First update of the new year! I hope 2019 is off to a splendid start for you all. Before we dive back into the story, I must first profess my eternal gratitude to everyone who reviewed last chapter - I had my doubts about it, but you had only kind words for me. Thank you. And a big welcome and thank you to my recent followers! I can't tell you how happy I am to see that people are still getting into this story, and I do hope you continue to enjoy.
Soundtrack - Certainty: "A Grave Situation" by Henry Jackman & Dominic Lewis, from The Man in the High Castle: Season One OST (2017)
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LIGHT OF DAY
There was a hairpin in Mal's bed.
A thin shard of silver, with jewels that glistened like fresh frost. Mal stared at it for a long while before he picked it up. He sat on the edge of the bed, turning the pin over and over in his fingers.
There was no sense in waiting, in delaying the inevitable. He knew his orders. In case of emergency, he was to call Moran, using the one-time signal scrambler they'd given him. Accessing the Cortex from the screen in his bunk, he'd input the number for Moran's personal line, and make a five-minute call that couldn't be overheard nor traced by the Feds. In theory.
Mal turned to his satchel, sitting next to him on the bed, and opened an inner pocket, to pull out the signal scrambler. It looked oddly similar to Inara's hairpin, a paper-thin piece of metal with a minute pattern inscribed on one side.
Mal tucked the hairpin inside the pocket. He pulled on his boots, and stood up.
He gave himself a hard look in the mirror on the back of his door. Moving slowly, he buttoned his shirt. Moran's words came back to him, a cruel, taunting echo.
You will not engage in physical relations of any kind with the Councilor's daughter.
Mal brushed a hand back over his hair, to make it orderly-like.
Stay in control. Remember your mission.
He held still, staring at himself, holding his breath. Then he let it all out at once. With violent force, to empty himself, pull his lungs inside out. He shut his eyes.
Echoes of her touch clung to him. Everywhere. Her fingers on the back of his neck, in his hair, her hand pressing into his, over her stomach.
His pulse quickened. Moran would read it in him, plain as day.
Mal opened his eyes. Don't be stupid. Moran couldn't tell a thing. As long as there wasn't any lipstick on his face. He checked. There wasn't.
There wasn't a trace of her anywhere, except for the hairpin, and the rumpled imprint she'd left in his sheets, which he could barely stand to touch because as soon as he mussed them, she would really be gone. It was just as well he didn't expect to be sleeping much that night.
He crossed the room, and activated the screen set into the wall above the desk. A few taps led him to the Cortex communications network. It prompted him to the enter the address. Mal inserted the signal scrambler into an input slot beside the screen, then punched in the 9-digit sequence from memory.
A few seconds later, Moran's face blinked onto the screen. He was shrouded in shadow, lit only by the glow of his own communicator. His ruddy face was washed pale, ghostly.
Mal didn't waste any time. "I've got it," he said. "Proof."
In an instant Moran was fully alert, upright, turning on a light over his head.
Mal told him every last detail he knew: the tablet on the desk in Zhi's private study, the list of targets, the 'blast radius' calculations and 'expected mortality rates.' In the back of his mind, a piece of Mal wondered at the lack of emotion in his voice.
"You got the security layouts I gave you. As long as Zhi doesn't have the tablet on him, it'll be there. Inara said it's always in his desk. The door to his study's got a bio-security lock, opens to his thumbprint alone. But crowded party, lotta champagne glasses moving around. Wouldn't be too hard to lift his print."
Moran nodded.
Mal set his jaw. "I can't do it."
Moran blinked. He raised his eyebrows. "What?"
"You gotta send someone else in." Mal didn't waver. "I can't be the one to get those plans."
"And why not?"
"I snuck into the house once already, a week ago. It… didn't go well."
"Not good enough, Brownie."
"Inara saw me." Mal's mouth went dry, words clumping like cotton on his tongue. "She wanted to know why I was there."
Moran held for a few terrifying beats of silence.
"'Course, I fed her a lie, which she believed," Mal said quickly. His gut twisted. "But I can't do it again."
"Sounds like you weren't careful enough. This time, you will be." Moran rubbed his fist absently. "Go to the cook or director of indoor staff. Offer yourself up to work the party tomorrow night. Odds are, they'll be glad of the extra help."
"But-"
"Tomorrow morning Osborne will make a dead drop with the things you need to get past the biotech, and hack into the tablet. He's coming anyway, with the other supplies they need for their final night. Wait until just after he leaves, then go pick it up. He'll leave it in a bag of fertilizer, up by the gardens, so you won't look strange carrying it down to the stables."
"Listen," Mal cut in, at last. "This whole party is for Inara's graduation, she's- the belle of the ball, or whatever. There's no way I can do this without her seein' me."
"You'll find a way." Moran's eyes burned through the screens separating them. "I hope you're not suggesting you've been somehow compromised…"
"No," Mal said hoarsely. He swallowed, and tried again, "I'm solid."
"Good." Moran's voice could have cut steel. "This is your moment of truth, Reynolds. You've proven yourself capable of decent work. Now you have to do better. In and out, no complications."
"No complications," Mal echoed, feeling sick.
"Bring the memory flash with the plans to Kāi Shǐ Station, in the city. We'll meet you there at o-five hundred Saturday. Don't be late. And I don't need to tell you this, but if you fail-"
"I won't," Mal cut in, sharper than he needed to, hands fisting at his sides. He added, quiet, "I won't let you down."
With a single nod, Moran terminated the connection. Mal stared at the empty blue screen.
He eyed the clock. Their conversation had lasted two and half minutes. Only half the signal scrambler's lifespan. He left it in, and tapped out another comm code.
