Hallie realised she’d been standing in the middle of the floor, looking around, and shook her head. “I was just thinking we should look for a different space. One with windows, perhaps.”
“Funny you should say that,” Rosalia said, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Oh?” Hallie asked, curiosity stirred.
“I mean, you know how grateful I am to have a place. But while you were away I realised that I miss having windows, too,” Rosalia said. “So, er, I thought about where we might go. And, well, you know that old house a few doors down from the bakery? The one with the green door.”
Hallie frowned as she dug into her memory. “Oh. You mean that old place with the overgrown garden and half a car still in front of it? That place?”
“That’s the one. It’s up for sale. And it’s a bargain.”
“No wonder it’s a bargain. It’s barely standing,” Hallie said, then saw the enthusiasm on her roommate’s face and shook her head. “You went to look at it, didn’t you?”
“It’s got great bones,” Rosalia said. “And although it’s been empty for a while, all the walls are still solid, and most of the windows, too. There’s a basement and an attic, so we could each actually have our own complete floor of the house if we wanted.”
Hallie had a rare impulse to hug her best friend again at the casual and sure way Rosalia had woven Hallie’s presence into her plans for the new house. Rosalia’s enthusiasm made her smile, though. It was the same excitement that Rosalia had brought to her plans for the bakery. There would be no talking Rosalia out of the idea now. And Hallie didn’t want to. A new space. With windows, and a garden. Oh, and the remains of a car in front of it. There was lots of work ahead of them. Hallie still remembered the stiffness and sore muscles from helping Rosalia get the bakery ready. She wasn’t sure she was ready for another round of that. But she still made an encouraging noise.
“We can talk about it later, when you’ve had some food,” Rosalia said, that gleam of mischief still in her face.
Hallie grinned. Her roommate knew her weaknesses. With the promise of good food and good company, Hallie settled into the armchair and took a deep breath in then out, trying to let the tension of dealing with her mother fade away.
As Rosalia sat down, Hallie caught a glimpse of the tiny mark on her roommate’s wrist which was the tell-tale scar left from an ID chip implantation, and her mind went back to the earlier conversation with Peredur Roth. Everyone Hallie knew, whether in low city or midtown, carried an ID chip. The common folk, and most of theveondken, had an ID chip embedded in their right wrists. Thehochlencarried slim metal bracelets instead, as something about the elite’s physiology meant that their bodies rejected any attempt to implant a chip.Hochlencouldn’t get tattoos done, either, for the same reason. Hallie had a plain metal band around her wrist, as her body had also rejected her chip when she’d been transformed from human. But the bodies that had been found after Findo’s fights hadn’t had any chips, or any marks where ones had been removed.
In previous years, when Hallie had been daydreaming about escaping from the city and her mother’s influence, Hallie had wondered about getting false papers. She’d never done anything about it. Partly through fear - she was quite sure her mother would have sent people after her. And partly through distaste. Hallie liked being on the right side of the law. She caught the criminals. She didn’t want to be one herself. Not least because she’d seen what happened to people convicted of crimes in the city. And faking IDs or removing an ID were considered serious crimes, warranting serious punishment.
But it occurred to her that her roommate had not only thought about getting a fake ID, but had also gone through with it. Thehochlenwho had been keeping Rosalia had been violent towardsher. More than enough reason, as far as Hallie was concerned, for her friend to want a new life. Rosalia had been taking steps to set up an escape for herself, keeping a bag ready to go, and getting herself fake papers. But having false travel papers, or a fake paper ID wouldn’t deal with the information that was embedded into the chip in her arm. The information coded on that was secured by layers of encryption in ways Hallie didn’t pretend to understand. But Rosalia might have had a plan to deal with that, too.
“Rosalia, you had an unregistered phone and fake ID. How were you going to manage the ID chip?” Hallie asked.
Rosalia blinked, looking startled. “Why are you asking about that?” there was a hint of defensiveness in her voice and her shoulders stiffened.
“I’m sorry. That was a really abrupt change of subject,” Hallie said. “I was talking to the director earlier. There were bodies on a previous case which didn’t have an ID in them, and it just got me thinking. The director thinks they might have come from outside the city, which seemed weird to me. Why would anyone want to come here?”
“Oh, right, so you’re curious,” Rosalia said, the tension leaving her. “For a moment, I thought you might be wanting to report me.”
“Saints, no,” Hallie said immediately, and with enough force that Rosalia smiled. “I wouldn’t do that. I was just being nosey. I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“It’s alright. You know, I haven’t thought about it for quite a while. I remember when I was getting everything ready, thinking I was going to need to leave and planning where I would go. And, yes, I wondered about the ID chip as well. The papers I had came with a chip as well.”
“Oh, really?” Hallie sat forward, interested.
“Yes. Kind of a patch that would go on my wrist, like a second skin, with a chip to match my new ID. It was quite clever, really. There was some kind of shield under the new chip so that the old one wouldn’t show up.”
“That is clever,” Hallie said. “I don’t suppose you still have it?”
“No,” Rosalia said, shaking her head. “When I got the lease for the bakery and realised I had a future here, and a life I could build on my own, I destroyed them.”
She was telling the truth. And if Hallie was a little disappointed not to be able to see the device Rosalia had mentioned, her heart warmed at the idea that her friend had destroyed her escape plan, instead settling into the new life she was building.
“I might still have the contact information for the person I got the papers from. It was one of those word-of-mouth things, but I might be able to recreate it.”
“That would be good, thank you.”
“You’re not planning on faking your ID as well, are you?” Rosalia asked, laughing.
“No, not me,” Hallie smiled back, “but I was just wondering how someone would go about that. All the skips I went after stayed in the city and didn’t try to leave.”
“Well, leaving is expensive. I mean, eye-watering amounts of money,” Rosalia said, and then laughed again. “So, basically, I destroyed at least two years’ worth of rent and food when I got rid of the ID.”
