The Rift Uprising

“Knock it off, Boone. It was fine with Applebaum, but to be honest I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine.” Vi tries to negotiate. “We’ll leave Applebaum out of it if you tell us why you went out there alone. I meant to ask yesterday, but you went home so fast.”

“Whoa, what’s with all the questions?” I snap. “It seemed like the right thing to do. That’s it. No agenda. I just said I didn’t want to talk about it. God.” My teammates look at each other with raised eyebrows.

“It’s okay to think someone is cute,” Violet says softly. “It’s okay to be attracted to someone, to have feelings for someone even if they come through The Rift.”

At that, I have to laugh. I look at her, my eyes widening. “Are you crazy? It’s not okay to be attracted to anyone. Because obviously, thanks to ARC, we’re mature enough to save the world but not mature enough to keep our hormones in check.” Without thinking, I pick up my arms and start doing a weird version of jazz hands while talking in an absurdly low voice. “Hey, I’m ARC,” I blurt out sarcastically. “We’re going to make you superstrong and superfast and supersmart but not smart enough!” I’m off on a tangent now. I see Henry sigh. “You might check for a text from your boyfriend while you’re fighting for your life, so we’re just going to put this little glitch in your implant that turns you into a maniac if you touch anyone you might be remotely attracted to. Not so much as a little, teeny-tiny, even-Catholics-would-approve-of-it hug. Nope, sorry! No sex for you! Ever!”

“You didn’t need to go straight to the Blood Lust, Ryn,” Violet says with an undeniable hint of sadness. “It’s a long way from liking the way someone looks, and maybe even crushing on them a bit, to activating that part of the chip’s programming. It’s not like we have no control.”

I look up to the sky and shake my head. “Oh, well, I know that,” I spit back meanly. “Look at you and Boone. You guys have been in love with each other since we were fourteen and you two haven’t killed each other.” This is common knowledge, but we never speak it. The fact that we are all just the best of friends, like family—that is another lie. “It’s easy, right? As long as you guys don’t touch each other or even brush up against one another. Unless you’re fighting. We can always fight. They made damn sure of that.”

“Shut up, Ryn,” Boone shoots back, clearly wounded.

“And what about poor Henry?” I continue even as Henry shoots me a death stare. “He’s gay. I mean, seriously, he’s like every gay guy’s wet dream. He could get more ass than all of us put together and he can’t even jerk off without destroying his bedroom, maybe even his whole house. So yeah, I’m a little skittish. I’m a little fucking sensitive about being attracted to anyone, because I can’t even stick my hand down my pants and make this teeth-grinding ache go away.” The silence in the Nest becomes a living thing, awkward and full of ugliness. I put my head down on my knees. Shit.

“I’m sorry,” I say finally. “That was mean. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. And so help me God, Boone, if you say ‘PMS’ I will punch you in the face.” Boone puts his hands up in surrender. “Can we please just drop it? I don’t know why I went out there or why this Ezra guy should be any different from anyone else. He probably isn’t. I’m just … I don’t know …” I rummage around in my head trying to come up with the words to explain how I feel. When I can’t, I just apologize again.

Vi reaches over and gives me a hug. “It’s okay. We’re all just doing the best we can. Some days are better than others,” she says, and I nod my head, embarrassed. I hate hurting my friends. And for the most part, Violet was right. The Blood Lust is one of the crueler by-products of the chip, but it’s not like we want to kill every person we find attractive. It’s always there, though, simmering beneath the surface like a sleeping junkyard dog. As long as we are careful, as long as we don’t linger on romantic thoughts or touch someone that we might have—in another life—hooked up with, the dog remains asleep. I understand that the idea behind this wiring was to make us more efficient, but honestly it takes a lot of energy to suppress these urges. ARC must know this, but they continue on with it anyhow. Maybe it’s just too late; they can’t have some Citadels who can get it on and some who can’t without a mutiny. Or maybe it’s just another cruel way to control us. I don’t know, but if you combine the Blood Lust with our constant lying and living a double life, we can burn out in this job. When that happens, they send the Citadel away for a couple months to recuperate. Sounds great, but it’s not something we push for. Our teams depend on us. What if something bad happens while we’re gone? Something we might have stopped?

