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

  Five minutes to go.

  He pulled his nanos around himself in an exoskeleton, Shielded his Energy, and went invisible. He floated off the ground lest he make a sound and hurtled toward the clearing. He couldn’t just show up; if both Angel and Fil were there, they’d likely insist that they leave, and Adam now knew he wasn’t supposed to do that. He’d watch from his invisible exoskeleton and wait for his opportunity.

  It didn’t take long.

  Angel was still there, now wiping some type of ointment into Will’s skin—likely a painkiller—and she looked up, startled, as the invisible Adam neared the clearing. He held his breath, wondering if she sensed his presence, until he realized someone else had just popped into Angel’s view.

  Fil.

  The siblings spoke briefly, Fil clearly animated and excited about something he’d seen. Adam watched, the hairs standing on the back of his neck, as he silently encouraged them to leave, his mind counting down the few precious remaining seconds until he was meant to leave this place.

  Angel lifted Will and rested his bruised head on the seat before stepping out of the time machine.

  Fil took her hand… and the two vanished.

  Adam felt the breath he’d been holding release suddenly.

  He’d been given his chance.

  ~~~4~~~

  2219 A.D.

  Eden

  He drifted forward, the ambrosia-scented breeze wafting over his nose as he dismantled his nano exoskeleton and sent them ahead and around the cabin’s occupants. His feet dropped softly upon the ground as he hit the spongy turf at a run, his hand clutching the communicator, fingers performing the familiar sequence pulling up his camera. He took pictures of the craft’s position in the clearing, then the exact locations and angles where Will and Smokey rested. He ordered his nanos to lift the unconscious pair out of the craft and deposit them safely on the ground, a dozen feet from the craft.

  He’d made that decision on impulse, and as he performed the actions his mind rationalized it. He’d never thought he’d have anyone in the time machine with him, certainly not the unconscious pair on the ground. But he knew that there were legitimate risks to his trip, and the very real possibility that he—this time loop’s Adam—might fail to return meant he had to leave them here. If he failed to return, he knew Fil and Angel had the means to contact the Mechanic and find alternative means to return to camp. They’d have to figure out a different trainer for Will, but… well, he couldn’t consider that option. Prepare for the worst and expect the best.

  He moved swiftly to the rear of the machine, ready to haul his supply bag from its hidden spot into the main cabin where the critical supplies were easily accessible. He kicked the trunk open and jumped back, uttering a mild oath of surprise at the sight of the scar-faced Assassin.

  Hard to forget that face. But he had.

  He surrounded the killer with nanos, not because he wanted comfortable transport out of the craft for the man, but because he didn’t want to exert the physical energy required to pull him out and haul him away. The Assassin’s head grazed the side of the craft as he floated out and away from the time machine, and Adam paid little attention to the man’s arrival at his destination. He focused his effort on dissolving the false wall, grabbing the bag, tossing the bag into the main cabin, slamming the trunk with a ringing sound that seemed to stir the entire island. He gulped, wondering if Angel and Fil, wherever they might be, had heard the noise and wondered what it might be.

  No time to worry.

  He dove into the front seat, hit the button to close the cabin, and activated the flying controls. As he lifted off the ground, he snapped a picture of the control panel: precise time and physical coordinates.

  He couldn’t help but smile. He’d departed at precisely the instant recorded on the cave wall. Right on schedule.

  He elevated the craft and flew north, not daring to fly too high for fear that the Stark children might see him, not daring to turn back until he’d cleared the caves and floated over the gravelly beach before soaring over the ocean waves. He could see the clearing, just barely, just enough to see a silvery craft pop into view, just enough to watch the cabin top open and a very tired, very frazzled version of himself climb out of the cabin.

  For just an instant, their eyes locked.

  He’d never had an experience quite so… haunting.

  But somehow, those tired eyes of his other self, eyes that had seen so much… those eyes told him that he’d succeed in his journey, that it wouldn’t be easy, that there would be challenges he hadn’t foreseen… but he’d succeed.

  The other Adam broke the connection first, scurrying around and floating people back into place. He swallowed. The return wouldn’t be any easier than the departure. He couldn’t wait around and watch the finale, though.

  He let his head rest for just a moment, enjoying the “new car” smell they’d perfected and rubbed into the coverings of all Alliance flying craft. And time machines. So many of their number remembered the advent of the automobile, the scent of the newly crafted machines, the hint of excitement and anticipation that scent brought, that they’d invented a spray on scent. Their craft lasted centuries, which didn’t provide opportunity for frequent “new car” experiences, and the materials they used didn’t offer such scents.

  Sometimes, the little details mattered.

  He turned and leaned over the seatback, unzipped the large bag, and pulled out the worn, leather-bound journal atop his supply stash. After reseating himself, he flipped open the pages to the summary he’d written down for the path he’d use to reach his destination in the distant past.

  The machine they’d built to collect 2030 Will wasn’t designed for travel beyond what they’d need to achieve that goal. There was no practical reason for it; they knew precisely the amount of energy required for the trip from the camp to the Stark home in 2030 and back, and energy storage capacity didn’t exceed that amount beyond a small bit of contingency. In practical terms, it meant that Adam couldn’t reach the distant past—the era of the earliest Aliomenti, the era of the girl called Elizabeth Lowell, the time when his parents met and helped start a movement that had him traveling in a time machine—in one massive jump through time. He’d need to make the journey one smaller time “hop” at a time.

  Limited though it might be for traveling through time, the craft lacked nothing for traveling about in three dimensions, leveraging the standard flight, navigation, autopilot, and invisibility features of all Alliance craft. He’d argued they needed such features as a contingency, providing the ability to fly to a designated safe zone should the machine suffer a malfunction on the return trip.

