“She’s just confessed. Sung like her namesake. Haven’t you, Meadowlark?”
“And I am going to kill Simon,” Meadowlark said, “but I want you to promise me something, Annie. That I don’t get in trouble with you guys for it. I’ve helped you out, haven’t I? If not for me, you wouldn’t have gotten into this cave and you wouldn’t be taking Dr. Weng back to Mr. O’Bannon. I figure I’m owed a favor.”
“Said favor bein’ that boy’s death.”
“And no comebacks, for this or anything else, when we all return to Hellfreeze.”
Annie gave a phlegmatic little shrug. “Don’t bother me none. I figure we can make you an honorary Regulator in this one instance. Meanin’ you get a free pass. The boy’s yours to do with as you please.”
The leader of the Regulators rubbed her palms briskly together.
“So then,” she said. “I see you have a neat little homemade knife, Zoë. And you’ve got one as well—Mal, is that your name? Along with Pops’s crowbar. I’d advise you to lay ’em all down on the floor, nice and slow. You know what’s comin’. It’s comin’ for both of you, and also for that big fella lyin’ asleep on the floor.” She jerked a thumb at Jayne. “No more resistin’. Make it easy on yourselves.”
“That is just not going to happen,” Zoë said, firming her grip on her shiv.
“’Less it does, Simon there is going to suffer the consequences, courtesy of honorary Regulator Meadowlark.”
“He’s going to die, we’re all going to die, if you people have your way. Don’t know about you, but I prefer to go down fighting.”
“Spoken like a true Dust Devil,” said Annie. “Never say die. Until, y’know, you actually die.”
Zoë and Mal exchanged glances.
“Serenity Valley,” she said to him. “Sir.”
Mal acknowledged the remark with a half-grin. “That’s the spirit, corporal.”
Both of them went into fighting stances.
Then, abruptly, Simon said, “Disappearances.”
70
“What’s that?” said Ornery Annie.
Simon could hear how strained his own voice sounded, how quavery from the pain. He fought to keep it under control. He was taking a hell of a gamble here, and at stake was his life.
Yet if he could give Mal and Zoë an opening, an opportunity…
“Meadowlark,” he said. “She’s been lying to you, Annie. She’s killed since she came to Atata.”
“No,” Meadowlark said. “No, I haven’t.”
“Zoë said you told her there had been a couple of disappearances at Hellfreeze. People leaving unexpectedly.”
“Sure there have.”
“They never left,” Simon said.
“Simon…” said Meadowlark. A warning.
Simon talked fast. “They never left because Meadowlark killed them. And I know where she did it, too. The same place she stashed the bodies. She’s got this little lair. A crawlspace behind the dryers in the laundry.”
“Simon.” Now Meadowlark waved the can opener in front of his face. “Remember this? You hush up, y’hear.”
“Go on, Meadowlark. Kill me before I can say any more. It’ll only prove I’m right.”
“I will. I will do it, Simon, I swear to God.”
“That crawlspace—there’s a very bad smell in there, Annie. I’m a doctor. I know the smell of rotting flesh. I should have recognized it at the time. Somewhere deeper into the crawlspace, I expect you’ll find some very decayed corpses.”
“That’s it,” Meadowlark said. “You’re dead.”
The can opener was back touching Simon’s neck. Simon braced himself.
“No!” Annie barked.
Meadowlark froze.
“Let him finish, Meadowlark.”
“He’s talking horseshit, Annie. You know it. You know I’d never do something like that. I’d be crazy to. If anyone found out, Mr. O’Bannon would—”
“Would order us to kill you, without even thinkin’ twice about it. Look me in the eye, girl. Tell me it’s not true.”
“Of course it’s not true,” Meadowlark said. “Simon’s a liar. You can’t believe a single word that comes out of his mouth.”
Simon himself had been far from sure of his theory about Meadowlark, but from the way she was protesting, the tremor of desperation in her voice, he was beginning to think he was right on the money.
“Two more murders, carried out by Meadowlark on Atata,” he said to Ornery Annie. “The victims must have disappointed her in some way. Didn’t meet her criteria for honesty. Shouldn’t have thought people like that would be too hard to find in a prison.”
