Paradox (6 page)

Todd’s face darkens. “It’s not supposed to be here,” he mutters.

Ana swallows. Back on the cliff, she heard him say something similar. He’s slipping out of his Sixteen Questions persona, but she feels no need to push back. “Go on,” she says.

“None of the planet scans of Paradox showed any signs of animal life. None at all. There
was
evidence that millions of years ago, a giant wormlike creature used to roam the planet. But it’s long extinct. So why is it here now?”

“Planet scans?” Ana says incredulously. “How do you know about that?”

Todd grimaces. “I told you. I know stuff about this place. Physical things. I just think about it and the knowledge is there.”

Ana nods. “Well, maybe the creature is a different life form entirely? Maybe it escaped the scans that way?”

Todd’s already shaking his head. “It wasn’t here,” he insists.
“And then the first thing I thought of when I saw it was
Vermiletum
. But no, that would be ridiculous.”

Vermi letum
. Deadly worm. Apparently her former life included some Latin. “What do you mean,
Vermiletum
?” she asks. “You’ve seen that thing somewhere before, or heard of it?”

“Not really. I …” Todd flushes. “I just thought it triggered something, but … no.”

There he goes again. He knows something, something he’s too afraid to talk about. What could be more fearsome than a giant worm?
Vermiletum
. Something about that name fits. And what’s more, the word stirs her up inside and sets her pulse pounding in her ears.

She has no idea why, but it makes her want to fight.

Her left hand crosses over to her hip and strokes the handle of the dagger resting in its sheath. An image flashes through her mind and she sees a gleaming blade hurtling through the air, turning end over end to sink with a satisfying
thunk
into a plywood target.

She’s jerked back to the moment as Todd stops walking and turns, looking straight at her. His eyes are wide and staring, startlingly blue in his chalky face. “Forget the worm,” he says, a little hoarsely. “It’s all wrong. We just have to get to the end of the countdown, and to do that we’ve got to stay away from it, okay?”

Ana frowns. “I’m not going looking for it, but it makes sense to investigate as much as we can while we’re here. What about the letter? Experience, discover, blah blah. If it shows up again,
if it attacks … Do you suppose we could kill it if we had to, if we worked together? Maybe stabbed or shot it in just the right spot?”

“No!” Todd barks. “The worm is something else.” He turns his back on her and sets off down the path again. “Just trust me, okay? It’s more than it seems. As bad as it looks, the worm is even worse. You don’t want to get anywhere near it.”

Ana closes her eyes a moment and flashes back to that slavering jaw, those rows of jagged teeth. The thing is like a tank—sixteen tanks strung end to end. What does she really think a couple of kids with pistols and knives could do against it? She was told to experience and discover, sure. She was also told to survive.

But the rush of adrenaline now coursing through her body is something else altogether. Because she’s discovered something hard inside her, something cold and strong and razor-sharp. There is solid iron at her core. She will not break, will not bend, will not deviate from whatever path she embarks upon. And right now she knows with deadly certainty that she will do whatever it takes to defeat that worm.

Or die trying.

At the threshold of the Dead Forest, the path winds down a few hundred feet, then disappears into the solid wall of trees.

“There’s something about this place,” Ana whispers. She glances at Todd. Despite his determined stride, Ana can see tension in the set of his neck, in his rigid posture. She can almost feel the fear coursing through him.

“What is it?” she says.

“The forest?” Todd shrugs, then ruins the effect with a nervous swallow. “It’s fine. No big deal.”

“Come on, Todd,” she says, pushing past him. The barren ground makes way for little tufts of yellowish growth, and bushes claw their way up out of the ground as they near the trees. Ana is so busy studying the ground that she almost
misses the moment where the shift happens—but there’s one step and then the next and suddenly it’s as if she were inside a shuttered room. She’s crossed over into the forest.

The trees loom overhead, so high she can’t see where their canopies end, and so close together that the light’s almost completely blocked out. The sunlight that does filter down is dim and watery. Each tree is nearly as wide around as the rocket she traveled here in. Six of her could probably hold hands in a circle and not reach around to the other side of just one trunk.

Stranger still, the trees aren’t brown, and they aren’t covered in bark. There are no leaves. In fact, there’s no green anywhere.

Everything in the forest, every tree trunk and branch, is ash gray.

