Disclaimer: See chapter one.
A/N: I had first thought to intersperse the segments of this chapter with the next one, but decided not to – it made it a little hard to follow, in my opinion. Anyway, it's likely going to be a day or two before the next update. I have several things to tend to IRL.
Dominoes
Chapter Twenty-Five: Hēi'àn de Jìngzi
A great shuddering lurch twisted through her orchard, throwing her off her feet. It didn't last long. Once the quake had passed, she stood. A new tree now stood in the middle of her orchard. It was barren and twisted, burnt black as though it had been hit by lightning – a parody of a tree. She stared at it. She didn't know for how long.
"A suitable metaphor for the programming," she eventually said, fighting the urge to walk up to it. The tree attracted her, yet repulsed her. She didn't know why. River shivered and turned her back on it, the act taking every last ounce of will she possessed.
She now faced the natural arch created by two strong willow trees whose lower limbs had met and twined around each other. Through the arch was Jayne's mental dojo. She sidled over to it. "Jayne!" she called out. "Are you alright?" The sparse interior of the dojo couldn't tell her if the quake had reached him or not.
She received no reply. "Jayne!" she shouted, louder this time. "Answer me!"
Again, the only answer was silence.
Worried, River reached out her hand, expecting to hit the invisible barrier that had locked her in her orchard. It wasn't there. With a surprised cry, River tumbled through the archway and into the dojo. "Qingwa cao de liumang!" she cussed, once more pulling herself to her feet. (1. frog-humping son of a bitch)
"Jayne!" she called out again. She looked around, but didn't see anything out of place, save that the door to his little cinderblock cubby was open. Flickering, buzzing fluorescent light spilled through the door.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but once they did, she spotted something that made her blood run cold.
Jayne's hand, covered in drying blood, was down on the floor, barely crossing the threshold between his cubby and the dojo.
She sprinted the short distance, but couldn't cross through into the cubby herself. Kneeling, she grabbed Jayne's hand and tugged. "Come on, you huài dàn!" (2. bad egg)
River adjusted her grip and her position, braced her feet, and pulled with all her might. After straining for a long minute, she felt him scoot slightly. She paused, panting with exertion, to find four more inches of his arm had crossed the threshold. "You weigh a ton," she bitched, then tried again.
宁静
Jim groaned a little and pulled himself into an upright position. Looking around, he recognized where he was: A copy of the back yard of the house in which he'd grown up. Scraggily grass grew patchwork between dirt paths worn down by the passing of countless pairs of feet. The main portion of the yard was shaded by an ancient apple tree, from which a simple wooden swing hung by stout rope. A chicken coop stood in one corner of the yard, opposite a goat pen on the other side. Tall woven-link fence separated the yard from those of the neighbors' houses on three sides. The fourth side was bordered by shorter lengths of the same fence to either side of the house itself. An enclosed back porch was encased by trellises through which grapevines and roses twined.
"Not quite what I was aiming for," he groused, climbing to his feet. "But I suppose it'll do." He quickly dusted himself off, then hurried for the trellis-coated porch. Mimicking mentally what he'd done countless times as a kid, he climbed the trellis onto the porch's slate-tile roof. Two long strides covered the distance to a tall, narrow window into the house. He peered through the glass and saw precisely what he'd always seen before.
A pair of twin beds bracketed the window, with a battered night stand directly under the window. Built-in bookshelves were directly across from the window, and packed with all manner of things two boys might find interesting. He slid the window up – the only real difference between this window and its counterpart in the real world was the absence of a lock – and climbed in.
He ignored the bedroom's door to the house. Much like the door accessible from the yard, it was simply decoration here. Instead, he headed for the closet. Sliding the door out of the way, he found the ladder to Alex's space exactly where it always had been before.
He let out a sigh of relief. "Least he's still alive," he said.
Jim knelt and ducked his head to peer down the ladder. Jayne's dojo was dark, as though it were nighttime. "Alex!" he shouted. "Hey! Alex! Wake up!"
