Author's Note: Standard issue M-rated warning for this chapter. Graphic violence/torture, etc. Also a "MY EYES" warning due to plenty of what I've dubbed "Riverthink" going on.
Chapter Six: Sin
"No, the blowtorch is right out. He's not intimidated by it."
Mal frowned, and looked down at the tool in his hand, and then back at the man they'd been working on. Corporal Winth sat in his chair, stripped to his waist, with numerous hastily-patched cuts and gouges on his body. He was unconscious, his clothes stained with some of his blood. On the table beside him, the hacksaw and a couple of nails sat, bloodied, alongside a few of his teeth.
"What next, then?" Mal replied, putting the torch down. He looked between Zoe and Simon, the doctor wiping his hands with an antiseptic towel. "Nails ain't workin' too well, and neither is cuttin', even with the hacksaw. Whatever Niska would do to him is damn sight more effective than what we can manage." He lowered his voice. "An' me an' Zoe aren't experts at this."
"Something I hope you're glad of. Pain isn't my expertise either," Simon admitted. "Nor is psychology. Inara or maybe Book would be better at that."
"Can't bring either of them in," Zoe replied, crossing her arms. "I think we're too far past to try to use them anyway; he won't be receptive."
"What about simple threatening?" Mal said, tapping his pistol, hanging in its holster.
"Empty, and he knows it," Zoe said, shaking her head. "We need information he has, and threatening to kill him will seem obviously fake. He might even not care, considering what he thinks Niska will do to him." Mal nodded, rubbing his chin, and wishing to hell that they had a better way of extracting information from this man. Given time, they could force him to talk, but every second meant more torture for River and Jayne, and they would get farther away - too far, eventually.
"Have we considered fractures?" Zoe suggested. "Breaking fingers, toes, shin and forearm bones?"
"That would be pretty painful," Simon replied, nodding. "Blunt and direct, but too much trauma could easily knock him out again. I don't want to pump him up with too much adrenaline to wake him up, it'll numb the pain and he might go into cardiac arrest."
"If he don't come around quick," Mal warned, "We just might have to-" They stopped as a knock sounded on the door. After an exchange of glances, Zoe stepped to the side and slid it open.
Shepherd Book stood in the entrance, his expression grave. He glanced at the beaten prisoner, but his face barely shifted in response; he had enough of an idea of what they were doing already.
"Preacher," Zoe said, short and curt.
"Shepherd, ain't lookin' for another sermon now," Mal warned, to which Book's eyes narrowed slightly.
"I'm not here to interrupt," he replied. "I'm here to help, and possibly bring a measure of mercy to this." Mal blinked, confused, and he looked toward the prisoner, and then back to the priest.
"This isn't a place of God, Shepherd," Mal reminded him. "Not sure what a holy man like yourself would do to help us here." Book shook his head.
"Wasn't born a Shepherd," he replied, and his left hand rose, holding a syringe. "And just because I serve God now, it doesn't mean I've forgotten what I knew a long time ago."
This was nonstandard. Unfamiliar.
No, not unfamiliar. Pain was still very familiar. Pain for the purpose of improvement, for good work, that wasn't unfamiliar. Pain to strengthen, burning of muscles during endless hours of conditioning, impacts and cuts and scrapes were familiar elements of the ugly dances she learned and she made to survive and improve and perform so they would praise her and cut back on the drilling.
There was a point behind this pain, but it was not for improvement. She tasted the pleasure it brought, sick and inhuman and not. Right. This was not a good point.
It was never a good point.
There wasn't a pain rack in this room. Her arms were pulled up, hanging from the ceiling by cold metal. They didn't trust her feet, so they'd bound them as well, but let her toes rest on the rusty, blood-stained floor while she waited. Ninety pounds of broken doll got heavy after hours of dangling, they knew, she knew, the hands at the Academy knew.
