by C. J. Hill
Echo and Sheridan stayed off to the side, swaying gently to the music, while people streamed past them. He pulled her closer and gave her an easy smile. It was the first time she’d seen him completely relaxed since they’d come here.
“I can see some benefits of dancing this way.” His hand moved upward along her back. “I can talk to you. It’s soothing. And your hair smells good.”
“Does it?”
He lowered his face until it rested against the top of her head. “It’s been a long time since I smelled anyone’s hair.”
She nearly asked him who’d been the last recipient of his hair sniffing, but the answer came to her before she opened her mouth. It was Allana. Allana’s long, silver hair. The hair Sheridan had seen splattered with blood on the news show.
More people came into the room. She only caught glimpses of Taylor—an arm waving here, a head shaking there; every once in a while her full body twirled into view, then disappeared behind the other dancers again. She might have changed partners. It was impossible to tell with everyone orbiting around in all directions.
Echo bent down to speak into her ear again. “I did some checking on the computer and looked into your government file. They said someone had interrogated you. Who was it?”
So the government had kept Reilly a secret. She wasn’t about to enlighten the Dakine on that subject.
“Some man who questioned Taylor by hitting her repeatedly.”
“Didn’t he realize she couldn’t understand him?”
“I guess he thought the more he hit her, the better she’d understand.”
“That seems strange.” Echo’s brows furrowed together. “What did he want from you?”
Sheridan wondered if her file had said anything about the QGPs. If Reilly succeeded and made them into weapons, the government would use them to destroy their enemies, including the Dakine. If the Dakine found out about the QGPs and built some first, they would have absolute control over the city.
And here was Echo asking her what Reilly wanted.
She looked over his shoulder at the spinning dancers. “I couldn’t really understand him.”
“The file said you were willing to negotiate with him. What did it mean by that?”
She shrugged, keeping her eyes on the dancers. “I suppose it meant I didn’t scream at everyone the way Taylor did. You know how she gets when she’s upset.”
“Oh,” he said. It sounded like an I-don’t-quite-believe-you type of oh.
Well, what did he expect? He was Dakine. He was probably only holding her so gently now and smelling her hair because he was using her.
Sheridan hated these thoughts. She hated trusting Echo one moment and the next moment suspecting him of everything. She tilted her head up to speak more directly into Echo’s ear. “Do you remember before, when you told me that you couldn’t explain everything, but you wanted me to trust you?”
He nodded.
“You don’t have to explain everything, but I want to know one thing. Promise me you’ll tell me the truth about this one thing.”
In the bright light she could read his expression clearly—could see him emotionally drawing back, becoming cautious. “All right,” he said.
“I won’t judge you,” she said. “I just want to know. Do you belong to that organization whose name I’m not supposed to say?”
She held her breath as she waited for his answer. Tell me the truth, Echo. Be honest with me once so I know whether I can believe in you or not.
He leaned forward until his lips were brushing against her ear. It probably looked like he was whispering adorations, but his voice was completely serious. “I’m not Dakine. If you don’t believe me about anything else, believe that.”
Sheridan looked out at the dance floor, at the wild, flailing colors. She felt stiff in his arms. Everything in the room seemed too bright, too harsh, too false.
He thought she was an idiot, and Taylor had been right about him all along.
Before either of them said anything else, a shrill alarm cut through the music, filling the room with its wail.
chapter
33
The shriek of the alarm cut through Echo. He scanned the room for Taylor. She wouldn’t have tried to escape—not after he’d warned her the doors were alarmed.
The dancers were stopping, the human wave of motion calming. He searched for her white hair until he finally saw her standing beside Caesar.
“What’s that noise?” Sheridan asked, looking around.
“The door alarm.”
“Why is it going off?”
“Someone probably forgot it was on and tried to go out. They’ll turn it off in a few seconds.”
It did not turn off. The dancers stood on the floor waiting for the music to resume, but the only noise that came from the speakers was the overpowering pitch of the alarm.
What was taking them so long?
Several people left the room, probably to fix the problem. Someone had the sense to reduce the speaker output, so the noise only came out as a buzzing moan.
Caesar and Taylor walked over. He had one hand on Taylor’s back, buried in her long white hair. “Echo, I need some translating. Tell Taylor she sweets like a riot.”
Echo glanced at Taylor. “Caesar says you dance well.”
“Thanks,” Taylor said breathlessly. “Now I know how you guys keep in shape. By the way, what’s that awful noise?”
“Someone’s set off the door alarm.” To Caesar, Echo said, “Taylor says you make interesting shapes.”
“Tell her I want to show her more than dancing.” Caesar gave Taylor a significant raise of his eyebrows. “She’ll be surprised at the things we can do now.”
Echo turned his attention back to Taylor. “Caesar likes you, but he’d fail a father’s interview. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah.” Taylor moved away from Caesar’s grasp and walked over to Sheridan.
Echo shook his head at Caesar. “She isn’t interested.”
