by C. J. Hill
“One less than I want to.”
She laughed, a sound that was light and amused. He wanted to capture that laugh, to taste it. He wanted to make her laugh again. Instead he brushed his lips against her cheek.
“Incredible,” she said. “Do the girls usually swoon at this point?”
“Just wait. It gets better.”
She laughed again and shifted away from him. Had he just thought he wanted to make her laugh? Well, that had been stupid. He didn’t like it now, didn’t like that she was shaking her head as though this was a joke.
She picked up the scanner and held it up for him to see. “Have any more Dakine popped up?”
He skimmed the list of names. “No.”
She went back to studying it. “I guess that’s good news.”
“Taylor,” he said.
She glanced up at him, her eyes guarded.
He kept his voice serious so that she would realize this wasn’t just more flirting. “I don’t know all the twenty-first-century customs or how guys back then let girls know they were interested.” As he said this, he tried to remember details from films he’d studied of that era. “I’m supposed to buy you meals, and men gave certain kinds of flowers.” He recalled something about folded pieces of paper with pictures on the front. Cards, they were called. No, wait. Cards was a game people played. The papers must have been called something else. “I can do whatever I have to, but in case it turns out we don’t have time—well, I want you to know how I see you.”
He expected her to smile or to move away—some sort of reaction. She just kept watching him, judging something. He didn’t know what.
“Gardenias?” he asked.
“Roses,” she said.
“Roses,” he repeated. “They probably grow them in Santa Fe.”
She didn’t answer. She was still watching him. He hadn’t meant to try and kiss her again. In fact he’d told himself he wouldn’t. Not until Santa Fe. Not until he knew her customs and they knew each other better. But there was some underlying emotion in her gaze, a longing in her expression that made him lean forward again. This time when his fingers found the back of her neck, she leaned toward him and shut her eyes. His lips brushed hers, softly, waiting for a response.
She kissed him back for two seconds, then suddenly pushed him away.
The action was so unexpected, he looked around the room to see what had startled her. “What’s wrong?”
Taylor shook her head, wouldn’t meet his eye. “Sheridan is in prison because Joseph brought you back. If I kiss you, it would be like saying I’m glad it happened, like I don’t care they’ve been hurting her this entire time.”
Echo took a deep breath and considered this. He wanted to point out that he hadn’t asked Joseph to save him. He hadn’t purposely changed the timestream. And Echo had just told Taylor he’d help her rescue Sheridan if Joseph couldn’t do it.
It didn’t matter. In Taylor’s mind, Echo would always be connected with Sheridan’s pain. He nodded, already feeling the bitterness of this fact taking hold.
Chapter 31
The car was nearly to the guard station. Joseph clenched and unclenched his fingers, reassuring himself again that the cuffs weren’t real. He’d cut the backs off them and could slip out of them easily. Perhaps too easily. It would be just his luck if they fell off in front of the real Enforcers.
Ren and Lee were talking about Santa Fe’s split, had been for the last ten minutes. The debate had moved from mostly friendly banter to not-so-hidden accusations. “Your people,” Lee said, “only want a split so they can declare war on my people.”
Ren waved away his words. “Why go to the trouble of moving then? If we wanted to declare war on you, it would be easier to do it beforehand. We know where your sector is.”
“You can’t do it beforehand,” Lee said slowly, “because the rest of the city would turn against you.”
“And they wouldn’t turn against us if we were in separate cities? They only care about you now because you keep the roads clean in a middle district?”
Lee shook his head. “You wouldn’t care what the other sectors thought if you had your own city.”
Ren leaned closer to Lee. “I’ll tell you a secret. We don’t care now. We know that if the rest of you didn’t breathe the same air we did, none of you would mind if someone radiated us.”
Lee broke into a language Joseph didn’t understand. Its rhythm was angry and harsh. Ren seemed to understand, though. He answered in the same language.
“What you both need to learn,” Joseph said in a voice louder than the other two, “is we’re on the same side. All of us. It’s time to trust one another.”