Another blindfold to cut off her eyes, forcing her to see with other retinas. No deprivation of aural senses, though, and they didn't use neural disruptors. They wanted her to feel, didn't expose her to absolute sensory deprivation to gauge how far she had progressed.
alone
Hanging alone, a single slab of meat in an abattoir, tangled hair and hurt and tears tenderizing the steak for the meal of hurt to come. No guards to watch her, only a single camera burning down at her. Easy to bypass if she could get free, but no tools, restraints used molding foam on the inside to keep her from slipping free. Ankles tied tight, only choice was to hang and wait for the next round of business.
Jayne was screaming. She felt his defiance, his anger, his hate, and his red, permeating through the bulkheads, a river into a River's mind. Beneath it all, a hidden current running through the torrent of thought and emotion: fear, but not for himself. Not entirely for himself. A kernel of terror for her, afraid because he couldn't protect her anymore, afraid because he might have hurt her more by trying to protect her. He understood what telling the old man about the bounty meant.
He remembered Ariel, and the screaming.
Presence, outside the door. An opening, dark thoughts swirling into the room. Taping, wires, hands on bare skin, and she shook at the violating touch. The pages she read in their book-minds showed that they were back to restart business on their prisoner.
Blood dripping from wrinkled hands. Droplets on his glasses, running out of his mouth, his smile growing as the trickles of crimson became a torrent. He inhaled red mist, exhaled poison that seeped into the veins.
Curiosity. He spoke of it, walking around her. Subordinates checking equipment, fingers hovering over the keys. The old man asked questions, dull ones, ignorant. Why the bounty? What did they want her for? Why was it cancelled? What to do with his prisoner now that she was of no value?
Prisoner. She was a prisoner undergoing interrogation. That fact stabilized the pain hurricane of the broken mind, swept up the glass pieces and piled them up. Memories. Training. Response conditioning.
She remembered. There was only one appropriate response when taken by the enemy and subjected to interrogation.
Air in the lungs. Communication in the mouth. Hurt in the throat.
"Tam. River." Remember. Remember the code for their machine. "Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."
Curiosity echoed, intermixed with confusion. Feedback loop in his mind as he thought about her response, which strengthened the incomprehension and interest.
What was this? he asked. What was she saying?
"Tam. River." Repetition for the dull, bloody mind. "Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."
His curiosity remained, but the thirst for pain was too much to sate. He gestured, subordinate obeyed the command, and she tensed. Pain barriers in the mind turned on, training she hated rising up. All instinct and survival.
Her pain was familiar. Her screams were familiar. Her shaking was familiar.
It cut off, agony lingering, and she reopened. A second to recover. Inhalation, communication.
"Tam. River." Repeating the lines. Never reveal anything but the lines. "Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."
She heard his reaction more than heard it, and closed herself off again. More agony. Can't stop the screams, wriggling between her teeth. Blood in the mouth, salt taste and tiny hurt on the side, incisors cutting her own gums.
It passed, and she wished Simon was there. Instead, her vision shifted to Jayne. Still hurting, still being cut and shocked just like her, and still holding on. Not breaking, never breaking when the time to stiffen came.
She panted, muscles already tiring, and inhaled sharply.
"Tam. River. Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven . . . ."
"We'll need someone whose voice he isn't familiar with," Simon mused. He considered it for a moment, and then nodded. "Wash." Mal agreed, and hit the intercom.
"Wash, passenger dorms," he called, and the pilot sent back an acknowledgement.
"How much time are we going to have?" Zoe asked, to which Simon shrugged. The doctor looked to Book, who shared his uncertain expression. Before them was Corporal Winth, still unconscious, but now due to the chemical cocktail that Simon had injected him with. They'd blindfolded the prisoner per Book's instructions.
"If I give him a jolt of adrenaline to bring him back around, it'll begin counteracting the effects of the drug in a few minutes," Simon replied. "Though I've never used it before, so I could be wrong."
"The chemical is fundamentally similar to most anesthetics," Book added. "It only works as an interrogation tool when they're coming back around."
"So you stick him, then you wake him back up, and while he's waking up, he'll be more talkative?" Mal finished, and Book nodded.
