Firefly: Black Cat Blues - 2.10 Election Day, Part 4
Previous episode here.
After getting informed at the various campus-election-related parties (or, in Birgitta's case, tangling with a private investigator), the crew of Black Cat assembles bleary-eyed for breakfast. Right away, Nicolas takes Quinn (who just returned from spending the night with her new Neo-Marxist friend) aside into the cockpit and fills her in on the basic outline of what she missed with relation to Birgitta, Dustin, Narland the now-murdered private investigator, and so forth. Quinn then brings up an even tougher subject: What has been making Nicolas behave so very awkwardly around her for the past few days? As always, Nicolas evades the question, leaving Quinn to explore other avenues to solve the mystery of her brother's strange behavior.
Quinn leaves the cockpit and approaches Siqin to ask her if anything unusual happened during the trip to Bernadette, since that's the only time recently that Nicolas has been away from her. Siqin responds that everything there went very smoothly in her presence, but that Nicolas and Osiris shared a bunk on the shuttle that took them there. When they boarded the shuttle, both Nicolas and Osiris seemed normal, but when the trip ended, both seemed angry, distracted, and preoccupied. Now Quinn is beginning to have some inkling of what's going on, so she approaches Osiris and asks him to recount what happened on the trip (that is, after she gives him his birthday present, an Ecosphere). After some prodding from Quinn, Osiris admits that Nicolas was angry because he heard the two of them having sex a few nights before, so he ordered Osiris to stay away from his sister and to end their physical relationship. Quinn is quite indignant upon hearing about this and tells Osiris that she thinks Nicolas should stay out of her business - especially because the relationship is not anything serious, in her mind. However, before she can approach Nicolas about it, he calls a meeting of the entire crew to talk about the information they gathered at the parties.
Everybody meets in the kitchen and fills Nicolas in on what they learned. Of the available parties, the First Students' Party and the Neo-Marxist Party support Meyers' resolution, which must not be allowed to pass. The Students First Party (Edward's), the Green 'Verse Party, and the Female Supremacy Party oppose it. The Cannibals, Wizards, and Vampires Party doesn't really seem to care one way or another, and could probably be talked into voting however the crew wanted them to. However, Daisy's and Luke's research of the Green 'Verse Party and the Female Supremacy Party has convinced them that due to their respective parties' radical and fringe beliefs, neither party has a broad enough support base to actually win the election without a miracle (or some serious ballot-box tampering) occurring. Much to everyone's dismay, it looks like the Students First Party is their best bet for accomplishing their goals.
The meeting then turns into a debate about how best to go about making the First Students' Party lose - since with things being they way they currently are, removing that impediment will certainly be enough to ensure the Students First Party's victory. Nicolas still favors the idea of sending Jaya into Mayers' office in her Holy Mother guise with a hidden recording device and seeing if her presence would be enough to provoke him into spilling his guts...until Archer and Siqin point out that the crew tried to do this exact same thing on Svarga, and since it was incredibly difficult there it is sure to be even harder on the Core. Nicolas also bandies about the idea of breaking into Mayers' office to seek out incriminating information, but Luke says that if he didn't find anything totally illegal in Mayers' tax records, it's quite unlikely that he'd be foolish enough to write down anything more incriminating. Since the key to turning public opinion against Mayers will be in proving the long-standing rumor that he stands to profit handsomely from the resolution and will funnel the excess money to an extremist religious group, the crew is going to need to find the evidence to prove that claim from a different source. Interestingly enough, it's Quinn who realizes that Interstellar Transit, the mid-sized shipping company in which Mayers has a controlling interest, might be the best place to look for this. She suggests trying to find documents in the company database that would provide incriminating evidence. Nicolas agrees, and assigns Quinn and Siqin (who's the only one with computer hacking abilities) to infiltrate the Interstellar Transit branch office on Londinum and come out with the needed documents. When that's done, he'll ask Daisy (remembering her eloquent words from St Albans) to write up a scathing exposé which will be anonymously posted all around campus.
