Icarus:

Script for a Firefly episode dating a while (two weeks to a month) after the movie, and approximately three days after the long-ago advent of my first script, “Broke” (see shameless self-promotion exhibited above)

Scene 1:

The nameless operative, antagonist of Serenity the movie, is kneeling inside a Catholic-style confessional. The room (booth?) feels close, but calm; the light is very warm. He is speaking to the person on the other side of the grate, with his quiet, intent smile.

Operative: (explanatory) I sought, to put a point on it, not to die selfishly. To that end I honed myself as a tool, and emptied myself as a man—and I slept well when I killed, knowing myself to be in hands greater than my own, a part of something greater than myself, a movement toward the light. I would eliminate the shadow under the light, until there was rest, and peace. A final peace, moving always toward the light. My mind was as a finely-honed sword, a weapon in the cause of the Alliance.

He nods to himself, and his smile widens a bit.

Operative: I was happy, I think.

He unsheathes his sword smoothly; one realizes that he has been kneeling in the manner that he tends to when he’s about to have someone fall on his weapon.

Operative: As you shall be, when you are dead.

He rams the sword forward into the wall behind which one assumes his listener has been listening. The wall shatters and falls—he sees that what he has thrust his sword into is a mirror, with himself reflected in it. His reflection is smiling contemplatively, and blood begins to run from where the sword point is lodged in its abdomen. This happens in a timeless sort of second, and then the mirror too shatters, and he finds the sword lodged in himself, blood welling thickly around it and beginning to drop rhythmically to the floor— He wakes up. Viewed from above (as with River at the beginning of “Objects in Space”), he is lying on his back in a plain white room, covered by a blanket on a mat. It is night, but the moon is full and light pours through a rice paper screen, so that everything is a muted white and blue. His sword lies beside him (which in the circumstances is bizarre, though we don’t as yet realize this). The dripping sound comes from a drainpipe outside the window. He takes stock of his situation, smiling gently.

Operative: (to himself) An honorable death, at least.

He looks at his sword and makes a gesture toward it—and at this moment we realize that his arms are straitjacketed. He starts to jerk toward it, struggling harder, his smile beginning to contort into something horrible.

Operative: (muttered) Honorable—honorable—

His voice starts to rise, his face savage, frightened, helpless, and completely uncontrolled.

Operative: HONORABLE DEATH—I WANT—

He begins to cry.

Operative: PLEASE—PLEASE—AN HONORABLE DEATH—

Nurses and orderlies come rushing in to restrain him. He has jerked himself out of the bed by this time, and two of them hold him down. He is thrashing, his mouth and neck tight with muscle, his eyes bulging.

Operative: HONOR—DEATH—GOD, OH GODD—

A nurse pushes a needle into his neck, a less rudimentary form of the dope gun on Serenity. The tension in his face breaks and he starts to sob. The staff put him back into the bed and leave the room. Another nurse, male, pauses to put the blanket back over him. The operative looks at him, begging through his tears.

Operative: Please, please—please—

The nurse leaves, empathetic, shaken, and slightly horrified: he’s new here. There is a pattern of leaves in the moonlight coming through the screen. The operative curls on his side and the light and shadow fall on his face. His eyes are wide, sightless, beginning to show the effect of the drugs; his tears run unnoticed by himself.

Operative: (murmured) Death—

Scene 2:

The world is Uqbar (though, because nothing else happens here, it is a little on the egregious side to know this), one of the most centralized of all the core planets. Whereas Ariel is a paragon of terraforming triumphs, Osiris a localization of the most cutting-edge of scientific progress, and Xenon a destination point for the practices of cultivation, ritual, and tradition, religious and societal, Uqbar is famous for its liberal arts culture. While Ariel may, according to Inara, have some very fine museums, Uqbar has the finest of all. It and its satellites are also home to universities known for their art, literature, and history programs. The current scene is located in a museum. It’s not quite the Louvre of the ‘verse, but has a very good modern art collection. The walls are white, the floor white, and it’s all lit by natural light: very posh, in short. Before a…well, an artwork which I’ll describe shortly are a man and a woman, standing with their backs to the camera. The man is fifty-five or so, with a cane, dressed expensively in whatever the loaded space dignitary is wearing to museums nowadays. He is, frankly, a lot like Smallville’s Lionel Luthor, at least in his demeanor. His companion is younger and scruffier in businesslike student-wear. Her hands are in her pockets; her hair is tucked under her cap; her collar is up to shield her neck. The artwork they are looking at is a large glowing white square that is not a screen, because it’s made up of something kind of like those clocks with the wands that move back and forth so quickly you can tell the time on them. It should look a bit like the light a projector gives off when the reel’s done, except grainier. The two onlookers stare at the white square for maybe ten seconds, and then, using the same technology of wand-going-back-and-forth-really-fast-so-it-looks-like-slightly-grainy-projection, a second “surface,” superimposed maybe six inches away from the white screen and off-center on its right-hand side, shows a film of a man falling fairly quickly. He’s maybe half-life-sized, Michelangelo-esque in the realism of his depiction, and as he goes by he looks at them.

Man with Cane: (to his companion, without looking at her) “Fall of Icarus.” Beautiful piece, though exceptionally disturbing. Icarus, you’ll find, never falls the same way twice. Every time he changes slightly, but every time he looks at you. Fascinating use of the medium. I fell in love with this piece the first time I saw it.

Woman: It’s beautiful.

Man with Cane: (in the same conversational tone of voice) The security tapes are being looped currently. Have you brought me good news, my dear?

Woman: Yes, sir. We’re fairly sure it was Malcolm Reynolds.

Man with Cane: Sergeant Reynolds?

Woman: Formerly.

Man with Cane: This is very good news. Have you arranged to speak with him?

Woman: He’s making a delivery near here, sir…to Beauport, on Thurgood moon.

Man with Cane: But this is excellent. Well done, my dear. You’d better go. There are things that I must set in motion.

He kisses her on the cheek. She slips a note into his hand and departs, giving a glance about her (so her face can be seen, which is useful for later): she’s albino. She puts on her sunglasses, slouches into an unmemorable posture, and leaves. On the screen, Icarus once more drops.

Man with Cane: (murmured) Exquisite.

Scene 3:

Thurgood moon is one of the many moons off of Uqbar. It’s a tiny little place, and home to a university. Thurgood Singh was, in the manner of so many philanthropists, a somewhat unscrupulous businesswoman back on Earth-that-Was. She was a chemical whiz, but more importantly a marketing genius, and came up with not so much a successful cure for the common cold as a small, though important, refinement upon one already devised, plus an unbeatable patent lawyer and a vision for the successful distribution of her product. This distribution plan, one of the most innovative of the twenty-second century, was not only brilliant but a bit dodgy in ways that I won’t get into right now, and served as the basis for a new philosophy of marketing which Blue Sun had the smarts to co-opt. ANYWAY, Singh bought a bitty Uqbar satellite, paid a huge amount of money for its terraforming, and used it to open a university that specializes in the arts—literary, visual, performative—of Earth-that-Was. It’s an innovative, exclusive and competitive environment, in all of which aspects it takes after its founder. It’s also extremely beautiful. This is, again, fairly useless backstory for the scene that is about to go down: in one of the Thurgood University classrooms, Varens Beauport is lecturing. She is an art history teacher, and currently has a slide-like projection of the “Fall of Icarus” that was just seen in the Uqbar museum behind her. The classroom is darkened; her voice is magnified. She’s around thirty-seven with an attractive, though not egregiously attractive, face. The transition between this scene and the previous one should be very smooth, possibly through use of soundtrack.

Beauport: Hence the myth of Icarus is multifaceted. His fall becomes an expression of the terrible double-edged beauty of defiance: on the one hand, he has risked all in his quest for freedom, and his fall is a condition of that risk…

She flips the slide/projection to one of Matisse’s cut-out “Icarus.”

Beauport: …on the other, he has pushed beyond the parameters of nature, blindly, after improvements that are not his to make, and is punished, brutally, for his meddling.

She flips again, to the Herbert Draper Icarus.

Beauport: But as artists throughout the ages have expressed again and again, there is only one motivation behind the dialectic expressed in his descent: love. It is love that makes Icarus fly—love that gives him wings, and love, of the act, in its defiance, in its possibility, in, possibly, the act of loving—possibly, even, his love of his own humanity that makes him wish to improve upon it…and love which leads him to his fall.

Scene 4: On the tail end of Beauport’s line, namely at the part “love which leads him to his fall,” the scene cuts to a picture of River’s face. It is bathed in light, stretched toward light; the soundtrack is heartbreakingly beautiful and exquisitely sad; her eyes are closed and she is murmuring, in semi-tandem with Beauport's voice.

River: (murmuring) Love which leads us to our fall.

The camera gives a caressing glance down her body—it turns out she’s standing on the railing of the catwalk, her face up into one of the lights illuminating it. It’s an exceptionally beautiful picture…as, as the camera shows, Mal, Zoe, Kaylee, and to some extent an unwilling Jayne appreciate. They’re standing in Serenity’s cargo bay with the loaded mule, looking up at her. The planet is Persephone; the place, the Eavesdown docks. Zoe is smiling slightly, Kaylee’s watching in sympathetic wonder, Mal has a hooded understanding on his face, and Jayne’s scowling. Simon comes in from the infirmary, and looks up at what they’re all looking at. His face shows mingled fear and exasperation.

Simon: Again?

Title sequence.

Scene 5:

Same. Simon’s taking the stairs two at a time toward River. Jayne snorts and turns toward the cargo.

Simon: River, no.

Mal: (in avuncular warning) Wouldn’t discompose her concentration was I you, son.

Simon: (to Mal) You’re not. (To River) What do you think you’re—Why do you keep…

He takes her arm and she gets down gracefully.

River: Looking.

Simon: For what?

Jayne: (helpfully) An early and painful death by gravitation?

