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iNSOMNIA

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The sounds of business.

The faint hum of a security camera as it swiveled on its perch in the corner, fixing her with a bulging lens; her reflection engorged then dwindled, seeming to leap in it’s black eye. The eternally wet look of anything so clean, every smooth surface glistening quietly, waiting for someone to run a finger down it and hear it catch and squeal like dirty rubber. The pert, orderly tap of her heels on the linoleum, glossy with puddles of liquid fluorescence.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Nobody wore heels in Haven unless they were wide, crushing heels made for force, tall, spindly heels for luring customers, or squat, tailored pumps. Those pumps were for women who didn’t worry about getting them wedged in a crack in the sidewalk, because they rarely walked anywhere near the streets. Business women, who were another class entirely.

She wasn’t one of the best, but she earned her paycheck. A doctorate in psychology hadn’t gone to waste.

Her reflection again; another attentive security camera, picking her out of the furnace of smooth white.

Tap, tap, tap.

She wasn’t precisely an imposing figure.

She was younger than most doctors, and small in a childish way. Her clipped suit with open jacket, set in soothing greens with cream lapels, made her seem wider, less petite- a confidence ploy. Her tightly coiled hair was wound atop her head in a rigid roll, escaping curls a milky shade of lavender. Her olive skin belied her Haven origins; she appeared dignified, exotic, with artistic almond eyes.

Pretty, some might say, and just enough to give her an undue advantage- but certainly one her coworkers would never chance against a patient. Upon arrival, she’d almost expected to be recruited to nuzzle into some rapist’s case with curves and a smile, so he would be more comfortable, even enticed. Pedophiles were also possible, for her size; but that had never happened, thank Mar. It was all equal, based on skill, until the higher levels. She was not so new that she wasn’t aware of Praxis’ tendencies. Until that ‘prestigious’ level, everybody’s work was anybody’s work.

There was such a difference between the two anyways. Not that she would refuse the money if she got promoted, but the uneasiness would never lessen.

Here, you were paid to analyze what the patient told you. You were there to help them, to cite the problem and hopefully recommend some form of rehabilitation, using their data and history to help others with the same case.

There, you were paid to burn what the patient told you. Psychologists in Praxis’ realm did more to conceal than reveal. Nothing ever left those rooms, but this patient was an exception. A… loan of sorts. He would be back in his proper place soon enough, regardless of what transpired while in her care.

Tap, tap, tap.

She was intelligent, unassuming. Too analytical, by any stretch.

She stopped at the door, jingling a pair of cardkeys out of her pocket and swiping one. The cameras turned to peer at her with a faintly suspicious buzz. A considering burble from the keypad, a flash of green, and another identical hallway stretched before her.

The awaiting guard smiled kindly, handing her a cream folder and a thick stack of papers. The weight of it alone was a faint surprise, as most patient backgrounds were two or three pages at most- being unstable delinquents, or troubled troublemakers- but this man was military property, so of course they would have his every step jotted down. She took it gracefully with a slight nod, the un-shuffled stack biting into her skin.

It was a sick case. She knew that.

She preferred dealing with delinquents if she had any choice at all- people she knew had only ‘decorated’ some PA units, or an alley wall with some crude words. When it came down to violence, however… there was a wall of sorts in her, making it difficult. Most of her patients were just troubled, and could be helped. With this one, she didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t like the violent ones.

Still, it was her case.

The wall’s tiny plastic numbers ticked down on their plastic plaques, dwindling. She stepped through the easy hiss of the sliding glass doors, and into her subject’s room.

The wiry man at the opposite table took no notice of the lights, which flickered on at the heralding of her heels, fluorescents blooming into blinding white. She stepped over the reflections, which bled as though someone had taken a glowing mop and jabbed at the tile, paint skidding and smudging. The air of the room was starched, sanitary- like walking into a stiff white business shirt.

Vida Durann sat down officiously, racking up her papers for a moment before setting them down, and facing her patient through the Plexiglas.

