Paradox Read Online Free

the air and carried along by the wind. Ana tries to go around it, but the backpack makes her clumsy, and for a second it’s all she can do to keep her balance, and then—
    Sssssssssss
    The glittering strand of light slides over her body and covers her like the spray of a hot shower, like comfort, like coming home. She falls over some invisible edge and—
    What a crazy, crazy day … it’s gone by in a flash and my to-do list is longer than it was this morning. I’m bone-weary. Pushing up the white sleeve of my lab coat, I check my watch. Five forty-five! Already?
    I can’t wait to head home. Tonight is the last game of the playoffs, and Brian will be waiting. We said six o’clock for pizza, but I’ll have to put him off until seven. At the earliest
.
    My eyes drift from my watch to my wedding ring—it still looks weird to see it there. I wonder if one day I’ll be so used to it that I won’t even notice. No way. It’s too perfect. Like my life. Except for all this prion madness, of course; but we’re so close now to figuring it out, and even if the worst happens … No. I won’t let myself think of that. I just need to finish up here and get home
.
    The phone rings, and I snap back into work mode. I’ll call Brian later, just as soon as I get a second to catch my breath. Scribbling a reminder on a yellow sticky note with my right hand, I grab the phone with my left
.
    “Yeah?”
    “Bailey, what’s keeping you?” It’s Jackson, of course. “We haven’t gotten the readouts yet. Are we getting any insight from the PX37 trials? Talk to me!”
    Talk to him? Right, if he’d just shut up for a second. “Listen, Jackson, it’s next on my list. I’m working on all cylinders here, but Tang is out with the flu and it’s just me.”
    Jackson is silent for a moment
.
    “The flu?”
    “That’s all it is,” I say. “Doctor’s sworn statement. Tang will be back in tomorrow.”
    “Forget it,” Jackson says. “Let him go. It’s not worth the risk.”
    “But—”
    “Damn it, Bailey, you of all people know what’s at stake here! You wrote the report! Get rid of Tang and get me the information. I’m sending over some new tests that need to be run, too. Anticipation sensors and modulation adjustments. We have to figure out what’s out of place.”
    “But I—”
    “Readouts, on my desk. I need you on this for as long as it takes.”
    And he’s gone, leaving me glaring down at the receiver like I could vaporize it with a look. I groan, lean my head forward, and hide behind my hair for just a second. So much for the playoffs and pizza with Brian. I reach over to hang up the phone—
    Gasping, Ana finds herself facedown on the ground, her cheek pressing against the hard-packed dirt, pinned by her backpack’s heavy weight. She struggles to a sitting position, rubbing her cheek and feeling the fine imprint of the rocky soil on her skin.
    What just happened?
    Wincing at a throbbing pain in her temples, she turns and looks behind her. The gossamer strand of light is twisting away, but it seems smaller now, and fainter. As she watches, one little mirror at a time blows away like dandelion puffs on the wind until soon there’s nothing left.
    Nothing but the memory of what she saw.
    Ana looks at her hands, the sleeve of her coarse gray jumpsuit, and her tan fingers, plain and unadorned, and sees again the creamy skin from the vision and the shimmer of the diamond ring as she turned it from side to side. There were yellow curls tumbling over her shoulders … Ana reaches up and touches short-cropped hair along her scalp, shorter than the length of her fingers, so short she doesn’t even know what color it is.
    But she’s almost sure it’s not blond.
    The experience she just dropped into, or lived, or whatever that was—it felt as real to her as everything she’s felt since leaving the rocket. It’s rock solid. And yet …
    That wasn’t me. I could swear to it
.
    But then who was it?
    Maybe there is