Rift (Rift Walkers #1)

by Elana Johnson

  He’d also been the one to claim that time travel wasn’t possible—and when that fiasco hit the newsfeeds, Dad was promoted to the head of technological development.

  “How did you find out about the rift at my house?” I ask.

  Our feet eat up a block of pavement before she answers. “I knew there was a rift at your house,” she says. “See, I…well, I already knew there was a rift at your house, and my second jam was a hack into the Census Bureau to figure out who owned the property.”

  She’s hiding something. Maybe more than one thing, but I decide to let it go for now. “Let me guess. It was my dad.”

  She nods. “Guy Ryerson.”

  “How do you know him?” I ask, because she knows so much more than she’s saying.

  “I’ve heard of him,” she says.

  “Everyone’s heard of him,” I say. “He’s the reason we have the Receiver. Do you know him?”

  Cascade sighs. “He’s an old friend of my mother’s.”

  I catch her eye, but I can’t tell if she’s lying or not. I’d like to think there’s no reason for her to be anything but truthful with me, but even though we’re holding hands, a gulf gapes between us, filled with words she’s either unwilling or incapable of speaking.

  “Where is your mother?” I ask, making my voice soft.

  “She died,” she says. “A long time ago. That’s why I live with my grandfather.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and that ends our conversation. I don’t know what she’s hiding. I don’t know what I’ll have to do to get the truth from her. All I know is that I want to.

  When I return home, there’s a black shape hulking in my window. A guard. Frustration washes over me. Will I ever have privacy in my own bedroom again?

  I’d left Cascade in her driveway, kissless and without a real good-bye. A murmured “See you later,” doesn’t count.

  I bottle the frustration as I enter the house through the garage. Past the empty kitchen, two guards bar the way into Dad’s compound. They move forward and one of them beckons to me. “Price, your father would like to see you in his office.”

  “Fan-tastic.” I glance up the stairs, where I’m pretty sure Monroe is waiting for me. I go with the guards, because I have damage control to perform with Dad.

  He’s still wearing his suit; his hair is neatly combed; his eyes search me as if I’m hiding my gadgets in my pockets. I stare at him as I enter and head for the chair I sat in this morning. Cascade said Dad knows about the rift, that he’s the one using it for illegal things.

  I can’t picture it. Dad has been nothing but straight-laced his whole life. I’ve read the feeds on his past. His college grades were impeccable. His community service unmatched. Sure, he didn’t make much money for a few years while he worked out his inventions, but the Receiver came from that.

  One of my earliest memories of him is how he welcomed me to his workshop—the tiny shed in our microscopic backyard in the city—with a smile and the words, “Price, come see what I’ve learned.”

  He’d then explain everything to me in words a five-year-old could understand. He let me touch the wiring, ask as many questions as I wanted, then he’d send me back to the apartment with, “Go tell your mom I said you could have the last of the ice cream.”

  I hold onto that happy memory as Dad appraises me. “Price, I don’t want you seeing that girl anymore.”

  “Her name is Cascade,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Actually,” Dad says, giving me a pointed look. “That’s not her name.” He leans back, his pale eyes clear and penetrating.

  “How do you know that?” I ask. “What did you see on her hand?”

  “All time-travelers bear a mark on their ring fingers,” he says.

  I immediately ball my fists, wondering if the mark appears as soon as you enter a rift, or if it’s something you’re branded with later. I try to remember if I’ve ever seen Cascade’s ring fingers bare. I’m not exactly staring at her hands when we’re together.

  “She’s not from our time, son. She’s dangerous.”

  The patterned wallpaper behind Dad spins. I feel like I’m falling. “Dangerous?” The word doesn’t feel right in my mouth, not when I’m talking about Cascade. “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Dad says, but I hear the edge of a lie in his tone.

  “But you said ‘you’ upstairs,” I argue. “Like you knew her.”

  “Price,” Dad starts. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can’t go through the rift again. It’s too risky, and I won’t be able to protect you.”

