Simon stumbles out of Serenity onto the vast concrete concourse of the dry-docks. “Hey!” he calls, the sound immediately eaten up by the sheer vastness of the space. Kaylee hears him though; stops and turns.

He hurries over to her, glancing occasionally left and right lest some parts in transport or cohort of workers should mow him down with a carelessly driven mule. She beams at him. “You coming with?”

“Yeah,” he returns with his own, slightly ashamed grin, “I am. Where do we...?”

“Over there,” she says, pointing, “Elevators.”

Jayne has already called the lift, but it takes a long time to rattle its way to the surface. They stand in companionable silence for a moment, Kaylee suitably tongue-tied in the doctor's unexpected presence to be unusually quiet.

The elevator doors open, revealing little more than an empty metal cage that will carry them deep into the earth. They step inside, Jayne securing the wire doors. The space is large, designed for maybe twenty or so people and Kaylee can't quite decide where to stand. The journey jerks to a start and Simon almost falls over, solving her dilemma. She catches his arm, holding him steady with a smile as he stammers embarrassed thanks. Jayne mutters something, luckily inaudible.

The walls seem to blur and Simon is just getting nauseous when the motion slows and another set of doors roll into view. Jayne releases them, pushes open the other set of doors and Simon is blinking in the harsh orange light of an underground station. There are few other people around at this time of day, between shifts. A handful of men in filthy orange overalls, a dark-skinned woman with a striking green turban who has to be a passenger on some other ship. No Feds or –

“You ever been to a hub before?” Kaylee asks him. She's bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, clearly excited.

“No,” Simon confesses, “What is it?”

“It's like a central living space for all the big company workers. They built the dry-docks and the industrial estates outside and then connected the