Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Eternity
A Worrisome Enlightenment
0 reviewsCan the crew of Serenity help someone caught in the ravages of Fate and his own mind? AU Serenity, warnings for violence and profanity.
2Exciting
-I-I-I-
The man wore a gentle smile as he watched the security feed. He still smiled as the girl appeared at the top of the stairs and was joined by her little anchor. He was still smiling as Tam approached the CorVue screen, and the subliminal command inserted into the commercial was broadcasted.
It was only after Tam began her rampage, when her anchor screamed and the screen went to static as the feed was destroyed, that the operative finally frowned. The ensign stationed at the screen near him cringed at the expression, keeping as he was a nervous eye on his superior.
But the operative only leaned forward and rewound the feed, his swarthy face puzzled. Something about the picture was off, and that wrongness twitched at his attention.
He watched it through again, rewound it, and keyed the speed down until it was going at a snail's pace. The command was sent out... Tam shrugged off her coat... M12-31 opened his mouth and screamed.
Static filled the screen.
"Ensign," the operative said softly, but even so the young man- barely more than a boy- jerked to attention.
"Sir?"
"I want you to analyze this," the operative ordered, isolating the tiny fraction of the feed that contained the anchor's vocalizations. "Break it down as far as you can, and tell me if there's anything at all unusual about it."
The ensign bobbed his head eagerly. "Yes, sir. Right away!" True to his word, he bent over the console, his stylus tapping eagerly away.
The operative didn't have long to wait. "Sir," the ensign said after only a few minutes, "I'm starting to see a very strange wave pattern-"
He was interrupted as his console suddenly exploded in a dazzling light show of sparking electronics. The operative tackled him out of the way of the burning shower in a move almost too fast to see. "Stay down!" he ordered, covering his head with his hands to ward off any stray sparks.
It was only when it finally ended that he let the boy up, studying the ruined console with narrowed, speculative eyes. "How very interesting," he murmured to himself.
"S-sir?" the ensign stammered, his eyes wide and shocked.
The operative glanced at him briefly. "Are you hurt, child?"
The ensign shook his head, still dazed.
"Good. Now tell me, before I gave you that order, what had you found on the man carrying out the girl?" the man commanded eagerly, standing up and brushing himself off.
The ensign stumbled to his feet as well, and then over to the operative's own console at his impatient gesture. "We... we made a positive match on his retinal patterns." He tapped the screen a few times with the stylus, until it split, one side still showing the frozen feed of the two children, and the other filling with a man's picture and bio.
"Captain Malcolm Reynolds, of a transport vessel, class Firefly," the ensign read off. "He has a record, five times bound by law for smuggling and tariff dodging. Never convicted. Nothing that unusual, for a ship captain out here on the Rim..."
"Yes, there is," the operative corrected quietly, his eyes reading one line of text. "The name of the ship. Cross reference 'Malcolm Reynolds' with 'Serenity.'"
The ensign did as ordered, and a wry smile passed across the operative's lips at the result. /Serenity Valley/. The bloodiest battle of the entire rebellion begun by the misguided Rim worlds. The so-called Independents had held the valley for seven weeks, two of them after the official surrender of their commanders, despite enduring a casualty rate of sixty-eight percent. And according to their records, Reynolds had been a sergeant, and the highest-ranking survivor of his company...
"This man will be an issue," the operative murmured. "He hates us, hates everything we stand for. He will do his best to prevent our mission..."
He smiled reassuringly at the confused ensign. "And his crew?" He studied the results intently. A second mate who'd served with Reynolds at Serenity Valley; her pilot husband, by the shared last names; a civilian mechanic; a merc.
"Give me a list of all passengers within the last two years," he ordered. Reynolds was a man of passion. He would have a very obvious weakness, one that could be used to neatly draw him out of hiding, he was sure of it. And after a bit of searching, he found it.
A woman's face filled the screen. She was a very beautiful woman, with large almond-shaped eyes, a straight nose, full lips, and tumbling dark hair. Not that she could have been anything but beautiful, because she was registered as a Companion. The operative glanced at her current location, and then strode to the intercom. "Captain," he said into it, "change course, on this heading..."
His instructions given, the operative returned to watching the frozen feed, ignoring the ensign. "Where are you hiding, little girl?" he murmured out loud. His eyes traveled downwards, to her tiny anchor.
