Echoes (Echoes Book 1)

by Therin Knite

  “Thanks for bringing it up?” I glance at Jin, who gives a quick head shake. He didn’t tell anyone I was here.

  “No problem, Agent.” The nurse flashes a too-wide grin at Jin and twirls to exit the way he came. “Oh, by the way, you’re free to go as soon as you feel up to it. Discharge papers have been sent to your Ocom. And don’t forget to pick up your prescription; it’s some pain medication for the post-op tenderness. Have a good day!” He closes the door with a bow.

  “Well, someone took his happy pills this morning,” Jin says, absently fastening his forgotten shirt buttons. “And who the hell sent you flowers?”

  “Let’s find out.” I wobble my way to the nightstand, reach out with an arm that’s twice as heavy as it should be, and tap the little gift screen mounted on the front of the vase. Instead of a get well soon and a pretty cursive signature, a picture pops up, followed by a three-word request.

  The request is Pentagon Square, 2:30.

  The picture is an umbrella.

  * * *

  My bedroom is a crime scene. Blood has soaked into my bed sheets, my carpet, and several pieces of discarded clothing I was too lazy to clean up the night before. There are streaks in the carpet shaped like legs; they match the stains on Jin’s pants. Every visible surface is coated with specks of dry brown that resemble the remnants of a science fair volcano gone wrong. A discarded auto-syringe pokes out from underneath my bed, where a medic dropped it during the rush to save my life in the wee hours of the morning. Despite my reluctance, I can’t prevent myself from cataloging the evidence like I do five days a week. Once my brain identifies all the bits and pieces, it organizes them chronologically and starts a mental replay. I watch myself come a hairsbreadth from dying.

  At four twenty-six AM this morning, I’m lying on my stomach, seemingly dozing. My brain is off in the dragon dream, unaware of the impending attack. It happens. My injured foot refuses to function, and my torso meets those four deadly spikes. In the real world, four wounds burst open on my back with so much force the blood spray hits the ceiling. Then I wake up—I remember this moment as a brief burst of pain and darkness—and roll off my bed with an agonized scream, trying and failing to staunch multiple hemorrhages. I pass out seconds later, having lost so much blood my body can’t keep me conscious.

  Jin bursts in. He’s unsteady, still reeling from the effects of a good night out. He puts pressure on the wound in my lower abdomen before realizing there are three more. With slippery, blood-coated fingers, he manages to free his Ocom from his pocket and hit the emergency button. When a crisis aide answers the call, Jin gives them his IBI personnel code and demands an air evac. It arrives in five minutes. By that point, I’m dead.

  The medics revive me (barely) on the way to the hospital, and I code three times before they even get me through the front door. Jin rides along with them, watching me step off the cliff to oblivion again and again, the medics struggling to bring me back for longer each round. It’s a miracle I don’t have brain damage, given the amount of time I went without oxygen. Given the number of times my body shut down. Given the sheer extent of the damage—

  “That’s not healthy,” Jin says from the doorway. In his hands is my mop bot. He activates it and drops it on the floor, where it scans for stains to clean and gives out an expected duration to finish. Seven hours, thirty-two minutes. “You shouldn’t relive a near-death experience. It’s not good for you.”

  “I’m a bystander this time, not a participant. It’s the same thing I do at regular crime scenes.” That’s a lie. I may be watching from a distance, but I remember the pain well enough, and the play-by-play of my blood shooting out from my torso and covering almost everything I own with globs of runny red makes me queasy. I have no emotional connection with the average Washington murder victim. In defiance of the assertions of most of my past acquaintances, I do have some strained emotional connection to myself.

  “I don’t care, Adem. Nobody likes watching themselves get butchered in three dimensions. You’re just doing this as punishment.”

  I step over the mop bot, now chugging away at the browning edge of the stain closest to the door, and survey Jin’s freshened-up self. We stopped at his apartment first on our trip from the hospital, but he refused to let me go home without “support.” In less than ten minutes, he managed to change his ruined clothes, rub on some anti-shave, fix his hair, and apparently exchange his personality with one of the other twelve hidden in his closet. The caretaker has come out to play, and the depressed, angry friend has been locked up for the day.

