It was a tuning bar that was discolored and pitted with age. But the serial number was still readable. It was the same number as the bar that had just been sent to the past.

  It was clear to everyone present what the bar meant: Hiro and Elliott, during their time in the lab and digging in the desert, had figured out how to make Absolom Two send payloads to our universe.

  Sam stared at the box. “Impossible.”

  “It’s real, Sam. After all these years, we’ve finally done it. What we always meant to. But it’s more than that—”

  Nora cut him off. “It’s Pandora’s box, is what it is.”

  Elliott shook his head. “What do you mean? This is the future. The biggest discovery in human history.”

  “No, Elliott, this could be the end of human history.”

  Elliott exhaled. “That’s absurd.”

  Nora pointed at the box. “Think about it. What if this is the reason for the Fermi Paradox? Why are we alone in the universe? What if this is the reason?”

  Sam glanced between the two of them. “I don’t follow.”

  “What if,” Nora said, hands held out, “every sufficiently advanced civilization ends shortly after this discovery? That’s what’s going to happen if we use this machine to send something to the past that doesn’t belong there. A causality failure. In an instant, our universe ceases to exist. Is the risk worth it? Of course not. We should destroy it. And never tell anyone it’s even possible.”

  “We’re not going to destroy it,” Elliott said. “And besides, we still have work to do.”

  “What work?” Adeline asked.

  “We have two issues,” Elliott replied. “Location and time. We’ve been working on it, but we can’t get the payloads to arrive exactly where and when we want.”

  “And power,” Hiro added. “Transmissions still require a massive amount of power. It’s not financially feasible for shipping.”

  To Adeline, Elliott said, “I take it you’re in favor of continuing development?”

  “I am.”

  “This is insane,” Sam said. “I agree with Nora—this is too dangerous to mess around with.”

  The dissent from a close friend seemed to put Elliott on the defense. He spoke slowly now, as if fighting to maintain his composure. “This is the key to the past—”

  “The past cannot be changed,” Nora said.

  “I accept that,” Elliott shot back. “The question is: have we already done it?”

  “How would we know?” Nora asked.

  “We could search historical photos,” Sam said. “For ourselves. And maybe other Absolom staff.”

  Adeline turned to him, and a thought occurred to her: she had only used Tesseract to search for herself. And she had found herself. What if the others had also traveled to the past?

  Nora locked eyes with Constance. “What do you think?”

  Constance glanced around at the others. “I share Sam and Nora’s reservations. This is dangerous. It’s already gone too far. We should end it here and now. Let’s destroy it before we leave tonight.”

  Elliott held his hands out and took a deep breath.

  “I know you’re all concerned. And perhaps a little in shock. Let’s take some time to consider—”

  Nora laughed. “Of the things we have, Elliott, time is clearly not one.”

  *

  Adeline drove straight home. Because that’s what she knew she had done. What she didn’t know was what to do next.

  Nora was going to die in a few hours. The moment she had waited almost twenty years for was here—and Adeline still didn’t know who was going to kill her.

  A text message appeared on her phone. It was from Nora:

  Did you know?

  What?

  What E and H were working on?

  Yes.

  You’ve been keeping a lot of secrets lately.

  Adeline sensed that she had one chance to understand what was about to happen. She had to seize it.

  Can I come over?

  No. Don’t even try. I’ll call the police if you do.

  Adeline paced, trying to figure out what was happening.

  She had to figure out who had killed Nora in order to clear her father’s name. But it was more than that. A killer was about to go free, a killer who might kill again—her or someone else.

  On her phone, Adeline pulled up the Absolom City camera feeds. Her father and her younger self were trudging along the sidewalk, on their way to Nora’s house. On the porch, they rang the doorbell and waited until the front door swung open, and they disappeared inside for approximately thirty-seven minutes.

  She opened the feed for the cameras in the crawl space and attic of Nora’s home. In the green tint of night vision, she saw that there was no one there.

  Adeline remembered what was happening inside. Her father and Nora were telling her that they had been seeing each other. Adeline had felt betrayed that night—for herself and her mother. Rage had overtaken her. They had argued, voices rising until Adeline had shouted, “How could you tell me on the anniversary of Mom’s death?! What’s wrong with you?! Both of you!”

  On the phone, in the video feed, the front door flew open, and young Adeline stormed out into the night, tears streaming down her face.

  Adeline switched to the feed of the crawl space and the attic. There was still no one there.

  From her memory, Adeline knew she hadn’t killed Nora. Her father hadn’t either.

  As she stared at the feeds, she knew that left only one possibility.

  Absolom Two.

  A way to travel to the past.

  There was one issue: that technology had yet to be perfected. As Elliott had said that night, he and Hiro hadn’t figured out how to send something to an exact time and place.

  But they would. Adeline was living proof of that. In a few short months, her younger self would be sent through Absolom Two back to 2008.

  And then what? The obvious conclusion now was that at some point in the future, the machine would be used to go back in time to murder Nora. But by whom? And why?

