By-=/\=- Zanh Liis
80622.19
Following The Order of the Day
-=Sickbay, USS Serendipity=-
80622.19
Following The Order of the Day
-=Sickbay, USS Serendipity=-
Coming in and out of consciousness, Keiran O'Sullivan was certain that he'd heard her voice.
It was soft, and far away, and sounded sadder than he could ever recall having heard it. For a moment, he thought she spoke his name.
He tried to rise from the bed, determined to get to her. He had to talk to her. He had so much to say before it was all over, if this was to be the last night of his life.
He didn't want to leave her for good without telling her...
Before he could find the strength to rise, however, he was pulled under again by another raging tide of memories. Sinking back against the pillows, his eyes closed once again.
Across Sickbay, Zanh Liis felt intensely alert and awake even as her body surrendered to unconsciousness. She had no way of knowing that her mind and memories were being manipulated as she returned again to a day she had long since forgotten.
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-=The following events take place one year after the timeline was re-set by Keiran O'Sullivan in Undone, Part Four=-
-=Alternate Timeline- 2376: Headquarters of Temporal Investigations- Location Classified=-
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-=The following events take place one year after the timeline was re-set by Keiran O'Sullivan in Undone, Part Four=-
-=Alternate Timeline- 2376: Headquarters of Temporal Investigations- Location Classified=-
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While she had never been one to judge the interior design of a room or building before, Liis could not help but be struck at the sight of this one.
She had never seen anything more sterile or boring in her life.
For a woman who had grown up at a humble rural monastery's orphanage on Bajor, that was really saying something.
As she was led through a maze of several sets of turbolifts, all secured with special access codes of course, then across a series of institutional corridors that finally led to a very mundane looking set of steel doors which actually had a sign posted upon them stating that entry was only allowed to the janitorial staff.
Liis jerked her head in the direction of the sign. "Someone's idea of a joke?"
She was asking the man who had recruited her to take up work for Temporal Investigations to begin with, and who after keeping tabs on her through a year of intensive training, was to deliver her today to the director of the division.
"Not really," Broun replied, tilting his head. "We clean up the messes that other people make, Zanh Liis. I, for one, can think of no more appropriate description of what we do. We are History's custodial staff."
"Lovely."
Her arms remained folded over her chest, her expression bored and disinterested even though she had been waiting for this day for so long. In actuality she was only bored with all of this cloak and dagger nonsense involved in finally getting to their destination.
She couldn't wait to receive her first real assignment and get started.
She had survived every day of the past year only by telling herself continually that this was the way to make things right.
Making things right was the only reason she had agreed to this deal with the devil to begin with.
She didn't know what to expect based on the utilitarian atmosphere of the bland, endless eggshell colored walls and doors she had seen since entering here. Actually she expected more of the same, and she thought that for a top secret Intelligence organization, TI could really stand to take a little money out of the budget to hire a decorator or two.
"Your old life ends here. New one begins when you walk through that door. Be absolutely sure before you do, that you're certain."
"I'm certain," Liis stepped up past him to put her hand on the security authorization panel of the door, but Broun grasped her wrist.
Her first instinct was to tear her arm back and slug him in the solar plexus with her elbow. Before she did though something in his eyes caused her to stop the motion mid-way and left her fist raised into the air, elbow drawn back halfway between his body and hers as he held it fast.
She had never seen any sort of genuine emotion on Broun's face, not once since the day they met.
Not until now.
"Are you absolutely certain, Zanh Liis?" His eyes searched hers, and Liis felt her face flush at the intensity of his stare.
Was she hearing him right? After all she'd been through in her life and in the past year of intensified training, during which she had finished a course that usually took twice as long and done it well- was he asking her if she had the guts to see this through?
*Asshole. *
"Broun," she snapped, but he quickly cut her off.
"Because you must understand that once you go through that door, once you make your first Jump, there is no going back. You will never be who you were before. Zanh Liis you knew her will be sacrificed on the other side of that door."
His voice was low and deadly serious. "Are you ready to lay her to rest and begin as someone else? Not just once, but over and over again until history is satisfied?"
Liis felt him slowly release his grip on her arm as he accepted that her silence indicated she had actually heard him and was considering his words.
Her mind flashed back to the first time she had seen him, and the letter she'd been holding in her hands that day. The one that said Jariel was dead.
If she could do anything to try to correct that mistake, then the rest, including the cost to her didn't matter. If it meant her soul, it was worth it.
"Zanh Liis as I knew her is already dead." She applied her hand to the security panel, and the gargantuan doors creaked and then finally swung open.
Zanh Liis had never been one to judge the interior design of a room or building before.
Not until today.
Once the double doors parted, she was nothing short of astonished at the space that stretched out, seemingly forever, before her eyes.
She was so shocked that she forgot that she was still in the doorway, and Broun put his hand against her back and gave her a gentle push. "Go on," he prodded. "You're finally here."
With every step Liis heard the soles of her boots echo as they struck the highly polished, ebon floors and the sound reverberated off the seemingly non-existent walls. Walls so dark in color that she had the eerie feeling she had stepped out an airlock and was now floating free in space. For a moment she doubted that her lungs would actually find oxygen in this place as she tried to inhale.
