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.”