Echo Boy (34 page)

‘As in Alex Castle?’

‘I’m his niece.’

It took a few seconds for her to piece the jigsaw together in her mind, and when she did, fear swiftly sank towards sorrow.

I felt sick from sunstroke.

She tried to comfort me. ‘
Tranquilo, tranquilo
 . . . Don’t worry. You are OK now. You nearly died out there in the heat, but it will be all right now. You have been asleep. I have taken you inside.’

She was a strong, tall-looking woman, but she looked tired. She had the kind of face that could be happy and sad all at once.

She said something quiet, in a whisper, in Spanish.

‘I don’t understand,’ I told her.

And then she looked straight into my eyes and said: ‘I am sorry.’

‘Sorry? What for? For Alissa?’

I didn’t ask this with anger. I just needed to know the truth. Just
seeing her face react to my mention of Alissa’s name told me half of it.

She hesitated. And took a deep breath. And when her words came, they seemed as fragile as shimmering buildings on the horizon. ‘I don’t know how much you know, but I am sorry for the death of your parents. You see, it is true. I can confirm to you that I was the one who designed Alissa. I was the one who made her malfunction. It was built into her. After five weeks, she was meant to kill everyone she lived with. Including you. I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry . . . You poor girl. I will never forgive myself, I can never—’ She winced.

Tears were streaming down her face now as she tried to explain. ‘My granddad, Ernesto, was dying. After I lost my home and had to move here, he had weeks if not days to live. He was in a lot of pain . . . Mr Castle told me that if I did it, my granddad would live for another seventy years, until he was 200. He said he would give him the most expensive gene therapy available, and reverse all the damage that had been done to his lungs and all over his body. And stop the pain he was in. Give him life. I had already lost a son, and my granddad was the only real family I had in the world.’

Rosella was trying to compose herself. ‘Alex Castle said that if I didn’t do it, then I would be imprisoned and Granddad would die.’

I stared at her; after hearing this, I wanted to hate her; but somehow I couldn’t. Somehow I knew that it wasn’t her fault any more than it was Alissa’s fault. It was no one’s fault but my uncle’s, and for a moment I resented the fact that he was still alive while my parents were dead.

It was such a strong feeling that it nearly caused me to pass out again.

‘I want to kill him,’ I told her, remembering Daniel’s screams. And those of my parents. ‘My uncle. I want you to do what you did.
I mean, I want you to turn an Echo into something that will kill him.’

She looked at me for a long time. ‘Killing him will not bring your parents back. I want to help you, but revenge is never the answer. All that would happen is that Echos might be banned, and all existing ones terminated.’

I had no idea if this was the truth or not. But I was troubled by this information. I thought of Daniel. The idea of his destruction was now a horrific one, yet it might have already happened. It was strange. Only days ago I had wanted to live in a world completely free of Echos. And here I was thinking that the loss of just one – this particular one – would be a catastrophe.

Rosella had stopped crying but her hands were trembling. ‘Also, I nearly tried it once before. He had someone access my computers and saw I was up to something – he didn’t know what – but he made threats. He knew how much I loved him. And he hinted that, well
 . . .
I just couldn’t risk it.’

She told me that my uncle’s promises had been false. She told me that it wasn’t safe here. She thought she was next on Uncle’s list. ‘He is acting strange. Quiet. Too quiet.’

‘Why don’t you move?’

‘There is nowhere for me to go.’

Then she started asking questions about Daniel.

I told her everything I knew.

‘Why did you come here?’

‘He said you would look after me.’

She smiled, but it was not a sign of happiness.

Two hours later, he came.

Daniel.

He arrived after having escaped from the Resurrection Zone.

I heard him downstairs with Rosella. ‘Where is she?’ he said.

‘Where is the girl? Where is Audrey? Has she come here?’

I got up. I had to see him.

‘Don’t worry. She is safe. She is all right.’

The moment I heard his voice, relief flooded through me.

‘Can I see her? I want to see her.’

He saw me. He rose up on the leviboard just as I was about to go down. And the moment I saw him, I realized that he was back. He had an alertness to him again. Whatever Uncle Alex had tried to take out of him wasn’t something that could be removed.

