100 Yellow Doors

august 30th, 2019, 10:33 a.m.

Before Julien could ask, Beck stopped at a door labeled Conference Room. He pressed an ID tag against the reader, and there was a low beep and then a whir as the door clicked unlocked.

There were a lot of chairs for a meeting between just two people, but Julien tried not to be put off by it. In the center of the room was a massive dark wood table, mahogany, most likely, as the room percolated with the smell of it—surrounded by rolling, felt-backed chairs. Though there was a massive projector at the front of it, the room was windowless and eerie. Julien did not like being here. Mostly he did not like being here with Beck Caulfield.

Beck picked a seat at the end of the table, tenting his hands. When Julien didn't move from the threshold, Beck gestured towards a chair. "You can sit now."

"Wait," Julien said, clicking the door shut with his shoulder. "You can't just—you know? Pull some strings, or something? Tell them I had really really good answers to everything and we can call this a day?"

Beck stared at him, his eyes more black than brown in this light. "I have to do my job, Julien."

In that gaze, however, Julien saw that it wasn't so much that he had to do his job, but that he had to do it just because Julien was the interviewee. Julien could not blame him, however, because he had the persistent inkling he would do the same.

Julien sat. 

"You know," he said, leaning forward, enjoying the slight narrow of Beck's eye as he did, "I'm not sure why you hate me. I'm a lovely person."

A scoff. "You insulted my blood type."

"Don't tell me you really took offense from that?"

"I—" Beck stopped, pouting his lips. "People can't control what their blood type is."

"God," said Julien, tilting back in his chair again. He rested his hands behind his head, regarding the human from underneath his eyelashes. Beck was good for Iman—that much was indisputable. What Julien didn't entirely understand was why. Beck was a formula with no derivation—spoken into law, yet with inscrutable origins.

This one. This human man with the bump on his nose and the tortoise shell glasses and the hairline that was almost too neat; this human man with his lilted walk and his Arthur the Aardvark sweaters and his obscure literature references that no one understood but him and maybe two other people on the planet.

Julien looked at him and asked: This one, Iman?

"It's Iman, isn't it?" said Julien, without really meaning to. The words slipped past his lips like sugar through a sieve. "She's not back yet. That's why you're all frazzled."

Slowly, Beck's cheeks suffused with a bashful pink. "I'm frazzled?"

"Very."

Beck closed his eyes a moment, letting out a long breath. "I imagine she told you—no. Of course she told you. She didn't want to go if she didn't have your permission first."

A notably Iman thing to do. Julien's very own pit of worry had begun to settle in his stomach. "But she's not back yet?"

Beck shook his head.

In the hall, there was a thunder of wheels against tile, as if someone was pushing a cart. Amidst the ruckus, Julien slid back his chair—the plastic wheels gave a begrudging squeal—and wandered towards the mini coffee station at the far wall. As he was sifting through a somewhat alarming array of K-cups, Beck asked him: "You don't know where she could be?"

Julien rolled his eyes, though Beck couldn't see it. "No, Caulfield. She's going back to a time before I remember. Even if I did see her that day, I couldn't tell you now."