Echoes (Echoes Book 1) Read online

  Echoes

  A NOVEL OF THE ECHOVERSE

  Therin Knite

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Therin Knite

  Dedication

  ECHOES

  September 2712

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  The Story Continues!

  Echoes

  Copyright © 2014 Therin Knite

  Cover Design by Adam Hall at Around the Pages

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

  For more information:

  www.therinknite.com

  To contact the author:

  Email - [email protected]

  Twitter - @TherinKnite

  Also by Therin Knite

  NOVELS

  Epitaphs (Echoes #2)

  Othella (Arcadian Heights #1)

  Solace

  SHORT STORIES

  Venus in Red

  To whom it concerns,

  which may, in fact, be no one.

  ECHOES

  September 2712

  Chapter One

  A single dollop of raspberry donut filling. That is what prevents Victor Manson’s seventy-seventh death by dragon. It begins as they all do, Manson sauntering onto his patio at three AM sharp with a cup of imported coffee in one hand and his Ocom loading the daily stock report in the other. Five minutes, fourteen sips, and three stock pages later, he notices the unnatural vibration that anyone with half an attention span would’ve felt an hour before. So he gets up, taking the cup but leaving the tablet, and adjusts his vacuum-sealed, royal blue designer boxers as he wanders onto his lawn. The vibrating morphs into the stampeding step of something twice the size of an elephant, but Manson struggles to decipher the meaning of the sound.

  Until his hideous fence explodes into a rain of six-figure cedar chips.

  It streaks across the lawn: twenty-six feet of night-black scales and wings the size of hovercopter blades. Clawed feet hit the ground running. Sharp eyes lock onto the stupefied Manson. For two-point-one seconds, the man thinks he’s dreaming, and the flight response doesn’t kick in until the stream of fire hits his face dead on—

  The raspberry filling lands with a dull plop on a large piece of shredded fence.

  Everything stops.

  The murderous dragon freezes mid-fire stream. Manson gets stuck with his hands held up in a pitiful attempt to get a please don’t eat me message across to something that gives him less consideration than a cow. The grass doesn’t burn. There are no screams. And the dragon doesn't soar over the house and disappear into the night like it has seventy-six times before.

  Despite several attempts, the death scene reconstruction won’t start moving again, and before it can be reset, another foreign element invades it. A person. Named Jin. Whose lips are stained an incriminating shade of red.

  “What’s cracking, Firecracker?”

  My illusion disintegrates.

  The meticulously constructed dragon fades away to reveal a bustling cul-de-sac, IBI vehicles with flashing lights blocking the entrance to Pennimore Street and a crowd of hapless passersby staring stupidly from behind the digital DO NOT CROSS boundary. Manson’s terrified face dissolves; all that’s left of him is a set of charred remains in a body bag that rests in the black arc of grass where he made a final plea to his dragon overlord moments before it melted his face off.

  Jin rips another chunk out of his donut. Filling clings to the corner of his lips. “What’s wrong? You’ve got that I hate you, asshole look on your face.” After a few lengthy seconds of consideration, his eyebrows arch in a Jin-exclusive manner of expressing epiphanies. “Oh, were you doing that mental movie thing again?”

  “No, Jin, I was staring off into space, brooding over my personal problems on the government’s dime.” I shove my hands in my pockets and nudge the soiled piece of fencing with my foot. “You’ve contaminated evidence, you know?”

  “Eh, the servers already got it.” He nods to the hole in the fence, where a couple of scene preservers are busy taking a high-res holograph. “Plus, what’s a single chunk of wood going to tell us anyway? I think Manson’s body—or, what’s left of it—might hold a few more clues.”

  “And that’s why you’re in Cyber Security and not Crime Scene Investigation. Using the location of every piece of wood from the fence, I can extrapolate how big the thing was that killed Manson, what shape it was, how fast it was moving, what direction it came from, and what direction it went.” The words roll off my tongue a little too smarter than you sounding, and Jin’s cheeks redden.

  A tongue pokes out and licks the dirtied corner of his lips as he stares in half-embarrassed wonder. “All that from a hunk of wood, Firecracker?”

  “All that and then some. Turns out reconstructing crime scenes is about more than just looking at a body and going I think fire killed him.”

  Jin’s cheeks are purple now. “Hey, that was an accurate observation.”

  “And now Briggs thinks you’re an idiot.”

  “He thought that already.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to confirm it.”

  “All right, ginger genius, you tell me what killed old Manson, then.” He shoves the last bit of donut in his mouth and proceeds to lick the mess off his fingers one by one.

  “A dragon,” I say.

  Jin pauses with a pinky finger pressed to his tongue. “Huh?”

