False Hearts (32 page)

As those start to leave me, light returns. It’s as if the stars have turned on again. There’s a moment where I hover. The pieces of me are scattered all around. I can bring them to me again, knit it all together and go back.

For a moment, I don’t know if I want to. Maybe I should let it all fade away.

I remember Tila. How she looked in that surgery room as she put her arms around me and fell asleep. The fear on her face as she clutched me in our apartment a few days ago, terrified and desperate. If I go into that darkness, I go alone.

I pull myself together and return to the real, cruel, painful world.

*   *   *

It’s bright.

I should hurt. A migraine aura should warble at the edges of my vision. My skin should be rubbed raw and bloody, my lungs charred, my muscles tender. It’s like a Synth non-hangover. Somewhere, down deep, your body knows you did something dangerous.

“It went well,” Kim says.

“It … was meant to be like that?” I ask, faint.

“What was it like?” Kim tilts her head in curiosity.

“Memories came out of nowhere and my senses went confused, and then it was all dark and quiet. I thought I’d died.”

Kim’s eyebrows rise at that. “Nope, all vital signs were fine. Your brainwaves did drop off at the end there, but not enough to alarm me.”

“The brain is weird,” I mutter.

Kim laughs. “You can say that again.”

“So how does it work?” I ask. I don’t feel any different. “Is it recording now?”

“No. It’s pretty easy. You can do it now. I’ve linked it to a certain place on your body. I stimulated a particular nerve cluster in your brain, and the code can read it. You press it three times, once a second or so, and it starts. Another three, and it stops. Makes it harder to accidentally interrupt if you’re bumped. Here.” She walks over to Nazarin. “I was tempted to wire it somewhere a little … private … to make this moment funnier. I didn’t. Aren’t you impressed with my restraint, my parakeet?”

“Very,” Nazarin says, deadpan. His skin is still a little gray. Kim takes Nazarin’s hand and makes him put his index finger to his throat and has him press once, twice, three times in the hollow between his clavicle. He looks exactly the same to me. No little red recording lights in his eyes or ears, not that I expected it.

“How do you feel?” Kim asks, peering at him, holding a hand to his forehead, checking his pulse.

“A bit weird. I have a headache, feel queasy. Does that pass?”

“Probably not, but if that’s all you’re feeling that’s a good sign. It’s taken, and your brain’s reacting as well as it can to the extra stimuli. Try not to record for more than five minutes at once. Otherwise side effects might worsen.”

He nods, his brow creasing.

“OK, so I’ll jabber a bit so you can see how this works when we play it back. Walk around the room and look at things a little.”

Nazarin does so, peering at the lab instruments. He looks at Kim and she does a little twirl, and then he comes and peers at me. I feel strangely vulnerable, knowing that soon I’ll see myself through his eyes.

“So, just do this to stop it?” He presses the hollow of his throat three times again.

“Yep, that’s all done.”

The crease between his brows eases. “I feel better now.”

“Good. Come on, let’s get out of the lab. Better wallscreen in the lounge.”

I’m not sad to leave that lab behind. I’m fairly sure it’s going to give me nightmares. We settle onto the sofas in the living room. I take my shoes off and tuck my feet up on the sofa, wrapping my arms around my legs. It’s a childish sort of body language, but I got into the habit after the surgery and it makes me feel more grounded, feeling something pressed against my chest. I’m so tired. I want to go to sleep for at least twelve hours.

Kim passes us glasses of water and we sip as she brings up her interface.

“It’ll still send even if we’re somewhere all signals are blocked?” I ask

“They won’t be completely blocked, of course. The Ratel can communicate with each other on their own frequency, but they’re well protected against any sort of outside tampering. I can use a subfrequency they won’t suspect. There might be a bit of a delay, but it should get through to me soon enough. I’ve had Sudice send to one of my secure drives just now. Nobody can get into it but me, so whatever you find will be safe.”

Perhaps too safe. I like Kim and I’ve had no reason to distrust her, but she suddenly has a lot of power over us. She could turn us in, pretend we forced her to neurohack us. She could take whatever we record and hold it to ransom, or delete it.

