Big Damn Hero

7

“You carrying?” Zoë said as they walked

“Now she asks,” said Yellow Duster. “Yep. Six-gun. Shoulder holster.”

“Maybe you should give it to me.”

“You don’t trust me?” he said, making out as if his feelings were hurt.

“Don’t take it personally. I don’t trust anyone.”

The man reached under his coat for his weapon.

“Nice and slow,” Zoë warned. “Use your fingertips and keep them well away from the trigger.”

He passed the six-gun to her as instructed — a snub-nosed.38 caliber Baird and Chu Special. Zoë slotted it barrel first into her belt.

“You got a name?” she inquired.

“Call me Harlow. It’s not actually my name, but I answer to it,” he said. “What should I call you?”

“Hopalong.”

“Really? On account of the leg, I suppose. Bet that ain’t actually your name either.”

“Depends.”

“What do your friends call you?”

“They call me Hopalong.”

“I see,” said Harlow. “This relationship of ours, y’know, it’s seeming kinda one-sided to me.”

“That’s just how I like it.”

They wended their way down back streets, passing under lines of washing that had been hung out to dry but were probably just getting dirtier in this polluted air. A mangy, one-eyed cat yowled at them from a doorway, then turned tail and fled. The route they were following was so labyrinthine, Zoë was having trouble mapping it in her head and wasn’t certain she would be able to retrace her steps unaided. Her leg continued to voice its complaint. It wanted nothing more than for her to sit down and rest it. She wished she could but knew she couldn’t.

All the while, she kept an ear out for Book or Jayne buzzing in, or possibly the captain himself. From now on, to avoid another gŏu cào de communications mess like this one, she was going to make sure they double- and triple-checked their comm links beforehand.

“Down here,” Harlow said.

The alley he was indicating was no more than an arm-span wide. The roofs of the two-story buildings that bracketed it were perfect for a no-survivors ambush. To make matters worse, there wasn’t a single streetlight in the vicinity, only the faint backwash gleam from a couple of nearby windows.

“Got a flashlight,” Harlow said. “Okay if I take it out? Don’t want you getting all itchy-fingered on me.”

“Go ahead, but do it slow, like with your gun,” Zoë said, firming her hold on the sawn-off pistol grip of her holstered weapon. “Shine it in my eyes to try and blind me, and you are a dead man.”

Harlow took out the flashlight. He aimed it down the alley and flicked it on, creating a bright corona of illumination directly ahead of them.

Maintaining a comfortable distance behind Harlow, Zoë kept a lookout on the edges of the rooflines and the upper-story windows. There was no sign of movement from above, and none in the alley ahead.

They continued on without speaking. The alley wound back and forth, taking a hard dogleg to the right, then the left. Between the roars of takeoffs and landings at Eavesdown Docks, Zoë could hear distant sounds of celebrations. Strings of fireworks or automatic gunfire. Yelling and cheering. The Alliance Day revels were still ongoing but it all sounded far away, as though they were taking place on another world.

After approximately three minutes at a steady pace, the buildings on the right gave way to a high wall topped with concertina wire. The wall was broken by a closed, heavy wooden gate ten feet high and wide enough for a land speeder to pass through. It and the walls on either side were decorated with a sprawl of colorful graffiti tags. Most were crude and obscene, but some were kind of arty. One was an interpretation of the Blue Sun logo, tweaked so that it read “Blue Scum,” while on the gate itself was spray-painted DEATH TO ALL TRAITORS in tall, cringingly bright lettering. She thought back to the hatred the drunks in Taggart’s had shown for the Browncoats. Usually the worst that she heard was contempt for the losing side of the war. Folks around here sure had strong feelings on the matter.

Closer to, she saw that the DEATH TO ALL TRAITORS graffiti was fresher than any of the others.

“Any idea who these ‘traitors’ might be?” she asked Harlow, running a finger beneath the word as though underlining it.

“Beats me,” Harlow replied indifferently. “Could describe any number of folks, I guess. But being as it’s Alliance Day, and that looks to have been added sometime in the past week… Well, you do the math.”

