Erasing Time

by C. J. Hill

  “Hmm,” Sheridan said. “Even Elise couldn’t live there.”

  Taylor didn’t take her eyes from the map. “The people here are obsessed with their ranks. I swear, it’s all they ever talk about. I wish I had one of Echo’s silencers.”

  A news show came on next. People were debating whether family rank numbers should be taken out of the rank algorithm, and were getting quite passionate about the subject. One side said it wasn’t fair to include family rank since a person couldn’t control being related to their family. The other side insisted a family’s position in society had always affected individuals’ ranks.

  Yesterday when Sheridan had learned about how things were in Traventon, she’d supposed there was a huge underlying dissatisfaction in the population—a fear of the government, a silent churning desire for change. But this was worse. They didn’t care about rights. They only cared about rank.

  Sheridan pulled her gaze away from the screen. “Our time period wasn’t as bad, was it?”

  Taylor let out a grunt. “High schools had valedictorians, orchestras had numbered chairs, authors had bestseller lists, athletes had the Olympics, sports teams had play-offs, and fans routinely shouted, ‘We’re number one!’ Our culture even turned spelling into a competition. I’m just kicking myself that I didn’t come up with the whole ranking system back in our day. It would have made me rich—which would have given me an awesome rank.”

  Sheridan leaned forward to better see the map. “You never used to be so cynical.”

  “Yes, I did.” Taylor panned out from the picture so more area was visible. “You call me cynical every time I don’t like a book that you like.”

  “That’s because you always criticize happy endings.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  Sheridan surveyed the map. Traventon looked to be in the Colorado area of the nation. “If we’re only a hundred and thirty miles away from the nearest city, why can’t we hot-wire a car and drive there in a day?”

  “The cars only work on the city rails. Besides, the government can track their vehicles and anyone who has a crystal in their wrist. The only advantage we have so far is that they can’t track us.” Taylor rested her chin against the palm of her hand and sighed. “Of course, fifteen miles a day is assuming the Rocky Mountains aren’t blocking our way, and that the weather is good, and that the next city is any better than Traventon.” She scrolled across, looking for domes. “It might actually be worse. According to the information on the computer, every other city on the face of the planet is peopled by bloodthirsty hardened criminals.”

  “Lovely,” Sheridan said.

  Taylor zoomed in on a spot that turned out to be a lake, not a city. “It’s probably propaganda. The Communist countries used to say the same thing about America during the Cold War.”

  “Is there some way to tell which cities are better?”

  Taylor shook her head and scrolled toward Kansas. “All I know for sure is that everyone thinks Jackalville is the worst. They’re involved in some sort of brainwashing thing and they want to take over the world.”

  “Jackalville isn’t the city that’s a hundred and thirty miles away, is it?”

  Taylor magnified a circle of small domed cities with farmland in between them. “No. That’s the odd thing. The computer won’t tell me where Jackalville is.”

  The door at the front of the lab slid open. Taylor exited from the map and turned away from the desk as though she’d only been resting on the chair.

  Echo strode into the room carrying a bundle of clothing under one arm. He didn’t smile at them as he walked over. He dropped the clothes in front of Sheridan then, without a word of greeting, went to one of the computers. He tapped a few buttons, and voices—Sheridan and Taylor’s voices—filtered out through the speakers.

  “Once they implant those tracking crystals in our wrists, they’ll control our entire lives. I’m not letting some power-hungry and morally depraved government tell me what I can learn, say, and do.”

  “Where will we go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Echo tapped another button, and the voices stopped. He turned to them, and when he spoke, his words were clipped, sharp. “In the future, I wouldn’t say anything in this lab that you want to keep secret. And by the way, Jeth isn’t stupid; he just isn’t suspicious.”

  Taylor let out a shaky breath. “You recorded us.”

  “Of course. We’re studying your language and time period.”

  Sheridan swallowed hard. “You should have told us.”

