(no subject)
Jun. 12th, 2006 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gabriel_tamThe Tam quarters on Londinium are just that -- quarters. They're fine and spacious, assuredly, but they're an apartment, they're not the estate, and they're certainly not a home.
This doesn't mean that they're not outfitted with the best in cryptography and call protection, of course. Andronicus Crowley would insist on it, even if Gabriel and Regan Tam did not. Multiple dedicated source boxes, multiple screens, mulitiple hubs, all protected to the standard that Crowley and Gabriel use themselves in their offices.
The Tam quarters are spacious, and they're not home, but the light in the rooms is close to that of the Tam estate: all soft yellow, near-ambient, illuminating every corner with only the barest and least threatening shadows. That's enough to make the Tam quarters livable.
Even now, days after the initial news, the blue light projected from every screen in every room is enough to tell anybody who might be watching, even assuming that they could with all of this protection:
Something is not right.
Gabriel stares at the screen in front of him, at the words that say in English and Chinese Transmission Ended, and he can't stop himself from focusing on the second word --
(this is the end)
-- before he forcibly snaps himself out of it, and stands.
No. There is a way. There has to be a way.
This doesn't mean that they're not outfitted with the best in cryptography and call protection, of course. Andronicus Crowley would insist on it, even if Gabriel and Regan Tam did not. Multiple dedicated source boxes, multiple screens, mulitiple hubs, all protected to the standard that Crowley and Gabriel use themselves in their offices.
The Tam quarters are spacious, and they're not home, but the light in the rooms is close to that of the Tam estate: all soft yellow, near-ambient, illuminating every corner with only the barest and least threatening shadows. That's enough to make the Tam quarters livable.
Even now, days after the initial news, the blue light projected from every screen in every room is enough to tell anybody who might be watching, even assuming that they could with all of this protection:
Something is not right.
Gabriel stares at the screen in front of him, at the words that say in English and Chinese Transmission Ended, and he can't stop himself from focusing on the second word --
(this is the end)
-- before he forcibly snaps himself out of it, and stands.
No. There is a way. There has to be a way.
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Date: 2006-06-22 03:17 am (UTC)"Someone was on this before we were. No records. No information. Nobody will give us anything."
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Date: 2006-06-22 03:40 am (UTC)"I've got proof."
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Date: 2006-06-22 03:49 am (UTC)"Wait-- you have proof?"
He doesn't even notice that he's leaning toward the Cortex screen as though to encourage an answer by sheer proximity.
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Date: 2006-06-22 04:40 am (UTC)On cue, a chirrup behind the Tams on a large table.
"Already forwarded this to VFD, but here's everything I've got - records on Simon and River on the ship, security feeds on 'em, the works."
A cough. "I...didn't watch the feeds, proofed the rest though."
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Date: 2006-06-22 05:29 am (UTC)" - Kelowna?" he calls from offscreen, his voice oddly flat. "They were on the Kelowna?"
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Date: 2006-06-23 02:06 am (UTC)"You know the ship? Or folk on it?"
Not that Mal particularly is surprised by anything or anyone Crowley knows.
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Date: 2006-06-23 02:17 am (UTC)He'd seen it on a market stall coming up to New Year's; it had been perfect.
"I might know the ship," he says, coming back into view, face unreadable. "I think we fitted some modifications for her once - I'd have to look it up."
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Date: 2006-06-23 03:23 am (UTC)Regan's work depends on reading people well and quickly. She's known Crowley long enough to guess that he's hiding something, but not long enough to have any idea what.
After that last wave from Ni-- from the devil, she's even less likely to press the matter than usual.
"All right," she says tightly. There's an energy in her that wasn't there a few minutes ago; it's clear in the way her eyes have narrowed in furious thought, in the way her hands tighten on the back of a chair, in the way she's leaning unconsciously forward, poised like a coiled spring. "All right. You start with that, Andronicus -- we can take the feeds and records. Bring it back to some of those people who were just saying they'd heard nothing. They can't argue with that. And liase with Verrou Faire Denoument -- see if we can't facilitate each other's efforts."
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Date: 2006-06-23 03:55 am (UTC)"Names and places, public information -- after all," and there's a sharp, thin smile that's not kind at all.
"I swore to serve the people and the laws of the Alliance. Justice can't be done in secret-- especially when the secret's already out."
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Date: 2006-06-23 04:00 am (UTC)"Let me know...what you do next. And if I can be of any more help."
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Date: 2006-06-23 04:09 am (UTC)After Gabriel ends the connection, there's a moment of silence; they exchange glances.
Then:
"Regan - back to the bureaucrats, watch them try to deny what we've got now. Gabriel - VFD and the media, anyone and everyone you can think of; you're their favourite."
And then Andronicus Crowley, for the first time that evening, straightens his collar, pushes his sunglasses up on the bridge of his nose, and smiles like a snake.
"And I've got some waves of my own to send."