Unfortunately, the plan hits another speed bump when Nicolas asks Daisy for her help. Although she's been quiet up until this point because of the apparently unavoidable necessity of Edward's party winning the election, Daisy says that her conscience won't allow her to actively contribute to a course of action that will inevitably result in her helping to place Edward into a position of power - not just because of her own dislike of him, but because she firmly believes that it would be bad for her university in the long run. Fortunately, it doesn't take the crew long to come up with a solution for this problem, because they quickly realize that Edward can't be elected if he goes missing just before the election. Nicolas tasks Archer with making sure that Edward is quietly removed from campus and kept elsewhere until after the election, then returned relatively unharmed. Thinking of his new acquaintances from the Female Supremacy Party and the dislike for Edward that they expressed to him last night, Luke volunteers to help apprehend Edward and deliver him to the ship that night. There are only two days left before the election, so the crew will need to act quickly in order to accomplish all of this in time.
Quinn asks around the spaceport to learn the location of the Interstellar Transit branch office, then gets Siqin and the mule and heads over there. Quinn soon finds a manager on site and tells him that she and her co-pilot (Siqin) are looking for work and heard that Interstellar Transit might be looking for contract pilots. The manager asks some perfunctory questions about Quinn's and Siqin's piloting experience, and soon says that they sound like the sort of people he would like to hire. To make sure of their actual piloting ability, the manager offers them a sort of "try-out" flying one of the company's spacecraft to one of Londinum's moons to make a mail run. Provided that everything goes well, they can then talk about doing longer hauls. Quinn, Siqin, and the manager load the bags of mail into the ship and take off for Londinum's moon. After getting out of Londinum's orbit, Quinn gives Siqin a significant look, then puts the ship on autopilot and entices the manager away from the instrument panels with the promise of some real coffee. While Quinn is distracting the manager, Siqin hacks into the Interstellar Transit database and seeks out the incriminating information that is needed. Before long, she has downloaded a large number of memos exchanged between Mayers and company management that, while they don't come out and admit wrongdoing, are explicit enough to make it quite easy for Daisy to draw the necessary connections.
After delivering the mail to Londinum's moon, and after Siqin has indicated to Quinn that the mission has been accomplished, Quinn takes steps to make sure that she won't be locked into working for Interstellar Transit. She tells Siqin to take the wheel while she steps away to do something else, knowing full well that she's asking Siqin to do something that she has no idea how to handle (since Siqin has no training in piloting). Siqin ends up scraping the bottom and top of the ship against some docked vessels, and nearly colliding with an oncoming freighter, before the manager yanks the wheel away from her and flies the ship to safety. Predictably, the manager is shaken up and somewhat angry, and tells Quinn that although he would be happy to hire her as a pilot, Siqin needs more training before she's ready. Quinn says that Siqin is her partner and she won't abandon her, so the manager says he can't give her the job. He offers to pay them for the mail run, but Quinn kindly refuses, saying that the manager should use it to cover any repairs to the ship caused by Siqin's mistake. Quinn and Siqin land back on Londinum and quickly head back to Black Cat with their data. (The upside of this entire situation, however, is that Siqin actually walks away with a decent beginner's understanding of piloting.)
In the meantime, Luke tracks down the dorm room of one of the young women he met at the Female Supremacy Party rally the previous night, and goes to visit her with the intention of talking her into helping him with the kidnapping of Edward. Luke's plan is for her (and any of her Female Supremacist friends she can talk into helping) to go to the Campus Club, which is known to be one of Edward's favorite places to see and be seen, and drug his drink on the way out the door. He will then be taken out of the picture temporarily and taught a lesson or two - in a non-lethal way, Luke is quick to assure her. Predictably, Luke's accomplice is a little dubious about the prospect of being involved in something like this, but ultimately Luke convinces her that it's the best way to keep Edward out of power and make the Female Supremacy Party's efforts that much more meaningful. She tells Luke she'll try to bring in another helper, and calls him several hours later saying that she and one of her friends will help him. The three of them make plans to meet up at the campus club later that evening.
