What the hell . . .
Anya was gone. The girl had simply vanished. No, not vanished. Changed. A completely different person stood where she had been standing, dressed in Anya’s same white Temple menagerie clothes, a few inches shorter than Anya so that the pants hem brushed the ground. It was a man. He was about four feet tall, painfully thin, the bones of his face especially pronounced—with the telltale white stripe in his hair.
An Axion impostor.
“Shit!” Leon yelled.
Mali and Cassian spun around, going rigid as soon as they saw the spy dressed in Anya’s clothes.
“Anya . . . ?” Mali started, but Leon pulled her away from the Axion.
“It isn’t Anya!” he said. “It’s one of those damn spies—Willa figured out how to expose them.”
The Axion tossed a look over his shoulder, judging the distance to the door.
“Don’t think about running.” Cassian strode to the door and slammed it shut.
The Axion’s eyes darted back and forth, his face scowling.
“How long have you been posing as her?” Mali demanded. “Where’s the real Anya?”
“Kill me and you’ll never know.” His grinning lips pulled back over graying, uneven teeth. “You’re too late, anyway. This plan has been generations in the making. We have forty lightships heading to the Gatherer home planet as we speak, and another hundred hunting down their mobile rovers. Twenty of our fastest cruisers are headed for Drogane and the other Mosca planets.” His cruel grin stretched wider. “We’ve already assumed control of four Kindred stations, including station 10-91. Its attempts to resist were pathetic. All those who fought us were killed.”
Leon’s stomach shrank. He thought back on the battle, Tessela and Fian fighting against the Axion intruders. His mouth felt suddenly very dry. Were they really dead? He swallowed down a lump.
“They could have gotten out,” Cassian said, as though reading his thoughts. “They could be on a cargo shuttle to Armstrong.”
“Armstrong?” the Axion sneered. “Then they’ve only bought themselves a few more hours.”
Mali gripped his shirt hard, shaking him. “Why? There’s no reason for you to attack Armstrong. It’s just humans and dust.”
“There are reports,” the Axion said slyly, “of evolved humans who can use telepathy. That’s the third phase of our plan—destroy any human settlements that show signs of evolution.”
Leon sucked in a breath. Ellis had been telepathic. Maybe there’d been others, too. He bit back the worry rising in his throat. Nok and Rolf were on Armstrong. And Makayla and Shoukry too, and all the kids and animals from the Hunt, assuming their ship made it.
“Christ,” he muttered, briefly closing his eyes.
The Axion started to let out a snicker at the distraught expressions on everyone’s faces, until Leon strode up and slammed a fist into his grinning mouth. The Axion’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
“Leon!” Mali said. “He’s the only one who knows where Anya is!”
“I didn’t kill him,” he argued.
Cassian stood over the Axion’s unconscious body. “This is bad. If the Axion have already spread as far as he says, then there isn’t much that can stop them now. We might be the last hope. And if he has been posing as Anya even as far back as Armstrong, he knows everything. He must have told the other Axion that we’re on to them.”
“He couldn’t have been posing as Anya as far back as on Armstrong,” Mali said. “I was with her the entire time.” Mali turned to Willa. “Anya left with you.”
Willa’s eyes widened. She scrawled a quick message on the back of one of her papers.
Theta.
“Theta?” Mali said, and then her expression went flat. “That’s an Axion fuel station, isn’t it?”
Willa nodded. She scrawled more.
Anya went inside, and when she came back she was acting different. I tried to warn Cora. But Anya convinced her it was just the Kindred’s drugs.
“That was weeks ago!” Leon said. “She’s been a spy this entire time?”
“We need to consider what this means and what to do about it,” Cassian said.
Next to Leon, Bonebreak suddenly let out a snort of surprise. When Leon turned, the provision pack was open, and Bonebreak held a roughly spherical object with a glowing blue ring around it.
“What the hell is this?” Bonebreak said.
They all turned to him. Cassian and Serassi immediately went stiff. Cassian’s voice was tight. “That,” he said, “is a bomb.”
Bonebreak squealed and tossed the orb to Leon.
