by Lesley Young
Looking closer, the wall’s normal. Outside, activity’s going on.
Huh? There it is again.
I narrow my eyes, as if that will turn on my superhuman periscope vision.
“What is it that you’re trying telling us, Cadet Winters?” asks Adm. O’Reilly impatiently.
I tear my eyes away from the spot where I imagined movement.
Unbelievable!
Adm. O’Reilly doesn’t want to face the truth, even when it’s staring him right in his face. Is it really so bad, that I, Cassiel Winters, should be a sift?
My rage is muted by another wave of full on déjà vu, not vertigo, but déjà vu, which comes and goes. Holy Stars! I clasp my forehead and reach out for something to hold onto. I step back and stiffen, prepared for another dimension to appear, staring at the place where the ripple appeared.
But nothing happens. The sensation’s gone again.
My sifter sense kicks in.
Something’s not right here. Something is very, very wrong.
Panicked, I look to King. He’s observed my strangeness, his one eyebrow is raised, watching me. He glances to where the ripple in space is but he sees nothing, of course.
Fear threatens to stop my heart.
I . . . Is there a rift right there? But why don’t I just see it? Why doesn’t it open up? I clasp my neck, wondering what to do. Should I tell them?
What’s the point in that? By the time you convince them there’s one in here, when there might not be since, let’s face it, you don’t really know what it is, a really powerful Aeon, like that one you met, could slaughter half of them and take you with it.
Undecided, petrified, King seems to decide something and walks over to Adm. O’Reilly.
“There’s something you need to see here, sir.” He thrusts his com-tab at him.
Whatever he’s showing Adm. O’Reilly’s major. The man’s face turns bright red and then pale. He purses and un-purses those slug lips. He looks up at King, as if to say, surely this is a joke? I know this because he focuses back on me with disbelief and a frown.
King has told him I’m a sift.
He hates that I’m a valuable asset. Why? Or . . . is he suspicious of me? Well, even King admitted to having doubts when he heard of sifts.
“Winters. Will you give us a moment?” he asks, teeth gritted.
“Uh, of course,” I answer, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
I glance at King. The slightest movement of his head suggests I should check out the ripple.
Really? So he does know I’m sensing a sift. Why’s he being so cagey?
King and Adm. O’Reilly put their heads together, murmuring quietly.
This is ridiculous. Do as King suggested. Move over there closer to where you observed that movement. I mean, as long as I’m not sensing a rift, nothing bad can happen, right?
I sure could use some of Shadon’s surge about now.
Where did that come from? Well, you don’t have any! Get it together!
You’re a sifter. This is what you do now. Plus, these are your people. If there’s a rift here, or going to be a rift here, they surely need to know.
I know what I’m really scared of, an Aeon.
Well, they aren’t necessarily coming through every rift.
I take a deep breath and move over to the far wall, pretending to casually observe the activity outside when I’m really focused on the space where I saw the ripple.
I walk slowly, taking my time. When I reach the spot, directly behind Abernathy, I pause.
Behind me, Abernathy sends a Code Green Missive.
They must be running all of ESE operations out of this PH for the time being.
My throat’s burning and my hands are so clammy I wipe them on my pants. Then I cross my arms and un-focus my eyes. What is it that I am seeing? There! Directly in front of me is the subtlest movement, but movement nonetheless. It’s as though the air’s moving in the tiniest waves. That’s the only way I can describe it.
Standing very still, uncertain what to do, the sense of familiarity I’m getting—been here, done that—is muted, but definitely steady. Yet, not strong enough to be a full out sift, I think.
King coughs, and I remember thinking before that I’ve never heard him make that kind of cough.
I turn around, knowing that I have observed this scene before. King and Adm. O’Reilly moving closer to me. Two PRISMs taking positions closer to the Commandant.
King leans over Abernathy, murmuring something. I remember wondering, What did he say to him? and Am I imagining that they know something’s wrong?
“Amazing, isn’t it?” says Adm. O’Reilly, surprising me that he’s already at my side.
I’ve been here before. We’ve had this conversation, though I am not sure how it goes.
“We set this up in less than three hours,” he adds.
Oh. He’s referring to the encampment. Or is he?
I glance at him, not sure what emotion I’m showing since I’m distracted by the intense sense of ‘replay’ that can only be one thing, sifting.
I decide to take a chance, somehow knowing it’s the right thing, or is it? Just because I had this exact thought, line of purpose before, maybe in another dimension, doesn’t mean it goes the same here, does it? What choice do you have?
“Actually,” I say, pausing, “I think that what you’re doing here, right here, is very wrong. This rift”—I swallow but my throat is dry—“could be, is, well, very unpredictable.”
So much for creating a perfectly coded message. What was that?
I glance at him briefly, but maybe, maybe, he understands what I’m trying to tell him.
Oh no. I’ve lost the sense of déjà vu. Did I say the wrong thing?
“Winters, I’m going to give you 30 seconds to explain yourself,” Adm. O’Reilly says, his lip curling upward.
