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

by Alex Albrinck

  But when he checked his schedule for the next day—early morning first lesson with Will, then down time, then a meeting to review Will’s progress—he knew that letting her sleep any longer wasn’t an option. She might be sleeping, but she’d need to eat again soon, need to start acclimating to the new world around her, and he wouldn’t sleep tonight worrying about both his first encounter with the newly Energy-activated Will Stark and his first post wakeup encounter with Genevieve.

  He moved into his sleeping quarters, the most private area he controlled in the camp, a space that was heavily soundproofed.

  Then he set Genevieve’s sleeping form down upon a small cot and removed the sleep trigger from her mind.

  He watched as her eyes gradually opened and evaluated her new location. She shifted her glance around, nervous worry lining her face, a sensation of eagerness to be reunited with her daughter.

  He sat down next to her, ready to explain, to answer the questions that would come.

  It was time for Genevieve to begin the next phase of her journey.

  ~~~59~~~

  2219 A.D.

  Six weeks later

  The invisible sphere floated down from the clouds after decelerating from its supersonic traveling speeds, gliding through the roof of a small, isolated house hidden from its neighbors by natural brush and trees. The sun peeked above the horizon, glinting off the early morning dew clinging to vegetation that seemed to glow in the early morning light.

  Once inside the landing zone, the sphere regained visibility, a glimmering shade of silver that could blind observers in full sunlight. Adam appeared outside the craft, teleporting the short distance rather than dismantling the nano-based structure, and he waited as the Energy Eating machine removed all trace of his action from the space.

  Then he walked into the main part of the house.

  Genevieve stood in the kitchen, yawning, her long, silvery blond hair tied back in a ponytail. He caught a whiff of coffee and watched as she scrambled eggs in a pan, twisting and stretching her body to awaken muscles only recently roused from sleep.

  She looked like she’d lived here for a year.

  “Morning,” he murmured.

  Good morning.

  “No, no telepathy. Practice speaking out loud. Modern English.”

  “Yes. Of. Of course. Good morning. Adam.”

  He nodded, smiling his approval. “You’ve been practicing. Good job.”

  She’d not been thrilled that evening when he’d woken her up after transporting her away from Eden and back to the Alliance camp. She’d been angry because she’d expected to see Hope, had thought he’d put her into a deep sleep so she could wake up only when Hope was available to her. He explained, again, how that wasn’t yet possible given the likely war to erupt and Hope’s key role in any such battle, and if he put her into a deep sleep and died in battle, she’d never regain consciousness.

  He’d brought her here the same way he’d just arrived, by taking the massive nano swarm comprising his private quarters and consolidating them into a private sphere, wrapping it around the mini navigation system they all kept in their private quarters. Such systems were too specialized to form from general nanos, but the general nanos could hook themselves into data generated by the navigation systems. He’d taken off into the night, taking her away up into the dark night sky. They’d talked while the ship traveled to its destination.

  He needed his time in camp fully focused on preparing Will Stark for his journey back in time to Elizabeth, and that meant he couldn’t have the surprise of her being in his quarters. She could stay in camp only if she remained in his quarters all day, every day, never to be seen or heard by anyone. She had no interest in those living conditions, unless it kept her nearer her goal.

  He’d purchased the small home in the southeastern peninsula—ironically, quite close to Aliomenti Headquarters—over a century earlier, and had rarely visited. He’d outfitted the home with Alliance gadgets that kept it in good repair, free of vermin and dust and signs of abandonment, and added furnishings so that he could stop by if needed. Like all Energy user homes outside the Cavern, he’d added scutarium lined insulation around every inch of the exterior walls and added invisible scutarium seals to doors and windows that not only prevented Energy leakages, but helped keep energy bills low. The garage roof had been replaced with one of his own design, one which let his flying sphere come and go without the few neighbors having a chance to wonder what the odd sounds and strange architectural features that an opening and closing roof might mean.

  He’d never used the house, though, letting one of the hundreds of business trusts he’d created in the outer world handle the drudgery of payments for utilities and taxes while making clear he had no interest in selling or hiring contractors to handle exterior maintenance. It was thus a perfect place to hide Genevieve while giving her a nominal amount of freedom in the strange new world.

  He’d taken her shopping her first morning there, doing his best to prepare her for a world of automobiles, superstores full of clothing and food and gadgets she couldn’t understand, and payment using thin pieces of plastic rather than metal coins. She managed to keep her shock somewhat under control; her mouth stopped hanging open after a few minutes, but her eyes remained wide in awe at the incredible noise and color and movement of the modern world.

  They traveled home in the ground car he kept in one of the garage bays and she peppered him with questions, including some about the operation of the various buttons and Velcro and snaps and zippers on the clothes they’d purchased for her use. He’d pulled up an Alliance-developed language immersion program—one that made no assumption of the learner’s starting language—and showed her how to operate the controls. “This will teach you to speak out loud in the modern version of your language, which is what I speak with my friends. You will need to be able to handle the activities we just did on your own, because I can’t guarantee how often I can come back to help. Learn to speak so that you can ask questions and read signs.” He also showed her how to operate the display screen for entertainment and the computer for asking questions and getting answers from the Internet—tools she could only use once she’d started mastering the modern language.

