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Oz sat down behind the glass in the visitation room and had absolutely no idea who this man was. Not that it really mattered, but it was rather odd that someone would come see a prisoner they didn’t actually know.

Oz had been here for seven years.

He’d seen a lot of weird things in that time, so it didn’t really bother him anymore.

The fact that he’d have to touch the little phone attached to the wall of the visitation booth did though. Those things were almost certainly never cleaned. Oz didn’t even need his powers to recognize that they were crawling with bacteria and disease .

He looked at the phone like it was a rattlesnake, waiting to strike him dead.

And in that instant, he very much would have preferred that it kill him than him having to touch it.

The man on the other side of the glass removed his straw hat and straightened his white linen suit. He picked up the receiver.

Oz continued staring at the phone, still unwilling to touch it.

The man pointed at the phone.

Oz didn’t move.

The man on the other side of the glass heaved an annoyed sigh, then summoned one of the guards over to him.

He explained something to the woman, pointed at Oz, then handed her three $100 bills.

The guard immediately reached for her radio, and a moment later, a guard on Oz’s side of the glass arrived and tossed Oz an antibacterial wipe.

Oz looked down at the package, wondering where it had been. When you really stopped to think about it, the packaging of an antibacterial product must be among the dirtiest things around, because no one needed them unless their hands or immediate area where contaminated.

The man on the other side of the window pointed at it, obviously getting annoyed with the delay now.

Oz didn’t sense any life-threatening germs clinging to the packet and he finally relented to touch it. He ripped it open, and then spent the next five minutes cleaning the phone and the desk area in front of him.

It still wasn’t what one might call “clean,” but at least it didn’t make him want to vomit anymore.

He picked up the phone, holding it away from his head because he still didn’t want the earpiece to touch him. The little speaking holes were undoubtedly overflowing with the accumulated earwax and body hair of a thousand diseased criminals.

“Mr. Dimico?” The man on the other end of the phone said in greeting. “My…”

Oz hung up the phone.

Then picked it up again.

Then hung it up.

He repeated the process four times, because he was afraid if he didn’t, something bad would happen.

His compulsions had gotten much, much worse since the incident at the dump. And they’d been getting even more extreme in the last few months .

He was falling apart and he knew it.

Oz seemed to spend half of his day now, just doing useless rituals to avoid unspecified disasters which would befall him and the world around him.

It was stupid and annoying, but Oz was helpless to stop it. If he didn’t do it, it occupied his every thought. He wasn’t able to sleep. He obsessed about it until he threw up, then obsessed about that.

Oz’s life was his obsessions and rituals now. They owned him.

The ritual fulfilled, Oz once again put the receiver to his ear.

“Really?” The man on the other end of the phone asked, sounding exasperated. “You couldn’t have just picked up the damn phone?”

Oz opened his mouth to explain the situation, but the man cut him off.

“I don’t care.” The man said simply. “I know what your problem is and I know what triggered it.” He shook his head. “It still cost me $300 and wasted five minutes as you did your little phone dance.”

Oz simply stared at him.

“What are you in for, kid?” The man asked, sounding amused to be able to use the clichéd line. “I’ve always wanted to say that.” He confided a moment later.

Oz watched him with emotionless eyes. “Sixteen counts of first degree murder, sixty-seven counts of robbery, nineteen counts of grand theft auto, thirty-three counts of arson, forty carjackings and ten counts of sexual assault.” He paused. “And I killed my cousin.”

“Shiiiiiiit,” the man let out a low whistle, “you weren’t kidding around, were you!?! When you go bad, you go fucking dark! ”

Oz didn’t reply to that.

“You do it?” The man asked calmly.

“The DNA matched.” Oz told him simply.

“Ah.” The man nodded, then smiled at him. “My name is Prometheus.”

Oz simply stared at him, not meeting his eyes. He’d never been a great conversationalist and prison hadn’t helped that much. To be honest, Oz would have very much preferred to be left in his cell today.

“So… your cousin.”

“He was a troubled man.”

“I have no doubt.” Prometheus nodded. “And I saw his trial, obviously.” He smiled knowingly at Oz. “And your testimony.” The man shook his head. “You didn’t kill him.”

