Unremembered

by Jessica Brody

  ‘But,’ I begin pensively, ‘clearly somebody else figured out how to manufacture the gene correctly. Because I’m here. And Zen. And Rio.’

  ‘Precisely,’ she says, pointing at me. ‘Of course, you’re not the only ones.’

  I know right away who she’s referring to.

  The men who took Zen.

  The thought of them makes my fists tighten and my teeth clench.

  Maxxer must be able to read my reaction because she nods understandingly and says, ‘Diotech security agents. Ruthless ex-military men that Alixter hires to do his bidding. They’re probably the only people at that company who are more depraved than he is. And if they’re here, it means Diotech has the correct code for the transession gene.’ She lowers her head and whispers, ‘And God help us all.’

  ‘So this is my fault,’ I whisper.

  She lets out a soft laugh. ‘This is not your fault, Sera. This is so much bigger than you.’

  ‘But they’re here because of me!’ I rage. ‘Because I tried to escape. If it wasn’t for me, none of them would even know about transession. They followed me here.’

  But a thought suddenly stops me and I glance down at my tattoo. ‘Wait a minute,’ I muse. ‘Zen said they could only track me within a two-mile radius.’

  Maxxer nods. ‘Zen is mostly right,’ she admits. ‘Now – in this time – yes, they are limited to a two-mile radius. But one hundred years from now, Diotech has satellite systems in place that allow them to track you anywhere on the planet. However, those satellites won’t be sent into orbit for nearly a century. Which means when you’re here – in this time, or any other time before the satellites are created – their tracking technology is extremely limited.’

  My eyebrows knit together. ‘But they have some way of tracking what year I’m in?’

  Maxxer smiles knowingly. ‘Not at all. That was the beauty of your escape plan. You would never have been able to escape the compound and live in that time period. They would have been able to find you anywhere. But time is so vast and limitless, it’s nearly impossible to locate anyone within it. Once you disappear into the past, that’s it, you’re gone. You can’t be tracked by any technology.’

  ‘But then how were they able to find me here?’ I ask.

  ‘The same way Zen was able to find you,’ she replies.

  I shake my head, starting to feel frustrated again. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You see, even when someone disappears into the past, unless they’re extremely careful, they almost always leave a trail.’

  ‘What kind of trail?’

  She pulls her laptop closer to her and starts typing on the keyboard; then a second later, she spins it around to face me. On the screen, I see a very familiar photograph staring back.

  A photograph of me.

  It’s the one I remember seeing on the news when I was lying in my hospital bed. And again at the coffee shop today. The one that was used to encourage people to call in with any information about my identity.

  ‘I’m confused,’ I say. ‘How did my photograph leave a trail?’

  ‘Any public record, news story, Internet posting, even Facebook upload is stored on a server somewhere indefinitely. All you need is the right search criteria and you can find anyone. Anywhere. Anytime.’

  ‘Are you saying this photograph showed up in an Internet search one hundred years from now and that’s how they knew I was here?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ She tugs her ear thoughtfully. ‘It’s quite easy to figure out though. When did you first see Zen here?’

  The memory returns instantly. His face blurred by my drug-induced haze. I can still feel the warmth of his hand as he touched me.

  ‘He came to see me at the hospital,’ I say longingly.

  ‘And let me guess,’ Maxxer says. ‘That was right after they showed your picture on the news and revealed what hospital you were admitted to.’

  ‘Yes!’ I cry eagerly. ‘That’s right!’

  ‘You see,’ she says. ‘The best chance he had of finding you was to appear exactly where the newscast said you were at the exact moment it said you were there. One minute later, and you could have been somewhere else.’

  ‘But Zen went to 1609. He told me. How could he have seen the newscast from way back then? It didn’t happen yet.’

  ‘He was only there for a moment,’ Maxxer clarifies. ‘Once he realized you didn’t make it, he went directly back to Diotech to find you. When he saw that you weren’t there either, he spent the next two months searching for you. He had no idea where you were. You could have ended up anywhere. And because your name was never reported on the news, due to the fact that no one here knew your real name, finding you became a full-time job. He scanned the digital news archives for hours a day, searching for someone who matched your description. And once he found the story about the plane crash and the sixteen-year-old survivor with eyes the colour of violets, he went straight there to get you.’

