The Rift Uprising

When our rotation is up, we take the transport back to base. My team is unusually quiet.

I wonder if my team is annoyed at me for leaving without saying good-bye, but I don’t provide a reason for leaving and they don’t ask for one. I wonder, too, if Henry had to step in at some point and make sure Boone and Vi didn’t spend too much time alone. That would be reason enough for all three of them to be irritated.

When we arrive back at the base we go to our separate changing rooms and dress for training. Our training uniforms are much like our combat ones, only black and with less padding. The four of us spend an hour doing circuit training, which is kind of like an amped-up version of CrossFit, in the facility’s large gym. Then we spend another hour working on agility and hand-to-hand combat skills in a different part of the building that is a huge room with padded floors divided into dozens of small rings. We do a lot of stretching to keep our muscles limber and flexible—Violet has us all beat on this front, but what’s always so surprising is how giant Henry can contort his body.

Like I said: every gay guy’s fantasy come true, and probably most straight women’s, when it comes down to it.

Then we spar in a style that is, for the most part, mixed martial arts but with an emphasis on a particular martial art given our individual strengths. For me, it’s Krav Maga.

When that’s done, we spend an hour outside with weapons. The base already had a significant target range; our group just enhanced it. We shoot for a while. Then we practice knife throwing—at the same distance we shot. Sometimes we work with explosives. We know how to build bombs and how to detonate much more sophisticated ones. Sometimes we do survival weaponry, which means we learn how to turn a dead branch into a spear, or we make our own arrows from flint and fallen logs. There is an array of bows hidden throughout the forest, just in case things get truly terrible and we run out of ammo. This hour also sometimes incorporates survival training. We hunt game and learn how to skin and cook it. We learn about the medicinal properties of plants and how to make a fire without matches. The boys universally love this hour—some of the girls do, too, but it really feeds into all the boys’ Red Dawn fantasies. I generally excel when I’m in survival mode, but please, give me a hot shower and a comfortable bed any day.

For the last hour of training we run. As Citadels, we run fast and we run hard. Our speed is inhuman, almost faster than a human eye can track. There is a number that we have maxed out at, miles-per-hour-wise, but I prefer not to know it. They were smart like that, to give us the choice. Some people like Boone and Henry want to know how fast the fastest Citadel can run. Me? I prefer not to know. I don’t want to know my limits. I don’t want to have to make those calculations in my head if I am fleeing a nightmare. I’d rather go on thinking I have a fighting chance to escape to safety or, at least, to fight another day.

Of course, I don’t like running. For one thing, I prefer fighting rather than fleeing, and I’d rather spend my time training at that more. Hell, I think I may even prefer hunting and skinning to running. Sure, it’s vital that we keep our stamina up, but I find it so … stupid.

Maybe I should clarify: I don’t dislike racing through the uneven terrain of the camp because it’s exhausting—it takes a lot more than that to tire out a Citadel, even after the three hours of training that went on before—it’s just, well, boring. Henry, as well as other Citadels, finds the running soothing, like meditation. I wish I could zone out like that. My brain won’t stop turning, though. I’m always imagining other things I could be doing, would rather be doing, like reading or watching some lame TV show (if I’m being completely honest with myself).

Thankfully, it’s not only running we do. Very rarely are we on clear terrain, so it’s crucial that we use the trees and other aspects of the forest to give us an advantage: a kind of bastardized version of parkour. We don’t use traditional obstacle courses and obviously we aren’t around much cement. But the woods provide more than enough to work with. We spin and leap and flip over rock formations and logs. We use the soft moss covering the firs to swing for momentum and jump down. We use the massive tree trunks by pushing the tread of our boots into the bark for traction to spring up and out in any direction. I prefer this to running. As a woman I can use my flexibility to my advantage and my light weight to scramble up places that are almost impossible for someone like Henry to get to.

More important, this comes naturally to me, and unlike while sprinting along the roads of Camp Bonneville, I can let my mind wander. So today I use this hour to strategize even as I leap through and fly over the green and brown at my feet. My focus: I have a way to get into the Village.

The problem is, I have no real idea what the Village is like inside. Citadels who are old enough to work there are not permitted to talk about what goes on with those of us who aren’t. As soldiers, we accept the hierarchy of secrets. It has always made sense to me before, but as I look at it now, it seems illogical. Why does the Village even need to be a secret? What is ARC hiding from us there?

And now my imagination is in full overdrive.

They wouldn’t make Immigrants live in tents, would they? Always cold, never truly comfortable. Surely they would have built proper barracks. If they imagine Immigrants living out their natural lives in the Village, then even barracks wouldn’t cut it. They must have prefab homes, even neighborhoods. Maybe. Or maybe it’s built like a prison. Maybe they keep the Immigrants in cells, behind bars. The idea of that makes me suddenly nauseous.

