“What is this?” Levi asks as he examines it more closely. I don’t need to, though, and I’m a little surprised he doesn’t recognize it. I’d know that tech anywhere. I know it because I pulled something strikingly similar off one of our greatest enemies at the Rift in Battle Ground before he slit his own throat.
“It’s Karekin tech.”
“What? That can’t be right. It could be some other race. It could be something Roonish, that they’ve never let us see before,” Levi says, but his voice is betraying him. He doesn’t sound nearly like his cocky, know-it-all self.
“It isn’t.” I grab a soft terry washcloth that had been stacked in a neat roll on the counter and put hand soap on it before running it under the water. I then begin to scrub on the upper part of Levi’s uniform. “When Ezra escaped from the Village, he stole not only ARC’s highly classified data, but also zip files containing most of the languages of the Immigrants that come through the Rift. That’s how I started learning them. I told you it was ridiculous that we didn’t know them, so it became a little side project. I managed to get through Sissnovar and Karekin before Ezra was taken.” I pause to examine my work. The water is running clear. The stain, though not completely gone, is clean enough. “I’ve known something was off with the Karekins for a while. They are outliers. They make no sense. They come through the Rift determined to kill as many of us as they can and none of them are ever caught alive. So one day we decided to capture one of them.” I wring out the uniform and water begins to drip once more into the sink.
“You what?” Levi asks incredulously. “When? Where?”
“During our last battle with them. The four of us, the Beta Team, managed to get one away from the fight. We isolated him in the forest. I just wanted to tell him that we weren’t the enemy. I was trying to explain what we are. I don’t know. I just wanted some answers.” I toss the uniform back at Levi, who doesn’t do anything with it. He just looks at me. I can’t tell if he’s angry or disappointed or hurt by this new information.
“And then what happened?” he prompts curtly.
“The Karekin said our disloyalty would be punished, and then he slit his own throat, but not before I could wrestle his earpiece away. It was a two-way communication device. They can communicate through the Rift, and the thing I took looked an awful lot like that. I don’t think it was meant to kill you. I think if a Karekin wanted you dead, you would be dead. Whoever shot you knew exactly how to do it so that it wouldn’t inflict a mortal wound but could get past your uniform, assuming it thought you were wearing your uniform under your clothes. I doubt they know about the sensuits, or at least, fuck, I hope not. Whatever—that’s not the point. Don’t you get it? It’s not a bullet—it’s a tracking device. It’s even flashing red! I know you aren’t necessarily down with the whole pop-culture thing, but even you must have seen a movie with a tracking device.”
Levi finally begins to get dressed, all the while huffing and shaking his head. “You didn’t think that information was worth sharing with all of us before you left? You didn’t think we all might like to know something like that?”
I lean over the sink, propping my elbows on the cold marble before running my hands over my eyes. “Please don’t start—” I begin, barely able to contain the exasperation from my voice.
“When are you going to stop lying?” Levi interrupts angrily. “You kept vital information from me and your fellow soldiers that could save our lives.” I whip my body up and turn to face him.
“How am I lying? How is any of what I just said ‘vital’? The Karekins can talk through the Rift. They think we’re traitors for some bizarre fucking reason. So what? None of that can really help the Citadels at Battle Ground. And the thing is, I don’t know why the Karekins think what they do or how their technology works. Ezra might have some more answers or he might give us enough leverage to force ARC to give us those answers, but—again—it doesn’t matter to the Citadels back home. The only people it really matters to are us. At this precise moment. Which is when I told you. I didn’t hold anything back, Levi.”
He doesn’t say anything, just stands there, being all butt-hurt. Right now, I couldn’t come close to caring less. I press on.