Kaylee smacks him in the arm. He rubs at himself, mock-disgruntled.

Jayne: (muttered) Well I’m just sayin’.

River: (distractedly) Something. The light. (Distracted) Maybe. (Getting solemn and creepily earnest—the Alliance-induced mood swings haven’t much subsided) What there is of it. Me in it. (Her mood worsens) Under the skin, under the bone.

Simon moves to smooth her hair; she shies away.

Simon: Don’t…look.

River: I’m creepy.

She runs off. Simon looks after her, bewildered. There is a pause from everyone else.

Mal: All right, people, these crates won’t stow themselves.

They begin moving the cargo off the mule.

Jayne: (panting) Whatever’s in here sure is heavy. Think it’s gold?

Mal: (panting as well) No, Jayne, I do not.

Jayne: It would be one hell of a lot of gold. Couldn’t we just take a look? Just a quickie?

Mal: Got no wish to see your girlish hopes dashed, Jayne. ‘Sides, don’t matter what’s in there. Job’s perfectly legal, according to Badger.

Zoe: Legal according to Badger, sir? Wouldn’t that be pretty much illegal according to anyone else?

He stows the last crate with a final push, and stands, holding his back.

Mal: (getting his half-joking, half-genuine naïve ‘n’ bewildered face) Can’t get into the habit of causeless mistrustfulness, Zoe.

Zoe: (slightly incredulous) Causeless, sir?

Mal: (protesting) No reason he’d lie—

Zoe: Aside from his personality, sir?

Mal: He just—(he flounders) I…Have a little faith, here, Zoe, and Jayne—

Jayne’s peering into the cargo storage, curious and furtive.

Mal: Leave the damn cargo alone.

Jayne: But what if it’s gold, though?

Mal puts the grate firmly over the cargo nook’s opening. Kaylee’s grinning at the byplay.

Mal: Listen, all of you. Our cargo is not gold, and it’s perfectly legal ‘cuz Badger said so.

Zoe: Then why’d we hide it, sir?

Mal stops, then blinks a lot, realizing he hadn’t quite thought his actions through.

Mal: …Force of habit.

Kaylee giggles. The sound snaps Simon from his reverie. He looks down over the railing.

Simon: Can I…(he realizes that his question’s been answered) help?

Mal: Depends. Know where River’s got to? I want to this boat off the ground. We been land-bound far too long. Pleasant as Persephone is when nobody’s tryin’ in any way to make us dead...Come to think of it, there’s a contingency we needn’t prepare for. I want off this rock. And for that I need River

Simon: (sardonically) I’m sure she’ll psychically pick up on your desire for take-off.

Mal: (noncommittal—there’s an uncomfortableness here, but he’s leaving himself out of it) Maybe.

Kaylee: (quietly) It’s like…like she’s communing with some force deep in the black, channelin’ some…mystical current, dong, ma?

Simon: (defensive) She’s just…(he stops, unable to think of a facile explanation for exactly what she’s “just”)

Mal gives him a speaking glance.

Zoe: (very low, mostly for Kaylee’s benefit) Maybe she’s looking for attention.

Kaylee darts a semi-bewildered glance at her.

Simon: Any wounds?

Mal: Nope.

Simon looks…well, mostly like Simon, but you can see he’s a little disappointed. Mal rolls his eyes, then looks around at his crew sternly. The sternness carries into his voice.

Mal: And there ain’t gonna be none. We’re gonna have us a nice smooth, almost definitely legal run to Thurgood moon. There will be no shootin’, no stabbin’, and no punchin’. I hear of anyone getting’ so much as a nosebleed, I’m takin’ it as a personal insult.

Kaylee: Aye aye, Cap’n.

Zoe: Double negative, sir.

Mal: (exasperated) Yes you are. (He begins to climb the stairs up to the cockpit.)

Zoe: No, sir. “Ain’t” and “none” cancel each other out. You basically just promised us some wounding.

Mal: Well whatever it takes to keep our medic satisfied. Any volunteers? (with a stern glance over his shoulder at Jayne, pointed) I’ll be happy to cut on Jayne with somethin’ rusty if he don’t stop covetin’ our cargo.

Jayne: (with a start, looking away from Kaylee, who happens to be in angle with the cargo hiding place) I wasn’t covetin’, I was…not covetin’.

Simon: (his turn to be exasperated) I’m happy there are no wounds. Happy.

Mal: (now on the walkway, a little too casually) Anyone seen Inara?

Kaylee: Right behind you.

Mal stiffens slightly and turns. Inara’s standing in the entrance to the walkway, watching the scene and smiling. She stiffens a little as well when Mal looks at her.

Mal: Okay, people! Let’s do this! Sometime today…

Zoe, Kaylee, and Jayne look up at him tolerantly, expectant of drama. Mal clenches his jaw slightly.

Mal: (to Inara, bowing to the inevitable, though it isn’t just the audience that’s making him awkward and slightly chilly) How was your business?

Inara: (equally awkward, equally chilly) Fine.

Mal: Well, fine. You all docked and such?

Inara: Yes.

Mal: …Great. Seen River?

Inara: She’s prepping the ship.

Mal: Great. Uh…all aboard, then.

Mal makes a move towards going past her in the doorway; Inara steps hastily onto the walkway. Mal can’t help but look slightly back at her before he goes. She doesn’t seem to notice, smiles graciously at Simon, and goes down the stairs into the passenger dorms, smiling equally warmly at Kaylee and Zoe: it’s obvious from her professional demeanor that she’s distracted and quite possibly peeved. Kaylee and Zoe watch her go. Jayne snorts and starts doing curls on his work-out bench. Simon’s standing on the walkway, looking kind of lost.

Kaylee: (softly, to Zoe) You think River’s feeling neglected ‘cuz of Simon and me?

Zoe: (compassionate behind her face) Heart’s got room enough for everyone a person lets in. The mind can get…crowded. It’ll work out.

Kaylee glances up at the abstracted Simon, whose vague but hearty dissatisfaction is rolling off him in waves, and smiles, a little sad, a little just pensive.

Kaylee: It is awful confoundin'. Just...never know where I stand, you know?

Zoe's face expresses that she does. Kaylee gives Simon the same sort of glance she gave the balancing River: worried, and a little overcome by the beauty of it. Also there’s a healthy dose of humor—and petty irritation. Simon snaps back into it, becomes aware that he’s being looked at, and blushes, glancing down at her.

Simon: What?

Kaylee shakes her head, walking up the stairs, ready to bicker.

Kaylee: Why do you always gotta be so mechanical?

Simon: What?

Kaylee: Gettin’ disappointed ‘cuz we were all healthy.

Simon follows her into the exit toward the engine room.

Simon: I wasn’t disappointed, I was just…expressing professional zeal.

Kaylee: Professional zeal, my da ah yi de she ge ban ma hai ze [Chinese for “great-aunt’s four half-horse children”].

They exit. Zoe grins, watching them go, then follows up the steps, bound for her bunk. Jayne is left, sitting on his work-out bench, staring up at the bridge after Kaylee and Simon, scowling. He picks up a weight and curls.

Jayne: Houn-don.

Scene 6:

River in the cockpit. The ship is flying; one can see Uqbar system through the window as an “ocean of light,” glittering like a jewel in space. The camera focuses first on it, then River’s face as she looks at it.

River: (murmured) Toward the light.

The sinuous surreality of a River moment passes when Mal enters the cockpit and sits down, talking.

Mal: Now, no matter how legal this cargo is—Point o’ curiosity, is it legal, by the way?

River: (tells him) Can’t always ask yourself to distinguish. Two sides of a sword: legality and morality.

Mal: (humoring her) How ‘bout in this case?

River: No trouble, Captain. Yet.

Mal: (dryly) Reassuring that may be, but let’s just keep us flyin’ downwind of any Alliance. Paperwork may be a tad out of date. Also missin’.

River: Legality.

Mal: Alliance? And what’s morality, then?

River shakes her head, troubled and solemn. Mal smiles grimly.

River: (softly, then gradually getting more intense) They took me toward the sun. I didn’t want to go but they took me there—grew me like a flower in a pot, cut me down, made me up…I keep going up and up, can’t stop, won’t let me stop—

Mal: (quietly) You sayin’ someone’s after you again?

River: You all are—don’t mean to be, but...like an equation, with the equal sign broken…little bits of iron flying at me…I’m the magnet, under skin, under bone—is there me? Where is me?

Mal: Can’t say as I know. You want I should call Simon?

She looks out the window, subsiding.

River: (quiet, tragic) It was here before me. Trajectory up. (With a trembly sort of smile) I get tired. Lost. No way to be it. (Glancing at Mal) I’m creepy.

Mal: You know, you are a bit, albatross.

River: Left.

Mal: I don’t know, you look like you to me—

River: Left turn.

Mal looks out the window, sees the ship in front of him, and pilots to the left.

Mal: Right, cuz of the—there was the thing.

River: (quieter) Left.

Mal: Again?

River: Left behind. What goes to ground.

Mal gives her an irritated glance.

River: (murmured again) Little bits of metal…

Scene 7:

The operative is standing alone on a snowy plain, wearing his usual gray and speaking, conversationally, to nothing visible, his usual polite and earnest smile on his face.

Operative: Pristine, as you see. It is very much pristine. And even I do not cast a shadow. It is right that my steps leave no trace. Those who will come after me will cast no shadow, and there will be none cast on them.

A disembodied female voice speaks calmly.

Voice: And who will come after you?

Operative: There will be a woman…with a mother’s smile, a smile full of light. And a little girl with soft black eyes. (He speaks slightly firmly; his smile does not waver, but his eyes change) She will grow into a woman toward that light. And there will be others.

Voice: And you will bring them into it?

