Rift (Rift Walkers #1)

by Elana Johnson

“Yeah,” I agree. “Still, I wonder if that means they’ll have heightened security on-site.”

  Heath shrugs. “Ask Monroe.”

  I nod again, for once looking forward to seeing one of my dad’s security guards.

  Heath crosses his arms. “So…Cascade? You gonna talk to her, or what?”

  Heat rises to my face, and I swallow to force it down. “Yeah, I guess.” But I don’t want anyone, least of all Cascade, to think it’s a date. “Should I mention Privatize?”

  “This has nothing to do with them,” Heath says. “Though Gustav will be thrilled about this latest Bureau fiasco, and I’ll be sure to tip him off about the vid. But I’d keep it clean and simple with Cas.” He checks his back patio again, which is still empty. “I mean, we don’t know how she feels about Privatize, you know? Best to keep it under wraps until we know more.”

  I’m still not sure how I feel about the Privatize America Again organization. Run by a group of concerned citizens, they lobby for increased privacy. They’ve actually gotten some rights returned to us. The Advertising Agency can only collect data on what you actually buy and consume, not what you’re shopping for. And the Enforcement Squad can no longer access our chat history, email, or other personal communication while we’re asleep. We still can’t decline the collection of our data, but at least we know it’s happening.

  Our cybernetic lenses can take pictures, record video, and keep a history of the last five things we’ve seen. The Enforcement Squad and Ad Agency used to be able to access that data at any time. They can’t anymore.

  I’m in favor of all those things. But Privatize has been calling for decreased technology funding—which directly impacts my dad’s employment contract. Gustav Olin, the current leader of Privatize, has also recently started encouraging his members to disable their Receivers, decline the option of cybernetics, and deactivate their speaker implants. He calls us “near robots,” and says it’s time for us to reclaim our status as humans.

  I’m not so keen on that. I remember the days before Dad had steady employment, and having ice cream in the house was something that only happened three times a year—on my mom’s birthday, on Dad’s, and on mine.

  I also believe we should fight technology with technology. That’s why Heath and I created Chameleon and the Black Hat and started hacking into systems. Every jam we execute gives us more information about how the federal systems work, with the added bonus of exposing more of the population to government weaknesses.

  “You talk to Soda?” I ask.

  Heath is not as conflicted as I am about Privatize issues. I think he’d disable his Receiver right now if he didn’t need it to jam. “You take her someplace real nice and tell her all about hacking into the Advertising Agency?”

  Heath’s not as good as me at hiding his emotions. His cheeks flame red, even in the shadows. He clears his throat. “She’s in. I had to do a lot of convincing.”

  “I bet,” I say, smirking.

  He waves my joke away. “You know how she is. All artsy and stuff. She doesn’t want any contention.”

  “But you told her we can’t run security surveillance without her, right?” Soda may be totally into jewelry and music, but she knows how to monitor a feed and intercept chats too. She broke into a secure chatline that Heath set up between the two of us. I still have my suspicions that he let her in, but he claims he didn’t. Soda is handy with getting the line open just enough to hear what she wants to hear. It’s almost scary.

  “I told her. We’ve been, ah, practicing a bit.”

  “Practicing. Right.” I almost start laughing. I’d like to practice a lot of things with Cascade, but worming my way into a secure chatline isn’t one of them. “You tell her we’ll be skipping the tournament tomorrow night?”

  “Yes. She’s worried about it.”

  “She should be.”

  Heath’s eyebrows rise. “Are you?”

  “I’d be an idiot not to be.” And I’m not an idiot. Every jam is a monumental risk, another chance to get caught by the Hoods. Dad would fillet me alive if he knew about my hacking activities, and that’s something I’d like to avoid.

  I’d also like to watch what I want without an ad popping up five seconds later announcing something a company thinks I’ll like, or the government feeding me a propaganda message.

