Erasing Time

by C. J. Hill

  “Mosquitoes ate people?”

  “Well, they tried.” She made a couple of mincing steps over a particularly jagged patch of rocks. “Mostly mosquitoes just sucked a bit of blood and gave you itchy welts. Piranhas, however, were these little fish that could skeletonize a person.”

  Echo’s jaw went slack.

  She wasn’t sure if he was amazed or horrified. “We can talk about something else.” She tilted her head, trying to gauge his thoughts from his expression. “Unless you want to hear about killer bees.”

  “Total,” Echo said.

  “Total?” Sheridan repeated.

  “Wasn’t that a saying from your time?”

  Sheridan shook her head. “It was a breakfast cereal, and something you did to a car.” Tiny pieces of broken glass were mixed into the rocks, which made the ground in front of them glitter. “You probably mean totally,” Sheridan added. “Which is only something you said if you also used the word dude frequently.”

  “Dude,” Echo said, trying out the word.

  She shook her head. “Don’t start saying dude. It wouldn’t become you.”

  “Become me what?” Echo asked. “What would I become?”

  Sheridan smiled at him. “Don’t become anything. I like you as you are.”

  “Do you?” he said, and there was a smattering of anger back in his expression.

  “Yes, I do.” She reached out and took his hand. She almost expected him to pull it away, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you before, Echo.”

  He squeezed her hand and smiled back. “From now on we’ll trust each other, right?”

  “Totally,” she said.

  chapter

  36

  By the time the next entrance came in sight, Sheridan’s spirits had risen. Her feet, however, ached and the soles of her shoes were in tatters. Gray dust covered the bottom of her skirt. She wiped off as much as she could. Taylor and Echo did the same, but mostly managed to smudge the dust around.

  Then Echo stood in front of the door. “If we’re lucky, we won’t find any refuse handlers on the other side.” He fiddled with his laser box. “I’m lowering the voltage to stun level. Wait for me to come back and tell you the way is safe.”

  Sheridan looked at him questioningly. “If you could have stunned the vikers who attacked me, why did you kill them?”

  “Because they wouldn’t have run away if they’d seen my box was on stun. They know I can’t stun them all, so they would have attacked and killed me.”

  “Oh,” Sheridan said with a sickening jolt. He was right, of course. She wasn’t used to dealing with people who killed each other, wasn’t used to thinking that way. She needed to get wise fast.

  Echo took a deep breath. “I’ll be right back,” he said, then ran through the door, weapon outstretched.

  Sheridan and Taylor waited. Seconds went by. Sheridan didn’t hear any sounds of laser fire. That at least was a good sign. Then she realized the electric hum would have covered the sound. Maybe Echo had been shot as soon as he went inside.

  She was beginning to feel panicky about this possibility when Echo stepped back through the doorway. “Come,” he said.

  Sheridan and Taylor left their knives on the ground. Knives would draw attention inside the city walls, and that was the last thing they wanted.

  Echo disappeared through the orange light again, and Taylor and Sheridan followed. Sheridan nearly stepped on a sprawled man who lay on the ground in a colorful heap of metallic clothing. Echo took her arm and pulled her past him. “The Dakine were waiting for us. They must have suspected you went outside.”

  It was only when Echo said the word they that Sheridan saw the second man. He lay farther off, his arms and legs stretched out like he was making a snow angel.

  Echo motioned them on. “Hurry before any others come.” He took off at a slow run, and Sheridan and Taylor followed him, weaving between building-high refuse tanks. Every step brought sharp pain to Sheridan’s feet. Her legs ached. She pushed them forward, forcing them to keep going.

  In the distance, a few people worked by various tanks, but no one paid attention to them. Once they reached a main street, Echo slowed to a walk. A couple of cars were parked in front of a cylindrical building not far away. The group headed toward the nearest one.

  As Echo caught his breath, he said, “I should warn you that the government may have figured out how to track my crystal. If they come after me and we’re together, you’ll be caught too.”

