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.

  Jenn would never forget the last day of that tough race. She ran the final marathon with her feet in tatters from blisters, three toenails missing, and skin split around her lips, eyes and ears from sunburn and the effects of sand blasted into her face from a sudden storm early that morning. Crossing the line, collapsing in a heap, she’d refused help until she saw Aaron coming in an hour after her.

  “My feet,” he gasped as he stumbled into her, unable to stop because his mind had got stuck in one mode—keep moving forward. Later, they’d discover that he had stress fractures in both feet.

  “I don’t want to see your feet, ever,” she said.

  “I want to cut them off,” he said. “Someone. Cut my feet off.” He hugged her, and the closeness felt so natural, the affection growing between them as obvious as the heat and sweat and the stink of their unwashed bodies. They both cried. Their tears mixed like blood, binding them together forever. Something about that moment was magical in Jenn’s mind. She’d never believed in love at first sight, but it was something close.

  That’s what it is, Jenn thought now as Aaron and the others followed Poke across the forested hillside. Like she recognises me. She was a name on the tip of Poke’s tongue, a memory buried but rising towards the surface.

  Only her father had ever met Poke before. By Poke’s own admission, she never travelled far from this locale. That was why she knew it so well. The only reason Poke might recognise her was if she reminded her of someone else.

  “Eden,” Poke said.

  At first Jenn saw little to differentiate the view across the valley from the landscape they had traversed over the past few hours. More trees, more hills, more valleys. Poke had brought them here on a very precise schedule, and even now she continued glancing at her watch.

  “This is where it gets tricky,” the guide said.

  “But you’ve got our route planned,” Jenn’s father said. He had been quiet today, no doubt considering the difficulty of the task to come. They’d all been quiet, even Gee. Coming together for an expedition, they each prepared mentally in their own private ways.

  “I have,” Poke said.

  “But still it’s tricky?” Lucy asked.

  Poke sighed heavily, looked at her watch one more time, and eased herself down against a tree. She massaged her knees. It was the first time Jenn had seen her displaying any sign of discomfort.

  “Of course it is,” she said. “Take a look. All of you. A closer look.”

  “What are we looking at?” Cove asked, but none of them answered. Instead, they did what their guide told them.

  Jenn and Aaron stood side by side, arms touching, breathing heavily from exertion. They were used to it. Revelled in it. She could smell him, a familiar scent of heat and perspiration.

  “It looks… deep,” he said. He smirked, and Jenn nudged against him. But he was right. Across the valley, over a narrow river, starting on the other side and stretching into the distance over rolling hills with dark clefts that might contain anything, Eden looked as deep as any place she had ever seen.

  Deep was how she described her nightmare. It was imprecise, but the best word she could find. If she was ever ill or jaded, the deep haunted her sleep and sometimes woke her in a bath of sweat. A sense of wide open space and depth, a vision of expanse and endless, unknown breadth; she had tried explaining the nightmares to Aaron when she shouted herself awake beside him, and he asked her what was wrong. Nursing a midnight coffee she’d sit propped against the wall and talk through the fears that haunted her sleep. Like all the worst nightmares, they defied explaining. No words did them justice. It’s a feeling of endless, daunting depth, she’d said. Like the universe has swallowed me up and forgotten about me.

  She remembered her mother holding her when she woke from more frequent childhood versions of this nightmare. She’d never needed to ask Jenn what was wrong, and Jenn never tried to explain. Her arms were enough. The strength of her, the smell, the comfort she offered when she said, You’re safe in my warm.

  As Jenn and the others stared out across the wilderness, a dreg of her recurring nightmare trailed a whisper across the landscape. A shiver ran through her and she shook it off. The view was beautiful, awe-inspiring, and she welcomed the early afternoon sun on her face and the closeness of her friends to see away any lingering fears. She had entered several other Virgin Zones, but she would never get used to this feeling of standing outside waiting to go in. At their purest these places were removed from the world, as wild as the land before apes stood on their hind legs and walked.

  And Eden was special.

  She felt that shiver again. Someone was watching her watching Eden, and this time when she glanced at Poke the woman did not look away.

  Jenn inclined her head slightly. “Is there water nearby?” she asked.

  Poke understood her intention. “Over here.”

  Jenn held out her hand and took canteens from Cove and Selina, then she and Poke moved away from the others.

