False Hearts

by Laura Lam

  It was after I left the Hearth I learned the fireflies had only recently come to California, introduced to the area a few years after the Great Upheaval. How strange, that if that hadn’t happened, those memories wouldn’t have existed.

  Out there, I think Taema has been trying to help. The lawyer’s dropped a couple of hints. Plus, I know her. Obviously. She’s not going to sit around, playing with her VivaFog machines, waiting for me to die. Or basically die.

  She’ll be trying to follow a trail, to piece together what happened. I hope she doesn’t, and that the trail goes cold. I don’t want her to find out what I did that I shouldn’t have, and what I didn’t do that I should have. How I lost my innocence while she still has hers—but she might have to lose it, if she wants to save me.

  Yep, that’s cryptic as hell. But remember: no confessions. Not from me.

  Since I’m not going to write my last will and testament, and I’m not going to confess, I figure maybe I’ll write a different sort of testament, or a different kind of confession. It won’t be a beautiful story. Taema has a way with words, not me. She’s the thinker, following the rules, lost in her machines and books. I’m the unpredictable artist, always wanting to do things on the spur of the moment. Guess that’s why I’m here now.

  I don’t even know who I’m writing to. The general masses, maybe, if this somehow leaks to the press. Or maybe I’m writing to my sister.

  So this is the story of Taema and me, the life we had. Maybe, while writing it, I’ll figure out where it all went wrong.

  FOUR

  TAEMA

  The first thing I do when I’m home is turn on the bots to clear up all the broken glass and to dry the carpets. I order a new door from the replicator, which will be ready by the morning, and draw the curtains against the breeze.

  Everything’s been searched. They haven’t trashed the place, but so many things are not quite where they should be, and the whole apartment has the aura of being manhandled.

  I turn music up loud in my auditory implants and try to set it to rights. I help the bots clean. I throw out the meal I spent all afternoon making, my appetite gone. I order a NutriPaste from the replicator and force the tasteless goop down my throat to keep my blood sugar even. I focus on cleaning with every fiber of my being, the pulse of the beats of scrubbing driving out all thought.

  When everything is perfect again, I can no longer deceive myself.

  I stand in the middle of my silent, spotless kitchen. My eyes snag on the cookie jar on the counter.

  Tila and I have keys to each other’s places, of course. Our schedules have always been different—I work the standard nine to three, whereas Tila works nights. When we meet for dinner, it’s actually closer to her breakfast. When she first moved out eight months ago, I found it really difficult, and I wasn’t good at hiding it. I felt betrayed. When we fight, we know the perfect way to wound the other, but it’s like hitting a mirror—the glass cuts us just as deeply.

  After that first, terrible fight, she left me an apology note in the cookie jar. Problem is, she eats more cookies than I do, so it took me three or four days to find the note. It worked, and I forgave her, not that I can ever stay mad at her for long. Over the next few weeks, she kept leaving notes in the cookie jar, dropping them off on the way to work for me to find on the way home. They were silly, full of in-jokes and puzzles. Then when she started acting more distant, working more hours at the club, they stopped. I haven’t even checked the cookie jar in days.

  I open it. There are no cookies, only a few scattered crumbs, but there is a note. I unfold it with trembling fingers.

  T,

  I’m doing something possibly dangerous tonight.

  If everything goes well, I’ll come here and take this note away before you find it. If you do find this, and you don’t know where I am, then everything has gone belly up.

  And I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.

  T

  I blink, my eyes unfocused. She has kept something from me. For days? For weeks? For months? Lying to me, doing … whatever it is she’s been doing, and leaving me in the dark.

  I crumple the paper in my hands. I have to get rid of it. If they come back and find it, it’d look beyond incriminating for both of us. I glance around nervously. What’s to say they aren’t already monitoring me through the wallscreens or my implants? I’ve heard the rumors that Sudice monitors all implant feeds, and reports crimes to the government.

