The Rift Coda

Navaa shakes her long strawberry trusses as if we’re in some kind of a shampoo commercial instead of what this actually is. An interrogation. “Oh, come now,” she practically purrs. “We’re both soldiers. You must have known a debrief was necessary. Besides, I’ve never seen a human Kir-Abisat. You are untrained and therefore dangerous. I can’t allow you into the general population until I have a better understanding of your relationship with Rift matter.”

“Yeah,” I tell her uncomfortably. “Let’s table that just for a minute. The whole Kir thing—I’m just trying to get some answers to a few of the basics first. Why don’t you tell me what happened here. How did you win?”

Navaa’s jaw sets, making her heart-shaped face almost square. “I would hardly say we won. We survived. Some of us, and just barely.”

I shake my head warily. “I don’t get it. You knew. You all knew what the altered Roones were capable of. How could there have been dissension among the ranks?”

“Power is intoxicating. The Faida are a proud and privileged people, and the Roones played on that pride and that sense of superiority. I couldn’t have imagined that we, who had seen so much, who had persevered through eras of infighting and bloodshed, could ever be seduced into believing that some of us were better than others. That those of us who had been altered were more deserving of authority and command because of genetics, but that’s what happened.”

I scratch my head. “So it was ego? God complexes?” I ask in disbelief, because despite how they look, they really do seem like they’d moved beyond all that, like they were more evolved as an entire race—and not just the genetically altered ones.

Navaa huffs out a sarcastic, two-syllable laugh. “Yes, in the most basic of terms, I suppose it was. And those of us who opposed that kind of thinking were ultimately naive enough to think we could win because we had morality on our side. But we weren’t that naive.” As she says this, Navaa straightens the fabric of her uniform, as if it could wrinkle, with her palms. “Even before we told every single Citadel what we had uncovered, we began to build a weapon. A sound barrier that could block a QOINS’s ability to function. It was our intention to rally the Citadels, throw out the Roones and any Karekin—excuse me, Settiku Hesh—forces they might deploy, and use the weapon, but we didn’t know that so many of us would side with the altered Roones. It’s not like the fighting started immediately.”

I let Navaa’s words bloom in my brain. I imagine all the different outcomes and strategies and plans. The Faida are not human, and they are certainly not teenagers. They are thoughtful, cautious even. They probably would have talked, a lot, before they started killing one another. “So you told the truth and you began to get pushback. That’s when you realized you might need other Citadel races and then you sent out recon parties to see if there might be any help on that front. That’s why Arif was on the Spiradael Earth.”

“Exactly.” Navaa answers with such force that her voice bounces and echoes off the tall plaster walls of the cell. “But after Arif left, things escalated very quickly. It was only days, really. The Settiku Hesh troops started coming in alarming numbers and we had to deploy the sound blockade. After that, there was no more room for diplomacy. The war began in earnest. Between the Settiku Hesh and the loyalists we lost almost sixty percent of our Citadels, though we have re-created the formula in our own labs and we have increased our numbers back up to fifty-two percent.”

“And what about the altered Roones that were here?”

“Very few were stationed on this Earth. We executed them,” she says, almost casually.

“All except for one. There is one, right? And you’re still making more Citadels. Don’t you think, after everything you went through, that might not be the smartest move?” I ask her with genuine curiosity.

An ever-so-slight flicker of disgust flashes over Navaa’s face. “How did you know about him?”

“Technology, from our travels in the Multiverse,” I tell her honestly. The SenMachs are going to play a part in this and the Faida are going to be all over it. For now, though, I’m sticking to the topic at hand.

Perhaps surprisingly, Navaa doesn’t press. Instead, she gives me a sly half smile. “We have a single Roone prisoner whose mind is so broken that he’s mostly catatonic with intermittent episodes of lunacy. We keep him only to open a Rift to the original Roone Earth when the time comes for it. As for the Citadels … the sound blockade was a stopgap. Your naïveté, is it genuine? Or some sort of ploy?”

I throw my hands up in the air and thrust my neck forward. “A ploy for what? I want this to end. That means fewer Citadels in the Multiverse, not more.”

Navaa grunts and folds her arms. “Do you truly not understand what a threat we are? The fact that you, a human, are sitting here on this Earth, is changing the balance of power. The altered Roones will find a way through and they will slaughter us all. It’s going to take more than an army of Citadels to defeat them—it’s going to take legions of armies. It is a risk, creating more Citadels, but believe me when I tell you that it is far more of a risk to be without them in a battle.”

I close my eyes. I gently stroke the delicate paper-like skin of my lids with my fingers. I am built for war. I am built to lie. I was made to protect my Earth, but this room is getting too loud. Each one of Navaa’s words feels like a lit match thrown at my face. It’s just too much. There are so many worlds, hundreds of thousands of troops. I know I have to find my way through this, but I ache, and not just physically. My personal life is a disaster and I suddenly feel so crushingly alone that I’m tempted to open a Rift right in that tall, slim cell and go home to my team. I need my friends. I need people around me that I know, really know.

I put both hands on my head and squeeze. I can’t leave, but everything is starting to buzz, or maybe it’s just me. I think about it more and realize that, actually, I am the one who’s buzzing.

“How did you get through the sound barricade?” Navaa’s voice cuts through the noise.

I look up at her and squint. “I told you. We made friends in the Multiverse,” I tell her, maybe a little too loudly, just so I can hear myself. “They gave us some toys. Don’t worry, though—we’re the only ones with this tech. For one thing, the Roones don’t know where their Earth is and even if they did, this particular race will only share with humans. I’m not saying they’re invulnerable, but they’re pretty damn close.”

I put my head in my hands and drag my fingernails across my scalp. I want to get out of here, but mostly I just want this woman to leave me alone. There is a steady thumping to my headache. The pain is keeping time. If I could just lie down, maybe put a pillow over my head, this screeching in my ears would go away.

I wasn’t looking, so it is a surprise when I feel the weight of Navaa’s body sink into the bed beside me. “Our alliance is new and fragile,” she tells me softly. “And, honestly, in this moment, I am less concerned with sizing you up as a human or a soldier than I am with your Kir-Abisat gift. It is a very distinct kind of pain you are feeling right now, with a distinct presentation. Even though we are not the same species, I recognize it on your face and it tells me the Kir-Abisat is controlling you instead of the other way around.”

“You can literally see it on my face?” I ask in surprise.

“Yes, but also, I can hear it. We do not sound the same, because we are from different Earths, but because we are both Kir-Abisat, there is an additional shared tonal layer. It’s like the same instrument being used in two different songs. I know that does not make sense to you right now, but it will.”

“All right,” I concede, sighing in frustration. “But why?” I ask, trying very hard not to whine. “Why make a person do what a machine can do better? It’s so …” I search for the Faida word. I want to say Marvel-esque, but that won’t do, so I say a word that means “fairy tale” or possibly “mythic.”

“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 (#ubca2da7c-28d1-5585-ad0f-d48d883733ff)