The Rift Coda

“Look, I cannot tell you why the Roones are so obsessed with the Kir-Abisat. What I can do is help you navigate this gift if you’ll let me. By that same token, you have to trust that it can be dangerous, not just for you, but for everyone around you. You have to let me see how far this ability has progressed before I can let you around my people.”

I look up into her ice blue eyes. There is distance there, but compassion, too. “I can’t hurt anyone. I mean …” I tell her as I backpedal out of a lie, “obviously, I can hurt people, but right now the only person being hurt by the gift is me. It’s like someone shoved twenty songs inside of my brain and cranked up the volume all the way.”

“Yes. It’s like that. But I can teach you how to turn down that noise. Help you build an internal system to turn it up or down at will. Hearing people or creatures from other Earths is not the true legacy of the Kir-Abisat, it’s simply a side effect or a symptom. Always, our cells are yearning to open a Rift.”

I try to take this in. Arif said as much, but it seems impossible. Literally. Like, scientifically in a world where there is no real Hogwarts, opening a door to the Multiverse defies physics.

“I can see that you are having a problem believing me. So I suppose I must show you.” Navaa taps on her earpiece. “Rotesse, please drop the sound blockade for three minutes.” Navaa lays a confident hand on my shoulder. I’m not loving the idea of being touched by her, especially while I don’t feel at my fighting best, but I suppose I’ll have to go with it.

Navaa’s eyes slowly close. She takes three deep breaths. Then, the very air in the small space becomes charged, and there is a smell. It reminds me of the woods at the base when the sky goes yellow, right before a big storm breaks. Navaa opens her mouth and, well, it isn’t singing as much as her own vocal cords being bowed over one another. It’s more instrumental than simple humming.

I can feel the power she is pulling from me. This is my tone, from my Earth that I’m hearing, the one that’s playing at the same frequency in my head. And then, I see it. At first it is a tiny dot of green. A neon speck that begins to spin out like a pinwheel firecracker. The noise in my head goes away. The proximity of the Rift is somehow dampening it. The green looms larger and larger, changing color and form from eggplant purple to jet-black. This is the Rift to my home. Navaa has actually done it.

My mouth gapes and then she takes her hand off my shoulder and the portal closes in on itself and disappears. Navaa simply looks at me with her eyebrows raised.

“How many Citadels can do this?” I ask in a rush. I don’t know what just happened. I’m not even sure something did happen. It must have, but I can’t get my mind to believe what my eyes have just seen.

“I don’t have exact numbers. Eighty-seven on this Earth. I don’t think the Karekin or Settiku Hesh have this ability, and I’m fairly certain they didn’t give this mutation to the Akshaji because they are too unpredictable.”

“That’s a diplomatic way of saying they seem to like all the killing, right?”

“Yes. The Akshaji are a race we haven’t had any luck with in terms of recon. Hopefully, with the humans as allies, that will change. Either way, I don’t know. It could be hundreds, or thousands. I don’t even know if the gift works the same way in all the different races.”

“And you really don’t know why? I mean it’s a cool trick, but we’re soldiers. They trained us to fight big scary things. How does this ability help with that?”

“I honestly do not know. My best guess is to have a force of Citadels that can ferret out and capture enemies that are hiding on an Earth they don’t belong in. Rogue Rifters cannot hide from a Kir-Abisat.” All I can do is sigh in frustration. The Faida may look like celestial beings, but they certainly don’t have all the answers.

She must sense my anxiety. “I am offering my help. It isn’t easy, but as a Citadel you already understand discipline and focus. You have the tools. I can teach you how to use them. However …”

“However, it requires trust, from both of us,” I finish for her.

She nods.

There’s nothing I would love more than to trust the Faida completely, but they are wily and arrogant. Sure, I think they want to be on the same side as the humans in defeating the Roones, but I get the feeling that they want to be in charge—both during and after. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this whole crazy mess it’s that I’m not giving up my power to anyone, ever again. Still, if things continue going as they are, I won’t be much use to anyone in this condition. I don’t think I have much of a choice.

“I can see how I would have to trust you,” I begin as I fold my hands together on my lap. I want Navaa to see that I’m open, amiable. “I don’t know why you would need to trust me. I can’t transfer this noise into your head.”

