Display

Dr Chandler wandered into the Minister's office with a stack of files; the man was intently focused on his computer screen.

Curious she wandered round to his side of the desk, knowing that there was nothing on that screen that he wouldn't show her.

"Oh," she muttered, "that again."

The Minister slumped back into his chair, he ran a hand over his face, "Yes, that again. I shouldn't watch it; it just reminds me what we lost. All that work, our best subject."

Dr Chandler let her eyes rest absently on the screen, she'd seen the footage once, collected all the data she wanted and never bothered to watch it again. The subject was lost, what would be the point?

Her heart flipped over, she castigated herself for her arrogance. There was something there of interest and she'd missed it. She recalled with a shudder that her predecessor died with a sword in his gut for the sin of pride, she had no plans to follow him.

She bent over the desk and reversed the playback.

She jabbed a finger at the screen. "Who's that?"

"Him?" The Minister called up a separate window with profiles of the space trash that travelled with his favourite project. "Jayne Cobb, just some mercenary from the back end of nowhere. Why?"

Dr. Chandler jabbed a finger at the screen again. "Look at what he does, no! Not what he does, how he does it."

"What?"

"They are looking directly at each other when she kicks behind her, then he pounds that man over the head. He's displaying to her." The Doctor reversed the play and watched it again. "And she's displaying to him, she's aware of him, she shouldn't be aware of him other than as a target at all." The Doctor watches the subject grip the man's testicles and crown him with a bar tray. "She doesn't use lethal force."

"So what?"

"Julius, it's practically a mating dance, look how he fights, natural talent over-laid by experience, he's a survivor, I wonder…" Dr Chandler's eyes go misty, "I wonder if we could get them to breed?"