The Dead Forest.
Well, that makes sense
.

Suddenly she realizes she’s alone. She looks back to see Todd standing just outside the tree line, silhouetted against the light. He’s half leaning against a trunk, as though trying to persuade himself to keep moving forward. Ana feels a rush of sympathy for his obvious struggle. Then his jaw hardens and a steely look comes into his eyes. He marches forward, pushing into the trees at last. Ana moves aside as he walks past her and down the path.

As Ana starts to follow him, something on the ground catches her eye. She stops and squats down. At first glance the forest floor looks as if it’s covered in dirt, but up close she sees that it’s ash—a fine, gunmetal-gray powder.

She reaches toward the nearest tree and brushes its stony surface with the lightest touch. It’s cold as ice. She flattens her palm against the rough surface, which is crisscrossed with dozens of little ridges. If she closes her eyes, she could almost trick herself into thinking she’s got her hand on an Earth tree—but the moment she opens them again, it’s abundantly clear that this is not the case. Each tree in this forest is like a giant fossil, a memory of something that used to be, something that’s dead and gone and doesn’t even know it.

Sliding her hand off the tree, she looks at her soot-blackened palm. It’s thick with a dark powdery coating—like ash, but heavier—particles that cling to her skin. She rubs her hand against her jumpsuit and spreads a black ashy patch onto the cloth, but when she looks at her hand again, it shows little difference.

What is this stuff?
Ana shudders.

This Dead Forest … somehow it feels
undead
. She looks around nervously and feels weirdly claustrophobic, as if she’s suddenly stepped inside a dark haunted house with no exit.

Ana shakes herself. Where did
that
come from? Of course there’s an exit—the path is clearly visible through the gloom—and
okay
, yes, it gets gloomier the farther in you go, but that doesn’t mean there’s no end. The dotted line of their map will take care of that.

“Todd?” she calls, suddenly realizing that he’s no longer in sight.

Jumping up, Ana adjusts her pack and starts to run,
remembering the jittery, fearful way Todd took off. What if he’s left the path? What if she can’t find him?

But then she turns a corner and runs smack into him.

Todd is standing in the middle of the trail, not moving a muscle. She comes around him and gasps. His eyes are glazed, his mouth slightly open. Ana grabs his arm, her fear disappearing in the palpable sense of his own. “Come on, Todd. Let’s go.”

Todd shakes himself, obviously trying to break free from whatever’s got hold of him, but not quite succeeding. Could it be some kind of panic attack? Nerves?

“You didn’t tell me you had forest issues,” she continues with forced lightness, leading him along the path. “Though I probably should have guessed from all those clues you were dropping earlier. Anything you want to talk about?”

“No … issues,” he says, but each word seems to take effort, as if it’s being dragged out of him.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll just get through this and then you’ll be okay.”

“Must be … some kind of subconscious …” He’s sweating now, tiny drops barely visible above his hairline.

Ana’s still pulling him along, but it’s getting more difficult, as if his feet want to root themselves to the ground.

“… aversion …”

His face is shiny with sweat and his eyes look glassy again.
What is going on?

A twinge of panic starts somewhere in Ana’s gut, because
it’s suddenly clear that Todd’s problem is much bigger than just a forest phobia. Should they turn around? No, they
have
to go through the forest. It’s the only way to get where they’re going.

Ana reaches over and grabs the circlet on Todd’s left wrist. With a quick stroke she pulls up the map, which gleams against their dark backdrop. There’s a flash of near-recognition in Todd’s eyes as he tries to focus on the display.

“Hey, Todd,” Ana says. “You see that? Gotta follow the directions. We’re almost there.”

They’re not almost there—not as far as she can tell from the map, anyway. She clicks it off again and they move on. She wishes she could take the time to zoom out and get an idea of how far in they are and how far there is to go, but she’s got all her focus on keeping Todd moving forward.

More and more it’s looking like a battle she might not win.

“No!” she yells aloud at the thought. Todd jumps at the abrupt sound, then sinks back to his walk-be-dragged-shuffle. But that jump gives her an idea.

Ana stops and drops his arm, pausing for a second to catch her breath. As she does, she can see Todd’s body beginning to shift, as if his very bones were pulling toward the ground. And she could swear she sees tendrils rising from the ground, little shoots twining around his heels, curling over the rims of his boots.