E.C.H.O.

Stage 15 "Untangling The Web"

Lucas watched.

“No soccer in the hallways,” came a reply.

“Perfect, cause this is football,” Lucas responded.

There was the sound of chairs scraping back.

Satisfied that the bait had been taken, Lucas turned headed back to his classroom. Looks like Nathan is going to be useful after all. He shot another look back to see three guys join Nathan in the hallway. The boy promptly dropped the ball and passed it to someone. He’s not too bad at this either, getting others to play so that when he hits the alarm it looks like an honest mistake.

Lucas rounded the corner, leaving the sound of scuffling behind. Though he was headed to his classroom, he took his time. Any moment, he thought. Any moment and the perfect excuse to go back to the dorm would be created, then he could contact Zack.

He had taken a few more steps when it happened; the sound of breaking glass, swearing, and then the blaring of the fire alarm. Lucas waited one moment longer. When boys started streaming out of classrooms with yells, he leapt into action and ran for the emergency exit.

Papers were thrown through the air as guys shouted and laughed. Paper planes flew around, a basketball was tossed over heads, and even a jacket gracefully was thrown. No one was taking the alarm seriously but everyone was more than happy to get out of class. Teachers ran along, trying to restore some form of order while yelling for the boys of different classes to head to their meeting points.

Lucas ignored it all. He knew it would take a while for chaos to be restored and that more than one student would be late to the meeting point.

He was back in his dorm in minutes. Once in his room, he shut the door and headed straight for his phone. He pulled it from its hiding place, his eyes darting to the clock on the wall. Time was ticking, he needed to get to his class’ meeting point.

Hitting the code that would connect him to Zack, Lucas headed for the bathroom. He shut the door. Though he wasn’t expecting anyone to come to the room, one could never be careful enough.

There was a click at the other end of the phone.

“Hi, you’ve reached my voicemail,” a familiar voice began. “Leave me a message after the tone…” The tone never came, instead it was followed by, “You cannot lose it no matter how hard you try.”

“Your shadow,” Lucas replied.

“It always answers when you call.”

“Echo.”

“Hello there nephew.” Zack sounded way too cheerful, and very unprofessional.

“What’s with the lame questions?” Lucas wanted to ask. However, he kept the question to himself. “I need something,” he said instead.

“Isn’t that the only reason you call your uncle these days?” Zack sounded disappointed. “No, hi how are you uncle, I’m fine by the way, How about calling me just because you want to talk.”

Is he serious? Lucas couldn’t tell. He still felt somewhat surprised. He hadn’t ever worked with M18 before, but he had heard a lot about him. When Zack had dropped him off at school Lucas was already wondering…it almost felt like this man didn’t have the typical ECHO attitude, or he was very good at hiding it.

“I’m on a time crunch,” Lucas shot back.

“Extraction?” Zack turned serious at once.

“No.”

“Wow, you’re not done?” Zack asked. “What happened to Mr. I’ll finish this in a week?”

Lucas’ hand went to the bullet wound. “Some…unexpected things happened.”