“I never said it was perfect,” he replied.
Prefect reached into his pocket and withdrew two square slips of plastic. The harsh light gleamed on silver ink. They were tattoo templates, I realized. For biometric identity tattoos. The electron-ink was special—powered by one’s pulse and rigidly controlled by the government to prevent identity theft.
“Your heart stopped in the ambulance,” said Prefect. “Your rescuers performed CPR on you most of the way to the hospital. Your tattoo went dark.”
I looked down at my left hand. Sure enough, the skin was… empty. It looked strange without the barcode of silver lines. I’d been inked since elementary school. “So?” I said.
“You get a choice,” said Prefect. He held up his right hand, gesturing with the first plastic square. “This is you. Your name, your social security number, your school records, your vaccinations, your family history. You choose this square and you’ll be reinked. I’ll leave and your family will be brought in. Then, you’ll be arrested. You’ll go through arraignment, a trial, or a decent plea deal if your family can afford better than Lawyerbot.” He cleared his throat. “But make no mistake—you are guilty. And in this state, you’re old enough to be tried as an adult. You’ll get twenty years at the minimum.”
I blinked slowly, fighting through the haze of drugs and pain. “Not really hearing a choice yet.”
He gave the second square a flick with his left hand. “This is a different name. A different life. If you take it, your family will be informed that you are dead. You will have absolutely no contact with them. You cannot say goodbye. And then you will come and work for me.”
I tilted my head, trying to get a better look at him. “You’re offering me a job?”
“Not a job,” he said. “More like… accelerated community service. Ten years of it.”
Even at fifteen, I wasn’t wholly ignorant of the world. One didn’t recruit criminals to sell cookies. “I’ll be doing bad things, won’t I?”
“Not bad,” said Prefect. “Morally questionable, perhaps.”
“Dangerous?”
“Undoubtedly.”
I snorted—and a flare of agony went through my throat. Everything about me felt raw as an exposed nerve.
“You’ll be working for the Identity Security Division,” he said. “We investigate identity theft, fraud, and other assorted crimes. We hunt criminals with criminals. Sometimes we walk the line of legality. If you ever get caught, we’ll disavow any knowledge of you.”
This could not be happening. Some childish part of me wanted to roll over, to pull the pillow over my head and wait for my mom to wake me in the morning.
“So it’s twenty years in prison or ten years with you?” I said. “That’s not much of a choice.”
Prefect leaned forward. There was a fierce intensity to his eyes, even as his voice was carefully uninflected. “I’m offering you something that a court and a judge and a prison sentence can’t.”
I made no effort to hide my skepticism. “And what’s that?”
The corners of Prefect’s mouth curved into a thin smile.
“A second chance.”
ACCESSING ARCHIVE
[LOADING FILES]
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FILE RETRIEVED
IDENTITY SECURITY DIVISION
