I click on Personal. There are very few emails here, and the ones that are cause a stream of alarm to accompany the sudden anger roaring through my veins.
Almost every email in this folder is between Mom and Chloe. There are about two dozen, and Mom has initiated every one. Chloe only responded to the first message, sent a few days after she disappeared almost five years ago. I click on it, narrowing my eyes to make sure I read every word clearly.
Chloe,
Where are you? What happened? The morning I found you gone, my worst fears came true. It was Harlem, wasn’t it? He came through the rift and kidnapped you, didn’t he? I know you’re smart enough to figure out how to get home.
I just want to warn you. They stole my research notes. All your journals, the disks and thumb drives with our laser schematics, everything I kept at home as well as my office. I’ve lost everything. The last five years of research, and my daughter.
So please. Be careful. Wherever you are and whoever you’re with, be careful. You can’t trust the Ryerson’s, no matter what.
Answer if you can. Please let me know if you’re okay.
I need a minute to digest before I read Chloe’s response. I close my eyes, but the screen is still bright enough for me to see the light. I suck at the air to strengthen myself before scrolling down to read what Chloe had to say.
Mom,
I am fine, but I was not kidnapped. I took all our research and brought it with me through the rift. I have given it to its rightful owner—Harlem Ryerson.
I’m sorry if you don’t like this. I told you over and over that we needed to give him what he paid for, and now I have. Hopefully, he’ll leave you alone now.
PS. I know how Dad really died. I will never forgive you.
My eyes can’t move fast enough across the screen. Mom’s response reads:
No, he tricked you into going! I don’t believe you would take everything and betray me. I know it’s Harlem’s fault. Please come home.
Dad died exactly the way I told you. What lies has Harlem told you? You can’t trust anything he says!
Chloe never responded. Mom sent email after email, but Chloe never replied again. I click through them, hungry for an explanation about how Dad really died. There’s never a mention of him again, because all the emails are from Mom. A pang of anger runs through me. Mom never talks about Dad, not out loud and not in her emails.
She’s basically keeping a record of her progress. She tells Chloe that she’s re-discovering how to contain the radiation overflow, how the basement is the ideal location for rift generation because she can mount lasers to the ceiling, how she found a new financial backer for the hydrogen-2 she needs to produce the energy spike required to generate the rift, and so much more than I don’t understand.
With every email, she continues to warn Chloe about the Ryerson’s. Two years ago, right after she signed the latest contract with Harlem, she emailed Chloe and told her that she has sole claim on being the one to disclose the discovery of time rifts.
I’ll get the acclaim I need for my career. Then they’ll have to let you come home. I hope you’re all right. I love you, and I hope to be able to recreate our experiments and be able to reveal my discoveries within the next five years.
That last email was sent two years ago. I have no idea how close Mom is to duplicating her research. My heartbeat thunders through my ears. A sob escapes my throat. My tears are so thick, the words in Mom’s email blur. I close them and blink away the tears. I will be strong about this.
I notice there’s an email in the Drafts folder, and I click to open it. It’s to Chloe, dated on Sunday, the day Mom found me in Shep’s room, the same day I experienced the rift for the first time.
The rift is opening by itself! I don’t know how to control the lasers so they won’t produce so much energy, and I don’t know what will happen if I try to manipulate the technology on my end only.
I’m scared for Saige. What if someone comes through the rift and she sees them? What if someone in one of the nearby verses notices there’s a way across?
I’m not sure if the rift is more stable because it opens spontaneously, or if that means it’s deteriorating. No matter what, I can’t have it opening without my knowledge. I can’t control who can come through then, and from where, and that’s a risk I can’t take.
Can you
The email ends there. I can’t breathe. I logout of Mom’s email, put the computer to sleep, and slip out of the office as quickly as I can. Once I’m in the car, I stare out the windshield at the closed garage door. I want to cycle through everything I’ve seen, maybe yell words that will express my anger at my mom, at Chloe, at all the secrets they’ve kept from me. Instead, I cry all the way back to Sarah Jane’s, one thought circling my mind: Chloe left.
Chloe left.
Chloe left.
Chloe left.
After school the next day, as Shep and I pull into the driveway, I see silver light pouring from my bedroom window. I leap out of the car, ignoring Shep’s call of “Saige, wait!” behind me.
He catches me quickly. “What’s going on?” he asks.
“The rift is here!” I choke out. “I want to go through it.” I need to go through it. Need to find Cascade and make her tell me what she knows about my family. I’m fumbling with the lock on the front door when the rift winks away. I stop short, immediately cold though I’m sweating and the sun is beating down on my bare shoulders.
“Saige,” Shep says, his eyes focused darkly on the house. “I have to tell you something.” He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “I’ve seen people come and go through the…the rift for years. I’ve seen Chloe a couple of times.”
I’m sure I haven’t heard him correctly. A few moments pass in silence before he says, “Mom told me they were nightmares, that I wasn’t really awake. She said hallucinations sometimes happen with sleepwalking.”
The numbness in my mind disappears, leaving only anger in its wake. “She’s been lying to both of us.”
“For a long time,” he adds.
