(TAYLOR HEBERT) CHAPTER FORTY

Taylor woke to the sensation of something cool brushing across her forehead.

For several seconds she remained where she was, eyes closed and mind struggling to make sense of the fact that she was awake at all. The last thing she remembered was the ocean, Armsmaster standing in front of her, and the Simurgh reaching through the portal that had opened behind him. She remembered the world turning red and white as his body came apart, remembered screaming as she was dragged through the portal, and then there had been the desert, the heat, the thirst, and the long walk that had ended when her legs could no longer carry her.

After that, there was nothing.

Taylor opened her eyes.

A tree loomed above her.

Its branches spread wide enough to cast a generous patch of shade over the sand, and for a moment the sight was so out of place that she simply stared at it. The ground beneath her was cool compared to the surrounding desert, and the rough bark of the trunk rose a few feet away before splitting into several thick branches.

She lifted her head.

There was a man standing beside the tree.

He was holding a cane in one hand, although he seemed to have no particular need for it. His skin was fair, his hair black, and his eyes were an unusual shade of grey that made Taylor think of polished metal. At first glance, he looked somewhere around middle age, perhaps in his forties or fifties, although the longer she looked at him, the less certain she became.

There was something wrong with his age.

Taylor couldn’t have explained what she meant by that. He didn’t look old, and he certainly didn’t look young, yet something about him gave her both impressions at once. There was a youthfulness to his face that made him seem younger than she was accustomed to thinking of adults, while his eyes seemed far more tired than they should have been.

It was a contradiction, and Taylor found herself staring because she couldn’t quite make sense of it.

The man noticed.

“Ah,” he said, looking down at her with mild amusement. “You’re awake.”

Taylor pushed herself upright, only to immediately stop.

Something was wrong.

She wasn’t thirsty. Her mouth no longer felt like sandpaper, and the aching dryness that had consumed her before she collapsed was completely gone. She wasn’t hungry either, although that was something she only noticed in passing as she tried to understand what had happened to her.

Looking down at herself, she could see that her clothes were dusty, but otherwise intact. There were no burns, no cuts, no bruises, and not even a scrape from her fall. Her hair was still in place, despite the fact that she distinctly remembered collapsing face-first into the sand.

Taylor touched her stomach, then her throat, trying to find some indication that her body had simply forgotten what had happened to it.

Nothing.

She looked back at the stranger.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man smiled. “That is generally considered an excellent question to ask when awakening in the middle of a desert.”

Taylor stared at him.

He reached into the pocket of his coat, and her body tensed automatically. The man noticed that too, but his expression remained pleasantly relaxed as he withdrew a small, brightly coloured gumball.

“Would you like one?”

Taylor looked at the gumball, then at him. “…What?”

“A gumball.”

“I know what a gumball is.”

“Excellent. That saves us both an unnecessary explanation.”

He extended his hand towards her, but Taylor didn’t take it.

The man seemed perfectly content to leave it there.

After everything that had happened, accepting candy from a strange man in the middle of a desert probably ranked somewhere near the bottom of the list of reckless decisions she could make. After all, she had just woken up after collapsing from dehydration, and the man standing in front of her appeared to have somehow fixed that without doing anything she had noticed.

She took the gumball.

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

She turned it over in her fingers without unwrapping it.

“Who are you?” she asked again.

The man rested both hands over the head of his cane.

“Professor Paradox.”

Taylor waited for him to elaborate, but nothing followed. After a moment, she asked, “That’s your name?”

“More or less.”

“More or less?”

“I’ve had several over the years, although that one tends to be the most convenient.”

Taylor studied him.

He didn’t seem to be joking.

She wasn’t sure what to make of that, so she glanced beyond him.

The desert stretched in every direction, an endless expanse of sand broken only by the tree and the occasional distant ridge. There were no buildings, roads, power lines, or anything else that suggested civilization existed anywhere nearby.

“Where am I?”

“Earth.”

Taylor stared at him.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“I suspected as much.”

He smiled again, and Taylor found herself becoming increasingly certain that she had somehow wandered into the company of the most annoying person she had ever met.

“You are still within your own universe,” he continued, “although the particular geographical location in which you presently find yourself is somewhat less hospitable than your previous one.”

