Sublimation(94)

YJ


“So,” you say. “Thanks for taking the meeting with me.”

Drew looks up from his tablet. Today he’s borrowing Sara’s office, which is covered in photographs of her kid. Drew spins in his chair. Behind him, Sara’s kid beams at you from a hundred different angles.

“Yeah, of course,” Drew says. “Was gonna get something set up with you when I was in town, anyway. So, good timing on your part. What’d you want to discuss?”

He’s smiling at you. He doesn’t look jet-lagged at all. You wonder how Drew keeps track of all the time zones he’s in.

“I talked with Megan,” you say, keeping your voice calm and even.

“Ah.”

The smile crystalizes. Something in the cast of his face changes. Not toward embarrassment. A sharpening. You try to ignore it.

“And I just wanted to talk to you about everything. You want to grab coffee and go to the roof?”

His face changes again, softens so that he’s smiling at you like he thinks that you’re not a threat. You’re still playing the same game he is. You smile back. You need him to think you’re on the same side.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” he says.



* * *



You have a plan. It’s a simple plan. You’re going to tell Drew that you have all the information about Mitosis now, and that you’d like to hear his side of the story. You’re not going to give him any sense of what you want to do. That would require knowing what you wanted to do.



* * *



“So, what’d Megan tell you?” Drew says, after you’ve gotten your break-room coffee and gone up to the roof. It’s cold. You brought your coat this time.

“Pretty much everything,” you say. “She confirmed the sponsorship. Mitosis’s capabilities. What IIS and Mergebreak agreed on.”

“And you don’t like it,” Drew says.

“I don’t like the way Megan characterized it,” you demur.

“She got to you,” Drew says, and his smug tone makes you want to deck him, sending him flying over the railing.

“Megan’s the only person in this who’s told me anything real. She’s not using me as a media shield in case this all goes south. I’d love to get a good explanation here of how you feel. I’m not trying to escalate this. But I do feel like you’ve treated me very unfairly here, like I’m some sort of proxy for jerking Megan around and I’m—”

“Woah, hey, calm down,” Drew says. He looks really surprised. He looks like you’ve broken the corporate social contract—which, you have. You don’t know where that came from. You had wanted to go into this completely copacetic, you had wanted to insinuate, not accuse. At least you didn’t say the last thing, which is that you’ve been given heaven’s mandate to whistle-blow on him and Mergebreak. He shouldn’t think you’re considering that. He shouldn’t think you’re capable of conceiving of that idea at all.

“Okay, first of all, we thought your clearance was going to come through sooner, and second of all, it’s kind of the IIS’s fault that this is taking so long, so that’s on Megan, and third of all, you’re the face ’cause it looks way better to have an immigrant-type guy as the face, instead of me. I shouldn’t say that, but hey.”

You start laughing. An immigrant-type guy.

You had meant to play it cool. You had meant to let him finish his piece. But this is the moment he loses you.



* * *



Everything could have been avoided if Adam and Eve had said no to the serpent. But the serpent was an instance of God, like every other being in existence. There was no reason to doubt him.



* * *



Drew laughs too. Like this is a joke you’re sharing. Sure, this can be a joke you’re sharing.

“So, fine,” he says. “Let’s chat about it. God, I’ve wanted to talk with someone else about this for-ever. Lay it on me, YJ. What are your problems with me?”

You sit on one of the low outdoor couches. Drew sits across from you, hands clasped. Perfect listening position. He must actually be a pretty effective salesman, if you’re not one of his employees.

“I don’t have any problems with you personally.”

“Oh, come on. You just told me you had beef.”

“No—I don’t care about that. Do you really think this is the best way forward?”

He makes a sharp gesture with his hand.

“Of course not. I wanted to keep it all private industry. None of this government, private-public partnership junk.”

“I mean, not from the good-for-the-company level. I mean the good-for-the-world level.”

He leans back against the low chair.

“Alright. I’ll give you the pitch. I want you to imagine the invention of the passport, YJ,” Drew says. “This is just like that. We’re standardizing the international experience. People will be able to choose what they want. Really make the decision, not just have to guess how they feel before they board the plane.”

“And—Megan wasn’t clear on this. Are they going to be the ones choosing?”

“Ah-ah, don’t get sneaky on me. You’re trying to bring up the free will, desire thing. You’re trying to bring up the government thing. Well, I didn’t like that, but it’s fine. It’ll get sorted out in the wash. It’s not going to be Megan clamping down the iron vise on us forever. Next few years will have some really interesting policy decisions—I think it’s worth it. We’ll sell everywhere, ’cause we can fix a problem that a lot of people want to solve. Do you think that the guy running across the border in Tijuana wants to leave a version of himself behind? Do you think I like getting on all of these planes all the time so I don’t instance? Bet you would have made different choices if you knew for sure what would happen?”