Thanks for all the reviews! Each of your comments and private messages are what made me look back, reread what I've posted and what I've had in my notes, and search for inspiration to continue this storyline! I hope I don't disappoint.
Keep letting me know what you think! Some super sweet Josh and Kara moments lie ahead … and of course some suspense
Maddy has never been so terrified in her life. She continuously looks from her letter to the one Fickett wrote to Weaver, her mind spinning. She hadn't been crazy when she was worrying over the surveillance recruitment had on her. They really have been watching her. And they really had just found a lame excuse to cut Mark out of their protection detail. Recruitment must have caught on to the fact that he and Maddy truly trusted one another, and they'd been waiting for the signal to secure her as an asset, which would be harder to do with a highly-trained security guard wiling to obey direct orders if he though they weren't made in the best interest.
The information overload makes Maddy feel sick to her stomach. Literally. Maddy barely has enough time to wipe her search history from her Plex before she is running for the bathroom and retching up the contents of her stomach. "Maddy!" Kara yells.
Josh is by the door in an instant. "Maddy, are you okay?" he asks quickly. Maddy manages to nod before washing her mouth out in the sink.
"Just a little nauseous," she responds weakly. Josh says he'll call Mom, but Maddy cuts him off. "Don't!" she says quickly. "It's nothing. I was just … stressed about school," Maddy lies. "That's why I ditched and how I made myself sick. I'm fine! Really."
Josh continues to frown but nods. Maddy cleans herself up and exits the bathroom. "Maddy!" Zoe runs over to her sister. Maddy picks her up and holds her on her lap when she sits down. "Are you okay?" Zoe asks.
"Of course," Maddy smiles.
"Where's Mark?" Zoe inquires. "He was fun to play with."
The smile disappears from Maddy's face. "He doesn't work here anymore," Maddy answers gently. "He had to go back to his own family."
"Doesn't he like us?" Zoe asks with a crease between her eyes.
Maddy manages a soft smile. "I don't know how anyone could not like you!" she bops her sister on the nose. "Go get your toys," she tells her as she sets her back on the floor. "We'll play something."
Zoe darts over to the back room and Maddy watches Kara and Josh sitting on the couch together. Kara is sitting sideways so that her legs are over Josh's lap and his arm is around her. "What else is there on our list?" Kara whispers.
Visibly agitated, Josh shakes his head. "I told you," he says bitterly, "I'm done with the list. I still don't get why you're making a celebration out of me leaving!"
"You're right," Kara says sarcastically. "We still need to get those milkshakes from that restaurant near the mall."
"There is literally no dairy in them!" Josh laughs.
Kara shrugs, "But they actually taste good, chemicals and all. And that's where we went on our first unofficial date, when I asked you to help me with my science project."
Josh scrunches up his nose at the memory. "Middle school," he grimaces. "What made you think that it was a good idea to experiment what the average number of white milk shakes from Mixer Bar someone has to drink before puking? That was miserable."
"I love milk shakes," Kara argues while laughing her head off. "And I was twelve! What made you think it'd be a good idea to go along with it when I literally asked you to eat something until you make yourself sick?"
"I was thirteen!" Josh retorts. "Besides, what better way to impress the new girl than drinking twice the number of milkshakes she could."
"But I beat you."
Josh just smirks, his light heartedness fading as they stopped laughing at the memory. Maddy glances sadly at the two out of corner of her eye. In just a few more days that's all their time together will be, a memory, and stuck in opposing geological time eras, they wouldn't be able to create any new ones together or sit next to each other laughing and reminiscing.
"I'm not celebrating you leaving me," Kara reminds her boyfriend. "I'm celebrating your chance to have such an amazing life. You will get to experience things most of us have never even dreamed of. I'm proud of you."
Josh sighs before burying his head in Kara's shoulder. Maddy looks away. Her and her brother sure do fight often, and Maddy has never been able to understand why he has been so upset about going to Terra Nova. She can see why now, and it saddens her to see Josh and Kara so heartbroken.
Soon enough, Zoe returns with washcloth dinosaurs which Maddy plays with absentmindedly. She tries to focus her real attention on the Fickett/Horton revelation but gets distracted by the thought of leaving Kara. Her mind is jumbled with so much that it's hard to concentrate on one thing clearly. Maddy shakes her head and attempts to rest her mind solely on her little sister.
The weekend passes fairly uneventfully. Elisabeth is busy with preparations for their departure next week, Josh and Kara are practically attached at the hip, which leaves Maddy to care for Zoe on top of dealing with her new discoveries. She is seriously afraid of leaving the apartment at this point and is constantly looking over her shoulder.
Maddy can't even tell her mom about the letter considering she broke several laws to obtain it. What bothers Maddy the most, aside from the fact that she's an asset or whatever, is that Andrew Fickett will get to travel to Terra Nova on the same pilgrimage as them and be welcomed with open arms as Ken Horton. How is it fair the liar, murderer, conspirator gets to go but someone deserving like Kara is stuck here? And how will she look the man in the eye knowing the truth?
In other news, Tim Curran, Mark's replacement, didn't even say anything about Maddy ditching school and running away the other day. He seems nice enough, but Maddy gets a bad feeling about the guy.
On Sunday, Elisabeth gets called to the hospital for an emergency, Curran has the outdoor shift, Zoe hides in the back coloring, and Maddy and Foster sit in the apartment adjourning the Shannons' as Kara and Josh make out next door. "I was supposed to go to Kara's today!" Josh snapped at Elisabeth this morning when she told him to babysit Zoe.
"She can just come here," Elisabeth said distractedly. "Your sister shouldn't have to be the one looking out for her all the time."
