[JMM] - 17.1.2 - Overcoming Challenges
Apr. 18th, 2009 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changehistory"Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." - Joshua J. Marine
The house stood on a hill outside the city, looking down on it in one direction, and toward the ocean in the other. It was a commanding view, one could argue even the best in the city, possibly even on the whole of Londinium, and standing out on his balcony looking down toward the city, Adam allowed himself a moment to enjoy it. Below him the city teemed with life, people moving along the streets, shuttles cruising through the air. He could see the port where the larger ships would land, and he smiled slightly, watching one of them and wondering if any of his wandering children were on it, coming home. The 'verse had grown, expanded since they'd been forced to leave Earth--still a bitter point of contention for him that it was best not to look at too closely--and with planets spread out and colonized throughout the solar system he supposed it was too much to hope they'd all choose to settle on the same one. They weren't joined at the hip, after all, and it probably wasn't fair to keep calling them children, not anymore, even if he always would have the advantage in years. They had their own now, their own experiences, their own heartbreaks, their own losses, their own successes. They'd broken and mended, fallen apart and come back together. And he had a large house on top of a hill, looking down on a city he owned far more of than anyone realized.
A tiny smirk curved his lips as he took a sip of whiskey from the glass he held, more for the familiar taste than anything else. It wasn't the original plan from so long ago, of course, by any means. It wasn't how he'd meant things to go. Humanity still crawled, spread itself out, wreaked itself upon new shores. The recent broadcasts revealing the latest upset in humanity's leaps forward to bettering themselves were...unfortunate, but he did have to admire the spirit of those that got the news out. Suresh had nearly come apart at the seams, but, well. What's done was done. They couldn't be connected to it, not that anyone was crying out for individual names yet anyway. It was "them." The Alliance. The government. The faceless, formless, shapeless entities that made the world work the way it worked. The minds, the money, the shadows in the background...He drained his glass.
Plans came and plans went. The virus had failed, clearly, but Suresh's formula had proven useful there for a while. They'd flourished, had their moment in the sun. Of course, compassion had nearly killed them, and had failed to save their planet, in the end. Too many people, too many resources gone, too much industry destroying the atmosphere itself--just as he'd predicted. But they'd survived, and now here they were, with a new world, and here he was with the power to wield to shape it. This was just a minor setback, nothing to worry about, not really. He was here, in the center of the universe, as it were. Another century, and he could claim to have seen a millenium. He'd survived wars, imprisonment, betrayal, and he was still standing, and his family was still standing, and his little empire was expanding through the shadows. He told Suresh to breathe, sent him back to the lab to work on the new project, and sent a wave to Gabriel to get his ass home and calm his geneticist down. Problem solved. Peter was late returning home from whatever mission he'd scampered off on this time, but he'd be back soon enough, and Adam seriously doubted he would ever connect the news back to what Adam and Mohinder had been working on a dozen years before. And Claire...well. She'd never judged him. Baileigh and Sark could be counted on to handle things on their end. If there was ever any official investigation by some independent source, they would find everything they needed to crucify everyone but him. Which would, of course, leave him standing with even more power than before.
A quiet cough interrupted his thoughts.
"Yes?"
"Your guest has arrived, sir."
"Then by all means, please show Miss Serra up."
What could have been a regrettable situation really couldn't have worked out better if he'd planned it, he decided as his smirk softened into a genuine smile and he turned his back on the city, leaned against the balcony rail, and waited for his butler to reappear with Inara. He really couldn't wait to hear her account of events.
[ooc: xposted for RP to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dontrightly_die]
The house stood on a hill outside the city, looking down on it in one direction, and toward the ocean in the other. It was a commanding view, one could argue even the best in the city, possibly even on the whole of Londinium, and standing out on his balcony looking down toward the city, Adam allowed himself a moment to enjoy it. Below him the city teemed with life, people moving along the streets, shuttles cruising through the air. He could see the port where the larger ships would land, and he smiled slightly, watching one of them and wondering if any of his wandering children were on it, coming home. The 'verse had grown, expanded since they'd been forced to leave Earth--still a bitter point of contention for him that it was best not to look at too closely--and with planets spread out and colonized throughout the solar system he supposed it was too much to hope they'd all choose to settle on the same one. They weren't joined at the hip, after all, and it probably wasn't fair to keep calling them children, not anymore, even if he always would have the advantage in years. They had their own now, their own experiences, their own heartbreaks, their own losses, their own successes. They'd broken and mended, fallen apart and come back together. And he had a large house on top of a hill, looking down on a city he owned far more of than anyone realized.
A tiny smirk curved his lips as he took a sip of whiskey from the glass he held, more for the familiar taste than anything else. It wasn't the original plan from so long ago, of course, by any means. It wasn't how he'd meant things to go. Humanity still crawled, spread itself out, wreaked itself upon new shores. The recent broadcasts revealing the latest upset in humanity's leaps forward to bettering themselves were...unfortunate, but he did have to admire the spirit of those that got the news out. Suresh had nearly come apart at the seams, but, well. What's done was done. They couldn't be connected to it, not that anyone was crying out for individual names yet anyway. It was "them." The Alliance. The government. The faceless, formless, shapeless entities that made the world work the way it worked. The minds, the money, the shadows in the background...He drained his glass.
Plans came and plans went. The virus had failed, clearly, but Suresh's formula had proven useful there for a while. They'd flourished, had their moment in the sun. Of course, compassion had nearly killed them, and had failed to save their planet, in the end. Too many people, too many resources gone, too much industry destroying the atmosphere itself--just as he'd predicted. But they'd survived, and now here they were, with a new world, and here he was with the power to wield to shape it. This was just a minor setback, nothing to worry about, not really. He was here, in the center of the universe, as it were. Another century, and he could claim to have seen a millenium. He'd survived wars, imprisonment, betrayal, and he was still standing, and his family was still standing, and his little empire was expanding through the shadows. He told Suresh to breathe, sent him back to the lab to work on the new project, and sent a wave to Gabriel to get his ass home and calm his geneticist down. Problem solved. Peter was late returning home from whatever mission he'd scampered off on this time, but he'd be back soon enough, and Adam seriously doubted he would ever connect the news back to what Adam and Mohinder had been working on a dozen years before. And Claire...well. She'd never judged him. Baileigh and Sark could be counted on to handle things on their end. If there was ever any official investigation by some independent source, they would find everything they needed to crucify everyone but him. Which would, of course, leave him standing with even more power than before.
A quiet cough interrupted his thoughts.
"Yes?"
"Your guest has arrived, sir."
"Then by all means, please show Miss Serra up."
What could have been a regrettable situation really couldn't have worked out better if he'd planned it, he decided as his smirk softened into a genuine smile and he turned his back on the city, leaned against the balcony rail, and waited for his butler to reappear with Inara. He really couldn't wait to hear her account of events.
[ooc: xposted for RP to
dontrightly_die]
