Echo in Time

by C. J. Hill

  When the Dakine ordered Joseph’s death, Echo took the Prometheus files that he’d hidden on his home computer, and he sent them to the mayor’s office. It had been Echo’s only way of taking revenge on the Dakine for his assassination.

  It seemed like he had sent those files only this morning. He hadn’t though. It happened two and a half months ago, and those red lights rimming the elevator told him the government had tested, built, and installed a Prometheus shield in the courthouse. It made a horrible yet logical sense. This was the building where criminals were sentenced. More than once assassins had come in during Dakine trials and shot the judges. The government was making sure laser boxes wouldn’t work here anymore.

  The man in the elevator was still staring at Echo. He tapped his finger in the air as though shaking something loose. “It’s computing now—you look like that guy, the one the Dakine vaporized. It was on all the feeds. . . .”

  Taylor pushed her laser-box button again and then gave Xavier a helpless, panicked look. What now? her expression said.

  Xavier drew his own laser box from his belt. He stood in front of the man, so it wasn’t at all subtle when he turned, aimed, and didn’t fire.

  The man saw the laser box, let out a startled gasp, and reached for his comlink. Echo grabbed for it at the same time, all the while watching the floors pass by. In a few seconds the elevator would stop, and they would find themselves eight floors underground. If the man yelled for help when the elevator opened, they’d be caught.

  The man swung at Echo. Echo let go of the comlink to avoid the blow, then issued a punch of his own. His hand smacked into the man’s temple. The man staggered sideways, hit the wall, and then slid unconscious to the floor.

  Xavier grabbed the man’s wrist and dragged him to the control panel. Taylor turned her laser box in her hand, checking for damage, some reason it hadn’t fired. “Stupid technology.”

  Echo shook his hand, trying to wave away the pain of impact. “As you said, sometimes the simplest methods are the best.”

  The elevator came to a halt. Xavier hadn’t managed to cancel the first destination in time, and the door slid open. An older woman took a step toward the elevator and then stopped, noticing the scene before her. Xavier held the man’s limp wrist to the floor controls, frantically pushing the button for the ground floor.

  The woman let out a gasp. “Is that Frankos Doddard?” Another gasp. “What are you doing to him?”

  Xavier pushed the override button so that the sensors wouldn’t keep the door open, waiting for the woman to get on. The doors began to slide closed.

  “He passed out,” Echo called to the woman. “We’re taking him to the meds.”

  He doubted she believed the excuse. Xavier looked too guilty. The elevator whirred again, moving upward.

  Allana let out a low hiss of curse words. “We’ll all be killed.”

  A helpful commentary.

  Xavier dropped the man’s hand and examined his laser box. “Why did these stop working?”

  Echo pointed to the red lights above them. “The government installed a disrupter shield in the building. Our laser boxes won’t work as long as we’re inside. The problem is,” Echo continued calmly, “that means the Enforcers here will be armed with other weapons . . . chemical spray, projectile shooters . . . probably sword saws.” He could tell by Taylor’s expression that she knew what those were—a sword–chain saw combination capable of ripping through people.

  “Have your gas masks ready,” Xavier said, getting his out of his bag. “Head straight to the front door and go to the nearest car.”

  Allana fumbled with her mask. “When did the government get a laser-disrupter shield?”

  Even though Taylor had already signaled for a car, Echo signaled for another. “We’ve been gone for two and a half months.

  “Impossible,” Allana said.

  Echo unclipped her comlink and held it in front of her long enough for it to flash the date. “I saved you by turning you into an energy flux wave and reconfiguring you two and a half months later.” He put her comlink back on his belt. He still didn’t trust her enough to return it to her, which was just one more fault to hold against her. Untrustworthy.

  The elevator was slowing. They were almost to the main floor. Allana narrowed her eyes at Echo in suspicion. “The government wasn’t anywhere close to having that technology.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe Joseph invented it while we were gone. You know how smart he is.”