Back at Black Cat, Luke talks to Osiris and gets a dose of knockout drops that, when put into Edward's drink, will send him into a deep sleep and allow Luke to transport him easily. Then he puts on his best suit and meets his attractive female accomplices outside the campus club, where he pulls out his Alliance credentials to gain entry for all three of them. Once they're inside, Edward and a couple of his friends show up not too long afterwards, and Luke backs off to let the women work their magic. Sure enough, by the time the campus club is about to close down, the two women have lured Edward away from his friends and gotten him pleasantly tipsy and clearly expecting that he's about to get lucky. Following Luke's prior instructions, they talk him into having "one more drink for the road" and spiking that one as they leave. Luke leaves a few minutes after that, just in time to see the two girls loading a mostly-passed-out Edward into the elevator. He meets them at the curb, tells them that their work here is done, and calls Black Cat in search of someone to come and pick Edward up in the mule.
Quinn (who has just gotten back from her "job interview") picks up Luke and Edward and returns them to Black Cat. Archer is waiting for them in the new second shuttle. She has informed Nicolas of her plan, which is to fly the shuttle to an isolated nature preserve and hold Edward captive there until after the election. When he's found missing, the Students First Party will be forced to put up a replacement candidate. Archer promises not to cause any lasting physical damage to Edward, but says she'll do her best to drive home the lesson that he needs to treat people better. At Luke's request, she also promises to take some pictures of him in compromising positions for the amusement of Luke's allies in the Female Supremacy Party. After tying up the passed-out Edward in the back of the shuttle, Archer departs with the promise to return with Edward on Tuesday morning, after the election is over.
The following morning, Daisy delivers a very well-written exposé of Mayers' wrongdoing to Nicolas, which she has stayed up all night writing. Nicolas, Quinn, Siqin, and the others ensure that it is distributed in a variety of ways: through the Cortex, on printed documents hung up all over campus, by getting it to their various contacts in the underdog parties, and so forth. Then most everyone settles in to watch the fireworks (with the exception of Osiris, who is so frustrated about the order to stay away from Quinn that he goes out to a sex shop and buys what can only be termed "a Newtech vagina").[1] This goes so far that most of the crew grabs a few lawnchairs and some bottles of wine and heads out to the quad to watch what appears to be a riot in progress, with the student body out in force to protest the revelation of Mayers' plans and stump for their respective candidates.
In the midst of all the chaos, Quinn decides that it's high time she taught a lesson to her brother about staying out of her personal business, such as her "relationship" (or lack thereof) with Osiris. Quinn looks around the assembled crowd until she finds the sketchiest man she can - in this case, a literal bum named Jim - and starts canoodling with him in such a way that it's impossible for Nicolas not to see it. Predictably, Nicolas freaks out and quickly leaves his lawn chair behind to get in between them, ordering Jim to back off. Quinn immediately turns on Nicolas and tells him that she was never planning to do anything with Jim, because she's not crazy; rather, this was a test to see if her fear of Nicolas's overprotective nature was grounded. Apparently, it is. Nicolas insists that he needs to keep an eye on Quinn for her own good, and that it's his role as a brother to protect his twin sister, to which Quinn responds that in their current situation, that won't always be possible. Nicolas says that's the point; he needs to protect her when he can. Quinn's reply is that protection is all well and good, but it doesn't extend to meddling in the question of who Quinn decides to have sex with, because that should be none of Nicolas's business.
The conversation quickly turns to Osiris and whether or not it's good for Quinn to spend time with him. Quinn believes that her friendship (with benefits) with Osiris is a good thing for the ship in the long run, because of her ability to keep him calm and functional by being around him. To this, Nicolas responds, "So, keep him from bein' crazy. Just don't...have relations with him." Quinn points out that she wasn't breaking any rules by doing what she did, and that Nicolas never would have even known about it if he hadn't been snooping. From there, the conversation quickly begins to go in circles, with Nicolas insisting that he doesn't want Quinn to get hurt by Osiris and Quinn reminding him that as long as Osiris is on the ship, there will always be that risk for everyone just because of how Osiris is.[2] After a long debate, very few of the essential parts of the problem have been resolved, but Nicolas and Quinn eventually get tired of fighting about it and agree to try giving each other a little more space and mutual respect in the future. After all, if Nicolas believes strongly about giving Birgitta a chance to redeem herself, it's only fair to allow Quinn to do the same with Osiris - even if Nicolas's version of redemption doesn't involve doing the nasty.