"No more talkative than normal, but his perceptions will be skewed. That's what the blindfold is for. They keep bodyguards with state officials and people who know classified information when they undergo surgery, because during the recovery period, they are very open to suggestion. Minimal mental inhibitions."
"Preacher, you know an awful bit about getting a man to talk," Zoe remarked, to which he shrugged.
"Confessional," he replied, his tone possessing a forced lightness to it, but warning her to drop it at the same time.
Outside, they heard the sound of Wash's feet pounding on the deck, and a moment later he came into the room.
"Mal, what do you - tzao gao!" Wash recoiled at the sight of the battered mercenary, and looked around the room at the others. Mal gestured for him to step inside.
"Come on in," he said. "Gotta a job for you."
Name. Rank. Serial number.
Had to keep repeating it. Couldn't give them anything else. Had to bring up the barriers each time they moved to stimulate pain receptors. Barriers they gave her. In that place of good work.
"Government's man says you're a danger to us."
A flicker of memory. A recollection of darkness, of confusion, of fear. Not hers, theirs. They didn't know what she was - she didn't know what she was. All she had was the violation, planted in a mind that wasn't to be toyed with.
"Is he right?"
She didn't know.
She wanted him there. The anchor, the strength, that kept them all in safe. The voice she remembered. The voice that comforted her then.
"Are you anything more than a weapon?"
There was no way to fight it except to accept it. Accept what she was made to be. But she hated it. She didn't want to be what they made her. She wouldn't be what they made her.
Name. Rank. Serial number.
It meant nothing. Words, empty, meaningless sounds. A metronome to hold up the barriers, to survive.
No surrender. Fight on, until the last breath. Fight against the pain, the questions, the things the Academy put in where they didn't belong.
It was what Mal would have done. It was what Mal did.
It took several more minutes for the stimulants to bring Winth back around. In that time, Wash had been hesitant, but Mal was adamant that he was the right man for the job.
"But I'm no good at this," the pilot insisted.
"No difficulty here," Mal replied. "You just need to talk to him."
"But I don't know the first-"
"You're the only man on the ship whose voice he ain't heard," Mal replied. Wash was silent for a few seconds, and turned to Zoe, who patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. Wash looked back toward Mal, trying to center himself, when the Captain leaned closer.
"Book's sayin' this might be the only way to find River'n Jayne in time," Mal spoke quietly. "Holy man ain't got no place knowin' anything about sussing facts, but I'm inclined to trust him. Hate to burden you with this, but they need you."
Those words sunk in, and as they did so, Wash straightened. He took a couple of breaths, and then stepped around Mal to stand before the mercenary, who was starting to mumble something. Simon gestured for everyone to stay quiet.
"Hey," Wash said after a few seconds. "Hey, you all there?"
"I . . . " Winth's voice was slurred. "I can't . . . my legs . . . ."
"Legs got patched up," Wash said, hastily improvising as he spoke. "They messed you up good. Do you remember me?"
"Sound . . . Avery? That you?"
"I hope I am," Wash replied, forcing some lightness into his voice.
"What happened?" The drugged mercenary raised his head. "I can't see. Its all numb . . . ."
"Relax, its the painkillers," Wash replied. "We pulled you off their ship. They . . . they did a number on you." His hands were shaking slightly, and the pilot clasped them together.
"Were lookin' for Niska's ship," the mercenary said, head lolling as he tried to see through the blindfold. "Asking about it."
"That's a problem," Wash said. "Our comm got knocked out in the fight to take their ship. We don't know where Niska went."
"Wha? Goin' down the Artemis-Newport route, don't you remember?" Wash took a step back, eyes widening, and he looked up at Mal.
"One of the freighters we spotted was heading that way," he said and relief became palpable in the crowed little passenger dorm. Just as they started to relax and sigh in relief, Winth shook his head.
"Hey, my hands are . . . I can feel my . . . what the hell?" His voice came back strong, and Mal stepped forward, ripping the blindfold off his face.
