DISCLAIMER: The Firefly/Serenity
characters are the property of Mutant Enemies, Fox, Universal, and probably someone
else I'm forgetting. The story contents are the creation and property of Djinn
and are copyright (c) 2005 by Djinn. This story is Rated PG-13.
The Road to Heaven is Paved in Blood
by Djinn
Since the time I was brought
to the training center, I have served two masters: my teacher and the goal of a better
world. I have studied and trained and
suffered knowing that my role in creating the future would be a hidden but
crucial one. I am a monster, but I'm a
monster in the service of Heaven. A
monster whose every act will bring Paradise that much closer.
There is no room for one such
as I in Paradise. I know this. My teacher knew this, too. My teacher taught me this.
Until my teacher ran
away. Until he abandoned Paradise for
his own path. Leaving me in charge of
the others. Leaving me the strongest, the
one most committed.
Leaving me to deal with
Jubal.
Unlike Jubal, I gave up my
name—if I ever had one. My teacher
brought me to the training center as a baby, and I have gone so long without a
name it's natural. It's natural also to
not exist as far as the government is concerned. But I existed for my teacher. I was his favorite, because, even then, even
when I was so young, I was special. As
if to prove my existence, my teacher gave me many names depending on his mood
and how he felt about me. Some days he
called me Alexander or Achilles. Other
days I was Lucifer or Loki. On days when
I'd really pleased him, he would call me "Son." I lived for those days.
I knew I was probably not the
man's son. But I wanted to be. How I wanted to be.
My teacher's name was never
known to me. The man who used to be my
teacher is now known as Shepherd Book. I
am not supposed to know this, but I tracked him down in between
assignments. My Alliance masters
probably knew I'd done it, but those I answer to did not interfere with my
personal quest.
They never interfere with me. I am their creature, but they also fear
me. Everyone has always feared me. Everyone except this man called Book and
Jubal—when Jubal was still one of us.
Jubal wouldn't know me now; once it became clear that he was too much a
monster to stay at the training center, I ensured that he would not remember any
of us. Although if he were to see me or
anyone from the Center again, he might pause, wondering if he knew us before
moving on again.
My teacher knew he had to go, I think. My
teacher used to look at Jubal with a hopeless expression, as if he could not
believe such beauty and grace could hide so much horror. My teacher was about to take steps to deal
with Jubal when he ran, leaving me in charge.
I know where Book is, but I
have lost track of Jubal. I have made it
my burden to ensure he is pointed in the path of good—as much as a man like
Jubal ever can be. I throw jobs his way—send
him after people who have sinned greatly, people who make the path to Paradise
rockier and uglier than it has to be.
Jubal takes care of them. Brings
them back to the agents of order—or kills them.
It has never mattered much to me what he does to them, so long as he
gets the job done. And when he is
working for the cause of the right, it keeps him too busy to torture and hurt
innocents.
I hate that Jubal loves to
torture innocents, but it hurts even more to know how hard he tries to fight
the urge. It would have been easier if
he were purely evil, then I could have killed him and never thought of him
again. But he was not purely evil, and I
found I could not kill him. So I threw him out of the training facility, mind wiped
enough to make him no threat, but not so much that his skills would be lost
forever.
Because Jubal was useful in his own way.
As a bounty hunter, he could walk places that were too dirty for us to
walk. It is to these places that I think
River Tam and her brother have gone, and why I made sure Jubal got the
information about the girl. I knew he
would take the bait. How could he
not? River was the first real challenge
he'd had in years.
But River may have proven too
much of a challenge, because I have not heard from Jubal since my contacts
reported his shuttle took off for the black.
Jubal is most likely dead. My
monster may have met an even bigger one when he went up against that little
girl.
My teacher probably wouldn't
have used Jubal. He would have gone
after River himself. My teacher would
have lectured me: "Don't leave what must be done to others." He would have been right.
I will find her myself this
time. It is my quest. One that won't end until I deliver her to
those who want her, or until one of us is dead.
My teacher would approve of that, even if Shepherd Book probably would
not. Shepherd Book would rather pretend
that the monster he was never existed.
The way I have to pretend that both the man I wanted for a father and
the man I considered a brother never existed.
But I know they existed because I miss them.
I miss my teacher. I miss
Jubal.
Even monsters get lonely.
##
The research facility reminds
me of the training center. There is pain
here. Pain and learning and children
stretched beyond their limits. The woman
who shudders every time I call her "young miss" brings me more access
information. I type in the numbers, the
folders in the system opening like the lotus flower that grew only on
Earth-that-was. And I find what I need
on River Tam and, more importantly, on her brother.
