I was only six when she left. I remember waking up and hearing my parents talking in those hushed hurried tones that meant something was wrong but they didn't want the kids to know about it. So I did what I always did. Waited for them to go downstairs then went into Tessa's room. She always knew what was going on. A lot of the time it was about her - she was from my father's first marriage and she never got on with my mother after they married. Father thought she never really got over her own mother leaving them the way she did. Anyway, I digress. I went into her room and found it empty. Her bed was made - she never made her bed. It was one of her ways of rebelling against mom. She was sixteen, you know? I wasn't sure what was going on until I saw her old rag doll was missing. That doll was Tessa's favourite thing in the world. Dad bought it for her when she was still a baby. I knew when I saw it gone that she was gone too.
I was hurried off to school. Only when I got back did they sit me down and tell me my sister had run away. She didn't leave a note. Just got up and left the evening before. No one even noticed until the next morning. Dad was a mess. He blamed himself because he didn't pay enough attention to her. It wasn't true, of course. He adored her. She got away with a lot more than I ever would. Mom thought it was her fault that no matter how hard she tried, she could never be a good enough mother for her. I was just mad. She never even said goodbye! I loved her and I think she loved me too because no matter how mad she got with Mom and Dad, she was never once ever mean to me.
Eagle Security managed to track her down as far as the local train station. They remembered selling her a oneway ticket to Union Station. After that... it was anyone's guess. Dad thought she went to California. One of her old school friends moved there a few years before. She missed him terribly. He made a few calls but nothing ever came of it.
We got on with our lives. There wasn't anything else we could do. I remember how much more peaceful it was without her and then getting angry at myself for thinking it. Then as I got older I was mad at how much attention was now paid to me. I know they were trying desperately not to let it happen again but I was about to hit puberty and not happy with the legacy of constant supervision she left for me. Soon I was causing more trouble than she ever did. I admit, I have been in trouble with the law a couple of times. I regret it now, the trouble I got into and all I put my parents through, but there was no telling me back then. Father was almost bald by the time I reached sixteen and Mom would always have this sad look in her eyes. I hated to see it but to my shame I did nothing to take it away. I got home late one night to find Father waiting up for me. He was about to lay it on thick when he got interrupted by the phone. I was so relieved to hear it then. It didn't last.
Father just went pale. More than I've ever seen before. His hand was trembling. He said nothing at all while he was on the phone, just mumbled a 'thank you for calling' before hanging up. He always left it just on audio at night so I couldn't see who he was talking to but I wasn't so self involved that I couldn't tell something was horribly wrong. I asked him who it was. His whole body started shaking and I was sure he would collapse. I ran to help him to the sofa, yelling for Mom as I got him to it. She came running down the stairs in her dressing gown thinking something was wrong with me. Then she saw Dad.
We couldn't get him to say anything for half an hour I think. The most he would do was shake his head and say it couldn't be so. Now that I think about it I was an idiot not to guess what that call had been about, but I think part of me had chosen to forget her existence. Finally after a few glasses of water and one of bourbon, he told us. I remember it clear as anything. The way he said with nothing left in his voice, "My Therese is dead".
It's amazing how you can live without a person for so long - it had been ten years since she ran away, and then to hear they're dead... I had a couple of times toyed with the idea of trying to find her. I knew a few hackers who could have helped me given the right incentives. But it was always easier to put it off for a while and get on with my own life. I guess she never really stopped being part of our lives and we all held out some hope that some day there would be a phone call or letter. I realised on that night that it was that hope alone that kept Father going.
We sat up with him all night but there was nothing more he would tell us until the next morning when he could get the words out. The call had been from the Chicago District Chief of Fire Services. They lost an entire unit in a warehouse fire that night and Tess was one of them.
You probably remember it. It was all over the papers in 2053, on every vid channel, the matrix was hopping! Of course they didn't know about the bomb at that stage. We didn't find out about that until Dad and I went to the city to see the Chief and collect her things. We were sitting there in his office and for all his words of condolence, they didn't mean a damn. I'm not saying it wasn't heartfelt or sincere, it really was - he had lost what he himself called one of the best search and rescue units he had ever known in all his forty years on the force. But they don't mean anything when you've got that loss inside you. He takes out this box from under his table. Says it's the contents of her locker. Right on top of it are her dog tags all blackened and twisted from the heat. I think that was what triggered Dad off. Only when he saw them did he ask about the body. That was the hardest part of all for him - the one thing I think he might never get over - when the Chief said there wasn't one.
He told us about their suspicions about the bomb then. It hadn't been released to the press yet until they investigated further. Unfortunately it was leaked the very next day so they never did get anywhere on it. Although they all said it was a terrrorist bomb. Anyway he told us that very little remained of anyone that went into that building and what did was unrecognisable. They were still running DNA profiles on anything they found but the blood on Tessa's tags was proof enough. He said they were barely in a few seconds before the bomb went off. Father was utterly devastated knowing he would never see her again, not even dead. I knew it to be the blessing it was. If there had been a body, one that had been through the same as her tags, it would have killed him to see it. I still thank whatever fates there are that he was at least spared that.
