Read Online No True Echo by Gareth P. Jones - Free Book Online Page B

a second gunshot made her spring into action.
    â€˜Stay here. Don’t move.’
    She turned and ran along the top of the ridge to find a safer way down. The gunshot echoed around the valley and through my brain. All I could think was that Scarlett was inside that house. I began down the slope but lost my footing almost immediately. I stumbled and slipped. I grabbed a tree trunk and looked down. From this angle I could see the farmhouse door clearly. The bark of the tree dug into my palm but the pain vanished as I recognised the dark green door.
    I had seen it before. I had stared at that door many times. It was the door from a past I had never known.
    It was the door from the photograph of my mother.

The Reclamation of Sense
    I don’t know how I reached the bottom of the slope but, by the time I did, I was wet and muddy. I staggered through the stream to the farmhouse and reached out my hand to the green door. I half believed it to be some kind of mirage that would vanish at my touch, but my fingers connected with it. It felt almost disappointingly real as I pushed it open and heard voices inside.
    â€˜You’re only making matters worse for yourself, Patrick,’ said Scarlett.
    â€˜This isn’t about me,’ Cornish replied. ‘My actions are for the greater good.’
    The door got stuck on a floorboard, but I pushed it harder, and stepped into a gloomy room with piles of books everywhere, stacked up like a city skyline. They covered the floor, shelves and furniture. I could feel the ticklish threat of a sneeze building up in my nose from the dust. Hearing something quietly banging in the next room, I pushed the second door open and saw Rascal in the kitchen, trying to get at a terrified mouse trapped inside a clear plastic mousetrap. The voices were coming from behind the door at the other end of the room.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ said Cornish. ‘You have left us no choice but to take matters into our own hands.’
    â€˜Why? Because you disagree with something you don’t understand?’ said Scarlett.
    â€˜We understand that it’s wrong to allow the rich to live whatever lives they choose again and again. We understand that echo technology is the single biggest threat to all of our futures.’
    â€˜Patrick, I’ve seen more of the future than you. Things have changed. There’s much more to this than you could ever understand but, most importantly, the fact I’ve jumped back further than you should tell you that this line of action is doomed to failure.’
    â€˜I don’t believe you.’
    â€˜It’s not a case of belief. I promise you that this echo jump has only created a new timeline and even here, with both Melody and Maguire dead, guess what? Echo technology will still be discovered. You can’t stop it.’
    â€˜We can if we terminate him in the originating timeline.’
    â€˜It’s frightening how little you understand. I’ll bet you don’t even know how you ended up here in this version, do you? You jumped back to a different world. How did that happen?’
    â€˜My comrades and I understand enough. We know that this needs to be stopped.’
    â€˜Patrick, please. Put the gun down.’
    She said the words calmly, but I felt anything but calm. I rushed to help her but my foot caught a pile of books and sent it crashing to the ground, meaning I stumbled into the room and smacked my head on a grey cabinet. I staggered back and saw computers, graphs, strange humming machines and charts. Cornish was holding an old farmer’s gun, which he was pointing at Scarlett who was sitting on the ground, her back against a cabinet like the one I had just head-butted. She held her right hand to her stomach and I could see dark blood leaking out between her fingers. She looked in a bad way, but not as bad as the man next to her who was lying face down, his white lab coat bloodstained and torn by the bullet that had