Talia doesn't bring me records the next day, or the day after. She brings me somewhere instead.
"Put on something you wouldn't wear to the Exchange," she says, appearing at my apartment door on a Thursday evening with no warning. "We're not doing this on the floor."
"Doing what?"
"Having the conversation I've been avoiding for fourteen years."
I change into plain clothes, and she drives us to a diner on the far edge of the city, the kind of place with vinyl booths and a menu that hasn't changed in decades, far enough from the Exchange that nobody there would recognize either of us.
"This is dramatic," I say, sliding into the booth across from her.
"This is careful," she corrects. "Some conversations aren't safe having anywhere with cameras or coworkers close enough to overhear."
The