  “I didn’t—” I protest.

  “I know you did.”

  We watch each other for a few moments. “You know about the rift, then,” I say. I’m not asking, but I’m also not confessing. If anyone else knew about this time rift, Dad would be in a huge mess—bigger than what he’s already facing. “What do you do at the Bureau, Dad? For real?”

  “Unauthorized time travel is a big deal,” he says, skillfully avoiding my question. “With this flick mess, security on rifts is especially tight. The punishment would be swift, and severe.”

  Like I don’t know that. No one can manufacture and use a time rift without first registering the rift and allowing extensive testing and monitoring from Bureau scientists, physicists, and engineers. According to rift registration base, there are only four rift sites in the U.S., and they were all created by the government for research purposes.

  “This is the first—and oldest—rift that we know of,” Dad continues. “I bought this house to monitor it.” He exhales harshly and flicks some invisible dust from his impeccable clothes. “I believe the scientific knowledge and technological advancement we gain from rifts is invaluable. That’s why I campaigned for my job. But…there’s been an outcry with recent events to limit the research, eliminate the funding. We aren’t even opening the rifts the public knows about right now.” He sighs. “If I could find the Black Hat, they’d forgive everything.” He looks up to the ceiling, like the identity of the Black Hat will be imprinted there.

  I take a few seconds to make sure my voice won’t come out shaky. “What job did you campaign for?”

  He sighs heavily as if I’ve just asked him a question he can’t answer. “I’m the Time Keeper.”

  Price

  HE LAYS IT OUT, JUST like that. I’m the Time Keeper.

  I stare at him, disbelieving and more than a little angry. “You’re not a developer.”

  “Not for a few years now, no, though I did move to the Bureau to upgrade their security systems surrounding the rift sites.”

  “So Wilder Thomas is….” The current Time Keeper my mind fills in. I can see his wavy hair and just-so smile in my mind.

  “He plays the public face of the Time Keeper.” Dad leans back and steeples his fingers. “It’s a dangerous job, and the identity of the Keeper has always been kept secret from the public.”

  “Like a lot of other things,” I say. “How many rifts does the Bureau have?” The registration base only lists one rift site, but there has to be more.

  “Until today, we had two.” He gives me a meaningful glare and points at me. “You’ve caused me a mountain of work, son. I mean it, you cannot open, close, or use the rift here again. Period.”

  He’s lectured me plenty of times. This time, his voice is filled with more than parental guidance. I almost think I hear desperation. I nod my understanding. I know that if I use the rift again I’m facing a whole slew of problems, the least of which is incarceration.

  “Is that rift safe?” I ask, remembering the entry in the journal that deemed this particular rift dangerous. “Can’t you just shut it down?”

  “If we don’t monitor it, it could become volatile. If there’s anything we know about rifts, it’s their instability.” He looks down at his flatpanel as it chirps. He returns his attention to me. “This one is quite old. It’s settled a little bit, and it’s completely safe, Price. Trust
me.”

  “But you’re not using the rift. Right, Dad?” Cascade’s implications won’t stop nagging at me.

  “Of course not,” he says, and it sounds so true. “I bought the house because I knew the rift was here. I’m simply monitoring it, using it as a pattern for our other rifts. It’s not registered, because it’s not a candidate for actual use.”

  “But….” I feel like I’m on shaky ground here, almost like I’m entering an age-old battle between two factions I don’t know about and certainly don’t understand.

  “But what, Price?”

  “I know people have used that rift. Recently.”

  He frowns, his eyes dancing away from mine and not returning. “How do you know that?”

  “Cascade said she’s used it a few times,” I say, “And I, uh, used it last night and it was tethered to a particular time. Today it went to a different year. Which means someone used it after me but before us—and there were only, like, fifteen hours in between.”

  Dad begins swiping on his flatpanel. He doesn’t say anything for the longest time.

