Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8)

by Alex Albrinck

  He saw the flash of movement and instinctively pointed. “Here comes Will.”

  Will Stark moved into the clearing and past the grave markers, glancing down at Genevieve’s grave respectfully, his thoughts betraying his wish that he’d had the chance to meet Hope’s mother. The former Nameless One, forevermore known as Adam to the villagers, followed behind, asking Will for updates on the well-being and whereabouts of his “sister” and the young woman he remembered only as a young girl with red hair and freckles. Will refused to answer his questions.

  “Good decision,” Genevieve muttered in the microphone.

  With so many Energy-activated people around, it would be difficult to act. Adam extended a channel of nanos to his father’s head and into his mind, hopefully past any layers of Energy detection. He then moved into his father’s mind through that channel, diving through the new memories, searching, until he found the memory block, a special type of Energy condensed and preventing access to a memory stored in a specific neural pathway. It had taken time to dive down all the memories the first time through, but it was far easier to reverse. He could sense his own Energy signature in his father’s mind, and could easily track down each block and dismantle them.

  The final block went down just as Will learned of Eva’s rejection of her “brother’s” requests to visit with them.

  The rippling effect of the unblocked memory coursed through the elder Adam, and he looked at the ground, trying to comprehend why his memories of the past two decades were suddenly… different. That he viewed those critical moments through a new filter, a filter that could only be explained if he remembered the truth, if he remembered that journey so long ago, the journey from which Arthur and Genevieve returned married and prepared to welcome the first—and only—child into the village.

  When he remembered that the child Genevieve carried wasn’t Arthur’s.

  When he remembered that he, not Arthur, was Elizabeth’s father.

  That fact rippled through his mind, which helpfully replayed every interaction he’d had with the little girl. And he realized it hurt to leave, not because he cared for her as any adult should, but because she was his child.

  And he’d abandoned her at her most vulnerable point in life.

  It would take time to process everything. But when he realized the truth, when he knew that Eva must know as well… suddenly, Eva’s desire to keep Elizabeth far from the village was explained by more than her mere desire to keep Arthur deluded in his thinking that the two of them were dead. Eva wanted to keep Elizabeth away from the father who’d abandoned her, who’d allowed every horrible thing that affected her in the years after his departure to happen.

  She wasn’t punishing Adam.

  She was protecting Elizabeth’s still-fragile psyche, one still ravaged by the belief that the man she called father had disowned her and allowed her brutal beating and apparent murder. Elizabeth didn’t need the added trauma now of knowing that the man who’d ordered those events wasn’t her father, and that the man who ought to be there, fighting for her, protecting her, sacrificing everything up to and including his life… had run away.

  The elder Adam looked up, understanding of the past many years finally written in new lines etched across his face.

  And he promised Will that he’d never again ask him to divulge the whereabouts of Eva and Elizabeth. He knew he’d see them again when the time was appropriate and not a moment before. And he wouldn’t be the one deciding that timing.

  He’d not earned the right to make that decision.

  “Eva… she is spending her life protecting Elizabeth?” Genevieve’s voice quavered. “She’s protecting her from the two men most responsible for her suffering, for the deaths and attempted murders of so many she knew, and loved, and cared for?”

  “Yes.”

  Genevieve went silent for a moment. Then: “You are more like her. That’s a good thing.”

  He could say nothing.

  He heard Genevieve sigh, the revelations of this day affecting her understanding of the world as much as what she’d just seen on the face of her former love. “I wish I could thank her.”

  “You don’t have to thank her.” His mother often wondered aloud, as she retold the stories of her time spent traveling with Elizabeth, if Genevieve would ever forgive her for her part in Elizabeth’s mistreatment, of her direct part in Genevieve’s murder. She wondered if her efforts to teach Elizabeth survival skills, to provide her with constant companionship, to act as both friend and mother-figure… she wondered if Genevieve would consider that to be a debt repaid. “I think she’d be happy just to know that you’d even feel like thanking her.”

  He flew them back to the time machine and, once they were safely packed away inside the cabin, he glanced at her. “I’ve completed my chores for this era. Are you ready to head to the future?”

  “I’m already in the future. For me. It’s fifteen years since I died according to the world at large.” He sensed the amusement at her tone. “The world of the future sounds like a fascinating place, and if it has my Lizzie in it… then that’s where I want to be. That’s where I need to be.”

  He smiled at her. “Then we’ll head to the future. I should probably let you know, now, that she’s changed her name. She’s known as Hope.”

  Genevieve set her jaw. “The rest of you can call her whatever you’d like. But she’ll always be Elizabeth to me. She’ll always be my little Lizzie, with her red hair in pigtails.”

  Adam wondered how she’d react to seeing Hope in the future with her white blonde hair reminiscent of and in remembrance of her mother.

  And he realized that, although he’d told her that Hope was alive in his time… he had no way to prove that.

