Echo in Time

by C. J. Hill

  He paused when he got close to her. She faced him and waited, perfectly still. Perhaps he thought she was compliant, that she would accept whatever blow he gave her. She wasn’t compliant though; she was focused. The cuff around her wrist kept her manacled to the table, but it also provided her with leverage. The table was low enough now that she could put all her weight on it.

  He came toward her, slicing a blow aimed at her head. She leaned back and kicked him squarely in the chest. The impact made a gratifying thudding noise.

  He stumbled backward, arms floundering, and he hit the floor with another thud. Just as gratifying. This was probably why people had played violent video games: pent-up anger. It felt good to take it out on someone even if he wasn’t real.

  Sheridan didn’t wait to see how long it would take Reilly to get up. She pushed another button. The table rose a few inches. She looked at the gaping mouth of the erasing chamber. How long could she push buttons without pushing the wrong one? But what other choice did she have?

  She looked back at the Enforcers. Tariq swung his chain saw at Echo’s face, barely missing his helmet. As Tariq’s arm continued in its downward arc, Echo brought his chain saw down on his arm. The grinding sound of saw hitting armor screeched from the blade. Tariq fell forward, pushed by the momentum of Echo’s blow. Before he could get back on his feet, Echo kicked him in the side, toppling him into a patch of the black ooze. Tariq jerked left and then right, but he was held tight.

  So this was how the program would go. Reilly knew she didn’t trust Tariq anymore, so the program brought in Echo to rescue her. He would help her escape and then tell her he needed information about the QGP. It would be the same thing she’d already done with Tariq all over again. But worse. She cared about Echo, missed him. It would be hard not to fall apart in his arms.

  She felt another rush of anger toward Reilly. He wanted to see an escape scene? She would give it to him. She would fight, and she would laugh when this ended, not cry. Even if she had to force the laughter.

  Reilly pulled himself to his feet, his face red and blotchy with fury. “I won’t let them rescue you,” he spit, and limped over to the desk beside the bed.

  Sheridan pushed another button. A lamp above the table flicked on and flooded the area with light. It was too bright. She could barely see anything now. Stupid program. It wouldn’t let her win.

  Reilly picked up a long needle from the desk. It glinted in his hand, clinical and dangerous. He came back toward her.

  She pressed another button. This time the pressure on her wrist released. The computer must think Reilly was so close that she couldn’t get away from him. She didn’t look at her wrist. Her eyes were trained on Reilly and the shot in his hand. He was nearly to her.

  His eyes pulsed with a blunt sort of rage and his words were no more than a guttural growl. “You will die!”

  He lunged toward her, trying to stab her chained arm. If the light hadn’t been so bright, he might have seen that she had released the cuff. Or maybe not. The cuff hadn’t completely come off. When she jerked her arm away from the table, the cuff stayed on her wrist for several seconds, pulling the rope loose.

  What she did next, she did without thinking.

  Reilly still leaned over the table. Sheridan took hold of the cuff and wound its rope around Reilly’s neck. When that was done, she snapped the cuff shut on the rope.

  “I’ve already died so many times,” she told him as the rope tightened and retreated into the table, “it doesn’t bother me anymore. We’ll see how you like it.”

  To Reilly’s credit, he managed to get his hands in between his neck and the rope before it completely choked him. His head was pinned to the table, though, and his green hair flopped around as he jerked one way and then the other. He pulled at the rope with both hands, sputtering and gasping. “Help!” he coughed out.

  Sheridan stepped away from the table. “Not brilliant last words, but fitting ones. You’ve always needed help, haven’t you?”

  Sheridan turned away from him and took in the room. Three Enforcers lay on the ground, one was stuck to the wall, and another was falling at the hands of two Enforcers. A third strode toward her. The light over the table shone so brightly that it cast a reflection on his visor. Instead of his face, all she saw was a distorted image of herself, staring wide-eyed at him.