宁静
Sweaty and tired, River halted her attempts to drag Jayne into the dojo at the sound of his twin's voice. Letting go of Jayne's wrist and forearm, she rushed in the direction of Jim's call. "Alex! Wake your lazy ass up!" reverberated through one of the rice-paper panels. It took but a moment for River to figure out how to slide it out of the way.
A ladder of varnished bamboo was the only item within its closet of a niche. She stepped up to the base of the ladder and looked up. Jim was kneeling over the hole in the ceiling, his face worried. "Jim! Come quick! Jayne's hurt!"
The girl's presence surprised Jim, though not for long. Shoulda seen this comin' when I realized they were sharing last night, he thought. Tentatively, he started down the ladder, expecting to hit the invisible barrier that barred him from entering his twin's mind outside of shev'ii. It never came.
He didn't have the time to reflect on this odd new development, for as his feet hit the floor, River grabbed his hand and tugged him over to a door that opened into a dirty, gritty, cellarlike hole in the wall. Golden sunlight streamed from an archway that opened to a cherry orchard, directly opposite the cellar. He took in this information passively, far more concerned with his brother than with the décor.
Jim needed no urging to pull his brother into the dojo. "Oh, xiǎo jìngzi, what have you done to yourself this time?" he whispered, kneeling by his brother's side. (3. little mirror)
He pulled off his sweater and wrapped it around the sluggishly bleeding gash in Jayne's arm. "Help me, meimei," Jim's voice was still a rough whisper. "Pressure, hard as you can." (4. sister)
River knelt in Jim's place and did as she was told. "Is he going to be okay?" she asked, choking back the urge to cry.
"I honestly don't know," Jim replied as he straightened out his brother's body. "But I'm gonna do my damnedest to help him." He sat at Jayne's head, settling it in his lap. "What happened?"
"Subliminal trigger of an implanted physiological conditioning sequence," River explained. "Likely encoded within a cortex commercial."
"Explains you," Jim allowed, checking the pulse point in Jayne's neck. "But what happened with Alex?"
"I assume that because I was utilizing his unaltered brain structure to assist in blocking extraneous information, the trigger affected his own control, releasing the closest thing he possesses to the conditioning forced into my subconscious."
"Hmm," Jim hummed. "Makes sense to me."
"And you?"
Jim glanced at the girl. She was barely keeping herself together. "I threw myself into our twin-bond, trying to reach him. Overreached, I imagine, and wound up here… Well, my version of here."
"Then this is not Jayne's mental space?" Blood was beginning to stain Jim's sweater. She pressed harder.
"You know the answer to that already," Jim replied.
River supposed she did. Somehow, during the night, when they were merely trying to find a way to alleviate the worst of her schizoidal symptoms, they'd done far more than intended. One result was that the otherspace of Jayne's dojo was now… different. Without knowing how or why, she understood that the dojo was 'community property'. The orchard was her own personal otherspace. The cubby belonged to Jayne. Her first instinct was that Jim's otherspace was the room from which he'd descended, but something didn't ping quite right with that explanation. "You have a shared space with your brother – it's above us."
"That's right," Jim agreed. "It's got the window to my own space outside it. I've never been here before. And I get the feeling that I'm only allowed here so long as both you and Alex are here, too." As soon as he said it, she knew he was right. He returned his attention to his brother. "Come on, Alex. You gotta wake up," he pleaded with his brother's slack face. "Come back to us."
River shifted so that her knees maintained the pressure against Jayne's ghastly wound. It was a precarious position, so she grasped Jim's shoulder through his white t-shirt. With her other hand, she reached down and cupped Jayne's cheek. "Yeah," Jim said, realizing what she was doing. "Yeah!" He cupped his brother's other cheek and wrapped a stabilizing arm around River's shoulders. "Come on, Jayne Alexander," he commanded.
"Come back, Jayne," River's voice overlapped his own.
"It's safe, my other self," Jim coaxed. "You've only managed to hurt yourself."
