3

A series of text messages from Sol woke Cora before her alarm did, demanding that she “get in here” because “we are in deep shit.” She sighed, allowing herself another five minutes in bed. Yes, things had gone poorly yesterday, but that didn’t mean Sol was not prone to hyperbole.

Sol asked her to come to Conference Room 110, the glass-walled prison cell where yesterday’s shit show had occurred. Dr. Sev was there, his demeanor much more austere than his usual que será approach to life, the universe, and everything. Luciana was there, too, as well as her longtime coworker and probably closest thing Luciana had to a friend, Stevie. The whole thing felt like a parent-teacher conference was imminent.

Stevie had a light brown skin tone, sharp features, and curly black hair, a person so petite she looked elfin. She looked at Cora in the way that anyone would when they were about to have an unpleasant interaction with a coworker, but with Luciana, it was more personal. Four months ago, her aunt was the closest thing Cora had to a normal friend outside of people she knew from the internet, but then came the Fremda Memo and Luciana’s likely involvement, which she maintained to this day was nonexistent. It wasn’t active animosity, but the comfort was gone. The trust was definitely gone.

“Hokay. So,” said Sol, taking a seat and gesturing for everyone else to do the same.

“Am I fired?” asked Cora, speaking before thinking.

No one reacted, save Luciana, who placed a hand to her forehead.

“See, shit like that is why we are here,” said Sol. “The way you handled yourself yesterday was unacceptable and unprofessional. And that shit right there—unprofessional.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I’m sorry.” Cora took a seat across from Sol.

“What happened?” asked Dr. Sev.

“I really wasn’t feeling well yesterday,” said Cora, opting for the half-truth route. “That man kept pushing, and I’d been feeling nauseous beforehand. I felt like I was going to be sick.”

“Then you should have said something,” said Luciana. “Don’t just run out halfway through a meeting.”

Cora nodded, but didn’t say anything. She had clung to some resentment toward her aunt in the weeks following ET-gate, but lately she’d wanted to figure out how to repair the rift in their relationship. Still, how to even begin to have that conversation? She more or less knew what the problem was, but had no clue how to fix it, and now sure as hell wasn’t the time.

“I’m trying to work with this situation,” said Sol. “The president granted you top-secret clearance because Scio won’t communicate unless it’s through you. Fine, we understand that, but that doesn’t mean anything if Scio won’t communicate period. That combined with a rash of unprofessional behavior—”

“It makes it hard to continue justifying the level of clearance that you have,” said Dr. Sev, saving Cora from however callously Sol was about to phrase the exact same thing. “It was quite the task to convince the powers that be to give you clearance at all.”