Erasing Time

by C. J. Hill

  Sheridan gestured toward the Rubik’s Cube. “By studying pictures of things you obviously don’t understand? The sides on that are supposed to move, by the way.”

  “By studying everything,” Echo said. “Especially words.”

  Jeth leaned toward her intently. “Words are evidence of the past. They leave a trail. Every influence is recorded. For example, we can tell exactly when the Normans conquered England because of the influx of French words into the English language during the eleventh century. We know when a large Hispanic migration to America took place for the same reason. We can discern how people thought by the words they chose, the names they called things. Words always leave a trail.”

  Jeth stopped suddenly and gave an apologetic smile. “I’m wasting time being a teacher when I should be asking questions. We have so little time together and so much to learn.”

  As they talked, Sheridan turned Jeth’s sentence over in her mind. So little time together? If words left a trail, where did that sentence lead? What did the wordsmiths know that they weren’t telling her?

  chapter

  10

  Echo had seen a hundred pictures of people from the old twenties. He’d studied catalog remnants and magazine remains. When the historical society had held its last Come-in-Costume darty, he’d put on replica 1950s jeans, T-shirt, and tennis shoes and danced the twist. He’d probably done it all wrong. No one had ever seen the complete dance, but that was part of the fun. Making up wild moves.

  Anyway, he shouldn’t have been fascinated by Sheridan and Taylor’s clothes, but he couldn’t stop staring at them. Those were real jeans. They’d been made in some factory by oppressed workers, then funneled to rich merchants who dictated what the population had to wear. So much history resided in that cloth. More amazing still, Taylor and Sheridan were here, alive.

  To memory wash them would be like destroying hieroglyphs from an ancient Egyptian tomb.

  Frustration twined through Echo’s chest. While he stayed in the city, he could most likely prevent the girls from getting memory washes. And hadn’t he told Sheridan he would protect her? But how long could Echo stay in Traventon before the Dakine turned their attention to him?

  Jeth ordered dinner, and the group ate while talking. Echo watched the girls’ expressions as he and Jeth asked them questions. He thought their reactions to the questions were nearly as interesting as their answers.

  Taylor answered everything happily, asking questions of her own as she did. It was easy to tell she was smart, grasping new concepts and knowledge as soon as they were presented. Still, there was something about her that made Echo suspicious. Perhaps it was that she smiled so frequently, he couldn’t tell when she really meant it. If her smile was a pretense, what else was?

  Sheridan was the opposite. Every emotion—surprise, frustration, disbelief—appeared in sequence on her face. Her sorrow tugged at him, even when he didn’t understand what caused it. During dinner she came close to tears three times—once when Jeth told her that few people chose to marry, once when Elise told her a government literature committee wrote all the novels, and the last time when Jeth mentioned that children were now raised by certified caretakers in government-run learning centers.

  As though that were a bad thing.

  He had never minded living there. Not really. And he’d seen his parents on weekends. Or at least he’d seen his father. His parents had detached from each other when he was seven, and after that his mother made such a habit of being with different men, he never knew when he would see her or what she would be like.

  When he was fifteen, she became infatuated with a military officer and went with him on a defensive action against San Francisco. She never came back. The government said she’d been reassigned to permanent patrol, which meant she was dead. The government didn’t like to admit to casualties during any of its wars. They were always reported as being completely successful.

  Echo had always felt an unspoken resentment that she’d died that way, that she’d let love pull her into bad choices. But he’d done the same thing. If he hadn’t cared so much about Allana, his brother would still be alive.

  In that moment, he could picture Allana’s features clearly, her gray eyes and her dark-purple lips smiling at him. He remembered the way she wound her arms around his neck and whispered, “How can you two be so different, and yet I have such a hard time deciding who I love best?”

  “We’re not different,” he’d said, and laughed because no one ever accused them of that. They were too similar in their looks and speech for everyone. It was the reason Echo had dyed his hair blue and wore the crescent moon, so people could tell him from Joseph, who had left his hair blond and wore only a small blue star on his cheek.

  “You are different,” Allana had said, caressing his cheek with her lips. “If you don’t realize that, you don’t know your brother as well as you think you do.”

  He pushed the image of Allana away. He never had to see her again. That was the only good thing to come from the ordeal. Allana was dead too.

  Echo blinked, bringing himself back to the present. Jeth was demonstrating the computer functions, explaining that although the intellecturate could access any info sites in the city, Taylor and Sheridan needed to ask him before they researched anything. The government monitored searches, so studying the wrong things could get them into trouble. Sheridan watched Jeth, this time with indignation etched on her face.

  Echo liked her. He couldn’t help himself. How could he not like someone who was completely genuine, even when it was to her detriment? The way she kept defending her beliefs. The way they mattered to her.

  Joseph had been that type of person. At least everyone had thought so. But maybe it never had been true.

  He ran his hand through his hair. What kind of person had Joseph really been? It was ironic that he was sitting here thinking about it now and unsure for the first time.

  Joseph and Echo. Back when twins weren’t such a rarity, it used to be common to name the second one Echo, but it wasn’t accurate in their case. Echo had never been Joseph’s echo. Never. Echo had always loved life too much to let anyone overshadow him. Echo had been the one who made everyone laugh. Echo had been the one girls were drawn to.

