Lost in Time(113)

And with that, Adeline had what she needed: location and date. In her mind, she began putting the mission together. They would approach the family—with gifts—share a meal and invite them back to their camp. At a safe distance, perhaps on a nearby ridge, they’d watch the windstorm destroy the wagon, then give the family recall rings and bring them back to Absolom Island, where they would find exactly what they were going west for: a better life for their family in an unsettled frontier.

*

Adeline spent the afternoon sewing the outfits she and her father would wear. The hum of the sewing machine always made her think of her mother and her teaching her the craft. Sarah Anderson would forever stay in the past, but in so many ways, she was here with them too.

*

Two weeks later, Adeline and her father were walking along the California Trail in northern Nevada in November of 1852.

It was cold, but there was no snow on the ground, only a rocky, dusty path worn with ruts from wagon wheels and the trudging of oxen and mules.

Mountains rose to the right and left like rock giants silently watching the procession.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“When we were arrested in the cemetery in Absolom City, did you ever think it would end this way?”

He shook his head and laughed. “In a million years, I didn’t see this coming—rescuing people in the past.”

“It’s wild, isn’t it?”

“It is, but the future is always stranger than you imagine. In my experience, things rarely turn out the way you expect them to. And in a strange way, it makes sense.”

“How?”

“Time and causality.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, consider the tuning bars—the breakthrough that made Absolom Two possible. You think about the outcome, you go search for that result, and if you find it in the past, you conduct the experiment.”

“Right, but how does that apply to Absolom One?”

“Same principle. When we created Absolom, we weren’t trying to build a time machine. We were trying to build a machine that saved our families. Sure, we wanted to help others, but our intention was to create a better life for our families.”

He paused a moment. The wind blew through the passage, whipping dirt against the clothes Adeline had sewn.

“Did you know your mom used to teach a psychology class about beliefs and reality?”

Adeline smiled. “I did. In fact, I helped her teach it once upon a time. The class was PSYCH 20N: How Beliefs Create Reality.”

“That’s the one.”

“It was all about how our perception of the world around us is shaped by our convictions, mental health, physical health, and environment.”

“Well, I think our beliefs are more powerful than that,” her father said. “I think they—along with time—are the unseen engine of the universe.”

“The missing piece,” Adeline said.

“That’s right. I think beliefs and time determine our future. All those years, when you were thinking about creating a machine to get your lost family member back—and when Elliott was thinking about it—I think it shaped our future.”

“That’s where the missions come from.”

“Yes. Like the universe itself, you can’t say what happened before they existed, only that they do.”

With that breakthrough, Adeline saw it all.

Absolom Island was like the United States of America. A new version. Where America had been a melting pot of people from different places, attracting the best and the hungry and the outcasts from around the world, Absolom Island was a melting pot of people from different times, offering a refuge for people from across the past to build a better future.

Absolom—the machine itself—was a physical manifestation of the march of humanity. It was a device that removed the worst members of human society and rescued the innocent. Adeline wondered if that was the true nature of civilization, if that was humanity’s great work.

“Do you think the world will ever figure out what we’re doing on the island?” Adeline asked.

“Yes. It’s inevitable.”

“What do you think will happen then?”

“I don’t know. But that’s one thing I’ve learned about time: sometimes life gives you problems you can’t solve today. That’s what tomorrow is for. And that’s why you keep going.”

The trail rounded a rock outcropping, and ahead, Adeline spotted the covered wagon off to the side. Rocks formed a ring around a crackling fire, and three very dirty kids sat around it, holding their hands out to warm them. Their mother was writing in a journal—or perhaps drawing—and the father was lying down, hat over his eyes.

He wasn’t asleep, though, because as Adeline and her father approached, he rose and pushed the hat back. “How do you do?”

Sam nodded. “Hello.”

“Y’all on your way to California?”

“No,” Sam said slowly. “We’re going a little farther than that.”

The man studied him. “I see. Well, you looking to trade then?”

“We don’t have anything to trade. We actually just came to help.”





EPILOGUE


Adeline set the coffee mug down on the desk and searched her personal files for a picture of Nathan. She held her breath as she uploaded it to the Tesseract program.