Fic: The Oblivion Effect, Part Three
Title: The Oblivion Effect, Part Three
Author: the_tenzo
Beta: ladychi
Pairing: River/Rose
Rating: Teen (mild violence and sexual situations)
Genre: AU, action/adventure, sci-fi
Summary: She's a 21st century London girl. She's a 51st century Time Agent. Together, they save their (alternate) universe! Sexily.
Previous Chapters: [ One ] [ Two ]
Download for mobile devices at AO3
River Song thinks about her parents.
Though she is in a time and place as far removed as it is possible to get from the village of her childhood, her mum and dad will always look exactly as they did the day she left. Her mother's beautiful red hair will never fade to grey. Her dad will never need a cane to walk across the village green. They are preserved, all the way to the 51st century and far beyond, in their daughter's mind.
At least, that is what River said when Rose had asked her why she never went back to look in on her family.
"You could just visit them when they're young," Rose had said. She was still so green, fresh out of her induction classes, not quite thinking the concept of time travel all the way through to its logical conclusions.
"I don't think it'd do for me to be older every time I see them, when for them only a day has gone by."
Not one to just let something drop where people's feelings were concerned, Rose had chewed her lip and knitted her brow, contemplating for a good long while.
"Can't you just send them an email? I just sent my mum a message the other day. Agent Jesson told me that the computer figures out what time to send it to and all that. It's easy, you just--"
"No. And we're done talking about it, Tyler." River could tell that Rose was left with the impression that her parents had somehow caused her pain, or treated her in some unforgivable manner. She hadn't the strength to tell her the truth, that it was the other way around.
The man who calls himself Lamm Tiro enters the small storage closet he has imprisoned her in, rudely interrupting her reminiscences. His face is a mask, moist eyes impassive, as always. It's beginning to infuriate her and she feels the urge to lash out rise inside her chest. Her hands strain against their bonds, fingernails digging deep into her palms as she considers the way his nose would easily break if she punched him at just the right angle.
"So this is your big plan, then?" she says, mocking. "Let my partner escape so that she can return with an army and blow you to Kingdom Come?"
Tiro's mouth barely quivers into the hint of a smile. "Oh, I rather think she's won't."
"You don't know her very well, do you?"
"Let's just say that I know her type." He pauses, places his hands casually into his pockets and pulls out a small metallic gadget, about the size of a golf ball. It blinks steadily, a soft blue light illuminating the claustrophobic dimensions of her cell. Tiro looks at it, turns it over in his hand, and puts it away again. "Speaking of which," he says, "you don't happen to know a man called Harkness, do you?"
***
The Executive Planet of the Mercantile Empire of Tamna loomed out the window, its massive cities twinkling in the tiny sliver of dark left by the setting of its two suns. Rose was in the hold readying their gear for arrival, with River staying on the bridge awaiting their landing permission to come through. The Tamnese were big on paperwork.
In the meantime, she was having a look at the anomaly Rose had identified regarding the Farn System. It was troubling indeed, and all the more frustrating because she found herself unable to put in a request to investigate. Every time she filled out the forms, the computer rejected them for invalid information. That's a Catch-22 if she ever saw one, and would have been funny if she had not been a witness to such horrific slaughter on the planet.
"Right," she muttered to herself, "we'll just have to go back there ourselves."
"Go back where?" The melodic voice of Agent Lamm Tiro startled her, she had become so used to his virtual non-presence on her ship. "I hope I'm not keeping you from somewhere."
"Don't worry, we'll deposit you safe and sound back at your desk as soon as we're done here. Besides, the place we want apparently doesn't exist."
He sat down in a chair, almost perching on the edge like he was afraid of settling in one place for too long. "Existing is over-rated, if you ask me," he said with a genial little laugh. "Where I'm from... well, you've never heard of it, I can assure you. It took quite a lot for me to get from there to where I am today."
