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

  With the bottles filled, capped, and stored back in his large travel bag, he moved to the clearing where the ambrosia tree grew. He pulled a piece of fruit from another tree in the clearing and bit into it, electing to get a bit of nourishment now before he reached the more distant past. His eyes meandered to the gravestone, and he moved to it, nodding as he noticed the difference. The only entry now showed the death of Will’s clone in 1994, because Hope’s original body remained intact in Pleasanton in 2030. They’d etch her coded epitaph here a decade hence.

  He moved back to the time machine and glanced at the image on his communicator. There were no further entries on his etched set of coordinates beyond 2030. That meant his original plans would take over. He turned the communicator off, set it down inside the bag, and flipped open his journal once more. His eyes moved to the next date on the list with no small amount of trepidation.

  He’d worried about exposure on this hop to 2030 when he’d finalize his path, given the technological and population density of the planet in that time. But when Eden became available, the next hop would be the one with the greatest risk of exposure of this trip, risking coming face to face with the one person who could least afford to know of his current course of action before the right time.

  Himself.

  ~~~6~~~

  1800 A.D.

  Atlantis

  He remembered the events of the days as though they’d happened just hours earlier.

  He’d been sitting beneath the island’s surface, in the small hollowed out cavern he and his parents called home. Eva remembered the odd island, with its inhospitable features, and found it an ideal residence for the privacy the harsh lands conferred. It kept her near enough the Aliomenti population base to glide among them without detection, to stay abreast of Aliomenti current events, and to hastily retreat when suspicions might heighten. She could leave for months or years to continue her practice of mingling in human populations throughout much of Western Europe and the northern lands of Africa, using her skills among locals suffering from outbreaks of illness, soothing emotions that might otherwise lead to war, settling private disputes to retain peace in smaller communities. It was a practice that members of Will’s Alliance, started centuries later, would follow as well. He’d begun the practice as well, using his striking likeness with the elder Adam to mingle among the Aliomenti, gathering information easily while his father roamed the expansive and growing Aliomenti financial empire.

  It was no coincidence, either, that the island’s close proximity to the then-headquarter regions for the Aliomenti kept Eva near his father… and that they’d eventually reconnected.

  Quite fortunate for him.

  On that particular day, his father had been retelling stories about Arthur Lowell’s machinations. His mother had recalled yet again the story about the miraculous, life-saving efforts from Will Stark after Lowell and his ancient henchman, Maynard, had literally stabbed her in the back. As his parents often did with these “miracle” and “coincidence” stories, they’d stared at him with deep intensity, as if they were humans trying to practice the mythical power of thought projection. He hadn’t understood what they were doing, not yet anyway.

  Eva had noted yet again that she couldn’t believe that Will, even with his immense Energy skills, had singlehandedly saved her life… when they’d felt it.

  It wasn’t the rumble they experienced here during the periodic flooding of the valley; there’d been no storms recently, no sign they’d need to stay out of the underground tunnels until the island purged itself of the excess water.

  No, this had been different. Powerful, bass-like thrums of what could only be described as coming from an immense release… of electricity. That wasn’t an observation he’d made at the time, though; nobody really used electricity like that at the advent of the nineteenth century.

  No, it felt like somebody had teleported to the island from far, far away.

  There were only three people in the world with the power to generate quite so strong a reverberation, though. He was one of them.

  Which meant they’d scrambled up and out through one of the slits in the valley walls they’d found over the centuries, scanning the land, looking for either Hope or Will.

  He hadn’t seen anyone, though.

  And he’d never forgotten the powerful sensation that he was being watched.

  Or the bizarre impression he’d held about who was doing the watching.

  As the time machine materialized on the island, hidden from sight through invisibility technology, though… it didn’t seem quite so bizarre any longer.

  He felt the displacement sensation ease and glanced around, taking in the familiar landscape. He’d not been here since he and Eva left following news of his father’s death, but one didn’t just forget the sights and sounds and scents that made a place home. He felt the urge to pop the cabin lid open, for just a few seconds, just to inhale that salty air and peculiar aroma of the inland salt lake at the base of the island valley once more, but that would need to happen only after he returned to his present.

  Today, he needed to focus on his mission, despite the distractions that would soon erupt around him in the form of… him and his parents.

  He watched for them, knowing that they’d felt that thrumming vibration as the time machine made its appearance here, invisible to the human eye after he flipped on the invisibility switch. He slipped his right hand into the scutarium gel-lined recharging glove and let his Energy flow free, watching as he and his parents emerged a few moments later, drawn to the surface by a sensation like wind that somehow felt nothing like wind.

  They emerged from gaps and crevices in the land that only those deeply familiar with the island’s secrets could find. They moved stealthily, Shields blocking the escape of even the slightest drop of Energy, looking for some sign of the source of the disturbance, eyes primed to spot Hope’s familiar golden locks or Will’s jet black hair.

  He knew they’d find neither.

  While he waited for the recharging efforts to complete, he sought out his father.

  He’d not seen the man—other than the illusory version he found staring back at him in his mirror—for nearly three centuries, not the elder Adam who had left this odd island for the final time, not since he’d died saving a daughter he’d never been able to acknowledge for all manner of reasons. Adam felt his eyes misting over, wishing he had some way to take advantage of this chance to say a true goodbye, wondering if the younger version of himself recognized the gift of his parents’ presence. He turned to glance at his younger self, willing the younger version of himself to appreciate the time with his parents while they were still around… when it happened.

  As his invisible eyes met those of his younger self, he felt some unknown connection, one that couldn’t be stopped by all the technology designed to keep him invisible from all forms of human and beyond-human senses. He watched as his younger self stared, then staggered back, blinking, trying to figure out what he’d just sensed, wondering why he felt so deeply moved and disturbed by the sight and sense of absolutely nothing. His parents noticed their son’s strange behavior and rushed to him—even with their son a grown man fifteen decades in age, his parents still raced to his side when he showed any sign of discomfort—asking what was wrong, what he’d noticed.

  He didn’t watch. Knew his old self would delay answering “nothing” just long enough to let them know there was something, but not something that threatened them in any way. Knew that his old self would leave the surface and go back below the surface to his bed and try to find some sense of peace in sleep that wouldn’t come.

  He ignored the emotional trauma of his younger self—he’d already lived through it once, after all—and instead punched the next batch of coordinates into the time machine. He waited, deeply impatient, for the quiet dinging sound telling him the batteries had reached capacity, leaving his hand hovering over the time circuit activation button. He wanted to keep his eyes on the scen
e, wanted to watch the memory of his parents and especially his dead father showing that deep love and concern for even adult children that all good parents show, but he couldn’t do it.

  His eyes were simply too full of tears to see a thing.

  The ding sounded, barely audible over the sounds of his own sniffling, and Adam hit the activation button, letting the silent sobs turn audible only when he felt the displacement of time travel take him far away from what he wanted more than anything else: to get out of the machine and hug his still-living father one final time.

