Paradox Read Online Free Page A

a settlement somewhere on this planet, and some trick of the atmosphere is projecting these strands out into space. But strands of what … experience? Memory? Mental projection?
    Or maybe the real Bailey lived somewhere millions of light-years away; maybe that strand came the way of the stars, toppling head over tail to land on her through some quirk of time and space.
    Ana has no way of knowing. And somehow, she is not entirely sure that she
wants
to know. For now, this experience is hers, and she hangs it in the empty closet of her mind like a memory of her very own, like the first fancy dress in a wardrobe she thought might be empty forever.
    As she gets to her feet and walks on, she thinks about howreal those moments felt—even more real, somehow, than her present. There’s an ache inside her, a longing for the fullness of Bailey’s world, however briefly visited.
    Jackson
, she thinks, scowling. And
Brian
, with a smile for her own bare fingers. She replays the scenario over and over, the thoughts keeping her company in the emptiness of her own mind as the minutes tick away.
    At long last she approaches the crater wall. Looking at her circlet, she sees it’s been two hours since she left the rocket. The overhead sun is pretty much in the same position as when she first started out, while the brighter sun has fully risen and is inching upward into the sky.
    Inside her jumpsuit, Ana’s body is slippery with sweat. She pauses to let the wind cool her down as she considers the cliff wall. It towers above her, at least twenty-five feet high. She notices herself gauging the crevices and footholds scattered across the rock face—apparently, she has some familiarity with rock climbing—but those spots are few and far between. The thought doesn’t trouble her; instead she feels a quickening of excitement in her chest at the prospect of the climb.
    Interesting.
    Ana shrugs off her pack and lays it flat on the ground. The pack has a wide buckle on the front, and when she unlatches it, the whole thing unfolds into a T-shape, the heavy nylon frame bulging with pockets. Each compartment is labeled: CLIMBING GEAR. BEDROLL. INFLATABLE RAFT. FIRST AID. VITALS .
    She opens VITALS to find packets upon packets of food:macaroni-and-cheese; butter wafers; desiccated goat cheese; dried tropical fruit mix. There’s a large squishy tube that must be a collapsed water bottle. But where will she find water to fill it?
    The thought makes her throat burn. Then she sees a pocket labeled WATER . Inside are hundreds of pill packets. She pulls out a handful. The packaging is plain silver, unlabeled except for a small ID number in the corner of each packet. She juggles the packets in her hand for a moment and then thinks,
Why not?
If she doesn’t have water, she’s dead anyway. It’s worth a try.
    She punches out a tablet no bigger than her thumbnail and pops it into her mouth.
    At first there’s nothing. Then she feels a fizzing on her tongue, then
—ooooh
, it’s like a fountain opens inside her mouth … a fountain of stale, artificial water, true, but for this second it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. And it’s just enough; it fills her mouth but doesn’t overflow. She puffs her cheeks a little to hold it all in, swirls it around inside her mouth, and then swallows.
    Dried water
, she muses. Maybe the Ana she can’t remember would see this as an everyday occurrence. Maybe that Ana turned on a faucet and little white pills came tumbling out into her cup. Somehow, she doesn’t think so. But right now they are just what she needs, and that’s more than good enough.
    She sits and leans back against the crater wall, thinking it’s probably a good idea to rest a moment, countdown or not.She could use some time to really study the map, figure out how she’s going to travel all that distance, think through a better plan than the slapdash thrown-together one she has now, which is nothing more than:
Don’t think. Keep