Sublimation(93)

“Did you? Change your mind?”

Soyoung doesn’t say anything to that. She can’t tell her mom that she changed her mind the minute she was combined. She can’t tell her mother that she’s doing a research study for technology that isn’t yet released to the public, which isn’t even testing the technology that she thought it was. She can’t tell her that the ultimate purveyor of this technology is the federal government of the United States of America, and that the only reason she knows about this is because the instance of her childhood friend has accidentally become involved. How Soyoung now has information, context, access that no one other than YJ has. How she’s an accidental mole.



* * *



In between the trials, Soyoung has been thinking about what YJ is doing. She thinks about talking to him again about Mitosis, but her arguments change from week to week. Some weeks she disagrees with him: The government shouldn’t be in charge of people’s futures and personhood; there have been no cases where this ended well. Some weeks she agrees. The government already decides people’s futures, this just adds a practical layer to it. There is no guarantee that private industry would handle Mitosis in its full capabilities better, without the guardrails. And if individuals had the knowledge—people are panicky animals. People are dumb. People instance when they don’t consciously realize they’re going, and people leave their families, and people live in a thousand strange ways. And beyond that—maybe it’s not YJ’s responsibility to blow up his life for this. On the other hand, he should believe in something bigger than his own well-being. He should be willing to take risks for things greater than his life. But that’s a train of thought that leads to strange places. Intimidating places.



* * *



Her mother keeps speaking.

“I had decided before we moved that I wouldn’t lie to you about our going to America being a visit or a vacation. I decided that you should know what you were getting into. What we were getting into, Umma and Soyoung. That you deserved to make those decisions. I don’t know if I did the right thing, but that’s what I thought at the time.”

“That’s not how it felt,” Soyoung says. She doesn’t remember most of the lead-up to moving. All of it subsumed for Rose underneath the surprise of being somewhere new. She doesn’t remember when her mom told her about this. Neither does Soyoung—for her, it was just the airport trip and then going home.

“I asked you, ‘Soyoung, do you want to go to America with Umma?’ and you said yes,” Rose’s mom says.

“I don’t remember that.”

“Well, you were young.”

“But the house,” Soyoung says. “Let’s go back to the house.”



* * *



Soyoung’s grandfather’s first language was Japanese. He used to go to Japanese bookstores in Seoul. He never visited Japan before his death. Does the world change for him, if Mitosis had existed when he was alive? If it had been part of the fabric of society? If the gate had been installed when Korea was cracked in half—at what point, though? When in the conflict would it have dawned on the powers-that-be that this war was inconclusive? What if Mitosis had been invented before then—when Korea was annexed by Japan? Does the gate get installed immediately between the two states, xenophobia and anti-Korean sentiment determining that no one from Korea can consider Japan their home? Is it a better world for him, if her grandfather can make the decision that he’s leaving the North, and not leave a copy, knowing he’s singular? Or if he makes the decision to assuredly leave an instance behind? Or—more likely, he doesn’t get to make that decision. Someone else, operating the machine, with a mandate from above, chooses for him.



* * *



“The house. So, she said that she thought it was something about that, his family history. That he was trying to make sure you had a good reason to come back. Or for me to come back, because of you. But I don’t know, Soyoung. I really don’t know what he wanted.”

“Why couldn’t he just tell me while he was alive?”

“Soyoung,” her mom says, and doesn’t say anything else about that. Soyoung thinks that her mom was sad. Is sad. She doesn’t know how to respond.

“Sure,” Soyoung says. Closes her eyes. “I have a hypothetical question for you, Mom. Do you think it’s important that people know what they’re getting into? Would you rather know what’s going on, even if it makes things more complicated?”

“Soyoung,” her mom says. “I went to America with my preteen daughter.”

“Okay. Second question. If I think the right thing to do is going to make my life harder, and probably make a lot of people angry at me, and if I’m not even sure if it’s the best thing, but I’m pretty sure this is, like, the best option for everyone, not just for me, like, personally, then what should I do?”

Her mom is silent for a moment.

“If you want to sell the house, I think you should do it,” her mom says. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Or what he would have thought. I wish I had figured that out when I was younger.”

Soyoung bites her lip.

“I wasn’t talking about the house, Mom. But thanks.”