I had this written yesterday, and it poofed on me. Most likely human error, but who knows. So here's what I can remember from the original.

I think the next will be in L's head, and that will probably take a bit longer to write. I, quite obviously, have no idea what it would be like to be resurrected in such a way, so I'm sure it's going to be rather difficult.

I don't own Death Note

Orpheus and Eurydice

Vey Shallin couldn't tell you what day it was, or sometimes even what month. What did it matter? Pandora kept her in check for her meetings and deadlines, so there was no point in wasting her own precious brain power on such mundane things.

But she could tell you that it had been exactly 7 hours and 31 minutes since she'd been shut out by her own creation. Seven hours and now thirty-two minutes since he'd had his little tantrum and then turtled back into his crystal shell.

And almost 18 minutes, 41 seconds, and 74 centiseconds since his last attempt at cracking the access code of her computer so he could re-link.

Vey hadn't moved from her spot, book in hand, since her decision to wait. She had to go to the bathroom in the worst way, and she was dying for something to drink. One of those cups of old coffee piled in the corner of her office would solve both problems . . .

But she remained still, the only sounds coming from her presence were those of a page turning every so often. Cool and composed on the outside, inside she was bouncing off walls and screaming to the heavens.

He'd surpassed the current life-span record of 5 hours and 20 minutes set by her previous subjects.

And not only had he lived longer, he'd done so without spending at least a third of it collapsing in on himself. He'd had his outburst and hadn't uttered a single word since then, and she was glad. So glad, that she refused to move lest she shatter the fragile bubble of success she currently floated in.

Even better yet, he'd become active again after almost 3 hours of absence. His crystals had glowed, and he'd appeared on his crystal platform in the same form he'd left in – black 'L' with a white background. In response, Vey had lowered her book and watched him. And the second he'd noticed her noticing him, he'd fled once again. The next time he'd come around, she'd decided to pay him no mind and keep her attention downward in her lap. That course of action had worked, and he'd seemed content to be out and about as long as she didn't scrutinize him. Vey didn't understand the rationality of it, and she didn't have to. This was his ball-game now . . . she was only a spectator taking space in the stands.

But that didn't stop her from stealing little glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't help it – the Orpheus in her had to look, even at the cost of losing her dear Eurydice forever. If he'd noticed, he'd chosen to ignore them.

He'd spent a total of 46 minutes examining his surroundings, and testing his visual capabilities. She'd known what he was doing because his display had taken on the shape of several objects in her office that he'd taken interest in. The first had been one of her coffee cups from the corner that had come out a little misshapen, the black liquid spilling from the warped container. She'd had to stifle a giggle at that, wondering if he'd heard her. His next attempt had come out a little better – a small, outdated miniature of Earth encased within a glass cube. He'd even gotten the color coding and shape of the continents right, and had spun the planet for good measure. But whether that was from memory, or his magnification ability, she couldn't tell.

After a few more miscellaneous objects – a tiki god, an old pen, and a her digital writing pad – he'd gotten the hang of turning himself into perfect duplicates of the objects.

His last attempt had been, oddly enough, her . . . sitting in her chair with her book in her lap. She'd decided to give that her full attention, noting that he'd even replicated the reflections of himself in her glasses. After a moment, the holographic copy had raised its head, pinned her with her own eyes, and then had promptly dissolved into darkness. Evidently, he had heard her, and had decided to rise to the perceived challenge.

After that session, Vey had checked her screen on a hunch – and sure enough, there'd been a logged attempt at re-establishing a connection. She'd said nothing, and had made no effort to disable his interface – if letting him play around with the encryption gave her opportunity to see him, then she saw no harm in it.

Now, every half hour, he would flash in and try again. After a minute or two of working, he'd fizzle out again in failure. When she couldn't see him, she assumed he was in there planning and plotting more strategies for his next battle with her machine. It was the most adorable thing she'd ever seen – like watching a child trying to walk for the first time – and it took all she had not to laugh at his behavior. Not in a mocking way, but in a happy, proud way. He was a feisty one, with no apparent regard for authority, and Vey liked it.

With a grin plastered on her pale face, Vey turned another page and picked another word to stare at.

