The Rift Rider

by Mark Oliver

  A fringed soldier pulled Charlie to his feet and pinned his arms behind him. The other two stood with their rifles aimed at his belly.

  Executive Ko stepped up to him. "We meet again Charlie Scott."

  Charlie looked up into the blank, expressionless eyes and said, fighting to keep the fear out of his voice, "What are you going to do with me?"

  "Anything I like."

  "Why don't you just kill me, and get it over with?"

  "I would very much like to do that," Ko said. "However, I have my orders to bring you in alive."

  Charlie fell silent, but inwardly his soul cheered. They needed him alive. He would have nothing to lose by making another run for it.

  Ko must have seen the glint in his eye. The instant he twisted, and pushed the fringe holding him away, she gave the order. "Aim for his legs." The two other fringes lowered their rifles and fired as one.

  Something inside Charlie clicked. In that fraction of a second, everything became clear. That night's dream of floating with rollers, and his glowing green form came back to him in high definition clarity.

  He knew, at some deep level, beyond conscious thought, that the dream was a key, unlocking a power long trapped inside him. This power enabled him to change from one from to another, from his familiar physical form to one that went beyond concepts of form and solidity. His subconscious had already accepted the changes, triggering the changes that had helped him escape. All that was left was for him to take conscious control of his new ability.

  He seized control and in a flash his vision brightened, expanding to encompass the whole 360 degrees around him. The shards of broken glass, littering the floor around him reflected his appearance back up at him. He was a shining green silhouette, a man-shaped collection of sparkling stars, twirling and streaming inside a sky of green.

  Without turning, he saw the gun barrels twitch and their energy bursts blast harmlessly through him.

  The fringes stared at him, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. Ko studied with calm eyes, working out a way to handle this unexpected development.

  He looked at them and then, with an effortless change of focus, into them. He could see everything that made them, every proton, neutron, electron cloud and all the nothingness in between. Another shift in focus, and the whole room around them fell apart, breaking down to the same basic level of existence.

  Charlie turned his attention inwards, running his all-encompassing sight onto every part of him. He noticed the bracelets, immediately. They had changed alongside him, shifting to a form that was pure energy, but they remained distinct. He concentrated, and then as simply as calculating two plus two, released them. They dropped through him towards the floor, returning mid-air their metal form. They clattered onto the floor.

  Ko looked down at the bracelets and then up at Charlie.

  When Charlie spoke his voice resonated with untold power. "Goodbye Executive."

  The look of angry impotence on her face was priceless. Charlie soaked it in. And then, with the nonchalance of a pro surfer dropping in on a ten-foot storm wave, he slipped through the marble beneath him. He landed barefoot and physical on the basement floor, five metres from his rocket ride.

  Chapter 18

  The thrill of this new power surged through him. He had no idea where it had surfaced from and what it meant. But deep within him, with an instinctive certainty, he knew that a door had opened, and more changes, more abilities would come through it. He needed to talk to Brother Yojim. That much was clear. But first, he had to get the hell out of this palace.

  The rocket ride was exactly where Charlie had left it, parked snuggly between the two armoured vehicles. It was frosty cold in the basement. Charlie wrapped his arms around him and headed over to the ride. His foot throbbed with pain, the change in state having had no healing effect on it. A detail well worth remembering, he reflected.

  Charlie climbed onto the sleek rocket, placed his palm on the activation slab, and brought it purring to life. The familiar vibration underneath him felt good. He leaned forward, grabbed the handlebars and raced out of the basement.

  A squadron of guards were waiting for him in front of the palace gates, Executive Ko and her fringes at their centre. They fired low hoping to take out his ride and keep him alive.

  He swerved to avoid the energy bursts. The shots slammed into the palace wall a metre to his right, sending fragments of rock and dust into the air. Charlie, keeping his body pinned against the ride, took a course parallel to the gates, hoping to draw them away. When he saw his plan had worked, he brought the ride around in an arc and aiming for the palace gates, its guard reduced to two soldiers, accelerated. He would smash right through them.

