Sublimation(90)

YJ continues.

“She wants me to whistle-blow on Drew after the government rollout is complete. Basically told me I could have Drew’s job if I did. This is insane, right? This is all nuts.”

YJ runs his hand through his hair.

“So. What are you going to do?” Soyoung asks. She’s imagining the myriad ways a Mitosis gate could be used in an ICE facility.

“I don’t know yet,” YJ says, lifting his head back up. “I don’t like this. But I don’t disagree with Megan’s approach.”

Soyoung frowns. “You like the way the IIS handled this?”

“I mean—no. But between the IIS and Mergebreak…” he says, trailing off.

She tries to imagine his perspective.

“Better IIS than Mergebreak,” she says, watching YJ’s face for any reaction. “Better you and Megan than Drew, making the decisions on like—god, this is international, huh?”

He nods.

“If it’s going to happen anyway, it doesn’t matter what I want. Just what’s going to happen.”

“Why does it have to happen?”

“The technology exists now. What’s the alternative?”

Soyoung gets up. She walks up to the wall with the birds. She hopes that no one else is hiding behind a pillar or a doorway. She takes a circuit. There’s no one around the columns, or leaning against the doorway. Just the birds, pinned as if they’re in flight. There are so many goddamn types of bird in the world. YJ’s gaze follows her around the room.

“Why are you against it?” he says. “Mitosis prevents my situation, your situation. It standardizes the process. If this had existed, you wouldn’t ever have instanced.”

She frowns at him.

“It’s someone else making a decision about how you feel about yourself and the world around you, about the shape of your future, about what you get to know. It’s like the military service thing. Or applying for citizenship. Am I being too specific?”

“I’m only feeling a little bit specifically attacked, so go on,” YJ says.

“It’s the top-down mandate. It’s someone else making the choice for you.”

“It’s the government, it’s not your mom or grandfather, Soyoung.”

“Seriously?”

“You started it. It’s not personal.”

“Yujin. This is your old boss asking you for a favor, tempting you with a job if you accept. It’s all personal,” Soyoung says.

YJ shakes his head. “That’s—it’s not relevant. Okay. Let’s imagine people leaving, I don’t know, some fucked-up refugee state. Do you think they want to leave a version of themself behind? Isn’t it better for them, that they stay singular?”

“But they still instance, right? Because whatever third world country probably doesn’t have the Mitosis installed at their airports or roads or border checkpoints or whatever. Because Mergebreak is selling it, and Mergebreak isn’t going to give it out for free, it’s gonna depend on whether the government pays for it. So they leave an instance anyway. It’s only people who leave like—America, or Korea, or whatever, who would have access to this—if we even think it’s a good thing. You’re thinking about this like it gives people a choice. I’m thinking about the abuses of power—situations where, I don’t know, a government says sure, you can reintegrate here, but we get to decide which memories you keep.”

“Okay, first of all, wouldn’t there be bad actors in the private sector? You’re arguing for a world where this is never deployed at all. And why shouldn’t people who have access to Mitosis get it? It’s not—it’s random chance, where you’re born.”

“But people don’t get access,” Soyoung says. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s being forced on them. It’s about who has control. You’re ignoring my point entirely.”

“It’s not being forced,” YJ says, gesturing with a hand. “As long as you’re doing everything correctly, and you’re not a criminal or anything, there’s no reason for them to choose for you. This would be a cleaner rollout than Mergebreak having to negotiate with every single individual.”

“And it all works out for you okay, because either Drew or Megan jets your dual citizenship application to the top of the pile, and you get whatever you say you want, and then you never actually have to tell Yujin what you want,” Soyoung says.

“Ow. Okay. That one was a cheap shot,” YJ says. “Fine, what would you do?”

Soyoung doesn’t know what she would do. She doesn’t think that the weight of her future matches against the future of everyone else in existence. But Soyoung knows herself now. Rose ignored her past but jumped at the first good excuse to go back to Korea. Soyoung didn’t reach out to her instance for years, and then suddenly sprang reintegration on her. She doesn’t always know what she wants. She just knows that all versions of herself are the same sort of greedy opportunist.

“I’d probably put everything online now,” Soyoung says. “I’d put everything that Megan told me online, but I wouldn’t wait to do it on her terms. I’d upload them to force the IIS to change tack and deal with the public backlash before installing the gates at the borders. I’d release all the schematics. I’d name her and Drew. I’d implicate the IIS and Mergebreak, both of them. I’d send everything to reporters. I’d make it too big an issue to be buried.”