The Rift Uprising (11 page)

Then suddenly we are in New York. I do a double take just to make sure. I've been to New York a few times with my parents to visit their old friends, and I swear to God, I feel like I am in a residential street in the West Village. Row upon row of brownstones with tons of character line a wide street. There are stoops and fire hydrants and open windows with curtains fluttering out. It is so bizarre.

“Your boyfriend lives half a block up there. The address is 675 and it's apartment 3B. I can't take you any farther because this is the one place on the street where there is a blind spot for the cameras, but please don't tell him that. When you walk, angle your body so that the video won't pick up on the fact that you don't have a weapon. Technically, I am running errands for a superior officer, but I don't have all day. So be as fast as you can.”

“Thanks,” I say genuinely, but then have to add, “and
he's not
my boyfriend. Jesus.”

I get out of the golf cart and walk around it. Levi grabs my arm as I pass him. His fingers dig into my uniform. So much for the not-touching thing. “Please remember your promise
to me, Ryn. I'm trusting you and I don't just do that. For anyone.” Now he looks concerned. I want to sigh out loud. It's insulting that he thinks so little of me.

I gently pull my arm back. “I made a promise to one of my own, Levi. That means something to me. I wouldn't screw you over and I wouldn't put this person's safety at risk. I'm not like that. I don't know what else I can do or say to assure you.”

Levi gives me a brief, reluctant smile. “Okay. You can't blame me for being paranoid, though.”

“You don't have to be. Not with me. Not ever.” I start to walk away, and I realize what I just said was true. He can always trust me. But I can't get into Levi's bizarre drama right now. I have to focus. I walk up to Ezra's building. I open the door and take a deep breath. Now that I am here, I half wish I wasn't. I practiced many things that I would say to him, but since I have actually seen the Village with my own eyes, I'm not sure that any of those things apply. If he's looking for further explanations, about anything concerning this place, I cannot provide him with any.

I whip up the three flights of stairs and find his apartment easily enough. I bite my lip and steel myself. This is so crazy. Why am I doing this again? I shake my head, hoping to clear it, and I hesitate for a moment before knocking on the door. This is a person I'm attracted to, and I'm about to be alone with him. Right now, ARC is not the immediate danger—I am. If I slip up, if I allow myself to get distracted even one time, I will kill this boy. I try to concentrate on the idea that not every encounter where there is chemistry leads to romance. Sometimes the attraction takes a different path and ends up at friendship. That has to be my goal right now. Ezra and I are going to be friends. I repeat this a few times to myself and then I knock on the door. It takes a second or so for someone to answer, and the door
swings open. Now Ezra Massad is standing right here in front of me. Good Lord, he looks gorgeous.

Shit, my whole friendship theory just went down the friggin' toilet.

This stupid choice I've made to come here practically hits me in the gut. My body tenses the way it does right before The Rift opens, but instead of fighting, words start to pour out of my mouth in an awkward rapid fire. “Hi! I promised you I would come and see you and here I am!” The smile I have planted on my face has got to look ridiculous. My eyebrows are arched up practically to my hairline and my body is so rigid, I'm not sure I can get my feet to move into his apartment.

“You are, yes,” Ezra says, giving me a quizzical look. He does not seem happy to see me. Maybe this is because I am so over-the-top happy for both of us.

“It's Ryn,” I offer, wondering if somehow he's forgotten me. Maybe he's blocked that whole Rift day from his mind, which wouldn't be surprising. “Can I come in?” I say eventually, because I'm not sure he is actually going to invite me to do so.

“Sure.” Ezra opens the door wide enough for me to slip through and I now find myself in a man's apartment. Alone. I hadn't considered that.

“This is nice,” I say, and I mean it. There is exposed brick on one wall and a large flat-screen TV on the other. There is a fairly simple couch and an open-concept kitchen with a couple bar stools at an eat-in counter. The appliances are stainless steel and I notice there are a couple more doors at the other end. A bathroom, presumably, and a bedroom. It would probably cost a million dollars or more if it was actually in New York.