In the meantime, the situation on campus is beginning to degenerate. What began as a spirited protest has begun to take a violent turn, with fistfights breaking out and bottles flying. When the crew sees firefighting vehicles speeding in the direction of a large plume of smoke that's emerging from the building that houses Mayers' office, and when Nicolas gets a call from Daisy saying that she's watching the news and the riot police have been called out, everyone knows it's time to leave. The crew returns to Black Cat and observes the events of the next few days' events with interest, but from a safe distance. After the riot was quelled with tear gas, the fire extinguished, and various students arrested, the election goes on as planned with a replacement candidate in the Students First slot due to the mysterious disappearance of Edward Meng. Just as expected, the Students First party wins a landslide victory over all the others (with the Cannibals, Wizards, and Vampires Party coming in a semi-close second), and the crew can feel good that their mission has been accomplished.
The next few days are a blur of preparations for the crew's return to Shadow. Dr. Pellini and his students load up the cargo bay as Quinn plots a course that, although it will take two weeks, will bring the ship safely to Shadow from Londinum while also staying out of the way of other planets and their security forces, lest they run into more Dustin-related problems. Archer returns with the incriminating pictures that Luke requested, saying that Edward is unhurt but has hopefully learned a lesson. Finally, the crew departs Londinum, hoping they won't have to return to the Core and all of its problems for a long time. They're looking forward to a long, relaxing trip to Shadow, so they'll be able to face anything that may happen after that.
1 - The Newtech vagina is like a cross between a Tamagotchi and a sex doll. You need to keep it happy and well-fed and I'm just going to not talk about any more details related to this right now.
2 - Nicolas: I don't want him to get too close to you.
Quinn: He lives in the same damned ship as me.
Iain, OOC: And we don't lock doors.
After getting informed at the various campus-election-related parties (or, in Birgitta's case, tangling with a private investigator), the crew of Black Cat assembles bleary-eyed for breakfast. Right away, Nicolas takes Quinn (who just returned from spending the night with her new Neo-Marxist friend) aside into the cockpit and fills her in on the basic outline of what she missed with relation to Birgitta, Dustin, Narland the now-murdered private investigator, and so forth. Quinn then brings up an even tougher subject: What has been making Nicolas behave so very awkwardly around her for the past few days? As always, Nicolas evades the question, leaving Quinn to explore other avenues to solve the mystery of her brother's strange behavior.
Quinn leaves the cockpit and approaches Siqin to ask her if anything unusual happened during the trip to Bernadette, since that's the only time recently that Nicolas has been away from her. Siqin responds that everything there went very smoothly in her presence, but that Nicolas and Osiris shared a bunk on the shuttle that took them there. When they boarded the shuttle, both Nicolas and Osiris seemed normal, but when the trip ended, both seemed angry, distracted, and preoccupied. Now Quinn is beginning to have some inkling of what's going on, so she approaches Osiris and asks him to recount what happened on the trip (that is, after she gives him his birthday present, an Ecosphere). After some prodding from Quinn, Osiris admits that Nicolas was angry because he heard the two of them having sex a few nights before, so he ordered Osiris to stay away from his sister and to end their physical relationship. Quinn is quite indignant upon hearing about this and tells Osiris that she thinks Nicolas should stay out of her business - especially because the relationship is not anything serious, in her mind. However, before she can approach Nicolas about it, he calls a meeting of the entire crew to talk about the information they gathered at the parties.
