False Hearts (25 page)

Her notes also seem to echo what Nazarin said outside Mirage—that there is unrest within the ranks of the Ratel. She mentions a young man who’s risen quickly through the ranks but still seems discontented:

Leo. White-blond hair. Black eyes. Has realized how much Ensi keeps at the top end and how little the others are rewarded. Can’t be sure if he’ll actually do anything about it yet. He’s cautious and methodical, but still a bit of an upstart. I figure he’s going to get himself killed sooner rather than later, before he can actually make any trouble. One to watch. Could be an ally.

There had been a drawing of him, too, in her sketchbook. Serious, intense.

“Oh, Tila,” I murmur aloud. She is in deep. She’s been doing this for months. And she’d come to my apartment, pretending she was only a hostess at Zenith. I should be hurt. I should be angry. It’s as if I’ve moved through that, to the other side. Now I’m only sad, disappointed, and still deeply afraid.

All day I read the notes, until I have everything memorized. I take breaks to practice in the gym using the virtual reality overlay, dodging imaginary foes, aiming imaginary weapons. I brainload as much as I can on hacking into implants and hiding information within them, with the hope that the government will not discover what I have hidden.

Thursday melts to Friday. Nazarin stumbles in close to dawn, and I wake slightly as he turns off my Chair. It’s only later that day I manage to build up my courage to tell him something in the notes I have to mention before we go to the party.

“I’m going to be Tested tomorrow at Xanadu,” I tell him over coffee.

He’s slept perhaps three hours, and looks drawn and haggard. At my words, he glances up sharply. “What makes you say something like that?”

“I’ve, um, found Tila’s notes at her place.” I give him handwritten, printed-out translations. I’ve left out the information about the government and Sudice, for our later protection, and a few other things where I didn’t understand what they meant and feared they could be dangerous. Everything else is there, and our handwriting is similar enough he doesn’t question it.

Nazarin reads the notes right there. I sip my coffee, watching his bowed head, the way the light through the bay window highlights his cheekbones. When he’s finished, he holds his head in his hands. “Shit. This changes everything.”

We prepare even more intensely. There’s a hint of desperation in the detective—he doesn’t turn off the brainload to let me have uninterrupted REM. There’s no time. Nazarin trains me, and my muscles grow stronger. I can run faster. The SFPD sends still more information to my brain. Out there in the city, my friends are going on with their lives, and so are Tila’s.

I meet the team who will be watching us from outside Xanadu. It’s only four people, because they’re still containing how many within the SFPD know about Tila and me. I recognize the Indian-American officer who helped bring us in that first, awful night. Her name is Officer Jina Shareef. Her handshake is firm. Officer Oloyu is there, though he’s only helping part-time. The rest of the time, he’s up wherever they’re holding my sister. I want to ask him how she’s faring, but I’m afraid of the answer. The other two have worked on undercover operations, including with Nazarin, many times. Their names are Detective Lucas and Detective Tan. Both have the large, blocky look of bodyguards, and of men who know how to use a gun. The officers will be watching surveillance, and all four will be posted near the Xanadu, a hovercar at the ready if we need a quick escape.

The morning of the party, I read through the notes one last time. I don’t think there’s anything more for me to learn from them. The puzzle pieces have fallen into place.

All we know of the Test is it’s another lucid dreaming assessment, perhaps to let Tila into the next level of the Verve lounge. No one knows what the Test exactly entails. Not Nazarin. Not the SFPD. Not Tila, though I expect she had some inklings that never made it onto the pages. We’ve done all we can.

But we won’t know if it’s enough until I pass or fail.

Tila was after Ensi. The leader of the Ratel. Though I still don’t see why, or how she could ever have thought she could take him down. All I can do is get closer to the quarry at the party in Xanadu.

SEVENTEEN

TAEMA

The Xanadu is just off Union Square.

I wonder who the billionaire Alex Kynon really is, for it’s a pseudonym wrapped in many layers of bureaucratic red tape and obfuscation.

