Three Days Grace is another favored band of mine.

I’ll post the next segment of The Echo Chambers as soon as I figure out how to get it there without having to retype it and how to either fix the problem on this computer or find one that doesn’t hate me.

He shifted to stand beside Dan. “Take care of the nausea first,” he murmured in the redundantly named American English. He spoke conversationally, as if commenting and observing instead of directing in case, by some miracle, Cale could notice details in his current state. Even as he spoke, Cale moaned and retched again, sweat beading on his face and spreading in damp patches across his back. “That’s the worst. Turn off the gag reflex, the abdominal spasms.”

“I remember,” Dan murmured back, though he sounded frustrated as he stared at the flashing codes and images that finally lit the screen. And maybe he did, but he was slow at it, hesitating and halting as he tapped in commands, clicked and dragged images. When he spoke again, it was more to himself than to Ji. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to do this again.”

“SD-401 through 33,” Ji said. “Ease it off. Don’t just drop the levels. Then the pain receptors. QRL, that whole group. Slowly. Stop about halfway and ease his optical receptors down about twenty percent. Drop non-vital involuntary muscle function completely. Then go back and turn off pain receptors completely. He’ll need a few minutes before—”

“Would you shut the fuck up?” Cale said in Prism. He dropped the trashcan as Dan worked through the process, wincing when it clattered to the floor. He rolled onto his back, his legs jerking, his arms twitching even as he flung the right one over his eyes and grimaced.

Ji pointed at the screen when Dan hesitated, showing him the muscle groups to turn off, the cluster of images that monitored and controlled Cale’s heart, lungs, and brain activity pulsing only inches away. When Dan clicked and began to turn the proper group down, Ji lifted a hand and spread his fingers, bouncing his palm as if patting the air to tell Dan to slow down.

Within moments, Cale’s body relaxed into the unsettling stillness reminiscent of the dead. Silence settled as Dan and JI both waited. “Son of a bitch,” Cale said, his arms still over his eyes and his voice cracking. “Haven’t you found my profile yet? Put me the fuck out already.”

Ji’d forgotten about the profiles. He’d been instructing Dan based on his own experience at the other end of the process, when he was the one in agony on the transfer bed. He turned to the console and brought up Cale’s personalized transfer protocol. After a quick scan, he discovered that Cale suffered from severe and persistent transfer sickness. He didn’t wait to instruct Dan, but simply made the adjustments.

Dan turned to Ji as Cale’s body went completely limp, his head listing to the left, his breath leaving in a long, slow sigh. “What’d you do?”

“Knocked him out.” Ji returned some his muscle function, just enough to let them work through some of the lactic lock without disturbing his sleep. “He’ll be out for at least twelve hours. We’ll have to wake him up, check on him again. But from what his profile says, we’ll have to keep him like this for at least 24 hours. Average is 38, longest recorded is over 80.”

Dan glanced at the screen and grimaced. “I’d forgotten about these.”

“So did I. The process I know is my own. Never considered anyone else’s.”

“Symptoms can last that long?” Dan asked, still reading.

“Apparently. Mine never last more than a few hours, but Cale—” He shook his head, wondering whose transfer symptoms were more atypical: his or Cale’s.

“No wonder he wanted to be put out,” Dan said, glancing back at the villein prone on the narrow bed. “You know him?”

“I do.”

He paused, took a moment to close Cale’s profile and pull up the bio monitor. “Is he trouble?”

“Yes,” Ji said, weary. “He is.”

She sat, waiting until she heard Clare go by, and then counted to thirty before she stood, eased the latch open. The clothes Ji had settled on still lay piled on the bench between the men’s and women’s dressing rooms. She hefted it into her arms and left, heading for a checkout.

Clare came up behind her as she was passing men’s shoes. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I was putting some things back.” She let Clare take half the load. “Where’s Ji?”

“Oh, I told him that I wanted to go look at shoes after, and apparently that was the straw that broke him.” Her laugh would have sounded a little forced even if Lyssa hadn’t expected the lie. “He called for a rescue.”

“He just left you to pay for all this? That’s rather inconsiderate.”

“I offered,” Clare said as they reached the counter. She dropped her load and smiled at the painfully thin woman behind the counter. “Hi, how are you?”

“I’d have thought you’d jump at the chance to harass him some more.”

“I didn’t have the heart. Poor boy looked stricken.”

“Those, too?” the sales clerk asked, gesturing at the clothes in Lyssa’s arms.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” She added to the mix, and both she and Clare watched the clerk sort and scan.

“Twenty-nine thirty-eight,” the clerk finally announced, “and fifty-two cents.”

“Whoo,” Lyssa said in a low whistle.

Clare handed the clerk her credit card.

“You’re paying for it?”

“Ji’ll pay me back.” Claire fiddled with the clasp of her wallet, opening and closing it with soft clicks.

“Didn’t you just meet him?”

Click—click—click. “He’s family,” she said with another laugh. “If you can’t trust family, who can you trust?” She signed the slip, and they each grabbed a couple bags.