  “A dragon, or what I shall call a dragon. My best guess at the moment is that it’s some escaped genetic experiment from a local laboratory or an illegal underground project. There are other explanations, but few are as plausible. Of course, the experiment theory doesn’t explain why the dragon isn’t still flying around, terrorizing the city. My mental movie, as you put it, fails to adequately account for its disappearance. I’ve run through the damn thing almost a hundred times, and I still can’t figure out where it went. It’s like it ceased to exist after attacking Manson. However, if I was in charge, I’d order an investigation of all the city labs regardless. Couldn’t hurt to ask if anyone’s misplaced their dragon, yeah? I mean…”

  Jin’s thumb hangs precariously from between his teeth, his eyes focused on something behind me. It turns out to be the six and a half feet of no-(what-he-considers)-nonsense known as Commander Briggs, who’s close enough to have heard every word I just uttered. “Agent Adamend, correct me if I’m wrong, but did you say a dragon killed Manson?”

  A twitching hand and bloodshot eyes indicate Briggs has been hounded by the Director Board on Manson’s murder since he stepped into the office at his never-too-early five AM. On cue, his Ocom starts ringing again, and his hand reflexively sinks to his belt clip. He doesn’t pick it up though. Instead, he waits for me to give an explanation (I know and he knows) he’ll never believe. I could describe a hundred thousand ways under a hundred thousand suns how something in the fo
rm of a fantasy-like dragon could exist in reality, but Briggs would never believe a single one of them unless he saw it with his own eyes.

  I say nothing.

  “I brought you here to help, Adamend,” he continues, “not hinder. If you’re going to waste time by cracking jokes at crime scenes, then you’re better off back at the office. Or, where you belong, a Junior office.” He snatches his Ocom from his belt, scrolls through a list of text updates, and swears under his breath as he taps a few quick replies. “Now get back to work,” he barks when finished, “or leave.”

  The Jin in my periphery bites down a tad too hard on his thumb for comfort. “He’s been working very hard, Commander. It was my fault he stopped. I interrupted him.”

  Briggs pauses mid-step on his warpath toward another unsuspecting group of agents and gives Jin a curious stare. He can’t fathom why anyone would stick up for me, of all people. “Have it your way, Connors. But if I see any BS in his field report, it’s on you.”

  It’s only when Briggs has signaled a full switch of attention by yelling at another idle loiterer that Jin deflates from puff-chested frigate to popped balloon dog. “I’m going to regret standing up for you, aren’t I?”

  “Don’t you always?” I offer him a sympathetic shoulder pat. “Could be worse though.”

  “How?”

  “You could be me.”

  He swats my arm away with a sticky hand. “Oh, please, Adem. Your life is not as hard as you make it out to be. You’re young. You’re smart. You’ve got a great job.”

  “I’m the office pet.”

  “You, my friend, are a twenty-three-year-old in a thirty-five-year-old’s professional position, and you got there by way of blatant favoritism from Director Kill-us-all. You expected to be treated like, what, an equal?”

  “I do three times the work of everyone else in Crime Scene Investigation combined. I should be their king. Also, I’m in my position because Director Brennian acknowledged that I am talented and smart enough to be there. I expected at least a few grains of respect.”

  The same sticky hand ruffles my hair in the exact manner Jin knows I detest. “If you expected respect for being a kid genius in a federal agency, then you are not nearly as smart as you think you are.” Guttural shouts of micro-managerial anger echo across the Manson property. “Now why don’t you go get me a coffee before Briggs decides today is a great day to rip off Adamend’s head for a trophy?”

  “Funny. I’m pretty sure he thinks that every day.”

  * * *

  The girl with the umbrella under the sun walks in step with me from the end of Pennimore Street to the nearest coffee-selling convenience store. She says nothing and does nothing but twirl her little black umbrella and stare straight ahead through a pair of extra-dark designer sunglasses. Adorned with a uniform my mental clothing catalogue cannot place, I peg her at first as a plant from a government agency that lacks jurisdiction in the Manson case who will attempt to bribe me for information.

  We stop across the street from the store to let a few more IBI vans zip by, and a shadow makes us both peer up with identical curiosity. A news hovercopter is approaching the Manson property. It takes a slow, buzzard-like approach, unwilling to test the IBI’s patience too quickly (but perfectly willing to do so in a way that makes the media the “victim of censorship”). As if sensing trouble, the two unmarked IBI copters across the lane from Manson’s house take to the sky, cutting off the info hawk’s approach. They wage a minute war, the IBI copters striking their gossiping brethren with the invisible blades of government authority until the latter is forced to take a position half a mile away.

  Well, that skirmish will be on the eight o’clock news ton—

  “They’re like dancers in the sky.” Umbrella girl waits for me in the middle of the street, blocking a stream of oncoming traffic with a sort of practiced obliviousness that ignites a rare spark of attraction in a dusty corner of my brain. I catch up to her. We fall back into mimicry until I open the convenience store door and let her in ahead of me. She whips out her Ocom and accesses the store’s order app as we take a place at the end of a long line of disgruntled IBI agents and half-mad, half-petrified neighborhood residents who take the presence of government agencies to mean the Apocalypse is on the horizon.

  I get a glimpse of the order on her tablet. Five coffees. Two black. One with a diabetes-inducing amount of sugar. One fancy latte. And one with more cream than ought to be available in the entire District of Columbia.