“There is something going on. Ezra was here, Levi. On this Earth. And he warned us against enemies. Not to mention the noise. We were humming in that cave. That weirdo in the stadium was whistling like one of Snow White’s friggin’ dwarfs. It’s all connected. It’s the Karekins. I don’t know how they even found us or why they would shoot you and leave. Maybe they were getting reinforcements. Maybe they thought that it would take a lot longer to get that thing out of your neck, but either way, they are after us. They’re probably on their way. To Ryn’s house! Me. A me who’s totally unprepared to deal with any of this, so we need to leave. Right fucking now. Suit up and we can chitchat in a safe location.”
I grab the med kit and shove it back in my pack and then I whip open the door. Ryn Two is waiting right outside. We had been quiet, and the door is impressively thick, so I’m hoping she didn’t hear much even if she had her ear pressed up against it.
I walk past her into her parents’ bedroom. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?” Ryn demands. I sigh. We have to go, but she needs to hear as much as I can tell her because a Karekin assassin might be on the way. I quickly tell her my story. I condense it as much as I can, but it is so friggin’ complicated that even I get tripped up with all the details. I flinch a bit when I mention the part about the potential assassin. I make sure to let her know that the chances of that are small(ish), that more than likely the Karekin won’t find the active homing signal, and will leave. I’m not sure I did so well with selling that bit, though, because I am scared for her and it’s really hard to look yourself in the eye and lie, even for an expert liar like me. Levi finally joins us in the bedroom. His color is thankfully returning.
“Seriously?” Ryn says as she looks at me and Levi when I’ve finished. I had left out the Blood Lust part, because there was no time to add that whole other wrinkle to my abbreviated tale. But I had told her briefly about Ezra and what Levi and I were actually doing. “Super soldiers? A massive international cover-up? A village that looks like Epcot full of prisoners? A doorway to the Multiverse that is opened up with a song?”
“It’s not a song,” Levi corrects her. “It’s a sound.”
“You get how totally insane that story is, right? The Multiverse is one thing. Stephen Hawking believes in the Multiverse. But you guys are super soldiers? Your parents think you’re going to Battle Ground High and they have no clue that you actually take a secret train to Camp Bonneville to, like, kill people all day long? That’s a bit much even for this nerd,” Ryn Two says, putting a hand on her hip. She narrows her eyes at both of us. “So, prove it.”
“How would you like us to do that?” Levi says. “Fight you? Fight each other? There’s no time!” Levi is thoroughly annoyed, and he’s right—there isn’t much time. But I also get where Ryn is coming from. She’s me, after all. It’s one thing to be able to traverse infinite Earths, but to think there is a version of herself that fights. That kills. She doesn’t think she would be able to do it. She can’t see any version of herself doing the things I’ve told her I’ve done, and I haven’t even told her the half of it. That’s the part that she doesn’t believe and that’s the kind of proof she is asking for. And while it’s a risk, I think it’s a risk worth taking. Because she can be strong, and even if the Karekin never comes for her, that’s the only way I can think of to repay her for all this craziness.
“Okay. You want proof? Here it is.” I see Levi’s shoulders drop. I don’t care. The sooner we convince Ryn that given different circumstances this could have been her, the sooner we can get out of here, leaving her with a glimpse of herself as stronger than she ever imagined. I get a sense that this Ryn is a little lonely, that maybe she does more watching than living. She’s alone in this house. Where are her friends? Why isn’t s
he out or at least getting laid in this empty house? I don’t know if I’m the hero or the villain of my own story yet, but I’m certainly a big part of it. I want Ryn Two to see that.
I walk over to the end of the king-size bed, wrap my fingers underneath the curve of its upholstery, and pick it up until it is five feet off the floor. Ryn Two’s eyes practically pop out of her head.
“See?” Levi says with mock enthusiasm. “We aren’t lying. This is a real thing and we need to go.” I shoot him a look, warning him to keep the insensitivity to a minimum. I unlatch my gun from my holster and hold it out toward Ryn Two. “Take it,” I tell her. “And if something comes at you, just aim for the head. Shooting it anywhere else in the body won’t affect it.”
Ryn Two looks at me in horror, mouth agape. “I can’t take a gun. I can’t have a gun in this house. I’m a Democrat.”
