Spin

Chapter 2

Cast of Players & Places: Iron Eagle or Eagle Eye- Ira Eggers GAT WWDC15-Warden Wartouski Detainment Center 15. Mal Reynolds Jayne Cobb River Tam Simon Tam Zoë Washburn Wash- Washburn Kaylee Shepherd Book Inara

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*SPIN*

River Tam often though of words and their meanings, or what they referred to. Not that her brain had been soaked in Alliance diesel fluid so long that it was beyond having cohesive thought. On the contrary, River’s mind held thoughts, and secrets that would likely make other humans insane. She was one of a handful of subjects the powers of government knew could withstand the intense training and testing as needed for development of something useful for them in the verse, something special.

*SPIN*,………the word was shifting around in the young River Tam‘s brain. What was the use of SPIN? The young Tam questioned. A spider could spin it’s web. A teller of tall tales could spin a story. The hands of a clock could spin around it‘s face, and a world in the universe could spin on it’s axis. Yes! This is what River Tam had on her mind right at that moment. The spinning of a planet as it moved through it’s orbit.

Commonly known but not particularly interesting to you average air breathing human being, or critter mind you, but the revolutions by which planets and moons rotated in the system were at different speeds. Yes they spun faster or slower than others around them, and yes this effected all of “Time” , and how it was used in the verse. Time of arrival, time of departure. Time to eat, time to sleep. Time to send a shipment of goods to a customer, time to receive them, time to plan a robbery, and time to bury your dead.

Every moon and planet spun at a different pace, yet time for them was measured the same. It boggler your average human mind, so much so that most people didn’t concern themselves with it. But it didn’t boggle Rivers mind. The girl Tam was used to having complicated thoughts. Thinking outside the box was something she’d impressed upon her teachers at the early stages of her time beginning at the academy.

Now, she was free and on the loose. Certainly a threat to the government if she fell under the control of the wrong powers. Something that scared the fen fei out of people in high places. They were doing to spend the “Time” and effort needed to find her.

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Iron Eagle had just been brought back to his detainment cell after his fine morning meal of Xue Shu (cave rat), and his short exercise time in the containment yard. The authorities didn’t like their place of business to be called a prison or a jail by the detainees, much for the simple reason that many of them hadn’t committed a crime.

Their reason for incarceration at a place like WWDC15 could easily be explained as being, that they were an un-trusted enemy of state or a potential threat to the natural stability of the verse. For whatever reason a person found themselves locked away on that particular world, it was a sure bet that they weren’t going anywhere for a long time.

The pace of the world was slow, just as slow as it’s pace of change and the motion of life that drew in a breath of it‘s air.

The planet’s axis spin was about as fast as a snail slithering across a cold, clammy rock surface. WWDC15 took 32 sessions to make a full spin from daylight to darkness then back to daylight again. The equivalent of 16 days and 16 nights, back on “Earth That Was” to make a full revolution. This meant that the area in shadow was frozen as solid an ice cube on its surface as it faced away from it‘s host star, while the sunlit side was like a torch in hell. Terraforming was in it’s infancy on the world with no real reason for wanting to speed up the process. There were a few living things on the surface, but not much……and the rocky landscape was pitted with holes the size of cities on some parts of the sphere. The outer crust worked as the perfect containing cell for such a place.

All of the Detainment Center was contained underground, where the air was maintained and kept breathable. There were three large holding facilities, each at the point of a ten mile triangle, and all connected by a natural tunnel system that had been created on a world that resembled a ball of Swiss cheese (Where the term Swiss came from was unknown and assumed a word used on the “Old World”).

Anyway “ Detainees” around the tri-area were quartered, rehabilitated and brought to social function acceptability at WWDC15. Some though were being kept there for information extraction. How many were being held was unknown, but it was assumed to be in the thousands. The four other cells in the block where subjects 693-2154 and 612-8357 were housed had been emptied of the occupants a short time prier. All had been gathered up and sent out to perform some of the labor intense chores that went along with the government sponsored Terraforming operations. They were told that as soon as they finished their terms of service they would gain their freedom in the initiated work release program.

Of all the detainees housed in cellblock E6, level 4, Iron Eagle considered his misfortune of having Gat be the one to remain behind with him. He sat on the edge of his cot as he looked over at his prison mate. After an hour and fifteen minutes,……..a thirty minute breakfast, and forty-five minute exercise period in the yard, Iron Eagle noticed that his prison mate hadn’t moved much.

He would have thought him dead had his arm not lay in a different position across his forehead. The inmate faced the wall away from him.

“Gat! Hey Gat ’ol fellow…..you Ok?” Eagle spoke to the guy who’d been there a little over a month. He finally got a response.

“Yeah, I’m fine…..physically. It’s just that I shouldn’t be here. I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Iron Eagle smiled as he sat on his bunk.

“ You and me both buddy, and all the folks on cellblocks D, C, B & A……and detained on this whole gorram rock! We‘re all innocent!” He laughed.

“ No! I’m serious!” The fellow spoke never turning his head.

“ Me too! Now let’s play a game of “spotter” before they come get you for breakfast and your morning workout.”

“Spotter” was a game played by some of the inmates where someone chose an object by sight and kept it in their mind. It could be something as simple as a different colored brick in the wall, or a light, or one of the cell bars that was a bit rustier than the others. The other inmates then would try to guess what that chosen object was. Iron Eagle was a master at the game. He’d been playing it for years. He had a talent for knowing what another player had “spotted” , and it was also one of the reasons he was known as Eagle Eye.

“No I don’t want to play spotter. There’s nothing but stone walls and iron bars to look at in here and besides, you’re too good at the game. You always win.”

Iron Eagle ignored his refusal.

“ Ok I’ll start. I spot something in your cell on the back wall.”

It was obvious to Gat what Eagle Eye was speaking of. He was keeping a tally of markings on the back wall of his cell. It was his way of keeping a measured account of his time spent at WWDC15. By making scratches on the wall at the back of his cell Gat could tell how long he‘d been detained.

He was to be held at WWDC15 for a sum total of 57spins (5 years) before being released. He counted each period of that time with a mark on the wall. Each exercise period meant a new day had started ( new 24 hour period) and Gat would apply a new scratch to the wall. Upon his arrival four months earlier, Gat had been detained in cell block B6, now, for the past month and a half he had been moved to the lower level E6. Unknown to him, but known to Iron Eagle, this meant things had changed and Gat’s detainment term had been extended. Eagle Eye knew his prison mate would find out the news sooner or later, and he was sure that at that moment he wouldn‘t be a very happy detainee.

“Very funny.” Gat said speaking about the “spotter” object Eagle Eye had chosen in the game. But truly there wasn’t an ounce of fun to be had at WWDC15.

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Mal Reynolds slowly stepped down the ladder leading down into the captain’s quarters on Serenity. His expression was one of somber. River had brought up things from his past that Mal didn’t like thinking about.

Still there was encouragement in her words. Mal was still a man of loyalty. A soldier of honor, with a badge of honor. “No one will be left behind!” The code of the browncoat. Mal went to the small dresser just below his lavatory mirror. He opened the top drawer. There taped with a piece of clear tape to the cover of a book “ The Duty of Command” was a feather. The feather of a great bird that once flew over his home world. The feather given to him by a dear friend, a brother.

“Time to make good on the code of a soldier.” He said aloud.

End Part 2