  And after showing her how to prepare food in the microwave—the simplest approach now that microwaves identified food products and set timers and power levels without human involvement—he left her to fend for herself, feeling guilty the entire time.

  To his relief, Genevieve took to the challenge, and when he got away to visit a week later, she greeted him in modern English, one still thick with her unique accent, but certainly understandable. She showed him her favorite TV program—a history presentation of ancient England and how the people of the day lived—and asked if she could somehow tell the people speaking about all the mistakes they’d made. After conversing, he handed her a payment card and showed her how to set the ground car to go back to the superstore and how to have it return home. He just watched as she shopped on her own this time, avoiding any contact, letting her learn from mistakes. She picked out clothes more to her taste than the generic attire he’d chosen. She selected foods for recipes she’d found on the Internet and asked—in her halted modern English—if they had the necessary spices and pans in the house.

  She did well, impressing him with her effort to assimilate, to accept her new world and live in it.

  The next week, he took her out for a walk, letting her feel the warm air and the sun on her skin, teaching her how to read the street signs. He gave her a portable communicator, showing her how to call his device or type messages that would show up instantly on his devices, or how to check to see where she was in the world relative to the house.

  He could sense that she wanted to ask if she could communicate with her daughter in the same fashion, but realized that he’d block any such efforts and kept those thoughts in her head, in a manner of speaking.

  The following week he smuggled copies of Will’s memory vid
eos to her, explaining why they’d made them and what they represented, and how she’d understand more of her daughter’s story. He could see the change in her the fourth week, as her mind finally grasped the enormity of the story of Will and Hope, of the pain and sacrifice her daughter and son-in-law endured for the world, as she understood the woman her child had grown into over the course of time frames she couldn’t fathom.

  He’d stayed away longer this time, telling her that she should text him questions if she had them. He noted that her skin was darker than during his last visit, suggesting that she’d spent quite a bit of time outside.

  “I have a surprise for you today.”

  She looked over at him, eyed him quizzically, and then flipped off the stove burner and dumped the eggs on a plate. “I did not know you was visited today or I have make you eggs.”

  “I did not know you were visiting today or I would have made you eggs,” he said, his voice gentle. She still struggled with verb tenses, but he could understand her without much effort. After she repeated his corrected version of her sentence, he watched her move to the table to eat. “Aren’t you curious about the surprise?”

  She shrugged. “I am saving my joyousness for seeing my daughter in few weeks.”

  He held up a small box. “This says you can see her today.”

  Genevieve froze, her fork stationary before her mouth, remaining motionless for several seconds before she put the fork back on her plate. “I do not understand, Adam. You have said I cannot see Lizzie until war over, war not starting yet. Why difference now?”

  “I have found a way for you to see her without her being aware. It’s not the same as talking to her, or holding her. But it’s something. It’s… like we did in your time. Hiding. But near her.” He paused. “Do you… do you not want to see her yet?”

  She stood. “We leave now.”

  He chuckled. “Bring your breakfast. It will be a long trip.”

  She smiled, grabbed her plate and a fork, and followed him.

  He’d spent time chatting with the Mechanic after their post time travel encounter that night. In a follow-up meeting, the Mechanic reversed the signals and tracked the remote to a spot on Eden, and then embedded the circuitry and coding into a crude tracking device. In explaining the new tool, he told her that he’d left a part of their ship on the island and hoped that one of his friends could build a machine to find it. The friend had succeeded, and the box he’d brought with him meant they’d be able to return to Eden at any time.

  “I do not comprehend the meaning, Adam.” She frowned. “Understand better word there, correct? I do not understand?” After he nodded, she continued. “Why is it important that you can find island?”

  “I am quite certain now that Hope and her husband have lived there while they’ve kept themselves invisible to the outside world, and that they remain on the island now until they’re ready to return to their children. I think that will happen very soon. With this box, we can go to the island and see her.”

  She nodded, a look of mixed excitement and caution on her face. “There is chance Lizzie will not be there?”

  He nodded. “There’s a chance. I am confident that they live on the island, but that does not mean they are always on the island. They are very good at hiding when they don’t want to be found.”

  “How do they hide from you, Adam?” With his father now dead, he’d convinced her to call him by that name, rather than the “son of Adam” appellation she used in their telepathic conversations in the past.

  “Well, the island hides itself well. But they have also put a lid over the island, which makes sure that their Energy cannot leave. If we cannot find their Energy, we cannot find them.”

  Genevieve nodded. “That is smart of my Lizzie.”

