Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was late. Later than any sane person would stay at work, and Iouri Spekter was running against a deadline and burning the midnight oil in the tiny office behind the planetarium. All of the legal issues behind running a new show had taken longer than he'd have liked to clear up, and now he only four days to put together all of the ad copy so that the program could be announced and the posters could go to the printer.

Easing down the plunger on his french press (the fifth pot of the night, not that he was counting), Iouri glanced around the office and towards the shadows of the planetarium lobby beyond. Laika was asleep on a pillow by the door, her tail twitching in her sleep, and he was grateful for the company. At ten pounds, she wasn't much of a guard dog, but then it wasn't like he needed her to be one.

Pouring coffee into his mug, Iouri looked back to his computer screen and skimmed the poster layout. Maybe, he thought, he'd have to revisit this in the morning. It was starting to stop making sense.

Laika had woken up and was staring into the darkness beyond the door, ears pricked.

"What's up, girl?" Iouri asked her.

Laika had her hackles raised and was growling, and Iouri got up from his desk to shush her. As the dog quieted, he became aware of footsteps out in the lobby - footsteps that ought not to have been there this time of night. Taking Laika's leash in hand, Iouri left his office and fumbled along the near wall for the light switches.

"Hello?" he called into the gloom, feeling his way with an outstretched hand. Laika barked at the approaching footsteps. The night guard would be drinking coffee in the hall of dinosaurs right now, he thought - too far away to be any use, but then most nights that didn't matter. It never seemed worthwhile to anyone to break into the museum - no matter what other oddness was going on in Destiny City.

His hands found the light switches, and Iouri flipped them all on in quick succession. The ceiling lights flickered on.

Iouri zeroed in on the woman in the bomber jacket, standing improbably at the center of the room. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "How did you get in?"

Iouri kept a tight hold on Laika's leash, pulling her close and hissing at her to be quiet. She barked a few more times, clearly discontent, and then Iouri snapped, "Quiet, Laika!" at her, and she whimpered once before going silent. He frowned at the woman in front of her, eyes narrowing. "The old place?" he asked, uneasy with the apparent familiarity she had towards the museum. "I'm sorry. I don't think I know you."

Iouri was a civilian in every sense of the word. He knew stars and constellations, but nothing about the secret parts of the universe. He didn't know why his dog was barking at this mysterious woman. Or who she was. Or how she'd gotten in. He'd talk to the night guard about checking all the locks and keypads later.

"I'm working," he answered, pulling Laika close to his legs. "New planetarium show to get ready for. I was going to drive home." He's never encountered trouble from inside a vehicle.

Maybe he's hallucinating. Over-tired and all that. Iouri sighs. "I'm going to ask you again. Who are you, and how did you get in here?"

"I'll have to get that fixed," said Iouri, biting his lips perplexedly. He wanted to ask - Lieutenant? Lieutenant of what? Some kind of gang? It might be safer not to ask, he decided. At any rate, she was strange - but perhaps she wasn't outright dangerous. As far as intruders went, she wasn't looking for anything to steal, and like she said, she wasn't here to cause trouble.

He was about ready to tell her to leave and go back to his office, but her request made him pause. The planetarium was Iouri's pride and joy, and she'd said just the right thing. "Indoors?" he echoed, glancing towards the auditorium doors. "It would take me a few minutes to wake the system up. But I could give you a preview of the new program."

It seemed better not to argue with mysterious women in military uniforms. And maybe this was a hallucination, in which case, no harm and no foul. "I'll just go lock Laika in my office. She doesn't seem to like you much."

He turned and led the dog away, closed the door, and hoped he was not making a mistake. Then, he returned and gestured to the auditorium doors. "After you. Pick any seat you like and I'll start the show." Was his voice shaking?

Maybe a tiny bit.

It was bewilderment, he told himself. Not fear.

Iouri tensed at the hand on his shoulder, but then forced himself to relax. If she meant him harm, she would have done so by now. Pulled a gun and demanded money or - whatever her shtick was. He watched her take her seat, noting the choice of location. She knew a thing or two about how this worked - not the average, casual museum visitor.

Steering himself toward the control console, he explained, "It's sort of - It's about how the universe formed. The big bang. How stars are born and die. You'll see." He woke the computer up from sleep, and the projector whirred to life. After a few minutes of technical processes too complicated to explain here, the lights in the planetarium shifted from an approximation of midday to an approximation of dusk, and Iouri stepped away from the console.

Seeing as Zircon had taken the best seat in the house and he was not feeling comfortable enough or bold enough to go and sit right next to her, he slipped into a chair about half a row away from her. Glancing towards the mysterious lieutenant, Iouri said quietly, "Enjoy the show."

He would just have to depend on good faith that she would not menace him in the dark.

Iouri tried to relax into his seat, leaning back to gaze at the ceiling. He'd watched the program ten times by now, working to get everything ready and fine-tuning the projectors, and the thrill hadn't gone away yet. "I don't know anything about that," he said quietly to Zircon. Nor did he much care to.

He looked back towards the ceiling, watching the stars swirl through the darkness. Was he supposed to say something now, perhaps to remark on the irony that anyone who was a lieutenant in a mysterious and unspecified army had the right to go calling anyone a terrorist. But then, he knew very little of the matter and thought it best to keep his mouth shut.

"This will open to the public next friday," he said, at a quiet moment in the show's narration.

Iouri rose from his seat as the lights came on and regarded the lieutenant tiredly. "Oh," he said, trying not to compulsively count back the days in his head. "It's been... weeks." He hadn't had a lot of free time lately to just stop and stargaze - especially when there was so much advice going around to not dawdle outside after dark if you valued your life and limbs.

Still a little bit anxious about this whole scenario, he followed Zircon out of the auditorium. This was probably a stupid idea, he thought mildly, following a mysterious woman out of the auditorium - and then out of the museum entirely. What if he was hallucinating? What if he was just simply too tired?

"What did you want to show me?" he asked, still following the lieutenant. "I still don't - have we met before?" It just - nothing tonight made any sense. Strange woman shows up and demands that you show her the planetarium show in advance of its opening, for free - then asks you to go outside with her? If odder things had happened, Iouri had never experienced them.

It was definitely shaping up to be an odd night, thought Iouri, as Zircon swept him up into a bridal carry. He didn't bother question the science behind her jumps. She was a very mysterious woman, full of surprises and so on and so forth. Turning gravity into her b***h was just one of those surprises.

Once she set him on his feet, he looked up towards the sky. It was indeed breathtaking - the night was exceptionally clear after the preceding week's odd astronomical happenings. "What a beautiful night," he breathed, tucking his hands into the pockets of his blazer. He offered the lieutenant a wide, slightly-goofy smile.

"Thank you for bringing me up here," he said. "I've never seen the stars from up here before."

Now that he was here though, he was having ideas. The wide, flat expanse of the museum's roof would be perfect for a stargazing deck. He would have to check the fire code and find out whether such a thing would even be possible.