RIFT (The Rift Saga Book 1) (13 page)

Outrage, Dave realized.

“For too many years, unimaginable crimes have been committed. I mean to see the end of it, and once you see what I have to show you, you will help me. And you will help Miss Atlas, lest she ends up like Greer.”

It was like a blow to the head. Someone wanted Sue dead—but why? And could he trust this man? He mustered up the courage to ask one question.

“Who would want to kill Sue?” he asked. The counselor grimaced.

“Who did she insult when she saved you from being sent to the Corpus?”
Of course
, Dave thought. The First Janissary seemed the type to bear a grudge. Sue must have given him an excuse, and he had seized the opportunity. He dared another question.

“How do you know about Greer? Have you seen the drone footage?” Novak shook his head.

“No, I haven’t seen it. Greer’s name is in the report. I saw that,” he said. Dave felt a pang of irritation.

What does he really know
? Dave wondered.
Is he playing me
?

“Sir, I’m getting confused. What is happening here? Please don’t play games with me,” he said. He didn’t care if he insulted the man. He needed answers. He needed the truth.

Mark Novak nodded, as if he understood Dave’s confusion. He sighed.

“Susan Atlas has become a problem in Legacy. She has discovered things… Things that are considered a serious threat to the security and integrity of the Covenant. So now, they want her dead. And not just Ivanov,” he said. Dave nodding gravely, waiting for him to continue.

“But she has become a symbol, a hero, in the eyes of the public. So they can’t just execute her. They need her to maintain the image of heroism, while at the same time, they need to get rid of her. Before she becomes too dangerous. So I nudged them along, helped them come to the only possible solution, one that would actually benefit them more than if she had just been a good Janissary. A good martyr.” He chuckled, without mirth.

“A transfer. The hero from the northern border goes south to perform heroic deeds on the western border, as well, keeping the Covenant safe, guarding the Rift,” he said.

“So you sent her here?” Dave asked. Novak smiled.

“Yes, in a way. By order of Head Servant Lunde himself, fulfilling the wishes of a young patriotic soldier, and sending her to the next frontline.” The old man shook his head slightly, and closed his eyes.

“Where she is to be killed on her first mission,” Dave said, now clearly seeing the logic. “The heroine dies in combat, while protecting the Covenant against its enemies. It is the perfect way.” Novak produced a small sphere. Inside, letters and numbers danced.

“This is the key code and the location of the video file you’ve been looking for. The one that reveals the truth. When you are finished with it, you will know what to do to save her. And yourself,” Novak said. Dave touched the sphere, instantly copying its contents to his secure folder, hidden behind another file. It would be safe, at least until someone did a thorough search.

“And you’re still saying you haven’t seen it?” Dave said.

“I haven’t. But I know what’s there. I’ve seen dozens like it. Just remember, once you use the key, it might trigger an alert. So don’t do it until you’re absolutely certain you are ready. And be prepared to face the consequences.”

Chapter 17

DAVE

Dave removed the VR headset, and put it gently beside his monitor. He still didn’t entirely trust Counselor Novak, but how could he not do this? How could he not look at the video? Especially since hearing what they were planning for Sue. He quickly locked the system and got up. Then he walked over to the fridge and grabbed a water bottle. He almost emptied the bottle, his thoughts racing, going through every detail of his virtual encounter with the Legacy Counselor. However weird it all seemed, it made sense. He’d never even heard of anyone transferring to the Wardens. If you messed up in any of the Services, it was off to the Corpus or out of the Services altogether.

He checked to see if Hasle was there. Only when Dave was absolutely sure he was all alone, did he unlock the system again. He checked his messages for the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes. He went through a couple of short documents, but his mind was elsewhere, and it was time to end the procrastination.

He opened his private folder and went through the first levels of security. Then he inverted a subfolder, decrypting the access path to another folder, and finally, invisible beside the latter, he tapped his screen lightly.

A key prompt jumped up. He quickly entered the key, and finally, the folder he had received from Novak appeared. He opened it. Two files. One video file and a simple text file. He opened the text file and memorized the twelve-digit code. Then he closed the text file, and let his finger hover over the video file icon for a second.

Don’t do it until you’re absolutely certain you are ready
, Novak had said. Dave tapped the icon, and another key prompt jumped up. Twelve digits. He began entering numbers, letters, signs.

Be prepared to face the consequences
. Yeah, right.

How could he be ready? There was no such thing.

Are you certain you wish to continue? Bold letters in front of his eyes. A blinking question mark. Red no, green yes.

He tapped the green icon.