"Just a small town boy made good, right? I have a feeling the Farn System isn't quite in the your situation."
"Farn?" Tiro steepled his fingers, and raised an eyebrow (artfully plucked, surely--no one's eyebrows actually grew that way naturally) .
"Have you heard of it?"
"No, I'm afraid not. But the universe is a big place."
She considered that perhaps she'd misjudged him. It wouldn't be the first time, as Rose could well attest. "Looks like our permission's coming through. Agent Tiro, are your papers in order?"
He stood, dusting his lap off as if anything could have had a chance to sully his crisp suit. "I believe so, Agent Song. And I have a strong hope that the presence of you and Agent Tyler will be wholly unnecessary."
"That would be nice," she said, double-checking her weapons. "Oh, and before we proceed I think I have a right to ask just exactly what it is I'll be bringing aboard my ship if our mission goes to plan."
Tiro waved a manicured hand. "It's not dangerous in and of itself, if that's what you're asking. But the Agency feels that this technology, in the wrong hands and put to the wrong use, could potentially be destabilising."
"So what you're saying is to not worry my pretty little head over it," she said acidly.
He didn't seem to get her drift. "Essentially, yes."
The High Amalgamate of the Mercantile Empire of Tamna had granted Agent Tiro an audience in the Grand Boardroom the day following their arrival. The trio were given lodgings that were serviceable but certainly not extravagant. River and Rose set about doing a security sweep as soon as their escort had left. The Tamnese weren't generally known for aggression, but also weren't beyond engaging in a spot of kidnapping if they though there was any money in it. The Time Agency was large and powerful, and the abduction of an agent whom they'd assessed as unlikely to fight back was not outside the realm of possibility.
Rose scanned for bugs while River assessed the locking mechanism on the door. Lamm Tiro sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair, drumming his fingers on his knee.
"Your quarters are also adequate, I trust?" he asked obsequiously.
"Same as yours," Rose said, "We've seen worse."
River had a quiet laugh thinking back on all the ludicrous places they'd been expected to sleep. Rose looked up from her work in time to share a toothy little smile, but then noticed that Tiro was scrutinising them in that strange, dispassionate way of his.
"So, Agent Tiro," Rose said, changing the subject, "what is it that we've come all this way to obtain? I've heard the Tamnese can drive a hard bargain."
His eyes darted over to River, his lips twitching a bit, either into a smile or a frown--she couldn't be sure. "You are an inquisitive pair, aren't you?"
"Sorry," Rose said (clearly not), "I'd just like to know what it is that I'm supposed to be prepared to kill for."
"I'm sure it won't come to all that," Tiro said.
"All the same, we'd consider it a professional courtesy," River interjected.
Tiro rose slowly from his chair and reached into a pocket of his suit trousers, and for one fraction of a second River imagined that he was reaching for a weapon. The feeling was gone again by the time her reaction speed would have enabled her to reach for her own gun, and she felt her skin grow warm with a private sort of shame. Her life, and the life of her partner on occasion, entirely depended on her ability to read complicated situations correctly and respond appropriately. Getting trigger-happy over phantoms was just as great a risk as being oblivious to clear threats. Why would she ever think that a fellow Agent would do such a thing as pull a weapon on her, apropos of nothing? Even for the barest fraction of a moment?
No, the man was simply reaching for a small tablet, which he punched a few buttons on and then handed to Rose. She sat down on the bed to read, and Tiro returned to perching on his chair.
"An experimental energy converter," River read aloud over Rose's shoulder. "Dr. Larna Poole produced only one prototype before she died."
"Such a tragedy," Tiro said reverently.
"Why is the Agency so interested in obtaining it?" Rose asked, handing the tablet back. . "It doesn't seem dangerous. I mean, it's not going to blow us up or anything, right?"
"Only in the wrong hands, I assure you. We'll be perfectly safe carrying it aboard your ship. It would take a genius like Dr. Poole to get it working at all, but the Agency has determined that it poses a threat to the current timestream nonetheless."