“Browncoats.”

“Not just a pretty face.”

“And when Covington mentioned betrayal in connection with Mal, do you think that’s what he meant? That, rather than not paying money?”

“Lady, I try not to think too much about anything except keeping my head on my shoulders and platinum in my pocket.” Harlow reached through a hole in the gate, pulled something to unlatch it, then swung it open a crack. It squealed, possibly alerting any confederates that he had arrived. He stood aside and gestured for Zoë to go first. She just stared at him, so he shrugged and did the honors.

The gate opened onto an even shabbier-looking street lit by Harlow’s flashlight. Brick buildings gave way to teetering, derelict tenements made of wood and plaster. This older part of the city was deserted but for squatters who didn’t mind the missing roofs and windows, the lack of power and running water, and the profusion of vermin. The street was empty. Even squatters were out celebrating the glorious anniversary.

Zoë closed the gate and followed Harlow across the road and up a creaking stoop to a scarred door whose knob and lock had been broken off. As he shoved it open and crossed the threshold, Zoë peered past him. His flashlight revealed a floor of planks and walls garlanded with cobwebs. There were footprints in the dust, lots of them, overlapping. Holes had been opened in the interior walls to access ducts and electric wiring which had then been looted. There were no furnishings. No signs of a struggle. No Mal. No evidence that he’d been there, no hint where he’d gone.

Disappointing, to say the least. Unnerving, to say something else.

“Nobody’s home, looks like,” Harlow said, sweeping the flashlight beam around the room.

He couldn’t see it, but she was giving him the stink eye. This whole thing felt wrong.

“When you got paid, was my friend here?”

“Nope. Just the scarface guy.”

“And how long did you stay?”

“Long enough to get the second half of my fee. No longer. Why hang around? Might have been more work waiting for me at Taggart’s.”

Zoë went to the door at the opposite end of the room and opened it, then shoved Harlow through. They stepped out onto a small wooden porch whose railings had rotted away. An empty field spread out in front of them, a square of flat, featureless dirt lit by the burnt-umber glow of the night sky. Beyond, at the edge of the flashlight’s range, were more skeletal tenements. Firecrackers rat-a-tat-tatted in the distance.

She descended the shaky back staircase with him in tow. Harlow swept the flashlight beam in front of her. That was when she saw the comm link, or rather the wrecked remains of a comm link, lying in the dirt.

“Hold the beam still,” she told Harlow.

She walked over to the spot. She couldn’t be certain but the comm link sure as hell looked like the one Mal had been carrying. Someone had stamped on it, leaving it in smithereens.

Well, if he wasn’t incommunicado before, he certainly is now.

Nearby she spied twin furrows in the soft dirt, roughly shoulder width apart. Furrows made by boot toes. Fresh. Other bootprints accompanied them on either side.

She began to walk alongside the furrows, following their route but keeping a weather eye on Harlow all the while. They traced the perimeter of the yard and led towards a rusted back gate. Past the gate was an alley broad enough to accommodate a land speeder. Here the furrows terminated.

Just then Shepherd Book connected on her comm link.

“Yes?” Zoë said in a low voice.

“Zoë, I’m at Guilder’s,” said Book. “The man who signed off on our repairs and paid for the shuttle was Mal Reynolds, but he was not the captain.”

“I don’t understand. Explain.”

“He called himself Malcolm Reynolds but it wasn’t our Mal. Sandy hair. Scarred face.”

Same man Harlow met. Has to be.

This was not looking good. This was looking like a shuttle robbery — and possibly a kidnapping.

The “traitors” graffiti. Referring to Browncoats. Like Mal.

And her.

Zoë aimed her Mare’s Leg at Harlow and said loudly, “Don’t leave,” just to remind him, in case he got it into his head to try sneaking off.

“Sure thing, Hopalong.”

Lowering her voice again, she said to Book, “Did the clerk tell you anything else? Was anyone with this guy?”

“Hold on,” Book said. “Let me put him on.”