  I incinerate the note over the stove. After it’s nothing but ashes, I take ten deep breaths, forcing the fear and pain away. I can almost hear Mana-ma’s voice in my ear:

  The world is around you. You can change it. Be the change you want.

  I shake my head, as if her voice is a buzzing fly. I don’t want to hear her in my head just now. I had enough of Mana-ma in my head as a child. The woman at the head of the Hearth, pulling her strings, weaving her web, ensnaring us all.

  The breaths calm me enough that I can push the hurt, the terror and the panic deep into the back of my mind. I shut down my conscious thoughts, focusing only on the physical. I hold the heels of my hands to my eyes until dark spots dance behind my eyelids. Everything’s so jumbled. I’ve always hated being alone. My thoughts are too loud.

  I go to the spare room. It was Tila’s before she moved out. It’s been searched, but there wasn’t much for them to go through. A plain bed, an empty dresser, the closet filled with spare linen. I remember how it used to look when she was here: a rainbow of clothes littering the floor, leaving a trail from the bed to the closet. High-heeled shoes kicked off in a corner. Empty coffee mugs left on bedside drawers caked with dried makeup powder. The police would have been lucky to find anything at all under all the chaos.

  I stand there for a moment, looking at the perfectly made bed. The searchers took the time to put it back to rights. I suppose that’s polite. Tears prick the corners of my eyes, but I take more deep breaths until they go away. I reach forward and muss it a bit. Tila never made her bed. “What’s the point?” she’d say. “You’re just going to get right back into it at the end of the day.” I used to be the one to make the bed, back in the Hearth, with Tila sighing and occasionally patting down a pillow to keep me happy. I pull the covers back again. Tila’s not here.

  I go back to the kitchen. I bring up my contacts list on my ocular implants, scrolling through the names. I want to speak to someone, though I don’t think I can share anything about what’s happened. My gaze pauses on a few exes—David, Simone, Amrit. I used to be so close to them. I almost married David, but then I realized he didn’t know how to love and could only keep people at arm’s length. Now I have no idea what they are doing. There are no friends I want to tell—most are colleagues. Tila’s the one with all the friends. I’m slower to trust and, perhaps like David, I never truly let anyone in. Normally it’s Tila I’d turn to, and I can’t turn to her now.

  I send the names away. I still want to believe this has been some big misunderstanding. I can’t pretend, now that I’ve found that note.

  “Tila, what have you done?” I ask the empty room. There, alone in the dark, I realize another lie I told myself.

  I’m far less than ninety-nine percent sure she didn’t do it.

  * * *

  I lie awake all night, trying to piece together everything Tila has told me in the last few weeks; but if she’s given me any hints, they don’t jump out at me. After I finally stumble from my bed, I’m too tired to even yawn. I project the news from my implants directly onto the white table as I drink coffee, and then I set the coffee down.

  There’s no headline.

  How is there no headline? I scroll through the pages, open other news sources, then another, until several are sprawled out over the white table. Nothing. Nothing about the first violent, brutal homicide in almost eighteen years, committed by a civilian, who also happens to be a former member of a well-known cult? If that’s not headline news, I don’t know what is.

  I can’t
help but be a little relieved, too. It’s taken a long time to make that cup of coffee, to sit down in that seat, to steel myself to look. And there’s nothing.

  I blink and send the news away.

  When the coffee—if it can even be called that, for it’s almost caffeine-free and from the replicator—is gone, I have no idea what to do with myself.

  I pop a few Rejuvs and curl up on the sofa, a second cup of coffee beside me. I don’t read. I don’t watch the wallscreen. I stare at the ceiling and clear my mind.

  It’s no use. The anger still creeps in. My thoughts can only turn to Tila. I imagine her, with her blue, spiky hair, that teasing grin she always wears. It’s like she’s darting through my cerebrum, laughing. You can’t find me, she seems to call. You don’t know what I’ve been up to, do you?

  I fling one of the couch throw pillows across the room. It’s an empty, childish gesture.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I yell at the empty room. My voice drops to a whisper. “How can I help you if I don’t know what you’ve done?”