"Please don't hurt
me," the young woman says as I get up, my work here done.
"I won't." I smile; I know it is a reassuring expression
because I have practiced it in the mirror many times.
She smiles in relief, and her
shuddering stills for a moment.
The hologram of River and
Simon hovers behind her, and I point at it vaguely, as if barely paying
attention. "Turn that off, young
miss."
She hurries to do as I say,
and I shoot her in the back of the head.
She falls through the hologram, her body interrupting the pattern,
making it crackle and shimmer before reestablishing itself.
I did not lie. The shot was true. She would not have felt any pain; I haven't
hurt her, only killed her.
In my business, there is a
vast difference between the two.
I push her off the console,
and get to work, setting loose the virus that will destroy all records of River
Tam in this facility. No one else must
ever understand what she may have taken with her when she escaped, what she may
have carried away in that jumbled mind.
I have the list of those who worked with her closely enough to know
things they should not. Five of them in
all. Two are now dead.
I walk down the hall to the
office of the third person. A woman
looks up. She is beautiful. Lovely in the way I like.
"Hello," I smile,
in another way I practice. It is meant
to induce shivers of a different kind.
She responds, her smile
brilliant. "Can I help
you?"
She will have seen by the fabric
of my clothes that I am a man of some means, even if their cut and decoration
give her no idea of my role in society.
And I am handsome. I know this—it's
something that is worked on at the training center. People trust those who are beautiful. They relax around smooth skin and even
features. They tell secrets to those
with deep, soulful eyes.
"River Tam," I say,
using the most sensuous tone I can.
The tone does not fool
her. Her eyes change, secrets locking
down as I watch. "I never met her,"
she says, trying to scramble back in her chair, but I have moved too close.
"If only that were
true." I stab three times into her
neck with the fingers of my right hand.
Once to paralyze, the next to deaden nerves that might register pain even
if they cannot make her muscles move, the last to kill.
She falls. Beautiful, still, in death.
I leave the center. The other two people who know River Tam too
well for their own good have been transferred.
It will take me a few days to get to them, a few seconds to kill them
before I can start my hunt for the little girl.
I feel no joy to be on the
hunt again. I feel no remorse,
either. This is what I do. This is what I will always do until acts like
this done by men like me are no longer required.
##
The companion is frightened,
but she hides her fear well. She has
conveyed to her former captain that he is walking into a trap, and I am unsure
how she has done it. They have some sort
of secret language and that is dangerous.
I can tell by the way she moves around her room that she thinks she won't
be rescued. That she thinks he will not
come.
"Do you love him?"
I ask her softly.
She doesn't answer, but I
think she does love him. I think he loves
her, too, and that she has misjudged him.
He will send someone for her.
But I do not expect him to
come for her himself. He may love her,
but he is not a hero.
Although...he is a champion
of lost causes. He fought in the
war. Lost the war. That leaves shadows on a man's soul. Shadows that might make him come for her
himself.
Then again, those shadows can
warp a man and make him so he cannot love.
The way Jubal's shadows made him unable to love, only to hurt. I had to clean up the few times he gave free
rein to his urges to hurt a lover. It
made me sick—and I've been raised on death and pain.
Malcolm Reynolds' shadows
have turned him into a smuggler. Into
someone who lives on the wrong side of the law.
But he seems to have some kind of honor even if he also seems to live by
the percentages. So
he will probably send someone to help this woman, even if he will not come
himself.
But...if he does come
himself, he will come in all guns blazing.
The last, big stand. That's how
men like Reynolds go down.
It is not how I will go
down. There is no dignity in a blaze of
glory, despite how the history books paint such ends. To live to scheme another time is a good way
to end the day.
"You are lonely,"
the companion says, her voice honeyed sweetness. "I can feel your pain, the pain you keep
hidden."
I ignore her. Companion-wiles are no match for the things
my teacher taught me.
"I can help you with
your pain."
"I do not believe you
can." I meet her eyes, let her see
that there is nothing to be read from mine.
Nothing at all.
She stares, as if she can
break my will. As if by her beauty and
her sensual grace, she will wear me down and make me open up to her.
I let my eyes go even colder.
She appears shaken as she
finally looks away. I imagine she has
never lost like that. She is too
beautiful to have ever lost.
"You are
evil." She sounds as if she is not
sure what else to say.
"I am unsure that is
true. I am, however, a
monster." I smile at her to show her
I don't hold her words against her. It
will not do to have her panic.
But she seems stronger than I
thought she would be. Panic is not what
I see in her eyes. It is resolve and
defiance. Perhaps she has spent a little
too much time around rebels and smugglers.
