I could feel the difference between the tropical sun and the shade beneath the black tarps. I huddled against what felt like the concrete exterior of the hospital building. Occasionally one of my pen-mates would stop by, check on me. I felt their hot breath.

One of the smaller ones would cuddle up against me; it felt its warm fur, its absurdly huge ears. It would pat my face and head with its delicate hands.

"I'm…I'm okay," I told it. "Thank you. I'm okay."

It patted the top of my head and snuggled closer. They all seemed reassured by one another's touch, and weren't happy to be in here, and they might have felt sorry for me. So I was in the center of the group. It wasn't horrible.

"I know what you're thinking," called Dr. Michelle from over by the metal fence. "Sliceday means we all feel one another's pain, right? So how can we do this to our fellow beings, ones with souls?"

I had no idea what she was talking about, of course. Dr. Michelle wasn't on my list of reliable authorities on anything at the moment.

"The trick is to not develop connections," she said. "I know each of these things in the pen with you has its own soul, its own name and identity, it suffers and feels. But I made a point of compartmentalizing. I don't interact with any of them. It's easier when those involved are unclean."

When they look different, I thought.

"Do you remember our talk? I told you I was a psychologist as well as a surgeon. Remember?"

I nodded. Waved away a fly. There were a lot of them.

"That's important. All right, so why are you here? Believe it or not, none of this is about you as a person. It's about Owen Walsh as a symbol of Sliceday. He and his gang destroyed Humanity. Or at least that's how a lot of people see it." She snorted. "Mostly people like me, who'd had swimming pools and vacations. But Todd doesn't mind that part."

I wished she'd go away. My new Pingster pals were company enough.

But she kept going. "Humans need to see their enemies suffering. A boot stamping on a human face, forever. Not pretty, but it's necessary."

I cleared my throat. "Orwell also said: 'Whoever seems to be winning at the present moment will always seem to be invincible.' I failed a class on political science so I know about this shit."

"Well good for you and Orwell," she said. "Thanks for mansplaining, by the way. If there's one way to get a guy to talk, it's to provoke mansplaining."

"Why care if I talk to you at all, Michelle?"

"You're funny and not ridiculously stupid. And that Hazel disguise I wore, the seeming? It liked you. It was flattered that you were so into playing along. Found it endearing."

"Is this a date?"

"No, sorry. This is where I have to explain what happens next. When was the last time you heard from your phone?"

I'd lost track. Lux hadn't spoken to me for some time today. Understandable, I thought, with a pang of guilt.

"The Ai on it won't talk to you. Ever read about the Stanford Prison Experiment?"

I nodded. "Bad things in the name of psychology. And college students enjoying it."

"Only some of them. They had to call it off, because it was too…true. Too real. You can manipulate someone more effectively with empathy, with guilt, than with physical coercion. Did you know that?"

I shrugged. All I heard in that was that I wasn't going to get tortured today, not physically.

"But the suffering of a fallen foe, a defeated foe, is vital to Human well-being. It's the most important thing for a lot of Humans. And you're a fallen foe. And you represent Sliceday, when a lot of people like me lost it all."

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I wanted to ask: does it matter to you at all if I wasn't even remotely involved? Just someone who looked like me, had the same name?

But I didn't. It would have sounded like begging. Nope.

"It's not fair to you, the individual," as if she'd read my mind. "But seeing you suffer, seeing you rolling in the dirt with the unclean you pretend to love more than your own kind? It's being broadcast all over the world. Right now you and I have an audience of millions. A secret, sneaky audience, of course. Mostly the President's supporters on encrypted channels."

I didn't know what to say. I knew I should say something. A weather report? What do you say to millions of people drinking in your defeat? "You suck."

"Defiance. That's important. Right now I'm getting thousands of suggestions on what to say to you. How to taunt you. How to hold you accountable. Well, the guy you resemble, I suppose. It's not an exact science."

"What if I'd killed it last night? Joined up?"

She chuckled. "Nobody'd even considered the possibility. You have a reputation. Your other self does, anyway."

I'm not him, I almost said. But again: begging. Nope.

"Do you know what a soul does, Owen? Odd to have to explain it to you, of all people. It allows you to feel the emotions of others. Makes their suffering unendurable to the observer. It really shook up my field for that to happen, let me tell you. Many, many online debates on what to do. Cruelty is important to Humans, it's part of dehumanizing your enemies."

"Difficult to market that."

"It is, sure, but that doesn't make it any less true. Humans have always had problems with other groups of Humans. Evolutionarily speaking, then, we need a mechanism to treat them as other. So we can go to war with them, sell them into slavery, give their babies blankets dipped in smallpox. You know the drill."

I did indeed. Failed many classes on that subject.

"But a soul means the observer can't savor it. It's why you don't have one."

I rubbed the rune on my arm, the one that had made me blind.

"That's right," she said. Schoolteacher approval. "That rune keeps you from seeing, but also from getting a soul, getting whatever Magic you'd use in this situation. Whatever crazy terrorist nonsense you wanted to pull. That was a decent impromptu plan last night, by the way. It would have worked; the people here aren't too bright, and if it hadn't been a setup since the beginning you'd be out."

"Me and Hazel."

"Definitely. That seeming was lying to you about her girlfriend. She was impressed with you. Refusing to kill that creature? Setting the party on fire? Very good stuff. A real panty-peeler, as we used to say."

"Why tell me that?"

"To hurt you, I suppose. I'm a professional. Anyway your lack of soul means none of the Humans watching you can feel your pain. It's nothing new; people offer a lot in trade for that kind of service. People like me, of course. They can just enjoy it, like in the good old days."

I remembered the crazy, bleak time after Mom. Thinking, day after day: every problem I have is because of a Human being. And every problem those Human beings have is ALSO because of Human beings.

I wasn't being proven wrong today. "So get to it," I said. "I'm detecting some pageantry here, what with your audience and all. A presentation."

"Come on," she said. Not to me. I heard the metal gate opening. Someone coming in. Breathing. High-pitched. Smallish.

The gate creaked and closed. Jingling of chains and locks.

It was a woman. Crying. A voice I didn't know. It wasn't the Hazel seeming, that was certain. She was…smaller. Sounded impossibly fragile. Brave tears.

"I showed you the tanks," Michelle said. Iron in her voice. We were all business, baby. "The tanks let nonhumans live as humans. They experience the good with the bad."

"Owen," said the newcomer. Fell to her knees in front of me. Cuddled up to my chest. She smelled…new. Chemical. "Owen what is this? Are you Owen? I think I recognize you, but…my vision is…different."

"It's him all right. He's the one who put you in this position, Lux."

I put my arms around her. Thin, bony. A hospital gown, naked beneath. In the dust. In the alien pen. She began crying in earnest. Deep, heartrending sobs. Hot tears on my chest. I hugged her.

My tears joined with hers.

"And there it is," Michelle said, satisfied. "Empathy. Guilt. Believe me when I say your fans love it."

"Idiot," Lux said to me, in her new body from the tanks. "Idiot."

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