Resonance - Erica O'Rourke Page 0,90

get when they’re too lazy to shave—were dashing back and forth between the computers.

“We have a team handling sector Alpha Seven Thirty,” the bearded guy said. “And another in Epsilon Twelve Sixty-Two. But we can’t send another team out without spreading ourselves too thin.”

“What are sectors?” I asked, and despite the heat from so many computers running, the sweat that trickled down the center of my back was icy. “What is this place?”

“Branch-based naming conventions,” said T-shirt guy. “Easier to identify on a map. And this is our central monitoring system. Like your friend Eliot’s phone, but more powerful. We can even tap into broadcasts from the Key World.”

“You know Eliot?” I said.

“We know his tech,” he said, pointing at Simon. “Impressive. We could use a guy like him.”

Suddenly I missed Eliot so fiercely I could barely breathe. What was he doing now? Was he safe?

“Are we monitoring Consort communications?” Rose asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” The bearded guy leaned over the table and tapped a key. An announcer’s voice—the same one I’d heard at my parents’—filled the room. “They’re calling out frequencies pretty much nonstop.”

This time I paid attention to what I was hearing. The voice read a string of numbers—an Echo frequency, by the sound of it—paused, and then two more numbers in quick succession. A second voice repeated the numbers, confirming them, and the original voice read them again. We stood silently as the call and response continued, naming another Echo.

Simon frowned. “What are we hearing?”

“It’s the Tacet,” Rose said, her face ashen and resolute. “Those are cleaving assignments: a frequency, plus the latitude and longitude of the pivot they should cleave at.”

I said, “Normally, Cleavers get an assignment from the Consort and the navigator prepares the Walk. They make sure that protocols are followed, paperwork is filled out, that the Cleavers go in with a specific plan for how they’ll handle the strings. But this is . . .”

“Slice and dice,” said T-shirt guy. “They’re gutting the Echoes as fast as they can.”

My parents must have been excused from cleaving so they could stay home and lay a trap for me.

“Coordinate with the Indianapolis cells,” Rose said. “They should be able to cover at least two more.”

“Cover what?” Simon asked.

“Cauterizations,” Rose said. “We know which branches the Consort is cleaving. Our teams are cauterizing them instead—much like we did with Train World. We can’t save every branch, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Usually we have advance notice,” said T-shirt guy. “We can get there before the Cleavers show up. Now we’re scrambling.”

“If you’re cauterizing worlds while the Cleavers are there, what happens to them?”

Rose shrugged. “We can survive in Echoes. Why shouldn’t they?”

My stomach dropped. “But the frequency poisoning! They don’t know how to deal with it. And they’ll be trapped.”

“Every war has casualties,” she said. “It’s time the Consort learned what that’s like.”

For a moment I panicked, thinking about Addie and my parents before I remembered they’d been sidelined. But Eliot’s father was a Cleaver. My dad’s team—the ones who’d saved him from frequency poisoning. Nearly half the Walkers in the Consort, left in Echoes.

“Amelia was right,” I said. “You’re as ruthless as the Consort.”

Rose’s voice was cold and terrible. “How else can we win?”

Simon’s hand found mine.

“While you two were off endangering yourselves and our mission,” she added, “we decided to move up the strike on CCM. By tomorrow morning, all non-essentials will have been evacuated to the First Echo. A skeleton crew—Simon and his security detail and, I suppose, you—will move to a new location. The rest of us will—”

She broke off as the announcer fell silent, and a new voice took over.

“This is Randolph Lattimer. By order of the Major Consort of Walkers, immediately hold all cleavings in abeyance.”

We turned in unison to the speaker.

“He’s stopping the Tacet?”

Rose shushed me.

“We are aware that those who do not support the calling of the Walkers are listening at this moment, monitoring our work. I am speaking to these so-called ‘Free Walkers’ now.

“I am speaking to you, Rosemont.”

Rose straightened, throwing her shoulders back.

A pause. A hiss of static filled the air, blotting out other noises, blotting out thought. He knew Rose was alive. He knew.

“Two days ago, the Free Walkers infiltrated our headquarters and freed a dangerous criminal, a man who threatened the very fabric of the multiverse. They have weakened the Key World, assaulted a member of the Consort, and even as I speak, they are killing Walkers who are performing their sacred cleaving duties.

“This is beyond treason.