I’ve wandered through Union Square so many times, especially around Christmas. Tila and I would always come here to see the lights. The giant Christmas tree in the center, the man-made ice rink where people zipped to and fro on old-fashioned ice skates. The city tries to trap the past like an insect in amber. It doesn’t really succeed in capturing a sense of what it must have felt like—not with those hypermodern fashions the men and women wear as they bustle about, actually shopping in person for the sheer nostalgia of it, droids following behind carrying their wares—but I do appreciate the effort.

Nazarin and I discussed our plan over and over before I left. We’ll take different MUNI trains, arriving at Union Square at different times from different directions. We’ll enter the party nearly together, though. Tila and Skel have been seen flirting with each other at previous parties, so we can act friendly, but won’t linger together too much. Nazarin is hoping to network, and speak to one of the discontented members of the Ratel, try to become closer to him. He tells me the name, keeping his promise not to hold anything back: it’s Leo, the man that Tila wrote about in her notes.

My objective is to do the Test, try not to die, and find out what happens at the next level of the Ratel.

No big deal.

Nazarin appears on my right. I’m waiting for him beneath the pillar of the Dewey Memorial. Far above him, the young woman balances on one toe, holding her wreath and trident.

He pauses. “You look nice.”

“Thanks.” He saw me leave with my coat, but I have it unbuttoned in the warm evening. I must have tried on all the clothes I’d taken from Tila’s place three times before I decided on an outfit. In the end I chose a form-fitting silver zip-up catsuit that covers me from neck to wrists to built-in heels. According to Tila’s notes, I’m meant to attract attention at these things. Here’s hoping no one misses me, looking like a human-shaped disco ball from space.

“Have you ever been here before?” I ask, jerking my head in the direction of the Xanadu.

“No.”

“And you think both the King and Queen will be there?”

“They’re meant to be.”

Ensi is the named leader of the Ratel, but if the chess analogy is to be carried on, the Queen is the most important player. She’s the one who does the dirty work and takes out the other pieces, if need be. I recall Tila’s sketch of her, the beautiful woman with long dark hair, a sardonic smile and a cruel glint to her eye.

“OK,” Nazarin says. “It’s nearly time.”

“Right.”

He reaches out and grips my shoulder. “We’re in this together. You’ve prepared for this as much as you can. You can do this.”

“You have more faith in me than I do.”

A short smile. “I have no doubt you can do this. You’re tough as nails.”

His words hearten me, as they are meant to. I watch him walk away, counting in my head.

Then I follow him, my silver heels clicking along the sidewalk.

It doesn’t take long to arrive at the gates. The whole block used to be high-end stores, but now it is all a private residence. I didn’t know this before the SFPD told me in the brainload. The average civilian wouldn’t. Distribution of wealth isn’t as uneven as before the Great Upheaval. Most people make enough to live comfortably, poverty is erased in all but the worst of the Zealots, and though citizens can order vast amounts of goods from the replicator, all can be recycled back. There are still obscenely wealthy people in this city but they tend to keep a lower profile than, say, those in Hollywood, where status and ranking have more pull. Having far, far more money than you need is seen as wasteful.

Nazarin walks through the gates. I approach a minute later, projecting Tila’s invitation from my ocular implant onto a little wallscreen to the left. The door opens with a
snick
, and I walk in.

In front of us is the large, faux brick building, now made of bomb-proof, acid-proof material. We walk through to the second gate, a replica of the original Art Deco iron arched gate, topped by four rings of brick. Like many buildings, it was destroyed in the Great Quake and rebuilt to be larger than the previous plans. The original building was a store, and now it is a mansion.

Nazarin—no, Skel, he is
Skel
now—lingers enough that we almost walk into the darkened tunnel at the same time. He does not turn back or acknowledge me, but I’m thankful for his nearness.

I take a steadying breath. I am about to enter the same building as the Ratel King and Queen. It’s what I’ve prepared for. I am now, for all intents and purposes, my sister: a lucid dreamer for a Verve lounge for the biggest mob in the city. None of it seems real. I can’t really be doing this. Still, I place one foot in front of the other, moving closer to whatever is to come.