  "Don't do it," Bei shouted in his ear. "They're solid metal."

  Charlie pulled the ride hard to the left, whizzing past the metal bars. "You took you're sweet time," he said, racing along the side of the wall.

  Charlie glanced behind him. The guards had reorganised themselves. They were pursuing him on armoured hover bikes. Executive Ko sat on the back seat of the lead bike, shouting out commands.

  Charlie weaved through the garden pathways, using the ride's greater speed and manoeuvrability to outfox his pursuers. "What should I do?"

  "Look up."

  Charlie ducked under a branch and looked upwards. Bei was racing across the top of the wall on his rocket ride, following Charlie from above. Energy bursts plowed into the wall beneath the blue man. "I see you."

  "Good. Now flick the switch under the rocket's belly and use the energy surge to ride up the wall."

  "No way. I'll end up in the outer atmosphere."

  "Not if you jump first."

  "That's insane."

  "I'll catch you. I promise. Now do it. I'm getting my arse shot off up here."

  Bei was right. The palace guards had a far better sight of Bei than Charlie. He was not going to last much longer up there.

  Charlie reached a clear patch of garden, a wide lawn stretching smoothly outwards like a bowling green. It left him terribly exposed, but nevertheless he slowed his ride, leaned forwards and ran his fingers along the machine's underbelly. He found the square patch, slid it to one side and flicked the switch hidden inside. With his hand back on the handlebar, he pulled hard on the accelerator. The ride shot forward like a turbo charged bat from hell.

  "Yank it all the way back," Bei's voice screamed in his ear. "Now."

  Charlie did and shot upwards towards the top of the wall. In less than a second he had cleared it, and was rocketing into the sky.

  "Jump."

  Charlie let go of the handlebars, dropped his hands onto the engine and pushed. The ride shot away from him. He fell back towards the wall now fifty metres below him. He thought about switching form so he could float safely back to the ground. But then an arm wrapped around him and plucked him out of the sky.

  "Got you," Bei said, swinging Charlie roughly onto the back of his ride.

  Charlie grabbed onto him, and they thundered downwards, into a rising hail of energy bursts. The air around them was filled with energy bursts but no shots hit them.

  By the time Bei brought the ride to a horizontal trajectory, racing a safe two feet above the ground, they had cleared the series of walls and a quarter of the city.

  "How did you do that?" Charlie asked.

  "I was going to ask the same question."

  He saw me, Charlie thought. He had no idea how to answer the blue man, so he said nothing and shrugged.

  They completed the final minutes of their journey across the city in silence. Bei took them down a crumbling street on the outskirts of the city. At the end of it, an ancient looking hover van lay abandoned next to a steaming pile of rubbish.

  Bei raised a hand towards the van and squeezed the remote control device inside it. The van's rear doors slid open. The blue man slowed the rocket and brought them into the van. The doors closed behind them and the van's internal lights flashed into life. The van looked a lot smarter on the ins
ide than the outside.

  "Here's our getaway hover," Bei said, climbing off the ride.

  Charlie nodded, impressed.

  An hour later they were racing across the desert. They were taking the long route to Jajag city in a hope of throwing Executive Ko off their scent. It seemed to be working. Nobody had followed them.

  A lot of that was down to the van. For despite its raggedy appearance, it was equipped with the latest cloaking technology. Only a visual would pick them up, and with the van's rusted brown outer shell blurring seamlessly in with the surroundings, their odds of escape looked good.

  "So," Bei said, settling into the driver's seat, relaxed and smiling now that Charlie had handed the data over, every megabyte of it unencrypted, "are you going to tell me about that little light show you put on back there or not?"

  Charlie coughed. At times like this he pined for the polite indirectness of his people back in England. "How did you see it?"

  "I was up on the walls, waiting. You took so long I was contemplating whether to come down and save you. But when I saw you change into a green lamp and disappear through the floor like a ghost, I figured you had it covered."

  "How long were you up there?"

