Officer Oloyu follows me from the interrogation room to the hovercar, and we rise and fly along the coast of the bay toward my apartment in Inner Sunset. The last thing I want to do is see more of him, and I wonder why a senior policeman is taking the time to chauffeur me back instead of some rookie. I haven’t seen any other police officers except for the two who took Tila away—it’s almost as if they don’t want anyone else to see me.

I ignore Oloyu and stare out the window. It’s full night by now, and San Francisco glitters below us. The sight of it helps me forget my anxiety and terror, at least for a moment.

I love this city. It’s the complete opposite of Mana’s Hearth. In the Hearth, the lake is ink-black at night. In San Francisco, the algae farms make the bay glow green. To my right is Angel Island, and the ruined Alcatraz, the building too decayed by the salt and wind to visit, and the man-made islands where the rich live in their sumptuous houses. The Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge lead toward the city skyline. Billboards advertising Sudice products flash their garish colors: implant upgrades, a new Zeal lounge downtown, the virtual reality center next to Union Square Mall. The car passes between buildings: greenhouse skyscrapers with their lush, forest-like interiors, multi-level apartment towers, most of the windows lit, small silhouettes staring out the windows toward the bay.

Scattered throughout the city are revenants risen from the Earth after the Great Quake of 2055—antiquities of architecture preserved and joined with their modern counterparts in a hybrid of old and new: Coit Tower, the skyscrapers on California Street and near the Embarcadero, the old iconic Ferry Building at the base of the newly built air hangars above and the piers jutting out into the gentle waves of the bay. And there, just coming into sight, the TransAm Pyramid, twice as large as the old Transamerica Pyramid. I can’t look away from the glowing top floor, home to Club Zenith.

San Francisco.

Our new home after we’d left the Hearth. At first, we’d hated it. It was too different, too new, and we’d had to learn about its ways while struggling with our newly separated status. Eventually, we’d grown to love it. The freedom it gave us. The opportunities. Now, I fear I’ll grow to hate it again.

Officer Oloyu clears his throat. I turn to him, trying to bring something approximating a smile to my face, but it fails.

“I’ll tell you a little about the case,” he says, grudgingly. “I’ve been given the go-ahead by my superior.”

Why the change? “All right,” I say, slowly. The flashing lights of the city play across his face, catching in his eyes.

“You are not permitted to share this information with anyone. Understood?”

“Yes.”