  The tears come again, and this time, I let them. They trickle down my cheeks, warm and salty. I don’t wipe them away. Memories of us in the Hearth flash through my mind. Going to our secret spot in the woods, whispering to each other for hours. Playing cards with our parents, Tila and I on the same team. Our voices lifted in harmony during sermon. The first time I saw her in that hospital room. She came back to me as soon as she woke up. Those first years after surgery, when we always walked holding hands because we still had to be connected in one way or another. And then the look on her face last night. The stark fear, the whites of her eyes showing. It was as if I didn’t know her at all.

  This is not a dream. It’s too real. And there’s no going back.

  “Why did you lie to me, of all people? What do I do?” I ask the empty room again.

  There’s no answer.

  Until there is: the implant in my ear beeps.

  I have a message.

  * * *

  I’m back in the SFPD interrogation room. I came in by a back entrance, with my hood up to partly obscure my face.

  Officer Oloyu stares at me from across the table. His eyes look tired, though his face doesn’t show it. I doubt he’s slept, but he’s popped a few Rejuvs to keep him going, just like I have.

  “Why am I back here?” I ask, ignoring the pleasantries. I have water this time instead of coffee, but I still don’t touch it.

  “Have you read the news this morning?” Officer Oloyu asks.

  “I’ve noticed what’s not in it.”

  An eyebrow quirks, along with the corner of his mouth. “Quite.”

  “How did you keep this quiet?”

  “Who controls the media bots?” he counters.

  Decent point.

  “Your sister is out of the news because this is part of something larger. If we’re to find out what’s really going on, we have to get to the bottom of it before they peg we’re onto them.”

  “Them? Who’s them? What does this have to do with me?”

  “This has everything to do with you.” He takes a breath. “The SFPD have a proposition.”

  His body language has changed again—palms out, brown eyes calm but firm. He still looks heartbreakingly young.

  My hand goes to my chest. I shake my head. “I don’t understand. Why do you need me?”

  “What do you know about the Ratel?”

  “The Ratel?” I echo faintly. They’re the main remaining source of crime within the city. The government has been trying to eradicate them for years, but they’re tenacious. They intimidate businesses; they have a hand in the property market, and some say within certain branches of the government or Sudice. Like everyone, I’ve heard the whispers that the Ratel have grown more powerful in recent years, morphing from an annoyance into something more significant and dangerous. I always figured it was just rumor, but looking at Officer Oloyu’s face, I’m no longer so sure. What else have they been keeping from the media bots?

  Something stirs in my memory. Tila joked about the Ratel a couple of weeks ago. Or I thought it was a joke. I’d reprimanded her for being late to one of our dinners yet again.

  “Just ping me if you’re going to be late. Obviously I’m not your mother, but you never used to do this,” I’d said, turning away from her.

  “Oh, relax, T,” she responded, with that infuriating tilt of her head and flash of white teeth. “It’s not like I’m hanging out with the Ratel. I’m just late.”

  I remember wondering at the time why she’d even joke about such a thing. I feel sick.

  Officer Oloyu is still waiting for a response. “A little,” I manage.

  “Do you know what they traffic in more than anything else?”

  My breath hitches. “Not really.” I’ve never had any dealings with them. I go to work. I come home. I live my life as a law-abiding citizen of San Francisco.

  “They traffic in dreams. More specifically, the information from dreams.”

  “Zeal?” I ask, confused. Sudice own that. I’ve only plugged into Zeal a few times. It did nothing for me.

  “No. Something new. Something different. The next step beyond Zeal. Have you heard of Verve?” He watches me.

  I look at him blankly. “Never.” What would the next step beyond Zeal be? Zeal enacts fantasies, becoming catharsis for pent-up emotions. People start doing it in their early teens, and it’s often a lifelong habit. After they let off steam and come out from their fantasies, the aftereffects are soporific. Any anger or violent urges are suppressed, and if they build up again, the craving for another visit to a Zeal lounge kicks in. Tila and I arrived in San Francisco several years after those our age were hooked, and we never fell into it as much as the others. It’s integrated into therapy, into brainloading information. Most people use Zeal every day, in one form or another.

