Echo

by Valerie J Mikles

  “We believe you now. We’re all under house arrest now because Danny punched Ian in the face,” Morrigan said.

  “Well, you know, murder is a pretty good justification,” Tray commented, then cringed. If Hero could walk, he’d send the boy out of the room.

  “Who is she now? Do you know?” Tommy leaned over Tray’s shoulder, speaking loudly at the monitor.

  “Isabelle Cooper. Ian’s twin. She died from some kind of cancer a few months back, and Ian has been depressed about it. Depressed enough to remap herself with all her sister’s learnings so that she could then remake her sister out of the first willing body. She claims Amanda volunteered,” Morrigan said.

  “Doesn’t matter. She was mentally ill. She shouldn’t have been expected to make the decision on her own,” Danny snapped.

  “Apparently Isabelle is the only tech qualified to undo whatever Ian did with that NR. And she’s in the body that needs the treatment,” Morrigan said, then caught them up on the details because Danny could barely maintain his composure.

  “The other techs are afraid,” Danny ranted. “They won’t touch her. Ian has the skill, but she… she won’t undo it.”

  “Why are you saying this to me?” Tommy whispered, his hands starting to shake.

  “Come on, Tommy. Let’s go plan George’s funeral,” Hawk said, putting an arm around him.

  “I don’t want to go back,” Tommy whimpered, clinging desperately to Hawk.

  “No one’s taking you back to Cordova,” Hawk assured.

  “But he just said I’m the only one qualified,” Tommy said, pointing at the projection.

  “That’s not what he said,” Tray said. “Hawk, get him out of here.”

  “Tommy, can you save Amanda?” Danny asked.

  Tommy cringed.

  “Tommy, please. If you can do anything, please,” Danny pleaded.

  “Danny, stop,” Hawk said. “It’s cruel to ask him. He ran away for a reason.”

  “He’s not a doctor. He’s not even a tech. What’s he going to do?” Tray said. He looked back at Tommy. “Don’t feel guilty for doing nothing. Reading a brain scan isn’t the same as operating a machine. You don’t know what you’re doing any better than the rest of us.”

  “Of course I do,” he said quietly. “I know more than anyone. Isabelle taught me.”

  32

  The morning sun cut through the haze and fog, the mist hanging in the trees. Hawk wanted to take the Bobsled for a few loops, but there was a limited window for getting Tommy back into the city. Tommy was nervous about flying and screamed whenever they lost altitude. His attitude was somewhere between incredible fear and firm resolve. He didn’t want to go back to Cordova, but believed that he had to.

  Cordova didn’t shine as brightly as it had the first day they’d found it. Either they’d modified their cloak, or Hawk’s spirit eyes were still damaged from his last attempt to punch through it. The silhouette was still obvious enough for him to find the wooden deck, and when they landed, the dome appeared.

  “Everyone okay?” Hawk asked.

  “George is dead,” Tommy said. His face was white as a sheet and his nose was bleeding. Saskia tended to him with the first aid kit.

  “Yeah, bébé, I know,” Hawk said, brushing Tommy’s hand wishing they had more time to let him mourn. “Let’s see if your people will open the gate for one of their own.”

  “I’m not going through the gate,” Tommy said, wiping the blood on the collar of his shirt. The blood just rolled down the front, leaving no noticeable stain. “As far as they’re concerned, I never left.”

  “I like the way you think,” Saskia said, grabbing a weapon before she jumped to the ground. Tommy led them a quarter way around the dome, stopping at a small river that hit the side, then turned south toward the cliff face. There was a narrow pipe just under the surface of the water, just as Tommy described.

  “You and George came through that?!” Hawk asked, eyes wide in shock.

  “It’s only submerged after the rain.” Tommy shrugged, then frowned. “It rains often.”

  “How long do we have to hold our breath?” Saskia asked, reorganizing her gear. They hadn’t been prepared to get wet, and their clothes didn’t have the repellant properties that Tommy’s Cordovan clothes had.

