Lost in Time(85)

Constance had been up late doing a video conference with someone from her past who lived in Australia. Adeline could tell from her countenance that the person had been sick, and that the experience was weighing on her.

Adeline looked up to find Nora staring at her across the metal table, a cup of coffee in her hand, a subtle grin on her lips. Adeline had to admit, last night had been the most fun she had had in a long, long time.

They weren’t the only two who were slightly hungover. Elliott was guzzling coffee as if the dark liquid could vanquish the fatigue and stress that grew every day.

“Sam’s late,” he said.

Adeline rose. “I’ll get him.”

She once again found the door to his office cracked, but he wasn’t sitting in the chair this time. He was standing at the window, staring out, in a daze, with no idea Adeline was there. In the reflection, she could see the tears creeping down his face.

“Sam.”

He jumped at the word as if a needle had pricked him.

He ran his forearm across his face, the sweater soaking up the tears.

“Has it started? I lost track of time.”

“You should go home.”

“No. We need to figure this out. If we don’t, we’ll lose everything we’ve worked for. All the money you put in.”

“Forget the work. And the money. Go home, Sam.”

He inhaled and shook his head. “I’m not leaving you all to figure this out alone—”

“I lied before, Sam.”

He squinted at her.

“I told you we were partners. We’re not. I’m still the majority owner of this company. I control it. At the end of the day, I call the shots here, and I’m telling you to go home.”

His chest heaved, but he didn’t move.

“Besides,” Adeline said, stepping out of the office, “I already figured out what we’re going to do with Absolom. We don’t need you right now. But somebody does.”

He barreled past her then, his eyes full of emotion, hurt from what she had said or because of what was waiting for him at home—of what was happening in slow motion, the knowledge that these moments would be his last with the love of his life.

At the stairwell, he looked back, and Adeline thought he understood because his eyes said thanks, but his mouth didn’t move.

When he was gone, she returned to the lab and the four waiting scientists, who sat silently at the table, all seeming to contemplate the things hanging heavy in their lives.

“Sam can’t make it.”

No one said a word. They knew why he couldn’t make it. Like any real friends, they felt some part of his grief.

“I have an idea,” Elliott said. “I’ve given it a lot of thought.”

All eyes turned to him.

“Nuclear fuel rods.”

No one said anything to his pronouncement.

“It’s quite simple,” Elliott said. “We offer a waste disposal service. Spent nuclear fuel rods are radioactively dangerous for about ten thousand years. We put the rods in Absolom, transport them to an alternate universe, and the world is rid of them.”

“Yes, but not the world they arrive in,” Constance said. “We can’t just dump our poison on another world because it helps us.”

“Of course we can,” Elliott said. “The world is full of people dumping their poison on others for profit.”

It didn’t take a leap of imagination for Adeline to see where Elliott was coming from. The poison he was talking about wasn’t nuclear. It was what Charlie was putting in his arm, the poison that had torn Elliott’s family apart.

She also knew what Constance was really thinking. The root of her aversion was in her own past. She had spent half her life cleaning up the wreckage of one reckless year abroad.

“Technically speaking,” Nora said, “we would be shipping them to a copy of our world—a world where humans are destined to evolve. That means, if the rods don’t go back far enough in time, the radiation could alter the biology of species pre-dating humanity, which could impact the advent of the human race. We could be causing an extinction event in a universe we created at the moment we used Absolom to send the rods back.”

Elliott shrugged. “Who cares? We created the split universe. It’s ours to destroy.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Constance said. “We should be mindful of our consequences. Even if it feels right now, we could regret it.”

“There’s another solution,” Adeline said. “Prisoners.” Adeline took a page from her pocket. “The latest stats I could find were from 2019, but that year, there were over two million Americans in either prison or jail. Including 2,570 people on death row. That’s down from a peak of 3,601 in 2000.”

Constance held a hand up. “Wait a second. What exactly are you proposing?”

Elliott set his coffee mug down. “She’s saying we do the same thing I was proposing with nuclear fuel rods on murderers and terrorists.”

Adeline held out her hands. “I’m simply saying that we license Absolom to justice departments to use as they see fit.”

Constance closed her eyes. “We’ve created a death machine.”

“On the contrary,” Elliott said. “Today, killers are put to death. With Absolom, they will be given life—under the sun, in the past, where they can live out their lives in the only peace this universe has to offer them.”