Thankfully, the awkwardness that blankets Maddy and Mark for the first bit of time they are stuck hiding the storm out eventually diffuses. They converse easily until the rain lets up. "My family is probably wondering where I am," Maddy says as the sound of the pounding rain fades.
"I'll walk you back."
They step into the hall only to run into Mark's family. Maddy finally has faces to put to the names of who she assumes to be Emily, Macey, and Stephen. "Mark!" the younger, raven-haired girl squeals in delight, but refrains from her hug when she takes note of Maddy.
"Mark," Emily repeats, though her tone is more skeptical than that of the kids. Her crystal blue eyes bore into those of her brother, and Maddy senses a palpable tenseness emerging. Maddy feels abashed as Emily's eyes skim over her slender frame clothed in Mark's shirt. "Macey, Stephen. Go inside," she commands.
Stephen crosses his arms. "Who's the chick?"
"Homework!" Mark and Emily snap at the same time.
"Emily—" Mark starts cautiously after the young siblings leave.
"Reckless decisions, Mark," Emily blows him off. She pushes past her brother to go inside but not before she looks poignantly at the security camera in the corner of the hall. "Unnecessarily reckless decisions."
"You don't even—"
But before Mark could finish his sister had already stormed into the apartment. An uncomfortable silence reemerges, and Maddy shuffles around on the balls of her feet. The both start to speak at the same time, only to fall silent again.
Maddy finally rushes bluntly, "That was weird."
"Listen …"
"Go tell her the good news," Maddy says. "Your family doesn't haven't to worry about me causing trouble any more. John's in custody, and his credibility if effectively shot. You'll be reinstated with Recruitment. No more worries."
Before Mark can protest, Maddy gives a quick smile before pulling her rebreather snugly on her face and darting down the hall. She follows the main road back home, arriving just as she would have if school let out on time.
When Maddy gets inside, she leans up against the door with a faint smile, thinking of how happy she was that she got the chance to see Mark again. She then looks up to find Josh slouching on the couch staring dismally at something in his hand. "Everything okay?" she asks her brother as she discards her rebreather and bag near the door.
"Why don't you just mind your own freaking business, Maddy?"
And Maddy is supposed to be the over dramatic, moody teenaged girl of the house.
Young Zoe looks up from her stuffed animals on the floor. "Josh is sad," she informs her sister matter-of-factually.
With a distant sigh, Josh finally explains, "She threw me a surprise party. Kara did. All of my other friends have been icing me out since they found out we are leaving. We used to spend so much time complaining about how shitty everything is and now I guess we don't have that in common anymore. But she somehow got them to all show up and smile and admit that the band wouldn't be the same without me." He shakes his head in disbelief.
Maddy looks at Josh sadly. "I'm sorry," she says.
"She gave me a necklace," Josh continues, showing his sister the object in his hand. Maddy sits down on the coach next to him and admires the black and silver platinum pendent strung on black wire.
"It's beautiful."
"I have no idea where she got it or how she afforded it," Josh commented harshly. His eyes cloud over with tears. "And it isn't even the fact that she gave me a damn necklace that kills me it's what she said," he spits. "She told me to go to Terra Nova and have a wonderful life and-and to not spend it missing her, to not spend it being miserable. She asked me if I would at least tell my kids one day about her, their Aunt Kara, tell them that she just knows they will be great." Josh cries and Maddy sits next to him feeling helpless. "How could she say that so … easily?" Josh spits, tears streaming down his face. "I hate her!" he bursts, slinging the necklace across the room.
Maddy shakes her hand and grabs her brother's hand. "You don't hate Kara, Josh," she reminds him. "You could never. And I doubt that was easy for her to say. She obviously loves you. She was only able to say those things because of how much she loves you."
"I know," Josh whispers, leaning his head on Maddy's shoulder. "But whenever we talked about the future, we were always so pessimistic. We didn't even know if the earth would survive long enough for us to die natural death or if it would just completely collapse or whatever. But we did count on us, you know?"
Maddy nods. She thinks that Josh is forgetting who he is talking to, for Maddy can't actually relate or know what he's talking about. She's never been in a real relationship or have anyone with that much history who she's leaving behind. However, Maddy tries to understand. Ever since they found out they were leaving, Josh always acted so tough and brusque about the whole situation. She's never seen her big brother this broken. All she wants to do is make him feel better.
Josh sniffles and continues, "We always planned that whatever the future would bring, we would go through it together. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together. And now I'm forced to leave her here to die alone."
