Eden E-Book

Tim Lebbon

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

From the bestselling author of Netflix's The Silence comes a brand-new horror eco thriller.In a time when Earth's rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction, the Virgin Zones were established in an attempt to combat the change. Off-limits to humanity and given back to nature, these thirteen vast areas of land were intended to become the lungs of the world.Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventurers into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Attracted by the challenges and dangers posed by the primal lands, extreme competitors seek to cross them with a minimum of equipment, depending only on their raw skills and courage. Not all survive.Also in Dylan's team is his daughter Jenn, and she carries a secret––Kat, his wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity's friend.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for Eden

Also by Tim Lebbon and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a review

Copyright

Dedication

Kat

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Kat

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Kat

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Kat

Acknowledgements

Also Available from Titan Books

PRAISE FOR EDEN

“Instantly cinematic. A textured, thought-provoking thriller that will make you wonder what the world would be like if humans were to give it back. Eden is a story about family, humanity and the desire to re-experience the wonders we screwed up the first time around. Nobody is as smooth on the lettered keys as Tim Lebbon. Here, as with all his books, you are in the hands of a master.”

Josh Malerman,New York Timesbestselling author ofBird BoxandA House at the Bottom of a Lake

“Smart, prescient and gripping, Tim Lebbon’s Eden takes us, and his team of adventurers, into the dark, pulsing heart of nature, and we all get far more than we bargained for. This near future eco-thriller puts Lebbon at the top of the tree. Read it. And then recycle.”

Sarah Pinborough,Sunday Times#1 bestsellingauthor ofBehind Her Eyes

“I can smell Eden, I can feel it, I can see it. But I want no part of it. Your senses will tingle and twitch as you journey through a forest of hellish life made real by Tim Lebbon’s rich prose and slick action sequences. You’ll be running behind the team right to the end, and then you’ll want to return to the start of the book to warn them—turn back. This is horror at its best, a terrifying nightmare of nature’s darkest depths ramped up to eleven, but also a love letter to adventure running, and to nature itself. Highly recommended.”

Adrian J Walker, author ofThe End of the World Running Club

“Eden is a smart, thrilling, relentless eco-nightmare that will worm its tendrils deep into you. Let your own ghost orchid grow.”

Paul Tremblay, author ofA Head Full of GhostsandThe Cabin at the End of the World

“Eden will intrigue, delight and thrill in equal measures. Another winner from Lebbon!”

Simon Clark, author ofThe Midnight ManandNight of the Triffids

“Eden is a perfect torn-from-the-headlines biological thriller. Tim Lebbon mixes action, complex characters, and climate science into an absolute page-turner. This is why science fiction is so important! Highly recommended!”

Jonathan Maberry,New York Timesbestselling authorofV-WarsandRage

“An entertaining, gruesome story of endurance and survival in the last wild places on earth.”

Adam Nevill, author ofThe Reddening

“Against a backdrop of environmental disaster, Tim Lebbon creates a lush, intricate, mysterious and intriguing world—an Eden where anything can happen. The writing is beautiful; the story is haunting and impossible to put down. Highly recommended!”

Alison Littlewood, author ofA Cold Season

“Eden is a first-rate, genre-bending thriller, a dark vision of a horrific future full of heartache and sinister atmosphere . . . Nobody tells stories like this better than Tim Lebbon.”

Christopher Golden,New York Timesbestsellingauthor ofAraratandSnowblind

“Tim Lebbon destroys the world like most of us put our socks on in the morning. But this is different. The catalyst of the story is hope. The hope that humanity survives against the odds doled out by a planet that has its own plans for survival. Eden is Deliverance with the volume turned up to eleven. A breathtaking ride through the wild—the really wild—that would give Bear Grylls nightmares.”

Stephen Volk, writer of BBC’sGhostwatchand The Dark Masters trilogy

“Eden is both the darkest of fairy tales and an uncompromising, often gruelling account of adaptation and survival . . . A relentless page-turner in which the planet bites back!”

