The Rift Frequency

by Amy S. Foster

  I finish my soup quickly and smile, then pat my tummy, showing that it was good. “Levi, Ryn,” I say, gesturing to me and my partner, “and Ezra . . . human.” I point to her and then shrug my shoulders and hold up my hands and then point to Nascha, hoping she’ll give me the name of her people. She cocks her head to one side, then says, “Levi, Ryn—Citadel. Ezra, human.” I am starting to get the feeling that Nascha knows much more than I am giving her credit for.

  “Citadels, yes,” Levi explains, “but humans, too.” Nascha answers this with a little squeak, which sounds to me like a passive-aggressive way to politely disagree. She then points to her antlers and herself and says, “Woon-Kwa.” I nod my head to indicate that I understand.

  I can’t see how else I’m going to get across the questions I need to ask other than to use a paper and pencil. I could try to mime them, but even then I’m not sure how I would do it.

  I take out the pad of paper that’s always tucked into one of the leather pockets on the front of my uniform. There’s a little pencil inside, too, which I grab. I draw a picture of the sun and show Nascha. I point at the window and say, “Day.” I then draw a picture of the moon and stars. “Night,” I tell her, once again looking out the window while shaking my head, hopefully indicating that it’s not night outside. I then start counting on each of my fingers. “One, two, three . . . Ezra . . . Days? Nights?”

  Nascha takes out her hand as well and begins to count. “Sho, bin, tiv.” One, two, three. But, Nascha emphasizes her three straight fingers. “Tiv. Tiv saqwee.” I get it. It’s been three days since Ezra has left. I begin drawing again. I pencil out a sort of stick figure and point, saying Ezra’s name. Then I draw a more intricate picture. I’m no artist by any means, but I get along well enough. I have no idea if this is my altered genes or real, raw talent. I feel a twinge of homesickness for my dad, who is a real artist, and my mom, who, as a designer, can sketch her ass off.

  I shake away those feelings and use the pencil to my advantage, emphasizing shadows and highlights to depict a Karekin. I show the picture to Nascha. She nods. “Karreekin,” she tells me in her accented English.

  “Yes. Karekin. Karekin bad.” I scrunch up my face and scowl. I make a fist and slap it into my other palm. Nascha gives me a look that says she’s not sure what I’m trying to say. I draw another picture of a Karekin beating up the figure I had designated as Ezra. I rip out the page from my pad and slide it over to her. I begin to scribble furiously again. In this picture, I draw a Karekin cutting the throat of a human. Nascha just shakes her head. She thrusts her hands out and her fingers wiggle. She wants me to see what she saw. This time I’m eager. I have to stand to reach across the table, but I do so without hesitation. When I take her hands, I forget about how weird and intrusive it is to have someone inside my head. I simply pay attention to the images she is showing me.

  The Karekins move through the village. They do not bother or threaten anyone. They certainly aren’t killing any of the Woon-Kwa. As it did before, this disorients me. It contradicts everything I know of the Karekins—a ruthless and barbaric race that has never even wanted to parlay in all my experience as a Citadel. They come through the Rift and they try to kill as many of us as possible. That’s all. Even though we outnumber and outflank them, they fight to the death every time. The one time we managed to capture a live Karekin he slit his own throat before he would be taken as a prisoner.

  I watch a discussion happen between Ezra and one of the Karekins. The words are garbled and distorted. Nascha doesn’t speak English, so I suppose this is how it would sound to her. I pay close attention to Ezra. He looks troubled. He keeps nodding his head, but his eyes shift nervously back and forth. Ultimately, I watch him go willingly with the Karekin. They don’t lay a finger on him. If anything, they are scanning the Woon-Kwa to make sure that none of them are a threat, as if they were suddenly Ezra’s bodyguards.

  This time, it’s Nascha who releases my hands. I sit back down on the chair, trying to make sense of things, but I just feel even more confused.

  “Levi,” Nascha says softly before pointing to the door. “Kipitay. Fopaq.”

  Levi looks around, as if somehow she could be talking to someone else. His lip curls and a sound comes out of his mouth that is half snort and half chuckle.

