Chapter 10
River struck her one last time. Xiaofan lay in a pool of blood, nearly unconscious in her own mind. The last block was gone now, the memory was revealed, River was no longer compelled by the inhibitors of Xiaofan's memory to cause her harm.
But it was too late. The damage was done. River repaired as much as she could, which was considerable. But still, there was a gaping wound Xiaofan's psyche.
"I'm so sorry…" she said and faded from the other woman's mind.
The young psychic came to with a start. Simon checked her out, but when Xiaofan didn't move, he began asking questions.
"I don't know, Simon. It's up to her now."
"But you went in there with her-"
"And I didn't want to, I knew something could happen. I knew the blocks in mind would choose an avatar. I knew it might be me. There was a certain statistical probability that Xiaofan would fail anyway and die. She has to heal on her own. Like me," she said pointedly and left the shuttle.
Simon went back to Xiaofan continued to monitor her vitals. He sat a silent vigil, holding his old friend's hand.
It had been three months and Xiaofan was still feeling the effects of her mind battle with Avatar River. Well, mind rout, that River kicked her ass, hands down. She was occasionally disoriented with an altered level of consciousness, but she and Simon had found a good combination of drugs to keep it under control. That and the rare seizure, but otherwise she was healing well.
She was living on Serenity now. While that was no guarantee of safety, it kept moving, and at the moment there didn't seem to be any attack vessels on their tail.
One of the big problems was what to do with this information. Blue Sun hadn't tried to wipe her mind to cover it up, they wiped her try out their new toy. She had been an experiment, and by a very lucky twist of fate, she got away. She'd been living on borrowed time since then, still was.
She'd asked the captain to drop her off somewhere, but he'd declined. Said something about anyone looking for her would probably start with Serenity anyway… Which was convoluted logic at best. But Xiaofan decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
She found ways to be helpful. She knew who certain fences for certain items were, she just did not divulge her presence. She just gave the crew information and they used it. But it paid her way.
She was slowly coming into her own. They were out on a Rim world, far from 'civilization'. She took a few deep breaths and left the bay. It was the first time in three months she'd been off the ship on her own. She was blatantly defying… well, everyone. But she wanted to be alone.
She turned a corner about one hundred yards from the ship and was forced into an alley, the muzzle of a weapon in her back.
'Of course,' she thought, the second I leave.
"Keep going," her assailant said, pushing her until she was at the darkest, loneliest end of the alley.
She stood with her back to a wall, looking on the prettiest man she'd ever seen. Too bad he was about to kill her.
"Real quick, before you shoot. Is this random? Or are you on a payroll?"
The man rolled his eyes and motioned Xiaofan to her knees.
"I mean, because, if you are just going to kill me for no reason, you picked a hell of a time."
The pretty man finally spoke.
"I was hired by Blue Sun."
Her mouth fell open.
"And you didn't wait for me to get back to the ship so you could kill us all?"
"It's not my thing, that was just the tall man and his pet monster, Two. They liked to kill, and things… I like to get paid, with out wasting it on mercs and ships and other bollocks."
"Why now?"
He took a deep breath, "I normally don't conversate with my mark, but as I'm about to paint the wall gray matter pink, I think I might."
"And?"
"You were at the end of a very long list. They got to you when they could. I got a wave about a week and a half ago, that's how long it took me to track you down."
"You're not going to torture me to break down any mental blocks I might have remaining?"
He shook his head.
"I just get paid to kill you. I don't know anything about any mental block. But the tall man liked to… experiment. So, he might have done it for fun."
"No, shit."
"Really."
Xiaofan looked relieved and panicked at the same time.
"Now, lady, I'm going to do my job."
From the mouth of the alley, Jayne saw the two conversing. He ran when he saw the killer draw down on her.
A shot rang out, a body slumped, Jayne swore.
"How'm I gonna explain this ta Mal?"