CHAPTER SIX

"The new facility where the other students were moved…I don't like where it is," River began. "It's suspicious."

Now everyone was looking at her warily, and it was Kaylee who ventured the question, "Where is it?"

"Osiris," River replied.

Everyone was silent for a minute. "That's more'n suspicious," Mal finally said. "First the Alliance tries to get us to Osiris by offerin' work, and then that Parliament woman from Osiris makes a grab for River's help. Seems to me Parliament's tryin' to lure us there."

"Or at least lure River there," Zoe murmured.

River nodded. "Something doesn't add up."

"You think maybe this Velgese woman from Parliament is workin' with Blue Sun somehow?" Mal asked her.

"I think she might know more than she's telling. No one expected Iain and Bennett to get away—no one expected me to know where Blue Sun moved the others. If she knows something, I'd like to find out what. And I can only do that in person. I can go alone. You can just set me down on Osiris; that way, if something goes—"

"No," Simon said forcefully. "River…" He stared at her, willing her to see reason. "You can't just walk into a trap."

River smiled. "I wasn't planning on it." He was worried now. "Simon. Someone's after me. I can't do anything to stop them from coming after me, and you, and everyone else on Serenity until I know who is pulling the strings."

"You really think there's any way of stoppin' Blue Sun comin' after you even if you do know who's pullin' 'em?" Zoe asked doubtfully.

River took a deep breath. "Blue Sun is a huge organization," she said slowly. She hated talking about Blue Sun—hated thinking about them, had always avoided mentioning them if she could—but this needed to be said. "It has a lot of departments. Departments within departments, but the department that experimented on us…" Memories of such experiments flashed through her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "Shadow department, shadow government. It wasn't so big," she managed. "It's why we were so important. They needed us."

Bennett spoke up from the couch. "We were one of their biggest assets," she said. "It's why they've always looked so hard for River. They spent too much money, invested too much."

River nodded her agreement.

"If they're so small as all that," Kaylee said slowly, "why don't the Parliament just expose their…shadow agency? Then it wouldn't be secret no more."

"Politics. Expose Blue Sun, Blue Sun could expose things about Parliament. And just because they're small doesn't make them any less dangerous," River said quietly.

"I coulda told you that," Jayne scoffed. "Just look at little Crazy here." He jerked his head in River's direction.

"Could be the Parliament don't know how big or small they are," Zoe said. "Velgese said in her wave they don't know much about Blue Sun's inner workings."

"Could just be Velgese is stringin' us along," Mal said. "And if that's the case, I'd like to know why." Simon and Jayne both started to speak, and Mal cut them off. "But," he said, giving River a hard stare, "if I'm actually gonna consider lettin' you get near anyone in Parliament, you'd better have a hell of a way to do it so she won't see you comin'."

River managed a smile at that. "I think I can handle that."

:-:-:

"This weren't exactly what I had in mind," Mal said.

River gave him one of those looks of hers. "She won't see me coming." She stirred her drink, appearing far more comfortable in this setting than Mal did. Hell, he didn't want to be here at all. At least it had gotten the two lovebird assassins off of his ship. Sure, they hadn't caused any trouble in the few days they'd been on board—not even the boy, once Mal had finally given the okay for him to come around. Actually, he'd seemed a lot calmer than the girl, despite being at the Academy longer. Bennett was like a barely-controlled gorram firecracker, and it made Mal realize and appreciate how mild-mannered River really was in comparison.

Still, sitting in the open, outdoor patio of a fancy little restaurant smack-dab in the middle of the biggest city on one of the Core planets made him a bit twitchy, for more reasons than one—not the least of which was the clothes he was wearing. He felt absolutely ridiculous—these sort of clothes were fine for people…well, not him. The last time he'd been in clothes anything like this had been at that ball on Persephone, way back when Inara had been with Atherton Wing. And that hadn't turned out so well.

But here he was, on Osiris, trying to look like he fit in. River's two friends and Jayne were outside the restaurant, keeping watch, but he didn't see them and really didn't expect to. He just hoped things actually went as planned for once, because here, the moment any fighting started, the feds would sweep down on them in a heartbeat.