Mark Morris, author of theObsidian Hearttrilogy

“Tim Lebbon gives us a near-future as terrifying as it is exhilarating, and —most frightening of all—irresistibly beautiful. Surrender to Eden.”

Alma Katsu, author ofThe DeepandThe Hunger

“With Eden, Tim Lebbon is at the top of his game. Action-packed, thought-provoking, terrifying, this is the eco horror novel by which all others will be judged.”

Rio Youers, author ofThe Forgotten GirlandHalcyon

“Eden is both an eerie reimagining of our relationship with nature and a breathless page-turning thriller. Tim Lebbon has created a vivid, wild world, filled with savagery and tenderness. It will haunt you.”

Catriona Ward, author ofLittle EveandRawblood

“Eden is the ultimate adventure race turned nightmare, pitting the hubris of human nature against Nature itself, primal and emboldened and hostile. It’s a novel that could only have come from Tim Lebbon, melding a fiendish imagination with the heart of an endurance athlete . . . and a profound concern for the world we must all traverse.”

Brian Hodge, author ofThe Immaculate VoidandSkidding Into Oblivion

“A terrifying thrill ride into nature’s well-deserved revenge on humans, Eden is a chilling warning and a fast, hard read . . . today’s version of The Hot Zone.”

Delilah S. Dawson,New York Timesbestselling authorofStar Wars: Phasma

“Eden is visceral, cinematic and utterly wild, with a disorienting tone like Tarkovsky’s Stalker but with a far higher body count. It’s another terrifying yet irresistible novel from the effortlessly talented Tim Lebbon.”

Tim Major, author ofSnakeskins

EDEN

ALSO BY TIM LEBBON AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

ColdbrookThe Silence

THE RELICS TRILOGY

RelicsThe Folded LandThe Edge

The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Movie Novelization Alien: Out of the Shadows

THE RAGE WAR

Predator: IncursionAlien: InvasionAlien vs. Predator: Armageddon

Kong: Skull Island – The Official Movie Novelization

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Eden

Print edition ISBN: 9781789092936

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092943

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: April 2020

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Tim Lebbon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2020 Tim Lebbon. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For my good friend James A. Moore

“Self-preservation is the first law of nature.”— PROVERB

KAT

Eden seems like a good place to die. Before arriving she hoped that would be the case, but now she is certain. Even if she wasn’t ready and prepared to embrace the endless sleep, darkness is all that faces her now. After what she has seen and experienced, and what lies before her, there can be no doubt.

The deep forest surrounding her sings unknown songs in voices she cannot understand. She has never been one for courting attention. The exact opposite, in fact, and that is her main reason for coming here. She came to lose herself and find some sort of peace. Instead, something has found her.

Wiping blood from her left eye, she’s surprised at how quickly it’s drying. It forms a crisp, sticky layer, binding her eyelid almost shut. She doesn’t want to confront death with one eye closed. She winces when several eyelashes are pulled out with the coagulating mass. It smears across her fingertips and palm, and forms dark half-moons beneath her nails. She stares at it, sad for all that has come to pass. It’s not her blood.

She looks up at the tree canopy and the blue sky beyond. The canopy sways with the breeze, a calming dance that seems to keep time with the natural jazz of birds and animals, and the call of something else. Higher up, shredded clouds drift by. The counterpoint makes her dizzy, but she does not close her eyes.

Instead she looks down and sees fluid shadows coalescing from the trees and drawing close, their approach celebrated by a rising cacophony of forest song. She breathes out a shuddering sigh. After the years and miles that led her here, she always believed it would be the illness that would take her in the end. Coming to Eden, she never meant any harm. She hoped to die on her own terms. She wasn’t expecting something worse.

As the shadows touch her skin, she makes a fist around the delicate stem of the ghost she has found.

1

“Our aim was ambitious, our intentions pure, our hearts and minds set on one simple task: to save the world.”

Ekow Kufuor, First Chair of the United Zone Council

“With everything you’ve done, it still amazes me that you’re shit scared of flying.”