“He got death.” Oz argued rationally. “He wouldn’t have gotten death without my testimony. Ergo, I killed him.”

“You feel bad about getting your cousin lethal injection?”

“We weren’t close. He stabbed me in the chest and left me to die under fifty feet of garbage.

I’d say we’re even.” Oz shifted in his chair, suddenly smelling that awful stink again and wishing that he could wash his hands and face.

With something very, very strong. Anything to cover up the memory of that smell.

“And wrong is wrong, I don’t care if you’re my cousin who is killing my enemies or not.

You kill people, I’m going to stop you.”

The man leaned back in his chair. “Your issue is that you view the world in terms of black and white. Things are good or evil, clean or dirty. But that kind of thinking isn’t ever going to see the world as a cohesive, realistic whole.

It’s just a defense mechanism. Your cousin let you down, so your cousin was thus evil and he needed to be reported. ”

“Or my cousin was a sadistic madman, who deserved to be brought to justice.”

“Oh, I’m not arguing that. The man was utterly worthy of getting the death sentence, no doubt. I just mean in general, this is your problem. This is why I always have difficulty talking to you, you’re the only one on the team that refuses to compromise your own view of morality.”

Oz frowned. “Why would I want to compromise my morals?”

“They’re situational. Sometimes you need to.”

“No, you don’t. Things are as they are. They’re good or they’re evil, they’re clean or they’re dirty. Compromising with evil doesn’t make the world less evil, it makes the world less good.”

“See, the other thing I’ve never understood about you: you try to correct my understanding of morality, rather than asking just what ‘team’ I’m referring to.

” The man shook his head in amused confusion.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who would do that.

Hell, you haven’t even asked me why I’m here yet.

” He tapped the desk in front of him, paying absolutely no attention to the trillions of bacteria the action no doubt deposited on his fingertip, like sprinkles on a cupcake.

“This road you’re on? The world of moral absolutes and panicking about germs?

Nothing good lies down that road, Oz. You won’t like what you find there. ”

“I know exactly where it leads, sir. I’m in prison.” Oz argued rationally. “It either leads to death or more prison. I am fine with either of those eventualities.”

They were both silent for a long moment.

“Most of the human genome is simply viruses which have written themselves into the DNA,” he pointed at Oz, “which means that you are mostly made up of leftover protein sequences from stuff that isn’t you.

It was never you. Humanity is just the garbage that a disease shit out, millennia ago.

Everyone is quite literally… trash.” He opened up his hands, point made.

“They make all life possible, even yours.”

“I want them gone.” Oz looked down at his hands, hating the unseen universe he knew they had clinging to them.

“That’s not going to happen. You can’t ever clean your hands completely.

They’ll always be dirty, to some degree.

” The man shook his head again. “So you can either let it go and learn to deal with it in constructive ways, or you can go crazy obsessively trying to stop it and possibly end up killing yourself in the process. Those are your options.”

“I can feel them moving all over me…” Oz whispered. “All over you…”

“At some point, you have to realize there’s no such thing as ‘clean,’ which means everything is dirty.

And if everything is dirty, then nothing is.

Morality is the same way. There are very few absolutes, because people are imperfect creatures.

Because they’re literally made up of trash.

” The man shrugged. “I am telling you that you will drive yourself crazy with this. And to be completely candid with you, I don’t need you.

” The man sounded either sad that Oz wasn’t important or annoyed that he needed him at all.

“You aren’t a huge part of the fight that’s coming.

But I have to take you in order to get the help of the person I’m really after, and I can’t get her if you’re dead or crazy.

So congratulations, Oswald. Fate is here to give you a pep-talk and get you out of jail. I’m going to…”

“I can’t be out of jail.” Oz replied unemotionally, still tracking the microbes crawling all over his hands. “I’m evil.”

“Not yet, you’re not.” The man corrected. “But if you don’t learn to overcome your fear of that, it’s going to happen.”

“I’ve been in solitary for 6 months.” Oz reported. “But I had twenty-eight quindecillion cellmates.”