  He glanced at the list of dates and locations he’d scratched out using quill and ink—he’d never cared for the newfangled nibs and pens—as he’d finalized his travel plans over the past several decades. He then pulled up the image he’d snapped of the etched numbers decorating the cave wall and compared the two. His original list matched the actual dates his other self etched into the cave wall except for the first two hops, hops he’d never considered as he’d never considered starting his journey on Eden.

  He slid his fingers to the digital touchpad on the cabin dashboard, and after snapping an image of the Alliance camp destination coordinates, keyed in the first set of numbers off the image from the cave wall. Date. Time. Spatial coordinates. He didn’t know exactly how the navigation systems determined where he might be on the planet, other than that Will had designed the system independent of the existence of space-based satellite systems. That would help in the distant past, where he’d have no access to the most modern global positioning systems the general population used.

  He slid his right hand inside the “recharging” station and let his Energy flow. They’d built a converter capable of changing Energy to electricity, providing them with the ability to recharge the batteries if drainage exceeded expectations on the initial trip. Or they found themselves on a detour. Or, he thought as he watc
hed the capacity meter reach capacity, if one needed to head out on a private journey to the distant past, where he’d need to recharge those batteries prior to each time hop.

  With everything prepared, Adam tapped the time circuit activation button. The clear panoramic top surrounding him snapped opaque, and he felt the odd time travel displacement sensation roll over him. The feeling was brief, like a small teleportation move, for his first hop would be perhaps the shortest possible with a machine of such impressive power. And he wondered why he’d opted to do so.

  The top shimmered clear once more, indicating the completion of the hop. Adam glanced around.

  He’d arrived back on Eden, back in the same clearing he’d just left, but this time one hour prior to his previous appearance here with Fil, Angel, and their unconscious traveling companions.

  Now that he’d arrived, he felt understanding dawn. They’d worked on minimizing the physical effects of the time machine, but they’d been unable to truly “silence” the machine. It wasn’t loud, but while there was no loud boom, there was an undeniable pulse of energy emanating from the space where the time machine had been and where it arrived, like a gust of wind that destabilized a person’s balance without ruffling their hair. It meant that any hop he took needed to start and end in a place with minimal human population and zero Alliance and Aliomenti presence. If not, he ran the risk of detection. If that detection occurred among the wrong groups, if word reached anyone familiar with the actual existence of the time machine, or gave the Aliomenti the idea that the Alliance possessed some strange, energy pulsing machine… there’d be questions asked he didn’t care to answer.

  With that in mind, the mini-hop made sense. That pulsing sensation grew stronger as the energy expended increased. Energy expenditure increased as the time and distance moved increased. By limiting this first hop to a mere hour and a few miles, he’d probably barely rippled the surface of the ocean. It put him into a location—Eden—that few knew about. He suspected that old Will, hiding invisibly in his home and watching the events in the basement unfold, had tweaked the settings for their return journey while the trio rushed around the burning house, distracted. Given that Will and Hope hadn’t met with them upon their arrival, it meant they’d likely departed Eden several hours—or days—before the time of Will’s altered destination.

  In other words, Eden at this exact time was the best possible spot for him to start his journey through time.

  He just wondered why he’d need a full hour, though. The battery capacity hadn’t budged, so he didn’t need time to recharge. He twisted around and glanced at his oversized supply bag, eyeing the collection of empty water bottles inside. Refill now?

  He grabbed a handful of bottles, opened the cabin, and hopped out. No reason not to enjoy Eden’s breathtaking beauty a few moments longer. He jogged south a few hundred yards, where the small stream deepened a bit more, and dipped the bottles below the surface. He might as well grab some fruit here for the trip. Might as well. He had a little bit of time, just enough to—

  Oh. The time. That’s why he needed the full hour.

  He capped the current bottle and jogged back to the machine, set the collection down on the seat, then set off at a brisk pace back to the cave. When he reached the entrance, he used his nanos to create a sharp chisel, and using the image he’d snapped from his phone, he carved his current hop’s coordinates into the wall… into the spot on the list that was currently blank. Since Eden “moved” and they wouldn’t know where it might be at any given time in history, recording the information served a purpose larger than simply confirming where he’d go next. He needed to record each hop so his future self had the information needed to make each hop successful, at least while he used Eden as his starting or ending points. He noted the word “START” on the top of the now-complete list of coordinates and etched the word atop the list, precisely mirroring the image on his phone.

  He’d worry about how odd that seemed later. For now, he pocketed his communicator and jogged back to the time machine, noting that he had only ten minutes left before he, Fil, and Angel would arrive in this spot, baffled as to exactly where they were and how they’d gotten here.

  He plugged in the coordinates for his next hop, one that would tax the battery capacity. He’d travel to the same date he’d previously identified, but the location had changed for the better.

  He flipped his hand inside the charging chamber and eked out the minimal amount of Energy required to return the batteries to a full charge, then sipped on a bottle of cool Eden water as he tapped the activation button, sending himself back in time.

  He’d not spent long pondering the inherent risk in each time hop. The risk that he’d miscalculated the coordinates, that he’d entered them improperly, that some bizarre, miniscule flaw would leave the time machine trapped between times for all eternity.

  The risk was that he’d fail, and everyone he knew and loved would die. Or would never exist.

  He’d avoided thinking about it, because it meant he’d risk finding excuses about why he didn’t need to make his journey.

  But now, now that he was jumping back in time, alone, his journey begun… now the risks were real. And terrifying.

  He sipped the water again, trying to moisten his drying throat, finding that swallowing suddenly seemed more difficult.