  ~~~7~~~

  995 A.D.

  When he’d built the travel plan logged in his journal, he’d not expected to get quite so emotional during the stop on Atlantis, didn’t know he’d need to take time after that hop to collect himself emotionally. He ran his sleeve over his face to dry the tears, wondering what Gena might think if she saw him blubbering like this. He knew she’d understand, of course; Gena would put an arm around him and say nothing, knowing that’s what he needed at the moment. But she wasn’t here with him, and his recovery took longer without her comforting embrace.

  He steadied himself, regained control of his breathing, and then began the simplest part of the journey. No risk of exposure now. Just arrive, recharge, change coordinates, hop. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat again.

  It was the easiest part of his journey, if one assumed that hopping back through time two centuries per hop was easy. He needed to think that lest he begin worrying about the return trip before he started his work in the past.

  His focus in plotting his hop targets for date and location required that he keep the maximum distance between himself and any human, especially any human capable of detecting and recognizing his activities. Those numbers dwindled the farther back in time he went; he could just randomly pick a spot in certain eras and have a near-zero risk of detection. He wouldn’t pick randomly, though; he could still land the machine atop someone or inside a building wall without adequate preparation.

  That would give future book writers and movie makers fantastic story ideas. But he had no interest in dropping his traveling home atop someone amidst the tell-tale gust of wind announcing his arrival.

  He swabbed away the remaining tears on his face and glanced around at the scenery, a landscape he’d find little changed until he arrived at his target year.

  Ice. Snow. Harsh, howling winds battering the barren landscape at temperatures so severe that even modest exposure could mean death. There was little evidence here that anything lived, let alone human Energy users capable of sensing his presence.

  The Antarctic would be an ideal default location for any of his time hops. The Cavern, an Alliance haven located several miles below the surface and accessible only through an underwater tunnel, did represent a concentrated population of individuals capable of detecting his presence above. But it wasn’t likely. The Aliomenti would have little reason to look for Will Stark’s band of traitors here, nor would they be likely to move this way even with such suspicions. The Cavern’s residents thus spent little time worrying about sensors and defense mechanisms here in the brutal surface climate.

  Prior to the year 1700, though, his presence wouldn’t matter. The Cavern wouldn’t exist. Even the Alliance wouldn’t be in position to detect his presence. That single data point made the Antarctic surface his target geographical destination for each hop after Atlantis.

  He’d been so focused on thoughts of his father after seeing the man alive that he’d barely noticed his repetitive actions, not until he subconsciously looked down at his travel chart and realized there were no more entries. He looked up, blinked, realized that he’d made it.

  995 A.D.

  His father was only sixteen years old.

  His mother was… well, Eva was far more than sixteen years old.

  Elizabeth Lowell, the future Hope Stark, wouldn’t arrive in the world for another seven years.

  He’d traveled back into the past farther than anyone else, pre-dating Will’s arrival by two decades. And hoped he did what he needed to do, hoped he succeeded in ensuring that Will Stark found in the past what he must.

