The Rift Coda

“Ryn!”

I’m asleep.

I cannot be asleep.

CHAPTER 2 (#ubca2da7c-28d1-5585-ad0f-d48d883733ff)

What a shitty dream. I open my eyes and blink. It’s really bright. I put a hand up to my forehead so that I can see. I can’t make out anything, just two shapes, blobs really.

“She’s coming out of it,” I hear one voice say.

“Yeah, man, I can see that. Just back off, okay? You have zero medical training and I don’t want to have to get into it with you again about all the things you aren’t trained for that you insist on being a part of no matter how much danger you put people in,” another voice slaps back.

I suddenly know exactly where I am.

With Levi and Ezra.

Are they seriously fighting right now? As far as I can remember, which all things considered, might not be the most accurate, we have Rifted onto a Pandora Earth. This is an Earth that has been randomly selected by our computer program so as not to lead hostiles—or in our case, potential hostiles—straight to our Command Center. And we were fighting. We were all fighting … pigs?

What the fuck?

There was me and Ezra and Levi and … who else? Right, the Karekins. Like Vlock. He died, though—on the other Earth. I struggle to remember where we are and so I start the running tally again: it’s me, Ezra, Levi, and not the Karekins, but rather the Faida. We Rifted from the Spiradael Earth with the Faida Citadels who look like angels and claim to be on our side, but I have ridiculous trust issues—for very good reasons, I might add. So I can’t be sure of them.

Or anything really.

I am pretty sure I’ve hit my head. My tongue feels too big and my skull, while not actively painful, seems like it belongs to someone else.

“Did we win?” I croak.

“Uh. Sure,” Levi answers noncommittally.

“Did I get knocked out?”

Levi frowns, though the gesture is only apparent in his eyes. The rest of his face remains a mystery. He could be worried. He could be pissed off. Or both. Or neither. It’s never easy with Levi. “You got a kind of a tusk thing stabbed into your neck.” I narrow my eyes at him. I was stabbed? And I don’t remember? “We Rifted out. Again. Because those pigs, or whatever they were, would not stop coming. We must have killed six hundred or seven hundred of them, but they were everywhere. It came down to numbers that we didn’t have. Retreat was the best option.”

I blink my eyes hard trying to get them to focus. “The pigs I remember. Unfortunately, but the rest is … I don’t know …”

Levi sighs. “I had to put you out. Sedate you. It was bad, Ryn. You lost a lot of blood.”

“But you have the SenMach patches. You didn’t need to drug me,” I tell him angrily.

“Look.” Levi’s tone has just gone from sort of concerned to downright defensive. “We heal fast, but we aren’t magical. The only way to accelerate the healing process is sleep. Rest. So that’s what we’ve been letting you do for the past two hours while the boy wonder and I”—Levi gestures flippantly to Ezra—“had to hang out here with Lucifer and the Morningstars. Hasn’t been awkward at all.”

“Fine. Sorry, but I’m okay now.” I try to get up, but the moment I do, I start seeing little black dots bouncing around my sight line and my body suddenly feels like it weighs a ton. I sit back down abruptly.

“You’re not okay, actually. You need more rest,” Levi tells me. Or possibly orders me. But it doesn’t matter. Rest isn’t an option right now.

“I don’t. I need water and some of those cubes from the SenMachs. You’re the one who said I lost a lot of blood.” Instead of answering, Levi just folds his arms and stares at me.

“Give her the water, Levi. And the other thing, whatever it is. Ryn knows her limits,” Ezra says with authority. I’m not sure where exactly this authority is coming from, because Levi could beat him seven ways to Sunday with one finger.

“Okay,” he relents as he gets the stuff out of his pack. It’s only then that I realize I’m actually lying on my own bag. “But I need to examine you.”

Levi holds out a canteen and the gel cubes and I snatch both away. “Like I wouldn’t let you examine me,” I chide. “I was stabbed. By a giant pig. You can look at my wound.” I keep drinking and then I pop a few of the cubes into my mouth.

I bend my head down and Levi approaches. I suppose I should be worried about the Blood Lust activating. He’s not cured and he’s about to touch me, but I know that I am safe. There’s too much going on. We’re God-knows-where surrounded by twenty questionable Citadels. Levi’s guard is up. He’s nowhere close to being turned on.