  ~~~5~~~

  January 5, 2030

  Eden

  The date hadn’t changed. But the location had.

  He’d waffled back and forth among multiple sites for this hop, trying to think of the place where the smallest likely congestion of Alliance and Aliomenti might meet. He’d grudgingly whisked the quill pen over the pages, inking in the coordinates of an island they called Atlantis. It wasn’t perfect, but in a world so blanketed by technological sensors and powerful telepaths and empaths, there wasn’t a perfect spot.

  The date, though, made sense.

  He knew old Will would be headed to Pleasanton or already there. The members of the Alliance most aware of what would transpire at the Stark family home would be there as well. The Hunters—especially the tracker, Porthos—would be headed to Pleasanton as well. That meant that there’d be less focus on any odd surge of energy they might detect. He’d considered Pleasanton itself, right over the top of the Starks’ burning home, believing that he’d be hiding in plain sight, the time machine’s arrival masked by the overwhelmingly powerful thrum of Will’s massive Energy surge.

  But now, though? Eden was perfect. Isolated. Somehow hidden from human and Energy-users alike over the centuries, save for Will and Hope. He could land here, confident that the only two people who could be here wouldn’t be. Will had tracked the island’s coordinates over time as his navigation system evolved, and he noted that the island’s location wasn’t fixed, that it could move yards or many miles over the course of a year, in unpredictable patterns. He could get there—once you’d visited a spot and had a clear image you could teleport back—as could Hope. But Adam and others had no such mental imagery; Will and Hope hadn’t shared any, preferring to keep the island off limits.

  He couldn’t say he blamed them, but it did strike him as a bit… well, selfish.

  But it didn’t matter now.

  He was here, the first major time hop and his trip to the past. His private journey, a trip he knew he’d need to make at some point. His parents suspected it, but didn’t tell him directly. They shared the stories, the miraculous coincidences, the mysterious strangers who turned up at just the right time with just the right information. They’d not found it coincidental at the time, but over the centuries, as they relived those earliest days, it had become clear.

  Someone had nudged them all, just enough, to follow the path that would lead toward a specific future.

  He’d be the one, the one who’d spent a century researching every detail he’d captured in casual conversations with those who’d lived through the times, no detail too trivial to comb through, every online and offline archive o
f documentation that might narrow vague recollections of dates and locations to precise coordinates. He’d need to avoid death, avoid detection—not necessarily in that order, though the former might guarantee the latter—and execute the plan without flaw. Will’s journey held an advantage in that so little was scripted out for him; they had no way to extract so many centuries of memories and document it all, no practical means to ensure he’d act to script without fail. Will simply acted as himself, and that was enough.

  In his case, though… he’d have to act in a manner highly uncomfortable to his normal behavior, take risks, make decisions… and any of those actions could skew future history in a manner that would leave him nothing more than a wisp of a memory of parents who’d never meet him.

  So… no pressure.

  He glanced at his current coordinates, beaming brightly from the time machine dashboard, and compared them to those recorded in the cave wall picture. Not surprisingly, they matched exactly; he didn’t want to guess at what might cause a variance, nor what he’d do in that example. Instead, he jogged back to the cave and etched in his arrival time and physical coordinates on the wall, noting with amusement that the coordinates and the word “START” he’d just carved into the stone were no longer there. Because he’d not actually scribed them into the wall yet. Or something. Time travel, always confusing and bound to drive the sanest person just a bit mad.

  He jogged back to the time machine and grabbed all the water bottles, floating them to the stream inside a faint cloud of nanos, and filled them with the fresh, pure water of Eden. He had no idea how clean the water in the past might be, what odd bacteria and diseases might swim around in the local supply when he needed to drink, and preferred to bring his own supply. True, he was immune to essentially any illness, but it didn’t mean such nastiness couldn’t cause brief discomfort. Discomfort he didn’t want to explain in the present nor deal with in the past.