I ignore her protestations and teach her the basics of loading, shooting, and firing. I also make sure she knows when the safety is on and off. I hold my hand out once more so that she can take it.
“No. I can’t shoot anyone. And if my parents find it, they’ll send me to some lame space camp boarding school for troubled kids.” Now it’s my turn to drop my shoulders.
“Give me your phone, and put in the password,” Levi demands. It’s not a question and it’s not polite. Ryn Two whips her phone out of her back pocket, unlocks it, and gives it to him, clearly caught off guard by his tone. Ha! He probably wishes I was so easy to order around. “Now, both of you, get together.” We do as he’s asked and wait for him to take what must be a dozen pictures. Then he hands the phone back to Ryn Two. “Tell your parents what happened. Now you have the proof. Tell them there isn’t anyone they can call. There isn’t any government agency on this Earth that can protect them, so there’s no point. It would just make their lives a thousand times more complicated. We are going to make sure that we lure whoever wants to find us as far away from you as possible, so that’s the best insurance policy you’re going to get. But just in case, take the damn gun, Ryn.” I can practically see Ryn Two’s gears shifting. She isn’t like me. She hasn’t been trained to disassemble. Ryn reaches out slowly and takes the gun. I can tell the weight of it in her hands is troubling by how forlornly she’s looking at it.
“Look,” I tell her kindly, “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this. I really thought that this was the best, safest solution. With Levi’s injuries, we couldn’t just Rift out. We might have Rifted onto an Earth with no oxygen or one that was completely underwater, and I needed somewhere that was safe for sure. For us. I wasn’t thinking of you and that was wrong. I apologize.”
“It’s okay. I guess I would have done the same thing. I guess I did do the same thing.” She shakes her head with a small laugh. “God, this is scary as hell, I’m not going to lie, but it’s also kind of . . . amazing. I feel so ordinary all the time, like life is happening all around me and I’m just watching it. This is probably the most important thing that will ever happen to me.”
“I doubt that,” Levi says with unexpected tenderness. “You’re young. And you’re Ryn. You’re already amazing. You just don’t know it yet, because you know, you weren’t genetically altered.” Levi smiles. Ryn smiles back, clearly smitten. Is that how I look when a boy says something nice to me? God I hope I’m not that obvious.
Levi speaks into the cuff. “Rift. Pandora.” This is clever—a Rift nowhere near Ezra and a jump that hopefully throws whoever is after us for a loop. Immediately, a Rift begins to open. The sheets on the bed ruffle, the furniture starts to tremble with the force. Ryn Two’s eyes widen. She’s a smart one. She manages to get a few pictures with her phone of the Rift—further proof. Levi and I begin to walk forward.
“Hey,” she says before we can walk through, “what’s this Ezra guy’s last name?” Oh yes. Very smart.
“Massad. He’s a genius. Does quantum cryptography. You should try to find him.” I give her a quick hug, and Levi smiles quickly but brightly. We walk through the green glowing mouth of the Rift and are gone.
We land in jungle. It’s hot as hell and smells awful. I don’t know where or when this Earth is, but it looks prehistoric, so I doubt Ezra is here. It is, however, a great place to leave the Karekin tracker. Levi takes the thing and throws it as hard and far as he can.
“That’s going to have to be good enough,” he says, though I can tell that leaving Ryn Two behind like that doesn’t sit right with him. We train. We fight. We kill. Our number one mission, though, the thing that keeps us coming back to the hell mouth that is the Battle Ground Rift, is knowing that we are protecting innocent people. The Ryn on that Earth is an innocent. Not only is she a civilian, but she is basically me, and Levi and I . . . well . . . we have that “it” thing now.
“When all this is over, we can go back and make sure she’s okay.” I try to assure him as much as myself.
“What if she isn’t, though? What if they kill her?”
“Then that’s one more thing we add to the list of things we have to try to find a way to live with. Let’s just focus on Ezra, on getting answers.”