"Don't accept that," Maddy tells him.
"What?"
"We're traveling billions of years into the past," Maddy encourages, "I think we can disregard anything that we thought we knew. If the time fracture is possible, Josh, anything is possible. We're going to Terra Nova in two days. Get to Terra Nova, then figure out how to get Kara there, too. Officials there are always requesting people. Find a way to get her name on a list. Hell, the commander himself requested me for whatever. If he's a decent guy, I'm sure we could even ask him to help at some point. I'd do that for you! Just don't give up so easily. I've never seen you give up so easily."
Josh grabs his sister quickly into a massive hug. "You're a genius, Mads."
"Please," Maddy rolls her eyes, "we both already knew that."
Josh gives a watery laugh before jumping up to grab his rebreather. "I'm gonna go be with Kara," he tells Maddy. "If I'm not back tonight tell Mom I'm with the band or whatever."
After Josh leaves, the remainder of the evening was business as usual. Maddy straightens up the apartment and starts throwing something together for dinner. She retrieves the large backpacks recruitment had sent over and places them on the couch.
One full day left to pack.
One full day to leave behind everything they'd ever known.
One full day until a fresh start.
Maddy is setting Zoe up in the bedroom to keep her content for the evening when she hears Ken and Laura enter the apartment. They obviously don't realize that she's here for they continue with their conversation, taking in normal voices. "I just get a bad feeling about the guy," Foster says.
"It's Monday evening," Reilly states impatiently. "I'm sure you can coexist through Wednesday morning."
"I miss Reynolds," Foster complains. "He was cool. And not nearly as creepy."
"Foster!" Reilly snaps. "Would you let it go? The only creepy thing about this conversation is your obsession with the guy."
Foster scoffs, "I'm not obsessed. I'm observant, as any good security guard should be. It's just weird that he doesn't answer our check-ins, blatantly ignores our schedule, barely acknowledges our presence, and disappears randomly as if we don't realize it. Timothy Curran is one strange creature."
"As if Reynolds didn't have his issues?" Reilly retorts. Maddy freezes, caught up in her unintentional eavesdropping. "Wasn't it a little strange how persistent he was with volunteering for the interior night shift? No one voluntarily sleeps on that couch more often than necessary unless there's a really good reason."
Foster only laughs. "And you're the senior agent on this assignment?" he cracks up. "Again, I'm obviously way more observant. Or maybe it's just more in touch with where Mark was coming from. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm in a committed relationship, and I do understand that you're a girl and all, but there's just something about Madelyn Shannon."
"You did not just imply what I think you're implying," Reilly says tersely. "Don't be a fool."
Suddenly confused and uncomfortable with trying to follow along, Maddy comes out of the bedroom. "Did someone say my name?"
Foster and Reilly both seem fairly abashed.
Reilly speaks first, asking what Maddy's doing there.
"And where's Josh?" Foster exclaims.
"First of all, this is my house," Maddy answers logically, "and as for the second question, he left like half hour ago. Kara."
"You people," Foster mutters as he runs out the door.
"If you're here, where's Curran?" Reilly asks Maddy, who merely shrugs in response.
Maddy eyes Reilly's perturbance curiously and, continuing on her newfound confidence, asks if she wants her to find out. "I can't speak to where he is at the moment, but I can tell you where he's been," she gives a sly smile before grabbing her plex. "So we don't like him?"
Reilly is unsure of how to first respond to Maddy's comfortable conversational attitude. Was it really just over two weeks ago that this same girl was so shy she could barely make eye contact with her? "I-I would never speak ill of coworkers so randomly," Reilly speaks quickly but Maddy only gives a slight laugh.
"I don't think I entirely trust him either."
Maddy knows she can't hack into recruitment again because they will be on guard following the John incident, they'll have flagged John's ID by now, and Maddy isn't stupid enough to use her own. Instead, she goes to the city's archives, basically an online library of what most people would consider unnecessary and boring information, ranging from Chicago's underground sewer system network to the evolution of the models of light rails the city utilizes. Naturally, Maddy's already read most of the information on there. She is therefore also up to date on as aspect of the sight most people aren't familiar with – the technological archive.
"Basically," the teenager explains to Reilly, "the internet is like a continuous time line of events and information. Every second that passes by, there is a system set up for the city that records all information at that given moment, so even though a website might update tomorrow, the old version is still technically accessible by the freeze of data the system records."
Reilly looks over Maddy's shoulder as she tries to follow along.