Ren waved his hand in derision. “Those are platinum words. You’re the one who gassed us so you could change time. Where was your trust then?”
“You’re right,” Joseph said. “I did what I wanted without thinking about anyone else.” His voice grew quiet. “Now Sheridan is paying for it.” He gestured to the detention center, a gray citadel visible in the distance. “Those are our enemies out there. If we fight one another, there won’t be anybody left to fight them.”
Ren and Lee looked at each other sourly. “If I die during this mission,” Lee said, “because Brother Ren didn’t help me when I needed it, make sure you tell the council.”
“If I die,” Ren rejoined, “because Brother Lee didn’t help me, you won’t have to tell the council. They already expect it.”
Well, so much for Joseph’s talk on unity.
He watched out the window as the detention center loomed larger and larger ahead of them. Four floors of the building peeked over the fifteen-foot electrified wall. Most of the detention center was underground. What Joseph could see looked like a gigantic gray box covered with hundreds of insect eyes. No windows, just multiple cameras, twitching on their perches as they surveyed the doings inside and outside the complex. Joseph understood why the Enforcers used the articulated cameras instead of fixed ones. There was something chilling—something that made you cautious—when you saw a half dozen cameras swivel your way and train their lenses on you.
Joseph’s cuffs had come loose while he’d pointed to the building. He straightened them. “Has either of you remembered anything else about the contact who was supposed to help us at the detention center? A comlink number or a name?”
“It started with a P,” Ren said.
“It’s one of those names that isn’t really a name,” Lee added. “Like Plentiful or Paradise.”
“Plentiful?” Ren repeated. “That’s not it. When was the last time you met someone named Plentiful?”
Lee didn’t answer. They were nearly to the guard station. Ren and Lee turned on the holographic projectors clipped to their collars. Immediately, their faces vanished, replaced by the faces of the Enforcers who were hidden in the seats. Ren pulled out his laser box. “Are my lips synced up to the hologram?”
There had been a slight lag. Hopefully not one the guards would notice. “Close enough,” Joseph said. It was suddenly hard not to think about all of the things that could go wrong with this plan. What if the holographic projectors malfunctioned? A freeze of only a second could give them away.
As the car pulled up to the guard station, Ren pushed the button on the control panel that lightened the car’s darkened windows. An Enforcer peered at them and then at his computer screen. He was clad in a silver uniform instead of the usual black. That meant he was an officer. The feed from his microphone was automatically piped into the car. “Enforcers Dawkins and Stern, isn’t this your sleep shift?”
“Should be,” Lee said, “but when we got a find on this guy, we knew we had to bring him in. He was talking to a group in a foodmart about how the mayor should be voted out. Several witnesses heard him.”
The man looked at Joseph. Joseph stared at his hands. Just wave us through. Send us on our way.
The man held up a face scanner and pointed it at Joseph. His stomach clenched. When had they start
ed using those at the guard stations? Crystals had always been the only ID tags Enforcers cared about.
The man’s eyes widened in surprise. “Echo Monterro,” he said, reading his screen. “Wanted for questioning. Class two.”
It wasn’t surprising the scanner had matched Joseph’s face to Echo. Most everyone in the city thought Joseph had been vaporized during a Dakine hit. Anyone in Traventon who saw him would think he was Echo.
The guard kept staring at Joseph. “He’s a class two. The warden will want to see him right away. I’d better bring him in personally.”
“We’ll take him,” Ren said. “No need to leave your post.”
The man stepped out of his booth. “I said I’d take him.”
Great. Echo was such a catch that random Enforcers wanted to lap up some of the credit for his capture. Joseph half expected the man to get into the car and evict Ren and Lee. Instead, the man climbed onto a rail-jumper. He stayed in front of their car the entire way to the processing entrance, an escort to let everyone know someone important had been captured.
Joseph fingered the hole in his cuffs. Would the silver Enforcer check and see if his cuffs were secure?
