Chapter Seven
They were lost in a maze of stark white, cold corridors. Worse than that, there weren't even any doors or windows by which to judge where they'd been. There were just walls and no way out. Jayne was beginning to have trouble breathing. River was ahead of him, trying to lead them to a brilliant escape, but it was no use. They'd be there until the Alliance Operatives found them and killed them. Hopefully in a relatively painless manner. Jayne was almost out of ammo. When they ran into trouble, which would probably happen any second now, it would be over. They turned a corner and hit a dead end.
Two panels on the wall now facing them slid open to reveal a large screen. A familiar commercial started playing.
"Fruity Oaty Bars make a man out of a mouse! Fruity Oaty Bars make you burst out of your blouse! Eat them all the time! Let them blow your mind! WOW!"
River stopped dead in her tracks. She tilted her head to the side for a moment before turning on Jayne and lunging at him.
Before he knew what he was doing, Jayne raised his gun and fired.
Jayne awoke to the sound of banging on his door. It took a moment for Jayne to catch his breath after he realized it had only been a dream.
"Jayne! Rise and shine! Got someone waitin' for ya in the hold!" the Captain yelled through the door.
"Who the hell?" Jayne mumbled as he rolled out of bed. River was still sleeping. He wondered how she had slept through the knocking and yelling. She must have been really tired. Yawning, Jayne threw some clothes on and made his way to the hold. When he got down there, all he saw was a tall man with his back to him. He didn't recognize him until the man turned around. "Jordan?"
His little brother nodded at him, hands on his hips. Then he shook his head. "You really went back to Achilles for Jaxon?"
"'Course I did. Someone had to whip his sorry ass back into shape," Jayne said.
There was an awkward silence. Jayne descended the stairs and offered his brother his hand. Jordan shook it. "Damn good to see ya, Jayne."
"Damn good to see you haven't gotten yourself killed yet."
"Come on, Jayne. I'm tougher than that."
"Knew that set of eyes of yours would get you into a fair bit of trouble one day. What've they got you doin' here, anyhow? What use could a sniper be to a bunch of spies?"
"Quite a lot of use, actually," Jordan said. He glared at him for a moment. "I know what I'm doing, Jayne. Big boy. Can choose what I do with my own life."
"Been waitin' a long time to tell me that, haven't ya?"
"You should've let me come with you."
Jayne looked away. "Wouldn't've changed nuthing."
Jordan shook his head. "You don't know that, Jayne."
"Would've just brought you down with me, is all," Jayne said. "You didn't need no one messing up your life."
"Yeah, I did a fine enough job on my own," Jordan muttered. They stood there a few mre moments. "They got you doing somethin' big, don't they?"
"What makes ya say that?"
"Just a feelin' I get," Jordan said, shrugging. He looked at Jayne.
Of all his family, Jordan had always been the one to read exactly when Jayne was planning to do something stupid. Most of the time, Jordan had also been the one who could talk him out of doing it. Except once.
"Hey, let's forget all this Browncoat garbage," Jayne said, clapping a hand on Jordan's shoulder. "Catch me up on your life."
"Nothing's changed, Jayne. Momma's gone and told you about Laura. Still the big gapin' hole in my life it was five years ago. Just tryin' to keep movin'. And here's about as far as I could move."
Jayne nodded. He certainly didn't seem like the little brother he'd left back on Achilles. It was like he was broken, cold. But after what he'd been through, it wasn't really a wonder.
"Momma says you got yourself a fine young lady lookin' after ya, keepin' ya out of trouble," Jordan said suddenly, changing the subject. "And there's rumors floatin' around the base it's none other than River Tam." He laughed. "Usually when girls get a good look how your mind works, they go running for the hills."
Jayne smiled. "Maybe she likes how my mind works," he said slyly.
Jordan laughed again. "Not likely, big brother."
"So, what, you come down here just to laugh at me, or you have something more specific in mind?"
