Simon had never liked being crowded. It had bee the worst part of working in a hospital—the constant hustle and bustle that would sometimes intrude upon him in the middle of a delicate operation. His distaste for crowds had only swelled upon rescuing his sister—every group of people seemed to pose a quiet danger to him, strange faces masks for killing intent that could undo all his hard work saving her.

He hated being crowded even aboard Serenity. Now, with strangers aboard, he hated it still more. But he was able to control himself, if only because he hadn't seen River look so happy in a long long time.

"What's this what's this!" asked the hyperactive girl who appeared to be suffering from mild malnutrition.

"It's a neural imager," Simon said, then immediately realized the girl couldn't possibly follow what he was saying. "It's-"

"Machine machine with no soul, show me what's going on inside my skull!" the girl sang. River, laid out on the seat in front of him, giggled.

"Er, yes," Simon affirmed. "That's...more or less what it does."

"I thought these were rare?" Kaylee asked, leaning against a nearby counter. Simon glanced at her, realized he was gawking at her breasts, and quickly jerked his head up to her grinning face. "Whole reason we had to break into that hospital, right?" she added, with a little eyebrow wag to indicate his indiscretion had not gone unnoticed.

Flushing, Simon nodded. "Y-yes," he said. "But the technology's...changed. Apparently they've found a way to develop much more detailed images of the brain, and this tech's been dropped. They were going to junk it, but an old friend of mine...well, he got it to me."

"You're in contact with old friends?" Book asked, standing by the door with his arms folded in front of him. "I don't think the Captain would approve."

"No, I don't think I would, either," Mal said, strolling into the room.

Simon tensed. "Mal-" he started.

"We take a big risk carrying you on this ship," Mal said. "I don't want you risking us all by talking to people who know you're wanted."

"This wasn't one of my old medical buddies, Mal!" Simon retorted. "This was a member of the underground group that helped me get River out! They hate the Alliance every bit as much as you do."

"No one hates the Alliance as much as me," Mal said. "Cept for Zoe, maybe. And may I remind you that these dear friends of yours were more than content to let you and your sister wander off all by your lonesome into the cargo hold of some infamous neer-do-wells?"

That wasn't entirely their fault—the underground had operated far more openly than they were used to to help him save River, and had been using Simon's funds to bankroll the operation. When his accounts froze, their ability to help him was severely limited. "That didn't end too poorly for me, Captain," Mal said.

"I'm sorry, are we forgetting about the fed who tailed you to us?" Mal asked.

Simon sighed again. "No."

"No," Mal said. "Try to keep your contact with these people to a minimum, hm?"

"Come on, Captain," Kaylee said. "Neural imager's bound to help him figure out what's bothering River. Plus if I could get a look at it, I might be able to design something like that. Not as sophisticated, mind, but we could maybe make a profit selling'em in the Rim."

Simon smiled gratefully at her as Mal said, "I'll think about it."

"We can figure that out later," Simon said, returning his gaze to the hovering projection of River's brain. It looked much healthier than the first time he'd laid eyes on it nine months ago. Cleaner, somehow. Activity was about twice as high all across, but then, that might just be normal for River.

And then all at once it went berserk.

River screamed, shaking on the table. Everyone rushed forward all at once, the dog (until this moment sitting quietly in the corner, looking somberly at the proceedings) began to bark wildly, hopping around Simon's legs, the skeletal pink-haired girl placing her forehead against River's. The Shepherd was yelling something and trying to pull the other girl off but both River and the girl started smacking at him and he jerked backwards.

And Simon wanted to comfort her but his eyes were transfixed by the way her brain was reacting, in waves and surges of pain and frenzied activity and it looked familiar but...

Suddenly there was a black spot on one section of the brain, and Simon briefly thought that it was some tumor developing all at once, consuming his poor sister from the inside out, undoing everything he'd tried to do and all his work and sacrifice would be for nothing and all his training, too, because if his sister died what was the point?

But no. The dog had scampered over, and put its nose up against the projection. Against a section of the brain that...

That had to do with communication.

I've seen this before.

It stopped. River was panting, whimpering a little with every breath. The dog was giving him a peculiarly knowing look.

"River," he said, running a hand through her hair. "Are you...is it better now."

River's eyes were squeezed tight. "Peer pressure," she moaned, and the words sent a chill up his spine. "Make you stand naked in the light. Put the most tender parts of you on display, and then dig their fingers into them. Make it stop."

"I will," he said soothingly. "I will."

"River River flowing by!" the pink-haired girl sang softly.

"I'll do my best not to cry," River answered, opening her eyes a little. She lifted them to Simon. "I think I need a short recess."

"That's okay, mei-mei," he said. "I'll...I'll look at the data."

"And make insightful hyoptheses," she said. She sat up slowly, removing the little metal circlet that allowed him such detailed insight into her brain. "If you need me to doublecheck your work, let me know."

"You'll do it anyways," he said, smiling so he wouldn't cry.

"Otherwise your tendency towards inexcusable inaccuracies would go uncorrected." He stumbled out of the room, with the pink-haired girl scampering along behind her on all fours. The dog barked, leapt from the table, and trotted along at River's feet.

"Book, could you-" Simon started.

"I'll make sure she's okay," Book said, and followed them out.

"I did not think it was possible for this ship to get any stranger," Mal mused, staring after them.

