The Missing Chapters (2) - Firefly
Nov. 7th, 2006 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jebbypalThe Missing Chapters - 2/4
author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jebbypal
Rated: Teen -- some swearing.
Characters: Simon, crew, OCs.
Summary: Everyone's curious, but Kaylee finally asks. Exactly how did Simon rescue River?
written forles342
Previously
Mal’s talking to Zoe about options for their first job as they lock down the ship for the night. Zoe catches his arm before he stumbles over Jayne’s stretched out feet. Jayne, who’s sitting in the middle of the corridor that leads to the galley.
“What in the gorram hell are you doing?” Mal demands.
“Stop making such a ruckus. They’ll hear,” Jayne growls.
Mal looks at Zoe. She shrugs. Just as he’s about to ask if Jayne is going space-crazy without even being in space, they hear a voice. “That bitch. I can’t believe she did that.”
“Was that Kaylee? Who’s she talking about?” Mal asks.
“An old girlfriend of Simon’s,” Jayne answers. “If you can believe anyone would wanna date his pansy ass.”
“So you’re eavesdropping,” Zoe observes.
“Amazing what you can hear when the ship’s powered down,” Jayne says with a sly grin on his face. Mal tries not to think about the kinds of things Kaylee’s been up to that Jayne’s been listening in on. Then again, better Jayne listen to Kaylee than be a participant. Still, Mal gets ready to pound on Jayne some for his remark when the other man signals for quiet. “Oh, this ought to be good. Simon’s saying how he went to a bar to drown his sorrows after his gal threw him out.”
“Scoot over. This I gotta hear,” Zoe says as she drops to the floor.
Mal tries to remember exactly when he decided it would be good to have a crew. Shaking his head, he follows Zoe to the floor. Might as well listen – it is the first thing in weeks that Zoe’s been interested in.
Simon’s on his third scotch by the time Omar shows up. “Well, at least it’s not sake,” Omar remarks with a wry smile as he sits down at the bar next to Simon.
“What are you doing here?”
Omar gulps down the shot that the bartender sets in front of him and then plays with his glass. “Meg called. She didn’t think you should be alone.”
“She throws me out of our apartment, but doesn’t think it’s safe for me to be left alone. Great, just great.”
“No one should be left alone to sulk about a broken relationship. That only ends with embarrassing drunken apologies over the cortex or very bad rebounds.”
“I’m fine. You can go about your business with a free conscience.” Simon says as he gives an unsteady wave of dismissal that is reflected in the mirror behind the bartender. He doesn’t know whether to be angry that Meg is managing to butt into his life even now, or hopeful that this means he wasn’t completely wrong at her. That doesn’t matter. River first, and maybe afterward there will be a way to salvage everything else. Resolved, Simon downs his scotch in one gulp and signals for the bartender to set up another round.
“Come on, Simon, don’t be like that. Just because it isn’t working out between you two, doesn’t mean she hates you. Though I never did figure how you ended up with her in the first place.”
Simon sees Omar sign to the bartender to water their drinks. It won’t make much of a difference with the head start he’s had. “Probably because I hadn’t been arrested by her brother when she met me.” It's never easy knowing your best friend always wanted your girl, but Simon had been happy enough to beat Omar just once at something.
“Ah, but you were bailing out the bloke her brother arrested.”
Simon remembers well. They both arrived at the front desk at the same time - Meg was asking to have her brother paged and he was asking after Omar's bail. I'm such a sucker for knights in shining armor, she'd said.
“What did she say other than asking you to prevent any more naked singing events?” Simon asks.
“About the fight? Nothing really.” Simon rolls his eyes at Omar's predictability and asks for another round of shots. “Okay, okay, just don’t give yourself alcohol poisoning.” Omar pinches his nose, a tell that Simon is familiar with from their Tall Card days in college. “She said you’ve been obsessing about River.”
Simon lets loose with every Mandarin curse he knows. “It was a bit more than that. She went to my parents.”
“What?” Simon enjoys Omar's look of disbelief. No doubt, Omar had been preparing to tell him to formulate the biggest apology known in the history of man and go back crawling on his knees before the best thing that ever happened to him got away.
It already did. What if I never get River back?
“She went and told my parents that I was cracking up over River. That perhaps they’d be able to get through where she hadn’t.”
“Oh…” This time it's Omar who signals for more drinks. “Leave the bottle.”
Simon continues to explain when the bartender leaves. “I found out when I tried to get them to look at River’s letters. I didn’t figure out the message until after I left, but I doubt it would have made a difference.”
“Message?”
“Nothing, forget I said anything. No need to have a fourth person tell me I’m insane today.”
Omar grabs Simon’s arm and stops him from pouring another drink. “Simon, I knew you were insane in undergrad. Nothing is going to change that. But if you think River’s sent you a message, I’d be the last one to say that you were wrong. Tell me.”
“You won’t believe me. Or worse, you will and I’ll be right and you’ll be forced to report it all to your bosses. Then I’ll disappear and River will still be-“ Simon downs his drink before finishing.