Ren and Lee were talking in lowered voices. “We follow our silver friend,” Lee said, “and when he’s alone, we stun him.”
The only way to take down an Enforcer was to hit an unprotected area at the joints—the knees or the elbows. Those weren’t large targets.
“You’ll have to get a full stun on the first shot,” Joseph told them. “You can’t give him time to call for help. If someone sounds an alarm, we’ll never get to Sheridan.”
Ren let out a scoffing grunt and turned to Lee. “He doesn’t think we can shoot the Enforcer on the first shot.”
Lee joined in the scoff. “I can shoot your eyelashes off from ten meters.” Lee motioned to Ren. “And he can do it while you’re blinking.”
“Good,” Joseph said, and then added, “While we’re inside, if you ever have to choose between rescuing Sheridan and saving me, rescue Sheridan.”
The car stopped. They’d reached the detention-center processing entrance. Ren climbed out first, laser box drawn as though he expected Joseph to sprint away as soon as he stepped from the car.
Joseph got out reluctantly, and Lee followed him, his laser box drawn as well. All around the building entrance, dozens of cameras rotated to peer down at Joseph. He saw himself reflected in their gaping lenses.
The Enforcer in the sliver suit used his crystal to open the processing door, then gestured with a flick of his laser box for Joseph to walk inside. Joseph did.
The room didn’t look that different from other lobbies Joseph had been in. City updates flashed on the walls. Security guards sat at a desk with built-in computer screens. A row of chairs stood in the middle of the room. The difference was that these walls were titanium over a hyperdiamond core. The chairs had hooks that attached to handcuffs, and the people milling by the desk wore Enforcer uniforms.
The room was free of cameras, just as the schematics said it would be. Enforcers didn’t record what went on inside their buildings. That way lawyers couldn’t ask for video feeds of how prisoners were treated.
The silver Enforcer motioned to the desk while he spoke to Ren and Lee. “You can report out now. I’ll be sure to mention your names to the warden.”
Right. As if they didn’t all know that by the time Silver Guy got to the warden’s office, it was going to be a one-man capture event.
Ren and Lee followed Silver Guy across the lobby. “The warden should know certain details about the capture,” Lee said.
“What details?” Silver Guy asked.
Joseph eyed the Enforcers at the desk. None of them gave him more than a glance of interest. They were laughing about something on a monitor.
Lee said, “Some of his friends were acting suspiciously.”
“How?” Silver Guy asked.
Joseph walked faster than he normally would have. In order for Ren and Lee to shoot Silver Guy, they needed to get out of the lobby and to a private place.
Lee said, “His friends scattered as soon as they saw us.”
“And,” Ren added, because running from Enforcers wasn’t an impressive crime, “I wasn’t picking up crystal signals from any of them.”
“Probably Dakine,” Silver Guy said. “Why didn’t you bring them in too?”
“We couldn’t catch them all,” Ren said. Joseph noticed that his words weren’t exactly synched up to his lips. “We decided it was more important to concentrate on this one.”
Fortunately the silver guy wasn’t paying attention to Ren’s face. He looked at Joseph with a threatening sort of calculation. “Mr. Monterro will give us their names. I’ll pass along the information to the warden.” It was a dismissal, and they weren’t even out of the lobby yet. Joseph walked faster.
“A particularly peculiar girl was with him,” Lee said, drawing out the sentence so that he had to explain what he meant in the hallway. The corridor smelled strongly of cleaning detergent and something else. Probably despair. It was completely plated with a tin-like metal. Their blurred reflections followed them as they walked.
“How was the girl peculiar?” Silver Guy asked. He still didn’t sound concerned. He’d taken his comlink out and was putting in data.
“I’ll wait until you’re done with that,” Lee said, as though it was the polite thing to do.
Silver Guy mostly ignored him and kept tapping things into his comlink. The hallway wasn’t crowded, but it was too close to the main entrance. The Enforcers in the lobby might hear if someone yelled. Then again, people most likely yelled a lot in this place. The Enforcers probably expected it.
