Unforgotten

by Jessica Brody

  My gaze sweeps the street until I spot a man approaching a green vehicle that’s parked nearby. He swipes his fingertip across a panel on the car’s door and a faint beep follows, along with a voice coming from inside the car: “Good afternoon, Mr. Hall. How was your day?”

  He doesn’t respond, simply slides into the seat and slams the door closed. The engine hums to life.

  I don’t waste another second. I hurry over to the car and yank open the door.

  The man looks up at me, at Zen’s body flung over my shoulder, and his befuddled expression quickly morphs into anger. “Hey!”

  “Get out,” I growl, trying to sound as menacing as I can.

  “No!” he yells back, reaching for the door to close it on me.

  But I don’t give him the chance. Before he can blink, my free hand is inside the car, grabbing him by the arm, and dragging him out. He goes skidding into the street, a look of horror twisting his face.

  I peer over at Kaelen’s cab. His foot is no longer there and I can see through the windshield that he’s slowly starting to sit up.

  The man scurries to his feet, cowering as he runs toward the sidewalk.

  I mumble a hasty thank-you to him as I place my hand over Zen’s head to protect it and then lower him in, positioning him in the passenger seat and resting his limp head against the window.

  After getting in, I quickly survey the instrument panel. The last car I drove was back in the year 2013 and it looked completely different. First, it had a manual transmission. This car doesn’t seem to have anything that even resembles a gearshift. And second, there aren’t nearly as many buttons or knobs in this vehicle. The dash is almost entirely smooth.

  I certainly don’t have time to read through the car’s manual like I did last time. Even at my reading speed. I glance in the rearview mirror and see Kaelen stepping dazedly out of his cab.

  Why didn’t I think to send the cab somewhere else before transessing out of it?

  That would have been the smart thing to do. But apparently I was too distracted by the thought of getting to Zen to do the smart thing.

  “Go!” I say to the car. But it doesn’t move. I fumble my fingers along the paneling, trying to find a switch or button of any kind. All I manage to do is blow hot air on my face.

  “Move!” I try again. Still nothing.

  “Drive!” is my third attempt.

  This seems to work. A red letter D flashes twice on one of the flat panels and the car starts to inch forward. I shove my foot down on the gas pedal and peel away from the curb. Away from Kaelen. Away from Diotech. Toward what I can only hope will be safety.

  34

  VISITOR

  “You have arrived at your destination,” the car tells me in a voice that sounds chillingly human. “Would you like to activate the auto-park system?”

  I learned about halfway through the journey to Brooklyn why cars in 2032 don’t have any buttons or knobs on the instrument panels. Why waste energy pushing buttons when you can simply speak and the car will understand you?

  “Yes,” I reply, and my hands immediately leap from the steering wheel when I feel it begin to turn on its own, easing the vehicle effortlessly back and left until we’ve squeezed between two other cars into a space on the curb that I never would have imagined we could fit into.

  Once we’ve stopped, I pull on the door handle but it won’t budge. “Open,” I tell it.

  “Doors cannot be opened while the car is still in drive.”

  I gesture frantically, trying to come up with the right command. “Um … undrive.”

  Nope, that’s not it.

  “Stop.”

  Still nothing.

  Thankfully the car seems to sense my desperation and offers me help. “Are you trying to activate Park mode?”

  I sigh. “Yes!”

  A small red P flashes on the panel and the doors unlock. I swing the door open, shoving it the rest of the way with my foot. But apparently I kick it too hard because I hear a loud ripping sound as the large slab of metal flies off the hinges and skids into the street. I’m immediately reminded of the last time I inadvertently kicked a door clear off a car. It was in the driveway of my foster family’s home. I’ll never forget the look on Heather’s face when she saw what I had done.

  I eye the piece of green metal lying idly in the middle of the street as a car swerves around it.

  I really have to stop kicking doors.

  I run around to the passenger side, ease Zen’s door open, and pull him out. He’s slightly more conscious now and appears to be trying to stand up.

