False Hearts (2 page)

She doesn’t answer, keeping her head bowed.

He steps forward and grabs her upper arms. For a second, I fear she’s going to resist and try to run for it, but then she goes limp.

“What’s going on here?” I ask. “She says she hasn’t done it, whatever you’re after her for.”

They ignore me. Gold Tattoo says, “Tila Collins, you are under arrest for murder in the first degree. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

When was the last time he had to read anyone their Miranda rights?

Gold Tattoo pulls Tila from my grasp. My hands fall useless at my sides. Tila tilts her head up at him and spits in his face.

Gold Tattoo wipes the spittle away, expressionless.

The wind leaves my lungs as the full implications sink in. Murder. There hasn’t been a murder by a civilian in San Francisco in years. Not since Pacifica was formed after the United States fractured forty years ago. Not since VeriChips and implants and cameras on every corner.

“Tila?” I ask as Gold Tattoo marches her back to the hovercar, handing her over to Curly Hair. I sound forlorn, lost.

She throws a pleading glance over her shoulder as they push her inside. “Taema!”

Within moments, they are all gone save Gold Tattoo. He towers over me, but he looks so young. He might not be, with flesh parlors everywhere, but it’s hard to find him terrifying when it looks like he only learned how to shave yesterday.

A sob lodges in my throat. It’s all I can do not to break into pieces in front of this man. One moment, I was annoyed that dinner was growing cold, and now my apartment is a mess and my sister is accused of murder. I can’t wrap my head around the word.
Murder
. It’s Tila. My sister. I know her better than I know myself.

Don’t I?

“Miss Collins?” There might be a hint of concern behind the brusque tone. He’s close enough that I can make out his tattoo: a California grizzly bear.

I find my voice. “My sister’s just been taken for murder. How do you think I feel?”

He has no answer to that. Within moments, the sirens blare again as they take my sister away from me.

“Who’s she meant to have murdered?” I ask, my voice tight. That word again. It’s ugly.

“A body of a man was found at Zenith under suspicious circumstances. I can’t say anything more.”

My hands ball into fists. Gold Tattoo notices the movement, his hand resting on his gun. My lungs burn from holding in the sobs.

He pauses. I realize why he’s stayed behind.

“I’m to go in for questioning too? Why didn’t you take me with Tila?”

He shifts slightly. “Yes, Miss Collins. We’re to take you in as a precaution. You’ll be going to the station. Your sister is being taken elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

I fold over, trying to take in deep breaths but still hyperventilating.

“Miss Collins.”

I hold up a hand. I think of the Hearth, how Mana-ma taught us to control our emotions.
Let the darkness float away. Let in only the light.
I imagine the chapel on the hill at the center of the town, the five-pointed symbol carved on its side, the bird-calls that floated through the open windows on a spring day. Despite my hatred of her, her techniques work.

I stand up, smoothing my features, shaking my head a little from side to side. “Yes. We have the same DNA. You’ll want to make sure
I
didn’t do it.”

He says nothing.

“Am I under arrest?”

“No. You’re being detained for questioning. Please grab your things, Miss Collins.”

I look around at my apartment. The wet footprints all over the carpet. The shining bits of glass. The food cold on the table, the plates laid out for a meal we will never eat.

I grab my coat and purse.

As he leads me down the stairs, curiosity seems to get the better of him. “I shouldn’t ask, but do you really think she didn’t do it?”

I pause. I still think he’s been waxworked—he’s too highly ranked to be any younger than late thirties—but his eyes aren’t quite as jaded as a lot of older people masquerading in younger bodies.

My hand snakes toward my sternum again, pressing against the faint seam where they unzipped me and Tila and took us apart a decade ago. Underneath, my mechanical heart beats, beats, beats.

“I know my twin better than anyone else. If she says she didn’t do it, then she didn’t.”

I’m sure I believe it.

Ninety-nine percent sure.

TWO

TAEMA

Officer Oloyu, or Gold Tattoo, is all business when we reach the San Francisco Police Headquarters. He has become hard—perhaps on the silent hovercar trip he’s changed his mind and decided I must be as guilty as my sister. Or the question in the hallway was an act, and he decided he wouldn’t catch the fly with honey. He gazes down at the blank tablet, little more than a white piece of plastic to focus the eyes as he accesses his ocular implant for my file.

