Echoes (US Edition)

by Laura Tisdall

  ‘Maybe we should dance,’ Warden shouts. He starts to sway in a way that is definitely not normal, bobbing his head with the music. ‘You know, blend in!’

  A cheer goes up behind them. Mallory turns to see another new group of revelers enter through the double doors, these a swathe of black and neon. There are eighteen of them, all piling onto the dance floor at the same time, and forcing her and Warden forwards in front of them. She stumbles, trying to get away. It feels like hands are touching her from all sides. The room starts to swim.

  You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay, she tells herself, but she knows this feeling, knows she is definitely not okay… Get a grip! she orders desperately. Get a…

  But her eyes start to fuzz up and…

  Oh shit.

  ‘Abby?’

  Where’s the door? Where’s the fucking door…

  She tries to run one way, then another, but the room won’t stop spinning.

  No, no, no, not here…

  She feels like she’s going to be sick. She tries to slow her breathing, but the air is so fuggy, so full of sweat…

  Oh shit! Shit! Shit!

  ‘Abby?!’

  She looks to the side. Warden is still there, his forehead now crinkled with concern.

  Abby? Then, The ID, she remembers.

  ‘I can’t,’ she stammers, feeling her body contract, and being utterly helpless to stop it.

  What was she thinking? That she’d come here as Echo Six and somehow be able to do this? Somehow not be who she really damn is? She can’t help The Asker… She can’t do anything! She shouldn’t have come… She can’t…

  She can’t!

  Someone smacks into her from behind, hard, and Mallory lurches violently towards the ground…

  No, no!

  She doesn’t hit though. An arm catches her, pulling her back. For a single still moment, her face is buried against navy blue wool, still damp from the rain.

  Warden smells like soap.

  Her heart is thudding in her chest.

  ‘Hey, watch it!’ she hears him snap above her head, apparently confronting whoever knocked into her. She pulls away to see a massive guy in leathers glaring down at them – and Warden’s expression quickly changes to reflect the realization that this is not a guy you should ever snap ‘watch it’ at. It’s the man with more tattoos than face. ‘Look – ’ he begins.

  Tattoos steps forward and Warden suddenly looks very, very small in comparison…

  No. The single thought breaks through the panic in Mallory’s mind and she grabs his arm before he can say anything else, yanking him away and plunging deeper into the crowd of dancing bodies.

  Her head is screaming.

  There are hands touching, hands reaching, people pressing up against her… It feels like her skin is crawling, burning… But she keeps pushing on, dragging Warden away until she physically can’t any more, until her hand just lets go and her muscles have seized up so tight her legs won’t step again.

  ‘Abby?’ she hears. ‘Abby, are you okay?’ Warden draws level. Thankfully, Tattoos is nowhere to be seen. Warden is watching her and she must look bad because he looks worried – really, really worried.

  His face is so open, Mallory thinks. So very open, just like when he talks and doesn’t hold things back… Her fight seems to disappear. She shakes her head. She’s not okay. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be back at home, in her room where it’s quiet and safe and ordered…

  He nods and looks around like he’s trying to decide what to do. He reaches out, as if to take her hand. It’s deliberately slow, but Mallory flinches, so taut she can’t help it. She tries to say sorry, but it’s lost in the noise and the tightness of her jaw. It feels like every single muscle is turning to stone. Her fists are clenched so hard that it hurts where her nails are digging in, even through her gloves, but she can’t get them to release…

  What is she doing here?

  What the hell did she think she could do?

  Don’t cry, she tells herself, don’t…

  But there’s no way out… There are too many people… There’s no way…

  Warden steps in front of her then, careful not to touch. He’s speaking, but she can’t really hear him or even see him properly. Everything feels blurred, her senses fried and overwhelmed.