It seemed as though this one was adjusting rather well to his new existence, more interested in gaining access to her computer than mulling over what was already done. If such behavior kept him sane, and alive, then she had no problem in allowing it. He could cope however he wanted to . . . just as long as he coped.

Vey just wished he would respond to her attempts at dialogue, or at least answer her questions. While she couldn't even begin to imagine what it must be like for him, she did understand that it was a grueling, mind-blowing experience that everything else paled in comparison to. How does one adapt to something like that? How does one even comprehend it?

Then she reminded herself that he'd most likely chosen to have himself preserved after death. So he'd expected this, hadn't he? Not that it made anything any easier, but–

The change of ambient lighting in her peripheral vision told her it was time for him to try again. She kept still, keeping her eyes planted on the hardback in her lap, and waited. After a minute or so, she heard what sounded like a little huff, and then the shade of white disappeared from the yellowed pages of her book. He'd failed again, and the poor thing either didn't realize or didn't care that he would continue to fail until she decided otherwise. Luckily for him, she had made the decision to give him what he wanted just as soon as she briefed Pandora and gave her back her access.

Well, if he continued to flourish and didn't all of a sudden crash and burn.

Pandora sat cross-legged on her pedestal, her hands rummaging around in the ornamental chest sitting in front of her. Looking up for a moment, she cast curious golden eyes towards the isolated pedestal located on the desktop a few inches from her own, where the newcomer resided. He was active, with that screwy 'L' image of his, but he ignored her completely. She'd tried several times to speak to him, asking him questions that seemed proper to ask a human, but he just continued to function as if she weren't there.

She returned her eyes to the inside of her chest. She didn't like being snubbed, not at all, and if she could she would stomp right over to his stupid holopad and kick it with her sandaled foot. But her physical access to it was limited, so she couldn't just waltz over there and flail her hands around in his display, no matter how much she wanted to.

The Doctor's orders had been clear – keep his existence a secret, monitor his access to her computer, and do not incite him. For now, Pandora would follow the Doctor's orders. But if he ever made it out of that prison cell of his, she'd be sure to show him who was superior to whom.

The current task she was working on gave her a little bit of satisfaction, at least. She was to keep a close eye on him as he investigated the information available to him via his interface with the Doctor's computer. Personally, Pandora hated the thing – it wasn't necessary and only served to waste space – but these humans had the oddest quirk of keeping old, obsolete objects around, and they were usually adamant about it. So she'd stopped complaining about it a long time ago.

But now, she was almost enjoying her excavation of the dinosaur's internal workings as she watched this half-breed sift through what was there. It was with great pleasure that she plucked a certain piece of restricted information from his outgoing pile, and replaced it with a 'Restricted File: Access Denied' marker. Each time, she would put a little grin on her face, and hope like hell that he saw it.

If he did, though, he made no acknowledgement of it. He just took his heap of data, processed it, and went back for another load . . . all without a word or gesture towards her.

She sighed, exhaling a bit of gold dust from her lips. What was his problem anyway? Did he think he was better than her because he was the 'new guy', or because he was human? Or was he just childishly acting out because of the task she'd been given of supervising his acquisition of information? He had to know that there were some things he wasn't allowed to see, so there was no reason to be immature about it. This was her territory, after all. You don't just come into someone else's house and start telling them what's what.

Well, you did if you were an ill-mannered little twerp with a sense of entitlement bigger than you are. Pandora huffed, pulling another few pieces of data fragments from his outbound cargo and putting more nana-nana-boo-boo markers in their place. She wished silently that he'd really wanted those fragments, and that he was good and pissed about not getting them.

He was so slow. Why didn't he just dive right in there and analyze on the fly? What purpose did it serve to mine the data and then bring it all the way back to his cell?

Pandora swore to herself that if she weren't so put off by him ignoring her, she'd get her hands dirty and show the simpleton how to extract data properly. Which reminded her . . .

"Excuse me, Doctor?"

The current conversation going on between Shep and Vey on the sofa ceased. "Yes?"

"Have you decided who you would choose for this one?" Pandora detected the slightest pause in his gathering – he was listening.

"I was considering Ronin for the job."

