Chapter 7: Blue-Eyed Man
Of all the people in the world, I managed to bump into a Genetically Altered researcher. My tension was clearly visible -- but so was everyone else's. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Dylan coughed.
'Dude... it's not that I... I just thought that you're studying, you know, something laidback and cool. Not the... anyway, why this?
Ted made a face.
'No need to be polite about it, dudes. Yeah, yeah, I know. Most of my fellow students are sick fucks who chose this field because of some fascist fascination. But not me.'
He took another drag and leaned forward.
'It's just, you see. Science is built, basically, on observation and logical conclusion, right? Sounds neat and simple, but in reality, it's always messy, because more often than not, to make valuable observations, you need to study the subject of observation in relation. And that's cool, that's how good science is made. Hence the comparative part. You know, how they had a major breakthrough in linguistics when they decided to start comparing European languages to the Native American ones? Cuz, if you have a thing that is similar to your subject, but independent, you can observe what is common and what is uncommon about the two, and this gives your observations ground.'
Claire raised her eyebrows.
'Jesus Christ, Ted. Do you always become mister eloquent when drunk, or are you just not drunk enough?'
He laughed.
'No such thing as drunk enough, dude! Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh yes, comparative anthropology. The problem with it is that our society is the only sapient society on Earth, bummer, so there's no independent source for comparison. Right? But there was, once.'
'Wraiths?'