He still smiles, but the change in his eyes has been growing; they are cracking slightly. There are things inside of him that are being loosened; if his eyes were rivers with dams, they are now rivers straining at dams, turbulent. His head is shaking “no” slightly. In the stillness there is a soft dropping sound.

Operative: It is…there are shadows. Cracks. (Explanatory:) The red underbelly. There are…chasms. It falls and breaks, slightly.

At his feet a dark red drop begins to roll its way over the white plain, forming a continuous red line behind it, its course erratic.

Operative: (still calmly) It is…wrong. I have, you see, built it wrong, I think.

The red line grows thicker; more red runs faster away from him.

Operative: I have done it wrong.

Voice: What do you see?

Operative: The shadows are… the footsteps…

He looks down at himself, again to find the sword stuck in him, the blood welling around it and dropping at his feet. He smiles.

Operative: But this world will die with me. And that is right.

Voice: (still calm, but somehow more commanding) What do you see?

Operative: (closing his eyes; his smile is terrible) I must die. I have behaved with cowardice. I must die—

He opens his eyes. He is strapped by the wrists and ankles into a chair, probes attached to his head and pulses. Across from him, behind a glass, sits a woman in a white coat with a notepad and a microphone; she is the hypnotist.

Operative: (speaking directly to her) Please, I must—

Hypnotist/the Voice: Nurse, the shot, please. Immediately.

Operative: (beginning to struggle) I must—Please, I MUST—

The nurse, the sympathetic one, rushes in and dopes him. The operative stares at him, eyes wide and frighteningly urgent.

Operative: --die—

His eyes unfocus.

Scene 8:

Zoe is sitting on her bed in her bunk. The shot lingers on her back for a moment, then shows her from slightly behind-profile. One doesn’t actually see her entire face, in short, as she puts away her handkerchief. She stands and straps on a knife, looking very spare and proud and Zoelike—the way she knows she looks to others—then opens her portal and climbs out onto the main hall. She’s stopped by the sound of voices, and listens as she closes her bunk door, consciously semi-eavesdropping. Mal and Inara are conversing in muted yet heated voices on the catwalk-to-hallway convergence, almost out of sight. Zoe isn’t looking. Camera shot focuses on this semi-profile, semi-shadowy shot of Inara and Mal standing together.

Inara: I don’t see why you can’t just—

Mal: Our troubles ain’t your troubles.

Inara: (deeply frustrated and fairly hurt) Mal—

Mal: Got a job to do. As do you.

Inara: (harsh, also slightly questioning: is this what they’re disagreeing on? She’s not sure) I’m not about to give up my work.

Mal: And I ain’t askin’ you to.

Inara: You aren’t asking me anything. You’ve been avoiding me for three days now.

Mal: Avoidin’? Serenity’s a mid-class vessel, ‘Nara. Got no room to avoid you even if I did for some reason want to.

Inara: (bitterly) For some reason.

Mal: (moment of truth-like: his voice hard and low--he's pushing, just pushing) I can’t go protectin’ you from my unwieldy nature. This is me, Inara. This is part of the picture.

Inara: (impatiently) No, it’s not.

Mal: (sardonically, jumping at his chance) Oh? Well that is news—

Inara: (interrupting) I mean—I mean, of course it is, but Mal…

She pauses. Her hand comes up and rests on his chest. She’s not looking at him.

Inara: If you want to push me away, do it to my face.

Mal: (muttered) I got no notion where you come up with this [Chinese for “crazy shit”]. (His hand covers hers; he looks down at her. Her eyes stay down for a moment and then raise to his, slightly defiant; they look at each other).

Mal: (breaking away) Monkey hell. No. No.

Inara: Don’t I have any say in the matter at all?

Mal: Would you honestly say any different?

Inara: (pauses, and her pause is an acknowledgment of the possible truth of this—she doesn’t know if she’d say any different. But then she comes up with a rejoinder and glares) What does it matter, since I’ll apparently never have the opportunity?

Mal: You want the opportunity? Fine. Here’s the gorram opportunity.

He crosses his arms and waits, glaring at her. It’s quite possible that neither of them quite remembers what they’re arguing about anymore—it has something to do with their relationship, however; they know that mostly because they’re fighting. Inara looks back, jaw clenched, then kisses him forcefully. He sort of stumbles back with her, so they’re pressed together lip to lip against the wall. It’s all hands and mouths for a second, and then Jayne gives a wolf-whistle. Inara and Mal jump away from each other, looking around them wildly. Zoe and River are in the doorway out of the cockpit/hallway upstairs, and Simon, Kaylee, and Jayne are standing below, watching. Kaylee’s grinning and gives a little wave. Jayne has a definite leer on, and Simon looks somewhere between vaguely and rather curious. Also turned on. He glances at Kaylee with what must be called an overheated expression. River’s eyes are very wide, and Zoe’s smiling slightly.

Mal: (slightly wildly) We were just…uh…

Inara is patting her hair and blushing furiously.

Zoe: Looked like kissin’, sir.

Mal: It was… She…uh…needed the practice.

Inara gives him a look of overflowing disgust. It’s practically hatred—but this is because she’s kind of hot under the collar and it’s making her eyes smolder.

Mal: (amending hurriedly) Needed TO practice. She said. Her technique was gettin’…uh…(He’s shrugging, a little hectically) I thought it was fine.

Jayne: Looked better than fine from here.

Kaylee: (to Jayne) Well if YOU hadn’t been such a lecherous hump, we’d still be watching them at it ‘stead of hearin' the Captain's lame excuses.

Inara: (looking ready to kill) If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment.

She turns and walks toward her shuttle.

Kaylee: Have good sex!

Simon grins to himself and takes her hand. It’s the first time he’s been happy today, though he doesn’t realize this. Kaylee looks over at him and smiles.

Inara: (with a withering sort of seductiveness, like that she employed with her “It’s my specialty” line in “Our Mrs. Reynolds”) I intend to.

Mal: (in retaliation) You might want to see to your lipstick.

Inara: (not looking back at him) [Chinese equivalent of, “Go to Hell, shit-for-brains”]. (She exits.)

Mal: (sort of making a gesture at normalcy, adjusting his suspenders) Well.

He looks around and sees River, then does a double-take.

Mal: Who’s flying my gorram ship?

Zoe: We docked on Europa about five minutes ago, sir.

Mal blinks, then attempts to pull it together.

Mal: Well what the hell are we waiting for?

Zoe: You, sir.

Mal: (snapping back into it by acknowledging with his face, ironically, the necessity of waiting for him at the moment) Unh. Okay. Zoe, Simon, Kaylee, come with me; Jayne and River stay with the ship. He tries to take it, River, you go ahead and kill him.

River salutes smartly. Jayne grumbles.

Jayne: What would I want with a junk-heap like this?

Kaylee gives him a withering glance, sidling closer to Simon. Simon, kind of lost for the moment in his untoward, unnoticed happiness, kisses her on the top of her head. She smiles to herself, then glances up at Zoe and River, remembering Zoe’s opinion on the subject of River standing on things.

Kaylee: Why don’t River come with you? I can stay with Jayne.

Simon, Jayne, and Mal all give her a bizarre kind of glance. Zoe smiles slightly. River looks at Jayne.

River: I’ll keep Serenity.

Jayne scowls harder.

Mal: Okay then. Everyone into the shuttle. I ain’t expecting any altercatin’ on Thurgood moon, ‘specially if we got clearance like Badger said, but River, you get down there and pick us up if we hail you, yes?

River gives a tiny smile. Jayne gives him a menacing glance, then hawks a loogie (sp?).

Mal: Don’t spit on my floor. Let’s go take care of business.

Simon and Kaylee go up to the catwalk, following Mal and Zoe. Simon looks at River, his little burst of happiness kind of gone.

Simon: Don’t stand on anything less than a foot wide while I’m gone, all right?

River looks at him irritatedly.

Simon: River?

River: Don’t stand on anything.

He moves to smooth her hair, just a little, familiar gesture of conciliation, but again she shies away. His brow furrows slightly.

River: Go.

Simon: …All right.

He turns. Kaylee gives River a worried look and follows. There is the sound of shuttle 2 taking off.

River: (murmured) Away. From me.

Scene 9:

Europa is a lifeless chunk of rock, used as extra parking, sort of, for Thurgood moon, which is tiny.

Shuttle 2 is taking off from Europa. Focus on this, then on a spaceship also parked on Europa, one that, if it were a car, would be a Bentley or a Rolls-Royce, something with tons of style and not much flash which drips money. Its shuttle also takes off, and the camera then jumps to its inside: sort of the limo approach to seating, with an island in the middle on which is a covered buffet and a bar. Nothing’s tacky and nothing’s anything less than extremely expensive. On the wall above the seating is a holograph of this Icarus sculpture by a guy whose name I can’t remember—but it’s absolutely beautiful, in white marble, with Icarus sorta spread out, post-fall, with wings everywhere, I think from either the very late 19th or very early 20th century (can someone help me out here?)—kind of like what Rimbaud (IS it Rimbaud???) might have done with the subject if he’d sculpted it (if that was his name. BLAUGH). ANYWAY, Cane guy from the museum earlier is sitting, looking pleasantly innocuous. From the front he appears kindly, handsome if a little worn. He wears dark glasses, but his smile is gentle. He is talking, partly to the chauffeur through the com link, partly to himself.

Cane Guy: (quoting to himself) The descent beckons as the ascent beckoned.

Chauffeur: (from the front: one can see the nav control through a pane of dark-blue glasslike substance) Sir?

Cane Guy: William Carlos Williams, Siddons. Thurgood moon always puts me in the mood for quotation. He was an American poet on Earth-that-Was. They had a rather uncompromising sense of purpose, I believe. “No images but in things.” They were discontent, Siddons, with the status quo. They continually reached toward the stars. I must say I admire them. Their defiance was ludicrous, of course, but it had a certain dignity to it, a certain fire, that belief.

Siddons: Yes, sir.