"I'm fine, Jayne," River said as he finished speaking. "I'm not hurt. Come back."
"Come back," they said simultaneously.
宁静
Jayne didn't know where he was, but he liked it. Dark and still and quiet. He felt no aches or pains of a long-abused body, no crippling fear of what hid in the deepest recesses of his mind, not even the starlight link to his twin.
Solitude he'd never truly experienced before. A calming ocean of emptiness that stretched beyond eternity, but was narrower than a garrote.
Time had no meaning. He had no way to measure it. He simply existed.
Though emotion in general was absent, he knew he didn't want to go back. He'd lived through it before. The stares. The whispers. The all-too-obvious hands on the hilts of knives or on the butts of guns when he was near.
He couldn't move forwards, though. He wasn't sure if he wanted to, to start with, but it was something more than that.
A choice.
The knowledge was there. It wasn't handed to him through silly simile or clumsy metaphor. It simply was.
A single choice.
To live or die.
Without the distractions of reality consuming his attention, he could focus in a way he'd never before even dreamed possible. No aching scars, no twinges of hunger or thirst. No feedback from nerve endings reporting on temperature, pressure, humidity. No information being fed through his eyes or ears or nose. Nothing there, nothing to think on. No inconvenient flashes of jealousy or anger or humor. Just calm.
So.
To die.
It had been his intent. He knew that, though he sensed this knowledge was at one remove. Just enough distance to not feel the aching despair that had led him to this place. Success for the attempt was up to him. Contrary to old superstitions, you couldn't truly die in a dream, and otherspace was nothing more than a lucid dream state built on metaphor and memory, reinforced through repetition.
But the tie between a body and its mind was a tight and subtle chain. He must have suffered some sort of injury to his left arm outside. Had he not thought to try to end the madness he was sure the beast was unleashing, it was likely another earthquake tremor would have resulted in the same injury to his mental projection.
The rampaging beast wasn't a threat any longer. Not for the moment. Was it truly so dangerous that death was his only option? He'd always thought so, but now he wasn't so convinced. Without its accompanying fear, he could examine it objectively.
At its most basic, the beast was simply his will to live at all costs.
What made that so dangerous?
The accompanying hate and rage that sustained it, of course. That, and prior to its inception, the fact that he himself had undergone some of the most intensive training possible in all the sundry ways to kill people.
His twin called him 'xiǎo jìngzi'. Little mirror. A term of endearment. If he was his twin's little mirror, then the beast was his own xié'è de jìngzi. But no… That wasn't quite right. (5. evil mirror)
Dark, certainly. But not evil. It sought only to survive, using the only means available to it. Was that truly so fearsome?
Jayne didn't think so.
So, then, was death truly the only way forwards?
He didn't know.
Well, what if it got loose again? What if his darkest fears materialized? Would it really go after his friends? His family?
It's still part of me. Outside the job, I'd never hurt no one what din't deserve it. Mayhap slug a few folk now an' again, but I wouldn't be after killin' none what din't try an' kill me first.
No. Death wasn't warranted.
Then what else could be done to control it?
He didn't know.
His nothing surroundings lightened to a vague, dark grey. …back. Come back… It wasn't his own thoughts.
宁静
Jayne ached. He ignored it. He forced his eyes open to find he was on the floor of the dojo, his head in his brother's lap, with River kneeling on his left arm. Both his twin and River had a hand on either of his cheeks. "G'offa me," he grumbled.
Jim and River both gave him watery, happy smiles and backed off. He slowly sat up and unwound Jim's sweater from around his arm. The bloody gash had closed, leaving behind a long, wicked scar. He handed the bloodstained sweater to his brother as he got to his feet.
The dojo brightened as he crossed the few feet to the door to his cubby. Standing just at the threshold, he looked within and found what he expected to see.
"It's good to have you back," Jim said, but Jayne ignored him for the moment.
"Yes. You worried us," the girl added. "Are you alright?"