They really couldn't be anything but satisfied by his responses. He'd shown them the Agency's own requisition paperwork for the converter, just as they'd asked. So why did River still feel so apprehensive? There seemed no call for it whatsoever. She'd even been on the verge of liking the man earlier that day, and at this point there was no reason not to, other than the kind of wishy-washy gut feeling that, in her experience, led nowhere good or productive.
"I think we're all done here," River finally said, double checking that she'd packed away all of her security sweep kit. "Agent Tyler?"
"Yeah, all done. We'll just be right across the hall and I've placed a panic button on your side table there. Please keep it within reach at all times," she said, addressing Tiro.
River took her anxiety with her back to their own quarters.
Rose, of course, noticed.
"You seem distracted," she said, stripping her clothes off in preparation for a shower.
"And you seem to be taking your trousers off. Do I need another reason?"
"Is it Agent Tiro?"
Damn her.
"Can you not bring him up while I'm looking at your bum, please?"
Rose turned, her arms crossed over her bare breasts indicating that she meant to speak seriously for a moment. Her face was open, guileless, inviting River to confide. (In her professional life, River knew that this same look was one of Agent Tyler's most effective weapons, though Rose would blanch every time it was described in those terms.) This business with their new colleague was such a silly thing to get upset over, but River couldn't make herself talk about how she'd almost drawn a gun on the man simply for reaching into his pocket. But at the same time, she couldn't entirely dismiss the deep unease that had led her to react in that way.
"At first I didn't like him either, and he is kind of odd. But I think he's all right, yeah?" Rose smiled warmly, inviting River to agree and just be done with it.
"Yeah, right, of course."
"Just maybe a little eccentric is all. Besides," she uncrossed her arms, placing her hands confidently on her hips, "I bugged his room."
"Oh, you naughty thing!" River said, in what she hoped was a good approximation of changing the subject. Her thoughts on the topic of the strange, unimportant little man they were escorting were simply not worth bothering anyone with. They were definitely not worth bothering naked women with. Naked women who, shortly, would be wet and covered in suds. That would be churlish. River almost physically felt the container into which she would sequester this incident close with a satisfying snap.
"I learned from the best." With Rose framed in the soft light of Tamna's purple-hued sun coming through the window, it was easy to keep that particular container well shut and stowed with all the rest. River wondered if her partner knew what an aid she was to keeping that towering stack of little boxes closed and ignored. And one day, when the stacks finally collapsed under their own height and weight, she hoped Rose would still be there, to help pick up the pieces.
"I hope you've learned more than just how to be an underhanded snoop," River said, shoving the box marked Guilt Over Lost Innocence back into its place amidst all the others.
"Oh, I have. And I've learned from all sorts of other people besides." She began to unbuckle River's holster, taking the weapons out first and checking their safeties in a gesture of competence that was more arousing than all the dirty talk in the universe. River felt gravitationally drawn to kiss her, sucking on her bottom lip until they had to disengage to remove clothing and change venue.
After such an eventful shower, listening in on Agent Tiro was fantastically boring. They giggled to hear the telltale sounds of a man urinating. There was some polite coughing, some tapping on a keyboard, and the sound of the pages of an old-fashioned book being turned. As the second sun rose over the utilitarian cement-block architecture of the city, objects in their room began to cast bizarre shadows, and the audio feed went silent. There were still many hours until their date with the Grand Amalgamate and Agent Tiro was surely asleep.
Next to her on the bed, Rose was dozing as well, her hair still wet and mussed. River rolled over and watched the pink glow of Tamna's minor star crawl upwards.
She must have dozed off as well, because the next thing she was aware of was someone tunelessly humming. It took her a moment to realise that Rose mumbling sleepily next to her was reacting to the same sound, and there was one more second until they both remembered the bug in Tiro's room.
