The grogginess this morning was magnitudes worse than usual. I had never been someone who was able to quiet their mind as if it was a lightbulb they could switch off even on a good day, and so it wasn’t at all surprising that my sleep the previous night was tumultuous. It had seemed insurmountable. In the darkness, my mind was bent on waging a war against the rest that my body—as well as my mind—desperately needed. It turned incessantly like the ticking of a rusty grandfather clock. It was impossible not to, when the present was stuck between a wreck and an uncertain void. The thoughts were initially about it. My breakdown yesterday. The entanglement between my work and the complicated emotions that I wasn’t sure how to unpack. Or if I even wanted to unpack. I had no idea how to move forward. The incorporeal walls around me were so close that I felt compelled to pull my legs a little closer. And yet, a part of me had escaped its confines.

  It was impossible to keep her out of my head.

  The exchange we had outside of my door was brief, yet those few words lingered like the scent of cinnamon. They echoed in the early hours of the morning as I lay awake with frustrated sheets sprawled around me. Irene had asked me to take a break with her. I was profoundly confused about what it meant, until I arrived at a surprising realisation. Did Irene just ask me out? I had wondered in disbelief. I couldn’t clarify that at the time since she had already left—not that I could have if she hadn’t; I had no idea how to pose the clarification without embarrassment. The more my restless mind thought about it, the more I questioned whether it was a date at all and perhaps I had just misinterpreted her. Wishful thinking, one might say. I could also be overthinking it. After all, I had interrogated my minute-long interaction with Irene countless times in my head, and was no longer certain if my memory of the details was uncorrupted. Did I imagine the smile on her lips after I replied? Did her voice sound a little less flat than usual? Was there a twinkle in her eyes? Was her lips a shade darker? That last one couldn’t be the case; I was willing to bet terrible things that they didn’t have lipstick around here.

  It was admittedly freeing to be without work for a day. I wasn’t in the appropriate mindset to struggle over mathematical problems. God knows my sanity was hanging by a thread of which its fibres were gradually snapping one by one. Also, I had told Irene that I wasn’t going to work today. I felt a strange obligation to honour that. Having gotten out of bed at an odd hour, the porridge I was having was, by definition, lunch. Irene had told me that she would come get me in the early afternoon.

  How did I feel about her? I wondered. Of course, I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure that this was actually a date and not literally a break, but I figured that the best thing to do here was to act as if it was a date. If it ended up not being a date, then my acting as though it was one could be played off as being polite. The gentleman that I was. And if it was a date but I acted as though it wasn’t one, then I might come to regret it. But why would I regret such a contingency? Well, I suppose it would be due to how I feel about her.

  The sensations of the streams of hot water hitting the back of my neck felt medicinal. Irene was attractive. I had known this fact intellectually since the moment I met her, but it wasn’t at all relevant. The thought of Irene and I being lovers was off limits because it wasn’t possible. So for all intents and purposes, she was emphatically unattractive. But if this was truly a date, then my axioms were no longer certain, and their implications needed to be revisited.

  Irene’s beauty wasn’t entirely physical. It was in the way she walked. The unreadable yet unwavering gaze of grey she would fix me with. The lack of repetitions in her speech. The way she would turn her head to look at me in passive curiosity when she led me somewhere and I spoke. There was a confidence in the way she carried herself. It was one of simplicity and grace. Sufficiency without excess. Composed and unburdened. It was everything I wasn’t. And it became clear as time went on that I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to read her like a graduate textbook to find all the axioms and theorems that had made her who she was.

  As I sat in front of my desk, abstractedly watching the view of the city in front of me, I wondered about the converse. Why is she asking me out? I pondered. What could she possibly see in someone like me? That was a question for which I had no good answer to. And from that arose an all too familiar feeling of suspicion and cynicism. Could Irene be asking me out for reasons relating to her job as my handler? It was the best explanation I had. There was nothing attractive or romantic or sexy about me. There was that woman from the bar who had propositioned me, but she was probably intoxicated, looking for a good time, and thought I was exotic enough to be worth something. She would be wrong of course, but that was the only reason why she might have singled me out. If she had known me better, like Irene seemed to, then she would have surely known to keep away. So, why is Irene asking me out on a date?

  When the tones of my door called, I nearly jumped. I had been anticipating it with a nervousness I hadn’t felt for a long time. I stopped in front of the mirror first to make sure I didn’t look more frazzled than usual.

