See Prologue for Disclaimer and Author's Notes.

Chapter 2 – The Geometry of Shadows

Sheridan took a moment to size up the watering hole before he ventured inside. It was the most run-down place he'd pulled up a stool at in awhile – and that was saying something. It needed new paint, for starters, and a new roof. But plain as day on the door was the word he'd locked into his mind from Sinclair's report: Z'ha'dum. With a sigh, he pulled on the handle. The door swung open and he stepped inside.

It was empty. He checked his watch. Six o'clock – prime happy hour, but it seemed that if this bar had regulars, they weren't drinking today. The small room (which was in slightly better repair than the outside – and appeared to have been freshly painted, although he didn't care for the dark red color) had only one occupant, and he was stationed behind the bar, watching old Daffy Duck cartoons with a bemused smile on his face.

John pulled up a barstool and cleared his throat to attract attention. The bald man behind the counter looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"Whiskey on the rocks," Sheridan ordered on the bartender's silent inquiry. A nod was his only response, and then the drink was in front of him. He paid for it. The bartender returned to his cartoon.

Sheridan slowly nursed the drink, noting to himself that it would be good to be sociable but he just didn't fucking feel like it. He watched the cartoon a bit. Drank a bit. Thought about his day.

Today was actually his fourth day on the Babylon police force. After a very tense first day, he'd spent quite a bit of time in strategic planning sessions with Commander Ivanova – whom he would never again call the Pretty Police Lady, even if she was all of those things – until she felt his story was solid enough to go into the fire. What story? He almost laughed aloud. There wasn't much to change, really. He liked to drink. He wanted revenge for the death of his wife at the hands of a drug cartel, last known to reside in Minbar. He didn't like authority figures. He was a deadly shot with a handgun and had a pretty decent right hook – but it was no match for his left.

And yesterday, he'd spent most of the day moving from Agamemnon into a one-bedroom apartment in Babylon; he could afford bigger and better, but if this went the way it was supposed to go – any bigger and they'd start using his place for their purposes.

"Busy day?" He finally said aloud, drawing the attention of the bartender.

The bald man scoffed. "You're kidding, right?"

A nod. "It always like this?"

"Some days are better than others."

Sheridan let out a noncommittal grunt and returned his attention to his drink. Careful, he reminded himself. They won't bite the hook you're bating if you slather it in alcohol. They'll be looking for a lost soul, not an alcoholic.

An hour passed, then another. John slowly worked his way through a second glass of whiskey and could feel it tingling at his nerves. He was about to give up for the night and go home when the bartender turned away from his stupid cartoon and spoke. "New in town?"

"What's it to you?"

The bartender offered a noncommittal shrug. "You just don't seem the type for a place like this, not if you've been living here for any length of time. You'd know better."

"Maybe I do. Maybe I just don't care."

The bartender studied him for a long moment, eyes narrowed, then wagged a finger at him. "No, you're new. I can see it in your eyes. So I'm going to give you a piece of advice. Go home. You don't want to be hanging around this part of town after dark."

"I can take care of myself." Sheridan pulled aside his jacket just enough to give the other man a glimpse of the gun tucked inside.

The bartender let out a low whistle. "I guess you can." And suddenly he seemed more interested. Sheridan scored a point for himself on his mental chalkboard ticker. "What's your story?"

"I don't tell stories to bartenders. I'm not that kind of drunk."

Another long pause. Then the bartender wiped his palms on a bar rag and extended his left hand in Sheridan's direction. "Michael Garibaldi."

"John Sheridan." He shook the outstretched hand in greeting.

"You got a badge to go with that pretty little piece, John Sheridan?"

Sheridan shook his head. "Not anymore."

"Anymore?" Raised eyebrows. "Now that's interesting."

"My wife died." He took a long swig from his glass, emptied it. Garibaldi poured him another and he nodded in thanks. "She was a hostage. Peace officers don't negotiate with terrorists, that's what they told me. Nothing personal. Well. It was pretty personal for me." He shrugged. "So I figured if I couldn't do anything about it on the right side of the badge, then either I didn't belong in the force, or I'd do something about it on the other side. I haven't decided which yet."

"And that's why you're in a seedy bar on a weeknight, nursing your third glass of whiskey."

"Something like that."

Again, John felt himself being sized up. Good. He scored himself another tally point. But he didn't want to push too hard; this needed to go a little slower or it wouldn't be believable to the big man upstairs. If he was going to get in all the way, he couldn't force it. He quickly downed the third drink and swayed to his feet. "See you tomorrow."

Garibaldi held up a hand as a wave and John nodded at the gesture before stumbling out the door.

