“You are so vile,
,”
says. “Have you ever been in love? Even once?”
She’s fishing. She knows. Of course she knows.
Why did you sleep with him? Are you in love with him? He’s me. Why aren’t I him? Fuck both of you.
“Fuck our parents,” I say. I pick up an oil lamp and throw it at the
shabti
on the shelf.
The room gets brighter for a moment, then darker.
“It’s funny,”
says. “We used to do everything together. And then we didn’t. And right now, it’s weird. You planning on doing what you were going to do. And me, what I was planning. It’s like we were in each other’s brains again.”
“You went out and bought a biological agent? We should have gone in on it together. Buy two, get one free.”
“No,”
says. She looks shy, like she’s afraid I’ll laugh at her.
I wait. Eventually she’ll tell me what she needs to tell me and then I’ll hand over the little metal canister that Nikolay gave me,
and she’ll unlock the door to the burial chamber. Then we’ll go back up into the world and that video won’t be the end of the world. It will just be something that people talk about. Something to make the Olds crazy.
“I was going to kill myself,”
says. “You know, down here. I was going to come down here after the fireworks, and then I decided that I didn’t want to be alone when I did it.”
Which is just like
. Throws a pity party, then realizes she’s forgotten to send out invitations.
“And then I found out what you were up to,”
says. “I thought I ought to stop you. I wouldn’t have to be alone. And I would finally live up to my name. I’d save everybody. Even if they never knew it.”
“You were going to kill yourself?” I say. “For real? Like with a gun?”
“Like with this,”
says. She reaches into the jeweled box on her belt. There’s a little thing curled up in there, an enameled loop of chain, black and bronze. It uncoils in her hand, becomes a snake.
was the first one to get a Face. I got mine when I was eight. I didn’t really know what was going on. I met all these boys my age, and then the Olds sat down and had a talk with me. They explained what was going on, said that I got to pick which Face I wanted. I picked the one who looked the nicest, the one who looked like he might be fun to hang out with. That’s how stupid I was back then.
couldn’t choose, so I did it for her. Pick
her
, I said. That’s how strange life is. I picked her out of all the others.
said she’d already had the conversation with her Face. (We talk to our Faces as little as possible, although sometimes we sleep with each other’s. Forbidden fruit is always freakier. Is that why I did what I did? I don’t know. How am I supposed to know?)
said her Face agreed to sign a new contract when
turns eighteen. She doesn’t see any reason to give up having a Face.