No True Echo

by Gareth P. Jones

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘He’s gone back and killed Melody, and now he’s intending to wipe away the timelines in which she exists. That way, the version where she dies will be the only version left. He’s trying to wipe her off the timeline altogether.’

  ‘Can he do that?’

  ‘He can once the rest of the world decides that the timeline is becoming too fragmented. The ETA launches an investigation into every remaining line to shut down all the altered versions, leaving only the original one, but Maguire is trying to control which one remains. And he wants it to be the one you started in, the one without Melody.’

  ‘And I told you all this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did I look like I understood it?’

  Angus laughed.

  ‘Why did I tell you?’ I asked.

  The bell rang to signify the end of break.

  ‘I’ll explain later. Come on, we’d better get to class.’

  Before I followed him down the corridor, I looked up at one of the portraits, in which one of the students had painted himself with two faces pointing in different directions. I didn’t recognise the face but I understood the feeling.

  Chips Again

  Scarlett didn’t ask permission to sit with me this time. She simply placed her tray with a jacket potato and cheese on the table and sat down.

  ‘You had salad last time,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. It’s useful to vary what you do when reliving the same moment. It keeps you focused on which now is now.’

  I picked up a chip on my fork. ‘So how many more times do I have to eat this chip before this is over? They weren’t even that nice the first time around.’

  Scarlett stole one and bit into it. ‘Tastes all right to me. You were talking to Angus during break. What did he tell you?’

  ‘Why do you want to know? So you can tell me that everything he told me was a lie, then tell me a load more stuff to give me an even bigger headache?’

  ‘I’m not here to give you a headache,’ said Scarlett.

  ‘He said Maguire’s going to go back and kill Melody. Or he’s already done it.’

  Scarlett said nothing.

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘It’s certainly one possibility.’

  ‘He also said that you work for him.’

  ‘There are elements of truth in that too.’

  ‘He said you’re trying to help him.’

  ‘Maguire? No, not the way Angus means. I’m here to find out the truth, which, as you’re learning, isn’t always that easy.’

  ‘He said something about Maguire destroying other versions but I didn’t really understand how.’

  ‘I’d be surprised if Angus did. This is advanced stuff even thirty years from now, but it’s called an echo detergent because it cleans up any messy unwanted timelines.’

  ‘Unwanted?’

  ‘Not all jump cords are destroyed immediately. The detergents help us at the ETA get rid of those leftover ones.’

  ‘So you are helping Maguire?’

  ‘I’m doing my job. The decision has been made to tidy up all altered versions. There are concerns about the timeline being fragmented. It’s not been proven that it’s a problem but no one wants to take any risks. Besides, people don’t like the idea that there are all these different versions of themselves wandering around capable of jumping into their timeline at any point.’

  ‘Did Maguire kill my mother?’

  Scarlett sighed. ‘What do you think? Do you think Maguire’s capable of murdering Melody and wiping any trace of her from history?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘I didn’t ask you what you knew. I asked you what you thought. They can teach you how to work out who’s doing what to whom, but the best tool you’ve got in the field is your ability to read people. You’ve met three versions of Maguire now. Did any of them seem capable of killing?’

  ‘He shot me,’ I said.

  ‘That’s true, but he knew that timeline would be destroyed anyway so I’m not sure that counts. He also knew I would save you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he knows I need you.’

  Scarlett must have seen the look on my face because she quickly added, ‘For the investigation.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘The first time we met, the timeline I was investigating had been made by Cornish.’

  ‘Because he travelled back to kill Maguire?’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘He was expecting to kill Melody but his jump got misdirected and he ended up in a version where she was already dead. When I got hold of him, I made sure he was returned to his originating point where he was convicted for the murder. He’s served his sentence now.’

  ‘But you only arrested him a few days ago.’

  ‘A few days for you,’ said Scarlett. ‘This case has lasted a little bit longer than that for me. A lot has changed over that time. For all of us.’ I didn’t know what her look meant and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  ‘So why do you need me?’

  ‘I wish I could tell you everything but I need to wrap up this Angus business first.’

  ‘Have you come back from the same time as Angus?’

  ‘Not quite but close, I think. I’ve got an idea who sent him here. Care to comment on that, Eddie?’

  There was no need to reply. She knew. From the smile, I could tell she knew that I had sent Angus. Maybe she even knew why.

  ‘So your name is Lauren,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but can we stick with Scarlett here? I’d like to hang on to some of my protocols. Besides, I prefer it.’

  ‘Who’s Scarlett really?’

  ‘No one important. A girl who had her identity borrowed.’

  ‘You mean stolen?’

  ‘No. Borrowed is a more accurate description.’

  ‘What about Lauren? What’s she like?’

  ‘At this point in time, Lauren Bliss lives a normal life with her mother and father. I can safely say that she has never done anything remarkable until yesterday when she ran away from home.’

  ‘Won’t your parents worry?’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter. Every version created by an agent’s jump is wiped away after use. The lines are only kept open as long as the investigation is ongoing.’