“No. But you could open a Rift and I could get drawn into it. That’s why I need to get a gauge on how far this ability of yours goes. What if your trigger is emotion? What if you’re angry while walking down one of our hallways and accidentally open a Rift there? I don’t know what you can do, so I need you to show me, to prove you aren’t a threat.”

“But the sound blockade—” I begin to protest.

“You got through the sound blockade. Maybe it was your enhanced technology, but maybe not.”

“Fine,” I tell her because something has to give, one way or another. “What do I have to do?”

CHAPTER 5

Navaa rises gracefully from the bed and walks across the concrete floor. “Stand.” Navaa has both arms reached out, palms up. I go over to her and put myself in front of her hands. “May I touch you?”

I’m not gay or bi and on this Earth pansexuality could be the norm or it could be unheard of, so it doesn’t really matter, but I joke anyway, “Aren’t you worried about the Blood Lust?”

“‘Blood Lust?’”

“Yeah—you know …”

And then it hits me: she may not know. I think of how easily Arif took me in his arms and carried me up to the level with our rooms. He didn’t even hesitate. Do they all have control over it, or …

“The Roones—they didn’t … change you, did they? Turn your sexuality against you?”

“What? How do you mean?”

So I tell her. About the abuse we’d experienced, and how it manifested. I gloss over some of the parts—no need for her to learn about the soap opera developing between me and Ezra—but for some reason it feels good to tell someone else who would actually understand what it means to be manipulated by the Roones.

After a moment, the look around Navaa’s eyes softens, but the last thing I want is pity. They don’t have the Blood Lust, but then again, neither do I now.

“Do whatever you need to,” I tell her quickly, wanting to be done with this conversation. Still, my instincts are hammering away at my gut like a battering ram. Not because of the Blood Lust, but just at the thought of making myself so vulnerable to such a powerful woman.

“I’m just going to place my hands on your shoulders,” she tells me as she does so. “It is easy to get lost in the noise and it’s important that you have an anchor in these early stages. You may experience vertigo or lose your sense of time and space. The pressure of my fingers will remind you that you are here and you are not falling.”

“Great. Sounds awesome,” I say in English under my breath.

Navaa chooses to ignore me, but I think she gets the tone. “Now, close your eyes and focus on the sounds inside of your mind. The pain is coming from dissonance. The strongest frequency is the one that belongs to you, but the others are fragments of tones that you have pulled along with you from the Rift. You are the boat, the water is the Rift, and the wake is all the different Earths that linger.”

I do as Navaa instructs, or at least I try to. It isn’t just a question of hearing all these different tones. If it was only hearing, I could probably ignore it or tune it out. But the sounds are trapped inside of me and not just in my brain. There isn’t a stretch of my skin or a bone or a joint that isn’t filled with noise. Navaa had been right. Giving in to this is disorienting and I am surprisingly glad of her sure and steady hands on my shoulders. “All you are hearing right now is the disparate tones, but what you can’t yet discern is the rhythm. This is what regulates this ability. We are all creatures of rhythm. Our hearts beat steadily. Our pulse and blood keep the same time. There is a clock inside of every living creature that tells us when to sleep and when to awaken. This is what you must tap into. Start with your own heartbeat. Find it. Concentrate on that.”

Navaa takes my hand and pushes it up to my neck, to my carotid artery, and I am grateful. I’m not sure I would have found it without being able to actually feel it first.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Once I lock on to it, I wrap it around me like a blanket knit of heat and sinew. I find my pulse everywhere—inside my chest, in the veins running up and down my arms—and slowly, the noise, which was a constant thrum, begins to echo in the short bursts of my own beating heart.

“I have it,” I tell her.

“Excellent, just keep at it. Hold on to it. Its nature will change. The Kir-Abisat is like an excited animal snarling and leaping, pulling against its leash, but eventually, your focus will make it heel. Tell me when you get to the point that aligning the noise with the rhythm is no longer a struggle.”

Navaa’s analogy is a good one. This ability of mine feels wild and untethered, but after a few long moments, the fight in it subsides. My head doesn’t hurt. The sound is there, pulsing, but it’s like hearing music in another room. “Okay, okay, it’s more controlled now,” I tell my guide.

