‘What is this place?’ Cade blurted, the conundrum that had been bouncing around his head for the past two days rising unbidden to his lips.
‘Answer prohibited.’
Cade cursed. Of course; whoever they were, they wouldn’t make it that easy.
‘Are you allowed to tell us anything?’ Cade demanded.
‘Yes.’
Scott chuckled. ‘Well, at least he’s honest.’
‘What can you tell us?’ Eric asked, speaking slowly.
‘The scope of your question is too broad. Please narrow parameters.’
‘It’s useless,’ Scott groaned. ‘If they wanted us to know what’s going on, we would already.’
‘What are you?’ Spex tried.
‘The primary function of a Codex is the collection and dissemination of catalogued Earthbound knowledge. It is my pleasure to provide this service for you.’
‘Earthbound?’ Yoshi muttered. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Maybe it’s mostly supposed to give us information that originates from Earth,’ Cade said, thinking aloud. ‘That’s why it knew our names – we come from Earth. Is that right … Codex?’
‘Yes,’ the Codex answered.
Silence reigned for a few moments longer, and the boat continued to float down the river.
‘Really helpful, isn’t it?’ Finch called sarcastically from behind the wheel.
‘Sounds like one of those voice assistants,’ Scott said, grinning. ‘Hey Codex, play “Despacito”.’
Cade snorted as the Codex turned to the boy.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Can you be more specific? ’
Cade sighed and resumed his scanning of the riverbanks, trying not to look at the timer that continued its ominous countdown just above his sight line.
And then, as the waterway began a slow curve, he saw it. A giant, rock-carved human head, half submerged in the shallows.
‘What the hell …’ he breathed.
It was enormous, larger than a pickup truck. The head had a flat-nosed face and a square helmet on its brow. But other than that, there was no text, runes, hieroglyphs … nothing that might help him know where it came from.
‘What is that?’ Eric said. ‘Another Roman thing?’
The Codex moved. One moment it was hovering above Cade, the next it was beside the carved head. Blue light flashed along the statue as the Codex scanned it, then it darted back to its prior position.
‘This remnant is an Olmec civilisation colossal head from modern-day Mexico, 1023 BC.’
Cade gaped at it. Perhaps the drone could be useful after all.
‘Does that mean we’ve gone three thousand years into the past?’ Jim gasped, poking his head out from the boat’s cabin.
‘Not necessarily,’ Cade replied. ‘This thing could’ve sat here since then.’
The head seemed to stare at them as the boat floated by, and Cade felt a chill down his spine despite the heat.
By now they had passed the statue, and Cade could see the river was narrowing and picking up speed. But that was not what caught his eye. It was the wide, grey-stone arch that curved across the river ahead, high above them. Only … it wasn’t stone at all.
It was moving.
SEVENTEEN
A great pillar of knobbled flesh stretched across the river like a crane. At its tip, a hump-nosed reptilian head munched softly on the waxy leaves of a tree, while at its base, an enormous elephantine body stood in the dappled shadows. Its four great legs were planted like ancient tree trunks, and beyond, a tail even longer than its neck lashed back and forth. From end to end, it was as long as an airliner, and it looked just as heavy.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ Spex asked.
‘I’m afraid I do not know what you are thinking,’ the Codex intoned.
‘Oh shut up,’ Eric said. ‘He wasn’t talking to you.’
‘This is some next-level madness,’ Yoshi groaned. ‘Either I’m tripping serious balls right now, or that’s a goddamned dinosaur.’
Cade couldn’t believe his eyes. It was as if he were watching a film, and any second the illusion would be shattered by some poorly rendered animation. Instead, the giant beast’s head swivelled to look at them, and watched them go by with dull, cow-like eyes.
‘I’m ready to go back to the Keep,’ Scott groaned.
The current pulled them out of sight in just a few minutes, leaving Cade stunned as the others argued around him. He couldn’t help wondering if he had imagined the whole thing. Romans? Dinosaurs? Mutants? Maybe Yoshi was right. Maybe he was hallucinating.
Then, as if prompted by his thoughts, the jungle fell away on the boat’s right, casting them in bright sunlight once more.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Cade whispered.
The banks were awash with colour, but these were no flowers that broke up the green grass of the wide plain to his right. Animals. Hundreds upon hundreds of them. From great behemoths to small, fast-moving critters.
Sleek, bird-like theropods with blue-black plumage strutted back and forth on two legs, snapping their teeth at each other’s tails as they tumbled playfully on the muddy banks. These smaller, scrawnier creatures drank from the round footprints left by the herds of great, ponderous sauropods that dominated the skyline, matching the dinosaur they had seen at the river in shape, if not quite in size.
The long-necked sauropods were a sight to behold. With each gulp from their enormous gullets, a bowling ball of water travelled up their throats in an undulating wave as the beasts sated their thirst in the cool waters of the river.
Duck-billed hadrosaurs lined the river further down, their strange, round-beaked mouths sucking up weeds and water alike. Some sat on their haunches, their shorter, clawed forefeet in the air; others were on all fours, walking through the shallows with a strange, lopsided gait that made them look as if they would fall forward at any minute.