“No,” Meadowlark insisted. “Don’t listen to him. He’d say anything right now to save his own skin.”
“She’s broken the Hellfreeze rules,” Simon said. “Twice. Are you going to let her get away with it?”
“Meadowlark,” Annie said. “As I recall rightly, both the inmates who we thought left Hellfreeze left in the past few months. Since, in fact, you came.”
“So?” said Meadowlark. “Coincidence.”
“What were they on Atata for?” Simon asked Annie.
“One of ’em was a port authority official caught taking bribes from people traffickers. Can’t remember what the other did.”
“College lecturer,” said Otis. “Had a sideline selling hard drugs to his students.”
“Just the type Meadowlark hates,” said Simon. “They betrayed public trust. Deceivers in high places.”
He could see Annie weighing things up in her head. In one pan of the scales: it seemed very possible that Meadowlark had violated the code that everyone lived by at CU #23 and which Annie herself helped to enforce. In the other pan: Meadowlark had provided the Regulators with valuable assistance at the cave, and Annie had promised her an amnesty, of sorts.
What this meant, apart from anything else, was that Annie’s guard was down. Her focus was on Meadowlark. So, to a lesser extent, was the focus of each of the other Regulators.
Simon had done his bit. Now it was all down to Mal and Zoë.
And Mal and Zoë obliged.
71
The two of them moved as one, with an instinctive synchrony, like the experienced combat veterans they were.
Mal lashed out at the Regulator nearest him, the one with the widow’s peak and ponytail. He cracked the crowbar across the man’s kneecap, shattering it. The Regulator collapsed with a howl of sheer, unbridled agony.
At the same time Zoë’s shiv flashed through the air, in, out, and the old-timer Regulator gasped. Clutching his ribs, he slumped against the cave wall. His legs buckled and he slid down the wall, breathing wetly and wheezily, blood frothing at his lips. A lung had been punctured. Already his eyes were dimming.
All of this took no more than three seconds.
Ornery Annie spun on her heel. As she realized what was happening, her face fell, becoming a mask of dismay.
Zoë moved towards another of the Regulators at speed, shiv to the fore. This was Cleavon, with the rounded, babyish features and the somewhat dim expression, not to mention the pair of rough-looking steel teeth replacing his top two incisors.
Mal, meanwhile, was turning on the largest of the Regulators, Otis, the one with the missing ear. He swung the crowbar.
Otis batted the crowbar aside with one hand, aiming a punch with the other. Mal ducked under the blow, and his shiv darted upwards in a low thrust, piercing Otis’s inner thigh. Otis reared back violently, which tugged the shiv out of Mal’s grasp.
The big Regulator looked down at the sliver of flattened steel protruding from his thigh. He seemed to think that he had just been handed a tremendous gift. He yanked the shiv free.
This was a mistake.
A fatal one.
Blood started gushing from his leg, vast quantities of it.
Otis clearly understood he had been badly injured but perhaps not how badly. His femoral artery had been sliced open, and the blood was pumping out unc
hecked. His remaining lifespan could be measured in minutes.
Regardless, he came at Mal with the bloodied shiv. Mal clouted his hand with the crowbar, forcing him to drop the blade. Otis returned the favor by whacking Mal’s wrist so hard with one fist that Mal lost all feeling in his fingers. The crowbar fell to the cave floor with a clang.
Now both men were weaponless. That did not deter Otis, though. He grabbed Mal around the neck with both hands and started strangling him.
Mal tried to punch him. Otis’s reach, however, was so much greater than Mal’s that he was able to keep out of range of the blows. As he tightened his grip on Mal’s neck, crushing his windpipe, Mal turned his efforts to prizing Otis’s hands away.
The Regulator, as if to demonstrate just how strong he was, hoisted Mal bodily off the floor. Mal’s legs dangled in the air. He thumped and clawed at Otis’s ham-sized hands in vain. His legs pedaled and his face turned puce as he fought for breath.
Zoë and Cleavon clashed. She feinted at him once, twice, three times with the shiv. His response was to say, “I thought you wuz a nice lady,” sounding tragically disappointed.