I inhale now, as if to prove that I can breathe without her knowing. “So now what? Chloe’s alive.”
He cuts me a glance. “She may not be the same person you remember.”
“Still,” I say. “She’s our sister—and she’s alive! We have to do something to get her back.”
“We are. We’ve figured out that Mom has been researching time travel, and that your futuristic boyfriend’s family were the financiers.” He pushes into the house. “We’ll ask Mom about all of it.”
“Price is not my boyfriend.” I follow Shep through the foyer, the familiar ball of anxiety settling in my chest. I continue into the kitchen while Shep turns into the living room. The house feels strange, like maybe there’s someone here who shouldn’t be. I glance into the mudroom and up the stairs. Nothing, and no one. When Shep yells my name, my nerves turn to fear.
“Come look!” he yells, and I run into the living room. All the books have been yanked from their shelves. The couch rests in a new spot, and the rug is doubled over on itself.
I meet Shep’s gaze, and as one, we turn toward Mom’s office. The door is open, raising the hairs on my arms. I was in that room just hours ago. I notice the limp knob as I pass—someone forcibly entered. Her office has been thoroughly searched. Books lie in haphazard piles. Filing drawers spill their contents onto the counter and floor. Her computer is nowhere to be seen. I think of all I saw on it last night and shudder at the desk chair where I sat that’s now been toppled.
“Do you think she did it?” Shep asks, his voice laced with bitterness. “Took her research, her notes, anything she had here so that no one would find it?”
“Maybe,” I say, understanding his reasoning as I cast another glance to the broken doorjamb. She’d be desperate to keep the research she’s managed to redo—maybe desperate enough to ransack her own office. “Should we call the police?”
Shep doesn’t answer as he moves toward
the filing cabinets. He rifles through a few drawers. Traces his fingertips along a file folder or two. Peels off a piece of paper that’s gotten stuck between two cupboards.
“Don’t call the police,” he says, and when he holds up the paper, I realize he’s reading it. “Everything is fine. I’ll be home for dinner. Mom.”
“Fine,” I say, and then I start laughing. It rattles around the high ceilings, without humor, almost maniacal. Mom’s definition of fine must be different than mine.
Price
I CAN’T LOOK AWAY FROM Cascade, and for once, it’s not because I’m crushing on her. She nods, gently urging me to accept the names she’s just given me.
“You and Soda came through the rift?”
“Yes,” she says. “Her father was abusing her and her mother. They had to get away. We had the rift at our house, and it makes the perfect escape for someone who wants to disappear without a trace.” She slides her hand into mine. “Please don’t be mad. I did what I thought was best at the time. I was only thirteen.”
“I’m not mad,” I say. “I’m processing.” I feel like I’m seeing her clearly for the first time, and while I don’t like what she’s done for my dad, I still like her. I like that she was brave enough to help her friend and her mom.
“Is that why Soda never talks about her dad?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Cascade says.
I nod, glad Soda found somewhere she could live without fear. I feel numb, learning all I have in such a short amount of time. Yet somehow, my brain is still working.
“Why didn’t you go back? When Soda was safe, I mean.”
“It’s complicated. There are things about the rift, about the people who use it, who discovered it…. Can we talk about something else for a while?” She sounds tired.
“Sure.” A jam sounds perfect about now. It’ll allow me to stop mulling over every word she’s said. It’s almost like I can absorb better when my mind and fingers are busy. “I intercepted a scan, and they’ve tracked the Black Hat to the Bayberry Heights area.” I swallow hard, trying to keep the tremor of fear out of my voice. “I need to do a jam and log the location far from here.”
“Let’s do it,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say. “You know, I’ve been dying to get over here.” I stand up to examine Cascade’s gadgetry. She has everything, and I chase away the thoughts of how she’s able to pay for it. I fondle a plugin that will erase a procedure as soon as the next one is complete. In my jammer forums, we call it a vacuum, technology that sucks up everything, leaving nothing to be traced.
I look up when I realize how silent it is. Cascade is staring at me, a half-smile on her face. “Dying to get over here?”
I realize how that sounds now. I cough, feeling heat shoot to my face. “Yeah, you know. Check out what kind of gadgets you have.”
“Are you sure that’s all you want to check out?” She slides me a sly look and refocuses on her Link station.
I don’t know how to answer. Of course that’s not all I want to check out. I look at her bed, where she was just laying.
“Stop staring at my bed, and come sit down.”
I yank my attention back to her, and find her patting the chair next to her. I take three steps to cross the room, and drop into the chair she cleared off for me. Despite the clutter in her room, her scent is intoxicating, and it’s all I can do not to take a deep drag of her floral-and-hairspray-scented air.
“I’ve got us set up in Salem,” she says.
“That’s not far enough,” I argue. Salem is only three hours north of Castle Pines.
“Massachusetts.”
“Oh, that’s far enough.” I sign on as the Black Hat, and together, we complete the jam Cas picked out. Someone in Salem, Mass is getting all their city citations forgiven. The code is basic, but I force myself to focus on it, stitch it up nice and tight so no one will know this guy didn’t pay his tickets. While I don’t think about anything to do with the basement in my house, or my dad, or Cooper, I can’t help obsessing over Cascade. Her confessions. The quickness of her fingers or the steadiness of her breath as she works on a particularly puzzling code to get us out of the fraud division.