  “Punishment for what?”

  “For failure. You have that distant look in your eyes, the one you get on the rare occasions when your perfect plans crumble around you. You did something, related to the Manson case, I’d wager, and it backfired. Or you thought you were onto something, but you were wrong. Failure. Although it seems you suffered a more…catastrophic failure than usual.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” I maneuver around him and open a dresser drawer, pulling out a change of clothes and a towel. The hospital was nice enough to let me take a pair of scrubs home, seeing as I came in with nothing but my underwear. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Are you hungry? I can cook you lunch.”

  “I’d love that. Except I don’t have anything to eat. I would’ve gone to the grocery store last night, but someone took me clubbing instead.” I elbow him as I pass by, heading for the bathroom.

  He mutters something that sounds like screw you, too, party pooper. “Fine. I’ll go get takeout from that Italian place you like.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Adem.”

  I peek around the bathroom door. “Yeah?”

  “While I’m gone,” he says, wringing his hands, “don’t get mortally wounded. Please?”

  “As you wish.”

  “I mean it, Firecracker.” He backs toward the foyer, passing the kitchen, and his gaze flicks to the flower vase on the counter. For a brief second, a wave of passionate fury engulfs his entire body, and I expect him to storm into the kitchen, grab the vase, and smash it into a million fragments of expensive crystal. But he doesn’t. He stifles the overpowering emotion, turns around, and heads for the door.

  The significance of the episode is clear as day to me, though, regardless of his actions. Jin doesn't know what EDPA does. Jin doesn’t care what EDPA does. But Jin knows that EDPA’s so-called umbrella girl sent me flowers, despite my hospitalization being kept under wraps. So Jin believes EDPA is responsible for my almost-death (and I can’t convince him otherwise without telling him the truth about echoes).

  Therefore, Jin hates EDPA.

  “I mean it!”

  Chapter Six

  “You didn’t have to come with me.” I limp along the edge of the Pentagon Park sidewalk, the weakness in my right foot cutting my usual pace in half. There are few people here post-lunch hour. Sprawled out on a bench is a single scruffy-faced man who whispers something about cheese sticks as we walk by. In the grass lot across from us, a team of girls and boys are playing tee ball, their parents live-streaming the excitement to friends and relatives who have better things to do (no doubt) but watch without complaint because society expects them to.

  “I’m not in any danger, Jin.” That, however, I doubt. I’m confident at this point that umbrella girl isn’t out to kill me, but whether or not she’ll get me killed is another matter.

  Jin slurps his soda through an over-bitten straw. Every word I say goes in one ear and out the other, all my requests to back off rebuffed with a firm “Nope.” The moment I told him I’d be going to this meeting, he ripped off the caretaker façade and put the overprotective friend in its place. There’s no way in hell, he said, I’m letting you talk to that EDPA bitch alone.

  As we approach the Square, my body starts to coil like a nervous spring. In less than a day, I’ve come to associate umbrella girl with pain and death. No wonder EDPA tries to pluck talent from other federa
l agencies. If my first foray into dream crime was in any way a typical EDPA experience, they must have a hell of a turnover rate.

  Umbrella girl sits on a bench across from the World Union Fountain, reading a book with the holo-screen function on her Ocom. Every time she turns a page, she reaches into a tin of bread crumbs and tosses a few at a pair of ducks lounging in front of the fountain’s pool. An odd choice of recreation for a person her age.

  “Wait here, Jin.” I throw up a hand to stop his warmongering advance, but his glare alone is enough to send a young mother with stroller-bound twins veering out of our way. “I shouldn’t be long.”

  “Is she the reason you got hurt?”

  “No. Not at all. I’m the reason I got hurt.” You brought yourself here just by thinking about it.