“I am, Cleavon,” Zoë replied, “unless my back’s against the wall. Then I’m the meanest sonofabitch you ever met.”
The Regulator made a grab for the shiv. The two of them grappled, hand to hand, shoving each other to and fro, wrestling for control of the blade.
As for Simon, Meadowlark’s grip on his arm slackened, only a little but enough to tell him that she was taken aback by the sudden reversal of the Regulators’ fortunes. He exploited her distractedness by kicking backwards at her with one heel, catching her hard on the shin. Meadowlark reeled away from him, bumping into the supine form of Jayne and almost falling over.
Regaining her balance, she threw herself at Simon with a shrill cry of anguish and defiance.
Only to stop before she could reach him.
She looked down.
A hand had grasped her ankle, halting her.
The hand belonged to Jayne, whose eyes were now wide open.
Yanking hard, Jayne flipped Meadowlark face first onto the floor. Then, before she could get up, he crawled onto her, planting a knee in the small of her back and bearing down. Meadowlark snarled and writhed, flailing backwards at Jayne with the can opener, but Jayne just raised his good arm and started whaling on her. After a half-dozen blows, she was unconscious. Jayne then sagged back down onto his butt.
Simon nodded thanks to him.
Jayne returned the nod blearily.
Ornery Annie made towards Zoë with quick, purposeful steps. She seemed to have decided that out of the two other Regulators still in the fight, Cleavon needed help more than Otis.
That was when Dr. Weng got involved.
To his cost.
72
Dr. Weng snatched up one of his spears and leapt at Annie, clearly intending to impale her before she got to Zoë.
Annie reacted with reflexive speed. Her own shiv was already out, and there was a foe suddenly coming at her from one side, brandishing a spear. She didn’t pause to check who it was. She deflected the spear with her forearm, at the same time swinging the blade around in an arc, backhand, and slashing Weng’s belly open.
Weng staggered away, dropping the spear.
Annie looked aghast at what she had done.
“No,” she breathed. “I didn’t… I shouldn’t have…”
Weng’s face, as he crumpled to the floor, had a distraught, almost plaintive expression.
Simon dashed over to him. He examined the wound. He kept his face professionally dispassionate even as he surveyed the long, jagged gash and the section of Weng’s lower intestine bulging out through it.
Ornery Annie leaned over him. “Is he…?” she began.
“I’ve got this,” Simon said. “I’m a doctor.”
“So you can fix him, right?”
“I can do my best.”
“Do it. Save him. You gotta.” Annie turned away and moved off.
Simon’s gaze met Weng’s. Weng was breathing hard, irregularly. His complexion was turning pale. In his eyes there was a look of sad knowledge.
Simon stripped off his parka and began rolling it up.
Weng laid a hand on his arm. “No. There’s no point.”
“But I can use this to apply pressure to the wound and staunch the bleeding.”
“And then what?” Weng gasped. “I’m perfectly well aware… what’s been done to me. There’s no coming back… from this. Unless, that is, you… happen to have a full trauma unit… on standby.”
“I could attempt battlefield suturing. That ought to hold it until we can get you aboard our ship.”
“Doctor, really, we both know it’s futile. Funny, isn’t it? To think that I survived this long… got this close to freedom… only to fall at the last hurdle. And by funny… I mean terrible.”
“Please, Dr. Weng, let me try something.”
“No, Dr. Tam. Listen to me. This… is what you’re going to do. There is a hypodermic syringe… in the first aid kit. Draw a… sample of my blood. Cryo-freeze it… as soon as you can. However little you take… there are bound to be… AIMs in it. You can use them… on your friend. The dying one.”
“What? But I have no idea how to program the viruses.”
Weng’s breathing was slowing. His life was ebbing fast.
“You seem… a very intelligent young man,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll… figure it out.”
Simon wavered.
“Go on,” Weng insisted with what little vigor that remained to him. “Hurry.”
Simon scrambled over to the first aid kit. He returned with the hypodermic.