He was well down the block by the time Morden poked his head out of the shadows and raised his eyebrows at his bartender. "Who was that?"

"New guy. Widower. Nursing a serious grudge against our friends in blue."

"You buy it?"

"Maybe."

"What does he want?"

"From what I can tell? To drown in his whiskey," Garibaldi returned. "He likes whiskey. Good stuff. Expensive stuff. Man's got money if nothing else."

"Can we use him?"

"Don't know yet."

"Find out. If we can, I want to talk to him. He looks like he'd be a good fit. You and I both know there's a war coming, and when it gets here we're going to need allies – lots of them. If not…" a casual shrug. "Disappear him. Quietly. The last thing we need is a washed-up porker stumbling into our operation."

"Understood." Garibaldi leaned casually against the back of the bar, crossing his arms over his chest. "So. How'd it go today?"

"Not bad. Not bad at all." Morden's oily smile was plastered across his face as he paced a slow path behind the bar. "Nice clean weapons deal – just the way it should be. I'd say our arsenal is up to about 80 percent. New Guy's got his own gun?"

"Mmmhmmm."

"I like New Guy already. You get a name?"

"Sheridan. John Sheridan."

Morden paused longer than Garibaldi thought necessary on that name. His smile faded, brow creased, and a tinge of understanding dawned in his eyes. "Sheridan?"

"Yup."

Another lengthy pause. Then, dangerously low, "I want a background check, as complete as you can make it. And next time he's here, when he leaves, I want you to tail him. I wanna know where he lives, who he talks to and what he does during the day, before he shows up here."

"No problem. You want me to take anybody with me? Street soldiers, just in case?"

A slow shake of the head. Morden's mind was clearly on something else as he spoke. "I don't want you to take him out, I just want to know what game he's playing. You're my street coordinator for a reason, Garibaldi, and it's not because of your good looks. Be smart about this. Get the real story and get back to me without attracting his attention."

"Understood."

"Good." And then Morden was gone. Garibaldi shook his head and returned his attention to the television.

"How'd it go?"

Sheridan pressed his cell harder against his ear in the darkness of his apartment. He couldn't help smiling. "They like me."

As he delved into disclosure of his brief but telling meeting, he felt a rush returning, the likes of which he hadn't felt since his last successful drug bust almost three years ago. It made his heartbeat quicken, his throat run dry and caused a serious bout of insomnia. He loved it. He'd missed it. It filled all the places in his soul that had been empty for two years, and he only craved more of it. "Run that name through the computer. Maybe we'll come up aces," he finished at the end of his monologue.

"Michael Garibaldi," she repeated. "Got it. Anything else?"

Sheridan shook his head. "It was quiet. Too quiet for happy hour, even on a weeknight. That's the place, all right." He paused to think. "I won't be in to the station tomorrow."

"But—"

"I won't be in to the station tomorrow," he repeated more firmly, "And I'm not sure when I will be next. I'll keep in touch, but if I made the impression I think I did, they'll start keeping tabs on me. And they'll check my background. I've been through that before; there are a few false entries on my record, coded as such for anybody in the know, but on his end Morden won't know the difference," he added as he finished.

He heard Ivanova sigh. "You're asking me to put a lot of trust in an officer I just met," she told him. "I hope you know what you're doing."

His next words were mostly for himself, under his breath, barely audible to the woman on the other end of the line. "So do I."

It was four more days before Sheridan got the opening he was looking for. As he watched the stupid-fucking-Daffy Duck cartoons with mild disinterest and slowly pondered his second glass of whiskey, Michael Garibaldi handed him an envelope. He looked up at the bartender with raised eyebrows. "Take this to Proxima Park," he was told matter-of-factly. "Do you know where that is?" Sheridan nodded, eyes wide with what he hoped projected as shock – though it was really not shock at all. "Good. Do not open it, do not think about it, do not consider what might be in it. Just take it to the park. At exactly 8:00, a man in a blue baseball cap will meet you under the big oak tree. He'll ask you whether it's going to rain tonight. You tell him you don't think so, and then you give him this envelope. He'll give you one back. You bring me that envelope back here right away. You will not make any stops on that trip, you will not open that envelope either, and you will not talk to anyone other than the man in the blue baseball cap. Do you understand?" Again, Sheridan nodded. "Good." And then Garibaldi turned back to his cartoon, leaving Sheridan to carry out his very first run.

As he pushed himself off the barstool and sauntered out the door, envelope in hand, he couldn't hide the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth or stop the rush of adrenaline that shot through his bloodstream.

He was in.