  “Hey,” I said as I opened the door.

  “Hey,” Irene greeted.

  I was surprised to see Irene not wearing her signature jacket, but a shirt that had a faint blue tint with sleeves that bordered on inexistence, and light grey cigarette pants. Her hair was tied back as usual. I was disappointed. Not in the sense that I didn’t think she looked good, but rather I still couldn’t tell whether this was a date or not based on what she wore. Her attire was more casual than usual, but it didn’t scream date. Since Irene’s sense of style was undoubtedly different to what I was used to on the surface, it didn’t rule anything out. As for myself, the Receiverist attire I was provided was most definitely not date material.

  “So,” Irene began after a silence that stretched longer than it should, “shall we go?”

  “Let’s go.”

  Walking side by side with Irene was rather difficult, since I had no idea where we were going. I could ask for the destination, but that wouldn’t help since I wouldn’t know the direction. And so I settled for Irene being slightly ahead. The walk was almost entirely exchangeless. Irene, in the way that she always was, barely paid me any heed as she navigated the busy streets. Today was a Sunday. Weekends existed with some authority for students and those who worked entirely at desks, but for most Receiverists, the work week was dependent on their job. Some worked every day but with six hour shifts, others worked long hours but fewer days. Today was busier than usual, but not to the extent that I was used to on the streets above. Because after all, to most Receiverists, today was still a workday.

  “Do you normally have weekends off?” I asked, when the several minutes of my existence being ignored by Irene got to me.

  Irene briefly turned to look at me. “Not usually. It depends on the work.” And just like that, her attention was back on the path ahead.

  I didn’t think she was going to say anything more, until, “You don’t take any breaks, do you?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  We continued to walk in silence, until Irene led us to an elevator several buildings away from where we started. I hoped that she would lead me back later.

  “Here we are,” Irene said as she entered the elevator.

  “Where’s ‘here’?” I asked.

  “A good time,” Irene smiled coyly as she pressed for level three.

  The doors opened to an out of place breeze. However, as I stepped outside of the doors, it didn’t seem so incongruous. The smell, sight and sound all depicted a scene that couldn’t exist here. Trees and vines outlined two elevated paths that converged to a waterfall at the end. In between the walkways were streams of water falling from an edge, immersing the rocks of varying sizes along the way. The background was a forested valley. It looked so real, despite the faint voice of my critical faculties telling me it was merely simulation.

  “Before you ask, I’m impressed,” I said as my eyes hungrily took in the mesmerising scene I was in.

  “I don’t disappoint,” Irene said. “Let’s walk up.”

  For the first time, since the path ahead was obvious, we walked side by side at a leisurely pace. There were dozens of ducks and pigeons resting among the rocks in between the walkways. It occurred to me that these birds were most likely happier here than on the surface. They grew up without the real horizon, and therefore didn’t yearn for it. The air and water in this place was clean and unpolluted. Free from disease. Free from starvation.

  “Popular with the kids,” I said as I nodded towards the children playing among the rocks. The ducks were clearly used to Receiverists.

  “And I used to be a kid,” Irene said. “They only perfected the background visuals about twenty years ago. But as a little girl who hadn’t seen the surface back then, this place was flawless.”

  “Have you ever seen a real waterfall?” I asked.

  “I certainly have,” Irene answered.

  “And how was that?”

  “Amazing. But it only made me nostalgic for this one.”

  The paths converged and concluded a few dozen metres from the waterfall, forming a viewing platform. There were benches and picnic tables, of which about half of them were occupied. We walked to the edge of the platform. The water vapours felt cool on my face. I longed to get closer. The sun was visible in the cloudy sky above, but not directly overhead. It casted no shadows.

  “Ironically, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a waterfall,” I admitted as I stretched out my hands in front of me, feeling the moisture build up.

  “Why would that be ironic?” Irene asked.

  “Well, because this one isn’t natural.”

  “But it is real,” Irene said.

  “I suppose it is.”

  The way the water descended was hypnotic. Individual droplets were clustered together at the top, but as they fell, they spread apart further and further. There was a beauty in seeing the consistency of the patterns. An elegance in seeing mathematics appearing so perfectly in nature. Of course the droplets spread away. They obeyed gravitational acceleration, and hence travelled quadratically as a function of time. The longer the droplets had been falling, the faster they fell, and so they spread apart. This was of course not taking into account air resistance, which meant that the droplets will only travel quadratically for a period of time before reaching a linear limit. The terminal velocity. So if the waterfall had been sufficiently high, then eventually the spaces between the droplets would stop growing.