For a moment, the screen was black. Then the video began. The chirping of a bird was the first thing he heard, before the image adjusted and he could see.

He was looking at himself, from the back. Then he was looking at the others. He recognized some of them. Kirilov, Scott, Greer.

Guns aimed, fingers on the triggers.

The sound suddenly stopped on the video. Dave looked at the volume indicator on the left. He swiped it up to max. Still nothing. Must be a technical error. Perhaps a separate file that hadn’t synced when he opened the video. He moved the cursor back, just a couple of seconds of playing time and pressed play again, hoping this would work.

As the sound returned, the view changed. Something moved on the far side of the clearing.

A man appeared, ragged clothes hanging loose from his shoulders. Zoom in. Shaggy beard, hollow cheeks. Dave could instantly tell this man was starving. He was looking at the man entering the clearing again. Zoom in. The man’s eyes, scanning the area in front of him. Then he signaled something, and the others followed him out of the brush, into the clearing. Men, women, children. A baby in the arms of its mother.

Warily, one step at a time, everyone looking around, even the smallest children. All except for the baby, sleeping soundly.

What were they so afraid of?

He turned the sound down, just enough to hear. He knew what was coming next.

The view zoomed out again as the first shots rang out. The man was the first to fall.

Dave didn’t blink.

Somehow, in the back of his mind, he had realized as soon as he’d seen the poor man.

“What the hell is this?” he heard Greer scream through the commotion. The camera switched to Greer, who stood up, his night vision goggles pushed up on the top of his helmet. Dave mouthed Greer’s next words silently.

“What have you done to us? Why…” The drone was filming from behind, and the explosion from Greer’s chest only showed the red haze outside of his silhouette, for which Dave was thankful. Then he saw—all too clearly—Kirilov’s face as he looked around, making sure his rifle quickly pointed away from the dead man.

Dave realized he was clenching the edge of his desk so hard that his knuckles had turned white. He felt the bile in his throat rising and swallowed hard.
What have you done to us?
he thought, a single tear running down his cheek. He gritted his teeth and made himself watch as all the Wardens kept firing at those poor people. Had he stopped firing once he heard Greer’s screams? He didn’t remember. He didn’t think so. And what did it matter?

He began to look away as the slaughter went on, but decided against it. He needed to see this. It was the truth. The raw, unfiltered truth.

He remembered the words now. From when they got the so-called vaccine. Juri, the medical assistant, who had to be subdued and dragged off by three Wardens.

Ignorance is Bliss.

And then, after the carnage, just as he passed out. A soft voice in his ear.

Ignorance is Bliss.

It had some truth to it. But it wasn’t
the
truth. It was all a lie. A big, horrible lie.

So this was how they “protected” the Covenant. This was how they kept out those from the outside. Why? What was the point of this?

He watched through it all, forcing himself to see every single piece of footage, even the parts that made him shake and sob. Eyes open, gritting his teeth, breathing slowly to keep the contents of his stomach down, not giving himself a moment’s respite.

The video ended abruptly, as the airship returned to pick them up.

Silence. The icon completely still on the monitor.

As if nothing had happened.

He had been searching for a murderer, and what he had found was more than he could have imagined.

Kirilov was Greer’s murderer.

Then it struck him, like a blow to the head. They were all murderers. All except Greer, who hadn’t fired a single shot. Greer, who had cried out. Who had seen everything for what it was.

Dave didn’t open the file again, but he began mentally replaying the scenes, and everything that had happened up to that horrible scene.

After seeing the truth, the pieces began to fall into place.

Greer had thrown off his night vision goggles. Dave remembered that annoying flicker in his own goggles. A glitch on the edge of the screen. The screen that made humans look like monsters.

The syringe before leaving camp. A serum to get the mind ready for what was coming, to tear down the defenses of logic. Then the blue pill, another dose of medication, numbing the mind just enough to accept what you saw. Enough to not question it, but not enough to limit combat efficiency. And finally, something he only remembered now that everything began to return to him, the red pill, which blurred the memory, made it difficult to remember the details.

You have to see for yourself,
everyone had said.

Dave had seen it all. And now he remembered.

The words of Counselor Novak came back to him.
Once you use the key, it might trigger an alert.

Dave looked around and shook his head. Of course, somewhere an alert would go off, but not anything audible. No sirens or alarms wailing. Just a silent notification of what had happened.

Someone could be bursting in that door any moment.

Be prepared to face the consequences
.

Dave quickly copied the file onto a memory card and stuck it inside his boot. Then he locked the computer and got up.

Time to face the consequences.

