People like Derek and I don’t need any ancient bloodlust to become the human equivalent of sewer rats. Our main objective is to shock the world. To spread doom. That is the thing to do.
Suffering the effects of guilt is up to society, which we’d renounced long ago. We know what’s happening. At least I used to.
I was still waiting for Derek to give me some kind of signal, instead of moving about like a seafaring captain: making calculations and demanding proof and testing the winds at his own discretion, all the while aswarm with solitude.
Right when I was about to remove myself from the premises, Derek came back through the door.
“I had to bail. I don’t feel right unless I’m ditching something,” he said to me. “That’s nothing. Wait until they train the searchlights on you,” I said back.
“You understand.”
Derek nodded to me, a total stranger, in approval as he exited the facility for good.
A bescrubbed professional detected Derek’s absence at last and went looking for him, but the waiting room revealed nothing.
This ditching episode would be dismissed from his records in no time.
Derek would see to it himself.
For a while afterward, it felt like something was going to happen to Sophia, but nothing happened.
This was the deal life had already made with her: She’d be immune to every environment she’d encounter in her long, dull life.
Whether I stalked her or not, whether the test results came back from the doctor or not, didn’t seem to matter. And Derek gathered that he’d never glean the spoils of his true nature in a city such as this.
By now, he must be cruising over a causeway in some southernmost state––a causeway that used to shield endangered wetlands from high-powered vehicles––and absconding from his gambling debts with an overzealous engine shuddering beneath him.
I can’t say what happens to me.
Other than: Who among you could stand it? Anyway, I never needed freedom. I leave that up to society too. I don’t want to overdo it. Let’s call it a day.
