False Hearts Read online

  “We appreciate your cooperation, Sal,” Nazarin says, standing.

  Sal looks around at the room and sighs. “I’ll have to redecorate. I got all the blood out, but the memories are still here. All of this will have to go.”

  The blood drains from my cheeks. Something terrible happened here last Thursday, but the idea of it all disappearing and being replaced with more bland, expensive furniture is hard to take. The room that changed everything for me will continue to be just another back Zeal lounge in the Zenith nightclub.

  “One last thing,” Nazarin says. “I recommend you check your Zeal supply.” He nods to the Chairs in the corner.

  Sal starts. “Why?”

  “I can’t give details, but we have reason to believe that someone may be responsible for tampering with Zeal in certain lounges. If you find any anomalies, buy fresh stuff. Check it every time.”

  “We’ve had people plugged in since Friday morning. Why didn’t you tell us this?”

  “We only just found out about it. And it’s unlikely, but I wanted to warn you to take precautions.” I am pretty certain the thought has only just occurred to Nazarin. The lines around his mouth are tight. I wonder if he’s thinking about the night he had to provide security to the off-grid lounge. Tila told the SFPD she hadn’t been asked to lucid dream within Zenith yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Was Vuk sent here to tamper with the supply, and is that why Tila came to blows with him?

  “I’ll check the Zeal daily myself,” Sal says.

  “Good. Please let us know if you find anything unusual and send a sample directly to us for testing. No one else.” His voice sharpens.

  “Of course not,” Sal says, all smooth charm.

  With a last look out the window at glittering San Francisco sprawling below, the owner of Zenith walks away, and Nazarin and I are left alone.

  “Are you OK?” Nazarin asks.

  “Yes, I am.” It’s not a lie: my fingers shake a little, and I really want to get out of this room, but I’m holding it together. Mana-ma’s training is in full effect, and I’ve dampened my emotions enough to function. I ask if he thinks Vuk has tampered with the Zeal here and mixed or replaced it with Verve.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I’d rather warn Sal than risk the supply being contaminated.”

  “Right. So am I to stay for the whole six hours of Tila’s shift?”

  “We’ll see how you get on. If you like, we can leave early.”

  “Are you going to be posing as a client?” I ask.

  He pauses and turns to me. “Yes. I’ll be watching along with you. It could be someone here knows more than they let on. Pallua, maybe.”

  I nod. “OK.”

  He moves close and slings an arm around me, and I start in surprise.

  He leans close enough for me to feel the heat from his skin. “We have to sell it, don’t we?”

  I consider, and then nod, pressing my hip against his, resting my hand against the warm dip in his waist. It feels strange, to be touching a near-stranger like this. It happens so rarely for me, these days. It’s also a comfort. I want to lean closer to him, breathe in the scent of his skin.

  In the Hearth, there was a lot of touching. Not necessarily sexual—people just touched each other more. Greeted each other with hugs, or casually threw an arm around someone else. Here in San Francisco, people are more reserved. Maybe that’s why so many feel the need to come to places like Zenith, where they can pretend the barriers between people are thinner.

  I shake my head, patting my shorter hair and trying to gain a bit of composure. The door swooshes open. We sidle through, still touching. Nazarin settles into his role with an ease I envy. He laughs, warm and deep in his throat, his hand lingering on my hipbone. I feel the strong ropes of muscle on his back beneath his shirt. I resist the irrational urge to stroke my hand down his spine.

  We make our way through the club, which is busier now. Beautiful men and women with perfect bodies, perfect faces, perfect clothes, laughing their perfect laughs and drinking their perfectly delicious drinks. The minty mist of cigs fills the air, mingling with the flattering blue and purple lighting. There’s that sameness to so many people in San Francisco and the rest of Pacifica. When anyone can choose to alter their appearance at will, so many tend to go for the same bland, symmetrical features. Now I feel like I’m a little more like them.

  I still miss the simplicity of certain aspects of the Hearth. Knowing that if you looked at someone, it was the face and body they were born with, shaped by their experiences. Everyone in San Francisco wears a mask.

  Having said that, there’s plenty about the Hearth I don’t miss one little bit.

