by Therin Knite
A whistle splits the air. Umbrella girl, peering over the rooftop, points to a windowsill low enough for me to climb onto. My body surges with another short burst of adrenaline, and a minute later, she’s pulling me over the edge of the roof. Only then do I feel the dull throb in my foot and the warm, pulsing gush of blood in my boot.
“Not too shabby there.” She alternates between patting my back and rubbing light circles into my shoulder blades. “I’ve seen new recruits do far worse on first missions way easier than this one.”
“Don’t recall saying I plan to join your dream-hunting organization.”
“Echo Detection and Prevention Agency, actually. And you don’t have to say you’ll join. You will. One way or another.” Her hands gloss over a few cuts and forming bruises on my face, inspecting without touching in the way only someone with years of experience can. At the end of her survey, she raps one of the magical boots with her knuckle.
“I joined the IBI for a reason,” I say.
“Reasons operate on a relative scale, especially when they’re based on uncertainty.” Her finger traces the rubber rim of the blood-logged boot. “Good craftsmanship, by the way. Most untrained controllers have trouble creating complex objects in their own dreams, and here you are doing it in someone else’s. Though I can’t really say I’m surprised, given your—”
“Are you implying I’m one of these echomakers?”
“No implications necessary. How did you think you got here?”
“You can’t enter an echo unless you can create them?”
“Not naturally, no. You can use the Neural Nexus down at EDPA HQ to get here, like I did, but makers have an ability called crossing, where they enter another maker’s dream.”
The dragon struggles to free itself again, battering the side of the clothing store. Umbrella girl helps me to my feet as the rooftop jostles back and forth. More screams penetrate the night, mixed with the screech of grinding metal.
“We should go,” she says. “We have to find the maker before that thing gets free. Or worse, the dream ends. There’s no guarantee they’ll be back tomorrow now that they’re aware we’re a formidable force and won’t stop until we catch them. If we don’t locate them in the dream before they end it, we’ll lose our best chance of nabbing them in real life. It’s much harder to track down a maker in the real world. Conventional means are a bore. As I’m sure you’ve learned from your stint with the IBI.”
A way down is found in the form of a drain secured to the opposite side of the building, and umbrella girl climbs down at twice the speed she ascended the fire escape. I’m twice as slow with my injured foot, and when I finally make it to ground level, she’s pacing around a light pole at the end of the street, muttering rude things about “slow-ass kids.”
“How did you know?” I lean on the pole for support, blocking her path.
“That you’re an echomaker?” She stares up at me, her tongue working out how to phrase her ideal response, to reveal enough and not too much. “Call it a hunch.”
“I need a better answer.”
“No, you want a better answer. You want to know everything.”
“And you don’t?”
Her grin stretches ear to ear. “I already do. About you. Because knowing people like you is part of my job description. So I know all about your failed childhood therapy. And all about your suicide attempts, including that time you jumped off a bridge, then changed your mind about drowning, swam to shore, and walked back to your foster home sopping wet. And all about your pile of detention slips for talking back to your teachers. And all about your suspensions for picking fights with kids several years older than you. I know all about your emotional problems, every single one, down to the persistent arrogance and penchant for thinking everyone’s beneath you.”
Startled, my hand slips off the pole, and the added weight on my foot sends a spike of pain shooting up my leg. I try to hide my discomfort behind a blank mask, but I know it’s a poor attempt. No one should know that much about me. And some of that information shouldn’t be possible to know. “Why bother stalking me to that degree, huh? What value do I have to you?”
“You’re an echomaker. And a strong one at that.” She bumps our boots together. “The average maker can’t control their own dreams. Yet here you are manipulating someone else’s without even a day’s worth of training. You are the one percent, top of the class, cream of the crop. Understand? And soon enough, when that last bit of adolescence drains out of your fiery red head, you’ll be one of the most coveted and one of the most dangerous people in the world.” Her gaze collides with mine, absolute zero in a shade of green staring into a corner of my mind I’ve never shown to anyone. “You brought yourself here just by thinking about it. That makes you the most important man of the year, on my side of the fence.”
