Lily and the Blues

I don't like to lose.

I'm also not especially fond of arrogant people, even when they're not really "people" or even organic, either. Like it even less when they're ostensibly the reason I'm going to be losing someone I care about.

Now, how Lily managed to get a projection tank to Gallagher to set up in my office I don't think I want to know. But she did. And it let her talk to me from the 'borrowed' Firefly she and Ben were taking to the wastes.

Lily had a lot to explain, though I was reasonably aware of much of it already. Why, exactly, she was running with that low grade moron, Ben. What she was trying to accomplish with Blue Man, and what Krenshar was really looking to accomplish. I just wished I'd been wrong about more of it. I wished I didn't need to set some things into motion that would . . . clean up the mess, if everything went wrong in the very near future.

"We're going to lose you, aren't we, Lily?"

"Yes, Miss."

I just hoped one of the alternatives would come to pass that didn't involve losing Lily, Krenshar, or the whole gorram colony. My confidence just wasn't real high.

Then Blue Man decided to get in on the conversation.

Blue reminded me a lot of his creator. Arrogant. Brilliant. Batshit insane. Just like Mindo.

I'd already reached a state of mind where Blue couldn't throw me. I'd resigned myself to doing what had to be done if it became necessary. Blue didn't understand I wasn't just the Mayor of a small mining colony. I'd spent years as a professional soldier, and years more training in not just the physical aspects of the Martial Arts, but in the discipline and emotional control as well. I could make difficult, painful, decisions. They wouldn't be without pain. They wouldn't be without consequence. But I could make them.

Perhaps it was good I was finally talking to Blue. I'd always respected intelligence, regardless of its form. I could respect Blue for the mind it was. He was fascinating on multiple levels, but I could also destroy him if I had to. Not out of hate. Not out of fear. But out of an organic instinct to survive.

Blue had his own agenda, set in motion by Mindo's agenda. I just had to hope that some of what he said was just a sentient being trying to play my emotions. That the Ghost I saw in Lily wasn't just an extension of Blue's neural network. That was something I didn't really want to contemplate. The claim that Blue was laced through all of Hale's infrastructure gave me pause, because that was something I'd actively been working on. I'd practically gutted the communications and power stacks in the Town Hall building when we took it back from Blue Sun, but Blue had managed to get into the little commercial laptop I kept on my desk.

I'd actually miss it.

Fortunately, that was something I could deal with. With Sabrina's help we could scrub any remaining vestiges of Blue from the main colony. Or at least from my office. Wave Equation was safe. If she'd been a conventional boat I might have worried, but she wasn't, and Elsoph was every bit as good in his realm of expertise as Mindo was in his. Plus it was my area of expertise as well. My might have to bring in a bulldozer, but we'd be clean.

But that was just a distraction. Lily'd given me a possible solution to Kren's agenda, but that wouldn't stop her from going to Blue in the wastes tomorrow. I couldn't stop that. All I could do was hope she came out of it in one piece. Intact. Whole. Still Lily.

We might well lose her tomorrow and circumstance has had me dealing with most of it alone.

I do good work alone. I just don't like to lose.