Omar scoffs. “Either you’ve already pickled your brain or the sake last month rendered you deficient. Yeah, I’m working on the climate control sats, but that’s so the people forced to emigrate don’t die when they’re dropped. Remember which of us protested for the release of the Browncoat veterans.” Omar empties the last of the bottle into his glass. “I like your brat sister more than you most of the time even if she does make me feel like Newton talking about gravity to Einstein. Now I’m going to order us some coffee and you’re going to tell me what this message was.”
When Simon left his apartment, he’d immediately started perusing the letters even as his conversation with Meg echoed in his mind. It hadn’t taken long before he found the missing pieces of the code in River’s letters to his parents.
Then he started trying to figure out what he could do about it. All alone. He’s not particularly charismatic or savvy about the seamy underside of the city. His parents think that he’s losing it and Meg’s jealous of his sister.
The next thing he knew, he was at the bar.
“It was a code. It took all the letters to figure it out. Who knows how many she sent earlier that got pulled by censors or something.”
“Simon, the message. What did it say?” Omar's rubbing his left eyebrow. In cards, it would mean that Simon was about to win all of Omar's weekly stipend and his friend would be spending the next week groveling to his own parents for money to make rent. Now, it's touching and eases Simon's burden a little bit.
He's not alone anymore.
“It was just six words. They’re hurting us. Get me out..”
“Fuck.”
That sobers Simon up quick. Omar never curses, not in any language. “What?”
“I’d heard rumors. I didn’t... I couldn’t believe them.”
Shouting, Simon pushes Omar. “Rumors, and you didn’t say anything –“
“Be quiet!” Omar’s tone cuts off Simon’s diatribe. He grabs the empty bottle of scotch and pulls Simon to a more secluded table. “If you know where to listen, you always hear rumors. Conspiracy theories are popular and pretty much impossible to prove.”
“They – Meg says it’s just another one of her games. That I’m overreacting.”
“Maybe. Do you want to risk that?”
Simon grabs the table for support. The world had just shifted and the alcohol makes it hard to find his balance. “She’s my sister,” he says as he fights back tears.
“Of course she is. And if she’s in trouble, we’ll find a way to get her back.”
“How?”
Omar scratches at the table with his fingers. He always draws fractal patterns when he's working out a particularly challenging problem. “I know some people from my protest days that know … well, some shady blokes. It’ll be risky; moreover, it’ll be expensive, but we should be able to get some information. Then we’ll figure out what to do.
“In the meantime, you need to stop making people question your sanity for a little bit. Go to work. Play at being broken hearted over Meg. Be civil with your parents.”
“There’s no time,” Simon says as he stands.
Omar forces him to sit back down and the pain of his grip on Simon’s shoulder pierces through the alcohol fog that continues to pulse in waves across his brain. “This isn’t the type of thing that you study for a couple of days and do the surgery, Simon. It’s going to take time to find and gain the trust of people who might know what’s going on, let alone figure how to get River out. You have to be steady. Like it’s the longest and most important surgery of your life.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now let’s hit another bar and then you can crash on my couch till Meg gets her own place.”
Kaylee pulls away and sits up causing Simon to pause in. “Hitting another bar, that was his solution?”
“There wasn’t anything else to be done that night,” Simon explains. “As I was already drunk, it sounded like a fine plan.
“And did you ever explain anything at all to Meg?” Kaylee asks. It just seems wrong to her that Simon would just abandon the relationship. Granted, the girl had gone behind Simon’s back to his parents. But she had good intentions. It makes Kaylee wonder how different she’d have acted in Meg’s place.
“Tired of being second best at everything. It’s not a position that agrees with most people,” River explained from her seat on the floor.
Kaylee is momentarily confused until she glances back at Simon to see his eyes closed and arms crossed. Kaylee can understand Meg’s jealousy of the closeness the Tam siblings share more than she can the way that Simon simply turned his back on his ex-girlfriend. “But you didn’t even give her a chance!” Kaylee protests.
Simon shrugs and then hurries to rearrange the sheets when they start to fall off of him and to the floor. His modesty causes Kaylee to check the status of her own covering, but she can’t help but join in River’s giggles at Simon’s discomfort. “Would it have really been fair to tell her the truth? Would it have been worth the risk? As it was, I nearly worked myself to death keeping up the appearance of a fine, young rich kid on the rebound while maintaining my position in the hospital. Everything depended on me being above reproach while Omar did his best to get any of his contacts to meet one of us about River and the Academy. Not to mention the magic acts I had to perform to appear to live the high life while squirreling away as much cash as possible in my apartment.”
“Sounds lonely,” Kaylee says as she reluctantly lets Simon pull her back to his side. “It still doesn’t excuse how you treated her.”
“Whose side are you on here?” Simon asks dryly. “You’re right though, it was. I was constantly reminding myself that it would all be worth it if it meant that that day was the one that lead me closer to helping River. And then doing my best to ignore the disappointment when I went to bed each night with no progress.”
