Page 83 of The Dazzling Heights

“I’m always on,” Nadia replied, projecting from the speakers. She sounded slightly offended.

Leda nodded as if unsurprised. “Nadia,” she said, with a respectful tone she never used with Watt, “would you please research someone for me? Her name is Calliope Brown. She’s around our age.”

“Searching now,” Nadia replied.

Watt felt increasingly annoyed.You’re making it too easy on her.

She asked nicely. Unlike you.

“Just what are we looking for, exactly?” Watt sank into his desk chair and stretched his arms overhead, trying not to think of how close Leda was, the fact that she was so casually sitting there on his bedsheets.

“I’m not sure,” Leda admitted. “But something is off about this girl, I know it.”

“So we’re basing this on a hunch of yours?”

“Laugh all you want, but my hunches are spot-on. After all, I had a hunch that there was something off about you, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

Watt had nothing to say to that.

Leda leaned forward as Nadia’s search results populated the monitor. There was a Calliope Brown registered in the Tower, on floor 473—an older woman with a narrow smile. “No, that’s not her,” Leda said, disappointed.

Watt frowned. “Nadia, can you widen the search to the United States?” They scrolled through dozens of faces, then expanded the search internationally, but Leda just shook her head impatiently at every image that appeared.

“She’s staying at the Nuage! Can we find her that way?” Leda impatiently yanked out her ponytail to redo it.

“I’ll show you the cams at high-speed, pulling out the faces. Tell me which one she is,” Nadia offered, using snapshots of the video feed to create an instant database of all the guests. Watt could feel Nadia getting into the search a little, despite herself. There was nothing she loved more than a good puzzle.

After a few minutes of scrolling, Leda leapt off the bed, pointing to a figure in the top right. “There, you see! That’s her!”

“Nadia, can you grab her retinal scans?” Watt asked. Moments later Nadia had pulled up the information. The girl’s retinas were registered to Haroi Haniko, a woman from Kyoto who’d died seven months ago.

“Okay. She’s got a stolen retina pattern,” Leda said, clearly stunned. “She must be a criminal, right?”

Now even Watt was getting curious. “Nadia, what about facial-reg? Full international scope.” She could change her eyeballs, he thought logically, but it was much harder to drastically change her face.

The screen came up blank. “No matches.”

“Try again,” Leda asked, but Watt shook his head.

“Leda, that search included every government—national, state, province, municipal—in the entire world. If this girl existed, we would have found her.”

“What are you saying, that I made her up? She’s right there on camera, you can see for yourself!” Leda burst out, exasperated.

“I’m saying this is really weird. If she’d ever lived anywhere, she would have gotten registered, for an ID ring or a tax card or whatever.”

“Well, there’s your answer,” Leda declared. “She’s never actuallylivedanywhere—only visited. She never got an adult ID.”

Watt wouldn’t have thought of that, but it made sense. “Why would anyone live that way?”

“Because she’sup to something, obviously.” Leda delivered the phrase with a dramatic flair, as if she were an actress performing in an old tragic play. She frowned. “But why hasn’t anyone figured out that her retinas are wrong?”

“No one actually verifies retinal scans in public places, just cross-checks them with the criminal list. I’m guessing you haven’t seen her in any private homes,” he pointed out.

“Just Avery’s, but it was for a party,” Leda said, and Watt nodded.

“Whatever she’sup to,” he said the phrase the way Leda had, which elicited a smile, “she’s clearly an expert at it.”

They both grew quiet at the notion.