Paradox (16 page)

He looks surprised. “Well, grinding, I guess. But this last time there was more—something dark and whispery, like the wind through the trees.” He shudders.

Of course. What Todd hears from the worm is the sound of the forest at night.
The forest of his personal nightmare, the nightmare that tried to trap him?
She remembers Chen, the first time he heard the worm, speaking of hearing fire.
Was that what the
worm sounded like to you, Chen?
And she, Ana, hears breaking glass. And yet she
has
no memories.

Is this what’s kept her from the attacks that paralyzed the others?

And, more importantly, could there really be some kind of connection between the worm and those horrible fear-memories? The effects seem to eerily echo each other—and yet there’s no way she can reconcile them together.

“Come on,” Todd says, reaching for her hand. And this time it somehow seems right to shuffle closer to him as they swish, lean, step—moving forward, with the waves of purple desert at their backs and the vast sweep of everything they don’t know shifting and shaping itself like the sand under their feet.

By the time they reach the end of the dunes, Ana is so bone-weary she almost doesn’t register it when the sand just ahead of her gives one last shimmer before fading into mud-brown silt. She looks up, and her eyes fill with tears.

The sea.

Vivid green waves cascade over a rocky shore, stretching off into the distance as far as she can see. She takes the last step off the sand and her legs wobble under her.

Todd grabs her arm. “Steady,” he says. “It’ll take a few steps to adjust.” But he’s wobbling, too, and for a second they cling to each other, finding their balance on this newly solid ground. Ana is surprised at the joy that springs up inside her. Immediately she feels like a traitor. How can she be
happy—relieved—at putting this behind her when the price was so high?

Her hands are trembling as she lifts her circlet and activates the map. The X is so big and close it’s practically glowing. The area around it on the map is colored in dull gray, and as she zooms in she sees that it’s labeled
APEX
. It’s the colony; it has to be! From the summit of Mount Fahr it wasn’t visible, but now, here it is—barely a half mile down the coast. In the misty spray rising off the ocean, she can just make out a dark bulk that looks like a stone wall.

It’s real, an actual human settlement they are
this close
to reaching. Ana looks at her circlet. Half an hour to go. They’re going to make it! She looks at Todd and they break into a run.

And that’s when she sees it, a dangling sparkle of light at the edge of her vision, drifting down just ahead of her.

“Todd,” she says, “do you see that?”

“What the hell
is
it?” Todd whispers.

This twisting, glimmering memory strand is smaller than the first two. It looks somehow loose and patchy, like it’s starting to come apart at the seams. Seeing it, Ana feels a moment of hesitation, remembering what she experienced last time.

Yet some part of her craves it. She can still picture Bailey’s world as she saw it hours ago, can still feel that deep connectivity of living inside that other mind, even so briefly. She’s desperate to know what’s happening to Bailey, to her world, sure—but it’s more than that. It’s like some part of her is fused with Bailey, as if
she
, too, is somehow living this other life.

She has to get back inside.

Ana changes course, dashing off to the side to follow the strand’s wind-whipped tumble. Behind her, Todd frantically calls, “Ana! What are you doing? You have to stop—”

It’s right above her now, all shimmery-bright, pulsing with
otherness
. Ana reaches her hand to the sky. She closes her eyes. There’s an icy gush as the memory strand pools around her fingers and slides down her body.

Ana tumbles into darkness.

Water … if only I could have a glass of water. Maybe that would help stop the coughing. But the blood … there’s so much blood everywhere. This thing is supposed to be inside my head, living in my mind. So why all the blood? Why all the shaking, the chills … oh, God, the coughing … it hurts!

This disease has spread so quickly. I have to update the report now that I know, now that I really know for sure where things are—

But I can’t seem to lift my head off my desk. Not even to look at my watch. Can’t do it. Is the night gone? Morning, too, maybe? I don’t know
.

Brian! How is he doing? Haven’t spoken to him in …

I laugh suddenly. Jackson would let me go home now, wouldn’t he? Quarantine protocols be damned, I suppose, once the world starts coming apart at the seams
.

