She should go back upstairs.
But she couldn’t.
Adeline padded forward on her bare feet, slowly, and held her ear to the door.
It was quiet.
She turned the door handle, pulled it open, and waited.
She couldn’t hear a thing.
She stepped out onto the first stair and listened, but the voices below were too faint to hear.
Holding her breath, she descended the stairs more slowly until she reached the landing, where it switched back. She couldn’t see the four Absolom scientists, but she could just make out their conversation.
Hiro was talking, his voice muffled. “Technically, it’s possible, but impractical.”
“Why?” Elliott asked.
“There’s no way to transport that much matter back without someone knowing—the power required would give us away.”
Elliott again: “But you can miniaturize it.”
“Yes, but not enough.”
“Then we’re stuck,” Elliott said. He sounded impatient now.
“I can break it into pieces,” Hiro said. “That’s the only real solution.”
Constance spoke next, voice soft. Adeline had to lean forward to hear her.
“If the pieces are small, Sam might not even find them.”
“We have to assume he will,” Elliott said.
“I still wish we had told him,” Constance said. “He doesn’t even know what to look for—or that he’s supposed to be looking for something.”
Elliott sounded frustrated. Or annoyed. “We’ve been over this. If they knew, we’d be shut down. He’s gone. It’s done.”
“Yes, but the point remains,” Constance said, her voice rising, quivering now. “How long will it take him to find the pieces? Months? Years? He may not last a week in the Triassic.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that,” Hiro said.
“But that’s my point,” Constance said. “We have to help him find it. Because if he doesn’t find it, we may as well write him off.”
The silence that followed felt awkward, even to Adeline, who couldn’t see their faces from the stairwell.
Daniele spoke next. She sounded closer than the others.
“Let’s go back to the experiments. They’re clearly the key to getting Sam back safely.”
“All right,” Constance said, some of the strength back in her voice. “How do we begin? Should we start digging in Death Valley to see if the items are there?”
Daniele spoke again, sounding even closer. She was moving. “We’ve been over this. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why?” Constance asked.
Adeline wondered if her sickness somehow affected her memory.
“The order is wrong,” Elliott said. “Remember? We need to plan the experiments first—because of causality.”
“I have an idea,” Daniele said. “About how we can send something to Sam in a way that he could find it.”
She was dangerously close now.
Adeline froze as Daniele stepped into view at the bottom of the stairwell. The older woman looked up at her and stared. Slowly, she tilted her head, silently telling her get out of here. Adeline’s heart thundered in her chest. She wondered if the others had caught on to the signal.
Footsteps echoed on the basement’s concrete floor.
Someone was coming over to Daniele.
Elliott spoke next. He was closer now. Moving. “What do you mean, Dani?”
Adeline turned on the landing and ascended the stairs, terrified that one of the wooden risers would creak, announcing her presence. But they didn’t. They were well made, and she thought that just might have saved her life.
She closed the door and let out the breath she had been holding. A few seconds later, she was back in her bedroom, exhaling heavily.
*
From her bedroom window, Adeline watched the three scientists depart. Her door opened a moment later, and Daniele stared at her.
“That was dangerous. And foolish.”
“What are you looking for in Death Valley?”
“Did you update Hiro’s phone?”
“I asked you a question.”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” Adeline muttered. “Now tell me—”
Daniele turned and gripped the door handle and pulled it open.
Adeline rose, rushed to it, and slammed the door shut. “Hey. I asked you a question.”
Daniele smiled. That surprised Adeline.
“Good for you. You need that for what’s coming.”
“Need what?”