The Lovelace Protocol
Title: The Lovelace Protocol pt 1
Author: Alsike
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds/Steampunk
Pairing: None yet, but really, what do you expect of me?
Rating: PG-13 (right now)
Word Count: 839 (picture count 4) This is more of a teaser than anything.
Apologia: So, very very slowly, I seem to be working my way through the requests I got at the end of last summer. I don't expect this story to go very quickly, because a. it's nuts, and b. so is my life, but hey, I enjoyed messing around with it, and if I get encouragement (and ideas) I'll probably get to the next bit faster.
And, oh, I illustrated it. I know I draw like crap, but really? I couldn't not.
I think I'm just going to keep this on my journal for a while, until I have a bit more stuff to put up. But If you're one of the 3 people who actually looks at my journal, I hope you don't hate it utterly.
Summary: by ambrdrgn, who suggested it.
"A steampunk AU where Emily is a bored noblewoman who uses her airship and her Letter of Marque to the fullest for fun and profit. Enter Emma, an imperious agent of Her Majesty's government ostensibly sent to inspect the ship and her captain. Secretly, however, Emma's actual mission is to entice Emily into volunteering for Her Majesty's Air Army." Or something, kind of like that. :D
The truth was, zepplins may have been the pride for Her Majesty’s Air Navy, but they were the most useless, slowest, irksome pieces of plodding propulsion around, and Miss Frost was tired of them. It hadn’t been too long ago that she had been running missions in ragged corkscrew wind hoppers, daVincis, they were called, smuggling weapons and people from one end of Europe to the other.
[A daVinci]
But after the debacle with that arrogant nut of a boyscout, Summers, her cover had been blown to pieces, and she had been fortunate to find a bounce on any old tub, even a jittering skittering old zep, that wouldn’t have passed any sort of military inspection. Lucky, it was, that she had her own connections, who knew her without any of the government poison tied to her name. And lucky they knew that she wasn’t the sort to snitch on her friends, even if they were running certain items of an illegal persuasion.
She had bounced, all the way back to Britain, and her handler had given her a commendation and some sort of honor or another, but all in all, it was a bad bit of business, and she was stuck.
Miss Frost wandered along the deck of HMZ Blackbird, where it hung tethered over Parliament, letting the cool fog of cloud cling to her sleeves and turn her nose into ice. She was stuck. That was all there was to it, and it was insupportable. What the bloody use was a famous spy?
Oh, her boss had offered her a rank and some sort of paper pushing duties, in an office, underground, and she had smiled and said, “no thanks,” and hadn’t said, “Are you joking? I’d swallow my gun if I had to do what you do.”
She had walked out.
But then there had been the note.
Miss Frost had a decent flat in the city and spent her times wandering museums, and having coffee, not too different from her activities in Moscow and Berlin, just… more boring. And then, one day, she had been taking tea in the park, as usual, and a ragged little urchin had bumped into her. She snagged the girl’s hand an inch from her purse. There was a paper bunched tightly in her fist. The girl looked at her, and Miss Frost looked back and took the paper, folding it surreptitiously into her palm.
“Get off with you! Thieving brat,” she spat at the girl, who scampered away with a grin.
It was the Lovelace protocol. Someone was following the Bernoulli code. Someone was trying to reconstruct Xavier’s crown.
She took a Cayley, fast and light, to check her sources. There was nothing better for speedy reconnaissance. The facts were the facts. The artifacts were being sought, and the intent was to use them.
Miss Hartley coughed slightly, standing at the top of the stairwell that snaked down the side of the Blackbird. “Mr. X will see you now.” Her expression was disapproving, and Miss Frost repressed a smile as she swept past the secretary and town the stairs. There was a waiting room on the underside of the zep, but honestly, why would she stay in there when she could be up in the fresh air.
It might be the last chance she had in a long while.
Her boss at MI-5 didn't believe it at first.
“It can’t be real, the power of mind control.”
But it was.
“We have to find it first,” said her boss, “and protect it.”
“We have to find it first,” Miss Frost agreed. “And destroy it,” she didn’t say.
“I’ll put together a crack team, Summers will lead it. You tell him everything you know.”
Miss Frost blinked. “I want to work alone.”
The boss’ eye twitched and his mouth pursed, and Miss Frost started counting and ranking the possible exits. “I think it would be more sensible…”
And that was the prize of being a perfect triple agent, distrust on all sides.
“I will work on my own.”
The flex of a finger was barely perceptible, but it was enough.
The concussion blast shattered the windows. When the smoke cleared and the guards burst in, Miss Frost was gone.
It was so much more fun to be a fugitive. Emma dropped her heels into a nearby trash bin, they hadn’t stood up to the drop from the zepplin’s tether. Her palms were a bit scorched, even with the silk handkerchief to protect them. Alarms were ringing from above, but down here, in the dockyards, there wasn’t much commotion.
An HMZ officer, in full uniform, walked around the corner. Perfect. A dab of chloroform on a delicate handkerchief, an arm around her throat, and Captain Frost, or Her Majesty’s Zepplin Service, walked out around the corner.
Now all she needed was conveyance. The uniform could get her on board, but Zepplins were the slowest flying machines in all of god’s creation.