It was beyond risky. Comms security may have worked its way through the scramble tech. But as far as Mal figured, he was already wedged pretty good between a rock and a hard place. What difference did it make if he inched in deeper?
Hadley's grin lit up the screen when he answered. It was daytime on Shadow. Sunlight spread over the McDannel family's kitchen in the background, cozy and familiar.
"Mal!" Hadley laughed in surprise.
The hole in Mal's chest, which had been there ever since he left Shadow, gaped wide. A pang of homesickness nearly brought tears to his eyes.
He managed a smile. "Heya, Danny boy." He noticed, with a jolt, the hand-me-down suit Hadley was wearing. It had been Mal's. The last time he'd worn it was at his mother's funeral. Hadley had brightened it up with a green tie and a yellow bellblossom on the lapel, Shadow's official flower. "You're lookin'… cleaner than usual," said Mal.
"Qù nǐde," Hadley quipped, still grinning. "We're celebratin' big in town today. Gonna dance and drink for a week at least." His eyes got big. "Wait. You haven't heard?"
Mal's stomach dropped. "Heard what?"
Hadley could barely contain his joy, bursting from him, as he threw out his hands. "The Alliance are gone! No more peacekeepers in the streets! All of 'em up and pulled out yesterday mornin'. Here we thought nothin' would come of this peace treaty, but we were wrong." His grin slipped. "Mal? How come you ain't smiling?"
He had to look away. Gorrammit.
"Come to think, the hell you callin' me up for?" Hadley's face fell serious. "What's goin' on?"
"Hadley-" Mal started, then stopped short. How could he do this? When Hadley was so happy, looking so fresh. When all of Birdseye was breathing the first gasp of fresh air they'd had in years, four years since the Alliance had trooped in and occupied them, four years of quiet and careful and curfew and no crowds except in church.
Mal forced the words to come. "Listen. Alliance didn't pull out 'cause 'a the peace treaty. They-"
"One second." Hadley held up a hand, turning away from the screen. "What, Ma? …Yeah, okay! I'll bring 'em, just- two shakes!"
"Dammit, listen," Mal barked, brutally aware of the seconds slipping past. "They're planning to attack Shadow. With bombs, or… somethin', I ain't rightly sure. But Birdseye's gotta be high on the list of targets. 'Specially if they've pulled out already."
Hadley stared at him, blinking. He wore his 'Mal-you-crazy-wángbādàn' face.
"The man I been spyin' on, he's set to become Chancellor of Military Affairs, if the Election goes his way tomorrow night. I've still gotta get hold of his plans, but I know he's aiming to wipe out the Independents. He'll do anything. Even kill innocent folk."
Hadley's face screwed up, brow bunching together. "But... the peace treaty-"
"Was a lie," Mal cut him off. "They don't care about us. They only care about their precious Unification Initiative."
Hadley frowned. After a moment, he said, "You look like you need some sleep, Mal." His mouth drew tight. "Just- come home, alright? You should be here."
"Hadley, wait-"
"I gotta go. My ma's gonna have kittens if I don't get her pies down to the square right quick." His eyes flashed with apology, regret, as he reached up to the screen.
The connection vanished before Mal could say another word.
30 seconds left on the signal scrambler. Mal jerked it out of the slot, and threw it down on the ground. He stomped it with his boot until it shattered, then kept going, even as his vision blurred and it got too hard to breathe.
He pulled out the chair from his desk, and sat down heavily. He put his elbows on his knees, head falling forward. He ground the heel of his palms into his eyes.
He'd done all he could. But it wasn't enough.
His only hope was that Hadley would come around to it. He'd pass the warning on to Silas, and get the word out. Put everyone on alert, for whatever good it might do. Hadley had always been the one with the most smarts, between the two of them. He saw it like it was, and said as much.
Mal knew exactly what Hadley would have to say about Inara. 'Forget this Coreworlder girl. Why you always gotta make more trouble for yourself?'
"Good question," Mal muttered.
If he'd only kissed her, in the messy and desperate way they had at first, that would've been one thing. But no. He had laid down beside her, bared his soul to her, told her his most secret wish. And she had bared herself to him, too. Not just in the flesh sense.
It was her voice that had been naked, when she told him, "I want to lie with you, Mal."
Sweet mercy. The power of those seven words. Mal could wrap them around himself and walk through fire. They could fuel his heart for a thousand lifetimes. Somewhere deep inside him, he held those words safe, unwilling to let go.
Don't mean nothing, Mal tried to tell himself. They'd both been hurting, that was all. They'd been there for each other, a convenient distraction, a comfort. They'd shared a moment of weakness. That was the whole of it.
Best not to think on it, he decided. Best to forget.
He spent a long time trying. He sat slumped in the chair, eyes lost in the ebbing shadows of the room. He wasn't about to fall asleep, not in that bed, not with the ghost of her lying next to him. Not with millions of souls depending on him, weighing on his chest.
He sat in the chair until the night faded into day. Dawn's light found him scoured out with exhaustion, but not quite empty. It didn't matter.
He had a job to do.
translations:
Qù nǐde - F*ck you, shut up (used jokingly and is not considered insulting)
wángbādàn - bastard
So... not the most exciting chapter, I'll admit, but a necessary one. It gets a lot more exciting from here on out, I promise, as everything starts going wrong. Murphy's law and all that, you know. My hands are tied.
Any and all thoughts are welcome: predictions, suggestions, concerns? (Did you all forget who Hadley was? I don't blame you - he wins the award for most off-screen side character, second only to Mal's guardian, Silas. I wish I could've written more of them, but *sigh* what can you do.) Anyways, I truly love to hear from you, even if it's just to say that you're excited to see what happens next. I am personally beyond excited to post the next chapter... here's hoping I can do that soon!