And God knows I couldn’t feel less sexy at the moment.

I feel his hand gently pull my hair away from the nape of my neck. His touch is tender but efficient. He seals the SenMach biopatch down on my skin and into my hairline. “I could take it off to check the wound again, but I might have to hack through some of your hair. I think we should just let it be for now,” he tells me as he sits back down on his haunches.

“That’s your crack analysis? The Band-Aid is still on?” I ask while slowly bringing my head back up again. The water and food has helped, but I feel weak and groggy from the drugs. “The SenMach tech can do more than stitch up a cut. You know that.”

Levi’s lips purse. I get it. He’s being protective over one of the biggest advantages we have—technology from a race of androids, the SenMachs. Still, now is not the time to be coy. I need to make sure I’m okay. I look past Levi’s shoulders to the group of Faida who are, thankfully, not in any kind of defensive formation but are instead talking in low tones to one another. Although that could be equally as dangerous …

Worry about that later. First, get better.

“Do it, Levi.”

“Fine. Computer! SenMach Computer—” Levi awkwardly spits out.

“Oh my God. Just let me.” I interrupt because I already feel weird enough, and I don’t need Levi’s anxious fumbling to make me feel even more out of it. “Doe,” I say into my cuff softly, “take bio readings from the cuff. Report on my medical status.”

“I will need a drone scan to get a more accurate diagnosis,” Doe’s ghostlike voice says as it floats up from my wrist. Instead of saying anything, I raise an eyebrow at Levi who looks really irritated now.

“You want to risk letting the Faida see one of those?” he asks me.

“Uh, yeah, cuz I don’t feel right and I don’t know if it’s the drugs or brain damage. So all things considered, we should take the risk.”

Levi growls, but he does open up his pack again to release a small oval-shaped silver drone. He then pulls Ezra hastily over to him so that they both are blocking any view of what is happening from the Faida. I appreciate Levi’s vigilance, but in this case it’s unnecessary. Showing the Faida what we have might lead to an uncomfortable conversation, but they’d never be able to use our tech. It was designed for us and us alone, and it’s unhackable.

The drone hovers just a few inches above my chest and then, from its middle, where the alloy has the thinnest of lines, a blue flash scans my body. When it’s done, Levi grabs the thing and shoves it quickly back into his pack as if it was a kilo of heroin. He’s just being plain paranoid now. I look past him to the Faida who are watching. I strain to listen, but they are speaking Faida, which I don’t speak. Yet. One thing at a time, though.

“You had a deep laceration running 5.3 inches from the middle of your neck to your skull between the occipital lobes. You lost 1.3 liters of blood. I would recommend a further eight hours of rest and minimal activity. There is tissue damage that is still being healed,” Doe’s voice tells me with the kind of distanced candor I’d expect from an AI modeled after a robot modeled after Tim Riggins.

“Can I fight?” I ask quietly. I’m fairly sure the Faida don’t speak English as we had been communicating in Roonish, but I’m not about to risk it.

“If necessary, but I would recommend against it.” There’s an oddly judge-y tone to Doe’s voice.

“Fine. I will do my best to keep this civil,” I say out loud to Doe. But it’s also for the benefit of both Ezra and Levi, so they know that, at the very least, I’m going to try and talk with my mouth and not my fists. I slowly get up. Levi does not assist me because he’s well aware that I’ve already shown enough weakness.

I stand up and straighten my spine. I plant my feet into the earth to steady myself. I’m not even sure which has me so off my game, the blood loss or the drugs. I guess it doesn’t really matter. Every time I move I feel like I have to push through tar.

“You,” I say to the Faida who flew me through the Rift, away from the Spiradael who were trying to kill us all. “My name is not ‘human girl child.’ It’s Ryn Whittaker. What are you called?”

“I am Arif,” the Faida says as he steps forward toward me. “And you, you are everything the Roones claimed. Still, you are a child.”

I sigh outwardly. Arif is devastatingly gorgeous. His blond hair is curly, but not overly so, more tousled. His cheekbones are sharp enough to look like they were carved out of rock, and his eyes give the word piercing a whole new meaning, but I am a Citadel. I have seen wonders, and his beauty will not sway me. His words might piss me off, though.