  He hesitates, searching my face for signs of falsehood. I fight the urge to squirm.

  “There are two reasons Verve is bad news. First, unlike Zeal, there is no comedown. If you enact a violent fantasy, then when you come out, you don’t feel sated. If anything, a desire for violence is heightened. If it were widespread, we’d see a very clear upswing in crime. Second, Verve is a way for the Ratel to mine dreams for information. It’s like a virus. Once you take it, it locks into your implants. Until the half-life leaves their system, the Ratel can watch what they see, hear what they hear, and even spy on their dreams.”

  I don’t respond right away. This doesn’t sound possible. That’s advanced technology, and if Sudice or the government haven’t already done this, then how have the Ratel? Unless … perhaps they stole it from them? It’s not like Officer Oloyu would ever admit something like that happened, not to me.

  He’s still waiting for me to say something. “OK. That’s fascinating, but what does it have to do with me?”

  “You and your sister are from Mana’s Hearth.”

  My stomach tightens, and my knees start shaking again. I clench them together, digging my fingertips into my thighs. “Yes. So?”

  “Well.” He leans back in his chair, considering me again. “Lucid dreamers are immune to being influenced by Verve. They could pump you full of the stuff, and not be able to look through your eyes or listen through your ears.”

  My breath stops. How could he know about that? “What makes you think I’m a lucid dreamer?”

  “Because anyone who leaves Mana’s Hearth is.”

  “Not enough people leave the Hearth for you to confidently make that hypothesis.” My science is showing.

  “There’s enough. And let me guess—you rarely go to Zeal lounges.”

  “So? Plenty of people don’t.”

  “The drug does nothing for you. Never has. You don’t wake up feeling your anger has bled from you, or elated by whatever fantasy you had. Why take the drug when you can lucid dream each night?”

  I shrug noncommittally.

  “Your skills can help us.”

&nb
sp; He pauses again. My tongue feels glued to the roof of my mouth.

  “You really didn’t know what your sister was doing, did you?” Officer Oloyu asks. He sounds almost sorry for me. My anger flares again, but I clamp it down. I want to understand, and yelling at a police officer won’t help me. I hate that he’s seen how in the dark I am.

  “This murder at Zenith isn’t a crime of passion,” Officer Oloyu says.

  “My sister didn’t murder anyone.” Although if they’re right, and Tila’s been keeping secrets from me, how would I even know?

  “Maybe she murdered this Vuk, maybe she didn’t.”

  I say nothing.

  “I am cleared to tell you a little more about him, if you’re curious?” He smiles, not waiting for an answer. “He was a representative for an anonymous philanthropist. Or that’s who he claimed to be. But we’ve exposed that for a pack of lies. The cover allowed him entrance to many places he wouldn’t otherwise have been permitted. Fundraisers. Exclusive parties. The Zeal room at Zenith.”

  I look up, searching his face, but I can’t read him.

  “Vuk wasn’t an innocent client, just another regular of the club. He was part of something darker. He was a member of the Ratel. We think perhaps he was trying to replace the Zeal in the back room with Verve. Lots of important people come to that club. If the Ratel could get into their heads … think of the secrets they could find, and how lucrative that could be for them.”

  I can’t suppress a shudder. My mind is spinning with this information. “So, what, you think Tila caught him and killed him for it? If so, didn’t she do you a service?”

  Officer Oloyu shakes his head. “From what we can gather, your sister had an existing relationship with him. Last night was not the first time they’d been seen together. She might even have been working with him.”

  I can’t help it. I laugh, though it’s high and nervous. Inside, I’m frozen with terror. I can imagine some things of Tila—but this? Never. “The Ratel. You think Tila—my sister—has somehow become involved with the biggest criminal organization in Pacifica?”