Manipulations from the Deep Black

With her dampers deployed, Saule Silencieuse was effectively invisible.  Even floating in the middle of a gossamer parabolic dish five thousand meters across, the ELINT Corvette was a ghost.  She couldn't do much more than float there, of course, in a heliocentric orbit 3 AU out from Kalidasa, without increasing her signature.  But she didn't need to.  The big dish let her listen in to the Cortex, parsing the signal.  And, as they say, the signal went everywhere.

Getting to and from the ship was actually the biggest challenge.  Even Wave Equation, my ELINT Matagi, had to use some technical tricks to minimize my signature on approach and departure.  But it was all worth it.  An invisible cortex hub in the deep black.

Silent.

Watching.

I had crossed the New Year celebration here, aboard this little bubble of air in the void of space, surrounded by the flow of information and raw data that made up my trade now.  And the people.  The handful of men and women at the core of my operation, manning this ship, managing the feeds and the people, separated by several layers of abstraction, that did the field work and interfaced with other Intel organizations.

The web had grown since I started it.  The raw information was, ultimately, more than we could process aboard Saule Silencieuse.  While she was an enormously capable craft, dedicated to this sort of work, we'd outgrown even her exceptional capacity.  That was one of the reasons I was here now.  To plan for the future.  And, ultimately, to put some of the information we'd gleaned to use for a very special purpose.

The New Years party was . . . compact.  A bit of revelry, watching the 'ball drop' feeds from a dozen worlds, seeing my team enjoying the moment, even as I felt alone in their midst.  In a way it was funny.  We kept to the calendar of Earth that Was, though no world in the 'Verse actually shared its 365.25 standard 24 hour days.  It was just a tradition.  Like the Shepherd's "Holiday" celebrations having a winter theme, even though the local season might be something completely different.

That little celebration wasn't why I was here, of course.  Catching up on the projects was why I was here.  Getting updates on how we were warehousing our data off-board, securely and discretely, was a major theme.  That, and the acquisition of more working space for our future growth.  To that end, we had taken control of an abandoned transfer station and started the slow process of moving it to a better location, while at the same time removing it from the collective memory of the Cortex.

It helped that the facility had been mostly abandoned for decades.  Built to support trade between the Border and Rim colonies over a century ago, the changing face of interplanetary commerce had left it behind.  Literally.  Most navigational charts, if they even included it, showed it as "Abandoned: Non-operational.  No services."  During the war, it had served as a way point for refugees.  Since?  Nothing.  Which made it a perfect starting point for my project.

While I could have appropriated a modular station like the one we'd had above Hale's Moon, there would be a paper trail linking it to me.  The same would apply to any other modern facility we had to acquire and deploy.  By re-purposing an abandoned structure, we were both saving resources and making our actions harder to trace.

It would be some time before we were ready to occupy it with anything but the restoration crew, and several years before we managed to re-position it into a new orbit around Kalidasa with low signature tugs, but when it was done it would be perfect.  Large enough for our needs and completely off the radar.  My kind of place.

But that was a long term concern.  At the moment, I had something more personal to attend to.


Historically, we had let the data flow in from where it would.  Sometimes parsing down interesting trails to glean secrets that may prove useful, but often just gathering and cataloging.  Some of it, we sold to support the operation, but always with an eye to the effect it would have.  I wasn't doing this to get rich.  I was doing it because I wanted to do some right in the Verse.  Now, though, I had a purpose.  And a very specific effect in mind.

A right in the 'Verse.

Adelai Niska, in spite of his self proclaimed "reputation," was little more than a petty crime lord, and noted sadist, based in the Rim.  I'd dealt with his machinations before on Hale's Moon and sent a couple of his goons home in a box.  One box.  Saved on shipping.  He still drew breath because some people in power found him "useful" and I'd been specifically asked to let him keep breathing.  Since I didn't want to burn those particular bridges by ending the old goat, I'd acquiesced and let him be.

