Erasing Time

by C. J. Hill

  Elise turned away from Echo and went back to reading the menu.

  She couldn’t be a Dakine member. She was too gentle, too good. But then, he’d been wrong before. He couldn’t rule out anyone again.

  A memory of Allana pressed into his mind. There she was, walking hand in hand with him toward her building, sending him pouting looks in an attempt to convince him to come home with her. He’d refused because he kept thinking how attached his brother was to her. And Allana would tell him about it. Probably with glee. She’d made a game of playing him and his brother against each other. She stirred up a competition between them and presented herself as the prize. “Eventually I’d like to be exclusive … with someone,” she would whisper into his ear before she kissed him.

  He knew she was whispering the same thing to his brother.

  The rivalry shouldn’t have happened. Echo had had enough girls orbiting around him. He hadn’t needed Allana at all, even if she was beautiful, even if she was the daughter of the chairman of trade. Except for one unfortunate thing. Echo had really cared for her.

  Joseph had always loved his studies, his work, too much to be distracted by social rounds. But Allana had had a talent for knowing what was important to guys. She invited Joseph to places of culture, introduced him to head educators, even convinced her father to trade with New Seattle for their archaeology display so that Joseph could touch artifacts from the nineteenth century with his own hands.

  Allana hadn’t needed such grand endeavors to capture Echo. She’d just played on his ego. He had been an effortless target.

  So there he and Allana had been on the street, she gently pulling at his hands and sending him sultry looks, while he stood in front of her building, refusing to go in, but not leaving to go home either.

  How had they even started talking about the Dakine? One would think he’d remember the details of such a life-changing conversation. But he didn’t. He only remembered Allana’s upturned face, half laughing, even though every word that came out of her mouth was completely serious.

  “You’d be surprised at how far incircutrated the Dakine are. They’re in all professions, even the government.”

  He had shrugged. “No surprise there. The government never had any integrity to begin with.”

  She should have gotten a little upset then. She should have at least defended her father. Instead she said, “Integrity is such a weighty item. It’s easier to live without it.”

  “What a great philosophy,” he said. “We’d all be happier if the Dakine ran the city.” Even saying the word Dakine felt dangerous, felt wrong, and he pulled Allana closer so that their voices would be lower.

  She wound her arms around his neck, her bright silver hair tumbling off her shoulders as she looked up at him. “They practically run the city already. They’re everywhere. People you know, people you work with, people you trust.”

  “Not people I work with. Most of the people I work with are my family.”

  “It’s sweet that you’re so naive.” She ran her hand up his arm. “But really, when will you click onto reality?”

  “Echo …” Elise cut into his thoughts. He was not on that street but back in the foodmart with all gazes on him.

  “Are you going to order?” Elise asked.

  “Are you all right?” Jeth added.

  “Yes.” No. Maybe he still wasn’t seeing reality. Maybe he couldn’t be sure of Elise. For all he knew, she didn’t want Caesar and Geno to get hold of Sheridan and Taylor because her branch of the Dakine had plans for them instead.

  Echo punched in his food order and knew he wouldn’t be able to finish it.

  He had thought that when the time came, when they actually had the supplies to leave the city, he’d be able to convince Elise to trust him. Now he wondered if he could trust her.

  chapter

  14

  As soon as they got back to the wordsmiths’ office, Jeth’s comlink beeped. Sheridan stared at it and felt prickles of fear.

  “No cause to worry,” Jeth said, detaching it from his belt. “The scientists are probably checking to make sure you’re still functioning well, no cellular destabilization happening.”

  “The restaurant table said we were fine,” Sheridan offered. She walked over to a couch and pretended she wasn’t listening to his conversation.

  He pushed a button, and the wall turned into a picture screen. The scientist with the red lightning bolt running down his cheek sat half slumped at a desk. His eyes were glassy, like he hadn’t slept for a while.

  Jeth walked up to the wall. “Do you have a fix on Tyler Sherwood’s signal?”

