False Hearts (40 page)

She didn’t tell me eveything at once. I was curious from the start. Someone from the Hearth who had changed their face? Who? When she told me it was Adam, that he was alive and working for the Ratel, then I knew I couldn’t walk away. I tried to, but it burned at me.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that Vuk was a hitman for the Ratel, so that to even look into this meant capital-D Danger. I still couldn’t leave it alone, though, especially when he walked into Zenith. I watched him for months, whenever he came in, though I didn’t get too close. He didn’t recognize me because I’d waxworked myself (that’s why I did it, T: for your protection, not because I didn’t want us to look the same any-more). I had blue hair, and you don’t expect to see one half of a pair of conjoined twins from your former cult in an exclusive club in San Francisco.

That’s what I thought at first, anyway. Until I realized the Ratel had changed him. Overwritten his personality with what they wanted. Someone who could kill in cold blood, to order.

He fell in love with Leylani while I watched. When I saw that, I thought: if he can still fall in love, maybe they haven’t made him disappear completely. Maybe there’s still a little bit of Adam in there. I asked Mia, but all she told me in her Zeal-addled state was, “He is the red one, the fair one, the handsome one. He came from the Earth and now he returns. The faces keep changing.” She said it over and over, until it freaked me out enough that I left her in her Zealot hovel.

It wouldn’t surprise me if she did sell me out in the end for more Verve, but I can’t prove it. Never will, now that she’s gone.

I knew it was risky to speak to Vuk, so I didn’t, at first. I kept my ear to the ground, and I heard that the Ratel were looking for lucid dreamers. It seemed too good to be true. No matter how much I tried, though, I didn’t know how to get the Ratel’s attention.

So I spoke to Vuk.

I didn’t tell him I knew who he was. I told him only that I was the best lucid dreamer in the city, and his boss should speak to me at his earliest convenience. He said nothing and left the club early. I thought maybe he’d come back and kill me, and there would go that plan before it had even begun.

Instead, he came back a few nights later, and told me I had to prove it. We plugged into the Zeal Chairs. He’d swapped the drug with Verve without telling me. I followed all his instructions, moving through the dream world, making it do what I wanted. I liked that feeling of power, but I was also terrified of ending up like Mia.

Vuk was the one who got me into the Ratel. I started working for them, and it didn’t take me long to become a dreamsifter in the Verve lounge. I met Ensi. One thing led to another. The closer I kept to him, the sooner I could learn secrets. How had the Ratel found Adam? How was Mana-ma linked to it all?

Eventually, I realized the best way to find out would be to speak to Vuk himself. I was going to get out of the Ratel after I did. Never go back. Go with you to China. Yeah, I knew you had that job before you told me. Saw the letter on the wallscreen at your place while you were in the bathroom. I peeked. Sorry. If I went, I thought I’d change my name, change my face again. I thought it’d be enough. I don’t think it would have been, really. I can be so damn dim sometimes.

So I went to Zenith that night as usual. I’d met Leylani for coffee the day before and given her something that would make her a bit sick. Nothing to harm the baby or anything (I figured out she was pregnant, with all the running to the bathroom she did), but enough that she wouldn’t be able to come in to work. I cozied up to Sal, saying I’d cover for Leylani that night. And I did. Vuk was in with a group of people. He didn’t notice me any more than usual. He knew I worked for the Ratel, but otherwise we didn’t interact. He was sad, wishing Leylani was there.

Eventually, most of the other partiers left, going to the main bar, and I managed to catch him.

“Adam.”

He flinched. “Come again?”

“Adam, it’s me. Tila. From the Hearth. I know I look a little different, but it’s me.”

He shook his head, as though batting away flies. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I moved closer. “You do. Some part of you remembers. Taema and Tila. T-and-T. We came to visit you. We brought green grapes.”

His face twitched. His body shook. It was like he was having a war with himself. I stayed close, keeping my eyes on him.

He fell down on his knees, his hands rising to his temples. His mouth opened in a horrible, silent scream. I went to him and clasped my hands on his wrists.

“Adam,” I said again.