"Blimey," Rose said groggily, "he's not half tone-deaf."
"Turn that thing off, I'm begging you," River said as she stretched and began to mentally piece back together where all of her clothes had wound up.
"Yeah, I guess there's no reason to keep it on any more. How long till our audience?"
"Two hours, or thereabouts. I'm starving."
Rose was already running a comb through her hair and wriggling into her knickers. "Is there a restaurant in this place or what? I say we expense Agent Tiro's code for this one."
There was a cafe on the bottom floor of the building they were being housed in, and it was a good thing they had decided to charge Tiro' s account for their meal because it was both expensive and mediocre. The people of the Mercantile Empire didn't trouble themselves over matters of aesthetics, seeing food merely as a nutrition-delivery device, and buildings as shelters to keep the weather out.
Rose finally took a last sip of water and put her utensils down despondently. "When we're through here, I'm taking you to back to that place... what was it called? With those delicious little sweets and the tiny roasted birds and all that?"
"That little hole-in-the-wall on Epicutore IV? I like the sound of that." The memory of that meal made her move from simple disappointment to actual anger over what they'd just had to choke down. "It's a date."
"I thought you were returning to Farn." Agent Lamm Tiro was suddenly standing next to them. It was quite a trick, River had to admit.
"I'm sorry, where?" Rose asked.
"The Farn system, dear," River said, though truth be told she didn't quite remember anything about it herself, though it struck her that there was possibly something important going on there.
Tiro observed them, his hands on the empty chair at their table, presumably waiting to be invited to sit. "I'm quite sure you said that after you got done here, you were to return to the Farn system for some sort of investigation."
Rose blinked several times, as if trying to see through a thick fog. River's head ached suddenly, as a whole set of memories flickered into being all at once. She looked over to her partner, who was rubbing her eyes vigorously.
"Oh, wait!" Rose exclaimed, pounding a hand onto her forehead. "How could I forget that?" She paused, thought again, and rephrased: "How could I forget that? That was just a few days ago."
Agent Tiro seemed to give up on being invited and pulled the chair out to seat himself at their table. "My, that is odd," he said to Rose. "Have you had all of your inoculations appropriate to this mission? Have you ever had the Amnesial Fever?"
Rose felt her own forehead and began to take her own pulse, but River stopped her, grabbing her wrist. "It's not just you, Tyler," she said darkly. "I'd almost forgotten, too. Our vitals are fine, Agent Tiro, and we're fully up-to-date on our jabs."
"Oh, dear," said Tiro, thoughtful but apparently without real concern.
"Do you think this has something to do with its disappearance from the maps and the database and all?" Rose asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "Agent Tiro, have you got that tablet of yours on you?" She tapped into the Agency database immediately once he handed it over and scowled as the same blank screen came up.
"I tried to file a report while waiting for landing permission, but I couldn't because there's no such place." River fidgeted nervously with her eating utensils as Rose tried more searches. "Why didn't I tell you that?" she said, mostly to herself. "It's like I forgot all about it until just now."
"What do you make of this, Agent Tiro?" Rose asked, handing the tablet back over with the offending blank screen still loaded.
"I see I'm never going to be able to get you to call me Lamm," he said, smiling mildly before examining the evidence (or lack thereof). "And you say you were just there a few days ago?"
River nodded. "On Agency business, even. We were sent to mediate a conflict, though that turned out to be more a mission to dodge bullets in a civil war."
"We took one of the combatants aboard our cruiser," Rose added. "He was wounded..." She trailed off, avoiding talking about the Farnallax's true fate.
Throughout their description of the Farn incident and their discoveries afterward, Tiro continued to work with the tablet, presumably confirming what they had already found. At length, he set the tablet down again and smoothed out his goattee. "I think I may be able to help you."
"Yeah?" Rose said, sitting forward in her chair.
Tiro seemed to appreciate her open enthusiasm, and a rare smile crept across his features. "I believe so. Have you ever heard of the Hidden Archive?"