Now though, it was time to play the game a little differently.  First, I needed to know who found him useful, and why.  Then I could look to manipulating things to make him appear considerably less useful to his benefactors and, from there, proceed to grind his carefully groomed reputation to dust.

It was something specific to focus the team on.  Exercise our targeted information gathering and leverage our contacts, while practicing the fine arts of deception and obfuscation.  Information Ninja in the tangled webs of the Cortex.  It was something we'd been building for and, now, time to move into action.

He would expect me to fire a crowbar through his skyplex.

This, he would never see coming.
 
Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons.  
For they are subtle and quick to anger.
And you are small and crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

The fluctuating definitions of stress

The calendar period known as "the holidays" has never been a favorite for me.  Never mind the religious connotations, shared between several, but not all, common religions.  Never mind the "seasonal" aspects, which are entirely based on the northern hemisphere of Earth that Was.  For me, the holidays have always been a bit of a roller coaster, and not in the fun way.

I can think of so many family events over the holidays that this time of year has as many bad connotations as good.  It was this time of year that I met Sabrina, which led to some blissful times and a painful breakup.  

The holidays are times to spend with friends and family and, right now, I don't have contact with either.  'Brina's gone.  Simon's off on another Op.  The girls are . . . elusive.   Even Sobi's been hard to reach, shuttling around the Border and Rim systems trying, without much luck, to track down Lily.

And then there is the stress.

There was an old definition of stress that said it was: "The mind overriding the body's desire to choke the living shit out of some asshole who desperately needs it."

I felt that exact definition of stress when "Santa" showed up on Dragon's Egg as part of Blue Sun's holiday cheer festival.  Why, exactly, Niska was here was beyond me.  If only because I hadn't bothered to dig into his dealings especially deeply.  But the data was there.  Though it seemed he got the message over three years ago, the old sadist had resurfaced in our affairs on Dragon's Egg.

Since I wasn't the Mayor here, and KHI had no real financial interest in the colony any more, there was little I could do officially.  The exchange of a few snide comments was really all anyone saw of the brief encounter, for what it was worth.  But his presence, and even the hint he was meddling in my little girl's affairs, helped set a course.  It gave some actual purpose to "the holidays" for me.

In another time and place, I would have dealt with him personally.  But doing so would require explaining to other, powerful, forces exactly why I had deleted one of their assets.  Ultimately, for all his bravado, he was still just a sadistic petty crime lord who continued to draw breath because some powerful people in the Intel community found him "useful."  

It was the only reason I hadn't expended a Crowbar against his Skyplex.  While it would have been immensely satisfying to see the solid metal ingot smash through the structure so fast they wouldn't have had time to avoid it, I had other uses for that particular weapon.  Plus, I might have use for the Skyplex myself some day.

No.  I had better ways to deal with Mister Niska.

Reputation was paramount to him.  He'd worked long and hard to develop one.  I, on the other hand, had not.  While I had one, several, in fact, I didn't rely on my reputation to do my work for me.  Besides, the ones I was actually concerned about weren't common knowledge.  There was really nothing he could to do those.

I, on the other hand, had resources I could bring to bear to deal with the issue in a more subtle way.

Information is a powerful tool.  A powerful weapon.  In the right hands, it could be used for good.  In the wrong hands, it could be used for evil.  In my hands?

Bringing tools to bear

A fragile reputation

So easily lost

I told you before, Mister Niska.  Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons. For they are powerful creatures, subtle and quick to anger. And you are small and crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

You should have listened.

Conversations with a different friend

Surfer's New Paradise was aptly named.  At least if you were a surfer.  The world went under several different names depending on which chart you were looking at.  Surfer's New Paradise was the local name and the one I'd always known.  Blessed with plentiful water, it had been half sculpted by the original terraforming team into over a dozen small continents and thousands upon thousands of islands spread out into long chains covering the world's surface.  Their major industry was tourism, followed by aquaculture, followed by a mix of other light industries, agriculture, and service businesses, in a distant third, through every other, place.