  Now that Receivers are standard fare—nearly everyone has a glowing blue attachment in their palm—no one has a single reason to leave their house. A lot of people don’t. They can work from home, shop from home, do everything right inside their minds with their Receivers and cybernetic lenses.

  Private companies pay the Advertising Agency big money to know exactly what you’re viewing on the Circuit, what you spend your money on, and what you like to eat. They target their ads to specific groups based on buying patterns and interests. No one needs to know I’m listening to classic rock or that my mom tries a new spaghetti recipe every week.

  “At least I manned up and told her. What are you gonna do? Tell Cas as we break into the Time Bureau?” Heath appraises me with one eyebrow raised. “We need her for this.”

  I sigh. Just imagining Cascade’s stormy eyes and steel-toed boots gets my pulse racing. “Let me handle Cascade.”

  “I always do,” Heath says, returning my smirk. He turns, sees his mom standing at the back door, and starts toward his house. “Let me know what you find out about Cooper.”

  Price

  I’D FORGOTTEN THAT I HADN’T told anyone I was leaving the house, so when I come in through the garage door, the sight of Dad and his security detail noshing on cashews and hot coffee—in June, no less—stops me short. Fantastic.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurt at the same time Dad asks, “You went out?” He scans me from head to toe as if I have secrets hidden in my pockets. If only he knew I keep all the forbidden stuff upstairs behind a false drawer-front in my bathroom. I can’t fathom why he’s still here; he should be downtown working out who has the technology—and skills—to steal that flick and broadcast it to the world.

  “Took a walk,” I answer, moving to the fridge for a bottle of water. This gives me the opportunity to turn my back on him so he can’t look into my lying eyes. “Mandatory outdoor practice time. Don’t you have to go into work because of that flick?” I take a swig as I catch the steady gaze of Monroe, the guard that arranges Dad’s transportation. He glances away too fast and his left eyebrow arches for only a moment—a signal we’ve worked out over the past couple of years. This particular gesture means that whatever I’m asking about is dangerous, and I shouldn’t get involved.

  The time rift at the Bureau is real, Cooper is a rift-walker, and the government wants to shut everyone up about the flick documenting it. Calling it an “alleged cyber attack” and attributing it to the Black Hat diminishes its credibility.

  I look around the group of suited men, noticing that Dad has eight with him today, just hanging around the house. Some wear the all-black suit of his personal guards, but two wear the Bureau uniforms of security technicians. I’ve seen enough security guards in the developmental laboratories, where I used to go with my father, to find the delicate “S” embroidered in silver filaments down the shoulder and across the biceps of their shirts. Maybe he’s working on the leak from home.

  “You going into the city tonight?” I ask Dad, totally not dropping the subject, though I know I should. My eyes drift through the family room toward the hallway that leads to Dad’s offices.

  He glances that way too. “Tomorrow morning,” he says. “You could come.”

  The offer hovers between us like an annoying mosquito. I want to swat it away. “Come on, Dad. Not this again.” I slide my eyes across his face, not really looking at him—which I know annoys him.

  “There are opportunities for you at the Bureau,” he says. The guards automatically fade into the background, somehow sensing the sudden animosity in the atmosphere.

  “Opportunities I don’t want,” I argue. I know
he wants me to follow his inventor footsteps. And I could. When I was younger, I hung out with Dad in his “lab”— the tiny shed in the shared yard of our apartment building—all the time, skipping school and meals and baseball practices.

  I loved experimenting with his gadgets and listening to him explain how far technology had come. A few years ago, the talks changed from “This is the technology behind cybernetics,” to “You could invent the next Receiver we use,” and “The government needs men who know about dimensionality and relativity.”

  My grandpa Ryerson was a data engineer that manipulated code so well, he modified the satellites to produce specific electronic wavelengths. His discoveries opened the door for Dad to develop the Receiver—because Grandpa had established how humans could connect to the Circuit.

  My great-grandparents founded Hyperion Labs where my grandpa worked. They funded technology advancements, the satellite programs we use now to keep our communications functioning, and who knows what else. Dad worked with them for a while before he invented the Receiver, though he found lab work to be “soul-sucking.”