  ‘You can do this.’ She catches it that time. ‘Hey, Echo,’ he says, using the name he really knows her as, though he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t… ‘Look at me.’ She finally does, away from the people seeming to crush in on them from all sides. ‘You can do it,’ he repeats. ‘This way.’ He starts walking backwards through the crowd, clearing a path for her. Dancers knock into him, but he keeps looking back at her. ‘Come on.’ He holds his arms out around her, still careful not to touch, but trying to stop others from getting near her – and something moves inside of her and, somehow, she follows. ‘You’re all right.’ She can see the words, even though she can’t always hear them. She stares at him, holding on to them, grasping… ‘You can do this.’ He says it over and over as she follows after him, as he shields her with his body until they make it to the other side of the dance floor. He heads quickly to an empty booth by the far wall, and they both break his suggested rule of not touching anything and sit down. Again, he leaves that careful space between them. The music is still loud there, but it’s bearable, and the booth is dark and sheltered. Mallory curls up against the leather, shrinking back into her hood, trying not to shake. She closes her eyes.

  She feels stupid.

  She feels so damn stupid.

  Don’t cry, she tells herself again. Don’t you cry. People go to nightclubs all the time and they don’t freak out like idiots. She had known it would be crowded, had deliberately agreed to this time because of it, so they wouldn’t stand out. She’d known it would be hard, but she’d thought she could control it, like at school. She’d thought…

  She hasn’t been this bad in a long time, even at what happened with Bobby. She’d nearly passed out.

  If Warden hadn’t been there…

  She opens her eyes and looks over at him. His hands are clasped tightly over the satchel now on his lap like he really doesn’t trust the floor.

  ‘Would you like a sick bag?’ he asks. ‘I have one in my pocket from the plane.’ His face is still full of that concern. She notices, again, the gap he left between them and feels an intense gratitude.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. He reaches into his pocket, misunderstanding. ‘No,’ she stops him. ‘I don’t mean that. I just meant,’ she nods towards the dance floor, ‘thanks.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘no worries.’ He flaps his arms in this little shrug. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Like I want to scream.

  ‘Better,’ she says instead. He doesn’t look entirely like he buys it.

  ‘It’s the touch thing, isn’t it?’

  She nods. And the lights, she thinks, and the sound, and the fact that there’s no fricking air in this place…

  ‘Is it always this bad?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘not like this.’ The room is spinning a little less and, hidden in the booth, her breathing is slowing closer to normal, but she still feels light-headed. She grits her teeth.

  ‘Have you always been like it?’ he asks. If he wasn’t Warden, and she wasn’t used to him asking questions that people should stop before asking…

  ‘I didn’t have some kind of childhood trauma if that’s what you’re asking. No one hurt me or did anything… this is just me. For as long as I can remember.’

  And I don’t need people telling me it’s wrong or messed up. I deal with it. Usually, I can control it and it’s fine… and it’s…

  But he doesn’t tell her it’s messed up. He doesn’t.

  ‘We can just sit for a bit,’ he says. He even half smiles. ‘Enjoy the music, you know.’ Mallory nods again, but she looks down at the floor. What must he think? He’s flown halfway across the country to meet a crazy perso
n…

  She’s stupid, so stupid!

  It’s not something she’s used to feeling, but she’s so far out of her depth, it’s absurd. Did she really think she’d come here and somehow be able to hack her way on to the next stage of finding The Asker, just like she would online? It doesn’t work like that in real life. All of her assumptions suddenly seem so juvenile. They could get the footage, but he might not even have been at the club at all; the name Labyrinth could just be a coincidence. He could have been at some other warehouse, or the IP could have been registered incorrectly. They have the bug and their plan but, really, she doesn’t know what to do, what to look for… She glances at her shaking hands.

  And she couldn’t even do it if she did.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The words seem to fall out, just loud enough for Warden to hear. Her eyes glass up, even though she wishes they wouldn’t. ‘I’m sorry.’

