Erasing Time by C. J. Hill Read Free Book Online

slash zigzagging across his face. Those had been popular last year. Half the city had gone around looking like they’d been gouged in some horrible battle. But lately the color red had fallen out of style. Scientists, like wordsmiths, it seemed, didn’t keep up with fashion trends. Echo might have been wearing red himself if his brother hadn’t been so attentive to fashion cycles.
    And now that his brother was gone …
    Echo felt a sharp pain at the reminder and shook off the thought. It was better not to think of his brother. Every time Echo’s mind wandered in that direction, he felt his concentration, his strength—everything—caving in.
    Think about now, he told himself.
    Anton scrolled down through equations on the screen without noting the wordsmith’s arrival. “Bien … bien … bien,” he muttered. “ Sangre , if we’d made a mistake, the stabilizer gains would be off phase.”
    Jeth made a small coughing noise, and Anton looked up. When he saw it was the wordsmiths, he returned his attention to the screen. “Is there a problem with the time riders?”
    “No,” Jeth said. “They’ve recovered from their shock and are already adapting.”
    “Bien.”
    “We’ll need to put them somewhere. Have they been assigned rooms?”
    Anton momentarily stopped scrolling. “We’d planned on keeping Tyler Sherwood here at the Scicenter, but nothing flies right the first time you toss it in the air.” He straightened, caressing the small of his back with one hand. “We should have planned for a failure. We should have strained someone less important the first time.”
    Echo glanced at the computer, his eyes taking in the rows of numbers in a casual manner. “You can’t find Tyler Sherwood at all?”
    Anton frowned and bent toward the screen. “It’s not a simple procedure. Helix says we should go back farther in time, where Sherwood’s signal is more accessible, but if we took him before he was through making his contribution to science—think of the history implosions that could occur. We only have a poquito of time, the smallest of slots to work with. A miscalculation too early could bring us a child.” Anton swiped a finger across the monitor, and the screen changed. “We need to pick up Tyler Sherwood’s signal toward the end of his life.”
    “I’m sure you’ll accomplish it,” Jeth said. “Until then, we’ll take the girls to the Histocenter and work with them.”
    Anton looked around the room, this time lowering his voice and leaning closer to the wordsmiths. “Helix wants us to do a memory wash on them today and erase our mistake altogether, but the rest of us think it’s too early for that.”
    “A memory wash?” Jeth’s shoulders sagged as though the air had gone out of him. “That can’t be necessary?”
    “It’s not wise,” Anton agreed. “You don’t destroy the first experiment just because it didn’t work. You study it to find out what went wrong. That’s the problem with having government officials in charge of the program. They don’t appreciate how science works.”
    Jeth held up one hand in a gesture of protest. “We have the opportunity to learn about history from the girls. Helix must understand that.”
    Anton grunted. “Unfortunately, government officials don’t appreciate history either.”
    “Why do a memory wash?” Echo’s words came out harsher than he’d intended. “The girls haven’t been convicted of any crimes or fanaticisms.”
    Anton’s gaze circled the room again, and he lowered his voice even further. “To keep it a secret. If the public found out about the Time Strainer, it would be one outrage after another. Half of Traventon would be furious we tampered with history, and the other half would be furious we’re not using it to bring their favorite rock band back to life.”
    That, Echo thought, was a generous assessment of the public’s reaction. More likely, 80 percent of the people would think only of rock bands. The other 20 percent