  Taylor shut her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “We should have known.”

  Echo turned back to the computer, tapping a few of the buttons. His profile was taut, his motions deliberate. “I’ve temporarily turned off the record function and I’m deleting the information from last night and—ah, I see you’ve been on the computer this morning. I’d better hide those searches from the Information Department too.” He spent a few more seconds typing, then straightened. “I heard your conversation only because I had a portable and checked the main computer while I bought clothes for you. The others still don’t know that you think the government is morally depraved and that you’re planning on stealing our gun and fleeing the first chance you get.”

  Sheridan stood up and took slow steps toward him. “Are you going to stop us?”

  He let out a cough of disbelief. “You couldn’t survive in this city by yourself, let alone escape from it.”

  “You could help us.”

  He raised his eyebrows, amused. “You want me to anger the morally depraved government?”

  Sheridan reached out and laid one hand across his arm, pleading with him. “You know we don’t belong here. There has to be a better place for us.”

  He shifted away from Sheridan’s touch. His gaze slid over to the door and stayed there while he thought. When he finally turned back to Sheridan, his expression was set. “The other wordsmiths will be here soon, so I can’t repeat myself. This is what you need to do: get Elise alone—today—and tell her you want to leave the city. She has connections; she knows the DW. They’re a slightly insane group, but they’re the only ones besides the Dakine and the government who know how to leave the city safely.”

  “Who are the Dakine?” Taylor interrupted.

  “Bad people. That’s all you need to know about them. I don’t have time to explain everything.” He picked up a green jumpsuit from the pile of clothes and handed it to Taylor. “Don’t tell Elise I know about her connections, but when you have a plan to leave the city, tell me.”

  “Why?” Sheridan asked.

  He picked up a blue shirt and skirt and handed it to her. “Because I’m coming with you.”

  Taylor’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?”

  “I have reasons.”

  Taylor’s eyes remained narrowed, the questioning look still hung on her face. “How come we can’t tell Elise you know about her connections?”

  “She doesn’t trust me.”

  Taylor crossed her arms. “But we should?”

  He cast another look at the door. “I told you I don’t have time to explain everything.”

  It was a fine time for Taylor to be skeptical—now that Echo had agreed to help them. Sheridan stepped over to Taylor. “He didn’t have to tell us about Elise. He could be stopping us instead of helping us.” She smiled back at Echo. “You are going to help us, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She kept smiling. He wanted to help them. She adored him.

  Taylor stood up from her chair. “Tell me more about the—what did you call them?—the DW.”

  “Doctor Worshippers. I called them insane. But I’m also calling them our door out.”

  “People worship doctors now?” Sheridan asked.

  Taylor let out a sigh. “I so picked the wrong major. Half the people I knew went pre-med, but no, not me.”

  “Major?” Echo asked. “What does this have to do with the military?”
<
br />   Sheridan didn’t answer. The lab door slid open, and Jeth and Elise walked inside. Jeth held a bowl of rolls and another of fruit slices. Elise carried plates, cups, and silverware. The group sat down for breakfast without another word about leaving the city. The subject, however, was constantly there in Sheridan’s mind. Dakine? Doctor Worshippers? How would they get Elise alone?

  After breakfast, Taylor asked Jeth to take them on a tour of the city. This was probably her way of staking out an escape route. Jeth agreed without any undue suspicion, though, and even seemed excited to show off Traventon’s advances..

  Sheridan and Taylor took the clothes Echo had given them and went to the back room to change. Taylor’s green jumpsuit had flickering lights that raced around her torso. Sheridan’s blue shirt was made of layers of some filmy material that swayed around her arms and legs when she moved, like drifting seaweed.

  She puzzled over a group of small holes in the top of her skirt. Decorations? No, they must be for a belt. Everyone here wore belts with small metal boxes on them—the things they used in order to call one another—comlinks.