When River had spliced into the computer system to alter the reservations for this top-class restaurant, she had chosen this particular table carefully, and Mal saw why. Someone had had the bright idea of putting a huge sculpture right in the middle of the outdoor patio. He'd yet to identify what, exactly, it was, except that it was one of the ugliest damn things he'd ever seen, and he'd seen a lot of ugly damn things in his life. It also made him feel partly blind, as the edges of the statue blocked two sides of their table from the city view. From this point, he could see only the back of the restaurant and the large office building across the street.

"She late?" Mal asked, glancing down at the fancy watch he had borrowed from Simon.

"Not yet," River replied, swinging her leg back and forth idly, while her eyes drifted across the crowd around the restaurant. Mal still found the dressy shoes she was wearing a mite funny, as she was always either barefoot or wearing huge combat boots. River obviously picked up on this thought, as she made a face. "I don't like them," she said, motioning her feet. "I used to have to wear them all the time."

Sometimes Mal had a hard time remembering that River had actually grown up here, in this very city. That she'd come from a family with a lot of money, even eaten at this restaurant, which was how she knew its layout. It was a lot easier to recall this when he looked at Simon, but River seemed to fit a lot more out in the black on Serenity than here on this creepy-neat, structured place. It was—

"Stifling," River said, again reading his mind.

Mal looked at her sideways. "Some people might find that annoyin'."

River only smiled indulgently. "You don't."

Mal was about to reply to that, but Iain's voice came through his earpiece. "Target has arrived. Entering with three watchdogs."

So Velgese had shown up for her reservation, with three bodyguards. So far, so good. It wasn't long before Mal saw one of the bodyguards come out the back door and look around before speaking into his radio. Then Ari Velgese herself stepped out, flanked by two more bodyguards, and they moved straight toward Mal and River. River had her nose buried in a menu, and subtly knocked Mal's fork onto the floor. As Velgese approached, Mal bent to get it, straightening only when she had passed. By then, she was nowhere in sight, which was the reason River had chosen this table. Ari Velgese's regular table was on the other side of the hideous sculpture, several tables past it.

"Well, we're here," Mal began. "Now—"

Iain's voice burst through the transceiver in Mal's ear again. "Hold, hold! You have an incoming. It's Hiro."

Iain sounded mildly surprised, and River looked very surprised and very wary, which did not bode well for Mal. If they knew this person, it stood to reason that Hiro was another gorram Academy kid. Shiny.

River sank back into her seat, very carefully not looking behind her at the back door of the restaurant. Mal, who had a perfect view of the door, saw the man who walked through it. He was at least a few years older than River, and Mal would've thought him just another guy off the rich Osiris streets, but for the way he carried himself. The same way River did, the same way he had seen Iain and Bennett did. The way anyone trained to use their body as a weapon did.

He walked right past their table without a glance, and Mal looked sharply at River. River looked back at him with wide eyes. "The crowd," she whispered. "Too many people. He doesn't know we're here."

Everything they said was being transmitted through their radios, and Iain pointed out, "He doesn't know you're there yet."

"What is he doin' here?" Mal demanded.

River's head was tilted to the side. "I don't know. I'm trying to find Ari Velgese's specific thoughts…there are so many people here…" Then her face cleared. "Have you had any luck?" she asked in a low voice.

Mal frowned at her, wondering what she was on about now, but then River answered herself. "She's good at covering her trail, but we'll find her."

Then it dawned on him that she was reading a conversation—maybe between Velgese and the new assassin. Hiro. While he always did find it a bit disturbing to hear other people's words coming out of River's mouth, he couldn't deny its usefulness. "What about the other two?" River continued. "Have you found them?"

"Not since we traced them to Adonis. We believe they are either with River Tam or are tracking her."

"That is the last thing we need. You should have stopped them by now. You're trained to do this."

"So are they. We will find them."

"Quickly, please. The longer they're free, the more dangerous they are to us. In the meantime, I asked you here to—" River broke off and turned to Mal, her eyes wide. "I know what's really going on now…it's Parliament. It's all a lie…we have to—"

"River?"

Mal jerked his head in the direction of the new voice, and River was startled into silence. A middle-aged woman was staring at River with wide eyes. She looked just like any other wealthy, high-class woman in a wealthy, high-class restaurant. However, the fact that she'd called out River's name when an assassin hunting for her was present was a very bad thing, especially as River leapt to her feet, tearing her eyes off the strange woman. "Hiro knows I'm here now."

