Echo Boy Read Online Free

the pod next. That is three hours in total. It is twenty-first-century history.’ Yes, this was obviously the most traumatic subject on the planet, but it was with a cheerful virtual teacher called Mr Bream (like the extinct fish). He smiled about everything. The Fuel Wars in the 2040s, the first European desert droughts of the 2060s, the GM crop catastrophes, the Korean incident, the second English civil war, Barcelona . . . You name it. But I suppose it was easy to smile when you weren’t real.
    My parents didn’t approve of pod teaching. Not really. No. Mum would have preferred me to have a mix of Echo and human tutors, and Dad wanted only human tutors, but that was too expensive. So it was just a vurt/Echo mix, though sometimes Mum taught me art.
    Mainly it was Alissa. She taught me Mandarin, climatology, literature, music, early computing, mathematics, lunar studies, universe studies, philosophy, French, Portuguese, ecology, journalism and yoga. In fact, I only had to go in the immersion pod for history, genetics, programming and simulation arts.
    Other people are in the vurt-led classes, obviously, but twenty-first-century history is quiet. Just me and Tola. Tola lives in NNY, which used to be called Chicago before the 2077 floods that devastated the original New York. I liked Tola. She had a healthy disrespect for virtual teachers, and she was always rolling her eyes at Mr Bream’s ‘jokes’. But she wasn’t really a friend. She’d been to my house a few times, especially since the improved magrail meant you could cross the ocean in under half an hour. She’s OK, but she was the one who said I walked like a boy, and she didn’t mean it as a compliment. She is also quite superficial. She is dating four boys at once, and has a different avatar for each of them. I don’t go in for that whole fake avatar thing.
    Anyway, the lesson happened. And then it was over. And now, I suppose, this is the point I should start thinking about what happened afterwards. It’s a hard thing to do. My heart starts to go psycho-fast when I even think about it.
    About Alissa, about everything.
    But I have to do this. There is a line from the Neo Maxis that says:
Wounds you have to feel / Before the toughest scars can heal.
I never really understood that line until now.
    Deep breath. Let’s do this.

6
    The thing with Echos is that you weren’t meant to notice them, they weren’t meant to get in the way. Think of those ads on holovision that Sempura and Castle do.
Enhance your life, without even noticing . . . Meet Darwin, the friend you don’t have to think about . . . Here’s Lloyd, Sempura’s latest Echo. He’ll cook, he’ll clean, but he’ll rarely be seen.
That is how they were designed. To be there when we needed them, but never to distract us in any way. But Alissa was sometimes there when we didn’t need her.
    For instance, the first Friday she was here – before she’d even started tutoring me or anything – Dad was making a spicy black bean stew (he loved Brazilian food). It was probably bad for his leg to be standing so long, as he had to prop his walking stick next to the oven, but he’d been feeling quite good and wanted to cook something. Alissa had stood next to him as the scent of fried garlic filled the air, saying, ‘I can cook this. I am here to help. You do not need to do any cooking. Sit down and relax with your family. You are injured. You are not physically capable. Your time is precious.’
    My dad had looked at her crossly. That was the only way he wasever going to look at an Echo. ‘Just get out of the kitchen, OK?’ I was there. I can picture Dad with his beard, in jeans and house socks and a tatty sweater, looking frustrated. ‘I know my time is precious, but I actually like cooking. And I’m not a bloody invalid. OK? You are a machine. Machines obey instructions. When you stop obeying instructions you stop being a machine, and then humanity is in trouble.’
    Dad continued his