Echo Boy (32 page)

But what if you didn’t have a choice?
I wanted to say, but didn’t. From now on, questions would be locked away, out of view, kept in the same hidden place as my dreams and those mental pictures of Audrey. Questions were dangerous.

She frowned. ‘If you are a strong person, you would do something about it. It’s not like they are Echos. They are living, feeling creatures.’

She was stirring an anger inside me. A question broke free. ‘Did you have anything to do with the raid on Mr Castle’s house?’

‘You mean the massacre? Where they killed almost everyone who entered his grounds?’

‘People who were there to kill in the first place.’

She was the type of human who couldn’t say anything without moving her arms. ‘We feel we are at war,’ she said. ‘We feel Alex Castle is potentially going to kill thousands, maybe millions, if Echos get any more advanced.’

‘Why do humans always assume that anyone more intelligent or stronger than them is going to want to kill them?’

‘Because humans are dangerous.’

‘Correct. But it wasn’t just Mr Castle they were after. There was a girl there too. An innocent girl.’

The woman stared at the leaflet she was holding, and pointed. ‘You mean
her
? I’ve spoken to her before . . .’

I looked at where she was pointing. And there was her face. Audrey. Right there in front of me, frowning up at me from the e-paper, and staring at me with those intense and troubled and beautiful eyes.

I read the headline:
CASTLE NIECE TALKS OF ECHO DANGER AFTER PARENTS
’
MURDER
.

I quickly (two seconds) processed the article:

The niece of Alex Castle has described the horrific way her parents were killed by a malfunctioning Echo, at their stilt house in the floodlands of West Yorkshire. However, growing intrigue surrounds the case, which the mainstream media continually fails to cover. For instance, a distraught-looking Audrey appeared alongside her uncle at the media conference. He says publicly that he has concerns for her well-being and has agreed that it is best for her to stay at his house. Yet here at Castle Watch we cannot help but notice how convenient it is for him that his brother, who was after all his most outspoken critic, disappeared a week prior to the expected completion of his new book, which speaks out against Neanderthal resurrection and treatment.

I was tempted to tell her what I knew. But really, what good would it do? What was the point? Mr Castle was the third richest and most powerful man in Europe. Telling her, and angering the protestors, would
endanger them more than it would Mr Castle. And besides, it was probably one of her friends who tried to kill Audrey.

‘Just go,’ I said. ‘Please go. Just leave the zoo. It is not safe for you.’

‘Really, I think you should use your own brain.’

‘OK,’ I said, just wanting the conversation to be over.

At that moment Louis appeared round a corner in the distance. My sight was better than a human’s, even one with an eye-cam, so I knew he hadn’t seen us yet. And so I hastily took one of her leaflets and put it in my pocket.

‘Now go,’ I said. ‘And get out of here. I’ll read it, I promise.’

‘You’re peculiar. What’s your name? You can at least be polite enough to tell me that. Mine’s Leonie.’

I very nearly told her ‘Daniel’, but I now realized how I could get rid of her. So I raised my hand and showed her the E. ‘My name is 113. Now please, go away – my boss is coming. If he finds you, you will be in big trouble. We both will be . . .’

Louis came closer. I looked round. I could have grabbed Leonie; I could have pulled her out of view, behind the hologram of a diplodocus (the closest thing to an actual dinosaur they had here) and the info centre, amid the ferns and other prehistoric plants. But my plan was now to stay out of trouble, and if I had done that, and got caught doing that, then I would have risked being fed to the tigers.

So when Louis came over and asked what was going on, I told the truth. Foolishly, Leonie was relieved by the sight of Louis and his blank letterless hands. Hesitantly she held up the leaflets. Louis nodded. ‘Ah, the usual propaganda.’

‘It is not propaganda. It is a moral fact.’

‘There are no moral facts, only moral opinions,’ said Louis. ‘Well,
I must confiscate this literature and take your name and ID code.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, don’t play the innocent with me. What you are doing here is against the law. You are on private property. Property owned by Castle Industries. Also, a few days ago protestors stormed into Alex Castle’s house and attempted to kill him. So now the police have put their teeth back in, you get me? I could say that this filthy leaflet is inciting violence or what have you, and have you incarcerated in a sky cell before you could cry for your mummy and daddy.’