Kaylee’s own jealousy burns in her chest until she glances over at River and sees the sorrow from Simon’s voice echoed in his sister’s face. “How long?” Kaylee asks.
Simon shakes his head. “Honestly, I don’t really remember anymore. Every day felt like an eternity, but it was probably more like seven or eight months.”
Simon's exhausted when he walks out of surgery. He’s been on call for the last seventy two hours and all he wants right now is to shower and sleep for three days. Not necessarily in that order. A nurse stops him before reaches the locker room and gives him a message card that he pockets. He remembers to smile and flirt with the pretty blonde - Omar wants him to take a date when they go out this week. It will cut into the cash he saves, but is a necessary evil.
Simon collapses on the bench in front of his locker and leans his head against the cold metal. Sleep beckons, but he should change. The message card falls out of his scrub pocket when he takes off his shirt. He almost tosses it into the locker to worry about later, but decides to go ahead and pop it in his pocket source box. He hasn't seen Gabriel or Regan for over two months, it’s probably just an invitation (demand) to attend a family dinner later in the week.
Instead of a recorded vid message, letters flash on the screen after the card loads. It takes a few seconds to read the screen with sleep deprived eyes. A short message, but no signature - Omar most likely. Fifth and Shanghai , third table from the back. 18:30.
Odd. Omar knew Simon would be on service till eighteen hundred. It'll be almost impossible for him to reach the bar in time. Simon glances longingly at the showers before pulling a dress shirt on. He doesn’t bother to waste time removing his scrub bottoms. He can't be late, just in case.
The tube ride to Fifth Street is broken by bouts of microsleep. Fortunately, Simon isn't carrying any money right now; otherwise, he'd be a perfect target for muggers. Looking down at himself, he realizes that they'll probably ignore him since he's wearing a dress shirt and vest with blue hospital scrub pants. Omar will get a laugh out of this.
Shanghai and Fifth Street, The Drunken Swan. He lost his favorite pair of cufflinks here in a Tall Card game once during college. He finds the designated table empty so he sits down and orders the one drink minimum. He's too tired to wonder what he'll do if Omar doesn't show up since he doesn't even have his ident on him to pay out of his main accounts.
Half a drink later, Omar arrives, breathless and still in his civil service uniform. He fails to bat an eye at Simon's outfit. "I'll pay for your drink - you need to get to Exeter and Half in a quarter of an hour. Go through a red door and someone else will give you instructions."
"What are you talking about? That's in the Blackout Zone."
“Yeah, and in that get-up, you'll fit right in. Wait, you came from work. Do you have any money? I don't know if what I have will be enough. Hopefully they'll believe there’s more where this came from." A wad of bills and a pill case move across the table before Simon can properly process Omar's meaning.
"A meet? Finally? Who? What?"
"I don't know. All my contacts are as skittish about my current job as you were at the beginning. This may just be a dead end or it may be the first tag of a long night of meetings. Be careful and avoid the Feds, will ya?"
Simon pockets the money and tries to think of everything he needs to know. Omar pulls him out of his chair and leads him to the door. "No time for me to coach you again. You know what to do and if you don't leave now, you won't make it on time. Good luck."
With that, Simon begins walking down the street towards the Blackout Zone. Omar had anticipated that eventually Simon would need to go into one of the city's dark areas alone and had been coaching him on where the entrances were and what to do when he got inside. Still, it was no easy feat to avoid patrols, camera sentries, and find the hidden entrances. Simon had never gotten to do a cold run because it was too risky to attract attention by being bound by law for any infraction.
Pulling an iodine supplement from Omar’s pill case, Simon thanks the Browncoat terrorist for only setting off a dirty bomb with the EMP devices during the war. Granted, was vast acres of land where to this day the Security drones are inoperable and the background radiation is high enough to discourage human settlement. But at least medicine could protect one from Osirus’s Blackout Zone: the oldest ones on Londinium and Athens were caused by terraforming accidents and a visit means contracting nasty, chronic (and deadly in the case of Athens) illnesses.
The closest “official” entrance displays the normal yellow caution and no entrance signs in English, Mandarin, and several other tongues that are still spoken with regularity on Osirus. Armed Feds look out over the rest of the city in boredom. Few people ever have need to get official permission for the Blackout Zone and those without avoid these entrances.
It takes ten minutes for Simon to locate the nearest hidden entrance to the Zone. A series of knocks results in a small grubby paw being stuck out a hole in the border fence. Simon places a few coins in the small hand and it withdraws. Seconds later it sticks out again and Simon adds more of the small amount of cash Omar had given him earlier.
This time, the payment is deemed sufficient and Simon hears the sound of movement behind the wall before a hole crumbles open in the ground next to him. Simon grimaces. He’d forgotten that some of the entrances are little more than well camouflaged holes under the fence. So much for a clean shirt and vest.
