Erasing Time (30 page)

Finally they pulled up to the Fairmore swimming center. A structure with slides that swirled and looped stood perched over the large pool. It looked like a gigantic plastic crab.

While the car slowed to a stop, Echo scrutinized the people mingling in front of the building. “She was supposed to be out front. I don’t see her.”

Taylor and Sheridan joined in the search, looking for Elise’s striped hair among the bystanders. Men, women, children. People standing, sitting, talking. No Elise.

“She’s not here,” Echo said, then put his wrist to the control panel. “Drive west.”

The car pulled forward and continued down the street. No one spoke. Sheridan’s throat felt tight, like she’d swallowed too much of the gray dust and now it was choking her.

Echo leaned back in his seat. “Sheridan, when Elise helped you escape from the Wordlab, where did she tell you to go?”

“Los Angeles Park. She said to wait for someone to call me Hermana.”

Echo pressed his crystal to the control panel. “Los Angeles Park.”

“No one will be expecting us there now,” Taylor said. “What good will it do to go there?”

Echo shrugged tiredly. “We have to hope that since Elise didn’t find us at the swimming center, she’ll check the park. We have to hope for a lot of things.”

Sheridan kept her gaze on the window, willing the car to go faster and knowing it wouldn’t. The buildings and walkways slid by in a leisurely procession. The lilting voice of the government commercials went on about the benefits of the immortality tax.
A small price now, so you can enjoy eternity later
. Finally the car reached Los Angeles Park.

Sheridan had expected to see grass and trees. It was just more concrete. Admittedly, there were spinning swings, a jungle gym with slides, and something that looked like a wavy merry-go-round, but no green. On one side of the park several children skated in a multilevel concrete pit. Brightly colored sparks shot out of their skates, and the skaters seemed to hover in the air for an unnaturally long time. Gel benches were scattered over the park, and adults sat and talked to one another while they watched the children. That hadn’t changed over the centuries.

Echo, Taylor, and Sheridan climbed out of the car and slowly walked around the park. Sheridan searched every face she saw. The only person who returned her gaze was a teenage guy who was walking by with skates. He looked her over, saw she wasn’t wearing a rank badge, and kept walking. He apparently wasn’t interested in anyone who was so low ranking she wasn’t wearing a badge.

After they’d made a circle around the park, Echo led them to a bench in the middle. Sheridan sank down into it gratefully. Her feet hurt more now than while she’d walked over the rocks.

“Recognize anyone?” Echo asked Taylor.

She shook her head.

The group fell silent again. They waited. Once in a while a car pulled up to the park. Every time one stopped, Sheridan’s breath stopped with it. She hoped to see Elise, and was afraid it would be Enforcers. But it was never either. It was just more people coming to the park.

She scanned the area so frequently, it imprinted in her mind. The curve of the street, the edge of the skating pit, the neon street sign that read
LOS ANGELES
on the top portion and
PARADISE BLVD
on the bottom. A circular building stood beyond the park like a giant soap bubble that had landed on the ground and would momentarily pop.

Finally Echo ran one hand across his face, covering up the blue moon on his cheek. “I don’t think anyone will come.”

Taylor kept her voice low. “Then what are our options?”

“You met one of the DW,” he said to Taylor. “You must have some idea, some clue about where Elise took you.”

“I was blindfolded on the way there, and the room we went to was completely bare.” Taylor chewed on her lip, thinking. “She let it slip that it wasn’t in the fashion district.”

Echo shook his head. “That’s not enough. There has to be some detail you’re forgetting. A smell, a sound. We have no idea where to go, and every organization in this city is searching for us. Think.”

Taylor drew in a shaky breath. “I am thinking.”

“Think harder.”

It was probably the first time someone had ever told Taylor to think harder. All her math, science, and computer knowledge couldn’t help them now. What could?

Sheridan looked out over the park again, her gaze resting on the street signs.
LOS ANGELES
. No Hollywood stars here. No angels, either.

Her eyes shifted to the other sign,
PARADISE
.

And then an idea came to Sheridan—not just an idea, a whole story, an understanding of how things must have been.

“Words always leave a trail,” she whispered.

Echo turned to her. “You’ve remembered something Elise said?”

“No, but I think I may have found a trail.”

He leaned closer. “What do you mean?”

She couldn’t explain it, didn’t want to, for fear it would sound foolish, so she stood up instead. “I want to see if you’re right about word trails.”

Taylor looked at Sheridan blankly, then turned back to Echo. “I think she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

“I am not.” Sheridan motioned for them to join her. “I’m just thinking—but not in math or science or computer thought. I’m thinking in English, history, and religion thought. Come on—we’ll need a car.”

Echo and Taylor slowly got to their feet.

“Where are we going?” Echo asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sheridan said. “Maybe in circles. It might be a coincidence, but it might be a trail, and we’ve got nothing else we can do, do we?”

Echo sighed, then set out toward a row of cars by the edge of the park. “No, unfortunately we don’t.”

Once they were seated in the car, Echo put his crystal on the control panel. “All right, where are we going?”

Sheridan leaned toward the panel. “I need to see the map. What connects with Los Angeles and Paradise?”

Echo pushed a button that illuminated the street map and sat back so Sheridan could see it.

“I think I have a trail,” she said, examining the streets. “But I don’t know where we are on it. Did Elise give us a location at the end or at the beginning? I guess it’s possible that she gave us the middle of the trail, and then we’d have to try both ends, assuming of course that there really is a trail and I can find it. It’s been four hundred years. Who knows how much has changed.”

Echo tilted his head toward Taylor. “How long does a nervous breakdown usually last?”

