by Laura Lam
“I squeaked,” she whispers.
“Yes, you did. And who to?”
“The police.” Another whisper.
If anything, my muscles go tighter. She knows. She has to. I’m not a replacement at all. The Queen is going to kill both of us in this soundproof room and nobody will hear our screams. I force myself to stay quiet, my breathing even. My mechanical heartbeat thrums, steady and strong. I still have the headache and the fist of nausea in my stomach. All of this is recording. Even if I die, Kim will get this. Hopefully.
“That you did.”
Malka hefts the sword.
“I prefer to do this the old-fashioned way,” Malka says conversationally. “This is from the twelfth century. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
It is, in a horrific way. The metal blade is scratched with time, but its edges are still sharp. Emeralds embellish the hilt.
Nuala is crying. “Please,” she says. “Please.”
It’s a useless plea. Malka drifts closer, the light overhead catching on the blade. She’s stalking her prey. Nuala pushes back into the wall as hard as she can and starts screaming for help. Nobody can hear her but me, and I clasp my hands over my ears. My resolve breaks and I hear the rough sobs from my throat. I want to shield Nuala with my body, but I know it won’t protect her. And I’m too much of a coward. I’m not Tila. Tila would rush Malka and disarm her, consequences be damned.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes, Tila,” Malka says, her words almost singsong. “You need to understand just how imperative it is to keep your goddam little mouth shut.”
I open my eyes wide, afraid to blink. Don’t look away.
Nuala keeps screaming, a high banshee wail. Malka presses the point of the blade through the hollow of her throat. Nuala’s screams cut short.
Blood stains the white uniform, falling in a crimson tide down her front. It was quick, at least. No torture. No scalpels like in Mia’s dream.
Malka draws the sword out, wiping the blood off with the end of Nuala’s tunic. The girl’s eyes stare straight ahead, still shining with tears. Her beautiful hair is matted with blood. Malka looks down, and all the anger has fled from her face. She looks serene, as if she’s come out of the dreamscape, wiped clean of her bloodlust, at least for a time.
“Now you see what happens if you cross us.”
“Did I not already see that at Xanadu?” I whisper. I wish this could be a Verve hallucination like the original Test, but it’s not.
“Nothing like a repeat lesson to drive it home.” She comes closer to me, until I can smell her perfume under the iron tang of blood. It smells of incense, dark and smoky. She pauses scant inches from me. I can see each perfect pore in her face, the glitter of her eyeshadow.
She’s close enough to kiss me. I feel the tip of my tongue touch the false-crowned molar. It’s meant for Ensi, but would it harm her, too?
“And I don’t know if I trust you,” she murmurs. “See, I liked Nuala. This, this was the kindest way. If you betray us, you won’t be so lucky.
“I’m not sure what he sees in you, or what he wants from you. Whatever it is, he’ll get it, little canary,” she whispers to me. “At the moment you’re interesting. He’s still figuring out what he really wants from you. And, once he gets it, you’ll be obsolete. If I were you, I’d make sure I was useful elsewhere, and prove myself trustworthy. To him. And especially to me. Or else you’ll find you’ll never flee your cage.”
She stays that way, almost nose to nose, staring into me. I worry that she can see everything—my treachery, my fear.
After a moment, an age, she pulls away, putting the sword back in its sheath, like an avenging Valkyrie. I don’t want to be against her, because I fear I’d have no chance.
She smiles at me as if she knows this, and then she leaves. I press the hollow of my throat three times, try not to look at the corpse of Nuala, and trail after her.
* * *
Back at the safe house, I can’t stop shaking.
I don’t cry, but I want to. So I sit in the living room, wrapped in a blanket, simply shivering. Nazarin sits next to me. I’ve told him everything that happened. We’ve transferred both of our recordings to Kim’s server. We told her not to watch them. I didn’t want her to see that girl murdered. It might remind her of what happened to her wife, just because she came too close to her quarry on what seemed to be just one more case.
“Do you know who Veli is?” I ask. Something about Malka’s body language made me think it was important.
