False Hearts Page 4

  Officer Oloyu shakes his head. “We don’t think … we know she is involved with them. There’s more than enough evidence to prove it. What we don’t know is why. Your sister is clever. Whatever she’s been up to, she’s left very little trace.”

  “My sister is clever. Clever enough to know to stay far away from the Ratel.” It doesn’t make any sense. Tila, my Tila, involved with the underground crime syndicate? There has to be some mistake.

  “What makes you think she has anything to do with this? What’s she said?” I ask.

  “She’s not saying much.”

  I bet she’s driving the police up the walls. She knows how to toy with people.

  “Can I speak with her?”

  He shrugs a little. “She doesn’t want to speak with anyone. Even you. Specifically demanded it, actually.”

  I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. Why the hell wouldn’t she want to see me? It’s all I’ve been thinking about since her arrest. If I could just see her, talk to her, clear these doubts—I know I could help her. If she’d let me.

  “The man she killed—” Officer Oloyu begins.

  “Is accused of killing,” I interrupt, my voice razor-sharp.

  With a sardonic smile, he tilts his head. “Vuk was a hitman for the Ratel.”

  My stomach plummets. I take a few sips of the tepid water to give me time to untangle my thoughts. “Was he … after Tila?” She could have died yesterday. I hadn’t really considered that before now. I swallow, hoping my thoughts aren’t flitting across my face. Why would she be a target?

  “We don’t know if he was actually out for your sister. Our sources say he wasn’t on assignment last night, but our sources could be wrong.”

  “Seems like there’s a lot you don’t know.” I’m testy, but he’s still dangling what he really wants from me out of reach, and I’m impatient and frightened.

  Officer Oloyu ignores the comment. “Your sister wasn’t meant to be working last night. Another hostess, a woman named Leylani, was meant to be manning the Zeal lounge, but she never showed up for work.”

  I sag a little with relief. “See? Tila could have come into the wrong room at the wrong time, had to defend herself against this Vuk. But do you even know if that could have happened? Is there a murder weapon, and if so, can you link it to her? What about the cameras in the Zeal lounge? You couldn’t have found a murder weapon, or she’d be charged rather than just accused. How do you know she has anything to do with this?” The questions fall from my lips, faster and faster, until I’m breathless.

  “Funny,” Oloyu says. “When we interviewed your sister, she posed the same scenario. Almost verbatim.”

  I glare at him, but he only stares at me calmly, and then makes a gesture with his fingers. The wallscreen to my left turns on. It’s a recording from my interrogation yesterday, my eyes blazing at Officer Oloyu. That angry, I look more like my sister than the woman I see in the mirror every morning. I watch myself snarling at him: “You can’t spend sixteen years with someone, every minute of every day, and not know if they’re capable of murder or not. I’ll do whatever it takes to clear her name.”

  He flicks it off. “Do you still mean that?”

  My nostrils flare in anger. “Of course I mean it.”

  Officer Oloyu leans forward. He’s smiling, that open, sweet smile, and it makes me want to hit him. He’s glad he’s slipped under my skin. “This is why we need you, Taema. You understand how she thinks, what she’d do. But there’s more than that, isn’t there?”

  I say nothing.

  “She’s stumped you. She’s managed to keep part of her life secret, and it’s burning you up. You want to believe that she hasn’t done anything, that she’s just as innocent as you want her to be—but she’s lied to you, no matter what. That hurts. So. You can help us, and you can find out the truth once and for all. Whatever it is.” He leans even closer. “There’s not much time. We may have kept the case out of the papers, but she’ll still go to trial. And if she’s convicted…” he trails off.

  “They’ll put her in stasis,” I say. “But then if exculpatory evidence comes to light, she’ll be set free?”

  “If it’s brought to light, yes.” He gives an expectant pause.

  “What do you want from me?” I whisper.

  He sighs and rubs his forehead. “Personally, I don’t think your sister killed Vuk. Or if she did, it was an accident or self-defense. She’s been working on her own in the Ratel, I’d gamble. And she’s grown close.”

