He watches the screens, eyes flicking back and forth, face impassive as he soaks in the display of vulgar humanity before him.  There are entertainment channels from which he derives no entertainment, news channels from which he gleans no news, pornographic channels which arouse in him only a faint feeling of disgust and an even fainter one of pity.  There are commercials that try to sell him cars and clothes and perfumes and alcohol, all using the same ploy of nubile young women and broad-shouldered men with chiseled jaws and waxed chests.  His is not moved by them, nor is he repulsed by them; he is curious and thoughtful and perhaps slightly intrigued by the manner in which the commercials are arranged, but his expression remains as solid as a rock.

Besides those channels, which everyone gets and which he does not find particularly special in any way excepting perhaps as a somewhat discouraging picture of the state of today's society, there are surveillance videos.  Most of them are trained on the corridors and offices of his own building, but there are others.  Adrian likes to keep an eye on his old friends.  Some more so than others.

He keeps track calmly, fingers curling through the silky fur behind his pet's ears, and she rumbles in pleasure.  Sometimes he speaks to her, telling her the things that he sees, and she blinks up at him with eyes that almost understand.  It's heart-breaking, really, that she should be so close to intelligent and yet so far away.  He tears his eyes from the screens momentarily, long enough to glance down at her, to love her and to pity her.  Genetic freak that she is, she'll never bear young, and in that he supposes that he is like her, without family.

"Two of a kind, aren't we, darling?" he murmurs, smiling.  She makes a soft noise and pushes against his hand.  Yes, he supposes that she is the only companion he can hope for, the only one who harbors no desire to show him up or cherishes the delusion that she might be his equal.  Bubastus, at least, is content to stand quiet vigil by his side.  "Good girl," he sighs, turning back to the screens.  "Good."

He goes back to his observation of humanity, pitying them as they rush around, each of them certain in their hearts that they are the hero of the story, each one of them so very, very wrong.  Apes, all of them, but apes with possibilities, if only they would realize them.  Let them hold to their little delusions of grandeur.  It was harmless enough for now and, after all, didn't he cherish his own?  He was a part of humanity, though he did not so much think himself a hero as know himself to be one.

Whether or not they would ever know it, well.  That was a different story altogether.

Current Mood: thoughtful