Author: the_tenzo
Beta: ladychi
Pairing: River/Rose
Rating: Teen (mild violence and sexual situations)
Genre: AU, action/adventure, sci-fi
Summary: She's a 21st century London girl. She's a 51st century Time Agent. Together, they save their (alternate) universe! Sexily.
Previous Chapters: [ One ] [ Two ]
Download for mobile devices at AO3
River Song thinks about her parents.
Though she is in a time and place as far removed as it is possible to get from the village of her childhood, her mum and dad will always look exactly as they did the day she left. Her mother's beautiful red hair will never fade to grey. Her dad will never need a cane to walk across the village green. They are preserved, all the way to the 51st century and far beyond, in their daughter's mind.
At least, that is what River said when Rose had asked her why she never went back to look in on her family.
"You could just visit them when they're young," Rose had said. She was still so green, fresh out of her induction classes, not quite thinking the concept of time travel all the way through to its logical conclusions.
"I don't think it'd do for me to be older every time I see them, when for them only a day has gone by."
Not one to just let something drop where people's feelings were concerned, Rose had chewed her lip and knitted her brow, contemplating for a good long while.
"Can't you just send them an email? I just sent my mum a message the other day. Agent Jesson told me that the computer figures out what time to send it to and all that. It's easy, you just--"
"No. And we're done talking about it, Tyler." River could tell that Rose was left with the impression that her parents had somehow caused her pain, or treated her in some unforgivable manner. She hadn't the strength to tell her the truth, that it was the other way around.
The man who calls himself Lamm Tiro enters the small storage closet he has imprisoned her in, rudely interrupting her reminiscences. His face is a mask, moist eyes impassive, as always. It's beginning to infuriate her and she feels the urge to lash out rise inside her chest. Her hands strain against their bonds, fingernails digging deep into her palms as she considers the way his nose would easily break if she punched him at just the right angle.
"So this is your big plan, then?" she says, mocking. "Let my partner escape so that she can return with an army and blow you to Kingdom Come?"
Tiro's mouth barely quivers into the hint of a smile. "Oh, I rather think she's won't."
"You don't know her very well, do you?"
"Let's just say that I know her type." He pauses, places his hands casually into his pockets and pulls out a small metallic gadget, about the size of a golf ball. It blinks steadily, a soft blue light illuminating the claustrophobic dimensions of her cell. Tiro looks at it, turns it over in his hand, and puts it away again. "Speaking of which," he says, "you don't happen to know a man called Harkness, do you?"
***
The Executive Planet of the Mercantile Empire of Tamna loomed out the window, its massive cities twinkling in the tiny sliver of dark left by the setting of its two suns. Rose was in the hold readying their gear for arrival, with River staying on the bridge awaiting their landing permission to come through. The Tamnese were big on paperwork.
In the meantime, she was having a look at the anomaly Rose had identified regarding the Farn System. It was troubling indeed, and all the more frustrating because she found herself unable to put in a request to investigate. Every time she filled out the forms, the computer rejected them for invalid information. That's a Catch-22 if she ever saw one, and would have been funny if she had not been a witness to such horrific slaughter on the planet.
"Right," she muttered to herself, "we'll just have to go back there ourselves."
"Go back where?" The melodic voice of Agent Lamm Tiro startled her, she had become so used to his virtual non-presence on her ship. "I hope I'm not keeping you from somewhere."
"Don't worry, we'll deposit you safe and sound back at your desk as soon as we're done here. Besides, the place we want apparently doesn't exist."
He sat down in a chair, almost perching on the edge like he was afraid of settling in one place for too long. "Existing is over-rated, if you ask me," he said with a genial little laugh. "Where I'm from... well, you've never heard of it, I can assure you. It took quite a lot for me to get from there to where I am today."
"Just a small town boy made good, right? I have a feeling the Farn System isn't quite in the your situation."