  His eyes fell upon his journal, and he flipped to the notes he’d compiled there from among a dozen stories and months of research about this era and about the part of the world in which he’d act.

  And act he must, because if he didn’t, Elizabeth Lowell would never exist.

  And neither would he.

  ~~~8~~~

  995 A.D.

  He sat in silence for a moment, marveling briefly at the enormity of what he’d just accomplished. He’d slipped away from two of the most powerful Energy users from an island that couldn’t be found in a time machine that most would say couldn’t exist, had seen his dead father, and had traveled several thousand miles and twelve centuries to the desolate and inhospitable southern pole of the planet in what seemed to him only a few hours of actual living time.

  He wouldn’t believe it either if someone had claimed to do it.

  He knew better than to doubt the time and date reading on the cabin dashboard; the machine had carried them safely back to 2030—a year he’d lived through—and they’d rescued Will and the others from a fire he’d personally experienced. He’d been in the Stark home until seconds before the Assassin’s fiery temper set the structure ablaze and blown the back wall of the house out in the process.

  And he’d seen his father—his dead father—in a time and place he’d personally experienced, had reproduced the odd sensation of looking himself directly in the eye without the use of a mirror. This was real, not some elaborate waking dream. He truly now existed in the year 995, seven centuries before his birth, and a thousand years before Will Stark’s.

  His eyes roamed the harsh Antarctic landscape, tensed as a vicious gust of wind battered the craft, bumping it a few inches to the side. Adam winced; the craft never truly rested on the ground and was thus prone to horizontal movement due to a lack of ground-based friction. It still took quite a bit of force to move the craft and overcome the stabilizers that kept the craft upright, though. The weather and wind outside were the harshest he’d ever been around, though he’d not actually felt the wind and temperatures directly.

  Unless…

  A crazy idea formed in his head. He’d heard of the viciousness of the polar winds and the breath-halting impact of the bitter cold, was sensing the power indirectly now inside the safety of the cabin. He’d lived in several northern climates and experienced the harsh winters there; he couldn’t help but wonder how the extremes here compared with those he’d already experienced.

  How much different might those climes be than the one outside the walls right now?

  He glanced at the time. He’d given himself two days to acclimate to this time, to fly the craft from the southern pole to his first stop in the past. A few extra minutes here wouldn’t make much difference. Right?

  He tapped the dashboard button, activating the cabin top and watched as the lid rose from the interior cabin.

  The wind hurtled into the exposed cabin airspace, raising the hairs on the back of his neck as the icy bursts ripped across his skin. His eyes dried out almost instantly, and he crushed his lids shut, hoping some moisture would wet his parched irises. The violent winds reversed suddenly, his shock at the change in pressure letting the air slam him against the side of the craft with a violent thud he couldn’t hear above the howling sounds of the raging climate.

  That was enough of that. He’d learned his lesson.

  He reached his fingers out and cracked open an eye to ensure he hit the correct button and waited for the lid’s closure, imagining the blissful warmth he’d feel once more.

  The lid didn’t move. He spun around, letting both eyes crack open just enough to see the horrible sight.

  The lid had frozen in place.

  Adam frowned, somehow forgetting for a moment that he was experiencing the early stages of hypothermia. How could the lid freeze in place, and so quickly?
/>   His frowned deepened to a scowl. If he needed warmth—for his body and for the craft—he could supply that easily enough. He released his Energy restraints, reveling in the deep warmth as the specialized Energy production cells in his body exploded, throttling the Energy through his body until he felt he might melt the thick ice and snowpack all around him. He let his Energy emanate out just enough to cover the time machine before pressing the lid closure button once more.

  This time, it worked.

  After a deep sigh and a moment spent letting his pulse and breathing rates stabilize once he’d convinced his body’s fight-or-flight systems that the threat had ended, Adam dialed his Energy production down once more, feeling the guilt about the necessity to hide his true power. He’d hid his full ability for centuries, learning to isolate those areas of his body producing Energy and reduce the rate of its production. In theory, he could shut it down entirely, but he opted to keep production at levels more in line with what the child of a single Energy user might possess (just below Angel and well below Fil) as it would be exactly what those who knew him would expect. It also had a side benefit: Shielding became far easier at lower Energy production levels at his reduced capacity. At full strength, the mental strain required for holding the Shield distracted him from doing much else.

  Fil had never learned to control that aspect of his immense Energy power, and had instead poured significant mental effort into the task of bottling inside himself the Energy produced every second of his life. Instead, he’d escape to specially designed underground chambers lined with massive amounts of scutarium and allow the excess Energy to escape. If he failed to do so regularly, the heat from the Energy inside would literally burn his skin, forming welts and scars he’d cover with long clothing. Fil had never learned the easier way, dialing back Energy production levels, because the one person who could teach him the technique wouldn’t do so. Adam wouldn’t tell him because it would reveal his full power… and with it, the secret identity of his mother.