Lost in Time(68)

Adeline closed her eyes and rubbed her eyelids. She really had to get control of her imagination. The engraving was probably a serial number of some kind.

“I’ll give you ten,” the man said. “But only with ID.”

*

It turned out, all the reputable jewelers around Stanford University wanted to see a government ID before purchasing ten-thousand-dollar diamond earrings. Adeline knew that because she had been to all of them.

She was walking down Alma Street contemplating going to a non-reputable jeweler when the skies opened, and rain poured down. She was so lost in her thoughts she barely felt herself getting drenched.

Would the pawnshop or shady jeweler simply rob her? They’d certainly lowball her. And there weren’t any pawn shops in walking distance—that she knew of in her time. Maybe not here in 2008 either. Assuming she found one, maybe they’d pay and have someone jump her outside, in an alley or at the bus stop, taking the money back.

She had to get her hands on an ID. That was the long and short of it. But how? In her mind’s eye, she saw herself walking by the windows of bars, peering in until she found someone who looked like her. She would go inside and hop on the stool beside the girl, waiting for her to go to the bathroom, and then slip her hand inside a backpack or purse and snatch the ID and make a run for it.

That would never work. She’d probably get caught red-handed. The bartender would likely stop her. Or another patron. She was becoming a liar, but she wasn’t a pickpocket yet. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

And besides, how many people would be out drinking in the afternoon? And even if they were, the odds of finding someone who looked like her were remote. She had to play the odds now. Time was running out.

What did that leave?

The dorms.

She would stalk the dorms on campus. Somebody’s room would be open. She’d slip inside and find an ID lying on a desk, waiting for her.

Or the library. Yes, that was an even better idea. Find someone who looked like her, sitting at a study carrel or long table and plop down beside them with a stack of magazines, wait until they went to the bathroom, and grab their ID.

Adeline was a little shocked at herself—that her mind could adapt to crime and deception so easily.

But this was survival. She was alone in a strange land with no one to call, no help, and no money. If she let herself think about it, it was terrifying. But she wasn’t going to think about it. She was going to focus on the task in front of her and do it—

“Dear, are you okay?”

Adeline looked up to find an older woman with a large umbrella and a small white dog pulling at the end of a pink leash. With the hand holding the umbrella, she pointed to Adeline’s chest.

“Are you… bleeding?”

Adeline looked down and saw black and red splotches spreading out on her white dress, just above her left breast. She reached a hand up and felt a plastic sleeve there, the one that held her intern badge from Absolom Sciences. It hung from the lanyard, which was Absolom blue but had no words on it. Adeline had planned to shred the plastic ID when she got the chance. She certainly couldn’t take it out here. Absolom Sciences didn’t exist yet.

Adeline shrugged. “I’m fine. Just a cheap ink pen.”

The woman nodded slowly, taking in Adeline’s drenched form and soaking hair. “Do you need some help?”

“I’m okay. Thanks.”

Adeline marched away, turned onto Hamilton Avenue, and sought refuge under a wide red umbrella outside a café. When she was sure no one was watching, she reached inside her dress, pulled out the plastic cardholder, and removed the Absolom ID.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The letters were washing away. But Adeline’s picture remained.

Where the card had said Absolom Sciences at the top, it now read CALIFORNIA DRIVER LICENSE.

At the bottom of the license, the sex, hair, eyes, height, and weight were an exact match for her.

But under the expiration date, her name was wrong. She expected to see:

Anderson

Adeline G.

Instead, she saw the same letters that were in her name. But they were arranged in a different order. When she read them, she began to shake.

Danneros

Daniele P.





FORTY-SIX


Adeline stared at the driver’s license.

Her license.

Daniele’s license.

Her license.

It was the link between the two halves of her life: the half she’d already lived and the half she had yet to live. Both periods took place over the same stretch of nineteen years.

Because she was Daniele.

It was enough to break her mind.

Her stomach broke first.

She scrambled to the flower bed by the café’s door, bent over, and emptied the meal Daniele had served her at home—the last meal she had served herself, the night she had given her the earrings, knowing she would need them, the night she had put her in Absolom and sent her back to do the things she knew had already happened.

Daniele’s words echoed through her mind like a bowling ball through a china shop, shattering her: The past cannot be changed. It must occur as it did.

If that was true, was she destined to kill Nora? Adeline decided then and there that she wouldn’t do it. No matter what secrets were lurking here in the past, she wouldn’t let it change her. She wouldn’t become a killer. Not even if causality required it. The thin stacks of reality and events that needed to occur could break for all she cared. She wasn’t going to become a monster for the sake of the universe. It could all end, because becoming a murderer would end her. If that was being selfish, then she was selfish.