False Hearts (24 page)

The first file is an invitation to a party, and my eyebrows rise in surprise. It’s the same one Nazarin is going to on Saturday. Did he know Tila had an invitation? It’s at the Xanadu. A reclusive millionaire named Alex Kynon is said to own the historic building, rebuilt perfectly after the Great Quake to mirror Frank Lloyd Wright’s original design. I’ve never heard of a party, or anyone going there. I also never realized whoever owned it was tied up with the Ratel, but considering how secretive they are, I suppose that’s not too surprising.

I open up the second file. I suck in my breath. I open more, reading through them quickly.

I’ve struck gold.

It’s Tila’s notes on the Ratel, all written in our hidden alphabet and scanned, the originals destroyed. Tears prick my eyes as I read them. Yes, it’s proof she was working with them, but more than that: it’s proof she was really working against them. She’d hidden the notes in a place I knew about—if I’d come to leave a message and found these, would she have told me everything? I hide all the files in an encrypted subfolder, deep within my implants. I thank whatever fate or stars aligned that I found these before I went back in. These notes might just save my life.

I sift through more of Tila’s notes in my mind’s eye. I come across something that makes me both furious and shamed:

There’s a delivery boy/security Knight I’m going to use to get closer to Verve,
she wrote, about four months ago.
His name is Skel. There’s a party tonight. I’ll turn on the charm and get him to take me back to his. After, I’ll convince him to introduce me to Malka, and then I can prove I can lucid dream.
I force down a flush.

The doorbell rings. I jerk in surprise. Hurriedly, I finish hiding the files in my implants and take the datapod out of my ear.

“Coming!” I call as I run to the guest room, stash the sketchbook and the pod in the cubby hole, and push the bed back into place. A few days ago, this would have winded me. Thank you, gym practice and muscle mods.

I peer through the peephole. It’s Nazarin. I take a breath, composing myself.

I open the door and Nazarin pushes past me, closing the door behind him.

“Why are you here rather than your place, like you said?” he asks.

I look around, shrugging. It’s a way to avoid meeting his eyes. “I realized I hadn’t been here since it all went down. And I needed more clothes.”

“Let’s head back to the safe house. We have your VeriChip putting a false signal here most of the time, in case the Ratel decide to track you, but you actually being here has messed with it.”

“There’s cameras there, right? In the wallscreens?”

“Yeah?” His forehead crinkles in confusion.

“Not here?”

A beat as Nazarin accesses his implants to scan the apartment. “No.”

“Then we should speak here for a moment.”

Nazarin opens his mouth to ask why, but I hold up my hand, cutting him off. My anger over what I discovered in the notes crystallizes to a fury just as strong as I felt in Mia’s dream world. I lead him to the living room.

“How well do you really know my sister,
Skel
?” I ask. I had hoped I’d somehow been wrong, or read the notes wrong, but his sheepish face shows I’m right. My gut twists. “Spill, and you better not tell me a word of a lie, or I’m out.” It’s an empty threat, but I still cross my arms. “You haven’t just met her once or twice.”

He swallows, looking down and away. “I have only met her a few times. I just didn’t clarify what … happened during one of them.” He licks his lips, trying to figure out what to say.

I pour another glass of SynthWine, but don’t drink it. I’ve had enough, but at least it’s something to do with my hands. Anger bubbles inside me. No one trusts me to have all the information. The decisions I’ve made without knowing the full story …

“I first met her a few months ago. She was at one of the parties for Knights, Rooks and Pawns. I thought she was a young hopeful, trying to get into the Ratel, get a taste of power by latching onto a powerful member. She had a way of drawing the eye. I guess she would, being a hostess and all.”

He stares into space. He’s still standing in the middle of the kitchen. He takes the chair across from me, its legs screeching softly against the linoleum.

I say nothing, letting him find the words. “Near the end of the party, we were both pretty drunk. Real alcohol at those things, and neither of us were used to it. Whatever she’d been there for, she hadn’t found it. But she took a shine to me. I didn’t understand why. It’s not like I was important. She asked me to go to a hotel with her.”