"Thanks," he muttered. "Took you too long to 'fess that up." Winth blinked, eyes widening as he realized what he'd just done.
"Oh, God," he breathed. "Niska . . . he's gonna . . . ."
"No, he ain't," Mal replied, crossing his arms. "For two good reasons. First, I'm gonna put that worthless old son of a bitch down myself." Mal's arms uncrossed, and he stepped forward, hauling the prisoner up to his feet.
"And second, because I'm going to do it to you first."
Time had stopped mattering. He didn't know how long he'd been there; all he remembered now was blood pooling on his skin amidst the stingin' sweat. Periods of ache were intermixed with vicious gasps of thrashing pain. Volsky was sifting between various tools. He'd used a barbed whip for a bit, then went back to electricity for what Jayne guessed was an hour or two.
Right now, Volsky was applying a fresh coat of toxin to his blade.
"You know, there are two types of people in this world," the torturer mused, smiling. He set down the brush and walked toward Jayne, peering over his body and looking for an appropriate spot to continue. There was a prick of flesh as the hun dan found a spot on the mercenary's left pectoral, just above where he'd cut the first time, hours ago.
"That right?" Jayne asked through gritted teeth, and he let out a restrained yowl of pain as Volsky cut.
"Indeed," the torturer continued, applying a foam bandage to the wound. "Those who think they're intelligent, and those that really are." He set the foam dispenser down, and started applying more toxin to his knife.
"That's an odd way of lookin' at it," Jayne muttered, trying to keep his breathing steady as the burning agony seeped down under his skin.
"Yes, I suppose, but its true," Volsky explained. "You see, you and Mister Niska are the former." He turned back to Jayne, his knife ready again. "And certain people, such as myself, are the latter."
"Really?" Jayne replied, a little put off by the insult. So far they had been focusing entirely on physical pain, not any sort of pokin' at the mind, but what the goon was saying also set off alarm bells elsewhere in Jayne's mind. Volsky had just insulted his own boss.
Then, as if summoned by the off-hand comment, the door to the chamber flew open, and Niska strode in, rubbing his hands together and smiling like it was Christmas. Black-clad bodyguards strode in behind him.
"Volsky!" he called, and the goon almost had a heart attack at the sudden intrusion. "How is our other prisoner?"
"Ah, he is fine, sir," Volsky replied quickly. "Very healthy. I was just about to do another incision here, along the right abdominal . . . ."
"Continue, please," Niska said, sitting down in a chair. He waited until Jayne had finished snarling as the fire slid into his muscles and blood, and then stood back up.
"I do not enjoy being disappointed, Mister Cobb," Niska said, pacing in front of Jayne as Volsky readied another dose of cutting poison. Jayne smirked.
"Must make you mad when you look in the mirror then, huh?" Niska stopped, and laughed, clapping his hands.
"Very good. Very, very good." Volsky slid up and slashed down one of Jayne's arms as Niska spoke. The crime lord waited until Jayne was done thrashing and yelling, and continued.
"I look into bounty on River Tam," he said, shaking his head. "There is no bounty. Reward has been called off for months now. This is very odd, because she has not been captured, except by myself. Perhaps, you would like to share information on this oddity, yes?" Jayne managed a harsh laugh.
"You want answers," he said, trying to hide his shock that the bounty had been called off, and the kernel of fear as to what that meant for the girl. "You jus' go an' take off her cuffs, let her go. She'll show you everything." Niska nodded.
"I have my suspicions," he mused. "But I am not that curious. I have been hurting her very much since I found out she was worth only her screams, and I have discovered that she is very resistant. Pain is nothing new to her, I think."
Jayne didn't speak, trying not to even think about what he had done to River in the time they'd been separated. Instead, he focused on the old bastard's face, imagining how he could rearrange it with his own tools.
"Also, another oddity," Niska continued. Beside him, Volsky raised his knife, but the gangster held up his hand, keeping the torturer back.
