Disclaimer: Terra Nova does not belong to me.
The words on the screen did not change when she blinked. They did not morph into something less threatening. They did not make her heart beat any less rapidly. They did not stifle the choking, sobbing sound that was trying to make its way out of her throat. She told herself again that she did not know what the words meant. It might not be what she was thinking. It might not be that bad. It might . . . might . . . might - she could not deal with might right now. She needed answers -sure ones. She held her breath and double clicked not really believing that it would get her anywhere, but she had to have some place from which to start.
Everything Maddy had ever taught herself about looking for information failed her in this instance. The simple truth is that no matter how hard you look, you cannot find information that does not exist. Her family had been erased from the system - completely. Zoe, of course, had never been listed in any database to begin with, but she and Josh no longer had birth records. Their school files had been scrubbed. Her parents' employment records were likewise missing - which only made sense as all of their pre-employment records were no longer in existence either (birth, school, etc.). They had even gone back and removed a copy of an article Elisabeth had written when she was still a virology researcher during her student years.
The Shannon family did not merely no longer exist. As far as the electronic record keeping upon which their world ran was concerned, none of them had ever existed.
There were only so many things that Maddy could try for finding information in the face of that. She kept trying - desperately looking for anything that she could think of that might give her some sort of a lead. None of it worked. Nothing she was trying worked even as she continued to go through the motions of covering the footprints of all of her attempts at searches within the second layer of her security measures.
She was beating her head against an electronic brick wall, and the brick wall was winning the battle. Rowle's words did not help her level of desperation to find something. She let the research she was conducting under her third layer of security fall by the wayside while she redoubled her efforts to gain some news of her family.
She had noticed that there was a numerical tag that often appeared in the files that they loaded onto her plex. She had determined that it was an identifier that they used in their record keeping for her, and the course of her searches had led her to a file that was labeled with simply that number with the designation "Active File" following it. She had never been able to get the actual file open (because, apparently, active files on people required additional levels of security that she had yet to crack).
It was, finally, in a series of near randomly tried searches in the aftermath of Rowle hurling his last blow at her (she was not thinking particularly clear headedly and just wanted to try as many things as she could as quickly as she could in an attempt to feel as though she was doing something), that she found them.
There they were - five files with the same four digit start sitting there still every bit as out of her reach as the information had ever been since she did not know how to actually open them. Four of them (including the one she knew was hers) stated "Active File" in clear letters that broke her heart because the third file in the list did not have those words. It said "File Closed." She did not know what that meant, but she suspected the worst. Rowle's words cycled through her head in an endless loop of "left to rot" that she could not seem to break away from no matter how many times she tried to tell herself that the word closed did not have to carry that meaning.
That was when she double clicked - fully expecting to be met with the same prompts to fulfill further security requirements that had always met her attempts at gaining access to her file. Her expectations were wrong.
Apparently, closed files were closed and, therefore, undeserving of further, special protections. It opened when she clicked on it with no further prompting on her part, and she felt her eyes close more than actively decided to close them while she gave herself a moment to try and mentally prepare for what the words that were going to greet her might be.
The first thing that registered was that it was not her father's file. It was Zoe's. It did not contain her name, but the initial heading of Case Number (the four digit code all of their files shared) was followed by Detainee: Toddler (female). It had to be Zoe. The next line left her in a whirlwind of confused emotions that she was not certain she was capable of sorting her way through - Status: Adopted (File Closed).
Zoe was not locked in a cell somewhere. She was not alone. She was not forgotten. She was not actively being punished for decisions in which she had had no part. She was out there somewhere as part of a family, but it was a family that was not hers.
Zoe hadn't been unwanted; she hadn't been abandoned. She had been a well-loved daughter and baby sister. She was so little. Would she even remember the family that had put their own safety and futures on the line to have and keep her? Would she forget that she was ever someone else other than the child of the people with whom she had been placed? Would she find herself humming songs that she would never remember from whence they came (a product of Josh's created on the spot lullabies strummed on his guitar)? Would she find stories familiar and not know why (from endless hours of Maddy entertaining her with fairy tales and descriptions of animals none of them were likely to ever see)? Would she ever know anything about the parents that had put her life ahead of their own?
Maddy could not answer any of those questions.
She told herself it was okay that she was angry and relieved all at the same time. She had imagined so many things that were so much worse than adoption - so, so much worse. It was okay to be happy that Zoe was safe. It was okay to be happy that Population Control had not locked her up somewhere or even gotten rid of the living, breathing reminder that everyone did not abide by their rules.
She was still angry. She told herself that that was okay as well - as long as she found a way to use it. She knew that the other three files were active. Her family was alive. That meant that they were physically somewhere, and if they were physically somewhere, then that meant that there had to be a way to find them. She just had to figure out what it was.