Week 28, Title: How far we've come

[swirlsofpurple]

Lana glides through the meeting, talking to one important suited person after another, parrying between smooth sweet convincers and hard brash arguments, a different affectation for every person, for every situation. Another step towards the top. She enjoys it, the power, the manipulation. The ease with which others come apart and come together, the sleek adrenaline rush of plans coming to fruition. She’s the best at this.

This is just the latest project. Slightly bigger than usual (the global implementation of a new energy system) but she’s always liked a challenge.


*


Taking a brief pause Lana gazes out of the now darkened bank of windows and slips off her heels. Usually she wouldn’t let so much as a hair out of place while in the office, preferring to appear as though she never sleeps, always remaining just so. She’s always the first to arrive and the last to leave, after all nothing gives her quite the exhilaration as work can. But it’s after midnight and there’s almost no one left in the tall office building. She still gives her tights a cursory check for ladders before resting her feet, crossed at her ankles, on her desk.

Aaron walks in, but he knows her well enough that she doesn’t bother with any act.

“It’s late; we should get something to eat.” He smiles, this isn’t a new conversation.

She sighs softly, thoughts holding half-formed hope flit through her mind, “In another life maybe.”

“It’s really not that complicated, I like you, you like me. It’s just food,” he says.

“I’m a psychopath, which tends not to be conducive to genuine honest relationships. And I can’t be bothered to maintain the lie at home.”   

“Oh harsh, you’re a sociopath at worst,” Aaron jokes.

“Sociopath is not a scientifically recognised term, it’s a word we use to make psychopaths seem  friendlier,” she replies, snorting.  

“Huh, maybe I’m a psychopath too then, I’ve got that cold stark rationale thing going on.”

She rolls her eyes, “You say that as though we don’t both understand the difference between logical pragmatism and an inability to care about other people.”

“Well, other people are boring,” he points out.

“Quaint, so we together are unique, ourselves alone something special, something different in the universe,” she spits with disdain, the notion feeling childish on her tongue.

“Maybe there are a couple of hundred like us,” he concedes.

“You underestimate the great majority of the human race,” she replies.

“This could be a long debate, all the more reason for food.”

She levels him with a serious gaze before saying, “Fine,” adding lightly, “if only to convince you that I’m not the centre of the universe.”


*

“Explain it to me?” he asks.

And she wants to, maybe just to say the words out loud, and so she does. She pokes chopsticks into the take-out carton, attacking noodles with deathly precision as she speaks,
“It’s not that I don’t feel emotions, there are lots of emotions, joy and excitement and all the happy feelings. It’s the things that incite those which are more troubling. Lying and manipulating and twisting and tearing people apart. But it makes me the best at what I do, and I do enjoy the cutthroat aspect of this business, playing the world, playing the people. There are compulsions though, those times when the lies feel bitter, too obvious and too easy, when I’m less than myself. I wonder whether they see through me, but they don’t. I don’t feel for other people, it’s all false, an approximation, I know what to do to blend perfectly. But it’s never real. It’s one thing I’ve always wondered about my ilk, if we are so determined to be the best, how are we then satisfied with relationships which aren’t real. There’s only so long fooling others can be satisfying before it’s disappointing. Saddening that they haven’t realised, that they don’t see us and what we can do. If I’m going to be in a relationship, it will be truthful. That will be a hard thing to handle for both parties.”

Aaron stares, as though still listening long after the words have ceased, before answering with words halting yet firm,
“I’d like to try, to handle it that is, if you’re willing to.”    


*


They go on several dates. She enjoys them, enjoys talking with him, enjoys being with him. She doesn’t care about him though, she pretends a little; it’s a necessary compromise.

He understands, until he doesn’t, then they argue.

She doesn’t feel a thing, until a car colliding with his body sends a sharp shock through her and she tells herself it’s just about not wanting to lose his presence; his entertainment value. He comes away with a turned-over ankle and wrongly-bent wrist and she’s care-free once more. Looking after him feels too much like obligation, she has little patience for it.

Her success is growing and they have less time together, but she carves out corners of her life for him, even if it’s sometimes only the obligatory five minutes between orange juice and toothpaste.


*


She travels to Tokyo and New York first, and then to any important city she can fit onto her schedule, world-wide changes of energy don’t manage themselves. She manages the people, manages the problems, turns all the bumps into smooth lines.

Success follows success follows success. This is the new answer. The best answer. No more energy crisis, no more pollution.

Aaron keeps himself busy with his own work, they drift somewhat. It’s an inevitability she’s known from the beginning. Psychopaths are far less palatable when not trying to fit in.


*


There’s a catch, there’s always a catch. She’d known from the beginning there would be.

The new energy system is everywhere, working brilliantly. And now has decided to add a side effect of poisonous gas with a chaser of death.

She and Aaron are together again, taking comfort in the pretence of comfort.

“I suppose this lends to your notion of us being the centre of the universe, or the world at least.”

Aaron says nothing in reply, only quirks an eyebrow.

“Do you think anyone else has ever done this much destruction?”

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