“That’s good. That was fast. Let’s just see, shall we, if we can get you to sing one of those tones. Perhaps the loudest one, the song from home.”

“Wait, what?” I ask, my eyes flying open. “I’m not ready to do that. I don’t know if I ever want to do that. I’m only listening to you now because I don’t want to walk around with an amplifier in my head all the time.”

“Some people are afraid of weapons,” Navaa’s voice lulls just inches away from my ear. “They find it distasteful to even touch one. A soldier does not have that kind of philosophical leeway. If it’s possible for you to open a Rift, then you must learn how. You cannot waste the tactical advantage.”

Damn—she’s right. Of course she’s right. But there is something about this that terrifies me.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” I tell Navaa honestly.

“It’s a question of multitasking,” she tells me. I look slightly over my shoulder at her tapered fingers and the slight curve of a wing. “It’s like playing an instrument. You must always keep time; your muscles know how to keep the beat going, but then your fingers play the melody. This is no different.”

I did use to play the cello. I would have never made it professionally as a musician, but I had some talent. Maybe that’s why the Roones chose to insert this mutation into my genome. “Fine. All right,” I relent. “You want me to sing?”

“I want you to become the tone. You start with your voice, but you must try to pull it out from every inch of your being. It should feel more like a meditation than singing a simple song.”

I close my eyes again. The noise is still tethered to my heartbeat, but with considerable effort I am able to find the strongest frequency. I clamp down with my molars. This feels dumb and wrong, but I suppose I have to see how far this ability goes as much for Navaa as for myself. I begin to hum with clenched teeth, matching my own pitch to the one I hear. And then, something shifts. I feel my entire body relax as if I was slipping into a warm bath. I open my mouth and eyes and continue to sing, although that word no longer applies. Navaa is right. The frequency of home infiltrates every cell of my body. I become the tone.

Within seconds a green neon dot appears on the plaster wall in front of us. The dot begins to spread out, but only a little. It isn’t the spinning pinwheel of Navaa’s Kir-Abisat. This is a shimmering circle. It is a small, glimmering thing, certainly not big enough for me, or anyone else to slip through unless they were action figure size. I sing louder but the circle doesn’t grow, and it doesn’t change into the inky black of a Rift that’s ready to take on riders.

“Stop,” Navaa says loudly.

“What? I can do it. I think. Maybe?”

I turn around and face Navaa. Her heart rate has increased and there is a faint crease between her brows.

“Possibly,” she says with concern. “But you shouldn’t have been able to get that far. The sound blockade is up again.”

I practically grunt in frustration. “Then why did you have me even try?”

“I wanted to see and now I know. Your Kir-Abisat gene has expressed itself differently. Like everything else with the humans.

“The Roones have made you stronger.”

CHAPTER 6

Navaa has said nothing more about what had transpired in the cell. I don’t think she’s concerned that I will open a giant Rift because of a bad mood or because someone pissed me off. I’m nowhere near being able to do that, even by accident. Still, I’m quite impressed with my first attempt at opening a Rift. It wasn’t anywhere near usable, but it was green. However, I am an unknown. I think she had dismissed us human Citadels as petulant and possibly easy to maneuver. Spending time with me, she is beginning to understand that while we are young, we have been forged in pain and sacrifice, just as her own people were. Our strength and my Kir-Abisat ability is not what she expected. Soldiers don’t like the unexpected.

She has taken me to the floor above. Well, she flew there in the cave elevator. I took the stairs. These are the living quarters, large wooden doors running down what looks like an almost endless hallway. There are plush rugs on a wide-planked floor and gorgeous oil pictures with no frames. The Faida are confounding. They enjoy their luxuries, but don’t seem to want to admit that they do.

My room is across from Levi’s and beside Ezra’s. I have promised Navaa that she can look at our SenMach computers, as long as all of us are present. She is concerned about the sound blockade and the technology we used to get through it. I told her that even her most gifted computer scientists would not be able to get into our system. I understand why she’d be worried, though, and there might be something that we can do to help boost the sound blockade’s efficiency without it interfering with us being able to Rift out if somehow this all goes to shit (which, let’s face it, is a distinct possibility given my luck).