Nazarin sees my hesitation. He doesn’t say anything, but reaches over and takes my hand and squeezes it.
Don’t worry
, he seems to say. I wish I could feel as confident.

Kim must have noticed our exchange, but she chooses to ignore it. She logs into the drive and there it is. A little file of two minutes of Nazarin’s life. She opens it.

It’s a strange echo. It’s the words Kim just said, that I just heard, but from a different viewpoint. It’s the lab from the vantage point of Nazarin’s extra height. I can hear all the sounds of the lab—the ticking of some of the instruments, Kim’s voice, the shuffle of Nazarin’s feet as he explores. He looks at the lab equipment, and it’s like there’s cameras behind both of his eyes. But at the same time, it’s different from an image from an actual camera. Like the difference between Zeal and Verve. It seems more familiar. More intimate. Like I have become him.

Kim turns around, and then I see myself. He looks down on me a little. I look up at him. Even though it’s meant to be just a straight recording, some feelings and thoughts creep in somehow, and I can feel it. I can’t tell what exactly the emotion is …

I look away, and the video ends.

“It’s weird,” Nazarin says. “It’s in my mind with that same clarity. None of my other memories are like that. I remember everything. And when I remember, I get a little headache again. It’s far stronger than the memories assisted with my other implants, and I thought those were good.”

“Yep. That’s why you shouldn’t do it more than you have to. OK, Taema, your turn. Have to make sure it works for you, too,” Kim says.

I dutifully press the hollow of my throat three times. Nothing really changes, except the slightest sharpening of focus, a pressure at my temples, a clenching of nausea in my stomach. It’s not too bad, though. I can ignore it. I circle the room, peering at all of her various collectibles from the previous few centuries. I only recognize a few of them—that one’s Superman, resting an arm on Batman, who looks rather grumpy.

Nazarin and Kim murmur to each other behind me. I turn on the ball of my foot, twirling around, wanting to see the same blur on the wallscreen. It’s a heady feeling, knowing that everything I’m seeing and hearing is permanent. Even if I forget it in the depths of my brain, though evidently that’s unlikely, I could relive it all in perfect detail. Someone else could experience this little slice of my life. Anyone. Even centuries from now, all of this could be gone, but if that file somehow survived, someone could be me for five minutes.

I feel a jolt of weirdness as I recall that Nazarin, with his implants, probably remembers every detail of his encounter with me better than I do. I try not to think about it. If my emotions right now bleed through my perception, what will they think of a flash of panic? I force myself to calm, tapping the hollow of my throat again to turn it off. That same feeling of focus dissipates. My headache and nausea fade.

They play my video. Nazarin glances at me during that surge of emotion. It feels strange, experiencing that same echo again, almost like I’d gone back in time to a few moments ago. How the hell does all that bleed through? It’s disconcerting, for sure.

“Well, it’s a job well done for me,” Kim says, eyes narrowed in satisfaction.

“Thanks, Kim,” Nazarin says. “Really. Thank you.”

She waves a hand. “For you, anything.” Then she pauses. “I want to give you one last thing before you go, Taema. For Ensi.”

“What?” Nazarin asks. Kim doesn’t answer right away, but takes out a box from her pocket and opens it. Inside is a little white strip.

“This will mold around your tooth and harden. I can link it to your brain through a nerve in your gum. If you think a trigger word, then you can bite down and break it.”

“And why would I break it?” I ask.

“It’ll bleed a liquid. It won’t affect you—it’s exempt to your DNA—but it’ll affect Ensi. Kiss him. Dose him. This will do the rest.”

“What is it, Kim?” Nazarin asks, wary.

She doesn’t directly answer him. “You realize what he’ll do to either of you if you’re captured. How he … disposes of those who have particularly displeased him.” Her voice grows thick. “What he probably did to Juliane.”

Nazarin’s lips thin in pain. “Yes.”

“Promise me you’ll do this, Taema.” She looks at me, deep into me. “You’re the only one who can get close enough. Even if you catch him red-handed, he has so many people in his pocket—judges, politicians—that he’ll find another way to weasel out, or ways to hand over the Ratel to his successor without a hitch. Or send out Verve to the whole city, let it tear itself apart. I wouldn’t put it past him. This. This is the real way to get him once and for all.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” I say. “I can’t promise until I understand what it is you want to put in me.”