He brought us over to the law office then. We passed through this corridor with framed photographs everywhere of all the different units and divisions. The Chief wasn't sure whether to keep walking or to draw our attention to hers. I saved him the trouble and stopped for myself when I saw the gold lettered logo. "Search and Rescue Unit 23". There they all were in their uniforms standing around the rig. She looked beautiful and so happy. It was the first picture I had seen of her since she was sixteen. Father just gripped my arm. The Chief told us it had been taken just a couple of years ago. They always insisted on a new picture every time someone new joined the team. He pointed out the newest, Andrew Carnegie, muttering what a terrible shame it was for them both to be taken at such a time. I guess he thought we at least knew what he meant by that. It surprised me when Father spoke. Until then he had let me do most of the talking.
"How long? How long has she been here?"
If the Chief was surprised by his question he didn't show it. He had worked out by then that Tess and Father hadn't spoken in a long time. "She joined in '47. Not difficult to forget. Regardless of all our equality policies, there just aren't that many women who can make the grade here, at least not without cybernetic help. It's a tough job. There's a lot of men could never make it either. Only fifteen women in active service and Madison is... was one of them. She could, and did, give some of the men in her unit a run for their money." I don't know why exactly but that's always made me proud. I suddenly remembered how she was a champion for the bullied in school as a kid. She wasn't afraid of anyone and that alone was enough to scare off some of the bigger kids.
We got to the lawyer where he had Father sign all these papers. She had named him as beneficiary on her life assurance policy and I think Father was in shock all over again. It was a lot of money but it was more that she still considered him her next of kin that mattered to him. Then he gives us her address, says the landlord has been notified and will have a spare set of keys waiting for us.
That was the part I hated most. It was like walking into a stranger's apartment and we had to go through all her things and work out what to do with them. Ten years of her life that we knew nothing about were all around us in that room. It was just one room really with a bed and sofa with the kitchenette and bathroom coming off it. But I think she was happy there. She had pictures, lots of them of the 23rd including one with them all showing their tattoos. Her rag doll was sitting on the sofa, oblivious to what had happened. She looked for all the world like she was sitting waiting for Tess to come home. I didn't know where to start. Then suddenly I remember this box I'm still carrying. I hadn't even opened it. I went over to sit on the bed. It was unmade. I opened the box. There wasn't much there, a spare t-shirt, pair of shades, deodorant, sneakers... and this photo. It's Tess and a man very obviously together. She's smiling like I don't remember her ever smiling before. Then I see a small black velvet covered box. Suddenly all the pieces just drop into place all at once. Even before I open it I know what it is. The photo, the Chief's comments in the hall, the man's underwear I had absently stepped over to get to the bed. And then there's the ring staring back at me from it's box. I almost dropped it. At the same time Father came in from the kitchenette with a document he had found stuck to the fridge. We never said a word, just swapped the engagement ring for the marriage licence.
It took months to go through everything. Father just kept paying the rent to keep the landlord off our case. It was just so difficult. What do you throw out? What do you keep? How much of it should be returned to Andrew's parents? We met them at the first of the services along with the families of everyone else lost in the fire. I think it was hardest on Reg. He was part of the team but had been on sick leave that day. He took off with his two daughters for California soon after that. Their rigger too was out in the truck the whole time. I think the Carnegie's were almost as devastated over losing Tess as they were their son. They had been counting the days to the wedding. They told us that Andy had been trying everything to get her to call home and tell us what was happening with her. He had almost made it too. I never told father about the half written note to him I found in the waste basket of her email. I think she wanted to tell him but had just left it too long.
I know. I've been going on about this for a while now. But it is getting somewhere, I promise. You see over the course of those months, reading the news articles, looking through her things, talking with the Carnegies and seeing all the photos and news clippings Andy kept, I started to get a picture of who my sister was when she died. She was a hero. Plain and simple. She fought fires and saved lives every day. They even helped in one or two arson cases. And it was more than that. They provided back up to the security services when necessary and were more often than not the first paramedics on scene. In six years she must have saved countless lives, homes, and businesses. I was.. I am.. so very proud of that. It made me realise with some shame how little I had done with my own life. And that's why I'm here now. In the last four years I've worked much harder at school and Dad let me use some of her money to get myself into college and proper training . I want to make a difference the way she did. I want to defend and protect. And that's why I want to join Eagle Security. The world needs more people like her and I really think one of them can be me.
An hour later Samuel Madison walked out of the Eagle Security headquarters wearing a smug grin. It had gone too well. Their recruitment psychologist ate up every word he said, loving every morsel of it. Things were finally looking hopeful since the Fire Department knocked back his application last year. Well he didn't need them. They only would have been looking over his shoulder constantly anyway. This would keep his father much happier too and off his case. He knew they were going to let him enter the program, he just knew it. He had managed to strike up just the right measure of sentimentality without seeming too obsessed with Tessa's death. And indeed it wasn't as if he at any point lied to them. He meant what he said, about heroes and making something of his life. He would be one of the best officers they had ever seen. He would do some good, help people, make things right. But there was another agenda too. One day, he didn't care how long it took, he was going to find out. Someone had to know who had that bomb planted. It was no terrorist and he knew beyond a doubt it was related to the arson ring the 23rd's evidence had brought down the year before. If it took the rest of his life, he'd get himself to where he needed to be to find them. And he would destroy them. Bring them face to face with justice. And if the law would not serve, then he knew there were others who would. He would bring them down single handedly if he had to, whatever it took. But one thing was certain. Tessa would be avenged. Her fiance too and all of them. Samuel Madison was going to see to that.
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