By the time he reaches the other side, Simon’s attire fits in well with that of the Blackout Zone’s residents. It takes a few minutes for Simon’s eyes to adjust from the well lit environs of Capitol City to the torch light of the Zone. When it does, he sees that he lucked out and entered the Zone near the corner of Exeter and First. He only has a block to travel before reaching Half. He spots the red door of the designated meeting place easily.
Only as he’s opening it does he wonder how his contacts will know him. Omar said that someone would give him instructions, nothing more. Fortunately he doesn’t have long to worry before a purple haired waitress walks up to him. She starts to speak - actually looking at her expression, Simon thinks she’s fixing to yell – but stops herself when the bartender yells something at her in a language foreign to Simon. It sounds German. She shrugs and hands Simon a piece of paper.
Simon’s eyebrows go up upon reading the name of the next destination. Bilter’s Cave is a bar infamous for the many illicit activities that reportedly occur in its basement depths for clients with enough money. Everyone knows its location even if they’d never dream of entering the Zone to find out if any of the rumors are true. Allegedly even the Feds steer clear of it during raids for fear of catching a member of the ruling council in a compromising position.
Simon exits the bar the same way he came in only to find that the skies have opened up to release torrents of rain during his short time inside. Now he’s covered in mud that is mixing with the once dried blood of his hospital scrub pants. Desire for warmth adds even more speed to his steps as he hurries to make the meet.
Entering Bilter’s Cave, he finds it to be nothing like what he expected. Rumors made it out to be a place as sumptuous as the finest resorts on Ariel or Sihnon. Simon can only assume that the decorating budget was spent on secret lower levels because the main bar is…well, the term “bar” can only be used loosely in relation to the place that Simon enters. A few colored light bulbs dangle from bare wires at random places in the ceiling illuminating a room whose ambience would only improve with darkness. Scrap metal has been used to construct a rough serving bar with random crates stacked for chairs and tables. Simon would be hard pressed to tell whether the bartender or the filthy glasses contributed more grit to the drink he now holds.
He goes and stands at an empty “table”. He’s glad that his attire is already ruined. He can only imagine how much extra dirt his clothes will pick up in this place. Thankful that all his inoculations are up to date even if he isn’t swallowing, he pretends to sip at his drink while studying the room. He still knows nothing about his contact, but his experience at the previous establishment leads him to believe that someone will recognize him. He tries not to let the question of how worry him too much.
After two hours of waiting, Simon is thirsty and wishing he’d brought his own water to drink. The alcohol should kill most things, but he’s not willing to risk his sight on the quality of the rotgut being served. He buys another drink when the bartender starts glaring at him though.
His watch shows that he only has another forty-five minutes before the guards change. Sunrise will occur shortly after and will strand him in the Blackout Zone if he stays longer than that.
“Looking for someone?” a deep voice asks.
Looking up, Simon does his best to project not-so-innocent bystander. Not for the first time, he thinks that Omar should be handling this part if rescuing River is actually going to work. “Just having a drink.” Simon replies.
“I don’t know, looks like you could use some friendly company,” the man says. “You should come with me.”
Simon tries not to blanch, he really does. Despite his looks and sometimes awkward manners with women, he doesn’t swing that way at all and he’s never gotten good at refusing the sly offers he attracts. And the last thing he wants to do in the middle of a Blackout Zone is to piss off the heavily tattooed, steroid-muscled, six foot-four (if an inch) red haired giant in front of him. “Th..Thanks for the offer,” he stutters. “But I’m really not in the moo-mood for company.”
Laughter belts out of the red giant and causes all activity in the bar to stop for a minute. Simon hopes that they aren’t used to that sound signaling ‘roid-rage or something equally deadly.
“Doc, you’re damn funny. They said you would be,” the giant says. He leans on the table to bring his mouth close to Simon’s ear. “Now then, I think we have business that would be better handled in private, no?”
Simon flinches when the man’s tongue flicks out and licks his face. He resists the urge to wipe it off, nodding instead. If this isn’t the contact, he is so very screwed.
“Then come on, pretty boy, I ain’t got all night and I can think of much more fun ways to spend it than in this hole.”
River and Kaylee interrupt Simon’s tale with gales of laughter. “And with that, I think it’s way past time for sleep. I don’t want to give Mal another reason to be cross with me if you’re too tired to do anything,” he tells Kaylee.
“Spoilsport,” she says. A sound attracts both of their attention. “River, what’s wrong?”
“Empty, ship’s too empty. Ghosts hang in the corners.”
Mentally, Kaylee says goodbye to what she had planned for Simon after the story ended. River had actually been sleeping alone the past few nights, but Kaylee understands if Simon’s story might have dredged up bad memories for the teen, both new ones and old ones. She elbows Simon and gives him a quick nod.
“Go get your mattress, mei-mei, and we’ll have a sleepover,” he tells River.
“And you two get decent while I’m gone,” River orders.
“Brat,” Simon calls out, throwing a pillow at the door as River scampers out.
Kaylee laughs.
Simon leans over the bed and then sits up holding Kaylee’s shirt and underwear. “I believe these are yours.”