  The man winced. “Tyler Sherwood’s signal has all but disappeared from the time line. The science chairman is afraid our attempt to strain Sherwood inadvertently killed him.” The man ran his hand over his forehead. “So the mayor has forbidden us to retrieve anyone else until he’s reviewed the program. He’s half convinced we’re running assassinations on important historical figures.”

  Jeth shook his head sympathetically. “Unfortunate.”

  “Enforcers will come to your office tomorrow night to take the girls. Mayor’s orders. Make sure they’re ready.”

  Jeth nodded. “Of course.”

  Every muscle in Sheridan’s body grew tense. What were the Enforcers going to do with them? She glanced at Echo. He was watching the wall screen, listening. She told herself not to panic. Echo had just kissed her. He wouldn’t have done that and then, say, let someone shoot her.

  She looked out the window and forced her expression to remain neutral. If the wordsmiths knew she could understand them, she wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on them anymore.

  The call ended, and Jeth walked over to the computer and paused the recording function. In his modern accent, he spoke to Echo. “You can delete the order?”

  “Of course.”

  Jeth then turned to the girls and spoke in their accent. “I need to explain something to you.” He cleared his throat and looked from Taylor to Sheridan uncomfortably. “The scientists feel you’d function better in our society if you had no memory of your old one. They’ve ordered memory washes for you.”

  Sheridan’s heart lurched in her chest. They were going to take her memory. She would wake up somewhere with no clue to her identity except for a picture in her pocket of an unknown jolly fat man in red. She’d probably spend the rest of her days searching for Santa Claus in hopes he could tell her who she was.

  “Fortunately,” Jeth went on, “Echo has some splicing abilities.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Both of my boys had the sight for computigating. They could have been programmers—would have been the finest in the city. But they wanted to work with their father. Best compliment of my life.”

  Echo’s bright blue eyes fixed on Sheridan. His words were soft, calming. “I should be able to cut into the Scicenter’s program and delete the memory wash order before it goes to the schedulers.”

  Taylor’s foot jiggled up and down the way it did when she was nervous. She scanned the room, thinking. “And if you can’t?”

  “Then Enforcers will come tomorrow night and take you to a Medcenter for surgery. If you fight them, you’ll be shot. But,” Echo added, “you don’t need to worry. I can remove the order.”

  Taylor’s foot kept jiggling.

  Echo sent Sheridan a questioning gaze. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  She hesitated only a moment, then nodded.

  He smiled back at her, and it felt like a second kiss, delivering the same warmth.

  Echo talked with Jeth for a bit longer, discussing the best way to return to the Scicenter so that he could splice into its mainframe.

  Taylor tapped her foot into Sheridan’s. “Maybe we should just make a break for it.”

  Sheridan gave a subtle shake of her head. “We’d be biting off more than we can chew. We need to look before we leap, or something could hit the fan. We have a lead to follow before we make like a banana and split.”

>   Elise looked back and forth between them. “Are you still hungry? Sometimes I can’t understand what you say.”

  Taylor and Sheridan simultaneously shook their heads. Neither spoke again.

  Jeth and Echo had moved to the cabinet and were deciding on an artifact to take to the Scicenter for dating. They needed an excuse to get near a Scicenter computer.

  Sheridan watched them, wondering about memory washes. Did they erase a person’s personality, their intelligence? It would be a shame if Taylor lost her intelligence. Taylor’s mind was something special, something rare.

  And then Sheridan realized why the Time Strainer had brought them here. She should have known all along, and it was probably just luck that the scientists hadn’t figured it out too.

  She turned to Taylor, her voice nearly a whisper. “Back home, you used a pen name, didn’t you?”

  Taylor flushed, didn’t answer.

  How many times had Sheridan seen her sister typing papers about physics theories? Papers not only for class, but for physics journals as well. “You got caught red-handed,” Sheridan went on. “They just don’t know your hands are red yet.”

  Taylor whispered, “Mum’s the word.”