“No. I’ll ask my superior, see if he knows anything.”
We trail off again. Nazarin’s eyes go distant and he pings his superior. His fingers dance as he types in the air. I lean against him, his arm warm against mine. It helps ground me. My eyes drift closed, and despite everything that’s happened, I doze.
A time later, Nazarin gently shakes me awake.
“What is it?” I ask. My brain is fuzzy. Memories of Nuala come back, and I want to vomit.
“My superior looked up the name, but it was classified. Even for him.”
“Shit. Really?”
“Yes. He’s gained access now, though, and he can share it with us.”
“All right.”
Nazarin gets up and brings back two glasses of water. I gulp mine down. He takes a breath. “Veli was once CEO of Sudice, Inc.,” Nazarin says. “Veli Carrera. Alex Mantel’s father, Peter Mantel, and Carrera started Sudice. They created Zeal. After Peter died, Alex ousted Carrera, wanting Sudice to be a family-run affair. Carrera didn’t take it well. Alex thought it was dangerous to leave Carrera … untethered, and so he tried to kill him, hiring a hitman, probably hired from the Ratel. But Veli Carrera escaped and found his way into the mob. He changed his face so that no one would find him. The SFPD think that he worked his way up from the bottom and became … Ensi.”
I let that sink in. “So Ensi is the man who helped invent Zeal in the first place. It explains why he was able to fabricate Verve. He has the technical foundation. It also explains why he’s interested in weakening Zeal’s hold on the city and replacing it with Verve. They can break down the city, and hurt Sudice in the process.”
“Exactly.”
“So many layers and secrets.”
“I told you. The further undercover you go, the more there seem to be.”
We lapse into silence.
“I think he might be coming up with a form of Verve that doesn’t need a Chair and implants,” I say carefully. “He dosed me with Verve, I think, before the Test.”
“Easier to dose large numbers of people that way, or in places they don’t expect.” Nazarin rubs his face.
“He’ll be able to peek into everyone’s heads at will. No secrets. Not from him.”
“Exactly.” Nazarin sighs. “One good thing, I suppose. Ensi’s asked me to be his bodyguard. That drop from the Hearth? I’m going to be right there by his side, with a perfect view to record everything.” He taps his temple.
“One good thing, good being relative,” I say. “After the drop, I think we need to duck out. This is growing too dangerous.”
“I agree completely. If we can find out what the Hearth is delivering, prove Ensi is receiving illicit material, and that Alex Mantel is involved, that’s enough that we can bring the force of the law down on the Ratel. We’re not needed after that.”
“Just until the drop,” I say, in almost a sigh.
“Just until then.”
Then it’s over.
* * *
Monday ends. Tuesday passes in a blur of last-minute preparation and too little sleep. Then it’s Wednesday. The drop will happen at midnight.
Nazarin will be there, guarding the King. I’ll be on my own, trying to move close enough to watch and record from another angle. Nazarin said I didn’t have to go, that he could do it alone; but I can’t back out now, not when we’re so very close to the end. If there’s anything connected to the Hearth, I’m the best person to figure out what it is and who’s b
ehind it on the other side of the bay.
Yesterday was a long day. I didn’t have to go to the Verve lounge, at least, and with luck, I’ll never have to set foot there again. It was more training, more last-minute information. I picked through the information on Veli Carrera, or Ensi in a previous life, wondering what he was like back then. Sudice betrayed him, but he didn’t have to turn to crime. Yet he did.
Now it’s Wednesday. The last night of having to do this.
No more watching people’s Verve dreams. No more pretending to be Tila and losing more of the Taema I used to be each day. No more putting myself in danger.
That’s the plan.
The King of the Ratel doesn’t often get his hands dirty, but it seems he’ll attend this drop personally. It’s clever that Ensi stays out of things as much as possible. Nazarin has seen so many crimes over the past year in his time with the Ratel; but it’s always other people. If they were arrested, nothing would really change. They’d be replaced the next day, and Ratel business would continue as usual. We still only have proof of Malka killing someone. We don’t have direct proof of Ensi doing anything illegal. Hopefully, in fifteen minutes, we will.