But it’s too late now. I can hardly even lift my head
.

Maybe it’s better this way, going out like this. So many gone already. Who would want to linger? Because of course no one’s going to survive this. We know that now
.

But I will regret not seeing Brian one last time, not being with him as I … as we …

“Bailey!” Pat’s calling from his cube, up near the front of the room. His voice sounds like mine feels. Who else is still alive in here? The techs left hours ago. Is there anyone left but us two?

Oh, God. No! The trials are active. How could I have forgotten about that? It’s been hours since I last checked in. I have to … oh, God, they have no idea what’s going on here. I was supposed to be on call. But there’s no time, and I can’t—

“Pat!” My voice is even rougher than before. It’s coming undone; I can hardly understand myself. I drag myself across the room and look around the divider into Pat’s cube. He’s there, hunched over beside his desk. Long gray hair spiked up with sweat. Blood dripping down his face. And the look in his eyes … No. He won’t see tonight, either. We’re a sorry pair
.

Always, the blood. Why does this sickness bring so much blood with it? It’s in my head, all in my head. If I could just have a glass of—

Wait … where am I? I’m there again … I’m back down under. So deep. High above me there’s the reflection of light on the surface of the water. I have to get up, get some air! I’m reaching, pulling as hard as I can. But my foot is caught, I’m trapped. I’m trapped!

“Mommy!” I want to scream. “Mommy!” But I can’t, I’m underwater and I need to breathe, I have to. I won’t be able to hold out any longer and my mouth opens without my permission and water crashes into my lungs and I’m drowning, I’m drowning, and it hurts but it’s peaceful, too, and my lungs kick one more time, trying to expel the water—

No. It’s not real
.

That happened twenty years ago, and I didn’t drown, I was rescued.
It’s not happening. I’m in the office, I’m next to Pat’s cube, retching and coughing up even more blood
.

But the fear … that was just as real as the first time. It’s the disease, I know that—it’s got me on a fear loop and I can’t seem to break out. They’re all connected somehow … the blood and the fear and the pain and …

I have to focus. I’ve got to get to the trials. I’ve got to find some way to—while I still—if I could just—

Ana’s eyes fly open as an electric jolt of panic courses through her body. It’s like she’s stuck her hand into a socket. Her body goes stiff and rigid, and for one trembling moment there’s no air in her lungs….

And then she’s back. On the beach, heart hammering, rocky ground under her back.

It’s never been like that before. Always the experience fades out as the strand drifts away, but this time she watched, felt,
was
Bailey so horribly sick—Bailey
dying
.

Ana sits up slowly, shakily. Todd is standing above her, his face ghostly, his eyes wide and panicked.

He grabs her hand and helps her to her feet. “Ana, what was that? Did you black out? What happened?”

What is she supposed to say?
I just slipped inside some stranger’s head and saw a room filled with death? I just saw—just
was—
someone named Bailey, lying on the floor, choking on her own blood, in some kind of nightmare world that’s maybe in the past, or maybe the future, or maybe all in my head?

She forces herself to smile. “Everything’s okay, I’m back,” she says, trying to keep her voice from wobbling. “I’m fine.”

“If you’re okay, we really need to …” As he glances over his shoulder, Ana can hear it for herself. The worm is back—but with less grind and even more glass than last time. She’s on her feet so fast her head starts spinning and she has to steady herself on Todd’s arm. Then they are off, stagger-running down the beach toward the dark walls of the colony that loom ahead, just up a little bluff.

Overhead, the space between the suns has narrowed to a gash. The sky is a shade of dull pink Ana has never seen before, a hard-biting glare that looks ominous. Somehow it’s a perfect fit for this planet as she’s come to know it, with its deep core of darkness—the other face of the planet, its true face maybe.

This is the sky that the worm plays under.

The place people come to die.

“We’re still going to make it,” Ana gasps as they run. “It’s going to be okay. There must be weapons or something in there, right? In the colony? Something we can use to fight the worm?”

“Ana.” Todd’s breathing is labored, too. “There’s so much you don’t know….”

The words chill her. That
she
doesn’t know? What about
him
?