  I chuckled. Irene turned to me curiously. “It’s nothing,” I said. “I just realised I’m still thinking about maths even as I watch this waterfall.”

  “That sounds like torment,” Irene said.

  “No. Not exactly,” I said. “It actually makes me appreciate the waterfall even more. Maybe in some weird and twisted way, but it really does.”

  It was Irene’s turn to chuckle. “Let’s sit somewhere.”

  We found an empty bench away from everyone else. I didn’t know who took the lead to find it. Maybe she knew that I wanted to be away from the happy families. Perhaps we both did. The water vapours were largely out of reach, but the soft breeze was still there. For a few minutes, neither of us had spoken. I watched the patterns of the waterfall. I didn’t know what Irene was looking at.

  Eventually, I had to ask.“Is this a date?”

  “Yes,” Irene said. “Didn’t I make that clear?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I think so,” I answered. “I was overthinking it.”

  “That sounds like you,” Irene said. “Do you not want this to be a date?”

  “Oh no, I wasn’t implying that,” I said in a placating tone, despite the fact that Irene didn’t have any accusation in her voice. “I was just surprised.” I shrugged. “Are you enjoying this date?”

  “Well,” Irene began as she turned to me with the tiniest of smirks, “I’m not not enjoying it.”

  “But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re enjoying it,” I said.

  “Interpret it however you like.”

  “Okay then. How do I make it more enjoyable for you?” I asked.

  “Well if you’re so eager, you can go grab some bird feed from that dispenser over there.” Irene nodded in the direction past me.

  I turned to see that, indeed, there was a machine that a couple of children were collecting small bags from.

  “Be right back,” I said as I walked towards it. The dispenser had a display that indicated its approval. I tapped on a button on the screen and a small paper bag dropped. I tapped it once again for a second bag.

  Irene watched me as I returned. “Here you go,” I said as I handed the bag to her.

  “Now I’m enjoying this date,” Irene said as she opened her bag and threw some feed in the direction of a couple of sitting ducks. They stood and approached the seeds.

  “Oh, so you only enjoy it when you use me,” I said.

  “So we’re finally on the same page,” Irene said. I chuckled.

  I opened my own bag. Oats and corn. I grabbed a small handful and threw. A couple of other ducks waddled towards us.

  “You’ve told me that I’m a stepping stone for a promotion to you,” I said.

  Irene hummed.

  “Why do you care about a promotion?” I asked. “I mean, every Receiverist I’ve met seems to be motivated purely by a sense of duty and progress and doing something important and whatnot. But you want a promotion?”

  “Other people are motivated by all that, yes,” Irene said. “But they’re always motivated by something else too. By their belief that they are motivated by those things. And in believing in the narrative they’ve made for themselves, I think it distracts them from their true reasons.”

  I turned to her in surprise. “And what are those true reasons?”

  “It varies for everyone. A desire to feel important. Their legacy. A sense of belonging. Power. Or maybe it’s as simple as wanting to live a comfortable life.”

  “And so what are you motivated by?” I asked.

  “The same things, really,” Irene said. “I want to do important things. A sense of achievement. Maybe even power. But where I differ from the others you’ve met, is that I have no delusions about it. And so I won’t tell you that I’m working towards human prosperity, when all I’m really doing is going for a promotion. And maybe eventually the one after that.”

  I thought for a moment. “So in practice, you have the same goals as everyone else, but you have no delusions of grandeur.”

  “Not at all,” Irene said as she threw some more feed onto the ground.

  “I admire that,” I said earnestly.

  “Sure,” Irene started, “but I also don’t have any delusions that admitting this fact makes me better than anyone else.”

  “Okay, maybe let’s dial back the honesty,” I said. Irene chuckled.

  There were half a dozen ducks, but now a couple of pigeons have flown in. I threw some feed a little further to spread them out.

  “What do you think?” Irene asked. “About my perspective, that is.”

  “Do you really care about what I have to think?” I asked.

  “Not really. But I am curious.”

  I thought for a moment. “I admire the honesty. But I don’t think everyone can handle that much honesty. A lot of people need narratives to function day to day. A little grandeur can be medicinal, I think.”

  “And what about for yourself?” Irene asked. There seemed to be a question behind the question.