While they were, officially, an Alliance world, they'd weathered the war essentially unscathed, in spite of playing host to both an Alliance and Independent presence on-world throughout the war.  There just hadn't been any fighting.  At least outside the confines of any number of beachfront bars.

Even now, the Alliance presence was hard to spot and played almost no part in local politics.  That was, of course, just how the locals liked it.  How they'd always liked it, going back as far as the colony's founding in the early days post-Exodus.  How they managed to maintain their relative independence was a standing question, left unanswered for many, many, years.

Surfer's New Paradise was also, unofficially, known as the home world of the Clan MacDude.  Or maybe officially too, if the Clan had anything official.  According to Clan legend, they were the planet's first colonists, which was actually a fact.  They'd arrived en-mass from Earth that Was aboard a privately owned and constructed, at Clan expense, Exodus Transport, which was probably a fact.  Also, supposedly, the world had been custom tailored to their needs, based on tropical sunshine, lots of beaches, and excellent surf, which may or may not have been a fact.  Their claims to have invented grass skirts and surfing were, almost certainly, an outright lie.  To this day over half the permanent inhabitants of Surfer's New Paradise could trace their ancestry back to the original colonists, and MacDude was still the most common surname - even when it wasn't actually a person's surname.

It was also home to the one person I knew, in the entire 'Verse, who came close to understanding how my little girl, Lily, was put together.

Uncle Sobi.

Sobi MacDude of the Clan MacDude.  Adopted son of Clan Kawanishi.  Surf bum.  Bartender second to none.  Fashion nightmare.  And, probably, the best biochemist in the 'Verse.

Sobi and Lady Jade had settled, more or less anyway, into a beachfront house on an island a short skimmer flight from the planet's premier University in one direction, and one of the small but advanced technical centers in the other.

I wouldn't be able to stay long, but I needed to get his take on what was happening to my little girl and whether she was in any real danger.

Lily was growing organs, probably to transplant into someone else, but how she was doing it and what the toll on her system were still unknowns.  She would risk herself if she thought she was doing right by someone.  Whether they deserved the risk or not.  Of course,  I tended to worry about her more than she worried about herself but, as her mother, that went with the job.

Sobi went over the reports I had on her condition and what she'd been doing.  Gleaned from a number of sources, some unmentionable, they were of varying accuracy and detail.  Even then, I could see his concern. When he spoke, to try and explain what he thought was happening in terms I could understand, all trace of the usual "menagerie" of accents he normally spoke with was gone, replaced by newscaster-clear Japanese, Russian, or English, sometimes in the same sentence.

"I need to see her, Kiddo.  Not enough information here to know what's going on and we may not have a lot of time if she's breaking down."

"Aren't you teaching or something?"

"Tenured professor, remember?  And I haven't taken a salary in 16 years.  They'll give me leave.  I'll get Mullis to take my classes for a couple weeks.  Just tell me where to find her."

Which I did, as best I could.  Sobi only knew a fraction of what I was doing, but I'd get him updates en-route.  The only questions whether whether he'd be able to actually get her to sit still long enough to figure out what was happening, and whether he would, in fact, be able to figure out what was happening.

A complex problem
Sometimes you need the big guns
Tenured Professor

Conversations with a friend

I had been meeting with Corrine Silvermane for, well, a while.  Our relationship had turned from purely professional in our capacities as the leader of a frontier colony and the leader of the military unit assigned to protect it, to purely professional in other capacities as my position evolved, to one of genuine mutual respect and an honest friendship.  I actually liked Cory.  Our meetings since I'd gone back to being a Spook were somewhat less formal than the ones we'd had when I was Mayor of Hale's Moon and she was the C.O. of the 1st Marine Raiders.

Never mind the ancient rule that Spooks were never supposed to become close to their assets.  Cory was not a simple asset.  She'd become more than an asset when the Loyalists who'd infiltrated into the 1st Marines tried to assassinate her on Hale's some years ago and she'd put her ass on the line not just for her command, but for the people who called Hale's home.  She was a big damn hero, but not many folk were aware of it.