  Conceivably, the reason was to ensure that Absolom Two was completed.

  Which left the question: if Adeline could control Absolom Two, and Absolom Two was the only way to kill Nora, did that mean that she had killed her? That she was going to kill Nora in two months?

  The only other possibility was that she would lose control of Absolom Two after she had used it on her younger self. Which probably meant she was going to die in two months.

  She had that much time to figure out what was going to happen that night.

  On the video feed, Sam gave chase, and Adeline watched her younger self get into an autocar. After the car disappeared into the night, her father walked home, tapping a text message on his phone.

  Adeline wanted to leave, to go to Nora’s house. But she couldn’t. Not without breaking the universe. Because the night Nora had died, Daniele Danneros had been at home the entire time.

  Thus, Adeline stayed home. She paced the first floor, trying to see the piece she was missing. But it wasn’t there.

  She opened the feeds for Elliott, Constance, and Hiro’s homes. Elliott was sitting in his study, deep in thought. Constance was gone. From the past, Adeline knew she had gone to San Francisco for medical treatment.

  Hiro’s home was empty. He was in the lab, working through the night.

  It was all happening as it had.

  *

  The sun rose on the front of Adeline’s house, and it seemed to be laughing at her, as if it had known all along that she couldn’t figure it out. She knew it was the sleep deprivation and the extreme stress affecting her, but she just wanted to curl up on the floor, pull her hair out, and scream until she exploded.

  Instead, her phone rang. She knew who it was before she answered: the Absolom City Police.

  They informed her, as Nora Thomas’s employer, that the woman had been found murdered that morning. They had some questions. Two detectives would be visiting her soon to ask those questions.

  By standing agreement with Absolom Sciences, the police had access to view the cameras throughout the city. That would soon lead them to Sam and Adeline.

  For now, they wanted her consent to access the deceased’s email, phone, and work computer.

  Adeline gave her consent and said she would send an email to legal providing formal authorization. She knew what they would find in those records—specifically, her text chain with Nora last night. Adeline would have some explaining to do.

  But at that moment, those files weren’t the ones that concerned her most. It was the historical records in the Tesseract—and an idea Sam had given her last night: what if she wasn’t the only one who had used Absolom Two to travel to the past?

  In the server room in the basement, Adeline logged in and did something she wished she had thought to do years ago: she uploaded photos of Elliott, her father, Constance, Hiro, and Nora.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Adeline was sitting in her living room when the doorbell rang.

  She opened the door and welcomed the two detectives and offered them coffee (which they declined).

  Their names were Billings and Holloway. Two people she hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years.

  They recounted the broad outline of the crime with clinical efficiency. When they were done, they let a silence settle in the air. Apparently, awkward silence was the detectives’ signature move. Did they thrive on awkwardness? Was it taught at the academy? Was the slide that introduced it labeled Silence: Your Secret Weapon?

  Adeline stared at them, waiting for the question she knew was coming.

  It was Billings who asked it. “In reviewing Dr. Thomas’s phone and email records, we came across a rather contentious text exchange between the two of you last night.”

  She didn’t ask a question. She just stared at Adeline, using the oppressive silence again.

  “We had an argument. Yes.”

  “About?”

  “I placed cameras inside Nora’s home.”

  “Can we ask why?”

  Adeline had mentally rehearsed the lie, and it came easily now. “Since Absolom was used on the first prisoner, all of us—the six founders—have received death threats. It was just a precaution.”

  “A precaution for all of the Absolom Six? Or just Nora?” Billings asked.

  “Everyone. Yesterday, however, Nora found the ones inside, in the main living areas. We fought about it.”

  “When’s the last time you saw Dr. Thomas?”

  “Early yesterday evening.”

  “Where?”

  “At the main Absolom Sciences building, at a meeting in the lab.”

  “Where’d you go after?”

  “Home. For the entire night.”

  Holloway took out a pad. “And can we—”

  “Verify that? Yes. You can.”

  The videos of the crawl space and attic of Nora’s home would verify that either Sam or Adeline had committed the crime. The police were likely collecting the forensic evidence from the crime scene now.

  *

  When the detectives left, Adeline sat in the living room, almost in a catatonic state.

  Right now, her younger self was standing in the cemetery, hating her father, listening to his words, feeling lost, reeling from her belief that Nora was taking her last parent from her, not knowing that he really would be gone soon. That moment in the cemetery, when he spoke those words, Time heals all wounds. But it won’t work if you don’t give time a chance, had been the anchor that kept her from drifting away, the gravity that had pulled her to him for that hug—the hug right before the drone had pierced the gentle morning with its commands to step away. It would shoot him and bring him to the ground seconds later.

  *

  There was nothing to do but wait. While Adeline waited, sitting in the chair, thinking, sleep overtook her.

  *

  When she woke, Adeline felt like a bus had run over her.