I notice the way she hums while she’s thinking and the way she nibbles her thumbnail when she’s nervous. I don’t think she wants me to see all that, but there in her bedroom, I finally feel like some of her walls are starting to crack.
As we complete the jam and sign it with the traditional Black Hat signature, I realize I want to learn all of Cascade’s secrets. Even if she continues to push me away. Even if I need time to come to terms with who she is and what she’s done.
“Nice jam,” I say.
She tosses me a rare smile. “Thanks. You too.” She gets up and stretches the tension from her shoulders.
I swallow hard and stand up. “Well, I better—”
“You can stay,” she says.
Price
STAY ECHOES IN MY EARS. How long does she want me to stay? Does she have more to say, or…? I swallow as I glance around her room at the heaps of equipment that would make Newt salivate. “Nice gear,” I comment, just to have something to say.
Cascade eyes me. “Are you jealous?”
“Yes!” I say, smiling at her teasing tone. “Do you know what it would cost me to have gadgetry like this?”
“But your dad is rich.”
“Not everything can be bought with money,” I say darkly.
Her playful smile fades. “Don’t I know it.” She slides off the bed and rummages through a pile of her gadgets. She holds up something that looks like an early version of the flatpanel, at least a quarter inch thick and not nearly as pliable.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“This is how my dad died,” she says.
My chest feels empty, though I can feel my pulse in my neck. She said my father had killed hers. I stare first at the panel and then at her.
“Take it.” She extends the ancient flatpanel toward me. “It’s okay.”
“You said my dad killed your father,” I say. “I don’t want to see that.” Then I can go on believing it’s not true. I can’t seem to make such an accusation line up in my mind, despite Monroe’s warning that Dad will do whatever it takes to keep his secrets.
“I blame him,” Cascade says. “Saving my father was part of our deal, and Guy didn’t keep his end of the bargain.” She shakes the flatpanel at me. “You’ll see why.”
I raise my eyebrows at her, but I take the clunky panel from her, our fingers nowhere near close enough to touch. The smell of fresh cotton comes and goes with her as she settles into her jamming chair.
I watch the blue-purple light flash and dance on-screen. Two people emerge from it, shouting and gesturing toward the rift. Someone darts in front of the camera, blocking the light.
Dad’s voice is unmistakable. “It’s going to collapse!” he yells just as the rift comes into sight again. I can’t tell if he’s one of the walkers or the person who blocked the shot.
The image begins to shake, and its not because my hands are trembling, though they probably are. A humming noise fills the air and the two people in the vid cover their ears and drop to their knees.
It grows louder and louder. The light pinkifies and pulses, pulses against my retinas. I can’t look away, even though the humming has turned into a shriek.
I watch the light, desperately hoping whoever they’re waiting for will make it out of the rift before it closes. The blue in the rift vanishes, leaving only purple. Purple the color of the ultra-violet tubes in black light. It hurts my eyes, but I don’t blink. I can’t.
“Who are they waiting for?” I ask, though I think I already know.
Even if Cas answers, I won’t be able to hear her. That shriek drowns out everything else. The image shakes more violently. The light coils and plasma sparks fly into the air.
Just when I can’t stand it another second, a foot appears, followed by someone carrying a clearly unconscious body.
In the next moment, the violet light flashes to magenta and then explodes.
Only blackness remains on the panel, but the vid isn’t over. I hear breathing and someone crying. A man curses.
Then someone asks in a croaky voice, “Did we save him? Guy, did you see Carl?” I recognize my grandpa’s voice, even if it is full of air and panic.
The vid ends, leaving only the echo of that name reverberating through the room. I don’t know what to say, or what to think.
Cascade clears her throat. “We were lucky. Depending on which thread of time you’re walking through, and how close that is to the fusing particles, determines the level of destruction.”
“Lucky?” I practically exhale the word. This flick could be an advertisement for the Time Travel Initiative. Every politician would love to get their hands on it.
“The rift site was virtually untouched in our time,” she said. “But the time we came from was completely flattened. Like a killer tornado had torn through town, with lasers attached.”
It’s my worst fear, right there in high-def to re-watch. This could happen at my house, while I’m in the rift or asleep in my bed. This could kill my mom, the way it killed Cascade’s dad.
“Part of my deal with your dad was that he’d use the rift to save my father. He didn’t. My dad still died. It was then that I disappeared. I left Soda’s house—where I’d been living—and went to find my brother. After about a year, we moved back here.”
“What did you give my dad?”
“All my mother’s research.” She stands up, but I need to go—somewhere. I need time to think.
“Your dad had to do some repairs on the house, and on the rift,” Cascade says, and for once I wish she’d stop talking. “That’s why me and Coop had to use the rift at the Bureau to go back and rescue Soda and her mom. You know, the rift that’s shown in the flick we implanted into the mandatory message feed? The four of us are in it.”
Rift (Rift Walkers #1) Page 21
