On the plus side, for all the mobilizing we have to do, they also have to do the same. After a couple of hours, I sidle my thoughts away from troop movements, knowing that Gomda is a genius when it comes to logistics. He’ll know where to put up camps and how to integrate the soldiers. I am determined to stay positive, maintaining that my being here is the distraction the UFA needs. ARC will know that Levi and Boone and Violet—certainly Henry—will have some answers, but Seelye knows that I am likely the only one who knows all the answers. This in and of itself is laughable. He’s right, except I have answers to questions he wouldn’t have the first clue about even asking.
To calm myself, I begin to think of Christopher Seelye and how best to kill him. If I can keep up my feigned compliance with this kind of dedication, Seelye will want, at some point, to interrogate me himself because that’s totally his jam. If he does so through the mirror, I will simply jump through it and take him. If he has the balls to actually do it in person, I will likely have to eliminate his guards as well. That’s a whole lot of murder right there. Not ideal, but it’s not like they’re innocents if they are working for Seelye personally.
I consider my options. Because of the sensuit, they did not bother to search me. Dumb. If any one of them had given me a proper pat-down, they would have noticed that something was off. Then again, I can see why no one would volunteer for that particular job. So, while it might appear that I am a lone girl without a weapon or even a uniform, the truth is the exact opposite. I don’t have my laptop—that’s a bit of a bummer. Opening a Rift to the Microwave Earth and throwing Seelye inside to die a slow and painful death as the flesh melts off his bones in steaming heaps sounds about right.
I could make it quick by snapping his neck, but that seems wrong. He should suffer more. There was a time not so long ago that the idea of straight-up murder gave me pause. Those days are long gone. The Daithi gravesite ripped away pretty much any innocence I had left. I go back to my daydream.
I could use my bowie knife and cut his torso open from sternum to ball sack. Messy, certainly, but fitting. I could strangle him, watch his eyes bulge and his face go purple. His tongue would swell and fall out of his big fat mouth, but that might take more time than I have. I suppose he’ll get a quick death after all, which, considering what he’s done to tens of thousands of children, seems drastically unfair. I’ll need something that’s at least intensely painful.
A lot of those seem to involve either his eyes or below his waist.
The guards shift changes and I amuse myself with these thoughts for another hour. Sometimes I will look up at the double-sided mirror and give a little wave or a cheeky smile. They want to kill me, certainly, but they want to know what I’ve learned inside the Multiverse. Edo probably wants to do a bunch of tests to gauge my Kir-Abisat gift. In this, I have the upper hand. All I want from them is their death.
Eventually the door opens, and the guards once again level their Berettas at my head.
“Get up, Whittaker,” one of them says, “slowly. And keep your hands up where I can see them.”
I give a rather long, petulant sigh and slide up from the wall. I’m not sure why they want me to keep my hands up. I could move them faster than they’d ever be able to get a shot off. Maybe they don’t actually know what a Citadel can do. Maybe that’s the only way Seelye can get them to work for him.
I say nothing but walk confidently out of the door, following their instructions. Do they even realize how friggin’ ridiculous they must look? Are there no alarm bells going off that these great big hulking men are pointing two guns at an unarmed teenage girl wearing jeans? Hmm . . . I guess they do know what we are capable of, after all.
Which just means they’re stupid.
We take the elevator up a couple floors to the assembly level. There are two very large spaces on this level. One is a lecture hall, for, yes, lectures, but also for people like Seelye to have a place where they can spew their bullshit in front of a large, swooning audience. The other space is a training area. This is where we do our sparring. There are six distinct combat “rings,” though only two are properly roped off. The other four are simply padded platforms of various heights.
I am taken to the training area, which I wouldn’t have betted on. I would have thought that Seelye would find a lecherous pleasure in hauling me in front of his men and any leftover Citadels in a bid to embarrass me, or teach a very valuable, graphic sort of lesson about Citadels who step out of line.
