The Rift Coda

by Amy S. Foster

  He informs us that the most recent assets he sent to the Akshaj Earth have not returned. When I tell him that the Faida have not heard from theirs, either, he seems increasingly worried. Without the Daithi in play, we need the Akshaji. We all agree that we have to go there, although the question of an alliance is tempered by the very real possibility that we might be killed before we even get the chance to open negotiations. I offer to take a Faida contingent to this Earth, and Iathan tells me that he will happily meet with them and maybe among all four of us (Karekin included) we might be able to work out some sort of plan. In terms of our own Earth, it appears that our strategy is working. Iathan currently has a team there and they are not reporting any unusual activity in Livermore, ARC’s headquarters.

  Before we leave, I ask him about the altered Roone that the Faida have kept hostage. I wonder if he could be faking his condition—his apparent lunacy. Iathan responds that the altered Roones lack the ability to accomplish such a feat if the prisoner has been extensively tortured—they cannot tolerate physical pain, which is what I pretty much already know to be true. I think it’s time for me to question the altered Roone myself. When we leave, I don’t exactly feel hopeful, but I do feel different. I have spent the past week in the shadows, where it’s so dark I don’t have to see or look at anything. Being around my team and with Iathan has unfolded me, laid me flat, and smoothed out my edges. It’s not exactly like I’ve stepped out into the sun; I don’t think I could bear that kind of exposure anymore, but I am willing to let the light shine on a few bits—an ear, a cheek, a wrist—one small patch at a time.

  Chapter 12

  We return to the Faida Earth and I can tell that the trip has buoyed Levi as well. The events on the Daithi Earth had affected him differently than they did me and the others. For us, there was a profound sadness, the kind of grieving that left us breathless. Levi was just . . . angry, not that he said that in so many words, in any words actually, but I could tell. I read him up and down like a grocery list; each item was an atrocity and injustice that he kept in two perpetually clenched fists. He used the Faida training facility for ten or more hours a day, sparring with any Faida daring enough to attempt a fight. He walked around with bruises and grazed knuckles, glad I think for the pain and the proof that he could still feel it and inflict it in return. But tonight, his shoulders have fallen closer to a natural position (as opposed to being up around his ears) and he seems less far away. I think he may want to do some deprogramming. Truthfully, so do I. But we both know that we need just a little more distance. Neither one of us is quite ready yet to be so vulnerable.

  The next day, I have a successful session with Navaa and I feel like it’s as good a time as any to ask her about the captured Roone.

  “What do you want to know?” she asks hesitantly.

  “What you did to him to make him break,” I answer honestly.

  At that, Navaa sighs and sits on a chair. Her charcoal wings sweep the floor and she places her hands in that way on her lap that looks like she’s being casual but that really means it’s a conversation she would rather not be having.

  “You can’t possibly care what we did to him. Especially not now, not after the Daithi.”

  I take a seat across from her. I have been standing for three hours. I arch my shoulders back so that my spine can get a few good cracks off. “I don’t care if you cut his balls off. You needed information and he needed to give it to you. I’m just wondering how extensive it was.”

  “Very,” she tells me without remorse.

  “So there’s no chance he’s toying with you? That it’s all just a big act so that he can be on the inside when the altered Roones return?”

  At that question, Navaa actually laughs. It’s an unfamiliar sound coming from her, like a tinkling wind chime crashing on a warped porch. “I promise you, he is not pretending. The altered Roones are geniuses, but they are soft and arrogant. He only lasted an hour before he broke and told us everything he knew. Still, we continued and pressed for more answers, though he gave up nothing else.” Navaa sweeps a stray lock casually back up into her neat braid. “Do not misunderstand me, they are calculating and ruthless, but not in that way. A Citadel could probably manage such a feat. They could not.”

  “I’d like to see him,” I tell her as I smile slyly. “I wonder how he would react to a human Citadel.”

  Navaa shakes her head slowly. “You believe we weren’t thorough? I truly marvel at your capacity for underestimating us.”