The pier appears abandoned, but the Ratel own it, and no one trespasses. The cranes, built in water, tower over us like strange mechanical beasts. Dotted around the pier are reinforced docks, stacked with rusting cargo bins. I’m hidden behind one, dressed in a black Kalar suit. I’ve been here half an hour, waiting and watching; Nazarin gave me a gun, now tucked into the small of my back. The air is cold, and I shiver. The green glow of the algae in the water lends everything a sickly tinge, but it’s enough light for me to see.
They haven’t arrived yet. I worry that I’ve messed up and read the notebook wrong, or that Ensi changed it at the last moment and Nazarin couldn’t tell me.
Off to my right is movement. There they are. I push the hollow of my throat three times. The headache returns, worse than it was at the Verve lounge. I nearly throw up the scant meal I had a few hours earlier. I bend over, breathing hard, before I peer out around the crate. It’s a man, tall and muscle-bound, patrolling the perimeter. There’s Nazarin, standing next to other muscle-bound men. Waiting. The men begin to patrol. I press myself into the shadows.
I can see Ensi’s profile, his hair in disarray from the wind. He’s standing with just one or two other people. The lights of the ships pulse overhead as they slip into the Ferry Building. Ensi’s body language is impatient.
There it is.
A ship that looks almost identical to the supply ships that came once a month to Mana’s Hearth drops down, its engines flaring. The light illuminates Ensi’s face in the green fog. He’s smiling to himself.
I’m so focused on him that I don’t notice that a bodyguard by Ensi’s side has gone missing.
By the time I feel the prick of the needle in my neck, it’s too late.
All grows dark.
TWENTY-SIX
TAEMA
I wake up groggy and hurting. I’m strapped into a Chair, like the ones I’ve seen in the Ratel warehouse the last few days, unable to move.
Nazarin is in another Chair next to me, but he’s still out cold.
Unlike the bulky Chairs of the safe house and Zeal and Verve lounges, these have no wires. There are only little electrodes resting against my skin, like during the Test. The Chair is little more than a prop and a way to restrain me.
Ensi sits across from me, legs crossed, eyes staring into the distance as he reads something on his feed. When he sees me move my head, he gives me his full attention.
His face is smooth as still water, his gaze frigid. As if he’s never met me before, never danced with me, never unzipped that catsuit. I’m intensely grateful I didn’t end up needing to sleep with him, so there is not that extra layer of guilt and betrayal.
“Good evening,” Ensi says, as if we’re sitting across from each other at a dinner party. His mannerisms are similar to Malka’s. Unfailingly polite, even as they’re about to commit cold-blooded murder.
I say nothing.
“You and your sister are cute, you know that?” he says. “Thinking you’re so clever, sniffing around my business. That I wouldn’t know exactly what you’re doing at all times. You really think that notebook was left in my pocket by chance? Silly, silly girl.”
I’m an idiot. If he knew about an uprising like he did at Xanadu … there, he even let them make their display, sacrificing a few people, his own people, before he crushed it and summarily executed everyone involved. He played with us, him the leonine cat and us the little mice.
“How long have you known?” I manage, my voice hoarse.
“As soon as Tila came snooping a few months ago.” I close my eyes. “I knew her right away. I even fed her some clues, knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist trying to solve the mystery.”
My mouth is so dry. I lick my lips. “You know who we are.”
“Of course I do. You’re the only two to make it out of the Hearth on your own terms in years. I’ve kept tabs on you. You proved more interesting than I thought.”
“Who the hell are you?” I ask. “What do you have to do with the Hearth?”
He smiles. “I don’t owe you any explanations. In fact, I quite enjoy the idea of you working so very, very hard to find out the answers and then never getting them.” He sighs. “I’ll humor you. I did find Tila amusing, at first. Trying to find out everything she could. For a long time, she went nowhere, and I enjoyed her struggle. I decided to toy with her more, seducing her even as she thought she was seducing me. Then, to my surprise, she actually found something useful that she could use against me. And I couldn’t have that, now, could I?”