He grabbed the leaflets. She tried to take them back. He called for the security robot which had restrained me yesterday. It stood in front of me, its white illuminated eyes staring down at me.

‘Zeta-One, take this woman and escort her out of here please.’

The robot grabbed her arm tightly and I saw her face go pale. ‘Get off me!’ she screamed.

‘
You come with me
,’ said Zeta-One. ‘Y
ou come with me, you come with me, you come with me . . .
’

‘That hurts,’ she said as she was dragged away.

I felt guilt – another emotion I wish had been removed from me. Maybe the worst one of all. But defiance shone in her eyes. And she kept shouting, ‘Alex Castle is still alive! Fifty people are dead. Castle is the most unethical organization. If you want my opinion, they should never have let private companies have shares in the police in the first place, but there is no worse organization to run it than Castle. Every unethical thing that has happened in the last three decades has been the result of that company. The work of this zoo, for one thing. And the development of robotic security guards and police officers. And neuro . . .’ Her voice faded, out of hearing of even my ears. I tried to think how foolish the woman was, to hold onto principles in the face of fear.

‘So,’ Louis said to me, ‘I think it is time you got back to work, don’t you?’

I stood up. ‘Yes, Master.’

Louis laughed. It was the same laugh I had heard in the dark, carried on the chill night air, as tigers tore at the flesh of an Echo.

‘Oh 113, you really are a very confusing Echo, aren’t you? But I suppose there is hope for you yet.’ He gestured towards Leonie. ‘I am pleased to see you are not trying to act the hero. This is promising.’

I smiled meekly, and realized that Louis being pleased with me felt almost as bad as him being displeased. I wondered what was going to happen to the woman, Leonie.

‘Now,’ Louis said, taking the spherical camera out of his eye-socket and polishing it. ‘Let’s get you back to work. I’ve got something special for you. I think you’re ready.’

The work he had in mind was to enter the Neanderthal enclosure.

This was the enclosure next to Alice’s. Unlike Alice’s, the temperature wasn’t artificially generated, though the enclosure was as secure. 15 had told me, on my first night, that the Neanderthals were dangerous; like many of the other animals, made even more so by Louis’ cruel methods. They might not have been tigers, but they had destroyed an Echo a week ago by smashing a rock over its head when its back was turned.

Louis had told me that the Neanderthals had names. Their names were Oregon and Pitu. They hadn’t called themselves these names; they were the names the zoo had given them.

I had to go inside their enclosure and feed them.

‘But do not get friendly with them,’ he said. ‘Comprehend, data-brain?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Louis spat on the ground.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good. You are learning. Carry on like this and you’ll get along just fine.’

He pushed me forward. I went through both doors and into the enclosure with a meal for them (two bowls of springbok steak and plain white rice, two glasses of water).

Pitu was asleep. She was lying on some dried grass near the cave. Oregon was squatting down with a stick, scratching marks in the earth. He heard the door close behind me, and looked up and kept on looking at me as I walked over. I walked until I was about five metres away, and placed the bowls and cups on the ground. It was very hard to read Oregon’s face. The eyes stared out of that wide, high-cheekboned skull and stayed on me. I was programmed to read human faces, not Neanderthal ones. But still, it seemed to me that these eyes had the distinct glassy quality of sadness. I was in tune with sadness that day.

As I stood up, he spoke.

‘Please,’ he said, in a strange English. I saw scratches on his arm. And then he looked at the door.

I understood.

Oregon nodded. ‘We want escape. We want free.’

I shook my head. ‘I am sorry,’ I said in the quietest of voices.

He lunged forward. He grabbed my arm, tight. He seemed stronger than a human. I wondered if Louis was watching this on the monitor. To be honest, I didn’t care. I noticed that in his other hand Oregon was holding a flint with a sharp edge.

‘I can’t,’ I said.

‘No belong here,’ he said, releasing me. There was a definite pride and defiance in his voice.

I had been told not to get friendly with them. But I stayed there; I wanted to explain. ‘I am afraid you do. You were created for this place. You were created for humans. Just as I was. Without them we wouldn’t exist. And we can’t escape.’