  “Please don’t regale me with another story about how you colonized Mars. Seriously, I get it. The Faida are more advanced than the human race, but you personally, you are not more advanced than me.” Navaa raises a single disapproving eyebrow. “This is no time for modesty. We are the altered Roones’ greatest accomplishment. Maybe seeing a human will shake something else loose. It’s worth a try.”

  Navaa lets a moment or two pass. She crosses and uncrosses her legs. She stares at me with unwavering intensity. I don’t know what she’s expecting. I’ve made a request and I’m not about to elaborate. I’m not sure how things work on this Earth because I have yet to see a normal (whatever that is) Faida my own age. But back home, as a teenager, I’ve perfected disdain with just a hint of indifference.

  I can do this all day.

  “Fine,” she says, throwing her hands up. I’m not exactly sure why she doesn’t like this idea more. I can only guess it’s because the crux of it is based on the assumption that a human might be able to do something a Faida can’t and they really don’t like to be reminded of that. Navaa leads me out of the training room and to the stairs.

  “It’s eighteen stories, Ryn,” she says rather haughtily. “It’s a cave. The floor is built right into the mountain and used solely for detainment. It would be much faster if we flew there.”

  I think about the last time I walked all the way to the bottom of the compound. “I never saw a door that far down,” I comment.

  “Of course you didn’t. There is no door. It’s a wall with a hidden panel built in, which reveals the entrance. You wouldn’t have noticed unless you were looking. I’ll need to get Sidra to clear your iris scan to gain entry or we can just fly down there together right now.” Navaa is actually grinning.

  She knows I dislike being flown up and down the compound like a baby. But I also couldn’t possibly care less right now.

  “Fine. Fly me down there. But I would like Sidra to give me clearance to that section. I recognize that you might not want me to have total access to everything on this base and I respect that. We are in your house and total transparency is not necessarily how alliances work. But, just so you know, there isn’t any place in Battle Ground you wouldn’t be welcome.”

  “Really?” Navaa says to me in a deadpan voice as she wraps her arms around me. Then, she walks to the edge, where the wood ends and the cave begins. Instead of jumping and then ascending as Arif does, she simply lets us fall backward in a dead drop. I’m sure this is the kind of thing that Boone would love. I fucking hate roller coasters because—super soldier. I get enough excitement.

  But fuck her. I’m not giving Navaa any satisfaction. So instead of tensing, I purposely relax my entire body. I make her work a little harder to hold on to me. Her body shifts and I feel her wings begin to pulse. They whoosh in the air as she extends them to their fullest. I watch as the feathers move like musculature. They remind me of a song being played on just the ebony keys of a piano. We descend to the “floor” in question. It’s not a proper level. There aren’t even any walls. It’s just a narrow tunnel built into the mountain. A single guard standing there nods at me and Navaa as we pass. Like any sentry on duty for hours at a time, his body is present, but his mind is somewhere else, daydreaming. Our arrival has snapped him back to the duty at hand and he stands a little straighter.

  There are six metal doors built into the rock face. Each door has an electronic panel beside it and when Navaa gets to the middle one on the right side, she stops an
d lets the panel scan her eye. The lock twists and turns, metal tumbling over gears. The door hisses open a crack and Navaa pushes it all the way.

  Unlike the other rooms on this base, this one is low and oppressive. It’s the same basic setup as the interrogation room that I was given above. There are no mirrors here, though, no sharp objects of any kind. There is, surprisingly, a tall window, set back from the wall, any hope of direct access to it eliminated by a stretch of iron bars. The Faida gave the altered Roone a view. I don’t think I would have been so kind.

  “He’s already crazy,” Navaa says as if reading my mind. “This at least allows him to follow the rhythm of days and nights—just in case he wants to keep track of how long he has been our prisoner.”

  The altered Roone is sitting on the bed with his back to us, staring out the window. Unlike the gorgeous onyx of Edo’s skin, his is a sickly amber color, although it may just be the dull light in here.

