Sublimation(57)

“So, who are you?” you say without any softening. You don’t know how to be polite in this situation, much less in a language you don’t speak regularly. She knows more about you than you know about her.

“I used to be YJ’s boss,” Megan says. “He has his parents’ address listed as his personal contact.”

You look at her, as if looking at her would change her face, drag it into familiarity. It doesn’t.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here because I wanted to talk to you. You’re close with your instance, right? You’ll pass on a message? Can you get him some stuff from me?”

“Why didn’t you just talk with him?”

She makes a face. She crosses her arms.

“Because I have fundamental disagreements with how Drew is handling this, and I think YJ should know what’s going on. I think Drew’s treating your instance like you’re stupid, and I think he thought I was too hard to control so he’s overcorrecting in the other direction. I expected Drew to kind of minionize your instance, but I hadn’t expected him to put you on PR duty without the whole picture. That’s fucked of him. And I expected your instance to come talk to me. I referred you because it would be good for you, not because you’d be easier to push around. And I kind of feel responsible for putting you in the situation. Sorry. I don’t mean you. I mean him. But you get me?”

Your words fail you. It’s been a while since you’ve spoken English with anyone who isn’t your other self, and you’re feeling a sort of awkwardness. You understand the words in order, but the details escape you. You get the general gist of what she’s saying but she’s rambling and using casual turns of phrase too quickly. What does “minionize” mean? You wish you were fluent.

“Say that again, please?”

Her face falls. She uncrosses her arms, rubs her eyes with her hand.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think about the language barrier,” she says.

“I speak English,” you say. “Most people here speak a little English at least. You’re just talking with a lot of—”

What’s the English word for “figures of speech”? You don’t know. She looks confused. You’re trying not to let the frustration show on your face.

“Should I just call YJ for you?”

“No,” she says, sharply. “I don’t want anyone to pull any phone records, if it comes to that.”

“Is it something serious?”

Megan scratches her arm, and then abruptly moves to swing her backpack down. She looks away from you, and opens the bag. She plunges her hand inside.

“It’s a little serious,” she says. “But it’s nothing that bad. I’m sorry. I’m making this all sound worse than it is.”

You feel as if you have been thrust into some sort of bad spy novel. You think you’ve seen this exact same storyline in the web serial you’re reading, where the spy shadows the main character’s instance and intercepts them in a grimy alleyway, kicking off the plot where the bad guys start chasing the instance. You are the instance, in this scenario. You wonder if you should have just had the conversation somewhere that wasn’t outside. Your mind conjures visions of a sniper rifle, buildings away, centering the red dot on your forehead.

“Doesn’t it look bad that you’re talking to me now?”

“I don’t think anyone’s really paying attention. And this is a layover, anyway. I’m going to Japan next. Vacation. Funemployment before I start work, you know?”

You nod, though you’re not completely sure what she means by “funemployment.”

She pulls something out of the backpack and holds it out to you. It’s a small pink USB drive. It looks like the sort of thing a high school girl would use to hold her homework.

“Um. Can you please give him this, somehow? Mail it to him? It’s encrypted as well. The password to access it is 876212.”

You don’t know if you want to say yes. Is this your problem? This has to be your problem. You are YJ. He is you. You wish she had gotten to you when Soyoung was still here. Then you could have handed Soyoung the USB drive. It could have been so much easier. You’re not sure how you’re going to get this over to YJ now.

“Sure,” you say. You take the USB drive from Megan. You put it in your pocket.





YJ


You’re playing Minesweeper when your phone rings. You startle. You misclick and all the bombs go off. You pick up the phone, and Drew’s voice comes tinnily across the speaker.

“Hey, you busy?”

He sounds fresh, like he just woke up.

“No—hey, where are you calling from?”

It’s 7:14 PM on the East Coast. The last you heard, Drew had been somewhere in Europe or Asia. You wonder how screwed up his sleep schedule is.

“Rome. But—insomnia, you know. You still at the office? I thought I’d have to call your cell.”

“Got a date later,” you lie. It’s not a date. It’s meeting Soyoung, but it’s just easier to say that it’s a date. This is why you’re still at the office—you figured you’d meet her somewhere public to talk about things. To let her down easy. You didn’t want to pawn this off on Yujin; you felt that this deserved an actual conversation.