Sublimation(117)

“Why does anyone do anything?” Yujin says, shrugging with his good arm. “Because I want to. Because, Soyoung, I want to go with you, and I will miss you very badly when you’re gone.”

“You’re asking me to decide who you are,” she says. “Who you become.”

“Yes,” he says. “Make me someone who can go with you.”

Soyoung looks back down at his arm and continues to tug at the tape. The skin underneath is red and irritated. The second piece of the machine falls onto the blanket. He’s asking her to make him into someone she wants. It’s not her grandfather offering her his home that he had lived in for half a century. It’s not her mother offering her America. It’s not Soyoung standing across from Rose on the mountain, offering her entire life in the single clammy palm of her hand. It’s something different entirely.

Does Soyoung want him? Their decades of friendship. Meeting again for the second first time. The way it feels easy to talk with him. His slightly chapped lips. The way his skin feels now, warm against the tape, warm against her hand. The difference between what she wants, and what she wants to want. The difference between what she takes and what she is given. How this would be hard, when it had been so easy to reach for herself.

She doesn’t know if she trusts herself for this. This is harder than deciding to steal Mitosis. But Yujin is looking at her, and she doesn’t want to look away.



* * *



The fisherman’s heart, beating between his lungs.





EPILOGUE


A man and a woman board a plane. They’re carrying two backpacks, one carry-on, and one cat carrier. Neither of them look like they’ve gotten much sleep. There are dark circles under the man’s eyes, and the woman is clutching a to-go cup of coffee like a lifeline. They had argued about the cat carrier, and the cat inside. The woman had won—the cat is a powerful argument against them being fugitives. The man had acquiesced. They’re holding hands.

The plane is about to take off. In the plane’s baggage hold, there is a piece of checked luggage that contains a set of steel bars and a control board. After the plane takes off, an avalanche of emails, uploads, and messages is going to be sent from a secure server, hitting every relevant newsroom, forum, and social media site.

In an office building approximately six miles away, a man sits at his desk. He’s on the phone, and he’s arguing. He doesn’t look worried. He doesn’t want anything that the man on the other end can offer him. On his chest and legs, there are still patches of hairless skin from where someone ripped duct tape off too quickly. He’s thinking about the man and the woman on the plane. He’s refreshing his newsfeeds every thirty seconds. He doesn’t want to miss it.

The headlines drop. The plane takes off.

Outside, the world changes.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Nothing is created in a vacuum, and Sublimation would not exist without the support of an entire auditorium’s worth of people. The book you’re currently holding in your hands would be much poorer without their input and support.

Immense thanks for my editor at Tor, Carl Engle-Laird, and to my editor at Picador, Ebruba Abel-Unokan, for your help in improving the many versions of the draft by leaps and bounds, and to Tor assistant editor Matt Rusin, for your help making that possible as well. Thank you to everyone at Tor—specifically thank you to Isa Caban, Anthony Parisi, and Eileen Lawrence on the marketing team, Tiana Tolbert for the social marketing, publicists Cassidy Sattler and Sarah Reidy, managing editor Rafal Gibek, production editor Jeff LaSala, production manager Jim Kapp, Jamie Stafford-Hill for the incredible jacket design, Greg Collins for the fantastic interior design, copy editor NaNá Stoelzle, proofreader Jessica Warren, cold reader Tania Bissell, and the entire team at Picador. Thank you all for your incredible work in turning my draft into a physical object, and getting the word out about this book’s existence.

And, thank you to my agent, Steven Salpeter, for your work in championing Sublimation from its earliest form. Speaking of which, thank you to Neil Clarke, for publishing my short story “Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self” back in 2021, which was the seed from which this novel unfolded. Thank you to Ashley Chang for reading the first draft of the short story, and thank you to Sydney Jeon for reading some of the earliest versions of this novel’s beginnings and encouraging the creation of the full story.

Thank you to Allison Mills and Roshan Pulapura for reading truly ridiculously countless versions of this novel—and Allison, a second thank-you for all the cat name brainstorming. And thank you to Emily Temple-Wood, Jocelyn James, Carolyn Zhao, Alex Kang, Jamie Ahn, Ashley Chang, Ethan Reed, Cayla Fay, Amanda Silberling, and the lovely people in the OGOF discord server for the support and beta-reading and cheering my writing on. And thank you to everyone else who edited, read, supported, and otherwise created the conditions for Sublimation’s existence.

Thank you to my partner, Joe Kachmar, for your support and affection while I brought this novel into the light of day. And finally, thank you to my mom and dad for always supporting my writing and creative work, for encouraging me to pursue my dreams, and for buying me every book I ever asked for. I love you all.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR


ISABEL J. KIM lives near New York City in an apartment filled with books and swords. She is the author of numerous short stories and has won the Nebula, Locus, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and reprinted in multiple best of the year anthologies. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing law or podcasting. Sublimation is her first novel. You can sign up for email updates here.