  Until Allana.

  And then everything changed.

  He glanced over at Sheridan. She was sad again, although he’d missed what in the conversation had upset her.

  Jeth was showing old family pictures on the computer and explaining how each couple in Traventon was allowed two children—or at least they would be until aging was cured. Then there would be no need for children. Until then, couples could have one boy and one girl. Nothing upsetting in that statement.

  Taylor asked the inevitable question. “Then how come you had two sons?”

  Jeth ran his fingertips over a picture of Joseph and Echo when they were toddlers. “Identical twins aren’t supposed to happen, but when they do, most people eliminate one of the embryos so they can have a child of each sex. We liked the idea of twins, though. My grandfather was a twin, and he never said it was a bad thing.”

  “A bad thing?” Taylor asked. “Why would being a twin be a bad thing?”

  Jeth’s gaze flickered toward Echo, then went back to Taylor. “Everyone told us identical twins would have a confused sense of identity, that they would end up hating each other. But that never happened.” Jeth said the words forcefully, almost as though trying to convince himself of this fact. “Joseph and Echo were closer than any siblings I’ve ever known.”

  Everyone looked at Echo then. He felt their gazes weighing on him. They expected him to say something, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to say one word, so he nodded mutely, awkwardly.

  “I don’t think being a twin is a bad thing,” Sheridan said, drawing the attention away from him. “Except for when Taylor takes my clothes without asking.”

  “Hey,” Taylor said, “you’re lucky that you’ve always gotten to hang out with s
omeone as cool as me.”

  Jeth straightened, and his gaze ricocheted back and forth between Taylor and Sheridan. He was finally studying their features instead of just noticing their hair and coloring. “Are you twins? Yes, I see that you are. How incredible! Was it common in your day? Did you ever meet triplets?”

  Taylor answered his questions. Sheridan glanced back at Echo, and he could read the emotion on her face. Compassion. She was checking to see if he was all right. He managed a half smile to assure her.

  What would become of her here in Traventon? Even if she and Taylor escaped the first memory wash order, they would have to find a way to hide their background or they’d end up with a second order.

  Sheridan smiled back at him, a smile so infrequent, he knew it was genuine.

  Back in the hallway at the Scicenter, she had asked him who she needed protection from. He hadn’t quite been able to tell her the truth, despite her pronouncement that lies didn’t sit comfortably on his tongue. The reason lies didn’t sit comfortably on his tongue was that there were too many of them. It had turned into a crowded place.

  Inwardly, he sighed. He would help Sheridan and Taylor while he could, but even though he wanted to stay and learn everything about the past, a clock was set against him. He knew no more about his future than the girls did about theirs.

  chapter

  11

  After hours of conversation, Sheridan told the wordsmiths that she wanted to turn in for the night. And then explained that meant she wanted to sleep.

  Elise picked up the sack she’d first brought into the room and handed Taylor and Sheridan tooth tablets. They put them in their mouths, and the tablets fizzed their teeth clean. Elise also rubbed tangy-smelling cream onto their hands and arms. “This is sparkle,” she said, wiping the excess across Sheridan’s neck. “It’s cleaning bacteria. Within an hour it will spread across your whole body, eating dead skin, sweat, anything that would make you dirty.”

  “You don’t shower?” Sheridan asked. She wasn’t sure she liked the tingling that was crawling up her arms.

  “Too much water waste,” Jeth said, “and the bacteria can live up to twenty days per application.”

  Hungry bacteria. Great. Sheridan managed a smile even though she wanted to scrape the sparkle off her arms.

  Elise reached into the bag and handed out pairs of light-blue pajamas. They looked like leggings and tank tops but felt as soft as whipped cream. “They’re thermal regulated,” she said.

  “When you’re finished changing,” Jeth added, “I’ll take your clothes.”

  Sheridan held the pajamas against her chest while she looked for a place to change. Finally, her gaze returned to the wordsmiths.

  “Pues?” Jeth said when neither she nor Taylor moved. “Is something wrong with the pajamas?”

  “No, but we need a place to change,” Sheridan said.

  The wordsmiths said nothing for several seconds, then Echo held up one hand as though he’d figured it out. “Privacy,” he said. “Men and women didn’t disrobe in front of each other in the early twenty-first century.”

  “Of course,” Jeth chimed in. “That was one of their social taboos, wasn’t it?” He looked over at Taylor. “You’ll have to give me a list of those, and tell me what you know about the meaning and origination of each one.”

  Taylor nodded weakly at him.

  Elise took Sheridan and Taylor to the back room, showed them the bathroom, and explained how to work everything. Then she unrolled a pair of gel beds side by side on the floor. Within a few seconds they grew to normal size, like self-filling air mattresses.

  Sheridan changed into her pajamas, feeling a bit awkward that Elise stood there waiting to take her clothes. At least it wasn’t Echo and Jeth.

  That was one custom she refused to adopt.