Jenn acknowledged the comment with a soft grunt that she could hardly hear above the old aircraft’s engines. She stared at the back of Cove’s head, right hand clasping the seat in front of her, left hand crushing Aaron’s. She could feel the sweat sticking their palms together and knew it was not all hers. At least if he was nervous of flying too, the pain from her vice grip would be a welcome distraction.

But Aaron wasn’t afraid of flying. From the corner of her eye she could see his grin, an expression of childlike glee as he watched trees whipping by above the level of the plane’s flight path.

“Jenn.”

“What?”

“I said—”

“I heard you, Dad. Thanks a lot.”

“That time you climbed and base jumped the Burj Khalifa—”

“You’re not helping.” He must have heard her blooming anger because he fell silent. She glanced to her right and across the aisle without moving her head and saw what she expected— her father, relaxed back in his seat wearing a contented smile. While the plane vibrated around them and promised to shake itself apart, scattering them all across the deep valley below, his mind was way ahead. He was always one step or one minute in the future.

“You call this flying?” Gee said from the cramped seat behind her. “Flying implies grace and control. This is more like a long fall.”

As if in response, the plane dropped with a loud thud that shook through the entire fuselage, bouncing through an area of turbulence before levelling and returning to its previous state of imminent disaster. Jenn’s heart stuttered and she squeezed the seat and Aaron’s hand even harder. From up ahead the pilot shouted something in Spanish and laughed, the same throaty cough he’d offered when Gee had suggested that his pride and joy might be more suited to a scrapheap.

Jenn thought she’d heard something break during that last brief bout of turbulence. The sight of the aircraft before they’d boarded had almost been enough to convince her to abort their expedition and go back to the drawing board, but Aaron had persuaded her it would be safe. I know a guy who knows this guy, he’d said. He keeps it looking like this to avoid any unwanted attention. That plane’s like your dad—grizzled, grumpy and decrepit on the outside, but perfect mechanical order beneath the skin.

The memory brought a nervous smile, and she glanced sidelong at her father once more. He raised an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth in response. In his early fifties, he was the most experienced explorer among them, with enough exploits to fill a dozen books, were he of a mind to write them. He sometimes talked about retirement and memoirs, but she knew that was still decades away. He’d never be the sort to sit at home watching TV, even if he had a TV to watch, or indeed a home. In a world suffocating beneath the excessive weight and waste of humanity, there were still places left for him to explore and race across; valleys and islands, plains and forests where the toxic taint of people was still slight enough to not be seen, so long as you didn’t look too closely. That was sometimes his problem—looking too closely.

Her dad was still the centre of her existence, the star around which she orbited. Though Aaron had come into her life a few years ago and she loved him and saw a future with him, it was her dad she looked for whenever she found herself staring out into the big black.

There was another shout from in front. She held her breath, staring past Cove’s head at the open cockpit door. The pilot seemed unable to sit still, constantly tweaking the instrument panel, gesturing from the window, talking to himself and flicking plastic dials with his finger.

“Turn it off and turn it on again!” Aaron shouted, and Jenn gave his hand a crushing squeeze that ground bones. Maybe that would cover the sound of the plane breaking apart, at least. He didn’t protest.

They drifted left and right along the winding valley, and when Jenn dared to look she imagined she could see tree limbs flicked by the wings, branches broken and leaves sprayed outwards. They were so close she could have reached out and plucked fruit. Such a dangerous flight was the price they had to pay to avoid popping up on the Zeds’ radar, and that was a prerequisite for them entering Eden undetected. If the Zeds knew they were there, they’d be pursued until they landed or were brought down.

Over time, the Zone Protection Force had diverged into vastly different entities from place to place, country to country. But the aspect that continued to unite them was their tenacity and dedication to their cause.

The team would still be a solid six hours’ hike from the Virgin Zone’s southern boundary when they landed, but this way they’d be fresh and fully supplied when they infiltrated and prepared for the dangerous crossing.

They were about to break enough laws to put them all in jail for a very long time.

“Check that out,” Gee said.