“I’m not having a breakdown,” Sheridan said, and ran her finger along the lines of the map, tracing the streets.

Echo turned to Taylor but gestured at Sheridan. “What is she doing?”

“Don’t look at me,” Taylor said. “It was your father who told her that words leave a trail. You can apparently think in this mysterious English thought she’s talking about. I think in hard science thought.”

Sheridan straightened up. “Let’s hope it’s the beginning of the trail. If it’s the end of the trail, then all that’s left for us to do is sit on a park bench, and we’ve already done that. So here.....” She drew her finger from Los Angeles across Paradise down several miles to Isaiah Street. She tapped the screen. “We want to go this way.”

Echo pushed his crystal into the panel. “Isaiah Street.”

“We don’t want to stop there,” Sheridan said. “From Isaiah we’ll go to …” She followed the street on the map with her finger again, silently repeating the names of the intersecting streets as she went. “Sacramento. We’ll turn on Sacramento Street. I’m not sure yet if we want to go right or left....”

Taylor scooted closer to the map. “Are you looking for Californian names? Spanish words?”

“No,” Sheridan said, still tracing Sacramento to the right. “Religious ones.”

“Sacramento,” Taylor repeated. “Sacrament. And Los Angeles means ‘the Angels.’” She turned the words over slowly in her mouth. “Angels, Paradise, Isaiah, Sacrament.”

“What do they mean?” Echo asked.

Taylor didn’t answer him. “It might be coincidence,” she told Sheridan.

Then Sheridan saw the next street: Prodigal. It wasn’t coincidence, couldn’t be. Not with that many linking streets. “We turn left and go to Prodigal Boulevard and then …”

But she couldn’t find a street connected to Prodigal that had any sort of religious meaning. She ran her fingers over the left side again, repeating each name for some clue she’d missed. “Bartlett Road, Market Lane, Wall Street”—she wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not that that name had survived four centuries—“State Street, Hancock …”

“That’s the banking district,” Echo said.

Well, Sheridan supposed that’s where you would put a Wall Street. She kept going through the names. “Goldman Ave, Profit Way, Mercedes Drive”—that was sort of a pun—“Green Street, Fleet Street.” Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Then she realized she’d gone past it twice. The only reason she hadn’t found it before was because the spelling had changed. Prophet Way. “We’ll turn right on Sacramento until we get to Profit.”

“What do you think these names mean?” Echo asked again.

Sheridan momentarily stopped searching Profit. “You told us that religion was banned ninety years ago. All the people who remember life before the ban have died. These terms don’t mean anything to the population today, but the religious knew them, and they left a trail.”

Echo glanced at the map, unconvinced. “Do you also remember that the religious left during the ban? They built their own city. No one was here to leave a trail.” The car slowed. They’d come to Isaiah. Echo put his hand on the control panel, said, “Profit Way,” and then leaned back in his seat. “So if the religious moved from the city, who left a trail?”

“They didn’t
all
leave,” Sheridan said, her eyes and finger still on the map. “You said the ones who left had food to sustain them while they built their new city. Not all the religious had enough food, and maybe some weren’t convinced they needed to leave yet. So they stayed and renounced their religion, but they didn’t forget it. They taught it to their children along with the symbols and phrases that went with their beliefs. It’s not the only time in history religions have had to go underground.”

Echo’s brows drew together. “But why put religious words on the street signs?”

Sheridan went back to the map. “I think as time went by and things got worse in the city, religious people planned in secret how to leave. They left a trail so that others who still held their beliefs would recognize the words and come find them. Look”—she pointed to another street that led off Isaiah—“Menorah. That’s a Jewish term. And this one here—I thought it was Salem at first, but I bet it’s not. It’s Salaam. That’s a greeting meaning ‘peace’ among Muslims. Who knows how many more names there are that we just won’t recognize because we don’t know those religions well enough. They all left trails for their followers.”

Taylor had traced her finger along Profit Way while Sheridan was talking. “Here’s the next turn. Maria Ave. Or Ave Maria if you’re musical.”

Sheridan smiled at her. “And I thought you never paid attention to the church choir.”

Echo stared at them skeptically. “We’ll find a contact at the end of this trail?”

“I hope so,” Sheridan said.

The car slowed again and Echo put his crystal to the control panel. “Maria Avenue.” The car hummed back to its normal speed. “Where do we go after that?”

Taylor traced the street going left. Sheridan traced it going right.

“I don’t see anything,” Taylor said.

Sheridan’s finger reached the end of the short street. “This end runs into a shopping plaza. I don’t see anything either.”

“We’re probably just not catching it.” Taylor kept checking the map. “Who knows how many religious terms they came up with since we’ve been gone. Look on the surrounding streets and see if we can pick up the trail again.”

Sheridan searched the names of the nearby streets. Nothing rang a bell. Minutes went by. She examined larger and larger areas.

“We’re almost to Maria Avenue,” Echo said. “Which way should I turn?”

Sheridan peered from one window to the next. “We’ll have to go both ways and see if we can recognize anything. For all we know, this may be the end of the trail.”

Taylor turned her attention back to the map. “Try right first. It’s shorter.”

As Echo gave the car the direction, she added, “We’re searching for a religious symbol on something—an angel, a cross, scriptures. Maybe light.”

“Light?” Echo said. “Light is everywhere. How am I supposed to look for light?”

The car turned. Sheridan eyed the passing buildings, trying to find a clue among their shrubless walkways and rows of windows. She read the shopping plaza sign, turned her attention to the buildings on the other side of the street, then stopped. Her gaze snapped back to the sign.

Taylor leaned toward the window to get a better view of the top of a building. “I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s on the other end of the street.”

“No,” Sheridan said. “It’s up ahead.”