  “People who aren’t supposed to exist should be very careful practicing Energy work outside their home, and for the same reason.” He fixed her with an intense stare; he’d felt the Energy as he neared the house. “You’ve seen the videos with the Hunters in them, saw what they and the Assassin did to those poor men, didn’t you?”

  She looked away, out the window. “I will stop.”

  “Don’t stop. Practice only indoors where your Energy will be kept hidden. Make certain you work on the Shield like I taught you when you go outside the house, even for a moment.”

  “It is difficult. It is new and exciting and wonderful and I want to use it always.” She looked back at him. “I moved me to kitchen today.”

  “You moved… wait. You teleported?”

  “In bedroom. Thinking of kitchen. Suddenly I was in a kitchen.” She looked at him. “Scary, but exciting.”

  He bit his lip. “I know it is, Genevieve. But… that type of power used outside the house… that will be noticed. Please keep testing it all you want inside the house… you should be proud of the work you’ve done and the growth you’ve achieved. But with that growing Energy comes the higher risk of discovery.” He realized what had happened, that she’d watched the videos where Will shared Energy with the trees outside the Alliance camp and had seen his Energy grow exponentially. That was why the surrounding environs were dripping with her Energy. He’d need to clean that up when they got back.

  Two hours later, they spotted the island, and Adam marveled at the power of the mysterious landmass. They couldn’t see it unless they flew low and were directly over it; he needed to position the craft using instruments aligned with the buried remote to ensure they didn’t miss the space. He slid below the floating scutarium shield blanketing the island, activated an Energy Eater—for both of them this time—and wrapped them inside their invisible shared exoskeleton. “Just like old times, when we watched your father and mother and my Lizzie, but this time without the little radios.” Genevieve used telepathy freely in this shared cocoon, freeing them temporarily of the occasional awkwardness of the spoken word. She gestured at the invisible wall surrounding them. “When will you teach me how to do this?”

  He floated them through the walls of his ship. “That’s a good question. I’ll see what I can arrange.”

  They moved south of the spot they’d visited on the island, tracing the river toward a large clearing in the trees near the house that Will and Hope had built. They found in that opening, not wide open green spaces, but what looked like giant tarps or tents spread out over massive plots of land. They also saw tens of thousands of large, silvery orbs, perhaps three feet in diameter each, and spotted a woman with long blond hair bending over one of them, her face masked in concentration.

  “Lizzie,” Genevieve whispered. She recognized her daughter even as a grown woman, even with her hair a different color. Adam could feel the emotion generated in that single word.

  While Genevieve watched her daughter work on the silvery orbs, Adam answered her questions and scanned the island. He spotted Will, looking just as he had for the last thousand years or more, chatting with Hope as he examined a pile of much smaller spheres. Adam couldn’t understand what they might be, but suspected that the devices—and the large tarps covering the ground here—were part of the planned war effort he suspected the couple would suggest once the younger Will left the present time.

  He then spotted something he’d not expected. Two more women. That seemed… strange. Had Will and Hope recruited new recruits for the Alliance on their own, despite their self-imposed escape from Energy society?

  And then he sucked in his breath. He recognized those women, much as Genevieve had recognized Lizzie.

  He needed air, needed more space than he could afford to use in the exoskeleton, and he yanked them both back to the flying sphere and inside, sealing them in, sucking in the more abundant air inside the flying ship, trying to stabilize himself.

  Genevieve put a hand on his back. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m… shaken.” He sat back on his feet. “Did you see the two women there with them?”

  “Yes. Who were they?”

  “Have you heard of the Cataclysm? Read abou
t it, or seen anything in a memory video about it?”

  “Someone mentioned on the History Channel. Lots of big explosions and a large percentage of the people on the planet died. Nobody knows what caused it. It happened a long time ago.”

  “The cause isn’t unknown.” He crawled onto a small bench inside the craft and looked at her. “A new Assassin kidnapped the wife and young daughter of your grandson, Fil. He taunted Fil, showing him the places where he’d supposedly taken them, and Fil used the teleportation power you just learned to go to each city in turn. In his anger and fear, and because of the distances he traveled, he unleashed an unfathomable amount of Energy, and that Energy was charged full of the emotions of anger and rage. That’s what caused all of the destruction and death.” He shook his head. “Just as he got to their actual hiding place… the Assassin killed both of them.” He looked up, saw Genevieve’s hand over her mouth, tears trickling from her eyes, both in the horror that her grandson had experienced such tragedy… and that he’d caused even more. “Gen, the reason I couldn’t breathe for a moment… the two women we just saw are his wife and daughter, the latter now a grown woman. They aren’t dead.”

  Genevieve’s hand came away from her mouth. “Oh my.”

  He looked at her. “My reaction to the shock of seeing someone I thought dead… do you understand how just then I might be vulnerable? Perhaps in a war-like situation?”

  She stared at him. Realization dawned. “I… I do understand, Adam. It doesn’t mean I’m happy about staying away from her. But I understand.” She paused, and then she smiled. “Thanks for taking me to see her, if only for a little while.”

  He nodded, wondering just what other secrets Will and Hope might have in store for all of them in the coming weeks.

  ~~~60~~~