  “She wants me to leave? Seriously?” Nascha’s expression does not change. It’s clear she feels badly for asking him to go, but it’s also clear she wants me alone.

  “No way,” Levi says with authority. “I’m not going anywhere. Anything that she wants to say, she can say it in front of me.” I shrug my shoulders and look away. Levi leans in and practically whispers, “Ryn, has it occurred to you that maybe the Karekins didn’t attack because these people are their allies? Have you considered that?”

  I put my hand on his hand and give it a little squeeze. “I think she wants to talk to me about Ezra, and I don’t think she wants you in the room for whatever she has to say or show me or whatever.” Levi yanks his hand away and glowers. His teeth grind together, his jaw moving back and forth. I think for a moment he’s going to say something. He opens his mouth for a second, and then he closes it again just as quickly. He scrapes his chair back so hard I’m afraid there might be a scuff mark on the soft wood floor. He grabs his gun, storms across the room, throws open the door, and slams it shut again behind him.

  Embarrassed, I look at the table, waiting for Nascha to move or say something. Maybe Levi is right. Maybe I shouldn’t be alone with any of these people. I know I can beat her in a fight, but she could have some crazy brain-melting superpower that could turn me into a vegetable. Right now, though, my concern for Ezra’s safety overrides my own paranoia. I have to let Nascha take the lead. I hear the clamoring bells, the tiny chimes whistling and singing as she moves away from me. I bring my head up as she sets up two much more comfortable chairs in front of the fire. They aren’t upholstered, but they are covered in layers and layers of pillows and knitted blankets. She takes a seat and gestures for me to do the same. I can’t imagine what she wants to show me.

  I walk over hesitantly and drop my body into the empty seat. The fire is warm, but not too hot. I look into Nascha’s fascinating face. The flames catch on the charms hanging from her antlers. They sparkle and flicker on and off like stars. She holds out her hands and I lift up my own, a little slower than before. This time, Nascha takes my entire forearm. Her thumbs press down into the crease right below my elbow. The pressure doesn’t hurt, but it’s instant. She closes her eyes and I feel compelled to do the same. I hear her speaking her musical language. They are words I do not understand, but they are hypnotic, lulling. At first I try to resist, Levi’s warning screaming in my head, but Nascha doesn’t stop, and soon there’s nothing I can do as I fall deeper into wherever it is she’s taking me. The images slide into my head slowly. The outline comes first and then colors bloom, like film in a chemical bath.

  The first thing I see is Levi. This is Levi when we first walked out of the Rift right here. Nascha was not there, so this must be a memory from one of our escorts—it seems the Woon-Kwa can transfer visions. As a secret keeper and a liar, I can’t imagine living the way they do.

  Nascha’s grip intensifies and this time I feel her gentle probing inside my head like a knock on the door, a little tap, tap, tap. I’m no longer struggling. In fact, I want to know what she knows. I want to know what she didn’t want Levi to see or feel. So I open my mind and she rushes in. She is fireflies and ballerina music boxes. She is sweetness and light. Then my own memories start to filter in. Levi and I in Morocco. First I am in his arms and then he is hitting me. Nascha and I both flinch as he attacks. There’s no use explaining. If she now has access to my own memories, she will know everything about me and the Blood Lust.

  A part of me is terrified to let anyone see so much of me, and yet there is another, greater part, that is relieved. I never realized just how desperate I have always been for someone to really know me, to understand wh
y I do the things I do.

  She doesn’t linger on that memory, though. Nascha is everywhere. She is rifling through everything in my head, but only bringing up the ones that can help her explain what she is trying to say. I see Levi in SenMach City curled up next to me on the bed. Levi and I on the beach the moment I say no to helping with the Blood Lust. I am seeing what she is seeing, how his body tenses when I get too near, but becomes even more rigid when I walk away. I see him volunteer for this mission. I watch him fight at the Rift in Battle Ground. Fight after fight, punching, hitting, kicking. He is fierce, strong, and focused, but somehow our eyes always seem to find each other when we are on duty together. I never realized it before. He is always watching out for me. Always. Nascha takes me back to the first time we met, when his sister, Flora, brought me to his house. The memory of this beautiful boy sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal in his hands is visceral. I feel just like I did that day. My cheeks flush. I bite down on my lip.