"Farn?" Tiro steepled his fingers, and raised an eyebrow (artfully plucked, surely--no one's eyebrows actually grew that way naturally) .
"Have you heard of it?"
"No, I'm afraid not. But the universe is a big place."
She considered that perhaps she'd misjudged him. It wouldn't be the first time, as Rose could well attest. "Looks like our permission's coming through. Agent Tiro, are your papers in order?"
He stood, dusting his lap off as if anything could have had a chance to sully his crisp suit. "I believe so, Agent Song. And I have a strong hope that the presence of you and Agent Tyler will be wholly unnecessary."
"That would be nice," she said, double-checking her weapons. "Oh, and before we proceed I think I have a right to ask just exactly what it is I'll be bringing aboard my ship if our mission goes to plan."
Tiro waved a manicured hand. "It's not dangerous in and of itself, if that's what you're asking. But the Agency feels that this technology, in the wrong hands and put to the wrong use, could potentially be destabilising."
"So what you're saying is to not worry my pretty little head over it," she said acidly.
He didn't seem to get her drift. "Essentially, yes."
The High Amalgamate of the Mercantile Empire of Tamna had granted Agent Tiro an audience in the Grand Boardroom the day following their arrival. The trio were given lodgings that were serviceable but certainly not extravagant. River and Rose set about doing a security sweep as soon as their escort had left. The Tamnese weren't generally known for aggression, but also weren't beyond engaging in a spot of kidnapping if they though there was any money in it. The Time Agency was large and powerful, and the abduction of an agent whom they'd assessed as unlikely to fight back was not outside the realm of possibility.
Rose scanned for bugs while River assessed the locking mechanism on the door. Lamm Tiro sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair, drumming his fingers on his knee.
"Your quarters are also adequate, I trust?" he asked obsequiously.
"Same as yours," Rose said, "We've seen worse."
River had a quiet laugh thinking back on all the ludicrous places they'd been expected to sleep. Rose looked up from her work in time to share a toothy little smile, but then noticed that Tiro was scrutinising them in that strange, dispassionate way of his.
"So, Agent Tiro," Rose said, changing the subject, "what is it that we've come all this way to obtain? I've heard the Tamnese can drive a hard bargain."
His eyes darted over to River, his lips twitching a bit, either into a smile or a frown--she couldn't be sure. "You are an inquisitive pair, aren't you?"
"Sorry," Rose said (clearly not), "I'd just like to know what it is that I'm supposed to be prepared to kill for."
"I'm sure it won't come to all that," Tiro said.
"All the same, we'd consider it a professional courtesy," River interjected.
Tiro rose slowly from his chair and reached into a pocket of his suit trousers, and for one fraction of a second River imagined that he was reaching for a weapon. The feeling was gone again by the time her reaction speed would have enabled her to reach for her own gun, and she felt her skin grow warm with a private sort of shame. Her life, and the life of her partner on occasion, entirely depended on her ability to read complicated situations correctly and respond appropriately. Getting trigger-happy over phantoms was just as great a risk as being oblivious to clear threats. Why would she ever think that a fellow Agent would do such a thing as pull a weapon on her, apropos of nothing? Even for the barest fraction of a moment?
No, the man was simply reaching for a small tablet, which he punched a few buttons on and then handed to Rose. She sat down on the bed to read, and Tiro returned to perching on his chair.
"An experimental energy converter," River read aloud over Rose's shoulder. "Dr. Larna Poole produced only one prototype before she died."
"Such a tragedy," Tiro said reverently.
"Why is the Agency so interested in obtaining it?" Rose asked, handing the tablet back. . "It doesn't seem dangerous. I mean, it's not going to blow us up or anything, right?"
"Only in the wrong hands, I assure you. We'll be perfectly safe carrying it aboard your ship. It would take a genius like Dr. Poole to get it working at all, but the Agency has determined that it poses a threat to the current timestream nonetheless."
