Week Four

I was in the engine room, tinkering idly with a replacement torque manifold that I'd need to be installing as soon as we landed on Ezra, when Mal's voice came on the intercom. "Kaylee, you've got a wave coming in."

I blinked with surprise, since I knew that we weren't supposed to be using the Cortex much, but didn't ask. "Okay, Captain, I'll take it in here."

But he didn't route the wave back to the terminal above my hammock yet. "Kaylee, do you happen to know HOW you have a wave coming in, when we're using a fake Cortex ID that nobody but Wash and I are supposed to know?"

"Not even Zoe?" I asked.

"Not really the point."

"Okay, then no... I have no idea how I have a wave coming in under those circumstances," I admitted. Was it Melany again? No, she couldn't have managed something like this, I was sure. Or even Barret, though maybe somebody Barret could have hired to...

"Well, I'll send it down in a second. Talk to him QUICK, and get off as soon as he's satisfied. Every time we try to adjust our connection path, he's back in our virtual face in fifteen seconds or a minute, and he keeps saying that he won't let up until we let him talk to you."

I stifled a giggle of amusement at how much that attitude seemed to annoy my Captain. "Right, whoever it is, I'll give them the quick brushoff."

He relented for a moment. "Not the brushoff, quite. I think that he's just a bit worried. Reassurance is called for here, or we might get even more trouble later on." And before I could ask about that, the cortex screen brightened, doing that moving circular arc deal for a few seconds before a video image showed up.

"Davison!" I exclaimed, surprised and a bit pleased. He was my second brother up in order of age, not exactly my favorite, but we usually got on well, and if there was anyone in the family with the Cortex-fu and other various electronic skills to track us down when Wash was trying to keep Serenity mostly hidden, then it'd have to be Davison. "Good to see you, but I can't talk for l