A little after six the next morning, Killer Croc arrived. Schiller had not even gotten up yet; the doorbell was what woke him.
He had worked until after two the night before, but fortunately, he had finished everything. Schiller had designed a logo for Killer Croc's moving company and used Gray Mist to print it out.
He got into the truck quickly, spending the entire drive to the manor thinking about how to bring it up.
It should have been simple, shouldn't it? All he had to do was say, "Hey, thanks for coming over so late last night. I thought you might need this," then smoothly pull out the logo sticker for the truck.
But for someone with autism, that was a little difficult.
The emotional channels of autistic people were almost completely closed off. They could only infer from social rules and common sense what emotions they ought to feel and what sort of emotional response they ought to give, but in reality, they felt none of it.
Schiller only knew that he had called Killer Croc during his rest time, and Killer Croc had come over. According to known social rules, Killer Croc had sacrificed his own rest time to help him move, so Schiller ought to thank him. Yet Schiller felt no gratitude at all.
And if he wanted to reciprocate now, he ought to put on a grateful, slightly excited expression. The hardest part was acting as though he anticipated Killer Croc's reaction upon seeing the design, like someone giving another person a gift and looking forward to their delighted surprise.
But Schiller did not care what expression Killer Croc made, because whether Killer Croc was delighted or disgusted, Schiller would feel neither happy nor angry.
More importantly, he could theoretically analyze exactly what expression