“I’ve never done it before. Never done this before. Never created a dream that’s come to life and…hurt people. Have I?” The possibility that I’ve done something terrible to someone without realizing it pounds the levies in my brain, threatening a flood of panic.
Umbrella girl takes two steps back. “You’re young. Puberty suppresses the echomaking ability. Brain development and hormones and what not. It tends to mature in the mid-twenties.”
“And I’m twenty-three.”
“Astute observation, Agent Adamend.”
“You could walk a little faster, you know?” umbrella girl says.
“I’ve got about half a pint of blood in my boot.” The affected foot is on fire, and each step is slower than the last. If I couldn’t see the finish line getting closer, I would have given up ten minutes ago.
She whirls around but keeps walking backward, eying my injury with disdain. “Then pour it out.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Would be easy for you too, if you hadn’t hurt yourself.”
“Oh, right. I forgot it’s all my fault we’re being chased by a dragon.”
A forlorn shriek in the distance makes me miss a step, and I almost go tumbling over.
“It is your fault. You came here.” Her boots send up a wave of murky puddle water as she hops off the sidewalk and into the street, coming to a stop in the middle of the cul-de-sac. Manson’s property lies on one side, still immaculate. “Now make yourself useful and tell me why the killer reset the dream without the damage incurred from killing Victor Manson.”
“I have a feeling you already know.” I hobble up beside her, annoyed.
“Do it.”
“Fine. They’re obsessed with neatness, accuracy, and difficulty.”
“How do you know?”
I groan. “Because, you said it yourself, this echo is complex. The killer took the time to replicate every building in the neighborhood. Even the star patterns in the sky are correct. And crafting the dragon makes for a massive time sink, I imagine, while upping the difficulty level of the mechanics of the echo. So if they’d left the damage from Manson’s death intact, it would’ve marred all their hard work, left a big, gaping wound in their intricately and delicately constructed dream. Hence, the reset. They wanted the echo to look neat and clean when they came back for round two tonight.”
Umbrella girl nods, not quite impressed, but satisfied enough.
“You annoyed me into profiling a criminal for you,” I say. “Congratulations.”
“You’re way too easy to set off, you know? You have so many buttons. I guess I can chalk some of that up to your injury, but the rest? It’s almost painful to watch you interact with people you don’t like. Briggs, for example.”
“It’s painful to watch Briggs interact with anyone other than Weiss.”
“Fair point.” She snaps her fingers at me. “Well, go on. Keep profiling. I’d like to find out who killed Manson tonight, if that’s okay with you.”
My weight drifts to the left to ease the pressure on my weeping foot, but the throbbing pain still derails my thoughts. “I don’t usually work while in pain, so forgive me i
f I’m not flawless.”
“Oh, no worries. I’ll fix that issue in your training. Your pathetic physique is one of your top issues. Having the mental capacity to catch smart criminals is all fine and dandy until you end up having to rely on much less competent people to actually catch them for you. A middleman is never a good thing.”
“I still haven’t given you any indication I’ll be joining EDPA.”
“I understand the hesitation. Some offers look far too good to be true.”
“Yeah, that’s the reason.” My thin pajamas, which must’ve manifested on my dream body out of habit, because I fell asleep in my underwear, let in the night air like a sieve, and goose bumps dot my skin. “All right. We have a murdered lawyer who frequently worked with political clients and the super rich. Access to many of his cases requires a moderate level of security clearance, which suggests an attempt to hide corruption and scandal from the media.
“Then we have a murderer whose weapon of choice is something they couldn’t have accurate knowledge of without the highest possible clearance. Therefore, Manson’s killer must either be a level six client, or someone with that clearance level connected to a lesser or equal client. Most likely the latter, given Manson’s perfect track record. I’m thinking it’s either someone he defeated in court or another lawyer.”