Watching as the boat floated by, the hadrosaurs lowed mournfully, a strange cross between a moo and a honk that seemed to reverberate through Cade’s chest as he stared across the water, keeping time with the frantic beating of his heart.
Among the herds, individual creatures slunk between the great beasts, each different but no less fascinating: furred mammalian predators that looked like dogs, cats, even warthogs and hyenas, but larger and stranger than anything he had seen. There was so much to see, and yet he couldn’t focus, his eyes skipping from one creature to the next with wonder.
Some of the dinosaurs had hoary, bumpy skin, others scales like those of a lizard. More still had plumages, and all sported some form of display – red wattles, bristled spines, balloon-like vocal sacs, vivid skin-tones and plumes of kaleidoscopic feathers more colourful than a peacock’s and twice as flamboyant.
A far cry from the fossilised bones that had fascinated him so much in his childhood visits to the museum. Who would have known that there had been so much more coating their skeletal structures?
But just as he began to smile, a flood of fear coursed through him as a dinosaur that lived in the psyche of every prehistory lover emerged from the treeline. It moved through the gathered masses like a shark through a shoal, the crowd parting and closing as it stomped towards the water. The Tyrannosaurus rex – or a large bipedal theropod much like it – buried its head beneath the waters, oblivious to the creatures nearby. Its body was dusted in dark proto-plumage, spiny follicles that sat somewhere between fur and feathers.
Then the boat disappeared into the tunnel of the jungle once again, and the scene disappeared from sight.
‘Dinosaurs?’ Eric shouted, slapping the bow with his hands. ‘Is this a joke?’
Cade stared back the way they had come, the reality of their situation finally hitting home.
‘This place is twisted,’ Scott muttered. He paused. ‘Maybe my mind’s twisted.’
Somewhere behind Cade, Spex began humming the Jurassic Park theme song.
‘Will you shut up,’ Yoshi groaned.
Cade couldn’t begin to explain what he had just witnessed. Certainly there was a common theme. History, even prehistory, was at play here. Creatures, people, and civilisations long dead were where they should not be. Had they travelled through time and space? A wormhole, perhaps, that they had unknowingly flown through, bringing them to this place.
It did not explain the vipers, though. Not unless they too were some ancient Earth species, their fossils undiscovered beneath the sands of time. Nor did it tell him what the Codex was, or who had generated those strange forcefields in the canyon, or placed him there.
But there was no time to contemplate, for the river had changed. Now, the current was picking up speed, the once placid surface swirling and cresting with white. And beyond, Cade could see rocks in the water, at first a few scattered boulders, then more and more. For a brief, terrifying moment, he and the others stared in terror.
He saw it then, half-beached on the muddy bank at the jungle edge. A red wooden vessel, its hull splintered and holed, the back end half submerged in the water. Cade spun to look at the boat’s cabin in horror, panic finally unfreezing his throat.
‘Row!’ he yelled. ‘Get to the shore!’
Finch’s face was pale behind the algae-stained window as he heaved on the wheel, while water sprayed as the boys around him paddled desperately. Their boat edged towards the shore. But it was slow … too slow. A rock swam into view, just beneath the surface ahead of them.
A thud shuddered through the boat, pitching Cade forward. For a second he flailed, grabbing for a railing that was not there.
Then he was in the water, plunged into cold darkness. He slammed against the river bottom, the long weed fronds grasping at him as they tangled about his body. For a moment he struggled, a silent scream bubbling from his lips, but seconds later he was tugged free by the current, surfacing and gasping for air. It was all he could do to breathe before he was snatched beneath once again, crashing into one immovable rock, then another, the pain blossoming across his ribs and back.
Again and again he was pulled beneath the surface, breathing when he could, choking when he couldn’t, and all the while pulled inexorably onwards. For what felt like hours Cade’s world was a misery of dark, rushing water that choked and battered him in equal measure.
Sand rasped against his side as he tumbled beneath once more, and he kicked out, reaching the air with what felt like the last of his strength. A patch of reeds near the bank slapped against his face and he grasped at them, choking in terror as they snapped in his hands, but gave him just enough purchase to snatch another handful. Then, his eyes blurry with water, he dragged himself into a thicket, his feet tiptoeing on the riverbed. He hauled his torso forward, his body screaming for air, until he finally crawled on to the bank.
He vomited the water he had swallowed onto the wet-slick grass. Only then could he collapse onto his back, staring at the foliage far above him.
He flopped his head to one side, gazing back up the river.
No sign of the boat. No sign of anyone.
Cade was alone.
EIGHTEEN
Follow the river. That was what logic told Cade to do – after all, if the boat hadn’t passed him by, then it must have beached itself further up.
If only it were that simple.
As he limped along the bank, pushing through the snarled weeds and bushes that grew there, he saw it. Hissing in frustration, Cade fell to his knees.
The river branched in two upstream, and he had no idea which had brought him there. He would have flipped a coin if he had one, but all he had was his thin steel chains – his only weapon, the hand-axe, was lost somewhere at the river’s bottom.
He looked at the rushing water. The river had narrowed somewhat – he could probably throw a football and hit the other side at the narrow point where the river forked. But at the same time, it had picked up speed.