"He will come for
you," I say softly.
She shrugs, and even that
gesture is one of great loveliness.
"If you say so." This
must mean she is not sure at this point whether he will or will not.
I would not come for
her. But then, I would not allow myself
to fall in love with a woman like this.
She can make you forget yourself.
She can turn your heart and your resolve and your entire world upside
down, and leave you wanting more of that nonsense.
I do not fall in love. It is not that love is forbidden to us, but
it is too hard to establish ties like that when one leads a life that is no
life. It is hard to fall in love when
one does not exist at all.
When I was very young, I
asked my teacher if he had ever been in love.
His eyes got a faraway look and he nodded.
"Where is she now?"
"She died. I was not there." He looked at me with such sadness. "Do not fall in love, son."
"I will not." It was an easy promise to keep. My teacher kept us all too busy to fall in
love. When we were going through
puberty, when hormones might have made us act stupidly and cleave to others, he
stepped up our training. Put challenges
and competitions to us. So that even if
we had wanted to fall in love with each other, we would not have. We were too busy trying to win.
Which is not to say he
discouraged sex. We were given ample
opportunities to work out our energy.
But not with each other.
Operatives did not build such ties.
He set us loose in less-honored houses than the one I now wait in with
this rare beauty. Houses where we could
lose ourselves in the bodies of those who were not our own kind.
It was the first time we
learned what Jubal was capable of. It
was the last time my teacher ever let Jubal go on that type of field trip.
I wonder if this companion
has met Jubal. I wonder if she knows
what happened to him. But I do not ask
because I cannot give away that I know him.
Even if I do plan to kill this woman as soon as I have River Tam in my
custody.
"Do you love him?"
I ask her again.
She must see something in my
eyes that frightens her. She moves away,
to her altar, bowing her head.
"Do you?"
"Yes," she murmurs,
but it could just be part of her ritual to her gods.
"Yes," I
repeat. If it is an answer, she should
know that I have heard her. "I will
leave you to your prayers," I say, walking out and finding the place I
have chosen to wait for her man to come to her.
And I think he will come to her. I face the door, out of range of an
"all guns blazing" approach.
And I wait.
##
My teacher looks up in
surprise. The world he has chosen to
settle on is covered in dust. But then
most of the outer worlds are covered in dust.
His clothes are old—cut down from something that was probably a miner's
uniform. His hair is different now. Last time I saw him, it was long and held
back in a simple tie. Now he wears braids—distinctive, too distinctive for our
line of work. He would not fade into the
background with his shepherd's collar and his rows of braids.
But then, he is not in our line of work any longer.
"You?" My teacher does not seem surprised that he's
been found, more that his former pupil would come out all this way to speak to
him personally.
I give him a careful
smile. "Hello, sir."
"No sir needed,
son. I'm a simple shepherd."
"Hardly simple," I
say, showing him I'm aware he is trying to lull me with the title he knows I
crave. "I am on a job."
"I didn't think you came
here for the nightlife."
I smile. He has always been able to make
me smile. If I have a sense of humor,
which some say I don't, I have learned it from him. "You know what I seek?"
He shrugs. I think that he knows I am looking for the
girl. He can guess that I know that he
has given her and the others who protect her sanctuary. Fitting since he has settled on a world
called Haven.
But I play the game. "I'm looking for a girl."
He smiles, as if I am quite
the foolish young man. "Better
places to look than a dust trap like this."
"This young woman is on
the run."
"Well, catch her."
I smile tightly. "That's why I'm here."
"She's not
here." He waves toward the open
desert behind him. "Nothing much
here."
"I know she's with
Reynolds."
"Do you?" He gives me the beatific smile of the man of
god.
"I know they were
here."
"I won't help you. Even if I didn't know them, I wouldn't help
you on principle. I'm done with all
that."
"People help me that
know nothing of 'all that' as you call it.
You, too, can help me without being part of it." It is a threat. I am threatening my teacher.
"Only if you make
me. Are you going to try to make
me?"
We both know I cannot, but he
almost looks like he wishes I would try.
I wonder how the life of a simple shepherd suits him. He was the finest fighter, the canniest
strategist. He had to be to become the
master of our Center.
To leave that for this—I
cannot fathom it. "Why do you call
yourself Book?"
He seems surprised at my
question. It is the first time I have
caught him off guard. "Why not?"
"It must have some
significance."
"The good
book." He taps the bible in his
shirt pocket. "Something to believe
in."
"You had something to
believe in." I am angry
suddenly. Rage fills me. Rage that goes back to the day he left.
The day he left without a
word.