Cane Guy: And if such fires are not extinguished, who knows what may happen, Siddons?

Siddons: (comfortably) Not I, sir. Almost there, sir.

Cane Guy: Yes, Siddons, (with an aura that must be creepy without being at all less gentle and kindly) I believe we are.

Scene 10:

Inara’s shuttle lands on a private landing pad in Uqbar. It is a palatial estate, belonging to one Daran—he just goes by Daran. Daran, though this doesn’t come up in the script and might therefore be described as cheating, is a former companion. He acquired a loaded patron (whose name, by the way, was Samuel Lacey) who died and left him everything—consequently, he’s still young, very rich, and an old friend of Inara’s. Cut to inside the shuttle, where Inara, dressed in her robe, is laying out the tea service. A knock on the door; Inara opens it. Daran comes in: he is not so much handsome as attractive, with a soulful yet witty gaze. Inara smiles at him and he smiles crookedly back.

Daran: It’s good to see you again.

Inara: Will you come in?

She ushers him to the couch and closes the door.

Daran: (with not ill-humored irony) Ah, the ceremony of greeting. (He sits, picks up a glass and turns it in his fingers, glancing up at her) I must admit, I was surprised at your acceptance of my proposal.

Inara: (smiling somewhat professionally, somewhat really) It is good to see a friendly face.

Daran: Well, more than just a face, I’m afraid.

Inara laughs, again, somewhere between politeness and friendship. She sits.

Inara: Tea?

Daran: I dare say we’ve greeted each other well enough. How far are you willing to go, Inara? For an old friend, and such a beauty, I certainly would not object to the basics of the trade

Inara: (practically grinning) Between old friends, there is no need for flattery.

Daran: Precisely.

Inara accepts this graciously. She takes the glass from his hands gracefully.

Inara: No ceremony, then. (She bows her head, smiling sweetly) Let’s just be ourselves.

Daran studies her face. The scene is characterized by a certain practiced, delicate camraderie—both, in short, know how to play the game, and both are sure of what the client wants. He seems to approve of what he finds in her expression, which is, to the eye of the viewer, serene and accepting.

Daran: Very well. I take it you’ve come for a reason. Shall we find out what it is?

Inara smiles gently. She stands and takes off her robe. Underneath is a leather corset—I don’t wish to strain imaginary Morena Baccarin’s modesty too far, so the shot would suffice with the revelation of this undergarment, but if she chooses, and for the better visualization of the audience, she wears a black thong and knee-high lace-up high-heeled boots. The expression on her face remains the same, however, except there’s a certain small blush of excitement in her cheeks.

Inara: (politely) Your safeword remains the same?

Daran: (his eyes devouring her) It does. And yours?

Inara: (nods, then with a strange little smile: sweet, stiff, sad, excited…) See you on the other side.

Scene 11:

A serene shot of the lovely Thurgood moon from above, and then a hectic shot of it from immediately above the Serenity shuttle. Zoe’s trying to park, but there’s a hell of a lot of activity in the lot: Thurgood being within range of Uqbar by shuttle, lots of the students commute both on public and in private transportation. Shot to inside the shuttle, with Zoe at the helm and Mal backseat-piloting as usual.

Mal: The ‘tender said park at 103-F.

Zoe: So I recall, sir.

Mal: You see any 103-F? There’s a…whatnot comin’ right at you—

Zoe: A decade we been working together, sir, and still you don’t trust me.

Mal: I trust you fine, Zoe. It’s everyone else in the lot I don’t trust— the thing, look out for the thing—

Zoe: (avoids the thing ably) You want to drive, sir?

Mal: No.

Zoe: Maybe you want to go explain the plan to Kaylee and Simon?

Mal: But…103 F…and the—what the hell IS that and why is it flyin’ right at us?

Zoe: (avoiding the thing flying right at them with agility) Sir, do you remember why you don’t drive the shuttle?

Mal: (muttered) ‘Cuz I drive like a paraplegic.

Zoe: It was quadriplegic, sir.

Mal: I’ll get Simon and Kaylee up to speed.

Zoe: Nice of you, sir, to give them some time alone.

Mal: Yeah, them and four hundred students can be all together-like on this cozy little moon.

Zoe: (after a tiny pause, slightly flippant, slightly very pained. Her face doesn’t show, but she’s trying to talk normally—and, being Zoe, she practically succeeds) Wash always said, sir, that your problem with shipboard romance was really just projection.

Mal: (treading delicately by being blunt) Wash was convinced you wanted me.

Zoe: Point taken, sir. Kaylee’ll be okay.

Mal: It’s her life, I know that. Just don’t want to see her hurtin’. Love always do seem to cause some kind of hurtin’.

They’re not just talking about Kaylee; hence it’s sort of an emotional pause.

Zoe: (with the hardness of someone telling the facts like they are) Sir, Kaylee’s having sex. Get used to it.

Mal: Ngaah!

He enters the shuttle proper. Simon and Kaylee are sitting on the crates, holding hands, kind of cooing, Kaylee teasing and Simon kind of embarrassed, but both totally wrapped up in each other.

Kaylee: (teasing, gratified) What, were you jealous?

Simon: No, I just—

Kaylee: Cuz Zoe said that River might be feeling left out, with us spendin’ so much time together and all—

Mal: (plenty calm under the circumstances) Kaylee.

Simon: (not really good at this, but enjoying doing his manful best) That’s—sweet of you.

Kaylee: I'm sweet? That an actual compliment from Dr. Tam himself?

Simon: (protesting, but smilingly) Kaylee--

Mal: (has had enough) Kaylee.

Kaylee: (startled) Cap’n?

Simon lets go of her hand real quick-like.

Mal: (rolling his eyes) You ‘n’ Simon help get the cargo to this Beauport character an’ then loiter some. If I buzz you—

He tosses the half of the dog buzzer thing to Simon.

Simon: Let me guess. We run away and call for help.

Mal: I’ll have comlink too, but it never does hurt to take precautions. Buzzer thing’s less obtrusive. (getting a subtle kick out of this [as, by the way, do I]) Did I tell you they use ‘em on sheep farms to call in the dogs?

Simon: (irately) Yes.

Kaylee: I thought we were trustin’ Badger?

Mal: Within reason, sure.

Kaylee: Well, don’t fret, Cap’n. (patting Simon on the back) We can run away but good.

Simon gives her a flat look. The shuttle gives a lurch. Mal looks around.

Mal: (shouted) Zoe, what the hell was that?

Zoe: I parked, sir.

Scene 12:

Faculty housing. The apartment is Professor Beauport’s; it’s messy but cozy, very home-like. Beauport’s online in her kitchen talking to Cane Guy—Cane Guy, in other words, is displayed on a screen like Ath in “Shindig”—while chopping some sort of vegetable or something.

Beauport: (rolling her eyes) I know what you mean when you ask for a favor, Thron.

Thron (Formerly Cane Guy): As a general rule, my dear, of course you do. But the case at hand is slightly different. Have you abandoned our cause so entirely?

Beauport: (looking directly into his eyes) No. Not in theory. (She gives a little smile) But in practice… I have a son now, Thron. My life isn’t my own anymore. I doubt you’d understand.

She pulls another vegetable toward her and continues to chop.

Thron: And you never long for the old days?

Beauport: (as though to say, “Well, duh”) What do you think?

Thron: It is a genuinely small favor, Varens. I wish to speak with Malcolm Reynolds.

Beauport: Reynolds?

Thron: He’s bringing your shipment.

Beauport: Why?

Thron: A certain matter of a...signal—

Sounds are heard of the door to the apartment opening. Beauport looks around, holding up a hand in a gesture for silence. The sound of tromping footsteps comes down the hall.

Beauport: (shouted) Byron? Sweetheart?

Byron: (shouted back from in the hallway, in an irritated boy voice) What?

Beauport: Aren’t you going to come in?

Byron: Just leave me alone.

Sound of tromping going up stairs and a door slamming. Beauport makes a wry face to herself.

Thron: A difficult age.

Beauport: If it’s about the signal, I don’t want to hear anything.

Thron: But will you grant my favor? The opportunity to see Reynolds, and a place to speak with him?

Beauport heaves a sigh.

Beauport: Yes. Okay. (Sort of ironically, sort of wistfully) For the cause.

A soft chiming sound rings through the apartment.

Thron: Thank you, my dear. Toward a better world.

Beauport: (with irony) A better world. I have to go.

Thron: See you soon.

The screen waves out. Beauport puts down her knife and goes toward the door.

Beauport: (murmured to herself, grimly, just before she opens it) A better world. If such a thing is possible.

Scene 13:

River and Jayne in the kitchen on Serenity, playing cards. They’re silent; Jayne’s grimacing in concentration, River’s watching him like a hawk—one, of course, with altered reality matrices. He lays his cards down with something of a flourish. River looks over, then lays her cards down.

Jayne: Gorram it, you cheated.

River looks at him.

Jayne: Stop gettin’ your mind-powers all tangled up in my head.

River: (low and creepy, gathering the cards) What she was made for. Anticipate the enemy’s eve-ry move.

She shuffles. Jayne snorts and spits.

Jayne: I don’t see why we can’t have one nice, civilized game where I end up winnin’.

River: Statistical anomaly.

Jayne: What, me winnin’?

River: (dealing) Civilization. Cells with mitochondria. Fold humans in half and the halves match. Throwing it towards the light—

Jayne: Stow it, genius.

River: (rebelliously, muttering) Under skin, under bone.

Jayne: The day comes I want to hear your crazy talk… Well, that really ain’t an issue, come to think on it. (laying down) Now HERE is a hand you couldn’t possibly—

River lays down.

Jayne: Ah, nuns-‘n’-rulers Hell. Why couldn’t Kaylee have stayed? Don’t you want to spend some quality time with your big brother, away from, say, me?

River: Didn’t want to.