Everybody meets in the kitchen and fills Nicolas in on what they learned. Of the available parties, the First Students' Party and the Neo-Marxist Party support Meyers' resolution, which must not be allowed to pass. The Students First Party (Edward's), the Green 'Verse Party, and the Female Supremacy Party oppose it. The Cannibals, Wizards, and Vampires Party doesn't really seem to care one way or another, and could probably be talked into voting however the crew wanted them to. However, Daisy's and Luke's research of the Green 'Verse Party and the Female Supremacy Party has convinced them that due to their respective parties' radical and fringe beliefs, neither party has a broad enough support base to actually win the election without a miracle (or some serious ballot-box tampering) occurring. Much to everyone's dismay, it looks like the Students First Party is their best bet for accomplishing their goals.
The meeting then turns into a debate about how best to go about making the First Students' Party lose - since with things being they way they currently are, removing that impediment will certainly be enough to ensure the Students First Party's victory. Nicolas still favors the idea of sending Jaya into Mayers' office in her Holy Mother guise with a hidden recording device and seeing if her presence would be enough to provoke him into spilling his guts...until Archer and Siqin point out that the crew tried to do this exact same thing on Svarga, and since it was incredibly difficult there it is sure to be even harder on the Core. Nicolas also bandies about the idea of breaking into Mayers' office to seek out incriminating information, but Luke says that if he didn't find anything totally illegal in Mayers' tax records, it's quite unlikely that he'd be foolish enough to write down anything more incriminating. Since the key to turning public opinion against Mayers will be in proving the long-standing rumor that he stands to profit handsomely from the resolution and will funnel the excess money to an extremist religious group, the crew is going to need to find the evidence to prove that claim from a different source. Interestingly enough, it's Quinn who realizes that Interstellar Transit, the mid-sized shipping company in which Mayers has a controlling interest, might be the best place to look for this. She suggests trying to find documents in the company database that would provide incriminating evidence. Nicolas agrees, and assigns Quinn and Siqin (who's the only one with computer hacking abilities) to infiltrate the Interstellar Transit branch office on Londinum and come out with the needed documents. When that's done, he'll ask Daisy (remembering her eloquent words from St Albans) to write up a scathing exposé which will be anonymously posted all around campus.
Unfortunately, the plan hits another speed bump when Nicolas asks Daisy for her help. Although she's been quiet up until this point because of the apparently unavoidable necessity of Edward's party winning the election, Daisy says that her conscience won't allow her to actively contribute to a course of action that will inevitably result in her helping to place Edward into a position of power - not just because of her own dislike of him, but because she firmly believes that it would be bad for her university in the long run. Fortunately, it doesn't take the crew long to come up with a solution for this problem, because they quickly realize that Edward can't be elected if he goes missing just before the election. Nicolas tasks Archer with making sure that Edward is quietly removed from campus and kept elsewhere until after the election, then returned relatively unharmed. Thinking of his new acquaintances from the Female Supremacy Party and the dislike for Edward that they expressed to him last night, Luke volunteers to help apprehend Edward and deliver him to the ship that night. There are only two days left before the election, so the crew will need to act quickly in order to accomplish all of this in time.
Quinn asks around the spaceport to learn the location of the Interstellar Transit branch office, then gets Siqin and the mule and heads over there. Quinn soon finds a manager on site and tells him that she and her co-pilot (Siqin) are looking for work and heard that Interstellar Transit might be looking for contract pilots. The manager asks some perfunctory questions about Quinn's and Siqin's piloting experience, and soon says that they sound like the sort of people he would like to hire. To make sure of their actual piloting ability, the manager offers them a sort of "try-out" flying one of the company's spacecraft to one of Londinum's moons to make a mail run. Provided that everything goes well, they can then talk about doing longer hauls. Quinn, Siqin, and the manager load the bags of mail into the ship and take off for Londinum's moon. After getting out of Londinum's orbit, Quinn gives Siqin a significant look, then puts the ship on autopilot and entices the manager away from the instrument panels with the promise of some real coffee. While Quinn is distracting the manager, Siqin hacks into the Interstellar Transit database and seeks out the incriminating information that is needed. Before long, she has downloaded a large number of memos exchanged between Mayers and company management that, while they don't come out and admit wrongdoing, are explicit enough to make it quite easy for Daisy to draw the necessary connections.
