“Have you taken control of the Village?” I ask the team. I would imagine that Henry’s plan, to infiltrate slowly, Citadel by Citadel, would have needed a trial run and the Village here would have been the best way to test that theory. It’s what I would have done, if I had thought of it first.
“Most. Not all,” Violet answers. I’m a little surprised. Lovely Vi, already this is changing her.
“We need to get in there, tonight. Can you do that?”
“We do?” Levi asks in grim surprise.
I turn around and face Levi, who had been at my back. “We need numbers. Lots more numbers. We can’t count on the Citadels just yet, but there are thousands of prisoners down there who want to go home. And there are some who don’t. It would be nice to know who we could count on and right now it’s imperative that we don’t count anyone out,” I tell him and everyone else calmly.
Levi grabs me by the bicep and yanks me forward just an inch. A twig breaks beneath my boot. “That is not a good idea,” he says heatedly. “They aren’t soldiers. What are they going to do? Whine them to death? They can’t fight.”
“Oh my God,” I say as I shake off his hand. “Read a fucking history book. You think the resistance fighters in World War II were all soldiers? No. They were civilians. They passed along information. Observed. Moved people back and forth between enemy lines. This is a war, not a battle. We’re not going to win it solely with guns.”
Levi glares at me until Henry says, “I’ll call it in,” his low voice cutting firmly through the tension. “You guys start making your way there and by the time you arrive we’ll have our people at the gate. You can just walk on through. No sneaking in required.”
“Thanks. Really. Thank you all. You’ve done an amazing job and I’m really proud.” I walk over to Violet and give her a hug. “I wish you were coming back with me, but honestly, the work you’re doing here . . . you should all be leaders of your own teams.”
“Just please be careful,” Violet says to me as she presses her forehead up against my own. “I know I don’t need to tell you, but I feel better saying it out loud.”
“Roger that,” I tell her as I pull away with a smile. Levi and I go to leave, but then I realize something. Something as important as everything else we’ve discussed tonight. “You guys,” I speak out and the rest of the team turns. “This extra gene fuck they gave me—the Kir-Abisat—be on the lookout for other Citadels who have it. Like me, they’ll have a weird sensitivity to the Rift, and the altered Roones will be paying extra attention to them. So far, all it does is give me a headache and make people’s skin sing, but there must be a reason. We need to figure it out.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Henry offers, “but if they’re already on Edo’s radar, it’ll be risky. We might not make much progress on that front. You’ve got a few weeks before Seelye comes, but check in before that okay? As often as you can.”
“Absolutely,” I say confidently, because that’s what leaders do. They act confident when they feel the opposite. I might never get back home, but at least I know that I’m leaving Battle Ground in the best possible hands. In the pitch-black night, Levi and I make our way north. We move at full speed, ghosts on grass and mud, outrunning the sunrise.
True to his word, Henry’s Citadels—our Citadels—open the barbed-wire fence of the Village at our approach. They say nothing, a wordless exchange of caution that Levi and I recognize with a slight nod. I have been to the Village twice, both times in search of Ezra. I played tourist, marveling at the way ARC had imprisoned Immigrants with a picture postcard of a town meant to make them forget their own Earth and to assimilate. Humanize, regardless of species.
This time, there is no such meandering. The Village has a main street with shops and restaurants. It’s too early yet for anyone to be up and about, and we take advantage of the empty road and the shop signs with old-fashioned paper Closed signs peppering the windows. We move quickly, dodging the cameras that Levi knows are there. I follow his lead. We weave in and out of areas and sidewalks.
I know exactly where I am going. If I were inclined, I might actually give myself a little pat on the back for thinking this far ahead. I had Ezra collect names before he left, to hack the system and get the identities of individuals who had been charged with infractions and sedition. At the time I thought that if ARC was closing in, I might need to smuggle Ezra back into the Village with help from some of these people. People who I knew had some understanding of the true nature of what this place was, not a quaint little town with every amenity you could think of. No. This is an internment camp and probably in the most vile depths of its underbelly, a place of torture and medical experiments.