Kim explains what it will do, and she also explains, in great detail, how Ensi disposes of those who displease him. I very nearly puke on her expensive shag carpet.

We return to the lab. Memories fire in my brain again. They all feature Tila. I have to remember I’m doing this, risking myself, for her.

She’s going to owe me so much when I save her life. She’s going to have to do a lot to make up for all I’ve gone through. As Kim works her magic, I wonder why I’m not angrier at my sister. For all the lies, for what she’s put me through. And though I still don’t fully understand why she decided to go into the Ratel in the first place, I have to believe that she did what she thought was best. For both of us. And I have to finish what she started.

Though she will owe me the truth. All of it.

Afterward, I still feel woozy. My tooth doesn’t feel any different. But it’s there. Third molar from the back on the left-hand side of my mouth. I keep thinking the trigger word, but Kim’s given me some tips to try and push it from my mind unless I need it. She recommends chewing with the other side of my mouth, just in case. And if it breaks by accident, Kim says it won’t harm me. I have to go back and get another one. If I can.

By the door, she pauses, and then gives us both kisses on the cheek. “Safe travels. I’m trusting you two to get the bastard, one way or another. And I know you will.” We walk out of the door. I look at her and Kim smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Those are dark with remembered grief and anger.

“Taema,” she says. “I still want that drink and chat when this is all over and done with.”

“Yes.” I wonder if I’ll bring my sister. If I’ll be able to. If I’ll want to.

TWENTY-FOUR

TILA

The trial’s going to be soon. My lawyer said so today when he came to visit. He didn’t give me any false hope, so I guess that’s something. It’s better than him saying I actually have a chance of staying unfrozen for longer than a week.

I’ve had this notebook open in my lap for hours, just staring at it. I debated continuing the story, but I figured I should write at least a little about what it feels like to know that I’m about to die.

Well, go into stasis. It’s basically the same thing.

I’m not afraid of the actual trial. I just have to stand there and stare straight ahead. I can pretend I’m somewhere else. They’re still not letting the media in on it, so I won’t be livestreamed into almost every home and head in San Francisco. I guess that’s something. I’ll still be recorded. At some point, they’ll let it out. The whole world will see me, a murderess in a city that prides itself on murder being a thing of the past. Never mind that murder happens in this city all the time, just quiet and unseen. The Zealots. The Ratel. The Ratel’s victims. So many deaths.

I’m not afraid of the trial. I’m afraid of what happens after.

I keep looking at my hands. All the whorls and wrinkles in them. The almost-invisible bump of the VeriChip, just to the right of the vein under the skin of my wrist, like blue lightning. I have a mole in the crook of my elbow. Taema has one there, too. I keep looking at these little details that make me Tila because I realize that soon, they’ll all be frozen in time. The blood won’t pump through my veins anymore—it’ll be all congealed and disgusting. My fingers will lie still. My skin will turn gray. And then, if the power of that wing fails and defrosts us—a few days after they freeze me, a few years, it’s all the same—they’ll burn up the dead corpse into nothing. My bones, my skin, my brain, everything will be gone. I’ll just be dust.

Right now there are two of us, but soon there’ll only be one. Taema will probably be better off without me, but I can’t help thinking she’ll also be all alone.

*   *   *

The supply ship came for its scheduled drop and we made our way to where it would land. Taema and I watched it fly overhead. It cut through the air so smoothly, a bird diving underwater to catch a fish. We went to watch it all happen, like so many times before.

But this time was different.

Dad oversaw everything, ordering men where to program the droids to put the boxes coming off of the ship. Mom came to sign off on all the shipments and deliveries. And there, just around the side, there was a box or two going on the ship. I’d seen that happen before, but I’d always assumed that it was the blankets and trinkets we made to sell in the city for people who liked that crap. Things that had been made by human hands instead of robot ones or replicators. Now I know that it was a hell of a lot more than that, but back then I had no idea.

The woman Mom was speaking to earnestly shook her hand. There was something hidden in her palm, which my mom took. After the woman went away, Mom put it in her pocket. She looked guilty, and worried. I knew it had something to do with us.