"When I begin asking her questions, she has a very strange response. Name, rank, serial number, I believe she is saying. That is what soldiers say when they are captured, yes? Why is a child able to fight back against pain and talks like a soldier who has been captured?"
"Ain't got a clue," Jayne replied, to which Niska shook his head.
"You are a poor liar, Mister Cobb. If you don't tell me, I might simply rip it from her own lips, yes?" Jayne stood up straight in his restraints, and tried to surge forward, to which Niska laughed.
"Good, good," the old man said, clapping his hands, his smile nearly eating his face. "I have a theory that this girl matters more to you than your reputation would let on. So, perhaps if I make you watch while Volsky slices off her fingers, it may loosen your tongue." He snapped his fingers, and the guards swarmed around him, surrounding Jayne.
He expected them to start unstrapping him, and he tensed, prepared to launch himself out the moment he was free, but the men led with boots and fists, smashing the mercenary in the stomach and face. Relentless impacts thudded against his chest and head, and after less than a minute of the brutal beating, he was left dazed and half-unconscious. By the time he realized he was no longer strapped to the pain rack, his hands were already being bound behind his back with plastic zip-tie cuffs.
The goons hauled Jayne to his feet before Niska, and the old man gestured toward the door. Without another word, the guards manhandled Jayne out the portal and into the corridors beyond.
"Volsky," Niska called. "Come with us, and bring your blade, yes?"
Kaylee heard the yelling down below, and as she ran down the steps to the common area, she saw Mal dragging the tied up and bloody form of the mercenary prisoner. Wash and Book were yelling at him, but Zoe stood between the captain and the others. Simon followed, wiping his hands, his expression impossible to read as he simply watched.
"What's goin' on?" Kaylee asked, and Mal froze. He looked back up at her, his hardened expression wavering for half a heartbeat, before reasserting itself.
"Tying up loose ends," he replied, in that same painfully cold voice he used on Haven.
"You mean murdering an unarmed prisoner," Book replied. His tone, harsh and accusing, made Kaylee gasp.
"Won't be the first time, preacher," Mal replied, and then hauled the prisoner up the steps and out into the cargo bay. He got halfway out into the bay, the others spilling after him. Kaylee caught Simon's shoulder, and the doctor looked back at her pleading eyes, asking for an explanation, and fear mixed into her expression. Fear of Mal, of the voice he was using, of where and when he was at that moment.
Simon couldn't explain. His oath said to not allow anyone to come to harm, but the cold anger in his chest prevented him from feeling anything for a man who would have gladly sold them out to Niska for a few credits. A man whose companions had sold his sister and another crewman to Niska for a few credits.
"Mal!" Inara yelled, and the Captain paused for a second. His features did not shift in that moment, and he then started forward again, dragging the struggling, terrified mercenary toward the front of the bay.
"Don't do this," Book urged, stepping around in front of Mal. The captain snapped his gaze up, a dangerous, lethal glint in his eyes, and he pushed forward, shoving Book out of the way with his shoulder as he pulled the prisoner along.
"Don't get in my way again, preacher," he rumbled.
"He can't -" Wash was saying, trying to reason with Zoe. "You can't let him-"
"His decision," Zoe replied, her voice tight, arms crossed. She neither helped nor hindered Mal; it wasn't her place. Book was walking alongside Mal, gesturing with open, reconciliatory hands as he tried to dissuade the Captain.
"I did not stand in the way when you were torturing this man because I knew it needed to be done," he was explaining. "But this is not necessary! Killing this man in cold blood-"
"Gotta happen," Mal replied, not meeting Book's eyes as he reached the control panel. He slapped the release, and the inner airlock door opened.
"Executing a prisoner is not-" Book was saying.
"Preacher, we do not have a good track record when it comes to keepin' prisoners contained," Mal snarled, dragging Winth toward the opening airlock, over his desperate protests. "I recall correctly, the last man we left in the passenger dorms knocked you unconscious and took a gun to a teenage girl's head. I had to put him down myself. Twice." He hefted his arms, dumping Winth in the airlock, and spun around, slapping the controls again as he reached them.