Jayne: (mock-sympathetic) You an’ Simon growin’ apart?

River: You. Kaylee. Didn’t want to get too near. Not now.

Jayne: She’s a damn sight better company than you an’ your…psychical cheatin’.

River: Hurts.

Jayne: What, my witty jibes?

River raises an eyebrow.

River: You. Hurt. Because of Kaylee.

Jayne: (almost dangerous) What the Hell are you talkin’ on, little girl?

River: Felt right. Felt simple. Like everything’s the same, but Kaylee’s in it and, drop, it’s shinier, brighter. Stretched into every corner, her smile. Felt warm. And now you can’t have her and everything’s melting, too hot, too bright. No shadows. Everything exposed, hurting.

Jayne: Stop riflin’ my mind.

River: On your face.

Jayne: Well stop lookin’ at me. Anyways Zoe says you ain’t too keen on all their… (with a mixture of lust and disgust) closeness either.

River: Simon’s not happy.

Jayne: (kind of harshly) He’s got trim between his sheets, why shouldn’t he be?

River: He’s lost. Fallen. My fault. Kaylee makes him happy.

Jayne pulls a flask out of his pocket and looks at it.

Jayne: (talking to himself) That girl’d make anyone happy.

He takes a swig.

River: I want him happy. Stay out of the way. Stay quiet.

Jayne: And stand on stuff.

River: We have to grow up sometime.

Jayne: (taking another swig) It’s just she’s so gorram piao-liang [Chinese for “pretty”].

River grabs his flask and takes a pull.

Jayne: Hey now.

River: Falling.

Jayne grabs his flask back.

River: Just falling and falling.

Scene 14:

Beauport’s living room. It’s also comfortably untidy—most of the mess is comprised of papers and books. A mini-system, like that of Mr. Universe, but much smaller, which is of use to scholars researching on the cortex (and everything, including libraries and their books, are on the cortex), is on one wall; bookshelves and book file shelves line the other walls, and on one wall there’s a copy of Brueghel’s “Fall of Icarus”. Kaylee and Simon have gone, Mal’s prising the top off the final crate, and Beauport and Zoe are unloading the other ones. They contain books, rare and very, very old. Beauport lifts one gently out, an awed sort of look on her face.

Beauport: Second edition of Labyrinths. (She starts laughing in wonder) Badger said that this would be a good haul, but I wasn’t expecting…Special Collections is going to be kissing my ass for decades for getting them this stuff.

Zoe: (grinning—fully grinning) That’s incredible. Where did Badger find all this?

Beauport: (handing the book to Zoe; she treats it as gently as Beauport has done) Xin James’s estate sale. James retired to Persephone. He died about two weeks ago.

Zoe: Xin James? From Algonquin University? His work on racial civilization and identity back on Earth-that-Was always fascinated me.

Beauport: Did you read The Janus-Head?

Zoe: It was what turned me on to Borges and Lorca in the first place. His whole idea of the effect of the past-present on a one-habitable-planet system…it floored me when I was an undergraduate.

Mal, the crate opened, is staring back and forth from Zoe to Beauport like someone watching a ping-pong game. His mouth is hanging open slightly.

Beauport: Where did you go to university?

Zoe: Laine, though I did do some graduate work at Algonquin—

Beauport: (looking floored) Zoe Warren? You’re Zoe Warren?

Zoe: I—was, yes.

Beauport: You wrote that piece on imbalance in the post-relative construct, right? And the Niello group during their Santo period? “The Ascent,” wasn’t it?

Zoe: That was a long time ago.

Beauport: I…I don’t know what to say. That paper was groundbreaking, theoretically. I can’t believe this.

Mal is now staring unequivocally at Zoe. She looks at him and might be said to blush.

Mal: I’m a bit lost for words myself.

Tromping comes from the hallway. It’s Byron, going to the kitchen.

Beauport: (shouting) Byron! Come meet our guests!

Byron appears in the doorway. He’s twelve, and chubby. Unhappiness is his general state, but right now he’s extremely unhappy. He’s a good kid, though, he just hates, a) school, where he doesn’t get picked on much, but does feel completely alone (he’s very sensitive), and b) his dad’s defection from their family.

Beauport: Sweetie (Byron cringes), this is Zoe Warren. And Captain Reynolds. (Byron’s eyes light up a little.) Remember me talking about Zoe Warren?

Zoe blushes harder. Byron blushes too, mostly out of embarrassment for his mom, a bit out of shyness and because Zoe’s hot.

Byron: Hi. (He turns to Mal) What do you captain?

Mal: A Firefly.

Byron: (kind of interested) Really? What’s she called?

Mal: Serenity.

Byron: What, like Serenity Valley?

Beauport: (warningly; it isn’t polite to talk war in front of strangers) Byron.

Byron shuts up. disgruntled.

Mal: (kind of friendly, kind of shrewd) Yep.

Byron: (his enthusiasm gets the better of him—you can see he’s a nice kid, with some dignity, at this point) I want to be a pilot.

Beauport: (jokingly) We’ve discussed this before, sweetie. Pilots have to finish their schooling too.

Byron scowls and shuts up.

Beauport: He hates school. He’s going to middle school in the spring, (Beauport puts her arm around her son and ruffles his hair) and he’s not looking forward to it.

Byron: (muttered) Mom.

Beauport: Would you please tell him how much fun he’s going to have?

Mal: In middle school? Er…

Zoe: (unconvincingly) It’ll be, um, fun.

Beauport: Well, maybe it won’t be, but you have to go anyway, so you might as well get used to it.

Byron: (breaking away from his mom, muttering) I hate those idiots at school.

Beauport: Just think of all the character they’re helping you build.

Byron: Yeah. Great.

He tromps out of the room.

Beauport: (smile fading) He’s so sensitive. I can’t say anything right.

Mal: (with an awkward smile) It’s a difficult age.

Beauport: You’re telling me.

The doorbell rings. Mal and Zoe exchange a glance.

Beauport: Oh, that’s my friend. He especially wanted to meet you, Captain.

Mal: (with a glance at Zoe, then turning back to Beauport, slightly dangerous) Did he, now?

Beauport: (her eyes suddenly both very knowing and very pragmatic, acknowledging the threat—she’s a brave and experienced lady) Just to talk. My friend, whatever else he may be, is a man of his word.

She goes to the door.

Zoe: (low) Whatever else he may be, Cap’n?

Mal: (acknowledging this by changing the subject) What I’d like to know is since when you were a shiny star in the glittering academic ‘verse, Zoe.

Zoe: It was before the war.

Mal: Uh-hunh.

Thron enters, in his dressy clothes, with his kindly face and cane. Mal looks dubiously at the cane.

Thron: Captain Reynolds?

Mal: Yes?

Thron: I’m Quilon Thron. May I speak with you…privately?

Scene 15:

Kaylee and Simon at a campus cafeteria. They are sitting at a table next to a window overlooking a lake. Simon is eyeing his tray somewhat grimly.

Kaylee: (slightly exasperated) Oh come on, it’s not like it’ll bite back.

Simon eyes her in the same manner, then his expression changes to one of regret, sort of, and a little bit of unusual openness.

Simon: (with embarrassed candor) It would just be…nice to take you somewhere…well, nice. (bitterly) Not that I can afford it.

Kaylee: (smiling) You know I don’t mind.

Simon: I do. It’s…ridiculous, I know, I just...

Kaylee: I don’t mind that much either. (with superstar sweet Kaylee flirtatiousness) Not when it’s on account of me—

Simon: (withdrawn) I used to be rich. I was…well, rich, for one thing. And now…

Kaylee: (impatiently) Simon. What’s going on?

Simon: I just…Even River has a place on the ship, and I…I have you. (He looks at her intently, almost painfully intently. She gives him half a smile.) But I’m not even on the run, really, any more. I’m just…falling. (looking out the window, brow furrowed again) Aside from yours, what am I?

Kaylee: (staring at him, eyes kind of wide, spoken softly) Mine?…You’re mine?

Simon isn’t paying attention. His gaze focuses, sharpens on the view from the window: the woman from the museum, Thron’s friend, is sitting on a bench next to the lake, her cap pulled down low. Simon’s eyes widen slightly.

Kaylee: (noticing his expression) Simon?

Simon: (staring at the woman) Reis? (to Kaylee) Just a second. I’m going to talk to her. This has the potential to be…rather problematic.

Kaylee: (exasperated) Simon.

He looks down at her.

Kaylee: Wait the hell up.

Scene 16:

Thron and Mal. They’re in Beauport’s bedroom. Mal is looking very very wary; Thron is seated on the bed, somehow not less kindly and dignified for it.

Thron: You must be questioning the nature of my intentions in arranging this meeting, Sergeant Reynolds. But I think you will be amenable to my purpose, once you have heard it.

Mal: Quilon Thron? Ain’t you Alliance brass of some sort?

Thron: (with a gentle smile) Of some sort, yes. I am one of the Chancellor’s most trusted advisors, and sit on the board of Blue Sun Industries. I am also the man behind Icarus.

Mal: Icawhat?

Thron: (in the manner of one about to begin explaining something) Is not Simon Tam a part of your crew?

Mal: (sizing Thron up, and coming out belligerent. His hand moves toward his gun holster) What exactly do you want?

Thron: Not Tam, I assure you. It was my group that helped him to rescue River.

Mal waits, arms crossed.

Thron: I am trusting you, Sergeant Reynolds, with the secret of my identity. You must believe that I will not harm you, nor any of yours. Icarus seeks to bring down the Alliance.

Mal: And that’s why you’re trenched so far up in its territory?

Thron: Indeed.

Mal is waiting again.

Thron: I see that you wish for further proof. (He turns very serious, though retaining his gentleness) It was I who brought River Tam the information about Miranda. I gave it to her during a government inspection of the Academy, put it into my thoughts like a rock in a stream, trusting she would find it.