“Erol.”

The man looked up, faintly surprised. Drowsy.

“Professor Durann,” he said quietly.

She nodded.

She knew how to deal with men like this. Drop the title.

Commander Erol would have given him a sense of power. More particularly, a sense of power over her.

Sometimes it worked the other way around. Sometimes for notoriously egotistical or weak-willed people, a misleading sense of control would encourage confidence, and confidence diminished tact and wariness. Often, tact and wariness were the only elements keeping that one vulnerable person from spilling their most intimate secrets- and in this situation, even his surname would have been an admission of respect. She wanted to keep it personal. Devoid of airs.

An ego was a patient’s worst enemy, whether large or small, and she planned to use it. She needed to get inside this man’s head.

She was a psychologist- by profession, she played with minds.

Vida ruffled through her papers for a moment, letting the most important documents float to the top, carded and sorted by her sharp nails. Ready at hand, in case she needed a snippet of information to pry deeper into his story, or to present to him as proof- quickly, personally, as if she knew him. Therapists had to learn to adapt and absorb information, utilizing what they found without being threatening.

Familiarity was key.

She looked up with a smile, and found him waiting for her.

“Vida. Vida, that’s a lovely name. It suits you quite well.” Erol gave her a thin, charming smile. But there was something wrong with it, that made it seem eerie- it was a little too thin, a little too wide. Curled up at the ends with a bit too much force, as though sneaking around to touch the dark, angular tattoos gouged into the lengths of his cheeks. It unsettled her.

He continued, gesturing towards her bronze nametag.

“Durann… an intruiging surname as well. Old Haven, I take it?”

“Yes, Erol.” She gave him her own easy, tolerating smile, sweeping her files with an officious and completely ineffective glance. “My family line is ancient compared to most. My late uncle was actually posted in DeadTown before the war, and there are still a few of us wandering around the city. Call it luck that any survived, but I can’t find half of my relatives.”

Trust was a giving game, and she placed her chips in a light, meandering tone. Uninteresting little tidbits of information, true, but the communication was far more important than the material. It opened doors.

“Unfortunately, we’re not here to talk about me,” she said, pretending to reassume a professional air to remedy her ‘distraction’, “We’re here to-“

“Durann. Yes- archaic, almost. Intriguing to say the least. Now, if I’m quite right, I’ve heard that name before.” Erol looked up, a flat, calculating expression on his face as if her words had glanced off his ears. His lush voice had an effortless command to it; it was almost as though she could see her own shriveling to smoke in the sanitary lights, futile.

He looked like a caricature of the word ‘earnest’, every line exaggerated- but the expression was lopsided on him, elegantly arched brows drawn high on his forehead. His plume of violently red hair twisted to the ceiling, bare of his usual racing mask.

“The Guard, perhaps?”

Vida started, intentions thinning.

“No, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” She knew her error before he even moved, her voice stiff and delayed.

“No, no- I don’t believe I am.” He protested, forceful but so polite. Then he slumped, angular, unarmored shoulders jabbing at the chair’s back. He was a thin, reptilian figure webbed in navy stretch, yellow ribbing at the sides, skin pale in comparison.

“His name was right… here.” Erol’s finger angled down, honing in lazily on a spot on the table. His eyes flickered up to meet hers, simmering with quiet expectation. His wide mouth formed the words carefully, as he then let his eyes wander purposefully over his invisible list, pinned beneath his finger. “Between Dumas… and Castel.”

Squeek… keek.

His gloved finger pressed hard on the glossy table, Vida’s powder-blue eyes fixed on it.

“Both inductees, much as he was.” He met her eyes again, blank interest apparent on his features. “Junn, am I correct?”

She swallowed hard, feeling the warm, irresistible weight of his voice slowly pluck out every syllable of her reply like so many strings. Making her speak.

Communication was what mattered, however- it was of no importance what was said. That was the goal, that was the key. Talking.