“What about his partner, Burke?”
“No motive. No means. The firm is dead in the water without Manson. Burke can’t keep it running by himself, and he has no one on hand to replace Manson. Plus, he’s been in Paris for the last month. Unless you can project echoes across the ocean, he’s out.”
“Acceptable analysis, I guess.” She chews on her bottom lip. “Out of his cases then, which opposing parties strike you as the most likely candidates?”
“I don’t know yet.” I shrug. “I had a late night and only got through two hundred four of the client files. I suppose you know the most likely candidates though, right?”
At some point in my explanation, umbrella girl bent down and picked up a stray chunk of asphalt. She examines it now like you would a lab specimen, and to her, it may very well be. “So accurate,” she mutters. There’s a hint of admiration in her voice, which I understand.
This dream is a masterpiece, so meticulously woven into being.
“Such a pity.” She chucks the asphalt across the cul-de-sac, and it lands on the front-porch doormat of Victor Manson’s house. “Now, what were you asking? Oh, right. Manson’s clients.”
She produces an ear-com from a small pouch on her belt and sticks it into her right ear. She then jerks like she’s been stung, and cringes. “Whoa, there! Calm down, sweetie pie. I’m right here.” Pause. “No, I’m not dead. Do I look dead? I’m lying right there in the middle of the room.” Pause. “Yes, I know there’s a cross. No, it’s not another bad guy. It’s our new recruit.” Pause. “The guy I told you about earlier. You saw him at Manson’s.” Pause. “Yes, the IBI guy.” Long pause. “Yes, he did cross all by himself.” Short pause. “I know he’s messing with your systems, honey. Deal with it. Plus, I have a non-Nexus task for you: Bring up Manson’s client files. The short list. I need—”
She spins around, hand fumbling for a gun. The dragon breaks out of its suicide dive at the last possible second and decks her with a sideswipe, the gun skittering across the street. A spiked tail rockets for me, and I try to duck. Try. Fail. My foot gives out. Four long spikes skewer my torso and rip themselves free a moment later.
I hit the ground bleeding.
The dragon hits the ground without a sound. Like it’s a figment of someone’s imagination. Like it isn’t real.
Somewhere, a murderer is laughing.
Somewhere else, I’m dying.
Chapter Five
Hospitals are both fascinating and boring. They’re places of birth and death, pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow. They’re vitally important to everyone’s lives, beginning to end. Yet at the same time, they’re white and sterile and flavorless, and lying in their lumpy beds is drudgework, and eating their bland food is a chore, and being forced out of a deep sleep by their irritating machines is a nuisance. Which is why, right now, I hate hospitals with a passion.
My throat is dry, my lips are cracked, and my thoughts are a hundred hues of paint all washed into the same cup of water. I must stare at the white-tiled ceiling for five minutes before I gather enough brain power to focus on something else.
That something else is Jin. He sits hunched over in a chair at my bedside, face in his hands. His hair is unruly and flat, washed but not dried. A shirt with three missed buttons signals a rush now cooled into exhaustion, and emergency is written all over his work slacks in blood. My blood.
“Adem?”
My eyes take an awfully long time to rise a couple inches. The double vision doesn’t help. “Hey,” says the scarecrow-voiced invalid I’ve apparently become.
He slides off the chair in the slow, fluid way only a mourner can and leans over my bed, hands gripping the railing so hard his fingers turn white. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m not feeling. Can you reduce my med dosage?” There’s a self-access medicuff strapped to my wrist, but my lethargic fingers refuse to turn the dial back from “high as a kite” to “pleasantly numb.”
“I shouldn’t. You deserve having your brain fried for what you’ve put me through.” He does it anyway though, lifting my pale wrist like a delicate flower and tapping down the number for the pain medication.
“You should go home and change your clothes.”
“You should shut the fuck up.” The words have no force behind them. Jin has no energy left to spare. “You really should.”