  “What do you see?” Jenn asked, voice low, as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “A woman who looked just like you,” Poke said. “Same eyes. Same mouth.”

  Jenn’s heart jumped. “What woman?”

  They knelt by a stream and filled the canteens.

  “Couple months ago,” Poke said. She waved a fly from her eyebrow, not blinking. “She came here with a team, bit like yours but lots more gear. Not as together. They carried a few guns, other shit. Paid me for some advice, a couple of maps. A few hours of my time. Then they went into Eden.”

  “And did they come out again?” Jenn asked.

  Poke’s eyes were flat. Cold. She smelled deception and wanted no part of it. “You’re keeping something from your team,” she said. “That’s not cool. It’s dangerous. In there you need to be solid, together.”

  “I have reasons,” Jenn said. “Please, did they come out again?”

  “Not that I heard.” Poke tilted her head, cigarette smoke making her squint. “Name was Katharine, but she called herself—”

  “Kat,” Jenn said. “My mother.” She looked back towards the group, and her father standing there staring away from her into Eden. She felt the weight of unsaid things, and as ever it was a gravity holding them together, and a barrier forcing them apart.

  4

  “I hereby declare Eden, the world’s very first Virgin Zone, closed. Closed to human interference. Closed to human interaction. Closed away from the damaging effect we have had on our planet for centuries. We give this place back to nature, in the hope that nature might find itself once again and, eventually, forgive us our sins.”

  Extract from speech by Ekow Kufuor, First Chair of the United Zone Council, on the official establishment day of Eden

  “Seventeen minutes,” Poke said. An afternoon breeze whispered through the trees, cooling the sweat on their bodies. Small branches swayed, rustling leaves. Dylan wondered what the land might be saying about them.

  As usual at times like these, with the anticipation of adventure to come and the tension that evoked, Kat was on his mind. Long ago, they used to share such moments. Other than Jenn, it was the greatest thing that had once bound them together.

  He missed that. He missed his wife.

  Dylan hadn’t seen Kat in almost nine years, or spoken to her in six. A small part of the reason for still doing what he did was to search for her. It was a passive search, a vain hope that somewhere—at a remote train station, a mountain base camp, a sodden shack in the middle of whatever jungles or wildernesses were left in this shrinking, poisoned world—he might one day bump into her. Every now and then he heard news of her having travelled through a small Andean village, or an Alaskan settlement, or being seen en route to one out-of-the-way place or another, a disparate team of athletes or explorers in tow. Their community of extreme sports and adventure racing enthusiasts, though spread across the globe and maintaining anonymity online, was surprisingly small. A passion for adventure had brought him and Kat together, and despite whatever had driven them apart—and an element of Dylan’s search was to come to terms with what had caused that, too—he was pleased that she retained that love.

  The day Kat walked out on him and Jenn remained the worst day of his life. Some days, he still hated her for it, because of the pain it had caused him and his daughter. But the hate sat uneasily alongside the love that would always persist.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jenn said as she came to stand beside him.

  “It always is,” he said. “What did Poke want?”

  “Poke?”

  “She was looking at you weird.”

  “She’s a weird old woman. You thinking about Mum?”

  Dylan sighed. “Of course I am.” It was rare that they talked about her, but moments like this felt unguarded and filled with potential. A time to open up.

  He was certain that his daughter had communicated with Kat over the years, but he wasn’t sure if she knew that he knew. If Jenn wanted to tell him—and if there was anything worth telling him—she’d have done so. Keeping silent must have caused her a weight of guilt, and he had no wish to aggravate that. His relationship with Jenn was precious. He loved her too much to lose her, too. Kat’s leaving had fucked him up enough. He hated to think how it had affected Jenn, her mother walking out on her and disappearing when she was still in her teens. She’d grown into a smart and capable person, one of the strongest he knew. Inside, though, he knew the memory of that time must simmer and flare like a blazing ember.

  Jenn seemed on edge, more than she usually was at the start of an expedition. Perhaps it was this place. Eden seemed to radiate an unknowable air, a sense of alienness that carried a strange taint and gave their surroundings a sharpness and clarity that he’d rarely seen before. The air was so clear, as if it had never been breathed by humankind.

  “So what is it?” he asked.

  It was not Jenn who answered.

  “It’s something you need to know,” Poke said. “All of you.”