  In utter disbelief, I replay the scene from the hospital in my mind, searching for evidence that what Maxxer is saying is true.

  Kiyana tells me to shut off the television and get some rest, but I refuse. So she administers drugs to help me sleep, then she leaves.

  The room becomes fuzzy.

  I see someone in the doorway. A silhouette. It moves towards me. Fast. Urgently.

  ‘Can you hear me? Please open your eyes.’

  He touches my hand and I struggle to stay awake.

  ‘Please wake up,’ he pleads, from far away. His voice echoes in my ears.

  I can barely make out his face. Hovering inches from mine. It blurs in and out of focus.

  ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ he says. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

  He moves quickly, removing my IV, the tubes from my face and chest.

  I hear footsteps down the hall, coming from the nurses’ station.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I’m going to get you out of here.’

  The touch of his hand slowly dissolves and I fight to open my eyes one last time before the darkness comes.

  He is gone.

  ‘Wait,’ I say, standing up. Now it’s my turn to pace. ‘Zen found me in the hospital. But the Diotech security agents didn’t show up until I stepped out of that diner and walked into a sea of press. Then they showed up again at the gas station after that girl took a picture of me with her cellphone. Why wouldn’t they just come to the hospital too? If that was the first time my picture appeared in the news. How did they miss that?’

  Maxxer smiles. It’s obvious she takes great pleasure in relaying what she’s about to say. ‘Because Zen was watching out for you.’

  I feel an instant warmth spread through my entire body and that magic spot in the centre of my forehead burns again. But the heat is short-lived. It cools the moment I think about how fast I abandoned him. How fast I ran away to save myself. After everything he did for me.

  ‘He tried to cover your trail,’ Maxxer goes on. ‘He knew it was only a matter of time before Alixter figured out that you had transessed and came looking for you too. So once he discovered you were here, in this year, he hired a professional to hack into the digital news archives and erase the evidence of your whereabouts.’

  ‘Then why didn’t he also remove the photograph taken outside the diner or the one taken by the girl on her cellphone?’ I ask.

  Maxxer shakes her head. ‘Because those events happened after he was already here. In fact, they happened as a result of him being here. You only ran away from the Carlsons’ home and ended up at the diner because Zen told you there were people following you. And then you were only at that gas station because you escaped with Zen. Those events and photographs didn’t exist until after he came here to find you. Which means it would have been impossible for him to erase them because the technology doesn’t exist here.’

  My head is starting to hurt again and I rub my temples with my index fingers.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ s
he says. ‘It will start to make sense eventually.’

  I laugh. ‘Somehow I doubt it.’

  ‘Trust me,’ she says. ‘I . . .’ Maxxer’s voice trails off as something seems to catch her eye. And then a strange shadow passes over her face.

  ‘What?’ I ask, glancing around. ‘What’s wrong?’

  But I don’t have to wait for her to answer. My gaze falls upon the empty space on the floor where Cody’s unconscious body once lay.

  Maxxer looks from one end of the room to the other, coming up with nothing. She turns to me and with panic-stricken eyes asks, ‘Where’s the kid?’

  41

  BETRAYED

  ‘For the last time,’ I hear a voice yell, ‘I’m not a kid!’

  We both spin to see Cody crawling out from under the table, holding the Modifier in his hand and pointing it at Maxxer.

  ‘Cody,’ I say gently, stepping towards him. ‘Please put that down.’

  But he waves it frantically, forcing me to back away. ‘Don’t come near me!’ He looks scared and overwhelmed. His eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. His breathing is strained.

  ‘Be careful with that,’ Maxxer warns, nodding towards Cody’s hand. ‘Modifiers can be very tricky to operate and extremely dangerous if you don’t know how to use them.’

