Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(69)

‘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.