“My hero,” Kaylee says with a laugh right before she starts tickling him.
Part 3
author:
jebbypalRated: Teen -- some swearing.
Characters: Simon, crew, OCs.
Summary: Everyone's curious, but Kaylee finally asks. Exactly how did Simon rescue River?
written for
les342Previously
Mal’s talking to Zoe about options for their first job as they lock down the ship for the night. Zoe catches his arm before he stumbles over Jayne’s stretched out feet. Jayne, who’s sitting in the middle of the corridor that leads to the galley.
“What in the gorram hell are you doing?” Mal demands.
“Stop making such a ruckus. They’ll hear,” Jayne growls.
Mal looks at Zoe. She shrugs. Just as he’s about to ask if Jayne is going space-crazy without even being in space, they hear a voice. “That bitch. I can’t believe she did that.”
“Was that Kaylee? Who’s she talking about?” Mal asks.
“An old girlfriend of Simon’s,” Jayne answers. “If you can believe anyone would wanna date his pansy ass.”
“So you’re eavesdropping,” Zoe observes.
“Amazing what you can hear when the ship’s powered down,” Jayne says with a sly grin on his face. Mal tries not to think about the kinds of things Kaylee’s been up to that Jayne’s been listening in on. Then again, better Jayne listen to Kaylee than be a participant. Still, Mal gets ready to pound on Jayne some for his remark when the other man signals for quiet. “Oh, this ought to be good. Simon’s saying how he went to a bar to drown his sorrows after his gal threw him out.”
“Scoot over. This I gotta hear,” Zoe says as she drops to the floor.
Mal tries to remember exactly when he decided it would be good to have a crew. Shaking his head, he follows Zoe to the floor. Might as well listen – it is the first thing in weeks that Zoe’s been interested in.
Simon’s on his third scotch by the time Omar shows up. “Well, at least it’s not sake,” Omar remarks with a wry smile as he sits down at the bar next to Simon.
“What are you doing here?”
Omar gulps down the shot that the bartender sets in front of him and then plays with his glass. “Meg called. She didn’t think you should be alone.”
“She throws me out of our apartment, but doesn’t think it’s safe for me to be left alone. Great, just great.”
“No one should be left alone to sulk about a broken relationship. That only ends with embarrassing drunken apologies over the cortex or very bad rebounds.”
“I’m fine. You can go about your business with a free conscience.” Simon says as he gives an unsteady wave of dismissal that is reflected in the mirror behind the bartender. He doesn’t know whether to be angry that Meg is managing to butt into his life even now, or hopeful that this means he wasn’t completely wrong at her. That doesn’t matter. River first, and maybe afterward there will be a way to salvage everything else. Resolved, Simon downs his scotch in one gulp and signals for the bartender to set up another round.
“Come on, Simon, don’t be like that. Just because it isn’t working out between you two, doesn’t mean she hates you. Though I never did figure how you ended up with her in the first place.”
Simon sees Omar sign to the bartender to water their drinks. It won’t make much of a difference with the head start he’s had. “Probably because I hadn’t been arrested by her brother when she met me.” It's never easy knowing your best friend always wanted your girl, but Simon had been happy enough to beat Omar just once at something.
“Ah, but you were bailing out the bloke her brother arrested.”
Simon remembers well. They both arrived at the front desk at the same time - Meg was asking to have her brother paged and he was asking after Omar's bail. I'm such a sucker for knights in shining armor, she'd said.
“What did she say other than asking you to prevent any more naked singing events?” Simon asks.
“About the fight? Nothing really.” Simon rolls his eyes at Omar's predictability and asks for another round of shots. “Okay, okay, just don’t give yourself alcohol poisoning.” Omar pinches his nose, a tell that Simon is familiar with from their Tall Card days in college. “She said you’ve been obsessing about River.”
Simon lets loose with every Mandarin curse he knows. “It was a bit more than that. She went to my parents.”
“What?” Simon enjoys Omar's look of disbelief. No doubt, Omar had been preparing to tell him to formulate the biggest apology known in the history of man and go back crawling on his knees before the best thing that ever happened to him got away.
It already did. What if I never get River back?
“She went and told my parents that I was cracking up over River. That perhaps they’d be able to get through where she hadn’t.”
“Oh…” This time it's Omar who signals for more drinks. “Leave the bottle.”
Simon continues to explain when the bartender leaves. “I found out when I tried to get them to look at River’s letters. I didn’t figure out the message until after I left, but I doubt it would have made a difference.”
“Message?”
“Nothing, forget I said anything. No need to have a fourth person tell me I’m insane today.”
Omar grabs Simon’s arm and stops him from pouring another drink. “Simon, I knew you were insane in undergrad. Nothing is going to change that. But if you think River’s sent you a message, I’d be the last one to say that you were wrong. Tell me.”
“You won’t believe me. Or worse, you will and I’ll be right and you’ll be forced to report it all to your bosses. Then I’ll disappear and River will still be-“ Simon downs his drink before finishing.