"And what are you hiding?"
-I-I-I-
The sensors told of an atmosphere with so many trace toxins not even the Alliance, with its voracious appetite, wanted it. Not that it was, of course. Initially the moon had been hostile to the extreme to human life, but the terraforming hadn't failed as the sensors reported it had.
No, Mr. Universe simply he decided he wanted a nice quiet place to live, and hacked the sensors until they said what he wanted them to. Then he packed up all of his computer equipment and moved right on in. The moon was a tiny one, but it was still a hell of a lot of space for one man and his Love-bot, Mal reflected as he watched it from the cockpit.
The vidscreen signaled an incoming wave, and the captain switched it on as Wash and Zoë crowded in over his shoulder.
"And to what do I owe the scintillating pleasure of this visit, O Capitan?" the unkempt young man on the other end of the screen asked. There were bags under his eyes, but he twitched with the nervous energy of the overly caffeinated.
"Did something a mite newsworthy, thought you might have heard about it and could tell us more," Mal replied easily.
One of Mr. Universe's eyebrows crept upwards. "Oh? Haven't seen any flags on you and yours..."
A flicker of worry went through Mal. Mr. Universe constantly monitored Alliance and police channels, hoping to find something entertaining. There should have been at least some interest in them from the local peacekeepers... That there wasn't said something Mal didn't understand, but didn't much care for, either. "Check for anything from a bar called the Maidenhead, on Beaumonde."
If the young mastermind twitched a bit at being ordered around, he didn't say anything about it. After a moment of typing, though, he frowned at Mal. "I take it whatever you did was what wiped out the cams?" he asked peevishly.
Mal nodded. "You found it, then."
"What little's there, yeah. Had to go direct to the security feed, though. There's nothing in the newsies or the lawforce channels." Mr. Universe tapped a bit, and looked off towards another of the screens that lined his walls.
"So there hasn't been any follow up?" Wash asked his old acquaintance.
"Nope. Not in the signal, and not in that puppet theater the Parliament's jesters put on and call 'news.'" He frowned thoughtfully at his screen. "I'm not the first person to access the feed, either. There're prints. Can't tell whose they are."
There was a collective blink from within Serenity's cockpit. "Someone, somewhere, can do that?" Mal asked, startled. He hadn't thought it was possible for anyone to block out Mr. Universe's probes.
The kid had stolen an entire moon from the Alliance with no one the wiser, after all.
Mr. Universe sent him an absent-minded scowl. "You can't stop the signal, but you can redirect it for a while. Don't worry, I'll find them. Nothing can hide from me for long." It was plain he'd taken the invisible trace as a challenge to his pride. "So, you wrecked the bar?" he asked, his attention caught again on the continually replaying feed.
Mal grimaced. "Not exactly. More like we tried to stay breathin' while the girl trashed the place."
"Oh?" Mr. Universe grinned, looking with new interest at River as she shrugged off her coat on screen. "Pity the cams were destroyed. That would have been some lovely violence."
Mal had to hold in a snort. Lovely if you hadn't been there and had a crazy seventeen-year-old point a gun at your head, maybe. "Can you reverse the feed?" he asked. "See if anyone talked to her afore she went apeshit, maybe set her off?"
The young man bit his lip. "No."
Mal blinked. "Um, please?"
But Mr. Universe was already typing, and directing his gaze towards a third, unseen screen. "You're a very smart man, Mal. Someone is talking to her." The vidscreen split down the middle to show a short video being broken down into its code.
"The oaty bar's talking to her?" Wash asked incredulously.
But Mal was already one step ahead. "Subliminal. There's a damn subliminal message in there. Probably one of the code phrases like what the Doc used to put her to sleep."
Mr. Universe nodded. "Exactly. And I've been seeing this code pop up in all over, these last few weeks. Kind of surprised this is the first time you ran into it, really. But I can't crack it. It's Alliance and high military at that," he said in excuse at their expressions. "That means someone way up high is looking for your little girl, and judging from the way that feed was accessed, they've found her."
Zoë leaned in, then, focused on the feed. Mal was surprised; she'd been so quiet, he'd almost forgotten she was there. "What's she saying?" she wondered.
Mal frowned. "That's right, the girl said something just before the go se hit the fan."
