And if Todd can make it, then why not others? There must be people still alive, people who are not yet infected, or who contracted the infection late and haven’t yet succumbed.
55%
She has no idea what happens next.
But if there are survivors to be found, she will find them. She and Todd together. There’s still so much that’s broken inside her, but her new foundation is strong and clean and ready to work. After all, there’s a lot broken about this new world, too.
Ana knows that it’s nothing she can’t handle.
She’s going forward.
APPENDIX A
Interview with Rosa Ortez, APEX1
Savitech Corporation (Office #3476):
Boston, Massachusetts, September 2041
*CONFIDENTIAL—Internal Eyes Only!*
Q: Please state your name, age, and occupation for the record.
R/O: My name is Rosa Ortez. I am thirty-nine years old. I am an astrophysicist employed by Savitech. Or I was.
Q: Please explain how you came to be a part of APEX1.
R/O: I’ve been working in astrophysics for seventeen years. I was recruited by Savitech out of MIT and completed my doctorate at Princeton with a special focus on manned spaceflight and the greater physical solar system. I met Jim there. …We were colleagues. …
Q: How did you come to be part of APEX1?
R/O: When the trip was planned, Jim and I both knew
we wanted to be on it. Savitech was heavily
involved in the mission from the start, a big sponsor, so we were right in the loop. The day we learned
we were going to be part of the team to Paradox
was the happiest of our lives. If only we’d known then …
Q: How did you come to be carrying a child on the eve of such an important and far-reaching mission into space?
R/O: That was never supposed to happen. Jim and I had no plans to have children, and we certainly weren’t trying for it at the time. I don’t know what went wrong. We went into partial suspension for the flight. By the time we woke up months later on Paradox, it was plainly visible.
Q: What happened next?
R/O: Jim was frantic, as you might imagine. He wanted me to return to Earth immediately, but how could I do that? The ships carry four, and the idea of either taking half the team back with me or leaving them stranded was unthinkable. Jim insisted that at least I shouldn’t go on the early scouting trips, not until they knew everything on the planet was safe.
Q: What scouting trips were these?
R/O: The early exploratory sweeps, checking out the landscape. The Cranium was a perfect landing zone, but it was no place to set up a permanent colony. The planet has a huge groundwater lake, the Maraqa Sea, and that’s where we were going to establish the colony, somewhere along the shore.
Q: So you stayed with the rocket.
R/O: That’s right. I was close to four months pregnant, after all. Jim and the others set off. They had their communicators, and they kept in touch.
Q: How did you occupy yourself during this time?
R/O: They had gone out in a few different directions, and I spoke with each team two or three times a day, plotting their course and keeping notes on their findings. I also started taking soil samples and logging plant life. …
Q: When did you first suspect that something had gone wrong?
R/O: It happened so suddenly. It was two weeks after the landing, and they had found a spot that looked promising. Everyone had gathered as a group in that location to do some digging—excavating on the shore in preparation for setting up a base. I was getting ready to make the trip over to join them—Jim was going to come back and escort me in a few days. And then …
Q: Yes?
R/O: And then … things got weird.
Q: Ms. Ortez?
R/O:
Q: Just state the facts, Ms. Ortez.
R/O: I heard Jim yelling. It was like he was seeing something. Almost like one of those really bad nightmares, where you’re reliving something horrible from your past. He kept yelling about an ambush. He was in the war years ago, but …
Q:
R/O: I heard gunfire—everyone was carrying the standard-issue weapons. Then I lost contact for a while.
Q: How did you discover what happened to them?
R/O: They had left the remo-bot with me, the little robot-camera on wheels. I sent off the bot, and I waited,
all the while scanning the channels, trying to pick
up any more communications. There was nothing. The bot took hours to get there. But when it finally did …
Q: What did the robot show you, Ms. Ortez?
R/O: They were all dead. Jim was holding his pistol; they all were.
Q: Captain James Ortez murdered his companions.
R/O: No! That’s not what happened. You have to believe me!
Q: We’ve been over this many times, Ms. Ortez. Will you describe the scene exactly as you saw it?
R/O: Jim’s pistol was in his hand. He’d been shot in the side of the head. The others … The others were all turned away, like they’d been trying to run. They’d been shot in the back. I know what you’re thinking, but I know Jim. There’s no way he shot them.
Q: Despite the fact that he left his wife in safety before doing so?