Taylor’s fingers stopped moving around the gumball.

“My own universe?”

“Yes.”

“Then this isn’t Earth Bet?”

Paradox raised an eyebrow.

“Ah. So that’s what you call it.”

Taylor’s stomach dropped.

“You don’t?”

“I have heard the designation before, although I confess I find it rather unimaginative.”

She stared at him.

“You know about Earth Bet?”

“I know of Earth Bet.”

The distinction sounded intentional.

Taylor looked down at her wrist.

The watch was still there. Its display remained red, exactly as it had been before she lost consciousness. She touched the casing with her thumb, half expecting it to react.

Nothing happened.

Paradox followed the movement with his eyes.

“Ah.”

Taylor immediately pulled her hand away.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You were looking at the watch.”

“I was.”

“Why?”

“Curiosity.”

“You know what it is.”

Paradox’s smile widened slightly.

“I know what it might be.”

Taylor narrowed her eyes.

“That’s a really annoying answer.”

“I have been told that on several occasions.”

He turned his attention back towards the desert as though the matter had been settled.

Taylor remained suspicious, but with nothing else to do, she unwrapped the gumball and put it into her mouth, mostly because she wanted to see whether it was actually real.

It tasted like strawberry.

She chewed thoughtfully, then glanced back at Paradox.

He seemed pleased.

“Good?”

Taylor grudgingly nodded, and he gave an approving hum.

“I’ve always found gumballs useful for establishing rapport.”

“With strangers?”

“Particularly with strangers.”

“Why?”

“They tend to be less inclined to accept tea.”

The thought of Armsmaster came before she could laugh, and the smile disappeared as quickly as it came.

“How long was I unconscious?”

Paradox placed a hand under his chin and gave a considering hum.

“From your perspective, three hours and twelve minutes… and counting.”

Taylor frowned.

“And from yours?”

“Longer.”

“How much longer?”

“That depends on which version of me you’re asking.”

Taylor’s expression must have given something away, because he chuckled.

“Time travel is an exceedingly inconvenient thing to explain before breakfast.”

Taylor’s mouth fell open.

“Time travel?”

Paradox gave her a small smile.

“Yes.”

She had no idea what to say to that. Time travel was real, apparently, and this man had said it as casually as if he had mentioned taking a bus. She wanted to ask how it worked, where he had come from, and what exactly he meant by saying it was inconvenient, but the questions never made it very far.

Armsmaster appeared at the forefront of her mind again.

The image of him standing in front of her, the portal opening behind him, and that pale arm passing through his chest was still far too fresh.

Taylor swallowed and pulled her knees towards herself, resting her arms over them.

She could worry about time travel later.

“How did you find me?”

Paradox’s expression changed. Only slightly, but enough for Taylor to notice.

“I didn’t.”

She looked up.

“What?”

“I found where you were going to be.”

Taylor’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s the same thing.”

“It really isn’t.”

“How isn’t it?”

“One involves locating a person who has already arrived somewhere. The other involves locating a person before they arrive.”

Taylor stared at him, and he offered her another gumball.

She ignored it, focusing instead on his words.

“You knew I was coming?”

“I knew someone was coming.”

“Me?”

“I had a reasonable suspicion.”

“How?”

Paradox looked towards the horizon.

“Your arrival was rather conspicuous.”

She waited for him to elaborate again, but he didn’t. She stared at him for a few seconds before finally saying, “You’re going to have to explain what that means.”

“It means that something crossed a boundary which should have been considerably more difficult to cross.”

Taylor looked at the watch.

“The portal?”

“Among other things.”

She studied him for a moment before asking the question that had been bothering her since she woke.

“Why are you here?”

Paradox’s fingers tapped once against the top of his cane.

“That is a rather more complicated question.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything.”

“Good, because I wouldn’t.”

Taylor blinked, and Paradox smiled before eventually opening his mouth.

“I am here investigating something.”

“What?”

“A discrepancy.”

“What kind of discrepancy?”

“The interesting kind.”

Taylor sighed.

“You’re doing that on purpose.”

“Doing what?”

“Being vague.”

“Occasionally.”

