She was, in a sense, trapped in time, waiting for the seminal event that would turn her world upside down again: Nora’s death.
She was determined to right the wrong of that night—to discover who had killed Nora and clear her father’s name. As such, she began making preparations. She placed cameras throughout Absolom City. And in Nora’s home and in the homes of the other Absolom scientists. Those cameras would reveal for certain what happened that night. After nineteen long years, she would soon know the truth. Before that, she might even glimpse a clue as to who would commit the act that had ripped her life apart, setting her on a course to her past.
Watching the video feeds became almost an obsession for Adeline, much like gambling was for Hiro, and sorrow was for Sam and Elliott.
At the back of her mind was the unrelenting fear that none of the Absolom scientists would turn out to be the killer, that the person she was looking for was the person she saw in the mirror—that she was destined to kill Nora for some reason she didn’t yet understand.
*
One morning, Elliott and Hiro came to Adeline’s office at the Absolom Sciences building.
They weren’t on the schedule, but she knew what they were there for. She had been watching the cameras hidden in their offices and homes.
“Our part of the Absolom trials is done,” Elliott said.
“I’m aware,” Adeline replied, leaning back in her chair.
“We’d like to work on a passion project.”
“What kind of passion project?” Adeline needed to sound convincing—as if she truly didn’t know what they were destined to work on.
“The kind that requires some resources.”
“Such as?”
“Two of the Absolom prototypes. Some capital. Probably a lot. Some privacy. We’ll also need a few excavation drones and a permit to do some digging in Death Valley to verify our experiments.”
“Experiments on what? Absolom?”
“Correct.”
“Have you told the others?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I know it’s been a while, but I feel that Sam is still grieving. He needs space.”
“I feel like the same could be said for you, Elliott.”
“True. But I’ve decided to stop grieving. I’m going to start working again.”
Adeline stared at him. “I take it you’re not going to include Nora and Constance in these experiments?”
“Constance…” Elliott began and stopped, seeming to consider his words a moment. “Constance is unlikely to be interested in our particular project. Same for Nora.”
“And what about me?”
“We just assumed you have your hands full with running the company.”
Adeline stared at the two men. Elliott cleared his throat. “Look, we both—Hiro and I—need to work on something, and this is important to us. It would mean a lot. The project isn’t commercial. But, as I said, it’s important. To us.”
Adeline smiled. He had no idea how important it was. To everyone. To the past. The present. And the future.
She nodded, and with that, work on Absolom Two began.
SIXTY
As a child, Adeline’s vision of the world was that of something that changed gradually.
Like so many things in her life, her perspective was quite a bit different in adulthood. To her, the world seemed to change slowly for long stretches, then very rapidly, in great shocks that happened almost instantly. Nine-eleven. The global financial crisis. The COVID pandemic.
And then the shock she helped give the world: Absolom.
It wasn’t the announcement of Absolom that changed the world. It was when they saw its power.
That day was a Saturday in November. Adeline thought the government had selected a weekend for the first departure for several reasons. The most important was so that the world could watch. They told the press it was so the victims’ families could be present to witness the sentence carried out.
That morning, those families stood in the viewing booth, mothers and fathers and their children—at least, the children the man in the Absolom chamber hadn’t taken from them.
He stared at his victims’ families with hate-filled eyes. That fire vanished as the machine began to vibrate. Fear took its place. He opened his mouth and screamed, but no one could hear it. A flash filled the chamber, and he was gone.
So was the world before.
Overnight, crime rates plummeted.
Adeline had always heard the saying that the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. That’s what Absolom was to the world: a new devil.