Tears in Rain by Rosa Montero, Lilit Zekulin Thwaites

too—from the human side. It couldn’t be; they were all crazy. It had to be something simpler and more idiotic than a conspiracy: a consignment of damaged mems. She noticed a light tingling sensation in her head, a tiny idea struggling to emerge. She decided to ignore it; normally, her ideas came to the surface of their own accord if she ignored them.
    “I have to go to the RRM, Yiannis.”
    “Yes. And I have to go to work.”
    The hologram of the old man disappeared. Bruna had a quick vapor shower, put on a purple metallic skirt and blue T-shirt, and took a double serving of coffee out of the fridge to drink on the way. She caught a cab and didn’t take long to get to her destination. In fact, she hardly had time to shake the container to heat up the coffee and then drink it before they pulled up in front of the headquarters of the Radical Replicant Movement.
    “You’ve left my cab stinking of coffee,” the driver grumbled.
    “Well, it’s a very pleasant aroma. You should charge me less for the ride,” replied Bruna calmly.
    But when she got out of the cab, a disturbing thought crossed her mind:
that cabdriver was unpleasant to me because I’m a rep
. Bruna shook her head, irritated with herself. She hated having any thoughts that smacked of a persecution complex. And it was a well-known fact that cabdrivers generally loathed people eating or drinking in their vehicles.
Four years, three months, and twenty-one days.
    At the entrance to the RRM there were two police cars, as well as the usual security guards. Bruna had to identify herself several times and pass through the scanner before they would allow her to go upstairs. She asked for Valo Nabokov, the head of security and Chi’s lover, and to her surprise, the woman received her immediately. When Bruna walked into her office, Valo was standing with her back to Bruna, looking out the window. She was as tall as Bruna and probably also a combat rep, but she was dressed in a much more feminine and sophisticated manner: tight-fitting pants under a full, diaphanous skirt with 3-D spots depicting rosebuds on it, and huge platform shoes. She wore her hair—deep black and thick—in an intricate bun on top of her head.
    “Sit down, Husky,” she commanded without turning around.
    There was a fake-leather armchair and a red acrylic chair. The detective chose the plastic chair. A few interminable moments passed without anything happening, and then Valo turned around. It was a given that she wasn’t ugly. All technos had regular, even features (sometimes Bruna felt that this was one of the reasons why humans didn’t like them), but they weren’t all equally attractive. The head of security, for example, was rather unattractive. Combat replicants were flat-chested, because it worked out better when they had to fight, but Nabokov had enormous implants in her breasts, which she carried very high and barely covered, making them look like a large tray of meat underneath her square, pale face.
    “Tell me something,” she shot out.
    “About what?”
    “You’ve been working for us for two days. Tell me what you’ve discovered. Tell me who did this to her.”
    “I don’t know anything yet.”
    The woman fixed her blazing eyes on Bruna. Huge bags under her eyes darkened her face.
    “You’ve lost her. It’s your fault. She was your responsibility and you’ve done nothing.”
    “Chi didn’t hire me to protect her but to investigate the deaths of the reps. Her security was your responsibility.”
    Valo closed her eyes with an almost imperceptible expression of pain. Then she looked at Bruna again, with the face of a madwoman. Her bun was half-undone, and she looked like one of the furies on the ancient medallions that Yiannis had once shown her.
    “Get out.”
    “Hold on a minute, Nabokov. I’m sorry about your loss, but it’s important that we talk—”
    “Get out!”
    “Myriam called me yesterday. I think she had something to tell me; maybe she’d