  He’s changed his tune since yesterday. “What if she grew too close, and they already know she was an infiltrator?”

  “No sign of that. What we figure is that the Ratel were after someone else that night in the club, and that assignment was interrupted. They don’t know your sister’s been taken. We’ve moved fast and we have kept this a small, tight operation. Only a handful of police officers and higher-ups know who your sister really is. We’re keeping her out of the city. This situation gives us a unique opportunity to get close to the Ratel. They haven’t infiltrated many people with Verve, but if we don’t stop them, it’s only a matter of time. The Ratel are a threat against San Francisco and all of Pacifica. They have to be stopped. So far, your sister has given us some information to work with, but not enough. We need more.”

  He looks at me, and I begin to suspect what he’s about to ask of me. He’s read me to the bone. I do want—need—to find out what’s going on with my sister. What she hid from me and why. More than that, I need to get her out of prison, as much for me as for her. The thought of going through life separated from her, alone forever … I don’t think I can face that.

  “We can’t let your sister out to go back undercover.” The corners of his mouth tighten. I think he’s holding something back.

  “No. You asked her and she refused, didn’t she?”

  A rueful hint of a smile. “She did. But it would have been a tough sell to my superior, even if she did agree. She was found by the owner of the club, sitting in a pool of blood. That doesn’t exactly make her seem like someone who would be easy to work with. She’s too much of a liability.”

  I flinch at that mental image.

  “Then there’s you.”

  I swallow, my eyes glued to his face.

  “You’re intelligent, but you also play by the rules, unlike your sister. You could do this. Infiltrate the Ratel. We believe your sister has already been recruited as one of their lucid dreamers, delving into Verve dreamscapes, monitoring their implant feeds.”

  “But she hasn’t told you that.”

  “No, but from another source we know her exact position within the Ratel.”

  “What source?”

  He holds up a finger. “We obviously can’t tell you that, unless you sign on.”

  “Sign on, and … pretend to be my sister?”

  “Yes. You’d go undercover into the deepest, darkest underbelly of San Francisco. You’ll need to become your sister in order to go into the inner circle of the Ratel. This is much bigger than the first civilian murder in years, whether the victim was a hired killer or not. This is a chance for us to learn more about the inner workings of the Ratel, what their plans are, and to stop them from using Verve to access people’s secrets. We can learn more about Verve, about who’s actually in charge of the Ratel—and then bring them down, once and for all.”

  I blink at him. Surely the Ratel can’t be that much of a threat?

  “If you do this, then I’ve been authorized to let you know that even if your sister did kill Vuk, all charges against her will be dropped. Any crimes you might need to commit as part of the investigation will also be pardoned, within reason. Is that a deal?”

  I fight the urge to grab at the opportunity, even as traitorous hope rises within me. I feel sick. Not only at what it is they’ve suggested Tila has managed to do—for reasons I simply can’t comprehend—but also that they now expect me to do the same thing. That I can do the same thing.

>   I am not Tila.

  “If I was going to do this—how am I supposed to know what to do, or how to infiltrate the Ratel?” I ask.

  Oloyu doesn’t hesitate. “We can train you and give you the information you need. The skills that will keep you alive. And we’ll have a partner for you.”

  My breath catches. Somehow, the idea of working with a stranger seems even more frightening than working alone.

  “I don’t even look much like my sister anymore,” I say, my voice weak with protest.

  “That can be changed.”

  I raise a hand to my cheek, thinking of scalpels and flesh parlors.

  Officer Oloyu interlinks his fingers together, leaning forward, his face starkly earnest. “So, Miss Taema Collins—are you going to join us and save your sister?”

  My mouth opens, but I have no idea how to answer.

  FIVE

  TAEMA

  They give me one hour to make up my mind. They can’t give me any longer. If I’m going to do it, they have to start prepping me right away, so that “Tila” isn’t out of circulation too long.