  My gaze returned to the waterfall. The clusters of water spreading out in smooth motion as they fell freely. The water vapours that formed a mist as they dispersed with the breeze. The reality of it conflicted with the knowledge that it was theatrical deception. One that I desired to believe in.

  “I don’t know,” I said after a moment. “Maybe I need a stronger narrative. Or maybe I need to be more like you.”

  I turned to look at Irene. She was looking back at me in her usual unreadable way. Except it was a little different. Perhaps it was the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes or something else, but in her expression I saw something soft. She smiled ever so slightly before turning to watch the waterfall. Something in me stirred.

  A girl near a picnic table on the other end staggered towards a duck. But her legs were far too short and uncoordinated to catch it. Her father called for her to return.

  “Are your parents here?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know my parents,” Irene said. “I grew up in an orphanage here.”

  “Oh.” I was tempted to tell her that I was sorry, but refrained. Instead, I asked, “What was that like?”

  “No shortage of food, obviously,” Irene said. “The caretakers were kind. The other kids were, well, the way that kids were. But at the end of the day we were all orphans, so after the teasing and the mean things that kids sometimes said to each other, we knew that no one was really any better than anyone else.” She turned to me. “It was nice.”

  “Would you ever want to meet your parents?” I asked.

  “Are we assuming they’re alive?” Irene asked.

  “Yeah. I hope so.”

  “Then no,” Irene said.

  “So you’d meet them if they were dead instead?” I asked with an amused look.

  “That depends on whether I’m dead or not.”

  “You believe in the afterlife, then?”

  “Nope.”

  I chuckled. So did Irene.

  “I would like to at least know who they are,” she said. “But I haven’t found anything. Not for the lack of trying. I’ve asked the orphanage, but they said they don’t keep any records like that. I’ve tried lodging something with the information division, but it was denied. I’ve even tried asking Lenny personally, but that didn’t go anywhere.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “What did Lennox do?”

  “Nothing,” Irene said. “He dismissed me by saying that I would be happier not knowing. That was ten years ago.”

  My eyes were wide. “That’s it? Just like that?”

  “Well, he said it his usual jolly way.”

  There was a righteous anger in my chest. “That’s unacceptable. You deserve more than that.”

  “Well look at you,” Irene teased. “Getting all worked up for me.”

  “I’m just saying. If he knows something and he’s withholding it because he thinks it’s better for you, then he’s being an asshole. Plain and simple. You should be entitled to know about yourself.”

  Irene threw her head back over the bench and stretched. “It’s fine,” she said. “It is what it is. And it’s not really anything important. I do appreciate your concern. It’s touching.”

  The way she said “it’s touching” could have also been the way she might tell a child that they were cute. With Irene, I couldn’t tell what was genuine and what was detached amusement. Maybe that was intentional. It was one of the things that made her so impenetrable.

  “I’m curious as to why you asked Lennox,” I said. “He described himself to me as an administrator. Or a logistician. Or something along those lines. Why would he know anything about your parents?”

  Irene looked at me suspiciously. “Is that what he told you?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Irene hummed. “That’s not exactly true. If that’s what he told you, then he’s underselling it.”

  I was surprised. Lennox didn’t seem to be dishonest. But perhaps that was what made him so good at it. I unconsciously leaned forward. “Then what is it that he does?”

  Irene thought for a moment. “The Reception Division calls the shots around here. They make the plans, decide the priorities, have the final say on project proposals from all other divisions, and so forth. If decisions were water flowing from a mountain, then the Reception Decision is the peak body of water. And the dam that gatekeeps the pool is Lenny.”

  “Wait,” I began as my mind churned through the implications of the magnitude of Lennox’s power, “so he’s basically the head Receiverist?”

  “Technically his title is Executive Receiverist, and there are others with that title who sits in the same rooms as him,” Irene explained. “But there’s a tacit understanding that he has the largest sway. He’s essentially the face of Executive Receiverists. He is the Executive Receiverist.”

  My mind tried to turn this new knowledge over to see all of its faces, but there was so much I didn’t know. And I didn’t know what I didn’t know. “To have reached that much power, surely he must be a pragmatist? Someone who played politics for politics, not because he believes in something.”

  “You’d be wrong,” Irene said. “He may not seem like it due to his lighthearted facade, but he’s a believer. Probably the truest believer there is.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked. “Lennox didn’t divulge much about himself in all the conversations I’ve had with him.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Irene said. “Not to me. And probably not to anyone. But I’ve heard things.”