There were so many ways to get what she needed, and this still fit the quota.

“Yes. Junn,” she said haltingly.

“You look far too young to have a boy in the service, Vida,” he said, almost chidingly. “Or have you simply aged well?”

She stiffened.

A sudden war was waged inside her fluttering chest, attempting to wrest whatever shred of control she could from his soothing demeanor- but it wasn’t just that. It was something entirely different, something that went beyond a mere eloquence.

Her mind heaved, drowned in confusion; pleading to her inherently analytical nature to chart it all down in symptoms and statistics.

He was intelligent. Horrifically intelligent and polite. Well-versed. It took five minutes in a room with him to learn that, but how many more to learn that he was dangerous? Insane, clinically. She knew that, it was crisply jotted in every page of the papers laid beneath her pen and folder, and here he was speaking to her as if he already knew her.  Inside and out, like she should know him. The familiarity, the compliments.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t mean a word of these compliments. He did. He noticed those things; perhaps even appreciated them.

But the way he spoke, it was as if he was saying them because of something else. To taunt her, as it was all part of something bigger. Something she knew nothing of.

Vida cleared her throat, anger and unrest souring her voice.

He wasn’t a threat. A patient, a deeply twisted man, but never a threat- and she refused to let him gain control.

“I’m afraid I’m not allowed to answer any more questions for fear of infringing upon this investigation, Erol. Like anyone, I have to keep my dirty little secrets close.” She grated out forcefully, mouth dry. She never wavered, but her browned knuckles were ashen as they clamped around a pen.

“Oh. Oh.” He chuckled, head dipping back after a moment to reveal the pale stretch of his neck, mottled with charcoal tattoos.  

“So it’s an investigation now, is it?” The sound seemed to lurk behind his luxurious mouth, eyes thin and bemused.

“Very well then, Vida. Surprise me. I have no doubt it is soundly within your power to do so.”

A sudden, abrupt silence filled the whitewashed room.

His constant interruptions had set her off guard. Unbalanced her. Now his actively expectant silence made her stall, the placid way in which he crossed his long, strong fingers in their navy skin. Intertwining the digits as though he was enjoying every movement, luxuriating. His eyes were on her, mouth still quietly amused.

She looked at her papers (trying in a slow, nagging way not to miss the sound of his voice) as she took a deep breath, and read the court-ordered accusation.

The type was small, printed in clean, clipped black.

“Erol, on Monday of last week, you breached your duty as a guardsman. At precisely 14:26 hours in the East Slum section, you shot an unarmed pedestrian boy of seventeen years-“

“Ah-ah. More specifically, my squadron did,” he said sleekly. A flicker of boredom, then a reptilian smile, Erol gnashing his teeth in a disturbingly polite fashion. “If it is within your sympathy to understand, I prefer not to carry my pistols on Slum sentry duty. They tend to become tiresome, always knocking about my elbows. Rather heavier than you’d think, truly.”

His mouth closed, pursing thoughtfully as if to say he was perusing the newfound idea of exchanging his gun for a more convenient model. Looking at him poisonously for a moment, Vida glared hard at the report, continuing as if he’d never spoken.

“-fourteen times in the areas of the torso, head and groin. His immediate family claimed his body at 7:18 hours yesterday, released from the Rotenda Morgue and scheduled for burial in two weeks. The victim himself was benign, his criminal record non-existent-“

“I requested quite politely that he vacate the premise,” Erol interrupted delicately, but the way he spoke was as if he was perfectly in his right to talk- rather that she was the one interrupting him.

She should have spoken, but she didn’t.

“As he did not comply, I was forced to…” An airy pause. “-indulge in our trusted code for conditions concerning open aggression and refusal to submit to the direct order of a Guard Commander.”

His every word was bitten curtly, and with practice. Vida tensed, digging her nails into her palm.

“There is nothing in your code that legalizes the murder of a young, unarmed boy.” She hissed, tensing to keep the cold hatred out of her voice.