I feel like I’ve been punched. I should have seen it, guessed it. I try not to think about his hands on my waist when we danced at Zenith. I try not to think about how he took off my clothes, so expertly. How well he seemed to know my body.

Tila got to him first. She always gets there first. And if he was attracted to me, it wasn’t actually for me. It was because I look like her. In a surge of paranoia, I wonder if my sister slept with any of my exes. David? Simone? I shake my head. The constant lies are getting to me, and I’m not even undercover yet.

I pick up my glass, the wine within sloshing. I set it to the side.

It’s always weird, when Tila or I meet someone the other has been sleeping with. It’s knowing that this other person, this stranger, has a pretty good idea what you look like naked, even if they haven’t slept with you. It’s the worry that they’ll look at one the same way they look at the other.

This is so much worse than any of those other times.

“I didn’t go with her,” Nazarin says, calmly. I look up, confused.

“I was tempted, but I went home alone. In the end, I knew that sleeping with her was a bad idea. My orders were clear: not to become involved with anyone in the Ratel. Yet she stuck in my mind.”

“Did she try to get you to do anything?” I ask carefully. I don’t want to tip him off that I have her notes. I’m not sure whether or not to believe him. Tila always gets what she wants, when she puts her mind to it. I can’t remember a time anyone rebuffed her advances. If people were to choose between us, they’d be almost certain to choose Tila.

“Yeah. Later, she asked me to introduce her to Malka.”

“The Queen.”

He inclines his head. “At that point, I hadn’t met her, or even seen her, so I couldn’t give her what she wanted. She didn’t bother with me again after that.”

That sounds like Tila. Slyly, I bring up my notes again. She never definitively said she slept with him. After that one entry, her focus shifted to other topics. She mentioned her frustration, and that she was having difficulties seeing Malka, but “Skel” wasn’t mentioned again. He could be telling the truth. I hope he is.

“When I saw the murder charge, saw her picture, and discovered she had a twin, I realized I could figure out what she was up to. At first it was curiosity. When I learned she was working in the Verve lounge as a lucid dreamer, I figured she’s in deep—deep enough that nobody could follow her.”

“Except me.”

“Yes. Except you.”

He’s run out of words. I sip the wine. No, I gulp it. “Why didn’t you tell me about this? Especially before you slept with me?” I ask once the glass is empty. I’m trying not to think of them together.

“Nothing happened. She’s not the only one in the Ratel who’s tried to sleep with me.” He shrugs. “I don’t know your sister. I can’t pretend I do. For what it’s worth, I don’t think she’d have killed without a reason.”

“She didn’t kill anyone.”

“As I’ve said, are you still so sure of that? Or are you saying it out of habit now?”

I glance down at the empty glass. “You still should have told me.”

“You’re right.”

I meet his eyes. “No fight? No protests?”

“No. You are entirely right. I shouldn’t hold anything back, even if it doesn’t seem important to me at the time. It might prove to be. I’m sorry.” His body language is open. He seems sincere. I feel like I can’t trust my own judgment in anything, anymore. Tila’s fucked with my head.

“That’s twice you’ve not told me things I needed to know,” I say.

Nazarin stares at me, somber. “I wanted to sleep with you. Not your sister.”

My breath catches. He had cut to the heart of what was bothering me. I look away. I see the framed holophoto of me and Tila, arms around each other and smiling. We look so young, so happy. I feel like I’ve aged about twenty years in less than a week. I thought I knew her better than anyone. “Still probably not the best idea to sleep with your undercover partner,” I say. “Did you, uh, mention that to your superior?”

His face goes still. “No, I didn’t. If I did, they might throw me off the case, despite all the inroads I’ve made. Conflict of interest. They’d put someone else on, and starting all over again means they probably wouldn’t be able to help your sister.”

The careful way he chooses his words makes me tired. “Relax. I’m not going to tell the SFPD.” A horrible thought occurs to me. “Does the other safe house have cameras?”

“God, no. Don’t worry.”

I let out a breath.

“It might not have been the best idea, what we did,” he says gently. “I don’t regret a moment of it, though.” He hesitates, glancing up at me. “Do you?”