“It came like this, but they tell me that after I get a few months of work in I'll have enough creds to make it my own.” Ezra smiles for the first time. It's about as genuine as my weird Cheshire cat grin was at the door. Mine was because of nerves,
however. His is sarcastic. There is an awful, awkward silence. He does not offer me a seat or anything to drink. It is pretty clear from his body language that he does not want me here. This stings. I didn't expect he would be happy to see me. But I didn't expect he would resent my showing up, either.

Actually, no, I
did
think he would be happy to see me, because he's the one who asked me to come.

And now I'm just a bit pissed off.

It's not like I didn't just have to ask a favor from someone who drives me crazy, or have to sneak past my own people, and basically risk everything just to say hey.

But I am here, and it seems stupid to have gone through that simply to get into a fight. “I just . . .” I begin, and then stop. I want to choose my words carefully. I scratch my neck and bite my lip again. “I just wanted to make sure you're okay. That you've settled in all right, I guess.” This is not a lie. This is the absolute truth. It isn't the whole truth. I didn't mention that I hadn't been able to stop thinking about him, but mentioning that part would only increase the awkward factor to an intolerable level.

“Oh, yeah,” Ezra begins with mock enthusiasm. “I love it here. It's awesome. First I was poked and prodded in places that no eighteen-year-old heterosexual guy—and I'm pretty sure most homosexual guys—should be poked and prodded. Then I was interrogated for days like I was at Guantanamo, which was super fun.”

“Ezra, stop—” I try to speak, but he's opened the floodgates now and is all riled up.

“Then I was tested like a lab rat and put through a bunch of machines that are still making my head buzz. Then I had to take actual tests like the SAT times a thousand.
So amazing.
And then they bring me to this psycho ‘Stepford meets It's
a Small World' village and tell me how great it's going to be here—get this—
for the rest of my life.
Oh, yeah, it's so wonderful here that I'll never want to leave, which is really great because if I try to, I will be shot on sight. I'm okay, Ryn. I'm fucking brilliant. How are you? How's your special skill set doing?” Ezra's breath is rapid. He is furious. There really is nothing to say to any of that except one thing.

“I'm so sorry, Ezra, that this happened to you.” I hope I sound genuine, because I really mean it.

Ezra folds his arms. Clearly my apology isn't going to cut it. “Not sorry enough to warn me what was coming.”

I can't hold back anymore.
Don't you get it!
I want to scream. Instead I say, “And then what would you have done? Run? We would have tracked you down. Fight? You would have gotten your ass handed to you. Jump back through The Rift? You could have ended up on an Earth totally devoid of life. There are no happy endings when it comes to The Rift. There are just best- and worst-case scenarios. You got a best-case scenario. I'm not saying you should be thrilled about it, but you'll adapt. Because you're still alive, and some people that come out of The Rift can't say that.”

Ezra shakes his head and the anger ebbs away from him, but it has turned into frustration.

“I don't want to adapt. I don't want to just be alive. I want to
live
. I want to travel and have a family and see my parents again. This place might be pretty, but it's a prison. I am a
prisoner
here.” His magnificent blue eyes are so sad. I can feel myself begin to pull apart. All the walls over the years that I have built, brick by brick with lies and loneliness, don't feel nearly as solid as they did before I walked into this room. It's as if I am taking his pain and making it my own. And while this idea terrifies me, I am also grateful that I have the ability
to feel anything so real and so deep. I honestly didn't think I was capable. I can't think of anything to do other than sit down for a moment. I place my palms on the back of my neck and press hard. It is a force of habit. When the implant felt like it was burning my skull I used to do the same gesture. Now I find myself doing it whenever I hurt.

“Look,” I say, “I know you see me as the person who put you here. Maybe you even see me as the person who ruined your life, I don't know.” I wait for Ezra to correct me. He doesn't. Great. “I didn't choose this, either, though. You were swept up in The Rift and so was I. They call us Citadels. Do you know that?”

“They told me,” Ezra says levelly.