At that, his entire body went rigid and he started convulsing, like he was having some sort of fit. Then he went completely limp. I thought he was dead. I wondered what would happen if someone opened the door in Zenith right then and saw him dead—they’d blame me.

Funny I worried about that then. Considering.

I pressed my fingers to his throat and he was still alive. I sat with him, holding his hand. It was his metallic one, though it felt just like cooling human flesh. I kept looking down at his face, trying to find the skinny boy I’d had a crush on in that blocky body, those different features. It really drove home how completely someone can change.

After a while he started groaning. I waited for him to wake up, and when he did and saw my face, he started crying. “Tila,” he said. “I remember you.”

“Hi, Adam,” I said.

He really looked at me and his eyes popped. “Where’s your sister?”

“They separated us.”

I started to say something else, but his body devolved into spasms again. “Adam?” I asked, scared.

Spittle began flying from his mouth, and I really thought he was going to die.

When he could speak again, he clasped my hand. “I’m going to lose it, to go back to who I am now. I’ll want to kill you. I’ll think you’re a threat.” He clutched me closer. “When I go back, I’ll have to tell him everything. About you, about your sister. I won’t be able to stop it.” Another shudder. “It’s who he made me to be.”

His eyes rolled up in his head. His eyes focused on me. Sharpened. “You’re a threat.”

I scrambled back, knocking over a bunch of the glasses and breaking them. Adam-turned-Vuk stood up and started coming for me. He took out a knife from his inner jacket pocket. I picked up a broken shard of glass but I knew, I knew it wouldn’t do a damn thing.

Adam-turned-Vuk’s face was twisted with pain. “I don’t want to do this, Tila. I don’t want to. I’m tired. I don’t want to go back to the man who made me into this.” Every word was a struggle.

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying.

“Do it,” he said. Every muscle was straining. He held out the knife, and I thought he was going to kill me. But instead he dropped it, and it landed on the floor within reach.

“Don’t have … long,” he gasped. He juddered again, knocking over more of the furniture.

I hesitated. I didn’t want to. But then he said, “If he finds out about you, he’ll find out about your sister. He’ll—” another shudder—“hurt her to get to you.”

That decided it.

Of course that decided it.

It wasn’t as easy as that. He didn’t lie still and let me kill him. His programming took over. His hunter’s instincts. I took a swing and he blocked it, so I only cut his wrist. He grabbed me and I twisted back, stomping on his foot and then kicking up between his legs. He wheezed, dropped to his knees. I knew I couldn’t hesitate. If I did, I would die.

I had a lucky strike. It went right into the upper part of his stomach, and I thrust up, and I think I hit him in the heart.

He fell down almost immediately. But he wasn’t quite dead. He met my eyes and I didn’t look away until he was gone.

I remember the blood was warm and sticky. That everything smelled of red, rusty iron. I felt angry, like I’d been trapped. I slammed the knife into the coffee table and it stood there, quivering.

The puddle of blood got bigger.

The blood must have triggered an alarm or something. Sal came in, and it was the first time I ever saw him shocked by anything.

I knew I should say something to him, but I was really out of it. I ended up parroting Mia’s words: “He is the red one, the fair one, the handsome one. He came from the Earth and now he returns. The faces keep changing.”

That definitely freaked him out. He snapped his fingers in front of my face until I could look up at him. It was hard to focus.

“Why?” he asked me. I blinked like I was waking up from a nightmare.

I told him. Not everything, but a little. That Vuk was a hitman for the Ratel and he’d asked me to kill him to free him. Sal, bless him, believed me right away. Barely even blinked before he was thinking of a way to fix it. Mostly to help himself, but still, he wasn’t a totally selfish bastard, either.

“They’ll be sending the Ratel here. The only way you won’t die tonight is if you get out of here right now. Go home, get your things, and then go. I’m trusting you. Go straight there.”

So I followed his advice. Before I ran away, I felt like I needed to … I don’t know. Leave my mark. I scratched the sign of the Hearth, sad because I knew I’d never figure out exactly how everything was connected. Then I wrote Mia’s name in our alphabet. She was the only person who knew I was undercover. If the Ratel got me before I made it home, then I knew you could ask her, Taema, and at least have a few answers.