  Dad pushes me toward inventing because that’s what Ryersons do. And I am interested in inventing—but not what the government wants me to. I spend nights trying to undo the technology they use to invade our lives; I certainly don’t want to contribute my ideas to them. I don’t want to be Dad, even if he does have a swanky employment contract with the Time Bureau.

  I focus on my dad again, the silence between us charged. “If you change your mind….” He leaves the sentence there, like I might pick up the invitation.

  “I won’t.” I match my glare to his. “I have to start my senior project.” I make a hasty escape, noting that two additional guards block the entrance to Dad’s offices. As if the electronic security measures he has installed aren’t enough; even I haven’t been able to crack the programs.

  Except for the foyer, formal dining room and living room, and the expansive eat-in kitchen, Dad’s space takes up the whole bottom floor. His personal office is hidden behind the stairs, along with a conference room and a guest bathroom. An additional room is concealed around a bend in the hall, but I only know that from the blueprints I found on the Circuit. I’m locked out of that part of my own house, and Dad’s security rivals any decoding software I’ve got.

  I try not to mind the restrictions detailing where I can go in the house. I’m linked-in, and that allows me to go anywhere in the world; with my Receiver, lenses, and speakers, I can experience almost anything I want. The problem is, I like living my life in person. I like feeling the breeze in my hair instead of sitting in my room with a fake wind, a fake beach, a fake existence.

  When I push open my bedroom door, my Link station is pulsing with purple light and a familiar song. My heart jumps to my throat.

  “Open channel,” I say as I kick off my shoes and close the door. After the Link beeps and the purple light steadies, I add, “Hey Cas.”

  “No hologram today?” she asks, and I’m immediately drunk on her voice. Three words and the girl owns me. Pathetic.

  “Just got home,” I say as I settle onto my bed and relax with my hands behind my head. “You’re interrupting my homework.”

  She laughs, a sound I could listen to for hours. “You don’t do homework.”

  “I do too,” I protest. “How else do you explain the straight A’s I have?”

  “You should sign up for English,” she says. “Then you wouldn’t have such perfect marks.”

  “I took the mandatory English requirement,” I say. I’d hated it. Now that I’m a senior, I can take whatever I want. My schedule is loaded with mechanics and physics and programming. “Besides, this homework is for geography. I have a digi to read.”

  “I’ll leave you to it then,” she says.

  I sit up as if she can see me. “No, I don’t need to go,” I say. “Why’d you hail me?” Heath’s voice nags me inside my mind: We need Cascade for this jam.

  Another voice screams at me to call off the jam. Dad will be in the city. We have an apartment downtown so he doesn’t have to commute during a time of crisis, but I know he sometimes sleeps at the Bureau.

  It will be fine, I reason with myself. Dad’s office is out in the technology wing—a completely separate building—and we’ll only be in the main tower. He won’t be able to move faster than the guards, even if he’s awake while we’re there.

  I don’t want to cancel the jam. I feel the itch in my fingers. I need to do this job. I focus on working up the courage to ask Cascade to help tomorrow night.

  “Wondering if you signed up for the tournament tomorrow night,” she says, opening the door.

  “Yes,” I say. “And no.”

  “Intriguing,” she says, and I picture the smile on her face. I suddenly want to get the holoswitch so I can experience her in my bedroom.

  The tension in my chest melts. “You game for something besides soccer?” I immediately regret the question. What was that? It sounded like I want to drag her down a dark alley or something.

  “What have you got in mind?” she asks.

  I can’t tell if her voice is deliberately cool because she thinks I just lamely asked her out, or if she’s just trying not to commit to something until she knows more details. “Well, Heath and I sort of have this thing.”

  “You and Heath.” She’s not asking, and her tone is definitely filled with tiny shards of ice.

  “We need you, too.”

  “You need me too.”

