CORA AWOKE IN A cornfield.
Her back was flat against black soil as she blinked into a blue sky. A gentle wind blew the ripened stalks, making a rustling sound like whispers.
Whispers.
She sat upright, crying out, and clutched the sides of her skull. She must have passed out when Fian pushed her back into the puzzle chambers. Voices flooded between her ears like a deafening roar. There had to be a mistake. This couldn’t be what Serassi had intended. What if she’d been lying? What if Serassi had been one of the Axion in disguise and the injection was meant to kill her?
The ground rocked violently and Cora was thrown to her side. She cried out as she slammed into the ground. Her head rang. Half dazed, she looked around, but the cornfield was intact. Had it been the storm outside? Or had it just been in her head, the effects of Serassi’s drug? She tried to stand, but her muscles were spasming, and she collapsed back to the ground. She had to get out of this cornfield . . . this puzzle. Her friends were facing a danger none of them had anticipated. The Axion’s takeover would mean the end of freedom for all species.
The breeze rustled more cornstalks, and Cora doubled over and clamped her hands over her ears. Confusing sensations flooded her body. Her hand seemed to reach out on its own. She grabbed it with her other hand, staring at it. The fingers twitched strangely. Her nails clawed against her own palm. Her muscles started spasming harder as her vision changed: first it took on a red tint, then a gray one.
Was this a panic attack?
Was she dying?
Fear blackened her mind as a series of visions assaulted her. Driving a tractor through rows of corn with wrinkled old hands. Chasing a little boy through a corn maze. Planting seeds in freshly tilled earth.
The visions felt like memories—but none of them were her own.
Cora dug her fingers into the ground, breathing hard. Whatever those visions were, they weren’t real. She wasn’t back on Earth. She was on Drogane. In the Gauntlet. Puzzle number five. The corn was simulated.
And the voices and visions . . .
“Stop it!” she yelled.
Cora shook her head, trying to rid herself of the contradictory voices, and then suddenly, as though she’d been hit by a sudden rainstorm, she straightened. Everything made sense. The voices were part of Serassi’s injection. The paragon burst contained the best traits of all of humanity, and the voices represented all the differing human perspectives and memories. The paragon burst had worked—or it would, once she learned how to master the sensation.
And then a new voice cut through the whispers and images. A clear voice with a strange, flat accent she knew instantly.
Sing, Cora. Find a song.
It was Mali’s voice. Cora jumped up, spinning around, but she was alone. The voice was in her head. It didn’t have the same warm tickle as a telepathic message; it felt rounder, more hollow—like an echo. All Cora could think was that this must be how Serassi’s drug worked: putting echoes into her head, memories of her friends. The real Mali probably had no idea her voice was now woven into Cora’s DNA.
She took a deep breath.
Then she started humming a shaky melody, until the humming soothed her, and her thoughts became her own again, and her hands moved only at her command. She took another deep, shaky breath and forced herself to stand.
She had to focus. Solve the puzzle.
A low cry sounded to her left.
She whipped her head toward it too fast, and a wave of dizziness overtook her, but she blinked through it and took a determined step toward the cry. The corn pushed at her face, dry husks scratching her bare arms. She tried to stand on tiptoe, but the corn was too tall. She could only see a few feet in any direction.
The cry came again. High-pitched, like something in pain.
She started moving faster, following the sound among the rows. Maybe it was a corn maze, a physical puzzle—but no, there were no twists or dead ends, only row after row. Besides, the stock algorithm wouldn’t hand anything that easy to her.
The cry came again from behind her. She spun and raced down the row, kicking up black soil. Was it a person? Someone wounded? It came again, a single sharp whimper, as she crashed through the corn into the next row.
She stopped.
A small bundle of white fur huddled in the middle of the row. A fox. Wet, sticky blood streaked down one of its legs and soaked into the soil beneath it. She started—it had a small gray patch on the top of its head, just like the Arctic fox from the Hunt menagerie. Surely it wasn’t the same fox, right? That would be impossible. The stock algorithm must have reached into her memories to create it. She took a step forward cautiously. This could still be a physical puzzle in disguise—the fox might attack. But as she neared, it was clear that the fox couldn’t even stand, let alone strike. Its leg was mangled, and a deep gash ran across its abdomen, as though it had been accidentally caught under a tractor.
Cora knelt, overwhelmed with sadness.
What if it was the same fox from the Hunt? What if, somehow, the stock algorithm had materialized it here, wounded it like this, just to test Cora? She felt suddenly sick at the idea that the Gauntlet might use something real, something living.
And then she understood what this puzzle was—a moral one. Real or not, she had to put the fox out of its misery.
No, don’t, a small voice whispered in her head. It was Nok’s voice. Don’t hurt it!
And then:
Leon’s voice: Do it.
Nok’s voice: But it could recover.
Rolf’s voice: You aren’t a veterinarian—you don’t know what’s best.
Mali’s voice: It’s suffering. Let nature take its course.
The wind rustled again. She had no idea how long she’d been in this puzzle, but outside the walls Cassian and the others needed her.
The fox whimpered again.
And yet humanity was a complex thing, judging by all the differing voices in her head. Some argued the fox should live, others claimed killing it was the right thing to do. She ignored the voices all offering different viewpoints and sorted through them until she found the one she trusted most: Lucky’s.
Everything that’s alive must die, his voice said. She recognized the words as ones he had written in his journal: If you can, give it a good life first. Honor it. Don’t make anything suffer just because you can’t stomach what needs to be done.
She reached out and slid her hands over the little fox’s back. Its fur was so soft, its little heart fluttering. In the Hunt it had been a prisoner, just like her. Before doubt had a chance to change her mind, she slid her hands to its neck, felt for the bones of its spine, and then drew in a sharp breath.
“I’m sorry.”
She snapped the bones.
They broke as easily in her hands as twigs. She cried out as the fox slumped to the ground, then pressed her hands to her mouth. What if it was the real fox? Taking a life was taking a life. Eventually the voices in her head died down, but they didn’t go away entirely. They sank into her mind, just as the muscle spasms eased too. Her friends’ voices echoed as she stroked the dead fox.
It’s at peace, whispered Mali’s voice.
You did what you had to, Nok’s said.
Tough call, said Leon’s.
And, somehow, she felt comforted. She wasn’t alone anymore, she realized. It wasn’t just her running the puzzles now. With the paragon burst’s voices of Mali and Leon and Lucky and even people she had never met, it now felt as though all of humanity were behind her.
The next door opened.