The Rift Rider

by Mark Oliver

  Soft finger caressed his hair. "Don't sleep, Charlie. You mustn't sleep." It was Awani. Her voice grew louder. "You can't. You hear me. You can't sleep." She wrenched his hair back. "Stay awake."

  "That hurts," he said, coming around.

  She stopped pulling. "Charlie, you've got to find a medbot."

  He turned to face her. Ko's knife glinted in her hand. Her shackles lay cut apart at her feet.

  The sirens blared, and the warning voice continued its call for evacuation.

  "There's no time," he said. "Got to get you out of there." He grabbed the metal bars and using them for support pulled himself up onto his knees. He felt a wet warmth cascade down his body, but no pain. He lay beyond pain.

  The square activation slab, operating the cell lock, shimmered darkly on one of the bars. Charlie reached down and grabbed the silver woman's hand. He raised a leg and, gripping a bar for support, lifted the dead woman's body onto his knee. She hung there like some demonic doll. Charlie wrapped his fingers around her wrist and lifted her palm up against the slab. The door slid open.

  Charlie fell backwards, exhausted.

  Awani dropped to the floor and cradled him in her arms. She had had two teeth pulled out and a needle rammed up her hand. Yet her smile had lost none of its beauty.

  Charlie coughed. Bitter metal filled his mouth. He spat it out. "Steal a ship and get out of here."

  "I'm not leaving you," she said.

  Charlie shook his head. He smiled and reached out to touch her face with glowing fingers. "But I've already gone." His key form flickered on and off like a dying light bulb. He pulled his hand away and took one last look of her. And then with a roll of his fingers, he tore a rift.

  He tumbled into the whiteness, a shadow man falling through endless sky of white.

  He fell and fell and fell, a dying flame rushing through the wind. The pure light of the Divide sucked his colour away from him. Weariness thicker and heavier than any he had ever felt before pulled him down like an anchor. His physical death had come and gone. Now he would die his second and final death.

  As he plummeted, he thought of the rollers. He knew so little about them. He wondered if they ever died or if lived forever, immortal dancers on an infinite stage, soul surfers riding an endless summer. That'd be nice, he thought. To live forever, riding a never-ending succession of rifts into worlds as wild and fantastic as any dream.

  Charlie jolted to stop. The Divide exploded around him. A wrenching tore the whiteness apart. A giant fissure of red, green, gold, and blue stretched beneath him. Through it surged a thousand rollers. At their head weaved Rayn, his purple and golden form pulsing firework bright. He blazed upwards, trailing a banner of colour.

  The rollers surrounded Charlie, submerging him in a tornado of throbbing light. Rayn gave the command and the rollers began breaking rank and streaming into Charlie. They poured in and out of him, each leaving behind a fragment of their power. Charlie's divide form rocked and bucked and flashed. Each penetration left him stronger.

  Rayn was the last to flow through him. As the roller's energy coursed inside him, Charlie felt himself expand and contract. Every part of his being burned with a new-born vitality.

  Once Rayn passed through him, the whirling pool of colour fell apart. Like a bomb blast, the rollers burst out in every direction. Rayn alone remained.

  Charlie, tingling from head to glowing toe, said. "What just happened?"

  Rayn, smiling his monstrous smile, said, "You're truly one of us now, a child of the Divide." His voice boomed. "By letting your physical self die, you took the final step. The shackles of the physical world have fallen to your side."

  "Awani," Charlie said, his body pulsing with frustration. "She needs me."

  "Then return."

  "How? I died."

  Rayn laughed, his five eyes catching ablaze. "You'll return in one piece, I promise. A whole new realm of possibilities now lies ahead of you. More even than Brother Yojim has taught you."

  "You know Brother Yojim?"

  Rayn glowed with humour. "It was me that told him to rescue you."

  "Then its twice I owe you my life."

  "You owe me nothing brother. Now go."

  Charlie bowed his head, and vanished.

  Awani twisted, aiming her rifle at the flash of light beside her.

  "Charlie," she screamed, her eyes wide in disbelief. "You died."

  "I came back," he said smiling.

  The pink girl grabbed his glowing form and squeezed. Charlie tingled all over. He could sense her whole being pulsing against him, ready to be plucked and placed inside his protection.