The young genius zoomed the feed in, until all they could see was River's face. He forced the audio pickups to their max, and this time as the feed played through they could all hear the single word she spoke:
"Miranda..."
The man wore a gentle smile as he watched the security feed. He still smiled as the girl appeared at the top of the stairs and was joined by her little anchor. He was still smiling as Tam approached the CorVue screen, and the subliminal command inserted into the commercial was broadcasted.
It was only after Tam began her rampage, when her anchor screamed and the screen went to static as the feed was destroyed, that the operative finally frowned. The ensign stationed at the screen near him cringed at the expression, keeping as he was a nervous eye on his superior.
But the operative only leaned forward and rewound the feed, his swarthy face puzzled. Something about the picture was off, and that wrongness twitched at his attention.
He watched it through again, rewound it, and keyed the speed down until it was going at a snail's pace. The command was sent out... Tam shrugged off her coat... M12-31 opened his mouth and screamed.
Static filled the screen.
"Ensign," the operative said softly, but even so the young man- barely more than a boy- jerked to attention.
"Sir?"
"I want you to analyze this," the operative ordered, isolating the tiny fraction of the feed that contained the anchor's vocalizations. "Break it down as far as you can, and tell me if there's anything at all unusual about it."
The ensign bobbed his head eagerly. "Yes, sir. Right away!" True to his word, he bent over the console, his stylus tapping eagerly away.
The operative didn't have long to wait. "Sir," the ensign said after only a few minutes, "I'm starting to see a very strange wave pattern-"
He was interrupted as his console suddenly exploded in a dazzling light show of sparking electronics. The operative tackled him out of the way of the burning shower in a move almost too fast to see. "Stay down!" he ordered, covering his head with his hands to ward off any stray sparks.
It was only when it finally ended that he let the boy up, studying the ruined console with narrowed, speculative eyes. "How very interesting," he murmured to himself.
"S-sir?" the ensign stammered, his eyes wide and shocked.
The operative glanced at him briefly. "Are you hurt, child?"
The ensign shook his head, still dazed.
"Good. Now tell me, before I gave you that order, what had you found on the man carrying out the girl?" the man commanded eagerly, standing up and brushing himself off.
The ensign stumbled to his feet as well, and then over to the operative's own console at his impatient gesture. "We... we made a positive match on his retinal patterns." He tapped the screen a few times with the stylus, until it split, one side still showing the frozen feed of the two children, and the other filling with a man's picture and bio.
"Captain Malcolm Reynolds, of a transport vessel, class Firefly," the ensign read off. "He has a record, five times bound by law for smuggling and tariff dodging. Never convicted. Nothing that unusual, for a ship captain out here on the Rim..."
"Yes, there is," the operative corrected quietly, his eyes reading one line of text. "The name of the ship. Cross reference 'Malcolm Reynolds' with 'Serenity.'"
The ensign did as ordered, and a wry smile passed across the operative's lips at the result. /Serenity Valley/. The bloodiest battle of the entire rebellion begun by the misguided Rim worlds. The so-called Independents had held the valley for seven weeks, two of them after the official surrender of their commanders, despite enduring a casualty rate of sixty-eight percent. And according to their records, Reynolds had been a sergeant, and the highest-ranking survivor of his company...
"This man will be an issue," the operative murmured. "He hates us, hates everything we stand for. He will do his best to prevent our mission..."
He smiled reassuringly at the confused ensign. "And his crew?" He studied the results intently. A second mate who'd served with Reynolds at Serenity Valley; her pilot husband, by the shared last names; a civilian mechanic; a merc.
"Give me a list of all passengers within the last two years," he ordered. Reynolds was a man of passion. He would have a very obvious weakness, one that could be used to neatly draw him out of hiding, he was sure of it. And after a bit of searching, he found it.
A woman's face filled the screen. She was a very beautiful woman, with large almond-shaped eyes, a straight nose, full lips, and tumbling dark hair. Not that she could have been anything but beautiful, because she was registered as a Companion. The operative glanced at her current location, and then strode to the intercom. "Captain," he said into it, "change course, on this heading..."
His instructions given, the operative returned to watching the frozen feed, ignoring the ensign. "Where are you hiding, little girl?" he murmured out loud. His eyes traveled downwards, to her tiny anchor.
"And what are you hiding?"
