“Today,” said Simon, “we’re going to learn to file a letter!”

Evan looked worse for wear. His stubble, which had been immaculately clipped and shaped yesterday, was looking rough today. His clothes, still vastly more expensive than anything Simon could ever afford, looked rumpled and slept-in. The way he leaned to the side in his chair, the way he squinted at the paper Simon was holding, all gave the impression of a man who was hung over.

“Marvelous,” said Evan, gravel in his voice.

“Or…I suppose I could just file the letter instead, and let you get back to sleep.”

Evan shook his head, then winced like it caused him pain. “No, seriously. Need to learn this stuff. Carry on. Letter. File.”

“Do you want some water or coffee or something? You look like you’re coming off a big bender.”

Evan slowly blinked. “Bender? What, you think I left here and drank all night? Jesus, Simon, have a little faith in me. No, I went out for a coffee break yesterday, and got a call from my neighbor in the city, asking whether I was moving. Turns out, in his magnificent wisdom and generosity, Archie has completely cut off the trust, including my apartment, the cars, everything. Just as I feared, really, although to do it while I was here at work was pretty damned under-handed.”

This world was totally unfamiliar to Simon, and his eyes widened. “He can do that? Isn’t that stealing?”

“It’s not stealing if they own it. The trust owns…well, everything I call my own. Except my clothes and books. Hell, even the furniture is leased through some complicated deal.”

“Your furniture?”

“But it’s okay, because Archie has granted me a 2005 Buick from the company fleet, so I have something to drive, and he was kind enough to find me a studio apartment here in Cray’s Quarry, so the commute will be really short, and life should be just peachy, right?”

Simon had to hide a smile. If Karl had been here, there would have been big lectures about how lucky Evan was to have a car at all, a home at all, when so many people were homeless. Simon himself drove a car about that old, so didn’t see it as a particular hardship, but clearly it had struck Evan hard, so he couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy.

“So you spent the night moving?”

“All fucking night. I made three trips into the city and back, carting my stuff in boxes. But here I am, at work bright and early, just like everyone wants. I’m being good. Just…if I don’t seem enthusiastic about that letter in your hand, don’t think it’s a judgment about you. I’m sure this is all very fascinating to those who were able to sleep.”

A little abashed, Simon went over to the wall and touched a poster that hung there. “So this is our organization chart. Thousands of tiny boxes that show you where all the documentation goes. The big boxes are the general categories—legal, accounting, production, operations, and these little arrows—”

Evan groaned.

“Okay, okay,” said Simon. “Overview later. But here we’ve got a letter, and we’re going to write a description of it into the ledger over there, and then walk it down…oh, no.”

“What?” asked Evan.

Fear fluttered in Simon’s heart. “It has to go down to the subbasement. Damn it, I hate that place.”

Evan sat up in his chair. “Ah, a chance to be brave, that might wake me up. Is it terrible? Is it connected to the town’s ancient sewer system? Are there alligators?”

“No alligators that I know of,” said Simon, “but it is pretty creepy.”

“An adventure, then! Go on and record that letter in yon ledger, Brave Simon, and let us explore the dungeon!”

The elevator creaked to a stop, and the doors shuddered open. Immediately a cool, humid, earthy breeze entered the elevator car. Simon shivered a little. He hated it down here.

They stepped into the subbasement.

“Is there a lightswitch?” asked Evan.

“No,” said Simon. “This is it. Most of the lights have burned out over time.”

“We’re an electrical fitting company,” said Evan. “Surely we have some lightbulbs in a closet somewhere.”

Simon’s footsteps echoed off the distant walls. “Bulbs mean requisition forms, which mean expenses. Honestly, I think Records is the only department that does anything down here anymore, and we don’t really have the budget to light the place up.”

They walked in silence, avoiding the pools of shadow, staying as much as possible within the little circles of light the remaining bulbs offered.

Simon could have sworn he heard the skittering of tiny claws in the distance.

To relieve the silence he said, “Did you know there’s a swimming pool right above us?”

Evan swallowed and looked up. “Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better about this place.”

“It was way before my time,” said Simon. “Early ‘80s. The basement has all the recreational facilities, and they say that in the old days, back when this was still mostly the Cray International Mining Concern, the bottom of the pool just…fell. The ceiling caved in, and thousands of gallons of water poured down. It nearly destroyed all the archives.”

Evan sniffed the air. “Did they get the water out? Because frankly it smells a bit moldy down here.”

“I’m just glad they fixed the pool. It’s pretty nice. I swim there most mornings. One of the perks of working here.”