  She pulled away and looked into his firefly eyes. "How?"

  Charlie looked past her. The docking bay was in chaos. In their desperation to save themselves, the Corporation employees had shed all respect for order and rank. They fought like rabid cats to get a place on board a leaving ship. Lines of spacecraft, lay backed up behind the exit tunnels.

  "I'll tell you later," Charlie said. "First, let's get the hell out of here."

  "How are we going to get a ship through all that?"

  Charlie smiled. "Ships? Where we're going we don't need ships." With a simple mental nudge he opened a rift. It shimmered white beside them.

  He took her hands in his and they stepped through it.

  The moment they crossed over, Charlie sucked the girl into his divide form, finding a secure place for her inside his foot. The whole time they remained in the divide her conscious energy would be safe and sound tucked between his heel and toes.

  "Now," he thought. "Three more stops and then Poklawi

  Doctor Sree cried. The two fringes had dragged him into the corridor. But the moment the sirens started they ditched him, fleeing in the direction of the docking bay. The energy had escaped from the engine room, and the corridor glowed white from the flicking bolts of electricity. They whipped at his body, burning, cutting.

  But the pain they gave was nothing compared to his arm. The metal had melted through so that where his forearm should have been was now a soggy collection of bone, flesh and molten alloy.

  He wanted to die, anything to bring an end to the pain.

  But he did not die. He had no weapon and those rushing past ignored his pleas for mercy in their hurry to get off the ship.

  The hand came out of thin air, an impossible demon's hand, aglow in green. It was one of the ancient gods coming to claim him. He felt its cool touch on his shoulders and was sucked inside.

  Charlie found Bei, where he had left him in the tunnel system, alive but barely so. He reached a glimmering hand down to him. The man's life force was weak. He had little time left. Charlie pulled his friend into him.

  Brother Yojim was waiting for him on the beach. He had never left it.

  "How did you know I'd come back?"

  The robundee smiled. "I've been in meditation since you left. Your roller brothers and sisters have been keeping me informed."

  "Are you ready to go home?"

  The pathfinder nodded. Charlie placed a palm on the bare red chest. "Show me the way."

  Chapter 31

  Charlie arched his back, pushed his belly against the board and let the wave push him to shore. Behind him the last light of the sun shone down on the Gower coastline. Sand brushed under his knees. He stopped and climbed to his feet, picking the board up and holding it under his arm. He took the final few steps to the waters edge where his friends were waiting.

  Awani, dressed in Uggs, jeans and hoody, came forward. Her pink smile lay half hidden in the shadow of her hood.

  He placed the board on the sand, and wrapped his arms around her. Their kiss was long and hard. She pulled back. "Not as big as Jajag, but still impressive."

  "We'll be back soon. And once we take down the Corporation I'll teach you turen how to surf."

  Awani laughed. "Charlie's surf school."

  Bei clapped two gloved hands together. He wore a thick parker, its furred rim hovering over his
eyebrows.

  "What are you clapping for?" Tim said. "He bailed two out three waves."

  Charlie laughed. "You wait till the beach has emptied and I'll show you something."

  Tim, smiling, shook his head. "Check him out. Saves a planet and he thinks he's something special."

  Charlie shrugged.

  "So," Tim said. "Have you thought of a name yet?"

  Charlie raised an eyebrow in question.

  "Come on mate. Every superhero needs a name. What's yours?"

  Charlie thought for a while. He looked into Awani's sparkling eyes and then up at the purple fingers of dusk. He smiled. "I'm the rift rider."

  Epilogue

  Doctor Sree caught the ball, threw it, caught it, threw it. Again and again and again. Is this green furry ball a gift or a curse? he thought. The alien had returned with it a week after depositing him here in his private cell.

  He caught the ball, stood up and walked over to the glassless window, a perfect square cut into the clay hut. No bars obscured his view. Bars would be superfluous.

  From his location at the peak of Poklawi's highest mountain, he had a perfect view of the Yult mountain range. It crawled for as far as the eye could see, a winding horned beast without legs. He stared out at the pristine sky, counting the flyers cutting through the sapphire blueness, their wings glistening gold as they preyed on the creatures of the sky. Wings he thought, that's what I need.