  Allana’s eyes stayed fixed on Echo as though she knew what he’d done.

  The elevator slid open. Echo could see the entrance doors across the sprawling lobby. Crowds of people were coming and going, crisscrossing the floor. Some stood in lines at the information booths; others checked screens for courtroom numbers. Xavier stepped out of the elevator and Echo followed, his gas mask clutched in his hand. Maybe, he thought hopefully, the woman didn’t report them. Maybe they would walk out of here without any problems. And then he saw two Enforcers emerge from one of the hallways and head straight toward them.

  Chapter 22

  The front entrance was in sight for a few seconds. Taylor could even make out the shape of a row of cars waiting in front of the building. Beautiful, beckoning freedom.

  Then two Enforcers came out of a hallway.

  “Gas masks,” Xavier hissed. It was all the warning he gave the group before he threw two vials to the ground. A cloud of darkness immediately enveloped them and ballooned out across the lobby.

  Taylor kept her hand on her gas mask, pressing it to her face. The building’s walls let out a scolding buzz that nearly drowned out the crowd’s sudden panicked yelling. She hated hearing the fear in their voices, the confusion. It made her feel like a criminal.

  Someone jostled into Taylor from behind, knocking her sideways. She put one hand out in front of her and kept heading toward the exit. The shouts began to fade, replaced by the thumps of people falling to the floor. In a moment she would have to worry about tripping over people.

  Silence came. It was quickly replaced by the click of small doors opening. Gasbots whirred into the room.

  As Taylor pushed forward in the darkness, with the sound of wheels and gears echoing through the foyer, she wondered how she had ended up like this. Let me review my life, she thought, to see where I went wrong. Going into physics had probably been a mistake. Thinking that she could make a difference in the world—yeah, that hadn’t turned out at all like she’d expected. She had made a difference, and she was still paying for it.

  She heard twanging sounds and saw bursts of light like camera flashes. She didn’t realize what they meant until a fiery object zoomed by her shoulder. As she jerked away from it, her foot caught on something. She pitched forward, fell, and found herself sprawled on top of someone.

  She stumbled to her feet. Her laser-deflecting clothes weren’t going to stop whatever the gasbots were shooting. She needed to get out of here, fast. She stepped over the person lying on the floor and found herself falling again. She’d stepped over one body and onto another.

  She noticed the light beams then. They went through the darkness around her, fingers of light sweeping the area. As they filtered through the darkness, the whole area brightened. The gas grew less dense.

  With a jolt to her stomach, Taylor realized what was happening. Some sort of device was clearing the concealing gas, making it possible for the gasbot sensors to find them. She pulled herself to her feet again. Move forward, she told herself. She knew which direction the door was, had kept it in her mind even when she was toppling over people. She moved more slowly now, taking tentative steps. She didn’t want to fall again.

  A figure in front of her faded in and out of darkness. Allana. She was ahead of Taylor, standing still as though she didn’t know where to go. The area went black again for a moment and then Xavier appeared next to Allana, taking her by the elbow to lead her toward the door. Which was just like him—coming back to help Allana. Honestly, if he g
ot shot because he helped her, Taylor would never forgive her.

  The fingers of light swept past Taylor again. The gas was thinning. In a few more moments it would be useless. The front doors wavered in and out of darkness. She caught sight of Echo standing there, looking behind him as he searched for everyone else.

  Taylor would be the last one out. She picked up her pace, sidestepping another body. In a few seconds she would be able to see well enough to run.

  “Taylor!” Xavier called. He stood a little ways in front of her.

  She looked up. Through the darkness, she saw a gasbot whirring between her and the door. A barrel mounted on its top swung in her direction.

  And then Xavier stepped in front of her.

  She heard the impact of something hitting him. He took a stumbling step backward. Before the gasbot could get off a second shot, Echo came up behind it. He’d picked up a trash incinerator from the lobby and swung it into the gasbot, sending the machine smashing into a wall. Xavier kept moving forward, staggering now. “Run!” he called to Taylor.