  “Turn around, Grifix,” Navaa orders. At the sound of her voice, Grifix startles and slowly, painfully, drags his body around to face us. When he’s fully turned, I can see now that while a Roone’s skin may be invulnerable to scrapes and scratches, it is not impenetrable. Three long cracks run down his face, permanent craters, where I suppose those of us with weaker flesh would have scars. One of these gouges stretches the length of his chin, across a sealed eyeball, and over his otherwise smooth skull. I can see the Faida causing this kind of damage, but I think it unlikely. This is not neat enough. It looks self-inflicted.

  “The table is set. The table is set. The table is set, but the pages are missing. Where is that book?” Grifix says in a forced whisper. The Roones’ vocal cords are also affected by the additional calcification of their genetic fuckery. They rasp and gnaw through their words, but Grifix sounds particularly rough.

  “Look, Grifix. I brought you a guest,” Navaa tells him as she walks closer. I can see him move away from her as she draws near. His body hunches, like closing a birthday card. He is trembling.

  “Wait, wait!” he says, scrambling back. “The leaves are too green, don’t you see that? They are too green! I didn’t make them that way. It was God. Or maybe it was the market or maybe they are screaming.” Grifix tics and pulls. He is on the edge of tears. I have to agree with Navaa. He is not faking. It’s not just the nonsense he’s spewing. It’s his entire demeanor. This man is broken. He is terrified. He’s not even completely here.

  “Grifix!” Navaa admonishes with a louder voice. Grifix startles and finally looks up. At both of us. He stares at me and there is just the briefest flicker of something. Not sanity, not quite, but acknowledgment. “This is Ryn. She is a human. A human Citadel.”

  At this, his large remaining blue eye opens even wider. He puts a single gnarled hand up against his mouth, as if it could stop the escaping giggle. With disgust, I realize that the look that I am reading on his face is not pain or fear.

  It is sheer, unabashed joy.

  “We did it. We did it. Wediditwediditwedidit,” Grifix babbles.

  “Stop,” I tell him grimly. I realize that my hands are balled into fists. I take a breath and stare at the pathetic wizened creature.

  “We did it with red welts and pus. We did it with pictures and movies of humans rutting and fucking and sucking and then tiny broken bones. Look at you.” He is laughing now. Navaa takes a step closer, but even the threat of her nearness isn’t enough to stop him. I think I am angry, possibly furious, but I’m not sure exactly. I definitely don’t pity him. He deserves this cell and his madness. I think I feel . . . indifferent? This altered Roone is my enemy, but he is not the enemy, not anymore. He’s a madman who will never recover and who tried to scratch his own eyes out so he wouldn’t have to see the images that haunted him.

  “Is she Kir-Abisat?” he asks Navaa hopefully, as if the entire world depended on her answer. She looks at me and I nod.

  “She is.”

  At that he becomes emotional. Tears leak from the crags beside his eye sockets. “Plums and cakes. Plums and cakes, it was worth the agony, yes? Because you, child, are all the Earths everywhere. You are all the sounds at once.”

  The sound of his voice, like two boulders scraping against each other, raises the hair on my arms. “What do you mean?” I ask him.

  “You are every sound. You are the sound. You’re a coin dropped in a well. You don’t need other shiny things. Human Kir-Abisat, you sing the music of the universe. You understand what I’m saying? Your body breaks like a dinner plate, but we managed to turn your mouth into a key.” Suddenly, in his exuberance, he bounces forward and falls to the floor, grabbing my legs. “Let me see you bang the drum!” I kick him off me, but he stays on his knees swaying. “Please, Kir-Abisat, your throat is silver.”

  “What is he talking about? Is he making any sense to you?” Navaa asks me.

  “Maybe. I think so.” Honesty is not in my nature, but I realize there’s no point being vague. If my instincts are right, there’s no one else I can talk to about this anyway. “I think he’s saying I don’t need a conduit. That’s what they accomplished with us. With practice I should be able to open a Rift anywhere as long as I know the address. I don’t need Ezra. His frequency is already there—inside me.”

  Navaa looks at me in stunned silence. “Have you tried this?” she finally gets out, but her voice is smaller than usual.