~

Dave made sure nobody was following before he stalked out. He didn’t know which building Sue was in, but there was really only one place she could be. He walked quickly around his building and kept walking, passing the shop on his way toward the buildings surrounding the square. There, he had to make a guess. There were three buildings, occupied by younger Wardens, mostly those specializing for security. Then there was one section in the building to his left, in which initiates were staying. That would be where all those who hadn’t made specialization yet would be. He didn’t have anything to go by, so he just guessed she would be among the other initiates. He strode toward the entrance. Except for one guard busily reading a book, there was no form of security in place. There was no need for it inside the fences, since the Warden camp was heavily protected outside the camp proper.

He entered and quickly scanned the boarding list just inside the door.

Susan Atlas, init.W, 2
nd
floor, room 206.

He took off his boots and climbed the stairs in his socks, taking two steps at a time, moving quietly while keenly aware that anyone meeting him would wonder when they saw him carrying his boots. He didn’t have time to take every precaution, though, and the way he figured, the best he could do to remain unnoticed was to be quick. He half-sprinted through the hallway, finding the door to room 206. He carefully opened it. No squeak. Seems they took better care of this building than the one he’d been assigned to when he was an initiate.

He stepped inside. It was dark, so he couldn’t see who was in the beds.

“Sue,” he whispered, too loud. He winced at his own stupidity. There was no answer, though. Someone coughed, and he froze, holding his breath. He could be detected any moment, but he had to take a chance. He tiptoed along the beds, as quietly as he could manage. He almost stumbled on a pair of shoes as he leaned over each bed, one by one, to see in which one she lay.

He found her on the far side of the room and lightly touched her shoulder. She stirred for half a second before her eyes shot open. A frown displaying her puzzlement made him hold a finger in front of his mouth, quietly urging her not to speak. She nodded once.

“Come with me,” he whispered in her ear. No need to add quickly or quietly. She would understand something was up.

Sue got out of bed and grabbed her pants and a T-shirt before they quietly made their way out. Sue closed the door carefully and put on her clothes. Then they moved back through the hallway and down the stairs, past the guard. Dave led the way, and soon, they were outside, sneaking through shadows toward the southern part of camp, where there was a small grove where they might finally be able to talk.

“All right,” Sue whispered once they were far enough away from anyone who could overhear.

“What’s going on? Why did you drag me out of bed like this?”

Dave bit his lip, wondering where to start. He’d only had a vague notion of how to go about this, and now he felt stuck. He looked at her, wondering what she had done to make Legacy want her dead.

“Why did they send you here?” he asked instead. She squinted and smiled, a mirthless smile.

“Of course. I should have guessed you wouldn’t buy into it all.” Then she sat down, motioning for him to sit beside her.

“Can I trust you, Dave?” she asked. He nodded. Of course she could trust him. She seemed to know it, too, even though she’d asked. Sue took a deep breath.

“I discovered it’s all a lie,” she said. He remained quiet to let her speak, and she continued.

“The Covenant. All of it. The Moon people. They enslaved us, and we think they saved us.” She shook her head.

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it…” Dave said. He didn’t know how to tell her all the horrible details about his own experience, so he asked more about hers instead.

“So, any idea when the rangers will come pick you up?” he asked. Sue cocked her head.

“In fact, I do. One of them, Harald something, told me to get a good night’s sleep, because we’re moving out tomorrow morning.” She yawned. “Which is just… in a couple hours. Dave, I really need to get going. We can’t change the Covenant, you know. We just have to come to terms with how it is. But I really need some sleep before I go.”

Dave cut her off.

“If you go with them, you won’t be coming back,” he said. She hesitated for a moment.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“I think you discovered something, and someone up in Legacy thinks you might be dangerous to the Covenant or something.” He paused for a moment. “They want you dead, Sue. They just brought you here because they need to make it look like you die in combat. They want to make a martyr out of you.” She cocked her head, and Dave couldn’t tell whether she believed him or not. He pressed on.

“But it’s not combat,” he said. He swallowed, trying to hold back the flood.

“It’s a slaughter. Innocent people…” he said, voice quivering.

“They made us shoot… made us believe that they were…” He couldn’t find the words and felt the memories jumble about, making him unsure of what was what.

“They drug us, make us believe we are fighting monsters. But there are no monsters, just innocent people. People from the West, from beyond the Rift. And afterward, they gave us some kind of pill that made us forget.”

“Ignorance is bliss,” Sue whispered, watching him as if she seemed to remember something herself. Dave nodded.

“Yeah, that’s what they say. But it’s the other way around,” he whispered back.