– I’m wondering, is there anything you care about at all?

Nights like this, it’s easy to remember those days.

I stop picking at the knot tangling my bootlace.

– I care about getting out of here as soon as possible.

Predo places the pen on his desk, aligning it perfectly with the vertical edge of his blotter.

– If that is your goal, you might try paying attention for a few moments.

I point at the pen.

– You know your receptionist did that the exact same way. What do you think that’s about?

– I wouldn’t know.

– Hunh.

He watches me, the bright blue eyes in his smooth boyish face looking at me, slouched in the uncomfortable small wood chair across from him.

– Any other random thoughts, Pitt?

I give up on the knot and uncross my legs.

– Nothing just now. Why don’t we get to your thing.

– Thing. My thing. That is what I am talking about. A Van Helsing, well versed from what I hear, at large, and you evaluate it as a thing. An object or idea of no value relative to any other thing. No better. No worse. Of no greater concern than a rock or a tree, perhaps.

– What is it with people and trees tonight?

– Excuse me?

– Nothing.

He brushes the flop of dark bangs from his forehead.

– Someone was talking about trees?

I shrug.

The corner of his mouth twitches upward.

– Was Bird speaking on the subjects of forests and trees?

– What’s it to you?

The corner of his mouth straightens.

– Nothing. I have heard similar lectures in the past.

I look back at the knot, give it a tug, pulling the wrong end and drawing it tighter.

– Pitt?

I keep my eyes down. Thinking about Terry and Predo. Hippie Terry. Head of the Society. Revolutionary who organized all the downtown riffraff and Rogues almost forty years back, got them on the same page and broke off a piece of Coalition turf to make their own.