Once his new looks for his identity was finished to a satisfactory level, Avery said goodbye to the technician so that she could get to work preparing everything.

Of course, that only marked the beginning of the work he needed to get done today.

Now that the physical aspect of his disguise was settled on, it was time for him to meet with Cerise to obtain the information that he would need.

While the overview of the job might have sounded simple, there was a lot of work that went into a successful infiltration.

Obviously, Avery could not just fly to the nearest Odium Syndicate base and offer his services to them.

Though they might have actually been a front for the Zatis Consortium, on paper they were still labeled as a criminal organization.

They were not just operating out in the open within the Consortium’s territory.

Fortunately, from how confident Cerise sounded, it seemed that she had laid extensive groundwork for Avery’s company to make their move.

When Avery entered the room where Cerise was waiting, he noticed that she had an amused grin plastered on her face.

"Josie just sent me the data from your scans. I’ve got to say, you make an adorable girl. Are you sure that you don’t want to make that your disguise?"

"Yes, I’m certain. It’s impractical. And I know that you know it’s impractical. So, can we put this joke to bed already. Gender swap programs have been around for like eight hundred years. I got my fill of them when I was still in school. Just because you’re using something far more advanced doesn’t make it much different." Avery said with a long sigh.

"Fine, fine. Then how about you as an old man. I liked that one as well."

In response to seeing a holoimage of himself aged up to the point he looked like a grandpa, Avery put on a straight face, locked eyes with Cerise, and said, "That one is even more farfetched than the girl one. I’m immortal now, so I’ll never be getting old."

Out of all of the responses she had considered, Avery telling her that he was immortal in such a serious fashion was not one of them.

The logical part of Cerise’s mind immediately thought that he was throwing the joke back at her, but the look on his face made her question whether he thought he was telling the truth.

Certain advanced treatments and body augmentations could keep people alive for a lot longer than the typical lifespan of a human, but no one had found a way to live forever. Age caught up with everyone eventually.

"Good one. So, you’re immortal now. How does that work?"

"Not totally sure. But from what my ship’s doctor says, my cells apparently are unbelievably tough and regenerate at levels far beyond any human. She doesn’t know for sure if I’m just aging incredibly slowly now, or if I’m truly never going to grow old." Avery said with a shrug of his shoulders, as if what he was telling Cerise was unimportant.

"Are you serious?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"Maybe, maybe not." Avery said, his lips curled up into a smirk. He felt like he had managed to get back at her now.

"Okay, whether you’re telling the truth of not, I really don’t want to know now that I think about it." Cerise said, shaking her head. "Let’s get back on task."

Cerise liked Avery since he treated her fairly normally.

To most people in the Dramid Alliance, she had been propped up as an infallible hero that defended them from foreign enemies and space monsters. And to her subordinates, she was obviously their commanding officer.

Very few people were willing to interact with her in the way that Avery did.

Among those that did, quite a few were high ranking mercenaries though.

Their personal strength meant that they were not intimidated by her, and the general disregard a lot them had for authority meant they did not particularly care about her titles either.

"So, you’ve told me what you want me to do, but how am I going to do it? If we get outed at any point while were inside the Zatis Consortium, I can only imagine that it’s not going to be pretty."

"Well, hopefully that doesn’t happen, but I’ve prepared some contingencies to help you out in case things go drastically wrong. I’ll give you those details later.

"As for getting in, that shouldn’t be too much trouble. Over the last half a year, I’ve been targeting the smugglers that they’ve been using pretty hard. From our analysts estimates, we’ve dropped the supply coming into the Dramid Alliance by between thirty and forty percent."

"That’s impressive. But if you can make that much progress in just six months, couldn’t you just keep going and whittle them down to nearly nothing? If their business, illicit as it is becomes unprofitable, they’ll probably have to stop." Avery said, wondering why she needed to send an undercover team when she was already doing so well.

"If it was that easy, I wouldn’t have called for you." Cerise sighed. "The ones that we caught were those that had become complacent or just downright stupid. Even with all of the resources I’ve poured into this operation, progress has started to taper off."

Cerise explained that most of the smugglers that she had caught were those that had found checkpoints where security was too lax and some of the officials had been bribed, or ones that still employed the concealment technologies and techniques that Grito had come up with.

"When your Baccigan engineer came to us, he didn’t only offer to testify. He also gave us data to identify any ships using the devices he made for the Odium Syndicate. We caught around twenty percent of the total smugglers we’ve apprehended just in the first week once we had our sensors adjusted to detect the false readings."

"Unfortunately, the smugglers that are left have started to wise up and aren’t as easily caught. Still, we put a dent in their operation, and the few informants I have inside the Zatis Consortium tell me that the Odium Syndicate is pushing heavily to recruit people to shore up the numbers that they’ve lost. Which is why when your new identity that’s near perfect for what they’ll looking for shows up looking for a job, they’re bound to take the bait."