Time for a tech demo

"Um, hello.", said a voice behind Valerie, causing her to jump. She turned around to find a man standing behind her - he had likely arrived some time during Chief's briefing. She wondered why he was standing behind her instead of coming forward, then remembered the view she must be presenting to him from behind. She had to resist the urge to try and cover herself.

The man in front of her was wearing a t-shirt, jeans and a large lab coat. His thin frame, disheveled hair and oversized glasses completed his look - an archetypal nerd scientist if there ever was one. He was carrying a small cardboard box in his hand - likely the tech in question.

"Hello! You must be Jim.", she replied politely.

The man coughed. "Um. Yes. Indeed." He stood in front of her in awkward silence for a moment.

"Hello Jim.", Chief interjected. "Can you please show what you and your team have cooked up to Agent Valerie?"

"Of course!", he replied. His eyes began moving until he finally found what he was looking for. He moved past Valerie to a table where he set down the box.

"Voila - the general all purpose portable cloaking system!", he said proudly, removing the lid from the box. Valerie walked to it and looked inside.

She saw what looked like a bottle of spray paint. This was supposed to be a cloaking device? She looked up to Jim, confused.

He coughed. "Still working on the name.", he said, smiling awkwardly. He took out the can from the box and put the lid back on. He sprayed the box with a few strokes, however the paint didn't seem to have a color. The box looked exactly the same as it was before. She stood expectantly as he seemed to be fishing in his pocket, looking for something.

"Just a minute. I knew I put it somewhere. One sec - ha!"

He found what he was looking for in one of the pockets of his lab coat. Keeping his hand inside, he pressed a button and smiled, pointing in the direction of the box Valerie looked where he was pointing, and immediately noticed that the brown cardboard box was now a bright shade of red!

"What in the...", she exclaimed.

Jim continued fiddling with the gizmo inside his pocket, and the box changed colors a few times, going through all the shades of the rainbow. The next part was even better - it changed texture, from plain cardboard to sandpaper to smooth velvet and back. She had never seen anything like it.

"Full texture and color control. We can even make patterns in the paint. We're still researching at the moment, but this could potentially be used to make something - or someone - invisible, although that needs real time image capture...", he trailed off. Chief let out a cough, interrupting him.

"The point is, for this tech to become reality, Jim and his team need data and diagnostics. Which means, someone needs to test drive it - and I think you're the best agent for this job, Valerie."

Valerie couldn't help but let out a tiny smile. This was exactly the kind of top secret project that would raise her profile as a field agent. "Happy to be of service, sir!", she said, "How would you like me to test this?"