"How could you do
it?" I ask. "You had a
purpose. A role."
His look is almost
pitying. "Our purpose is
empty. Our role is a lie."
"Why?"
But he will not answer such a
broad question, and I cannot bear to ask the deeper ones that might elicit
answers. That is how he trained us. You ask the right question; you get an
answer. But you must work for it. You
must drill down and find the right tack. It is a matter of focus, and I do not wish to
focus on it.
"You have lost your
way," I say.
"I never had a way,
boy. And neither do you." His eyes flash for a moment, but then the
fire in them dies. I realize he looks...ill.
"Are you sick?"
"No. I'm dying." He sighs.
"I don't have much time left."
"If you don't tell me
where she is, you'll have even less time than that."
He looks at me, a slow smile
crossing his face. "I trained you
well, son." Then the smile
dies. "Too well." Something flickers in his eyes. Something dangerous.
I reach for my weapon. I am not sure I can take him hand to hand,
even now that he is slightly gray with whatever disease is killing him.
But he doesn't even tense,
just lifts his hand and waves me away as if I have displeased him. "Go," he says in the old tone of
master to pupil.
It is instinct that makes me
turn. It is the habit of doing what my
old teacher says. And the old desire to
please him. I turn back to look at
him. "You taught me to believe in a
better world."
"I know. But...believe in something else."
"I can't." At the sadness in his eyes, I ask, "What
else is there?"
And he seems about to say but
is taken by a fit of coughing. By the
time he finishes, the urge to share seems to have gone.
I turn on my heel and leave.
"Will you do it
yourself?" he shouts after me.
"Will it be you who kills me?"
I think he wants the answer
to be yes. I think he wants to be put
down by the only man who could take his place.
I will not give him that.
I give him nothing, not even
goodbye, as I walk away. Just as he did
to me.
My shuttle takes me up
quickly. I am onboard the fleet ship in
no time. There is a smaller ship
waiting, heavily armed, with a crew who will shoot anything or anyone on
command. There are other such ships
waiting at the edge of atmo of any world that has
ever given the crew of Serenity safe harbor.
"Do it," I say.
The captain looks at me in
horror. There are women and children
below. Innocents.
"I can't," he says.
I wait. Can't is not a choice. Can't can change.
"I won't," he says,
crossing his arms behind him.
I shoot him where he stands, then
turn to the first officer, giving him an instant promotion. "Captain?"
He stares at me for a moment,
then nods to the communications officer.
"Give the command."
"Begin strafing
run," the young officer says, her voice trembling as the other ship slips
into Haven's atmo.
"How can we do
this?" the newly minted captain mutters, probably thinking I cannot hear
him.
"Because we believe in a
better world," I say, meeting his eyes with what I know is blinding faith
in the future.
I see only horror in his.
But I don't do this for him;
I do this for his children. They will
never have to look at me that way. They
will never have to look at me, at all.
For now, there are
monsters. But someday—maybe someday soon—there
will be only Paradise.
##
I watch as Reynolds works on
his ship. The owner at the Persephone
shipyards has welcomed him and his crew.
Reynolds doesn't know that I have used my own wealth to make the man
throw open his arms so widely.
I do not think the good captain
would welcome my generosity.
I am hidden now. In the hold of a dead ship, on the outskirts
of the yard. I've been here the better
part of the day. Sitting quietly, sipping
my water, watching them work alongside the repair crew. I was here when they arrived, and I will not
leave until they are gone. They do not
know I watch. They will never know that
I am guarding them, although I think I will say goodbye to Reynolds. I don't need that kind of closure, but I
think he does. And once they leave here,
they will be on their own. But for now...for now, I will make sure they are not molested in any
way.
A touch on my arm makes me
whirl, dropping my water container, liquid splashing all over the deck.
The girl has snuck up on
me. No one ever sneaks up on me.
She smiles. "Sorry." Crouching down, she picks up the container,
saving a small bit of water for me. She puts
the lid on, sets it to the side, then moves away from the water as it slides
down the canted floor of the ship.
"Nice place you have here."
She sounds so much like my
old teacher I can't help but smile. But
then, she probably knows that she is channeling him, may be doing it on purpose
to see how I will react.
I choose to not react, to
change the subject. "You killed all
those Reavers—all by yourself."
It is still astonishing to
me. It's one thing to be a living
weapon. It's another thing to be a
destroyer. I have the image from the vid
recorders in one of my soldier's visor.
River Tam—the little girl—standing in the light from the guns of a score
of Alliance soldiers all ready to kill her.
The way she looked at them. The
way the blood of the Reavers dripped off her axe.
She was magnificent.