After delivering the mail to Londinum's moon, and after Siqin has indicated to Quinn that the mission has been accomplished, Quinn takes steps to make sure that she won't be locked into working for Interstellar Transit. She tells Siqin to take the wheel while she steps away to do something else, knowing full well that she's asking Siqin to do something that she has no idea how to handle (since Siqin has no training in piloting). Siqin ends up scraping the bottom and top of the ship against some docked vessels, and nearly colliding with an oncoming freighter, before the manager yanks the wheel away from her and flies the ship to safety. Predictably, the manager is shaken up and somewhat angry, and tells Quinn that although he would be happy to hire her as a pilot, Siqin needs more training before she's ready. Quinn says that Siqin is her partner and she won't abandon her, so the manager says he can't give her the job. He offers to pay them for the mail run, but Quinn kindly refuses, saying that the manager should use it to cover any repairs to the ship caused by Siqin's mistake. Quinn and Siqin land back on Londinum and quickly head back to Black Cat with their data. (The upside of this entire situation, however, is that Siqin actually walks away with a decent beginner's understanding of piloting.)
In the meantime, Luke tracks down the dorm room of one of the young women he met at the Female Supremacy Party rally the previous night, and goes to visit her with the intention of talking her into helping him with the kidnapping of Edward. Luke's plan is for her (and any of her Female Supremacist friends she can talk into helping) to go to the Campus Club, which is known to be one of Edward's favorite places to see and be seen, and drug his drink on the way out the door. He will then be taken out of the picture temporarily and taught a lesson or two - in a non-lethal way, Luke is quick to assure her. Predictably, Luke's accomplice is a little dubious about the prospect of being involved in something like this, but ultimately Luke convinces her that it's the best way to keep Edward out of power and make the Female Supremacy Party's efforts that much more meaningful. She tells Luke she'll try to bring in another helper, and calls him several hours later saying that she and one of her friends will help him. The three of them make plans to meet up at the campus club later that evening.
Back at Black Cat, Luke talks to Osiris and gets a dose of knockout drops that, when put into Edward's drink, will send him into a deep sleep and allow Luke to transport him easily. Then he puts on his best suit and meets his attractive female accomplices outside the campus club, where he pulls out his Alliance credentials to gain entry for all three of them. Once they're inside, Edward and a couple of his friends show up not too long afterwards, and Luke backs off to let the women work their magic. Sure enough, by the time the campus club is about to close down, the two women have lured Edward away from his friends and gotten him pleasantly tipsy and clearly expecting that he's about to get lucky. Following Luke's prior instructions, they talk him into having "one more drink for the road" and spiking that one as they leave. Luke leaves a few minutes after that, just in time to see the two girls loading a mostly-passed-out Edward into the elevator. He meets them at the curb, tells them that their work here is done, and calls Black Cat in search of someone to come and pick Edward up in the mule.
Quinn (who has just gotten back from her "job interview") picks up Luke and Edward and returns them to Black Cat. Archer is waiting for them in the new second shuttle. She has informed Nicolas of her plan, which is to fly the shuttle to an isolated nature preserve and hold Edward captive there until after the election. When he's found missing, the Students First Party will be forced to put up a replacement candidate. Archer promises not to cause any lasting physical damage to Edward, but says she'll do her best to drive home the lesson that he needs to treat people better. At Luke's request, she also promises to take some pictures of him in compromising positions for the amusement of Luke's allies in the Female Supremacy Party. After tying up the passed-out Edward in the back of the shuttle, Archer departs with the promise to return with Edward on Tuesday morning, after the election is over.
The following morning, Daisy delivers a very well-written exposé of Mayers' wrongdoing to Nicolas, which she has stayed up all night writing. Nicolas, Quinn, Siqin, and the others ensure that it is distributed in a variety of ways: through the Cortex, on printed documents hung up all over campus, by getting it to their various contacts in the underdog parties, and so forth. Then most everyone settles in to watch the fireworks (with the exception of Osiris, who is so frustrated about the order to stay away from Quinn that he goes out to a sex shop and buys what can only be termed "a Newtech vagina").[1] This goes so far that most of the crew grabs a few lawnchairs and some bottles of wine and heads out to the quad to watch what appears to be a riot in progress, with the student body out in force to protest the revelation of Mayers' plans and stump for their respective candidates.
