But it was necessary.
Adeline went upstairs to prepare for the day, knowing her counterpart was hiding a burner phone with a listening app in her study.
After the shower, she found a text message waiting on her phone, a short note from Hana Kim, the CEO of Syntran, again requesting a meeting. She was even in town and willing to come to Adeline’s home. The woman was extremely persistent. It was the reason she had gotten to where she was.
Adeline sent a quick note back, letting her know that she could meet for a few minutes but had meetings all afternoon. She was meeting Hiro and Elliott out in the desert then, to search for more tuning bars.
She also knew that they would be sitting in Elliott’s office that morning, listening to the conversations in her study via the app on the burner phone Adeline’s younger self had hidden under a chair.
*
Constance came by shortly before lunch and informed Adeline that she was going to Germany to meet with a man from her past whom she believed might be infected.
Hana Kim arrived about an hour later, and Adeline could tell she was excited about something.
They sat in the study, speaking Korean, the CEO giving a wide-ranging update about the company. When she was done, she opened her laptop and pulled up a picture of a dead body.
“Did I ever tell you how my father died?”
“Yes. While waiting for a transplant.”
Hana nodded. “That’s true. He was waiting for a transplant. He was very sick at the time. He had gone to America, to New York City, for an experimental treatment. But he actually died in a plane crash. I was a year old at the time—on September first, 1983. His plane was en route from New York to Seoul, but it had stopped in Anchorage, Alaska, to refuel before continuing on the Pacific leg of the flight. At some point, the plane got off course and drifted into Soviet airspace. It was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor. About ten years later, we learned that the wreckage crashed into the Sea of Japan, but the details were kept secret back then. The downing of the Korean Airlines aircraft was one of the tensest moments of the Cold War. We knew my father was sick, but I thought I would see him again. His death was hard, but it was compounded by the fact that there was an empty casket at his funeral.”
Hana motioned to the laptop screen, at the body. “At Syntran, I believe we have an opportunity to right that wrong as well. And we can do it with our existing technology. In fact, we’ve already created several successful—”
Adeline held up a hand, stopping the woman from saying another word.
She stared at the screen, feeling her body go numb.
This was the answer. The piece she had been missing. If her theory was correct, it would solve everything. But not if the woman continued describing what she was working on.
“I’m afraid I need to cut our meeting short,” Adeline said.
Hana bunched her eyebrows. “This is a significant expansion in our product offering. It’s a small market size, but we think it’s a valuable market. We’re envisioning selling this to governments around the world. In instances where a government employee was lost in the line of duty—and a body can’t be recovered—this would allow that nation to provide the family with some closure. Same for large multinationals. I can also see a use case for Absolom. This would give the families a body to bury. That’s the other reason I wanted to meet with you, to see if you could facilitate an intro for me. The publicity would put it on the radar of—”
Adeline took a pad from the table and wrote the address of a roadside diner outside of town and a short message:
Meet me here in 30 minutes
Hana scrunched her face at the note.
“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” Adeline said. “But I’m afraid that’s all the time I have for now.”
*
Thirty minutes later, she was sitting in a booth at the back of the small restaurant, Hana across from her.
“What was that about?” Hana asked.
“The venture capital industry is getting very cut-throat. I’m concerned someone might have bugged my home.”
“Really?”
“It’s a crazy world out there. Now, about this new service, what would you need to create a body? And does Syntran place any identifying marks on the replicas? Like a serial number or something?”
*
That evening, Adeline sat on the back patio, an empty wine glass on the table, staring at the sun hovering over the mountains beyond the sea of glass.
She heard the door open, and her counterpart marched in.
“Tough day?” the younger woman asked, motioning to the wine glass.
“No. I’m celebrating.”
“Celebrating what?”
“A discovery. One that could change everything. A very unexpected discovery.”
“In the desert?”
“No. I knew what we would find in the desert. This… this I didn’t see coming.”
*
The next morning, Adeline started the process to exhume Nora’s body. There was some red tape. She needed approval from the cemetery as well as Nora’s next of kin—a cousin in Pennsylvania. Getting consent was easier than she had expected.
“As you know,” she said on a call to the cousin, “Nora worked for my company, on Absolom. We believe she may have been exposed to subatomic particles during a recent experiment. We need to test her body to see if others she worked with might be at risk.”
Two days later, she was standing in the morgue, staring at the body. She knew the private investigator Elliott had hired to follow her was on the other side of the glass, watching, making a video he would later send to Elliott, who would share it with the younger Adeline.
It didn’t matter. They weren’t seeing what she was seeing. She bent down and confirmed her suspicions.
Finally, it all made sense.
The missing piece was on that table.
The future wasn’t what Adeline had imagined.
SIXTY-NINE
Adeline dreaded what she had to do next. Well, she dreaded half of it. The part where she betrayed her younger self and sent her to the past.
The other part was a moment she had waited nineteen years for: what happened after. The future was waiting, and she had to take control of it if she was going to get her father back.
On that fateful day, the private security contractors arrived at her home in black SUVs with tinted windows, dressed in tailored suits that somewhat hid the sidearms in shoulder holsters.
A few hours later, the delivery from Syntran arrived.
Adeline’s younger counterpart got home about the time the box was being placed in the garage.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s for a trip I’ll be taking.”
“Trip where?”
“It’s none of your concern.”
The teenager glanced at the two black SUVs.
“I’ve hired some additional security,” Adeline said. “For the house. And the office.”
“Private security.”
“Yes. I needed people who only answer to me.”
*
At dinner that night, Adeline’s younger counterpart was on edge as she waited for Elliott’s message.
Adeline knew what that message would say—knew that it marked the point at which Absolom Two was finally precise enough to use.
Adeline felt her own nerves growing. The moment she had waited so long for was finally here. Everything had to happen precisely. There was no room for error—now in the present or in the past.
Adeline took the box of earrings from her pocket and slid them across the table. The glittering diamonds were the last reminder she had of Nathan. Soon, they would be this young woman’s lifeline in the past.
“I got you a small gift,” Adeline said.
Her counterpart took the box and quickly began removing the wrapper.
“What’s the occasion?”
“New beginnings. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot.”
When she opened the box, young Adeline glanced at the stones. “They’re beautiful.”