The Rift Rider (2 page)

"It's over,
Charlie," Amy said. She had to raise her voice to compete with the
cacophony of noise inside the Kombi. The indie pop blasting from the van's speakers,
the pasta sauce bubbling away on the stove, the waves crashing outside and the
rain slamming down on the van's roof all combined to make conversation a near
impossibility.

"What was
that?" Charlie stirred the sauce with one hand and cupped the other around
his ear.

"I said,"
his girlfriend was screaming now, her brown fringe rocking side to side,
"It's over. I'm breaking up with you."

Charlie stood at
the stove. The wooden spoon hung limp in his hand. "Why?"

Amy turned an
ear towards him and pointed at it. She was a pretty, rosy-faced girl, with the
dimensions of a forest elf.

"Why?"
Charlie shouted.

She shook her
head, squeezed past Charlie to get to the front seats and switched off the
music. "Let's sit down and talk about this like adults."

"I'd rather
stand."

"So be it."
She sat down on the bench beside the stove. The wood creaked with age. She
folded her arms across her chest, and raised her chin, revealing the smooth,
pale, elastic skin of her throat. "I'm moving to Japan on Monday to teach
English."

"Japan?"
Charlie distantly remembered her saying something about Asia one night. He
thought she had been joking.

"Yes."

"This
Monday?"

"Yes."

"But what
about me?"

"Look
Charlie, it was fun while it lasted. But let's be honest, it was never really serious
between us."

Charlie raised
the spoon, splattering himself in Dolmio pasta sauce. "I thought it was
serious."

Amy laughed. "Charlie,
nothing in your life is serious." She waved an open palm at Charlie.
"I mean look at you."

Charlie looked
at his tomato stained shirt.

"You're
cooking pre-made pasta sauce in a hippy shit heap. That's how serious you
are."

"What do
you mean shit heap? The love mobile-"

The girl glared
at him. She had never liked the van's moniker and the connotations it made whenever
she spent an evening inside it.

"The love
mobile," Charlie continued, "is a classic, a corner stone of German
engineering. Plenty would give their right arm to have one of these sitting in
their driveway."

"Well,
they're arseholes."

Charlie stared
at her. Who was this woman? What had happened to his lovely, indie chick
girlfriend? Charlie searched his mind for the right thing to say, trawling
though the half-remembered articles he had read in Marie Claire and
Cosmopolitan while he waited for Amy to get ready. Surely, he thought, there
must be something I can say to bring my sweet Amy back, and banish this cold-hearted
she-devil I see beside me.

"It's not
the van," she said. "It's you."

Charlie exhaled
and sat down on the bench next to her.

She placed a
hand on his thigh and looked up at him, her brown eyes no longer angry.
"When we met in the third year, all you talked about was the surf trip you
would take after you graduated. The great six-month trek around the beaches of
Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Australia. You were so excited, you convinced me to
stay in Swansea until we got the money together. You promised me we'd leave the
Spring after we graduated. Spring came and went and so did Summer. Now it's
Autumn and you look no closer to leaving than you did back then."

"I just
need to save a bit more."

"That's
bollocks, and you know it. If you really wanted to go, you could right now. It
only takes a month to get a working holiday visa for Australia. And if you don't
want to pick fruit, getting a teaching job in Indonesia is just as easy. You've
got your degree. That's all you need."

Charlie shook
his head. "But-"

"No buts
Charlie. I'm twenty-two. If I don't go travelling now, I never will. I'll be
stuck, forever, in a crap job, in a crap office, in a crap town with even
crappier weather, where the most I have to look forward to is a crap meal with
my crap boyfriend in his crappy van."

"What are
you talking about? Swansea's a great place to live."

"Yeah, if
all you want to do in life is surf, play rugby and drink with your housemates
like a bunch of students." She shook her head.

"Those guys
are the only family I've ever known. These last four years have been the only
time in my life I've felt any kind of stability. I told you that."

"I know
shifting around dozens of foster homes was a crappy way to grow up. But I can't
believe you're willing to do a job you hate, and miss out on the whole wide
world out there, for this." She indicated the van with a wave of her thin
arms.

"It's just
a temp job. As soon as I get enough money together I'll take that trip."

"Quit kidding
yourself, Charlie. You'll carry on like this until it's too late to do anything
different."

"No."

"Yes. In
five year's time, you'll be living in the same student house, working full time
at Hawk. Only, you'll be a little fatter, and," she eyed his hairline,
"receding."

"What did
you say?' He said, placing a tentative hand against his hair. That was a low
blow. His long surfer locks defined him. Without them, he'd be half a man.

"You and
your hair. It's bloody ridiculous. You care more about it than me."

The anger in him
made him want to lash out and hurt her. What should I mention first, he
thought, her girlish obsession with boy bands or her moustache, faint,
admittedly, but there all the same.
 
In the end, the anger passed as quickly as it had arisen, and he said
nothing.

"I'm
sorry," she said, "let's not hurt each other anymore. You're a good
guy Charlie." She rose from her seat and cupped his cheek in his hand.
"One of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest men, I've ever met."

"But it's not
enough." Nice guys really do come last, Charlie reflected, dismally.

"How about
we call it a break," he said, sensing hope." And when you come back,
we'll get back together like nothing happened."

