The last week had a quality to it.
Not sentimental exactly. More like the specific attention that arrived when something was ending — not permanently, not badly, but ending in the way that a chapter ended, with the understanding that what came next would be different in ways not yet fully visible.
He had been on this floor for seven months.
He had arrived underprepared and overprepared simultaneously — underprepared for what the floor actually was, overprepared in the way he was overprepared for everything, which was to say thoroughly and at personal cost.
He had arrived with a falsified designation and a suppression patch and the specific defensive architecture of someone who had decided, long ago, that being seen was too expensive.
He was leaving with his name in a regulatory consultation email and a photograph of Eli Draxen on his desk and two people growing in him who were going to arrive in approximately six weeks.