She knew immediately that she had made another mistake- she had given him too much. Keeping calm was key. She should have just continued with the diagnosis.

He simply watched her, and there was an odd, quivering moment, swimming in her tenacious grip on control, before she realized something more.

He seemed to enjoy this.

“No. I don’t suppose so,” Erol said in mild surprise. Studying her as though he were faintly alarmed at her sudden outburst.

A distant but fond concern.

Vida was suddenly stuck, rutted with a blocked mind. Before staging a languid retreat, her knowledge now rapidly backpedaled, refusing to resurface at her need to perform. Her mouth opened again and again, then she tumbled into a helpless jab at professionalism, her patient calmly watching the struggle.

“Ah, E-erol… were there any,” She sunk into superficial automatic, “influential moments in your childhood? Something y-you’ve always remembered?”

He considered it and shrugged.

“Nothing particularly interesting. My first hover-board. The consequent love of the race.” He pursed his lips again, then shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m at a loss.”

She stared at him, as though her desperate, amateur image of him divulging some self-evident childhood trauma had not played out.

“Alright,” She said stupidly.

She searched his face intently after a moment, rifling through his unchanging expression. The pregnant pause hung undisturbed, Vida quickly, childishly looking away as Erol gave a throaty sigh, touching his fingers to his temple in a display of polite suffering.

“This really is quite monotonous, Ms. Durann. Afraid as I am to wound your hopes, I have been through this before. I crave… interest.” He stopped, gaze flickering down to her hands then up to hold her eyes, keen through the glass. “Tell me what you have in your file.”

It was a blow to her already staggering reality, and she looked back at him, shocked. By all rules, by all definitions, he wasn’t a patient anymore- but he simply had to be. She closed her mouth as his own grew steadily wider and straightened her posture in a petulant little tug, deftly tucking her heels in under her chair.  Her lips thinned alongside her voice.

“I’m… not allowed-“

“No, truly, Vida. No more ordinances or restrictions, no more code. I daresay you’ve come nearer to insulting my intelligence than most of my regiment, which is not something I recommend. As for the file… you’ve been perusing it quite actively during our entertaining exchange, and I grow curious.” He said warmly, eyeing it lazily- one step short of mocking, but too refined for such frivolity.

“No doubt you have some lovely little pre-analysis taken from my recent activities, my physical demeanor. My choice in vocabulary, perhaps? Oh, all of it so very telling. I would love to hear it. Please, awe me.”

It was almost as if he had known she would raise no further argument. His expectant poise was at once infuriating and intimidating as she picked up the folder and delicately slipped her notes from it, the clean, squashed handwriting seeming from another life.

One where she could form a coherent thought, one where most ideas on her part didn’t seem so undeserved and futile. Where any information was good information, and she had tabs on her patient. Not the humiliating, foreign converse that hadn’t quite registered.

She cleared her throat, not wanting to look him in the eyes.

“Commander… Erol. More than likely a-a victim of physical and emotional child abuse, sexual possible. According to the nature of his crimes, which include sexual offense and acts of violence unmindful of any possible audience, subject has the social awareness and intelligence to extort political power. Uses position in the community in order to fulfill needs, sexual and emotional. Violent occasions are sporadic, no pattern noticed save for similar theme and method.

“Sadistic behavior is noted. Masochistic possible, most likely extremely conflicted as to sexuality, personal or interpersonal. Is suggested father was absent from childhood, during which time the observed traits indicate that the subject developed… an extremely jealous relationship with his mother, bordering on obsessive- see Oedipus Syndrome. Non-committal or ‘casual’ pedophile. Preys on teens and children, mostly male.”

She closed her eyes, holding in a weak sigh.

He had been shaking quietly, simmering with laughter but maintaining an odd attentiveness, as though eager for more things to ridicule. He was respectful, never crass.

Evil was the only word that fit.

He was evil, yes, and shaking quietly- until she mentioned his mother.

There was a long, thin silence.

“How… very amusing.” He bit the words.

