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know why I was surprised to see they’d redecorated the lobby. Somehow, you expect places you’ve left to freeze, like your memories of them have. It’s egotistical, but no one really wants to believe the world goes on without them.
    Reception was still a huge, curving wooden desk with the Chicago skyline carved in bas-relief on its face, but the carpets were now an antique Persian pattern instead of institutional beige. They’d put in groves of miniature orange and rose trees under full-spectrum lights. The chairs and sofas had embroidered cushions in wooden frames instead of overstuffed leather.
    One of them was taken up by another familiar form.
    “Siri.” Surprise froze me in place for a moment.
    “Field Commander.” Siri Baijahn’s voice was sour and her arms were folded. She was thinner than when I’d last seen her. She’d changed her hair to a glossy copper color but still wore it in the straight, short cut I remembered. Her skin was darker, either from dye or sun exposure, I couldn’t tell yet. When not on assignment, Siri went in for brilliant-colored clothes, her answer to the dictum that we needed to keep ourselves within local norms when we were in the field. Today, she wore an orange-and-gold-thread wraparound top with flowing sleeves, bright red slacks, and boots that reminded me a lot of the ones Jo had been wearing. Must be the latest thing.
    “Welcome back,” she said, and the bitterness in her voice was corrosive.
    “I’m not back,” I told her, told them , tried to tell myself. “I’m just going to hear Misao out.”
    She looked me up and down with eyes as acid bright as her tone had been. “Then why bother? You could have done that much on your set.”
    “I don’t have the proper clearance anymore.”
    The way she turned her back on me said what she thought of this excuse. Siri had been furious when I decided to leave. Even knowing everything that had happened to me, I strongly suspected she still saw what I did as some kind of dereliction of duty. She had been Bianca’s protégé for two decades by the time I left and had swallowed all of Bianca’s lessons about service.
    I looked up at Vijay, hoping for help, but he had closed himself off. He had to work with Siri, I reasoned.
    “So why’d you come out to meet me?” I asked Siri. “Vijay could have walked me back.”
    That stopped her. She turned. “Because it’s important and you’ve always been the best under pressure.” She said it without rancor and without jealousy. “Because I was hoping for a minute to see my friend before you turned back into my ex-commander.”
    We locked gazes, each one waiting to see if the other would shift, back down, or be embarrassed.
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
    “Yeah. Me too.” Some of the acid bled away, but none of the wariness did. “Come on,” she said. “The Little Big’s waiting.”
    I handed off my coat and small pack for reception to inspect and keep, then followed Siri inside. Like the lobby, the halls had more colors than I remembered. They werepeaceful, contrasting patterns with lots of jewel tones to offset the bone whites and greys that made up the frames and the trims. The screens on the walls alternated news-feeds with landscapes and music. There were more of them than I remembered, too, and they kept catching at my peripheral vision.
    The people I passed, however, were exactly as I remembered: Serious, soberly dressed, and traditionally styled, they were absorbed in their own thoughts or conversations. If anyone glanced at me, it was fleeting. I was just another visitor to the office. Except for Vijay, Siri, and Misao, there might not be anybody left who remembered my face. The average life span might be three hundred years in these modern times, but the average career of a Guardian was less than a tenth of that.
    Now that Siri was with us, the silence was much less comfortable. My back started to ache from the tension that seized my shoulders.
    Vijay tried to