  I go to Golden Gate Park, taking the MUNI. No unmarked hovercars anymore—nothing to make me stand out. For this one hour, I am not alone. The SFPD are tracking my VeriChip, watching me through camera drones. I fight the urge to hunch my shoulders, to somehow disappear from their sight. I can’t.

  I go through the entrance to the glass dome that covers Golden Gate Park. Though evening is lengthening, it’s still as bright as early afternoon from the artificial light within. It’s always open, even in the dead of night. Tila and I used to come here at midnight for picnics sometimes, watching mothers with day shifts walk their babies in prams, or joggers flitting along the paths, their toned bodies covered in bright neon logos, moving adverts for sports tech. Most people have nano muscle inserts to keep them in shape these days, including me and my sister, though we also take pride in doing it the old-fashioned way, or at least making the odd attempt. I want to take off down the paths, running at full speed until my lungs burn, but I run to stop myself from thinking, and I can’t run away from my own mind, not now.

  I sit under a willow tree, taking off my shoes and dipping my toes into the water of the lake. It’s quiet here, with its false eternal daylight, the wafting scent of flowers and cut grass. I search the news with my ocular implant again for a moment, closing my eyes and letting the words scroll past my darkened eyelids. Still no headline about my sister. There’s an article about the mayor of San Francisco and her bid for reelection. She smiles with white teeth from the feed. Sudice says they will announce a new product next week at the tech expo. The city is building more housing and orchard towers to meet rising demand. Nothing in the news about crimes, or the Ratel. I wonder how often they cover up what really happens in this city. If the public doesn’t find out about it, has it happened at all?

  Endless adverts flash from the corners of my vision. Go on holiday to Dubai, or New Tokyo. Order this mealpack from your replicator tonight. Another Zeal advert flashes and I bring it forward. This one shows a man sleeping calmly, but over his head he’s screaming at his boss and walking out, slamming the door behind him. He wakes up, stretching, smiling at the camera. “I’ve let it all out,” he says, his voice tinny in my auditory implants. “I’m ready to face the day.” A blink and he’s in a suit. The same tagline twines above his head: Find your Zeal for life. What will you dream today? I send it away, a headache blooming in my temples.

  My sister and I surprised people in San Francisco by taking to the implants with ease, considering we were about eleven years behind almost everyone else. The doctors and such never realized how many hours we had already spent learning to control our minds, so that implants were only a small side step.

  I sigh and lie down in the grass. I try to pretend I’m sixteen again, in Mana’s Hearth, before we ever found that other tablet and learned that everything we thought we knew had been a lie. But it’s no use. That daydream won’t come. How can it? Tila isn’t by my side.

  I open my eyes.

  I’ve made up my mind, though it was never really in question. Officer Oloyu knew I’d say yes before he even asked me.

  * * *

  I’m to meet my new partner immediately. I don’t even go back to SFPD headquarters to give Oloyu my answer; I ping him through my implants.

  I’m back on the MUNI. I swipe my VeriChip at the entrance, the fare deducting from my account, and take the elevator underground. I only wait a minute for the train heading toward downtown, and find a seat in the corner. The train pulls away. I cross my legs as the green glow from the underground algae plants passes by. Everyone looks sickly in this light, and my eyes dart to and fro. I keep rubbing my palms over my knees. Who am I meeting? What have I signed up for?

  I get off at the McAllister and Pierce stop and walk the few blocks to the address I’ve been given. It looks like a residential house—one of those sweepingly beautiful, reconstructed Victorian houses, painted in pastel colors. I’ve always admired them, and when I came into a shocking amount of money for my role in the VivaFog, I debated buying one. But Tila scoffed, thought they looked like gingerbread houses, and so I held off. I wonder now why I let her talk me out of it. It didn’t seem important. How many times have I let her decide for me what I really want? Even now, I’m not making my own decisions, not really. This was all started by my sister, without her telling me anything.