I dump my things in my room and take a look at the accommodation. The bed is unnaturally large with a fluffy duvet that must be three inches thick. Several leather books are lined up in a built-in bookshelf, and a delicate glass lamp sits on a bedside table. There is also a tall wooden armoire. When I open the two doors, I expect to see maybe a TV, but there are only hangers and drawers. Are humans the only race to have TV? I feel like we might be. Those bear people certainly aren’t sitting around watching some bear equivalent to Downton Abbey, that’s for sure. I continue my exploration of the room and find a small electronic panel on the wall hidden behind a piece of carved wood. There are controls here, for the lights and temperature. There is also a mystery button, which I push. Suddenly, two Faida are in the room speaking about the current unrest. I crane my neck and find a holographic projection system in the corners of the ceiling. It makes sense; the two are arguing in a studio behind a large desk, so the image isn’t life-size and I can tell it isn’t real—more like a diorama. I press the button again. If this is what passes for entertainment on the Faida Earth, no thanks. Even if there is a way to change the channel, it seems like a pretty dumb question to ask given what’s going on. Besides, my head is still pounding, and my hair and neck are sticky from the pig debacle. I have done enough today. More than enough. It’s time for a shower and that insanely comfortable-looking bed.

The next morning everyone assembles in the mess hall for breakfast. Like everywhere else on the compound, the dining room is awash with contradictions. The tables are all rustic wood but covered in fancy, starched white tablecloths. Food is set up buffet style in large ceramic dishes over blue flame warmers on either side of the room.

The three of us humans sit together at a table in awkward silence. I’m not exactly sure what it is that I’m eating. I think it’s a sort of oatmeal, it’s the same color, anyway, but it tastes more of corn and cinnamon. There is enough to look at so that we don’t have to look at one another. The Faida Citadels with their angel-like plumage are gape worthy. Is no one ugly on this Earth? Or even average? I don’t know their long and intricate history, but if I had to guess, I would say somewhere along the way there was some kind of eugenics program. It wouldn’t just explain their common coloring, but also why they would be so casual about the altered Roones “perfecting” their genome. I’m white—super white—but the lack of diversity among the Faida makes me intensely uncomfortable. I stare at the mushy lumps in my bowl, at the unblemished tablecloth and the wooden fork that looks like something you could buy on Etsy. I look at everything except the two young men I am seated with.

I wonder if the Faida catch this. I am hoping from their perspective the fact that we aren’t gabbing makes us look more badass. I would be mortified if they knew this is teenage drama being played out in front of all of them.

When we are done, we are escorted down two levels to the science lab. This place, at least, has very little of the rustic charm that has otherwise been inescapable here. There are wood beams of course, buttressing the ceiling, but other than that there are actual stainless steel and computers. The huge room is sectioned off. On the far right, based on the refrigerators and freezers and various microscopes, I’m guessing it’s for biologists or chemists or both. There is another area with equipment that I don’t recognize but looks pretty high-tech—although that’s pretty relative at this point considering I’ve been to an Earth populated by robots.

We are herded into a space with multiple terminals and what looks like a long line of data storage towers, blinking red and orange, lined up against the wall. Navaa and Arif introduce us to Hanniah, who is clearly a scientist (lab coat). Not sure if she’s a Citadel, even less sure if that matters. We ask Doe to show them the code that boosted our QOINS and begin to work on their sound blockade. Ezra is intrigued entirely by this tech—even more so when one of the glowing tendrils shocks the hell out of him when he attempts to tamper with the space bar.

Ezra volunteers to stay, which is convenient because I was going to ask him to anyway. Levi and I excuse ourselves. Ezra is so enraptured that he barely notices, which leaves me feeling surprisingly relieved.

Arif catches up with us on our way out of the lab. “We have a busy day today,” he says amiably. “However, one of the other Citadels can show you around the compound, even take you out of it and into the city if you wish.”

I glance at Levi. We have a body language shorthand now. One slight tilt of the head. A furtive look to the right. I know we are both thinking the same thing.

“That’s very kind of you, but I believe our time would be better spent debriefing in our quarters, thank you.” Arif shrugs amiably, and Levi and I head to my room.