They really couldn't be anything but satisfied by his responses. He'd shown them the Agency's own requisition paperwork for the converter, just as they'd asked. So why did River still feel so apprehensive? There seemed no call for it whatsoever. She'd even been on the verge of liking the man earlier that day, and at this point there was no reason not to, other than the kind of wishy-washy gut feeling that, in her experience, led nowhere good or productive.
"I think we're all done here," River finally said, double checking that she'd packed away all of her security sweep kit. "Agent Tyler?"
"Yeah, all done. We'll just be right across the hall and I've placed a panic button on your side table there. Please keep it within reach at all times," she said, addressing Tiro.
River took her anxiety with her back to their own quarters.
Rose, of course, noticed.
"You seem distracted," she said, stripping her clothes off in preparation for a shower.
"And you seem to be taking your trousers off. Do I need another reason?"
"Is it Agent Tiro?"
Damn her.
"Can you not bring him up while I'm looking at your bum, please?"
Rose turned, her arms crossed over her bare breasts indicating that she meant to speak seriously for a moment. Her face was open, guileless, inviting River to confide. (In her professional life, River knew that this same look was one of Agent Tyler's most effective weapons, though Rose would blanch every time it was described in those terms.) This business with their new colleague was such a silly thing to get upset over, but River couldn't make herself talk about how she'd almost drawn a gun on the man simply for reaching into his pocket. But at the same time, she couldn't entirely dismiss the deep unease that had led her to react in that way.
"At first I didn't like him either, and he is kind of odd. But I think he's all right, yeah?" Rose smiled warmly, inviting River to agree and just be done with it.
"Yeah, right, of course."
"Just maybe a little eccentric is all. Besides," she uncrossed her arms, placing her hands confidently on her hips, "I bugged his room."
"Oh, you naughty thing!" River said, in what she hoped was a good approximation of changing the subject. Her thoughts on the topic of the strange, unimportant little man they were escorting were simply not worth bothering anyone with. They were definitely not worth bothering naked women with. Naked women who, shortly, would be wet and covered in suds. That would be churlish. River almost physically felt the container into which she would sequester this incident close with a satisfying snap.
"I learned from the best." With Rose framed in the soft light of Tamna's purple-hued sun coming through the window, it was easy to keep that particular container well shut and stowed with all the rest. River wondered if her partner knew what an aid she was to keeping that towering stack of little boxes closed and ignored. And one day, when the stacks finally collapsed under their own height and weight, she hoped Rose would still be there, to help pick up the pieces.
"I hope you've learned more than just how to be an underhanded snoop," River said, shoving the box marked Guilt Over Lost Innocence back into its place amidst all the others.
"Oh, I have. And I've learned from all sorts of other people besides." She began to unbuckle River's holster, taking the weapons out first and checking their safeties in a gesture of competence that was more arousing than all the dirty talk in the universe. River felt gravitationally drawn to kiss her, sucking on her bottom lip until they had to disengage to remove clothing and change venue.
After such an eventful shower, listening in on Agent Tiro was fantastically boring. They giggled to hear the telltale sounds of a man urinating. There was some polite coughing, some tapping on a keyboard, and the sound of the pages of an old-fashioned book being turned. As the second sun rose over the utilitarian cement-block architecture of the city, objects in their room began to cast bizarre shadows, and the audio feed went silent. There were still many hours until their date with the Grand Amalgamate and Agent Tiro was surely asleep.
Next to her on the bed, Rose was dozing as well, her hair still wet and mussed. River rolled over and watched the pink glow of Tamna's minor star crawl upwards.
She must have dozed off as well, because the next thing she was aware of was someone tunelessly humming. It took her a moment to realise that Rose mumbling sleepily next to her was reacting to the same sound, and there was one more second until they both remembered the bug in Tiro's room.
"Blimey," Rose said groggily, "he's not half tone-deaf."
