There’s no headline.
How is there no headline? I scroll through the pages, open other news sources, then another, until several are sprawled out over the white table. Nothing. Nothing about the first violent, brutal homicide in almost eighteen years, committed by a civilian, who also happens to be a former member of a well-known cult? If that’s not headline news, I don’t know what is.
I can’t help but be a little relieved, too. It’s taken a long time to make that cup of coffee, to sit down in that seat, to steel myself to look. And there’s nothing.
I blink and send the news away.
When the coffee—if it can even be called that, for it’s almost caffeine-free and from the replicator—is gone, I have no idea what to do with myself.
I pop a few Rejuvs and curl up on the sofa, a second cup of coffee beside me. I don’t read. I don’t watch the wallscreen. I stare at the ceiling and clear my mind.
It’s no use. The anger still creeps in. My thoughts can only turn to Tila. I imagine her, with her blue, spiky hair, that teasing grin she always wears. It’s like she’s darting through my cerebrum, laughing. You can’t find me, she seems to call. You don’t know what I’ve been up to, do you?
I fling one of the couch throw pillows across the room. It’s an empty, childish gesture.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I yell at the empty room. My voice drops to a whisper. “How can I help you if I don’t know what you’ve done?”
The tears come again, and this time, I let them. They trickle down my cheeks, warm and salty. I don’t wipe them away. Memories of us in the Hearth flash through my mind. Going to our secret spot in the woods, whispering to each other for hours. Playing cards with our parents, Tila and I on the same team. Our voices lifted in harmony during sermon. The first time I saw her in that hospital room. She came back to me as soon as she woke up. Those first years after surgery, when we always walked holding hands because we still had to be connected in one way or another. And then the look on her face last night. The stark fear, the whites of her eyes showing. It was as if I didn’t know her at all.
This is not a dream. It’s too real. And there’s no going back.
“Why did you lie to me, of all people? What do I do?” I ask the empty room again.
There’s no answer.
Until there is: the implant in my ear beeps.
I have a message.
*
I’m back in the SFPD interrogation room. I came in by a back entrance, with my hood up to partly obscure my face.
Officer Oloyu stares at me from across the table. His eyes look tired, though his face doesn’t show it. I doubt he’s slept, but he’s popped a few Rejuvs to keep him going, just like I have.
“Why am I back here?” I ask, ignoring the pleasantries. I have water this time instead of coffee, but I still don’t touch it.
“Have you read the news this morning?” Officer Oloyu asks.
“I’ve noticed what’s not in it.”
An eyebrow quirks, along with the corner of his mouth. “Quite.”
“How did you keep this quiet?”
“Who controls the media bots?” he counters.
Decent point.
“Your sister is out of the news because this is part of something larger. If we’re to find out what’s really going on, we have to get to the bottom of it before they peg we’re onto them.”
“Them? Who’s them? What does this have to do with me?”
“This has everything to do with you.” He takes a breath. “The SFPD have a proposition.”
His body language has changed again—palms out, brown eyes calm but firm. He still looks heartbreakingly young.
My hand goes to my chest. I shake my head. “I don’t understand. Why do you need me?”
“What do you know about the Ratel?”
“The Ratel?” I echo faintly. They’re the main remaining source of crime within the city. The government has been trying to eradicate them for years, but they’re tenacious. They intimidate businesses; they have a hand in the property market, and some say within certain branches of the government or Sudice. Like everyone, I’ve heard the whispers that the Ratel have grown more powerful in recent years, morphing from an annoyance into something more significant and dangerous. I always figured it was just rumor, but looking at Officer Oloyu’s face, I’m no longer so sure. What else have they been keeping from the media bots?
Something stirs in my memory. Tila joked about the Ratel a couple of weeks ago. Or I thought it was a joke. I’d reprimanded her for being late to one of our dinners yet again.
“Just ping me if you’re going to be late. Obviously I’m not your mother, but you never used to do this,” I’d said, turning away from her.
“Oh, relax, T,” she responded, with that infuriating tilt of her head and flash of white teeth. “It’s not like I’m hanging out with the Ratel. I’m just late.”
I remember wondering at the time why she’d even joke about such a thing. I feel sick.