Sublimation(72)

God, as supreme creator, as all-powerful, as perfect and infallible, as capable of feats beyond human ability of comprehension, created the world in his own image. Adam and Eve, the light, the darkness, the oceans, the animals, heaven and the angels, all of these are imperfect instances of God, different facets of His face.



* * *



You walk into the IIS building and get milled through the waiting room, telling the bored secretary that you have an appointment, clarifying that it’s not an appointment for your visa, and yes, you have to talk with one of the non-public-facing government employees, before being led up the stairs to the second floor where there’s a long, yellow-lit hallway with doors and placards. It reminds you of going to office hours in an unfamiliar university building. You get to the door that says MEGAN TAYLOR. You knock on it. This really does feel like office hours.

“It’s open,” Megan calls.

You push the door open and go inside.

“Hey, wow, it’s been a bit,” she says, getting up from her desk.

Your eyes dart around the office as the rest of your body moves in for a shallow hug. She brought the same calendar that she had hanging on her wall at Mergebreak. There’s a photo of her and her partner on her desk, and one of her and her college friends, and a landscape that you know is of her hometown only because she’s told you. There’s a bookcase of leatherbound books that you instinctively know she only uses for her videocall backgrounds. Other than the trinkets, it looks nothing like her old office. Where her office in Mergebreak had glass, her office here is plaster and wood.

You don’t think that she had any hand in choosing the underlying aesthetics of her office, but you remember how one of your early real conversations with her had been about how appearances mattered. You had both been working late on a report, and the conversation had turned vaguely personal; you’ve forgotten what you had said, but she hadn’t gotten mad, though she had gotten serious, and told you about how she felt she had to dress in a specific way, talk in a specific way, for people to take her seriously. That you had it easier than she did. And you had said, probably, you did. But in your heart you had felt like: She’s your boss, why is she bringing this up to you? You also had to follow a dress code for people to think that you belonged. And at least everyone assumed that English was her first language. You didn’t say any of that, because she was your boss.

“Just a bit, yeah,” you say. “Hey—my defense, you didn’t return any of my texts.”

“I know. I was out of the country. Traveling, while I was between jobs.”

“Go anywhere fun?”

The small talk feels like a current you are getting pulled along, a dance that you’re stepping through by rote.

“Asia,” she says. “Japan, Korea—not China, though, getting the visa was too much of a pain.”

“How was Korea?”

“It was good! It was—the thing I hated about Japan, was that it feels like you have to be quiet all the time. But in Korea, it felt more vibrant. I was only there for a bit, though.”

A part of you wants to ask her to describe Seoul to you. This is the same part of you that wants Yujin’s memories.

“Do you ever worry about instancing, when you travel?”

“Not in Asia.”

“I messaged you the other day,” you say. “You were back, by then.”

She smiles sympathetically.

“It’s different, if one of the VPs at Mergebreak comes in officially, versus Yujin Lee, someone I worked with, messaging me off the record,” she says. “I’m treating all my electronic communications as hackable now. Since it happens to basically every politician doing anything interesting.”

“This isn’t an elected position, though, right?”

“No, but, well,” she says. “It’s going to get a lot of visibility soon. Sit down, though, here,” she says, gesturing to the little sitting area that’s set up near the door. She sits.

“Do you want some coffee? Tea? We only have instant and Lipton, but you know.”

“I’m fine,” you say, sitting near her. “So, no seltzer tap?”

“No, no more office perks. But, okay. What can I help you with?”

You hesitate. You have a thousand questions, and you don’t know what order to ask them in. What you had learned through the last eight years of your career was that people would almost always give you more than they meant to give, as long as you asked the right questions in the right order. But you want to skip to the end, here, to the hard questions, the “why are you working for the government now?” questions, the “what is Drew not telling me?” questions, the “is there something sinister happening here, am I being set up?” questions.

“Drew called me the other day. Told me that I couldn’t look at the super-classified research on twenty-six until my clearances went through.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Megan says. “It’s why I also told him to promote you after your clearances went through, or at least wait to make you do all the press until you actually knew what the shit was going on. If he didn’t want to do the press, he could have pulled someone else in. Let me guess—he’s treating you unfairly?”

“He’s been fine.”

“Don’t give me that. He’s an asshole, isn’t he?”