“Like what?”
“I don’t know… some grand plan.”
“I don’t know about any grand plan, but I do know Absolom brought us together.” Sam reached up and ran his thumb across her cheek.
Nora froze, as if the touch had paralyzed her.
Sam thought she was going to reel back, but slowly, she turned her face into his hand. Her voice was soft and heavy with emotion when she spoke. “Sam, we shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not a whole person, Sam.”
“Neither am I. Maybe our halves make a whole. Maybe that’s the grand plan you can’t see.”
She smiled. “You have a career writing Valentine’s Day cards if Absolom ever goes under.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s still a bad idea.”
“Look how our last bad idea turned out. Crime almost eliminated. Billions in the bank.”
*
Across the sand, a pattering started, pitting the brown expanse all around Sam’s feet.
Rain.
The late afternoon storm had come like clockwork, and with it, the wind.
It took Sam a moment to realize how dangerous that was.
Like a curtain being jerked back, the thick cloud lifted from the desert and rolled deeper into the interior of Pangea. Within a few minutes, the smoke screen was gone, and Sam was standing in the open, as if he had been swimming naked and the tide had gone out. He hadn’t been the only one swimming across the sea of sand to the shore of the forest. Dozens of bipedal dinosaurs and reptiles were scattered across the desert, looking around, waiting for someone to make the first move. There were even more small quadrupeds, clumped together like schools of fish.
Sam took off, running for the trees as a Chindesaurus lunged for a nearby seelo, jaws open, tearing into it.
The carnage had started again.
FORTY-TWO
A deline rode the bike through the night, across the Nevada desert, back toward Daniele’s house. She had a decision to make: trust Elliott and Hiro. Or Daniele.
She sensed that her father’s life hung in the balance. Maybe much more. Maybe the fate of the past. And the future.
Soon Absolom City rose on the horizon. The solar panels of the sea of glass glittered in the moonlight like the event horizon of a black hole about to swallow her up.
By the time she reached her home and stowed the bike, Adeline had made her decision. She didn’t know if it was the right one, but she sensed there would be no turning back.
She walked the streets to Daniele’s home, slipped inside, and re-enabled the security system.
Adeline half expected Daniele to be sitting by the kitchen bar, a cup of coffee in her hands, a stern expression on her face as she whispered, “I know where you’ve been.”
But the home was quiet.
In her bedroom, Adeline took out the burner phone and sent a text to Elliott.
It’s Adeline. Count me in.
*
A text from Elliott was waiting for her that morning.
Good. Your dad would be proud.
Adeline typed a response.
What should I do?
Elliott replied a few seconds later.
Install this app.
Adeline clicked the link and installed an app called VoiceActivate. On the home screen, a collaboration request popped up from Elliott’s number. Adeline approved it, and another message from Elliott appeared.
Leave the app running. Hide the phone in Dani’s study. Make sure you plug it into the wall. Then get another phone and come to my office at work. We can talk here.
*
In the kitchen, Ryan was eating cereal. Daniele was sipping coffee as she read an e-ink paper. She didn’t look up.
“You were out late.”
“Seeing some friends.”
Daniele smiled. “My parents always said, ‘We don’t mind you being out at night. As long as you’re keeping the right company.’”
The words stopped Adeline cold. Daniele knew. She had to.
“Well,” Daniele said, setting the e-ink sheet down. “I told myself I wouldn’t lecture you. So I’ll stop. You’re an adult now. Capable of making your own decisions. And mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes are the best teachers.”
Ryan looked up from the bowl, his spoon hanging in the air. The awkwardness was evident even to him.
Daniele breezed past Adeline without making eye contact and made her way upstairs, to shower, Adeline assumed.
For a long moment, she stood there debating whether to follow through with the plan. Hiding the burner phone in the study would be proof-positive that she had betrayed Daniele, a land mine buried, waiting to go off.
She felt as though she was standing on the precipice now, unsure whether to take the next step or retreat.
Ryan was staring at her as he chewed his cereal. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You guys are acting weird.”
“It’s a weird time.”
Ryan muttered something, but Adeline didn’t hear it. She was already walking down the hall, off the precipice, toward the study, where she stowed the phone under a fabric-covered club chair. The bottom was open enough for sound to reach the device, but the phone was deep enough under there to avoid being seen, even if someone was looking. Reaching into the darkness was the only way to find it. And Adeline felt like that’s what she was doing now: reaching into the darkness.
She connected the power cord to the wall socket behind the flowing curtain and exited the room, hoping she had made the right decision.
*
An hour later, she was walking the halls of Absolom Sciences’ main research building, the Intern badge hanging around her neck, the new burner phone in her pocket.
In the reception area of Elliott’s office suite, his long-time assistant rose to greet Adeline. “Hello, dear.”
“Hi, Gloria. I’m here to meet with Elliott.”
She glanced at the computer screen. “Well, I’m sorry, but you’re not on the schedule, and this is a very busy—”
The office door opened, and Elliott leaned out. “It’s okay, Gloria. Adeline is always on the schedule.”
Inside the office, Hiro was sitting in a chair by the window. He rose and nodded to Adeline. His eyes were more kind than she was used to, as if they had a bond now. Adeline had wondered how him divulging his secret to her would change things between them. Would he feel shame at seeing her? It seemed the opposite was the case. The man before Adeline was more at ease, as though revealing his secret had lifted a burden, removed a barrier that had been between them.
Elliott took a chair opposite Hiro and motioned Adeline to another.
His phone lay on the coffee table, the VoiceActivate app opened. Daniele was speaking, but Adeline missed what she had said. To her surprise, Constance spoke next.
Hiro turned to the window as if looking for a way to escape what was being said. “This is private. We shouldn’t be listening.”
“It might be important,” Elliott said, holding out a hand to silence everyone.
“They’ve found another one,” Constance said. Her voice was faint, but the phone speaker was turned up enough to hear it.
“Where?” Daniele asked.
“In Germany. I’m leaving today to go meet with him.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Very.”
“You’ll do fine. Your body is weak, but your mind is strong.”
They made small talk then, but there was never any mention of Absolom or Adeline or her father or anything that might be of interest.
Silence followed for about fifteen minutes. Elliott took the break to order sandwiches for them.
Thirty minutes later, Hiro wiped a glob of mayonnaise off the corner of his mouth and said, “We’re supposed to meet in the valley in two hours. Maybe she’s done at home for the day.”
But as he said it, Daniele’s voice called out through the speaker. It was far off. Adeline estimated that Daniele was in the foyer. Another voice joined hers—a woman’s voice, but Adeline couldn’t make out what they were saying.
The voice drew closer—very close—as if one of them was sitting in the chair where the phone was hidden. Adeline realized then that they were not speaking English.