There was no hint of embarrassment in his voice.

Taylor looked away, chewing thoughtfully on the gumball she had taken earlier.

She had spent enough time around Armsmaster to recognize someone who could turn a straightforward answer into a technical explanation spanning several pages. Paradox was different. He seemed perfectly content to leave things unexplained and let her piece together what he meant. Taylor couldn’t tell whether he was doing it intentionally or whether this was simply how he talked, although she was starting to suspect it was a little of both.

“What’s wrong with my universe?”

For the first time since she had woken up, Paradox didn’t immediately answer.

He looked at her, and the ease in his expression remained, although something more serious had appeared beneath it.

“I don’t yet know.”

Taylor frowned.

“But you said you were investigating something.” She narrowed her eyes. “What are you even investigating?”

“Things that should not be there.”

Her stomach tightened, but she pushed past the sudden dread his words stirred in her. “What do you mean?”

Paradox studied her for a moment.

“There are things in your universe that have no business being there, and they are affecting considerably more than the people who happen to live on Earth Bet.”

Taylor’s thoughts immediately went to the Simurgh.

“The Endbringers?”

“Among other things.”

“So they’re part of your investigation.”

Paradox gave her an amused look.

“Possibly.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You don’t know?”

“I haven’t finished determining that.”

“And what happens if you’re right?”

He turned his attention towards the horizon again, and when he spoke this time, the amusement had disappeared from his voice.

“Then your universe may be dying.”

Taylor’s amusement vanished.

“What?”

“Or perhaps it has already died and we are witnessing its death throes.”

She still couldn’t tell whether he was making some terrible joke.

“You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

Taylor rubbed her forehead.

“How can a universe die?”

“There are several ways.”

“And you know them?”

“Some.”

That answer did little to reassure her.

Paradox continued before she could press him.

“The distinction I am investigating is whether this universe is approaching an inevitable termination, or whether something has interfered with its natural progression and placed it upon a trajectory that merely resembles one.”

Taylor looked towards the endless desert.

She had thought Earth Bet was already strange enough with its parahumans, Endbringers, and the strange device that had appeared on her wrist. Now she was sitting in the middle of a desert listening to a man talk about the possibility of her entire universe dying.

“What would happen if it really was dying?”

Paradox gave her a thoughtful look.

“That depends upon how one defines dying.”

She resisted the overwhelming urge to roll her eyes as far back as she could.

“Of course it does.”

“You’re becoming quite perceptive.”

She ignored that.

“Would people die?”

“Eventually.”

Taylor looked down at the sand.

The thought should have been abstract, but it wasn’t. She had spent the last few hours surrounded by dead people, seeing families trapped inside buildings torn from another world and children floating in flooded rooms, while she carried bodies to the surface because leaving them beneath the water had somehow felt worse.

If the entire universe was doomed, then everything she had done to stop Leviathan, along with everything the PRT and the other heroes had sacrificed, could amount to nothing more than delaying the inevitable.

She looked at Paradox.

“Can it be saved?”

He smiled.

“That is the question I was waiting for you to ask.”

Taylor frowned.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know the answer yet.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

“Neither am I.”

By now, she was beginning to suspect that getting a straight answer out of him would be harder than figuring out the answers for herself.

Paradox turned and rested his back against the tree, his cane balanced loosely between his hands.

“Your universe is unusual, Miss Hebert.”

Taylor stiffened.

“You know my name.”

“I do.”

“How?”

Paradox smiled.

“I know many things about you.”

Taylor stared at him.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. I imagine it makes you considerably more suspicious.”

She groaned, then took a deeper breath for the first time since waking.

She still didn’t know where she was, whether Armsmaster had survived, why the Simurgh had brought her here, or what Paradox meant when he talked about her universe dying.

For the moment, she was still alive, and that had to count for something.

Paradox pushed himself away from the tree.

“Come along.”

“Where?”

“There is a settlement several miles from here.”

Taylor looked across the desert.

“You know where one is?”

“Of course.”

“How?”

He smiled.

“I’ve been there.”

Taylor frowned.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Paradox paused.

“Tomorrow.”

Taylor stared at him, but he continued walking.

After a moment, she got to her feet and followed.