Joe half-grunts, half-snorts. “Thought the super-spy was the last person we were s’posed to trust. But – you shouldn’t’ve followed me, but you did, so …” He shrugs, then shakes his head. "Not looking for a therapist. I already got one, and she just says ‘hmmm’ and ‘mm hmmm’ a lot.
"But – well, Mette … she’s smart, and she’s pretty – I mean, she’s a pretty person, not just, like, physically pretty, though she’s really physically pretty. But I’ve never, um, said anything to her, right, 'cause I look like a giant gorilla, and until I knew how to fix this or something, I mean, kinda awkward. I mean, who knows how she might react, right?
"But it was one thing when I didn’t know what happened, when I was maybe transmogrified into something that looks like a giant gorilla. I mean, Dr Quill, he’s always talking about DNA inversion and bionantic whosiwhatsis stuff that gives me my healing and like that. So I was always kinda thinking I was really me in here. But If Tahi is describing it right – and why wouldn’t she – I’m not even like a brain in a gorilla-shaped jar kinda thing. I’m just a copy of what I was, a Joey Moore thumb drive copied onto the dead brain of a talking gorilla. But not … me. I’m an animal. A really weird intelligent talking animal, that thought it was a person, right? But not …a person. A human person.
“So, me knowing that, her knowing that, how can I ever be near her any more? I mean, what that means, her and me being together – that’d be kinda … gross, y’know. Unnatural, as my auntie said. Definitely illegal. I wouldn’t do that to her, and I – I mean if she ever learned I felt that way, I couldn’t stand her being … disgusted at me, not just at what I really am, but at my even … wanting her. Or, worse, seeing pity in her eyes, y’know, ever thinking – man, that’d wreck me.”