  “So how are we going to …?” Instead of finishing her sentence, Sheridan made a rolling motion with her hand. She wished she and Taylor had one of those secret languages that she’d heard some twins had. “You know … ask about …?”

  “Don’t say it,” Taylor said. “Little pitchers have big ears. Or in this case, computers with recorders.”

  “Right.” Sheridan said, and Taylor’s phrase gave her an idea. They might not have a secret twin language, but they could still talk in code. “We can’t let our guard down,” Sheridan said, “but we need to find a time to talk about flying the coop.”

  Taylor’s mouth opened, probably to yell at Sheridan for blurting out their plans, but then she stopped and smiled. She’d remembered that the wordsmiths only had a vague knowledge of twenty-first-century figures of speech. As long as she and Taylor spoke in those, they could speak freely.

  “We’ll strike when the iron is hot,” Taylor said, “but keep things under wraps for now.”

  Sheridan smoothed down her skirt the best she could. “I won’t let the cat out of the bag.”

  chapter

  12

  They rode in one of the egg cars through the city streets. Jeth showed them the shopping district, the agro district, and the government central district. They saw buildings that seemed like they came from the twenty-first century and ones that looked like Dr. Seuss had designed them. Beige concrete walkways sprawled everywhere, shadowed by the opaque sky covering. The people strolling around the shops and walkways had hair colors from every shade of a crayon box.

  Echo was right about the women; they dressed the most elaborately. Half of them looked like they were decked out with Christmas lights and tiaras. Some sauntered down the walkway with small mechanical pets trotting by their sides, mostly dogs, but there were other shapes too. Sheridan saw a jeweled cat, a giant lizard, a miniature deer, and even a tiny fluffy buffalo whirring and clicking beside their owners.

  People had to manufacture their pets now. There was something sad about that.

  As they drove, Taylor asked Jeth questions about leaving the city. At least, Sheridan could tell they were questions about leaving. Taylor asked in roundabout ways to hide her purpose. “Is garbage taken outside the city?” “How is fresh air ventilated inside?” “Where does the city get the raw materials to build things?”

  Every once in a while Sheridan chimed in with a question she thought might be helpful, but mostly she read the street signs, memorizing them in case she ever had to find her way through the city. The spelling had changed for a lot of words. More of them were spelled phonetically now.

  Costal Pas … Coastal Pass. Canun Wey … Canyon Way. Munora … Menorah—like with the candles Jewish people lighted at Hanukkah. That one would be easy to remember.

  They turned from Munora onto Isaiah Drive.

  Isaiah? As in the prophet Isaiah?

  Why had people who banned religion named one of their streets after an Old Testament prophet?

  Sheridan looked at Taylor to see if she had noticed the street sign. She hadn’t. Taylor was busy talking with Jeth and Elise about how the city pumped water inside.

  Sheridan turned to Echo. “Why is this street named Isaiah?”

  “It was probably named after some important citizen. Why?”

  “Isaiah was a prophet, a religious figure.”

  He shrugged. “A lot of names had religious origins, but everyone has forgotten them now. They’re just names to us.”

  Jeth pushed a button on the control panel to slow the car, an indication he was about to turn tour guide. “We’re entering an education district. Hopefully we’ll see some children out with their caretakers.”

  A minute later they did. A dozen children tromped down a walkway, lined up like ducklings following their mother. A woman walked in front of the line, another brought up the rear. As the car drove by, Sheridan saw that the woman in the back wore a long black dress with a white circular collar. More surprising, she had a wimple on her head.

  Sheridan took hold of Taylor’s arm. “Look at that woman. She’s a nun.”

  Taylor looked. So did the wordsmiths.

  It was then Sheridan realized it wasn’t a wimple at all. The woman had long black hair and had dyed the portion of her hair around her forehead white.

  Taylor figured it out the same time Sheridan did. “It’s just coincidence,” she said, although she didn’t sound positive.