Jenn looked past Aaron and out of the window again. Lit by a gorgeous dawn palette spilling over the eastern hills, the steep valley sides had dropped and opened out, and the plane’s engine tone changed as the pilot guided them even lower. Despite her fear of flying, she leaned across Aaron to get a better view through the dirty, scratched window.

On the hillside close by, a swathe of trees had died. The majestic giants were bare of leaves and bleached pale, skeletons of their former selves pointing sad, stiff limbs at the sky. At the dead area’s edges some trees clung on to existence, speckled both with pale death and wan, desperate life, leaves a less luscious hue compared to those deeper in the more healthy forests. It was as if someone had taken a giant paintbrush to the view and splashed an uneven stroke of grey across the hillside.

“Weird how it’s not taken all the trees,” Cove said. Perhaps the keenest sportsman among them, Dan Covington was also the least aware about the changes they witnessed affecting the planet. A newfound desire to learn was why he remained with them and not some other group. They took him to places most others could not, and each expedition was an education.

“Pollution’s not selective,” Selina said. She was seated behind Jenn’s father, and for much of the trip she’d appeared to be asleep. Now she was looking past Gee at the sad scene to their port side. Though the only qualified scientist amongst them, and a passionate environmentalist and lecturer, she rarely displayed emotion about the damage to the world they so often observed. Jenn’s father told her that Selina’s soul was also damaged, and her tears were all cried out.

“But why some trees and not others?” Cove asked.

“Could be distribution of species. Some are more susceptible than others to pollution and changes in climate. Might be differing rock strata guiding the water table. Maybe the dead patch follows the route of a stream, a fracture in the subsoil, or pollination patterns of the local bee population. Saw a hundred square miles of dead trees in Malaysia with five spots where about fifty trees were still thriving. Someday, someone’ll publish a paper on the reasons why. Doesn’t matter.” Selina sat back in her seat and closed her eyes again. “Just another dead forest.”

“Looks almost pretty,” Cove said.

“Pretty like cancer,” her dad said, and Jenn caught her breath. Guilt bit in. It always did when she thought about the secret she was holding back from him.

“Mr Cheerful strikes again,” Aaron said. “You should do stand up, Dylan. You should have your own motivational net channel. You could call it Dour Dylan and the—”

“Says the man sleeping with my daughter.”

“Hey!” Jenn said. “That is not a place you can go.”

“Said Jenn to Aaron, never,” Gee said, and all of them laughed. Even Selina was smirking when Jenn twisted in her seat to launch a punch at Gee. He held up both fists and her blow glanced off his left prosthetic hand, leaving her knuckles smarting. He grinned and raised his middle finger at her.

“Taken your mind off our imminent fiery death, anyway,” Aaron said.

“I don’t know why I stay with any of you,” Jenn said, settling back in her seat. She looked at her smiling father. “You’re devils. Every single one of you. I’m the only non-devil person here.”

“Totally without sin,” Aaron agreed.

Jenn crossed her arms and feigned anger. In front of her, Cove’s shoulders shook with laughter, and her fear began to ease. She could even watch the pilot going about his frantic business without expecting them to flip over and plummet into the forest at any moment.

Jenn liked to analyse a problem, pick it apart, examine its components until she had found if not a solution, then at least its cause. But her fear of flying remained a mystery. It was not the heights involved, because she was a competent base jumper, a climber, and two years ago she’d ridden a mountain bike along a ridgeline track in Mexico which Aaron had admitted made his nerves jangle. She’d beaten his time by a good margin, too. It wasn’t the loss of control, because she frequently surrendered her wellbeing to other people, and not just members of their own tight team. She knew it was not the fact that this old aircraft probably wasn’t considered new for the bulk of the last century, let alone this one, because she’d made a hundred fear-laden journeys in a variety of jets, propeller planes, helicopters, and even a couple of hot air balloons.

She didn’t know what it was. She could look from the window and watch cars winding along roads like ants, and welcomed the views that aircraft flight paths afforded of a wide range of vistas. Yet still when an aircraft took off with her on board, her heart fluttered twice as fast as usual, her palms sweated, and a constant queasiness swilled through her torso from throat to gut. If she closed her eyes it only made matters worse.