  Taylor gazed around nervously. “I thought you said the Dakine had ways to block their signal.”

  “They do,” he answered, “but mine isn’t a Dakine block. I’m hoping the government won’t realize that and won’t even try to trace me, but, pues, you can only count on the government’s incompetence to bring you so much luck.”

  Echo didn’t have a Dakine block. The knowledge lifted Sheridan with hope. Perhaps there were explanations for the other things too. Although the fact that Echo had taken them to a Dakine base was a bit harder to explain away. Still, she had decided to trust him. “We need to stick together,” she said. “We’ll just do the best we can.”

  The three climbed into the car, each collapsing onto a seat. Sheridan’s feet throbbed to the rhythm of her heartbeat. Echo held his crystal to the car’s control panel and said, “Fairmore swimming center.”

  The panel lit up, showing the digital clock. It had been two and a half hours.

  Echo let out a groan and rested his head in his hands. “It will take another twenty minutes to get to Fairmore. We’re too late.”

  “Won’t Elise wait for us?” Sheridan asked.

  “Not this long. She’ll worry it’s a trap.”

  “We have to try at least,” Taylor said.

  Sheridan kicked off one shoe and examined her foot. Flecks of blood dotted the underside. “Could you track Elise’s crystal and see where she is?”

  Echo lifted his head and shook it. Gray smudges marked where his hands had touched his face. “I can’t go to a location where there’s that sort of computer. We have to stay out in the open with the crowds. That’s the only way we’ll be safe.”

  “Maybe she’ll wait for us,” Sheridan said again, and then no one spoke for the rest of the trip. Echo laid his head back against the seat and shut his eyes. Sheridan put her shoe on. She and Taylor tried to wipe the dust off their clothes again but mostly just created a small dust cloud in the car.

  Finally they pulled up to the Fairmore swimming center. A structure with slides that swirled and looped stood perched over the large pool. It looked like a gigantic plastic crab.

  While the car slowed to a stop, Echo scrutinized the people mingling in front of the building. “She was supposed to be out front. I don’t see her.”

  Taylor and Sheridan joined in the search, looking for Elise’s striped hair among the bystanders. Men, women, children. People standing, sitting, talking. No Elise.

  “She’s not here,” Echo said, then put his wrist to the control panel. “Drive west.”

  The car pulled forward and continued down the street. No one spoke. Sheridan’s throat felt tight, like she’d swallowed too much of the gray dust and now it was choking her.

  Echo leaned back in his seat. “Sheridan, when Elise helped you escape from the Wordlab, where did she tell you to go?”

  “Los Angeles Park. She said to wait for someone to call me Hermana.”

  Echo pressed his crystal to the control panel. “Los Angeles Park.”

  “No one will be expecting us there now,” Taylor said. “What good will it do to go there?”

  Echo shrugged tiredly. “We have to hope that since Elise didn’t find us at the swimming center, she’ll check the park. We have to hope for a lot of things.”

  Sheridan kept her gaze on the window, willing the car to go faster and knowing it wouldn’t. The buildings and walkways slid by in a leisurely procession. The lilting voice of the government commercials went on about the benefits of the
immortality tax. A small price now, so you can enjoy eternity later. Finally the car reached Los Angeles Park.

  Sheridan had expected to see grass and trees. It was just more concrete. Admittedly, there were spinning swings, a jungle gym with slides, and something that looked like a wavy merry-go-round, but no green. On one side of the park several children skated in a multilevel concrete pit. Brightly colored sparks shot out of their skates, and the skaters seemed to hover in the air for an unnaturally long time. Gel benches were scattered over the park, and adults sat and talked to one another while they watched the children. That hadn’t changed over the centuries.

  Echo, Taylor, and Sheridan climbed out of the car and slowly walked around the park. Sheridan searched every face she saw. The only person who returned her gaze was a teenage guy who was walking by with skates. He looked her over, saw she wasn’t wearing a rank badge, and kept walking. He apparently wasn’t interested in anyone who was so low ranking she wasn’t wearing a badge.

