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4. Police Procedure has Changed Since I was Little

Before Miranda

Wash came to aboard a ship, but he knew before he opened his eyes that it wasn’t Serenity. The engine sounds were all wrong. He looked around and saw that he was in an infirmary, although it was smaller, darker, and dirtier than Simon’s. A muscular youth in grimy work clothes was bustling around; when Wash raised his head, the youth looked over at him and smiled.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the youth said.

Wash scratched at his forearm, which was itching fiercely, and looked down at it when he felt something under his skin. He noticed then that his own clothes were gone; he was wearing instead a short-sleeved gray coverall that he recognized, after a moment’s consideration, as prison garb.

“Implant’ll stop itching after a while. You want some cream for it, though?” the youth said.

“Shouldn’t I get a trial or something, before I get shipped off to prison?” Wash asked, holding out his arm for the anti-itch cream the other fellow offered.

The young man laughed, squeezing a dollop of cream onto Wash’s forearm. “Where do you think you are exactly? Sihnon?”

“Well, I was kind of wondering,” Wash said. “Before I got shot in the neck by a couple of guys I never met before, I was actually in a scrapyard on Beaumonde doing absolutely nothing illegal, or even morally questionable.” The youth didn’t respond, so Wash kept talking. “Hey,” he said, “I don’t suppose anybody else came aboard with me? Do you know?”

“Sure,” the youth replied. “Four others. They’re in the hole already – you the only one who came in lying down.”

“Do you know who they are? I mean, their names? Or, maybe what they look like? Because, see, I was with this girl – “ thinking of Kaylee, Wash felt sick. What if it was just him and Kaylee stuck in the middle of whatever was going on here? Because Mal and Zoe, or Mal and Jayne, or Zoe and Jayne in a situa