  “I won’t spill the beans.” To show they were united, Sheridan reached over and gave her sister’s hand a squeeze. Really, Taylor should have told Sheridan her secret at the beginning. Sheridan wouldn’t have told anyone that Taylor was really Tyler Sherwood.

  chapter

  15

  After Jeth and Echo left, Elise went over to the computer and skimmed her hand across the control panel. “Echo isn’t the only one who can force a computer malfunction. This will give us fifteen minutes to talk before the recorder cycles round again.” She turned away from the computer and plunked down on the overstuffed floral couch. Her dark eyes were pensive underneath her pink eyebrows. As she looked at Sheridan, she wound a lavender strand of hair around her finger. “I know I don’t understand all the male and female customs of your culture, but what sort of relationship do you expect with Echo now?”

  Taylor smirked, folded her arms, and dropped down onto the couch next to Elise. “Yes, do tell, Sheridan. What is your future with Mr. Blue Moon?”

  Sheridan’s cheeks grew hot, and she sat down stiffly on the leatherlike couch across from them. It was one thing to feel you had acted foolishly; it was another to be openly questioned about it. “I don’t know. It’s hard to think of the future when I might be dragged away by Enforcers tomorrow.”

  Elise fluttered a hand in Sheridan’s direction, waving away her statement. “You don’t need to worry. Echo will erase it. He has a way of manipulating things—and people—to his benefit.”

  Taylor turned to Elise and in a confidential tone said, “I always wait until the second date to kiss a guy.”

  Sheridan ignored Taylor. “Do you think Echo kissed me to manipulate me—that it didn’t matter to him?”

  Elise made a scoffing noise. “I don’t think kissing has ever mattered to Echo.”

  Sheridan felt numb, used. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  Taylor cocked her head at Elise, surveying her. The teasing faded from her tone. “You don’t like Echo, do you?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “But you used to?” Taylor asked. “Did you two date?”

  “Echo and me?” Elise shook her head. “If I had dated either of them, it would have been Joseph. Joseph was more like me.” Her voice caught as though she couldn’t say his name without sadness. “Echo has always been too spun for me.”

  “Spun?” Sheridan asked. “What does spun mean?”

  “It means he spins from girl to girl,” Elise said.

  “Oh, how nice,” Taylor said to Sheridan with pointed emphasis. “You were his latest stop.”

  And for all Sheridan knew, by tomorrow Echo would be ready to spin to someone else. Perhaps to Taylor.

  “It isn’t that Echo is bad,” Elise went on. “He just made the wrong friends and got wrapped up in a bad situation. He’s always been so reckless. And it’s like that saying from your time: the reckless never stay wreck-less for long.”

  “We never said that,” Taylor said. “It’s catchy though.”

  “You didn’t say that?” Elise’s eyebrows dipped. “I must be mixing up my centuries.”

  Sheridan’s mind was still back on Echo spinning away from her. “Does Echo date lots of girls?”

  “He used to,” Elise said, “but he changed after Allana’s death, after Joseph’s—he doesn’t go anywhere now. Doesn’t match up at all.”

  Which was a relief. Only Sheridan shouldn’t be relieved that Echo didn’t date when it meant he was still grieving his brother’s death. Or perhaps it meant he was finally ready to stop spinning, that his kiss meant something. “Who’s Allana?”

  Elise ran one hand across a printed rose on the couch cushion. It was faded to nearly a tan color. “She was one of Echo’s girlfriends. His favorite. The only problem was, she preferred Joseph.” Elise’s fingers momentarily stopped their track across the petals. “Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe Joseph just presented more of a challenge for her. Anyway, Echo didn’t like it. Girls always loved him best. He was the better dresser, better dancer, better flirter. He knows how to splice the compulocks at the Virtual Reality center to get more entertainment time. He’s so smart with computers and is always doing such stupid things with them.”

  Elise gave a wan smile, one that only thinly veiled the sadness behind it. “I used to hate it when people compared Echo and Joseph, and now I’m doing it. Pues, they were wrong about Echo. Everyone said he was the smarter one because he could computigate so easily. But Joseph was smarter. He was just smarter in a gentler way. He never saw the faults in people. Especially not in his brother. He couldn’t figure out what Echo had become.”