The Village is separated into six different “neighborhoods,” all with the distinctive architecture of disparate cultures from around the world—or this world anyhow. The man I am looking for—well, I suppose he’s not a man, but rather a male Sissnovar—lives in the Cape Cod neighborhood. A cruel joke, really, to put a desert dweller somewhere built to reflect the ocean’s landscape. But this whole thing is kind of a cruel joke, so little things like this don’t bother me all that much.
Thanks to my photographic memory, I know his address: 64 Chattham Terrace. Levi knows the terrain and takes us there via backyards and low fences, well away from video feeds. We get to a small cottage covered in wooden shingles, though unlike the real Cape Cod, where this kind of siding is weathered gray from sun and salt, here it is green from moss and the dampness of the Pacific Northwest.
It is early morning—that in-between time when tomorrow balances on the knife edge of yesterday. Zaka could be awake, depending on when his shift starts in the Menagerie. He could be fast asleep. Levi and I can’t risk knocking. We hop up on the porch, past a painted rocking chair, and quietly turn the knob and let ourselves in the front door. There are no locks here in the Village.
The house is tiny, but the living space is well designed. The bottom level is open even though the ceilings are low. There’s a kitchen, living room, and a tiny space that could be an office or a den. In Zaka’s case, he has chosen bookshelves as his main decorating theme. Every wall, from top to bottom, is lined with books. I don’t see a computer or a TV. I guess Zaka, unlike some of his other fellow prisoners, hasn’t been dazzled by the wonders of HBO or whatever selective media ARC allows to infiltrate their inmates’ walls to lull them into complacency.
Quietly, Levi and I walk up a narrow staircase. There are three doors. I stop at the landing and listen. From the farthest one on the right I hear breathing. It is slow and deep. Sissnovars are not human. I don’t know their anatomy, but it doesn’t surprise me that their heart rate would be far less rapid than ours. I don’t like this. I wish he had been awake. Levi and I waltzing into his bedroom is going to scare the shit out of him. He might be angry. He might feel like the intrusion means we don’t deserve a few minutes of his time.
It’s too late now, though. We enter his bedroom.
The room is unsurprisingly hot, the heater turned all the way up. I can feel my face flush, and the fabric of my uniform is beginning to stick a little in the creases of my limbs. I gesture to Levi to wait by the door. Ever so slowly I ease my weight down on the bed until I’m sitting beside Zaka.
“Zaka,” I whisper gently. The Sissnovar stirs but doesn’t awaken.
“Zaka!” I whisper a little more loudly as I touch his shoulder. Zaka’s tiny eyes open, glowing yellow in the darkened room. I immediately say, “Sest burseche-musse firche mithe dossanar mach tosse,” hoping that apologizing for coming to him in this way in his own language will set the tone. Zaka doesn’t move right away. He looks at Levi in the doorway and then back at me. It’s hard to read expressions on a reptilian face. He has scales where a man would have wrinkles. Slowly he brings a single finger up to his lips. I am both encouraged by this and unsettled. He’s well aware that someone could be listening, but this is the first I’ve heard of living quarters being bugged. If ARC isn’t doing it, wh
o is? The altered Roones? Then again, it could be ARC and Henry just didn’t have time to tell me.
Zaka throws off his many blankets, revealing red plaid flannel pajamas. He grabs his knitted cap from the bedpost and gestures for us to follow him. He takes us to his bathroom and turns on the tap.
“Ryn,” he says in English. Levi is squashed in the corner, between a towel rack and the shower. “It is interesting to see you in my bedroom before the sun is up.” A statement like that could sound pervy if someone else had said it. There is something about Zaka, though, a stillness, a statesmanlike quality that I noticed the first time I met him. It’s not like I think he’s above lying, I’m sure he does lie and quite well. It’s more like I think that if he is lying, he’s probably got a pretty noble reason for it.
“Zaka, I’m well aware that you have no reason to trust me, but I have to ask you to do something for me and it’s probably very dangerous.”
