38

"I don't get it," Bub sighed, finally yielding to Mod's respectful silence. "I've dealt with some real fuck artists in my time. Psycho-schizo Rembrandts. Hackers. Slashers. Carvers. I've had some walk into an interview thinking they're Mo-fuckin'-hamed. Regular fucking prophets. I've seen fear, incredulity, anger, the whole gamut of human fuckin' emotion in that interview room. What I ain't never seen is someone just..."
"Blank." Mod completed his sentence. Bub looked at her thoughtfully.
"Blank. Yeah. Nothing there. No humanity. The sickest bastards that've ever lived are more often than not more human than anyone. This fuck... he's nothing. Literally nothing. Like a ghost of a dream of fuckin' nothing."

They sat in The Park in silence for a few minutes, further contemplating the greenery.

"You wanna get a 'lucidator?" Bub said suddenly.
"Sure," Mod replied. She didn't, but she felt obliged to ease her superiors anxiety by any means possible.

They strolled along the grass and soon found themselves near one of the many big cat enclosures. Bub strolled towards the bars and Mod followed. The cage contained lemas - squat powerful spotted things, a dozen of them, half yellow with big black splotches, the other half black with big yellow splotches. They were lazing in the sun. A few animal carcasses lay around their enclosure, stripped to the bone. The lemas were relaxed and full.

"Look at these things," Bub said thoughtfully, "killing machines. They don't know what they're doing. They play with their prey, make 'em suffer, but they don't have any understanding of what the prey's feeling. There's no maliciousness to it. Just pure untempered evil. The same that everyone needs to blow off once in a while. What I don't get is how some mute fuckin' Rembtard can bring so much fuckin' chaos to a city so designed to siphon it. Where the fuck did this Abe arsehole spring up from?"
"Jungarw," Mod answered with detached authority.
"Jungarw," Bub repeated thoughtfully. "You ever been mainlanding?"
"Once. A family trip, when I was about eight. We went to Tropanisia."
"Tropanisia," Bub repeated with a smile on his face.
"How about you Bub? You ever go mainlanding?"
"Shit Mod, I'm entering my second century, I've done my fair few stints of mainlanding. Jungarw though, I ain't never been to Jungarw. I don't even know where the fuck that is. I understand it ain't no small place."
"Eight million people," Mod clarified without pause.
"Just the eight fuckin' million huh? What is it, a fishin' village?"
"It's northern," Mod replied, "coastal."
"I've read his rap sheet from up there and it's all so fuckin' M.O.-heavy. What the fuck's a fuck like that doin' flippin' out fuck wild in Esplinade? Shit, I seen clone fucks with more nous to them then that fuck Abraham Alexander."

A significant silence fell upon them as they watch the lemas sleep and purr.

"You don't think..." Mod tentatively suggested.
"I don't think," Bub snarled, suddenly perceiving the state of play. "I know."