Omar scoffs. “Either you’ve already pickled your brain or the sake last month rendered you deficient. Yeah, I’m working on the climate control sats, but that’s so the people forced to emigrate don’t die when they’re dropped. Remember which of us protested for the release of the Browncoat veterans.” Omar empties the last of the bottle into his glass. “I like your brat sister more than you most of the time even if she does make me feel like Newton talking about gravity to Einstein. Now I’m going to order us some coffee and you’re going to tell me what this message was.”
When Simon left his apartment, he’d immediately started perusing the letters even as his conversation with Meg echoed in his mind. It hadn’t taken long before he found the missing pieces of the code in River’s letters to his parents.
Then he started trying to figure out what he could do about it. All alone. He’s not particularly charismatic or savvy about the seamy underside of the city. His parents think that he’s losing it and Meg’s jealous of his sister.
The next thing he knew, he was at the bar.
“It was a code. It took all the letters to figure it out. Who knows how many she sent earlier that got pulled by censors or something.”
“Simon, the message. What did it say?” Omar's rubbing his left eyebrow. In cards, it would mean that Simon was about to win all of Omar's weekly stipend and his friend would be spending the next week groveling to his own parents for money to make rent. Now, it's touching and eases Simon's burden a little bit.
He's not alone anymore.
“It was just six words. They’re hurting us. Get me out..”
“Fuck.”
That sobers Simon up quick. Omar never curses, not in any language. “What?”
“I’d heard rumors. I didn’t... I couldn’t believe them.”
Shouting, Simon pushes Omar. “Rumors, and you didn’t say anything –“
“Be quiet!” Omar’s tone cuts off Simon’s diatribe. He grabs the empty bottle of scotch and pulls Simon to a more secluded table. “If you know where to listen, you always hear rumors. Conspiracy theories are popular and pretty much impossible to prove.”
“They – Meg says it’s just another one of her games. That I’m overreacting.”
“Maybe. Do you want to risk that?”
Simon grabs the table for support. The world had just shifted and the alcohol makes it hard to find his balance. “She’s my sister,” he says as he fights back tears.
“Of course she is. And if she’s in trouble, we’ll find a way to get her back.”
“How?”
Omar scratches at the table with his fingers. He always draws fractal patterns when he's working out a particularly challenging problem. “I know some people from my protest days that know … well, some shady blokes. It’ll be risky; moreover, it’ll be expensive, but we should be able to get some information. Then we’ll figure out what to do.
“In the meantime, you need to stop making people question your sanity for a little bit. Go to work. Play at being broken hearted over Meg. Be civil with your parents.”
“There’s no time,” Simon says as he stands.
Omar forces him to sit back down and the pain of his grip on Simon’s shoulder pierces through the alcohol fog that continues to pulse in waves across his brain. “This isn’t the type of thing that you study for a couple of days and do the surgery, Simon. It’s going to take time to find and gain the trust of people who might know what’s going on, let alone figure how to get River out. You have to be steady. Like it’s the longest and most important surgery of your life.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now let’s hit another bar and then you can crash on my couch till Meg gets her own place.”
Kaylee pulls away and sits up causing Simon to pause in. “Hitting another bar, that was his solution?”
“There wasn’t anything else to be done that night,” Simon explains. “As I was already drunk, it sounded like a fine plan.
“And did you ever explain anything at all to Meg?” Kaylee asks. It just seems wrong to her that Simon would just abandon the relationship. Granted, the girl had gone behind Simon’s back to his parents. But she had good intentions. It makes Kaylee wonder how different she’d have acted in Meg’s place.
“Tired of being second best at everything. It’s not a position that agrees with most people,” River explained from her seat on the floor.
Kaylee is momentarily confused until she glances back at Simon to see his eyes closed and arms crossed. Kaylee can understand Meg’s jealousy of the closeness the Tam siblings share more than she can the way that Simon simply turned his back on his ex-girlfriend. “But you didn’t even give her a chance!” Kaylee protests.
Simon shrugs and then hurries to rearrange the sheets when they start to fall off of him and to the floor. His modesty causes Kaylee to check the status of her own covering, but she can’t help but join in River’s giggles at Simon’s discomfort. “Would it have really been fair to tell her the truth? Would it have been worth the risk? As it was, I nearly worked myself to death keeping up the appearance of a fine, young rich kid on the rebound while maintaining my position in the hospital. Everything depended on me being above reproach while Omar did his best to get any of his contacts to meet one of us about River and the Academy. Not to mention the magic acts I had to perform to appear to live the high life while squirreling away as much cash as possible in my apartment.”
“Sounds lonely,” Kaylee says as she reluctantly lets Simon pull her back to his side. “It still doesn’t excuse how you treated her.”
“Whose side are you on here?” Simon asks dryly. “You’re right though, it was. I was constantly reminding myself that it would all be worth it if it meant that that day was the one that lead me closer to helping River. And then doing my best to ignore the disappointment when I went to bed each night with no progress.”
