False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(96)

“Reborn,” Malka says, and her face twists into that chill smile I saw just before she killed a girl with a sword.

They rest foreheads together again.

I come out of the memory like I’m coming up for air. Nazarin and I gape at each other, but there’s no time to speak before we collide with other memories. I experience more of the fractured life of Ensi. From the shards, I piece together more of the picture. Ensi is almost sixty, which must be Mana-ma’s age as well. She looks younger, but it could be genetics rather than a hypocritical visit to a flesh parlor in the city.

Ensi left the Hearth with Mana-ma’s blessing, coming to San Francisco with the plan they had stitched together. He was found on the streets and given a VeriChip and a place in a home for youth, choosing the name Veli Carrera. Seeing his obvious interest in science, the home encouraged him to brainload, and he did so well, he soon had a degree. He researched local scientists and decided Mantel would be his mentor, and he found a way to come to his attention.

He thrived, and Mantel helped him flourish. Mantel had no son, but a few years later, one arrived. The CEO of Sudice still treated “Veli Carrera” as a son, and when Veli earned it, Mantel passed the company to him rather than to his biological son.

Memories of the lab, of using the mushrooms Mana-ma sent from the Hearth to distill and create Zeal. Brainloading more information than it seems he can bear, shuddering at the feeling of electrodes and wires against his skin, so different from the simple ways of the Hearth. He wouldn’t have done it, he couldn’t have done it, if he hadn’t loved Mana-ma so deeply.

Throughout all the memories is the stink of the swamp, the threat of things swimming beneath the surface.

Ensi, as Carrera, was there through the run-out of Zeal, but as new product after new product was shot down by the government, he grew increasingly annoyed. His and Mana-ma’s plan was delayed. Zeal kept the crime low, which kept the city happy enough. Ensi did not share his ideas for another drug, one that could change personalities to make citizens more tractable.

Then Ensi lost it all. Mantel’s son ousted him. Ensi was cut loose, and he was making new plans when he discovered that Mantel’s son’s hatred ran deep enough for murder. I saw fragments of him killing the hitman sent to find him, hiding in the streets, the many surgeries in back-end flesh parlors, and then deciding to enter the very group hired to kill him. He started as the lowest Pawn, but strategy had been drilled into him since he was young.

I hate experiencing what he did to become head of the Ratel. He killed so many people through his favorite method: torture by dreams. He experimented on Zeal until it split and became the drug he truly wanted: Verve. I have to live through those pockets of horror and pain: the fate I would be experiencing right now, if not for Kim and her code. A fate I might still face. Where is the real Ensi? I feel him in here, somewhere.

We’ve reached the end of the memories. We have passed through the swamp, and up ahead is the Hearth. He never left it, not truly. It’s always in his head, too. I remember Mia tapping her temple. None of us ever truly left, did we?

Nazarin and I reach the end of the muck, climbing out and setting foot on solid ground.

It’s a short walk to the town. It’s similar to how I remember it, though there are fewer houses, as the Brother left decades before my sister and I did. It even smells the same, like redwoods, earth, the sulfur of the swamp, the chimney smoke from the houses.

“Where is this?” Nazarin asks.

“Home,” I say, not sure if the answer is truth or a lie.

The green mist thins, wisping around our ankles. I catch Nazarin’s hand. It feels like I’m really touching him, even though in reality he’s a few feet away from me, strapped to his Chair. But my brain sends an impulse, and so Nazarin’s skin seems warm.

The brain is so very capable of lying to itself.

We walk through the pathways, the sky still the same twilight. Most of the flowers in the gardens are closed, their little heads nodded in sleep.

“It’s peaceful,” Nazarin says. “This is very strange.”

“It’s his fortress,” I reply. “The quietest corner of the mind. He created it in the image of the Hearth. Perhaps he knows something’s wrong with the code.”

“So he’s come here to hide.”

“I think so.”

“Where?”

I think of the memory where he felt safest. “The chapel.”

We turn a corner of a path, and there it is. It’s an innocuous building, made of wood and painted white. My memories of the place blend with Ensi’s. We spent so many hours within its interior growing up. So many hours of Confession, of sermons, singing and whispering and praying. I once loved going into that building. Tila was always more suspicious than me of Mana-ma and the whole Hearth’s creed. For most of my young life, though, I was a believer.

The illusion around us is cracking. The acrid smell of the swamp returns despite the fact it’s no longer in sight, the green fog thicker. Fractal swirls of black mar the clear blue sky of early morning. The atmosphere is no longer peaceful, but expectant. The Hearth is abandoned, but I swear the place is holding its breath.

A light flickers in the chapel. We walk up the steps, lined with smooth, white stones. To either side of the path, the world continues to crumble, the images glimmering at the corner of my vision. The doors loom before us. Nazarin reaches forward and pulls them open.