Sure enough, the man came sprinting around the side of the ugly sculpture, but River was already moving to face him, kicking off her uncomfortable-looking shoes as she ran. And for the second time in two weeks, she met another one of her fellow assassins in combat.

This one had pulled a gun from somewhere. He was mighty determined to hold onto it, too, and was doing his best to shoot River, who expertly avoided such an end. They hadn't been sure whether or not Blue Sun wanted River alive, but all this shooting seemed indicate they'd rather have her dead.

If it was Blue Sun—River had just said it was all a lie.

Customers at the restaurant were yelling and screaming, and the loud wail of an alarm told Mal that the feds were on the way. "Zoe!" he said into his radio. "Get the ship ready! We're comin' back soon!" Hopefully. And hopefully not in pieces.

Zoe's voice crackled back. "Aye, Captain."

Mal noticed Velgese being ushered into the back door of the restaurant, but her escape was a secondary concern to River's battle. He wasn't sure if there was anything he could do for River without making the situation worse.

The blasted woman who'd blown their cover was standing not five feet from Mal, staring at River as if seeing a ghost. "Sweet heaven above…" she gasped, as River finally managed to pin Hiro to the ground and wrest the gun from his grip.

In the split second that Hiro was immobile, he suddenly went limp, and Mal immediately saw why—he'd taken a bullet to the head. It took Mal a moment to realize that the shot had come from the direction of the office building across the street.

Then the security field around the restaurant went up. Mal had been wondering when it would. Most buildings on Core planets—even little restaurants—had security fields that could be activated at a moment's notice, to keep trouble out. Or in, Mal supposed. This one shimmered along the perimeter of the restaurant, rising at least ten feet high.

River stood and fell back a step, a look of shock on her face as she stared at Hiro's body. Except for a few people in hysterics, the crowd at the restaurant was perfectly silent, staring in utter astonishment at River and the downed man.

Out on the street, through the transparent security field, Mal could see a dozen or so fed vehicles pulling up to the restaurant. That was about when the crowd broke into panicked clamor again, and he used the cover of voices to talk into his transceiver. "River. Get out of here."

"I can't leave you—"

"Yes, you can. Might be they don't know I'm here, but they damn well know you are. I'll find my way out. If you don't hear from me within an hour, you can start worryin'."

"But—"

"Ma shang!"

River hesitated a moment longer, and then she tucked Hiro's gun into her skirt and raced over to the side of the restaurant. She used her hands and bare feet to shimmy up the corner of the restaurant to the roof, a move that Mal would have thought impossible, except that River excelled at impossible.

She leapt from the roof over the security field, catching the edge of the solid field with one hand, using the momentum to shove away from the field and drop to the ground. Mal knew that while these sort of fields were more or less just like any other wall, they gave out a mild electrical charge, and River's hand was no doubt nicely burned. Still, that didn't faze her. She knocked two of the feds flat, ducked under a third, grabbing his stunner gun as she went, and swiftly pulled him in front of her, using him as a shield while she shot two more feds with the stunner. There were still numerous feds standing, and more fed vehicles were racing toward her.

River dropped the stunner and made a break down the street, swinging around the restaurant and disappearing from Mal's sight, while the feds pursued. He had little doubt she'd make a clean getaway. He, on the other hand, was going to have to find a way out of this trap fast. Wouldn't be but a few minutes before the feds had River identified from the restaurant's security feed, and if they found out who he was, it wouldn't be long before someone with security clearance identified their association.

"Jayne!"

"I'm here, Mal. The two crazies, ain't, though. They took off after they blew a hole through the kid down there."

"Bennett? Iain?"

There was no response from them, which led Mal to believe they'd dumped their transceivers.

River, however, was still there. "I got away from the feds. I'm going after Bennett and Iain. If they find Velgese and learn what's really—"

Zoe's voice filtered through Mal's earpiece again, cutting River off. "Um, sir? Think we got a problem."

"Now what?"

"They've got us landlocked."

This just kept getting better and better. "He chu-sheng za-jiao de zang-huo!"

"Got fed ships comin' into port, too. Lots of 'em."

Mal, having learned much the past months about River's training at the Academy, asked, "River, you know how to get rid of a landlock?"

"I…yes. I would have to hack into the security system. I just need to get on the cortex."