“We're, like, not normal people. I mean, we aren't robots or anything, but we've been enhanced technologically. So. Like . . . Sentries patrol areas. Sentinels are lookouts, but Citadels are the actual physical things that keep people safe. Each one of us is a small army on a fortress that stands between the enemy and the innocent. I didn't volunteer for this job. My parents don't even know what I am. I was seven years old when they put the thing in my brain that makes me able to do what I do. I had seven pretty normal years after I was implanted with the chip, except for the blinding headaches that were so bad that I literally passed out more than once.
Way
more than once. I was fourteen when ARC activated the chip. That's how old I was the first time I killed someone—
fourteen.
I would trade places with you in a minute. I don't mean to undermine what you are feeling; all I'm trying to say is that I never got a choice, either. That
I
am not the enemy.”

Ezra looks at me in disbelief. I can see him scrambling, trying to make sense of what I just told him. He sits beside me on
the couch. Instinctively I edge away from him. If he notices, he doesn't say anything.

“You know,” he begins after a short while, “I was sucked here by a straw full of messed-up string theory. I have seen lizard people, and rock people, and something that I'm pretty sure was, like, a great big stick insect person. I have been placed in a bizarre picture-postcard version of a concentration camp, but honestly, Ryn, what you just told me may actually be the most disturbing piece of information my brain has processed since I've come here.”

“I'm more disturbing than a stick insect person? I'm flattered.” I smile weakly.

“No, it's not that. It's just, I guess because we're human we think we've achieved some kind of pinnacle in terms of evolution. It's so disappointing to know that when it comes right down to it, we'll eat our young in order to survive. I thought we were better. I thought, in the face of something as miraculous as The Rift, we would
be
better.”

“Well,” I say as I lean back into the couch, acutely aware of how close Ezra is to me. I have to be very careful now. “Wasn't it Maya Angelou who said, ‘when you know better, you do better'? Or maybe it was Oprah. You do have Oprah on your Earth, right?”

Ezra laughs. “I think it was Maya. And yeah, we had Oprah, too. I'm sure she is a kind of quantum fixed point, like Jesus or
Catcher in the Rye
.” We sit there. Time races. There isn't any way we can cram the amount of conversations we need to have in order to get to know each other into the short time my plan has allowed. My mind scrambles to try and pick out what's most important. Ezra must have the same idea, because we both start talking at once.

“No, no, you go ahead,” he offers.

“I was just wondering how it happened. How you came through. Alone. From what we know of The Rift, it opens on another side randomly, but rarely in places where there is a single person. It seems to be attracted to, well, we're not really sure, but energy of some sort. That usually means multiple, uh, beings.”

Ezra scrunches up his face. “I'm not so sure about that,” he says hesitantly. I look at him, intrigued. “Well, I go to MIT. I'm actually a senior there, but I'm only eighteen.”

“Ahh, so you're a supergeek. Me too. But I can only claim the title by default. It seems that you come by yours naturally.”

Ezra laughs again. He is even more gorgeous when he smiles. It's a lopsided grin, and his entire face, especially his eyes, lights up.

I'm in trouble.

“I suppose you could say that. Child prodigy, blah, blah.” Ezra waves his hand away, as if being a genius is nothing. “The thing is, I was working in the lab on our quantum computer model. We are pretty close to actually creating one. My field of study is quantum cryptography, which means—”

I interrupt him. “You use qubits instead of binary to break ciphers. Like code breaking on steroids, to the bajillionth power. But, if your Earth is anything like our Earth, you still have to deal with quantum decoherence, right?” I can see that my statement impresses him, and he just shakes his head and sighs.

“I think you may have just become the woman of my dreams. Wow. I would ask you to marry me, but with me being in a prison camp and you being a bionic guard and all . . . it's very CW.”

“I'm not bionic. I told you, I'm enhanced. I'm not like Wolverine; I don't have metal inside me.”

“Oh, God, comic book references, too? You're killing me.” Ezra reaches out to touch me and I move my knee away. I hope he doesn't catch it. I think he does, though. “Okay, the thing is, I'm almost one hundred percent certain the Rooms—”