"In other words, if something is on the internet, even if it's posted then deleted all within milliseconds, it never really disappears, it's just stored elsewhere, permanently frozen in time," Maddy continues. "It's a technique that ensures security of information so that even in loss of power or something there's still a city wide back up for the important information, while it also ensures security of state, so the police force can use the data reserves to back track flagged sights or IDs and such."
"And that is relevant now because …"
"Because," Maddy says as if it's obvious, "if you think about it, then somewhere in cyberspace is everything Tim Curran has ever done or been. You can't even get employment without being run through the system or the company updating their online records that you work there. Granted, considering the archives are updated every second there's probably thousands of terabytes, if not petabytes, of such general information encompassed within the system, but if there's a will there's a way, and if there's a computer, there's a schema we can use to narrow down our results."
Reilly blinks and asks if this is legal.
"Well … sure."
Despite Maddy's less than assuring reply, Reilly doesn't make any objections to Maddy continuing her diligent strokes across the tablet screen. "Okay …" she mutters to herself as she works, "here is his history of employment with Terra Nova Recruitment as of the other week … hmmmm … somewhat lacking …" Maddy asks Reilly if she knew this was his first job with recruitment.
"I wouldn't know, he isn't one for sharing," she replies, "but I'm surprised he didn't have a mentored assignment or something first. Is there any record of that?"
Maddy skims over the information in front of her. "Alright, let's rewind a little …" She turns to grin at Reilly. "It's like a time machine! Isn't technology just so fascinating?"
Reilly has no doubts now that monitoring the city's internet records is something Maddy Shannon does for fun on a given day, but she only smiles at her with a slight nod.
"Oh my gosh!" Maddy jumps up, pulling Reilly from her train of thought. "Two months ago, he was detained by recruitment. Why would they hire him after that?"
"What was it for?"
Maddy frowns, "The document wasn't listed, just his status …" Not wanting to have to break any firewalls or raise alarms, Maddy simply types some key words into a general search engine. "Around that time was Recruitment's big bust on that underground gambling ring which involved some of the lottery winners. His name is right next to the others detained for the illegal gambling debts. I don't think it'd be a coincidence that they were all booked at the exact same time," Maddy gestures to the time stamps frozen within the archive which shows a difference in updates at the time to be mere seconds.
"You think that Curran was part of that bust?" Reilly asks incredulously but without skepticism in her tone. "Then how the hell would he be here rig-"
The sound of the door opening made Reilly fall dead silent. Maddy swipes the contents of her tablet clean quickly as Tim Curran waltzed through the door. He pauses, looking at the girls curiously. "Did I interrupt something?" he questions their stares.
Maddy shrugs, suddenly shy again, as she turns away and busies herself with homework on the Plex, though that isn't where her focus truly lies. She remembers how recruitment held Mark to try to get him to give up insider information on the Shannons. Considering the high probability of the conspiracy going on within that organization, she didn't even want to consider what Curran had traded to get his current position instead of jail time.
"Reilly," she hears Curran's voice behind her and shudders involuntarily, "when I was next door, I heard your Plex beeping or something. Might want to go check messages." After a moment of hesitation, Reilly exits, and Maddy stares stoically at her Plex as Curran walks to the other side of the counter to face her. "Madelyn Shannon," he hums.
Maddy raises her eyebrows at him expectantly, trying not to appear flustered.
"I know we haven't worked together for that long and there are only a few days left until you leave, but I wanted you to realize that once you're gone … well, that transition is permanent."
"Your point?"
"Just know that you can trust me," Curran smiles tightly. "When I started, recruitment told me there'd been issues with the previous guard assigned to your case. If you need to report anything about that, it has to be done within the next few days. I only wanted to make sure you realized that, and that you know you can come to me."
Maddy shifts uncomfortably but still shoots him a glare. "Mark didn't do anything wrong," she challenges. "And if you were with me at school today like you're supposed to be, you would have seen that John ward was arrested for some hack or whatever. That proves the kid is a psycho liar! As if his word means anything against Mark's now."
Curran shakes his head sadly. "Whatever you wish to believe, Madelyn."
"Right back at you, Timothy," Maddy replies sassily. He surveys her with narrowed eyes before sauntering away, and Maddy only suppresses a smile and goes back to her plex. Try me, she thinks, feeling invincible from her day's accomplishments. This time forty-eight hours from now my family and I will be safe forever. This – the headaches and conspiracies and investigating – will all be worth it.