The people of Hale's Moon knew.

I knew.

That would have to do.

Our usual meetings were at bistros or coffee houses chosen semi-randomly shortly before the meeting.  About the only thing that was arranged any time in advance was which world we'd be meeting on, as you couldn't swap worlds quite so easily as you could swap tea houses.  The amusing side benefit of the arrangement was that we were getting to sample the fare at cafe's neither of us would have discovered otherwise.  There were parameters, of course:  Reasonably secure location.  Easy ingress and egress.  Easily covered sight lines.  Clientele that we would fit in with.  Better then average ratings for food and service.  Nothing really extraordinary.

This meeting was at a sidewalk cafe inside a medium sized, trendy, Zocalo in Aberdeen's capital city.  It was a closer flight for Cory than it was for me, though she probably had more difficulty getting private time away from her security detail than I did.  Of course, not travelling with a security detail made it much easier for me by default.  Not that I hadn't considered having one, of sorts.  Even when I'd been Mayor on Hale's, the Militia Sniper teams that were stationed around the town had orders to keep an eye out for trouble whenever I was out and about.  They'd extended that protection to then-Colonel Silvermane, and Beth Lionheart, the Alliance Liaison officer when they were on the surface.  Not that we'd ever told either of them.

"You're looking well," I told her, settling in across the table from Silvermane.  It was true, actually.  She was looking well.  Not just dressed casually, and nicely, but she looked happier and more relaxed than I'd seen her in a while.

"Thanks, you too," she acknowledged, motioning the waiter over to order a locally grown sweet tea for herself and the usual double latte for me.   "Understand you and Simon are supposed to get hitched by the end of the year?  Congratulations.  Assuming it happens."

I had to laugh.  It was inevitable she'd hear about it, even stationed on a cruiser far from the little colony I called home.  But her observation was more or less on, as well.  An announcement didn't mean it would actually happen.  Though, if it did, I would make sure the General got an invitation.

"Thanks.  I'll let you know with enough time to make it."

As usual, our conversations started out with the normal 'catching up' conversation that would get people tuned out from the generically small talk of two women at lunch.  There was always some risk, of course, that someone might be listening in, but we weren't talking about anything that would be correlated to anything either of us were openly working on.  Imperfect.  But adequate for the current situation.  If we needed real security, we had it available.

"I talked to Taggart, you know," she dropped, shifting the conversation to business.  I had known, of course.  The fact of the conversation, at least, if not the content.

"I had, yes.  Anything good?"

"Could say so.  Was only the second time I've met him and we had a long heart to heart about what you're doing out here.  Filled me in on some of the details you'd been leaving out," she raised a hand to stop me from interrupting.  "Always knew there were things you weren't telling me.  Usually knew why.  I'm a field commander, not an Intelligence officer.  We live in different worlds.  I don't even want to know some of the details.  But we're both on the same page now, he and I."

We'd always had that understanding.  She'd known for a long time what my role was.  At least on the surface.  But I had kept her out of the loop on much of what I did.  I had to.  If she knew what I was doing, she'd be responsible for that knowledge.  It would have torn her between loyalties as an officer in the Alliance Military, and her personal ethics of doing what she felt was right.

"You and I have had an unusual relationship, Sea.  Even before I knew your background.  Always knew you were trying to maneuver this to a place where you could count on me without having to violate my ethics.  A fact I appreciate.  Probably more than I appreciate you saving my ass back over Hales.  Thing is, we both know what's coming.  Not a matter of if, but when."

She paused, taking a sip of her tea, then setting it to the side of the table so the waiter could deliver our lunch.

"The soldier in me, well, you know how I approach that.  Just wanted you to know, if you didn't already, that I'm with Taggart on this.  We'll have your back when it happens."

I had to appreciate her candor, and for forgiving me for leaving out as much as I had.  The fact was I needed Cory.  The 'Verse needed Cory, and people like her.  People willing and able to look long term and do what was needed when the time came.  People in positions to make a difference.

"Thank you, Corrine.  I appreciate that."