  She sprinted forward and caught up to Xavier. “Go,” he told her. “Escape.”

  She took hold of his waist to propel him forward. They were nearly to the door. Echo ran back to her. He wrapped his arm around Xavier and with powerful strides hauled him outside.

  Allana already sat in a car, waiting with the doors open. “Hurry!” she yelled.

  Before the courthouse door closed, another shot whizzed by Taylor. She felt the wind from it brush by her head. Then the door shut. The gasbots wouldn’t come outside. They were programmed to stay in the area they were protecting.

  As Echo hefted Xavier into the car, Taylor sprinted to the bench third from the courthouse doors. She felt along the bottom of the bench for the mobile crystal. Nothing. No crystal. Had changing the timestream changed the locations where the mobile crystals were left? Had the group gone through all that just to be caught now? Then her fingers found it. She yanked it off and ran to the car.

  Xavier was slumped in his seat, pale, limp, and with his hand over his chest. Blood seeped between his fingers.

  Taylor threw herself into the car and reached toward the front. Allana sat by the control panel. She took the crystal from Taylor and pressed it to the right place.

  “Traventon Plaza Recreation Center,” Taylor said loudly, making sure to pronounce the words perfectly so that the car’s computer would understand her. They would go to the DW’s restaurant. Someone there would be able to help Xavier.

  The door slid shut and the car hummed away from the walkway and into the street traffic. It joined the other cars gliding peacefully along the rails.

  Taylor glanced out the window to see if anyone was chasing after them. No one had come out of the courthouse. The doors were peppered with holes, places where the gasbots had shot at them.

  Taylor turned her attention to Xavier. He was leaning back against the seat, his hand still pressed against his chest. His breathing had gone shallow. Blood bloomed on his shirt.

  Taylor scooted next to him. “How bad is your injury?”

  Echo pulled Xavier’s hand away from his chest. She couldn’t see the injury for all the blood. “Bad,” Echo said. “It’s bad.”

  Chapter 23

  Joseph, Lee, and Ren were nearly to the bench that held the mobile crystal. Joseph wanted to run, to stop wasting time, but that would draw attention. So the group strolled along, passing multicolored government office buildings. Every once in a while a car swished by on the rails. A few people ambled along the walkways, most of them focused on their comlinks.

  Joseph, Lee, and Ren all had the detention-center schematics on their comlinks and were discussing the security systems. It was a grim list. Most buildings in the city depended on the crystals to make sure people didn’t go where they weren’t wanted. The detention center had extra methods. An electrically charged wall surrounded the building. Anyone who touched it would be instantly killed, which was why the detention center also had a razor fence surrounding that wall—so that nobody accidentally touched it.

  Even if Ren and Lee had been able to cut through the fence and disable the electric wall without setting off every alarm system in the detention center, the detention center’s outer walls were made of titanium over hyperdiamond rods. They would be almost impossible to cut through.

  Lee gestured upward at the opaque dome covering Traventon. “We could scale the inside of the dome, then drop down on the top the building. That would get us past the fences.”

  “The roof has motion detectors,” Joseph said. This whole conversation had a déjà vu feeling to it. In the new timestream, he had studied all this. He had known some of the information before he even looked at the detention-center schematics.

  Ren motioned to Joseph. “You’re a computigator. Can you splice into the detention center’s computer system and turn off the security features?”

  “The computers are inside,” Joseph said. “They aren’t connected to any other systems, so there’s not a remote way to splice into them.”

  The group fell silent as two women walked by. The women appraised them with interested smiles, then noticed their rank badges and looked away. Everyone, Joseph thought wryly, became less attractive when their rank passed five million.

  “The Dakine get people out,” Ren said after the women had gone. “How do they do it?”

  “Easy,” Joseph said. “They have people who work as Enforcers. They just use the exits.”

