Twenty Seconds Before

Chapter 11: Ivy and Abindigo

"Tansen?" He was right here two seconds ago, what happened? I looked around and couldn't see anything but the dusty barn. "This is SO weird... Tansen?! Where are you?". I looked all around but eventually went back outside. I decided to call him. While the number dialed on my phone, I heard something. "HEY BUD IT'S YOU- DON'T PANIC BUT AVA IS CALLING YOU. STAY COOL- DON'T SAY ANYTHING TOO STUPID....PS, ANSWER THE PHONE!" I ran over to the source and found his phone lying in the grass. He must've forgotten to pick it up before we went inside. I ended the call and began to pace back and forth. Where on earth could he be? I decided the best course of action was to sit and wait.

I plopped down on the grass and leaned up against the old, dust covered, "Welcome to Missouri" sign. I waited patiently for about 15 minutes until I was bored of just sitting there. I pulled out my phone and began to read this book that I started in the car. It was about these two people from the old world without soul trackers. The girl was a waitress, (what they used to have before the order screens on the tables) and the boy was an actor. It was the waitress's dream to be an actress someday, and eventually she got a big part! She was so excited that she drove home as fast as she could, to tell her boyfriend (who was a neurosurgeon.) He told her that she shouldn't take the part because she should be a nurse instead, that way she could work for him, but she didn't listen. She decides to go live out her dream and ends up falling for the actor instead. I hadn't even finished a chapter before I heard my mom yelling for me.

"AAAAAAAAAAVAAAAAAAAA!! WE HAVE TO GO! WHERE ARE YOU?"

"I'M RIGHT HERE MOM. WE CAN'T LEAVE TILL WE FIND TANSEN!" I shouted in reply.

"HONEY WE LEFT TANSEN IN CALIFORNIA." She sounded exasperated. I wanted to tell her all about what happened but I was worried she wouldn't understand.

"I'LL BE THERE SOON." I shouted back. I couldn't tell anyone that Tansen was a second seeker. They were in a genetic line of royalty, and once they were found out lots of bad people would be after them. I read about it in history from the era of the second seekers.

A long time ago, before soul trackers or really any notable technology, there was a huge war that broke out between almost every country in the world, called world war 3. While trying to genetically alter super soldiers to fight, a woman named Carol Eisenberg genetically modified four people, two men and two women. She called them the second seekers for their amazing ability to find and rescue those in distress in less than a second. Others tried to duplicate or capture the Second Seekers but were unsuccessful. With them on the side of the good guys, the war was quickly won, and each pair went on to fall in love. Each couple got married, and the first pair had a strapping baby boy. Three years later the second pair had a beautiful baby girl. Eventually the two children grew up, inheriting the powers of their parents and married each other. The newlyweds gave birth to twins. One baby girl and one baby boy. They wanted desperately to keep the second seeker abilities within the generations to come, so they went to they went and contacted Carol Eisenberg and begged for a way to give powers to someone. That's how the soul trackers were created! She installed a clock that would target the person most likely to pass off the gene on the wrists of the children. When the clock hit zero, the person they were touching would be the one with the highest potential for the gene to pass. After that, the whole world exploded! Carol's invention was modified to read the person's genetic code and compare it to every other person's code in the data base- then calculate the exact time of a physical encounter between the two most compatible- so everyone could know their soulmate. Kinda complicated stuff, but super cool!

What happened next is the reason second seekers are still considered special though. Going back to the story, the girl and the boy both found the people who were most likely to pass on the gene, and married. What they learned over a couple generations though, was only one child in each family would possess the second seeker ability from their parents, and because there are only two families with the gene in the entire world, they are kinda a big deal.

They live in fancy castles, and almost always grow up to be some kind of army general or superhero. They are the Ivy family and the Abindigo family.

"Could he really be one of them?" I whispered to myself. I stared back at the barn while I walked toward the hotel.

"Tansen. I hope you're safe."