I have only a name for the contact I’m meeting—Sanjana Rao—and though it speaks of family roots in old India, it’s just as likely she could be blond-haired and blue-eyed, given the way all the races and bloodlines from Earth have been jumbled up over the centuries. She’ll ping my palm pad when she’s here, but I can’t help but look for her anyway.
I find my gaze creeping toward the elevator doors, cleverly concealed in this park simulation as the entrance to a carousel. This is the closest I’ve been to LaRoux himself after a year of chasing him, and all I want to do is break into their secure elevators and climb to the penthouse floor. A year of burned identities and isolation; of painful tattoo removal surgeries that still haven’t completely erased my genetag; of keeping all traces of myself, all remnants of my old life, with me at all times in case today, this moment, is the one where I’m going to have to pack up and run again.
But LaRoux himself is nearly impossible to reach. If he wasn’t, someone would’ve already killed him years ago—for all that the galaxy at large loves him, enough of the people he’s trampled on his way to power see him for what he is. No, a head-on approach will never reach him. Taking out LaRoux requires subtlety.
I glance at my inner arm, a habit I still haven’t broken. Someone clever could guess at what the look means—no one born on Corinth or any of the older planets is given a genetag at birth—and yet I do it anyway. The faint remnant of my genetag tattoo is safely hidden, though I have to take care not to rub against my dress and risk transferring a telltale smear of concealer to the fabric. I want to grab for my palm pad, to check it to see if I could have missed Dr. Rao’s ping, but standing here repeatedly checking my messages would be a clear sign of nervousness, if anyone was watching me.
It’s only when I lift my head that I realize I do have an audience. And that it isn’t my contact.
A young man’s seated on the floor, his back against a tree—a tree that isn’t really there, of course. His back is against a marble pillar, but the holographic skin of the room makes it look like he’s relaxing in a park. Except, of course, that he’s got a lapscreen and it’s plugged into the side of the tree. There’s a wireless power field here, so I know he’s not charging his screen. It’s a data port, which is odd enough, given that any info accessible in a public place like this would be on the hypernet. But that’s not what makes me stop, makes my heart seize. It’s that he’s wearing the green and gray of LaRoux Industries, and that there’s a lambda embroidered over his breast pocket. He works here—and he’s watching me.
My mouth goes dry, and I force myself not to jerk my gaze away. Instead I tip my head as if puzzled, trying my absolute best to seem intrigued, even coy.
A grin flashes across his features when I catch him watching me. He makes no attempt to pretend he wasn’t, just flicks his fingers to his brow and then away as though tipping an imaginary hat. He doesn’t look like a typical office worker, with longer hair of a shade hovering somewhere between sandy blond and brown and a lazy, almost insolent cast to his body as he leans against the pillar.
I take a breath to settle, hiding any trace of fear that he knows I don’t belong here. Instead I smile back, settling easily into the fa?ade of shy and sweet; to my relief, his grin widens. Just flirting, then.
He winks, then presses a single button on his lapscreen. A holographic bird with brilliant red plumage swoops across my path and then freezes in midair. Abruptly, all the background sounds halt: birdsong and rustling leaves and even some of the laughter and conversation—all gone. Then, without warning, the entire holopark vanishes, leaving us in a vast white room.
The only thing in the room, besides the people, the projectors, and the pillars like the one the boy’s leaning on, is a vast metal ring twice my height at its center. It stands upright, made of some strange alloy that shines dully in the bright white light, and is connected to the floor at its base by a pedestal covered with dials and instruments. LaRoux’s particular holographic technologies are proprietary, but this looks like no projector I’ve ever seen—and while the other projectors are flickering and whirring and trying to overcome whatever glitch made them stop working, the metal ring is still and silent.
A murmur of confusion sweeps through the throngs of people, as groups abandon their conversations in favor of looking around, as though the room might hold some explanation. Its other features stand out now that there’s no masking hologram in place—the drink dispensers are bare and stark, the various projectors and speakers littering the low ceiling like misshapen stars.