Halfway down the corridor, the silver Enforcer motioned to Joseph to turn left into another hallway. Only one other Enforcer was in this one: a man walking toward them. Not too many to fight. If Ren and Lee waited until the Enforcer passed them, they could turn and shoot him before the man knew what was happening. Joseph stretched his fingers, curling them around the edges of the cuffs so that he could slip them off quickly. He gave Ren and Lee a meaningful look and nodded at the approaching Enforcer.
Silver Guy put his comlink back onto his belt. “So what was peculiar about the girl?”
“I could tell she favored me,” Lee said.
“She favored you?” Silver Guy repeated blankly.
“Well, that’s not the peculiar part,” Lee said. “Most girls would favor me over a historian, don’t you think?”
Ren shrugged. “It depends on how picky the girl is.”
The other Enforcer was nearly to them.
“What is your point about the girl?” Silver Guy asked. His voice was clipped now. It was clear he didn’t like anyone wasting his time.
“The point is,” Joseph said, to let Ren and Lee know he was ready, “you should leave her alone.”
The other Enforcer walked past them without even a glance.
“No one asked you anything,” Silver Guy barked out. “You’ll have enough—”
Joseph turned around, the cuffs already swinging in an arc to hit Silver Guy’s face. Enforcers wore helmets. The cuffs wouldn’t do any damage, but the surprise would give Ren and Lee the time they needed to shoot him.
Silver Guy moved faster than Joseph expected. In one smooth motion he stepped away from the cuffs, lifted his laser box, and shot Joseph. If the shot had hit Joseph’s clothing, he would have been protected. Joseph took the blast in the face though.
He felt his muscles stiffen, harden like stone as the stun took effect. He fell and couldn’t stop himself. All he could do was bend his head forward before it completely stiffened. That way his back would hit the ground first, not his head.
Ren fired at the Enforcer who’d passed them. Joseph saw the man flinch from the shot and throw his hands forward. Joseph hit the floor himself then. A slap of pain went through his shoulders, knocking the breath out of him. He rolled so that he faced Lee and the silver guy. Lee
stood, laser box outstretched while the silver Enforcer fell, an expression of fury frozen on his face. He hit the ground with a thud, eyes staring at Joseph.
Joseph’s lungs ached to take a breath. He couldn’t. Without help, he would pass out before his lungs regained function.
Ren hurried to him, taking his muscle restorer from his belt.
Lee stood nearby, scanning the hallway, laser box still drawn. “That was some precise shooting,” he told Ren. “Eyelashes everywhere are trembling with fear.”
Joseph’s vision was darkening around the edges.
Ren pointed the restorer box in Joseph’s direction, and it shot out beams to reverse the stun. “Good shooting on your part too. Now I know why that girl favored you.”
At last, Joseph’s muscles relaxed. Warmth spread throughout his body and he breathed in giant gulps of air.
“Are you all right?” Ren asked. He took hold of Silver Guy’s arms, ready to drag him off somewhere.
Joseph propped himself up on one arm, still breathing deeply. “Yeah.”
Lee picked up Silver Guy’s legs. “Get your scanner out. We need an empty room to put our friend in.”
Joseph unclipped his comlink. As he got to his feet, he scanned the rooms around them. An empty one stood down the hallway to their left. Unfortunately he also picked up a nearby Enforcer signal. Someone was turning the corner and walking into the hallway right now. He looked up and saw the Enforcer, laser box already drawn and pointed directly at them.
Chapter 32
Sheridan was pacing the length of the observation room when the door slid open. Three guards came in. The Tough One, Tariq, and a woman Sheridan didn’t recognize. The Tough One carried a pair of metal cuffs in one hand and his laser box in the other. The woman held a small computer.
Tariq pointed his laser box at Sheridan too. His voice was emotionless, but his eyes were apologetic. He didn’t want to do this. “You have one more chance to cooperate. Read over the schematics and correct them. If you refuse, we’re to take you to the medroom for a memory wash.”