  “Can you walk?” I ask.

  His head teeters in an ambiguous nod. I throw his arm over my shoulder and help him toward the building, his feet scraping against the pavement.

  As soon as we’re inside, I’m stopped by a large man standing behind a desk. “May I help you?”

  I try to act casual. As casual as I can with a nearly unconscious man sagging against my side. “I’m going to room 419.”

  The guard shoots me a very skeptical look. “Are you an expected visitor?”

  I almost laugh. If only he knew just how unexpected I really am.

  “Yes,” I lie.

  He clearly doesn’t believe me. “I’ll have to call up.” He punches at a clear screen built into his desk, then motions to a digital reader on the countertop. “Please scan your DIP card so that I can validate your identity.”

  I smile, mustering politeness. “Sure. No problem.” After helping Zen onto a couch behind me, I slide my hand into my pocket as though I’m going to retrieve my identification. But instead, I wrap my fingers tightly around the base of the Modifier, flicking the switch with my fingertip.

  I approach the desk, keeping the breezy smile plastered onto my face. The guard doesn’t take his eyes off Zen. Which is a plus for me. Although I hardly need the distraction. My hand moves far faster than he could ever hope to keep up with.

  Before he can blink, the metal-pronged tip is against his jaw. His body vibrates for a brief second before crumpling into his chair.

  I scurry back to Zen, scoop him into my arms, and find my way onto an awaiting elevator.

  As I exit on the fourth floor, I immediately spot the stark differences between the long corridor now and the one from my memory. The biggest difference, of course, being the number of people.

  The hallway is bustling, alive with commotion. Nearly every door is open, and men and women in lab coats shuffle in and out of the rooms, talking, gesturing, sharing information on handheld tablets that resemble thin pieces of glass.

  I receive several questioning looks as I hurry down the hallway with Zen in my arms but I ignore them all, arriving at the door marked 419.

  This one, unlike the others that I’ve passed, is closed.

  And then a disquieting thought echoes through my mind. What if he’s not here? What if I’ve come too early and he won’t be here until tonight? I can’t wait that long.

  I don’t care what the memory says. I need his help now.

  I twist the handle and shove the door open with my shoulder. The man inside is dressed head to toe in white, with a cap on his head and goggles on his face. He’s delicately inserting a needle into a small dish filled with a sticky yellow gel.

  He jumps at my sudden entrance, nearly spilling the viscous contents of the dish.

  “What the—” he starts to spout angrily, but he stops as soon as his eyes land on me. The hand holding the syringe goes dead limp at his side. He stands paralyzed for a long, long, long moment.

  His mouth moves first. Falling open.

  When his hands eventually unfreeze, he sets the syringe gently on the steel countertop and slowly peels the dark goggles from his face.

  That’s when I’m finally able to see his large, unblinking eyes.

  That’s when I know for sure that it’s him.

  That’s when I know that this is real. All too real.

  I’m not sure what he’s doing here. In New Y
ork City. In 2032. Standing right in front of me. But I do know that I was somehow meant to find him.

  The conviction pulsates through every bone in my body.

  “Cody,” I say, desperation strangling my voice, “it’s me. Violet. I need your help.”

  35

  GROWN

  “No,” the man says quietly, urgently. He takes a cautious step back, his eyes never leaving mine. “It’s not possible.”

  Although it was his name tag that helped me make the identification in my memory, it was his eyes that solidified it. His hair may be darker and slightly less curly. His face may be older and fuller and lined with worry, from thirty-two years of life. But his eyes. His eyes never changed.

  When I saw those eyes in my memory, I saw him.

  The thirteen-year-old kid who helped me all those years ago, when I was lost and alone, and without a scrap of memory. And the thirty-two-year-old man he’s become, who I pray can help me again.

  Of course, now my problems have gotten significantly bigger. Significantly more complicated.