“Can I pee first?”
His laugh is dry and hollow. “If the nasty hospital bathroom will make you feel the full weight of this situation, then yes.” He lowers the bed railing and props me up against his chest while I get my shaky footing. I cling to his haggard shadow of a self as we stagger to the bathroom door.
“I’ll take it from here.” Closing the door with my elbow, I grip the sink for support with one hand and roll up my patterned hospital shirt with the other. The last thing I remember is catching a glimpse of my own shredded torso, bones and organs spilling out onto the pavement, but the man in the mirror doesn’t have a scratch on him. The only indication I was impaled by a dragon’s tail spikes last night is a line of four faded red circles stretching diagonally from shoulder to hip. The skin is smooth to the touch, but when I trace the circles, ghosts of pain radiate outward.
It’s the work of med-four. Over three hundred types of eighth-generation nanites mixed into a single injectable solution. One level down from the most advanced life-saving technique ever conceived by man. Used in cases where doctors have no lesser choice. That’s how close I came to dying.
Shit.
I scramble to the toilet and vomit up acid. The taste triggers another wave of nausea, and the burning in my throat sends me into a coughing fit. I rest my head against the toilet seat and force myself to breathe in and out, deep and slow. After a minute or so, my stomach settles. A dull throb beats at my temples, but I ignore it, stand up with a slight waver, and flush the toilet.
I am Adem Adamend. I do not panic.
Jin knocks on the door and awkwardly mutters a joke about “hogging the bathroom.” He’s standing two inches from the door when I open it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though I shouldn’t.
Because it’s never the tragedy or the crime or the letdown that sets Jin off.
It’s always the apology.
“Half,” he murmurs. Then he whirls around and kicks his chair over. It clatters to the floor, scuffing the tiles. “Half your damn blood volume, gone in minutes. What did you fucking do?”
The story almost spills from my lips word for word, but the memory of that silent dragon stops me short. Telling Jin the truth about Manson’s death will put him in more danger. It’s bad enough he knows a dragon did it, bad enough he
’s connected to someone who is now the target of a killer. Plus, umbrella girl will probably swoop in like a hawk if she finds out I told Jin level six secrets. Jin’s still an outsider to the Manson murder, but he’s tottering on the edge. If I push him over…
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“You don’t know? You know everything. How can you not know how you got skewered? The doctors said they’ve never seen injuries like yours before. They ran your wound patterns through every scan database in existence and found no matches. And you expect me to believe that you have no clue what happened? You might get a kick out of pretending I’m an idiot on a regular basis, Adem, but I’m not nearly as naïve as you want me to be.” He runs his fingers through his unkempt hair. Faint stubble lines his frown. He forgot to use anti-shave this morning. From happy-go-lucky Cybersec agent to society’s poster boy for depression in the span of a few hours. Such is the nature of Jin Connors.
“Jin,” I say, wetting my lips. “I. Don’t. Know.”
Understanding blossoms in his expression, and he struggles to manage the onslaught of emotion. Confusion. Anger. Fear. Guilt. “You don’t need to protect me, Adem. It’s supposed to be the other way around, for gods’ sakes.”
The meds make my lips curl into a dimpled grin. “Why? Because I’m twenty-three and you’re thirty-four? Because I’m the rookie and you’re the seasoned agent? Relationships aren’t linear, Jin.”
He snorts. “You’re one to talk about relationships.”
“I could say the same about—”
There’s a knock on the door. A cheery nurse marches in, bouquet in hand. It’s fifty shades of blue speckled here and there with white, and in the middle is a violet rose. A stunning piece, but my nose twitches in disgust. Being in close proximity to flowers puts me at risk for headaches and sneezing fits.
“Arrived for you a few minutes ago, Agent Adamend,” says the nurse. He sits the vase on my beside table and adjusts it so I can see the full arrangement. “You must have some nice friends. This is from an expensive florist.”