  Could it be coincidence that a woman dyed her hair to look like a wimple and wore a dress that looked like a habit? Was that sort of thing allowed in a city that had banned religion ninety years ago?

  “What did you call that woman?” Jeth asked.

  “A none,” Taylor said. “You know, like the number zero. It means someone who’s not that smart.” Apparently Taylor didn’t want another conversation on religion.

  “Oh.” Jeth craned his neck for a second look. “She seemed competent to me.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Taylor said.

  “You’re sure she’s competent?” Sheridan asked. “Or you’re sure she’s a nun?”

  Taylor gazed out the window again, but the woman was no longer visible. “Hold your tongue for now. We’ll go over it at length later.”

  Jeth cocked his head. “What?”

  Taylor waved a hand as though it wasn’t important enough to repeat. “Tell me about the material that covers the city. How does it withstand the rain and snow beating down on it year after year?”

  Jeth told her about it, but Sheridan tuned them out and kept looking at the city, searching for anyone else who didn’t fit in.

  Maybe it was just coincidence, a use of black and white in a pattern that had long ago lost its significance. Then again, the early Christians had had to hide who they were. Perhaps that was the case for all religions now.

  Sheridan scanned every sign, every building they went past. Now that she was looking, she noticed other things. A shop that had a line of stars over the door: six-sided stars—a Jewish symbol. On the next street, she saw a woman with a red dot between her eyes like Hindu women wore. Could those symbols have survived without the religions that utilized them?

  The car was heading toward the edge of the city because Taylor had insisted on seeing the walls. She told Jeth she wanted to see how they were built.

  Sheridan moved closer to Echo. “What happened to the religious people when the government outlawed religion?”

  Echo shifted in his seat. She could tell he felt awkward talking to her about it. “The government gave them three days to either renounce their beliefs and take an oath of loyalty to the government or to leave the city. Most of them renounced their beliefs. They couldn’t survive outside the city without food or any place to go.”

  “And the ones who didn’t renounce?”

  “They left to build their own city. I’ve forgotten the name. Tolerance or maybe
Assistance. Something they didn’t think the other cities had.”

  “Where is it?” The words tumbled out of Sheridan’s mouth too quickly, and she didn’t give him time to answer. “Can we contact them?”

  Echo paused, consolation softening his voice. “It’s gone. If cities aren’t controlled carefully, they turn unstable. Before long, they’re destroyed either from the inside or the outside. A city like that …” He trailed off, leaving his assessment unfinished.

  “A city like that didn’t have a chance because it was founded by violent fanatics?” she supplied.

  “It disappeared off the newsfeeds before I was born.”

  Sheridan sat back stiffly in her seat. “It isn’t gone.” Her words were firm; her convictions were less so. The different religions had put aside their differences for long enough to build a city, but could they have maintained the peace for ninety years?

  Echo shook his head and smiled as though she intrigued him. “And you accused me of believing whatever I wanted regardless of the facts. Aren’t you doing the same?”

  “I suppose we have something in common,” she said.

  He laughed, and his eyes turned warm. He was gorgeous when he smiled like that. He even made that ridiculous blue moon look good.

  She wondered what he thought of her and then put the idea out of her mind. If he was going to be interested in somebody, it was bound to be Taylor. Brilliant, blond, outgoing Taylor. Still, as they talked, Sheridan let herself imagine what it would be like to catch Echo’s attention—if his smile was just for her. If his blue eyes lit up when they saw her. If she could ease the sadness he felt from losing his brother.

  When the car reached the street’s end, everyone got out. Taylor, Jeth, and Elise headed toward the large, humming, gray walls. Jeth had already started explaining how the solar panels worked.

  Echo slipped his hand around Sheridan’s and pulled her in a different direction. “You can see the walls along this way too.”

  She let him lead her away but looked back over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t we stay with the others?”

  He gave her hand a squeeze as he took her farther away. “Don’t you remember? Taylor asked you to keep me away from her.”