Setting more of the scene!
He looked down at her calling card. The visible information on it was almost as blandly uninformative as the data on the tiny chip on its bottom right corner: Major Alexandra Spencer, Directorate of Military Intelligence. There wasn’t even a phone or email address. He looked back up at her, giving her what Jim hoped was a bland smile. “So, how can the Infrastructure Repair Office help the DMI today?”
“IR? Not that much. But Sir James Adams, hero of the Bristol Drop and stalwart paladin of the Windsor Restoration?” She leaned forward. “Him we could use, rather badly.”
“That was two years ago, Major Spencer,” Jim said after a moment. “I’ve been behind a desk since the Coronation Jubilee.”
“Indeed you have, Sir James. Are you bored of it yet?”
Jim found that a difficult question, since the answer to that was ‘yes.’ “Infrastructure Repair’s what I asked for, Major. Something civilian, something sensible, something that needed doing. I get up in the morning, go to work, and do my job, and every week a little bit more of the country starts doing the same thing. Derring-do and desperate adventures are for the young. Haven’t you heard? They make you late for dinner.”