They give me one hour to make up my mind. They can’t give me any longer. If I’m going to do it, they have to start prepping me right away, so that “Tila” isn’t out of circulation too long.
I go to Golden Gate Park, taking the MUNI. No unmarked hovercars anymore—nothing to make me stand out. For this one hour, I am not alone. The SFPD are tracking my VeriChip, watching me through camera drones. I fight the urge to hunch my shoulders, to somehow disappear from their sight. I can’t.
I go through the entrance to the glass dome that covers Golden Gate Park. Though evening is lengthening, it’s still as bright as early afternoon from the artificial light within. It’s always open, even in the dead of night. Tila and I used to come here at midnight for picnics sometimes, watching mothers with day shifts walk their babies in prams, or joggers flitting along the paths, their toned bodies covered in bright neon logos, moving adverts for sports tech. Most people have nano muscle inserts to keep them in shape these days, including me and my sister, though we also take pride in doing it the old-fashioned way, or at least making the odd attempt. I want to take off down the paths, running at full speed until my lungs burn, but I run to stop myself from thinking, and I can’t run away from my own mind, not now.
I sit under a willow tree, taking off my shoes and dipping my toes into the water of the lake. It’s quiet here, with its false eternal daylight, the wafting scent of flowers and cut grass. I search the news with my ocular implant again for a moment, closing my eyes and letting the words scroll past my darkened eyelids. Still no headline about my sister. There’s an article about the mayor of San Francisco and her bid for reelection. She smiles with white teeth from the feed. Sudice says they will announce a new product next week at the tech expo. The city is building more housing and orchard towers to meet rising demand. Nothing in the news about crimes, or the Ratel. I wonder how often they cover up what really happens in this city. If the public doesn’t find out about it, has it happened at all?
Endless adverts flash from the corners of my vision. Go on holiday to Dubai, or New Tokyo. Order this mealpack from your replicator tonight. Another Zeal advert flashes and I bring it forward. This one shows a man sleeping calmly, but over his head he’s screaming at his boss and walking out, slamming the door behind him. He wakes up, stretching, smiling at the camera. “I’ve let it all out,” he says, his voice tinny in my auditory implants. “I’m ready to face the day.” A blink and he’s in a suit. The same tagline twines above his head: Find your Zeal for life. What will you dream today? I send it away, a headache blooming in my temples.
My sister and I surprised people in San Francisco by taking to the implants with ease, considering we were about eleven years behind almost everyone else. The doctors and such never realized how many hours we had already spent learning to control our minds, so that implants were only a small side step.
I sigh and lie down in the grass. I try to pretend I’m sixteen again, in Mana’s Hearth, before we ever found that other tablet and learned that everything we thought we knew had been a lie. But it’s no use. That daydream won’t come. How can it? Tila isn’t by my side.
I open my eyes.
I’ve made up my mind, though it was never really in question. Officer Oloyu knew I’d say yes before he even asked me.
*
I’m to meet my new partner immediately. I don’t even go back to SFPD headquarters to give Oloyu my answer; I ping him through my implants.
I’m back on the MUNI. I swipe my VeriChip at the entrance, the fare deducting from my account, and take the elevator underground. I only wait a minute for the train heading toward downtown, and find a seat in the corner. The train pulls away. I cross my legs as the green glow from the underground algae plants passes by. Everyone looks sickly in this light, and my eyes dart to and fro. I keep rubbing my palms over my knees. Who am I meeting? What have I signed up for?
I get off at the McAllister and Pierce stop and walk the few blocks to the address I’ve been given. It looks like a residential house—one of those sweepingly beautiful, reconstructed Victorian houses, painted in pastel colors. I’ve always admired them, and when I came into a shocking amount of money for my role in the VivaFog, I debated buying one. But Tila scoffed, thought they looked like gingerbread houses, and so I held off. I wonder now why I let her talk me out of it. It didn’t seem important. How many times have I let her decide for me what I really want? Even now, I’m not making my own decisions, not really. This was all started by my sister, without her telling me anything.
I shake my head of the cobwebs of thoughts and climb the stairs, knocking on the door. It swings open on its own. I step in cautiously, a shiver running down my spine. The door closes behind me. Inside, the hallway is empty. No picture frames on the walls, no flowers, no tables strewn with personal items.