Lost in Time(106)

Sam helped Adeline lift Nora’s replica and move her to the kitchen. They placed the body with the head protruding out into the hallway so that it would be seen from the front door the next morning.

“We need to make the incision,” Adeline said. “Syntran left the organs in and simulated a time of death, but the body still needs to bleed.”

Adeline watched her father walk to the kitchen and take the knife from the butcher block. She swallowed, heart beating faster, waiting for the moment that had been nearly two decades in the making, a moment that would change everything for them.

He paused, looking at the knife, his back to her. “We have a problem.”

He turned to the two women. “The knife was hidden in the toilet compartment, and Adeline’s DNA was found on it, but she never touched it.”

Adeline walked over and took the knife from him. “Her DNA is on it now.”

Her father stared at her, confused. Slowly, comprehension seemed to dawn on him.

“Hi, Dad.”

He reached back and put a hand on the counter, bracing himself. “How?”

“Absolom Two.”

His chest rose and fell faster as his breathing accelerated.

“How far back?”

“All the way to 2008. I was there when Mom gave birth.”

“You… you were that Adeline? The TA she told me about?”

“I was.”

He reached out and touched Adeline’s cheek. His hand was still dirty, but Adeline didn’t care. She pressed her face into his fingers. “I had surgery,” she whispered. “A few years before I met you as Daniele.”

Her father studied her face and shook his head. “I thought I was the hero. But it was you, all along. The price you paid. All those years you gave to this. Half your life. Most would have given up.”

“It was a small price to pay to get you back.” Adeline turned to look at Nora. “And to save you. That’s why I hid the cameras. I was trying to figure out what was going to happen.”

“I understand,” Nora said.

“What happens now?” Sam asked.

“Now,” Adeline replied, “we start living the part we’ve all been avoiding. The future. A wise person once said that time heals all wounds. But it won’t work if you don’t give time a chance. I think we’ve given the past enough time. Our wounds are healed. It’s time to do what we were always meant to do, the real reason Absolom Two exists. It’s time to give the future a chance. And to start helping others.”





PART V



ABSOLOM ISLAND





SEVENTY-THREE


I? n the lab, Adeline stepped out of the Absolom machine and joined Elliott and Hiro at the computer station.

“Ready for us to bring them home?” Hiro asked.

Elliott had clearly filled him in on what had transpired at Nora’s house in the past.

“Not yet,” Adeline said.

Using her phone, she disabled the cameras in the lab and told the two men her plan.

Elliott just shook his head. “You’ve been two steps ahead the whole time.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know how all the pieces fit until now.”

To Hiro, she said, “Go ahead. Bring them home.”

The Absolom machine hummed, and Adeline’s father appeared in the chamber.

Adeline opened the door and held up a hand. “We need to transmit you again.”

“Why?”

“There will be an investigation into this prototype’s usage tonight. They’ll know from the power consumption. We can’t have your DNA here. And you can’t stay here.”

He nodded. “Where exactly am I going then?”

“It’s a place called Absolom Island. And it’s the future. Nora will be joining you there. So will I. All of us will. Eventually.”

Adeline closed the door and watched her father disappear. When Nora arrived, Adeline told her about Absolom Island and watched her depart.

Elliott pointed to the computer screen. “We’re already getting a ton of emails about the power usage. What are we going to tell them?”

“The truth. We had to use the prototype to avoid a temporal disaster. And that it won’t happen again. We’re shutting down all further development of Absolom here. We’re moving everything to the island.”

Elliott bunched his eyebrows. “What exactly are we going to be doing on the island?”

Adeline drew the envelope from her pocket—the same one she had shown Hiro. She handed it to Elliott and watched as he flipped through the photos the Tesseract program had found. He paused on one that showed Adeline standing in Nanking in late 1937. The next photo was of her and her father in a village in northern Sumatra, Indonesia in 2004. The next page showed Elliott and Charlie in Cambodia in 1975.

“How long have you had these?” he asked.

“I found some photos that had me in them years ago. I only thought to look for the rest of you after Dad mentioned it the night you showed us Absolom Two.”

“Charlie’s in these pictures. How?”

“I couldn’t exhume his body—not without your permission—so I couldn’t confirm that he was replaced with a Syntran replica. But I knew we’d get him back when I saw these photos.”