Weng gave a calm, contented nod of the head. “I was hoping… to cure everyone. But if I can cure… just one person… that’ll have to be good enough.”
Simon slid the needle into the median cubital vein in the crook of Weng’s elbow and siphoned off thirty milliliters of blood.
As he extracted the needle, he looked up at Weng’s face. The oncologist’s mouth hung slack. His eyes had a fixed, faraway stare.
Simon reached out and gently closed Esau Weng’s eyelids with thumb and forefinger.
73
Annie had never felt ornerier.
Everything had turned to gŏu shĭ. Dr. Weng was hurt bad, and it was pretty much all her fault, and unless the young doctor guy had magic powers, she was fairly certain Weng was a goner.
This was on top of the fact that only two of her fellow Regulators were still in the fight, and neither of them for much longer. Otis was bleeding out from his leg wound. So much of the stuff was coming out, in fact, that it was amazing he was still standing. He was throttling Mal, but it was like some kind of grim race. Which of them would die first, Mal from asphyxiation or Otis from blood loss?
Even as Annie watched, Otis’s grip on Mal’s throat loosened. Mal slid from his grasp, tumbling to the cave floor, coughing and wheezing. Otis himself sank down too, his knees landing in the large, spreading pool of his own blood. He swayed for a moment, then toppled backwards. His body convulsed, twitched, lay still.
As for Cleavon, Zoë had got the better of him. She was behind him, with her arms locked around his neck. She still had her shiv in her hand, but instead of using it on him, she was forcing him into submission with a chokehold. Cleavon’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, showing white. His limbs went limp. Zoë let go of him and he fell face down into the dirt.
Zoë could have killed Cleavon but had opted for rendering him insensible. Annie could only assume she had shown leniency because Cleavon was such a simple soul.
Nevertheless, Annie saw red.
Head down, blade out, she charged at Zoë.
Zoë saw her coming and, in the nick of time, dived out of her way.
Annie spun round and lunged again. This time Zoë wasn’t able to evade. All she could do was block the swing of Annie’s knife arm. Annie rammed into her like a linebacker sacking a quarterback.
Both women crashed to the ground and, tangled together, went rolling out through the cavemouth into the snow.
Outside the cave they fought tooth and nail, trading kicks, punches and headbutts with an almost animal ferocity. At some point Annie realized she had lost her shiv and Zoë had lost hers. They must have both dropped them when she had tackled Zoë. This bothered Annie less than it might have. Battling Zoë barehanded seemed somehow more satisfying and more appropriate. Annie wanted to rip her apart. Zoë was largely to blame for this whole disaster, she felt, and a quick, clean death by knife blade was too good for her. Annie was out for payback, and Zoë needed to suffer.
But the former Browncoat and Dust Devil was no pushover. For every solid body blow Annie landed, Zoë landed one back. She knew how to take a hit, too. She was as skilled and as resilient a brawler as ever Annie had come across, and rapidly the fight became a war of attrition. It wasn’t about who could deliver the decisive, knockout punch, it was about which of them could last longer, could soak up more punishment, had the greater stamina and endurance.
Soon both women were covered in snow and blood, and both were heaving for breath. They fought on, and gradually Annie felt she was gaining the upper hand. Zoë was tiring faster than she was. A little bit more pummeling, and she would surely be left too weak to resist anymore. Then Annie would continue beating her until there was no life left in her, and she would feel not one ounce of remorse as she did so.
All at once: a roar like thunder, and a blaze of light filled Annie’s vision, so bright it was as though she was staring into a miniature sun.
The trees nearby thrashed. Snow whipped in all directions.
A voice resounded from on high.
“We have you targeted. Step away from Zoë or we’ll blast you to smithereens.”
Annie squinted against the light, half shading her eyes with one hand.
“I repeat,” said the voice, female, commanding, “step away from Zoë. You have three seconds to comply.”
Annie grunted in fury and chagrin. There was some kind of ship hovering above, the downdraught from its thrusters creating a localized cyclone. Its searchlight glared down on the scene like the eye of some vengeful god, and the voice that boomed from its external loudspeaker brooked no compromise.
Firefly--Life Signs Page 27