“Yeah,” he practically spits. “Ezra. Because his life is definitely worth more than everyone else’s. So yes, we have to get to fucking Ezra. Well, to be clear, you’ll be fucking Ezra. I’ll just be saving everybody’s life probably.”
“I told you. I warned you . . . Enough with the superiority act,” I tell him coldly, getting right up in his face. “News flash—you aren’t the only one saving people. We’ve done some deprogramming, you’re starting to get a handle on grown-up emotions, right? So, it’s time to start separating the personal from the professional. Forget about why I’m here. You’re here because you threw someone into the Multiverse that has vital information we need to retrieve. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. The rest of it is none of your business.”
We stand there, just staring at each other, and I can’t tell if he wants to hit me, tear off my clothes, cry, or all three. Our breathing gets more rapid, but now it’s in tandem. I move one of my feet behind me. That way, if Levi does something drastic, I won’t be caught off balance. He tenses his body, but then he relaxes it. I hear his pulse begin to slow.
“You’re right. I have to stop looking at Ezra like he’s my competition.” I breathe a sigh of relief. Wow. I think I might actually be getting through to him, until he leans in, just inches away from my ear, and whispers: “Because even though you can’t or won’t admit it, we both know that when it comes to me, there is no competition.”
I yank my head back and stare at him. I smile at first and even give a little chuckle. Levi doesn’t smile back. His gaze is deadly serious. His look is so intense, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and it is boiling hot. “Fine,” I tell him in a tone that is now serious enough to match his look. “You win. He can’t compete.” I could try to keep at it, but at this point it would be like screaming into the wind. Pointless. “Just keep it professional, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Levi responds while saluting.
I’d like to break every one of those sarcastic fingers he’s got up to his forehead. But I can’t ask him to do anything I won’t do myself. I have to keep it professional.
I speak Ezra’s name into the cuff. Levi quickly marches through the Rift and I tag along behind him. I hate him sometimes, I really do. I wish to God I didn’t, and not because it would make everything less complicated, but because the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. And even though it kills me to admit, there’s no way on this Earth or any of the billions of others, that I could ever be indifferent about Levi.
Chapter 16
We Rift into scorching heat, but this is different from the damp humidity of the last jump. This heat is arid, searing. Our boots make contact with the gravel, which eddies and shimmers, mirage-like, under the blazing sun. It is hilly terrain, and mercifully empty. I look through my binoculars and see civilization in the not-too-far-off distance. We
are very much in the open, exposed, but until we know where we are, there’s not much point in going anywhere. We send out the drones and pull out our laptops. We take a seat on the hard, tiny rocks and wait for intel to come in, leaving the huge blowup we had in the jungle world stay in that part of the Multiverse.
I hope.
It’s only a matter of minutes before images start popping up on the screen. I see buildings with towers bedecked with crescent moons. I see souks and peddlers. I see stalls with conical piles of brightly colored spices. There are tourists here, men and women, wearing shorts and tees. There are also locals wearing hijabs with jeans and tees and the more traditional caftans. The men are wearing djellaba and fezzes. I think I know where we are, but I ask the computer to triangulate our position and when it pops up on the map I see that I was right—we’re in Morocco, a secluded area of desert about eleven miles north of Marrakech. From what the drones have gathered, it looks like another echo Earth.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” I say while still examining the recon photos. “First we Rift to a Battle Ground Earth, and now Marrakech? Where Ezra’s family is from? Could the QOINS be picking up quantum information from us? Is that even possible?” I wonder aloud.
“Anything is possible,” Levi answers grimly. “Like you said, a few hours ago I was fighting a Minotaur and apparently people’s bodies hum around you now, so sure.” I want to roll my eyes, but I check myself—mostly because it sucks having your words thrown back in your face like that.
“I say we go in as a version of ourselves—tourists, students, backpacking. I think it’s a safe-enough cover,” I suggest.
“We could go in as locals. We both speak Arabic and French. With the sensuits, no one would be able to tell,” Levi counters as he calls back the drones.
The Rift Frequency Page 18
