Sublimation(64)

You pause.

“Please don’t laugh at me, again.”

You try to say that like a joke, but you don’t think you succeed.

The space behind your eyes is warm black. When you were a kid, you used to press your eyelids to create glowing halos and sparks. You don’t do that anymore.

“I’m not laughing at you,” she says.



* * *



It’s not that all Korean folktales end depressing. It’s not a requirement. But Korea is also the country that developed the culture-bound word “han”: resentment, grief, sorrow, a sort of longing and anger against the rest of the world.

All the old stories are bittersweet. The sun and moon separated from each other, the rooster stuck in the well wailing at the moon, the man killing his other self after returning from the undersea palace. The man on the other side of the bay, weighing his life and his love. Like it’s unrealistic to have something and not lose something in return. Like it’s unrealistic to have love without loss. The old stories understood that.





PART IV


Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing delineation; and now he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and live forever.”

Genesis 3:22





SOYOUNG-ROSE


The Mergebreak offices are in a great glass monolith in Midtown Manhattan, a slick tarnished silver building with multiple levels of security. The first hurdle is at the entrance, where Soyoung hands Rose’s driver’s license to an unsmiling, besuited receptionist before the receptionist checks on a printed list and calls over the phone. Soyoung stands there, shifting from foot to foot, watching as the elevators come and go as shoals of employees walk out and in. Then she’s waved through the gate.

“Floor thirty,” the receptionist says.

Soyoung nods, punches in the number, and gets in an elevator.



* * *



In the most common translations of the Book of Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve was laid out as such: After God created the earth, every animal and plant lived in peace. The world was an endless paradise, with no edges and no boundaries, and Adam and Eve were masters and kings and first among the animals, and they had no fear, pain, hunger, they wandered the earth delighted, blind, childlike, they crossed the border between the sea and the land without fear of what they might be looking forward toward or leaving behind. All the world was a home and all the world was a garden named Eden.



* * *



Soyoung gets out of the elevator and walks into a reception area that’s all marble and light wood. A white man in a yellow sweater walks over to her.

“Hey, Rose?”

“That’s me,” Soyoung says. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you! I’m Gerry—I’m part of one of the research teams for Mitosis. Follow me.”

Gerry leads her to the last elevator in the bank. He swipes a keycard next to the elevator and punches in floor number twenty-six.

“I’ll come and grab you, every time, for the study. If you come back.”

“If?”

“Well, we have one last intake check and the initial test run,” he says and then the elevator comes and they get in and go down.

On floor twenty-six, they go through a receptionist’s room with blue sofas and a generic millennial-corporate affect. Nobody is manning the desk. Gerry leads her to the back wall, and punches in a code on the keypad next to the door, which is labeled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Soyoung watches the whole maneuver out of the corner of her eye. She tries not to pay any overt attention. This isn’t yet the part of the facility that YJ wanted her to observe.

Soyoung wonders where YJ is. He won’t be here, she knows.

He had been very apologetic about it, when he was explaining the specifics of what she had signed up for.

“The research study is a final calibration test of the Mitosis machine. It’s to document what happens to the brain at various levels of frequency lesser than the level used for the full separation. The last session in the sequence involves a full separation. It starts in a week. It runs for about a month and a half. Would that work?”

Soyoung bit her lip. A month and a half. She had sort of thought that by entering the study, under ideal conditions she could be separated sooner. That the research study would mean that she would be neatly cleaved in an instant, rather than subjected to the linear march of time. A month and a half. At least it was comfortably ahead of the six-month mark.

“Yes,” she’d said.

“Okay,” YJ had replied. “Okay, we’re doing this.”

He seemed to be trying to convince himself.

“Someone from work will send you the info for it, then. And let’s talk, after the first session. I can’t go in with you, but I’ll meet you af—”

“You don’t have to,” Soyoung had said.

“No, I will,” YJ had assured her. “I mean, I want to.”

“Okay,” Soyoung had said, surprised, a little pleased.

And just as he had promised, she had gotten an email from an “@mergebreak.com” email address, which had given her all the details for the study. And now she’s here.

The keypad chirps and Gerry opens the door to the final testing chamber. He holds the door behind her.