Emma needed fast. And she knew exactly where to get it.
Author: Alsike
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds/Steampunk
Pairing: None yet, but really, what do you expect of me?
Rating: PG-13 (right now)
Word Count: 839 (picture count 4) This is more of a teaser than anything.
Apologia: So, very very slowly, I seem to be working my way through the requests I got at the end of last summer. I don't expect this story to go very quickly, because a. it's nuts, and b. so is my life, but hey, I enjoyed messing around with it, and if I get encouragement (and ideas) I'll probably get to the next bit faster.
And, oh, I illustrated it. I know I draw like crap, but really? I couldn't not.
I think I'm just going to keep this on my journal for a while, until I have a bit more stuff to put up. But If you're one of the 3 people who actually looks at my journal, I hope you don't hate it utterly.
Summary: by ambrdrgn, who suggested it.
"A steampunk AU where Emily is a bored noblewoman who uses her airship and her Letter of Marque to the fullest for fun and profit. Enter Emma, an imperious agent of Her Majesty's government ostensibly sent to inspect the ship and her captain. Secretly, however, Emma's actual mission is to entice Emily into volunteering for Her Majesty's Air Army." Or something, kind of like that. :D
The truth was, zepplins may have been the pride for Her Majesty’s Air Navy, but they were the most useless, slowest, irksome pieces of plodding propulsion around, and Miss Frost was tired of them. It hadn’t been too long ago that she had been running missions in ragged corkscrew wind hoppers, daVincis, they were called, smuggling weapons and people from one end of Europe to the other.
[A daVinci]
But after the debacle with that arrogant nut of a boyscout, Summers, her cover had been blown to pieces, and she had been fortunate to find a bounce on any old tub, even a jittering skittering old zep, that wouldn’t have passed any sort of military inspection. Lucky, it was, that she had her own connections, who knew her without any of the government poison tied to her name. And lucky they knew that she wasn’t the sort to snitch on her friends, even if they were running certain items of an illegal persuasion.
She had bounced, all the way back to Britain, and her handler had given her a commendation and some sort of honor or another, but all in all, it was a bad bit of business, and she was stuck.
Miss Frost wandered along the deck of HMZ Blackbird, where it hung tethered over Parliament, letting the cool fog of cloud cling to her sleeves and turn her nose into ice. She was stuck. That was all there was to it, and it was insupportable. What the bloody use was a famous spy?
Oh, her boss had offered her a rank and some sort of paper pushing duties, in an office, underground, and she had smiled and said, “no thanks,” and hadn’t said, “Are you joking? I’d swallow my gun if I had to do what you do.”
She had walked out.
But then there had been the note.
Miss Frost had a decent flat in the city and spent her times wandering museums, and having coffee, not too different from her activities in Moscow and Berlin, just… more boring. And then, one day, she had been taking tea in the park, as usual, and a ragged little urchin had bumped into her. She snagged the girl’s hand an inch from her purse. There was a paper bunched tightly in her fist. The girl looked at her, and Miss Frost looked back and took the paper, folding it surreptitiously into her palm.
“Get off with you! Thieving brat,” she spat at the girl, who scampered away with a grin.
It was the Lovelace protocol. Someone was following the Bernoulli code. Someone was trying to reconstruct Xavier’s crown.
She took a Cayley, fast and light, to check her sources. There was nothing better for speedy reconnaissance. The facts were the facts. The artifacts were being sought, and the intent was to use them.
Miss Hartley coughed slightly, standing at the top of the stairwell that snaked down the side of the Blackbird. “Mr. X will see you now.” Her expression was disapproving, and Miss Frost repressed a smile as she swept past the secretary and town the stairs. There was a waiting room on the underside of the zep, but honestly, why would she stay in there when she could be up in the fresh air.
It might be the last chance she had in a long while.
Her boss at MI-5 didn't believe it at first.
“It can’t be real, the power of mind control.”
But it was.
“We have to find it first,” said her boss, “and protect it.”
“We have to find it first,” Miss Frost agreed. “And destroy it,” she didn’t say.
“I’ll put together a crack team, Summers will lead it. You tell him everything you know.”
Miss Frost blinked. “I want to work alone.”
The boss’ eye twitched and his mouth pursed, and Miss Frost started counting and ranking the possible exits. “I think it would be more sensible…”
And that was the prize of being a perfect triple agent, distrust on all sides.
“I will work on my own.”
The flex of a finger was barely perceptible, but it was enough.
The concussion blast shattered the windows. When the smoke cleared and the guards burst in, Miss Frost was gone.
It was so much more fun to be a fugitive. Emma dropped her heels into a nearby trash bin, they hadn’t stood up to the drop from the zepplin’s tether. Her palms were a bit scorched, even with the silk handkerchief to protect them. Alarms were ringing from above, but down here, in the dockyards, there wasn’t much commotion.
An HMZ officer, in full uniform, walked around the corner. Perfect. A dab of chloroform on a delicate handkerchief, an arm around her throat, and Captain Frost, or Her Majesty’s Zepplin Service, walked out around the corner.
Now all she needed was conveyance. The uniform could get her on board, but Zepplins were the slowest flying machines in all of god’s creation.
Emma needed fast. And she knew exactly where to get it.