  Where was Echo? Was he one of the Enforcers who’d already fallen? She backed up until she bumped into the table, right next to Reilly’s struggling form.

  She didn’t realize she’d hit the button that activated the memory wash sequence until the erasing chamber let out a low, vibrating hum. The table moved, sliding slowly along the floor toward the opening. Sheridan jerked away from the table, looking for a weapon, anything she could use against an Enforcer.

  The shot Reilly had tried to use on her lay on the table. She grabbed it and held it out in front of her, brandishing it. The joints. Those were the Enforcers’ only weak spots. It would be hard to get to them while the man kept moving.

  “Stay away,” she said, and took a step backward. The table was gone now, swallowed up by the erasing chamber. She had only a few feet before she’d back up into the wall.

  Reilly’s yells from the chamber abruptly stopped. She didn’t have time to think about him or what that meant. She edged to her left, farther away from the advancing Enforcer.

  The man lifted his helmet visor, and some of her fear melted into relief. Echo’s hair was no longer blue. He’d dyed it black and wore it slicked down. Two large black ovals surrounded his eyes—a tattoo version of a bandit’s mask.

  “Sheridan,” he said. “It’s me.” He spoke in the twenty-first-century accent, as though she might not have understood him otherwise.

  She kept a wary eye on the Enforcers behind him. “When did you start working in the detention center?”

  “I’m rescuing you,” Echo said. “That means you can put the shot down.” He motioned to the other Enforcers. “These are my friends. We’re going to get you out of here, but you’ll need to cooperate with us.”

  One of the Enforcers took off his helmet and gripped it in one hand. No, not gripped it, Sheridan realized. It was stuck to his glove with the black goo. He was the Enforcer who had fought blind. His long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Slashes marred his armor in a few places, black scars on his torso. He took off his glove and dropped it and the stuck helmet to the floor.

  The second unfamiliar Enforcer peered around the room, still holding his sword chain saw. “Where’s Reilly?”

  The ponytailed Enforcer pointed to the erasing chamber. It was humming even louder now. Lights raced up and down its computer screen. Reilly was no longer visible, but one of his shoes had been kicked off in his struggle. It lay halfway out of the chamber door, shivering from the machine’s vibrations. “Is he dead?” the ponytailed Enforcer asked.

  Echo held his hand out to Sheridan. “Put down the shot,” he said soothingly. “We need to go.”

  Sheridan lowered her arm but didn’t move. She was waiting for the answer to the Enforcer’s question. Was Reilly dead? Was that something he would let a VR program do?

  The second Enforcer walked over to the erasing chamber’s control panel and read the data there. “In the ways that matter, yes. Which means I’ve decided to follow the council’s guidelines of noninterference. We don’t have time to wait around for this thing to finish, and I’m not going in there.”

  The conversation didn’t make sense to Sheridan. While she watched the Enforcer read the chamber data, Echo had reached over and plucked the shot from her hand. He tossed it onto the floor. “Sheridan, we’re going to pretend we’re leading you to a cell. You’ll need to wear these.” He held up a pair of cuffs with the backs cut off. “Don’t let anyone see they’re not real.”

  Echo’s friends went around to the downed Enforcers, giving each a shot in the joint that quieted him. The room seemed oddly silent without their stream of threats and curses, without their c
alls for backup.

  “Hold out your hands,” Echo told Sheridan. When she did, he put a metal band around her right wrist. “This will block your crystal’s signal until we can take you someplace to remove it.”

  Well, that was a new twist. Every other time she’d escaped from the city, someone had taken her to a med center to have her crystal removed.

  Where the ends of the metal band met, they grew warm, fusing together. Echo slipped the fake cuffs onto her wrists, then took her arm and turned her to the door. “That’s Lee,” he said, pointing to the man who still wore his helmet. “And that’s Ren.” He nodded at the man with the ponytail. “They’re part of the DW.”

  Of course they were. They probably needed information about the QGPs that only she could provide. She didn’t comment.