Kaylee’s own jealousy burns in her chest until she glances over at River and sees the sorrow from Simon’s voice echoed in his sister’s face. “How long?” Kaylee asks.
Simon shakes his head. “Honestly, I don’t really remember anymore. Every day felt like an eternity, but it was probably more like seven or eight months.”
Simon's exhausted when he walks out of surgery. He’s been on call for the last seventy two hours and all he wants right now is to shower and sleep for three days. Not necessarily in that order. A nurse stops him before reaches the locker room and gives him a message card that he pockets. He remembers to smile and flirt with the pretty blonde - Omar wants him to take a date when they go out this week. It will cut into the cash he saves, but is a necessary evil.
Simon collapses on the bench in front of his locker and leans his head against the cold metal. Sleep beckons, but he should change. The message card falls out of his scrub pocket when he takes off his shirt. He almost tosses it into the locker to worry about later, but decides to go ahead and pop it in his pocket source box. He hasn't seen Gabriel or Regan for over two months, it’s probably just an invitation (demand) to attend a family dinner later in the week.
Instead of a recorded vid message, letters flash on the screen after the card loads. It takes a few seconds to read the screen with sleep deprived eyes. A short message, but no signature - Omar most likely. Fifth and Shanghai , third table from the back. 18:30.
Odd. Omar knew Simon would be on service till eighteen hundred. It'll be almost impossible for him to reach the bar in time. Simon glances longingly at the showers before pulling a dress shirt on. He doesn’t bother to waste time removing his scrub bottoms. He can't be late, just in case.
The tube ride to Fifth Street is broken by bouts of microsleep. Fortunately, Simon isn't carrying any money right now; otherwise, he'd be a perfect target for muggers. Looking down at himself, he realizes that they'll probably ignore him since he's wearing a dress shirt and vest with blue hospital scrub pants. Omar will get a laugh out of this.
Shanghai and Fifth Street, The Drunken Swan. He lost his favorite pair of cufflinks here in a Tall Card game once during college. He finds the designated table empty so he sits down and orders the one drink minimum. He's too tired to wonder what he'll do if Omar doesn't show up since he doesn't even have his ident on him to pay out of his main accounts.
Half a drink later, Omar arrives, breathless and still in his civil service uniform. He fails to bat an eye at Simon's outfit. "I'll pay for your drink - you need to get to Exeter and Half in a quarter of an hour. Go through a red door and someone else will give you instructions."
"What are you talking about? That's in the Blackout Zone."
“Yeah, and in that get-up, you'll fit right in. Wait, you came from work. Do you have any money? I don't know if what I have will be enough. Hopefully they'll believe there’s more where this came from." A wad of bills and a pill case move across the table before Simon can properly process Omar's meaning.
"A meet? Finally? Who? What?"
"I don't know. All my contacts are as skittish about my current job as you were at the beginning. This may just be a dead end or it may be the first tag of a long night of meetings. Be careful and avoid the Feds, will ya?"
Simon pockets the money and tries to think of everything he needs to know. Omar pulls him out of his chair and leads him to the door. "No time for me to coach you again. You know what to do and if you don't leave now, you won't make it on time. Good luck."
With that, Simon begins walking down the street towards the Blackout Zone. Omar had anticipated that eventually Simon would need to go into one of the city's dark areas alone and had been coaching him on where the entrances were and what to do when he got inside. Still, it was no easy feat to avoid patrols, camera sentries, and find the hidden entrances. Simon had never gotten to do a cold run because it was too risky to attract attention by being bound by law for any infraction.
Pulling an iodine supplement from Omar’s pill case, Simon thanks the Browncoat terrorist for only setting off a dirty bomb with the EMP devices during the war. Granted, was vast acres of land where to this day the Security drones are inoperable and the background radiation is high enough to discourage human settlement. But at least medicine could protect one from Osirus’s Blackout Zone: the oldest ones on Londinium and Athens were caused by terraforming accidents and a visit means contracting nasty, chronic (and deadly in the case of Athens) illnesses.
The closest “official” entrance displays the normal yellow caution and no entrance signs in English, Mandarin, and several other tongues that are still spoken with regularity on Osirus. Armed Feds look out over the rest of the city in boredom. Few people ever have need to get official permission for the Blackout Zone and those without avoid these entrances.
It takes ten minutes for Simon to locate the nearest hidden entrance to the Zone. A series of knocks results in a small grubby paw being stuck out a hole in the border fence. Simon places a few coins in the small hand and it withdraws. Seconds later it sticks out again and Simon adds more of the small amount of cash Omar had given him earlier.
This time, the payment is deemed sufficient and Simon hears the sound of movement behind the wall before a hole crumbles open in the ground next to him. Simon grimaces. He’d forgotten that some of the entrances are little more than well camouflaged holes under the fence. So much for a clean shirt and vest.
By the time he reaches the other side, Simon’s attire fits in well with that of the Blackout Zone’s residents. It takes a few minutes for Simon’s eyes to adjust from the well lit environs of Capitol City to the torch light of the Zone. When it does, he sees that he lucked out and entered the Zone near the corner of Exeter and First. He only has a block to travel before reaching Half. He spots the red door of the designated meeting place easily.
