Database: Letter from Ortiz to his Wife
-- TRANSCRIPT OF UNLICENSED COMMUNICATION
-- CAPTURE MADE 19:17 BY SURVEILLANCE CAMERA #4/71 AND CONVERTED BY OCR
-- SUBJECT CAYETANO ORTIZ EMP. No. 09/324
-- REQUEST REVIEW
My only Sunita,
I wish that I could speak to you, only for an hour. I have not heard your voice for so long. I want to hear you laugh, I want the boys to tell me about whatever new obsessions have taken hold of them. Instead, all I have is the scratching of my pen. It is loud in the silence here.
Today I am missing you all greatly, and it has made me low. I have been here for seven months now, without contact with anyone outside our section of the project. Our work is too vital to risk a leak. I know you understand this, as I do. We are used to sacrifice.
But the children? All they know is that their Papa has left them. They do not care that I am doing it for them, for all of us. They do not care for the rewards for my success. They know only that I am gone. And seven months is a long time to a child.
It hurts my heart when I think of that.
Brighter news. Work is going well. Very well. We are on the verge of something incredible. Once we break through, I may petition my superiors to be allowed to return. Or at least to contact you. They have assured me that you are all well, and that they are seeing to your needs while | am in here, but that is not the same.
Junko is difficult as always. I cannot help admire her exceptional intellect, although sometimes I wonder if the Overseer assigned her to me as some kind of punishment, or a test of my character. She exists in a quantum state between effervescent joy and utter panic. She will produce ten brilliant ideas a day, of which nine are nonsense. And she does not take care of herself well.
As her partner, I have taken it upon myself to try to advise her in this matter. She is resistant, but I think she appreciates the effort.
Still, I have always had patience. You know that better than any. I am the tortoise, you are the hare. You always teased me that you hoped for someone wilder. But I always catch you up in the end.
As I write this letter, I feel sadness and joy both together. Do you remember when we were young, we used to write to each other like this? It was the only way I could tell you how I felt. I bought myself a special pen, and some stationary. It felt so delightfully old-fashioned.
That is the joy. The sadness is that I must burn this letter when I am done, as I have burned all the others. They will not let you read them, not even after I am released from my post. Even writing these words to you is a disciplinary breach.
But I will write them nonetheless. If I cannot speak to you any other way, I will speak to you with my pen. And I dream that, somehow, you know it, and are writing back to me.
With all my love,
Your tortoise,
Cay.
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