Jordan smiled. "Hell, Jayne. Haven't seen ya in so long, thought I'd better make sure we've got the real Jayne Cobb here," he paused, the smile vanishing. "And I wanted to say sorry I wasn't there for Jaxon. I shoulda been. You put yerself in danger, and - "
"Don't apologize," Jayne said gruffly. "You're a gorram fool, Jordan. Apologizin' for something weren't even your fault by any manner of lookin' at the situation."
Jordan looked him in the eye. Then he shook his head and laughed again. "You know, Jayne, you're a lot more honorable than I recall. Maybe that River Tam's just the perfect person for you. Even when you're actin' all gruff and mean, she'll know you don't mean a damn word of it."
Mal chose this moment to appear on the catwalk and call down, "Jayne, we've got that meetin' in half an hour. You ready to play nice with the Browncoats?"
Jayne turned and looked up at him. The Captain was looking very serious this morning, giving Jayne a mild look of disapproval. Jayne figured the Captain was worried he would make a mistake in the meeting, somehow let on they weren't actually going to play nice. "Everything's shiny, Mal," Jayne answered.
Mal nodded and walked away, probably to go make sure everyone else was prepared for their acting debuts.
Jordan whistled. "He's as tough as they say he is, ain't he?" He shook his head. "Couldn't imagine you takin' orders from nobody. But now that I've seen Cap'n Reynolds. Damn, Jayne, I'd do whatever he told me, too."
Jayne laughed. "Don't let him fool ya, Mal's an old softy. Only tough when he's gotta be."
Jordan laughed. It was good to hear him laughing so much. Jayne wouldn't have thought it was possible. "Bet he's gotta be tough a lot around you."
"Well, you know me," Jayne muttered.
"Hell, yeah I do," Jordan said. He looked from the empty spot on the catwalk and back to Jayne. "Say, Jayne, what've they got you here for, anyways? There's all this commotion about the crew of the Serenity being here for something big, but no one seems to know what it is."
Jayne looked away.
"Ah. So it's that big. Probably stupid, too, ain't it?"
Jayne's eyes snapped back to his brother's. "What makes you say that?" He hoped this time Jordan gave him more than "Just a feeling."
"Have you met Colonel Smith? War's made the bastard paranoid and stupid. He's got a mind set on revenge and not much else. Takin' the Alliance down sounds like a good plan, but this guy will try anything to deliver a blow," Jordan said. "Don't bode well for the people he's got to use to deliver that blow."
Jayne looked straight at him but didn't say a word. It wasn't Jordan's burden, and he'd be damned if he was gonna drag his little brother into this. It was bound to be bad enough without him.
After a moment, Jordan seemed to get the idea that Jayne wasn't going to say anything else about it. "Just, whatever they've got you doing, be careful," Jordan said.
"Hell, Jordan, you know me," Jayne said again.
"Yeah," Jordan said sadly. "Just be careful. And invite somebody along." Jordan paused a moment before saying, "I'll see you around, Jayne. Don't wanna make you late for that meeting."
Half an hour later, Jayne stood in the conference room of the Browncoat Underground's headquarters. Out the window, he could see the Tower they were now planning to infiltrate. The sight did not fill his mind with warm thoughts. His head kept drifting back to never-ending corridors and no way out.
When Mal told General Gellar that the crew had accepted her mission, she breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Thank you, Captain. This is fantastic news for the whole Browncoat movement. You have no idea the implications of the successful completion of this mission."
"We do," River corrected. "But thanks for saying so, anyway," she said.
If Jayne hadn't known any better, he would have sworn River was being sincere in her eagerness to help and get started planning. He'd seen her act before, of course, but that had been when he still thought she was crazy. River stole a quick glance at him and smiled, letting him know she'd heard that.
"Only choice you coulda made," Colonel Smith stated. "If you're really the heroes everyone says you are," he added. The man damaged Jayne's calm. Smith was a gorram lunatic, and the thought that Jayne would have to play along with this guy made him sick.
