Honolulu, Hawai'i
Northwestern Pacific Administrative District
Earth, Earth Alliance, Centaurus sectorEarthforce Surface Navy fast battleship Kongō, late of the Fleet of Fog, felt most comfortable when she had a mission. Missions brought clarity to a life that had become markedly more confusing of late.
Today's mission was admittedly a little strange by her standards. She was accustomed to missions that involved sinking enemy ships, or bombarding shore installations, or... well, warship tasks, anyway. Not intelligence work. That wasn't generally the sort of thing she was really suited for.
That was pre-Mental Model thinking, though. With these...
"I do have to say one thing for these human 'interface units'," she mused aloud.
"Mm?" asked her escort. Kongō knew heavy cruiser Maya wasn't really paying attention, because in her (long, wearisome) experience Maya never really paid attention, but that didn't really matter. The fact that she was there at least gave Kongō a plausible excuse to exposit without feeling like she was talking to herself.
"They're perfect camouflage," Kongō said. Gesturing generally to their surroundings, she went on, "Here we are in the middle of one of the humans' great cities, and no one is the wiser. None of them has the slightest idea that anything out of the ordinary is going on."
Warming to her thesis now, the blonde battleship smiled a slightly smug little smile and declared confidently to her escort, "A battleship and a heavy cruiser of the Fog walk among them, and no one has taken any notice."
And so saying, Kongō swept around the corner and down a side street. Maya looked puzzledly after her for a moment—What was she talking about?—then turned back to the crowd.
This had accumulated, bit by bit, as the two of them—the tall, imperious blonde with her scarlet eyes, her elaborate hairstyle, and her purple silk gown; the slightly shorter brunette with her black-and-red bohemian-harlequin clothes and big yellow smiley-face handbag—made their way down Wai'alae Avenue. By the time they arrived at the corner of Wai'alae and 13th Avenue, they had an entire shoal of curious onlookers: tourists, locals, all mingled together, hanging back a not-very-discreet distance and snapping pictures. It was like a little impromptu street festival with the two Fog Mental Models at its focus.
Maya felt vaguely disappointed that Kongō had evidently not noticed, but then, it was just like her to miss a good time. Battleships. So serious.
Grinning, Maya struck a pose for a last few photos, then turned and ran to catch up with Kongō, leaving a small crowd of people to stand around on the corner and ask each other, What just happened?