Taggart had given me free rein to do what I needed to do.  Technically, I was a Rogue Asset, but he'd buried my projects so deeply even the Alliance accountants wouldn't be able to find what I was doing.  While it helped that my project was largely self sustaining, I still had Alliance assets under my command and was, myself, still considered an asset.

It was just that I was looking at loyalties greater than the Alliance itself, on time scales probably greater than my own lifetime.

We do what we must
Alone, but never alone
It's good to have friends

Un-planning events

The town hall meetings on Dragon's Egg have changed character over time.  While Blue Sun was an original sponsor of the transition from the failed colony on Hale's Moon to the new location on Dragon's Egg, they had originally been somewhat hands off in the dealings.  Never mind that many of the "abandoned" facilities we'd "discovered" on the newly opened world belonged to them.  Officially they had been one of the contractors along with Ling Standard, Westinghouse, and Weyland Yutani, responsible for finally completing the terra-forming project.  No coincidence then that once the colony was established, they would take a more active role.

Except, I really didn't want to live in a Company Town.  Even if I had an understanding with the head of said company.  The Alliance presence was still there, but the friction had grown between the Alliance officials and the Cerberus Mercenaries to the point where Lionheart was barely willing to set foot on the planet.  It didn't help that there was some funny accounting going on where the Alliance was paying their obligations, but the Mercenaries playing rent-a-cop were claiming they weren't getting paid.  Bethany had my sympathy, even if it wasn't my problem.  Of course, the data was somewhere in the Sea, but I didn't care enough to pull it out.

I'm not sure why Simon decided to announce a date for the wedding at this latest Town Hall meeting.  Not many people there, and of those that were, only a few had been there for the original announcement and even fewer probably cared.  Worse, I'm not sure why he announced it would be here on Dragon's Egg.

In spite of his protest to the contrary, I couldn't see my parents, or, Buddha forbid, Grandfather, coming out to this frontier world.  Let alone a Blue Sun "company world," as it was becoming.  I didn't even want to consider what Grandfather's security detail would make of what passed for 'security' on Dragon's Egg.  Jet's offer to provide services aside, I had no desire to have he or his people involved in even the slightest way with my wedding.  I believe Niki's term for them when last we talked was "Ass Clowns."  But then, an ADG pilot was entitled to a low opinion of Mercenaries.  Not that I didn't share her opinion.

No, it was almost certain we'd have two ceremonies as I had had before when I married 'Brina: one on Ariel with the family, one out here on the Rim for the people we knew out here.  Though that seemed to be a much smaller group than it had been.

That thought brought home how distant I felt here.  When I'd arrived on Hale's Moon, they had needed someone with my skills and experience.  The situation demanded it.  Here?  Now?  The new colony didn't have any active enemies.  Blue Sun and the Alliance were paying the bills for the most part as things ramped up to make the colony self sufficient - if beholden to Blue Sun - and paid mercenaries were taking the place of Hale's home grown militia.  They didn't need technical advice.  They didn't need me to smuggle in or otherwise acquire vital supplies.  They didn't want any sort of leadership.  Most of the people I'd known on Hale's Moon and cared about had gone to other worlds, leaving only a handful who still remembered how things had been.

There were still reasons for me to be here, of course.  Some of them were deeply personal.

But bring my family out here for a wedding?

No.  Not going to happen.

I would sooner hire a liner to take those few people on the Rim I cared about to Ariel, in first class accommodations, and put them up for a week than bring my parents here.  We'd have a ceremony out here for those who couldn't, or wouldn't, come coreward for the "real" one.  The folks here deserved that much at least.  And the party that went with it.

When it happened . . .

The one wherein the writers remember the continuity of previous episodes

The Captain of my ELINT boat once walked with me into the big university library on Persephone.  IAV Saule Silencieuse was in port for refueling and supplies and he'd asked me to join him there to "show me something."

When we reached the balcony overlook on the third floor of the cavernous seven level building, he paused and asked "What do you see around you, Colonel?"