I take hold of her hand. “Thanks, Vi.” I watch Boone look at us. We are comforting each other the way best friends do. He turns sharply away, uncomfortable, knowing it’s something he’ll never be able to safely do with her—yes, even something as benign as holding her hand. There’s a lot of pain on this platform, and it’s relieved only when I suddenly hear Omega Team in my earpiece. The Rift is opening. I enable my mic, as do the rest of us.

We stand and look out at The Rift. That was quick. We have been on duty for only a matter of minutes. I check in with Command, confirming that we have eyes on the situation and can see The Rift opening. The center of The Rift turns black as tar and then we hear an earsplitting sound.

An explosive detonated by a hand-held rocket launcher deploys as soon as the Karekins enter this Earth. They don’t mess around. The rocket destroys a tree about seventy-five feet away from us. Karekins are streaming out of The Rift. I use my enhanced eyesight to count as they come through. A dozen. Two dozen, fifty, one hundred, one hundred fifty, two hundred. That’s a significant number. There are about a hundred of us Citadels, so I don’t love the odds. The five other teams that have been hiding in trenches will emerge. The reinforcements will come forward. Each Nest team will jump down, leaving the best marksman behind to shoot whomever they can safely. In our case it’s Violet. Boone, Henry, and I give each other a nod and do a swan dive off the platform, flipping at the last second so that we land on our feet. I immediately get shot in the shoulder. Karekins use laser technology. I wince in pain and take sharp breaths until I can steady myself. The suit has absorbed most of the impact. I’ll have a bruise, but that’s about it.

I take about two seconds to calm down. I must not be angry. I must feel nothing. I must run forward when every instinct I have still says, even after all this time, to get the fuck out of there. I take out my gun and shoot one Karekin in the middle of the forehead. I swing around and shoot another in the same place. Karekins, like us, evolved from apes. I think in their case it was more of a King Kong thing. They are eight or nine feet tall, and hairy. Their eyes are small and slit-like. They use sound and smell mostly to fight. Sounds like a big disadvantage, but the research people at ARC think it might be an advanced form of echolocation that allows them to compensate for their poor eyesight. They aren’t savage, though. They wear sleek black uniforms and have advanced weaponry—lasers, remember? Most important, they keep coming through, and they seem more prepared each time to deal with us. It’s almost as if they are getting to know our weaknesses and adapting, which should be technically impossible. Because that would mean that they are reporting back through The Rift, and they should not be able to do that. Yet here they are. Shooting into the trees, into the Nests.

How else would they know to do that?

I feel one of the Karekins pick me up from behind and fling me at least twenty feet to the side. My shoulder takes the brunt of the impact. I know it’s been dislocated. I flip up before I can get attacked again. I try to pull my shoulder back into its socket. I can’t get the right angle. Bracing myself, I smash it into a tree so that it pops back into place. I hear a Karekin behind me. I kick out, pushing off from the tree trunk. I turn around and he staggers a bit. I leap up, using his shoulders as leverage, and land with my legs around his neck. I squeeze, and we both fall to the ground with a thud. I reach down and pull my bowie knife from my boot and stab him squarely in the throat. I push my body out from underneath him. Just for good measure I slice his throat back and forward. Blood spurts all over me.

Gross.

I almost laugh at that thought—surrounded as I am by all this gore and death—but another Karekin is already racing toward me on the ground. I have just enough time to whip my knife out of the other one’s throat and throw it into the approaching Karekin’s right eye. Their suits are just as protective as ours, so there is no point in aiming anywhere else. Boone runs up beside the one who is now down on his knees with my knife planted firmly in his eye. Boone shoots him in the forehead and kicks him down to the ground.

There are screams and shouts, and the sound of gunshots and the smell of blood are thick in the morning air. I cannot afford to take the time to really live in the middle of all this. And yet, just for a split second I wonder how I got here. Who put my name down on the list for this? Who guessed that I would make such a good killer? Who would even look at a seven-year-old and be able to imagine such a thing?