When I get fully into the space, I see Seelye, standing casually in one of the boxing rings. I am accustomed to his expensive tastes. Cashmere sports coats and lightly starched designer dress shirts. He never wears a tie. It’s his ridiculous way of being more “relatable” to all the teens under his domain. As if somehow not actually wearing a suit negates the truth that he is a suit. Now, though, he’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. His feet are bare.
As I make my way up to the ring a laugh escapes from my mouth.
“Seriously?” I ask him, not bothering to hide my amusement.
“Yes, Ryn. Seriously,” he tells me with real enthusiasm. “I wanted to talk to you somewhere I knew you’d be comfortable. I know how much you love to fight. This place must have some great memories for you.”
Oh yeah, I think to myself. Like when I broke my nose, and my finger and my foot. Those three matches when I got cuffed so hard in the head I was concussed and passed out. Good times.
“So how exactly do you see this happening?” I ask. “You want me to climb in there with you? Or . . . ?” I look to the two armed men and then back at Seelye.
“Yes, yes,” he says warmly. “The rest of you are dismissed.” My mouth gapes as I let what is happening sink in. Does he hope that we’ll settle this all with a friendly tussle? He is actually going to let himself be alone with me? In a boxing ring? “You probably think I’m being a little reckless here.” He chuckles as he strokes his perfectly shadowed beard with his right hand. “This is a show of good faith. I trust you, Ryn, and I really want you to trust me.”
I bite down on my lip to keep from exploding with laughter. I’m more likely to trust the shady dude asking kids if they want to see a litter of puppies inside his blacked-out van. This is insanely easy.
Too easy, my gut tells me.
The rest of the guards do indeed leave. I hear a whooshing sound behind me as the automated doors open and close. I am going to kill this guy, this motherfucking asshole who plucks innocent children out of their normal lives and abuses them before turning them into weapons. The prospect makes my heart beat a little faster. I’m actually excited to do this, which I suppose, makes me a kind of monster. At least I know I’m a monster though. This man. He thinks he’s a hero. Still, I am curious, as to why he wants to gain my trust. What exactly does he think I’m going to tell him? Why does he think I’ll tell him anything?
I spread the ropes and lithely duck inside. I rest my back against the plastic coverings, spreading my arms wide and gripping them lightly. I don’t say anything. I just look at him.
“So I have a question for you,” he begins. “You didn’t really believe that we just let you take over the Battle Ground Rift? I mean, you are a genius and you understand the full scope of our influence. You don’t actually think that happened?”
I tilt my head. “So you knew all along?” I ask, though I’m not surprised. “Why would you go along with it then?”
“It was an experiment in statistics really,” he says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He begins to pace a little bit. His bare feet lightly touching the padded floor. “We wanted to know the percentage of Citadels who would remain loyal to ARC in an uprising. These things happen, unfortunately. You’re all so young and passionate. This was a controlled study, giving us the ability to monitor how you dealt with the situation in a tightly contained environment. However, I am getting reports that Citadels from other Rifts are leaving their posts. So maybe it wasn’t as contained as we thought.
”
I lift the left side of my mouth, just a little bit. I raise my brows. I don’t think he knows. Actually, I’m almost fairly certain that he has no idea there are other Citadel races, and why would he? The altered Roones would then have to admit that ARC is just a front for their agenda here, and the humans are just another cog in the wheel with no real power. “That is strange, but I’ve been gone. So I really don’t know what’s going on.” I have so much faith in the SenMach tech that I feel confident enough to play dumb. Even if their machines could pick up unauthorized Rift activity, our laptops would have masked it. Seelye is waiting for me to say more, but I simply shrug my shoulders. The best lies are always the ones that are mostly true. I haven’t been here, so how would I know?
I look around at the cavernous empty space and widen my eyes. “But if what you’re saying is true, then from what I see, there are no Citadels here. So the answer is zero. Zero Citadels remain loyal to you when the drugs are fully out of their systems and they realize they are just pawns. Drones. When they get how badly you fucked us over.”
