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For situations like this, I kinda wished I smoked so I could light a cigarette to look extra casual when a gun is on me. I don’t smoke, though; even with the regulations that make cigarettes full of nutrients and causes to them to clean and strengthen your lungs, I just never bought on to the idea of setting something on fire and putting it in my mouth.
I looked past the gun pointed at me to see a tear running down Diane’s face. I really hoped this wasn’t going to be some dumb emotional woman thing; still, maybe there was a chance she’d pull the trigger. If she did, it was me or her – and guess who I’d choose.
“You almost got me killed,” Diane spat at me, “you made me kill people, you got me aiding a massacre, and now I am a member of the crime family that killed my parents, but what upsets me most is I actually started to trust you. I’m not a naive person, I guess I just…” She seemed to have gotten stuck on how to finish that sentence.
“This may not be the best place to discuss this,” I suggested.
“I want answers now!” she shouted, her gun keeping a solid lock on my face.
“Well, for starters, about everything I told the Senator was true. Also…”
“I have received a message for you,” Dip said in my ear.
“Can it wait?” I answered back, “Diane is demanding my attention now.”
“Does she have a gun on you?” He had predicted that would happen.
“Dip, I’ll talk to you later.” I looked to Diane, trying to meet her eyes past the gun she had on me. “Anyway, I would expect Morrigan to be gone when we get back to HQ. The way I set things up, it will look like she disappeared because of embarrassment. Now the plan is…”
“I’m not taking you back to police headquarters.”
“Fine. Why don’t we get a bite to eat and continue this discussion?”
“I’m not hungry.”
I looked down trying to think and noticed the burnt mark on my side. It looked like the bolt that grazed me only damaged my jacket. “You could help me shop for a new jacket.”
“Are you trying to be funny, Rico?” Her face was stern again. No more tears.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not actually very good with people,” I said with a weak smile, “I don’t think you want to kill me, though, and you probably figured I don’t want to kill you or I would have done so already.”
Diane put away her gun. “Get in the car, Rico.”
I got in the passenger side and she took it into the air. She put it onto autopilot and I figured we were probably just flying a circle over the city. We were both quiet for a while; I wasn’t sure where to start explaining things, and she probably wasn’t sure what questions to ask first.
“Maybe I should start by explaining a fundamental fact about me,” I suggested.
“I’m not sure if I’ll care, but go ahead.”
She was angry. Frightened, but much more angry. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that; like most things now, it was far beyond me. “Like I said, I’m not so good with people. That’s because of a handicap I have.”
“A handicap?” Diane said incredulously.
“Well… uh… have you ever heard of Sigmund Freud… a psychologist from way way back on our homeworld?”
“No.”
“Anyway, he had a lot of theories on human behavior – some of them kinda ignored now – but I liked the way he characterized the human psyche which I think applies well to other sentients. He divided it into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego.
“The id is someone’s base desires – like hunger, anger, the sex drive, etc. When you start out as a baby, all you have is your id. If you’re hungry and see someone with a sandwich, the id would be a desire to just grab the sandwich and eat it.
“The ego is basically the human consciousness and how you interact with the world. It restrains the id by understanding how the world works and develops quickly as a human grows and learns. The ego would say you couldn’t just take a sandwich and eat it because it’s someone else’s and he would get angry.
“The superego is your morality and the last part of the psyche to develop. It would tell you not to take someone’s sandwich because that is wrong… or, if you did steal someone sandwich, it’s what would make you feel guilty afterwards.
“So, what my deal is that I have a very diminished id, but I completely lack a superego. What allows me to interact somewhat with normal society is I’m quite intelligent and have developed a very advanced ego to compensate for my lack of understanding of moral codes that come natural to others.”
I was silent a moment to let that all sink in. She looked at me with no discernable emotion on her face. I probably showed no emotion either. I had no idea which one was appropriate for this occasion anyway.
She then started laughing hysterically.
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