Lost in Time(56)

“I don’t understand.”

“We think she wants to get Sam back, take him there, and build a new society.” Elliott cut his eyes to Hiro. “We don’t know what her plans are for us. But she needs us for now.”

“Why?”

“Absolom Two. After we created the first version, innovation on the technology essentially stopped. But I never did. I kept researching, experimenting.”

“Because you want to save Charlie.”

“That’s right.”

“Daniele told me you can’t change the past.”

“That’s one opinion. What do you think?”

Adeline laughed. “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”

“As it turns out,” Elliott said, “we don’t think Daniele is either. And that’s just one of the things she’s lying about.”





THIRTY-SEVEN


In the desert, there was no tree for Sam to climb to safety. Wave after wave of animals flowed from the forest onto the sand, fleeing the fire.

The herd was easy pickings for the giant crocs pouring out of the swamp. The carnage was breathtaking, like seeing an army of Godzillas feasting on baby T. rexes and assorted reptiles and dinosaurs.

Sam knew he couldn’t outrun the dinosaurs. Or the crocs. He certainly couldn’t fight either.

Luckily, there was one place to hide. He rushed toward the croc skeleton. The ribs sticking out of the sand weren’t as wide as Sam, but if he turned, they almost entirely hid him. He hoped it would be enough.

As the herd flowed past, he waited, trying to control his breathing. Moving could be deadly.

He felt like he was in a human roulette wheel. If a massive animal crashed into the rib he was hiding behind, it would be his end. If not, he would live. Sometimes one’s life came down to simple chance. This was one of those times.

Several seelos bounded in the air, their claws catching the bones, and propelled themselves forward, landing in the sand and sinking as if it was mud, their hind legs disappearing almost to their torsos.

A few feet away, a small dinosaur slammed into the croc skeleton. Its head stuck through the ribs, and it screeched before drawing back and charging again, this time breaking through before it scurried out the end.

Sam stood as still as he could, his body aching from the first volcano blast. He waited, watching the herd move past.

Above, the thick dome of dark clouds kept pushing down. The smell of sulfur filled the air, and the sound of the carnage was its symphony.

Soon, it was as dark as night, and the heat from the fire warmed the air.

Another boom swept across the desert, throwing Sam into the ribs across the way, the spear flying from his grip.

The shockwave hit the herd like an invisible hand sweeping across the sand, rolling the animals over. It stirred a dust cloud in its wake, the sand in the air seeming to fight a war with the smoke above.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and crouched down low.

All around him, he heard a spitting sound. Curiosity got the better of him, and he cracked his eyes enough to see the desert rippling where super-hot rocks were landing. They were volcano bombs, and where they touched the sand, green rings of glass spread out.

They would have been beautiful if they weren’t so deadly. If one hit Sam, he was finished. The super-hot rock would go through him like an oversized bullet.

He lay still, listening, waiting, feeling like a man in a deadly dunking booth, hoping one of the bombs wouldn’t land on his back.

Behind him, he heard a screech and something stirred in the sand. He turned. Just beyond the skeleton he was hiding in, a seelo was struggling to get to its feet. It had been trampled by the herd but only maimed. A deep gash ran down its left hind leg.

It took a step forward on shaky legs, then another, more steadily.

It stopped and shook its head as if trying to clear it. Slowly, it turned until its eyes fixed on Sam. He exhaled as the beast opened its mouth and charged at him.





THIRTY-EIGHT


I? n the basement of Hiro’s home in Las Vegas, Adeline said to Elliott, “I want to hear what Daniele is lying about, but first, I want you to tell me what you’re doing in Death Valley—what you’re digging up out there.”

For a long moment, both Elliott and Hiro were silent.

Finally, Elliott said, “What has Daniele told you about Absolom Two?”

“Vague generalities that only create more questions. I believe you know that routine.”

“Here’s a straight answer, Adeline: Absolom Two allows us to transport matter back to any timeline we want. Including our own. But there’s a problem.”

“Which is?”

“We’re still not able to send things to exact times. Or locations. My breakthrough was figuring out how to target Absolom to specific universes—but they have to be universes created from our own.”

“Why?”

“Entanglement. It’s the only bridge between the universes, otherwise they’re completely separate. We’d have no way to even know they existed. In my experiments, I used entanglement like a tracking beacon, as a string pulled between the separate timelines, a string we could use to guide something else to that universe. All I needed was matter that was already entangled with the target universe to tag the payload. That breakthrough is what I showed the other Absolom scientists the night Nora was killed.”