  My God, I had forgotten how much I liked him.

  Then the visions are swept away as if they were nothing more than a thistle weed blown bare. They spin into the darkness of my mind and are replaced immediately with Ezra in this cottage. He looks so lost, not afraid but overwhelmed. I can tell that Nascha did her best to comfort him. I think she managed to. There is an image of Ezra working on his computer and he looks . . . maybe not happy, but centered and calm. The scene shifts. It’s Levi pushing Ezra into the Rift to save my life. My heart sinks, but only for a moment, because Nascha does the most remarkable thing.

  Here is Ezra at the Rift. This is my first memory of him. He has just been spit out by it. He is disoriented, but strong. I am looking at him and then the perspective changes and he is looking at me. Nascha is sharing Ezra’s own memories with me.

  There is a constant back-and-forth. I am watching Ezra in his apartment in the Village, he is watching me, focusing on my neck and my mouth as I try to explain what we are as Citadels. There is a memory of my pacing, back and forth in my darkened living room waiting for him after he broke out of the Village prison. Then I stop moving, only to sit ramrod straight on our couch for hours, waiting for him to walk through the door.

  Nascha shows me the hidden room I had prepared for him. I am watching him at work, he is watching me, every move, paying attention to the smallest things. I watch myself broken at his feet when I figure out what the Roones had done to me, how they had lied to all of us. There is no magic chip inside our brains to turn our abilities off. We have been genetically altered forever. I feel Ezra’s pain as he looks at me, his yearning to reach out.

  I know what’s coming next. Ezra deprogramming me. This is both beautiful and devastating to relive. The touching, slow fingers on smooth skin. The holding, the gentle prodding. But there is violence, too. I hit Ezra. I choke him. I almost kill him. Yet he never sees me as a monster. He loves me. I love him.

  The images split in half, Ezra on one side, Levi on the other. Ezra is working on a computer. A whiteboard behind him is covered in equations, papers are flying. Levi is on the other side. In this memory we are fighting Karekins together in Battle Ground. Levi kicks one several feet in the air. I help the enemy land with my hand on his chest and then I whip my side arm around to shoot him in the head.

  And then the images stop. Abruptly. Nascha releases the pressure on my forearms and I take them back. I dig my thumbs into the soft blankets puffed up around me. Nascha blinks hard and tilts her head to one side. A single tear falls from my left eye. It’s not just seeing with the Woon-Kwa—it’s feeling, too. I was swept up in the intensity of the memories. Like a ball of string, I am unwound. And now I’m scrambling, mentally, to roll it all back up into something tight and solid, without loops or knots. I wanted to be seen and known, but this is too much. I’m not even ready to face half the shit I’ve done, let alone ready for someone else to be witness to it. Not to mention all the feelings. There are so many damn feelings flying around here.

  It’s like a middle school boy-girl dance. Only more awkward.

  And while Nascha’s tribe seems capable of holding many emotions at once, I am not built to juggle so many. But, I can’t break now; I’ve got to keep myself rolled up. It’s not pride that is holding me together, but rather the knowledge that curling up into a fetal position and crying like a baby won’t help me move forward. We have to go. We need to get to Ezra.

  “Levi,” she says, holding up one of her hands. “Showw tai.” Then she points at me. “Ryn. Showw tai.” Nascha’s other hand goes up. “Ezra. Kapa’a min. Fit showw tai.”

  I don’t need to speak her language to understand what she’s trying to say.

  Levi and I are one thing. The same.

  Ezra is different.

  Fifteen minutes ago I would have said I knew exactly what my answer would be to these differences. Now, after she has shown me so much, a germ of doubt has crept in. I keep thinking that the Karekins and Roones and all the secrets and lies I’ve been fed all these years are what’s weighing heaviest on me. But Nascha has seen through me down to the truth. She will say what I cannot. Her visions show me what I can’t bear to look at too closely. She is telling me what I have to do.

  Choose.

  And then it’s too much, and I start to quietly cry.