  But Cody ignores Maxxer, pushing her against the wall with a few threatening flicks of his hand.

  ‘What is this place?’ he asks, his voice breaking. ‘It looks like the inside of a storage unit.’

  ‘It is,’ Maxxer replies patiently.

  Cody’s face contorts in fear. He shoots an accusatory glare at me. ‘I told you! I told you not to get in that car! I knew this was bad news. But did you listen to me? Noooo! Who listens to the thirteen-year-old kid? No one! And now we’re about to be murdered and left to rot in a storage unit!’

  I shake my head and try to approach him again. ‘Cody, you’ve got it completely wrong. Dr Maxxer is on our side.’

  But Cody shoos me back right away. ‘Our side!’ he screams. ‘Our side? You and I are not on the same side. I don’t even know who or what you are!’ He gazes at me with such hurt in his eyes it makes my chest ache.

  ‘How much of our conversation did you hear?’ I ask him, trying to stay calm.

  ‘Enough,’ he replies sharply. Then with his other hand he reaches out and cranks up a small dial on the side of the Modifier.

  ‘No!’ Maxxer calls out to him, rushing forward. ‘That setting is too strong!’

  ‘Shut up!’ he yells back.

  ‘Cody, please,’ I beg. ‘You’ve got to trust me.’

  ‘I’m done trusting you,’ he resolves. ‘It’s gotten me into nothing but trouble.’

  I look to Maxxer, who gives me a subtle nod. I know what I have to do. As much as I hate to do it.

  ‘Cody,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Save it,’ he snaps. ‘What’s done is done.’

  ‘I mean,’ I say softly, ‘I’m sorry for this.’

  His forehead crinkles as he regards me with confusion. ‘What are you talk—’

  I lunge towards him with such speed that he doesn’t have time to react, nor finish his sentence. I go for his arm first, thrusting it upward, praying I don’t hear any bones crack.

  Cody cries out in pain and the Modifier goes flying up into the air. Maxxer leaps forward to catch it.

  I kick Cody’s legs from underneath him and hold his body as it falls to the ground, protecting his head from crashing against the concrete.

  Maxxer fidgets with the dial on the side of the device while Cody squirms against my grip, whipping this way and that. I pin his shoulders down with my arms while I use my knees to keep his legs in place. It’s not difficult to restrain him. His puny strength is no match for mine.

  It’s his eyes that I have trouble with.

  He glares up at me with such hatred, such loathing, I have to look away. He thinks I betrayed him.

  ‘Hurry!’ I tell Maxxer, who sprints over with the Modifier.

  Cody struggles harder. ‘You . . . you . . . bitch!’ he shouts.

  ‘Do it!’ I cry to Maxxer.

  Maxxer kneels down. Cody thrashes his head back and forth, refusing to give Maxxer direct access to him. I lean forward and press my forearm across his face, attempting to hold it still while Maxxer places the metal tip of the device under Cody’s left ear.

  I hear a small buzzing sound and then Cody’s body goes limp again.

  I sigh and push myself back to my feet. When I glance down at his unconscious form, the tears instantly start streaming down my face.

  Maxxer puts a hand on my shoulder but it does little to comfort me.

  ‘Now the only thing he’ll remember about me is this,’ I snivel. ‘This is what I’ll always be to him. The monster who attacked and restrained him while someone deactivated his brain.’

  The thought makes me sob harder.

  Maxxer squeezes my shoulder. ‘It won’t be that way,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, it will,’ I say quietly. ‘You didn’t see the way he looked at me. He thinks I betrayed him. And he always will.’

  ‘I promise you, he won’t.’ Maxxer says this with such conviction my tears dry almost instantly. I sniffle and look up at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  Maxxer steps away from me and returns to her table. From a small wooden box, strikingly similar to the one that Zen carried in his pocket, she pulls out three small rubber discs – receptors – and kneels back down next to Cody.

  ‘He’s heard too much,’ Maxxer explains, shifting Cody’s head so that she can properly place one disc behind each ear and the other on the back of his neck, near his hairline. ‘The information he knows will only put him in danger.’