In a ghost of her old concentration, Vida knew she had struck a chord.

And somehow, though breaking this man’s shield was her goal, now that she had glimpsed her entry into his life, thoughts, purpose… she violently regretted it. She slid back in her metal fold up chair, feeling her skirt ride against the chill seat, bunch up underneath her knees. They were strange, earthly sensations compared to the chill battle being waged on the man’s unnaturally expressive, rubber-like face.

Sickeningly conversational.

“I couldn’t simply let him have her, you know. He didn’t deserve to tongue the ground which she walked, let alone fuck her.”

The polite, airy obscenity didn’t register- it glided out of his mouth as all words did, in which the meaning was so… earnest seemed too childish a word, but the simplicity fit. He was disturbingly succinct and truthful. Forthright. But not because he wanted to appear that way, or make an impression.

Because he wanted to; because it caught his interest. His fancy.

He had no ego, no needs. Her innate fear of him stemmed from the fact that his confidence was infallible, uncompromised because he had nothing to be proved wrong. He was not out to prove right or wrong. He was out simply to… do.

Because he wanted to. And nothing else.

Erol laughed, a soft, oily sound. A flash of white teeth.

“Oh, I have no illusions. My mother was a filthy whore.” He smiled pleasantly, sliding the length of a pen along his gloved fingers, much like a nail file. Vida compulsively imagined finely tailored, gleaming nails underneath those slender gloves, but was drawn up by his warm, wandering voice.

“Her profession, actually. More often than not I was exposed to her walking about the crumbling house and out the door in nothing more than what I wore at the time. A pair of pants, much too short to keep warm on those bitter streets. Perhaps enveloped by a teasing shroud, a lovely skin of net. I worried for her, catching colds.”

The pen froze, pressed to his fingertips, his voice suddenly airless.

“And a different man every night. Often two, and oh, the noise.” He breathed. “She was well worth every credit.”

Vida’s breath snagged in her throat.

A covetous, inhuman tinge had seized Erol’s amber eyes, mouth itching to hitch in disgust, to sneer.

Another moment and it siphoned out of his eyes like murky water from a sink- flashing, and then disappearing, leaving only a glistening layer of trace. His ginger lashes covered his eyes lazily.

She felt sick just watching him.

“I adored her, of course. She was my life. My father, however, was a cruel, wanton drunk. Unbridled hatred was only the very gentlest of what passed between us, he and I. He had no inhibitions, no ambition. He was ceaselessly violent. But my hatred did not stem from… recurring beatings, or verbal abuse, per say. No, my father never touched me. Not once.”

He said quietly, then his voice grew, mounting as though coming onto some equally suffused revelation. His eyes were never clouded, but drifted intently.

“It was almost as though I had some strange… disease, that he could not lay a finger on me. Perhaps he simply didn’t see me in the corner, silently willing him to choke on his fork as he shoveled down dinner, soon to prowl the streets again. Perhaps he had not known of my birth, or noticed her pregnancy- as it would have been a detail. A threat to his cravings. No, my father was nothing to me.

“He was, however, something to my mother. She did not have this disease, and thus he was entitled to touch her, fuck her and, more often than not, beat her. A few years passed in such a way, when I became aware of the infestation of her and my world. Weekly cycles of crouching in filth, playing witness and coming to my mother’s aid in the end, sitting quietly beside her and dabbing her cheeks, white tissue questing for new blood. Such conditions are, however, never truly abided for long without some repercussion. Being a child at the time, you yourself should know the impact such things eventually had on my fragile mentality.”

He smiled up at her, as if this was a pleasing fact between them. A point of interest.

“Infuriated to the point of blindness, I eventually manipulated the current Krimzon Guard into a hunt for a notorious suicide bomber, instructing them by way of a note to where my father was bound to be stumbling around that night. I followed his murderers-to-be, but only after a paltry moment of consideration. I will never forget his expression when the guard found him- when they found their ‘bomber’. Oh, he was too shocked to be furious.”