"They would have killed
us, so I killed them." She looks at
me, as if it is very simple. Which,
truthfully, it is. She has the right of
it.
"I am not judging
you. Merely impressed."
She knows this, though. She can read me, surely?
But she does not seem
interested in reading me. Seems trapped
in her own mind. "The
triggers. Can they do that to me
again?"
I shrug. I have not collected those kinds of secrets
on her. I have only killed to protect
them. But I can give her some small
gift. "I was only told the
one. Perhaps it is all there is."
"Perhaps." She does not sound like a seventeen-year-old
girl.
We sit in silence. For a very long time. There is the sound of the water, dripping
from the deck onto another piece of metal below. The blood on her axe would have sounded the
same way if it had not been dripping onto soft bodies. The blood from Jubal's knife when he cut up
the woman who'd taken a fancy to him in that pleasure house had sounded this
way, too. When I'd had to take the knife
from his hand, ordering him back to the shuttle.
"Jubal is
dead." Her voice holds no remorse.
I do not have to wonder how
she knows who I am thinking of. She is
psychic. She is gathering the tangled
bits of her mind and putting them all back together, and weaving in the new
skills. It is extraordinary that she can
do this. She is extraordinary.
"Are you sure he's
dead?" I ask. Jubal is not easy to
kill. Many have tried, although I never
have. If I had, he would be dead.
"We cast him adrift in
his suit into the black. He had limited
air."
"He might be alive,
then."
She meets my eyes, and I see
understanding in hers. She can tell that
I wish that Jubal is dead and also that I hope he might still be living. I should have killed him long ago; I could
not do it. I loved him as a brother—some
part of me had always wondered if he was my bro—
"He's not your
brother," she says.
I turn to her, and I know
that I am not controlling my expression very well.
"It's what you've feared
all your life. That he was your
brother."
She is not wrong. He came to us the same way I came to the
Center. In my teacher's arms, only
older. He had a name. I'd always been jealous of that name.
"He was not Book's
son." She touches my arm.
I nod in relief.
"You're not Book's son,
either." She sighs. "But he loved you like one."
I close my eyes. When he used to call me that, then, it wasn't
manipulation; it was true.
"The Book I knew,"
I tell her, "you never did."
"At the end I did. When he was dying. I got a lot of images. I didn't understand them, then. But now...now, I think I do." She reaches over, takes my hand in hers.
Killer to killer.
"He was what you
are. You are what he was, when he
left." Her hand tightens on
mine. "He regretted leaving you
that way. Remorse was heavy in the
things I picked up."
"I was a killer."
"You say it like it's a
bad thing." Her voice shakes and
she lets go of my hand.
And suddenly I can imagine
the pain of this child. Knowing she can
fight anything, including a man like me, probably. But never knowing if that skill will be
activated against her will. I take her
hand, squeeze it until she stops shaking.
"If I ever find anyone else like you, I will bring them to
you."
"Yes," she says as
she pulls free of my hand.
Then she is crying, and I let
her cry. I do not try to soothe her, do
not touch her or hold her or seek to offer warmth. I do not tell her it will be all right
because I don't know if it will be.
Finally, she stops, and wipes her eyes.
Then, to my surprise, she
leans in and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
"I loved him. And you killed
him. But you didn't kill me. I don't know if I should kill you or
not."
I shake my head and shrug
just enough to show her that I am no one to offer guidance in this case.
Taking a deep breath, she
reaches into the pocket of her sweater and pulls out a small book. "This was his."
I do not take the bible. "It is not what I believe in."
"It's not what he
believed in, either," she says, pushing it into my hands. "But it's a start. If you don't want it, take it to Haven. Bury it next to him."
"I believed in a better
world," I whisper as I clutch the book to me.
"You still can. This time make it a world you can be a part
of." She turns, as if she can hear
something. "Mal's
looking for me. I have to go." She smiles at me, but there is so much pain
in her smile that it makes my breath catch.
This little girl should have
been one of the ones I've been fighting for.
She should never have been a victim.
I think about Jubal. Floating somewhere. Dead perhaps.
But maybe not. Maybe he found a
ship passing by. God help anyone who
found him once this child had bested him.
Finding Jubal will be my
first task. Either to collect his body
and bury it. Or to find Jubal still
alive, kill him, and then bury his body.
It is time to put an end to monsters.
She looks down. As if she thinks I am including her in that
indictment.
I rest my hand on her
shoulder. "River Tam, you are not a
monster. I know, because I am one."
"Takes one to know
one?" It is the rebuttal of a child—the
child we never allowed her to be.
"Yes. It takes one to know one."
FIN