[ It's easy to imagine it's impossible. Because happiness has no place in a profession like his. There's only life and death. These are the consequences of existence as a perfect spy. Survival and self-protection calls for the annihilation of ties with society, ties that most people need the way they need oxygen. You give up friends, family, romance. You walk through the world like a ghost, detached from the living around you. If you were to die in, say, a bus accident, you'd wind up buried in an obscure municipal graveyard, just another John Doe, no flowers, no mourners, hell, no mourning. For Contractors, that's a natural end, an inevitable progression. But no-one mentions the way it leeches every ounce of brightness away from you. ]
[ But here, Hei is slowly -- so slowly -- coming to terms with his past. Being around Korra allows his whole being to concentrate on happiness, on remembering what that word is, on reinventing it into new words that'll suit his altered self. ]
Consider it like this. [ He leans forward and brings his hands up, the fingers splayed and palms forward, as though framing a photograph. The relatively fluid body language is new, as if he is revealing a different part of his personality, a part he ordinarily keeps hidden. A demonstrative facet. ]
It uses something called optical metamaterials. They have refractive properties -- like the way reflections in mirrors or in water are reversed. But the way they're made, it's like a structured texture. It guides light around some parameters. Makes it unseen over a certain band of wavelengths. They're called 'spatially varying optical parameters' -- a special type of invisibility.
[ He doubts she's getting any of this. Asami might explain it better. Little Miss Sato has a talent for breaking down dry jargon into an easy-to-absorb smoothness. Maybe because of her upbringing: he can imagine Hiroshi Sato simplifying the technicalities for his wide-eyed, knee-high daughter. ]
[ For the first time, he wonders if he'll be able to share this aspect of his interests -- stargazing, mechanics, weapons -- with his own child. ]
no subject
[ But here, Hei is slowly -- so slowly -- coming to terms with his past. Being around Korra allows his whole being to concentrate on happiness, on remembering what that word is, on reinventing it into new words that'll suit his altered self. ]
Consider it like this. [ He leans forward and brings his hands up, the fingers splayed and palms forward, as though framing a photograph. The relatively fluid body language is new, as if he is revealing a different part of his personality, a part he ordinarily keeps hidden. A demonstrative facet. ]
It uses something called optical metamaterials. They have refractive properties -- like the way reflections in mirrors or in water are reversed. But the way they're made, it's like a structured texture. It guides light around some parameters. Makes it unseen over a certain band of wavelengths. They're called 'spatially varying optical parameters' -- a special type of invisibility.
[ He doubts she's getting any of this. Asami might explain it better. Little Miss Sato has a talent for breaking down dry jargon into an easy-to-absorb smoothness. Maybe because of her upbringing: he can imagine Hiroshi Sato simplifying the technicalities for his wide-eyed, knee-high daughter. ]
[ For the first time, he wonders if he'll be able to share this aspect of his interests -- stargazing, mechanics, weapons -- with his own child. ]