Page 104 of Echoes

“Um… Okay. I don’t know what to do.”

“Let’s just get everything out, and I’ll tell you, okay?”

“Okay,” Iris said.

She pulled every item out, placed each one on the floor, and Daphne walked her through everything step by step. Iris had to connect two pieces of metal together using something called a soldering iron that she had no training in how to use, and there was a mask thing that she had to wear to do that. Then, there was a flat little metal piece that Daphne said needed to become a circuit of some kind. Iris laughed as Daphne tried to explain it to her in the simplest terms because Iris wasn’t getting it. She leaned over and went to kiss Daphne, forgetting in that moment that they weren’t just having a night in on the apartment floor, and she teared up when she pulled back.

“It’s okay,” Daphne said. “We keep going. I’ll kiss you the instant I’m back in my body.”

“Back in your body? Daphne, this is crazy. How do you know this is going to work?”

“Because I’ve seen it. The first completed version of the device worked for three minutes. The spies got their questions answered, and we went to work on the next version.”

“And that one worked, too? You’re sure?”

“We only tested it once before we destroyed it.”

“Who did you test it on?”

“We needed a volunteer, so a member of the team said he’d do it.”

“You tested it on someone who was alive?”

“We didn’t have any cadavers, and we needed the body to be as close to alive as possible. Frozen or freshly dead. He volunteered because he… Iris, he was sick. He had about a year or two left, according to the doctors, and he was already in immense pain. He figured he had nothing to lose. No wife yet. No children. His parents were long dead. We used a drug that acted quickly and caused him no pain, and once he was gone, we used the device.”

“And it worked?”

“Yes. His name is Jacob, and he’s one of the men who stored my body for me.”

“What about the illness?”

“It’s gone,” Daphne said. “We theorized that the energy moving through the device was enough to kill the dangerous cells and, somehow, reanimate the good ones.”

“Theorized?”

“My love, this is our only chance. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and I’ll just come back to you until you ask me not to.”

“I’d never ask you not to!” Iris said loudly.

“Sweetheart, one day, you’ll want to… try again.” Daphne lowered her head and looked down at the mess of parts and pieces.

“You mean find someone else?”

“Yes, I mean fall in love again.”

“I’ll never fall in love again.”

“But I want you to have love again. I want you to be happy, Iris. You deserve to be so happy.”

“I deserve to spend my life with you. That’s what I want.”

Daphne looked back up at her and gave her a soft smile. And just like Daphne could see right through Iris’s worry, Iris could see through that forced smile, but she chose to let it go because they had work to do.

Ten Days Later

“Idon’t know how to do this.”

“Yes, you do. I told you.”