  “Of course not. I didn’t know what this was in me until we met. And I didn’t even think about it until now. But . . . I can’t explain it. I just think he’s right. The sounds are there, in my head.”

  “Plums and cake! Chimes and beetles!” Grifix screeches ecstatically.

  “Let’s get out of here. You don’t need to be around him anymore. Unless you”—Navaa bites her bottom lip and gives me an intense, steady gaze—“want to spend some time alone with him. We don’t really need him. Even if he’s lying, your equipment can pretty much take us anywhere we need to go.”

  I look at the altered Roone. He is on his knees looking up at me, his face a decimated mountain. His people have murdered and tortured and maimed their way across the Multiverse. I briefly imagine pulling his head away from his shoulders. It would be so easy to kill him and God knows he deserves it. But nothing should be easy when it comes to this particular monster.

  “No,” I tell her with steely determination. “But I would like you to find a way to block that window. He shouldn’t have anything to look at, not even the sky.”

  Navaa smiles ever so slightly, almost sadly even. “We can move him to another cell where there isn’t a window.”

  “Yeah,” I answer her while looking down at him. “That would be appropriate.”

  We walk out of the cell and down the dimly lit passage, which is more mining tunnel than hallway. When we get to the edge, Navaa opens her arms and I walk into her embrace. She wraps her arms around me tightly and we ascend quickly into the air.

  I can do this. I can handle this newest piece of information Grifix has thrown into the mix. I will deal, somehow, with the loss of the Daithi Citadels. I can navigate my way to finding an answer to all of this.

  It’s just right now, in this moment, I miss my mom.

  Chapter 13

  We assemble, straight-backed and focused in the war room. The screen in front of us has been raised, casting a blue tint like moonlight on our faces in this darkened room. I have propped my elbows on the table, resting my chin slightly on my curled fists. It might look like I am asking for mercy and, given our dire circumstances, I probably would. There are just too many gods now: Jesus, Yahweh, Buddha, Kremlock the Spiradael Saint of Destruction, Morwenn the Daithi Crone of War. The Multiverse is too vast. How would any of these deities hear the pleas of one girl burrowed deep in the center of a mountain?

  “Come now, one of you must have an idea about how to approach the Akshaji?” Navaa asks the room for a second time.

  “Iathan has suggested we Rift to his Earth and see if we might all come up with a solution to th
is problem together,” Levi reminds the room. This is not new information. We told the Faida this almost immediately when we returned.

  “I would very much like to meet with the Roones,” Arif says in a tone that is more threatening than hopeful. “But, on this matter, I simply can’t imagine how they would help us. If they knew how to get to the Akshaji, surely they would have done so already. What they want is what all Roones want: to give the orders and let the Citadels do the grunt work.”

  “Arif,” I warn, letting my hands drop as I slide them across the cool surface of the table. “You can’t let your emotions dictate policy here. You have to separate the Roones from the altered Roones and, more importantly, the Karekin from the Settiku Hesh. They have sacrificed their entire way of life trying to stop the insanity of the altered Roones.”

  “They are not blameless, though,” Navaa tells the room unflinchingly.

  “And neither are we,” I tell her from across the table, the space suddenly closing in on itself as if I was right beside her and not on the other side of the room. “Every person in this room has done terrible things. We need the Roones and the Karekin loyal to them. If you don’t want to discuss the Akshaj problem with them, that’s fine, but they are part of this alliance whether you like it or not.”

  “I’d like to make a suggestion,” Ezra says in English. The Faida read his translation and look over to him. Ordinarily, I might be a little annoyed that Ezra is trying to insert himself here, but we’ve been at this for over an hour without any meaningful results. There is a chance that he is seeing something we can’t. Navaa blinks her eyes almost lazily in his direction and dips her head in a nod. “With the Daithi . . .” Ezra raises his head to the ceiling as if the heavens could provide an accurate word for what was done to them. He can’t. There isn’t a word. In any language. “With the Daithi no longer in play, and before we risk everything by going to the Akshaji, I think we should try with the Orsalines.”