“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.”
“Someone very special gave them to me. Someone who’s no longer in my life.”
Adeline’s counterpart set the box down beside her plate. “Sorry, I need to—”
Adeline rose. “Please try them on.”
Hastily, she attached them to her ears and forced a smile.
Adeline leaned forward, fingers interlocked. “They’re perfect.”
That’s how she would remember her younger self, in that moment, wearing the earrings that were the bridge between her past and this person’s future.
What came next was less pleasant.
Her counterpart excused herself, retreated to the half bath in the hall, where Adeline knew she was exchanging text messages with Elliott.
Adeline sent a message of her own—to the private security team.
Proceed with phase 1.
A reply came a few seconds later:
Commencing
Adeline didn’t like this part. But it was the path of least resistance.
Right now, the second security team was breaking into Elliott’s home. The city’s security cameras would capture it all, but it wouldn’t matter. The vans had old license plates taken from a junkyard. The team members were wearing balaclavas.
Adeline had verified that Elliott’s wife wouldn’t be home （she was in Europe）。 There was no chance she’d be harmed. But the police would respond. They would call Elliott, and he would have to leave the lab.