In the desert, a city called Absolom rose. In Palo Alto, two people who would change that city forever were laid to rest. And in the Pacific, an island was slowly transformed into a paradise, waiting for the future.
*
At her home in Palo Alto, Adeline woke to the sound of buzzing from her bedside table. She reached over and read the text message on her phone’s lock screen. It was from her father:
Elliott may have told you, but Charlie passed away last night.
The three dots indicating that he was typing pulsed. Then:
I’m going over there.
Adeline typed a reply:
I’m so sorry to hear it. I’ll stay at your house with Sarah.
The reply came a second later.
Thanks.
*
At her childhood home, Adeline didn’t knock. She didn’t want to disturb her mother in case she was sleeping (and she was likely to be sleeping).
The door was unlocked. For the second time in twenty-four hours, she let herself in to a home where tragedy was about to strike.
The living room was empty. Her younger counterpart and brother, Ryan, were both at school. She heard a whispered conversation from the hallway.
She waited in the foyer, knowing she should walk back outside. Or to the sewing room. Instead, curiosity compelled her like a strong wind to the cased opening outside the hall, just beyond the door to the master bedroom, where her mother was speaking in slow, labored breaths.
“Just listen, Sam. When I’m gone—”
“Sarah—”
He stopped talking. Adeline thought that her mother must have held a hand up.
“When I’m gone, when you’re able, I want you to move on. Time heals all wounds. But it won’t work if you don’t give time a chance. Will you do that?”
Adeline heard his muffled voice but couldn’t make out the words. He was crying, she thought.
But her mother’s voice was clear. “It would make me so sad if I’m what keeps you from being happy.”
*
They buried Charlie on an overcast Saturday morning. Afterward, the world seemed to stand still. Adeline knew that she was simply waiting for her mother to pass. She could hardly think about anything else. Life, in a strange twist of fate, had given her this gift, this chance to relive her time with her mother.
There wouldn’t be a third time around. This was it, the last days and hours she would have with her mother. Adeline clung to them, but the force of nature that was time pried them away.
The day before her mother closed her eyes forever, Adeline finished the third and final photomosaic quilt. In the sewing room, she held it up for her mother to see.
She smiled and nodded, as if she was seeing something more than the quilt, as if she saw the missing piece in the photos or possibly the sum of them, a life complete. That thought gave Adeline some comfort.
She sat beside her mother for the rest of the evening, listening to classical music. When she left, she looked her in the eye and did what she always wished she could have back then: she said goodbye.
*
In her youth, her mother’s memorial service had gone by like a dream, some surreal happening that didn’t seem real. Now, Adeline drank in every detail. The way the funeral home smelled. The feeling of dampness on the grass in the cemetery. The birds calling out in the quiet afternoon. The weight of her father’s arms around her. Of Nora hugging her, and Constance, and Hiro, and Elliott.
In a way, they were all broken now.
And strangely, they were about to heal the world.
*
In the weeks and months that followed, Elliott withdrew. His replies to personal texts and emails took days, sometimes weeks. He blamed himself for Charlie’s death. There was nothing anyone could say or do to change that.
Sam wasn’t much better.
With the ending of pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions, Constance redoubled her efforts to find those in her past. Perhaps the loss of two people in her life had reminded her of how precious time was.
Hiro slipped deeper into his addiction. Adeline didn’t know if it was because work had virtually ended or because of the loss of his immediate social circle, but he became borderline obsessed. His late-night calls were more frequent. The debts were larger.
Adeline tried to keep him solvent.
She soon found herself with a new challenge—in a different kind of environment: government bureaucracy. Adeline had never really had to sell anything before. She soon learned that the sales process wasn’t something that came naturally to her. As a venture capitalist, she had been literally handing out millions of dollars. Even in competitive funding rounds, there was typically very little arm-twisting, assuming the fund had a good track record (and hers did). The closest she had come to selling anyone on something was negotiating valuations and deal terms, but she had to admit, she typically left money on the table (which didn’t matter much in the long run if you were investing in a good company).
Selling a technology like Absolom to the United States government was a completely new challenge for her. It was complex and frustrating. She felt like a fish out of water. It total, she spent six months spinning her wheels. Perhaps the only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that this had already occurred, so it must be possible.