  He wondered how Genevieve would react to that.

  ~~~52~~~

  1029 A.D.

  They traveled across the world first, avoiding the potential pitfalls of time travel until they reached a safe spot and had the opportunity to decide how they’d deal with her displacement sensitivity. After setting the auto-pilot and letting the time machine begin its invisible flight toward the Antarctic, he settled back to rest, but Genevieve’s excitement at the trip kept him wide awake. It seemed that short-term flight had lost its magical appeal, and merely appearing in a different part of her world a year or two later was now an expected thing. But a machine flying at high speed over the countryside? That kept her bubbling and gushing with excitement.

  He’d programmed a route that maximized their time over the ocean, limiting the chances that in his day they’d discover some artifact describing mysterious loud booms on a day where there were no thunderstorms. They soon reached the ocean, and as the terrain became monotonous, their form of travel lost its appeal.

  She told him that she didn’t know much about the geology and geographic structure of the world—some thought it flat, some thought it a globe with the sky on top and the land inside—and he explained, in the most efficient means possible, about heliocentricity and the spherical nature of the planet and how orbits and planetary rotation created seasons and days. Her questions continued at a dwindling rate until, exhausted, they both drifted off to sleep.

  He’d left the chime off this time. They had no specific timetable for departure, and it was best to wait until they’d both slept as much as necessary.

  Genevieve remained asleep on the back seat when he woke. The lines on her face remained there, gouged by years of physical labor and the emotional war waged on her by her fierce struggles. But that look was different now, and not just because she was sleeping. She wore an odd smile, not necessarily of great joy, but of an eager anticipation of what was to come next. His intervention hadn’t just saved her life, it had given her hope.

  And, he thought, he’d soon be able to give her Hope—the real Hope—as well.

  But there was still the lingering issue of her sensitivity to the displacement that came with time travel. They’d need to resolve that before undertaking any major
time hops.

  He considered the idea of simply knocking her out—in an Energy sense. He could force her to sleep, and thus she’d not consciously feel whatever disorientation that might normally come from the multi-century time hops. But he nixed that idea for two reasons. He felt it important for her mental state to “see” the passage of time as they moved back to his future, even if most of that journey would take place on the frozen lands of the Antarctic. Much as he’d come to realize that she needed to see her clone murdered to believe it had happened, she’d need to live through each time hop to appreciate the sheer expanse of time they’d cover.

  More practically, though, was that her body would still experience the symptoms even if she slept. It wasn’t something her waking mind invented; it was a physical condition. If she slept and he jumped forward two centuries, her eardrums might well rupture, or the destabilization might kill her. The forced sleep route wasn’t an option.

  “You’re awake.”

  He turned to face her. “I am.”

  She glanced around, taking in their surroundings. “This doesn’t look like a welcoming environment.”

  He chuckled. “It’s the southernmost landmass of the planet, a place that gets very little direct sunlight and heat. It’s always winter here, far colder than any weather you’ve ever experienced, with brutal storms happening on a regular basis.”

  She shrugged. “I live in the north. It’s quite cold there.”

  He debated arguing with her, debated letting her know that he’d just tested that premise first hand not that long ago—a few weeks as he’d lived it?—but decided against it. “We’re not going to live here. When this machine moves through time, it creates… well, waves that feel like wind. The more time we cover at once, the stronger the waves.”

  “You’re here because no one lives here and you don’t want anyone to notice or get hurt by this wind you describe?”

  He nodded. She caught on quickly; Hope’s intelligence, he thought with an amused internal chuckle, clearly came from her mother. “As we get closer to my time, there’s also another consideration. The… well, Arthur’s group will have the ability to notice something like a time machine, especially if that machine generates strong winds and bursts of energy near more populated areas. I don’t want to hurt anyone, of course. But I also want to make sure that nobody with the ability to figure out what the wind might be is close enough to sense it.” He waved around, indicating the barren, frigid land, with the swirling snow dancing before them. “This place works well for most of our journey back to the future.”

  “Most?”

  “Will eventually moves here, along with Hope and their closest friends and allies.” He saw her eyes widen and held up his hand. “They live underground in perfect comfort. It’s probably the most beautiful place on the planet for someone to live. Except where my father was born, perhaps.”

  She’d seen Eden. And she nodded. “Will… he didn’t strike me as someone who’d settle for living in a place like this. He’d want something much more comfortable.”

  Adam laughed. Then his face turned somber. “Before we start moving, though… we have to figure out how to deal with the dizziness you experienced.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He could sense her annoyance at her disability, her overwhelming desire to push through to the future, to see her daughter. “Let’s just get moving.”

  “We have to think this through, Genevieve.” He shook his head. “If we have to move forward two years at a time, then we have to think about gathering food and water, and where we can go to get it. If we jump forward too much, the sensation could shatter your ears or even kill you. I could let you sleep the whole time, but this isn’t something you’re imagining. We need to be patient. We need to—”

  He sensed it just as she realized she’d thought the idea too loudly, and he stared at her with such intensity and scrutiny that her skin flushed red and she turned away.

