There are diplomats visiting from neighboring countries, including a North Korea–style rogue state called the Democratic People’s Republic of Vertania (DPRV). There’s a cable news channel, like CNN, but reporting the news of this fictional universe: Prime Minister Cartwright did this or the Sons of Artemis blew up that. There is an actual embassy building, with an American flag fluttering out front, on an actual town square with a wooden gazebo. But other than that, everything feels real. We each have training names-aliases to protect our identities from one another. We are to play the roles of first-tour case officers assigned to the U.S. Jokes masking our nerves, we drive through the familiar gates at Langley, step out of the van and into the blacked-out bus that will deliver us to the Farm-a simulated Truman Show set in a fictionalized country called the Republic of Vertania (ROV), where we are to undergo the most demanding espionage training on Earth. I kiss him, then leave him standing there, raw and stoic, in the empty forecourt, his hands thrust into his peacoat pockets, as he watches me climb into the warm camaraderie of a crowded beige van. ON A CLEAR, cold winter’s day, my boyfriend Andrew* drives me to a gas station on Route 123 a little before dawn.
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