He hovers close, almost touching, knowing that it will make me defensive and on edge. Then he strolls to his side of the table, perching on the chair, legs spread wide.

He’s offered me a coffee, but it sits in front of me, an oily sheen on top from the artificial creamer, untouched and growing cold. My mouth is dry. All I can think of is Tila. Where have they taken her? What’s going through her mind?

Oloyu is the only one in the room. Aren’t there usually two, a good cop and a bad one? Granted, all I have to go on is old cop shows they play late at night on the wallscreen.

Oloyu stares at me, unblinking. I can’t decide whether or not to be intimidated by him. His splayed body language is aggressive, and it’s working—I feel like prey being stalked. Yet his features are still so young, honest and symmetrical. If he really wants to be more frightening in situations like these, perhaps he should make another visit to the flesh parlor.

“When’s the last time you saw your sister?” Oloyu asks.

“Almost a week ago,” I answer, keeping my voice flat to stop it quavering. I’m also embarrassed to realize it’s been that long. I’d invited her over for dinner twice, but she’d claimed she was working both times. I don’t have anything to hide, yet I still feel like this is a test I could pass or fail, depending on my answers. Or that I could accidentally incriminate my sister.

How could you incriminate her?
I ask myself.
She couldn’t have done anything. Right?

“And where do you work?”

I swallow. This is all in my file from when he scanned the VeriChip in my wrist. “Silvercloud Solutions.”

Officer Oloyu makes a show of perusing my file on his blank, white tablet. “That’s a subset of Sudice, right?”

“Yes.” I don’t know why he’s pretending he doesn’t know. Sudice is the biggest company in Pacifica, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Honolulu. They supply the drug Zeal to all Pacifica states, and have most tech in the city patented.

“It says here you helped design the VivaFog.” Those machines have been my life’s work for the past five years: the machines that take energy from the ever-present fog around the bay and relay it to the coastal apartments. We’re going to try and expand to the maritime district this year.

“I was one of the team that did, yes,” I respond. Why isn’t he asking the questions he really wants the answer to? Beneath the table, I press my knees hard to stop them knocking together.

Officer Oloyu isn’t saying anything out of order, but everything in his body language screams:
I suspect you, either of murder or accessory to it.
I wish I still had that microexpression overlay downloaded to my ocular implants, but I deleted it months ago. I didn’t like what it told me about people.

“That’s impressive,” Officer Oloyu says. I’m not sure whether or not I sense the underlying subtext I often do from people who know my past:
for someone who grew up in the cult of Mana’s Hearth.

“Thank you,” I tell him, meeting his eyes.

“We contacted your employer, but it seems you quit your job today and have plans to leave the country.”

“Yes, that’s correct. That’s been in the works for months. It’s not a sudden decision.” I feel a flutter of nerves, deep in my stomach. It’s a coincidence, but it doesn’t look good.

“We’re unclear if this is premeditated or a crime of passion.”

“I had nothing to do with
this
. Whatever
this
is. And I’m sure my sister didn’t, either.”

He pauses, considering me. The overhead lighting leaves half his face in shadow. I look down at my stone-cold coffee. I want water, but I don’t ask him for it.

“Did your sister seem different at all, the last time you saw her? Distressed in any way?”

“No. She seemed the same as usual. Laughing, joking. We went to an Ethiopian restaurant in the Mission.”

His gaze goes distant as he makes a mental note with his implants.

This is my first lie to the police. She seemed thinner, she didn’t laugh. She picked at her food, when usually Tila has a voracious appetite. I kept asking her what was wrong, but she said she’d just been working too many late nights at the club. The lie fell from my mouth before I thought about it, and I can’t take it back.

They’ve mapped my brain to see if I’m lying. A model floats above our heads, delicate and transparent, dotted with neuron clusters like stars. Oloyu glances up to check. Between my mechanical heart not growing as excited as a flesh one and my Hearth training, nothing happens. I could lie with impunity. If they map Tila, she can too.