  ‘I don’t get it. If the future you has taken over this body, where’s the you from now?’

  ‘Think of it as asleep at the back of my mind, unaware of what’s going on but ready to wake up as soon as I jump out. If I were to jump back now, you’d be talking to a very confused girl indeed. The last thing she knew she was at home in London. Now she is in the Wellcome Valley, eating an extremely dry baked potato.’

  ‘That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Scarlett took a bite of her potato. ‘But memory is a selective thing. Take this lunch. I try to change what I have each time but I won’t remember the exact consistency of the potato. I might remember that it needed to be a bit warmer for the cheese to melt but there‘s loads of stuff I won’t recall. And what about all the other lunches, breakfasts and dinners of my life? My memory will retain a few but discard the rest. Even at this age, there’s lots your memory didn’t think worth hanging on to. Imagine what it’ll be like when you’re older.’

  I had been so absorbed in our conversation that I hadn’t noticed the table of girls watching us, until Scarlett took my hand, making them giggle and point.

  ‘Look, Eddie, don’t worry about this stuff. All that matters is what’s happening now,’ she said. ‘That’s what you learn doing this job.’

  I moved my hand away.

  ‘Can I ask you one more thing?’

  ‘I probably won’t be able to answer it.’

  ‘Do we meet in the future?’

  Her final smile was so full of sadness that I feared for what she was going to say, but she sighed and replied, ‘I’m hoping we might meet again in the past.’

  Beginning at t
he End

  I didn’t care who I sat next to in English this time. I was trying to make sense of everything, so Cornish’s words washed over me until something he said struck a chord. ‘Mary Shelley begins her story not at the beginning, but at the end.’

  ‘Why?’ I demanded.

  ‘Why what?’ He looked confused.

  ‘Isn’t life confusing enough without jiggling about the order?’

  I was aware of Angus and Scarlett watching me with interest.

  ‘I mean, you don’t go to a restaurant and ask for a pudding first, do you? They don’t say who’s won the football before kick off, do they? Bands don’t play encores before they’ve even done one song.’

  ‘All valid points,’ said Cornish, ‘but Victor Frankenstein is telling his story in the past tense, which means it is something that has already happened, so by starting her story at the end, Mary Shelley —’

  ‘It’s not the end.’ It was Scarlett who interrupted this time.

  ‘Would you care to expand on that?’ said Cornish.

  ‘The monster comes back, doesn’t he?’ said Scarlett. ‘In which case the book starts somewhere near the end, but not the very end.’

  Mr Cornish spun around on his heel and threw his marker pen from one hand to the other. ‘That’s true, although I wasn’t going to mention that. I didn’t want to spoil it for those of you who haven’t read it yet.’

  Angus piped up next. ‘I thought that knowing what happens wasn’t the same as knowing the story.’

  ‘True too, Angus,’ said Cornish, weaving his way between the desks, clearly enjoying the pace of the conversation. ‘The important thing is the words on the page.’

  ‘In which case it depends what version we’re talking about,’ said Scarlett.

  Cornish clapped his hands together excitedly. ‘Superb. Scarlett is talking about the two different versions of Frankenstein. The original was published in 1818, the second in 1831 when Mary Shelley revised the book. To answer your question, Scarlett, we’ll be working from the revised text.’

  ‘I prefer the original,’ said Scarlett.

  Cornish was momentarily caught off guard by this, wrestling with an instinct to doubt that a student could possibly have not only read the book, but read both different versions of it. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘In the first one, Frankenstein makes his own decisions,’ she replied simply. ‘In the later one, he is the victim of fate.’

  ‘Really?’ I had never seen Cornish look out of his depth before.

  ‘Yes. Thirteen years on, Mary had buried three children and one husband. She had felt pain. She had lived through tragedy. She obviously found it easier to put her loss down to fate. She victimised herself and so she allowed her most famous character to do the same.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ said Cornish. ‘Fate is certainly a key theme of the book that we’ll be looking at. So what do we think, comrades? Who here believes in fate?’

  Hands went up. Mine stayed down. We were back on familiar ground, although I had changed my mind now. How could there be a fixed course of events if there were different futures, pasts and presents? Nothing was certain. Even my memories had become slippery, uncertain things I could no longer rely on. I had never considered how large a hole my mother’s death had left in my life until it was filled. I missed that emptiness. Without it, who was I?

  After class, I walked out with Angus. He spoke to me out of the side of his mouth, managing to look much more suspicious than he would have looked speaking normally. ‘There’s a plan.’

  ‘What kind of plan?’

  He reached his hand into his pocket and handed me a packet of Smarties.

  ‘Ah, a plan with sweets,’ I said. ‘My favourite kind.’

  Angus spoke seriously. ‘On the way home, you’ll sit next to Scarlett. All you have to do is offer her a Smartie and make sure she takes the blue one.’

  I flipped up the lid and saw a blue Smartie at the top. ‘Why?’