The female AI scrunched her perfect face in disgust. "Ronin?" He was just what his name implied, a masterless AI with his sneaky little routines in everything. "But he's so wild, Doctor. Are you sure that's prudent?" Not that she cared, she just didn't like him.

"Maybe not the wisest choice, but I think he's the best candidate for the job. His knack for insurgency and counter-intrusion protocol is without peer, and he has the discretion I need since he doesn't report to anyone directly." The Doctor narrowed her eyes at the AI from across the room. "Why are you so concerned, Pandora? Would you like to volunteer?"

Her . . . with the half-breed? It was on the tip of her vocal conduit to say no when she noticed that he'd paused his efforts completely, and now seemed to focus all of his attention on her answer. He was probably just as 'crazy' about the idea as she was.

"I'd consider it." She replied out of pure spite, a smile creeping onto her face when he abandoned his stream of information and snapped to darkness. Let him think the worst, and agonize over it for a while. Serves him right.

Pandora was about to vacate her presence in the Doctor's computer when he returned and re-established his link. She waited to see what he would pull, her 'fingers' just itching to snatch something away from him. She was almost tempted to seize data that wasn't even sensitive, just to revel in her authority over him and his endeavor. But he didn't appear to be pulling anything at the moment . . . he just was there, occupying space inside the relic like a bump on a log. She moved closer, toying with the idea of engaging him directly in the expanse of memory they currently shared.

She wouldn't hurt him. No, of course not. He just needed a little lesson in proper manners, that's all. She'd be gentle.

She noticed it too late, only realizing that there was no identifying signature present when she probed what she'd thought was a routine of his. It was phantom code - a convincing, empty copy designed to trick any pursuers into wasting time analyzing it. Essentially, it was the toy mouse that would lead a tracking cat on a wild goose chase while the real mouse used the time to steal the now unguarded cheese.

Before that thought finished cycling, Pandora sensed the tiniest brush against her personal barrier. Immediately, she initiated a lock-down of all ports and then withdrew back to her point of entry. From there, she simultaneously began a system scan to determine whether or not he was still poking around, and conducted a quick visual check of his display. His pedestal came into view just as the last shadows of his letter fizzled out, leaving only empty space above the crystal stage. Nanoseconds later, the results from her scan confirmed that he'd terminated his connection and returned to his holding cell.

Pandora scrambled and then reactivated the restriction code on the machine, and then terminated her own link. Just as a precaution, she ran a quick security sweep of her own arrays to make sure there was nothing out of place.

Her attention back on her chest, she happened to notice a new piece of data present – a file in the form of a tightly coiled, multi-colored helix. Then she came upon the request she'd missed earlier, and traced it quickly.

The 'brush' against her barrier hadn't been a brush at all. It had been his return trip through the almost unnoticeable breach he'd managed to create in her shell, which she had foolishly not bothered to secure against the likes of him while inside that relic. She had never expected that he would know how to use the routing code from her restriction markers to trace his way back to her, or that he'd know how to piggyback data on her connection with the machine.

Pandora slammed the lid of her chest down, the sound garnering curious glances from the human occupants engaged in conversation.

So he was a clever little bastard. Who cares? Not her, and that was for damn sure. She didn't care a whit that some human hybrid had zeroed in on her carelessness and used it to give her a taste of her own medicine that wasn't even hers, but the Doctor's.

After several cycles of seething, curiosity got the best of her Thought Matrix, and Pandora grudgingly re-opened her chest to look at the file's contents. With a wave of her hand, the helix floated up and uncoiled itself in front of her.

And there, encased within, were all the tiny markers she'd put in place of data that he'd been refused - neatly positioned in such a way that told her, more or less, to piss off.

Orpheus – In Greek myth, he was a poet/musician of the finest sort. His wife, Eurydice, was tragically killed on their wedding day, and cast into the underworld. Orpheus charmed Hades with his music into allowing him to come and retrieve Eurydice, but only on one condition – he had to walk ahead of her and never look back until they returned to the world of the living. But Orpheus looked back before making it into the Light . . . just in time to see her vanish forever.

Helix – a spiral . . . think of a tiny slinky, or a curly fry.