The tunnel fills with soft lights of green, blue, and purple, and a light fog drifts at waist height, scented with lilacs.

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree,” I whisper.

Nazarin stiffens and almost turns back in confusion. I guess he’s never read Coleridge.

We enter, still staggered, and the droids take our coats. I shed that outer layer like a carapace, wearing only my silver, shining second skin. Nazarin passes over his gun. No weapons at parties. Nazarin’s eyes slide over me, but I ignore him, staring upward, unable to stop myself from gaping.

The whole ceiling is open, showing the stars and moon above. It’s made from the finest bulletproof glass. Despite the seriousness of the situation I can’t help but be transported by the beauty of it. The main ballroom has a re-creation of the original spiral staircase along its edges but much larger, like the inside of a shell, perfect circles cut out of the sides, like the holes in an abalone. The walls are creamy white, lights tingeing the smooth plaster green and blue. Twining, living vines hang from the ceiling, framing an enormous organic chandelier suspended above the dance floor, twinkling with emeralds and other jewels among the leaves. Elephants drink from a palm-framed water hole, and birds fly overhead. They’re all mechanical, their eyes cameras for security posted in the next room, available to come in at a moment’s notice if needed.

There aren’t as many people here as I would have thought, but everyone looks so sleek and stylish, they nearly put Zenith to shame. Yet they are obviously dangerous too, marked with moving tattoos and wearing their scars proudly. A few dance to music, twining their bodies together, skin pressed against skin. Others huddle together, murmuring among themselves, while some wander from group to group, hovering here to say a few words before fluttering onward, like butterflies sipping nectar from each cluster. Despite their prettiness, I cannot forget the venom they all have the ability to spread. More lines of that poem come to me:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

I straighten my shoulders and put on Tila’s sultry smile. I let her personality settle over mine. I’m Tila. I’m confident and strong. I’m unafraid. A droid leaves the bar nestled at the back and passes by, offering me a glass of champagne. I take a sip and almost choke. It’s real champagne—nothing remotely synth about it. The liquid burns slightly, and my taste buds tingle, the bubbles popping against my tongue.

I recognize some of the faces from Tila’s sketches. I stay calm—my eyes flicker over them quickly, but I don’t see the King and Queen of the Ratel.

Nazarin leaves me, mingling with others before returning. He greets me, giving me one of those small hugs you give people you don’t know very well. “Something’s not right,” he whispers in my ear. “Be careful.”

Before I can ask him more questions, he disappears, and I’m taken aback. I know we can’t be seen too much together, but surely if Tila flirted with him at a previous party, we could take up the same cover again. How can he just leave me here on my own, with what I’m about to face?

Some of the familiar faces from Tila’s sketchbook come to greet me, and I smile and kiss them on the cheeks, greeting them by name, all too aware that the hands gently resting on my shoulders have killed people. All these polite guests are hardened criminals, many with hits under their belts. It’s almost like I can feel the ghosts, a press of the invisible, cold corpses these people are responsible for, crowding the room with the revelers.

I shake my head, which feels fuzzy. I eye the scented fog in suspicion—have they put something in it, like the way they release extra pheromones in the casinos? Was there something in that glass of champagne—real champagne!—I drank far too quickly?

I have to keep my wits about me.

I understand a lot more than I did before, but there are still so many gaps. Tila came into the Ratel from a different direction than Nazarin. She may have run errands briefly, but as soon as she proved that she could lucid dream, she worked her way in deeper without going through the official steps. Until now. She’s close enough that they want her to do something more important for them, if she just passes this Test. If I just pass the Test.

I force myself to stay calm, to smile at the guests as if nothing is bothering me.

What did the Ratel think, when Vuk disappeared? Do they think he went rogue, or do they know that something happened to him? Tila wasn’t supposed to be working that night, but surely someone at the club noticed her. Sal saw her. Did he change his colors and decide to turn her in to the Ratel? There is a chance that this is all an elaborate trap. Nazarin said that the hitman, that Adam-turned-Vuk, wasn’t after her. I’m not sure if I still believe that.