  ‘You’re going to erase his memories,’ I say with a numbing realization.

  Maxxer sighs and stands up again. ‘We don’t have a choice. If he tells anyone about what he’s seen or heard today, he’ll be putting his life in jeopardy. As well as his parents’. Not to mention the ridicule and social consequences for a thirteen-year-old boy running around claiming he met people from the future.’

  I wipe my eyes and nod. ‘How much will you take?’

  She walks back to her computer. ‘Everything that happened today.’

  ‘But his parents,’ I say. ‘They think he’s at his friend Marcus’s house – that’s what he told them.’

  Maxxer nods. ‘OK. I’ll replace today with a memory of that. I can access a similar past experience and create a template from them.’

  ‘Computer games,’ I say softly. ‘He likes playing computer games. Put that in too.’

  ‘OK,’ Maxxer says, and immediately goes to work.

  I breathe a sigh of relief but I’m still an emotional mess. Although I’m grateful that Cody won’t remember any of this, that he’ll wake up tomorrow morning still thinking of me as some kind of ‘amnesiac supermodel’, as he called me, I will know the truth. I will still remember the last time he looked at me, and the horror I saw in his eyes.

  And I will never be able to forget it.

  But I suppose I deserve that.

  I should never have gotten him mixed up in this. I should have left him at that coffee shop and gone with Maxxer alone. Or better yet, I never should have called him for help in the first place. This is my fault and now I’ll have to live with the memory of the consequences.

  Even if he doesn’t.

  A shrill beeping sound interrupts my thoughts. Maxxer looks up from her computer in alarm and I glance around the dark room for the source. I follow the sound to Maxxer’s table, where I find the cellphone Cody gave me.

  I reach for the phone and peer curiously at it.

  ‘What is it?’ Maxxer asks.

  ‘A new text message,’ I say, tapping at the screen.

  ‘What does it say?’

  After a few attempts, I finally figure out how to open the message and read it. But I don’t understand what it means.

  ‘It’
s just two long numbers,’ I say with a frown.

  ‘Numbers?’ Maxxer repeats, walking over to me.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, confused. ‘35.35101 and -117.999523.’

  Maxxer freezes. ‘Who is it from?’

  I look at the screen again. ‘It says “unknown number”.’

  ‘And what number did Alixter call you from last time?’ she asks.

  I feel the colour drain from my face. ‘An unknown number.’ I glance back down at the phone. ‘But what do these digits mean?’

  ‘Those are GPS coordinates,’ Maxxer informs me. ‘Alixter is telling you where to meet him.’

  42

  GOODBYES

  Maxxer’s car is parked in a dimly lit garage next to the storage facility. I help her carry Cody’s unconscious body to the car and strap him into the back seat before hurrying around to the passenger side. Maxxer slides in behind the wheel.

  She turns the key in the ignition and the engine revs to life. She takes my borrowed cellphone out of her pocket and shows it to me. The image on the screen doesn’t look like much. Shades of red layered with light browns. And a blinking blue dot marking a spot right in the centre. ‘According to this, the location is close to a place called Red Rock Canyon,’ she explains. ‘But these exact coordinates are in the middle of nowhere. About ten miles from any road or state highway. My guess is Alixter is leading you somewhere remote to avoid causing a public scene.’ She hands me the phone. ‘I can get you close but you’ll have to travel the rest of the way by foot.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I agree.

  ‘And just to be safe . . .’ she begins, flashing me an apologetic look.

  I nod. ‘I know.’

  She pulls the Modifier out and spins the dial counterclockwise. ‘I’ll put it on a low setting. You’ll only be out for fifteen minutes. Just until we’re away from here.’

  I close my eyes and lean back against the headrest, inviting her to do what she has to do.

  I feel the prick of the cold metal and the faint vibration of the electricity flowing into my nervous system and then . . .

  When I wake up, we’re on a dark, empty highway. I didn’t even realize how late it had gotten. The day is already gone. Maxxer drives in silence, her eyes focused on the road.