  “About a minute. The water makes the journey easier, even when you’re against the current,” Tommy said. “But you shouldn’t follow me. We’ll trigger an alarm, and if I’m herding contaminated people, they’ll vaporize you.”

  “You weren’t going to mention this earlier?” Saskia frowned.

  “I was distraught,” Tommy shrugged. “Still am. Stay by the gate. If you have to come in by force, that is the safest way to do it. They’re too protective of the mechanism to offer resistance. All you have to do is look like you’re going to smash it.”

  “Look like? Look like! I stayed up half the night fretting about our entry and now you tell me,” Saskia cried. Hawk couldn’t tell if she was joking.

  Tommy rubbed over his scarred chest and his eyes welled with tears. Hawk gave him a warm hug.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Hawk said.

  “I want to help Isabelle,” Tommy said. He zoned out for a moment, then his resolve returned. He laid on his stomach in the water, took a deep breath, and launched himself into the pipe. Hawk held his breath instinctively, but he couldn’t make it more than twenty seconds before he needed air.

  “Can you hold your breath for a minute?” Hawk asked Saskia.

  “Sky would have sent up a flare last night if there was trouble we could help with,” Saskia said, backing away from the pipe. “Let’s go knock on the front door and pretend we’re civilized.”

  There was a lookout balcony on the pedestal of Commander Harold Crow’s statue. The statue was the tallest structure in the dome, and the lookout balcony at the top of the statue housed cameras that the police used to monitor the city. The pedestal was as high as civilians were allowed to go, and even when the place was crowded, it felt empty.

  Isabelle paced the pedestal, praying no one looked too closely at her—that no one realized she was in the body of an original. She missed the anonymity of having twins everywhere in the city. She bit her nails, but then stopped. They weren’t her nails. They were hard and broke unevenly.

  “Isabelle!” a deep voice called. At first, she worried it was the ogre, Danny, but when she turned, she saw Tommy!

  “How did you find me?” she demanded, backing away from him. It was bad enough trying to blend in on her own, but with a male original beside her, everyone would be staring.

  “You told me,” Tommy said, smiling his charming Fisher smile. Even as an original, he had family to blend with. He found an empty bench and sat, inviting her to squeeze in next to him. “You told me, ‘It’s hard being a twin sometimes. I come here to be alone.’”

  “I never told you that,” Isabelle said, approaching him because she didn’t want other people listening in.

  “Twelve years ago,” Tommy reminded her.

  “How do you remember a conversation from twelve years ago?”

  “I remember everything you said to me,” Tommy said, cheeks flushing. His long, wet hair fell forward and dripped on his shoulders, but he didn’t look like he’d showered. “It’s not hard. When no one ever talks to you, you remember the people who do.”

  Isabelle sat next to him. She remembered something safe about being around him, but it was part of that haze that shrouded her rise to consciousness.

  “You would give your life for Amanda, right?” he asked.

  “I won’t give my life for someone who is already dead,” she said, taking on the tone of a teacher. He’d always been an eager student.

  “Let me do it. Let me remap you, like you taught me. We’ll run a simulation. I’ll prove that I can,” he said, putting an arm around her. She jumped from the bench, running through scenarios where she might miraculously get the upper hand in a fight and send his body flyin
g. There were pieces of Amanda in her mind that knew how.

  “When we spoke before, when we talked through all of Amanda’s brain scans… you were trying to understand why your consciousness was surfacing in this body, weren’t you? I should have realized,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Isabelle said. She vaguely recalled sitting next to him, hearing him use that deep, sultry voice. And she remembered the lovesick gaze as he tried to talk to her about that mystery novel Amanda had given him.

  “We couldn’t make sense of it. The scans didn’t look right. They didn’t look functional,” Tommy reminded her. “Because they weren’t. Ian faked them.”

  Isabelle’s jaw quivered. His entire childhood flashed before her eyes—all those days he’d come in for remapping, when what he wanted was a break from the relentless and painful experiments he’d suffered. She’d told him stories of the outside world—about life, love, school. They’d lie on the floor together while she engineered the circuits and explained how the machine worked. He was wasted as a test subject.

