by C. J. Hill
It should . . . Taylor suddenly felt a wave of sleepiness engulf her. She peered at Joseph’s computer screen to figure out how far he’d gotten already. She couldn’t make sense of the data. The numbers and symbols were blurring around the edges.
Joseph stood up and took her arm. “Lie down before you fall.” His edges blurred too.
“I feel . . . ,” she started, but couldn’t get the rest of the sentence out. A crash sounded near the door. She looked over and saw Lee lying on the floor. Ren sagged down the wall, losing consciousness.
Something was very wrong.
Her gaze went to Xavier, and she realized the form he bent over wasn’t a scientist who had passed out; it was empty clothes. He was arranging syringes and metal tools into piles next to them. What was going on?
“Lie down,” Joseph told her again. “You’ll be fine.”
That was when she noticed the filter at the end of Joseph’s mask. It fluttered with each breath he took. Hers gave only a limp wave. The mask had a hole somewhere, and with every breath she took, she was inhaling sleeping gas. She slowed her breathing rate. “Someone sabotaged my mask.”
Joseph showed no surprise, no concern. She realized what his expression meant, and her stomach twisted. He had known all along. That was why he kept telling her to lie down.
She struggled to keep conscious, to reason with him. Everything around her swayed. “Don’t try to strain your brother,” she mumbled. “None of Reilly’s QGPs work.”
He kept hold of her arm, steadying her. “I wrote a program to fix that.”
“Don’t do it,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t listen to her. She sank to her knees, dizziness overcoming her. Her vision was going black. “How did you puncture our masks?” she asked. “Ren and Lee never left their packs.”
“I didn’t puncture them,” Joseph said. “You brought them from the city that way.”
Someone on the council had helped with the betrayal. It was a bitter sting, and the last thing Taylor felt before darkness overtook her.
Chapter 11
Echo walked alongside Joseph. The length of Plymouth Street stretched out in front of them: stores flashing advertisements, a few people here and there strolling down the walks, cars gliding by on the rails. Echo barely saw any of it. He was sifting through details in his mind, searching for anything he might have missed. He kept his voice low as he spoke to Joseph. “Everything I know about the Dakine is in the file I just gave you. Memorize it before you talk to any of them. Especially the signs and oaths.”
Joseph’s face had gone so pale, the blue crescent moon on his cheek stood out like an angry slash. “I won’t let you die in my place. We’ll go to the Enforcement office. We’ll tell them the Dakine ordered an assassination on me.”
Echo shook his head. “That would only get both of us killed. The Dakine have people who work as Enforcers.”
Joseph’s voice rose in frustration. “We’ll go to the Enforcer chairman then. If you give her information on the Dakine, she’ll protect us.”
“For how long? Weeks? Months?” Echo shook his head again. “The Dakine would find a way to kill us and Jeth too. And they’d probably make it spectacularly slow and painful, to send a message to everyone who’s ever thought about informing on them. It’s better this way. You know how to pretend to be me. You can fool everyone and live.”
Joseph quickened his pace. His footsteps beat out an angry rhythm on the walkway. “We’ll find a way out of the city then.”
“And that would be a better life—fighting with the vikers until starvation or bad weather kills us?”
Joseph let out a groan and clenched his hands as though he wanted to hit something. “There has to be a way out of this besides death. We’ll get to a safe place and think of something.”
It wouldn’t do any good. Did Joseph think Echo hadn’t already considered every answer to this equation?
Joseph pulled his comlink from his belt and pressed the car-call button. “We’ll need laser boxes. We’ll also need to build or buy a signal-jamming detector.” That was how Dakine members kept from being tracked when they broke the law. They had jammers that kept sensors from picking up their crystals’ signals. Only important government officials had signal-jamming detectors. No one else had advance warning when Dakine assassins approached.
Joseph kept hold of his comlink. “We probably already have most of the equipment we need to build a signal-jamming detector, and I can splice into specifications somewhere.”
