Echo

Chapter 18: Liar, Liar

Echo

You wiped away the sweat that had gathered on your forehead with the back of your hand, collecting the precipitation before it could run into your eyes. You did not slow your pace, however, as your feet hammered against the treadmill, your breaths ragged but consistent.

While other people usually listened to fast-paced techno or pop while they exercised, you had an unconventional playlist comprised of artists such as Bach and Mozart. You had always favored classical music while you worked out. Perhaps it was because they played it back at the agency in the recreation rooms to help create serenity. Blaring music from the likes of death metal bands seldom instilled a sense of calm in trainees or agents, and instrumental works were said to make children more intelligent.

Beethoven's fourth symphony caressed your ears as you glanced down at the digital numbers counting upwards from zero. You were at 24 minutes, which meant you had six minutes of running left. While you had never particularly enjoyed working out, sometimes it was the only thing that could block out the flashbacks you experienced.

Arianne had told you once while simultaneously imploring you to declare the same experience that in the most random of moments, an embarrassing memory would creep up on her, flashing through her mind as clear as the day it had occurred. She said that it made her blush as hard in present day as it had back then, and you believed her.

"One time," she informed you, "I farted in gym class, and everyone–don't laugh–everyone heard me. I was humiliated."

You had held back the desire to snort, pressing your top and bottom lip together in an effort to suppress it, and even though she was obviously telling you this in a trusting way, you couldn't help but be amused by it. Envious of it, even. If only at the age of thirteen an unbridled show of flatulence had been something to fret over.

She was, however, your only real friend, so you had lied that one time when you were making out with a boy, you had forgotten there was gum in your mouth, and he had fallen away from you in disgust, spitting out the wad of pink as you had passed it to him by accident. Arianne was reassured by that. You felt bad for lying, but your most distinctive embarrassing memory was the time at the agency wherein you had struck a bottom-heavy dummy and while it fell backwards, it inevitably came back up with such force that it struck you and sent you toppling onto your ass, knocking the wind out of your lungs.

Even worse, when your classmates observed and laughed hysterically at your misfortune, you had ended up crying and running out of the room, humiliated. They had sent the therapist to check on you, and she had hugged you while you wept. You cried even harder at the time for the fact that she wasn't your mother, just a sad, hollow version of a reassuring parent figure.

She taught you some breathing exercises and some ways to handle social anxiety, using those feelings of embarrassment as a positive outlet, a way of correcting your form when throwing a punch. Obviously, you couldn't tell your friend slash roommate that tale, so you told her a different one.

Like Arianne, you had memories creep up on you too, but they weren't usually moments of humiliation. They were flashbacks of times that you had killed a person. Forty-two, you had learned, was your number of contracts. Something that your handler had told you when you inquired about it at the beginning of your resignation meeting.

He hadn't anticipated that that was the purpose, but after you met with a different psychological counselor, and he had told you in a grave voice all of the downsides of leaving, he had been unable to convince you to stay. It was hilariously ironic that all it took to sway you was Kirk giving you a ride in his flashy pretentious vehicle and handing you a glowing leaf. You still had it, back home, though it had long-since lost its vibrancy.