How can I not know?

And the answer is more than just how well ARC keeps its secrets. The fact is, it’s been three years and all I’ve thought about is The Rift. I have been obsessed with keeping everyone safe: my fellow soldiers, my family. I don’t know why that concern has never extended as far as the Village, and I am ashamed. The Immigrants, as part of this Earth now, deserve my protection, too.

I jump ten feet in the air, grab a tree branch, swing myself up onto a thick limb, and squat down, bracing my back up against the trunk. I guess I have chalked up what happens with the Immigrants to bad luck. That’s my go-to response—it’s like cancer or a hurricane or a car accident.

Like getting chosen to be a Citadel. The bitterness of this thought surprises me.

And like us, they get pulled here terribly, but it’s beyond anyone’s control. Vi brings it up a lot, and I am forever changing the subject. Don’t we have enough to worry about? That’s been my excuse. As I’ve gotten older, the excuse has worn thin. I am getting past my own bad luck. I suppose this is what it means to grow up. You realize that everyone has something dark and hidden that seems colossally unfair. It’s not right anymore that I should just dismiss these other stories out of hand because mine feels so much worse. The truth is that, compared to nearly getting raped like Flora, or a lifetime in a wheelchair because of an accident, or losing your mom to breast cancer like Boone did when he was only nine, my story is definitely not worse.

I leap down and start running again. I hear the others swish through the undergrowth not too far away, and I know they’re focusing on their own training. I get back to musing.

Once I get into the Village, though, then what? I have to find Ezra, obviously. But, just as obvious, that won’t be easy. I will need help with that. And then, once I do find him, what am I supposed to say? We can’t go off and talk. We can’t go for coffee and compare life stories. I will have to remain with him wherever he is and hope I can get a few minutes of privacy. Given that I know nothing about the Village, this could be a tall order.

When our hour is up, I realize I’m still basically nowhere in terms of a plan.

We run back to the base. Upon arriving down in the facility we are given a massive protein drink that the doctors and scientists must watch us finish before our training is officially over. We expend so many calories a day, and this elixir, invented by the Roones, keeps our nutrition up. As I gulp down the shake, I see Boone is almost finished with his. I need to catch him before he goes into his locker room.

“Boone,” I say, grabbing his arm before he can leave.

“Yeah?” Boone has a towel and he’s wiping off the sweat and grime of our training.

I take a deep breath. I try to sound casual. “Can you do me a favor and ask Levi to meet me at Old Town Burger before he goes home? I know he just got off duty, so he should be in there changing.”

Boone smirks. “Levi, huh?” He crosses his arms and cocks his head. “Well, does Saint Ryn have the hots for someone?” I do not smile—if anything, I do the opposite of smile—and the grin on Boone’s face disappears. “Fine, but don’t expect me to pass him any notes in math class, okay? I’ll ask him, then leave me out of it. That guy is bad news, Ryn.”

Boone is sneering and I’m a little shocked. I know what happened with Levi and Ingrid—it’s common knowledge that they tried to have sex and failed. It was consensual, something they both wanted, and everyone knows that, too. Is Boone blaming Levi for that? I suppose Boone’s own predicament with Violet makes him sensitive to the issue. I don’t get any more insights from him and he disappears through his locker room door. I walk to the other side of the hall and go into mine.

I shower quickly and throw my hair up into one giant knot on my head. On go my yoga pants. I pair them with Converse and an old T-shirt of my mom’s with some grunge band on it that she used to love. I look at myself in the mirror and, unlike the way I felt on the night of Flora’s party, I’m not thrilled with what I see. I don’t care about impressing Levi, but I am beginning to think that at some point I should put a little more effort into the way I present myself to the world. Maybe going to the party awoke something in me that had long been dormant. That thought seems way more exhausting than the four hours of training I just put in, though.

I take the train to the school. I don’t need to worry about driving Abel because he has football practice and Mom will pick him up on her way home. The burger restaurant is almost exactly across the street from Battle Ground High. When I walk in, there are about a dozen students, and Levi is waiting at one of the only free tables. He must have been on the train before me. I slide into the booth so that we are facing each other.

“That was fast,” he says by way of a hello.

“Yeah, well, I just jumped in the shower and got the first train I could.” I say this impassively. I don’t want Levi thinking that I was racing to meet him.