  This is a mess.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, doing the shrug again. ‘Hey, it’s fine.’ She looks down at the table in front of them, wishing for all the world that its shiny surface was a screen that could hide her, trying to pretend…

  ‘I’m not so good as myself,’ she says, and she feels it as she hears it. ‘Echo is good, but me – ’ She cuts off.

  Stop it, stop it…

  ‘But you are Echo,’ he replies.

  ‘Don’t you feel different as Warden?’

  He pauses, then, ‘Maybe. A little. But the person who looks after your family, that’s you. The person who stood up to that kid beating up your brother, the person that fought back against the prick with the camera phone, that was all you.’ She remembers, then, the fire she had felt… but she can’t feel it now. ‘And coming here, looking for The Asker like this,’ he says, ‘that’s Echo and it’s all you. She’s in there.’

  ‘But Echo doesn’t make mistakes.’ Mallory’s hands clench in her lap, still trying to stop the damn shaking. ‘She’s never afraid.’

  ‘Well, this is a scary place. I mean, I’m terrified too. Seriously. We get outside and I’m emptying a whole bottle of antibacterial gel on my hands. And these pants,’ he adds, ‘I’ll probably burn them.’ Bizarrely, something about that almost makes her laugh. ‘You think I’m joking. That’s the funny part.’ He stops, and grins back at her. Then, ‘We could go,’ he says. ‘We don’t have to stay. This was always a long shot.’

  Mallory feels herself agreeing, even as she hates herself for. She looks out at the wall of people beyond the booth. She can’t do this. She’ll have to find some other way to help The Asker because she can’t do this. She’s almost going to do it, to back out, to tell him yes… when she sees it.

  She stops.

  There, in the whirl of mess and noise outside, she suddenly sees something that makes sense – an isosceles triangle with the right-hand line drawn thicker than the other two. It’s a capital of the Greek letter delta; Daedalus’s symbol.

  And it’s tattooed on the back of someone’s hand.

  Delta

  Mallory’s head snaps up as the woman walks past, the inked triangle swinging with her left hand, its top point angled down towards her fingers.

  ‘What?’ Warden asks.

  ‘Her hand,’ she tells him, nodding towards the woman. They watch as she slides into the crowd of dancers, arms rising, the delta arcing into the air as she disappears.

  ‘Oh,’ he says, eyebrows rising above the frames of the sunglasses. Then, ‘Crap, this is really real.’

  It can’t be a coincidence, not when The Asker came to this area investigating Daedalus ties, not coupled with the club’s name. Hackers know that symbol. It was all over Daedalus’s videos, all over the message boards dedicated to him.

  I was right, Mallory realizes – and a bolt of adrenaline trickles through her. She thinks about what Warden said. Maybe, just maybe… She tries to seize on it, tries to use it to regain her control.

  Come on…

  ‘Watch,’ she says. Within minutes, they’ve spotted two more marks on people’s left hands; on a woman with a stud chain running from her ear to her nose, and a man with a blue Mohican.

  ‘Why do they all have it?’ Warden asks. Mallory shakes her head. She doesn’t know, but if The Asker’s warnings and their own research told them anything, it’s that there are people out there obsessed with Daedalus…

  This is it, she thinks; a sudden, icy clarity. This is where The Asker really was.

  No, it isn’t just a coincidence. Whether something to do with the location hack he’d wanted her help for, or just another lead he was chasing – a hell’s hornets’ nest of leads – four days ago, he was in this very room, logged in to the Forum. Mallory stares at the man with the Mohican.

  Does he know where The Asker is? The thought is both energizing and frightening. She tugs her hood down lower over her face again. Just like Warden had said, this is real. It’s suddenly very damn real, real beyond just being in a club with all these people.

  About that, though, she doesn’t panic.

  She holds it back and, instead, she starts to feel focused. She has a new clue now, a lead of her own – something to hold onto and follow and figure out – and, with it, a new determination begins to build up within her, a drive that she only usually feels when she’s hacking, when she’s Echo Six and she’s on to something, chasing it down…

  She’s in there. Warden’s words reverberate in her mind.