In the midst of all the chaos, Quinn decides that it's high time she taught a lesson to her brother about staying out of her personal business, such as her "relationship" (or lack thereof) with Osiris. Quinn looks around the assembled crowd until she finds the sketchiest man she can - in this case, a literal bum named Jim - and starts canoodling with him in such a way that it's impossible for Nicolas not to see it. Predictably, Nicolas freaks out and quickly leaves his lawn chair behind to get in between them, ordering Jim to back off. Quinn immediately turns on Nicolas and tells him that she was never planning to do anything with Jim, because she's not crazy; rather, this was a test to see if her fear of Nicolas's overprotective nature was grounded. Apparently, it is. Nicolas insists that he needs to keep an eye on Quinn for her own good, and that it's his role as a brother to protect his twin sister, to which Quinn responds that in their current situation, that won't always be possible. Nicolas says that's the point; he needs to protect her when he can. Quinn's reply is that protection is all well and good, but it doesn't extend to meddling in the question of who Quinn decides to have sex with, because that should be none of Nicolas's business.
The conversation quickly turns to Osiris and whether or not it's good for Quinn to spend time with him. Quinn believes that her friendship (with benefits) with Osiris is a good thing for the ship in the long run, because of her ability to keep him calm and functional by being around him. To this, Nicolas responds, "So, keep him from bein' crazy. Just don't...have relations with him." Quinn points out that she wasn't breaking any rules by doing what she did, and that Nicolas never would have even known about it if he hadn't been snooping. From there, the conversation quickly begins to go in circles, with Nicolas insisting that he doesn't want Quinn to get hurt by Osiris and Quinn reminding him that as long as Osiris is on the ship, there will always be that risk for everyone just because of how Osiris is.[2] After a long debate, very few of the essential parts of the problem have been resolved, but Nicolas and Quinn eventually get tired of fighting about it and agree to try giving each other a little more space and mutual respect in the future. After all, if Nicolas believes strongly about giving Birgitta a chance to redeem herself, it's only fair to allow Quinn to do the same with Osiris - even if Nicolas's version of redemption doesn't involve doing the nasty.
In the meantime, the situation on campus is beginning to degenerate. What began as a spirited protest has begun to take a violent turn, with fistfights breaking out and bottles flying. When the crew sees firefighting vehicles speeding in the direction of a large plume of smoke that's emerging from the building that houses Mayers' office, and when Nicolas gets a call from Daisy saying that she's watching the news and the riot police have been called out, everyone knows it's time to leave. The crew returns to Black Cat and observes the events of the next few days' events with interest, but from a safe distance. After the riot was quelled with tear gas, the fire extinguished, and various students arrested, the election goes on as planned with a replacement candidate in the Students First slot due to the mysterious disappearance of Edward Meng. Just as expected, the Students First party wins a landslide victory over all the others (with the Cannibals, Wizards, and Vampires Party coming in a semi-close second), and the crew can feel good that their mission has been accomplished.
The next few days are a blur of preparations for the crew's return to Shadow. Dr. Pellini and his students load up the cargo bay as Quinn plots a course that, although it will take two weeks, will bring the ship safely to Shadow from Londinum while also staying out of the way of other planets and their security forces, lest they run into more Dustin-related problems. Archer returns with the incriminating pictures that Luke requested, saying that Edward is unhurt but has hopefully learned a lesson. Finally, the crew departs Londinum, hoping they won't have to return to the Core and all of its problems for a long time. They're looking forward to a long, relaxing trip to Shadow, so they'll be able to face anything that may happen after that.
1 - The Newtech vagina is like a cross between a Tamagotchi and a sex doll. You need to keep it happy and well-fed and I'm just going to not talk about any more details related to this right now.
2 - Nicolas: I don't want him to get too close to you.
Quinn: He lives in the same damned ship as me.
Iain, OOC: And we don't lock doors.