Sam scanned the rest of the body but didn’t see any other pins. He slipped the ones he had found in his pocket and trekked into the woods, toward the pond and stream he had seen before.
The going was slower today. The woods were a thick mess of fallen trees and limbs. He really needed a machete. Among other things.
At the stream, he set up a basic camp, with stones in a circle and a fire crackling in the midday sun, which he lit with the torch.
Under the blazing sun, Sam stood in the stream with the spear and jabbed and cursed and came up empty until he remembered a scene from one of his favorite novels, Hatchet. Like Sam, the young protagonist in the book is all alone, trying to survive in the wild. His first attempts at fishing are unsuccessful until he starts accounting for the refraction of light underwater. With that adjustment, the hero from Hatchet, Brian, is able to catch fish and feed himself.
Sam knew he should have accounted for that on the first visit to the stream. But he wasn’t exactly in top shape then. Days of hunger and thirst have a way of dulling in the mind. Even for scientists.
Sam slipped the end of the spear into the water and waited. Soon, he jabbed the stick down and jerked it out of the water, a fish flopping on the end.
Finally, a real meal. With the protein from the fish, he could get back on his feet. Maybe even figure out what was going on here.
Whoever thought books didn’t save lives was so very wrong.
On the riverbank, under the afternoon sun, Sam cleaned the fish and grilled it and ate every last morsel. It was the best meal he had eaten in ages.
The satisfaction brought by the earthworms had been a fullness of necessity, a sort of carnal relief that his life had been extended. The grilled wild-caught fish was absolutely luxurious, the taste and contentment lingering as he used a fishbone to pick the pieces out of his teeth and swallow them down.
Shelter was the next task, but that was as far as Sam got with the thought.
Across the pond, thunder rose, a slow rumbling. But the sky was clear.
Sam took the bone torch from the fire and walked to the stream edge. The treetops swayed. But there was no wind.
What’s happening here?
The river filled with fish. They were swimming to the sea.
The forest burst then, dinosaurs and large reptiles charging forth, a Triassic stampede barreling toward him.
Not toward him—away from something. Whatever it was, Sam couldn’t see it. And he didn’t want to. If they were running from it, that thing could hurt him too.
Sam didn’t bother to pick up his spear. Or extinguish the fire.
He turned and ran.
THIRTY-FOUR
For a few weeks, life fell into a routine for Adeline. She rode with Ryan to school—until he told her he was fine (“really, I’m fine, seriously, quit hovering over me like I’m a hurt animal or something”).
Each morning, she went to work at Absolom Sciences and soaked it all in. She was fascinated by the Absolom machine.
She sat in on the seminars for the new scientists joining the company. There were a lot new terms, which she had to look up. And concepts that online definitions couldn’t convey in a few seconds. She didn’t understand it all, but like a mountain she was climbing, each step she took got her closer to seeing the whole picture.
Every day, the ground she had covered before built on itself, and the task ahead seemed smaller. Eventually, she developed a basic understanding of how Absolom operated and the history of how it had come into being. Unlike the others in the auditorium, she knew the behind-the-scenes details her father had shared with her, the history only the Absolom Six knew.
But Absolom wasn’t what she really wanted to learn about. It was the next version of the machine that would change the world. Absolom Two. On that subject, information was nonexistent. She searched the company intranet. It was never mentioned by anyone working at the company, and she never asked. She sensed that would be a mistake.
Absolom Two wasn’t the only mystery haunting her. Each day, she checked the BuddyLoc app and watched Hiro’s movements. Every morning, he drove out to Death Valley and stayed until early afternoon. Daniele was with him, or so Adeline assumed. She wasn’t at work. And the two times Adeline had ventured out to the desert to spy on him, she had seen Daniele there. It seemed that it was the four of them—the remaining Absolom founders—digging in the desert and refilling the holes.
But what were they looking for?
Almost every night, Hiro left the dig site and drove directly to the modest home in Las Vegas. Was he taking what they had found there? That seemed a reasonable assumption to Adeline.
And then there was the room in Constance’s home, with the photos from the past, of people and their locations, spread across the wall like a murder board.
Elliott’s home had a similar room, in the basement, where videos of the night of Charlie’s death played on repeat and photos of that evening hung on the wall.
Were the two connected?
What did it all mean?
Adeline sensed that there was a piece that would tie it all together. Her gut told her that Absolom Two was that piece. And that Daniele was the only person who would give her answers. Getting those answers would be tricky.
She was sitting in the library of Daniele’s home, contemplating what move to make, when the older woman stuck her head in. “I’m home.”
Adeline beckoned for her to enter.
Daniele eyed the finance books on the table. “You’re making progress.”
“I am.”
“Riveting, isn’t it?”
“Mind-numbingly boring.”
“True. And that’s why I appreciate you sticking with it.”
Adeline eyed the dirt and sand on Daniele’s clothes. She sensed this was her opening, the right time to ask the questions burning inside of her. She made a decision then: to lead with the truth.
“I saw you in Death Valley. Digging. I used the app to find Hiro, and I saw him there operating the excavator. I saw all of you there.”
“I know.”
“At first, I thought you might be looking for Dad’s bones.”
“He’s not even in our universe.”
“I remembered that shortly after I thought it. My guess is you’re working on Absolom Two.”
Daniele smiled. “No comment.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask.”
“Can we use Absolom Two and prevent Nora’s murder? Can we prevent Dad from ever being sent back?”
Daniele reached behind her and slid the pocket door closed. Her voice was hard and serious when she spoke. “No. The past cannot be changed. It must not be changed. For all of our sakes.”
“Why?”
“The past is the causal sequence of events that created our present.”
“Okay. Can you be more vague? What does that actually mean? Why can’t we just go back, stop Nora’s killer, and be done with it?”
“There are several problems with that.”
“Which are?”
“First of all, what you’re talking about is not possible with the current technology.”
“With Absolom One?”
“Correct.”
“But it is with Absolom Two.”
“No comment.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Take it however you like. What you should be focused on are the other problems.”
“What sort of problems?”
“The second problem is what I mentioned before: the present moment that you and I are experiencing now is the eventuality of a series of causal events. Those events, those thin slices of time, all stack on top of each other like building blocks with no end and no beginning. And if you modify one of the blocks we’re standing on right now, do you know what happens?”
“We all fall down?”