  "I followed Ko to the palace. I pulled out a couple of upward thrusters and a cloaking blanket from Tills bag of treats. I got up there without being noticed, no mean feat. Anyway, quit dodging the question. What happened to you back there? Is that normal for your kind? If it is, that would've been useful to know before I risked my arse getting up that wall."

  "I doubt it's normal for any kind," Charlie said. He paused, and stared out of the side window, eyes fixed on the desert rushing by. When he spoke it was as though he was using speech to arrange his thoughts. "Last night I dreamt of rollers. I existed amongst them in a place unlike any other, a place beyond words, a place without rules or limits. Somehow I knew I'd been there before, long ago and that I belonged there. In the dream I looked and felt just like the rollers. I was made of green energy and something else too, some form that exits beyond this Universe, something powerful, immortal.

  "And when I woke up and the next thing I knew different parts of me were changing into this green form. But it wasn't until the courtyard, when Ko tried to take me down, that I understood I could control the change."

  Charlie turned and looked at Bei. "And you saw it yourself. The energy bursts passed right through me"

  Bei exhaled. "That's some crazy shit."

  "It doesn't get any crazier." Charlie held up his hand. One moment it was an ordinary hand, pink and knobbly and strange looking in its normality, and the next it was an impossible hand, holding a galaxy's worth of stars within its green grip.

  Charlie saw Bei's mouth drop. "Go on," he said. "Try and touch it."

  Bei took a hand off the steering wheel and prodded the shining limb with an outstretched index finger. It went straight through, all the way to the knuckle. "Incredible," he said, pulling his finger out of the light.

  "The roller we met told me to come home to the Divide. That must be the place I saw in my dream. But what has that got to do with me?" He blew out some air and shook his head. "I just don't get it."

  "Well," Bei said, "whatever the reason it proved damn useful. You can't deny that. What I would give for a little indestructability."

  Indestructible, Charlie thought. Is that what I am?

  "Don't look so glum, kid. Awani made contact with Brother Yojim. They're waiting for us in Jajag city. You'll get your answers soon."

  Charlie pictured the demonic. The thought of sitting down and talking with the erd giant filled him with dread and excitement in equal measures. His mind raced with questions. For a long while he sat in silence, imagining his conversation with the red alien, guessing at the pathfinder's answers to the questions he had.

  Finally, he gave up the imaginary questioning and asked Bei a real one. "How did Ko find me? You said Lady Ori was untouchable."

  Bei paused to think about it, and then said, "Ko must have activated a mole in Lady Ori's staff. And to play a card like that they would've needed a very good reason indeed."

  Charlie knew what the reason was. "They found out the truth about me. That's why they want me so badly"

  Bei laughed. "Well if they didn't know you were an alien then, they sure do now."

  Charlie laughed too. Despite everything, he felt good. Sitting beside this blue-skinned man racing across the desert towards an unknown alien city and uncertain future, he smiled, filled with an unreasonably optimistic sense of adventure.

  When Charlie showed his damaged foot to Bei, the alien pointed out that he had broken three of his metatarsals. He chucked Charlie the bag of medicine that Tills had packed for them, and told him to root around for a small wooden box of robundee healing jelly. Once he found it, Charlie applied a scoop of the pink goo to his aching foot. It worked with the usual alien speedy effectiveness. The smashed bones healed in minutes.

  "Robundee medicine," Bei said, knowingly. "Best there is."

  Charlie leaned back in his seat and let out a deep sigh. His closed his eyes and soon fell into a well-earned, dream-filled sleep.

  When he opened his eyes next, they had cleared the desert and were hovering through verdant valleys. They flew alongside a river as thick and powerful as the River Severn. Charlie wondered if this river also received a tidal bore like the Severn did, a river wave that drew surfers from around the world to the Gloucestershire countryside, including one Charlie Scott.

  Bei looked knackered. In the spirit of fairness Charlie volunteered to do some of the driving. Besides, after the rocket ride Charlie fancied trying out some less death defying forms of alien transport.