Mal: (is beginning to believe him, and beginning show the emotional ramifications of this belief; namely, he’s getting real angry) And then sent your men after her?

Thron: (saddened) That, I confess, I did not forsee.

Mal: (harshly) Even if you’re not lyin’, don’t mean it happened any less. What the hell do you want with me?

Scene 17:

Zoe and Beauport are sitting on the floor amidst piles of books, having a conversation.

Zoe: (gives what equates to a shrug) The war, basically. I had to fight. And I discovered I was fairly good at it.

Beauport: (with a half-smile) Ah, the war. Byron was little. I didn’t feel I could go… I wanted to, though. His dad went. Fought on the side of the Alliance. Seriously, looking back, I don’t know what I saw in that fucker. (She picks up a book, fingers it idly) I miss those days of having convictions. (bittersweetly) My war’s basically over, though, because of Byron. (joking-serious) My baby for my convictions—It’s more than a fair trade, it’s a steal….but I do miss them.

Zoe: (smiling slightly) So I imagine.

Beauport: (carefully) Listen, Zoe, I don’t want to push or anything, which, as Byron would tell you, is something of a miracle, but…if you ever want your war to end, there’s a professorship waiting for you at Singh University. I understand how much your way of life must mean to you, how much Serenity must mean. But if you ever want to rest…

Zoe looks down.

Zoe: (in a very still voice) Thank you.

There is a sudden knock on the door. A minute later Simon and Kaylee hurry in, out of breath.

Kaylee: Hey again!

Simon: Where’s Mal? Is Quilon Thron with him?

Beauport: Right down the hall. What—

Simon: Thank you.

He hurries off. Kaylee looks at the women on the floor, Beauport bewildered, Zoe with a tiny quirk of a smile, and smiles back, again slightly exasperated.

Kaylee: Sorry about that. Simon saw Thron’s hench…henchwoman? Henchperson? out by the lake.

Beauport: Oh.

Kaylee: (sitting down with them) I guess there wasn't time enough to explain the problem. So, what’cha talking about?

Zoe and Beauport (exchange a glance, then say together): Books

Scene 18:

Mal and Thron, still in the bedroom.

Thron: I must say, I do not entirely understand your attitude, Sergeant. The side you took in the war may not have landed you in the annals of history, but your every action showed an inspired devotion to the Browncoat cause. Why are you unhappy at having been handed the exact weapon, in the form of River Tam, to weaken your proven enemy? I am not asking you to join us for myself, Sergeant Reynolds, but for you. Your cause needs you. But, more importantly, you need your cause. Join us. Stop sailing rudderless. Put yourself into our hands. You are, though anonymous, a hero already in many circles. In sending the Miranda wave you sounded a call. The Alliance has never been weaker, and Icarus has never been in a better position to strike, thanks to yourself and your crew. I want Serenity, and I want you, at the forefront of that strike, that strike toward a better world.

There is a pause. Mal stares levelly at Thron, who looks back at him gravely.

Mal: (with sudden bitterness) You Alliance types are all the same. You go on—and how very longwinded you can be—on all sorts of matter: hygiene, grammar, Alliance-free universe... Aphoristics and platitudes for every occasion, but when it comes to the folks down on the ground doin’ all this livin’ you take on about so, you got nothing. You sent trouble down on me and mine, in the form of a seventeen-year-old girl tortured past the threshold of sanity in the strictest sense. She don’t know where she is or what she’s doin’—can’t think straight what with all the gorram noise in her brainpan and fights on command like a trained ho ze[Chinese for monkey], and this… weapon, as you call her, is supposed to fill me top-full of joy? Seventeen-year-old girl got more blood on her hands than beats through all your parts and it eats her inside—my crew near starved to death, my ship near broke apart under my feet tryin’ to keep her safe— (splintering, but inside) I lost men in that battle. Good men. I was driven into a corner and so I fought, but I chose none of it. And that don’t make me and your Icarins or what-have-you comrades-in-arms, understand?

Thron: (in a surprisingly low voice) You did had a choice, Sergeant. And you chose that fight.

Mal: (savagely—this is a little on the true side for him) Maybe I did. And maybe I didn’t. But it wasn’t mine. It was brought down on me. (calmer) I’m glad it worked out, glad the Alliance is limpin’, but…

Thron: (his voice swelling: not loud, but powerful—one sees what a good orator he is) Admit that you enjoyed having once again a cause, a purpose, instead of this…what? Petty thievery? Living on scraps? Do you fully comprehend how far you’ve fallen, Sergeant?

Mal: Answer’s no, grandpa. (He says the next inward) War’s over.

He turns to open the door, and finds Simon standing in it.

Mal: …Hi.

Simon: Hi.

Mal: You need somethin’?

Simon: (after a slight pause in which he works out how to answer this question while still digesting what he’s overheard from Mal) Well, I came to tell you not to trust Thron, but I see you’ve worked that out for yourself.

Mal: Yep.

Thron: (kindly, dignified) What precisely did I do to earn your mistrust, Dr, Tam?

Mal snorts.

Simon: (drawing himself up, at his most belligerent and therefore his most precise) I find it frankly rather laughable that you see it necessary to ask that question, Councillor Thron. I admit freely that you are rarely directly responsible for what happens around you, but you are a dangerous man to work with, if nothing else. Your actions tend to cast certain shadows. I speak from experience.

Mal: And hey, you’re about to speak from more.

Simon: Excuse me?

Mal: Tell him what you did, Quilly.

Thron: (a sad yet calm capitulation) Sergeant Reynolds refers to the fact that I planted the information about Miranda in your…sibling’s brain.

Simon: …What?

Thron: Dear boy, it’s what she was made for.

Simon: Hunh?

Thron: River is a product of genetic enhancement. At least technically, no part of her make-up is related to yours. She is not, in reality, your sis—

Thron is silenced, namely by Simon punching him in the face.

Scene 19:

River and Jayne are in the passenger dorm lounge. They are drunk. Jayne is sitting, muttering to himself; River is running, lightly, swinging around poles and jumping on and over chairs. There’s only a very little booze left in the bottle Jayne holds. He swigs it.

Jayne: (muttered) So gorram pretty.

River: (running) I’m like a bird!

Jayne: (louder, semi-directed at River) She’s got pretty eyes. An’ pretty little curves.

River: Like a kamikaze bird!

Jayne: A man could lose himself in them curvy…curves o’ hers.

River: E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. I’m like a love bird, like a dove.

Jayne: An’ that smile.

River: Love lines them up and knocks them down. (She swoops) Swoop!

Jayne: You’re crazy.

River: Swoop doop!

She runs out of the room, clicking her heels like in “War Stories.” Jayne doesn’t realize she’s gone for a second. Then he does and stands, wavery.

Jayne: Hey psycho…psycho…girl! Where’d you get to?

River: (from the walkway) I’m a bird!

Jayne: Aw, [Chinese for “bastard” or something].

He exits passenger dorm lounge thing and goes slightly unsteadily down the hall, to find River standing on the catwalk railing, her arms outspread, looking up. He stares at her, craning his neck, and yells.

Jayne: Get down!

River: Under the skin-n-n! Under the bo-o-one!

Jayne: Get down afore I put you down!

River: Close to the su-u-u-n-n!

Scene 20:

Simon is being restrained at the shoulders by Mal. Thron is watching with mild surprise.

Simon: You bastard! You bastard!

Mal: Simon. Shut the hell up and let the man talk.

Simon: I can’t—I don’t—you…you… (He subsides. Mal lets him go. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. When he speaks his voice has replaced rage with calm, icy loathing) What do you mean “what she was made for?”

Thron: She was planned from the beginning as the ultimate operative, unfortunately. Do you remember when your mother went away to have her? To Virgo moon? She stayed at the clinic while the…girl was incubated, then…

Simon: Brought her home? Made her my family? My parents knew?

Thron: They were rewarded most substantially. It’s a very secret project—

Simon: Why? Why not just keep her, raise her as an assassin in some secret back room of the Alliance’s?

Thron: We found that approach to be…unsuccessful.

Simon: You’ve done this BEFORE?

Thron: What we now call the Alliance has been a powerful player in universal politics since before the war, you do realize. River, however, is special. She is an extraordinary achievement.

Simon: (loathing harder) She’s my sister, not your achievement. Does she know? Does she know what you did to her?

Thron: When I passed River the information about Miranda it was guarded by certain mental constructs, constructs which I felt confident would keep the information safe until it was ready to be used. Other things were, however, in my mind—

Simon: I asked you a simple question, to which I require an immediate answer. Does she know?

Thron: I am afraid so. It was a contingency that I did not plan for, I must admit.

Simon: You are saying that my little sister has been carrying the knowledge that her genetic code was cobbled together by the government for over a year now?

Thron: At the time it was not the government—

Simon stares him into silence, then continues.

Simon: And that the Alliance, or whatever the conglomerate behind it, designed her for the specific purpose of killing?

Thron: Not only killing, by any means. She is engineered to fulfill any number of functions--(He stops at the look on Simon's face). They are, after all, in pursuit of whatever their version of a better world is.

Simon: Who is she made out of?

Thron: It was discovered that the hardest genes to manufacture—

Simon: —Are those to do with agility, as any reasonably educated medical student knows. Who is she made out of?

Thron: We chose our materials from the DNA banks accordingly. Taiwo Enchi was our main source. She is a…visual artist now living on Bellerophon. Her “Fall of Icarus” is exquisite—

Mal: (talk turns to art, he’s immediately wary) Yeah, okay, but how do you know all this?

Thron: (dignified, always dignified) I initiated the project. It was a long time ago. I have since come to understand that such manipulation is…wrong, very wrong. That is why I initiated the Icarus group, not long after. The Alliance does not, needless to say, share this understanding—

Mal: You don’t understand a gorram thing, Quil. It’s locked up in your head, blind, deaf and dumb. Once Alliance brass, always Alliance brass—don’t matter how far you turn your coat or what color you dye it. Can’t see anything that you haven’t let yourself—

Thron: And you, I suppose, are different? Who among us can ever see what we do not wish to?