He leaned back in his chair, pausing thoughtfully before continuing in his strangely factual, abrupt manner, almost perusing the subject of his father’s death. A faint, wistful smile sweetened his mouth.

“I do believe he knew it was me- and at the same time, that made it all the more satisfying.” He stopped, suddenly looking attentively at Vida, and chiding himself with another smile. “Ah, but this is an interview, however- is it not? I feel guilty for holding back. I must elaborate for the sake of your… investigation.”

She had forgotten entirely about her notes, about her information or goals, and convincing herself of their importance simply wasn’t a priority. She might have nodded but it escaped her, the grisly scene swelling in her mind and nudging out its competition. He looked up, thoughtful again.

“Yes, going so far… I relished every moment. The way the bullets ripped through him, the sound of steam and the shells skittering across the wet ground. The bristle of his clothes as each inch was pockmarked by a ring of blood. He fell. Dropped like he carried a weight far surpassing his body, and the sound was lovely.

“He hit the ground like the piece of filth he was, neck flung back, scrabbling endearingly at the ground. Then one man drove a bullet through the crown of his head in a rather commendable shot. It exited through his neck, a ragged geyser of blood. A hole like a second mouth gaping out of his throat, lips flapping. I got quite a good look at it after they all left. The skull collapsed, bone crushed in a perfect circle the size of my tiniest finger.”

He held his hand out, almost reverentially as his pinky unfolded, and slid it forward into the air, pausing.

“Almost as if a stained glass window had been shattered.”

Vida’s mind molded the pulsing, broken brains around that finger, the toothy, porcelain hole fitting around pink flesh. The flesh of a child. The father’s scalp scraped away to expose the white of bone, covered in a red, glistening lacquer.

A violent, rickety sickness stabbed at her gut.

He saw her, shifting out of his memory, and an abrupt smile swept his face.

“Not that I hold any grudges.” He amended politely, finger dropping easily to the table. “Grudges are, as they say, unhealthy. I was about fourteen at the time, so naturally it’s all well and past. I rarely think of my father anymore.”

A soft, indulgent smile.

“My mother, of course, is a different story.”

His identity restored in a flash, brimming with a quiet, rustling, preternatural energy, smile always lurking. Dangerous.

Attractive.

A sick lure, but he was so sensual. Every movement so tailored.

Vida forced herself to stop thinking. She did not want him to kiss her. Never. She would doubtlessly fling herself away and vomit if that were the case, a reaction borne of her hatred for this man and all his kind. The murderers, rapists and criminals.

But although he fit every category, he was none of these; repulsive in every conceivable way, yet somehow escaping that definition. This man had something the others didn’t. The line between murderer, rapist, and criminal blurred, tempting her to become more fascinated by his crimes than horrified- she revolted, mind reeling.

He was desirable in a way beyond her understanding, an understanding so quick and intense it overrode her reason. Giving into it was a hasty fantasy, his soft voice in her ear, long supple fingers at her hip. Just contact would be enough, though unimaginable.

His voice was him; pure him, thick and lush and fleshy. Powerful and repulsive. The stab of sweetness in rotten fruit before the putrid, diseased flavor bled out.

Vida was suddenly, gloriously stripped of power, and she acknowledged it, shaking visibly in her chair.

“Why… are you…” She choked out and never intended to finish, his innate knowledge of her weakness obvious as he cut in.

“So violent? So cruel? Perverse was a bit of a favorite with my dear father.” He suggested mockingly, amber eyes bright and attentive. They narrowed in genial concentration, one finger to his strong chin. “Hmn, that is a bit of a stymie, is it not? And I thought those lovely men at the psyche center had taught you to be so non-judgmental… as this is all for the sake of science, isn’t it? Your little... investigation?”

A mocking gleam, the flirting disrespect finally surfacing- but it, too, soon dissolved in a pondering pause. His hand dropped to the table, stroking the smooth metal absently.