Maybe you died in a plane crash in a previous life, Aaron had said once when they discussed her fears the day before a flight.

Yeah, right. Fighter pilot.

Crop sprayer, maybe.

* * *

“Oh man, that’s just fucking lovely,” Gee said.

“What?” Jenn asked.

“Left turn, Jenn,” he said, face pressed to the window. “Anyone for a swim?” A narrow valley had opened beside them, curving gently away from their flight path. The river snaking along the valley floor was pale yellow in places, and here and there it threw up a confusion of unnatural colours. The chemical slicks were a flow of broken rainbows. Foam speckled the banks in cotton-wool piles and swirled on gentle currents.

“Must come from seventy miles upriver,” Lucy said from beside Cove. She was reading from her hand tablet, and Jenn marvelled how her friend ever survived without her tech. She was researching a PhD in human/artificial intelligence communication, the finer details of which went over Jenn’s head, and Cove sometimes joked that she was happiest in the company of a computer. Most expeditions were tech-free, and this more than any other was going to be stripped back to the bare essentials once they set out for real. Basic, streamlined, fast. “Chemical plant, officially been closed down for seventeen years.”

“Officially,” Aaron said.

“Money can open doors and close eyes,” Lucy said. “Fucking assholes.”

“So close to Eden?” Cove asked. “I’m amazed it’s allowed.”

“It’s not,” Lucy said. “Like I said, fucking asshole.” The singular was very obvious. She brushed her long dark hair over her ear and half-turned, raising one corner of her mouth. Jenn stifled a giggle. The two of them shared a birthday, though Lucy was two years older, and sometimes Cove joked that they were like sisters, whispering and keeping secrets. He didn’t always smile when he said it.

“We’ll leave all that behind soon,” Aaron said, and Jenn thought he was talking just loud enough for her to hear. On their trip here they’d passed through plenty of places where signs of pollution were rife, and crossed a coastline where global warming and a rise in sea levels were starkly illustrated by several abandoned communities half-submerged beneath the waves. It was nothing they hadn’t seen many times before, and lived with for most of their lives. They’d once taken a flight across swathes of floating garbage in the Pacific so vast that some of the islands of waste had actually been given names and were home to communities of pirates, smugglers and terrorist cells. They had witnessed whole districts undermined and washed away in Old Shanghai, with millions of residents displaced to resettlement camps where hunger, crime and disease were rife. They had wandered between terrible mass graves and monuments to the million victims of the Great Alexandrian Flood, deaths that had been easily preventable if public information had been more forthcoming from governments that shied away from, or even denied, the shattering effects of climate change. Whilst scouting a trip into the Jaguar Zone with Aaron and her father—a journey they had yet to commit to—they had witnessed the devastating effects of many decades of illegal logging, burning and deforestation on the Amazon rainforest. The giant jungle had become many thousands of small, scattered woodlands.

Such memories and experiences made the anticipation of this journey even more sweet.

“Hope so.” She squeezed his hand again, more gently this time. “Love you,” she whispered, but he didn’t reply, and she wondered if he’d heard at all. She turned from the window and stared again at the back of Cove’s head, willing the flight to be over, craving the feel of grass and soil beneath her feet, the planet pressing back.

She visualised the expedition to come. It filled her with excitement. She saw forests and hillsides, abandoned towns, valleys and rivers and lakes, a beautiful place where there were no people at all.

Then she remembered her real reason for coming and wished that flying was all she had to fear.

2

“Of course, I appreciate all the good intentions behind the International Virgin Zone Accord, and I’ve gone down on record many times supporting the whole effort. But you can’t become a virgin. And however successful these places might be—and only time will show and tell us that—they’re still part of a world that’s already been well and truly fucked by humanity.”