  Back then, it was searching for information on the Internet and sneaking out of his parents’ house to catch a bus to the city. Now it’s a cure for a mysterious disease that I know absolutely nothing about and that may not even exist for another eighty-some years.

  But what choice do I have? Wait for Diotech to betray me again? Wait for Kaelen to get what he’s come for and then turn his back on Zen completely?

  This man—this former friend—is my only hope.

  “Cody,” I whisper. “It’s me. I swear.”

  “No,” he repeats. I watch his gaze flicker to a screen embedded directly in the countertop. The word SECURITY glows in bright red in the top left corner.

  I ease Zen into a nearby chair and stalk up to Cody. His eyes go wide as I approach. I grab his arm. “Cody, please. I really need you.”

  He regards me with half curiosity, half fear. “But…” he argues softly. “But … you’re…” He can’t get the words out. So I finish for him.

  “Exactly the same, I know.”

  “H-h-how?” he stammers. “How is that possible?”

  I hear a commotion behind me and a second later five guards come charging into the room, guns drawn. “I have the intruder in sight,” one of them says into a flashing earpiece.

  “Dr. Carlson,” he warns Cody. “Please move away so we can take the trespasser into custody.”

  I glance anxiously from the guards to Cody, imploring him with my eyes. He looks visibly torn.

  “It’s okay,” he finally relents with a sigh. “She’s not a trespasser. I know her. She’s my … visitor.”

  The guards appear confused. One of them actually looks disappointed.

  “Are you sure?” The head guard asks for confirmation.

  Cody nods. “I’m sure. Thank you, guys. And sorry for the trouble.”

  The security team backs out of the room, grumbling something about a false alarm into their earpieces. Cody follows them, closing the door after the final one has left.

  “What is going on?” he demands. He turns and looks at Zen hanging over one of his chairs. “Who is that?”

  “That’s Zen,” I tell him, recalling that all Cody’s memories of him were erased. “He’s…” But I immediately realize that I don’t know what to call him. He’s not my husband, like we told everyone in 1609. Cody once taught me the word boyfriend, but it never seemed to make any sense to me. It never seemed to hold enough weight.

  “He’s … important,” I finally finish.

  “Is he dead?”

  The question is a punch in the chest. “No.” I manage to huff out and keep from keeling over. “But he needs help. Your help.”

  Cody’s hands fly into the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. You disappear for nineteen years and then show up at my lab looking like you haven’t aged a day, with a comatose boy in your arms dressed like he just got back from the Renaissance Fair, and all you can say is ‘he needs help’?”

  “Cody, I know I owe you an explanation,” I begin softly.

  He laughs. It’s bitter. “You think? You vanished from our house in the middle of the night. My parents searched for you for nearly two years. My mother blamed herself. She fell into a terrible depression.”

  The guilt rips at my heart like a trapped animal.

  “I’m sorry,” I offer. “But I don’t know what else to do. Or where else to go. You’re my only hope.”

  Cody’s eyes dart toward Zen. “How exactly do you expect me to help him?”

  I nod desperately toward Cody’s name tag. “Well, you’re a doctor, right?”

  “I’m a scientist,” Cody corrects. “Not a medical doctor.” He gestures around him. “This is a science lab.”

  “But you must have some medical knowledge. Can’t you at least look at him?”

  Cody sighs and starts clearing items from his work space. “Put him on the counter.”

  I hurry over and lift Zen into my arms, then rest his body delicately across the metal table. Cody presses two fingertips against Zen’s throat, seemingly to check his pulse, but upon feeling the intense heat radiating from his skin, jumps back.

  “Jesus,” Cody swears, “he’s burning up. What are his other symptoms?”

  I take a deep breath, listing everything that I’ve noticed since that morning in 1609: the chills, the dizzy spells, coughing up blood.

  Cody’s eyes go wide and he makes a dash for the sink in the corner of the room, running the water and scrubbing his hands vigorously. “Oh God,” he says under his breath. “Does he have … is he infected with that…” A bead of sweat starts to form on Cody’s forehead. “Did he contract white fever?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  Cody doesn’t look convinced. “Those are the exact symptoms. Has he been in contact with sick people recently?”