  We perch at a round table. I access my brainloaded info and lean toward Nazarin to say, “What’ll it be to drink?”

  “Gin and tonic,” he replies.

  I go to the bar and order two drinks, which will be added to Nazarin’s tab. The bartender’s name is Ira, and he smiles at me as he gives me the glasses. We chat for a bit, but Tila didn’t give much information beyond his name, so I’m glad when other hosts and hostesses come up with their drink orders.

  I take my gin and tonics to the table. It’s synthetic, like all alcohol in the city. No damage to the liver, non-addictive, no hangovers. I pass Nazarin his, and we clink our glasses together.

  I take a cautious sip and fight the urge to make a face. It lacks the peppery, juniper punch of the true stuff. Not that we had that much of it at sixteen in the Hearth. But at the start of each season, anyone could have a glass or two (or ten, in the case of Mardel) of whatever had been brewed for the celebration. The blueberry vodka from the summer we were fourteen was my favorite.

  I wonder if Nazarin’s ever tried real alcohol. If he was raised in cities, in this supposed perfection, and if he’s ever seen through the pretty illusions to the ugliness beneath. He must have, within the Ratel at least. I shudder.

  We keep to ourselves as the bar fills with more attractive people. I match the faces and names to the sketches that I gleaned from Tila through the brainload. Eventually, I spy Leylani. She’s tall, with razor-straight dark hair to her waist. She has tanned skin, bright green eyes, and wears small shorts and heels so high my ankles hurt just to look at them. She’s obviously with a client, an Afghani woman in a hijab, wearing a long, dark blue dress with bell sleeves.

  “Invite her over here,” Nazarin mutters under his breath. “Pretend to be Echo, and then eventually find a way to get her on her own. See what you can learn from her, if anything, and then afterward, tell me everything.”

  I feel a little rush of excitement. After all the fear and uncertainty, the cramming and drilling and brainloading, here I am, about to truly pretend to be my sister to a stranger and start investigating what happened to her. One step closer—hopefully—to setting her free and finding out the truth of what she’s done.

  I approach Leylani and smile confidently at her. Tila has given me more information about Leylani than any of the other hosts or hostesses—she spoke about her for at least half an hour in the brainloaded conversation, recounting past conversations and what she knew about her. Although Tila was friendly with her co-workers, I don’t think she was actually close friends with any of them. I’ve certainly never met any before. I’ve never questioned why that was; I assumed she wanted to keep her personal and work life separate. Now I wonder if there was more to it.

  It seems like there was always more to it, when it came to my sister.

  I smile at Leylani. Below the surface, I’m afraid that she’ll immediately realize I’m an imitation of the Echo she knows.

  Leylani gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Echo!” she exclaims. “So good to see you. This is Sarah,” she says, introducing her client.

  “Won’t you join us?” I ask, gesturing to the table where Nazarin lounges. I can see the look of appreciation that Leylani and her client give him. They agree, and follow me to the table. Soon we’re joined by others: a host cal
led Boa, and his client, a businessman named Graeme.

  At first I’m nervous, but as more time passes and nobody stands up and proclaims me a fake, I gradually relax. I wouldn’t say I have fun—drinking SynthGin and chatting with strangers, playing the part of my sister to try and save her life, isn’t exactly my idea of a party. However, my confidence that I can pass for Tila is growing, just as Nazarin hoped. When I’m pretending to be my sister, the fear doesn’t paralyze me—Tila’s confidence seems to seep into me. I sit up straighter, I laugh more, even try my hand at flirting the way I’ve seen Tila do. While I still feel unsure about my skills at wrapping people around my finger, I can see the effect my new assurance has on others. If Taema was sitting here, awkward and disinterested, it would be a different story—but as Tila, they listen to me, make eye contact, respond and seem to enjoy my company.

  When Leylani stands up to go to the ladies’ room, I go with her. Such a cliché, I think as we totter through the now-crowded club at the top of the TransAm Pyramid, going to the bathroom to try and bond with another girl.

  Once the door of the employees-only bathroom shuts, Leylani’s work smile falls off her face. “Are you all right?” I ask, reaching out and touching her shoulder.