Only as he’s opening it does he wonder how his contacts will know him. Omar said that someone would give him instructions, nothing more. Fortunately he doesn’t have long to worry before a purple haired waitress walks up to him. She starts to speak - actually looking at her expression, Simon thinks she’s fixing to yell – but stops herself when the bartender yells something at her in a language foreign to Simon. It sounds German. She shrugs and hands Simon a piece of paper.
Bilter’s Cave.
Simon’s eyebrows go up upon reading the name of the next destination. Bilter’s Cave is a bar infamous for the many illicit activities that reportedly occur in its basement depths for clients with enough money. Everyone knows its location even if they’d never dream of entering the Zone to find out if any of the rumors are true. Allegedly even the Feds steer clear of it during raids for fear of catching a member of the ruling council in a compromising position.
Simon exits the bar the same way he came in only to find that the skies have opened up to release torrents of rain during his short time inside. Now he’s covered in mud that is mixing with the once dried blood of his hospital scrub pants. Desire for warmth adds even more speed to his steps as he hurries to make the meet.
Entering Bilter’s Cave, he finds it to be nothing like what he expected. Rumors made it out to be a place as sumptuous as the finest resorts on Ariel or Sihnon. Simon can only assume that the decorating budget was spent on secret lower levels because the main bar is…well, the term “bar” can only be used loosely in relation to the place that Simon enters. A few colored light bulbs dangle from bare wires at random places in the ceiling illuminating a room whose ambience would only improve with darkness. Scrap metal has been used to construct a rough serving bar with random crates stacked for chairs and tables. Simon would be hard pressed to tell whether the bartender or the filthy glasses contributed more grit to the drink he now holds.
He goes and stands at an empty “table”. He’s glad that his attire is already ruined. He can only imagine how much extra dirt his clothes will pick up in this place. Thankful that all his inoculations are up to date even if he isn’t swallowing, he pretends to sip at his drink while studying the room. He still knows nothing about his contact, but his experience at the previous establishment leads him to believe that someone will recognize him. He tries not to let the question of how worry him too much.
After two hours of waiting, Simon is thirsty and wishing he’d brought his own water to drink. The alcohol should kill most things, but he’s not willing to risk his sight on the quality of the rotgut being served. He buys another drink when the bartender starts glaring at him though.
His watch shows that he only has another forty-five minutes before the guards change. Sunrise will occur shortly after and will strand him in the Blackout Zone if he stays longer than that.
“Looking for someone?” a deep voice asks.
Looking up, Simon does his best to project not-so-innocent bystander. Not for the first time, he thinks that Omar should be handling this part if rescuing River is actually going to work. “Just having a drink.” Simon replies.
“I don’t know, looks like you could use some friendly company,” the man says. “You should come with me.”
Simon tries not to blanch, he really does. Despite his looks and sometimes awkward manners with women, he doesn’t swing that way at all and he’s never gotten good at refusing the sly offers he attracts. And the last thing he wants to do in the middle of a Blackout Zone is to piss off the heavily tattooed, steroid-muscled, six foot-four (if an inch) red haired giant in front of him. “Th..Thanks for the offer,” he stutters. “But I’m really not in the moo-mood for company.”
Laughter belts out of the red giant and causes all activity in the bar to stop for a minute. Simon hopes that they aren’t used to that sound signaling ‘roid-rage or something equally deadly.
“Doc, you’re damn funny. They said you would be,” the giant says. He leans on the table to bring his mouth close to Simon’s ear. “Now then, I think we have business that would be better handled in private, no?”
Simon flinches when the man’s tongue flicks out and licks his face. He resists the urge to wipe it off, nodding instead. If this isn’t the contact, he is so very screwed.
“Then come on, pretty boy, I ain’t got all night and I can think of much more fun ways to spend it than in this hole.”
River and Kaylee interrupt Simon’s tale with gales of laughter. “And with that, I think it’s way past time for sleep. I don’t want to give Mal another reason to be cross with me if you’re too tired to do anything,” he tells Kaylee.
“Spoilsport,” she says. A sound attracts both of their attention. “River, what’s wrong?”
“Empty, ship’s too empty. Ghosts hang in the corners.”
Mentally, Kaylee says goodbye to what she had planned for Simon after the story ended. River had actually been sleeping alone the past few nights, but Kaylee understands if Simon’s story might have dredged up bad memories for the teen, both new ones and old ones. She elbows Simon and gives him a quick nod.
“Go get your mattress, mei-mei, and we’ll have a sleepover,” he tells River.
“And you two get decent while I’m gone,” River orders.
“Brat,” Simon calls out, throwing a pillow at the door as River scampers out.
Kaylee laughs.
Simon leans over the bed and then sits up holding Kaylee’s shirt and underwear. “I believe these are yours.”
“My hero,” Kaylee says with a laugh right before she starts tickling him.
Part 3