90421.0000
by Gem Lassiter and Guest
-=Flashback continued from part one=-
by Gem Lassiter and Guest
-=Flashback continued from part one=-
A party.
Gem shook her head. She would never, ever understand politics. Or politicians.
She was a woman of action. She was used to going in, cleaning up whatever mess had been made that needed to be handled, and then getting on with the next thing. She liked to keep moving.
Holding still had always seemed to her an open and engraved invitation, courting danger.
"You should be grateful that we're not putting you behind a desk for the next month. The way you acted, that could very well have happened. But I managed to get them to believe that you're the perfect operative for this assignment and after seeing your profile picture, they agreed."
Gem snorted, utterly offended by this.
She was, she'd been told, a rare sort of beauty, but she never wanted to believe it. She couldn't abide people who only got by on their looks in life. Beauty was nothing, she believed, without the brains to back it up and a phaser poised and ready to fry anyone who might pose an obstacle between you and the completion of your duties.
"So I have to go to this...thing."
"Yes, you have to go to the Embassy Ball and you have to dress the part."
"I can't just hide behind a potted plant and just shoot anyone who looks at him sideways?"
Galloway shook his head and sighed. "No, Gem. You cannot."
He knew that she knew better but given who she was, he felt he'd better say so, just for the record in case he was questioned on the issue later.
"This is the most ridiculous, illogical operation I've ever seen in my life." Gem complained. "When I"m running this agency someday, things are going to be a hell of a lot different." She stormed toward the door.
"I didn't dismiss you yet." Galloway warned sternly.
"Do you want me to get a dress in time for this gala event or not? These things take time, Adam."
"Go on. Get out. And Gemini, don't do anything that will make me look bad. I mean it this time."
Gem muttered under her breath as she punched the button to call for the lift repeatedly and with such force that she nearly destroyed it. "Ball gown. All my career I break my neck and work my tail off. I do my best and I this is where I end up."
Once the lift doors closed and she instructed the lift to take her toward the back exit, she pounded her small fist against the wall in utter outrage.
"Jonas, I swear, I don't care what you say to me when you get back, it's over. We are over."
-=A City Street, not too far away=-
Michael Blakeney, as he’d decided to call himself today, materialised early on a street not far from his intended destination. He hadn’t thought much about it, there weren’t that many wrong choices that could be made, but he was sure that this was exactly where and when he wanted to arrive. It was a wide laneway, pedestrian access only, and dozens of people swarmed around him.
Behind him was the exit from the large cool grey transporter hub building and people from all walks of life poured out to spread through the city. It was a crowd which would be diluted eventually but on either side stood glimmering towers reaching vainly for the sky forever out of reach which for now forced them to move as one. There were young, there were old, there were the remarkable and the mundane, but there were no others quite like him.
This was the city, compressed into a handful of people, like a snapshot of the moment that was and would never be again. He could feel the history in this street.
Granted, it was recent history, but it was history nonetheless.
It was a beautiful time for the city, not quite late enough to be confidently called the evening but too long into the day for afternoon to have any claim. It was that lost time when the lights started coming on, not because they were needed but because they were wanted to entice travellers both eager and weary.
It wouldn’t take nearly as long to walk to where he was going as he had before he had to be there, but he felt that it just wouldn’t be right not to take full advantage of the extra freedom of his first solo mission by enjoying his time in the city. Besides there was always something interesting to do on any journey for the man who’s ready to risk it.
He jumped down from the base of the white marble statue he’d beamed himself on to. Given the crowd, it was one of the few positions which could be counted on to be regularly clear.
There were plenty of other less public places he could have chosen as easier to find an entrance and perhaps still had as much fun, but then he wouldn’t have made nearly as memorable an entrance.
He felt that Michael was the type of man to demand he be noticed. His choice of location and way of getting there had certainly worked in that regard as all around him people couldn’t help but turn to see who it was that’d just appeared.
Sadly most of the looks were just curious and fleeting once they established that he was just a man. This was after all a busy street and many people rushed around him to get where they were going. One of only a few exceptions to this rule was a single bulbous old man. He hobbled with a stick to support his weight, with skin barely softer than the too many layers of faded leather he wore for the warmish season.
He studied Michael up and down with one eye closed as if it made a difference to how he saw him. Finally satisfied that he wasn’t satisfied, the old man huffed and continued on his way.
Seeing this actually made Michael happier. Undoubtedly the old man's reaction was to Michael's out of place attire. He'd chosen to be dressed sharply for this evening in the most fashionable dinner jacket he could afford, which made him the focus of attention in this less than formal crowd. He knew that normally he’d have been advised to be low key, and to dress not to be noticed, but since he hadn’t this time then he used his discretion and decided looking good was almost certainly the better choice.
Several women passing by as he strolled slowly, letting the streets move around him, thought that the smile he’d had since he’d received this assignment was for them alone and when they returned it he decided not to correct them. Given the flirtatious gleam in the brunettes' eyes as they took him in from head to toe, he was not certain dressing like this was the better choice.
This was going to be fun.
-=Evening=-
Gem straightened the seam of her stockings and tucked her sidearm into the holster secured to her thigh. It was situated just above the spot where the slit in her gown ended, and that should ensure that it would remain unseen, but not out of reach, should she need to use it.
She almost hoped she'd need to use it.
This entire thing was ridiculous. She did not wear cosmetics, she did not wear heels, and she most certainly did not wear low cut, off the shoulder evening gowns.
She was one of the very first female Starfleet officers ever to reach the position of Jumper with the Timeline Control Division of TI, and damn it, she should be on a Jump somewhere.
She should not be babysitting myopic old geezers with wine on their breath who, by all accounts, had little or no respect for personal boundaries when it came to dealing with the females around them.
Still, she surveyed herself in the mirror and though she wasn't the type to do this unless ordered that a part of her, just the smallest possible part, wished that Jonas could see her now. So he would know what he was missing.
Her dress was the color of her eyes, a royal, brilliant emerald green. Her long dark curls, never allowed out of their tight bun under ordinary circumstances, had reacted to their newfound freedom by coiling even more tightly, into perfectly gleaming spirals that cascaded over her bare shoulders.
She clamped earrings into place and cringed, wondering why any woman in their right mind would go to all this trouble voluntarily just for the sake of vanity. It just wasn't worth it.
She was, she figured at last glance, as ready as she'd ever be.
She adjusted a small device affixed to the back of her left earring; the wire by which everything she saw and heard tonight would be seen and recorded by her superiors. They would watch, they told her, but they would not come in to help unless there was absolutely no other way.
Other undercover operatives may or may not be working the room at any given time- she was told that the less she knew about those arrangements and the more she just played the role of clueless date to the Ambassador, the better.
One thing that Gem Lassiter had never been was clueless.
----------------------------
//// Admiral Gemini Lassiter
Director, The Alchemy Project
(And former Temporal Investigations Agent)
and
Michael Blakeney
Mission: Classified