He looked as though he was about to cry.
The point at which a machine wants to cry is the point at which it is no longer to be considered a machine
. I’d heard that somewhere. Anyway. I wanted Dad to be alive so I could say that to him. I’d also have added this:
If
you have things inside you that cannot be taken away or destroyed, you are not a machine, either
. And I looked at him and did not see an Echo at all. I just saw someone called Daniel. Someone I cared for more than anyone. And someone who was far more than the sum of his parts.

I went over and hugged him. ‘You made it.’

‘Yes. So did you.’ I felt his body become heavy and sink into me. He was weak.

It was undeniable. I loved him. It might not have been the sort of love the Neo Maxis sang about, but it was love all the same. Love was just that part of your feelings for someone you couldn’t explain. The bit that doesn’t make sense. The bit that was left inside you if you took everything else away. Like the bit inside an Echo that might be able to make it human.

He was in desperate need of some sugar and water, which Rosella gave him.

‘I was working in the Resurrection Zone. I was never going to get out. It was horrible there, but I had given up hoping. Then I saw that you had escaped. I saw it in the news. And so I—’

‘News?’ Rosella looked worried.

Daniel nodded. ‘There is a newsletter called
Castle Watch
. I was given it by a woman called Leonie.’

‘Leonie Jenson,’ I said.

‘Yes. The newsletter said witnesses had seen you at Hampstead Station. And I knew that if you got a train, it was likely that you would try and come here.’

Rosella seemed to be in a panic now. ‘Witnesses?’ She stared straight at me. ‘Was it a direct train here?’

‘No. Paris, then Barcelona 2. Then Valencia.’

Rosella was nodding fast, working things out in her mind. ‘Good,
good . . . three trains. Three trains. And did Castle know that you knew about this place. About me?’

‘He had talked about an Echo designer in Valencia, but I don’t think he had ever told me that Daniel was made here.’

‘
Vale, vale
 . . . OK, OK . . . But if it is known that you went to the train station, they will be able to work out the rest. They will eventually find out that you tried to evade them, and ask to see footage in Paris and Barcelona 2. Mr Castle will have his people – and his Echos – try and track you down. Both of you. But I should imagine he’ll start with you.’ She said that looking at me.

She tried to think. ‘I would look after you for ever if I could – you know I would – but I am not able to. Every single time I try to help somebody I end up losing them.’ Her eyes gleamed with despair. ‘I think you need to go. I’d say there is half an hour before he works out you are here. You do not have long. He will track you both down. Is there anywhere you can go?’

I looked at Daniel. Daniel looked at me. We both belonged nowhere in this world except, maybe, with each other.

‘You are not safe here. You might not be safe anywhere on Earth,’ Rosella said to me. ‘There must be somewhere . . .’

‘I have a grandma who lives in New Hope,’ I told her. I thought of Grandma, remembered how crazy she had seemed when I had last spoke to her, when she was high on everglows. I thought of my mum and dad telling me never to visit New Hope, let alone live there. I heard Dad’s voice, as clear as ever:
Audrey, promise me, when you are older, don’t give up on Earth unless you have to
. Maybe now I had to. I thought of all the Echos there – though now that wasn’t such a fear.

‘The moon!’ said Rosella. ‘Yes. The moon! He has no powers there. The police force are independent.’ She looked at Daniel. ‘And
Echos are well protected. They have rights that they don’t have on Earth.’

Daniel looked relieved. I dreaded to think what he had been through at the Resurrection Zone. Whatever had happened had made him look vulnerable. His skin was still perfect and he was still strong, but there was something about him now that made me want to hug him, to wrap him up in a blanket for ever more and keep him safe. Maybe that is what love is. A need to keep someone safe.

‘Does Mr Castle know about your grandma?’ asked Daniel.

‘Yes. She is my mum’s mum.’

‘But it is the moon,’ said Rosella. ‘You would be safer there than anywhere on Earth. People are harder to find. There’s less information stored on them. Less surveillance. That’s why criminals always end up there.’

‘Plus,’ said Daniel, who was programmed to know all sorts of things, ‘there are 3,000 unoccupied apartments in Aldrin, the most northern suburb of New Hope. They overdeveloped in 2113, the year it was built, and there are still some without tenants or squatters. We could live in one of them. For a while, at least.’