  This should be simple. Pick which one is hers. Like I can pick out which tie Jin will buy before he ever sees it. Like I can find the odd man out in a crowd of people wearing identical masks. But doubt creeps up my spine as I work through all the girl’s details. They don’t add up.

  Her uniform has no name tag or agency patch. Identifiable yet unknown? Her only obvious bod mod is a head of snow white hair bound in a compulsively neat bun. Adventurous but restrained? The umbrella—still open—is the same appeal-to-adults designer brand as her sunglasses, and the way she holds it is unbecoming of someone her age. She’s young. Younger than me. But she stands with the posture of a thousand-year-old dictator, and the stop-n-shop may as well be a palace with the atmosphere she exudes.

  I can read everyone who’s anyone.

  But I can’t read umbrella girl.

  I select Jin’s standard order on my own tablet without sparing a glance at the screen, and as soon as I grab the steaming beverage from the cashier, my eyes return to my adversary. She waits by the door with the sound knowledge I’ll open it for her again. I do. I’ve been told I have no taste for mystery, but no one can claim I don’t humor the interesting. It’s just that most people aren’t interesting.

  Once we’re on the street again, I pick up the conversation. “Why dancers?”

  “For the hovercopters?” Her lips form words with the tilt of a long-forgotten accent.

  “Yeah. Why not warriors? They were fighting, after all.”

  The umbrella twirls again, and she taps a thumb on her overladen coffee tray. “That’s exactly why I said dancers.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  Her mouth curls into a cat’s grin, but she never breaks her straight-ahead stare. “Dancers are warriors, Agent Adamend.”

  “Who—?”

  A flurry of activity erupts at the Manson house. It appears to be the collective wailing of an IBI defeat. Agents from various departments are packing up their fifty types of unused equipment, several of them swearing under their breath and slamming SUV doors shut with all the tact of grounded teenagers. In the middle of the chaos is a fuming Briggs. He’s gripping his Ocom so hard I attempt to calculate which will break first: the tablet or his hand.

  “Firecracker! There you are.” Jin jogs over to the edge of Manson’s lawn. “Ooh, coffee.” He snatches it and takes a sip, savoring the taste with his raspberry-stained tongue. “Man, have you seen Briggs? He is pissed.” His free hand motions toward his subject, as if a man over six feet tall needs a sign to point him out.

  “Yeah, I got that. But why are we moving out, Jin?”

  “Get this: we got kicked out. Lost jurisdiction.”

  “The Interdistrict Bureau of Intelligence lost jurisdiction? To who?”

  Jin shrugs and takes another sip of coffee, spilling it down the front of his abused field uniform. “EDPA, apparently. There’s already a running bet about what it stands for. My guess was Emergency Distribution of Peanuts Agency. Anyway, they showed up about five minutes ago, flashed Briggs a Level Six clearance badge, and told us to get the hell out. I mean, I’m not sure…wait, who’s your new friend?”

  The gears in my brain grind to a halt. I peer down at umbrella girl. With a nod of winner-take-all acknowledgement, she strides off toward a group of identically dressed EDPA agents lurking around Manson’s body bag. To make matters worse, Briggs suddenly seems to remember I exist and happens to look at me in the same second umbrella girl gives her nod of insult.


  His glare is almost hot enough to burn my face off.

  Oh, and it starts to rain.

  Chapter Two

  I’m the ringmaster of the circus of death. The moment word spreads that Adamend’s back in his office at the corner of Crime Scene Investigation and Maintenance, a massive flock of frantic agents swarms my doorway. Most of them are from Homicide—the familiar wild curls of Gloria bob up and down in the middle of the group. They all shout the same commands at me: help me solve this murder, help me solve that murder, help me solve all the murders! It’s almost like they see me as a fancy, human-faced machine that takes in victims and churns out the killers they’re looking for. Cold. Emotionless. Built to be abused.

  I often wonder how long it’ll take them to realize I’m the one in control.

  Gloria pushes past the frontline of agents and shoves her Ocom in my face. “Adamend, I’ve got a triple homicide by arson to solve, and I need it done fast. My team’s exhausted all their resources. Take a look at the scene. Tell me what you think.” The picture on her Ocom is of a formerly posh penthouse living room, now a mess of black char and burnt body ash. The image was photographed at a poor angle by a poor photographer with the poor name of Wolf. I’d recognize his shoddy work anywhere.

  “It was the estranged female partner who works in Moscow,” I say. “She took the Pacific Transit Rail to Vancouver and then drove here in a rental the day before the murder. She arrived back in Moscow last night. Tracked her movements using her phone records in the Call Database. You can simply tell the Russian branch to go grab her. That all?” I stick my Ocom in its desk port, and the interface extends to cover the entire transparent desk screen. My message box has a large, flashing counter above it. In the thirty minutes since my return to the office, I’ve gotten forty-two messages—all of them from people too lazy to show up at my door and brave the crowd.