Page 52 of Our Last Echoes


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Inside, we ditched our boots and padded past Lily, who stood staring at the brewing coffeepot with furious intensity, and Kenny, sprawled on the couch in the living room with his phone on his chest and his eyes closed.

Abby had stowed the backpack of looted evidence under her bed. She set it on the bed and pulled out a stack of files, a bunch of loose papers, and a folded map. I grabbed the map.

It reminded me of the one I’d found in the specimen room—marks and dates around the area. But that one hadn’t been updated since the eighties. This one had dates up to last summer, and the dots had short phrases next to them as well as dates.

Oct. 17, 2015—cruise passenger reports cabin flooding, men screaming. No water found.

Nov. 3, 2014—crew member on fishing vessel reported lost at sea. Storm confirmed by weather service, likely unrelated.

There were no lines drawn on this one, but the dates on the map painted their own picture. The echo world’s impact was still spreading, year by year. Winter by winter, I realized, examining the dates more closely. The summer dates never exceeded the range of the previous winter. It was in the darkness that its influence grew. I turned my attention to the other papers. What had fallen into the category of “worth hiding”?

There was data on the terns—notes on their mutations.Seven human teeth found growing in chest cavity, I read, and shuddered. These were the ones too strange to preserve or explain. There were weather reports and reports on currents, which I couldn’t make heads or tails of, and a number of photocopied documents in Russian that I set aside. Someone would be able to translate them for me.

I was moving a manila envelope—this one actually full of receipts for reimbursement—when something made me pause. I hefted it. The weight was wrong. Unbalanced. What...?

I peered inside and let out a sound of satisfaction. An SD card was taped against the side of the envelope. The irregular shape of the receipts inside meant you’d never know it was there unless you actually looked in. I peeled it free and showed it to Abby. But Abby wasn’t paying attention. She was staring at something she’d pulled from one of the other envelopes—a photograph.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. She looked up. Her expression was lost.

“What doesn’t?”

She held the photo out. I recognized the backdrop immediately as Landontown on Belaya Skala, though the buildings were newer, freshly painted. It was a group shot: men with long hair in corduroy pants, women with high-waisted jeans with bell-bottoms, quintessential 1970s styles, the date confirmed by the fuzzy numbers in the bottom corner:July 1973. They looked out of place on the rugged island. There were four women and five men. I recognized the one at the center, a man with gleaming, intense eyes and the kind of face I could imagine people following all the way to the middle of nowhere to start a new society.

“It’s Cole Landon,” I said. And the woman beside him with frothy blonde hair was his wife.

“Not him. Them,” she said. She pointed at a man and a boy of maybe thirteen standing beside Landon. The man had a hand on the boy’s shoulder; both were smiling. Father and son, I thought; they had the same bold features and nearly black hair.

“What about them?” I asked.

“That’s my grandpa,” she said, pointing to the older man. “And that’s my dad.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I’m sure. I’ve seen lots of pictures. My dad was really proud of his family—they’re sort of old money, big on legacy, you know? I grew up in a house that had a name and a dumbwaiter. He wanted us to know where we came from. But why would he be here?”

“I don’t know. But I bet it’s why Miranda sent you here,” I said. “To find out.” Not to help me. I’d started to think of Abby asmine, my protector, my friend. But this wasn’t just about me.

“It was in an envelope with this,” she said. She had a USB drive in her other hand.

“What do you think’s on it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. For once, she didn’t take the lead. She only stared at the photo and the drive, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted whatever answers were waiting.

I took the drive from her. She almost looked like she wanted to stop me. “We have to find out,” I told her, and plugged it into the laptop.

EXHIBIT H

Video recorded by unknown Landontown resident

SUMMER 1973, EXACT DATE AND TIME UNKNOWN

The image is grainy. A group of people sit within a poorly lit room—the church on Belaya Skala. Cole Landon stands at the front.

LANDON: Are we all here? Wonderful. As you no doubt have heard, we have special guests tonight. I’d like you all to welcome James Ryder and his son, Jimmy.

The gathered assembly claps and lets out a chorus of friendly welcomes. A man at the front, the elder James Ryder, stands and waves as he steps up to join Landon.

RYDER: When Cole first approached me, I knew he had something exciting on his hands. He’d heard about my interests and my expertise and thought I might be interested in helping to put this project together. Well, I’ll tell you, I was more than interested.

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