  The van may have appeared like an alien twin of Charlie's VW from the outside, but on the inside it was a whole other story. Instead of a gear stick, clutch, accelerator and brake pedal, every control had been installed into two steering handles resembling PlayStation control pads.

  Once Charlie got used to the pads, he found the van handled incredibly well. Whether rushing up a rising mountain face or taking an unexpected bend in the valley, the van responded to Charlie's commands with a lightness and speed that belied its bulkiness.

  For the rest of the journey Charlie and Bei took it in turns to drive. While Bei drove, Charlie slept, daydreamed, or admired the landscapes they passed through. Deserts, mountains, plains and beaches, it seemed Seenthee had it all. Towards the end of the journey they cruised along a wide stretch of coastline.

  Charlie gaped in awe at lines of waves pummelling the black sand beaches. Much of it was closed out, impossible to surf. But now and then, the waves would catch on some underwater reef or rock ledge and jack up, forming perfect walls of glass that held up for hundreds of meters.

  Charlie drooled at the sight of these perfect waves completely free of the crowds that cursed the epic waves of Hawaii, Bali and Sri Lanka. He yearned to dive into the ocean and feel its cool touch against his skin. Longingly, he thought of his surfboard, wondering whether it had made the journey with him or had washed up onto the Gower shore to be claimed by a lucky passer-by.

  With the waves on display, Charlie once more explained the art of surfing to Bei.The blue man's fascination seemed genuine, so Charlie promised to show him one day. The thought of surfing these empty waves thrilled him. However when the alien revealed what beasts lurked beneath the surface of Seenthee's ocean, Charlie came to regret the promise he had made.

  During the times Charlie was in control of the van, Bei worked his way through the unencrypted data. He had uploaded it onto a device built into the van's dashboard. The data ran in vertical and horizontal lines across it, making Charlie dizzy whenever he looked at it.

  It turned out a single scientist, one Doctor Sree, had written it all. The scientist allowed no others access to his data. He alone would be taking credit for any success. But it also meant if the Turen Resistance abducted him, the Corporation would be unable to use any of his work.

&nbs
p; Doctor Sree reported his findings in a staggering level of detail. So it took Bei a long time to get through the scientist's discoveries, conclusions, and recommendations.

  Charlie had to spend the last ten hours driving, so that Bei could finish in time. From the look on his face as he read, Charlie knew it was bad news and resisted complaining about his tired eyes and sore backside.

  When Bei finally switched off the device, shaking his head, disbelievingly, night had fallen and the lights of Jajag city hovered in the distance like a swarm of fireflies. "It'll be a massacre," he said, almost inaudibly.

  "What's wrong?" Charlie asked.

  "This Doctor Sree has developed a new kind of engine, one that uses energy form the Divide to massively increase their speeds. They tried some out on their shadow fighters and it worked. Now this Sree plans to build a larger, faster engine and install it inside a destroyer. They'll be able to reach Poklawi in two months.

  "Ko showed up yesterday so we know they've been back a day or two at least. The Corporation board will have already begun preparing for an invasion."

  "An invasion with just one destroyer?"

  Bei snorted. "A single destroyer has enough artillery to wipe out all of the robundee planetary defences and still have enough firepower left to flatten every city. The moment it reaches Poklawi space, it's game over for the robundee and turen living there. "

  "What about the resistance? Won't they fight?"

  "To the death," Bei said with both pride and sadness in his voice. "But only small ships have ever passed through the Wrake Pass. And the robundee don't have the technology or resources to build their own craft. Against a destroyer and its shadow fighters, the resistance pilots will have no chance in a space battle."

  The despair in Bei's eyes made Charlie turn away.

  "It'll be genocide," Bei said, his voice tight. "They'll burn them alive in a blaze of energy bursts. And those they don't kill, they'll enslave. I mean why bother importing a workforce when you already have a planet full of men, women and children unable to refuse your orders? That's how they'll see it. And without a safe haven to flee to, the resistance will die too, and with it all hope of a world free from those Corporation bastards." He stopped talking and stared out of the window.