But opportunity presented itself again in the form of a letter, an invitation in an ivory envelope that Rai pulled from his mailbox early Thursday morning.

Rai put the thing down and squinted at it from afar as if it were leaking poison.

“We’re invited to dinner.”

Sao picked up the envelope and drew out the letter. “Tomorrow night. All-expenses meal at Alga? Someone must think highly of us. A single seat there is half my monthly budget. If I were the type to be allowed through the doors at all.”

Rai was trying very hard to look busy, though that was not particularly unusual. Facing his blinding double monitors with a deep frown, Rai could make a sunny morning look like the middle of a feverish all-nighter. But Sao could see quite clearly that he was simply scrolling up and down through his old files. “I didn’t see any sign of that mystery kid in the last two years of Bell media,” Rai muttered. “I’ll dig further back, but there isn’t much, since it’s before things really took off.”

“I see. Thanks for looking into it anyway.” Sao looked out the windows, to the quaint brick row opposite the office. “So, what do you think about that invitation?”

“What do you think? He’s your friend.”

“Sigma sent this, not Delta. And look, your name has first billing. Dear Mr. Rai--”

“Yeah, I see it.” Rai’s brow was creased, deep in thought. “Isn’t this weird? Is this supposed to be a bribe? Why didn’t he invite us to dinner at Bell? Something doesn’t add up.”

“I have no idea. It is a little fishy.” Sao folded the paper roughly in half, then in half again. He thought he saw Rai wince. “Well, no point losing sleep over this.”

“Wait, wait, wait. I didn’t say I wasn’t going.”

“Oh, my mistake. In that case, I’ll let you keep this.” Returning the paper to his desk only made Rai double down on his sulking. “Is something wrong?”

“Just trying not to think about it at the moment.”

“If you really don’t want to go-”

“I’m going. I wouldn’t pass up on the chance to be treated to Alga, even if it were a cannibal inviting me. And being invited to see Sigma outside of Bell? Hell yes. What I don’t wanna think about is the...” Rai chewed the inside of his mouth. “Preparations.”

Sao was lost. “What is there to prepare? We have over a day - ah, you want to have Raph set up periodic checkups again.”

“That part’s easy.” Rai opened a batch of files and began to type, but that wasn’t about to get him off the hook. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you? Okay, listen: the last time I dressed up for a formal event was when I got a badge, years ago. I was the only one wearing jeans, too.”

The birds sitting outside the office graciously filled the silence that followed. Sao’s mouth flitted open and closed a few times, false starts to a thought that did not wind up particularly refined in the end, anyway.

“Your concern is... you don’t know what to wear?”

“I do have a suit or something like it, but I have to dig it up. And… anyway, the jeans were blue, and the blazer was blue, I don’t see what the problem was. Yeah, yeah, keep making that face. I’ll think of something.” Rai swatted him away. “Get to work.”

Without much else to offer, Sao did as he requested. But sitting before his assigned transcript with jeans on the mind, he found that Rai’s preoccupation had infected him as well. By the time Rai approached him for lunch, he just barely avoided bursting into laughter.