"Know what I gotta do now," Jayne replied, seeing his hēi'àn de jìngzi rummaging in the wreckage of the room for a weapon. He felt his companions join him. (6. dark mirror)
"That wasn't there before," River said, inching closer to Jayne.
"'S always there. Always gonna be there," Jayne said, turning his back to the room. He looked from his brother to the girl and back. "C'm on," he aimed for the center of the dojo, his gi and obi back to pristine condition. Taking a seat in his normal position, he calmly waited for the others to join him.
They wore similar expressions of concerned curiosity. It might have made him smile, were it not for the fact that other matters were far more important. Once they sat facing him, Jayne looked to each with utmost seriousness. "First off," he said, focusing on River. "That program been deactivated?"
She nodded. "I believe so. There is a twisted and dead tree in the orchard which wasn't there before."
He echoed her nod. "Good. Wi' that thing in here," he gestured over his shoulder, leaving no room to misinterpret his meaning, "I'd wager someone outside managed ta knock us out."
River let out a thoughtful noise. "The programming has safe-words inbuilt in order to abort the activation. I know that Simon has at least one. If he showed up and used the safe-word, would it have affected us both? The activation seemed to affect us both. The logic tracks."
"Yer basin' it on a wrong assumption, li'l bit," Jayne said, though not unkindly.
"Seems logical to me," Jim said.
"Weren't the trigger," Jayne explained. "The trigger only tripped that program."
"If that's so, then how come…" River nodded towards the caged beast.
"It reacted ta the danger," Jayne said, sighing some. "Since ya was linked up wi' me, it knew just what were tripped afore either o'us did. Can't rightly 'xplain how that worked, but I know it's right. It's tried ta come out afore, ya know. Always managed ta keep it locked in then, though. This time, I couldn't – an' I dunno why."
Jim thought he had the right of it. "Could it be, perhaps, that since the two of you went all shev'ii, you understood, however subconsciously, the danger that the program posed? That you purposefully let it loose?"
Jayne shivered a little. Jim's words had the feel of fact about them. "Could be," he allowed.
"Makes sense," River agreed.
"B'sides," Jayne added, "m'body feels drugged. Would them safe-words have that effect?"
River slowly shook her head. "No. If Simon knows any of the safe-words, it'd likely be one in particular. It's a secondary trigger, but not as coded as the program within the commercial, since accidental activation poses no threat. The behavioral conditioning attached is just 'sleep'. I don't feel asleep." She closed her eyes and focused on her physical body. "I agree – this feels drugged to me, too."
Jim interrupted with his own thoughtful noise. Once the others' attention was on him, he slowly said, "I watched your shiv'ii. Saw it all, but not like the two of you did. I saw it as a witness, not a participant." His gaze darted between them as he spoke. "That said, I have a theory."
"Yes?" River looked at him expectantly.
"Well," Jim said, "Alex an' me have been sharing otherspace longer than I can remember. Used to be we'd link together damn near every day. That tapered off the older we got. It's probably why our shared area's still our childhood bedroom. Anyway, not long after our last major shiv'ii link back when we were teenagers, I started diggin' in on just what it was that we shared. Read a mess of psychology texts and articles an' what have ya."
"Get ta the gorram point, Jimmy," Jayne growled.
"I am," Jim shot back, sending a reproachful look at his twin. "My theory's that the program – that dead tree you mentioned – it's tied up in your subconscious. You don't know exactly what you're doing when it's activated, right?"
River nodded. "You are correct."
"Well, seems to me that the safe-words to abort it would need to be tied up a little higher. The lowest levels of your conscious mind. And if you were linked in with Alex when that program was triggered, your subconscious was in control of your body. Where was your consciousness at that point?"
"Locked in the orchard," River gestured to the open archway. "I was trying to either return to my body or get through the boundary."
"So you were focused on something other than what input your body was giving you." It wasn't a question.
"Yes," River said. "Why?"
"Because, as soon as I felt the shitstorm comin' through the twin-bond, I high-tailed it for my brother. Your brother was right on my heels. We burst into the lobby, and even though I was half out of it with reaching through our bond, I heard him shout something, obviously expecting it to have some sort of effect. I'm not sure what he said – I didn't recognize it at all. I passed out from stretching myself too thin trying to reach Alex right after."