“Shit!” Leon said. “What am I supposed to do with this thing?”
“It’s ticking,” Cassian said in a rush. “It must have been triggered when you opened the pack.”
“That spy who posed as me was planning on getting you killed, boy!” Bonebreak said. “He got you to pick up a bomb that would blow up in the ship, killing you and Mali and Cassian before you could get back here. He didn’t think you’d resist opening it!”
Cassian’s lips moved silently, counting the ticks. His voice was urgent. “Ten more seconds until it goes off.”
Willa and Mali and Bonebreak all leaped back. Leon glanced at the door. His arm was too wounded to throw, but he could run. He could make it to the central vestibule, at least far enough to protect his friends. . . .
As if sensing his thoughts, Bonebreak cursed.
“Idiot humans.” He snatched the bomb out of Leon’s hand and started charging toward the door to the vestibule.
“Brother, no!” Ironmage yelled.
Leon gaped. His heart was thumping hard, his adrenaline pumping. What was that stupid Mosca doing? If Leon knew anything about the black market trader, it was that he’d sooner let them all blow up than risk his own life to save even one of them.
“Bonebreak, what the hell?” he yelled.
“I always liked you, boy,” Bonebreak called. “Never thought I’d die for a weak human childs, but at least you could smuggle with the best of them. Break some bones for me, boy. Break some bones!”
Leon stared, agape, as Bonebreak ran toward the dais. That crazy Mosca was actually, for the first time in his life, going to do something heroic. The other delegations turned in surprise, not yet having noticed the bomb. Bonebreak turned back just once. He nodded toward his brother, touching his chest in a sign of solidarity.
Leon took a single, stumbling step forward. “Bonebreak, no—”
With a sudden blast of light, the central vestibule shattered into a chaos of smoke and fire.
32
Cora
CORA AWOKE IN A cornfield.
Her back was flat against black soil as she blinked into a blue sky. A gentle wind blew the ripened stalks, making a rustling sound like whispers.
Whispers.
She sat upright, crying out, and clutched the sides of her skull. She must have passed out when Fian pushed her back into the puzzle chambers. Voices flooded between her ears like a deafening roar. There had to be a mistake. This couldn’t be what Serassi had intended. What if she’d been lying? What if Serassi had been one of the Axion in disguise and the injection was meant to kill her?
The ground rocked violently and Cora was thrown to her side. She cried out as she slammed into the ground. Her head rang. Half dazed, she looked around, but the cornfield was intact. Had it been the storm outside? Or had it just been in her head, the effects of Serassi’s drug? She tried to stand, but her muscles were spasming, and she collapsed back to the ground. She had to get out of this cornfield . . . this puzzle. Her friends were facing a danger none of them had anticipated. The Axion’s takeover would mean the end of freedom for all species.
The breeze rustled more cornstalks, and Cora doubled over and clamped her hands over her ears. Confusing sensations flooded her body. Her hand seemed to reach out on its own. She grabbed it with her other hand, staring at it. The fingers twitched strangely.
Her nails clawed against her own palm. Her muscles started spasming harder as her vision changed: first it took on a red tint, then a gray one.
Was this a panic attack?
Was she dying?
Fear blackened her mind as a series of visions assaulted her. Driving a tractor through rows of corn with wrinkled old hands. Chasing a little boy through a corn maze. Planting seeds in freshly tilled earth.
The visions felt like memories—but none of them were her own.
Cora dug her fingers into the ground, breathing hard. Whatever those visions were, they weren’t real. She wasn’t back on Earth. She was on Drogane. In the Gauntlet. Puzzle number five. The corn was simulated.
And the voices and visions . . .
“Stop it!” she yelled.
Cora shook her head, trying to rid herself of the contradictory voices, and then suddenly, as though she’d been hit by a sudden rainstorm, she straightened. Everything made sense. The voices were part of Serassi’s injection. The paragon burst contained the best traits of all of humanity, and the voices represented all the differing human perspectives and memories. The paragon burst had worked—or it would, once she learned how to master the sensation.
And then a new voice cut through the whispers and images. A clear voice with a strange, flat accent she knew instantly.
