Lost in Time(107)

“You could have told me.”

“I could have. But I didn’t know what you would do. I couldn’t risk you disrupting the past until I knew how it all fit together.”

“And how does it fit together?”

“Absolom Island, Elliott. It’s the key. It’s a place to do what we did here tonight, with Nora: rescue people who are lost in time. People who are going to die but deserve a second chance. People like Charlie.”

She reached out and gripped his shoulder. “In fact, he’s the second one we’re going to save.”





SEVENTY-FOUR


A? top a high dune, on an island in the Pacific, Sam stood and watched the waves crash into the beach as the sun set in the distance.

He reached out and intertwined his fingers with Nora’s.

Neither said a word. They simply watched the sun slip over the horizon and the dark curtain of night spread across the sky, the stars shining brighter than he had ever seen them—at least in this world. The night sky reminded him of Pangea, an island much like this one—uninhabited and full of wonder. But he was safe here. And he wasn’t alone. This was a home. A place for a second chance.

He and Nora walked along a crushed stone path back to a small cottage overlooking the sea. An empty, newly made village spread out around it, waiting for its residents to arrive. To Sam, it almost felt like he and Nora were the only people in the world. And that was sort of perfect. It was what he needed. He sensed that she did too. They had been here for a week, and in that time, without all the pressures and worries of the outside world, they had both decompressed. And gotten to know each other, in a way he thought they never would have before, in the normal world.

As much as he loved the little bubble he now inhabited with Nora, Sam wondered what the date was. He knew Absolom could only send matter to the past. How far back had the machine sent them when it transported them to the island? A week? A month?

There had been no contact with the outside world. If it had been a week, then Adeline, Elliott, and Hiro were just now getting to the point where they were fighting to control the Absolom Two prototype in the lab. He wasn’t sure how long it would take them to wind down their affairs in the US and make their way to the island, but he hoped they didn’t hurry. More time with Nora on the island was just fine with him.

For now, they had everything they needed here. The pantries in the cottages were full of meals ready to eat, or MREs. Clean water flowed from the taps. There were even new clothes hanging in the closet.

Sam was especially thankful for that. Upon arriving, the first thing he had done was strip off the Absolom prison uniform and take a hot shower. He had soaked in the tub after that, and Nora had joined him, using a washcloth to clean the wound on his back.

“How did you get this?” she had asked.

“It’s… a long story.”

“Dinosaur attack?”

“Prison fight.”

Nora laughed. Then stopped. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“I am. Like I said: it’s a long story. But it’s in the past. All I care about now is the future.” He turned in the tub. “Back there, in Pangea, I thought about what I would do if I ever got home. I thought about all my regrets. One was you. Not committing. Not taking the next step with us. I want that. I want to start over—to focus on the future. If you want to.”

“I do. But Sam, what kind of life can we have here? I’m technically dead. So are you.”

“If you think about it, it’s perfect. Remember what you said in London?”

Nora squinted. “About feeling like a fraud.”

“Yes. You felt like confessing. You hated the way the world saw you.”

“I did.”

“Well, nobody here is going to look at you like that. This is a new beginning. For all of us. And you were right about what you said in that hotel in London. There is a larger process at work here. This is what it was all about: the work we’re going to do here.”

Sam took her hands in his. “From here, we can go anywhere in the world. Anywhere in time. Our future is written in the past, and it’s the adventure of a lifetime.”





SEVENTY-FIVE


In the lab, Hiro programmed the Absolom Two prototype for the day Nora died.

“I need to arrive in the early afternoon,” Adeline said. “In the toilet compartment of the master bathroom. And by the way, your targeting is still off by a few feet—vertically. I almost broke my ankle when I arrived at Nora’s.”

“My parents always told me to aim high.”

“Hiro, was that an Absolom dad joke?”

He shrugged. “I’m at that age.”

Adeline laughed and stepped into the machine.

When she arrived inside Nora’s home, her feet were indeed closer to the floor this time. She landed with barely a sound.

She set the note on the floor, knowing Nora would find it and go searching for the cameras. She marveled at the revelation that she was actually the person who had sabotaged her own grand plan to see what had happened inside Nora’s home that night.

She activated her recall ring, musing to herself at how strange time and causality was.

*

The next morning, Adeline stood in the kitchen of her home, staring down at a tablet, where a livestream of a news reporter was playing.