Erasing Time (34 page)

Joseph could see no way out of the question. Sheridan and Taylor wouldn’t take the Dakine oath, but he could still save himself. He ought to save himself. Still he hesitated. He had lived with the weight of his brother’s death pressing into him for the last month. He couldn’t bear the thought of adding to that load. All he could do was hope he’d been wrong about the symbols. There was a chance, however small, that the DW had chosen the paintings accidentally, not knowing about Dakine signs.

The boss’s eyes narrowed into angry slits. He didn’t like waiting for an answer.

“We had hoped,” Joseph said slowly, gauging the man’s reaction, “to meet someone who could help us. A doctor.”

The boss’s face hardened, and his voice snapped like electricity. “A doctor? The only ones who say that word are fanatics—sewer sludge that our city is scrubbing away.”

Which meant that these people hadn’t chosen the artwork accidentally. Joseph cast a glance at Sheridan to see if she had rethought her position. Her expression was firm, calm almost.

The boss’s anger gained both momentum and volume. “Are the three of you fanatics?”

“No,” Joseph said.

The waiter, now standing behind his boss, drew a black box from his belt and waved it in their direction. “Do we have some DWs we need to eradicate?”

“No,” Joseph said again, louder. “We don’t worship a doctor.”

And they didn’t. In Sheridan and Taylor’s day, doctors were meds. No one worshipped them. He sent Sheridan and Taylor a look, telling them to deny it.

The waiter turned the laser box so it pointed directly at Sheridan. “You two didn’t answer. Are you a worshipper of some higher being?”

As soon as the waiter phrased it like that, Joseph knew what would happen. He could hear the word before it even came off Sheridan’s lips.

Not this. Not again. He wouldn’t stand by and see Sheridan and Taylor shot.

They spoke in unison, their voices blending into an identical “Yes.” Before they had finished the word, Joseph rushed at the waiter. It was almost as if he saw Echo’s assassins before him, as if the replay he’d seen in his mind a thousand times was happening now. Only this time his feet weren’t cemented, unmoving in horrified shock. Now his body jolted forward. He would reach the waiter and have one moment of vengeance before a shot cut through him.

The boss turned as Joseph went by, grabbing his arm and pulling him backward. The man was stronger than Joseph had expected but couldn’t combat his anger. Joseph twisted, swung, and hit him across the jaw. The man stumbled, falling back against the cabinets with a crack. Joseph turned and saw that the waiter now had the laser box pointed at him. Time stopped. Joseph could focus on nothing except for the black box.

Then the shot came.

Sheridan screamed, or perhaps it was Taylor. He couldn’t turn his head to tell. His muscles had frozen in place, as tense and unbending as ice.

It wasn’t the burn of a deadly shot, just the shock of a stun setting. In a few seconds he would pass out. And then what would happen? Joseph struggled to breathe, felt himself falling backward, and the next second was caught.

The boss laid him on the ground while the waiter stood over him, still holding the laser box but now pointing it at the girls.

The boss pulled a restorer box from his belt and held it over Joseph’s chest. Instead of sending out a large pulse that would have restored muscle function to his entire body, the boss sent out a directed pulse. Joseph could breathe easily again. The numbness left his face, and he could turn his head.

Sheridan had moved forward. “What are you doing?” she cried out.

The waiter took a step toward her, silencing her with a wave of his laser box.

The boss sneered down at Joseph. “You want to protect your Doctor Worshipping friends? I’m guessing that makes you a DW too, but then, maybe you’re just the sentimental type. So I’ll ask you: Is there anything you want to tell me before I decide whether to kill you? Any news you want to pass along?”

One of the phrases the Dakine used as a greeting was
The news is the thing
. The boss was waiting to hear if Joseph would say it.

Joseph knew how the Dakine worked too well, though. If he claimed to be one of them now, these men would have him kill Sheridan and Taylor to prove his loyalty. Joseph shook his head. “I have lots of things to say to you, but none that you want to hear.”