“Ryn!” Henry screams at me. He leaps ten feet in the air. I turn just in time to hear a laser pulse whiz past my ear. I can’t believe how stupid that was. I lost focus for just a couple seconds and I almost died. Henry is now just a few feet away, but before I can turn and face the enemy to fight, I feel a massive Karekin hand on the back of my neck. He’s going to try to snap it and now I have to break free. Henry lunges at him. The Karekin has just enough time to remove his hands and hit me with something large and heavy on the head. When I fall, the sky shifts sideways. It’s like it happens in slow motion. One minute I’m up and the next I am floating to the ground. Henry has killed my attacker. From this angle it all looks so different. Like a dance. I can almost hear music in the rifle shots.

“Ryn, are you okay?” Henry screams, but his voice seems far away, like he’s on the other side of the forest and not right beside me. I open my mouth to answer, but all my words are gone. I want to say that yes, I am fine, but I am not fine. I am always almost dying and so is he and Violet and Boone. I am not fine, because I will most likely die a virgin. I will never have another profession. I am a liar. I’m not even sure I am capable of telling an absolute truth. My head will heal, but I am not okay. I want to say this, but I can’t say anything. Nothing is working on my face. Henry stands guard over me, taking out two or three Karekins as I lie helpless on the ground. The world tilts again and everything goes black.

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_14f83148-aa41-547c-8ffe-a2e3bec8af6f)

I awake to the steady electronic beeping of my heart. I am back at the base in the medical facility. I am hooked up to an IV. As my eyes flutter open, I see the plastic tube first, running from the back of my hand to a bag beside me. I try to blink away the fuzzy outline of everything in the room. In short order, the room snaps into focus. I am not lying down but reclined on the gurney. I try to sit completely up, but I feel a small hand gently push me back to the bed.

“Easy, Citadel Ryn. You are safe,” the voice purrs. I know immediately that it is a Roone. Their voices are distinctly nonhuman. They rasp and whirr; it’s difficult for the muscles in their throats to push out the words in our language. I recognize the kind blue eyes that are looking back at me with concern. She is smiling, and her skin, like polished onyx, reflects off the fluorescent lights. The Roones are tiny, all of them under five feet. Their bodies are made up of a higher mineral count, so their skin looks like lacquered stone. They vary in color, as rocks and people do. They have no hair and their faces are mostly eyes.

I smile weakly. “Edo, I told you, please just call me Ryn.”

“It is a form of respect, Citadel. Like the great castles and fortresses on your Earth, you do so much to keep us safe. Citadels are our greatest defense and it is my job to make sure that you do not become a ruin.” Edo checks the electronic pad in her hands and looks at my IV bag. “Though I must say, there are times when you make that increasingly difficult.”

I look at the clock on the wall. It’s almost one. I have been out for hours. Not good. “Then why don’t I call you Doctor Edo, or Nurse Edo, or … What are you, again?”

“Because there is no name for what I am in your language,” she answers kindly. “But if it makes you more comfortable I will simply call you Ryn.” Edo squeezes my shoulders lightly. I feel the pressure of her cold, hard hands, but it is not unpleasant.

“You always say that, but then you forget.” She gives me a look that says in a million years she would not forget anything, and I sigh. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad at all. A little concussion. We’ve given you medicine and the swelling is gone. Your brain is back to normal. We put you to sleep so that you could heal.” Edo once again looks at the silver pad in her hands. She could be checking my vitals, but because she is a Roone and the implants were designed by them, I am almost positive she is checking to make sure the chip is functioning at full capacity. I reach back and feel a small metal disk the size of quarter, which is magnetized to attach to my implant. “If I keep getting these little concussions I’m going to turn into one of those football players who goes off the deep end one day.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. But we have repaired all the damage done to the tissue around the concussed area. It’s as if it never happened, and your implant …” Edo smiles, but the smile is weird, off somehow.