“No, I mean that you want to use your favor pretty quickly. I have to admit I’m curious. Obviously, I can’t give you just anything.” He smirks and leans back in the booth, every gesture dripping with aggression. Even his neutral look smolders. Wait. When he said anything, did he mean his body? Does he think because he admitted to me that I was an actual girl, with boobs, that I want to confess my love to him or something? I don’t know a lot about guys, but I know it doesn’t take much to get one sexually attracted to you. Does he actually believe I’m naive enough to confuse normal teenage lust with real feelings? Is this his version of flirting?

I’m so out of my element, I wonder if this is everyone’s version of flirting. But Levi is so singular in his wretchedness, I have to think it’s just him.

“Uhh …” I pause, because even though I am itching to tell him that he is not actually God’s gift to the universe and that, no, I am not interested in him in that way, I need him to agree to this. If I piss him off, he won’t. If I butter him up too much, though, he won’t do it just to spite me.

He’s like an enigma wrapped in a mystery wearing a smirk that makes me want to never stop slapping him.

Instead, I take a deep breath and decide to just take the plunge. “Well, there is actually one thing you can do …” He raises an eyebrow in question. “I need you to get me into the Village.” I smile brightly, innocently. Levi does not return the smile. Instead he glowers at me. An awkward silence settles between us and my smile fades.

Levi’s lip curls sufficiently high to almost reach his eyeball. “What?” he demands. “No, even better: Why?”

“I captured an MTI from The Rift. He was very nice, very confused, obviously. And then I promised him I would come and see him and make sure he was okay.” This is not a lie. It isn’t the whole entire truth, but I am not lying to him. It feels good.

“Oh,” Levi responds coolly. He’s clearly unimpressed with my answer. “I get it, you have a crush on a boy. So you want me to help you break into one of the most heavily guarded areas on Earth so you can—what? Ask him to homecoming?” Levi laughs, and there’s a cutting cruelty to it that makes my cheeks burn.

“Don’t laugh. It’s not funny,” I protest, my back straightening. “I don’t have a crush on him. I don’t even know him. I just made a promise. It was a stupid promise, I know, but I did it and after what he’s been through I don’t want to be an asshole … not that you’d know what not being an asshole is like.”

“Ooh, you got me!” he says, grabbing at his chest like he’s wounded. He really is an asshole. He sits up. “Listen, Ryn, he’s going to be in there for the rest of his life. Just wait until next year, when you turn eighteen. You’ll get assigned a Village rotation. You can see him then.” Something about the way Levi says it—with such obvious disdain—it’s like it just doesn’t compute that there is anyone on Earth who can compare with him, especially an Immigrant, and he thought it was important I know that.

I bite my tongue and count to five in my head. I need him to help me. It’s taking a lot of work not to antagonize him. I lean in close so that no one else can overhear. “I don’t understand—aren’t we both on the same side here? I’m a Citadel, you’re a Citadel. I’m not a spy. I don’t see what the problem is. In fact, I don’t see what the big deal is in general. What is it with the Village that we aren’t supposed to see it till we are eighteen?”

“Seriously?” Levi asks through gritted teeth, in a voice just barely above a whisper but stern enough to get my adrenaline going. “It’s fucking monsters and demons and crazy shit that we don’t even have words for in the English language, it’s so out there. It’s also normal people like you and me who will basically be in prison, not because they are criminals, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So yeah, they don’t want kids near there.”

“I am not a kid.”

Levi lets out a loud, disrespectful laugh. “A kid calls in a marker to go and meet a boy regardless of consequences. Grown-ups don’t do shit like that. You’re so immature. I can’t believe you’re a team leader. I wouldn’t let you be in charge of a picnic. I wouldn’t let you babysit my cousin, and she’s ten.”

It hurts, and it hurts more than I thought it would. I couldn’t care less if he liked me or not, but to not respect me?

“You are so mean, Levi. Honestly, you’re the meanest person I know. Why are you acting this way? Why would you even say that? We’ve fought side by side and I’ve held my own. I deal with those monsters and demons and whatever all the time! I’ve saved people and put the safety of my team before my own. You’ve seen that! So why say such horrible things to me? I am not an adult. You’re right. But you’re going to sit there like a pompous jerk and tell me grown-ups are smarter? ‘Grown-ups,’” I say, using my hands to make quotation marks, “are the reason you and I will never have a normal life. Adults opened The Rift and they made children police it. Adults are the reason you and Ingrid nearly killed each other.”

Levi gives me a dead-level stare. He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you went there.”

“I went there and I’ll go further. Either you help me or I tell Flora the real deal about us. I miss your sister. I would love nothing more than to tell her the truth, so please give me a reason to.” The fury is building inside of him, I can see it. Levi clenches his fists and releases them.