  It undoes her. Her face crumples, and she starts to cry. I stare at her, a little lost. What would Tila do? Tila would be warm, both to offer comfort and to gather the information she wanted. I wrap my arms around the young woman, making soothing noises, stroking her silky dark hair. Leylani sobs against my neck, tears falling on my collarbone to trickle to my scar.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, rocking her gently back and forth. It feels strange to comfort a stranger, yet I find it calming too. I haven’t hugged or touched anyone since they tore Tila from my arms—unless you count sparring with Nazarin or pretending to be his hostess. It seems that I need the close contact almost as much as Leylani does.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles, pulling away. She wipes her hand across her eyes. “Sorry, sorry, I’m being so silly.”

  I pass her a plush, pink towel from the railing and she daubs her face and hiccups.

  “You’re not being silly,” I say. “Not at all. Come on, Ley, tell me what’s wrong.”

  Leylani collapses on the settee against a wall, and I perch beside her, hoping nobody else will come in to interrupt us.

  “A client’s missing, I think,” Leylani starts, hesitantly. “I haven’t seen him in a few days.”

  If she’s speaking about Vuk, I’ll have to tread carefully. “That’s not that unusual, right?”

  “For most clients, of course not. But…”

  “He’s become more than a client,” I finish, my heart sinking. She must see him outside of Zenith, if he only comes here every other month.

  “Yeah.” She sniffs. “I even went to see him today but no one answered. They say he’s gone out of town, but he wouldn’t just leave without telling me.” She turns, her watery green eyes boring into mine. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you tonight anyway. You saw Vuk on Thursday, didn’t you?”

  My tongue freezes in my mouth. “Y-yes,” I say. The palms of my hands begin to sweat.

  She doesn’t look away. “Did he seem disappointed that I couldn’t come? I really wanted to, but I was … really unwell.” She looks down and away, and I frown. What is she hiding?

  “Yes, he missed you,” I say, hoping that was true. The files the police have on Vuk were relatively light, and Tila refused to speak about him. She pretended she’d never met him before, but I knew that was a lie. Don’t think about Tila just now. “Kept asking about you,” I add. “He didn’t seem to be interested in my company at all. He—he left early.”

  Each word hurts to say as she looks at me with such hope. I wonder what Vuk was like. He was meant to work for the Ratel, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of kindness. Of love. And now he’s gone; supposedly killed by my sister.

  “What was wrong with you, on Thursday?” I venture.

  “I…” She hesitates, but she wants so desperately to tell someone that she blurts her secret in a rush. “I’m pregnant.”

  I let out my breath in a whoosh. “Oh. Wow. Congratulations,” I say, my voice flat despite my best efforts, feeling sucker-punched.

  “I know you never wanted kids, Echo, but I’m so happy about it. I was going to tell him on Friday, but I haven’t been able to find him. I’m so worried. Should I go to the police?”

  The police already know where he is, I want to say. “I don’t know, Leylani. Maybe wait a little longer to see if he shows up. Maybe he had to go on an unexpected business trip, and he’ll be back any time now.” The lies come surprisingly easy to me, despite my distaste for them. Maybe Tila and I have that in common, after all.

  She nods, wiping her eyes. She gives a last sniff and then goes to the mirror to fix her makeup. I sit there silently, waiting for her to finish. When she’s done, I give her another hug. She clings close to me.

  “It’ll be all right,” I say to her.

  “You can’t promise that,” she whispers, and I stifle a gasp. It’s exactly what Tila said to me on Thursday night.

  “No,” I say with a sigh, thinking of my sister in jail—with me as her only hope. “I can’t promise that at all.”

  * * *

  When Leylani and I return to the tables, our work faces are back in place. Leylani smiles brightly, kissing Sarah on the cheek before going up to get more drinks. I settle next to Nazarin again, brushing my elbow against his.

  He leans close, pressing his hand against my cheek. “Find out anything interesting?” he murmurs in my ear. I smile demurely at him, nodding. He takes another sip of his drink.

