She entered the store and paused as three cameras dropped from the ceiling, their lenses visibly shifting as they gathered images of her face and body.
There was nothing in any civilian system to tie Enda’s face to her old identity. It was one of the few benefits of working for the Agency—they scrubbed her clean off the net for operational security. Made it easier to start a new life, with or without the Agency’s permission.
“Good morning, Ms. Hyldahl,” said a disembodied voice. The cameras retracted and a hologram came to life beside Enda, providing an avatar for the voice. It was a realistic simulacrum designed to resemble the perfect salesperson for Enda—according to the store’s algorithms. She was a slender white woman an inch shorter than Enda, with ash-blond hair in a neat bun. It was entirely wrong: too much like her, unmoderated by her self-loathing. Enda was glad; she never wanted the algorithms to understand her too well.
She ignored the hologram and delved deeper into the store, walking down the left-hand aisle toward women’s fashions. She passed mannequins dressed in the store’s latest, the headless robots mindlessly going through a series of preprogrammed animations—waving, walking from one end of their small catwalk homes to the other, posing with a fleshy silicon hand pressed to their carefully sculpted hip bones. It was unnerving, but Enda preferred it to being harangued by actual salespeople. Besides, she didn’t have to explain the bloodstains to a hologram or a robot.
“Would you like help with sizing?” the holographic woman asked as Enda quickly riffled through the stacks of clothing.
She found a plain black long-sleeved T-shirt, and black leggings detailed with horizontal ridges. Enda carried the clothing to the nearest dressing room. She sat on the small bench inside the stall and removed her boots, then felt along the interior of each one until she found the micro-width tracking devices sewn into the insole.
“Robot lady?” Enda called out.
“Yes, Ms. Hyldahl?”
“Some running shoes, too.”
“Of course.”
Enda stripped and changed into the new clothes. She stepped out of the dressing room and a mannequin stood waiting for her, holding a pair of ankle-high boots. Enda was about to complain, but she flipped the boots over and found them soled like running shoes.
She slipped them on and tied the laces. When she stood, Enda was faced with animations of herself dressed in the new clothing, in a variety of unlikely situations—playing soccer, at a concert, sitting at a café. The only animation that resembled reality was the one of her running, but the holographic doll didn’t move right—it jogged like a woman of leisure, not like a woman trying to escape her demons, or chase them down.
Enda turned away from the holograms and inspected her new ensemble in a full-length mirror beside the changing room. Satisfied that the holograms weren’t doctored in any meaningful way, Enda nodded. “Charge it,” she said, staring up at the camera for the sake of the payment processing software. She’d invoice Zero when she had a new phone.
A green tick appeared in the air beside the hologram, and it bowed. “Thank you, Ms. Hyldahl.”
Enda left her stained clothes on the dressing room floor, but took her coat and boots outside. She carried them for two blocks, until she found a woman standing in the mouth of an alleyway selling mandarins from a soggy cardboard tray. Her feet were bare and caked in dirt, and behind her a toddler sucked on an old phone as though it were a teether.
“Do you need shoes?” Enda asked. “These look about your size.”
Confusion masked the woman’s face—either at Enda’s English, or at this random act of supposed charity. Enda simply put the boots down on the ground beside the toddler, folded her coat up, and rested it on top. She nodded to the woman, and left.
The rain fell heavier still, and the sidewalk was crammed with bodies collected beneath a roof of accidentally communal umbrellas. Still, Enda felt the need to run.
She stepped out onto the street and ran beside the traffic, ignoring the red glow of the road beneath her feet, desperate to stretch her legs.
The full weight of the preceding twenty-four hours hit Enda like a sledgehammer as she entered her apartment. She dropped into the comforting dip of her couch cushion and leaned her head back—snapping forward when she felt sleep approaching. Maybe the jog home wasn’t the best idea, but she’d needed the run. Her mind was still at last, even if her body ached in protest.
Enda groaned as she pushed up from the couch. She flicked through her record collection and stopped at Can’s Monster Movie, with its Kirbyesque cover art depicting a colossal figure standing tall above both mountain and cloud. She laid the record down on her turntable. The speakers crackled as the needle touched vinyl, and “Father Cannot Yell” began with its stuttering organ.
The music spread easily through the apartment, following Enda into her bedroom. She stripped out of her wet clothes and left them on the floor of the bathroom. Her calf muscles burned as she crouched in front of the safe hidden at one end of her wardrobe. Enda keyed the passcode and opened the small metal cube onto a shelf stacked with four spare phones, cash in a dozen currencies, and the assorted paraphernalia that constituted the Enda Hyldahl fictionsuit. The identity had fit her comfortably for years, but it was quickly growing tight, restrictive. With the money Zero would pay, she could have another identity made, but “Enda” would have to last until then.
She selected the phone marketed as waterproof and shockproof, then felt along the