  Chapter 18

  I suppose I don’t cry like most people. If I let myself cry every time I felt miserable or overwhelmed, I would be a lunatic. I turn the pain inside out, like a pair of jeans before washing or flipping to the back page of a spiral notebook. I try to keep it all contained. Each tear that I let fall feels like an escaped prisoner.

  With my eyes closed I will my body to be still, even as the drops leak through my lashes. The images Nascha showed me remain, the way some do after you’ve looked at something bright for too long. The outlines are there, movement, shape, form.

  Ezra . . .

  Levi . . .

  What am I even doing? This isn’t the time to be thinking these thoughts. Other teenage girls are free to while away hours, even days, lovestruck and boy crazy. I don’t have this luxury. My feelings, whatever they are, are not useful right now. I’m a soldier, first and always. As I remind myself of that, I find myself suddenly shifting from sad and confused to truly annoyed. In that moment, I regain my composure.

  I mean, couldn’t Nascha have grabbed hold of a Karekin? Couldn’t she have done the old woo-woo voodoo on one of them? Find out what the hell they want with Ezra? What their deal is? That at least would have served a greater purpose. This—this is verging on pathetic. My world, other worlds, thousands of lives on the line, and I get a vision quest about two guys and cry about it? Oh God. Am I becoming that girl? The “It’s Armageddon! But which boy should I give my heart to?” girl?

  No. No way.

  I can choose not to be her. I can choose to focus on what’s important. I’d like to convey the utter ridiculousness of this little love triangle to Nascha, but she’s sitting there so serene and mystical, clearly believing that something sacred has gone on between us that I can only nod my head in thanks. There’s no point in offending her, and I’m afraid if I tried to convince Nascha of my real priorities I would somehow only be proving her point.

  I watch her slowly lift herself out of the chair and walk over to an intricately carved wooden box. God only knows what she wants to do to me now. If some kind of mushroom is involved I’m going to have to think about an exit strategy, pronto. Thankfully, all she does is take off a necklace that had been sitting beneath her clothes. When she holds it up it spins and glints in the light. It’s not a locket or a charm. It’s a key. Nascha fits it into a hammered brass lock on the box and turns it slowly to the right. The latch clicks and the lid opens. From inside it she retrieves a sleek black object. Whatever it is, I can tell right away that it is not native to this Earth. When she hands it to me, I’m certain. It’s some sort of flash drive. It’s also Karekin tech. Shit.

  I turn it over and over again in my hands. I’m so
focused on what this little black thing could mean that I barely notice Nascha open the door. When I do, I see that she has called out to Levi. What really baffles me, though, is that Nascha does not seem conflicted by the different versions of Karekins she has seen in her visions. I don’t understand it. What does she see that I can’t? After reaching through my memories and experiencing firsthand—well, I guess it’s secondhand really—the degenerate barbarism of the Karekins in Battle Ground, how can she be so unconcerned with the Karekins who took Ezra? The only reason I can think of is that Nascha will only involve herself with the things she can actually change. Or possibly, and more realistically, they are pacifists. The Karekins have come and gone. Levi and I are here.

  Levi walks through the door and Nascha gives us a silent bow and walks outside. She’s giving us our space. I appreciate this, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. Despite the compelling things she has shown me, right now my focus is entirely on the piece of technology I am gripping in my hands. Ezra is with the Karekins.

  I stand and hold my palm out and show Levi. He takes the small, black, oblong device and holds it up to his face, scrutinizing it. “She gave you this?” he finally asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she happen to mention or mime or vision quest the way in which she actually got it?” Levi asks, an obvious edge to his voice.

  “She didn’t and I don’t think it matters. One of the Karekins who took Ezra left it behind. I bet if we put it in the SenMach computer, it will Rift us directly to where Ezra is being held.”

  “Riiiiggght. Or maybe it will blow up our computer and we’ll be trapped here in Hippie Antler Land.”

  We stand there, facing each other as tiny motes of dust dance around in a shaft of sunlight shining between us. I understand his reluctance, but there’s only so much wandering we can do out here in the Multiverse. This is our chance to get Ezra. It might not be the safest call, but since when do Citadels stick to what’s safe?