They had reached the files. Even though it was the least pleasant part of the building, something about the scale of the archive always amazed Simon. Far, far bigger than the records rooms upstairs, the cabinets seemed to stretch into the infinite distance. He handed Evan the letter. “Want to try this yourself?”

“Isn’t this where we split up, and the monster attacks us one by one?”

“Don’t worry, we’re not splitting up. You want aisle J, over there.”

Evan took the lead, looking at the cabinets, peering down at the letter. There was a code stamped on the letter that would tell him where to file it.

He actually looked at the code. He’s using it. See, he can do this, Simon thought.

There was a certain pride in watching Evan search for the right drawer, but also in the fact that Simon didn’t feel as lost in attraction as he did yesterday. This is great, he thought, just the two of us working together, no sexual tension, nothing to get in the way of a professional relationship.

As Evan ran his fingers over the labels of the cabinets, searching for just the right one, he said, “It’s weird, I never would have thought of filing as a skill, but you really know this place, what all these cabinets are for?”

Simon took a step back, as though the shadows might be safer for him right now. “Well…yeah. I know what they’re for.”

“But how? You’ve only been working down here a few months, from what I understood.”

If there was one thing he’d never been good at, it was how to take praise. He felt a lump in his throat.

“Well, it’s quiet, like I said, so there’s lots of time to study. And it’s interesting.”

“Interesting?” said Evan, turning to him. “Not the description I would’ve picked.”

Simon shrugged. He hated feeling bashful. “I think it’s interesting. It’s like being a historian, even if it’s in an incredibly narrow field. The history of one particular company.”

“Even so, it’s incredible that you have all this in your head. I mean, not to be weird, but are you a genius or something?”

It caught Simon so off-guard that he laughed, and the metallic echo of it bounced down through the endless cabinets; it was like listening to a robot react to a joke.

“I’m not a genius, I just work really hard.”

“Work…really…hard. Hm. Not a concept I’m familiar with,” said Evan. “I guess I have some things to learn from you after all!”

“It’s not so different from school,” said Simon. “It’s just studying.”

They had finally reached the right block of cabinets. “Yeah,” said Evan, peering down at the code, “but I have this reputation. Nobody believes I care about anything. Not enough to ever be good at anything.”

There was an energy in his voice that didn’t sound like someone who had been moving boxes all night. This was something he had thought a lot about, clearly.

“I’m sure you care about some things, don’t you?” asked Simon.

“Of course I do! I care so much that it freaks me out. I get all worried I’m going to fuck everything up, and then—surprise!—I fuck everything up. I’m my own self-fulfilling prophecy.”

He looked like he was about to say something else, but then he shut down. It happened so fast: One second he was animated and excited, then suddenly his face had gone still. Simon had the strangest sense that Evan was keeping a secret.

Oh god, no, Simon thought, don’t find him intriguing! Lots of people have secrets, you don’t have to feel anything about it!

But there was something about Evan, the sudden weight on his shoulders, the way he gripped the letter, as though he’d rather shove his hands into his pockets, as though hiding as much of himself as possible. It wasn’t just that he had a secret, it was that the secret was causing him pain, and he didn’t know what to do with it.

Simon couldn’t help the feeling of sympathy that welled up in him. What must it be like, to be totally out of control of your own life? To be on top of the world, and then to have it all pulled out from underneath you?

Evan was supposed to be shallow and thoughtless, but he looked deep, deep in contemplation now.

Maybe it was guilt over his father. Simon could believe that. There was clearly a lot that had been left unresolved between them, when Leonard Cray died.

But no, this was something else, Simon’s intuition told him. Evan was perfectly willing to talk about his dad, about his feelings of inadequacy. Hell, even though Simon was practically a stranger, Evan had told him tons about that.

What could it be?

“Do you…do you want to talk about it?” said Simon.

“Aha!” said Evan. He pulled out a file drawer, and quickly flipped through the folders inside. “Look at me, I found the right one.”

Suddenly all that depth was swept away. He filed the letter, then slammed the drawer back into place.

“See? I’m a genius too! Now, let’s get the hell upstairs before this place closes us in like a tomb.”

As they made their way back to the ancient elevator, to sunlight and the aboveground world, Simon was painfully conscious of how close Evan stood to him. How quickly he’d gone from that look of deep concentration and guilt, to the happy, empty look that opened across his features now.

Evan might not be a genius about a lot of things, but he was clearly good at compartmentalization.

The elevator rattled them upwards, and Simon bit his lower lip. He didn’t want to be intrigued by Evan. He didn’t want to be curious about his secrets. He didn’t want to be attracted to him, really he didn’t!

He glanced over at Evan staring up at the numbers of the elevator.

I am so doomed.