Anthony Keyse, Green World Alliance

Jenn always loved the companionable tension between seven people who’d prepared together many times before. There was the clink and brush of kit being checked and packed, the smell of chafe cream and sun lotion, the sweet aroma of a fuel-heavy breakfast bubbling on the camp stove, the swill of water in bottles and rucksack bladders, and the nervous and excited chatter, quieter than usual, as if speaking too loud would disturb the comfortable balance they had all found.

She loved the sense of danger, too. They all did. That was why they were here, away from their families, homes and real-world jobs. They all agreed that this might be the most dangerous thing any of them had ever done.

Forest sounds muttered around them—the hushing of leaves in the morning breeze, bird song, secretive rustlings as small creatures went about their dawn tasks unseen. It was everything that made Jenn feel invigorated and alive, and a refreshing change to the rattle and roar of the aircraft.

“Thirty minutes,” the woman said. She called herself Pocahontas, or Poke for short. Jenn had laughed when she’d introduced herself, but Poke’s stern glare had seen the smile away. She conveyed all manner of experience and knowledge in that look, and Jenn had to respect that. No matter what she chose to call herself.

“You don’t look like a Pocahontas,” Cove said as he strapped a rolled bivvy bag to the top flap of his rucksack.

“So what the fuck do I look like?” Poke asked. She was sitting on a fallen tree, smoking a foul-smelling cigarette and watching them prepare. Her dad said Poke was the best fixer he’d ever met.

Jenn found her fascinating. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anyone smoking. She was pleased to see that the old woman was smiling, and her dark wrinkled skin, lean physique and functional clothing indicated that she was very much at home out here. The gold on her fingers and hanging from her ears showed that she still liked some of the finer things. Her hair was snow-white, and braided tight to her scalp. She had scars. Jenn wondered at the stories each one might tell.

“Maybe a Mildred,” Cove said.

“Or a Whitney,” Jenn said.

Poke laughed out loud, rocking back on the tree and coughing cigarette smoke at the sky. “I guess after Eden’s eaten you all up, I’ll change my name.” She stood and walked a wide circle around them, watching them work.

The pilot had surprised them by turning around and taking off minutes after landing and disgorging them on the old road. Jenn thought he’d have at least checked the aircraft over, but he’d seemed eager to leave. Poke, emerging from the trees as soon as they appeared, said that if he was caught his plane would be impounded, and it was his only source of income. It wasn’t only people he smuggled.

She’d led them into the forest and to a clearing where she’d prepared for their arrival. The stew cooking on the camp fire made Jenn’s mouth water, and she looked forward to how it would fend off the early morning chill. She had decided not to ask what meat it contained.

“Twenty-five minutes,” Poke said.

“It’s a six-hour hike to the boundary,” Cove said.

“And?” Poke stopped close to Cove.

“So why the countdown?”

Poke looked him up and down, chuckled, then continued circling the group without replying. Cove glanced at Jenn and raised an eyebrow. He was the most beholden to gear among them. Branded labels adorned his clothing, rucksack and other kit, and he’d probably spent more money equipping himself for this expedition than the rest of them put together. She wanted to tell Poke how experienced Cove was, but it wasn’t her place to stand up for him. He wasn’t usually averse to singing his own praises.

“Poke’s got us on a tight schedule,” Jenn’s father said. “Listen to her. She knows what she’s doing.”

Jenn noticed that Poke had stopped pacing and was staring at her.

“What?” Jenn asked.

“Nothing.” Poke stomped out her dog-end and pulled another rolled cigarette from her shirt pocket. “Just wondering where the rest of your gear is.”

“Lucy’s already mourning her precious gadgets,” Gee said, chuckling. Lucy glared at him from where she stood next to the small pile of kit they were leaving behind. Eden was a pristine place, the oldest and wildest of the world’s thirteen Virgin Zones, and Dylan had insisted that they treat it with the appropriate respect. This expedition was as stripped down as any they had ever undertaken—no hand tablets or net implants, no GPS, no satphones, no electronics or gadgets at all. It was them against Eden, and there was a purity about that which Jenn found beguiling.

“You know,” Poke said. “Sciency stuff. Prods and measuring shit.”