Sing, Cora. Find a song.
It was Mali’s voice. Cora jumped up, spinning around, but she was alone. The voice was in her head. It didn’t have the same warm tickle as a telepathic message; it felt rounder, more hollow—like an echo. All Cora could think was that this must be how Serassi’s drug worked: putting echoes into her head, memories of her friends. The real Mali probably had no idea her voice was now woven into Cora’s DNA.
She took a deep breath.
Then she started humming a shaky melody, until the humming soothed her, and her thoughts became her own again, and her hands moved only at her command. She took another deep, shaky breath and forced herself to stand.
She had to focus. Solve the puzzle.
A low cry sounded to her left.
She whipped her head toward it too fast, and a wave of dizziness overtook her, but she blinked through it and took a determined step toward the cry. The corn pushed at her face, dry husks scratching her bare arms. She tried to stand on tiptoe, but the corn was too tall. She could only see a few feet in any direction.
The cry came again. High-pitched, like something in pain.
She started moving faster, following the sound among the rows. Maybe it was a corn maze, a physical puzzle—but no, there were no twists or dead ends, only row after row. Besides, the stock algorithm wouldn’t hand anything that easy to her.
The cry came again from behind her. She spun and raced down the row, kicking up black soil. Was it a person? Someone wounded? It came again, a single sharp whimper, as she crashed through the corn into the next row.
She stopped.
A small bundle of white fur huddled in the middle of the row. A fox. Wet, sticky blood streaked down one of its legs and soaked into the soil beneath it. She started—it had a small gray patch on the top of its head, just like the Arctic fox from the Hunt menagerie. Surely it wasn’t the same fox, right? That would be impossible. The stock algorithm must have reached into her memories to create it. She took a step forward cautiously. This could still be a physical puzzle in disguise—the fox might attack. But as she neared, it was clear that the fox couldn’t even stand, let alone strike. Its leg was mangled, and a deep gash ran across its abdomen, as though it had been accidentally caught under a tractor.
Cora knelt, overwhelmed with sadness.
What if it was the same fox from the Hunt? What if, somehow, the stock algorithm had materialized it here, wounded it like this, just to test Cora? She felt suddenly sick at the idea that the Gauntlet might use something real, something living.
And then she understood what this puzzle was—a moral one. Real or not, she had to put the fox out of its misery.
No, don’t, a small voice whispered in her head. It was Nok’s voice. Don’t hurt it!
And then:
Leon’s voice: Do it.
Nok’s voice: But it could recover.
Rolf’s voice: You aren’t a veterinarian—you don’t know what’s best.
Mali’s voice: It’s suffering. Let nature take its course.
The wind rustled again. She had no idea how long she’d been in this puzzle, but outside the walls Cassian and the others needed her.
The fox whimpered again.
And yet humanity was a complex thing, judging by all the differing voices in her head. Some argued the fox should live, others claimed killing it was the right thing to do. She ignored the voices all offering different viewpoints and sorted through them until she found the one she trusted most: Lucky’s.
Everything that’s alive must die, his voice said. She recognized the words as ones he had written in his journal: If you can, give it a good life first. Honor it. Don’t make anything suffer just because you can’t stomach what needs to be done.
She reached out and slid her hands over the little fox’s back. Its fur was so soft, its little heart fluttering. In the Hunt it had been a prisoner, just like her. Before doubt had a chance to change her mind, she slid her hands to its neck, felt for the bones of its spine, and then drew in a sharp breath.
“I’m sorry.”
She snapped the bones.
They broke as easily in her hands as twigs. She cried out as the fox slumped to the ground, then pressed her hands to her mouth. What if it was the real fox? Taking a life was taking a life. Eventually the voices in her head died down, but they didn’t go away entirely. They sank into her mind, just as the muscle spasms eased too. Her friends’ voices echoed as she stroked the dead fox.
It’s at peace, whispered Mali’s voice.
You did what you had to, Nok’s said.
Tough call, said Leon’s.
And, somehow, she felt comforted. She wasn’t alone anymore, she realized. It wasn’t just her running the puzzles now. With the paragon burst’s voices of Mali and Leon and Lucky and even people she had never met, it now felt as though all of humanity were behind her.