Zaka cocks his head to the right unnaturally, as if his tendons there don’t exist. “You do not know if whatever it is you are asking me to do is dangerous or not? How can that be? You are a Citadel—you would know.”
I swallow hard. I have to get through to him without giving too much away. If I reveal the extent of our situation, I could be putting him—or, if I’m completely off about him, us—even further at risk. “In some ways—ways I think you already understand based on that one time we met in the meadow—us Citadels are prisoners too. I know you’ve been written up here for something, though I don’t know what. I don’t care, actually. What I do care about is that I think you want to go home and we want to help you do that.”
Zaka goes perfectly still. Of course he doesn’t trust me; we’re his jailers, and I have no idea what ARC has done to him. Or more accurately, what they made other Citadels do. His eyes are yellow, the color of daffodils and crayons. He uses them to try and get to the truth of this, to read me. I keep my hands at my sides and my legs relaxed.
“I might want to go home. I might not, but I would, of course, like the choice,” he says finally.
“Look,” I begin a little breathlessly, “there is something going on here. Something so big and so much more than ARC even realizes. I’ve been in the Multiverse, both of us have. We’ve traveled through it and we’ve learned things.” At this, Zaka’s head shoots up. I am not afraid. I’m fairly sure that if I was, he would be able to smell it. What I am is worried, concerned. I’m fairly certain that he would pick up on that, too. “I’ve been to a Sissnovar Earth,” I say excitedly, suddenly remembering. I pull out my phone. Levi and I had taken shelter in a cave there. Primitive paintings had adorned the walls, and like any overwhelmed tourist, I took pictures. I scroll through my roll and find them. I hand over my phone and let Zaka take a look. The Sissnovar can be very still, but when he does move it’s in tics and fractures. He examines the photos carefully before returning my phone.
“I have seen something like this on my Earth. Not the same exactly, but very similar,” he tells me in a voice rife with melancholic nostalgia. “I don’t understand, though. Why are they making you go through the Rifts?”
“They didn’t make us. It’s not ARC. It’s the Roones—the tiny rock people you met at the intake?” I am attempting to jostle a memory from what was no doubt a traumatic time, but Zaka nods immediately. He knows.
“Are the Roones the dangerous part of this favor you want from me?” he asks warily.
“Yes. I don’t want to tell you too much because the less you know, the less they’ll know if they catch you. What I can say is that the Roones are the enemy and we aren’t the only Citadel race in the Multiverse. They’ve done this before and at some point, they have to be stopped.”
“Ryn,” Levi growls in an almost whisper. I’m sure he thinks that’s more information than Zaka needs, but I disagree. He has to be on the lookout for any of the other kinds of Citadels that might infiltrate the Village. For all we know they might be here already. I briefly describe each race to Zaka, warning him to stay away from them at all costs. At that, Zaka’s body stiffens.
“I mean it,” I say. “Maybe you think you and your rebel alliance pals can get one alone—force out some intel. And maybe you could, but if you did, then they would know that you know what they are.”
Zaka places a brown-and-yellow speckled hand on the sink. He has a thumb, but only three fingers, none of which have any nails on them. He grips hard. He must be frustrated. Half a story. Lies wading around the muck and filth of truth and two jailers who come into a private space and ask a prisoner to help set them free.
“So what is it you want from me then?” Zaka asks. “Specifically.”
“I need you to start a resistance movement here in the Village. Figure out who you can trust, who you can’t. Uncover skill sets that would be good in covert operations. Set up and hide emergency supplies. Build rooms and spaces that no one will be able to find unless you want them to. There are Citadels who know what’s really going on. I’ll make sure that one of them contacts you. So, in the next couple days, someone will come up to you and ask, ‘I heard you’re a woodworker. I’m looking for something special. It’s my mom’s forty-fifth birthday.’ Whoever that is will be your Citadel liaison. Got it?”
“How did you know I was a woodworker?” Zaka asks me with what I think is a smile, but could be a grimace. I need to spend more time with the Sissnovars.
“The bookshelves. The rocking chair. But that’s not the question you really want to ask. Go ahead, ask whatever you want. Can’t promise I’ll answer, but I’ll tell you what I can,” I say, returning the smile.