  “You should have been an engineer, Tommy Fisher,” she said.

  “It’s better for you that I’m not,” he said, putting a hand over hers, then blushing and pulling away.

  “Are you flirting with me or Amanda?” she asked incredulously. “She’s not here and I’m too old for you.”

  “Not in this body... Isabelle,” he said, letting her know that he knew who he was talking to. “You always wondered what it’d be like with a male.”

  “You have to stop quoting me,” she said. “You make me feel old.”

  “I don’t mean to,” he said, leaning against the ledge. “I ran away yesterday, but I came back for you. I don’t know if I can save Amanda, but I do know I can save you, Isabelle. I could take you to Nola where everyone is original.”

  “Nola won’t accept our…” she paused, the realization dawning.

  “You’re fertile now,” he said. He was right. She’d always wondered what it’d be like to grow up in a generation with men. To be fertile. To bear her own children. In this body, she could live that dream.

  She tiptoed around him and kissed him softly. He had scraggly stubble on his face, but when he opened his mouth to her kiss, none of that mattered. He had a way out. She could use him to escape.

  Sky smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to get rid of the bitter taste of the Hyproxin tea she’d gulped down. The drug would keep her breathing while she slept, but the strength of the visions Spirit fed her kept her from drifting off peacefully. She saw Rocan again, and she saw John. They would be going soon—as soon as they left—and she imagined herself sleeping in his arms again, the dreamless sleep that only he could provide. But she felt poison in his veins, and she feared she’d only find his memory there.

  Danny’s hand slipped into her pants, and Sky hummed sleepily as she rolled into him and wrapped her leg around his hips. But his arms didn’t wrap around her. He rolled off the bed, holding the black bracelet she’d taken from Jack.

  “Were you holding this when you suggested we get some sleep?” he asked.

  “It’s been in my pocket since I took it from Jack,” Sky said, flopping back on the pillow, pushing her shirt up so he’d see what he was missing.

  “You suggested we be brought here instead of Building Thirty-seven?”

  “No. I suggested we go back to the ship,” Sky reminded him. The conversation was clear in her mind, and she remembered the feeling of betrayal when Jack confessed what she’d done. Sky knew she needed to protect her kid, but she hadn’t thought Jack would resort to mind control. She’d also never thought of Jack as someone who would be complicit in the ruthless experiments her sons had suffered. Now, she felt like she didn’t know anyone in this dome. The initial outrage at discovering Ian’s crime had faded quickly, and no one was in a rush to save Amanda.

  “Danny, I haven’t used it,” Sky promised.

  “Not intentionally,” he said.

  “You saw how worn-out Jack was. I don’t feel anything like that.”

  “Yes, but the last thing we need is for your internal psychopath to have access to external powers.” His fear was interrupted by a yawn, and he crawled back into bed next to her. “If I suggest the opposite, can I undo the previous suggestion? Zive, I need coffee. No, alcohol. I’d rather my sorrows drown than be tossed into a rock tumbler.”

  “You are worse than my sister,” Sky laughed, hugging his body to hers and pulling him to the pillow. She couldn’t sleep if he slept. He needed to be awake so he could rouse her when the Hyproxin stopped working. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t sleep here. Maybe he was right to be wary of that bracelet.

  Danny lifted his head from her chest. “You have a sister?”

  “Yep. Whiny, little know-it-all. Always trying to foist her chores on me.” Sky cringed as the words fell from her lips. She’d revealed her past to him in snippets, but always her aliases. She didn’t like when the older memories stirred.

  “Hmm,” Danny said, his fingers tickling her skin. “Were you the baby of the family?”

  “No, I was the oldest,” Sky scoffed. “What makes you think I was the baby?”

  “You always have to get your way,” Danny teased.

  “That’s why I left home. I was the oldest of six. I never got my way,” Sky said.

  “Six!” Danny exclaimed, pushing up onto his elbows. “You’re definitely not from Quin. That would have been on the news. Six. Do you know, there are less than a hundred and fifty families in Quin with more than two children?”