“Hello?” It was a young-sounding man, voice quavering with uncertainty. “Um, we don’t know how this happened. We asked for identification and the fella had it. It said ‘Malcolm Reynolds’ and there was a picture of the man who took possession of the shuttle. It’s not the same man as the Shepherd is showing me now.”

A fake ID, doctored especially for this occasion. So this whole thing had been planned. “Were there other people with him?”

“No, ma’am. Least, not as I saw. That ain’t to say they weren’t waiting outside. Of course, Guilder’s can’t be held liable if—”

“Did this Malcolm Reynolds file a flight plan?”

“No, but it ain’t compulsory for spacecraft of a shuttle’s tonnage, only for those that are category five weight-class or above. Now about our loaner—”

“We’re keeping it as collateral until this is straightened out,” Zoë said. “Book, can you handle that?”

“Oh, yes.” The confidence in the Shepherd’s voice gave her a little boost. Everything in her was shouting at her to find the captain immediately. Trouble was, she didn’t know how.

“Let’s talk later.”

“I’ll keep you posted,” Book assured her.

She broke off the connection and turned to Harlow. “What else do you know about the man who hired you?”

He calmly shook his head. “What was his name again?

Covington? I’ve told you everything. I swear I have. Would you like to hire me to see if I can trace your friend?” he asked without missing a beat.

“I want you to contact Covington,” she told him, but he shook his head.

“He got ahold of me, like I said. I don’t know nothing about him. I could put it around that I’m looking for him, see what shakes.”

“Do that,” she said. “But be discreet. I don’t need the entire ’verse hearing about my situation.”

“Agreed.”

“Give me a way to contact you.”

“Such as my wave address? Not a chance. Waves, trails, remember? You need me, try Taggart’s. I’m not there, someone’ll soon get word to me and I’ll come.”

“Okay. There’ll be coin for you if anything comes of this.”

“’Bout gorramn time. I was startin’ to think you were taking the ‘free’ part of freelance much too seriously.” Harlow grinned at her and gestured with his head to the Mare’s Leg. “We finished?”

“We’re finished,” she said. “For now.”

“Then may I have my iron back?”

She returned his six-gun to him.

“Be seeing you, Hopalong, maybe.” He tipped his hat and disappeared off through the back door, back into the house.

Watching him go, Zoë reviewed the situation. It was obvious that the flophouse had been the site of a handover. Covington and accomplices had kidnapped Mal on behalf of a third party and passed him on like so much hundredweight of lumber. A business transaction, only the goods in question were human. This jibed with the possibility of Covington being bondholder to a bondswoman— the kind of guy who regarded people as little more than a commodity to be owned and exchanged.

Given that somebody posing as Malcolm Reynolds had lately retrieved Serenity’s shuttle from Guilder’s, the odds were good that that was where the real Mal had wound up. The odds were good, too, that wherever the shuttle was now, Mal was on it. And, moreover, that whoever had him bore no great fondness for those who’d fought on the Independent side.

Zoë crossed the yard and headed back through the building, still favoring her bad leg.

Out front, she spotted Harlow. His flashlight beam was flickering ahead of him.

She had planned on following him at a distance anyway, simply so that she wouldn’t get lost trying to find her way back to the comparatively more civilized parts of town. But she was curious to know where he was going now. It was possible he had been bluffing about Covington and knew the man more closely than he was letting on.

While Zoë kept to the shadows, guarded and cautious, Harlow ambled along as if he didn’t have a care in world. She kept the Mare’s Leg at the ready. This could be a trap set for her, after all. Maybe they’d taken the captain first, with the plan to lure her into their clutches next.

I want this to be a big misunderstanding. I want Mal to mosey up this very street right now, she thought.

Harlow took a different route from last time but ended up where they’d started, at Taggart’s. As he entered through the double doors, Zoë holstered her gun and took up a position across the street, where she could watch the comings and goings of the bar’s clientele without being seen.

While she waited, she connected with the ship.