We walk there in silence and I close the massive wooden door to my quarters and lean my body against it. Levi sits on the lushly piled rug and leans against the bed.

The bed frame is so high that his entire back is bolstered by it. We don’t say anything to each other, not at first. Soon enough there will be plenty of words and so we enjoy a few blissful moments of quiet.

Today we’re going to do our homework. We’re going to be soldiers. We’re going to pore over every intel file we have on the other Citadel races. We’re going to learn their languages. We’re going to see how they fight. And we’re going to make sure that Iathan and the Roones back on their Earth aren’t hiding anything from us. I’m not about to get blindsided again.

“Okay,” he says finally, snapping me out of my own head. “Where do you want to start?”

“With the Spiradaels. Those pig things ate the one hostage we had, and I want to know more about them.”

“I don’t think they can be turned, Ryn.”

“Neither do I. I just want to figure out the best way to kill them.”

“Other than getting eaten by pigs?” He holds up his hand to make it clear that’s a joke and pulls out his laptop so we can begin.

We spend hours learning the Spiradaels’ guttural language, which lacks any sort of flair and only a handful of words that are more than three syllables. We study the footage we have of the giant spindly Citadel race. We watch how they use their hair as a razor-like whip. We see how they block and punch. From fighting them personally, I know they don’t use their legs. It’s all upper body with them. I think I understand it now. It seems the joints on their arms, necks, and shoulders allow them to contort these appendages almost 360 degrees. I don’t think their knees do the same, so they focus on the chest and hair to win.

Over and over again we watch their fighting style and then we practice on each other, blocking and overcoming Spiradael attacks. I never could understand why the Blood Lust never kicked in during sparring, but it never has. This is just yet another mystery of how ARC works—how specific they were when they programmed us with the Blood Lust. It never interferes with our ability to fight an enemy. It only inserts itself if we try to have a life off the battlefield. After we finish with the Spiradaels, we begin with the Orsalines.

It takes all of an hour and forty-five minutes to learn their language. They simply don’t have that many words. I still can’t believe the altered Roones would choose them. If their genetic fuckery is this big gift, why waste it on dumb bear people? The secret must lie in not just their strength, which I am learning is far greater than I gave them credit for, but their devotion to the altered Roones. It’s religious with the Orsalines. They’re zealots and that might make them the most dangerous Citadels of all.

Levi and I study their fighting style. It’s actually not so much a style as out-and-out berserker mode. They don’t kick, because, well, bear legs. They don’t exactly punch, either, as much as they do maul. Mostly what they do is either claw opponents to death or squeeze them until their organs burst. Sometimes, they will just hurl a boulder at them. Or a tree.

Once again, Levi and I do maneuvers and I am grateful for this huge, almost empty room with its cathedral-like ceilings so that we can use the walls and beams to hang and jump from. Technically, we are stronger than the Orsalines. We have more physical strength than any other Citadel, but I would hate to be on the receiving end of one of those hugs. We each find effective ways to get out of these holds and how to keep moving to make sure their nails can’t get at us. They couldn’t penetrate the uniform, of course, but a lucky swipe at the neck while going for the face would lead to death pretty quickly.

After that, we hurry ourselves to the canteen, grab something that looks like a sandwich with some kind of meat and bottles of water with additional electrolytes. We’ve got a lot of work to do and not much time until the council we’ve agreed to have tomorrow.

The Daithi are the next Citadels we study. Their language is nuanced and many words are difficult to pronounce as they don’t use a lot of vowels, almost like Welsh. While the pronunciation and grammar is harder to grasp, the Daithi lexicon is more straightforward than most. There are very few words that mean the same thing, and it is abnormally absent of adverbs and adjectives. It is a language of nouns and verbs, of naming and doing. This in and of itself gives us further insight into their culture. The Daithi are as small as children, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. They are remarkably fast and their fighting style is more like a dance than combat. They move in quickly with deadly accuracy and move to another place in the blink of an eye. The Daithi rarely block. They seem to have little use for defensive fighting because in the footage we’ve seen where they engage, no one—not even the Settiku Hesh—gets close enough to land a punch.