  After Elise left, Sheridan took a better look around the room. A desk and computer sat in one corner, but mostly the place looked like an artifact repository. Rows of shelves held vacuum-sealed boxes: a faded Barbie doll, a cracked calculator, a boot, a worn baseball mitt, a water bottle—things she would have thrown into the garbage without a second thought. Now they were museum pieces.

  Sheridan lay down on one of the gel beds, and it molded against her body. The cleaning bacteria must have liked the warmth. The tingling grew stronger. “I’m not going to be able to get to sleep,” she said. “I have sparkle crawling down my back.” She twitched and turned over. “Is it going up your nose?”

  Taylor had been sitting on her bed, staring at the shelves and thinking. For the first time in hours her face was devoid of a smile. “We have to get out of this city,” she whispered.

  Sheridan kept her voice low, in case the wordsmiths were in the other room. “I thought you said we couldn’t go back in time.”

  “We can’t,” Taylor said, “but we still have to leave Traventon. Once they implant those tracking crystals in our wrists, they’ll control our entire lives. I’m not letting some power-hungry and morally depraved government tell me what I can learn, say, and do.”

  Sheridan propped herself up on an elbow, which immediately sank into the bed. “Where will we go?”

  “I don’t know, but Traventon isn’t the only city on earth. Some of them have to be better.”

  Sheridan felt the stirrings of hope reviving. Taylor was right. Civilization might be completely different somewhere else. “How can we get out? I thought the government didn’t let people leave.”

  “We’ll have to figure out where Traventon is on the map and do some research on the nearby cities. We’ll also need to get supplies and find out if there’s any way to buy, steal, or make bullets. When we leave, that gun is going with us.” Taylor lay down on her side, letting one arm hang off her mattress. “I’m too tired to think about it tonight. I’ll work on it tomorrow.” She yawned, then pushed the button by her bed that controlled the lights.

  A shade rolled down the window, the ceiling light flicked off, and the room went completely dark.

  “One more thing,” Taylor said. “Try to stick with Echo and keep him away from me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want him to figure out what we’re planning. It will be easier to fool Jeth. He’s not as smart.”

  Sheridan turned on her side, settling into the bed. “The wordsmiths might not be around tomorrow. If they find Tyler Sherwood, they’ll be busy with him.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Tyler Sherwood didn’t work on regenerating cells. He worked on ways to take them apart. If they want him here in the future, it’s because they plan on destroying something.”

  It took Sheridan a moment to process the statement. “I didn’t know you knew who Tyler Sherwood was.”

  But Taylor didn’t answer, and after a few seconds Sheridan heard the deep breaths of sleep coming from her bed.

  It was harder for Sheridan to sleep. It was too stressful to think about the present and too painful to think about the past. So she imagined herself riding her horse, Breeze, out underneath the sunshine. After a while, she drifted off to the rhythm of hoofbeats.

  WHEN SHERIDAN AWOKE, the back room was empty and the lights were set on a dim glow. She got up, stretched, and walked into the main room looking for Taylor. The wordsmiths were nowhere around. Taylor sat perched in front of one the computers looking through some sort of data. Sheridan wondered, but only vaguely, how Taylor had managed to log on.

  “Good morning,” Sheridan said. As she walked toward the computers, she caught sight of the artifact cabinet. There, hanging in the back like denim flags, were her and Taylor’s jeans. They’d been put in among the relics of the past, already sealed in long, clear, air-vacuumed boxes. A closer look revealed their tops were there too, folded and preserved.

  Sheridan stared at them blankly. “Okay, that’s just wrong.”

  “I know,” Taylor said. “I’m absolutely not giving them my underwear.”

  Sheridan smoothed a mass
of tangles from her hair and padded over to see what her sister was doing. The computer showed an aerial map of a domed city.

  “According to a trade website,” Taylor said, scrolling toward a river, “the nearest city to Traventon is two hundred ten kilometers—that’s about a hundred and thirty miles—away. If we managed to walk fifteen miles a day, it would still take us almost nine days to get there. I’m looking for roads.”

  “Are you going to get in trouble for doing unauthorized research?”

  “Maybe.”

  On the bottom left side of the monitor, a small box was playing a commercial. It showed a group of women walking past a man. He smiled and spoke to them, but they glanced at his rank badge and turned away, uninterested. A man’s voice said, “Tired of your low rank ruining every darty? Want to see how the glams play? We guarantee a two-digit raise for every ten credits you give Rankraisers. Click us. We have happiness spinning your way.”

  The scene disappeared, replaced by a picture of the city landscape. The lilting voice Sheridan had heard in the car yesterday purred out, “A sacrifice for the city is an investment in tomorrow.” Apparently the government had its own commercials. Sheridan wondered if it always used that same caressing voice in its ads. “The city council works on the hard issues, so you can work hard on your rank.”

  Well, that seemed like a non sequitur.

  A different commercial came on. The screen showed a man relaxing on a balcony with two pink-haired women, one on either side. “El Cielo Estates is now open,” he said, and raised a glass that looked like a test tube. “Homes for those with numbers under a hundred thousand.”

  The pink-haired woman on his right turned to the camera with a sultry pout. “Rank has its privileges, and this is one of them.”