-I-I-I-
The sensors told of an atmosphere with so many trace toxins not even the Alliance, with its voracious appetite, wanted it. Not that it was, of course. Initially the moon had been hostile to the extreme to human life, but the terraforming hadn't failed as the sensors reported it had.
No, Mr. Universe simply he decided he wanted a nice quiet place to live, and hacked the sensors until they said what he wanted them to. Then he packed up all of his computer equipment and moved right on in. The moon was a tiny one, but it was still a hell of a lot of space for one man and his Love-bot, Mal reflected as he watched it from the cockpit.
The vidscreen signaled an incoming wave, and the captain switched it on as Wash and Zoë crowded in over his shoulder.
"And to what do I owe the scintillating pleasure of this visit, O Capitan?" the unkempt young man on the other end of the screen asked. There were bags under his eyes, but he twitched with the nervous energy of the overly caffeinated.
"Did something a mite newsworthy, thought you might have heard about it and could tell us more," Mal replied easily.
One of Mr. Universe's eyebrows crept upwards. "Oh? Haven't seen any flags on you and yours..."
A flicker of worry went through Mal. Mr. Universe constantly monitored Alliance and police channels, hoping to find something entertaining. There should have been at least some interest in them from the local peacekeepers... That there wasn't said something Mal didn't understand, but didn't much care for, either. "Check for anything from a bar called the Maidenhead, on Beaumonde."
If the young mastermind twitched a bit at being ordered around, he didn't say anything about it. After a moment of typing, though, he frowned at Mal. "I take it whatever you did was what wiped out the cams?" he asked peevishly.
Mal nodded. "You found it, then."
"What little's there, yeah. Had to go direct to the security feed, though. There's nothing in the newsies or the lawforce channels." Mr. Universe tapped a bit, and looked off towards another of the screens that lined his walls.
"So there hasn't been any follow up?" Wash asked his old acquaintance.
"Nope. Not in the signal, and not in that puppet theater the Parliament's jesters put on and call 'news.'" He frowned thoughtfully at his screen. "I'm not the first person to access the feed, either. There're prints. Can't tell whose they are."
There was a collective blink from within Serenity's cockpit. "Someone, somewhere, can do that?" Mal asked, startled. He hadn't thought it was possible for anyone to block out Mr. Universe's probes.
The kid had stolen an entire moon from the Alliance with no one the wiser, after all.
Mr. Universe sent him an absent-minded scowl. "You can't stop the signal, but you can redirect it for a while. Don't worry, I'll find them. Nothing can hide from me for long." It was plain he'd taken the invisible trace as a challenge to his pride. "So, you wrecked the bar?" he asked, his attention caught again on the continually replaying feed.
Mal grimaced. "Not exactly. More like we tried to stay breathin' while the girl trashed the place."
"Oh?" Mr. Universe grinned, looking with new interest at River as she shrugged off her coat on screen. "Pity the cams were destroyed. That would have been some lovely violence."
Mal had to hold in a snort. Lovely if you hadn't been there and had a crazy seventeen-year-old point a gun at your head, maybe. "Can you reverse the feed?" he asked. "See if anyone talked to her afore she went apeshit, maybe set her off?"
The young man bit his lip. "No."
Mal blinked. "Um, please?"
But Mr. Universe was already typing, and directing his gaze towards a third, unseen screen. "You're a very smart man, Mal. Someone is talking to her." The vidscreen split down the middle to show a short video being broken down into its code.
"The oaty bar's talking to her?" Wash asked incredulously.
But Mal was already one step ahead. "Subliminal. There's a damn subliminal message in there. Probably one of the code phrases like what the Doc used to put her to sleep."
Mr. Universe nodded. "Exactly. And I've been seeing this code pop up in all over, these last few weeks. Kind of surprised this is the first time you ran into it, really. But I can't crack it. It's Alliance and high military at that," he said in excuse at their expressions. "That means someone way up high is looking for your little girl, and judging from the way that feed was accessed, they've found her."
Zoë leaned in, then, focused on the feed. Mal was surprised; she'd been so quiet, he'd almost forgotten she was there. "What's she saying?" she wondered.
Mal frowned. "That's right, the girl said something just before the go se hit the fan."
The young genius zoomed the feed in, until all they could see was River's face. He forced the audio pickups to their max, and this time as the feed played through they could all hear the single word she spoke:
"Miranda..."
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