I can’t help it—the smallest smile hooks to my cheeks before it disappears. “No. I don’t. But I don’t think it should happen again. Not while we’re doing this.”

He nods. “That’s fair.”

I stand up, hold out my hand. “So. You’ll tell me everything. I may not be an actual member of the Ratel, but I’m not stupid. I’m your best chance of figuring out what’s really going on in the Ratel. Stop trying to protect me or cover your own ass, or you’ll get us both killed.”

He stands and takes my hand in a warm grasp. “I promise,” he says.

I look at him for a long time. He doesn’t look away. He wants to kiss me. I want to kiss him, but only our hands touch.

I’m still confused and a little jealous, but I push it away until I’m calm and steady.

It’s a new start. We’re partners.

*   *   *

I’m getting sick of the safe house. It’s not home.

Nazarin tells me about the party, and that he wishes he could somehow add my name to the guest list, as starting there versus at the Verve lounge would be easier. The look on his face when I tell him Tila has an invitation too and I should probably go with him is priceless.

I’ve hidden all her notes, but I bring up the invitation onto the wallscreen. I tell him I found it in her hard drive. It’s a white lie, and pretty rich considering I just made him promise to be honest with me in all things. I can’t mention the other files, though. I haven’t had a chance to translate them all yet, and there could be something incriminating in them. She’s my sister. I get first look. If I find anything useful, I’ll tell him.

I give him the sketch of Ensi to take back to headquarters, as well. He shakes his head in amazement. “This is what he looks like? Do you know how long we’ve been trying to find this out? This alone will help us so much.”

Good
, I think. Maybe that’ll make it easier for the government to let my sister go. Regardless of what she might have done.

That night I’m strapped into the Chair yet again, to download more confidential information on the Ratel from the SFPD. Since I’ve been undercover, I haven’t seen another cop except in these scenes. But they’re there. They’ll be ringed around the Xanadu, hidden, supposedly lending whatever support they can, with another few stationed at the safe house. Though I know as well as Nazarin that if we’re truly in trouble at that party, they’re unlikely to go in and blow the SFPD’s cover. We have until Saturday to prepare me as much as possible.

We’ll be on our own.

The next day is Thursday. One week since my life turned upside down. It doesn’t seem possible. Nazarin is away for most of the day with more Ratel activities. More security. More drop-offs of Verve, to other Zealot lounges.

I wonder how far he goes when he’s undercover. How deeply does he play his role? Does he hurt people? His actions do, at the very least. By his delivering a weapon of a vial of Verve, someone will be harmed or killed. Soon, I’ll see what he does firsthand.

Soon, I might have to do some of it myself.

Will I be able to? I’ve prided myself on following the letter of the law since I left the Hearth and arrived in San Francisco. The crimes I may commit while undercover are sanctioned by the government, but I can’t help but fear they’ll find some legal loophole afterward. What if they don’t honor their side of the arrangement, and keep Tila locked up? Or throw me in with her? I know Verve’s secret. Will they want to cover up its true purpose?

I have a little ammunition in that regard that I’m keeping close. A week ago, I never would have considered these mercenary thoughts.

I read through Tila’s notes. I sit cross-legged on the floor, tilting my head back, eyes closed. I’ve read them so many times by now. They have so many things I need, like details of the relationships and hierarchies between the various members of the Ratel. There are smaller things, too, like what people like to drink, or their favorite foods—side effects of her training as a hostess. Tila recounts crimes she’s witnessed: people picking up packages full of Verve. Information gleaned from dreams. I know what businesses have Ratel members integrated into every level, gathering insider information to their advantage or bullying the owners to give them protection money. Some of this information is incriminating to the government. I know a few high-ranking officials who have tried Verve. A few members of Sudice as well. This is what I’ll keep close, to protect myself and Tila when this is all over.

Tila has written her suppositions about Verve—how if it becomes widespread, the Ratel could essentially create an army to do their bidding. The government, or Sudice, wouldn’t stand a chance. She also wonders what would happen if it fell into government hands.
San Francisco sure can look beautiful
, she writes,
but it’s corrupt to the core with the Ratel and a government not much better. It’s all infested, like termites in rotting wood.