“So you sent Vuk after her. Or, should I say, you sent Adam after her.” The words feel acrid on my tongue. I feel my face twist in disgust and horror. Images of the crime scene swim in my vision. So much blood.
“Ah, I see you found that piece of the puzzle. She’d realized who he was, so it seemed fitting he should be her downfall. Of course, the plan did not go perfectly.” His mouth flattens in anger.
My implants are still recording everything we’re saying, even if they’re not broadcasting to Kim right away. It’s been over five minutes, and I have to hope the side effects don’t kill me. I’ve gotten enough to hang him with, and I have a feeling he’s only about to give me more.
I concentrate on my mind, trying to focus inward. I can’t tell if it’s sending or not. And even if it is, then our location’s probably blocked as well. We’re trapped.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid.
“You know why your sister did it, don’t you?” Ensi asks. “Tell me you at least figured that out.”
“Did what?” I ask, my mouth dry.
“Killed him. Your sister did do it. Her hand held the knife that went right into his heart.” He pauses, just for a moment, reveling. “She did it for you.”
I hear a ringing in my ears.
“She realized that if she was found out, then I’d come after you to get her to do what I want. I’m still not entirely sure what happened that night at Zenith. She did something to Vuk before she killed him. His mind went haywire, broke through the Verve programming, which I didn’t think was possible.”
I can’t breathe. I don’t want to believe him, but why lie now, when he’s about to kill me?
“What’s your link to the Hearth?” I ask again. I want—I need—to know.
He only shakes his head.
I want to snarl at him, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. “What are you planning to do?” My voice is even, cool. I’m proud of that.
“To you?” He picks up a syringe of Verve. “I’m going to plug you in, but I’ve programmed this Vervescape a little differently. It’s extra potent, and not a mix you’d find in any lounge.” I swallow. He’s the man who invented both Zeal and Verve. He can do almost anything he wants, for he knows the code and the pharmacology better than anyone alive.
He cons
iders the syringe. “Who else but me could reprogram personalities and brain chemistries? Who else could take timid, shy Adam and turn him into Adam, a killer on command?
“I’ve programmed this particular world here so that instead of you enacting the violence, the violence is enacted against you. Your own personal little hell. It’s how I execute those who really disappoint me. And, Taema, for all your cleverness, you’ve disappointed me.” He gestures to his right and I see a third empty Chair. “I’ll be joining you.”
He’s going to torture me. I think of Mia and her scalpel. False Mana-ma’s soundless, tongueless, painful scream. It’s as if I’m made of stone. I want to scream, cry, piss myself, laugh hysterically, but I can’t do a thing.
I turn my head. Nazarin’s awake, his open eyes locked on me. I can’t contact Nazarin through my implants because of the blocked signal. I try my restraints, but they’re stuck fast.
Ensi reaches down and pushes up the sleeve of my Kalar suit, revealing the bare skin. He runs his finger down the exposed flesh. I shiver.
“It’s such a shame,” he says. “If I’d found you both right when you left the Hearth, your lives could have been so very different. You slipped past too quickly, already within the system as soon as you arrived in the city. When I did find you, I let you be. Why? Curiosity, I suppose—what would two girls who escaped the Hearth choose to do with their new lives? You went through engineering school. I was at your graduation ceremony, though you never saw me.” My skin prickles. “Tila grew into her art, and had that gallery show. I went to that, too. I even bought one of her paintings.”
Were we experiments to him? He watched us, to see what we’d do. The gallery showing was so long ago. Did my sister realize Ensi had bought one of her paintings? Does she feel he has a piece of her? Did she know he’s been keeping tabs on us for years?
“Which painting?” I ask, still avoiding looking at Nazarin. I think he’s worked his way out of a restraint. But how can he get out of the rest? If he reaches around, Ensi will notice.
Just keep him talking. He wants to talk, even if he says he doesn’t. I should be more scared, but I must be in shock, using the Hearth training to drive the fear away, at least a little. I’m grateful for it. It means I can think, I can speak. I can try to survive.