R/O: I was pregnant! Why is everybody focusing on the wrong things? What about the strange stuff he was yelling about? That’s on the tapes! Why are you talking to me instead of analyzing that? And I told you they’d been digging. They’d uncovered something … I couldn’t tell from the feed, but it looked like some kind of huge hole, like a tunnel or cave. It was right on the shore of the sea. The sides of the hole were ridged, like it was a burrow for some kind of enormous creature.
Q: Ms. Ortez, you conducted life-sweep testing, did you not?
R/O: The tests showed no living creatures on the planet. But maybe— Q: I think we are nearly finished here. What did you do next?
R/O: What could I do next? What was there to do? Jim was gone. They were all gone. The ParSpace communicator back to Earth never worked … what a joke that was. The only thing I could do was come back home. I sealed the hatches and powered the engines. I got back twenty-three days ago, just in time to go into labor. If my child had died from all she had to go through in transit, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Q: She did not die.
R/O: No. In fact, I need to go and feed her now. She’s all I have left, you see? I’ve told you everything, and not for the first time. May I go now?
Q: Yes. We appreciate your time, Ms. Ortez. I would like to inform you officially that the board is fully satisfied that you had no part in this tragedy. And that in deference to his years of service and contribution to the space-travel initiative, details of Captain Ortez’s demise will not be made public. You have been through a great deal, and Savitech is grateful for your service.
R/O: You think you’re being generous, don’t you? The only good thing that came from this experience is my precious girl. My little one. My Ana.
APPENDIX B
APEX2 TRANSMISSIONS LOG
PARSPACE8 DEDICATED CHANNEL 4057.3
**Encoded Transmission 12182057-000BX**
**Encoded Transmission 06212058-039BX**
**Encoded Transmission 10112058-121BX**
**Encoded Transmission 11112058-159BX**
APPENDIX C
Prepared Statement Delivered December 14, 2057,
by Ana Ortez, Austin Space Launch Facility
Ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of going into seclusion to prepare for the APEX2 launch next week, I have been asked to deliver a statement on behalf of the ExtraSolar Youth Science team. We’re immensely proud to have been chosen to represent Earth on this mission. We might be young, but we’ve been preparing for this journey our whole lives. We will not let you down!
Humankind is on the verge of something so enormous, most of us can’t even begin to imagine the repercussions. But I’m here to tell you that there’s nothing to worry about and everything to look forward to. As my mother used to say, there’s more than one way to season the soup, and I think we’ve hit on the best one. We are venturing into the darkest reaches of space with just one goal: to meet this planet, to embrace it, to receive what it has to offer. And to use what we learn there to shape the world we live in now. This is our dream. This is our hope. This is our future.
One year from now, what brave new world will we be a part of? Only time will tell. All I know for sure is this: The next time we speak I will be lifting my glass to you in a toast at the end of the universe.
To the future!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every book begins as an idea, and this one is no exception. The process whereby that idea—in this case, a character who grabbed my imagination by the throat and would not let go—grows slowly into something resembling a finished product is one that I could never undertake alone. To those many of you who helped me along the way, my deepest thanks.
Chief among these: my editor, Jim Thomas, who helped me put the science into “science fiction” and tamed my prose into a manageable state; my agent, Erin Murphy, for tireless wisdom and necessary cheerleading; and Kimberly, who provided critical plot brainstorming when this novel was still just an early blink in my story-brain.
To my wonderful writer friends who have helped along the way, with critiques, comments, advice, and encouragement: Kip Wilson, Natalie Lorenzi, Julie Phillipps, and the stellar Newton writers’ group: Kate Messner, Erin Dionne, Julie Berry, and Lisa Schulman.
For tireless help with my many scientific questions, especially assistance with the creation and dissection of the dread Vermiletum: Ed Loechler, Ben Clark, Sharon Nahill, and Livia Blackburne; and to Dr. Martin Weinberg for a most enlightening phone call about planetary rotation in a bisolar system.
To my local Starbucks, for being just the right kind of place for maximum writing efficiency, and to Arthur and Jen, Jim and Sharon, for always being there with support, enthusiasm, and ideas.
Last but not least—always and forever—to my wonderful family. The reason for it all.
A. J. Paquette is the author of the middle-grade novel Nowhere Girl, as well as several picture books for young readers. She is also a literary agent. She lives outside of Boston with her family and her very tall to-read pile. Find out more at ajpaquette.com.
Table of Contents
eBook Information
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Dedication
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Two
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Three
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Paradox Page 16
