“Why aren’t you bending your arms?” Mal, Zoë, Jayne, River, and the boy where all piled on the mule zooming away from Serenity. The boy had not been bending his arms at all, and River noticed.

“Thought you wouldn’t notice,” the boy whispered back, apparently not wanting to be heard by the rest of the crew. River looked at him skeptically. “Okay, fine. I knew it would have been unlikely, but-”

“Why?” she persisted. She didn’t like not knowing things. Now it was his turn to look skeptical.

“You can’t honestly think this job is going to go well,” he explained. “I just like to be ready.” River frowned.

“How do you know that?” she asked. River knew very well that it most likely wasn’t going to go well. This was because it was their first badger job since they left him stranded in the desert in Persephone. River knew that the only reason Mal had taken it was to try and kill Badger, but he also knew he would need help. That was why he had brought River along. And the boy. And Jayne, but he always did that. The only difference was that he allowed Jayne to bring everything he wanted (After Mal told Jayne this, he was forced to punch his, as he made that sound again...). But how did the boy know this. He wasn’t a physic.

“I only saw the captains dart board...” Oh.

“Your arms are still not bending,” she noted, “are you nervous?” He looked at her in a “yeah right” smirk, and then extended his arm. She went to grab it, but quickly withdrew her hand when she felt cold metal under his sleeve.

“Unlike you, I suck at hand to hand combat without any weapons...” River just nodded. He WAS good at hiding things though. What else...

Suddenly, the hovercraft came to a halt. They had reached the town. After locking up the Mule, Mal directed them towards a run down building. Of course, in this town, it looked like a palace, but still run down. It was that kinda, oh, it looks ok feel, but... Right.

After being patted over (River was amazed when the guards found nothing on all of them [boy winks]) they were allowed to en