The boss straightened and the sneer fell away from his lips. “All right then. You’ve passed our test. I suppose it’s safe to help you.” He pushed another button on the restorer box, and it sprayed out beams, pulsating warmth to Joseph’s muscles, reversing his frozen state. Gradually, the tenseness that had clutched his body released its grip.

The boss rubbed his jaw where Joseph had hit him, opening and closing his mouth. To the waiter, he said, “Either you’re getting slow or I am.”

“They’re just getting faster.”

“Right. Next time I’ll hold the laser box and you wrestle the wild ones to the floor.”

Sheridan knelt beside Joseph, looking him over. “Are you okay?”

He pulled himself up on one elbow and nodded.

Taylor put her hands on her hips. Her glare bounced back and forth between the waiter and the boss. “You shot someone and this was just a test? You scared me to death!”

Fortunately, the men couldn’t understand her. Joseph wasn’t about to translate her complaint.

The boss held out his hand and helped Joseph up. Sheridan stood as well. She wound her arm around Joseph’s waist, helping to support him.

“Your feet are attached again?” the boss asked.

“I think so.”

“You can call me Brother Navarone.” He gestured at the waiter. “That’s Brother Mendez.”

“You’re Doctor Worshippers?” Echo asked.

“That’s one of our names.” As Navarone spoke, he walked to a cabinet and unlocked it. “Sorry about that performance, but we have to make sure about people before we help them.”

Mendez folded his arms and grinned at Joseph. “I was sure you’d fail. You seemed to know too much about our paintings.”

Joseph’s gaze returned to the painting and the twisting black Dakine symbol. “How did you get them, the secret symbols …?”

“We have sources.” Navarone took a tube of pain cream from the cabinet and applied some to his jaw. “It’s surprising, but sometimes even the Dakine change.”

Joseph ran one hand along Sheridan’s back. “I need to explain about my friends. They don’t speak the same as we do.”

Navarone finished applying the pain cream to his jaw. “We know. Your friend Elise told us about the three of you.” He tilted his head at Joseph, appraising him. “She neglected to mention that punch of yours.”

“You’ve spoken to Elise today?” Joseph asked, feeling happier by the moment. “She’s safe?”

Navarone ran a finger across his bottom lip, checking it for swelling. “She’s already left the city. She wanted to meet you at Fairmore, but we thought it would be best if she wasn’t around when the government assigned blame for its missing prisoners. We sent someone in her place. Couldn’t find you, though.”

“We ran into problems.”

“She’ll be happy to know you’re safe.” Navarone put the pain cream back in the cabinet. “What I don’t understand is how you found us. Not even Elise knew of this place until we processed her out of the city.”

“Sheridan found it. She recognized the religious symbols.”

“Ah.” Navarone nodded. “It’s been a while since anyone has come to us that way. But if the government keeps bringing people from the past—we’ll have to take that into consideration.”

“We destroyed their machine,” Joseph said. “They can’t bring anyone else from the past.”

Navarone’s eyebrows hiked up in surprise. “You’re certain?”

Joseph nodded.

“Good. Then we won’t have to destroy it.” Navarone turned, took a disk from his pocket, and unlocked several cupboards at once. He pulled out packs, put them on the counter, and checked through them. “We’ll compile provisions for you so you can join the others. You didn’t bring food with you, but we’re a foodmart, so if you don’t mind eating seconds, you won’t starve. You’ll have to change your clothes, hair color, and face dye. When we go outside, we do it in camouflage.”

Navarone handed Sheridan and Taylor each a backpack. They looked through them, commenting to each other on the contents. Mendez hefted the last one from the counter and gave it to Joseph. “I’ll hike you to our closest center. We have a facility there to safely remove your crystal.”

Joseph gestured to the crystal on Mendez’s wrist. “What if someone tracks you and finds you’re out of the city?”

“They won’t,” Mendez said, handing him a water pouch. “It’s a fake.”

