“In a sense. Our best guess is that breaking the causality of our reality will make it cease to exist at the moment causality is ruptured. It’s like a black hole. We know that once matter crosses the event horizon, it cannot escape the pull of the singularity’s gravity. For a long time, scientists have theorized about what happens to that matter, but we don’t know exactly. What we do know is that nothing that crosses an event horizon will ever come back.”
Daniele paused. “What you’re talking about—modifying the past—is like crossing a temporal event horizon. What lies beyond is a temporal black hole from which nothing will return. Or ever exist. You. Cannot. Change the past. Do you understand?”
Adeline didn’t respond. The words were like a sledgehammer smashing her hopes.
“In fact,” Daniele said, “it’s possible that breaking causality may be the reason we’re alone in the universe.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think about it. If another sufficiently advanced species had evolved before us, they would have eventually developed an Absolom machine. And eventually, they would have developed a second version and used it on their past, disrupting the causality in their universe, hence ending that universe. Ergo, why it hasn’t yet happened in this universe and why we are alone—and the likely explanation for how our universe will end.”
Adeline’s head was spinning. Was Daniele just trying to overload her with technobabble so she would stop asking questions? It was sort of working. She inhaled, trying to focus.
“Do the others share this view? That the past can’t be changed?”
“It remains a subject of some debate among the four.”
“Who wants to change the past?”
“No comment.”
“Elliott? He wants to save Charlie, doesn’t he?”
“You know he does.”
“And Constance. She wants to change the past. What happened to her?”
“It’s her secret. It’s not what you think it is.”
“What’s Hiro’s secret? What’s in that house in Vegas?”
“Not what you think either.”
“You know what’s there?”
“I do.”
“Please,” Adeline said. “Tell me.”
“His secret is not mine to share.”
“Elliott wants Absolom Two to save his son. Constance is clearly obsessed with the past. And changing it. What’s Hiro hiding?”
“What’s happening here is complex, Adeline. Leave it to me. You’ve done enough. And you’ve endured a tragedy. The loss of a parent is an injury that takes time to heal. You’ve lost both of yours too soon.”
The last line set Adeline off. “I haven’t lost my father. Not yet. The fact that you would say that, frankly, infuriates me. It’s like you’ve written him off. Like you want him gone—for whatever plans you’re making.”
Adeline sucked in a breath and stared at Daniele. The woman was a statue. As if the barrage of insults hadn’t even registered.
So Adeline doubled down. “I thought he left Ryan and me to your custody so we could get him back together. Instead, you’ve buried me in finance books and cryptic non-answers.” Adeline cocked her head. “I think that’s what you would do if you really wanted him gone.”
Daniele smiled.
That enraged Adeline even more.
“You want answers?” Daniele asked, her voice quiet and firm.
“I think I deserve answers.”
“Here’s one. See if you can figure out what it means: if you can’t change the past without destroying the present, what does that tell you?”
Adeline, almost against her will, instantly saw what it meant. “That in order for our present reality to exist, the past must have happened as it did.”
The edges of Daniele’s lips curved up, the hint of a smile forming. “That’s correct.”
“So Nora has to die? And my dad has to be sentenced to Absolom?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s hopeless. I’ll never get Dad back. He’s two hundred million years in the past. And whatever happened back then has already happened. He was probably eaten by a dinosaur.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not in your nature.”
“What’s not?”
“Defeatism. People like you never give up, Adeline. They find a way. People like you made the world we live in. Now think hard. You’ve made one very important oversight.”
“Which is?”
“Think.”
Adeline saw it then: the one fact her rage had blinded her to. “Dad isn’t in our timeline.”
“Correct.”
“We can change the timeline he’s in all we want, and nothing will happen to us.”
“Correct.”
“That’s what you were talking about, wasn’t it? With Elliott, Constance, and Hiro? Sending something back to him.”
Daniele moved to the pocket door and slid it open. “I need to shower.”
“Hey, I’m talking to you.”
“No. You’re not. This conversation is over. Remember what I said: leave this to me, Adeline. It’s dangerous. And complicated. There are factors here you don’t appreciate.”
*
That night, Adeline was too tired to sleep. She tossed and turned in bed, and rage burned inside of her. She hated Daniele. And the world. And the Absolom founders, for not doing more to save her father.
Daniele had been right about one thing: Adeline wasn’t about to give up. Not in a million years.
She was going to fight.
She wanted answers.
She was going to get them. Even if it killed her.
Adeline opened the BuddyLoc app on her phone and searched for Hiro’s location, but it didn’t show up. He had disappeared. That was a first. What did it mean? Had he discovered the spyware? Or was his phone off or simply outside of cell reception?
One thing was certain: he wasn’t at the home in Las Vegas. That presented an opportunity, one Adeline wasn’t going to miss.
She threw off the photomosaic quilt of her family, rose from the bed, and got dressed. In her black V-neck T-shirt and faded blue jeans, she slipped out of her room and down the stairs. In the kitchen, she stood at the touch panel for the home automation system. The security system was armed. She typed the code to disable it and carefully left out the back door. She would be back before dawn and would arm it again, ensuring Daniele was none the wiser.
In the darkness of the night, she walked the few blocks to her home and retrieved her bike from the garage. She had left her phone in her bedroom at Daniele’s, but she retrieved her backpack with the burner phone and once again checked the BuddyLoc app. Hiro’s location still wasn’t registering.
On the bike, Adeline proceeded at slow speed through the streets of Absolom City, which were mostly deserted. On the highway to Las Vegas, she opened the bike up. It had a governor, but it still hummed in the night, the wind the only noise, hissing by her as she carved into the darkness.
She realized then that the feeling of movement was its own kind of progress. Moving from one place to another felt like an accomplishment. Was that hardwired into the human brain? A learned trait from thousands of years of tribes trekking across unknown land to find fields and forests with less competition?
Probably so.
On the horizon, the bright lights of Las Vegas loomed, an oasis in the night calling: we have answers, come to us, don’t let off the accelerator.
And she didn’t. Not until she reached the quiet neighborhood with the two- and three-car garages and stucco exteriors and red clay-tiled roofs.
Adeline parked the bike three doors down from Hiro’s house and hung her helmet on the handlebar. She checked the BuddyLoc app and still didn’t see Hiro’s phone on the map. She casually strode down the sidewalk, the streetlamps buzzing above her, glancing at Hiro’s house. It was dark inside, and the curtains were drawn. There was no car in the driveway.
In front of the home, Adeline bent over, studying the façade as she took a thin ziplock plastic bag from her pocket and reached down, into the grass, as if picking up dog poop her pet had dropped earlier during a walk. It was the best cover she could come up with on short notice (the bags had been in Daniele’s pantry).