Note: Reminder - 2 characters named Artie in this fic. Glee Artie (mentioned briefly in this chapter) and OC AI Artie (In this chapter).
Word Count: 1,655 ( 10 of 9 )
Taking her regular seat, Rachel looked at the others gathered in their Chichen Itza conference room. "Why the secrecy? I thought we wanted Artie and his camera crew to record everything we found in the cache? We do have final say."
"What do you know about the Tiger Clan?" Brittany asked, pushing a steaming cup across the table towards her.
"One of the quirkier of the Clans," Rachel said, frowning in thought before carefully sipping from the cup. "Their Clan totem is a feline-like creature. Legend has it their founding family discovered it in some secret location."
"It's an actual tiger," Brittany said, pointing at one of the conference room screens as a white tiger appeared on it. "The rare white Siberian, Panthera tigris altaica to be exact."
"How is that possible?" Rachel asked. "Isn't the tiger native to this planet?"
"Yes," Brittany said, "but someone's been tinkering. The Siberian has Tiger Clan DNA markers. They show up in our scans."
"What does that mean for us?" Rachel asked.
Brittany shrugged. "At the moment? I'm not sure. But they're endangered, so we'll have to do something, since they're Clan affiliated and the Tiger Clan would declare war on us if we let them die off."
"What do tigers with traces of Clan DNA have to do with that shuttle?" Quinn asked, frowning. Turning to Santana she asked, "What'd you find inside it?"
"What's this look like?" Santana said, gesturing at another one of the screens. A slim figure appeared with a tail and large ears.
"A cat girl?" Quinn said, looking at Santana in surprise. "Is she real?"
"Yup," Santana said. "That would be the second life-sign from the cache. We still haven't been able to turn off the stasis field to extract her but we're getting there."
"And this gives a possible explanation for those 'Men in Black' mummies in the cache," Brittany added. "They must have found it after they found the Tiger Clan island and and run into something fatal. Still haven't found out what killed them, though. No signs of violence, poison, or disease."
"So, our cat girl is potentially dangerous?" Quinn said. "More than our iced mother?"
"Small scale?" Brittany said. "Artie?"
"Yes, Lady Shadow?"
"Were you able to contact the Tiger Clan?"
"No," Artie said. "They are not responding to our requests."
"Oh! Oh!" Rachel said excitedly. "I need the logs from that shuttle."
"They're heavily encrypted, Rach," Brittany said. "Even with Artie's help it's gonna take weeks in the time bubble to break it. Whomever designed the encryption they used was a genius."
"So, that's only a couple minutes for us, right?"
"Nope," Brittany said. "That's weeks of our time, outside of the bubble."
"What's so important about the shuttle logs?" Quinn asked.
"There are old legends about the Tiger Clan," Rachel said. "That they experimented with combining their DNA with their totem. But there's never been any concrete proof."
"You think this cat girl is some Tiger Clan experiment?" Santana said. "That's… wrong."
"Possibly," Rachel said, nodding. "Or the daughter of someone in their clan important enough that they ignored Clan taboos."
"So, possibly Tiger Clan royalty?" Quinn said. "Can we leave her in stasis?"
"Don't worry, Quinnie, we'd still outrank her," Santana said. "Besides, any original Tiger Clan mercs are your responsibility," she said, smirking.
"Great," Quinn said, with sigh. "And don't call me that!"
"Anything else?" Santana asked. "We've got a thing." She pointed at Brittany.
"What kind of thing?" Rachel asked, scrolling through her notes.
"A family thing," Santana said, standing and pulling Brittany to her feet.
"A party," Brittany said.
"A party and we weren't invited?" Rachel asked, pouting. "Can we come?"
"It's not that kind of party," Santana said. "It's more of a wake. Sort of."
"Who died?" Rachel asked.
"Nobody," Santana muttered, blushing. "It's symbolic."
"I think Rachel would find it interesting, San," Brittany said. "And Quinn can come too."
"To what, exactly," Quinn asked, frowning.
"I'm not dead," Santana said.
"Obviously," Quinn said, "though that can be arranged."
"Ha, ha! Funny girl," Santana said, glaring at her, pulling Brittany towards the door.
"Well, explain then," Rachel said.
"In order for her family to recognize her return in her new role, they need to do some symbolic death - rebirth ceremony thing," Brittany said. "Otherwise, she would have to take over as Head Priestess."
"Not happening," Santana said. "Sophia would kill me."
"Why didn't you say so?" Rachel said. "It's probably a Mayan interpretation of a classic Clan celebration. Do we need to bring anything? Do we have time to make something? There's a Clan casserole I've been meaning to try."
"It's not a pot-luck, Berry," Santana said. "We go, the Priestess…"
"San's cousin Sophia," Brittany interjected.
"The Priestess does her thing, everyone gets drunk and we dance. That's it."
"We're still coming, right Quinn?" Rachel said, patting her favorite blonde's hand.
"I've got a meeting," Quinn said.
"With whom?" Rachel asked, frowning at her.
"Umm… I'll need to check," Quinn said quickly. "Artie? Do you remember who that meeting was with?" she asked.
"I am unaware of any meeting today," Artie said.