Seelye sighs as he shakes his head. “Come on now,” he goads churlishly. “Are you going to stand there and tell me that you’d rather be a normal teenage girl? Glued to your phone, waiting to see who liked the picture you just posted? Hmm?” he asks with more volume when he gets no reaction. “Stop pretending.” Seelye’s feet cease their pacing and he looks at me levelly. “You are a legitimate superhero with access to the greatest scientific marvel mankind has ever seen. Instead of embracing that, you would rather what? Gossip about boys? Go to university for four years so that you can graduate with a mountain of debt and wonder what the hell you’re supposed to do with your life?”
“Just so we’re clear”—I bounce my body just a little bit back and forth on the springy ropes—“what you’re saying is that I should just forget about what was done to me and all my friends—done by the way, when we were seven years old—because in return for the pain, the loneliness, the guilt, the shame, the violence, and the abuse, I get to be Captain America?”
“You’re a smart girl, Ryn. You know your mythology—all the old standards and even the new ones too. You have an innate understanding that real heroes never ask for the privilege. It is thrust upon them, and their suffering sweetens the crusade. Yes, the rash is painful for a kid,” he relents, once again beginning to stalk up and down the mat. “And, yes, being asked to remain celibate is a sacrifice, but look what you can do. Look what you are capable of. The Roones made you better. There’s no denying that.”
I can see why some people find this man attractive. He is good-looking and charming. He must be in his forties, but there is something undeniably boyish about him. What’s interesting here to me is that he really believes that the altered Roones are his partners, that they consider him to be their equal in this endeavor. He really has no clue.
“Okay, let’s agree to disagree on that point,” I say diplomatically, white knuckling my temper. “Currently, every active Citadel in Battle Ground doesn’t share your glorious vision of the Fatherland. What are you going to do? Kill them? It might be harder than you think without the Midnight Protocol.”
Seelye tilts his brown head. A shaft of sunlight streaks through one of the tall windows, putting up a barrier of light and dust motes between us. “Kill them? Of course not. I’m going to recall them. We both know they’re at the Village, so let’s not pretend on that front. It wasn’t right, how Edo killed those kids that day. I’ve talked to her about it.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure she was really choked up—felt superguilty.” I roll my eyes. “So you’re just going to ask them to come back? And they’re going to agree? Just like that?”
“They’ll return because they’ll be worried about the safety of their families.” My eyes get hard. “Oh, yes—I’m not above using that as leverage to get our troops to return. Once they’re back, all of you will be reprogrammed. The experiment was very useful, but it’s time for it to come to an end.”
My eyes narrow even tighter. Tension builds in my chest. “Murdering thousands of innocent people. That’s just collateral damage then? In your actual brain, you believe that’s justified?”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Seelye says, putting up his hands. “I’m not saying I’m going to hurt anyone—I won’t need to . . . hopefully . . . with the kind of leverage I have. And that’s all I need. No one is going to get killed. The Citadels will do the right thing. You may have managed to hide your family, but I can have the loved ones of every other Citadel rounded up and brought here in a matter of hours. You can’t protect everyone and you wouldn’t want to be responsible for spilling any more innocent blood.”
“You would do that?” I blanch.
“Would you?” Seelye asks innocently.
Silently, I curse the fact that Operation Sanctuary could only be accomplished with the Betas’ families. I knew Seelye would go after our loved ones, but I didn’t think it would all be happening so quickly. Seelye was supposed to have arrived tomorrow. I am powerless to help them, and I hate that feeling even more than I hate the smarmy bastard in front of me.
“Let’s just stop with all the morbid doomsday scenarios, Ryn,” Seelye begins warmly. “No one here is a monster. We’re all reasonable people. Why else do you think I’d step into a boxing ring with you? I want us to be able to trust each other. I want us to work together like a real team. Mistakes have been made, I’ll give you that, but we’ll course correct. This work is too incredible, too important for us to get mired in the past. It’s time to look to the future. Together.”
I’d like to think that the altered Roones have drugged and brainwashed this guy, but I know that’s not true. He’s simply a true believer. He might as well be an Orsaline, kneeling every time a bell rings, praying to a golden god on a floating TV screen.