That was a mistake on her part. Josh and Kara evidently had plans for the afternoon and being at the Shannons' house instead of Kara's wasn't deterring them. "Keep it down!" Maddy had called up to the loft, quite annoyed by the sound of them kissing and declaring their love for each other nonstop since Kara arrived.
Kara giggled. "Chill, Maddy!" she called. "We're just practicing for our goodbye kiss."
Maddy screamed into a pillow that was on the couch, but her brother and his girlfriend didn't stop making out. Maddy made sure Zoe had her earbuds and Josh's Plex so that the young girl could tune the lovebirds out before she ditched the scene altogether, suggesting to Foster that they just go next door.
So now Maddy lays on her stomach taking up the couch while she works on her Plex. She briefly thinks back to hanging out in here when Mark was still with them but then quickly blocks the thought from her mind. Mark has his own life and his own family; he's better off not having to deal with the mess Maddy's somehow gotten herself into.
"What are you working on?" Ken asks eventually.
Maddy shrugs. "I wanted my science teacher to review a paper I've been working on before I leave next week," she answers with a sigh. "It's about the origins and impacts of technological advancements in the agricultural industry, dating back to before rebreathers and all when food was actually grown outside, and how such progressions have affected employment over time. But I need to finish it before she can review it and to be honest my line of reasoning if weak at best, therefore making it difficult to conclude effectively."
Ken let out a short laugh.
"What?" Maddy asks, looking at him defensively.
"You don't seem like you're only sixteen," he says. "I sure as hell never spent my weekends working on whatever a line of reasoning is when I was your age."
Maddy shrugs again. "Not that first time I've heard that," she mutters. She continues to work in silence for a while before thinking of the data card in her pocket. She hasn't let the little piece of metal leave her side since she read the letter from Fickett, but there haven't been any updates to her file since. "Ken?" Maddy asks shyly. He looks at her expectantly. "Could you give me some advice?"
"I'm probably not the most qualified but if I actually understand what you're saying I can give it a shot," he says sincerely.
Maddy rolls her eyes slightly but continues, "So … say you did something wrong with a good intention in mind, like you broke a law or something. And because of that you found out something even worse … you found out someone in power wasn't actually a good person. If you come forward, you could get in trouble but if you don't, that person in power could hurt others." Ken frowns and looks at Maddy suspiciously. "It's for a story I'm writing!" she blurts, "Completely hypothetical."
Ken nods. "Okay," he starts thoughtfully, "I guess it depends on the character's ethics and morals, what he or she sees as right vs. wrong. I mean it's easy to speculate what you would do if you're not actually in the situation. For example, no matter how down on my luck desperate for money I am, I would like to say confidently as possible that I would never work for Population Control or help them in anyway. But then again it depends on the situation."
Maddy shakes her head thoughtfully and looks back at her Plex. She wants more than anything to just go to the police with her revelation, but there are too many problems with that. First of all, they could just arrest her on the spot for hacking secured government files. Second, Maddy has no idea how far the conspiracy goes. If Terra Nova Recruitment are the masterminds behind the whole thing, she would be screwed talking to cops. TNR has far reaching roots; they are, after all, the gatekeepers to humanity's only salvation. She just doesn't know how far their claws are sunk in to other agencies and organizations.
Maddy thinks back to when her father was still there, before recruitment was ever a part of their lives. She remembers how frustrated and angry her dad would get with his work when he'd work a good case for months only to have someone buy the verdict out from underneath him. If drug lords could use plain cash to make solid DNA evidence disappear, Maddy doesn't want to test the power of recruitment making her circumstantial, illegally retrieved evidence vanish as well.
That night, Maddy lays in the loft falling asleep, listening to the sounds of her family members breathing around her. She is just about to doze off when a soft thud from downstairs catches her attention. Frowning, Maddy throws off her covers and rises to her feet, tip toeing over to the railing. Illuminated by the light glow of a flashlight, Curran, who's supposed to be on indoor shift, sneaks around the main floor of the cramped apartment.
Maddy's brow furrows as she watches him shift through drawers and look under furniture. The optimistic part of her tries really hard to believe that he's fulfilling his duty of protection, but the pessimistic, logical side of her questions how and why a threat could possibly be hiding in their spare bin of electronics under the kitchen table. Maddy grows both concerned and annoyed at his snooping. When Curran finds the partially disabled fly swatter, Maddy's frustration increases exponentially. He doesn't have a right to be looking through her stuff like that, especially considering said electronic is somewhat incriminating.
Taking a step back and crouching down so that she's hidden by the desk but still has a good view, Maddy purposefully knocks something off the desk. She has to stifle a laugh when Curran's head snaps around wildly. He paranoidly looks over his shoulder as he makes his way back to the couch. Feel spooked, Maddy thought mischievously, you should have been minding your own damn business. She can't imagine going through personal possessions is standard procedure for security guards.
When Maddy quietly makes her way back to her bed, she glances over at her brother a few feet away. Kara had spent the night she and Josh are curled up together on his bed. Wednesday. They were leaving for Terra Nova in two days. After Monday and after Tuesday there'd unfortunately be no more Kara in her life, unfortunately no more Mark in her life (who she technically couldn't see any more anyways, but still), and, luckily, no more Curran or John in her life. With any luck, Maddy and her family will all get safety to Terra Nova and she won't have to worry about the whole letter-asset mess either. But is leaving so many troubles behind really worth sacrificing the friendship of such great people? Maddy knows that not going to Terra Nova is not an option in the slightest, but for the first time since her family was recruited, she doesn't look forward to leaving.