  Spotting my approach, umbrella girl exits her book and stuffs the bread tin into a nearby briefcase. She’s dressed like a civilian today—an incredibly rich civilian. The briefcase is genuine leather. The jeans are hand-stitched denim. The blouse is a popular flower-patterned piece that debuted at last month’s New York Fashion Week. And the coat is from one of the overpriced boutiques on Adams Avenue. I wonder if she dresses so conspicuously rich all the time, or if she does so only on certain occasions to intimidate certain poorer people. Me, for instance.

  “Afternoon, Agent Adamend.” She examines me with a sleepy gaze and a stifled yawn. “Nice sunglasses.”

  I adjust the designer shades. “I thought they’d be appropriate, considering the circumstances.”

  Her own pair rest on the top of her head, and she flicks them in acknowledgement. “I concur.” She pats the empty spot next to her on the bench. “Sit. We have a lot to talk about, and not all of it is pleasant. There’s no reason to exacerbate your wounds.”

  “No wounds left, actually.” But I sit down nonetheless. “Med-four is good for that sort of thing.”

  “Ouch. That must’ve cost a pretty penny.”

  “Wouldn’t know. It was charged to my work insurance.”

  “Oh. Your Commander will love that.”

  “Fifty-fifty chance I’ll be fired on Monday.”

  A message lights up her Ocom (but goes unanswered). “Good thing you have another job lined up, then.”

  “You’re still on about that? After me being impaled?” I check on Jin. He’s hovering around the fountain, scowling at the ducks as if to make them fly away in terror. Judging by the tension in his neck, he’s straining to hear us, but his chosen locale, complete with splashing water, is ideal for someone who wants to deafen himself to the world. Typical.

  “What’s a few stab wounds to a lifetime of adventure, excitement, and puzzles only someone of your rare caliber can solve?”

  “A short lifetime.”

  Another message pops up (and is as disappointed as the last). “The pay is better. The bad guys are cooler. You get to call your work top secret. What’s not to like?”

  “The getting injured in gruesome fashions part.”

  “That can and does happen to IBI agents.”

  “Most of them don’t get attacked by dragons, last time I checked.”

  “So you won’t join because you’re scared of getting hurt? Are you really such a piss-poor federal agent?”

  “I’m not scared of anything. I won’t join because I’m a member of the IBI for a reason.”

  “I have better reasons for you to join EDPA.” She taps her Ocom against her knee. “For one, you’ll get a boss that respects you. A great boss. Unlike your hard-ass, demeaning Commander Briggs who can’t see outside the box, Dynara Chamberlain is smart, witty, friendly, and never leaves a case unsolved. You’ll learn a lot from her.”

  Brief silence.

  “That’s you, isn't it?”

  “My, how ever did you guess?”

  I take a sharp left turn to avoid the sass. “Chamberlain? As in Chamberlain Corporation?” My what a showoff alarm is definitely blaring now. A few hundred feet behind us, across the street from Pentagon Park and on the edge of the Business Sector, is Chamberlain Corp’s global headquarters. This time of day, the World Union Fountain is directly in the path of the building’s one-hundred-seventy-five-story shadow. “Well, you didn’t have far to walk to get here, did you?”

  “Not at all.” She tucks her Ocom into a coat pocket. “I had a lunch meeting with the Board. Figured the park would be convenient for a chat.”

  “So you’re a businesswoman who moonlights as a dream-hunting federal agent?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, you get more interesting by the minute, don’t you?”

  She grins. “But that’s what you like about me, isn’t it? I’m interesting.”

  “I’m not sure ‘like’ is the right word. Your misinformation did almost get me killed last night, after all.”

  “Oh, yes. I meant to apologize for that. I underestimated the maker’s abilities by a small margin. He was clever enough to alter the echo in a way that didn’t immediately destabilize it but allowed him to get the drop on us. He’s smart. Smarter than the average crook anyway. That’s bothersome, but we’ll get him in the…you know, I’m willing to share all my secrets with you, given that you’re going to end up with EDPA no matter how hard you try to resist. Your good friend, on the other hand…”

  Taking a roundabout path, Jin creeps a few inches closer to us every time the teeny boppers pitch a ball, as if he believes he can “blend in” with the park’s family-friendly atmosphere.