  Sheridan felt each word in the pit of her stomach. “What had Echo become?”

  Elise stared down at the couch, then glanced over at the door. “Maybe I shouldn’t say. I’m only guessing, and I might be wrong. It’s a heavy thing to accuse anyone of.”

  Sheridan waited, not breathing. She knew she was supposed to steer the conversation to the Doctor Worshippers and leaving the city, but she wanted to hear Elise’s accusations—not in order to hear Echo’s faults. In order to figure out how she should feel toward him.

  Elise continued, her voice lower and faster. “Allana was here in the office waiting for Joseph the day before her death. I heard her talking with one of her friends on the computer. She didn’t see me come in, although it probably wouldn’t have mattered if she had. She was so arrogant about everything. She told her friend, ‘I’ve decided on Joseph.’

  “And her friend said, ‘But has he decided on you?’

  “Allana leaned back in her chair like she was planning on napping in it and said, ‘I can overcome his concerns.’

  “When her friend asked, ‘Aren’t you worried that Echo will be angry?’ Allana just laughed. I guess she thought that since her father was the chairman of trade, nothing bad would ever touch her.”

  Elise shut her eyes, swallowed hard. “The next night Joseph and Allana were both murdered. Joseph was shot not far from here, on Plymouth Street. Now every time I go past there, I think of it.”

  Sheridan couldn’t speak. The horror gripped at her throat until she was incapable of sound.

  “You think Echo killed them?” Taylor asked.

  “Oh, it wasn’t Echo,” Elise said. “He was walking with Joseph at the time. But it might as well have been him. His group did it. It was their usual type of execution.”

  “His group?” Taylor repeated.

  Elise lowered her voice. “It isn’t good to speak of them.”

  “The Dakine,” Sheridan said dully.

  Elise’s eyes grew wide. In a cracking whisper she said, “You know of them? How?”

  Taylor and Sheridan exchanged a look, but neither answered. Was it better to keep Echo’s secret or expose
him? Who did they trust now? They had trusted Echo and found out he might have been involved in a double murder.

  Elise’s lips drew into a tight line. “Echo told you about the Dakine, didn’t he? What did he say—that they’re a stellar organization?”

  Sheridan hesitated, still reluctant to betray Echo. “He said they were bad people. That’s all.”

  Elise grunted. “Pues, he told the truth about that. They run crime groups. If you have enough credits, you can buy anything from them, from pleasure drugs to city council rulings. People know the Dakine are dangerous. But no one does anything to stop them. Half the people are afraid, and the other half go to the Dakine for fat-reduction treatments.” Elise looked from Sheridan to Taylor emphatically. “Stay away from all of it.”

  Taylor folded her hands calmly in her lap. “Echo also told us you knew people who could help us get out of the city—the DW.”

  Elise stood up so fast, it looked like she’d been jabbed. One hand flew to her chest, and her jaw went slack. “Why would he tell you that?” and then after several quick breaths, “How did he know?”

  Taylor stood up too, as though to help Elise in case she tipped over, but as quickly as Elise had stood up, she sank back down onto the couch. “Joseph,” she said weakly. “I told Joseph. He promised he’d never tell anyone.” She blinked several times and wrapped her arms across her chest, holding on to herself. “I should have known he wouldn’t keep it from Echo. Now I’ve endangered people. What else does he know?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sheridan said. “He just told us you had connections to the DW, and that they could help us get out of Traventon.”

  Taylor sat down beside Elise again. “He wants us to make plans with you and then tell him what they are. Don’t worry, though. We won’t tell him anything.”

  Elise leaned back against the couch and shut her eyes. “He’s planning some sort of trap for me.”

  “Would he do that?” Sheridan asked. “Is he really so …?” The sentence dropped from her mouth, unfinished. She was afraid she knew the answer. Echo had been kind to her and kissed her. Was she naive enough to think that meant he could be trusted? How simple she must seem to him, how easy to deceive.