  Detention Center Thirteen was large enough that it had four entryways. Each had a guard station that cars had to pass through. Sensors at the stations showed guards information from people’s crystals—names, photos, any criminal charges.

  Ren scrolled through the schematics on his comlink. “Do you still have any contacts in the Dakine?”

  “Only ones who want to kill me.” And unfortunately Joseph had too many of those. “Do you have any memory of where your contact planned to meet you? Was it at one of the guard stations?”

  Ren shook his head. “It wouldn’t be there. Station guards need thirty years’ enforcing work before they’re assigned there. None of the DW agents work as Enforcers that long.”

  Joseph scowled, frustrated. “I would think a covert group would have as many people as it could get working as Enforcers.”

  Lee changed the magnification on his comlink so that he could zoom in on Sheridan’s wing. “That’s because you’re not thinking about what Enforcers do. They don’t just find and arrest thieves and murderers. They arrest people who look at the wrong information or believe something they shouldn’t. Would you work as an Enforcer if you knew you would have to shoot people you agreed with?”

  Joseph didn’t concede the point. “When I shot, I would make sure I missed.”

  Ren lowered his voice. “Miss too many times, and you get a memory wash. We’ve lost more than one agent that way. It makes the job a lot less attractive.”

  They had almost reached the spot where the mobile crystal was hidden. Joseph could see the bench sitting empty by the street.

  “We have no other choice,” Lee said. “We’ve got to go through an entrance.”

  Ren let out a dismissive laugh. “I admire your courage, Brother Lee. It’s almost enough to make me take back all the things I’ve said about your people. The guard stations are equipped with laser boxes, car-piercing missiles, gas, heat-seeking exploders—am I forgetting anything?”

  “I meant dressed as Enforcers,” Lee said. “That had to be our original plan. It’s the only thing that could work.”

  Ren nodded. “But now we can’t remember the contact who was going to give us Enforcer armor. . . .”

  Joseph switched his comlink to search mode. His pace picked up. So did his mood. “I know where we can get armor.” A moment later he’d brought up one of the city’s dating databases. “Log onto a matching site and help me find two male Enforcers who are asleep during this shift. Two in the same apartment building would be best.�
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  “Why?” Ren asked.

  Joseph’s mind was working so fast, sprinting ahead to plan out the details, that he almost didn’t want to take the time to speak. He kept his explanation concise. “We’ll drug a couple of Enforcers and take them in our car. We don’t have crystals with clearance to get in, but they do.”

  “You want to take drugged Enforcers in the car with us?” Ren repeated. “You don’t think the detention guards will find that suspicious?”

  “The seats in the cars are hollow,” Joseph said, bringing up an information page on one of the dating sites. “The Dakine use them to smuggle things sometimes. We’ll use them to smuggle the unconscious Enforcers. When we pull up to the detention center, the guards’ sensors will show two enforcers bringing in”—he gestured to the nearing bench—“whoever that crystal says. And that’s also what they’ll see in the car. Two Enforcers. One prisoner.”

  Ren considered this. “Wouldn’t it be better to be three Enforcers? That way there isn’t a chance one of us will be thrown into a cell.”

  Joseph shook his head. “We need an excuse to go to the detention center off our shift. Anything else will seem suspicious.”

  They reached the bench, and all three sat down. Ren casually ran one hand along the underside. He peeled off the mobile crystal hidden there and slipped it into his pocket.

  Lee was already filling out profile information on one of the matching sites. “I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman with a high rank who enjoys adventure programs, light ball, and dartys . . . Must have same shift.”

  Ren turned to his comlink, bringing up the same dating site. “Try to find Enforcers who look like us.”

  Lee nodded. “That means I’m looking for a handsome man with a chiseled build. . . .”

  “And I’m looking for someone,” Ren said, typing in information of his own, “with an ultrachiseled build.

  “Ultrachiseled isn’t even an option,” Lee said.