Sublimation(28)

“Is that why you’re in the industry?” Ayumi had said. “You didn’t strike me as sentimental.”

“No,” you said, because to hell with postmortems. To hell with people who use their family trauma as their conversational nuclear weapon.

“I got into the game because my instance in Korea wants us to get dual citizenship before we reintegrate, so that he can avoid the military draft. So, you know. I’m just a garden-variety international bourgeois.”

“Oh,” Hannah had said, and something in her had relaxed a little. But she then leaned forward and asked, “So why Ring?”

You thought you had them, then; the three of you had talked for two hours, circling an agreement that never came.

They killed the deal the next morning.



* * *



The instancing industry comprises 2 percent of the American technology sector, though that number rises to 5 percent if the entire instancing economy is considered—services, vacations, immigration and travel, counseling. America is currently the largest instancing market in the world, though statistics show that the Chinese market has overtaken the American market. Talking heads quibble that the numbers released by the CCP are obviously doctored.

The origins of the modern instancing industry have roots in the Second World War, though the American sector specifically exploded during the 1950s with the increasing interest in chemical solutions to neuropsychological symptoms. Not to mention the increasing concern of Soviet agents infiltrating American society during the Cold War. Intention was mutable, intention was amorphous, intention was chemical, just like depression, anxiety, seizures, suicidal behavior, long-term pain management, and being a frigid mother.

The largest player in the space is Mergebreak, whose titular product, the MERGEBREAK, is said to prevent reintegration. Independent sponsored studies have shown that the MERGEBREAK has a 95 percent protection rate when both parties apply the prophylactic. The MERGEBREAK is most often worn by avid travelers, or wealthy deportees, who aren’t interested in reintegration. It is cheaper than an iPhone, but not much cheaper.

A number of other startups have attempted to enter the instantiation space, but in recent years the technology has stagnated. Mergebreak’s stock has also declined slightly in recent years.



* * *



Drew leads you down a second corridor, this one lined with a beautiful cascade of glass windows. He stops in front of the outdoor garden. You squint in the sunlight. The windows face east, and the sun is a bright white speck in the sky.

“And after you got coffee?” Drew says. He sounds fascinated. Like he really does want to know, like the mechanics of a failed solution are of great interest to him. But you don’t want to tell him about Hannah’s family, your family, your instance’s desires.

“We just talked, about why we were all working in tech, and what made them look to the instancing industry in particular. It didn’t work, though. You know that.”

“You’re good with people,” Drew says, like a pronouncement. Why is he saying this about you? He opens the door. You follow him out onto the terrace.

The Midtown wind tunnel is in full effect. Your eyes immediately water. You walk over to the edge. Below there are all the little people who look like ants, the teensy yellow cabs, the big square of Bryant Park. This would be a great place if you wanted to push someone off the building and have it look like an accident. Hannah’s grandfather would have had a perfect alibi. Oh yes, Officer, the railing was just so low, and the wind just so harsh.

“Great view, right?” Drew says. “We should advertise this terrace more. Anyway. I didn’t want to have this conversation in the fishbowl. Too many ears.”

You turn to him. You want to throw yourself off the building.

“Am I being fired?”

He looks blankly surprised. Then he laughs. “YJ, man. So negative! No—I’m trying to promote you.”

He holds up his phone. Presses down the power button, deliberately showing you as he swipes the device to dead.

“What do you know about Project Mitosis?”





SOYOUNG-ROSE


“This isn’t working,” Soyoung says. She’s sitting in the front seat of the car. Next to her, Soyoung’s fiancé is driving. Behind them, Jangmi is fast asleep in her car seat. They’re on their way back from Lotte World. When Soyoung was a kid, when she was singular, she went to Lotte World with her cousins and her mother and her grandfather. And when she was older, instanced, she had taken her cousins’ kids to Lotte World, to Everland, to Caribbean Bay.

Rose hadn’t been to a kids’ amusement park in years. The last time she visited was when she was fourteen and went to Great Wolf Lodge on a school trip. She remembers the terrible pink swimsuit she wore and how self-conscious she was about it, the chlorine smell of the water, losing her glasses in the wave pool. The memory mingles with the last time she took Minsoo’s daughter and her friends to Caribbean Bay. The chlorine, the screaming children.

The doubled memory is nauseating, all dissonant imagery and emotions. Soyoung tries to breathe through it, just like the online therapy exercises suggested. The cognitive dissonance is supposed to get better with time. Soyoung and Rose both thought therapy was full of shit. They haven’t gone yet. Not they. She.

Her fiancé stares fixedly at the road. There’s no point. They’re wedged in traffic. Soyoung studies Taehyung’s profile.