I stand, slamming the chair back into the wall as I point to the door. “Out.”
She doesn’t rise or even jump, simply fishes in her pocket and pulls out a small datadisc. Holds it out over Yonni’s chest, dangled between loose red nails.
I grab her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Rewriting the grid,” she says and lets the disc fall.
I open my eyes. Above, the white ceiling cracks from corner to corner, connecting the stained tiles. Soft light filters through the window.
Yonni’s bedroom. Mine now.
I sit up, rub my head to smear the words. It didn’t happen that way. Nothing happened that way.
Except the glass bed, which became a casket when the treatment failed. I can still feel it, the sterile room’s stuffy air, the sweet metallic under my tongue.
Snores filter through the door to the living room. Dad passed out maybe five minutes after I dumped him on the couch. Didn’t move all day or all night, it sounds like.
I hug my arms and check the small digiclock on the bedside stand. Just after seven.
The Enactment Office wanted me there by eight. If I don’t show, they might send people. Those people might see Dad.
And pass along the info to the Records Officials.
Hell.
I bolt for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, I’m dripping, dressed, and beside the couch. I touch Dad’s shoulder, but he doesn’t move. I shake him.
“Mmmhmm,” he mumbles.
“There’s Berrimix in the cabinet, some milk, and some juice. Use the bathroom over there.” I point to the door opposite the bedroom’s. “If you go into my room, I’ll kill you.”
He flaps a hand at me and snuggles deeper into the couch.
I scan the suite. No spare keypasses or money lying around, no trinkets worth pawning. I scrabble into my shoes and run out the door.
“Ms. Franks.” An older woman in a deep blue suit materializes at my elbow before I can follow the revolving door back outside.
The skytower lobby stretches in windows and reflections. Mirrored floor and ceiling tiles refracting an infinite number of Kits, all stepping in unison. I face front, but they crowd my peripheral until I’m a feedshow of jitters.
The woman walks us past the central oval desk to the lone door beyond. The desk sentry doesn’t look up from his digislate, but I’d bet a week’s worth of reds he’s counting my steps in the mirrors.
At least I’m not into skirts, else he’d have something to see.
The woman flattens her hand against the lone silver door and the circuits underneath blossom into threads of light. The door splits down the middle. She gestures me into a flat gray hall. “Thank you for your prompt arrival. We appreciate punctuality.”
I was five minutes late.
“Anytime,” I say.
Our strides sync, and I keep my eyes on the floor. It’s also silver, no mirrors or seams. No seams in my companion, either, her suit a second skin. Probably custom made. Lordling attire. Or maybe Investigative Enactors get paid more than their City counterparts.
The woman stops midway to nowhere in front of a door that looks exactly like all the others. Her palm presses its center, and it opens on a blank white room with a table, two chairs, and nothing else. Smooth walls, smooth floor, smooth ceiling.
“Have a seat,” she says.
I step inside and something whooshes behind me, almost a breeze. I turn. The door’s closed. More than that, it’s gone. I spread my hands over the wall, but there’s nothing. No telltale seams scrape my fingers, no subsurface circuits light up. The entry wall remains as blank as the other three.
I’m trapped in a box in the Investigative Enactment Office and no one knows I’m here.
I knock my forehead against the wall. It’s cool, smooth, and full of eyes. I can feel them, every last camera I can’t see.
Just like I can’t see the door.
I push off the wall and sink into a chair like a good little detainee. Fold my nonthreatening hands on the empty table and let the seconds tick into minutes. Lots of minutes.
No one comes.
Which means I’m somebody’s latest sideshow. I drum my fingers against my wrist to give them something to see.
Yonni would always tap her fingers while waiting. Given half a second of downtime, she’d be sounding out the rhythm of some old song against doorframes or countertops. By contrast Mom’s hands were always still as stone.
The tapping must get someone’s attention. The wall cracks open and a man steps through. Brown hair, sharp eyes, broad shoulders. He’s reassurance and rough grace, sleek but not too sleek. Familiar somehow—he carries himself like Dad does, when Dad’s sober and on his game—but that’s not it. Not the right correlation. But he reminds me of someone.
“Ms. Franks,” he says.
“Present,” I say.
The door slides shut.
He takes the chair opposite. I straighten and drop my hands to my lap. The room’s general whiteness washes out his skin. His blue-black suit overcompensates, gives him form.
The man takes my measure and doesn’t comment, not even with his eyes. “Tell me about the Accounting.”
Have you ever seen the future, Kit?