I started going home, but then I changed course and went to you. Sal ended up phoning the police after all, though, and they tracked my VeriChip and came and found me.

I wish I’d done it differently. Ripped the VeriChip out of my wrist, made you do the same, and we could have disappeared before they could find us. I don’t know where we would have gone, or what we could have done, but it would have been better than all this mess.

You know everything that happened after that. I think you even know more than me now.

They were supposed to put you into protective custody. That’s what they told me they were gonna do, just after they took me, when I said you were in trouble, too. That Mia might have sold me out to the Ratel so my cover was blown. But instead, they made you become me, and you got put in just as much danger.

Bunch of fucking bastards.

I’m sorry, T. I made a huge mess out of everything. And, as usual, you found a way to fix it. But that’s not fair. It’s not fair on you at all.

I am so nervous. I almost want to stay here, so I don’t have to face you. I only scratched at the edges of the Ratel. I’m afraid to learn your full story. It’s going to be painful to listen to it. But I will.

The guard just came and told me it’s time to go. I asked him for five more minutes. Five more minutes of scribbling crazily, the muscles in my hands cramping, as I try to figure out how to end this.

I guess I’ll be trite—it’s not like what I’ve written is good. Maybe I’ll get you to help me write it into something properly resembling a story, if you’re still speaking to me after all of this.

So this isn’t an end but a beginning. This morning, I thought I was going to be frozen solid and put in a freezer with other frozen humans. Now, I find out I have my whole life ahead of me again. You are the one that brought down Mana-ma and broke up the Ratel. Maybe Adam’s story can be told, along with all the other men and women whose memories were stolen. I heard Mia was killed, and I’m sure it was another one of Ensi’s poor creations. Changing faces like kaleidoscopes.

Maybe we can see our parents for the first time in a decade. Go back to the Hearth, walk through the forest. Listen to the birds. We could swim in the lake for the first time.

I don’t think we’ll really change anything in the long run. But I’ve always been pessimistic. You’ve been the one with all the hope.

So, this is my new chance. My clean slate. All thanks to you. As soon as I finish this, I’ll tuck my notebook into my pocket, give my lipstick a touch-up, walk out of this shithole and look you right in the eye.

THIRTY-THREE

TAEMA

I’m too afraid to go into the building where Tila’s being held, so I wait outside. It’s quiet, this time of day. People mill to and fro, heading to the MUNI or their offices and homes. They don’t spare me a second glance. They don’t know what I did and what I helped prevent, or at least delay. I hope they never find out.

The SFPD will send someone to the Hearth, to see how they’re faring. They received an emergency phone call from our old cult. Mana-ma was found dead the next morning, tangled in her bed sheets, electrodes attached to her head. I’ve asked if they can send Nazarin, and if I (and maybe Tila) can go with him. We’re not banned from the Hearth anymore, and I want to see my parents. I
need
to go back. Both of us do.

It’s a cool day, even though it’s late spring. It’s the famous uncertain San Francisco weather. I’m wearing a scarf and a hat, my hands deep in my pockets. Nazarin isn’t here. I came alone.

The door opens, and my breath hitches, but it’s not her. A man in a suit walks down the steps and past me, not even glancing in my direction. I rub the palms of my hands against my thighs.

I turn away from the door for a moment, taking in the view of the gunmetal gray of the water, the graceful arches of the bridges. The islands, half-hidden in the mist. Boats are out on the bay, gliding slowly through the white breaks, occasionally calling out softly to each other. It all seems so peaceful. I turn back.

There she is.

Tila stands on the top step. She’s already caught sight of me, and her body is stiffly uncertain. Security drones circle her head like bees before drifting away to continue their perimeter check. She hesitates, and then begins to walk down the stairs.

It’s so very strange, watching her come to me. She’s no longer my reflection, now that I’ve changed my hair and my features back, but we’re more different from each other now than ever before. I have two scars she doesn’t have, and that’s only the physical ones.

My sister stops a few paces away. We don’t speak. She looks a little thinner. She glances down, takes something from her coat pocket. It’s a notebook.