Somewhere to their rear, the worm lets out a shattering roar.

She forces herself to focus on what matters. There must be
houses inside the settlement. Bunkers, maybe? According to Chen and Ysa, nobody knew about the worm before now, but there still has to be some sort of protection. It’s an alien planet, after all! Surely they had defenses.

“We just had to get this far!” Todd yells beside her. “And when the time is up, then …” His eyes are frantic as he looks at his circlet. “But the worm wasn’t supposed to be here.”

Ana darts a look over her shoulder. The worm is here, all right—mouth agape, roaring along the beach in a maelstrom of whirling dirt and stone fragments—a couple hundred feet away and closing the distance fast.

Just ahead is the short incline leading to the base of the colony’s wall, which is made of piled-up stones fixed with some type of mortar. It’s a quick scramble for Ana to get up the bluff. The wall is tall right where she is, but as she runs along following the edge, she sees that parts of it have crumbled down to about eye level, and even lower.

Ana finds a gap where she can look over the wall. Several small dwellings made of flimsy-looking materials lie in a state of complete disrepair—roofs are caved in, walls are cracked, and everything is covered by sand. On the far edge of the settlement she can see the start of a more durable building, stones heaped upon each other in the beginnings of a foundation, a task begun but certainly not seen through to completion.

The colony, if this really was a colony, has not only been deserted for some time, but it looks like the settlers never even finished building it.

Ana takes a step backward, unwilling to believe what she is seeing.

She remembers Chen and Ysa’s discussion on the mountain. They said there were a few survivors … or did they? Leaving aside all the hedging and half-truths, one thing right now is abundantly clear: this place is abandoned. There are no reinforcements. There is no refuge.

She and Todd are on their own.

In that moment, Ana realizes that she can no longer hear the worm.

She turns and finds that Todd has stopped at the bottom of the slope. Like a knight facing down a dragon, Todd plants his feet wide and stretches his arms out to either side. A long blade glints in each hand. The worm is advancing on him slowly, just like it did at the mouth of the cave, closing in with the surety of predator on prey.

“Todd!” Ana yells. “What are you doing?”

“Stay right where you are,” he calls back without turning. “We just need another minute….”

Ana looks up and gasps. There’s no more than a hairbreadth of sky left between the suns. She glances at the circlet. Barely a minute until zero hour.

The worm opens its mouth so wide that, for a second, it’s nothing but a giant gaping maw. As it roars, the sky goes from a dull peach to an assault of light so bright it feels like it’s peeling back Ana’s skin. Ana drops to her knees and hides her face against the ground. The light is a crushing physical force.

Somewhere beyond the pain she hears Todd yell, the pounding of running steps, and the crunch of a blade hitting something hard. The worm tackling him? His tackling the worm?

Eyes still shut, Ana scrabbles down the incline and fumbles for the pistol in her vest. She squeezes her eyes open just enough to orient herself. In her peripheral vision, the two suns are meshed into one amorphous glowing ball of fire, reacting somehow to each other’s presence in a cascade of fiery sparks and—what? Radiation? Gamma rays? Shielding her eyes with her hands, she struggles toward the worm.

Todd is hanging off the side of the worm’s head, one of his daggers hooked into the leathery skin next to the beast’s left eye. As she watches, he swings his other arm up and plants his second blade higher on the worm’s head.

He’s climbing the worm’s flank! Ana wonders if he’s trying to get to the eyes, or the fleshy-looking area between them.

Ana draws her pistol, aims for the worm’s gaping mouth—she doesn’t dare risk trying for the eyes, with Todd so near—and fires.

At the sound of the report, Todd looks back over his shoulder at her, eyes wide.

“Get away!” he screams. His grip slips and he catches himself just in time. “Get behind the wall at least! You’ve got to
survive
!”

Something inside Ana’s chest squeezes into a tight ball. She
doesn’t think she’ll be able to stand it if the last word Todd ever says to her is
survive
when he’s risking so much.

She’s running toward him, looking for a better shot, when she feels a thrum on her wrist. Her circlet is warm and suddenly aglow.