PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 266 Blindsight
topology through the haze. Maybe I saw a facade, only microns
deep. Maybe he would welcome almost any distraction, even if he
wouldn't admit it.
Or maybe I was just imagining it.
"How are you doing?" he asked as I reached the deck.
I shrugged.
"Hand all better, I see."
"No thanks to you."
I'd tried to stop that from coming out. Really.
Cunningham struck a cigarette. "Actually, I was the one who
fixed you up."
"You also sat there and watched while he took me apart."
"I wasn't even there." And then, after a moment: "But you may
be right. I might very well have sat it out in any event. Amanda
and the Gang did try to intervene on your behalf, from what I hear.
Didn't do a lot of good for anyone."
"So you wouldn't even try."
"Would you, if the sitution were reversed? Go up unarmed
against a vampire?"
I said nothing. Cunningham regarded me for a long moment,
dragging on his cigarette. "He really got to you, didn't he?" he
said at last.
"You're wrong," I said.
"Am I."
"I don't play people."
"Mmmm." He seemed to consider the proposition. "What word
would you prefer, then?"
"I observe."
"That you do. Some might even call it surveillance."
"I—I read body language." Hoping that that was all he was
talking about.
"It's a matter of degree and you know it. Even in a crowd there's
a certain expectation of privacy. People aren't prepared to have
their minds read off every twitch of the eyeball." He stabbed at the
air with his cigarette. "And you. You're a shapeshifter. You
present a different face to every one of us, and I'll wager none of
them is real. The real you, if it even exists, is invisible..."