In the padded cell, one of the wall panels lifted slightly, revealing a Styrofoam tray with dinner.
Sam took it, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat.
The woman’s voice over the speaker asked if he wanted to watch a movie or TV or read a book or listen to an audiobook.
Sam didn’t.
He wanted to think. It was the only thing that might save his life. And his family.
The lights dimmed soon, and Sam lay there on the mattress, staring up at the padded ceiling, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening.
Sleep wouldn’t come. But at some point in the night, bad thoughts did. Thoughts of blaming himself. And others. And even worse than that: what-ifs.
With his last bit of strength, he forced those thoughts from his mind and tried to hold his mind still, to think about nothing at all. Somewhere in that void, sleep found him.
*
He didn’t know how long he had slept, but Sam sensed that it hadn’t been much time. When he opened his eyes, the lights were bright, and the woman’s gentle voice over the speaker was calling to him again.
“Dr. Anderson, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” he croaked.
One of the wall panels opened, like a door swinging in, revealing a shower stall, a toilet, and a sink. There was a change of clothes waiting atop a foam cube next to the sink.
Sam tried to force himself to eat breakfast, but he didn’t get very far.
“You should eat,” the gentle voice said over the speaker. “Food may be harder to find on the other side.”
The other side. So that’s what they called the world waiting beyond Absolom. It sounded so benign when you put it that way.
Regardless of the syntax, the reminder motivated Sam to finish the tray.
When it was gone, another padded wall panel swung in, revealing a small desk and a soft stool built into the floor. The wall ahead was glass, and there was an empty visiting room on the other side.
“Are you ready for your first visitor?” the voice asked.
Sam thought, no, but said, “Yes.”
*
Elliott was the first to arrive. His eyes were bloodshot. He hadn’t shaved, and he fidgeted in the chair.
He asked the question Sam expected: “Why?” And Sam gave him the only answer he had: “Because I had to.”
They argued after that, and when it was clear Sam wasn’t going to recant his confession, Elliott screamed at him, a string of curses and accusations that cut deep into Sam and lingered long after his old friend had stormed out of the visiting room, slamming the door behind him.
Sam hoped those wouldn’t be the last words Elliott said to him—for Elliott’s sake. He knew the man would feel guilty about it. At some point.
Constance was next. She looked even more fragile than she had the day before—in body and mind. Her bottom lip quivered, and her eyes gushed tears. Her voice shook so much Sam could barely make out the words.
“Why, Sam? Help me understand why you’re doing this. Please.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Hiro arrived shortly after Constance had left. His face was a mask and his words were to the point.
“How can I help?”
“There’s nothing to be done now.”
“It would be a shame if Absolom experienced a technical difficulty. It’s a very complex device. A routine check could reveal potential malfunctions. Our clients require our technical sign-off before operating it.”
“Don’t do that.”
“It would buy us time.”
“Not enough time, Hiro.”
*
After lunch, Daniele arrived. Her face was pale, and dark bags loomed under her eyes.
“You’ve been up all night,” Sam said.
“Look who’s talking.”
“Why?”
Daniele took out a printed page with a timeline and percentage numbers next to the date ranges.
“You’ve plotted my destination date.”
“Probable destination date,” Daniele said. “You of all people know that we’re uncertain of the exact date Absolom convicts arrive at, but we can make a good guess based on your mass and volume.”
“How does that help me?”
“Get your head in the game, Sam. This is a survival exercise now. Don’t just blindly march through this. You need to be studying survival techniques while you’re waiting for departure—and those strategies will vary based on the destination environment.”
“Okay. Where do you think I’ll end up?”
Daniele placed the page against the glass. “My best guess is that you’ll arrive in the Late Triassic period, about 202 million years ago.” She took the page away from the glass. “Which is sort of bad news.”
Sam frowned. “Why is that bad news?”
“Well, where to start… I guess with the dinosaurs.”
“Are we talking fast dinosaurs or slow dinosaurs?”
“Both—and probably a lot of other animals that are just as dangerous.”
“Wonderful.”
“At the end of the Triassic period, all the continents were still part of a single landmass.”
“Pangea.”
“That’s right.”
“Interesting,” Sam said, glancing away. The fatigue was catching up with him. So was the stress. And the realization that he was about to be ripped away from this reality, his family, and everything he had ever known. How long would he last—
“Focus, Sam.” Daniele leaned in. “We’re running out of time.”
“Okay. Okay.” Sam rubbed his face. “You know, you’re as insistent as Adeline.”
“I know. Now can we continue?”
“Sure.”
“The Triassic period lasted about fifty million years. This is the period when dinosaurs first evolved. Because there was only a single landmass on Earth, scientists think the variation in plant and animal life was low—relative to other periods.”
Daniele flipped the page and scanned her notes. “The climate was hot and dry. We think most of Pangea was covered with large deserts. There were no polar ice caps back then. But what concerns me are the major events at the end of the Triassic.”