They wouldn’t have time for that. Echo knew he’d be dead before the day ended. He didn’t stop his brother from listing things, though, from planning. Joseph always felt better when he had control of a situation. Echo wouldn’t take that away from him now. He’d already taken too much from Joseph: his freedom, his identity, maybe even his life. Who knew how long Joseph would be able to pretend to be Echo before the Dakine found him out? Any little forgotten phrase or conversation might reveal him.
The thought cut through Echo, as sharp and painful as a laser burn. He could face his own death, but not his brother’s. It was ironic he felt this way now when he’d spent all last night cursing fate for giving him a twin brother.
Echo had always been forced to share everything with Joseph. His parents, his friends, his appearance, his identity, and then Allana too. That had been the hardest, being in love with her and knowing his brother was his competition.
Echo stared at the thrumming lights twirling around one of the stores and told himself not to think about Allana. His mind kept returning to the bitterness of what had happened anyway.
Echo had joined the Dakine because Allana had asked him to, because she’d said they could be together if he was a member. Then she’d chosen Joseph over him, had deemed him better. Just like their father had favored Joseph. And their caretakers had too.
Last night when Allana had cut her relationship with Echo, he might have been able to shrug with nonchalance and pretend it didn’t matter. He’d gotten good at that. But she couldn’t leave things that way.
Joseph noticed Echo’s silence. “I’m not going to let you die in my place,” he insisted. “This is my fault too. I never should have told you what Allana said.”
Allana had gone to see Joseph last night, to tell him she wanted to be exclusive with him. It probably never occurred to her that Joseph would turn her down. He knew how much Echo cared about her. Joseph had told her it would hurt Echo too much.
So Allana told Joseph he didn’t know the real Echo—didn’t know the one who had joined the Dakine. She told Joseph she knew Echo had joined because she recruited him.
Had she really been trying to sway Joseph, or was she just being spiteful? Echo supposed it didn’t matter. Joseph had found Echo and spent the rest of the night berating him. How could you join the Dakine? How could you be so stupid?
How could Echo have been so stupid?
“None of this is your fault,” Echo said now.
Echo had been the one who wanted to hurt Allana, who had been so saturated with anger that he told Lobo, their Dakine base leader, what she had done. Echo expected to see her censured. He never imagined Lobo would order her death for revealing a Dakine membership and order Joseph’s death for hearing it.
Echo had sent a message warning her, and then had found Joseph and asked to switch identities with him. Echo hadn’t told Joseph why until a few minutes ago.
Joseph pushed the car-call button on his comlink again. “If we change coloring so we both look the same—”
“No,” Echo told Joseph. “One of us would still be killed. I won’t let it be you.”
Neither of them suggested going inside to talk. It was safer to be out in the open with crowds. Dakine hit men usually waited until their targets were alone. They didn’t like witnesses. They didn’t want to risk hitting bystanders. Too messy. The Dakine wanted people to feel they were safe as long as they did what the Dakine wanted.
Joseph let out a shaky breath. “I’ll get us out
of the city. Give me time to figure something out.”
“Think of Jeth,” Echo said. “He can’t lose both of us. You should be the one to live. He loves you more.”
“No,” Joseph said, and his voice caught. He didn’t say more. Maybe he couldn’t deny the claim.
Cars were slowly passing by them; their darkened windows acted as mirrors, warping Echo’s and Joseph’s reflections as they went by. Echo had walked down this street a thousand times. He couldn’t imagine not seeing it again. That was the thing about death—it was so unimaginable.
While studying different periods of history, Echo had read legends about death.
One story said death came to claim people dressed as a hooded farm worker, carrying a scythe. Others said winged spirits called angels carried souls to a place with doors made of pearls. The ancient Egyptians believed people went to live in an afterlife where gods with animal heads ruled. The walls of their tombs were painted with instructions for traveling through the land of the dead.