“What? Did they have special rituals? I’ll spritz for a history lesson then.” Caesar stepped toward Taylor, as though about to grab hold of her.
Echo stepped in his way. “Find something else to do. These girls are my responsibility.”
Caesar’s eyes narrowed. “You just want them both for yourself. Sangre then. They won’t always be your responsibility.”
Caesar stalked off without another word. He went back to the main crowd, put his arm around a girl, and squeezed her shoulders.
The shadler.
Before Echo could say anything else, someone tapped him on the shoulder.
Echo turned and saw—what was his name? The man was one of the superiors, and now Echo would have to hide the fact that he couldn’t remember his name.
“Something’s wrong with the alarms,” the man said. “They won’t reset. We’ve checked the locking system, so it has to be the program. Lobo wants you to look at it.”
Echo gave a curt nod. “Bien. I’ll take the girls back to their room and then go to the compucenter.”
“Be rápido,” the man said.
What was his name? After Echo finished checking the alarm program, he would have to report back to the man. Echo couldn’t very well do that without his name.
Echo took hold of Sheridan’s hand, and gestured for Taylor to follow them to the door. Someone had brought in a portable music player, and the dancing started up again.
As they walked to the girls’ bedroom, Taylor asked questions about darties. How long did they last? Did everyone go to them? Echo answered her distractedly.
The man’s name started with an R. Remond? Ronis? Robert? If only the personnel files weren’t so hard to access; then he could scan through them until he found the name. That was the problem with the Dakine. They expected you to remember too much.
When the group reached the bedroom, Echo said, “Work on your pronunciation until I come back.”
Taylor fingered some of the chocolate c
andy. “We’ll keep ourselves busy pronouncing.”
He turned to leave, then paused. Something about Sheridan’s expression drew his gaze back to her. She stood staring at him, her eyes shining sorrowfully.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She smiled, but even that was tinged with sadness. “Nothing. The alarm hurts my ears.”
“I’ll fix it soon.”
“I hope so.” She paused as though she meant to say more, but then decided against it. She simply smiled again. “Bye, Echo.”
THE MAN whose name Echo couldn’t remember was waiting for him in the compucenter. In some ways that made things easier. Echo wouldn’t have to send him a report. Then again, something might come up in conversation that would let the man know Echo had forgotten his name—a bad thing to do to one of your superiors.
Echo sat down in front of the computer and accessed the alarm program, tapping one finger against the control panel impatiently while the security program identified his DNA and unlocked the encryption.
The man strolled over and sat down on the table next to the computer. “How long will this take?”
“That depends on what the problem is.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I won’t know until I look at the program.” Or until I develop psychic powers. Really, what did the man want? He was obviously one of those impatient leaders. Someone whose name people didn’t generally forget.
Ronaldo? Reese? Regent?
It was bad enough that Echo had to deal with Lobo, the man who could apologize for having his brother killed in one sentence and call himself family in the next. If Lobo found out about Taylor—or rather, when he found out about Taylor—he’d make the government detention officials seem like well-mannered gentlemen.
Echo didn’t want to think about the Dakine methods for getting information. And he’d have to see it all, because Lobo would want him there to translate his demands. Lobo wouldn’t make the government’s mistake of asking questions the girls couldn’t—
Then, like a small current wave inside him, Echo realized that Sheridan and Taylor could understand. They’d been listening to the new accent ever since they got here, and somehow they’d managed to decipher it. That was why the government hadn’t called in a wordsmith to translate for them. The government had discovered what he’d been too oblivious to notice.
What had they heard? What had he himself said when he was with them?
“What’s wrong?” the man asked. “You’re scowling.”
Echo’s attention snapped back to the screen in front of him. “I’m still not sure what the problem is. It may be more difficult to find than I’d expected.”
The man grunted, crossing his arms in disapproval. “Discontinue the alarm function then. We can’t have that thing shrieking at us all night, and we can’t stay locked inside the building. It’s already making Lobo nervous. He thinks the government found us and sabotaged the program so they could trap us here.”
“They can’t splice into the program,” Echo said. “It’s too well encrypted.” Still, as his fingers glided over the control panel, he worried Lobo was right. The government would do everything it could to get Tyler Sherwood back. Perhaps they were better equipped than he’d thought.
He finished the disarm command, and the system disconnected. He let out a relieved sigh. No one had tampered with the program after all. His security encryption, the one he’d created with his brother, was still unbreakable. He wasn’t sure whether to feel proud of that fact or not.
“Much better,” the man said. “That sound could pierce metal.”
Echo didn’t reply, just kept scanning figures on the computer.
Normal. Normal. Normal. Everything seemed to be working exactly as it should.
He scrolled through the screen, all the time aware that the man with the forgotten name was near. After ten minutes the man stood up from the table, stretched, and found something to look at on a different terminal.
Normal. Normal. Normal.
After another five minutes the man called over, “Did you fix the problem yet?”
“I haven’t found the problem yet.”
“You haven’t found it? Sangre, how hard can it be? The alarm wouldn’t shut off. That was the problem.”
