False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(83)

It’s a strange echo. It’s the words Kim just said, that I just heard, but from a different viewpoint. It’s the lab from the vantage point of Nazarin’s extra height. I can hear all the sounds of the lab—the ticking of some of the instruments, Kim’s voice, the shuffle of Nazarin’s feet as he explores. He looks at the lab equipment, and it’s like there’s cameras behind both of his eyes. But at the same time, it’s different from an image from an actual camera. Like the difference between Zeal and Verve. It seems more familiar. More intimate. Like I have become him.

Kim turns around, and then I see myself. He looks down on me a little. I look up at him. Even though it’s meant to be just a straight recording, some feelings and thoughts creep in somehow, and I can feel it. I can’t tell what exactly the emotion is …

I look away, and the video ends.

“It’s weird,” Nazarin says. “It’s in my mind with that same clarity. None of my other memories are like that. I remember everything. And when I remember, I get a little headache again. It’s far stronger than the memories assisted with my other implants, and I thought those were good.”

“Yep. That’s why you shouldn’t do it more than you have to. OK, Taema, your turn. Have to make sure it works for you, too,” Kim says.

I dutifully press the hollow of my throat three times. Nothing really changes, except the slightest sharpening of focus, a pressure at my temples, a clenching of nausea in my stomach. It’s not too bad, though. I can ignore it. I circle the room, peering at all of her various collectibles from the previous few centuries. I only recognize a few of them—that one’s Superman, resting an arm on Batman, who looks rather grumpy.

Nazarin and Kim murmur to each other behind me. I turn on the ball of my foot, twirling around, wanting to see the same blur on the wallscreen. It’s a heady feeling, knowing that everything I’m seeing and hearing is permanent. Even if I forget it in the depths of my brain, though evidently that’s unlikely, I could relive it all in perfect detail. Someone else could experience this little slice of my life. Anyone. Even centuries from now, all of this could be gone, but if that file somehow survived, someone could be me for five minutes.

I feel a jolt of weirdness as I recall that Nazarin, with his implants, probably remembers every detail of his encounter with me better than I do. I try not to think about it. If my emotions right now bleed through my perception, what will they think of a flash of panic? I force myself to calm, tapping the hollow of my throat again to turn it off. That same feeling of focus dissipates. My headache and nausea fade.

They play my video. Nazarin glances at me during that surge of emotion. It feels strange, experiencing that same echo again, almost like I’d gone back in time to a few moments ago. How the hell does all that bleed through? It’s disconcerting, for sure.

“Well, it’s a job well done for me,” Kim says, eyes narrowed in satisfaction.

“Thanks, Kim,” Nazarin says. “Really. Thank you.”

She waves a hand. “For you, anything.” Then she pauses. “I want to give you one last thing before you go, Taema. For Ensi.”

“What?” Nazarin asks. Kim doesn’t answer right away, but takes out a box from her pocket and opens it. Inside is a little white strip.

“This will mold around your tooth and harden. I can link it to your brain through a nerve in your gum. If you think a trigger word, then you can bite down and break it.”

“And why would I break it?” I ask.

“It’ll bleed a liquid. It won’t affect you—it’s exempt to your DNA—but it’ll affect Ensi. Kiss him. Dose him. This will do the rest.”

“What is it, Kim?” Nazarin asks, wary.

She doesn’t directly answer him. “You realize what he’ll do to either of you if you’re captured. How he … disposes of those who have particularly displeased him.” Her voice grows thick. “What he probably did to Juliane.”

Nazarin’s lips thin in pain. “Yes.”

“Promise me you’ll do this, Taema.” She looks at me, deep into me. “You’re the only one who can get close enough. Even if you catch him red-handed, he has so many people in his pocket—judges, politicians—that he’ll find another way to weasel out, or ways to hand over the Ratel to his successor without a hitch. Or send out Verve to the whole city, let it tear itself apart. I wouldn’t put it past him. This. This is the real way to get him once and for all.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” I say. “I can’t promise until I understand what it is you want to put in me.”

Kim explains what it will do, and she also explains, in great detail, how Ensi disposes of those who displease him. I very nearly puke on her expensive shag carpet.

We return to the lab. Memories fire in my brain again. They all feature Tila. I have to remember I’m doing this, risking myself, for her.

She’s going to owe me so much when I save her life. She’s going to have to do a lot to make up for all I’ve gone through. As Kim works her magic, I wonder why I’m not angrier at my sister. For all the lies, for what she’s put me through. And though I still don’t fully understand why she decided to go into the Ratel in the first place, I have to believe that she did what she thought was best. For both of us. And I have to finish what she started.