"Simon, what's wrong with her?" Kaylee asked.

"Something new," Simon said. "This isn't the result of her surgery—at least, not directly. But the thing is, I've seen symptoms like this before."

"Really?" Kaylee said.

"Yes," Simon replied. "There was a chemical attack during the Unification War—Independents used an experimental chemical weapon they'd developed on some elite Alliance sol-"

He broke off when he saw the look of mingled anger, exasperation, and amusement on Mal's face. "Fraid that story ain't exactly true, Doctor," Mal said. "It was the Alliance that developed the weapon. When we got wind of it, a squad of choice soldiers—myself included—was dispatched to prevent it from ever getting used. Since they only had the one batch and it was in their special forces compound..."

Simon nodded. He had never thought to question the official account of events, but the Independents hadn't been much for technological innovation and he'd seen what the Alliance was willing to do for the sake of progress—both during the war and after.

"Do you know what the compound did?" Simon asked.

"Only knew it was supposed to be nonlethal," Mal said. "Doesn't make much sense to me, but..."

"It's a devastating weapon, captain," Simon informed him, thinking back to the patient he'd treated. "It somehow targets the section of your brain that processes auditory and visual signals and disconnects it from the section that handles communication. In other words, your brain no longer sees or hears words as a method of communication. It's not impossible to talk to them—it just takes a great deal of effort."

"And what good are soldiers if they can't understand orders?" Mal mused. "That's a helluva twisted thing."

"Well, Alliance didn't want to waste their highly trained special forces," Simon said. "So they developed a computer interface for these soldiers that got around the damage. Full testing didn't begin until after the war, but preliminary results showed the soldiers were even more effective—their intel was constantly updated, and they could response on a moment's notice."

"How'd you learn about all this, Simon?" Kaylee asked.

"Because when I was interning, I had to deal with them," Simon said. "See, the interface allowed the soldiers to link directly to each other—share thoughts as communication. But as the program developed, it began to allow more and more of these details to bleed over. It was no longer just words meant to be shared—secret thoughts, secret feelings, memories, pain, all of these started to be shared over the network too, and the Alliance couldn't shut it down because that would kill them. A hundred of those soldiers ended up at my old hospital. Took us months to figure out an effective treatment. We eventually had to put them into comas so that their thoughts would stop bleeding over. Then we had to work on removing the devices that made it all possible..."

"This is a fascinating anecdote, Doctor," Mal said. "And I'm always delighted to hear about Alliance incompetence, but was there a point to this story?"

"The point, Captain, is that when all those thoughts and memories started bleeding over, their brains looked very similar to what River's just looked like."

The Captain stared at him, then swore under his breath. "Are you telling me she's got a device in her skull reporting back to the Alliance?" he said.

Simon shook his head and said, "No. No, we'd be able to see that, especially with the imager. What I'm saying is, it seems like she's being...attacked, somehow."

Mal's eyes narrowed. "She's a reader, Doctor," he said. "Can tell what people are thinking. Can feel trouble coming."

"According to you," Simon said, trying to ignore the nagging fear and doubt that always surfaced at the back of his mind when this subject came up.

"According to everyone!" Mal barked. "And she didn't used to do that, right?"

"Right..."

"We still don't know what they did to your sister, do we?" Mal asked. "But we do know they were doing it to other people."

Simon felt his jaw drop a little. "Captain, surely you're not suggesting-"

"I'm suggesting that we have to find a way to treat this," Mal said. "Fast. I don't want them finding us."

"I think I can safely say I don't either," Simon said, his eyes narrowing a little.

"Then we'd best do it fast," Mal said. "You know how to get ahold of any of those underground folk on Persephone."

Growing exasperation mixed with growing fear in Simon's stomach. "You just told me you didn't want me talking to those people!" Simon said.

"That was then. This is now. I want you to find out what you can from them soon as we drop into orbit around Persephone. See if you can find out why this is happening and how we can stop it."

Simon hesitated, then nodded. "At the very least, I could start her on a drug regimen similar to the one we gave the soldiers."

"Good," Mal said. "I don't want any other readers getting a beat on us. Last thing I want is the Alliance breathing down my neck anymore than they do already.

He left the med bay. Simon sighed and put a hand to his head.

"You okay?" Kaylee asked, sidling up behind him and roping arms around his stomach.

"I'm fine," Simon said. "But she's not. And...and he's right, Kaylee, she does know things, and if there are others like her..."

"It's okay," Kaylee said. "You'll figure it out."

"I haven't yet," he said bleakly. "All my training and...Kaylee, this is so beyond me. This is so beyond anyone. The things they did to her."

"She's feeling okay," Kaylee said. "Ed and Ein...they're keeping her company."

"A dog and a starvation victim," Simon snorted, and was about to say more before he felt warm lips pressed against the back of his neck.

"They're keeping her mind off her troubles," Kaylee said. "Now, how's about I do the same for you?"

Simon hesitated. There were a million things he needed to do—contact the underground on Persephone, figure out where to get the drugs he'd need to quiet River's mind like they'd done for the soldiers, but...

But the truth was he couldn't do any of that. Not now. Not until they were closer to Persephone.

"Yes," Simon said, turning to look down into her big, bright eyes, almost energetic, almost so much more alive than they had any right to be. "I think I could handle that."

He closed his lips on hers, and let his mind melt into her warm, soft embrace.