  We only stay a few more hours, and it exhausts me. I don’t know how Tila does it, staying switched “on” for so long, vigilant for every client’s needs. I follow the others, offering cigs and drinks. Later on, we dance, Nazarin holding me close, the bass thumping through my metal ribcage, his hands warm on my waist. I speak to Pallua casually, but if she knows anything about what happened on Thursday, she doesn’t let it slip.

  I’ve drunk enough SynthGin that by the end of “my” shift, the world is fuzzy around the edges. Sal has told everyone this is Echo’s last shift, and I bid everyone sloppy farewells, saying I’ll send them pings from China and I’ll miss them all. I lean on Nazarin as we take our leave. There are a few raised eyebrows at Echo leaving with a client.

  “I hope you’ve enjoyed your time at Zenith,” Pallua says to him as we pass the front counter.

  Nazarin reaches into his pocket, grabbing a handful of credits and passing them to her. They disappear into her dress.

  “Oh, it’s been a cut above,” he says to her, slurring his words very slightly, before we saunter out into the night.

  * * *

  We take the MUNI back to the safe house. The green light of the tunnels makes me feel ill and I bury my head in Nazarin’s shoulder. Whatever his cologne is, it smells nice. He puts his arm around me. Are we still playing a part, or is he genuinely comforting me? I don’t know, and in that moment I don’t care.

  Nazarin has us get off before the safe house stop and take another train too far before we circle back. I have no patience for the circuitous route, but it makes me nervous just the same. Does he really anticipate people trying to follow us? As we trudge up the steps to the pastel Victorian house, I’m exhausted.

  When we’re inside and Nazarin is making the strongest coffee he can from the replicator, I tell him about Leylani and Vuk. I kick off my heels, leaving them under the table. He’s surprised, and a little sad. I suppose it’s reassuring to see that even a hardened undercover cop can still feel for a girl who’s lost her lover, the father of her child, and doesn’t even know he’s dead yet. I doubt he felt very sorry for Vuk, though.

  The coffee does nothing to wake me up; my eyelids are drooping as I sit at the table. I trudge to the Chair and climb in. I don’t even have the energy to clean my teeth or wash the makeup off my face. Na
zarin dutifully plugs me in and draws the blanket up over me, and I’m asleep before he leaves the room, to brainload still more information on the Ratel. Instead of dreams it’s endless interrogation scenes, reams of numbers, facts and dates settling deep into the folds of my brain.

  Flitting behind all the lessons is my never-ending unease. It’s almost like I can sense Tila hiding in my mind, just out of sight and reach.

  Do you really think you can find out what happened? Do you really want to know? she seems to taunt.

  And my mind can’t answer her.

  NINE

  TILA

  That tablet we found didn’t last forever, of course. Without charging, something we were unable to do even if we’d known how, the battery only lasted a few months before it died. I felt so sad when the screen went blank for the last time. For a while, I’d had access to a completely different world, and then it was taken away. We were left back in Mana’s Hearth, isolated and alone.

  Taema even came around. Well, somewhat. She stopped pretending to look away from the tablet, although she never suggested topics to research. We were lucky nobody ever found us with it. We wouldn’t have been punished, really, but people would have treated us differently—as if we’d wronged them by showing curiosity about life outside, when life inside was supposed to be so fucking perfect. Disappointment can be worse than anger. They’d also have been wary, wondering what we’d learned. But I knew Mana’s Hearth for what it was now, and Taema did too, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  It was a prison.

  So, you see, this isn’t my first time in a cell. I spent the first sixteen years of my life in one, even if it was surrounded by trees and flowers.

  I started to notice little things. Then bigger things. How we were kept in the dark about so much. And then there was the Meditation.

  I thought it was a normal part of life. That everyone on the outside must do it as well. And some do, but not the way Mana-ma did it. Three times during the week, and then just after Sunday service.

  It was always the same. We’d line up, quiet and patient. One by one, we’d each go up to Mana-ma and open our mouths, a little like a Catholic communion. She’d place a small tablet on our tongue. It tasted bitter and earthy. I always wanted to make a face, but forced my features to stay blank like everyone else. The pill dissolved on my tongue, and the world would grow brighter yet hazier at the same time.