  Her eyes dart around the room, searching. She spots the first security camera, blinking red up above the bar. It doesn’t take long to locate more; several over the dance floor, one above the door to the restrooms, another looking down on the booths. They’re everywhere, just like she’d guessed they would be. And they are always watching, always listening, always recording – just like they would have been four nights ago, recording The Asker.

  The answers are here.

  Mallory looks up at Warden. She swallows.

  ‘I’m not going,’ she says.

  You’re okay, she tells herself, no room for argument. She starts loosening her muscles, forcing them to move. Focus of Echo or not, she’s still fricking Mallory Park in fricking Mallory Park’s stupid body. Get up, she thinks. Get up!

  ‘Are you sure?’ Warden asks. She shoots him a look that says she damn well is and he shouldn’t argue either. That’s more Echo, at least.

  She stands, somehow managing to stay on her feet, though her legs morph right from stone to Jell-O. Her whole body is crawling with a fidgety, skittish energy. She takes a step forward, willing herself to not be her real self, just for a few moments. She tries to stop fighting against the sound still pounding in her ears, tries to just go with it, to let the beat of the music start to infect her instead of battering against her. She takes another step, slamming down any threatening panic with every ounce of willpower she has.

  You’re Echo, she thinks. You’re Echo fucking Six.

  Someone stumbles into her, clearly off their head, but she glares at them with such a wired ferocity that they are the one who backs away. She feels a rush. She glances back to check Warden is following, then starts walking, fists balled solid, skirting around the edge of the dance floor and heading towards the glowing neon sign indicating the restrooms. She dips her head as they hurry under the camera and pushes open the door, trying not to freeze up at the sticky feel of the handle against her gloves. Thankfully the music drops a notch as they go through, but she doesn’t stop. There are three doors in the corridor beyond; men’s, ladies’ and a separate disabled bathroom down the end. That’s what she heads for, darting quickly inside. As she goes to close the door, a guy with a neon blue jacket enters the corridor. His eyes fall on Mallory, then flick to Warden behind her – and he grins like he thinks he knows what they’re doing. His eyes start to wander… Mallory’s skin crawls and she slams the door shut so fast Warden jumps. She locks it.

  You’re okay.

  It’s quieter still inside, so much calmer, so much safer. Relief shudders through her and she
takes a long, shaky breath. Warden is watching her, brow all wrinkled up in concern again. He opens his mouth like he’s going to ask her if she’s all right, but then he stops, apparently thinking better of it. Mallory takes one more deep breath.

  She takes in the room. It’s small and dingy, lit by a single strip light. The floor is a disturbingly damp beige, littered with paper and bottles and a load of other junk she really doesn’t want to look too closely at. A toilet and basin are pressed up against the back wall, hand rails drilled into the tiles on either side. Most importantly, a large metal air duct runs across the ceiling – just like it had said on the building’s blueprints. The bathroom is one of the few places in the club with no camera. Warden eyes the duct nervously. His hands are shoved firmly in his pockets and he’s started rocking back and forth between feet. He looks like he would pay serious money not to have to touch anything in this room. He really does have a thing about hygiene. He wasn’t just saying it.

  ‘Worse than the school cafeteria,’ he mutters. Mallory feels this strange rush of warmth for him. They both had their own additional reasons to fear tonight, and they both came. She walks to the toilet, puts down the lid using paper, then covers it in the stuff before perching down.

  You’re Echo.

  Echo who is fearless, who gets things done.

  She slips her laptop out of her bag and boots it up. Warden comes to stand beside her, pulling off the sunglasses and hooking them onto his sweater vest. He watches as she selects the club’s secure network, as she starts hacking her way into it. Even locked away in a damp, dingy bathroom, Mallory starts to slip away from herself as she watches the screen, as her mind twists and turns and she sinks into a place she understands. A couple of minutes in, she notices something odd, though, something not quite right in the code she’s looking at… She stops.