  He leaned over the seat divider. “Why would you do that? Don’t you understand that it won’t work? Don’t you understand that you can’t guarantee that you’ll have enough power to send you where you want to go? Don’t you understand that you would see her for a short period of time… and then you would both die?”

  He sat back on the seat, shaking his head, his fury mounting.

  She’d figured out how to activate the time circuits. She’d figured out, after several hours sneaking peeks at his journal, which section detailed the last time Elizabeth was alive and present when they’d visited. She needed to get him out of the machine long enough to close the top, to type in the numbers she’d already memorized, and to push the button that made the flying room go back to Lizzie. She knew she’d get there at night—the stranger always made them arrive at night—and she could sneak into the cabin, grab her daughter, and run away. And all she needed to do was let him fall asleep and then knock him out, open the lid, and toss him out. If he was anything like his father… the world would be a better place without him. And she could live in her world, in her time, and not worry at all about some odd future so many years from now that it couldn’t possibly matter to them what happened now.

  He could feel her anger—not because her idea was so stupid, so dangerous, but because she’d gotten caught before she could carry out her plan.

  She finally leaned over the seat divider, trying to control her voice. “I’m tired of being treated like I’m actually dead. I’m tired of being told she can’t see me now, that I can’t go to her and tell her I’m alive. Your stories… yes, I know you believe they’re true. But you are talking about times and places that have no connection with me. You torture me with the ability to see her, but no chance to be with her, all in the name of retaining a time that means nothing to me, or to her. Take me to her, now, and then leave me with her. Leave me in my world, son of Adam. Finish your journey without me.”

  He closed his eyes, wondering how it had gotten to this point. How he’d missed the clues… the excitement each time they’d see her, the disappointment when she could leave the craft only inside the invisible cocoons that kept her continued existence forever hidden from her daughter, the seething anger when they’d leave, the surreptitious swipes of and reading of his journal.

  He just thought she’d understood why things had to be this way.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “We have to get moving again, and for that to happen, we have to figure out how to avoid the pain you feel when we travel. The sooner we fix that, the better.”

  He could feel her surprise. “You aren’t going to say a thing about… what I just said?”

  “I will. But you’ve said you want to move, and the only way we’re moving through time is forward. It’s a long trip. Let’s start. And we can talk about the rest of it as we do.”

  “It’s faster to go back to where we came from.”

  “It’s also a faster way to die, an instant disappearance from the world, an end to your influence on the world, the immediate vanishing of your daughter, your grandchildren, and any others in the more distant future I haven’t even met yet.”

  She set her jaw. “You might be lying.”

  “I might. But I’m not bluffing. I’m going to try to do the same thing to your ears that I did after our last hop and then move us forward five years.”

  “You should move us backward eight years and leave me here.”

  He stopped and stared at her. “You are an intelligent woman, Genevieve. You understand what I’m saying. You understand the ramifications of what you say you want to do, and even so you still want to do it. Why? There’s another explanation.”

  She was silent for a long time. “I figured out the secret you’re hiding from me. The one you’ve been hiding.”

  He blinked. “Secret? What secret?”

  “I won’t see her in the future.”

  “That’s—”

  “Don’t lie. I told you that you speak in your sleep. Your thoughts on this have been becoming clearer. That yo
u feared how I’d react when I learned that you don’t even know where my daughter is in your time, that you haven’t seen her for decades, that you couldn’t prove, even to yourself, that she’s even still alive.” She leaned forward until her icy blue eyes, so like Fil’s, carved into him with a fierce intensity. “Why am I willing to risk it all, you ask? Because you lied to me, son of Adam. You promised me my daughter. And you can’t deliver her.”

  Her words crushed him… because they were absolutely correct. He’d not been completely honest. And now she’d make him regret it.

  He stared back. “You’re absolutely right, Genevieve. I wasn’t fully honest with you. But my thoughts have been incomplete. I will tell you what I know about what Hope—Elizabeth—is doing in the future. I will tell you why I believe you will see her there. And if, after that, you still want to risk the deaths of so many people… then I will take you back to her. Deal?”

  She watched his eyes. “You’re going to force me to believe you. Or you’ll make me sleep until we get there.”

  “That would be much easier. But it would also be wrong.”

  She climbed into the front seat. “I’m listening. Convince me.”

  And he told her. Told her about how ambrosia stopped aging but rendered the user unable to have children, about how they’d needed to inject the blood of a parent to reverse the effects so that her children could be born. He told her how her daughter refused to take more ambrosia until both her children were born, and how the long withdrawal aged her horribly, but she’d suffered it gladly to ensure her children arrived. How new ambrosia did nothing, and how they’d feared she’d die, until Will—in hiding from Arthur’s goons as per the script he, too, had to follow—swept her away to an undisclosed location. How her granddaughter, whose innate gift of knowing if people were nearby or alive transcended the abilities of anyone in history, decreed that both her parents were alive, and, in Hope’s case, quite healthy. How she’d said that right up until they’d left to start their journey back in time. He also told her that, while Will and Hope—Elizabeth—remained hidden as they must, they sent clues to their children as to their whereabouts.