Echo wondered if any of the stories were true. He should have studied those tomb paintings better, just in case. This meant Joseph was right about one more thing—he always told Echo he needed to study more.
Joseph ran his hand through his newly blue hair. It was like looking in a mirror, seeing Joseph after they’d switched identities. “Isn’t there any way you can reason with the Dakine leaders? Isn’t there any sort of bargain you can make with them?”
Echo let out a short laugh. “The Dakine don’t bargain much.”
Echo couldn’t help noticing that Joseph hadn’t once mentioned Allana, hadn’t talked about saving her life. More irony. Echo was the one who cared about saving her and he’d caused her death.
A little way down the sidewalk, a strange light swirled and grew. He didn’t pay attention to it. It was probably an advertisement of some sort.
A car stopped in the street ahead of them. Echo turned to it, expecting it to be the car Joseph had called. Then two more cars pulled up behind the first and stopped. That never happened on a regular stretch of street—three people all wanting and reaching the same destination at the same time.
It meant assassins. It meant the Dakine were sending a message and didn’t care that bystanders would see the execution. It meant Echo had no time left.
“I want you to live, not fight,” Echo told Joseph quickly. “Live your life for both of us now.”
Joseph stared at the cars, too stunned to move or speak. The doors slid open.
“I love you,” Echo said, then he turned and ran, putting as much space as he could between Joseph and himself.
The light on the sidewalk was bigger now, brighter. Echo had assumed it was far away, but it was close, a growing electric whirlwind of energy.
He heard Joseph scream, “No!” and Echo glanced back to look at his brother. The car doors were open and several men emerged, laser boxes outstretched in their hands. The men wore the dark suits of Enforcers, helmet shields covering their faces. They were Dakine, though. Echo was sure of it.
The sizzle of shots filled the air. One hit his left shoulder. The burning pain made him stumble. He held out his hands to break his fall and saw the whirlpool of energy had grown even larger. It pulled at him so that instead of falling to the ground, he tumbled toward it, swallowed in its brilliance.
Had anyone else seen this light? Or did only Echo see it because it had come for him?
Echo’s last thought was that all the historical documents were wrong. Death didn’t come carrying a scythe or wearing wings. Death was a light.
ECHO’S NEXT SENSATION WAS a sharp, throbbing pain in his shoulder. The air smelled of antiseptic and something awful. Something burning. He heard voices, the words so jumbled he couldn’t understand them. He opened his eyes. Colors and shapes bled into one another like a bad picture feed. He squinted and the colors coalesced for a moment, then drifted apart. A cold sensation ran through his shoulder and he fell back into darkness, his consciousness fading out.
When Echo awoke the second time, he felt groggy, drugged.
A voice near him said, “The air is clear. We can take off our masks.”
Echo opened his eyes. Someone who resembled Joseph knelt beside him. His face was swollen, and his hair was dark and slicked back. Two black ovals surrounded his eyes like a nineteenth-century bandit mask. None of it made sense.
Joseph peered down at him. “Can you hear me?”
Echo glanced around. He was lying in a room with a large machine, computer equipment, and an assortment of people lying unmoving on the floor.
“How do you feel?” Joseph asked. He put his hand on one of Echo’s arms. “Say something.”
Echo squinted, then blinked. “This isn’t at all what I thought death would be like.”
Joseph smiled and gave his arm a squeeze. “Death will have to wait. I told you I would find a way to get us out of the city.”
Echo looked around the room again. “Where are we?”
“Technically we’re still in the city. In the Scicenter, actually. But we have a way out of Traventon once we make it out of the building.”
“What?” Echo asked. He tried to sit up and realized his left arm was taped to the floor. His shirt had been cut away and his shoulder looked like a mass of charred flesh. That was what the burning smell had been. Him. His shoulder. He’d been shot. A med of some sort poked around the wound with lighted medical equipment.
Echo didn’t feel anything. The med must have given him a pain eraser. “How much damage is there?” Echo asked.