It was the most ridiculous idea. A teenage human and an Echo living together in an apartment on the moon. Runaways. Never knowing if today was the day when trouble would come and find us. I thought of my old boyfriend, Ben. The one whose Simulationist parents had decided to move to New Hope. Maybe we could stay with him. But I didn’t say this out loud. It was an option, though, there if we should need it.

Rosella was pinching her bottom lip. Her eyes closed. She had thought of something. Something bad. ‘No,’ she said.

‘No what?’ I asked.

When Rosella’s eyes opened, it was only me they were looking at. ‘There’s no way you can get to the moon. No way. You won’t be able to leave Earth. The first thing Mr Castle and the police will have done when you ran away is spread your ID around. There is no way you’ll pass through the eye-scan and thumb-reader at the spaceport. You’ll be caught and sent back to him.’

My heart sank. Disappointment mixed up with fear. I felt trapped. You could feel claustrophobic trapped in a bedroom, but you could feel equally claustrophobic trapped on a planet. Claustrophobia wasn’t a matter of space, but of restriction.

And of being unable to escape dangers.

My heart raced. My skin prickled. Fight or flight, but unable to do either.

Daniel saw my anxiety. ‘I met someone while I worked at the Resurrection Zone. Another Echo – 15. He dreamed of escaping to the moon, but he was never able to. But I have in my mind the full record of what he said. He told me:
And if we weren’t here, it would be easy to get to as well. There are Echo shuttles every night. From Heathrow Spaceport. And from others too. Almost every big city in Europe. Pretty basic. Cramped. You know, Echo class. Not like what the humans get to travel in, but it would get you there in the same time. And easy to get on too. You don’t need any ID or proof of employment or purpose. Not even an eye-scan if you are an Echo.
No ID.’

‘But Daniel, that won’t help Audrey. She is not an Echo. She would need to have ID.’

And it came to me, the thought, clearing away clouds in my mind. ‘Listen, Rosella. You do everything here, don’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Everything. The whole process of making an Echo. That is done here, isn’t it? In this place?’

Rosella nodded. ‘Yes, why?’

But Daniel was already realizing what I was going to say. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t become like me. It is no way for a human to be.’

I ignored him and carried on talking to Rosella. ‘So you could put a mark on my hand. An E. Just like the mark on Daniel’s. And an origin mark on my shoulder. Then I could just pretend to be another Castle product.’

I took a breath. Scared of what I was suggesting.

‘I could be an Echo.’

Rosella was shaking her head. ‘No, you can’t do that.’

‘But you have everything here, don’t you?’

‘You are not an Echo. A human can’t just become an Echo.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Is it my shoulders? Are they too broad and ugly? Is it the way I walk? Is it my nose? Am I too big?’

Rosella looked at me for a moment in deep sympathy. ‘I’m glad I’m not young enough to have all those delusional body worries.’

‘But I’m not perfect. Echos are perfect.’

Daniel’s eyes studied me harshly. ‘You are better than perfect. You are beautiful. And perfection is overrated. Perfection is the blandest thing imaginable. Please, Audrey, stay human. Humans are properly alive.’

Rosella shrugged. ‘Yes and no. I mean, if you could pick us apart, one atom at a time, we’d just be a pile of dust. We’re just a collection of lifeless molecules that together form life. But really, humans are only cleverly made machines, just like an Echo. And it is possible to fuse the two. I mean, look at you, Daniel.’

‘And I wouldn’t
really
be becoming an Echo,’ I said. ‘I’d be
pretending
to be one. That’s the difference.’ I knew it wasn’t really a difference. I knew that if I looked like one, I would be treated like one. But I couldn’t think of a better plan. ‘Come on, please. They’re looking for a human girl. Not an Echo.’

‘You’d be destroying your life,’ said Daniel. ‘Echos are second-class citizens. Pets have more rights. Mice have more rights! Even rats. You don’t know what it’s like.’

I felt a bit bad. A strange kind of guilt, as though I was betraying my parents. This was not the dream they’d had for me. I was meant to be going to Oxford University. That would not be happening now. Even being a remote student was too dangerous. No. I was a runaway. I was going to be anonymous, and an anonymous Echo at that. Living on the moon, the one place my parents always told me I must never end up. But still, I didn’t have a million choices any more. I had one choice. Life, or death.