“We’ve got nothing like that,” Selina said.

“Scales and beakers. Sample bags. All that crap.”

“Got everything we need here.” Gee was the first to be ready, as ever. “Hiking, running, climbing stuff. Dried food. Water purifiers. Sun block and basic medical kit. Couple of small tents, knives, some waterproof kit in case the forecast is off, and spare clothing. But not much, because we just so love to smell.”

“You’ll forage for food?”

“Yeah, fruit and nuts, but we won’t kill anything to eat unless we have to. We run on a calorie deficit—when you’re burning twelve thousand per day you just can’t carry that much grub.” Gee nodded at Cove. “And some of us can afford to lose some timber.”

Cove gave him the finger, and Gee giggled. A thin, small man, the Canadian was probably the most determined person Jenn knew. In the six years he’d been travelling with her and her father, she’d never witnessed him shy away from any challenge, or give up. She’d seen him free-climb a sheer cliff wall no one else would try, and face up to three racist pricks on a boat in France. They’d walked away and he’d limped, but in Jenn’s eyes he’d still won. Only two years younger than her father, still Gee felt something like a brother. Yet none of his determination was to do with him having only one hand. He’d never indicated it was a disability at all; in fact he seemed to like it. He hid two joints in a hollow finger.

“What the fuck do you look like?” Poke asked, looking Gee up and down.

“Your boyfriend,” Gee said. He took a step closer.

“Put you on your ass,” Poke said. Gee shrugged and smiled. None of them doubted her. She lit the rollie and inhaled.

“I’ve told you why we’re here,” Jenn’s father said.

“I didn’t believe anyone was that stupid.” She looked at Jenn again, frowning.

“We are,” he said.

“So who are you racing?” Poke asked.

“No one yet. We’re aiming to be the first. You know this place, you know why.”

Poke just blinked at him through a haze of smoke.

“Statistically and historically Eden is the most dangerous Zone in the world,” he said. “It’s swallowed up plenty of people over the years.”

“Yeah.”

Jenn’s father looked around as he continued, pleased that he had everyone’s attention. They’d all heard this before, but not in front of someone like Poke. Someone who could verify the things he said.

“Other adventurer racers have tried. Some vanished. Others fled Eden and melted away, attempting to assimilate back into society. It’s as if the place stripped away their sense of adventure. Over the years, it’s attracted a reputation as one of the most amazing places on Earth, wholly inimical to man.”

The breeze fell away, the trees growing still and the birds quiet, listening.

“And to woman,” Gee quipped to break the silence.

“You want to be the first group of assholes to run across Eden,” Poke said, shaking her head.

“Run, climb, swim, walk, crawl if we have to,” Cove said. “It’s called an adventure race.”

“Adventure,” Poke said, rolling the word like a strange taste.

“Want to come with us?” Gee asked.

“Want to live,” Poke said. For the first time she sounded serious.

“We are living,” Lucy said. “This is being alive.”

“You got a job, missy?”

“I’m researching a PhD.”

“Family?”

“My parents live in London.”

“Huh.” Poke circled them again, smoking, silent, and they all finished preparing their kit. She kept glancing at Jenn.

“What?” Jenn asked again. She was becoming impatient. Poke might be the best fixer her father knew, she might be able to get them through security measures and into Eden, but she was a pain in the ass.

“Just thinking what a pity it is,” Poke said.

“What’s a pity?” Selina asked.

“Seeing you all here like this, fit and healthy, and I’m taking you into a place that’ll chew you up and spit you out. Or maybe not even spit you out. You’re all fucking mad.”

“So why take us?” Jenn asked.

Poke nodded at her father. “Good pay.” With that she ground out her latest cigarette, glanced at her watch and took the lid off the stew. “And here’s some good news,” she said over her shoulder. “Breakfast’s ready fifteen minutes early. That’s a buffer for any unforeseens.”

3

Got it on good authority that this year’s death toll for those attempting to enter the Husky Plains Zone isn’t as published. They tell us 7. I heard it’s over 150. Wasted by the Zeds. They’re murdering mercenaries. Don’t believe a word of this Zone Protection Force bullshit.

