I never bought that, but it’s the endless question of nature versus nurture. Free will versus predestination.
Sudice developed Zeal at first as a virtual reality game in which to act out fantasies. They discovered the extra benefit by accident, that if people acted out violent urges, when they came out, vicious tendencies were dampened. The neural pathways are reworked, suppressing the amygdala, or the prehistoric “lizard” brain we’ve had since we crawled out of the ocean. It worked on those with so-called violent brains, and those without. Overall, people were calmer, happier. Perfect citizens. Zeal lounges became all the rage.
Sometimes I wondered what Mana-ma would have to say about all that.
The first time doing Zeal is a rite of passage, one my sister and I missed. When we tried it later, it was anticlimactic. All the dreams seemed but pale echoes of what we saw during Meditation back at the Hearth, or when we closed our eyes each night.
“The government and Sudice are both terrified of Verve, aren’t they?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“The same drug, but stronger, more powerful, a better high and people wake up not calmer, but angrier. More prone to lash out. San Francisco has peace now, but how peaceful would it be if people weren’t kept dampened by Zeal?”
I wonder if I’m pushing too far, saying that. It sounds critical of the government, his employers. Nazarin only smiles sadly. “I don’t want to find out, do you?”
I don’t say the other thing I’ve wondered, from all the information I’ve brainloaded: what happens if the government gets hold of Verve? Dangerous as it is, it lets people see into others’ dreams remotely. And what if there’s more it can do?
“How did the Ratel develop Verve?” I ask.
“We think it’s Ensi himself who designed it. The genesis is from Zeal. He took it and twisted it somehow. The man is a genius.”
“And where did he come from?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“How deep do the Ratel run?” I ask out loud, more to myself than to Nazarin, but he answers.
“Deep. They’ve got their little tendrils everywhere. Right now, in a way we’re fighting a losing battle. Getting rid of the Ratel completely will likely never happen. What we have to do is have the upper hand, choke off their stronghold before Verve becomes too widespread.”
I understand. “And the easiest way to do that is to get to Ensi. Cut off the head.”
He gives me a sidelong glance. “Exactly. This is the best chance we have.”
A sentence from one of the captured men in my brainloads comes back to me: There are some who don’t agree with Ensi. Some who want him dead. It had seemed obvious to me—of course every organization has those who resent their leaders. The Hearth taught me that. But now I wonder if there’s more. “Unrest?”
“Yeah. That’s my primary goal. I’m seeing who might be thinking of causing trouble and gently encouraging them, but in a way they don’t suspect me as the cause. Division will make it easier to find a chink in their organization. Not easy, let me tell you.”
I rub my temples, the flashing lights of Mirage getting to me. “This keeps getting more and more complicated.”
“That’s how I’ve felt ever since I went undercover. The deeper you go, the crazier everything seems to be.”
“But you’ve still never met Ensi.”
“No. I’m too much of a Knight. There’s an upcoming party they’ve invited me to, though, this weekend. He’s meant to be there. After two years, I might finally meet him.”
“I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help with all of this.”
“To be honest, a lot of it depends on how far Tila has delved into the inner circle. The fact she rose to working in the Verve lounge so quickly is impressive, but it’s difficult to see the bigger picture. Sometimes she seems to be a relatively little fish, despite being a dreamsifter, but other times I suspect she’s almost reached upper management.”
A shiver runs down my spine, and my flesh breaks out into goosebumps. Tila not only involved with the Ratel, but in deep? Without telling me, without asking for my help. Why has she done this in the first place? What does she hope to gain? Money? Tila’s never struck me as greedy, not in that way. What, though, do I really know about her? She’s been living a whole different life. I bite back a sob.
“Let’s go see what this Mia can tell us, if anything,” he says.
“And if she’s plugged in, we have to go in? Instead of waiting for her to come out?” That’s the part that gives me the biggest pause. I don’t want to go into her dreams and see what her deepest, darkest desires are. I had a secondhand view, watching her relapse, and that was awful enough. Zealscapes can be unpredictable—especially, I hear, in these off-grid lounges. For some, they’re almost like the real world. For others, they’re twisted nightmares. I fear Mia’s will be more like the latter.