“So nothing unusual over the last few weeks? No signs she was keeping anything from you? You two must be close.” Again, I can hear from his tone what he really means:
close enough that if one of you did it, the other would know about it
.

“Closer than you can ever imagine,” I say, my voice sharpening with fear. I don’t want him to see he’s struck a nerve, but by the flint of his eyes, he knows he has. I decide I’m not going to let him scare me, even if terror still rolls in my stomach. Even though I hate the Hearth and all it stands for, another one of Mana-ma’s sayings comes to me:
They only have power over you if you let them
.

“Does your sister have any enemies?” Oloyu leans forward. I can’t stand anyone that close to me unless it’s Tila or someone I know extremely well. But I lean forward on my elbows, right in his face, ignoring the mirrored window behind him and whoever watches me through it. I’m still scared, but I haven’t let it paralyze me.

“Everyone
loves
Tila. She can go buy food and make a new friend.” That’s true. If we take a shuttle somewhere for a holiday, I read, ignoring those around me. Tila will become fast friends with whoever is sitting next to her: an old man with a white beard, a new mother and her squalling baby, and once a Buddhist monk in his saffron robes.

She can make enemies as well: people who don’t like her because of her blithe way of speaking, her easy enthusiasm. I’m sure there are probably a few other hostesses at the club who are jealous of her. She can charm clients with a half-lidded glance and she often crows to me about how she receives the lion’s share of the tips. Tila seems to know what it is each person wants and reflects that back to them, flirting by acting like one of the ribald men as easily as playing the coquettish minx. Heaven knows where she’s learned all that. I sure haven’t.

“Nobody at all?” Officer Oloyu presses.

I shake my head. “None that come to mind, no. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.” I’m not sorry I haven’t given them anything to incriminate my sister. Or at least I hope I haven’t.

He presses his lips together. “Now then. The question you must be expecting: where were you at 1700 hours this evening?”

“On the way home from work on the MUNI.” My voice has stopped shaking, and I feel as though I’m no longer attached to my body. That I’m just a floating head. I have taken full control of my emotions, like Mana-ma always taught us to do in the Hearth.

“Which line do you take?”

“Clement Lot.”

“You do understand we’ll be checking the cameras.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

Officer Oloyu narrows his eyes. At first, he thought he had me. Now, he thinks I’m being secretive, and he’s right. But there’s not much more he can do without concrete proof, and I’m not giving him anything. Even if there was anything to give.

“Can I have any details of the case, or is it all confidential?” I ask. “Maybe if I understand what’s happened I can think of someone who might wish to harm my sister. Whose body did they find? Was it a guest of the club?” I’m desperate for more information. Anything to help piece together what happened tonight. Murder. The word keeps pulsing through my mind, until it doesn’t even seem like a word anymore.

“We can’t name the victim,” Officer Oloyu says. The unspoken:
not to you
.

Thanks for nothing
. “Right. Well, if you can’t tell me anything, and I have nothing to tell you, is there anything else you need? Or can I go home and clean up the mess you made of my apartment?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone, Miss Collins,” Oloyu says. “You don’t seem overly upset by tonight’s events.”

Fuck you
, I want to say.
You don’t have the first clue how I’m feeling
. Instead, I look at him calmly. “Am I free to go?”

“For now.”

“Good.” I stand and clutch my purse, and then I bend down and look him in the eye. I’m pleased to see him move back slightly. “I’m not upset because I’m sure she’s as much of a victim in this as whoever died tonight.” I lean back and pull my collar down. It’s a good way to unnerve others. In San Francisco, where everyone has made such an effort to appear flawless, nobody likes to see such obvious signs of imperfection. Tila taught me the trick. For all she changed her face and hair to not look like me, she kept the scar.

Oloyu looks at the scar with a mixture of fascination and embarrassment.

“You can’t spend sixteen years with someone,
every
minute of
every
day, and not know if they’re capable of murder or not. I’ll do
whatever
it takes to clear her name.” I push my collar up and walk out. His eyes on my back make the hairs on my neck prickle.