Simon: (after a charged pause) My sister.

Pause.

Mal: I think we’ve said what we’ve said. Thanks for your time, Mr. Thron; we’re all a little wiser, and time spent learnin’ is time well-spent in my book. Simon?

Simon’s standing very still, staring at Thron, loathing battling it out with rage in his expression.

Thron: You will not mention my name? We are, after all, on the same side—

Mal: (wryly) Yes we are. And, no, we won’t. No need to borrow trouble when we got such an abundance of it already. Simon.

Thron: (regret in his voice) It is finished between us?

Mal: Indeed it is. Simon, for Christ’s sake—

Simon punches Thron in the face once more. Thron falls back on the bed.

Simon: I’m ready.

Scene 21:

Inara is sitting up, with a sheet clutched to her chest. Daran is lying back on the bed, looking at her between amusement and concern.

Inara: (distressed) I’m sorry, Daran. That’s never happened before.

Daran: It’s all right, sweetheart. (He sits up and touches her hair gently) Who is this…Mal?

Inara: The captain of the ship I’ve been sailing with. He…I… (trying to gather her professional demeanor back together) I don’t know what’s gotten into me.

Daran: Inara, the way I go to work is such that this kind of thing can happen. It’s what I want. You know the traditions of House de Berg. You wanted it too. To dig deeper, under the skin, to find that truth at the proverbial volcano’s edge.

Inara: (half-listening) He’s interfering with my work now. This can’t go on. (somewhat wildly) The situation is impossible, Daran. I have to get away from him.

Daran: (murmured, fingering her hair) Vulnerable.

Inara: I feel…

Daran: As though you were falling?

Inara: It won’t end. I can’t get back to myself.

Daran: You’re remarkable, Inara. All these years, all this passion, and you’ve never once been in love?

Inara: (trembling) I was in—I was in love.

Daran: (softly) I remember. But this is different, no? This is different.

Inara: I have to get out.

Daran: Maybe. But maybe you have to stay. It isn’t…pleasant, being in love like this. But sometimes it’s necessary, more necessary than food or shelter or your happiness, more necessary even than your sense of self. You want to fall. You showed me that. You are so lovely that you frighten yourself. Possibly deservedly so. But don’t stop. None of us have any idea who we are, what we’re capable of—

Inara begins to cry. Daran gathers her to him, genuinely tender…and at the same time genuinely, coldly objective, always watching, and turned on by what he sees. Inara doesn’t care.

Inara: I feel l-lost.

Daran: (looking down at her, murmured, heated) You surrender so beautifully.

Scene 22:

Mal and Simon come out of the bedroom as Kaylee is chatting on the floor with Zoe and Beauport.

Kaylee: Yeah, I don’t read much, but these Neruda poems that Simon got me…(you can hear the smile in her voice) They’re like…they’re honestly music, you know? I never read anything like it.

Beauport: I know exactly what you mean—Hello, Captain, Simon…(She looks at Simon’s riled face) I take it your conference went really damn badly?

Mal: That is about the sum of it.

Beauport: I’m sorry about the ambush. Quilon can talk me into most things he sets his mind to.

Mal: It’s all right, ma’am. He is a man of his word.

Beauport: (smiling wryly) Whatever else he may be.

Mal: We’re going to head out—

Beauport: It’s been such a pleasure—

She and Zoe hug and start to chatter again.

Mal: Tell Byron we said good bye.

Beauport waves to convey that she got the message. Mal goes out onto the porch. Simon follows. It’s a typical suburban street, silent, tree-lined, made beautiful by the setting sun. There’s a moment.

Simon: (abruptly—he’s still so angry that his thoughts just come to his lips) Thanks for what you said about River. I’m glad that you care for her, whatever you may feel about me.

Mal: Serenity don’t really need a medic.

Simon: I know.

Mal: You make yourself useful enough, though.

Simon: I…do?

Mal: Yep. (with gravity) From now on you ain’t just our medic, you’re also the guy who runs away and beats up all the old men.

Simon: Great.

Mal: No, I’m serious. A successful crew needs a man who’s willin’ to pound his elders to a bloody pulp. You hit old ladies too? What about schoolgirls?

Simon: (realizing Mal is joking, he responds in a manner that is stiff and slightly bemused) I also kick puppies.

Mal: (assessing) Hey, that was almost funny.

Simon: I try.

Zoe and Kaylee come onto the front porch, and the four head out.

Mal: (grumbly) Where exactly is the gorram parking lot?

Zoe: You’re on the right track, sir—

She pauses, then they all pause. In front of them stands the albino woman, Thron’s companion Reis, holding a gun pointed at Simon.

Kaylee: Simon—

Reis smiles slightly, but only slightly. She’s devoted, is the thing, not evil; she’s fallen; she’s down the rabbit hole. Mal looks at her and knows this.

Reis: You know too much. All of you know too much.

Kaylee: S-Simon—

Simon’s eyes widen slightly. Simon: Reis—

Mal: We ain’t gonna tell on Thron, miss. There’s no way you’ll put that piece down?

Reis: He thought you cared. He thought your commitment was stronger than it’s turned out to be. He was disappointed. And, most important, he has put himself in danger.

As the conversation goes on, we see Byron coming down the street. He can’t see the gun, just the fact that Mal and his friends are talking with a pale woman in a hat. He has gotten over his anger at his mom for the moment, and wants, shyly, but not too shyly because Mal seemed well-disposed enough toward him, to say goodbye, and possibly ask some questions about flying. He misses having a father; Mal’s hardly a substitute, but he feels a certain loneliness that Mal’s presence briefly assuaged. He feels slightly guilty about this—mostly, however, it’s with confidence that he approaches, doing nothing so overstated as smiling, but with his eyes less guarded and more hopeful than usual.

Mal: This ain’t war, miss, this is murder.

Reis: Where can you draw that line anymore?

Mal: Thron—

Woman with Gun: He doesn’t know what it takes to keep his dream afloat. But I do.

Mal: So we’ll really do this?

He watches her very closely, unable to even move toward his gun. She points the gun at Simon, who is staring down the barrel, almost like someone in a trance. Her finger squeezes the trigger.

Mal: (barked) Zoe.

Zoe pulls Kaylee down. Kaylee screams. Mal shoves Simon out of the way and gets grazed in the arm. The bullet goes past him and ends up in Byron. He looks mildly surprised as he falls backwards, slowly, to the accompaniment of silence.

Scene 22 ½:

River, standing drunk on the catwalk rail. Jayne’s down below. There is the sound of a heartbeat. (Maybe.) She senses the death, shakes her head violently to the right once and once to the left, loses her balance and falls over into the space of the cargo bay in equally slow motion.

Scene 22 ¾:

Back on Beauport’s street. There’s a moment, then Zoe gives an inhuman kind of yell and throws her knife at Reis, who gets it in the arm. She’s staring at what she’s done. Kaylee turns, on her knees, and stares. Simon runs over to Byron.

Simon: I need my bag…

Mal grabs Reis and takes her gun. She doesn’t put up much of a fight.

Mal: (slapping her in the face, overcome by his rage) That’s the line. That is the line.

Woman with Gun: I didn’t know—

Simon: (quietly) He’s dead.

Mal leaves off and runs over to Simon and Byron. Zoe joins them. Reis, her eyes on the body, wrenches the knife out of her arm, drops it, and runs down the street.

Zoe: (desperate and harsh) Fix him. Can’t you—

Simon puts a hand on her arm, but she’s stopped herself already.

Simon: (kind of his first thought) Kaylee, don’t look—

Kaylee stares at him. He stares back. There's a new amount of Simon in his gaze; he's Kaylee's, in the presence of a death witnessed together, and both of these things are somehow very fresh and very terrible (I don't know how this looks on his face). This is a small interaction, somehow interspersed with the main sequence: Mal stands; there is a slow-motion shot of him picking up the body and carrying it down the street, with Zoe behind him. Kaylee goes to Simon and takes his hand, and they follow. Remember River’s heartbreaking soundtrack moment? It should be the same music, but infinitely sadder in its execution.

Scene 23:

The music extends into a shot of River falling. She’s caught by Jayne. I can’t describe what’s on his face, because I don’t know, but what he’s thinking is partly, gorram freak’s gonna get me in trouble, but mostly, gorram freak’s gonna hurt herself. He looks at her face, realizes she’s crying.

Jayne: What’s the matter now?

River: Gone to ground. Lost. Everything’s lost.

Jayne: You still drunk?

River: (crying louder) Oh God, it’s wrong, it’s wrong—it’s WRONG—

She beats her fists against his chest. Jayne holds her closer. She collapses against him, sobbing. He carries her out of the cargo bay.

Jayne: (walking, muttered) Lightweight.

Black-out.

Scene 24:

Everyone’s back on Serenity. Mal, arm lightly bandaged, and Zoe are in the cockpit, standing and staring out the window. Europa is a harsh chunk of rock, bathed in harsh stadium-style light from hovering lamps.

Mal: You okay?

Zoe: (after a pause) How are you, sir?

Mal shakes his head.

Zoe: She offered me a job.

Mal: Beauport? Teachin’ or whatnot?

Zoe acknowledges a yes.

Mal: Did you take it?

Zoe: No.

Mal: But you thought about it.

Zoe: (slightly cracked in her voice) Yes.

Mal: You do what you have to.

Zoe: Can’t leave Serenity, sir.

Mal: (after a pause) We probably better git. (Another pause) You seen River?

Zoe: I think she’s indisposed.

Mal: Things were different. In the war. Weren’t they?

Zoe: (firmly) They were.

Mal: At least the lawmen let us go. Fingerprints didn’t match those on the trigger, that was a piece of luck.