“Such as?”
“Researchers believe that the Triassic ended in a series of massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and the separation of Pangea, which formed the North Atlantic Ocean.”
Sam had assumed hunger and predators would be his biggest threats.
“If you arrive during that period, Sam, I think your chances of survival are extremely low. We know there was a mass extinction at the end of the Triassic, though the cause isn’t clear. It could have been the ecological disruption or maybe a pathogen of some sort. Scientists estimate that the end-Triassic extinction event—or the Triassic–Jurassic extinction, as it’s sometimes called—saw the permanent end of over seventy-five percent of all species on Earth. One in five taxonomic families ended in the Triassic. Of the five major extinction events in history, only the one at the end of the Permian was worse. The massive change is what allowed the dinosaurs to become the dominant species on Earth.”
“This just keeps getting better.”
“It would be ideal if you arrive before the transition from the Triassic to the Jurassic period. Or later in the Jurassic period. The years between the two saw Pangea split into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south. Based on fossil records, we know there were land bridges between the two. And we know the global temperature fell, though it was still far warmer in the Jurassic than it is today—there was more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back then. The deserts turned to jungles, and rainfall increased because of the seas between the landmasses.”
Sam shook his head. In a way, it was a fitting end for him. He felt as though his world before being arrested was like Pangea: one solid mass, not perfect, but holding together. The events of the past few days had shaken him like the earthquakes and volcanoes and mass extinctions of the past. And like Pangea, he felt his life was separating forever. He would soon be separated from his family and the only world he had ever known.
“Seriously, Dani. How long do you think I’ll last out there?”
“You’re going to last as long as you have to, Sam. You’re going to do it because you have to. Because you have two children who are going to be waiting for you to return.”
Sam laughed, a frustrated, hopeless laugh that made him feel even worse. “Return how?”
“You let me work on that.” Daniele held up another piece of paper with a list of three things. “This is what you need to focus on.”
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Your homework. A book on basic survival, one on desert survival, and one on jungle survival—just in case you arrive in the Jurassic instead of the Triassic. And about that: you need to keep your weight up. If you lose more weight, it will decrease your time distance—you’ll arrive sooner, likely in the Jurassic. More dinosaurs, more rain, probably more disease, and more likelihood of landing in that mass extinction event during the transition between periods. There’s never been a better reason to clean your plate, Sam.”
*
That night, Adeline hugged her brother and found herself telling him that everything was going to be okay, though she wasn’t sure she believed it herself. She wondered if that act was a small glimpse of what being a parent was like.
She knew Daniele was at the Absolom departure facility, visiting her father. The woman had insisted that she see him before Adeline, that she had information to share that her father needed to prepare him for the past.
Adeline had raged at Daniele, screaming at her, but she had barely reacted. She stood there listening, saying nothing, like a massive redwood tree weathering a windstorm. Then, without another word, Daniele had marched out. Which made Adeline even more angry.
After talking with Ryan, Adeline sat at the desk in her bedroom, took out a notebook, and wrote a single line at the top:
Who killed Nora?
Then she crossed out the question mark and added two words.
Who killed Nora and Dad?
Because that’s exactly what they had done. Whoever had framed her father had killed him. Effectively. Soon, he would be put into a box, and he would never come back. That’s what Absolom was. A death chamber. One that simply absolved society from the guilt of executing the people it didn’t want around. Absolom was less messy. More ambiguous.
Adeline decided then that she hated it. She wished her father and his friends had never invented it.
Which brought her to the next order of business: suspects. There was no doubt in her mind who they were. She wrote their names in neat block letters.
ELLIOTT LUCAS
HIROSHI SATO
CONSTANCE NIVEN
Holding the pen above the page, she hesitated a moment, then pressed it in harder than before and wrote the final name.
DANIELE DANNEROS
She paused and stared at the name, a strange sensation coming over her. Daniele had told her about the note her father had found under the dining table in his holding cell. Adeline wondered if she had done that to deflect attention from herself—to make it look like she was helping her, like she was someone Adeline could trust.
Daniele’s voice behind her made Adeline nearly leap out of the seat. She slammed the notebook shut and spun.
“Don’t you knock?”
“I did knock.”
“But apparently you didn’t wait to barge in here.”
Daniele nodded to the notebook. “Working on something?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“On the contrary. What you’re working on is my only business now.”
Adeline swallowed, suddenly nervous as Daniele took a step closer and spoke again, her voice steady and calm.
“You’re making a list of the people who might have killed Nora and framed your father.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“True. Nor do I want to. I’m going to help you, Adeline. We’re going to figure it out. Together. And we’re going to get him back.”
Daniele turned and strode out, pausing at the doorway. “But right now, we’re going to have dinner. And we’re going to be civil.”