"Then do it. Whatever your friends do here's their business; we got problems of our own. Meantime, Zoe—get Kaylee and the doc off the boat and lock it down. Don't need you gettin' snatched by the feds. Might be Simon knows somewhere you can hide a spell, till we figure out how the hell we're gonna get off this rock. Jayne, you get back to port, do what you can to help 'em and lay low."

The feds had the backdoor patio surrounded, which likely meant they were also guarding the front door of the restaurant, and they lowered the security field. Mal ripped the radio out of his ear and dropped it on the ground, grinding it under the heel of one shoe. Much as he didn't want to cut himself off from his crew, he also didn't want the feds finding out he was talking to them. He had to hope, for now, that River and Zoe could handle their respective tasks. He still had no idea how he was going to reclaim Serenity, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

He turned around and found himself face-to-face with that gorram woman again, and he knew from the way she was staring at him that she'd heard every word he'd said. "Who are you?" she demanded.

Mal kept one eye on the feds as they began moving people into groups. "Could ask the same of you."

"How do you know River Tam?"

"How do you?" Mal countered.

The woman stared at him a long moment. "She's my daughter." Her gaze flicked to the approaching feds. "I'm Regan Tam. Tell me who you are, and I might be able to help you."

"Help me? Lady, it's your fault we're in this mess—"

"You have about twenty seconds until the feds are here."

Mal hadn't a clue what this woman—River's mother, of all people—thought she could do to help, but he reminded himself he really knew nothing about the Tam parents, and might be she had some sort of say with the feds. "She's my pilot. River's been flyin' on my boat for quite some time."

"I heard you mention Simon a moment ago. Simon Tam?"

Mal just gazed at her as the feds reached them and shuffled them into a group with several other people. Another fed was running a scanner over all of their eyes. "Great," Mal muttered. "My day couldn't get any worse."

Sure enough, when the fed had processed his retinal signature, he raised his eyebrows. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Bound by law five times for various crimes." He looked more closely at Mal. "Never convicted. We have a probl—"

The fed was cut off by his superior, who called out, "We're taking everyone to Central Authority for questioning." He looked very grim. "We have a situation."

:-:-:

River fled the restaurant struggling to maintain a firm grip on her thoughts and her composure. She felt as though she'd been slammed with a deep well of ideas and information.

Focus on the goal, she told herself. Mal wants the landlock off the ship; get it off. Make sure Simon and the others are all right, make sure Mal is safe, then deal with Velgese.

She was stunned by what she had learned from Ari Velgese's mind, and worried about what Bennett and Iain would do. They had heard River say that it was all a lie, and when she heard Jayne say they were gone, she had no doubt that they had gone after Velgese to find out what the truth was. What they would do to her once they found out…well, River wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Politics. River had met a lot of politicians in her life, and most of them had to learn to lie very convincingly to get into their positions. After living in a school that was made up of lies, surrounded by people who lied to themselves and the outside world, after living for months not knowing what was real and what wasn't—and sometimes still seeing things around her differently from others—the truth was very important to River.

She hated politics.

Ari Velgese had spun a very convincing-sounding story to tell Mal about Blue Sun and the Academy, and parts of it were true, which River hated even more. Half-truths were just as bad as a lie; worse, because pieces of truth often sounded the most convincing.

It was true that Parliament had been unable to get information about Blue Sun out of the other Academy subjects. It was true that they didn't know much about Blue Sun's internal regime, but they knew enough, more than Ari Velgese had led Mal to believe. And it was true that Blue Sun had given Parliament a hard time when they closed the Academy—but the clincher was that Parliament hadn't even really shut it down. They had decided that Blue Sun was too dangerous, that if they ever gained complete control of the test subjects at the Academy, Parliament wouldn't be able to stand against them.

So Parliament had acted first. They had simply been going to move the students to a new facility, one unknown to Blue Sun. They hadn't expected Iain to escape, to rescue Bennett. That had been the flaw to their plan. After speaking to the Academy psychologist, they had concluded that Bennett and Iain's first act would likely be to try to help the other students—so they put the other students in psych wards, and then staged Blue Sun taking them from the hospitals. Procuring Blue Sun logos for uniforms and vehicles had been easy, and since the people they hired to do the transporting thought they were working for Blue Sun, so did Bennett and Iain. They had done it to turn Bennett and Iain against Blue Sun. To turn River against them, if she were to get word of it.