How helpful. Next he’d be staring over Echo’s shoulder asking what each subroutine function did. “According to the computer, everything is working within the right parameters. I can’t fix anything until I find something wrong. Are you sure it wasn’t the alarm sensors that malfunctioned?”
The man threw one hand up in the air with disgust. “Computigators. You always blame someone else when your program fails. The sensor engineers say it’s the program, now you say it’s the sensors.”
“It may be something subtle the sensor engineer didn’t catch on the first scan. I’m assuming they only did preliminary testing before they decided the program was at fault?”
The man gave another grunt and walked to the door. “I’ll go talk to them and have them run another test. You keep checking the program.”
As if Echo had been planning to take a nap. He still couldn’t think of the man’s name, but could think of some descriptive adjectives.
Normal. Normal. Normal. Of course everything was normal. This program had been cycling for months. If a problem existed, it generally showed up right away. So something had changed, only nothing could have changed because the program was security encrypted. Only those people given access by Dakine authority could change it.
One of them must have done something. Only he wasn’t sure any of them had the ability to code the alarm to freeze, let alone do it in a way Echo couldn’t detect. Besides, why would one of them have frozen the alarm?
Who would be helped by a frozen alarm?
Taylor.
Then he saw it—in his mind, and on the screen. There wasn’t a program change but an addendum, a message sent to the program making it so sensitive, it activated when dust particles crossed its path.
He reached for his comlink, buzzing Sheridan first and then Taylor. He knew, even as he pushed the buttons, that they wouldn’t answer. They’d probably left their comlinks sitting in their room.
They were gone. They’d fled as soon as he’d unlocked the doors.
Of all the stupid, reckless ploys—not only would they get themselves killed, they had conveniently ordered the same fate for him. If the Dakine realized he’d let them escape, if the government caught him …
Echo gripped his comlink. Where had they gone? Why hadn’t they told him?
Or perhaps they had. Perhaps all those questions Sheridan had asked about the outside meant they were headed that way.
No, they wouldn’t be that idiotic. Not when he’d warned them about the weather and the vikers.
Echo made himself think calmly. They would try to find Elise—only they didn’t know where she was and couldn’t use a car anyway. They’d be walking down one of the streets not far from here. He would take a car and search every street until he found them. Was it better to let the Dakine know what had happened or disappear on his own to look for them?
Echo’s comlink went off the next moment, but it wasn’t Sheridan or Taylor. “This is Renold,” the man’s voice said. Renold. That was the name. Pues, it didn’t matter now anyway. “The sensor engineer says in order to run another diagnostic, he needs the alarm turned back on.”
This was not the time for another lockdown. “It will take a few minutes before I can cycle the program back to functioning. Which door are you testing the sensors at?”
“The main entrance.”
Good. Echo would make sure he didn’t use that door. “Give me a few minutes to have it working.”
“Fine,” Renold said.
Echo put his comlink down on the desk. He was cutting himself off for good, from everyone and everything. Still, he had no choice. He had to find Sheridan and Taylor, and no one could find him first.
chapter
34
Sheridan and Taylor stood in front of a door big enough to drive a truck through. And judging by the rails on the ground, that was what it was used for. An orange glow stretched across the entrance, letting out an angry electric hum. Sheridan couldn’t see anything through it.
Taylor peered at the orange light that rippled in front of them. “That’s the force field that zaps anyone who doesn’t have their crystal blocked.”
“But it won’t hurt us,” Sheridan said.
“That’s the theory anyway.”
Sheridan shot Taylor a sharp look.
Taylor didn’t move. “Anything is just a hypothesis until it’s tested.”
“All right,” Sheridan said, “I’m testing it.” She took a deep breath and walked through.
A buzzing noise filled her ears, and the orange light washed against her. Then she was on the other side. She turned to tell Taylor it was safe, and found Taylor right behind her.
“We made it out,” Taylor said.
“But where are we now?” Sheridan answered.
She had expected to see wilderness. Instead she saw another city. Or more accurately, the remains of a city. Broken gray slabs of concrete jutted upward, and bits of unidentifiable trash lay everywhere. Rebar stuck from the ruins like thin fingers reaching out of the ground. In the distance, skeletons of buildings stood against the horizon, blackened shells that hadn’t tumbled to the ground yet.
Sheridan saw splotches of green—grass and weeds growing among the debris. A few spindly-looking bushes perched on top of the wreckage, testifying that the destruction wasn’t a recent event.
Taylor peered around. “It can’t all be like this.”
“Let’s hope not.”
The rail ran toward the rubble and curved out of sight behind a pile of concrete. It must lead to wherever Traventon dumped its garbage. Sheridan and Taylor walked along the city wall away from the door so that truckers wouldn’t see them.
As they went, their feet kicked up small clouds of gray dust. Cement dust, or perhaps ash.
“We want to go east,” Taylor said. “To be sure of our route, we should wait until we see what direction the sun is going. From the look of it, we’re about an hour away from either sunrise or sunset.”