  “Why do you know that?” Sky asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Tray told me once,” Danny said. “I guess whiny, little know-it-all is a common trait of younger siblings. You’re not from Terrana. You’re not from here.”

  “I could be from here.”

  “Oh, sure, Sky Ryndam,” Danny said, emphasizing the last name. “If that’s your template, how come you don’t look like them?”

  “Maybe I married into the name,” she said. Wriggling for a top position, she pinned him to the bed with a kiss so she could end the prying inquiry. Danny yelped and laughed, reaching under her clothes to squeeze her and make her squeal, too.

  “Shh,” he said.

  “Morrigan won’t mind,” Sky hummed, grinding her body against his.

  “Shh!” he repeated, bracing her body against his and going still.

  Sky heard the sound that had startled him and leapt from the bed, grabbing her grav-gun. There was a quiet knock on the door.

  “Uncle Danny?” Tommy called.

  “Oh, Zive,” Danny murmured, throwing the bracelet at the wall. “Were we holding this when we told him to come?”

  “You told him to come. Not me,” Sky hissed. She opened the door, and Tommy leaned out the window, hauling up Isabelle in Amanda’s body. Sky tucked the bracelet into her pocket.

  “I’m not as strong as you,” Isabelle panted, looping her arms around his neck, letting him lift her over the sill. They couldn’t come through the main door because of the officers stationed outside, but Sky couldn’t believe they’d scaled a fourteen-story building.

  Amanda barely looked like herself with Isabelle in control. Her movements were softer and more willowy, her expressions more serious. Even her eyebrows arched differently.

  “I thought you were being kept in Building Thirty-seven with Ian,” Sky said, wetting a rag and finding the salve in the bathroom to clean the cuts on their hands.

  “I ran away last night,” Isabelle said. “This brain still has a few psychotic shortcuts in it.”

  “Maybe you should go get yourself remapped,” Sky said, running her hand over the bracelet. “That body’s not yours, remember?”

  Sky felt a jolt from Spirit, and Isabelle looked directly at Sky’s pocket. “One thing this body can do that mine never did is see power. Where is yours coming from?” Isabelle asked.

  Sky didn’t want to, but she felt compelled to show Isabelle the br
acelet. “Fisher made this. It seems to echo Michael’s suggestion power.”

  Tommy’s lips parted and he backed away from Sky, heading for the window.

  “Wait!” Sky said. She felt another jolt and Tommy stopped by the window. “Tommy, why did you bring her here?”

  Tommy heaved for breath. “To talk.”

  “Ian insists Amanda wanted out of this life,” Isabelle added, her voice even and unaffected. “My sister may be desperate, but she’s no liar. I need to know I’m not sending Amanda back to something horrific. If I do, she’ll just erase herself again. I have a use for this body if she truly doesn’t want it. Convince me without your little toy.”

  “Convince you of what? That you’re in a stolen body and don’t deserve to live?” Morrigan asked, coming out of the bedroom. Her eyes were red rimmed, and her clothes twisted out of position. “You don’t deserve to live. You don’t deserve her eyes. Amanda could see pain. She could see it, and she’d try to help. I bet you see it, too, don’t you? You see pain, but you’re not helping.”

  “I’m not that kind of doctor,” Isabelle said.

  “Neither was she,” Morrigan seethed. She launched at Isabelle, but Danny intercepted and held her back.

  “Amanda was a hybrid, and you didn’t baseline that,” Isabelle accused.

  “She wasn’t a hybrid,” Danny said. “There was no way to baseline her ability.”

  “You lie. That’s the only part of her Ian hasn’t managed to erase,” Isabelle said.

  Sky exchanged a look with the others and Isabelle laughed.

  “There are powers only originals have,” Isabelle continued. “All our templates were chosen for our hybrid abilities, but the powers were diminished in the first clones, and by the second generation, the power was gone. But ever since I woke up in this body, I feel this… energy. And I wonder if it comes from her or from just being me in an original body.”

  Sky bit her cheek. If Isabelle had become an echo, then she’d be limited to whatever was in the veins in the city. She’d already proven she could repel the simple power of the bracelet.