  “This isn’t coming out right. Uh.” I pause, still not sure of the words to use to ask her out. “You wanna meet up somewhere so we can talk? We could walk the track or something, count it as outdoor time.”

  A lengthy silence follows, and the panic builds in my bloodstream. What if Cas says no? Not only to meeting up with me, but to the whole jam?

  “Price, I’m confused,” she says, and I get up and retrieve the holoswitch from my bathroom drawer. I have to see her face.

  “I’m plugging in the switch,” I say, and a moment later her hologram blooms to life. She’s wearing her standard black tank top with jeans and sitting on the floor, resting her back against her bed. Her hairstyle is so abrasive, with heavy spikes and loads of wax to keep her Mohawk in place. Silver drips from her ears and wrists and fingers.

  She’s implanted a new pattern on her face. This one is a series of dots sweeping in an arc from her chin to the corner of her right eye. The top mark is the largest and has a silver light that fades into purple, and then blue.

  Cascade always has the coolest new facial pats. Semi-temporary, f-pats are somewhat painful to have applied, but the ultimate in techno-fashion. My dad would flip if I showed up to dinner with swirls and lights on my face, temporary or not. I’m not really into that scene anyway, but no one can pull off techno punk like Cascade.

  I smile at the sight of her and feel the nervousness seep from my muscles. She’s looking at me with her stormcloudy eyes, and she doesn’t return my smile.

  “You got your cybernetics in?” I ask. “Can you see me?”

  “I see you.”

  “I can’t explain over the line,” I say. “So, you want to meet me at the track?” Meeting someone somewhere doesn’t count as a date, right? I do not want this walk to be my first date with Cascade.

  She frowns, but doesn’t say anything.

  “It has to do with that flick,” I say, and recognition lights her eyes. “And that class we took last semester.” I’m talking about Forensic Science and Identity Prints—a class I added after I found out Cascade’s schedule—but I can’t say that over an unsecured chatline.

  “Will I—?”

  “Please, just meet me at the Winston Heights track,” I say. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  We watch each other for a few more seconds, and then she says, “Ten minutes?”

  I confirm and sign off the Link. I settle against my pillow, wanting to ask her to go somewhere real with me, somewhere without jams and man
datory social activities. I should call off the jam, but thinking about Cascade, I find I want her to know all my secrets—including that I’m the Black Hat. I want to jam with her.

  I purposely don’t leave the house for ten minutes. That will get me to the track about six minutes after our agreed meeting time. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m scared. Maybe I don’t want to be there first, waiting for Cascade like a loser. Maybe I don’t know how I’m going to tell her I’m a hacker and hey, would you like to be one too?

  I arrive at the track, spotting Cascade before I’m even through the login gate. I have to look away from her long enough to let the scanner read my eyeprint and let me into the facility. By then, she’s waiting just inside the gate, that black tank top even sexier in real life.

  “Hey.” I want to reach for her hand. It feels like it would be the natural thing to do. After all, the track is dotted with people, some of them couples who are holding hands. I stuff mine in my pockets instead.

  She doesn’t greet me, just turns and starts walking. I join her, knowing I’ve probably freaked her out.

  “Look,” I start, matching my pace to hers. “I suck at this kind of stuff, okay? So yeah. Okay. Tomorrow night, I’ve got a little activity planned. Usually Heath and I can do the job ourselves, but I need help this time.”

  I exhale, suddenly sweating in the June heat. I wait while a speed-walker passes us, still wanting to grab onto Cascade’s hand to ground myself. I swallow hard and clear my throat.

  “Job?” Cascade finally speaks.

  “I’m a hacker,” I blurt out. “I have an illegal identity, and so does Heath. We complete jams we think will expose government weaknesses, or that will make it harder for them to collect information on us.”

  “Ah,” she says, keeping her gaze straight ahead. “You’re pro-Privatize.”

  “Sort of,” I say. “I don’t agree with everything they do.”

  She slides me half a smile. “Of course you don’t. You think too much for that.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not, but I’ll take it.” A grin pulls at my lips.