There was no getting to the other side, even if he thought it was the right direction. So Cade followed the bank he was already on, taking the easiest path he could forge. On he went, pushing through the reeds and bushes, his eyes darting back and forth for signs of danger. But soon enough he found himself the subject of interest from the local wildlife. Luckily for him, they were not of the reptilian variety.
These were dragonflies, and they buzzed around his head like miniature helicopters. Each specimen was enormous, as large as a seagull and twice as fast. Their carapaces were iridescent, made up of every colour of the rainbow, swirling around him as he picked his way along the tangled mire that was the river’s edge.
It got so bad that he could barely see a few feet in front of his face, and they were not shy about getting in close, some even settling on his shoulders.
In particular, they seemed to be attracted to the blue of his uniform, chewing at the material ineffectually with their mandibles. It was only when he dropped down into the mud and rolled around in it that the insects began to disperse, his colourful clothing now a dull brown.
That had probably been a good idea anyway – if a predator was nearby, his blue uniform would have stuck out against the green like a sore thumb. A shadow blotted the sky above him, and he groaned.
‘Go away, bugs. I’m not edible, OK?’
And then, as if it had been there all along, he saw the Codex hanging above him like a miniature moon.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I must retain proximity to contenders at all times. It’s for your own good.’
Cade groaned again.
‘You said that last time. Why aren’t you with the others?’
The Codex zoomed closer.
‘You, Cade Carter, were the first contender to be identified. I will keep following you, Cade, until an alternative contender is assigned.’
‘Seriously?’ Cade asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Stupid thing,’ Cade muttered. ‘Where’s your countdown timer, anyway?’
He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth.
‘Here.’
Moments later, the timer flashed into existence.
05:06:18:09
05:06:18:08
05:06:18:07
‘Put it away, would you?’
The timer disappeared, and Cade breathed a sigh of relief. It was nice to have company, of sorts. And perhaps another chance to answer his questions.
‘What’s it counting down to, anyway?’
‘The qualifying round,’ the drone replied in its bored-sounding robotic voice.
‘What happens in the qualifying round?’ Cade asked.
‘The scope of your question is too broad. Please narrow parameters.’
Cade sighed. This thing didn’t want to tell him anything.
‘Well, could you at least guide me back to the Witchcraft?’
‘Action prohibited.’
‘You’re useless,’ Cade said, settling on a rotting bough beside the river for a rest.
He thought for a moment. Maybe if he rephrased the question …
‘Can you tell me about the Witchcraft and where it came from?’ Cade asked.
‘Yes.’
He laughed despite himself. The thing was as slippery as a greased eel.
‘Go on.’
‘The Witchcraft is a 23-foot luxury cabin cruiser that disappeared in 1967 with its owner Daniel Burack and his friend Father Padraig Horgan, somewhere within the Bermuda Triangle.’
Cade felt his hackles stand on end. The Bermuda Triangle. Disappeared. This was all too strange. But was it true?
‘Why can you tell me that, but not guide me to it?’
‘I can identify remnants using recorded data from Earth. I can also identify locations where remnants were last scanned. Had I scanned the Witchcraft recently and it had subsequently remained in that place, I could have guided you there.’
Cade realised that ‘remnants’ must be the Codex’s term for historical artefacts such as the Olmec head, and he assumed ‘scanning’ was what the Cod
ex had done when it had flashed the statue with blue light.
Speaking of which …
‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Can you guide me to the Olmec head?’
‘Yes.’
Despite his unease, Cade couldn’t help but laugh again. That would at least tell him which direction to go, since the boat had passed it not long before the accident.
‘Guide me to the Olmec head.’
‘Of course.’
The drone zoomed closer, then suddenly Cade found himself staring into a rectangle of blue light. It reminded him of the strange forcefield he had encountered in the canyon, for it had the same semi-translucent opacity. But this time there was a pattern on it.
It took Cade a moment to realise what it was. A map.
But not just any map. It was a map of the caldera, the expansive volcanic crater seen from a bird’s-eye view. Or at least, a part of the caldera. He could see the gently curved edge of the mountains and the vast swathe of the desert beyond.
And there, somewhere in the expanse of a green canopy, was a flashing red dot that he guessed symbolised himself, right beside a thin blue capillary that must delineate the river. There were also smaller blue dots scattered across the projections.
‘Which is the Olmec head?’ Cade asked.
‘This one.’
A blue dot flashed, and Cade breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed it was on the same branch of the river he was walking along. If he continued in the same direction, he’d come across the boat. Or, failing that, he could follow the river back to the Keep.
The thought of being alone in this world filled Cade with a dread so deep and dark that he had to shake it from his mind. One problem at a time. Less thought, more action.
Cade reached out to touch the map and, to his amazement, he was able to manipulate the image in much the same way he might on a smartphone, pinching to zoom closer. And what he found was even more interesting. There was another blue dot not too far from him. Another ‘remnant’.
‘What’s that?’ Cade asked.
‘Remnant identified as Captain Cole Dylan Benjamin Moore of the 7th Cavalry Division in the US Army.’
Contender: The Chosen: Book 1 Page 9