“But I wouldn’t call it… violent, per say. Violent is such a shallow word.” Erol mused slowly. “Violent… implies an implementation of pain without meaning, pain for superficial and transitory triumph. No, Vida. What I do is so very unique, it hardly deserves the debasement of such a word.

“I am not violent. My father was violent. I do not kill without meaning. I mean every inch of it.

“However, I do not commit such acts in anyone’s favor or purpose, such as that of our dear Baron. I am not trying for any record; I am not attempting to beat anyone out of anything. My position as a commander came rather… by chance, you could say. Luck of the draw. Much as getting in, extracting myself would have been rather like… pulling teeth.”

An abrupt giggle was fenced behind his hand, his long nose wrinkling in an unnerving, childish mirth.

Vida winced. It was as if she knew that any laugh louder than a whisper would warp into a shriek, shrill and unfitting of his quiet, personable, seductive self. He shook his head, vibrant smile fading.

“No, no… I do this for what you might call… enjoyment. Love of the job in and of itself.

“I am a scholar of humans, much like yourself. I find peoples minds. I use them- quite skillfully, I might add. My life is but an experiment. However, I believe that you cannot find the opportunities of a person until he or she is stripped down to the barest of what they can be, and what they cannot be. Pain is the determining factor, is it not?”

She twisted her hands.

It was true. Different levels of pain encompassed every psychological effect known to man. Joy seemed as water- no matter how much one may have experienced in life, all could be swept away by one traumatic incident. Pain defined a person.

Erol laced his fingers, studying her through the glass.

“Pain can be physical, psychological… it can be the sound of your mother’s headboard swerving drunkenly at the bloated, moldy wall as she takes her third customer that night. I control people in many ways, but not more than it takes. That would be… sloppy. Restraint is key, and so very difficult to master. There is an art to it, one that must be acknowledged as much as the act itself. Well. You have seen people through glass walls, Vida. Glass much like that which separates you and myself.”

He gestured to it, and she suddenly, daringly wished it were gone. To make everything he spoke of more real, more intense to quell this infectious detachment.

“You have never touched them, or smelt them as they did things that they presumed themselves incapable of- and yet they continue on. Your findings, your… profession, as it were, are so very surface-oriented. Shallow, though amusing. You do not know people, Vida. You know only what they want you to know, what they believe they know, which is deliciously ignorant. They do not know their subject; they do not know themselves.

“My father, my dear Guard companions Alec and Bernum… they were my teachers, my first experiments. They truly did teach me all I required to know about life, and for that I thank them, precursors rest their souls.” His head tilted to the side, eyes warming. “Most particularly my mother, of course. Her lesson was such as I could never forget.”

“Your… mother?” She couldn’t help herself, eyes wide. The words were nudged out, pulled from her cavernous belly by those same warm strings, the meaning of a maternal word gone so empty.

Nothing made sense anymore, nothing had worth. But there was an immoral, disgusting elegance to it.

“B-but what about-?”

“Yes, I loved her.” He looked almost bored, as if he truly was reviewing facts for her. Being asked the question his fifth time and losing patience, but being questioned was something too mundane for him, too undeserving and inapplicable.

“I murdered her in my fifth year as a Guard. Ah, yes- murdered is a far more… personal, humane word, is it not? It seems to suggest a need of punishment.” He smiled. “I suppose, just once, it should be fitting. Murders are plotted, planned. The manner in which I waited, when I knew I was capable of ending a human life so long ago… I never thought it wrong, and, upon reflection, it was almost as if I had been preparing myself for such a thing all along.

“It was only fitting of her. Her memory lurked vividly in my mind, her scents, her touch. That dangling fact of her sway over me, not threatening but duly displeasing. I’m uncertain whether it was my true intention to simply speak with her, or kill her from the first. I know I did desire to speak with her. Then again, it might have been a momentary disguise for her murder. I often surprise myself with my motives.”

The playful tone sounded as if he thought himself truly clever, but she knew he did not.