Zaka takes his hand off the sink and begins to touch his chin, the way a man might stroke a beard. “I’m not . . . inconspicuous here. Which is why we are currently in my toilet with the water running. I’m not sure I’m the best person for this job.”
Finally, Levi steps forward. “If not you, then someone else,” Levi says bluntly. “Someone who ARC would never suspect.”
Zaka inhales, filling his lungs. The music of his body is a stately song. His heart beats slowly enough for me to wonder how it even works. I have no way of reading him except in what he says . . . or doesn’t say.
He carefully brings his hand out and extends his palm. I take his hand and shake it. “I hope there is honor in you, Ryn,” he tells me firmly. “Not so much for myself. Whether or not I live or die is no longer of significance for me. However, the people that I recruit with this endeavor, I would not want them to come to harm.”
I put my hand on my chest and bow three times the way Zaka himself taught me—a Sissnovar greeting, a nod of respect. Zaka does the same in return. He goes to turn the tap off, but I stop him with the lightest stroke of my fingers on his cool, smooth skin. “If we don’t fix this, they’ll kill everyone in here. I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety, but at least you’ll have a fighting chance.” Zaka nods. He turns off the faucet and we three lumber out of the small space. There is nothing more to say and so we leave, blazing a trail through the Village at such a clip I doubt any camera that managed to catch us would even know what it actually recorded. At the gates, I brief the Citadel who let us in on Zaka and the situation. She assures us she will relay everything back to Henry. We walk out of the Village in time to see the sun crawling out of the horizon like a drunk pulling himself out of an unfamiliar bed.
In a dense thicket of shrubs and trees I open a Rift to the Faida Earth. We have a plan. Now we just have to see if we have time to make it work.
Chapter 9
“Concentrate, Ryn,” Navaa hisses in my ear.
I groan inwardly. As if I needed more of a reason to want to bash Edo’s head into a million little fragments. Why did she choose me for this stupid Kir-Abisat? Is there something about me that she finds particularly special? Am I stronger? Smarter? Or is it the opposite? Maybe she only gave me this fucking gene because she felt like I’d be easy to control, to manipulate. Or maybe she just didn’t like me. Full stop. I guess it doesn’t
matter. Feeling sorry for myself won’t make the chorus of screams and cymbal crashes clambering around in my head any easier to control. In fact, it’s probably the opposite.
Still, standing in this large training room with all these Faida watching me perform like a clapping seal isn’t helping my morale in this department, but I understand. An untrained Kir-Abisat is a grenade with the pin halfway pulled. They need to know I am making progress. I’d probably do the same if our roles were reversed.
Doesn’t make any of it easier.
“Breathe in and try again. Ezra’s tone will bleed into your pores. Open yourself up to it.” I fight to keep my eyes closed. Ezra’s hand feels wrong on my shoulder. Heavy and awkward. I’m sure he doesn’t want to be here any more than I do. But in this, he is indispensable. Which is why, presumably, he’s gone along with these long hours without so much as a peep. Still, I’d much rather be with Levi going over the strategy for tomorrow’s Rift to the Daithi Earth, but no, I’m here as I have been for the last three days, wrestling with the Kir-Abisat.
My eyes fly open. “I don’t know how this is possible, Navaa. Maybe if you just explained how this works. The science behind it, I might be able to focus on that. It would help me.”
“Do you honestly believe that we have some special insight that I’ve been keeping from you? Brightest Heavens! This is not amusing for any one of us. I’ve told you everything I know. This is the one secret the altered Roones would never write down. Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. You have it. So do I. You are special, but you are not unique, so get on with it. Begin again.”
“But—” I start to say even as I hear audible sighs from everyone in the room. Even Ezra seems impatient and he doesn’t even speak Faida. I press on anyway. “What if it’s a species? What if there’s a race of people or creatures or whatever that can do this and that’s where the gene splice came from originally. Shouldn’t we think about finding them? They would have to be pretty powerful. Maybe they could help us.”
The Rift Coda Page 9
