Adeline exited her room and padded quietly across the landing to the rail that looked over the staircase. She could hear Daniele clearly now. Her voice was raised.
“You’ll simply have to be late for dinner, senator.”
A pause. Daniele seemed even more frustrated when she resumed speaking.
“No. You listen to me. If we can’t perform these surgeries on the Absolom convicts, we’ll have to pause the program. What do you think will happen then? To crime? To law and order? Who will they blame, senator? It won’t be us. Because Absolom Sciences is going to issue a statement saying that above all else, we must ensure the safety of the program, and to do that, we need to tag these inmates before departure to ensure they don’t arrive in our universe. Because if they do, it could end everything. And when they ask why we can’t tag the prisoners, we’ll simply tell them that the Senate subcommittee with oversight never acted on our request.”
Another pause. Daniele laughed.
“I don’t make threats. I’m telling you what’s going to happen. You have forty-eight hours to amend the Absolom operating resolution. I want it passed by both houses and on the President’s desk by the time that inmate is prepped for surgery. If not, there will be no surgery and no departures until we can do so.”
Adeline heard a cabinet open, a bowl being placed on the marble countertop, and the freezer door open and close with a swoosh. Soon, the clink of a spoon on the glass bowl echoed up the stairwell. Daniele was eating ice cream, if Adeline had to guess.
As quietly as possible, Adeline returned to her room and lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Why did Daniele want to operate on the Absolom convicts? What would that accomplish? Was she trying to send them to her father’s timeline? If so, why? The people sentenced to Absolom—besides her father—were dangerous individuals. Killers. Mass murderers. Psychopaths. If one came into contact with her father—even if they were the last two people on Earth—what would happen?
The larger question was why Daniele would even want to send them there? There was only one rational explanation: to kill Adeline’s father.
THIRTY-THREE
Outside the cave, Sam crouched, a spear in his hand, waiting as the ground shook.
The earthquake came in waves. Every time Sam thought it was over, the ground rumbled again.
By morning, the world was quiet again, as though the disturbance had simply been night terrors. But the damage was real.
In the forest, the canopy was broken. Trees were felled as though a giant bowling ball had rolled through. Sam’s small cave was also wrecked, the entrance nearly covered in crumbled rock.
The world around him popped and creaked as fallen trees and branches surrendered to gravity.
Sam set about gathering his morning meal of earthworms, but in the forest he found the fern fronds dry, the rainwater from yesterday’s storm shaken to the ground. The dinosaur skull rain barrel had also capsized in the night.
One thing was abundant: wood. In short order, Sam had a fire going. Using a tooth from a seelo skeleton, he sharpened another spear, replacing the one that had impaled the crazy man （and was still buried inside him）。 Sam hadn’t mustered the courage to check on his body. He had bigger fish to fry. And frying fish was exactly the thing on his mind. The thought of it made his mouth water.
The man’s attack—and the Earthquake—had taught him how dangerous being trapped here was.
He needed to make a new camp, one by the stream, where he had access to fresh water at all times, and food, assuming he could learn to fish.
He needed to move. The thought of moving brought back a memory, of moving from San Francisco to Absolom City, of taking a risk, of moving on with his life.
In the memory, he stood in Nora’s office, staring at the posters on the wall: one of Einstein, his hair standing on end, the other with a UFO hanging in the air and the words I WANT TO BELIEVE printed in white across the trees under it.
“I hate moving,” Nora said.
“Same,” Sam replied.
Nora began chewing the end of a pen. “It’s Dave’s stuff. Even after all these years, I can’t bring myself to get rid of it.”
“I know what you mean. Sarah’s things are still in boxes. I tried to give some to her sister, but she didn’t want them. Sarah would want me to donate them to Goodwill or a women’s shelter, but I can’t bring myself to do it.”
“It feels like you’re getting rid of them, the memories too.”
Sam nodded. “Yes. It feels wrong. I keep telling myself Adeline will want those clothes—because her mother made some of them—but deep down…”