  After they’d made a circle around the park, Echo led them to a bench in the middle. Sheridan sank down into it gratefully. Her feet hurt more now than while she’d walked over the rocks.

  “Recognize anyone?” Echo asked Taylor.

  She shook her head.

  The group fell silent again. They waited. Once in a while a car pulled up to the park. Every time one stopped, Sheridan’s breath stopped with it. She hoped to see Elise, and was afraid it would be Enforcers. But it was never either. It was just more people coming to the park.

  She scanned the area so frequently, it imprinted in her mind. The curve of the street, the edge of the skating pit, the neon street sign that read LOS ANGELES on the top portion and PARADISE BLVD on the bottom. A circular building stood beyond the park like a giant soap bubble that had landed on the ground and would momentarily pop.

  Finally Echo ran one hand across his face, covering up the blue moon on his cheek. “I don’t think anyone will come.”

  Taylor kept her voice low. “Then what are our options?”

  “You met one of the DW,” he said to Taylor. “You must have some idea, some clue about where Elise took you.”

  “I was blindfolded on the way there, and the room we went to was completely bare.” Taylor chewed on her lip, thinking. “She let it slip that it wasn’t in the fashion district.”

  Echo shook his head. “That’s not enough. There has to be some detail you’re forgetting. A smell, a sound. We have no idea where to go, and every organization in this city is searching for us. Think.”

  Taylor drew in a shaky breath. “I am thinking.”

  “Think harder.”

  It was probably the first time someone had ever told Taylor to think harder. All her math, science, and computer knowledge couldn’t help them now. What could?

  Sheridan looked out over the park again, her gaze resting on the street signs. LOS ANGELES. No Hollywood stars here. No angels, either.

  Her eyes shifted to the other sign, PARADISE.

  And then an idea came to Sheridan—not just an idea, a whole story, an understanding of how things must have been.

  “Words always leave a trail,” she whispered.

  Echo turned to her. “You’ve remembered something Elise said?”

  “No, but I think I may have found a trail.”

  He leaned closer. “What do you mean?”

  She couldn’t explain it, didn’t want to, for fear it would sound foolish, so she stood up instead. “I want to see if you’re right about word trails.”

  Taylor looked at Sheridan blankly, then turned back to Echo. “I think she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

  “I am not.” Sheridan motioned for them to join her. “I’m just thinking—but not in math or science or computer thought. I’m thinking in English, history, and religion thought. Come on—we’ll need a car.”

  Echo and Taylor slowly got to their feet.

  “Where are we going?” Echo asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Sheridan said. “Maybe in circles. It might be a coincidence, but it might be a trail, and we’ve got nothing else we can do, do we?”

  Echo sighed, then set out toward a row of cars by the edge of the park. “No, unfortunately we don’t.”

  Once they were seated in the car, Echo put his crystal on the control panel. “All right, where are we going?”

  Sheridan leaned toward the panel. “I need to see the map. What connects with Los Angeles and Paradise?”

  Echo pushed a button that illuminated the street map and sat back so Sheridan could see it.

  “I think I have a trail,” she said, examining the streets. “But I don’t know where we are on it. Did Elise give us a location at the end or at the beginning? I guess it’s possible that she gave us the middle of the trail, and then we’d have to try both ends, assuming of course that there really is a trail and I can find it. It’s been four hundred years. Who knows how much has changed.”

  Echo tilted his head toward Taylor. “How long does a nervous breakdown usually last?”

  “I’m not having a breakdown,” Sheridan said, and ran her finger along the lines of the map, tracing the streets.

  Echo turned to Taylor but gestured at Sheridan. “What is she doing?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Taylor said. “It was your father who told her that words leave a trail. You can apparently think in this mysterious English thought she’s talking about. I think in hard science thought.”