  “I apologize for him,” I say. “He tries.”

  “Yes,” says Dynara, tripling her volume, “he worries about you. He’s a caring friend.”

  Jin freezes with one foot stuck out in a failed attempt at a side step, cheeks hitting violet territory. “Oh, well, um, thank you, and I’ll go sit and wait and do nothing and be a good boy and all that.” He retreats, throwing his pride into the nearest trashcan and sinking onto a bench that lines the opposite side of the Square.

  “He’s amusing.” Dynara clicks her tongue.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Now, where were we—?” Her Ocom buzzes inside her coat, becoming more frantic with each attempt. Pouting, she tugs it out and reads the message. I catch a line of text in all caps accentuated with at least six exclamation points before she clears the screen. “Never mind. It appears I have an urgent matter to attend to. We’ll have to finish this conversation later.” She swipes her briefcase off the bench and starts a brisk march to who-knows-where before I can get another word out.

  “And when are we going to finish this conversation?”

  “Whenever.” She doesn’t look back.

  “Tonight?”

  “Sure.”

  “Club Valkyrie?” The first place that comes to mind. Thanks, Jin.

  She stops (but remains on her northwest bearing), white bun head tilting to the side in consideration. “If you want. Eight o’clock.”

  “Don’t be late!”

  “I never am.”

  * * *

  The monologue-a-minute woman spends three complaining to herself about the children bouncing balls off the force shield that activates when a train approaches. A pair of twin businessmen pass mock-secret hand signals back and forth, laughing on the same key at the absurdity of the monologue matron. A teen with twenty-seven facial piercings chews a double shot of black-pot bubble gum, the excess collecting at the corners of her lips. Jin gives me the silent treatment for refusing to tell him the true tale of umb—Dynara Chamberlain.

  Another average day at the Washington Metro Station.

  A three o’clock line blows into town and empties of elderly tourists who’ve come to bankrupt their retirement accounts in a single afternoon shopping binge on Adams Avenue. Jin speeds off toward the nearest car (hoping the train will read his mood and leave me hanging on the platform out of spite). I saunter after him and maneuver under his outstretched roadblock arms to slip onto the adjacent seat. Piercing girl and the twin men tail us, taking a dark c
orner seat and a middle pole respectively. Someone else follows them on, his face obscured by a high collar.

  “Train doors now closing,” says the automated driver. “Stay clear of loading area.” A high-pitched whistle repeats three times as the train begins to accelerate. It shoots out of the station tunnel at two hundred plus miles per hour, gaining breakneck speed each second. Greater Washington comes into view, the central business towers at its core. The Chamberlain Corp building outstrips the competition by a good fifty feet; its dark windows are emblazoned with the company name stretched out vertically from top floor to bottom. The massive letters light up neon blue in quick, repetitive succession.

  Jin presses his cheek against the window, doom-and-gloom churning in his solemn reflection. “How many secrets do you keep from me?”

  I muster a sigh. “Are we honestly going to do this on a train?”

  “What is this?”

  “Whatever you’d like to call it. An argument. A debate. A breakup.”

  “I didn’t realize we were dating.”

  “You should pay more attention to the Homicide water cooler. It’s where I get all my news.”

  Jin drags us back to rock bottom. “I don’t like being left out of the loop.”

  “I don’t like endangering your life. This is Level Six stuff, Jin. If I tell you anything, you could end up in serious trouble.”

  “You don’t have Level Six clearance.” His arms cross for petty emphasis.

  Out of remote curiosity, I use my Ocom to locate my government profile on the IBI database. The “recent update” message at the top tells me twice what I need to know and gives me the urge to beat my head against the window until it breaks a thousand years from now. The Ocom (discreetly) retreats into my coat pocket. “Jin—”

  “I found you dead on your bedroom floor this morning.”