“When are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” Lyssa asked as they walked toward the exit.

“What are you talking about? Nothing’s going on.”

“Uh-huh.”

Clare propped the door open to let Lyssa pass into the cool September sunshine. “Paranoid,” she said, her tone teasing.

“You didn’t stop to look at shoes.”

“What? Why would I—” she stopped short and looked at Lyssa from the corners of her eyes. “I told you, he looked stricken. But he still has to try them on. I’ll just wait a couple days and haul him back here.”

Lyssa realized that Clare wasn’t going to budge—at least not today. But that only made her more determined. With some poking around, she might not be able to discover the truth, but she could at least uncover a couple of the lies. She’d always wanted to play Nancy Drew. For now, though, she turned her attention to the sea of asphalt and metal. “Where did we park?”

The light in the Echo Chamber didn’t have a dimmer. Ji tamped down on his frustration and helped Dan dig out an old floor lamp from a storage closet in the hallway. They’d no sooner plugged it in beside the transfer and turned it on when Dan’s alarm sang the two long notes that signified an immediate arrival. Ji crossed the room in three strides and flicked the switch to turn off the overhead light just as the small rush of displaced air stirred the room.

Ji turned and bit back an oath.

Cale.

“You can’t be the attending technician.”

“Of course I can. I am.”

“Listen to me,” Ji said, struggling for patience. “You don’t know enough. You don’t even speak the language. Until we know who’s coming, I don’t want you anywhere near the Echo Chamber.”

She eyed him, skeptical. “Is this another do-it-right-or-die thing?”

“No, but if word gets back to Mother about how—behind you are in procedural standards, you’ll be pulled off Tangent-8 and relocated for training.”

Her jaw tightened and her brows drew tight together. “They can’t take me from my home.”

“They can and will.”

“Bastards! How the hell can they do that? I didn’t sign up for this. I don’t even want it!”

“We’re all born into it, Clare. How can I contact Dan? If he can retrieve me from the location, I can assist him with the transfer.”

“Pick you up,” Clare said, reaching into her bag again and retrieving the slim black box. “Don’t say ‘retrieve’. What do you need me to do?” She ran a thumb over the screen.

“Stay with Lyssa and pay for my clothes. I don’t intend to return here unless under extreme duress.” He took the box she handed him and stared down at what proved to be a small portable console. Having observed others with similar devices, he pressed it to his ear and waiting until he heard Dan’s voice.

“Can I leave these here?” Lyssa asked the woman manning the fitting rooms.

She didn’t look over from where she stood moving clothes from rack to rack. “Sure.”

“We don’t want these. Is there some place you want me to—”

“Put ‘em on the counter.”

Lyssa piled an armful on the corner and then walked into the men’s fitting room. Like the women’s, the space had been shaped like an “L”, with stalls lining each length. At the crux, Lyssa could hear the murmur of conversation. She should feel bad, she thought as she slipped into the last stall before the turn. She really should. But no doubt she’d been entangled in something, some great plot or scheme, and the hell she’d be let herself be blindsided.

Maybe eavesdropping was a passive-aggressive method of gathering information, but she knew she had to find the crack before she could break open the shell and get to the nut inside.

Sliding the latch home, Lyssa sat on the small bench and listened to what sounded like a one-sided conversation. Ji on the phone, probably. He spoke softly, and she had to slow her breath to hear. Only—she frowned. What language was that? While far from an expert on languages, Lyssa could recognize the big ones, and that sure as hell wasn’t Spanish.

By the time she thought to try and record some of it with her phone to identify later, the conversation ended. “I need one of these,” Ji said in his perfect English, keeping his voice low.

“Sam’s flying standby. He’ll set you up with a cell when he gets here.”

“And a work visa.”

“Right.”

“You need to be better organized.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“I mean before you work with the new villein. This is a… complication.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Clare said. “But don’t you think it’d be worse for me not to be there?”

“My arrival provides an adequate excuse. You’re busy helping me acclimate. We can buy you a few days that way. Preferably a couple weeks so give the villein time to speak American.”

“English,” she said, her tone absentminded.

“What?”

“American English.”

Ji sounded a little irritated. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Clare didn’t be paying attention. “A couple weeks like Granddad said. You really are a freakishly fast learner.”

“Listen. We don’t have a lot of time, and I have to find the south entrance of this infernal Macy’s to meet Dan. I can buy you the time.” He hesitated. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Clare said immediately. “God knows why, but I do.”

“Then trust that I am in a unique position to help you. Chances are the new villein is neither capable nor willing to do the same. When I see who’s transferred, I’ll know better how to proceed. For now, take care of Lyssa, get your husband home.”

“Lyssa,” she said with a little gasp. “Crap, what am I going to tell her?”

“Whatever will satisfy her.”

“I don’t want to lie to her.”

“Clare,” Ji said, sounding tired. “She cannot be involved.”

“I know, I know… I just don’t like it.”

“No,” he said. “Neither do I.”

They were both silent a moment, and then Clare said, “Go meet Granddad. I’ll think of something.”