  We reached the car park and stepped out. ‘Look, this is your plan, Eddie. Not mine. I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to trust yourself. Give her the Smartie. Don’t give her the Smartie. It’s up to you, but you told me to tell you to do it.’

  I closed the packet and slipped it into my coat pocket.

  ‘Last call for anywhere but here,’ yelled Bill.

  ‘Never gets old,’ I said.

  ‘He does,’ replied Angus. ‘Almost takes a whole bus full of kids over the edge. He loses his license after that.’

  Angus’s mum flashed the car lights

  ‘Remember, Eddie, the blue sweet.’ Angus turned and ran to the car.

  I got to the bus just as Bill was closing the doors. Scarlett was already there. I sat down next to her, and tried not to think about how close she was.

  ‘How are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I feel like my brain has been tumble dried.’

  ‘Has Angus told you what he’s doing here yet?’

  ‘He says he’s working for me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘The trouble with this business is that one minute you’re talking to your best friend, the next it’s your worst enemy.’

  ‘Which are you?’

  ‘I’m someone trying to do a job. What did Angus give you?’

  I took out the packet of Smarties. There was no point hiding anything from Scarlett. She took it, opened the top and poured a few onto her palm, including the blue one.

  ‘These are my favourite,’ she said. ‘Do you think I should have one?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I especially like the look of the blue one.’

  ‘Angus told me to make you eat it,’ I admitted.

  She nodded. ‘Did he tell you what it would do to me?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘It contains some kind of temporal distortion reactor. The Echo Corporation has teams of echo jumpers who travel back to manufacture this stuff and hide it in the past so that it can be dug up and used.’

  ‘Used to do what?’

  ‘There are two types that I’m aware of. Since you tried to give it to me, I hope it’s a locator which returns the echo jumper to his or her originating point.’

  ‘What’s the other type?’

  Scarlett didn’t answer. She gave me a pitying glance. ‘You remember what I asked you about Maguire? I said that often your instincts and intuition are all you’ve got to go on. Trust no one.’

  ‘Not even myself?’

  ‘You’ve met Melody now. Is she how you expected her to be? Is your life what you expected it to be?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s not so different to how Ruby described her, I suppose.’

  ‘Melody Dane is a brilliant woman. It was her who inspired me to get involved with echo technology. I can’t imagine what it was like for you, growing up in her shadow and under her influence. Can you?’

  ‘Am I different in this version, then?’

  ‘You’re the same person, but your life is different.’ Scarlett poured the sweets back and handed the packet to me.

  ‘You think the Smartie would have hurt you?’ I asked.

  ‘The Eddie I know wouldn’t hurt anyone,’ she replied.

  ‘How much longer will this last?’

  ‘It’s almost over,’ she replied.

  Bill slammed on the brakes.

  ‘All right, Miss White. That’s you, good night.’

  ‘I’ll see you around, Eddie Dane.’

  I felt my chest tighten at the thought of her going, because each time she left I feared I would never see her again. When she got off, I stared out of the window and watched her disappear into the darkness.

  A Picture of Frustration

  I found comfort in Ruby’s paint-splattered chaos but I noticed how the painting on the easel was spikier than before. The colours were brighter and had been applied with
more force.

  ‘It’s not regret,’ I said.

  ‘No. It’s frustration,’ she replied. She grinned at me and added, ‘Which, of course, means it’s impossible to get right.’

  ‘Where’s Melody?’

  ‘Over at David’s, teetering on the brink of the scientific discovery of the century.’

  ‘She will change the world,’ I said.

  ‘I have no doubt about that,’ replied Ruby. ‘I have never had any doubts about that. Ever since she was a little girl I knew Melody was going to change the world. My only question was whether she would change it for the better or worse.’ Ruby raised her eyebrows to show she was trying to be funny.

  ‘What about him?’ I said.

  ‘David? He’s just David. He manages her, which is something.’

  ‘They think they can control time,’ I said. ‘That’s what they’re doing.’

  ‘Why would you want to?’

  ‘To avoid making mistakes, I suppose?’ I said.

  ‘Life is mistakes, Eddie. Take you. You think you were planned? Not likely. But what a fine specimen of a mistake you are.’ She held up my chin, colouring it with orange paint. ‘Believe me, everything worthwhile begins life as a mistake.’

  ‘It would be nice to avoid making the same mistakes,’ I said.

  ‘What’s the point? You’ll only end up making different ones.’

  ‘Do you think Melody would avoid having me if she could?’

  ‘Who knows? But I tell you what I would do. I’d do everything the same.’

  ‘You’re telling me you don’t have any regrets?’ I didn’t try to hide the disbelief in my voice.

  ‘Of course I have regrets, but I’d do it the same because that’s what I’m like. Even if I tried to do things differently, they’d end up the same.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I have tried to do things differently. Half my life was spent trying to be a better person but you reach a certain age and you realise you don’t have a choice about who you are. All of us are slaves to ourselves.’

  ‘You’d still have Melody, then?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. If I didn’t have her, I wouldn’t have you and, while you’re not exactly my first choice of living companion, you are you, and that’s something.’