Chapter 26 of Propensity shifts form once again.

Much like Chapter 10 (Memorandum), it functions less as narrative propulsion and more as an aperture, fleshing out character psychology and relational tension. But unlike the bureaucratic memo of Chapter 10, this one adopts the cinematic grammar of a screenplay.

Three teens. One post-collapse flat. No script but survival.

Teddy, Lena, and Jamal, three of the few who’ve retained volition after the global cognitive outage, attempt to negotiate the boundaries of self, sex, and something like ethics. The world has gone silent. Behavioural modulations have zeroed out the rest of humanity. What’s left is not exactly freedom, but the residue of agency.

Teddy wants to dominate; he flirts with tyranny and the post-moral indulgence of the moment.

Jamal wants to refuse the cycle; he recognises the scaffoldings that led to collapse and hopes not to rebuild them.
Lena wants… something else entirely. Survival, perhaps. Or at least integrity.

Their conversation, unfolding through stage direction and dialogu, wrestles with autonomy, desire, and disgust. What counts as a violation in a world where the victims cannot resist? What norms persist when no one is left to enforce them?

This chapter doesn’t tell the reader what to think. It lets the contradictions breathe. And for a few pages, the novel becomes a film that cannot be watched, only read.