The new facility really was on Osiris, and it had been Parliament's plan to try to get hold of River on Osiris. They still saw her as a threat, but since they had been unable to stop her through force, they had tried different, sugar-coated methods to try to lure her here. They had said they needed help, needed information, needed to find the other students.

Lies.

The only part Blue Sun played in this was that Parliament really was battling them—literally. Bennett had been right when she said some of the students were sent out to hunt down the missing students, but others had been sent to hunt down and kill Blue Sun agents—agents from the department that had experimented on them.

Power went to the ones who had the Academy students. Turn the students against Blue Sun, Parliament had a chance of becoming the dominant power.

River hated that, too. She was sick and tired of being a pawn in the Alliance's great scheme of command. She was tired of all the trouble it brought to Simon, and to Mal, and to everyone else on Serenity. She was happy where she was, and she just wanted to be left alone. She had found freedom, a strange, different, wonderful freedom on Serenity. The other students deserved freedom, too.

Iain and Bennett killed Hiro. He'll never experience that kind of freedom. River was still reeling from that—not only her encounter with Hiro—but that Iain and Bennett had killed him. She had seen Hiro's mind—a hunter on a mission. His will, his inhibitions, his very self had been stamped and crushed, and River desperately wanted to believe it had been buried somewhere deep inside his damaged, mutilated mind, but the fact was—she couldn't be sure. And now she never would be sure.

And on top of all that had been the appearance of her mother. That had been a horrible shock. She had seen things in her mother's mind, too, so quick and jumbled that it only half made sense. But she had seen lies—lies told, lies believed, and the Alliance couldn't do this, they couldn't use people and lie all the time.

River stopped beside a cortex interface outside a building, sucking in a deep breath, swiping tears out of her eyes and focusing on her original goal.

It took her three minutes to hack into the central security system and lift the landlock not only on Serenity, but on all the ships in port, to avoid suspicions as to why only one would be free. Maybe it would add a little chaos to the investigation. During that time, she listened to Zoe saying that she, Simon, and Kaylee had managed to get out of the port before the feds closed them in a trap. They were safe, for now.

River had just finished lifting the landlock when one of the numerous viewing screens in Capital City began broadcasting news of the restaurant attack. River ducked her head and walked through the other pedestrians stopping to watch the news, expecting that her face would pop up on the screen at any moment.

Instead, the first thing she heard was, "…the security feed around the restaurant was apparently malfunctioning during the disaster at the Guangxi restaurant in downtown Capital City."

Malfunctioning? Unlikely. It was more likely that Velgese hadn't wanted to be seen on camera meeting with one of the Academy students and that she or someone else had disconnected it.

"From what we know, two people—a man and a woman—disrupted the peace when they started a physical fight, which ended in the death of one. The second participant escaped the security field around the restaurant, though at present we do not know how."

And probably never would know, if the feds had anything to say about it. Wouldn't do good for morale to scare the citizens with stories of girls who climbed buildings and jumped the fences.

"Distinguished Parliament representative Ari Velgese was apparently present during the fight. The only solid information we have at this time is that federal troops are perusing Capital City's docking port, on Representative Velgese's information. Unfortunately, before she could tell federal troops what ship she suspected had played a part in this upheaval, she was apparently abducted. Her bodyguards were found assassinated not far from Guangxi. Eyewitnesses at the Guangxi restaurant have been taken to Central Authority for questioning."

Iain and Bennett.

"All ships have been temporarily landlocked until each can be cleared of suspicion. We will continue to bring you information as we have it."

River smiled grimly. They aren't landlocked anymore.

Zoe radioed in then to say that Jayne had met up with them, and River allowed herself to breathe properly. Her face wasn't plastered all over the screens, and the only ones who could identify her from the fight were Ari Velgese, her mother, and Mal.

Mal and her mother were being held at Central Authority, the local federal holding building—not to be confused with central authority, the Alliance judicial courts. Velgese had likely been nabbed by Bennett and Iain, and the Parliament had the other students locked up in a hole here on this very world or out hunting Blue Sun agents.

River looked sideways, down the familiar streets of Capital City, and pressed her lips together in determination. It was time Parliament got it through their heads that they couldn't keep meddling with people, playing God with their lives.

It was time they stopped meddling with her.