(Untitled)

[simon_doctor]

Kaylee's out for the evening, having stayed just long enough to say hello to Jordie when he arrived. (She's going to Milliways, Simon knows; she'll be back late.)

They're on their own for dinner.

Comments

[walk_ins]

"I'm hoping you'll forgive me for saying so, but Simon -- "

Jordie doesn't look away. "He works for the feds now. He is the feds. Are you sure it doesn't matter?"

[walk_ins]

From what Simon's saying, there's no way he could anticipate the extent of his sister's injuries -- and no way to anticipate what he'd need to care for her, much less expect to find anything he'd need out on the Rim. It's not the most logical place to run when you know you'll be charged with a dependent in need of medical -- and psychological -- attention. And yet -- no other options.

Says Jordie: "I believe it."

[simon_doctor]

"What ended up happening was that they opened the cryobox and found River. And I had to tell them everything. Everything I knew," he amends. "Which at the time wasn't any more than I've already told you. Finding out the rest...."

He's quiet for a moment.

"I guess that started at St. Lucy's on Ariel."

[walk_ins]

Jordie focuses. "That came up in court."

[simon_doctor]

"Yes." An abrupt laugh. "The ironic thing is that if the portable imager had been invented five years ago, we might never have had to go there in the first place."

[walk_ins]

"...they focused on the stolen meds -- some of which were antipsychotics, so I wondered -- "

Jordie stops.

"Because there wasn't any way you could see what they did. Right? Is that it?"

[simon_doctor]

He nods. It's a little grim.

Even after all this time, the horror of that moment of realization is still very much with him.

"River couldn't talk about it. Not ... never coherently; most of the time not at all. And they'd told me -- the men who broke her out, they told me at the start of it all -- that the government had done something to her brain." Beat. "So I had to find out what."

[walk_ins]

That didn't make it onto the news.

Jordie is very, very still.

[simon_doctor]

"She'd undergone repeated brain surgery over the previous two years."

Simon's face is set.

"They stripped her amygdala."

[walk_ins]

His face is stark white.

"Stripped?"

It's not fear.

[simon_doctor]

The jerk of his head is probably intended to be a nod.

[walk_ins]

All you can do with something like that is ask -- demand -- why. Jordie does.

[simon_doctor]

Simon takes a deep, steadying breath.

"This," he says carefully, "is the part that's difficult to believe. I would have dismissed it as impossible if I hadn't seen evidence of it myself."

[walk_ins]

"Any more difficult to believe than your father cutting you two loose to preserve his own skin?" Sharp. "Simon, you have no reason to lie, and I've been waiting years for this story. You saw evidence. And you're far more skeptical than I've ever been."

[simon_doctor]

A flicker of smile. "All right. I just want you to keep in mind that I know how this sounds."

Beat.

"The surgery was intended to heighten River's natural intuitive perception into full psychic ability. Evidence suggests that it worked."

[walk_ins]

"Assuming you can do it -- and I have no reason to think you can't -- "

He's shaking his head slowly. "That's a lot of technology not available to the common citizen. It would have to be. And -- why? For what purpose? Because I don't think -- if you stripped the amygdala, that heightens the fear response, but it doesn't necessarily follow that any senses will be heightened as well, and even if they were -- that would -- and stop me if I'm getting this wrong, it's been years -- any abnormal reaction couldn't get processed in any useful way. Chances are, I mean. Unless -- you did say it was repeated?"

(His voice hardens at the last. Significantly.)