  As Dylan turned to face her, he caught Jenn staring at him, eyes wide. What could make my girl so worried? he thought. Then she looked at Poke and he realised there had been something between them after all.

  “You promised,” Jenn said to Poke.

  “No. You asked. I promised nothing.”

  “It’s Kat, isn’t it?” Dylan asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else that might have made Jenn look so wretched.

  “She’s in Eden,” Poke said. “Your daughter knows.”

  Nobody spoke. The others had heard, and though only Selina and Cove had known Kat, they all understood.

  Jenn stared at her father, sad now, begging him with silence to forgive her, or to understand. And in a way he did.

  But it appeared she had lied to them all.

  “What the actual fuck?” Selina said finally.

  “I’m sorry, girl,” Poke said. “I don’t know anything about you or your reasons for wanting it kept quiet, but I do know you can’t have a lie at the heart of your team. Not when you’re heading into Eden. Something like that sets a seed of rot, and you spend more time and effort keeping the lie secret than you do surviving. And all your time, all your effort, is going to be taken with surviving. I’ve done you a favour.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” Jenn said, but she didn’t sound angry. She sounded sad.

  “The lie is still there,” Lucy said. “Only difference is, now we all know about it.”

  “Lucy—” Jenn started, but Lucy grimaced and turned away, cutting her off. The two of them were close, and Dylan wished Lucy had given Jenn a shred of support. Someone had to.

  “Jenn,” Dylan said. “You know I’d still have come if I’d known.”

  “I know you would have, Dad. But you would have told the team and we couldn’t do it on our own. If you other guys thought we were doing this for the wrong reasons… I was afraid you’d bail.”

  “When were you going to tell us?” Cove asked.

  “Soon,” Jenn said. “When we were inside. Maybe even later today.”

  “So… what does this mean?” Gee asked.

  “Who knows?” Selina said. “So why don’t you enlighten us, Jenn?”

  Jenn looked to her father for help. Dylan only frowned. He nodded. Yes, enlighten us.

  He looked past Jenn at the landscape of Eden laid out before them. It had changed. Now, he knew Kat was here. Maybe she and her team were crawling across one of the mountains he could see in the distance, the slopes hidden in heat haze and mists, so ephemeral they might have been clouds at the extremes of his vision. Maybe she was in one of the valleys closer to them, lost in its depth, or losing herself to the wilderness on purpose. They had been apart for too long for him to pretend to know her motivations.

  It seemed that he didn’t know his daughter quite as well as he’d believed, either.

  It was only ten weeks ago that Jenn had started pushing hard for the team to take on Eden as their next adventure. They’d talked about it many times over the years, and made rough plans, and it had certainly been on their radar. She had put instant pressure on them to come together and initiate the journey. He’d wondered if she had reached a point in her life when true danger became adventure. As her father he’d worried about that, and he’d talked to her about it. But she maintained that she was not rash in her choices, and that Eden was only dangerous to those who didn’t treat it with respect. That was the difference between their tight team and some of the others they’d encountered. However exotic and wonderful the Zones were, there were still many people who perceived them simply as new, more wild personal playgrounds. Jenn had never taken that view. She already saw the Zones as another world. Those places aren’t ours anymore, she’d say, and her eyes would light up with the sheer wonder of that idea.

  “She told me she was doing Eden three months ago,” Jenn said. “I didn’t know when, or how, or who with. She just sent me a single text that said, Eden is my last.”

  “How long ago did she go in?” Dylan asked Poke.

  “Couple of months.”

  Dylan frowned. If they’d gone in two months ago and made it out the other side, word would surely have spread through the small adventuring community by now. The air was heavy with heat and buzzing insects and a sick tension. It was a hand grenade thrown into the group to hear her name now, this close to Eden and the most ambitious challenge of their lives.

  “What else do you know?” Dylan asked. Poke had lit another of her stinking rollies and was consulting her watch, dragging a small map across its screen. She peered at him through the tobacco smoke.

  “Nothing else,” she said, cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth. She shrugged. “Saw something I recognised in your girl there. Confused me for a while ’til I put my finger on it, that she looks a lot like Kat. I’m not as young as I used to be, y’know?” She tapped her head.

  “How do you know she hasn’t finished the crossing and emerged on the other side?”

  “I don’t,” Poke said. “All I know is she didn’t come back this way.”