All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait
They have waited for…a long, long time.
So long.
Too long.
Through the selections, the countless failed experiments and test procedures, the botched cures and the sheer idiocy that created Miranda.
Hundreds upon hundreds of individuals, a veritable army; some unwilling, some unknowing, some embracing with open arms and microscopes, but all was for The Cause.
The Cause was everything, and it could not be stopped. Not by men, not by governments, not by worlds. It was…a thing of beauty. Of sheer perfection. Nothing could rival it or touch it or, most importantly, stop it. They wondered who would want to.
They had been since the beginning, and they would be until the end of the beginning of the end. They would usher in the new age, if not of light than at least of their own variations.
Nothing could stop them; they were un-stop-pa-ble.
They had their labs. They had their cures. They had their subjects. Miranda and the lives lost were a distant memory, a sacrifice to be remembered and never, ever repeated. And after years of searching, they had their Perfect Subject.
River Tam.
Child prodigy, highly intuitive. Came from the best, educated by the best; and she would be the best. Their Perfect Subject turned into their Perfect Creation.
With her, they would begin. With her, they started.
Everything they threw at her, she learned. Every test they gave, she passed. She was their star, and they watched her shine. For now, a sun. Soon, a supernova.
What they had not expected was a black hole.
The shattering of her mind was…regrettable. Opportunities had been lost there; someone had dropped the ball. (They found who, later; he did not live out the day and died choking on his blood).
But ashes could be made into a fire, and what they had made was:
Amazing.
Stunning.
Extraordinary, for all of the word's contradictions.
…
Perfect. River Tam was perfect. The perfect subject.
Would have been. Should have been.
Perhaps the letters were a mistake, perhaps they should have monitored her brother better, perhaps they should not have underestimated the strength of Subject Tam's mind.
But they did. They had failed, and they accepted their mistake.
Subject Tam would be found, and her brother eliminated or neutralized and brought in on the project. He was a resource. He could be used, exploited. They knew what he loved, what he wanted. All things they had used in the process of Subject Tam's re-conditioning.
So they followed. Followed the trail they had left blatantly in their wake. A genius her brother may be, but not a criminal mastermind. Not yet.
They boarded a ship. Left, went to ground.
They waited; they always waited. Subject Tam would be found, and then their job would start. For now, they continued evaluating and testing and keeping the rows of tin soldiers in line.
(These people were ants and they were gods and soon everything would be Perfect)
Their undercover operative failed, as they knew he would. What they did not expect was that Subject Tam did not carry out the extermination herself. Perhaps she had still been in stasis at the time.
A train. A ball. Cows and a bloodstain on the grass and village filled with people who described a girl that danced like an angel; another that screamed of witches and fire and men that came from the sky.
She had been here. But it was becoming obvious these people had no idea what they were carrying with them.
Good. The less they knew, the better.
Small-time bandits and a dusty town made of mud that clings to their suits. No one has seen her. They must have learnt their lesson.
Good for the project, but this will put a delay into their plans.
They hunt down flagged ships, go through every database for even a mention. Waiting is becoming an annoyance; they want her, and they want her now. Every moment she is out of their hands, she is corrupted.
When they find her, they will raze whatever temporary structures she has built to keep them out and teach her all over again. For some reason, they look forward to the process. Every time they unmake her leads them closer to perfection.
She is stronger than they think. Captured on Ariel, she runs from them, disobeying every message engraved onto the soft tissue of her brain. All this time away has allowed long-since-broken faculties to regain a tentative hold.
When the time comes, they will enjoy breaking her.
Finally, a name. They follow it to Adelai Niska, find a space station filled with torture equipment and dead men. Three of them Subject Tam killed herself; the preciseness of her style is unmatched.
They confiscate video and watch as she eliminates them in as many seconds. It seems inactivity has not dulled her abilities, but she hesitated. Waited until the other woman was in trouble before helping. Pretended it was a game.
Weakness like this would not have been tolerated had they still had her; every second delayed would have earned her another hour, another day, another session where they pulled her apart and removed the defiance and weakness and emotions that made her human, made her another ant to be squashed.
Had she still been theirs, she would have walked into that station herself with only a gun and a knife and emerged victorious. Had she still been theirs, she would have executed that woman for hesitating, for being weak.
They plan for the inevitable, and wait for the tipping point.
It comes through a bounty hunter who speaks to ghosts. One of theirs, they think. Unstable child. A killer, but with imperfections that made him…unsuitable for the job. And, for all the people he shared it with, an average mind.
They had needed someone extraordinary, that defied expectations. River Tam had been that person before she became Subject Tam; even know, she was still the pinnacle of all they had achieved.
The just wanted to bring her home again. Where she belonged, with them, forever.
Miranda and reavers and you stupid, stupid child, what have you done?!
The truth can be buried for the right price, and they have all the money they need to sweep the whole mess right under the carpets.
Angry though, angrier than they have been in a long time. Angrier than when they had lost Subject Tam, angrier when they had seen her weakness in battle.
She had destroyed an entire bar, left seventeen dead and six wounded, five critically so. Taken out a swarm of reavers in a test they never would have put together until the fourth year of treatment, when they had been sure their product would be finished.
But they left, they left, and they came back.
Even when psychotic, even when a killer, people still surrounded their goal. They had expected her brother to remain by her side but…these people. They were troublesome. They needed to go.
Miranda, too. Oh, Miranda. The secret that burned Subject Tam's mind to scraps of paper and flecks of ash.
They had known it was there, known she would discover it. And they told her, they told her! not to go telling her stories to all the other boys and girls. Watched in satisfaction as she didn't lie down and the death of a world pressed her face into bone-dust-shadows-blood.
So proud, they had been then. A control that needed no trigger; a control inside her head that kept her going and screaming and crying long after the tests were done and she was back in her room waiting for the next time they came out of the closet and called.
She told them.
Her brother, those people. The world, too, but the world didn't hear. Only a few men and women dressed all in brown, and all they'd needed was a location of their meeting place and their blood boiled from the inside out.
She told them.
She'd broken the rules, and this time she wouldn't get away with it. When they got her (and they would, most definitely they would), River Tam would burn until she broke into a million billion pieces. And then, then they would start their good work on Subject Tam and make her all she could be.
Then they left, and the game changed again.
Silly little boy, broken little girl, had left the protection of their metal guardian and flying angels, and gone to ground.
And those stupid, stupid people, whom they left behind. How far do they think they can run, really, without a psychic on board?
Two, three weeks and they discover all they ever wanted to know. The captain is tough and so is the first-mate, but the devils are they and the answers are in the details, if you look closely enough.
Crazier. Angrier. More unstable, less predictable.
They pushed and he shoved and she screamed; little boy and girl left their home, and these people are too dense to realize how close they came to seeing Perfect.
They close eyes that were never open and return to their task.
An entire planet, millions of inhabitants. Cities and villages and shabby little towns, not to mention individual houses scattered all around.
But a planet is nothing, and from what they can judge River Tam is ready to come home. The damage is not irreparable, and she is far and away the best they have found. One, two, maybe three years and she will be done and Perfection will be reached. The Perfect Weapon for them to begin with.
They will wait, and search, and wait some more.
All good things come to those who wait, and they are the masters of waiting patiently for their traps to be strung, their lines to be pulled. They will have their prize, and the [uni]verse will rue the day they denounced them as madmen, see them as the gods they truly are.
The world will be theirs, because:
All good things come to those who wait.