Her ears now rang with a thousand different sounds; hushed voices and approaching and retreating footsteps. The beeping of computer panels and comm lines waiting to be answered by the bank of officers who were situated at the communications hub in the center of this large, circular space.
For a moment she thought she was dreaming, thinking she heard the loud ticking of an old-fashioned clock. Seeing the confusion on her face, Broun stretched out his hand and pointed to a large item in the distance.
"That's Polaris," Broun explained, indicating the enormous clock. "She's the North star of all TI agents." The 'clock', which was actually so much more began to chime, eight notes ringing up and down the diatonic scale to announce the hour.
The sound gave Liis chills, and it was one that she knew she would never forget.
"You'll learn all about her.” Broun promised. “But right now, you need to get into uniform."
Liis looked down at their standard issue Starfleet uniforms in confusion. "Um,"
"That isn't your uniform any longer." Broun took off walking, even as Liis remained awestruck by her surroundings.
She was simply stunned into stillness, staying where she was and staring up at the astonishingly beautiful domed ceiling high above her head, her lips parted in wonder.
It was bejeweled, painted as a representation of the Milky Way Galaxy, sparkling with iridescent stars against the background of space. Blues graduated from light to dark and into black as the color crept up from the crown moldings at the top of the walls and then blended up into the mural of the dome.
*So this is where they blew the decorating budget, * Liis thought, trying to ground herself quickly as she was actually moved to near tears by the beauty of all around her. She had quite simply never seen any place like this in her life.
She took twenty measured paces forward and found there was actually a bank of antiquated clock faces built into the wall. Each displayed a different time zone in the quadrant. Earth's clock was divided into multiple zones, there were a couple zones on the one representing Vulcan… her eyes scanned the faces and names beneath each and found friend and enemy worlds listed among them.
Above the clock bank on the wall was painted an elaborate, silver gilt compass rose. Something about the lines of the image completely enthralled her, and she could not tear herself away from the sights and sounds of this place.
It was beautiful. It was immense.
It was terrifying.
"Zanh Liis! We're on a schedule. You’re not a tourist and we don't have time for sightseeing," Broun knew immediately that she'd have a smart remark to make in response as she always did when he remarked the didn't have 'time' for something. "Save it. You don't want to keep these people waiting. Trust me."
Instead of making reply, she simply nodded slowly and fell into step behind him. He led her across the room, nodding silently in acknowledgement to several of his contemporaries as they passed by.
One of them asked to speak with him a second, and so Broun asked for a moment and turned to Liis.
"Locker room is around the corner. You'll find a whole supply of uniforms in there. Take three. One you wear now, pack the other two." He gestured toward the small leather suitcase she carried.
"What do I do with this one?" Liis tugged at the collar of her standard issue uniform.
"Put it into the recycling unit and incinerate it."
She thought that was a bit wasteful and extreme, but she would do as she was told.
Walking around the corner, she craned her neck and saw a sign that said 'locker room'. Assuming that was the place, she headed in and began looking about for the uniforms.
She startled a moment later as she heard a fine, deep male singing voice resonating from the bank of sonic showers around the corner.
The man sang a song that sounded more like a battle cry; the words something about the 'blood of the martyrs' and the 'meadows of France'.
*France? * Zanh thought. She'd been there once, years ago with a friend while at the Academy. *That guy doesn't sound the least bit French. *
His accent placed him somewhere on Earth in her estimation, she just wasn't sure quite where.
Realizing she was in the men's locker room in error, Liis backed out slowly, then found the one for female agents.
*This is about the size of a broom closet * she thought. *Apparently, this field is made up of predominantly male operatives. I wonder why. *
She quickly located the closet of uniforms and chose three in her size. She took a moment after it was zipped up to adjust her two gold pips so that they were straight across the dark collar. She ignored her hair, which was by this point falling out of the braid. She tightened the cuff of her earring a little. Then she looked at herself in the mirror and sighed.
*History starts now. *
Returning to the grand lobby, Liis found Broun. He looked at her strangely, almost sadly, in her new attire and she wished for a moment she were a telepath so she could know for sure what the hell he was thinking.
They walked through several more long corridors, until they finally reached one lined with doors.
"Third door on the right," Broun gestured. Then, he held out his hand to her. Liis was once again surprised. She had never seen him behave the way he was behaving today.
Hesitantly, she reached out and clasped it, pumping firmly once and then letting go.
"Good luck, Zanh Liis,"
"Yeah, right." She rolled her eyes. She knew that he was grateful that after this moment she would be someone else's problem entirely.
"No," Broun said softly. "I mean it. Good luck."
He turned and a moment later the sound of his footsteps evaporated, leaving her alone with only the sound of her breathing and her heartbeat.
She surveyed the walls around her, and found that these too had murals of various time related items; an hourglass here, a pocket watch there. A so-called Grandfather clock. A stopwatch. A nocturnal.
Then on the opposite wall, ancient sailor's navigational tools: a sextant, an astrolabe, a quadrant and celestial globe.
All of these things Liis had seen and been told of during her training, which included a crash course in early Terran navigation and time travel.
Words of a twentieth century sailor's song she loved coursed through her mind, as she felt like one of those ancient mariners ready to leave port and head home.
She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked through the door.
-=/\=-Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012