I blink my eyes open. No point in pretending now.
Hannah Vale is even more striking close-up. She has discarded her jacket, wearing fitted athletic clothes not unlike mine. Her gloves remain in place—presumably so she won’t leave fingerprints.
“Nice to finally meet you,” she says. She releases my chin and steps back, her arms loose at her sides. “Your tattoo claims you are Augusta Pine, age eighteen. But beyond that… there’s no history. No records. No nothing. Almost like a… a ghost.” The barest hint of a smile touches her lips.
She knows what I am.
“I did some work for the government,” she says. “White hat hacking. Those firewalls that protect ISD—I tested them myself. So I know how the division works. Send in someone that looks harmless… someone no one will suspect.” Her eyes glitter. “Who are you?”
“No one,” I reply. “You know that.”
Every time I go undercover, ISD manufactures a new backstory for me. The tattoo that proclaims me Augusta Pine is unchangeable—but birth certificates, job histories, addresses, and life stories can be altered. I have been Augusta Pine the plumber, the student, the prison inmate, the intern, the dog walker, the stepdaughter, and the gigworker. But between missions… I am no one. I have no past and no future.
She shakes her head. “No. You were someone, before all of this. Would you care to tell me?”
“Only if you answer a question for me,” I say. “Where do you buy your mascara?”
She blinks. “What?”
“It hasn’t budged an inch,” I say. “After a hard afternoon of terrorizing, murdering, and hostage-taking, that’s kind of impressive.”
She smiles at me. It is the kind of smile that makes normal people turn and run.
“You’re a talker,” she says. “Good. That’ll prove useful.”
I roll my eyes at her. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”
Her smile widens. Then she reaches down and tweaks my nose. Mybrokennose.
I hiss and flinch back, trying to escape the lightning flash of agony.
“Ow,” I say, once I can speak again.
She squats down in front of my chair. “Now, let me guess who you are. You did something bad, but your IQ is just this side of genius, so ISD scooped you up before you could be prosecuted. Then they stopped your heart long enough to deactivate your tattoo, promised you a second chance, and then put you here?”
“Is this where your recruitment speech begins?” I roll my eyes. “Because Bud tried that. That whole ‘climate change is being weaponized against the common person’thing. Which I agree with, by the way. What I don’t agree with is your solution of killing the people you claim to care about.”
“Oh, no,” says Vale. “I’m not going to try to recruit you.”
That stops me cold. “What? Why?”
“For one thing, I’ve been in your company for less than a minute and already don’t like you.”
“Rude.”
“And for another,” continues Vale, “you’d never join me.”
“Well, that’s true,” I say. Then I frown at her. “How do you know that?”
She flicks her fingers at me, gesturing from my toes to my smart-dyed hair. “Look at you. The feds have had you for too long. You’re one of them now.”
For the first time, I feel a little offended. “I amnot.”
“You are,” she says.
I don’t know why I’m defending myself to her, but something in her tone sparks my anger. “The only reason I joined them was to get back to my family.”
She gives me a pitying half smile. “Oh, I’m sure that’s what you tell yourself. ‘I’m just in this for my family,’ ‘I’d never do anything terrible because they told me to,’ ‘I’m free.’” She leans closer. “Lies. All of them. Perhaps you even believe them, but they are lies. You’ll never go back to your family.”