Surprised by his attitude, I’m about to say something rude, but, no, wait, that was code, you idiot! He’s giving you 30 seconds to make a move. Figure out what the fuck this thing is.
They believe me!
Oh.
They believe me.
Now I have to do something.
I almost wish the sense of familiarity would come back.
I shift my feet, uncrossing my arms, tucking my hair behind my ears. I close my eyes for a second. What should I do? I open my eyes but I can’t see a rift there. Oh, wait, there’s that ripple . . .
Gone. How many seconds have passed?
No, it’s back. Before it disappears, before I second-guess myself, I jump forward, reach out, and touch the ripple. It feels like jelly, jiggling where my fingers touch it. I pinch some of the gelatinous substance, fascinated and grossed out, and it pulls away.
What the fuck? It’s like an invisible fabric of some kind, but what the—
As realization dawns, I grab an armful of it and yank it back really hard, kind of stumbling into Adm. O’Reilly. Like opening a curtain, the outside world’s gone. Adm. O’Reilly tries to assists me by yanking the sheet all the way but he can’t see what I see.
“What? What is it?”
There’s another room just like ours. A mirror image. Only there aren’t humans there. Three nondescript figures. Men. Kind of. They look like human males. Average build. Average height. They wear their hair slicked back. Their faces are smooth, too smooth. Their features kind of change form as though invisible fingers were constantly molding the plasticine that is their skin. Their eyes are gray and pupilless and when they turn them on me, it clicks. Aeons! Only briefly dismayed to have been found out. They are sitting at a desk, clearly spying on ESE.
“AEONS!” I scream.
“Where?” Adm. O’Reilly shouts.
“How many?” shouts King, somewhere behind me.
“There!” I point. “Three!” I don’t see the one I almost killed. I worry these are as strong as he was. “Unarmed!”
King grabs me and shoves me behind him, ordering PRISMs to take a protective position around me.
While this happening, I exclaim, astonished, “They, they are spying through a rift, right here!” No time to think about how they managed to create a rift where they wanted one, and to conceal it. They clearly have been spying on ESE Command via a parallel universe.
Yet, other than arming themselves, no one makes a move in my universe, because they can’t see a damn thing!
“Tell us what’s happening,” says King, sounding calm, but I pick up on panic in his voice.
“Oh, no.” I watch the Aeons rise, slowly, confidently, without a care in the world.
“What? What are they doing?” asks Adm. O’Reilly, exasperated, keeping his eyes where he thinks they should be.
They know I’m a sift. Of course, because I’m shouting that I can see them. Idiot!
I can’t explain what the Aeons are doing fast enough. One of them grabs an object and throws it at the rift. I know everyone on my side watches the black ESE com-tab, seemingly coming out of nowhere, slide across the floor. But I’m watching the Aeons. Thanks to my presence, they have just confirmed that the rift’s crossable. They waste no time.
“They are coming—” I back up, but I don’t finish.
The Aeon are already through, shocking the shit out of Adm. O’Reilly.
King steps up and shoots one in the back. The top half of the Aeon’s body blows up. Brown acidic glop sprays everywhere. These ones must be weaker than the one I met on Or’ic’s ship.
Adm. O’Reilly fights with the other, showing why he’s the head of SOSA. The enemy’s dead in a blur, his neck snapped almost effortlessly.
PRISM guards are going for the third one, who’s carrying an unusual object I didn’t see before.
The expressionless monster’s making his way toward me!
No. Wait. He’s not. That was a just dummy tactic to draw in defenders.
In a flash, the Aeon turns so quickly I catch only a blur, then fire. The two PRISM guards burst into vapor and then the Aeon shoots their charge.
Commandant Abernathy incinerates before me.
The alien turns to me, a faint lift in its artificial lips, just before King blows it apart, a second too late.
I understand it was thanking me. Thanking me for giving it access to cross the portal so it could assassinate ESE’s Commandant.
Chapter 32
It’s night again. I’m alone in my hut. Lying here. Numb. I—
Commandant Abernathy.
A mound of ash.
I hate—
Me.
A burst of rage propels me onto my feet. I pace quickly. You can’t change what happened. You make your choices. It’s not your fault. Just Aeon’s good luck.
You must be on guard against this forever more!
You’re . . . a weapon. A deadly weapon that can be used against people, maybe people you care about next time, in seconds. You must not let others use you, even accidentally.
You find rifts, but you also open them up for Aeons.
Why don’t I open them up for others? Could I bring my own people across? Would I want to?
I’m so tired. I wish . . . I wish . . . I don’t know what I wish. I wish I had more information. I need to know more.
I wish . . . I had hid like Daz told me to in that fucking note.
But wait. How did he get that note to me?
The sift.
Only a sift could send a message like that through the dimensions. So why would a sift, who was hiding out in another dimension, risk leaving it to get a note to me? Why?
Because he owed it to Daz.