  “Thanks for letting me know, Price,” he finally says, like I’ve told him something important. “Promise me you won’t use the rift again.” He looks up from his flatpanel. “I can’t protect you beyond giving the Enforcement Squad a reason you disappeared from the system for—” He glances down at his panel. “Two hours, fourteen minutes, and fifty-three seconds.” He glares at me. “I told them your Receiver was coming loose, so we took it out to service it. They lectured me about doing repairs at a government approved facility until I reminded them that I invented the Receiver.”

  He sighs, the sound full of frustration and exhaustion. “But I can’t do that again. The politics surrounding rifts are just too intense right now.”

  I definitely don’t want to go to prison. “How close are you to finding the Black Hat?”

  His expression hardens. “Not close enough. You simply cannot use the rift again.”

  The relief singing through me is hard to contain behind a straight face. “I won’t.” I meet his steady gaze and hope I look apologetic. “And thanks for taking care of the Enforcement Squad. I didn’t know how to answer them.”

  His face softens, and I see my dad coming out to cover the sternness of the Time Keeper. “I don’t want you to see Cascade anymore,” he says. “I know she’s your friend, but she’s a walker. I’ll file a report about her unauthorized travel in the morning.”

  “What will happen to her?” I ask.

  “That’s none of your concern,” Dad says. “You’ll be lucky if you see her again anyway. Walkers aren’t known for putting down roots.”

  I think of Cooper, who’s been a temporary rift-walker for years now. He certainly has roots. I’ve known Cascade for a little over three years, and never once has she disappeared for long stretches of time. Never once have I suspected that she was leading a double-life. I know she’s super-smart at science, and interested in technology and forensics. She loves gadgets, and watching flicks with her grandfather, and she seems to be quite the adrenaline junkie.

  I leave my dad’s office, more confused than ever. Cascade and Cooper don’t seem dangerous. Of course, I didn’t know my own father was the Time Keeper, or that he’s been experimenting with—using?—a rift in my own house.

  I pause at the bottom of the stairs, which feel like jaws about to devour me whole. Everything my dad said combines with the explanations Cascade gave me. There are so many pieces, and none of them are lining up.

  My chest constricts, and I head outside to the front porch in an attempt to find a place where I can simply be. An ad pops up on my Receiver, one with bacon cheeseburgers and glasses of soda. My stomach tightens at the sight of food. I still haven’t eaten, and since I went to Sunnyside Up! for five minutes, now the government thinks I need constant reminders to keep dining out. Ridiculous.

  I delete the ad, reminding myself that I need to ad-out. Heath sent me the link, and I open a chatline to him.

  “Hey, bro,” he answers.

  “You busy?” I ask, already striding across my front lawn to the sidewalk. “I have some questions for you.”

  “Come on over. Soda’s here, but she won’t mind.”

  I find Heath in his living room, Soda cradled against his chest as they watch a flick on his wallscreen. She jumps away from him when I enter, a blush creeping into her cheeks. “Hey, Price,” she says, glancing at Heath.

  “Blood,” he says. “What’s up?” When I hesitate, he threads his fingers through Soda’s. “She knows everything. You can talk in front of her.”

  “It’s about Cooper,” I start, limping to an armchair and flopping into it. The painkillers Cas gave me are starting to wear off, and my leg hurts.

  “What about Cooper?” Heath asks. “Did you find him?”

  I hate the eagerness in his voice. “No, no,” I say quickly. “I just wondered…. You said no one knew he was a rift-walker. But now that you know, looking back, is there anything you noticed that you…. I mean, did you ever see anything…?”

  Heath frowns. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Did he have a weird schedule? Did he disappear for long periods of time? Did he leave the house at night? That kind of stuff.”

  “He was normal,” Heath says. “He did normal teenage stuff. Then he started at university, and did normal college stuff.”

  Soda clears her throat, and I look at her. “Cooper did go out late at night,” she says, her voice timid at first. “Sometimes he’d leave after midnight and wouldn’t come home until the next night.”