It turned out, there was an easy way to get the government to do what you wanted (within the bounds of reason): hiring a lobbying firm.
She did, and the first sale happened soon after.
Absolom was licensed by the United States, and the lobbying firm made sure the announcement was front-page news (and that they were mentioned as representing Absolom Sciences). There would need to be testing, but the promise of it shocked the world.
Adeline didn’t need the lobbying firm for the next sales. Governments around the world came to her after the news broke. They wanted Absolom, and they were willing to pay for it.
The initial licensing payments and funding for animal testing brought billions into Absolom Sciences. They moved operations to Absolom City and began testing the machine.
That seemed to help Hiro, but Elliott and Sam remained detached, alive but not truly living. Sam had moved his wife’s grave to Absolom City, and Elliott had done the same for his son, but even that didn’t seem to help them. Adeline’s heart ached every time she saw the two men.
While Constance had been vehemently against using Absolom on prisoners, she surprised Adeline by working night and day to make sure the machine was safe for humans.
Adeline’s once close relationship with Nora faded for reasons she couldn’t quite grasp. Nora was different. Maybe it had been the move from Palo Alto to Absolom City or perhaps she regretted the decision they had made about Absolom, or maybe it was simply the way it was, that the friendship had run its course, that time and distance had taken its toll on their bond.
Adeline had to admit: she was different too. She was now the chair and CEO of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, one that was written about endlessly in the press. She was in the public eye, relentlessly scrutinized.
She had never felt so alone. Even in the past, when she had landed on that grassy patch in the middle of Lomita Mall, she hadn’t felt this isolated. It was a strange kind of isolation. With her wealth and access to power, she could have almost anything she wanted. Yet nothing made her happy.
She was, in a sense, trapped in time, waiting for the seminal event that would turn her world upside down again: Nora’s death.
She was determined to right the wrong of that night—to discover who had killed Nora and clear her father’s name. As such, she began making preparations. She placed cameras throughout Absolom City. And in Nora’s home and in the homes of the other Absolom scientists. Those cameras would reveal for certain what happened that night. After nineteen long years, she would soon know the truth. Before that, she might even glimpse a clue as to who would commit the act that had ripped her life apart, setting her on a course to her past.
Watching the video feeds became almost an obsession for Adeline, much like gambling was for Hiro, and sorrow was for Sam and Elliott.
At the back of her mind was the unrelenting fear that none of the Absolom scientists would turn out to be the killer, that the person she was looking for was the person she saw in the mirror—that she was destined to kill Nora for some reason she didn’t yet understand.
*
One morning, Elliott and Hiro came to Adeline’s office at the Absolom Sciences building.
They weren’t on the schedule, but she knew what they were there for. She had been watching the cameras hidden in their offices and homes.
“Our part of the Absolom trials is done,” Elliott said.
“I’m aware,” Adeline replied, leaning back in her chair.
“We’d like to work on a passion project.”
“What kind of passion project?” Adeline needed to sound convincing—as if she truly didn’t know what they were destined to work on.
“The kind that requires some resources.”
“Such as?”
“Two of the Absolom prototypes. Some capital. Probably a lot. Some privacy. We’ll also need a few excavation drones and a permit to do some digging in Death Valley to verify our experiments.”
“Experiments on what? Absolom?”
“Correct.”
“Have you told the others?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I know it’s been a while, but I feel that Sam is still grieving. He needs space.”
“I feel like the same could be said for you, Elliott.”
“True. But I’ve decided to stop grieving. I’m going to start working again.”
Adeline stared at him. “I take it you’re not going to include Nora and Constance in these experiments?”
“Constance…” Elliott began and stopped, seeming to consider his words a moment. “Constance is unlikely to be interested in our particular project. Same for Nora.”
“And what about me?”
“We just assumed you have your hands full with running the company.”
Adeline stared at the two men. Elliott cleared his throat. “Look, we both—Hiro and I—need to work on something, and this is important to us. It would mean a lot. The project isn’t commercial. But, as I said, it’s important. To us.”
Adeline smiled. He had no idea how important it was. To everyone. To the past. The present. And the future.
She nodded, and with that, work on Absolom Two began.