The expectant air was one of a secret joke, just between the two, and Vida recoiled, gut filling with revulsion at the idea of a secret, a confidence with this man; but at the same time hysterically coveting the attention, wanting a share or secret of this insane strength.  Painted in the same vivid tones as his voice, she saw his wide mouth brushing hers again, warm, crushed breath, another tangle of revulsion and excitement.

He seemed simultaneously mindful and unmindful of her thoughts, exerting complete control.

“It was quite a shock when I finally paid her a visit. She was older, drabber. Still in business, of course. Where else, I thought fondly? It was amusing, almost charming to see her and expect so many hounded emotions… yet feel nothing. Endearing, perhaps. It was far different from what I had imagined, to witness my mother’s squalor without pause in such a way. But that aloofness prevailed, and I came to the surprisingly easy conclusion that she was without worth. That all of my afore emotions were… shallow. Illusory. Petty. Child’s play.”

His eyes melted into slits again, a knowing smile on his lips.

“I suppose you could say… I outgrew her. And so I told her.”

Before I killed her, Vida’s mind supplied instantly. Erol’s steady, pleased eyes affirmed the icy accuracy of her thoughts.

She swallowed a sound, trying to force it all through her mind. Performing was no longer an option, their roles demolished. He was inhuman yet incredibly human, like an art or impression of humanity with none of its flaws. His one weakness, his one moment of silence in a quiet pulse of energy was now a plaything, a memory. She took a deep breath, concentrating.

Then she looked up, eyes wide with a hanging question, only to find him already watching her. Ready to answer.

“No. This is one thing that you will realize about me, dear Vida.” He whispered softly. “I have no regrets.”

She simply watched him, mouth dry in the heavy, dragging silence until he began to speak again, low and pleasant. Propositional.

“You will tell them that my diagnosis is a slight case of insomnia. I’ve been dogged by it for a few weeks now, and it… clouded my judgment.”

A predatory gleam, mouth jerking abruptly to the side.

“You will obtain a prescription for my terrible malady, deliver my dosage, and I will, quite magically… become well. Your station will receive substantial funding for such a success, and perhaps you yourself will be promoted for puzzling through such an extreme case. Sounds wonderful, does it not?”

Just like before, she found herself watching his mouth. The way it moved, slithered.

She realized what had been said. She realized, acknowledged and accepted it as she never would have, her only motion being to rise from her chair and mechanically sweep the folders of dead weight into her arms. Unable to look at him.

That violent want had receded, leaving her cold and cavernously unsure. Feeling as if she’d been drained of something, and was terribly afraid of what would come to fill it.

An incredible fear spiked, before unsettlingly absent.

“Would it be pleasing for me to request an official two-week leave as well, commander?” She murmured haltingly, a single, hampered thought stuck in her mind, turning itself over and over.

She needed to get this monster off the streets.

He seemed to shift in his seat, feeding her a low, languid trail of thought.

“No, I don’t believe so.” He said abruptly, head rising for yet another gleaming smile, voice informative. “I rather like my job.”

Stupidly, she felt herself nod.

Staggering to the door, notebook so tightly wedged underneath her knuckles they bleached. She could not remember what she had been here to do. The only goal lay in getting away. Escaping.

He thwarted her with ease, catching her inches before she escaped the white-washed room. Still handsome, still disgusting.

“Thank you for this enlightening little session, Ms. Vida Durann.” He said, voice serious and thick with that perverse earnestness that made her throat tighten. “I’m quite surprised at my final diagnosis. My family is not one for sleeping disorders, and I thought it was simply the stress. But I trust you. You seem very educated, as I am simply a public task force commander.”

He smiled and laced his fingers.

“I assure you, I’ll sleep quite soundly tonight.”

The door slid shut and the unmistakable sound of a woman vomiting echoed in the hallway, Vida stifling a sloppy cough as her business woman heels dug into the freshly waxed linoleum.

Hated the violent ones.