Fake crystals? What other technology did these people have?

Navarone pulled two more water pouches from the cupboard and handed them to the girls. “After that, you’ll leave with the others and travel to our city.”

Joseph nodded. Everything was happening so quickly, but he was glad he didn’t have time to think about what he was doing, what he was leaving behind. His father. His home. Every place he’d ever made a memory with his brother.

Joseph wished he could have seen his father again, said good-bye in person. Perhaps it was better this way, though. Jeth would’ve tried to keep him from leaving, and Joseph might have weakened and told him the truth. If Jeth knew that Echo had joined the Dakine, he would have been overcome with disappointment. And what would he think of Joseph for letting Echo die in his place?

It was better to leave quickly. “What is your city?” Joseph asked.

Mendez pulled a stack of pants and shirts from a drawer. They were a mishmash of greens and browns. “Santa Fe.”

“Oh, of course,” Sheridan said, and she smiled.

“Santa Fe, New Mexico?” Taylor asked.

Joseph shook his head. “That city was destroyed two centuries ago.”

“But the religious built their own city,” Sheridan finished for him, “and they named it after something they didn’t find in their original cities: holy faith.”

Mendez handed out the camouflage outfits. Navarone passed out sturdy boots.

Joseph pulled off his ruined shoes and took a pair. “I’ve never heard of a current Santa Fe.”

“We call it Santa Fe,” Navarone said. “Everyone else calls it Jackalville.”

Joseph straightened. “I’m escaping to Jackalville?”

Navarone gave a deep laugh. “I’ve forgotten how little you know about us. I don’t have time to tell you about our city, so I’ll just tell you that it isn’t what the government reports. You’ll believe that much, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Joseph said. He knew the government lied about many things, but he was still uneasy.

Navarone pulled Joseph’s electronics out of his pocket and gave them to Mendez to carry. As he handed over the disrupter, he said, “Our techs have never seen this device before. Is it some sort of bomb?”

Even though Joseph trusted the DW, or at least wanted to trust them, it was still hard to tell them the truth.

“It’s a disrupter. Once it’s activated, it deactivates any laser box that’s within range.”

Navarone’s eyes went wide and his face brightened. “Our scientists will be eager to replicate this.”

Yes, they would. He’d just helped the DW, shifted the balance of power. He hoped he wouldn’t regret that later.

Mendez had said the DW med clinic was a three-hour hike outside Traventon. Joseph wished he had some sort of clock, but he’d left that function behind when he discarded his last comlink. Only Mendez had any electronics on him, and most of those were secured in his pack. Had they been hiking two hours or closer to three? He, Sheridan, and Taylor had been blindfolded, led through an underground passage, and driven in a vehicle that didn’t run on the rails. Joseph knew it wasn’t a rail runner because once they were dropped off and their blindfolds were removed, they were well away from the city. He supposed the DW had a tunnel that went underground for quite some way, and its door was camouflaged with a covering of rocks or bushes.

Mendez didn’t speak as he walked, or offer any information about their surroundings. Probably for safety reasons. Until Joseph’s crystal had been removed, there was always the danger that the government could discover its mistake, turn his crystal back on, and track him. The threat of capture trudged along beside them as they hiked.

Mendez’s head constantly swung left and then right, his braids sliding across his back as he surveyed the surroundings. He carried a laser box in one hand and a scanner in the other. Did he suspect they were being watched? Did he see anything, or was it only a precaution?

Joseph didn’t ask. He didn’t want to frighten Sheridan and Taylor in case Mendez gave the wrong answer.

The trees were greener, taller, than any he’d seen in wilderness programs at the VR center. They also smelled rich with some unfamiliar scent. Many of them lay on the ground, knocked over by—
pues
, what was strong enough to knock down such huge trees? All afternoon the group had to keep climbing over fallen ones.

When Joseph had asked about them, Mendez said, “They’re pine trees. Storms come through every once in a while and pull some down.” And then he wouldn’t say more on the subject.