The library was one of the largest hard-copy repositories in the 'Verse.  Row upon row of physical books, backed by an even vaster repository of stored information in the data-stores in the well protected basement. Not to mention the 'antiques' collection that dated back to Earth that Was, kept in an environmentally controlled vault that was even more secure than the data-store.

"Books, Captain.  I see books.  Many, many, thousands of them."

He looked at me thoughtfully a moment, then smiled faintly and looked back out over the sea of books before going on in his soft, ever-so-formal, voice - "Yes.  Books.  Fiction.  Fact.  History.  Fantasy.  Over two thousand years of Human literature.  In these racks you could find the perfect quote to describe every situation.  Would you not agree, Colonel?"

I had to wonder where he was going, but I nodded.  He was right.

"Now, my Colonel, I present a situation: A Tiger has proposed marriage to a Dragon.  The Dragon has not yet decided whether to accept, but somewhere on these shelves is the perfect quote to describe what she feels at the proposition.  My challenge to you now is to find that quote."

I looked at him for a long moment, then laughed softly at the obvious reference to my situation with Simon.  "I could find a quote easily, I'm sure.  But the perfect one?  I don't know.  I'm not sure I'd know where to start."

"Yes," he replied quietly, matter of factly.  "This what we have created, Colonel.  Your network.  My ship.  The knowledge we have gathered is like this library.  Vast.  Deep.  A growing collection of facts and information.  But there is more in it than any of us can possibly digest.  The analysts and Expert Systems can dive into the depths of the sea of knowledge we are filling, but it is growing increasingly difficult to find that one perfect quote.  If you will excuse the metaphor, Colonel."

"I know, Captain.  I know.  But unlike looking for the perfect quote, I know what I am looking for in this sea we're filling, and I know how to follow the threads when I come across them.  I appreciate the metaphor though, and your point.  And . . . thank you, Hawke.  I appreciate the sentiment."  He nodded curtly after a brief pause, then motioned towards the art gallery, continuing the 'tour'.

Whether we were actually 'friends' was hard to judge.  Since taking command of Saule Silencieuse, Captain Hawke had proven to be a reliable and superbly competent commander.  We hadn't grown exactly close, but we had grown to trust one another professionally.  His little tour of the library here was a gentle reminder of the scope of information we'd gathered and an unspoken question as to whether I still had sight of my goals in that vast sea.

I did.  He even knew what I was looking for out there.  What I was watching.  Who I was watching, and why.  But as the ocean got broader and deeper, it was becoming more difficult to keep sight of my targets.

Which all came back to me when one of my 'targets' came home - with three beautifully crafted wedding gowns, each in a different style, but all quite flattering and perfectly cut for my rather petite size.  After far too long away, again, Simon had decided to come home.

I'd known what he was up to.  At least superficially.  I knew what all the people I cared about were up to, even if only with the vaguest details.  I didn't want to pry into their lives, mostly anyway, but I cared about them.  Which meant knowing enough about their situations to assist if they needed it.  Sometimes, with Buddha's grace, before they knew they needed it.

Simon had been keeping more direct tabs on my girls than I had.  Where I'd been sifting through the vast data streams to see what they were doing, he'd had boots on the ground.  More detail, at the expense of less scope.  Something I couldn't fault him for.  But he'd come home, bringing the gowns and a serious discussion about our actually following through with the statement he'd made at that town hall meeting what seemed like an age ago.

Our 'real world' concerns, about the girls and everything else our lives as Spooks brought us into contact with, were often all-consuming.  The interactions between various factions at individual levels, or regional, or even planetary, scaling up to grand "issues" - like the nearly inevitable conflict coming between organic and artificial life.

That was what kept me awake at night.  What gave me nightmares when I slept.  I'd seen the first inklings of it when I'd recognized Krenshar as a fully sentient artificial system.  It had only grown with Blue, and when Imrhien and the secret society she'd been associated with brought to light the von Neumann machines under Hale's and Blackburne.  Weaponized versions of a peaceful project, but now fully AI and unequivocally hostile to Organic life.

