“And Daniele?”
“Dani was as insistent as Nora. Except she wanted the opposite. She wanted to continue Elliott’s work, and to finish it, regardless of the risks.”
SIXTEEN
That night, when Adeline returned to Daniele’s home, the older woman was sitting at the kitchen island waiting for her.
“How was the visit?”
“Informative.”
Daniele cocked her head. “Do you know the biggest mistake people make?”
“Asking rhetorical questions?”
Daniele smiled. “Making up their minds before they have all the facts. I hope you won’t make that mistake, Adeline.”
*
In the padded cell, Sam ate, exercised, slept, and read. Perhaps it was the absence of the sun or the brutal repetition of his life, but time seemed to slow down.
In that strange room out of time, visitors came daily, and they made confessions of their own, stories they knew they would never get another chance to tell.
Hiro confided in Sam that his father had been an alcoholic, and for that reason he had never taken a single drink in his life. He knew he had an addictive personality, and that it would ruin him sooner or later, and that alcohol would only hasten his fate.
Constance confessed that she had spent the years after college as a nomad, crashing on couches after raves and parties and hiking through Europe and generally living a hedonistic lifestyle that brought her immense ecstasy at the time but that she now deeply regretted.
One line of hers stuck in Sam’s mind long after she left: “I would do a lot of things differently… if that sort of thing were possible.”
Elliott apologized for his previous outburst, for the rage he had shown. He begged Sam to reconsider, to come to his senses. And then he cried for the coming loss of his friend.
Adeline and Ryan came in the mornings and the afternoons, and in the small room with the glass divider, the three of them clung to the last fleeting shreds of time they had left together.
They cried. They laughed. They talked. And they played games they could through the glass.
Daniele’s visits were a crash course in survival. She was constantly drilling Sam on the books she had found and planning for contingencies. The closer Sam’s departure date got, the more nervous he became. He felt like a man who was inching toward the gallows, the dread of his fate growing as his remaining time dwindled.
Finally, that day arrived.
Sam wasn’t sure what to expect. The protocol for an Absolom departure wasn’t public knowledge.
Sam willed himself to sleep that night, but he couldn’t. He tossed and turned and stared at the ceiling, his mind clinging to every waking second in this world where his children existed. He second-guessed himself. He blamed himself. And the world.
The wall opened with a pop, and Sam sat up and found a breakfast tray waiting in the alcove. He wasn’t hungry. But he knew he couldn’t afford to lose more weight.
He wolfed the meal down and stared at the place in the padded wall where the outer door was, expecting it to open and for the guards to come for him.
But the door didn’t open. It blurred. Everything was blurring. Moving slowly. His limbs felt heavy, mind groggy.
As darkness closed in, his last thought was, that was a smart way to do it.
*
When he woke, Sam was lying on the cold metal floor of the Absolom chamber. He could tell they had washed his body and his hair because there was absolutely no smell anymore—gone was the slightly minty fragrance of the shampoo he had used in the cell. That was a kindness, Sam thought. Less scent for predators to track. He wondered how long that might extend his life. Hours? Days?
They had changed him too—into warm clothes, with several layers. Another kindness. If it was indeed warm where he arrived—as Daniele thought it would be—he could always remove layers and use them for other things （a blanket, part of a shelter, or even tinder for a fire）。
Sam lifted his head from the floor. Through the glass door of the Absolom machine, he saw a viewing box directly across from him. It was slightly elevated from the room’s floor, with a wide glass window that revealed two rows of seats. Adeline, Ryan, and Daniele sat in the front row, staring at him, eyes bloodshot and full of tears. As Sam watched, Adeline stood and ran to the glass and slammed the side of her fist into it, pounding as her mouth moved.
But the sound didn’t reach Sam.
Daniele rose, placed her hands on Adeline’s shoulders, and guided her back to the seat.
In the row behind them, Elliott, Constance, and Hiro sat watching.
Sam stood—because he wanted to look brave for Adeline and Ryan. He didn’t want the last thing they saw to be him lying down, looking confused and scared. He tried to smile, but his lips were shaking too much.