"Just because-"
"I am not leaving a loose end on my boat," Mal continued as the airlock hissed closed. He met Book's eyes again. "What do you expect me to do when we board Niska's ship? Leave this man locked up, unsupervised, at our backs, to escape and maybe shoot on of us in the back? Or snatch Serenity away and leave us hangin'? Push comes to shove, he's gonna do what he needs to make his boss happy so a man like Niska won't come after him. I can't leave anyone behind to watch him, either. Kaylee? What good can she do, honest, when it comes to protecting a prisoner? Inara? You? If I'm going to pull River and Jayne out of this, I am gonna need all hands on deck. I cannot leave a gun hand behind when I ain't got enough to be comfortable with as-is."
Book was silent at the cold, savage logic. At the far end of the bay, Wash shook his head, still revolted by the prospect, and Kaylee was silent, her hands over her mouth as she watched the confrontation. Simon slid an arm over her shoulder, pulling her beside him. Zoe closed her eyes, sighing. Only Inara was moving, running down the steps and grabbing Mal's shoulder.
"Don't do this," she pleaded, to which he looked away, crossing his arms.
"This is reality," Mal muttered, reaching toward the panel. "Ain't a pretty place." Book slid in front of him, not blocking Mal's arm, but putting his presence in his path.
"Mal, you are not the same as him," he said. "Do not walk down this road."
"I'm already on the road, Shepherd," Mal replied. "Been down it a long while before you tried to steer me back. Out here, in the Black, there's only one law, and you know that. Knew it before steppin' out of the abbey, didn't you?" Book's grim expression showed Mal was close on the mark, and his hand reached forward, hovering over the controls.
"This man doesn't need to die," Book implored, one last time. There was a single, long heartbeat, Mal's thumb hovering over the controls, his face impassive and hard as armor plating.
"You may be right," he whispered.
The light flashed as Mal's thumb jabbed down. Outside, the outer airlock door opened, and there was a single, distant thump on the hull.
The air in the bay was still, heavy, silent.
Captain Malcolm Reynolds closed the airlock, turned, and started walking away from the bay doors. He did not meet anyone's eyes. As he started up the steps toward the bridge, he muttered quietly, but everyone heard his words as clearly as a bell on a frosty morning.
"Ain't my call to make."
His crew always came first. Always.
Mal paused at the top of the steps, and looked back down to his crew, staring back at him with mixed expressions. Cold acceptance from Zoe, horror and disbelief from Wash and Kaylee, anger and outrage on Inara's face. Book was still shocked, but that was slowly segueing into an exhausted, resigned understanding. Simon was a blank, having discarded pity once the weight of his sister's plight had hit him.
"Jayne and River are in hell right now," he said, meeting their eyes. "I'm gonna bring 'em home. Feel free to join me whenever you want to."
An echo, from the Black. Distances farther than what she was used to. Familiar faces, familiar voices, familiar pages, speaking the same thing at the same moment.
Mal . . . had just been Mal.
She shuddered.
The pain hit her again.
"Tam. River. Test subject. Zero zero zero, one three seven."
Author's Notes: Mal is not a nice person.
One thing that slightly bugged me about "The Train Job" was how no one really had a negative reaction to Mal shrugging and casually putting a man through the ship's engine; Book at the very least would have given him a nice frowny-face for it. Then I realized that he apparently didn't tell anyone else about it; only Zoe was present. I decided to play around with the idea of what would happen if Mal decided to show his really cruel side openly before his crew, and what he would be thinking even while doing so.
So, now, things are coming to a head. The last few chapters have been a bit slow, but things will pick up in the next few chapters as we enter the last third of the plot for "Unfinished Business." Jayne and River still have a little bit of Niska's hospitality to endure, the Alliance is closing in, and Serenity's crew is going to play at being Big Damn Heros once again...
Also, there may be some odd text and formatting errors with this chapter. Looks like a bug in document uploading/saving. I'll see about fixing up a clean version later on.
Until next chapter . . . .