The next door opened.
33
Cora
CORA ENTERED THE SIXTH puzzle chamber to find herself surrounded by plain walls with doors on every side, but when she tried to open one: zap. An electric shock. She jerked her hand back with a hiss. She tried again. Zap. She cursed—stronger this time. The smell of singed flesh filled the room. Try after try, shock after shock, she tried each door, wincing, only to realize there was no solution. The electric shocks were the puzzle: a physical puzzle to test her ability to withstand pain. After a dozen shocks she began to black out. One more and she’d faint—she simply wasn’t strong enough. But then, just as her vision began to go, voices filled her mind. Keep going, Mali said. Don’t give up, Lucky urged. And so, with bolstered courage from the paragon burst, she continued to touch door after door, suffering shock after shock, pushing herself far more than she ever thought possible, until at last a door opened and she crawled, sick and spent, into puzzle seven.
Heat bathed her skin as soon as the door closed. Burning heat, like standing too close to a campfire. She was on a platform like in the treetops course, but there were no trees. No forest. Ten feet away, on the opposite wall, was another platform leading to the door to the next puzzle. Cora crawled to the edge of the platform, looked down, and immediately jerked back.
The floor was made of lava. Real, glowing-red, smoking lava. Sweat dripped from her forehead. There was no bridge. No rope to cross. There wasn’t anything intellectual about it, so by the process of elimination she knew it had to be a perceptive puzzle. She crawled back to the platform edge and concentrated on the lava. Maybe I can cool it. But her reaching thoughts had nothing to latch onto, nothing to open or twist or lift. No way to change the temperature. Maybe it’s only an illusion—the trick is seeing past it. She rea
ched out a toe and, drawing in a breath, tried setting down a foot.
It sizzled.
“Ah!” She jerked her foot back, clutching it. Not an illusion. The lava was real. “So if I can’t change the lava,” she muttered to herself, “and there’s nothing to telekinetically lift to build a bridge, then . . .”
Wait. There was something she could lift.
She could levitate herself across the floor. Of course—Bonebreak had warned her that one of the perceptive puzzles would require her to lift a heavy object. But herself? It would basically be floating. Flying. Just the prospect made her head throb. She’d already damaged her brain so severely. She didn’t know how much strength she had left. But then she remembered training with Anya. Lifting the heavy potted fern, which had weighed about the same as she did.
What was it Anya had said? Something about pushing herself to the brink.
She closed her eyes and concentrated. What an unsettling feeling, to reach her thoughts back toward her own body. She let her thoughts surround her like a hug, cradling her below the armpits, and the knees, and around the middle.
Lift.
An uneasy lightness filled her. It felt like being on Fuel Station Theta again, where the gravity had been weaker, only there was something eerily unnatural about feeling that here. And then she felt a burst of pain, and she gasped, releasing her concentration.
She closed her eyes. She had to push past the pain.
Lift.
Slowly, wobbly, she rose an inch off the platform. Her bare feet touched air. She fought against the awful pain and concentrated on floating. Forward. Waves of heat radiated from below her. Don’t look down, she told herself. Don’t open your eyes. The pain was blinding. Her mind felt as though it were tearing faster and faster. She could almost hear a sound like flesh splitting, and fears nipped at her that she’d break her brain completely, she’d lose all her memories, but she pushed herself harder. None of that mattered if she didn’t win. Blood dripped from her nose, sizzling on the lava.
To the brink!
She cried out as one final tear ripped through her head. Suddenly there was nothing there: No mental arm reaching out to hold her up. No psychic abilities. Without warning, she fell. She screamed as she plunged downward, snapping her eyes open. The air rushed out of her as her chest hit the opposite platform. She cried out, reaching for something to hold on to. She was halfway on the platform, her feet dangling over the edge. She dug her fingernails into the grooves in the platform. A toe brushed the lava and she cried out. The smell of burned flesh filled the room. Crying, dripping blood, she pulled herself the rest of the way onto the platform and collapsed.
The Gauntlet Page 21