"If it was indeed the safe-word he was saying, than either he didn't say it properly and so did not hit the precise sequence needed to trigger the subroutine, or you are correct and the separation of my conscious and subconscious minds was enough to render it invalid." River chewed on her lower lip, mulling it over.
"It don't matter none," Jayne said. "An' this ain't doin' what needs done." Both of his companions returned their attention to him. He let out a frustrated huff. "Iffen it were anyone else in the 'verse, I wouldn't be sayin' this, but you two know me too well." He rubbed a hand over his goatee. "I'm sick o'bein' scared shitless at a part o'myownself. I gotta get that gorram thing under control, an' I know how ta do so. What I need from you two is a promise: This don't work, an' ya put me down."
River's eyes widened and Jim rocked back as though struck. "No!" Jim protested.
"Ain't no room for arguin', Jimmy," Jayne calmly said. "It's haunted me long enough. I'm drawin' a line in the sand. Right here, right now."
"What makes you think your idea won't work?" River asked, a thread of fear underscoring her words.
"'S gonna be dangerous. That part o'me been cut off fer long enough I dunno just how strong it's gotten. Could be, it's stronger than I am, an' will manage to take over entirely. 'At's what I'm askin' the two o'ya ta guard against. Iffen I lose, I'll be dead. Won't matter that m'body'll still be workin', I won't be there. All what'll be left is that thing. An' I don't think I gotta tell ya just how much of a gou shi fengbao that'll bring ta them outside." (7. shitstorm)
Jim swallowed hard, but nodded. "I don't like it, but… You're right. This has gone on long enough. I'll do it. I promise."
Jayne looked at River. "An' you?"
River frowned, but nodded. "Shi de, xiansheng," she choked out. (8. yes, sir)
Jayne gave her a soft smile as he reached out and gently tapped her under the chin. "Thank you," he whispered.
Jim watched and smirked a little to himself, but it faded quickly. I hope this works, Alex, he thought. As much for River's sake as my own… and yours. You been outta the world for too long, an' I don't mean because of your job. Besides, I like the girl. Mother will, too, I'm sure.
The moment between the mercenary and the girl didn't last long. Jayne broke it himself by standing and returning to the threshold of the cement cubby. River and Jim joined him, standing just behind and to either side. The creature within the room had succeeded in its mission and now held a length of the metal table's leg as a club in one hand and was using it to try and break through the concrete blocks that made up the walls.
"Doesn't it see the door?"
"I wouldn't think so," Jim answered River's question.
Jayne reached up and braced himself against the door frame. "It don't see the door. The door ain't there fer it – it's part o'me, after all, but it's a part what can't really think, so it's stuck."
Jim heard the waver in his twin's voice. River saw how his hands trembled.
"You don't have to do this," she said, resting a hand on his shoulder.
Jayne shook his head. "I do," he countered, glancing back at the girl, then at his brother. "But I ain't too shamed ta say I wish I din't hafta." He returned his attention to the creature. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he threw himself through the doorway before his courage could fail him.
A/N2: I hope y'all're still liking this particular tale. I know I'm still enjoying writing it.
Translations are as follows:
1.) Qingwa cao de liumang – 'frog-humping son of a bitch', (Browncoats-dot-com). Chinese.
2.) Huài dàn – 'bad egg' (affectionate), (yoyochinese-dot-com). Chinese.
3.) Xiǎo jìngzi – 'little mirror', (Google). Chinese.
4.) Meimei – 'sister', (Browncoats-dot-com). Chinese.
5.) Xié'è de jìngzi – 'evil mirror', (Google). Chinese.
6.) Hēi'àn de jìngzi – 'dark mirror', (Google). Chinese.
7.) Gou shi fengbao – 'shitstorm', (Google). Chinese.
8.) Shi de, xiansheng – 'yes sir', translation by Google.