I’m not afraid of the actual trial. I just have to stand there and stare straight ahead. I can pretend I’m somewhere else. They’re still not letting the media in on it, so I won’t be livestreamed into almost every home and head in San Francisco. I guess that’s something. I’ll still be recorded. At some point, they’ll let it out. The whole world will see me, a murderess in a city that prides itself on murder being a thing of the past. Never mind that murder happens in this city all the time, just quiet and unseen. The Zealots. The Ratel. The Ratel’s victims. So many deaths.

I’m not afraid of the trial. I’m afraid of what happens after.

I keep looking at my hands. All the whorls and wrinkles in them. The almost-invisible bump of the VeriChip, just to the right of the vein under the skin of my wrist, like blue lightning. I have a mole in the crook of my elbow. Taema has one there, too. I keep looking at these little details that make me Tila because I realize that soon, they’ll all be frozen in time. The blood won’t pump through my veins anymore—it’ll be all congealed and disgusting. My fingers will lie still. My skin will turn gray. And then, if the power of that wing fails and defrosts us—a few days after they freeze me, a few years, it’s all the same—they’ll burn up the dead corpse into nothing. My bones, my skin, my brain, everything will be gone. I’ll just be dust.

Right now there are two of us, but soon there’ll only be one. Taema will probably be better off without me, but I can’t help thinking she’ll also be all alone.

*   *   *

The supply ship came for its scheduled drop and we made our way to where it would land. Taema and I watched it fly overhead. It cut through the air so smoothly, a bird diving underwater to catch a fish. We went to watch it all happen, like so many times before.

But this time was different.

Dad oversaw everything, ordering men where to program the droids to put the boxes coming off of the ship. Mom came to sign off on all the shipments and deliveries. And there, just around the side, there was a box or two going on the ship. I’d seen that happen before, but I’d always assumed that it was the blankets and trinkets we made to sell in the city for people who liked that crap. Things that had been made by human hands instead of robot ones or replicators. Now I know that it was a hell of a lot more than that, but back then I had no idea.