  “No,” I assure him. “I swear that’s not it.”

  Cody fumbles around inside a desk until he comes across a blue paper mask. He scrambles to get it over his head but the string snaps in the process so he resigns himself to holding it over his nose and mouth. “You need to get him out of here. I can’t risk getting infected.”

  “Cody, please,” I beg again. “I know for a fact that he doesn’t have white fever. It would be literally impossible for him to have gotten it.”

  Cody is still breathing frantically into the mask. “How can you be so sure?”

  I sigh. I knew I was going to have to tell him eventually. I knew I couldn’t get away with keeping it a secret any longer. I just hoped the truth would come out under better circumstances. Calmer circumstances. “Because,” I begin, keeping my voice composed. Measured. “He was sick before we got here.”

  “What does that matter?” he retorts. “There’ve been outbreaks of the disease reported all over the world. For the past three weeks. Not only in New York.”

  “Yes,” I say softly, “but what I’m saying is we haven’t been here for the past three weeks.”

  I watch Cody’s eyes narrow above the mask. “What do you mean you haven’t been here?”

  “I mean,” I say, taking a step toward him and holding his gaze, “we’ve been living in another century.”

  36

  CYNIC

  A peculiar noise emerges from Cody’s mouth. It starts as something similar to a laugh but quickly morphs into a much more unnerving sound. Like a throat spasm. “This is good. This is really, really good.” I recognize the sarcasm immediately, even through the blue paper mask. And my body wilts with disappointment.

  “Cody—” I try to elaborate. But he doesn’t even let me finish.

  “Oooh!” he sings, his tone stiff with mockery as he wiggles the fingers on his free hand. “Time travel! Very original.”

  “Cody,” I go on, attempting to ignore his blatant chiding, “you’re a logical person. You always have been. Think about it. It makes sense. That’s why I haven’t aged. Why I look exactly the same. I’ve only been gone
a few months. But for you, it’s been nineteen years. Remember the plane crash? Remember how I wasn’t on the passenger manifest? Remember how we went to LA to talk to the gate agent and she told me—”

  “Of course I remember!” he snaps, his ridicule replaced with simmering rage. “It’s kind of hard to forget someone who implies that you somehow ended up in a crashed plane without ever having boarded the plane.”

  “And she was right. I wasn’t in the middle of that ocean because of a plane crash…”

  I let the thought drift, hoping Cody can finish it on his own. And I know he can. Now it’s only a matter of whether or not he can believe it.

  He blinks. “You’re saying that you didn’t crash there. That you time traveled there?”

  I sigh, grateful that he seems to finally be coming around to the idea. “The official term is transession, but yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I came from the year 2115. Somehow I accidentally landed in 2013 surrounded by plane wreckage. I don’t know why. I only know I was supposed to be going somewhere else and—”

  I think about what Zen told me back in 1609.

  “You let go.”

  I quickly shake off a shudder.

  “—well, something went wrong,” I continue. “That’s why I had no family, no friends, no one who came to claim me. That’s why my DNA wasn’t in any database. I wasn’t even alive yet!”

  “You honestly expect me to believe that?” he barks. “You think just because I used to read science fiction as a kid that I’m going to go all la, la, la, oooh, time travel! Whooooooaaaah! Hey, cool! You’re from the future! Are you here to terminate the mother of the rebellion leader? Can I ride in your DeLorean?”

  I don’t recognize his voice. It’s turned very high-pitched and almost breathy. I don’t think it’s sarcasm anymore. It’s something else. Something crazy. And I’m pretty sure he’s not even speaking sense. Plus his eyes have grown wide and a little bit scary.

  I take a step back. “Cody?”

  “You’re crazy!” he roars. “Get out of my lab!”

  I sigh. I should have known he wouldn’t believe me. I should have known it would come to this.