*
Adeline was sitting at the kitchen island when her younger counterpart returned from her visit with her father. She remembered what had been said, how suspicious she had been of Daniele back then.
“How was the visit?”
“Informative.”
Adeline cocked her head. “Do you know the biggest mistake people make?”
“Asking rhetorical questions?”
She smiled. “Making up their minds before they have all the facts. I hope you won’t make that mistake, Adeline.”
As her younger self walked up to her room, Adeline realized why she had done what she did all those years ago. She needed her counterpart to investigate Constance, Hiro, and Elliott to get close to them. Elliott would come to trust her, and for that reason, he would text her when Absolom Two was ready, urging her to keep Daniele away. She would take control of the machine at that moment and send her younger self to the past, to 2008, to start the cycle.
But what would she do after? Would she go back to that night at Nora’s house and kill her? The past had to occur as it had. Or else the universe would break. Someone had to go back and do it. Adeline’s greatest fear of all was that she was that person.
*
The next morning, Adeline visited the print shop inside the Absolom Sciences headquarters.
In the corner, a large-format printer was rolling off a banner for a retirement party for someone named Steven.
The plotter/cutter beside it was slicing up a roll of vinyl for truck decals.
The print shop manager, a man named Roger, who was in his sixties, was sitting on a stool at a raised table with a rubberized top, using an X-ACTO knife to touch up a directional sign that read Café.
At the sight of Adeline, he hopped off the stool and took his thick glasses off, letting them dangle from a cord.
“Miss Danneros. Wasn’t expecting you.”
“Hi, Roger.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m wondering if you’re able to print something on a small plastic surface.”
“Sure. Well, how small?”
“Say the size of a driver’s license?”
“Oh yeah. That’s no problem. Do you have a file?”
“I was wondering if you could show me how to do it. It’s for a personal project.”
He shrugged. “Of course.”
“And I know this might sound a little crazy, but I need an ink that washes off in water.”
“Believe me, we’ve seen crazier. I don’t have any of the disappearing ink right now, but I can order it. We’ve used it before.”
He must have read Adeline’s surprise. “Some guys down in IT wanted some a few years ago. For an April Fool’s prank, I think.” Roger smiled. “Planning something similar?”
“This is no prank. I guess you could say it’s for a birthday party.”
*
A week later, Adeline was placing the ID under the printer. She reviewed the layout of the Absolom Sciences intern badge, clicked print, and watched as the California driver’s license for Daniele Danneros was covered in the disappearing ink.
As she watched the present cover the past—and future—she couldn’t help but wonder about the nature of time itself, and causality, and specifically where the driver’s license had come from in the first place. She could ask the same question about the diamond earrings that would also travel to the past with her younger counterpart. The license and the earrings were like the universe itself: its past before it existed was a mystery. When and how had the two items been created? What form had they existed in before they came into the universe? In that answer was the true nature of time, and it was stranger than Adeline had ever imagined as a child.
SIXTY-SEVEN
Adeline put all of her efforts into preparing for the future. Her years of work on Absolom Island were coming to fruition. The roads were done. The automated bungalows and offices and facilities were ready. Yet, aside from the construction company staff, it stood empty, waiting for the moment when it was needed.
Adeline spent as much time as she could visiting her father, drilling him on survival techniques.
His own island loomed in the past. Pangea. There would be no automated paradise waiting for him there.
She watched the bitterness and suspicion grow inside her younger self.
Elliott and Hiro worked day and night on testing Absolom Two, ensuring it was safe for her father. It was hard to think either one of them had killed Nora and framed her father, given the effort they were seemingly putting into making it possible to bring him back.