  I shake my head of the cobwebs of thoughts and climb the stairs, knocking on the door. It swings open on its own. I step in cautiously, a shiver running down my spine. The door closes behind me. Inside, the hallway is empty. No picture frames on the walls, no flowers, no tables strewn with personal items.

  “In the kitchen,” a male voice calls.

  I walk through, trying to keep my tread firm rather than hesitant. A man leans against the table, arms crossed over his chest. He’s muscled, with strong eyebrows, a slightly hooked nose, and scars on his knuckles and forearms that, in this city of image perfectionists, draw my eyes.

  “Hello,” he says, pleasantly enough.

  “Hi,” I say hesitantly. It seems very informal after all the interrogation rooms at the police station. The kitchen looks as stark and un-lived-in as the hallway.

  “I’m Detective Nazarin,” he says, moving toward me and holding out his hand. I take it. His handshake is warm and firm.

  “The undercover agent,” I say, feeling stupid.

  “Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate. I wonder what he’s done as part of the Ratel. What I might have to do, now that I’m joining him. He sees me eye the door nervously. “We’re the only ones here.”

  “I thought there’d be others.” A whole team, determined to keep me safe.

  “There will be. But not until they’re needed. Do you want a drink?”

  I do, but I shake my head, clasping my hands into fists. I’m shaking again, and it irritates me, but being here means it’s real. It’s happening. I’m about to start training with this scarred stranger who could probably snap my neck without breaking a sweat.

  “Do you want to go to a room and settle in, or have a tour and get started?”

  “I’ll get started.” It’s not like I’d be able to relax here.

  He walks ahead of me, his stride sure and powerful.

  One room is filled with dozens of wallscreen monitors, showing the street outside and other locations through the city. Others show long streams of code, blinking in the dim light. Empty chairs and desks line up in front of them.

  “The rest of the team will mostly be watching us from the SFPD headquarters, but they can be based here occasionally, once we’re undercover.”

  So many screens. There’s the outside of the TransAm Pyramid. There’s the outside of my apartment building, and Tila’s. The police station. Warehouses. Stark skyscrapers.

  “Right,” I say, for lack of anything better.

  He shows me the other rooms. Many of them are empty. There are a few bedroom
s, stark as hotels. I throw my bag into one that has a good view of the park. He doesn’t show me his room.

  The last area of the house is the training room. It’s large, with that gym smell of rubber, metal, old sweat and cleaning solution.

  To the right is a practice mat, weights and staffs along one wall. My eyes are drawn instead to the brainloading Chair on the right.

  He sees the hesitation, his brow drawing down in confusion. “You knew brainloading would be the main component of the training, correct?” he asks. “We don’t have time to do it another way. Your file says you used a Chair frequently when you came to San Francisco, to catch up on all you and your sister hadn’t learned while at the Hearth.”

  At the mention of my sister, I suppress a flinch. I’m here because of her. This is all happening because of my twin, but I still miss her with a pain deeper than my scar. I stand unnaturally still, every muscle tense. I force myself to appear unconcerned. I’m annoyed my fear is so obvious. “It’s fine,” I say, keeping my voice smooth. “I just haven’t used one for years, is all.”

  That machine was one of my first introductions to modern technology after the actual surgery. Upon realizing just how damn ignorant we were, Tila and I had jumped into Chairs willingly enough, brainloading information on history, politics, math, science and anything else that captured our interest. Tila had been more interested in art history and other cultures, whereas I’d been drawn to science.

  People were surprised by how easily and quickly we integrated the information. Most people had a fifty percent retention rate. Good, obviously, for hours of information pooled into a brain, and people often finished degrees by age sixteen or seventeen, so we were grossly behind. It didn’t take long for us to catch up. From our training with Mana-ma, we had a ninety-five percent retention rate.

  It wasn’t long before others expressed interest in our abilities, though our background was kept largely under wraps. Tila found a tutor for her art, and I found a mentor to further my education in engineering. Tila grew sick of it all a lot sooner than I did, leaving her mentor in order to do her own art without plugging into the Zealscape. I stayed, and I did well.