"Well, we're in, now, so what's the plan?" Mal asked, leaning forward a bit. They had to get every bit of information they could out of the Browncoats. That's why the whole crew was here. Mal figured it could be that one of them would see or hear something the rest of them missed, and that little piece of information could make a world of difference while this thing played out.
General Gellar smiled, "We got a doc on the inside. Name's Williams. He's got a fine conscience naggin' at him to help us get those kids out." She looked out the fishbowl at the office. "Here he comes now." She looked sheepishly at Mal. "I took a gamble that you'd say yes."
A short, scrawny little man snuck into the room and looked nervously around the assembly. His eyes shot directly to River, and Jayne suddenly wanted to throw the guy out the window.
"Don't be shy, Williams. Have a seat," General Gellar said, motioning to a chair beside her.
Open-mouthed, Williams sat. "I didn't know they'd all be here, General."
"It's okay, Doc. We're all on the same side," General Gellar said. She looked back at Mal. "Doc's been a bit stressed lately, what with him betrayin' his government and all."
Smith laughed. Jayne wondered what the Colonel had done to get Williams to cooperate.
"So, you're going to get us into the Academy?" Kaylee asked. This was her job, make things less tense. Nobody can be on edge with Kaylee talkin' real sweet and innocent. Nobody but Simon, anyway, the moron. River gave Jayne a disapproving look. Like she didn't agree with him. Honestly.
Williams nodded. "I can get you in," he said. "Gettin' out's gonna be the trick."
"No fooling," Jayne said gruffly. "You really a doctor?" Jayne's job was to act himself. When he'd asked what Mal meant by that, River had answered, "Be an ass." It came naturally enough.
The doctor looked nervously at Jayne. Good. The geek was scared of him. That might come in handy.
"What can you tell us about the students?" Simon asked. Simon's one function in all this was to later translate whatever the Alliance doctor or the Browncoat Underground leaders said about the technical aspects of the Academy.
"Well, uh. They're teenagers. The youngest in the program is thirteen. The oldest is twenty. They were orphans and wards of the government before they were chosen by the Academy."
"How were they chosen?" River asked.
The doctor didn't look at her, but at Simon. "They were deemed the most impressionable young minds in the orphan homes in the core. The ones that could be programmed the most effectively."
"Programmed? Like a computer?" Mal asked.
"Precisely like," the doctor said. "Anything the programmer tells them to do, they do it. It's that simple. There's no more what the Alliance called uncontrollable behavior."
"What's uncontrollable behavior?" Zoe asked.
This time the doctor looked at River, as if expecting her to say something at any moment.
River answered for him. "No more outside triggers. No more mind-readers. No more kids with families to protect them. The Alliance has learned many lessons from River Tam and her brother."
For a moment, a darkness settled across the table. It felt like a storm was coming. Jayne was sure any minute the Browncoats would realize they were being duped, that no way could River Tam agree to free those kids just to allow them to be used by another side.
"So, the program can be rewritten, right?" Kaylee asked. "You can set them free."
The doctor looked away from River. "Yes, I believe we can set them free."
Later, back on Serenity, River told the crew, "He was lying. They can't be set free."
"Then I guess we can call this whole gorram stupid idea off now," Jayne said.
"I think the program can be rewritten, though," Simon said, studying a data disc Williams had given him. "The program will never go away, but we can put it to sleep."
"But that means it will always be there," Kaylee said. "What if someone else has the tech to change it?"
"Then we're all gonna die," Jayne said. "Does no one else have a problem with this?"
"Dormant programming is a viable option," River said.
Instead of deferring to River, now they were all waiting for Mal's answer. The Captain was holding back. Jayne recognized that Mal was trying to come up with some kind of plan that didn't involve getting everyone killed. But Mal was also stubborn, and when he decided to go for something, he'd go for it no matter what anybody else said.
"This doesn't change anything. Makes it a bit more interesting, maybe. But doesn't change the fact that we are these kids' only chance." He looked at Jayne, and the mercenary could almost see the apology in the captain's eyes.