  “Like rumours?” I asked.

  “More authoritative than that,” she said. “I’ve once met a woman who used to be Lenny’s academic supervisor. She told me that he wasn’t always like this. When he was younger, he didn’t take the Receiverist purpose seriously. A young troublemaker who didn’t care about much.”

  “What changed?”

  “He fell in love. His partner gave birth to a daughter. But his child died. Sudden infant death syndrome.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said. “But I don’t understand how it changed him to become the head of this entire society.”

  “Apparently he struggled with processing his grief,” Irene said. “Fell out with his partner. They haven’t spoken to one another since. At some point, there was a shift in his thinking. He took the death of his kid as a sign that having a child wasn’t his calling in life.

  “Just like that?” I asked.

  “Just like that. He threw himself into work. The Receiverist effort became his sole purpose in life. His supervisor told me that the grief gave birth to a new person. Someone who didn’t resemble the Lenny prior to the tragedy at all.”

  I thought for a long moment. My eyes gazed out to the distance, to the convincing forest that spanned the mountains. “Narratives,” I said.

  “Narratives,” Irene agreed.

  We sat wordlessly for some time, occasionally feeding the birds. Our handouts became more intermittent, and eventually they crowded around benches and tables with more generous hands. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but at some point Irene rested her head on my shoulder.

  “Do you mind?” Irene said.

  “Not at all,” I said.

  Her hair smelled like lilac and nutmeg. My hand found her’s and they intertwined, resting on our laps. Her palm felt colder than mine. It felt right. This was more intimate than I had been with anyone else in years. It was less of a feeling that I had missed, but more of something new entirely. And it was in this moment that I realised I didn’t really know when these feelings for Irene began.

  After some time, I tentatively broke the silence between us. “Hey Irene?”

  “Hm?” Irene hummed. I felt her vibrations through my shoulder.

  “Can you be honest with me about something?”

  Her head left her pillow and looked at me. “Have I been dishonest about anything?” Irene asked with one eyebrow raised in question.

  “I suppose not,” I admitted. I didn’t really want to ask the question, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d rather know than not to know. “Why did you ask me out on a date? I mean, you aren’t doing this because it’s a part of your job, right?”

  Irene regarded me for a moment. There was a slight crease in her eyebrows. “I’m not a sex worker, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “N-no, I don’t mean it like that,” I stuttered.

  “And no. I’m not here because duty calls. I’m here because I want to be.”

  I looked at her questioningly. Irene sighed, before saying, “You have a real self-esteem issue, you know that?”

  “No…?” I said, which came out more like a question than a statement, and so I added, “I’m just—I know that I’m not a catch. I don’t have a nice personality that I imagine most people want. We have kind of a weird work relationship. And on top of that, I’ve only just known you.”

  “Well, I’ve known you much longer than you think,” Irene said. “Probably years at this point.”

  My eyes widened. “What?”

  “You can’t be that surprised,” Irene said. “We’re a secret bunch. We plan things well ahead of time. Even more so for anything related to the surface.”

  “So that means you had your eyes set on me as your researcher for years. That you were waiting for an opportunity where I’d be willing to help.”

  “Sure, but the point is, I’ve been observing your life for years. Do you know what that does to a person?” Irene asked rhetorically. “You’re my first ever assignment that involved someone from the surface. And frankly my last, because I’ll never put myself through that again. I hate getting tangled in other people’s problems, so I don’t do it. But I had to know every little detail about your daily life. Who you talk to. How long you spend in the shower. Where you like to go to sit on a small hill and look all melancholic. And when I know so much about you, how can I not see you as a person? Someone who’s troubled and complicated, yet somehow gets out of his bed every morning even when he knows that the day ahead is struggle. Even when everything around him is crumbling.”

  “And so I began to care,” Irene continued. “I don’t want to. But I do. When I proposed to bring you in, the official reason for the request was that I assessed an insertion was crucial to completing the solution. The real reason was that I thought you’d find peace here. That was the only ulterior motive I had. I stayed away as much as I can, because this should’ve been only about you finding peace. But I realised I wasn’t being honest.”

  I was speechless. When Irene saw me scratching the back of my neck, she added, “Sorry. That was a lot, I know. I’d hate it if somebody did that to me too.”

  “You must have had all that in your mind for a while,” I said.

  Irene smiled as she watched the infinite waterfall.