  Ren reached Tariq. He was the last of the downed Enforcers still conscious and was calling out for help. Ren pulled off Tariq’s helmet. “No one will come help you,” Ren said with disgust, “because the guards here are used to ignoring screams.” He plunged a needle into Tariq’s neck. Tariq stared at Sheridan with an expression she couldn’t identify. Was it frustration, regret, or just surprise? In another moment the emotion disappeared and his head lolled to the ground.

  Ren put on Tariq’s helmet and took one of his gloves as well. Echo led Sheridan to the door. She had been so full of adrenaline, so geared up to fight, but now her energy was fading into a numb acceptance of whatever came next. Don’t hope, she told herself. This isn’t real.

  Echo’s grip on her arm was gentle. “You’ll need to be quiet until we’re out of the detention center.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, half expecting Reilly to be standing by the erasing chamber watching her. Instead only his shoe was visible, vibrating on the floor like a dancer tapping out the rhythm to some morbid song.

  “What about Taylor?” Sheridan asked. “Are you rescuing her too?”

  “Taylor is safe,” Echo said. “I don’t have time to explain more right now.”

  He didn’t have to. Safe was a good word, a word she didn’t mind savoring until later.

  As soon as they left the room, another Enforcer joined the group, a woman who had been standing guard by the door. She must have been one of Echo’s friends, because no one seemed surprised to see her. She fell in line beside them and they marched down the hallway. “You’ll need to hurry,” the woman told Echo. “When the med doesn’t issue a report on the memory wash, someone will check on her.”

  Sheridan wondered how long that would be. How much time did it take to wipe a life’s worth of memories from a person’s mind?

  The group turned and strode down another hallway, this one mostly empty. No one spoke. They went up the elevator and then down another hall. When they reached the doors at the end, the woman Enforcer put her crystal to the door panel. The door slid open and they all went through. They walked down another hallway, and the woman opened the last door for them, one that led into a parking garage. Without any kind of good-bye, she turned and went back the way she’d come. Echo and the others hurried into the garage, propelling Sheridan along with them.

  She was out of the building, one step closer to freedom. Don’t hope, she told herself. Nothing hurt quite as much as the shards of broken hope.

  Lee took out a scanner, checked it, and said, “This way.”

  The group ignored the closest cars and went to one in a back row. Echo slid the cuffs off her wrists and helped her get inside. The others climbed in behind her. Instead of sitting down, they knelt on the floor and slid the top off the far seat. Ren reached down inside and pulled out a man’s arm.

  Sheridan jerked backward and let out a shriek. Two seconds later she realized the arm was connected to a man, which wasn’t much more comforting. Who was he? Was he alive? What had they done to him? He lay limp and unmoving on the car floor.

  Ren put the man’s crystal to the control panel. “The Rico Estates building,” he said, and then hefted the man back into the seat.

  “It’s all right, Sheridan.” Echo knelt in front of her. He held his hands toward her in the same gesture she used to calm skittish horses. “They’re not dead, just unconscious. We needed their crystals to get into the detention center.”

  “They?” Sheridan repeated.

  Echo didn’t need to explain because by that time Ren and Lee had removed the top off the other side of the seats. They hauled another man out and dumped him into the opening where the first man lay.

  Echo moved toward the empty seat opening. “The guards at the checkpoint have to think Ren and Lee are the Enforcers in the car. You and I need to hide. Come on.”

  The empty compartment in the seat didn’t look big enough for two people, but Ren and Lee had managed to put the seat top on the other side. Echo got in, lay down, and motioned for Sheridan to join him. She climbed in, feeling awkward, and lay down beside him. There wasn’t any room between them. The stiff parts of his Enforcer uniform poked into her.

  He took hold of her hand in his. “We’re almost free.”

  Almost free. Almost didn’t count. That was like being almost alive. It still left you mostly dead.

  Ren and Lee leaned over them, sliding the seat top back into place. Ren said, “Be quiet until we tell you it’s safe.”

  Then it went dark. She could only make out cracks of light above them where the seats were cut.

