I can’t have my answers right away. Nazarin has been called back to the Ratel, and they’re still performing the autopsy report. We’ve returned to the gingerbread safe house, and I’m alone for most of the day. I work out and practice the fight sequences that I’ve brainloaded. I order a lonely meal from the replicator, barely tasting it. I take a long shower, turning the water up as hot as I can bear, staring at my toes. First, I try to read, then I try to watch something on the wallscreen, but I take nothing in. I end up wandering the empty rooms, staring blankly into space, numb.
Mia is gone. The woman who took me and my sister in. The woman who helped us navigate our brave new world of San Francisco. She was flawed, she was deeply troubled, but she loved us, and we loved her. Now she’s gone. I wonder if they told Tila, and what she’s thinking, wherever she is.
When Nazarin returns, late that night, he has the autopsy report. He lays the tablet on the kitchen table and we perch next to each other on stools. We still haven’t talked properly about what happened, but I don’t want to anymore.
“They warned me it’s inconclusive,” he tells me. “They’re not going to incinerate her right away.”
I jerk my shoulders up at that. I can’t stand the thought of her turned into nothing but ash.
“Sorry. I’ve been told I can be insensitive in times of loss. When I had a partner, she was usually the one to break any news like this.”
“Yeah, you’re not being remotely comforting here. Why don’t you have a partner anymore?” I can’t believe it’s never occurred to me to ask. I also don’t want to look at the autopsy report just yet, so I’m stalling.
“She died. Not long before I went undercover. Right now, you’re the closest to a partner I have.” He looks away from me, but there’s a tension in his muscles that wasn’t there a moment before.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Were you two … close?”
He raises an eyebrow. “We weren’t fucking, if that’s what you mean.”
I don’t react, though of course, his words make me think about him without his clothes. It’s a nice mental image.
“She was actually married to Dr. Mata,” he continues. “That’s how I met Kim. But yeah, we were close. And she was a damn good detective. We cracked a lot of cases together. Put a lot of bastards away. One got away and killed her.”
“Did you catch him?”
“Nah. Asshole got away with it. I ever find out who did it … they won’t make it to prison.” He works his jaw, hesitating, as if deciding whether or not to tell me what’s on his mind. “I’m pretty sure it was the Ratel.”
Was that why he went undercover? “If they hurt your partner, wouldn’t they then know who you were?”
“You’re not the only one wearing a false face and using a false name,” he says.
I wonder what he used to look like. What his real name is. I’m not sure he’d tell me, so instead I ask: “What was her name?”
He closes his eyes. “Juliane. Juliane Amello.”
“Pretty name.” I raise my coffee cup, and he taps his with mine. “In memory of Juliane.”
He smiles at my sentimentality, and drinks. “We’re toasting with the wrong stuff.”
“Can you stand the thought of more SynthGin or SynthTequila?”
He grimaces, and I laugh. I sober when he glances down at the tablet again. I don’t want to see a hollow re-creation of Mia. I don’t want to remember the way she was in the Vervescape. I don’t want to think about how she might have screwed Tila and me over. I want to preserve her in my mind as the woman she was when we were sixteen and scared, and she protected us.
“Did you find out anything about Mirage?” I ask, stalling further.
“Yeah. I think we’re OK. Another Knight told me Mirage was a bust for recording dreams, too, and that the King and Queen were annoyed. They’ve only managed to do it in small batches, with one or two people, and they want to do it with more people at once.”
“How many more?”
Nazarin sighs. “As many as possible. Get them hooked, get them buying straight from them. Money and information flows toward the Ratel. The Ratel becomes the true power in San Francisco.”
Hence why the government and Sudice have to squash them before they can’t any longer. What would San Francisco be like, if we were all under Ratel control? Even less privacy than now, if not even our dreams were our own.
“Still terrifying that the Ratel are using Zealots as experimental subjects. Have any died from Verve?”
“Plenty.”
“Why isn’t the government doing more? Surely they could do something to protect them?”
Nazarin’s face is impassive. “In this case, it means the government can watch what they’re doing. If the Ratel realizes the government knows, then they’ll do something more underground. Maybe take people to experiment on. Zealots are expendable.” His mouth tightens.
Expendable. Like Mia.
“They’re both as bad as each other in some ways, aren’t they?” I say, my stomach roiling. Am I really on the right side? Is there a right side in all of this?
“Be careful what you say,” Nazarin says, leaning close to me.
I rest my head in my hands. I want to leave all of this. I want to give up. Everything is too muddled, too confusing; but if I give up, then Tila goes into stasis.
“You ready?” he asks.