I have never cared much for fashion. We both experimented when we first arrived in the city, excited by the freedom of being able to choose our own clothes; of not having to make everything and alter the torsos; of wearing different clothes from one another. We had fun peacocking ourselves and dyeing our hair, having moving tattoos inked on our skin, playing with materials of strange textures and cuts. I soon grew bored of it, erasing the tattoos, letting my hair return to its brown corkscrew curls, giving the fancy clothes away and buying things that felt more familiar.
Tila erased all the tattoos but one, a stylized broken heart on her thigh in a Polynesian style (we are part Samoan, as well as black and white), the two pieces not quite connecting. Doesn’t take a psychologist to figure out the symbolism of that. The waxworker gave the same one to me this afternoon, and it twines from my upper thigh down to my knee.
I swallow, tugging the dress down over my hips. It’s a slinky number, the skintight material shimmering purple in one light and midnight blue in another. The boots I wear have thin, faux-leather ribbons that wrap around my legs until they reach where the tattoo begins. I’ve rubbed lotion with small gold specks all over my legs and arms (the tattoo is already completely healed, along with my face; the marvels of modern medicine), and my limbs glow.
My hair is gone, chopped short, the texture changed from curly to straight and the color to bright blue. They’ve mapped the color to my genes, so I don’t have to worry about roots. My nose is shorter and wider, and turns up at the end. My cheekbones are slightly higher, my lips a little fuller, my chin a little pointier. It’s subtle, very subtle, but I don’t like it. It makes me more conventionally pretty, and more anonymous in this city of perfect faces.
I paint my lips dark purple and outline my eyes in blue. I tip the ends of my eyelashes with silver dust. I have dressed like midnight to go to Zenith. That’s me in the mirror, but I can’t see myself. Tila looks back at me, but it blurs. Tila. Me. Someone in between. A stranger. I turn away from the reflection.
I slip on a coat and leave the safe house, the door snapping shut behind me. I take the MUNI, like Tila would have. As I enter the station, in the corner of my vision I see Tila’s name and the amount of the fare deducted from her account. It’s true. I am officially my sister.
I step on the train and it takes off. I stare at the strangers, lit green by the algae of the tunnels. I feel like people are watching me, but perhaps it is merely because I am showing more leg than I usually do, and humans are biologically programmed to stare at bare flesh.
I’m nervous about meeting the owner, Sal, and Leylani. I fear what they will say, what I might find out. I fear I will disappoint Nazarin and be a poor undercover agent. More than that, I fear I will fail to find out what they need to know to free Tila, and she will go into stasis. Or worse, that I’ll find out things about her that I’ll never be able to forget or forgive. This is the point of no return. For both of us.
I leave at the correct stop and walk along Montgomery Street, the mica in the sidewalk sparkling.
I feel very alone as I look up at the TransAm Pyramid dwarfing the surrounding buildings. It was rebuilt a century ago, based on the original Transamerica Pyramid but twice the size, all glass and quartz-concrete. Evidently in the foundations, echoing the original, there are thousands of dollars’ worth of credit chips instead of coins, thrown in for good luck as the concrete was poured over it. I hope I can take a bit of the luck, though evidently it didn’t work for my sister.
I take a deep breath and enter the lobby, nodding at the doormen before making my way to the glass elevator.
I have to let Taema fall away again. I have to become Tila.
I’m alone in the elevator—most of the other hosts and hostesses won’t arrive until later. I rise above San Francisco, staring down at the sparkling lights in the growing darkness.
“Hey, Echo,” the hostess at reception greets me. Too brightly. I fight the urge to narrow my eyes. Does she know? Does everyone know what actually happened in the back room three nights ago? Are they all being bribed a king’s ransom to keep quiet, or did the SFPD really manage to keep it under the radar?
I nod to her, and the brainload intel tells me her nickname is Pallua. All the hostesses choose nicknames. Psychological distancing, I guess. I was touched when I found out Tila’s was Echo. Now I’m the echo, a thin replica of Tila. Even my serviceable walk in heels is different from her feline prowl.
Through my VeriChip I’m able to bring up Tila’s employee file, but Nazarin had the owner expand my access. I bring up internal communications from the club over the last few days into my ocular implant overlay. Since the incident, nobody’s used the back room where the crime scene was. Everyone’s been told that a high roller’s rented it out for a long, exclusive Zeal trip.