The Silk Moth Dream (Season 1 Complete)

EPISODE 13: AN ELEPHANT IN (FRONT OF) THE ROOM

Fiona rubs her eyes, trying to ignore her splitting headache. No matter which way she spins it, she'd be responsible for the murders of three people.

"Just give it up already," Shailene says boredly, folding origami cranes before promptly crumpling them up. "It's exhausting to watch you do the same thing over and over again."

She swipes back to the janitorial schedule on her screen. There is a ten minute opening in the west wing that will be clear at 9:35 PM, which would mean they need to adjust the operations team's entrance ten minutes earlier, but they can't leave until the explosives unit has everything they need, which would take at least fifteen minutes... "Ugh!" Fiona slumps against her seat. "There has to be a solution somewhere."

"Fiona, it's three people," Shailene sighs, as though trying to reason with Fiona is exhausting. "Occupational hazard of being a janitor. Unfortunate, but we need to move on and the rest of the logistics."

Fiona gapes at Shailene. "I don't know how you can be so blasé about this. These are three people's lives on the line here. Real people just trying to do their job. No one signs up to be a janitor and expects to be caught in the crossfire of a bombing."

Shailene looks up from her paper cranes, equally annoyed. "I'm not being blasé. You're being naïve. I just have experience, and experience tells me that we need to move on if we want to make sure the rest of the plan goes smoothly. If there was a way to spare these three people, I would. But you've been pulling out your hair over it for the past hour and have made zero progress." She crumples up the crane. "And what if your shaky walkaround plan puts our agents in the op at risk? Then it'll be your actual friends who die instead of the janitors."

Fiona, unfortunately, has no response for that. She simply glares at Shailene and petulantly rearranges the schedule in front of her for the thousandth time.

Shailene looks down at her wrist as an incoming call pings her. "Don't make too much progress without me," she says, as she excuses herself into the hallway to take the call.

Fiona can hardly focus on the schedule in front of her — something about Shailene just riles her up like no one else. But there has to be a way... Fiona's vision blurs in front of her as she resets the schedule once again.

Outside, she can just barely hear Shailene speaking emphatically. Probably ranting about Fiona to Ragnar, who's been in Sacramento with some contacts over the past week or so. "Fiona is so... always has to be right... will never go for this..." Shailene's words fade in and out, only increasing Fiona's annoyance at the girl today.

Shailene's voice gets even more hushed and that's when Fiona's anger turns to curiosity, feeling a strange squirming of trepidation. Slowly, she sets down the stylus in front of her and walks over to the door. She can hear Shailene pacing up and down the hallway, something she does when she really feels like she's onto something. It helps her feel authoritative, she says.

"Listen, I agree that he's a great strategic resource," Shailene is saying as she passes by the door. Click, click, click. Fiona presses her ear against the door harder as Shailene gets further away. She can hear Ragnar speaking rapidly on the other end of the line.

"Exactly!" Shailene's voice grows as she approaches again. "See, we're just agreeing with each other. Seraph is an invaluable resource to Left Behind, and it would be a crippling loss for us to not have him. Ragnar, you're just agreeing with me."

Fiona's skin prickles at the mention of Abin's moniker around the base. Why are they arguing about him? What does it have to do with what Ragnar's doing in Sacramento?

Click, click, click. Shailene walks past again. "You and I both know that the Obsidian Tortoise technology in Sacramento is getting better by the day." Her voice fades in and out. "We need to do it before it's too late... before there are no more LB agents to fight the war."