  “That’s normal,” Heath says, squinting at Soda like she’s betrayed him. “He was just staying out until morning, and then had to go to class.”

  “Or he could’ve been rift-walking,” I say slowly, training my eyes on the floor. I hear Heath’s angry intake of breath and Soda’s murmured reassurances. I don’t dwell on how Soda knows when Cooper left Heath’s house.

  “We’ve done some research on rift-walkers,” Soda says, drawing my attention to her. She looks fierce and protective, both her hands gripping one of Heath’s. “I think I know what you’re asking. What are the signs of rift-walking?” She cocks her head to the side. “Looking back, there is a pattern of behavior that can indicate someone is a walker. Sneaking out—”

  “Then he and I are both guilty,” Heath explodes, gesturing to me. “He’s over here every other night, well after midnight.” He removes his hand from Soda’s and paces away from the couch. She gets up and joins him, putting both her hands on his shoulders. She whispers to him, and he nods. He leans down and kisses her, and then walks out the front door.

  Soda takes her place on the couch. “He’s a little sensitive about his brother.”

  “I know,” I say, almost defensively. “I’m his best friend.” I had no idea Soda and Heath’s relationship had gone so far. “Sorry to be asking, I just….” Want someone to tell me Cas isn’t a rift-walker.

  “Who are you wondering about?” Soda asks gently.

  “Cascade,” I mumble. “My dad says she’s a rift-walker, and it’s not like I know what she’s doing in the middle of the night. She shows up at social time, and she hasn’t gone on vacation that I know of.”

  Soda gives me the courtesy of thinking about what I’ve said. She finally leans forward. “I don’t know the details of her schedule either. I do know that she doesn’t go on vacation because her grandfather is sick.”

  I meet her eyes. “He is?”

  “Very.” She looks apologetic as she places one hand on my knee. “If she needed the money for his medical bills…she could be a rift-walker.”

  “Are you saying she is? Do you know?”

  “I’m not saying she is. I don’t know. I’m just saying that since we don’t know her habits, all we can do is examine her possible motivations. Cooper started walking for the money. Maybe Cascade did too.”

  Back home, I sit on the porch to give my injured le
g a break and hail Cascade over a chatline. I can’t get Soda’s words out of my head. I feel like a fool that my friends have been right in front of me, needing help, and I didn’t see it.

  “Hello, Price,” she says, and then she waits.

  “Okay,” I say as my program finishes securing the line to prevent eavesdroppers from hearing our conversation. “I just need to know some stuff, okay? Can you talk?”

  “I think you need to do the talking.”

  Maybe she’s right, so I launch right into it. “My dad says he’s monitoring the rift. That he can’t even open it right now.”

  Cascade’s snort of disbelief is loud over the speaker embedded in my ear. “Yeah, he’s opening it all right. All the time. For rift-walkers. Did he tell you that?”

  I shake my head, though I don’t have the holoswitch and Cas can’t see me. “No, he did not tell me that.”

  “Price, I don’t want to be the one to snitch on your dad, but he is not the straight-arrow guy you think he is.”

  “He told me he’s the Time Keeper,” I argue. My frustration because of Dad’s lies mixes with the fear of him being able to ID me as the Black Hat. He said he wasn’t close to finding me, but I know things can change instantly.

  I press my eyes closed. I just wanted everyone to know about the unregistered time rift at the Bureau. I just wanted to ask Cascade out. Everything is so complicated now. “He could lose his job, or explode my bedroom while I’m asleep in there, or…. He wouldn’t do that.”

  “He does!” Cas cries, and I hear the desperation and fury in her voice. “Look, I’ll lay it out for you: He’s using that rift for personal gain. He’s making millions of dollars, and he employs twenty rift-walkers to complete the jobs he’s contracted to do.”

  The silence she leaves behind is loud, filled with my dad’s claims that she’s a rift-walker and Soda’s speculations that Cas might need the money. I study the cement at my feet and close my eyes. “Are you one of his rift-walkers?”