"Really?" Quinn said, blushing. "I could have sworn there was something important I had to do today."
"Good, then you can come with," Rachel said. "I'm sure whatever it was can be rescheduled, if you can't remember what it was."
"That was different," Quinn said, following Rachel into her room, and flopping down onto her bed.
"The nude dancing was a surprise," Rachel said, raising an eyebrow at Quinn sprawled out on her bed. "The original Clan ceremony didn't involve the removal of clothing, by anyone."
"It was just Santana," Quinn said, smirking. Rolling over, she propped her chin up on her hands, watching Rachel.
"And Brittany," Rachel said. "Though Sophia looked surprised when she joined them."
"Well, Brit doesn't need an excuse to do that. She can be quite the exhibitionist, given the chance," Quinn said giggling. "I'm surprised you didn't join them."
"Me?" Rachel squeaked. "I'd never do that. Do you really think I'm like that?"
"An exhibitionist? Not what I was saying," Quinn said. "I didn't think you'd have issues with nudity."
"Like you? No, of course not," Rachel said. "The human body is a marvelous thing. But it wasn't our place to disrupt things."
"Of course not," Quinn said. "You seemed to enjoy the whole thing," she added, giving her a curious look.
"It as an interesting evolution of the original ceremony," Rachel said, gracefully twirling around, dancing to some internal music Quinn couldn't hear.
"What was that drink called?" Quinn asked.
"Balché? I think," Rachel said.
"Need to get the recipe, and for that chocolate drink," Quinn said, closing her eyes. "Much better than the grape stuff."
"We'll see," Rachel said, her voice seeming to echo in the small room. "It might be a secret, religious ceremony only thing."
"Wake me up in the morning?" Quinn said, keeping her eyes closed.
"Your bed is really close," Rachel said, her voice getting closer.
"Yours is closer," Quinn said.
"You're lying in it," Rachel said.
"Oh, right," Quinn said, opening her eyes to find Rachel leaning over her. Reaching up she grabbed her arm. "We can share."
"You're drunk!" Rachel said, trying to pull back.
"Good," Quinn said, giving Rachel's arm a tug. "Come here."
"Quinn!" Rachel shouted, falling onto the bed next to Quinn.
"Sh…" Quinn said, wrapping an arm around Rachel's waist. "Bedtime for all good little Memory's." Closing her eyes again, she ignored Rachel's attempts to get up. "Night, night. Don't let the tigers bite."
"Quinn! Let me go," Rachel said.
"No," Quinn said, snuggling closer. "I'm sleeping."
"Hey guys!" Brittany said, giggling at the sight of a sleeping Quinn wrapped around a wide eyed Rachel. "Time to get up."
"She won't let go," Rachel said. "I've got to pee."
"Too much balché?" Brittany asked. "There's a reason they bring it out only for special occasions."
"You know she doesn't usually drink," Rachel said, tugging at Quinn's arm. "A little help?"
"She looks so… comfortable," Brittany said. "Can't you just wriggle out from under her?"
"No," Rachel said.
"Hush," Quinn muttered. "Sleeping here."
Brittany giggled again. "Maybe if you offered her breakfast? I heard a rumor that the galley just got in a shipment of her favorite breakfast thing."
"Really?" Quinn said, sitting up quickly, releasing Rachel. "They finally got the bacon I've been asking for?"
"I was thinking of that syrup you like on your French Toast," Brittany said, quickly stepping back away from Quinn's swinging arms.
"No bacon?" Quinn asked.
"Not that I'm aware of," Brittany said.
"Go'way," Quinn mumbled, flopping back down onto Rachel's bed, her face in a pillow.
"Give me a minute," Rachel said, rushing to the bathroom. "Don't go anywhere!" she shouted, the door sliding closed behind her.
"No breakfast?" Brittany asked.
"I'll eat a large lunch," Quinn said, rolling over to look up at Brittany. "Need to do some team bonding before a planning session for next month's Zero-G exercises."
"You're not coming to breakfast?" Rachel asked, appearing beside Brittany.
"Nope," Quinn said.
"Want me to bring you something back?"
"Nah," Quinn said. "I'll eat later."
"No crumbs in my bed!" Rachel told her.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Quinn said, winking at her. "Later, ladies," she added, laying back down, and closing her eyes.
"Let's go, Rachel," Brittany said, grabbing her arm and pulling towards the door. "Before the hoards get the good stuff."
"Okay," Rachel said, reluctantly following her, giving Quinn one last look.
"Progress!" Brittany said, once the door had closed behind them.
"What?" Rachel said, puzzled.
"That's progress," Brittany said. "She stayed with you all night."
"Yes," Rachel said. "Maybe… but is it good progress?"
"We'll see," Brittany said, "but first, breakfast. And then I've got to see a woman about her mother."
"Just be careful," Rachel said.
"Always."
End Notes:
And thus ends Book II of The Yucatan Job but not of the whole story of our Cherrios in Space.
Book III will be posted approx. 1 month after NaNoWriMo 2014. In story it will start approx. 6 - 12 months after Book II. There will also be several short interludes posted before then to fill that gap.
The final part of the story, Book IV, where the Space Opera Hits the Fan, will hopefully follow after NaNoWriMo 2015.