“Hey, babe,” Wash said. “How’s it hanging?”

“Crooked,” she replied. “This whole situation stinks, and the more I look into it, the stinkier it’s getting. How are things at your end?”

“Been in touch with Book. He told me about the shuttle and asked me to find out from the port authorities about all recent shuttle takeoffs, but I haven’t gotten anywhere with that. Shuttles aren’t high on their list of priorities, being personnel-only with limited range, and they’ve got much bigger beasts to focus on, and lots of them, too. We could call the police, of course, but I don’t think that’s particularly wise, on account of the whole hate-hate relationship we have with law enforcement.”

“You’re right. I learned a little more about Hunter Covington, by the way, but not a lot. He has a woman.” Zoë relayed the description Harlow had given. “Sounds like she’s not a willing partner. Could be a bondswoman maybe. Don’t know if it’s any use, but I thought it worth a mention.”

“Got it,” said Wash. “Our resident fruitcake has calmed down a bit. You’ll no doubt be glad to hear that, but not as glad as I am. Simon’s managed to pry her out of her dining-table fort. Now she’s playing her flute in the cargo bay. Inara’s keeping her company. You’re missing all the fun.”

“Why is River playing the flute?”

“To make Badger’s crates go to sleep. They’re restless and they need a lullaby, apparently. Tell you this, Zoë, my blood pressure’ll be a whole lot lower once we get the band back together and are heading for our drop-off.”

“I hear you, dear. And I agree.”

“You keep safe, Zoë. Got that? Don’t do anything crazy.”

“Ditto, Wash.”

They cut the link.

Just then, Harlow walked back out through the double doors. Zoë merged deeper into the shadows. He sauntered down the street in the opposite direction that he had taken her.

She swung in after him. As before, he seemed in no rush. His movements weren’t cautious — just a guy in a giant, silly hat and an ankle-length yellow coat out for an evening stroll. He entered the main square of shops and administration buildings where Alliance Day crowds packed the sidewalks and spilled into the street, waving flags and beer bottles, and yelling at each other. Harlow made a few turns after he cleared the square. Nothing evasive; he didn’t seem to be trying to shake pursuit. When he reached a warren of small, single-story buildings, he ducked down the walkway that ran between them. He stepped up to an innocuous-looking front door, opened it, and entered.

The glass in the building’s peeling windows was painted opaque white so Zoë couldn’t see inside. She crept up to the door and pressed her ear against it. She could hear nothing.

As she loitered in the lee of the building opposite, she tried to contact Jayne. Nothing, not even static. What if he had been kidnapped too? What if there was some conspiracy afoot to abduct every member of Serenity’s crew one by one?

Just bad comms. Has to be.

Then Harlow reappeared.

Zoë kept him in her sights and herself out of his as he continued his rambling, returning the way he’d come. It was difficult to limp stealthily but she did her best. The pain in her leg was more than a mite trialsome but she refused to let it distract her. She’d been injured worse during the war and still managed to acquit herself handily on the battlefield.

Once more she pondered all the bitterness that had been spewed at Taggart’s that night, and that was embodied in the DEATH TO ALL TRAITORS graffiti. The history of the Unification War had been rewritten to benefit the victors, Zoë knew that. She wasn’t naïve. But the Browncoats hadn’t been the aggressors. They had mustered because the Alliance had posed a threat, not because they wanted territory or power or any other thing. They just wanted to be left in peace. Nor had they betrayed anyone, unless standing up for your right to live free was considered betrayal.

Was this what children were taught in school now? That the Browncoats as a group were just one step above Reavers? It sickened her soul.

Pay attention. You’re on a mission, Zoë reminded herself.

Gradually, their surroundings became more and more familiar. She started to recognize the storefronts and bars of the neighborhood. And then it dawned on her where Harlow was headed. Under her breath, she unleashed a withering torrent of Mandarin curses.

Wincing from the pain in her leg, she closed distance as, some fifty feet ahead, Harlow calmly approached the headquarters of a certain not altogether reputable individual, who went by the name of Badger.