“What about my implant?” I ask, immediately sitting up.

“It’s fine. I promise.” Edo’s smile is genuine this time. I can’t say why, but I know she is not being totally honest with me. I am an expert in detecting even the barest hint of a lie, and my experiences at The Rift have meant my expertise is not limited to humans. I would push, but I know that I would never get a straight answer. Most Roones remind me of robots. Since they are responsible for the chip that created the Citadels, I am naturally resentful of them. Edo, though, is unlike others of her kind. She is warm and even funny. Still, she is not different enough to confide in me. Instead, I take that one moment when she let me see something in her face that I shouldn’t have, and file it away for later.

I pull the magnetized disk off my neck and hold it in my hands. It just looks like a shiny, round piece of metal to me. I examine it for a second or two before handing it back to Edo. She takes the disk and attaches it to her pad.

“My team?” I ask, stretching my back.

“Training. But you are not going with them today. I have put you on twelve hours of bed rest. You can do that here or at home. Your choice.”

“Oh my God. Home for sure. No offense.” I grin.

Edo looks at me warmly. “You did well today, Citadel Ryn. You killed at least three Karekins. No one from our side was seriously injured. A victory.” Edo does not sound victorious.

“Today, yes,” I concede. “But what about tomorrow? What about when five hundred come through—or five thousand? What then? And why? Why haven’t we been able to get any intel on their agenda? Why isn’t everyone more freaked out about what’s happening with them?” I try to sound logical—Roones don’t deal well with too much emotion—but I’m sure there’s a ton of frustration in my voice.

“I don’t have an answer to those questions, though they are good ones,” Edo says carefully.

“Come on,” I say, sitting up straighter and giving her a level stare. “The Karekins must have a way of navigating The Rift, of passing information through it. If that’s the case, then why isn’t every single person on this base—and every other base, for that matter—working their asses off to figure that out? If they did, wouldn’t that mean you could go home?”

Edo takes a step away from me and hugs the pad closer to her chest. “I do not think about home anymore. It is pointless and painful. Words, explanations, reasons—none of those things help when tragedy strikes. We just do what we can to continue. To survive.” Edo sighs and it sounds like a rush of wings. She steps closer to me. “I am sorry, Citadel Ryn. For the pain that you feel today and every day. I truly am. Why don’t you get some rest for a little while longer and then you can leave with your team?” Without waiting for me to say anything in return, Edo walks out the door.

AS VI IS DRIVING ME and Abel home in my car, I feel almost 100 percent, apart from a slight headache that could have nothing to do with the fighting. The conversation I had with Edo is still with me. There was something about it that wasn’t right, but since it is only my intuition guiding that feeling, I don’t feel confident in sharing my thoughts with Violet or anyone else on the team. I don’t even know what I would say to them because I’m not sure if Edo was lying or if she was, in fact, trying to hint at something else—though what that could be, I can’t imagine. Something about my implant? We get to our house and Abel gives Violet a funny look. “Aren’t we going to drop you off first?” he asks. Man, he’s observant for a teenage boy.

“Nah. I’m going to walk home. I know Ryn has a bunch of work she needs to do by tomorrow. I think she wants to get a jump on it.” I roll my eyes. Violet is mothering me. She wants me to get to bed after the day I’ve had, but I feel fine. It’s also a terrible lie—I cringe at how lame it sounds. But Abel just shrugs, says good-bye, and runs into the house.

Violet lives less than half a mile away from us. If she runs, she’ll be home in less than two minutes. I feel antsy. I don’t want to go inside just yet. “I’m going to walk with you.”

“Ryn …” she starts.

“I need the air. I know I’m supposed to be resting, but as long as you don’t mind not running, I think it’ll be fine.”

“I think you already know I’m fine with not running,” Violet says, not bothering to hide the exasperation in her voice.

“Good,” I tell her as I head toward the direction of her house. We live in a quiet, leafy part of Battle Ground called Meadow Glade. It’s early in the season, so the leaves have not yet turned. Vi is unusually quiet.