“Okay.” I nod my head up and down as if I’m considering his words. What I’m considering is pulling his still-beating heart right out of his chest. “Let me just ask you, was it your idea? This whole experiment thing? Or was it Edo’s? Is it possible—at all—that there might have been another reason she wanted me to go through the Rift?”
At this, Seelye just gives me a condescending closed-mouth smile. “Ryn, we know. We know you found Ezra. There’s no way you would have come back without making sure he was safe. We know you deciphered the encoded laptop. Don’t you get it? We wanted you to find it.”
“And why would you want me to read those files?” I ask, genuinely interested. I mean, really, that’s the one thing I never could figure out about this whole thing. I doubt Seelye knows anything about the Kir-Abisat gene. He might think the altered Roones are his BFFs, but I know the truth. Seelye is just a button, a dial, something they turn on and off, up or down to get what they want. He hasn’t been given the great gift of genetic fuckery. He isn’t one of the chosen. Does he really imagine the altered Roones give two shits about a paltry human with no special gifts? It did seem like a dangerous game Edo was playing in return for gauging my Kir-Abisat abilities—a biography of their war crimes. Then again, I suppose they don’t consider them crimes at all.
“I told you, it was a dry run. As you know by now, the laptop doesn’t have any real information on it. It was just an incentive. No one has ever gone through the Rifts or been to multiple Earths. We wanted to know what would happen, if the Citadels could handle themselves in the field and what kind of radiation we could expect inside the Rift. You and Levi were the first and, of course, your abilities exceeded anyone’s expectations.”
I physically have to chomp down on the inside of my cheek to keep from bursting out with laughter. How moronic can this guy actually be? Edo spun him one hell of a yarn and he just believed her! I manage to keep myself from laughing. Instead I nod my head silently. Seelye does love to hear himself talk and I am just going to let him. Every word he gives up gives me something in return, although of course, he’s completely ignorant of the fact.
Still . . .
What kind of game is Edo playing here? Was giving up the laptop just a way for her to prove to me that the altered Roones will stand with the Citadels against ARC? It seems like an awfully big gamble for her to take, to just assume that I would be okay with all the altered Roones had done because of what I’ve been given genetically in return. It doesn’t make any sense, though. She knows me. She knows how desperately I hate to be controlled and lied to. She can’t just separate herself from ARC this late in the game. A feeling of dread washes over me.
There has to be something else going on.
Seelye smiles broadly, this time baring two full rows of glaringly white, straight teeth. “Ryn, you are a leader. People like you and they respect you. We knew that once you went through and saw all the possibilities of the Multiverse, you would understand that there is no point in biting the hand that feeds you. It’s true, compromises have been made, but they are such a small price to pay for what we’re getting. And by the way, what we get is everything.
“Every single thing in every single world.”
I can’t help it. I have to laugh and my giggles echo and bounce around the cavernous room, giving my outburst a darkly menacing tone. His face tightens. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s just—you have no idea. There is no ‘we.’ You are not part of the inner circle. They’ve been playing you, dude. Spoiler alert: there was something on the laptop, something that they don’t want you to know and it doesn’t have anything to do with traveling the Rifts.” Seelye frowns. It must be dawning on him that I might know something that he doesn’t and that maybe I’m not quite at the disadvantage that he thinks I’m at. “But, since this isn’t a Bond movie, I’m not going to lay out my plan before I kill you. I’m just going to kill you,” I tell him calmly.
Seelye’s posture changes. He’d been trying to be relatable. The TED Talk guy, barefoot and amiable, superenthusiastic about his “talking points” and his “aha moments.” I don’t know why he thought that approach would work. Maybe he figured I’d be afraid when he mentioned my family. Maybe he really did think that I would believe that the Rifts are just too awesome an experience to walk away from. Too bad for him that he’s been drinking so much Kool-Aid. Otherwise he might have stopped and considered why such a genius super soldier would allow herself to be captured in the first place.
The Rift Coda Page 22