  Sheridan straightened up. “Let’s hope it’s the beginning of the trail. If it’s the end of the trail, then all that’s left for us to do is sit on a park bench, and we’ve already done that. So here.....” She drew her finger from Los Angeles across Paradise down several miles to Isaiah Street. She tapped the screen. “We want to go this way.”

  Echo pushed his crystal into the panel. “Isaiah Street.”

  “We don’t want to stop there,” Sheridan said. “From Isaiah we’ll go to …” She followed the street on the map with her finger again, silently repeating the names of the intersecting streets as she went. “Sacramento. We’ll turn on Sacramento Street. I’m not sure yet if we want to go right or left....”

  Taylor scooted closer to the map. “Are you looking for Californian names? Spanish words?”

  “No,” Sheridan said, still tracing Sacramento to the right. “Religious ones.”

  “Sacramento,” Taylor repeated. “Sacrament. And Los Angeles means ‘the Angels.’” She turned the words over slowly in her mouth. “Angels, Paradise, Isaiah, Sacrament.”

  “What do they mean?” Echo asked.

  Taylor didn’t answer him. “It might be coincidence,” she told Sheridan.

  Then Sheridan saw the next street: Prodigal. It wasn’t coincidence, couldn’t be. Not with that many linking streets. “We turn left and go to Prodigal Boulevard and then …”

  But she couldn’t find a street connected to Prodigal that had any sort of religious meaning. She ran her fingers over the left side again, repeating each name for some clue she’d missed. “Bartlett Road, Market Lane, Wall Street”—she wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not that that name had survived four centuries—“State Street, Hancock …”

  “That’s the banking district,” Echo said.

  Well, Sheridan supposed that’s where you would put a Wall Street. She kept going through the names. “Goldman Ave, Profit Way, Mercedes Drive”—that was sort of a pun—“Green Street, Fleet Street.” Nothing, nothing, nothing.

  Then she realized she’d gone past it twice. The only reason she hadn’t found it before was because the spelling had changed. Prophet Way. “We’ll turn right on Sacramento until we get to Profit.”

  “What do you think these names mean?” Echo asked again.

  Sheridan momentarily stopped searching Profit. “You told us that religion was banned ninety years ago. All the people who remember life before the ban have died. These terms don’t mean anything to the population today, but the religious knew them, and they left a trail.”r />
  Echo glanced at the map, unconvinced. “Do you also remember that the religious left during the ban? They built their own city. No one was here to leave a trail.” The car slowed. They’d come to Isaiah. Echo put his hand on the control panel, said, “Profit Way,” and then leaned back in his seat. “So if the religious moved from the city, who left a trail?”

  “They didn’t all leave,” Sheridan said, her eyes and finger still on the map. “You said the ones who left had food to sustain them while they built their new city. Not all the religious had enough food, and maybe some weren’t convinced they needed to leave yet. So they stayed and renounced their religion, but they didn’t forget it. They taught it to their children along with the symbols and phrases that went with their beliefs. It’s not the only time in history religions have had to go underground.”

  Echo’s brows drew together. “But why put religious words on the street signs?”

  Sheridan went back to the map. “I think as time went by and things got worse in the city, religious people planned in secret how to leave. They left a trail so that others who still held their beliefs would recognize the words and come find them. Look”—she pointed to another street that led off Isaiah—“Menorah. That’s a Jewish term. And this one here—I thought it was Salem at first, but I bet it’s not. It’s Salaam. That’s a greeting meaning ‘peace’ among Muslims. Who knows how many more names there are that we just won’t recognize because we don’t know those religions well enough. They all left trails for their followers.”

  Taylor had traced her finger along Profit Way while Sheridan was talking. “Here’s the next turn. Maria Ave. Or Ave Maria if you’re musical.”

  Sheridan smiled at her. “And I thought you never paid attention to the church choir.”

  Echo stared at them skeptically. “We’ll find a contact at the end of this trail?”

  “I hope so,” Sheridan said.

  The car slowed again and Echo put his crystal to the control panel. “Maria Avenue.” The car hummed back to its normal speed. “Where do we go after that?”