"Turn that thing off, I'm begging you," River said as she stretched and began to mentally piece back together where all of her clothes had wound up.
"Yeah, I guess there's no reason to keep it on any more. How long till our audience?"
"Two hours, or thereabouts. I'm starving."
Rose was already running a comb through her hair and wriggling into her knickers. "Is there a restaurant in this place or what? I say we expense Agent Tiro's code for this one."
There was a cafe on the bottom floor of the building they were being housed in, and it was a good thing they had decided to charge Tiro' s account for their meal because it was both expensive and mediocre. The people of the Mercantile Empire didn't trouble themselves over matters of aesthetics, seeing food merely as a nutrition-delivery device, and buildings as shelters to keep the weather out.
Rose finally took a last sip of water and put her utensils down despondently. "When we're through here, I'm taking you to back to that place... what was it called? With those delicious little sweets and the tiny roasted birds and all that?"
"That little hole-in-the-wall on Epicutore IV? I like the sound of that." The memory of that meal made her move from simple disappointment to actual anger over what they'd just had to choke down. "It's a date."
"I thought you were returning to Farn." Agent Lamm Tiro was suddenly standing next to them. It was quite a trick, River had to admit.
"I'm sorry, where?" Rose asked.
"The Farn system, dear," River said, though truth be told she didn't quite remember anything about it herself, though it struck her that there was possibly something important going on there.
Tiro observed them, his hands on the empty chair at their table, presumably waiting to be invited to sit. "I'm quite sure you said that after you got done here, you were to return to the Farn system for some sort of investigation."
Rose blinked several times, as if trying to see through a thick fog. River's head ached suddenly, as a whole set of memories flickered into being all at once. She looked over to her partner, who was rubbing her eyes vigorously.
"Oh, wait!" Rose exclaimed, pounding a hand onto her forehead. "How could I forget that?" She paused, thought again, and rephrased: "How could I forget that? That was just a few days ago."
Agent Tiro seemed to give up on being invited and pulled the chair out to seat himself at their table. "My, that is odd," he said to Rose. "Have you had all of your inoculations appropriate to this mission? Have you ever had the Amnesial Fever?"
Rose felt her own forehead and began to take her own pulse, but River stopped her, grabbing her wrist. "It's not just you, Tyler," she said darkly. "I'd almost forgotten, too. Our vitals are fine, Agent Tiro, and we're fully up-to-date on our jabs."
"Oh, dear," said Tiro, thoughtful but apparently without real concern.
"Do you think this has something to do with its disappearance from the maps and the database and all?" Rose asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "Agent Tiro, have you got that tablet of yours on you?" She tapped into the Agency database immediately once he handed it over and scowled as the same blank screen came up.
"I tried to file a report while waiting for landing permission, but I couldn't because there's no such place." River fidgeted nervously with her eating utensils as Rose tried more searches. "Why didn't I tell you that?" she said, mostly to herself. "It's like I forgot all about it until just now."
"What do you make of this, Agent Tiro?" Rose asked, handing the tablet back over with the offending blank screen still loaded.
"I see I'm never going to be able to get you to call me Lamm," he said, smiling mildly before examining the evidence (or lack thereof). "And you say you were just there a few days ago?"
River nodded. "On Agency business, even. We were sent to mediate a conflict, though that turned out to be more a mission to dodge bullets in a civil war."
"We took one of the combatants aboard our cruiser," Rose added. "He was wounded..." She trailed off, avoiding talking about the Farnallax's true fate.
Throughout their description of the Farn incident and their discoveries afterward, Tiro continued to work with the tablet, presumably confirming what they had already found. At length, he set the tablet down again and smoothed out his goattee. "I think I may be able to help you."
"Yeah?" Rose said, sitting forward in her chair.
Tiro seemed to appreciate her open enthusiasm, and a rare smile crept across his features. "I believe so. Have you ever heard of the Hidden Archive?"