Simon knew about all of that, even though his focus was on more personal matters.  A level of focus I'd let slip in the fast flow of data that had come to surround me.  I knew what he was tracking, but I wasn't involved beyond watching from the darkness.

That would change.  It would have to.

But the greater surprise was Simon finally asking me to share his bed.  It was sincere and seemed to be something he was right needful of. While he promised nothing "improper" would happen, I was actually happy he'd finally come around to at least that.  Even if it was just to cuddle for a night - I could live with 'nothing improper.'  At least once.  It had been a silent sticking point all along.  I knew he'd been very proper about such things, where I was anything but.  Hell, there were still pictures of Immy and me together on the dance pole at the old Fook Yoo's in circulation.  To me sex was something to be done for fun, as well as intimacy and bonding and everything else.  But fun was the starting point, and until I knew whether he was any good in bed, or at least could be taught to be good in bed, well. . . I doubted he'd be comfortable with me spending nights with my favored Companion after we were married.  At least if the marriage was for anything but our covers.

I'd been waiting though.  Even if nothing more than some extensive cuddling happened the first night, it was what I'd been waiting for.  One thing, at least.  When, exactly, it led to more, was another question.  But at least we'd taken that step.

Bodies sharing warmth
A bed far too big for one
About freaking time

Watcher in the darkness

What have I become?

Since Simon publicly announced at a Town Council meeting that we were getting married, I've found myself retreated from public life.  So many changes on the colony surface, and in the social structure, that I barely recognize it even as I watch the world change outside.  And Simon . . . dear Simon.  I would ask "where have you gone?" but I know where you've gone, even if you don't think I do, or can. I know.  I see, sometimes, more than I want to see.  But hint: If you want to marry me, you have to actually be around enough for me to accept it'll be the right thing.  I think though he knew as well as I that a couple of Spooks will never have a normal life.  Let alone a normal life together.

The network, my network, continues to grow.  The information comes, is parsed, analyzed, sorted, prioritized, then, sometimes, sold, to pay for the growth of the network.  There is more coming in than I can ever absorb myself.  I know that.  I don't even try.  That's what my analysts are for.  To pare it down into digestible pieces so I can see into the workings of the 'Verse.  Only one or two of my team know, even suspect, really, why I am doing what I'm doing.  Blue knows.  He sees it all.  I'm sure he comprehends it all in the totality as well, even if he won't share his insights.

I trust him.  Oddly.  Perhaps I have no choice but to trust him.  But I do.  He's withheld information, or spoken in riddles, but he's never lied to me.  He's never hurt me, or anyone I've cared for.  He is a friend, even if "he" is an arbitrary pronoun for a being that has no gender, or physical form, and exists entirely in a digital space.

I believe I am on the right course.  If I am right . . .

If I am right, and this is not all some grandiose fantasy, I am gently nudging us onto a course that assures our ultimate survival.  It won't be an easy journey, or a short one, but it means that everything we have become will continue into a long, long, future.

If I am wrong?  There are myriad ways I can be wrong, starting with the initial premise.  If I have that wrong, then the reason behind everything I am doing is for naught.  The immediate outcome will be beneficial but the long term goal will be irrelevant.  There are countless ways, even if I'm right, to screw this up: from simple failure, to being too short sighted, to being stymied by someone with opposing goals.

What of my girls?  I watch them.  I try and guide and support where I can, but I think I've failed as a mother.  Or even as a mother figure.  Maybe Haley considers me a good "mother," or at least a good Human.  But Beagles are easy to please and she's orders of magnitude easier to be a mother to than my girls.

I don't know how they will turn out.  How any of this will turn out.  The scope is longer than a human lifetime.  Linger than several human lifetimes.  I won't live long enough to see it come to fruition, or even to see what my girls become - Buddha willing - but I know there is a reason I do what I do.

Watching.

Alone.

From the darkness.

Watcher in the dark
Cling to a sense of purpose
Hoping I am right