My one and only Pretender fic.  AU, riffing off 'Donoterase'.

SUBLIMINAL   by Jayne Leitch
C. 2002

"You're a very attractive man."

He shakes his head with a violence that makes the guard in the corner shift his hand
toward his holster.  "Don't say that."

"Why not?"

His eyes burn in the shadows.  "Because it's wrong."

"What do you mean, 'wrong'?  Is it a lie?"

"No."  It's obvious that he's familiar with society's standards where masculine beauty is
concerned; it's recorded fact that he's traded on those standards in the past, quite capably.
"I know people find me attractive.  But they shouldn't."

"Why shouldn't they?"

A fierce frown cuts lines through his face, deepening the shadows, and he's no longer
handsome; it's obvious that he knows how to trade on this, as well.  "Because people
shouldn't find bad things appealing."

"People are drawn to 'bad things', as you call them, all the time.  Surely you're familiar
with the philosophies of art and the sublime--"

"The idea that people are drawn to terrible, dangerous things, find them aesthetically
alluring or even beautiful."  He sneers, and his voice fills with loathing.  "People who are
drawn too close to the flickering of a fire get burned.  People who are too fascinated by
the curve of a tiger's claw get mauled.  People shouldn't let beauty blind them to danger."

"But they do."

"Yes."  His fingers lace on the table, and he stares straight ahead.  "But they shouldn't."

"You consider yourself a danger to others, then?"

A pause.  A number of expressions cross his face before he answers.  "He's a bad man."

"Who is a bad man?"

Another pause.  He stops staring ahead, glancing down for a moment before letting his
gaze dart around the room, landing on the table, the cameras, the guard, the questioner.
"The man on the screen.  He's a killer."

"The man on the screen?"

Without hesitation, he lifts his right hand until the chain of his cuff is stretched taut.  He
points two fingers straight ahead.  "That man.  That screen."

"You mean the mirror?"

* * * * *

Mr Raines pushed the pause button, freezing the DSA playback before the shouting
began.  He'd already played it countless times; everyone knew what came next, and he,
personally, didn't need a fresh reminder of the one discovered flaw in his methods.

Swivelling his chair away from the computer screen, he wrapped his bony fingers around
his armrests and gazed impassively at his colleagues. "Perhaps we should find a way to
manipulate the genes that determine physical appearance before we make another clone,"
he said.

End.

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