Zoe: (it’s a question) We didn’t turn Thron in.

Mal: I can’t make those kind of decisions anymore, Zoe. I don’t…I should—

Zoe tells him without words, touch, or eye contact that it’s okay. Mal acknowledges her opinion without words, touch, or eye contact. Inara steps into the cockpit, sees them together, and turns to go. Mal looks around at her.

Inara: I didn’t mean to interrupt…

Mal’s just looking at her. She looks back. Zoe watches.

Zoe: I’ll take the helm, sir.

Mal: I can—

Zoe: It’s fine.

Mal gives her a look, then leaves with Inara, who doesn’t quite know what’s going on, but is too uncertain of herself to try and direct events. Zoe sits down at the helm and begins prepping for take-off. A downy feather—who knows where it came from—drops down outside the window. She watches.

Scene 25:

Kaylee, Simon, River, and Jayne are in the infirmary. River’s throwing up into the sink; Simon’s holding her hair; Kaylee’s watching, diverted from the tragedy for the moment, with some worry but mostly amusement; Jayne’s leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, looking scowly.

Kaylee: (trying to find the good in the situation) Nothing like quality time with big brother.

Jayne: (scowling harder) Weren’t my fault she can’t hold her jiu [Chinese for liquor].

Simon: You got her DRUNK?!

Scene 26:

Inara and Mal inside her shuttle as Serenity is taking off. Inara is sitting on the bed, examining her hands. Mal is standing, sort of shifting around near the couch.

Inara: Mal, I— (she looks up, sees his tense-stoic face) What happened?

Mal: (he sits on the couch with sort of a shattered energy, picks up her fan and begins to fiddle with it. This pattern, of surrendering his secret life to Inara, is becoming somewhat familiar--he knows how to do it, unconsciously, in other words) Kid got shot, and he died. Albino woman wanted to kill us—we moved out of the way and…there the kid was. Byron. And then he died. (Pause—he isn’t looking anywhere but at the fan. Inara watches.) It happened because of decisions I made, cuz I didn’t… (he half-smiles at the irony) didn’t want to lead an offensive against the Alliance. Opportunity to take down this system got handed to me on a silver platter and I dropped it. I still got no kind of idea why not—worked with plenty of people I didn’t want anythin’ to do with in the war. Had a—had a cause. But now… An’ then, because of my… I know I fouled it up somewhere, I just don’t know… I don’t know what I…

Inara: (quietly) How many deaths are you carrying inside of you?

Mal: (with a small smile to acknowledge her thinking this) Not a few. (He looks at her, finally, at the thing in her face) What’s up?

Inara: Mal, I— (she looks at him) I’m afraid.

He’s watching. She’s so painfully lovely.

Inara: I’m like you in that…in that I’m scared of myself. I don’t remember who I am anymore, or who I’m supposed to be—I can’t…I can’t think straight. I just keep…falling. I’m afraid of what I might do, who I might be…I’m afraid of saying these things…Mal—I don’t want to be like this and I—

Mal sets down the fan and gets up. He stands next to the bed and she stands in front of him. His expression is strange: wary, mostly, entirely uncertain—this is a new Inara, and he isn’t sure what to do with it. He doesn’t like it…but of course he doesn’t like it. He just wants it, all of it.

Inara: (her voice shaking) Mal, I—

He touches her cheek. She flinches, and her eyelashes flicker.

Mal: That Uqbar guy hurt you?

He says it in a way that is more normal to him, because this—his relationships with her clientele and abusive men—is familiar territory… Or maybe not. She looks down, away, biting her lip, flushed.

Inara: …Yes.

Mal: (very very quietly) Oh. (A pause) Inara…

Inara: (she touches the bandage on his arm, looks at him) Kiss me.

He obliges. Then there is sex, but it’s offscreen.

Scene 27:

Thron and Reis are on his ship, going somewhere. She’s lying on a couch, her arm bandaged; he’s looking at her severely; beneath, and feeding, the severity is worry, not only for what the fact that she’s been stabbed might mean—and questions are not being answered to his satisfaction—but the fact that she is wounded and in pain. Her eyes are closed—she has not allowed him to take her to a hospital.

Thron: But who would stab you?

Reis: It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I compromised your position, sir.

Thron: I don’t care about that right now. Were you shooting at someone again?

Gunwoman: (after a pause) Don’t worry about it, sir. It was necessary, in self-defense.

Thron: I need to worry about it. There are casualties in any war, but you are over-cautious.

Gunwoman: Our mission is more important than any life, sir.

Thron: I know that, but we are not…animals, Reis. We do what we have to, but no more.

Reis: (quietly) Yes, sir.

Thron: Sergeant Reynolds is a man of his word. (very stern, again covering for his uncertainty) It is the same war that we both fight, and we are on the same side.

Reis: (slightly desperate) Nothing happened, sir.

Thron: I will trust your word. This time.

He gets up to leave, stiffly.

Reis: (slightly more desperate) Sir. (He looks at her) I would do anything to…make a better world.

Thron: (softening) I know, my dear.

He goes. The frame shifts to Reis, looking after him with unmitigated longing on her face, lying on the blue couch. Pictorally, she doubles the holograph of the Icarus statue above her head.

Scene 28:

Simon and River in River’s room. She’s wrapped in blanket, lying on her side, staring at nothing. Simon’s looking down at her worriedly.

Simon: Do you feel better?

River nods.

Simon: (lamely) River, alcohol is…bad.

River: (murmured) Not relevant.

Simon squats down to where he’s at eye level with the bed, and with her face. Her gaze is vacant, slightly angry, closed off.

Simon: I don’t care, meimei. I don’t care. It was…wrong of them. It was wrong that you had to know.

River: (looking at him) I fell so far. And I’m just…bits, made out of bits. Under the skin, I—

Simon: Ssh.

He pushes back her hair gently; she doesn’t resist. Her eyes are alive again, though desperately unhappy and swimming with tears.

River: And he died, and you fell too, and now you’re—gone…

Simon: I’d fall twice as far. (He’s a little teary too, though not enough for actual tears.) Just don’t worry about it. Okay?

She nods, her expression very loving and sorrowful. He turns out the room light. The light from the hallway dyes the room a dark amber.

River: (murmured) Don’t go.

Simon: Okay.

He sits on the floor, holding her hand. Her eyes close. The door is half-open; the shot pans out through it. Jayne is standing in the hall, arms crossed, scowling, and listening intently. He hears a final “Good night” from Simon, and goes silently down the hall.

Scene 29:

Beauport, standing close to the edge on the roof of one of the university’s tallest buildings. She squints up at the sun, then down at the ground, her mouth trembling. She is crying without sobbing—it’s a silent process.

A Voice: Varens Beauport?

She looks over. It’s a man, in a suit, with an eyepatch.

Beauport: Get the fuck away from me.

Eyepatch: I was wondering if you had considered your options.

Beauport: (spat; mouth stretched) I have no options. I have nothing.

Eyepatch: Your son’s death was tragic, Ms. Beauport. You have every reason to wish to die. I simply want to present you with options: do you wish to die selfishly, or would you like to die in the cause of eradicating the evil that stole your son from you? The shadows can be tangible, Ms. Beauport, and they can be defeated. With your help, your death, we can create a better world. All of them. Better worlds.

There is a long pause. Beauport is looking at the eyepatch man, unconscious and uncaring of the fact that she wears her tragedy like a mask on her face.

Beauport: (she’s done nothing so conscious as reach a decision; her voice is hoarse, horrible) Take me out of this darkness.

Eyepatch: (soothingly) We can help, ma’am. We can help.

Scene 30:

The Operative. He’s standing on the rooftop of a skyscraper, looking over the edge. Below him is a lovely city, glowing with light. Everyone is either a woman or a girl, dressed in white, going about her business peacefully and calmly. There is a park nearby, clean and beautifully designed. The Operative is smiling contemplatively.

The Voice (of the hypnotist): What do you see?

Operative: Really, I can seek only death. There is no better world.

He takes the sword from its sheath on his back, and runs it through himself, except that as it goes it shatters into pieces, so that he’s unhurt. The sun begins to set, and all the white down below is dyed red.

Operative: No. (His face changes very slightly, again, as though chasms are opening up under its calm) There is no better world.

The parts of the sword lie around him on the rooftop, scattered. He kneels and touches one.

Operative: (murmured) No better world.

The Voice: (more urgently) What do you see?

Operative: No better world.

The scene cuts to the world outside of the Operative’s head. It’s the same scene as before, except that we’re looking at him from the other side of the glass. The focus turns to the hypnotist. She takes off her headset and shakes her head. There is a knock on the door and the male nurse opens it. In comes the man with the eyepatch. He joins the hypnotist at the window and looks through at the Operative, who mutters “There is no better world” again.

Eyepatch: This is K634?

Hypnotist: (with a sigh) Yes.

Eyepatch: My men nearly lost track of him. But he came back?

Hypnotist: The conditioning enabled us to call him in, yes.

Eyepatch: And the reconditioning?

Hypnotist: (rubbing her forehead—she has a tension headache) Has been…problematic. He used to be almost absurdly easy to deal with, but something about this last mission… He came in willingly enough, but it’s been all downhill from there.

Eyepatch: Is it a waste of resources to continue his treatment?

Hypnotist: Not yet, sir. He’s got at least one more mission in him. Just give us some time.

Eyepatch: All right. We can send someone else.

Hypnotist: Thanks, Sal…sir.

Eyepatch: I’ll see you tonight, meimei.

He exits. The hypnotist takes a sip of coffee. She looks at the Operative, who’s still murmuring to himself.

Hypnotist: (to the male nurse) Give him some rest. We’ll try again in the morning.

Nurse: Yes, doctor.

He leaves. Shot focuses through the glass on the Operative’s face.

Operative: (murmured, eyes still closed) No better world.

End.