  Echo squeezed her hand. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” It was a lie, of course. She was far from fine. She was surrounded by darkness even though her eyes were wide open.

  “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  She didn’t answer. What could she have said? Besides, they were supposed to be quiet. She could feel Echo’s breath near her ear, sense the motion of his chest moving up and down. They were so close, it might as well have been an embrace. And because he couldn’t see, she let herself relax and pretended it was.

  Lying where they were, they heard the rumbling of the car against the rail as loud. It muted everything. Which was probably why it still sounded like Echo was murmuring, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” over and over again.

  Chapter 36

  Sheridan wasn’t sure how long she lay in the dark with Echo, feeling him breathe and hearing the street rumble by. After a while, Ren and Lee pulled the tops off the seats. Sheridan blinked in the light, then let Ren help her out. Echo climbed out by himself, stretching his shoulders as he did. “Where are we?” he asked. His face was still wrong, too round. She had half expected the computer to realize its mistake and adjust him.

  Lee picked up one side of the seat’s top to put it back. “Fraternity Street.”

  Echo helped slide the seat into place, then took Sheridan’s hand and sat down next to her. “The detention center might have realized there was a breakout by now,” he told her. “We’ll switch cars soon, in case someone decides to track the unconscious Enforcers.”

  Ren unclipped his comlink from his belt. “Ask her about pots and kettles.”

  Echo gently squeezed Sheridan’s hand. His blue eyes were serious, intent. “I need to know the meaning of the phrase That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  An odd question. “Why?” she asked, automatically suspicious.

  “It will take a while to explain everything. I need to know what the phrase means first.”

  Sheridan hesitated, trying to find the trap in the question. What did Reilly want? What information could answering reveal? She could think of nothing. Reilly must already know what the phrase meant.

  “It means you’re a hypocrite,” Sheridan said.

  Ren tapped something into his comlink. His lips were drawn in a firm, unhappy line. “If Taylor waited so long that she’s been captured, I vow I’ll—”

  Sheridan didn’t let him finish. “Taylor? Where’s Taylor?”

  “Hiding at the Scicenter,” Lee said. “Hopefully undetected.”

  “At
the Scicenter?” Sheridan repeated, with more than a little doubt. “Why is she there?”

  “I’m sure Taylor is all right.” Echo unclipped his comlink and checked its screen. “She probably ran her program and left long ago.”

  Ren’s eyebrows drew together. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because that’s what I would have done.”

  Lee looked at Echo with evident confusion. “You would lie about your demands?”

  Ren shook his head in disapproval. “We gave our oath that we would try to free her sister. That should have been enough.”

  Echo clipped his comlink back onto his belt. “Oaths can be broken more easily than threats.”

  “Not by men of honor,” Ren said. Then he and Lee gave each other knowing looks and mumbled things about people who grew up in oath-breaking cities.

  Sheridan didn’t speak. She hadn’t understood what the others were talking about, except that they weren’t sure where Taylor was. This apparently would be a program in which the DW offered to help rescue Taylor in return for information.

  Echo turned in his seat so that his full attention rested on Sheridan. His blue eyes were heavy with worry. “You’re all right?” he asked for the second time.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  Echo kept looking her over, frowning. “You’ve lost weight. We’ll get you something to eat as soon as we’re safe.”

  She imagined that wouldn’t be for a while. They had to know she was judging the reality by her hunger.

  Echo’s gaze didn’t break from hers. “Are you . . . did they . . . do you have any injuries?”

  “Not yet,” she said airily, “but it’s still early in the day.”

  Her answer made him smile. It wasn’t enough to rid his eyes of worry though.

  The programs were so good at copying emotion, at using it to elicit responses from her. She wanted to both throw her arms around him and to yell at him to stop it. She turned sharply away from him and looked out the window. She saw tall buildings in different colors: blue, yellow, pink. One had something on its walls that made it sparkle like a disco ball. She hadn’t been on this street before.