That’s a possibility. And if that were true, it would mean . . . what? That maybe Daz had a hand in the sift getting away? Why? Something’s very important about that sift, and not just because he’s a weapon.
What should I do? I’ll never get to the rift now.
Adm. O’Reilly’s temporarily in command. I suspect ESE’s planning to leave Taxata any minute.
They don’t need that sift, not now that they have me.
In the aftermath of the assassination, I was questioned hastily about my escape, but mostly about my sifting abilities. Hathaway and a contingent of brainiacs and medical were on hand scanning me, running tests. Hath took a moment to quietly apologize for activating Or’ic’s portal device. There was no cavalier left in him. He looked exhausted, his lanky tall frame stooped, his vitality diminished. I told him it wasn’t his fault, but my heart just wasn’t into reassuring him. He was preoccupied anyway, trying to sort out the science behind my perceptive ability.
One thing’s clear to everyone; how little even I understand it. I could barely articulate the sensation of sifting, never mind recount how many times it has happened over the past five years, let alone over my lifetime.
Everyone looks at me differently, too.
“I’m still human, right?”
The doctor I was half-joking with paused, startled, quickly recovering with a fake smile. “As far as we know.”
I think she meant to say it facetiously, to make me smile. But it came out all wrong, and we both knew it in the moment.
I’ve never felt more alone.
At first, I did my best to withhold information unless they agreed to rescue Daz, but it was King who convinced me this was about so much more than me, or Daz, but the safety of all humans. Of the universe.
And, oh yeah, King isn’t a Lieutenant. He’s a Lt. Colonel. When I gave him my CFA look, he shrugged and told me, “Nothing is what it seems at ESE.” Apparently everyone has covers, cover upon cover, in order to confuse Thell’eon spies, and, now, Aeon spies.
Smart.
The words Cora Smith, the outside consultant who taught me about espionage, used to describe ESE (“shrewd”) ring in my mind.
Who knows what the truth is?
I need to know the truth.
Something deep down inside tells me that the other sift has some answers. In the beginning, I begged Command to let me go into the rift after the sift. For Daz’s sake. But Lt. Colonel Yuville, the most vocal ESE Command member, fought voraciously against it. He insisted that the risk was too great to justify the end. That it was too early in ESE military strategizing to make such a move. In other words, they don’t want to risk losing me.
I begged King, embarrassing him by appealing to him on his personal level, but stopped short. I could see in his tormented eyes that it was all too personal for him. He didn’t want to risk losing me for a host of other reasons, and not even to free his friend, my brother, Daz. I don’t know how I feel about that.
Regardless, that second sift . . . is key. If I were braver, I would find a way to get to that rift, if only to talk to the sift. To understand what’s going on. To understand me.
And now I have the worst thought of all.
Was I wrong to have left Or’ic?
If I’d stayed with him, that Thell’eon Lor had killed and Abernathy would still be alive.
Yeah, but ESE would still be at risk of Aeon spies. You eliminated that threat. But, but you’re still no closer to rescuing Daz!
I need to get in that rift! But how? There are more than a dozen PRISM guards surrounding my PH now. The rift itself is flanked by ESE on the East and Thell’eons on the West.
I bet Or’ic and Kell’an are over there, thinking up some way to get me back, to punish me. My stomach drops. I think of Or’ic’s offer with dismay. Did that really almost happen? Did I almost end up as his . . . what? That time on their ship feels like another, well
, reality.
Why are you thinking of them? Anyway, everything’ll have changed between us now. They’ll think you helped to murder one of their Horde, unless Seth tells them otherwise.
Who cares? They got what they deserved! You did what you had to.
I sit back on the edge of cot and lie down slowly, thinking I need to clear my head because my thoughts are all over the place. I start with trying to feel safe, knowing there are PRISM guards protecting me.
Yeah, but are they any match for Thell’eons?
Stop it!
I experience an urge to laugh at the irony. On Or’ic’s warship, he insisted guards were necessary to keep me safe. But it was also to imprison me.
Would ESE let me leave if I wanted to?
I don’t want to think about the answer. No, you need to calm down and not think about awful things.
King.
He has been a source of strength for me all afternoon, sending me glances of encouragement during all the questions.
I trust him. Him alone. He’ll make everything better.
I squeeze my eyes tight and feel tears trickle down, into my hairline. I rub them away, and a warm hand touches mine.
I inhale sharply, opening my eyes, maybe not so surprised to take in King’s concerned face. He’s leaning over the side of the cot. I knew, or rather hoped, he would come.
He kneels down.
Tries to smile.
That’s it.
I pop up, wrapping my arms around his neck and burst into quiet sobs. My chest aches with emotion. He hugs me to him, still kneeling on the floor, stroking my hair, letting me get it all out. His ear, cold from the walk over, is pressed against my hot cheek.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly.
“No.” I shake my head against his shoulder. “No, it’s not,” I exclaim, accepting this truth only just now.
Nothing will ever be okay again.