The med kept working on the wound. “Not nearly as much as there could have been. I’ve stopped the bleeding and I’m repairing the major blood vessels. You won’t have full use of your arm until your muscles regrow. I’ll reattach the ones I can.”
Echo went back to studying the room. “How did I get here?”
Joseph smiled again. “Determination and luck. Also there was some time travel involved.”
Well, it was nice to know Joseph could joke around after an assassination attempt. “Right,” Echo said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that option first.”
Joseph opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. “It’s going to take a while to explain everything. The important thing is you’re safe. For the moment.”
His safety had never been the issue. Echo wanted Joseph’s safety, Jeth’s safety. Hadn’t Echo already explained that? He let out an exasperated sigh. “The Dakine are looking for both of us now, aren’t they?”
Joseph didn’t answer. He checked the time on his comlink and stood up. “I’ll tell you everything after I’m done computigating.”
Echo gritted his teeth in aggravation. “It doesn’t do any good to save my life if the Dakine want to kill both of us now.” He forgot his arm was taped down and tried to sit up again. “You never listen to anything I tell you!” Echo yelled.
Joseph disappeared behind a computer terminal and didn’t reply.
Echo laid his head back down, noticing again the men and women lying on the floor around him. “What happened to all these people?”
No reply from Joseph. That meant the answer was bad news.
“Sangre,” Echo swore. “You did something really foolish and really illegal, didn’t you?”
Still no answer. Echo heard Joseph’s fingers tapping at the computer’s controls.
Echo groaned. It must be worse than he thought.
The med tugged at something in Echo’s wound. “All the scientists will be fine. We put them out with gas, then stunned them before it wore off. They’ll be asleep for another hour.”
“This is unbelievable,” Echo said. “Absolutely brilliant. Why have only the Dakine trying to kill us when we can have the government join in too? You don’t need to fix my shoulder. None of us are going to make it out of this room alive.”
“I’ve missed you for the last two and a half months,” Joseph called over. “Don’t make me rethink that.”
Two and a hal
f months? Had Echo been in coma? But then why was his shoulder wound fresh? He was about to ask when he saw one of the scientists moving, waking up. She rolled over, and the green bun on the top of her head flopped sideways.
“Joseph,” Echo called. “Your stun didn’t last as long as you thought. One of them is getting up.”
Joseph peered around the terminal, then went back to his work. “That’s not a scientist. That’s Taylor. She’s a friend.”
“You gassed a friend?” Echo winced as the med tugged something in his arm especially hard. “You know, it’s time we had a talk about your social skills.”
Taylor pulled herself to a sitting position, peered around, then ripped the gas mask from her face. She was younger than Echo had first supposed. Mildly pretty. A ring of flowers and leaves framed her eyes. They made her look fairylike.
She threw her gas mask on the ground and glared in Joseph’s direction. “I will kill you for this, Joseph.”
Echo let out a short laugh. “You’ll have some competition for that job.”
Chapter 12
Taylor stared at Echo with growing disbelief. Joseph had done it. He’d gotten Reilly’s QGPs to work. She would have been impressed if she weren’t so furious.
Taylor’s gaze turned to Xavier. He was a surgeon. That was why Joseph had brought him along. Joseph had snatched Echo from the past during the assassination and knew he would need medical help.
Her mind felt muddled from the gas. She tried to put the pieces together. The council had agreed to let Xavier come. Had they known what Joseph planned to do? “Who set this up?” she called to Joseph. “Who helped you sabotage our gas masks?”
The tapping at the keyboard didn’t diminish in speed. “While you were passed out, I took your transfer stick,” Joseph said calmly. “I’ve already uploaded your rank virus. The computer is running the algorithms to change the QGP data. You can send the destruct signals to the QGPs whenever you’re ready.” Without looking up from the computer, he added, “I used Helix’s comlink to announce he’s in here and doesn’t want to be disturbed. So far no one has.”