pick locks, go through all your clothes, all your files in your office, your wallet, your computer and your phone so fast you won’t even see their hand movements properly. You can go on-line and see the kind of thing, in a way, with that ‘Yes Oh My Gosh’ fast cup stacking meme that also provides the sound sample for Skrillex’s ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’ dub-step song.

And afterwards, if/when some of them are ‘progressed’ and then ‘level upped’ through the elite Western style schools and so on, what you get to see is like, well, butter wouldn’t melt, right?