Oregon didn’t look thankful. He scratched his face. I was understanding it perfectly now. It was full of sadness, and fear. He nodded, and seemed to understand. Then he asked for help in another way. He pointed at me, then at himself and Pitu, who now sat looking at me with wide, worried eyes.

‘You,’ said Oregon. ‘Make die.’

‘What?’

‘Kill. Us.’

A tear grew in his eye, then fell down his cheek.

‘Then we . . .’ He pressed the sharp flint into his arm, to cut himself. Blood leaked out, rolling down his skin in a thin stream.

‘Don’t do that,’ I said, and I looked around for something to mop up the blood.

The Neanderthal stopped. ‘If no make free. We want die.’

I felt in my pocket and pulled out the leaflet I had been given by Leonie. I pressed the crumpled e-paper onto Oregon’s fresh wound, and as the blood soaked into it, I saw that a new news article had popped up, filed mere seconds ago:

The niece of Alex Castle, Audrey Castle, is thought to have run away from her uncle’s house. She was spotted with an antimatter positron running down Hampstead High Street at 11.34 this morning. Audrey is the daughter of the great journalist and activist Leo Castle, who was killed with his wife after an Echo malfunctioned in their home. The police are in pursuit, and have been granted full powers. It’s a shoot-to-kill situation.

Castle Watch
urges its readers to help her in any way possible, and thwart the police’s efforts to capture or harm her.

I looked at Oregon.

I turned to leave.

The door opened. And I just stood there. I didn’t move. So the door stayed open. I knew now that I couldn’t stare at the moon dreaming of escape for ever.

So I kept standing still on the dry and dusty ground of that enclosure until I had a plan.

‘OK,’ I told them. ‘It is up to you. If you want to go, let’s go.’

Oregon made a grunting sound at Pitu, holding the leaflet over his wound. He gestured to the door, beckoning her quickly. She was reluctant to leave the cave. She seemed frightened. She was right to be, of course. What was out there for them?

‘We make free,’ said Oregon. ‘Now. He help.’

Louis was there, entering the enclosure with Zeta-One.

There was only a fraction of a second between seeing him and feeling the pain as the jolt-club pressed hard into my chest. It must have been on its highest setting because the electromagnetic force stopped my heart for four seconds after it sent me flying back to the ground.

It was dark now.

On entering the enclosure with Zeta-One, Louis had switched the glass to dark mode so no visitors could see inside. Not that there were many visitors – yesterday’s protests had put people off coming. And not that they cared about what happened to an Echo.

These weren’t the thoughts I was having then. I was hardly thinking
anything because the pain was so intense. But it wasn’t just pain. The charge of the jolt-club had weakened my entire nervous system. It had messed up my circuitry. When my heart restarted, it was beating fast, 306 beats per minute, and my mind was moving at hyperspeed. Image after image flashed through my brain. Rosella’s face as she stared at her dead iguanas, then Alice rearing up on her hind legs, then Audrey – and that look of horror as she realized what I was that first night.

The pain I was feeling was the pain of a world where I would never belong.

Louis stood over me. He kicked me in the stomach, hard. He wasn’t stronger than me, but he had a weapon. And Zeta-One.

‘Oh, this is perfect,’ said Louis, smoothing his fingers over his damaged skin. ‘I couldn’t have arranged it better myself. Shall I tell you what is going to happen here? Shall I?’

My punishment for not answering was another hard kick in the stomach.

‘You are going to be terminated, right here. But not by me, oh no. And not by Zeta-One or the tigers. No, no, no. By someone else.’

He turned to the Neanderthals; they were standing upright, Oregon’s arm around Pitu, Pitu bending into him, frightened and confused. ‘By
them
.’

Louis scanned the ground, and picked up a loose rock that was about the size of a hand.

‘Go on,’ he told Oregon. ‘You want your freedom, don’t you? Well, you can have it. The only payment I ask for is for you to smash this rock into the skull of that Echo. Do you understand, caveman?’ And then he spoke in a crude and bullying imitation of Oregon’s own voice. ‘Kill Echo, you free! Uh-huh? Uh-huh? You got that, you Ice Age numbskull?’