@PottyBonkkers

There were no unforeseens. Jenn’s dad had been right, Poke was the best fixer and guide any of them had ever met. She had their route scoped out, and she surprised Jenn with her supreme level of fitness. She might have been sixty-five, even seventy, but for the next six hours she led them on a tough hike through rising temperatures and dense forest towards the place where she said they had their best chance of entering Eden.

They knew some of what to expect. Security around every Virgin Zone was tight, but the areas involved were so vast that there were loopholes for those who knew where and how to look. Poke knew very well. She wore an advanced GPS smartwatch with all manner of upgrades and a net implant behind her ear, and she had programmed it in detail for their route, time and pace. Each buzz was a signal for some form of action—march on apace; seek cover and wait for a drone to pass by overhead; jig left and pass through a culvert beneath a road; turn right and climb a small, steeply wooded slope—and Poke had each move pre-planned and memorised. She kept a strict watch on their time, slowing them down on several occasions, and speeding them up once after Aaron stopped to take a leak.

The landscape was beautiful, with forested slopes and valleys opening here and there to flower-speckled clearings, and a network of streams and creeks flowing towards some distant river. But they were never far from signs of humankind’s influence. For a while they followed a road, old and fallen into disrepair now that the only vehicles to use it were occasional Zed security patrols. Weeds grew through tarmac, kerbstones were cracked and deformed from root action, and successive years of leaf fall had turned to soil in the gutters and cracks, sprouting an array of grasses, small shrubs and trees. Jenn looked forward to seeing how much more the road had changed once they were inside. Her excitement was a physical thing, a bee buzzing in her brain.

They came across a small town nestled in a shallow valley, home now only to security personnel. Passing by on the wooded hillside, they kept way down below the ridge so that they did not offer telltale silhouettes. Soon they were far enough away to not be seen, but close enough for Poke to call a halt and lend Jenn a small pair of binoculars so she could look through the trees and examine the place. Some parts of the town were abandoned and dilapidated. The few old vehicles that lined the streets sat on flat tyres, gardens had spilled from their rigidly enforced boundaries and grown wild, and the buildings looked bedraggled, with smashed windows, peeling paintwork and gutters hanging down. Several houses had been fortified, with larger steel containers parked in front yards and between buildings. Jenn guessed the steel buildings would be armouries.

“You got someone down there?” Jenn asked.

“Fuck, no!” Poke said. “I’d never trust a Zed. Bunch of fucking mercenaries.”

“Then how are we getting in?” Jenn knew that once they reached the true border there would be extensive electronic security measures, as well as physical boundaries, both natural and manmade, that would make it almost impossible to infiltrate. Entering other Zones had usually involved their fixer having an arrangement with someone on the inside, either a Zed or one of numerous maintenance teams that attended the Zones’ vast and complex perimeters.

“Let me worry about that,” Poke said.

“I’m worried about it.”

“No. Let me. It’s what you’re paying me for.”

Jenn took one last look through the binoculars before handing them back. The old woman was looking at her again, frowning, troubled by something.

“Just what the hell—” Jenn began, then Poke’s watch buzzed. She glanced at it and stood, waving the way forward.

“Seventy minutes, then we stop for ten,” she said. “Things get complicated after that.”

“What’s with her?” Aaron asked as he approached Jenn.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s like she recognises you.” He draped an arm around her neck and pulled her close, kissing the side of her face before moving on. He was strong, dependable, and he’d been her solid support when they’d both raced the Marathon des Sables, a multi-day ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert. By the end of the race, she had become his support, too. They’d met that first night, sharing a tent with several other runners and also sharing stories about other races and adventures they’d experienced. One of the men had mentioned his time crossing the Siberian Virgin Zone, known as Zona Smerti, and his story had left most of them open-mouthed with awe and envy. Not Aaron. He wasn’t impressed by such unsubtle boasts. What impressed him was quiet determination, the ability to weather pain, and the triumph of mind and spirit over body.