  She tried to push up from the chair. Her arms were weak. Her mind wouldn’t focus, the thoughts slow, like she had been drugged.

  It was the stress of it all. It was consuming her, pulling her down like a boat anchor tied to her feet. She wasn’t ready to sink. She was going to fight. And it had to be right now. She was running out of time.

  What happened next?

  Elliott—he would be the first to go to the police station. And she had to tell him.

  She called him, and he answered on the first ring.

  “I was about to call you,” he said.

  “About?”

  “Last night was all wrong. I shouldn’t have even showed it to the others. We should just go forward with Absolom Two. Who cares if they approve or not? It would be easier with Nora and Sam’s help, but we can figure out—”

  “Nora is dead.”

  Silence stretched out on the line. When he spoke, Elliott’s voice carried the tone of true surprise.

  “I… Are you serious? When? How—how do you know?”

  “The police were here.”

  “Is she missing or—”

  “She’s dead, Elliott. And the police have arrested Sam for her murder. You should go down to the station to help him. Take Tom Morris with you. And we need to hire an actual criminal attorney. A good one. Someone with experience in complex celebrity trials.”

  *

  Adeline showered and got dressed and checked her email. As usual, her inbox was overflowing. There was an email from Hana Kim, the CEO of Syntran, requesting a meeting. Adeline had been putting her off for months. It still wasn’t the right time. Adeline wrote a short note saying that she was attending to an important issue and couldn’t return emails, set it as an autoresponder, and sent it to all of her unread messages.

  Next, she called a private security firm and hired them to interface with the police, to use any resources necessary to learn the details of the investigation. She needed every advantage she could get. Maybe there was some small detail in the evidence that had been gathered that would give her an edge. Or some clue about who was going to use Absolom Two.

  She drank coffee on her covered porch, watching the sun on the horizon, feeling the weight of time bearing down on her. Right now, in an interview room, the two detectives were asking her younger self what happened last night. That young woman’s concern was turning to fear. Standing there, the sun warming her face, sipping the hot coffee, the fear was starting to grip Adeline too.

  *

  Shortly before eleven, a text message arrived from Elliott. It was addressed to Adeline, Constance, and Hiro.

  I’m sure you have all heard about Nora. We need to talk. Sam’s still at the police station. Let’s meet there for lunch. He thinks we might be in danger.

  A second passed, an icon indicating that he was still typing. Another message appeared.

  And he wants to figure out who killed Nora.

  Hiro texted back, saying he would be there. Constance said she would too, but she’d be late.

  Adeline typed out the message she knew she had to send:

  I’ll bring sushi.

  In her home office, she typed out a short note:

  LOOK UNDER THE TABLE

  She cut the page into a small rectangle, the size of the slip inside a fortune cookie, and placed it in her pocket.

  She wanted to cry as she wrote the second note. It was longer, and she knew the words in it would cut her father open like a knife. She had never seen this note. She knew only that it informed her father that if he didn’t confess, more evidence of his daughter’s guilt would be given to the police.

  As it turned out, she didn’t need to know the exact words. She only needed to write what came to her—because that’s what had already happened.

  She placed the note in a small envelope and sealed it. She didn’t worry about DNA or fingerprints because she knew her father wouldn’t turn it over to the police. He loved his daughter too much.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  In the police holding cell, Adeline had lunch with her father, Elliott, Hiro, and Constance.

  In her pocket, she kept the short note instructing her father to look under the table. She would deposit that under one of the plates, in the center of the table, just before leaving.

  Halfway through lunch, she reached beneath the table and taped the small envelope to the underside. It was a tiny action that would have a huge impact, a gavel slamming on the judge’s bench, the sentence as much as certain.

  What hurt her the most was the hope she saw in him. Here, during lunch, he was a wrongfully accused man searching for the truth that would set him and his daughter free and identify the person who had killed the woman he loved.

  By the end of the day, he would be a confessed murderer, disgraced and destined to be separated from his family forever.

  *

  After lunch, Adeline waited for the call she knew was coming.

  It was mid-afternoon when her phone rang. It was Elliott, and he was drunk and hysterical.

  His long-time friend’s confession had rattled him. He cursed, threw accusations, and finally, descended into crying.

  To Adeline, it seemed as if the world was breaking. The people around her were breaking. Nora was gone. Her father was in prison. Elliott was shattered. Hiro was battling his demons. Constance was clinging to life.

  Adeline knew it was up to her now.

  *

  A few hours later, she was back in the police holding room with her father. His demeanor was different now. He was a man defeated. Confused. Scared.

  And in that room, she was to him what he had been to her back then: a lighthouse in the darkness, a beacon of hope and steadfast support.

  “Are you going to ask me if I actually did it?”

  “I don’t need to. I already know the answer.”

  *

  Adeline made her way to the other holding room, where she had spent the day nineteen years ago. Her younger counterpart was waiting there, and as she opened the door, she saw the young woman she had once been, a person who was about to have a huge hole blown in her life.