She leaned down
and kissed him. "Goodbye Charlie," she said, pulling away.She pushed the
back doors open and hopped to the ground outside.

The girl
shuffled, shoulders hunched against the rain, to the Nissan Sunny, parked a few
metres away. While she struggled to unlock the door, the rain soaked her shirt,
causing the wet fabric to press closely against her firm breasts. Farewell
sweet boobs, Charlie said to himself.

Once inside, she
started the engine and from behind the swishing window wipers, raised her hand.
Then, she drove away.

Charlie stepped
out of the van. Through the falling curtain of rain, he watched the Nissan's
taillights disappear into the night.

 
He sighed, and turned away. Before him
lay Broughton Bay. He stared out at the sea. The moon shone full and heavy in
the sky, bathing the beach in its white glow. The storm had brought a good
sized swell and now rows of curling waves lined up to break against the central
beach break.

Charlie smiled
at the view. Was there anything more beautiful than the sight of waves crashing
in the moonlight? He doubted it. Still, it was too cold to be stood outside in
the rain, so he turned, ready to climb into the warmth of his van. The moment
called for a nice cup of tea.

But as he placed
his foot on the rear step, a scream shot out across the beach. He froze. The
wind howled. For a second it drowned out everything. It went still. Again, came
the scream.

Yes, thought
Charlie, it's defiantly a scream. Someone's out there. He shuddered. Someone's
out there, alone in this monster swell. They don't have long.

He scanned the
car park. But his was the only vehicle there.

"Fuck."
He leapt inside the van.

It took him two
minutes to get into his wetsuit, grab his board and race down to the water's
edge. The wetsuit had cost him valuable time, but then he doubted he would last
long out there in just his briefs.

He scanned the
water. The rain stung at his eyes as he searched. His heart pounded as the
seconds ticked by, without a sighting.

Then the scream
came again, and Charlie saw a flash of white in the water. He sprinted into the
water, throwing the board out in front of him. The wooden board skidded across
the water's surface and he dived on top of it. His momentum pushed him over the
first wall of white water.

Head down, he pulled
his arms through the water, paddling as hard as he could towards the drowning
man or woman. Through gaps in the wind, the scream pierced the sky. Charlie
used it to guide him.

As he got
further out, the waves came rushing at him, thick and heavy. He duck dived
through them, breaking out the back of each wave without slowing. Every dive
sent icicles through the back of his eyes and left his lungs singed cold. He
gritted his teeth against the pain and paddled on.

And then in the
distance, he saw it, the bobbing whiteness that had caught his attention from
the beach. He slapped the water in disbelief. What a mug, he thought. What an
absolute bloody mug.

For there before
him, rocking and back and forth as the waves rolled under it, floated the
bloated, decomposing body of a dead dolphin. What Charlie had taken for a
scream was in fact, the angry calls of the sea gulls fighting over the poor
animal's remains.

Here I am, he
thought, freezing my arse off, risking my life, for a dead dolphin. Despite his
love for these kindred ocean spirits, he laughed out loud. Soon his whole body
shook with laughter. What a fucking day, he shouted, loud enough to scare away
some of the gulls.

When the
laughing fit subsided, Charlie looked around. The wind had grown steadily
weaker and the waves were holding up nicely. He smiled, as it dawned on him
that he had all of these waves to himself, a first in this day and age of
British surfer kids.

He took his
first wave perfectly. On the second, he mistimed his take off and tumbled down
the two-metre high face of the wave. The impact knocked the wind out of him and
left him rattled.

He let the next
three waves pass, while he collected himself. Then he launched himself onto the
final and biggest wave of the set. He slid down the wave, a falling man atop a six-foot
plank of wood, smiling as the water rushed and rolled beneath him.

The wave went on
and on, each time it looked like collapsing, it would change its mind and hold
up letting Charlie continue his charge down the line. Time seemed to stretch.
Charlie glided across the moonlit runway, deciding how best to finish his ride.

In the end he
opted for an air. He had spent the last four surf sessions practising his
somersault boosts and the speed, and shape of this wave called for a gymnastic
close.

To pick up
speed, he pumped his back leg, pushing the board faster and faster. When the
shoulder of the wave lay a few metres ahead, he executed a hard bottom turn.
Charlie shot up the face of the wave. The moment the board left the wave, he
twisted, bringing his feet and board over his head.

As he hung
upside down, he visualised bringing his feet back down beneath him, landing the
board on the back of the wave. But instead of replicating his mind's
projection, his body and board remained in mid-air. Like a paused DVD, Charlie had
frozen in time and space.

What the hell,
he thought, raising his eyes to look at the water beneath him.

In a flash of
white brilliance, sky and water became one. He closed his eyes against it and a
electric bolt shot through him, filling him with the bitter tang of lemons.

Cautiously, he
opened his eyes. Beneath him the ocean had vanished and in its place flowed an
infinite waterfall of white light. Charlie stared down at it, disbelieving what
he saw.

And then gravity
returned and he was falling, plummeting head first into the light.

From behind the
one-way observation mirror, Doctor Sree frowned. The purple skin of his
forehead contorted into a column of V's. The jagged line ran from the centre of
his hairless head into a black mono-brow. Beneath the length of curling hair, intelligent
eyes shone darkly.

The
Corporation's leading scientist took a deep breath and then exhaled. The air
came rushing through his narrow nostrils, twisting and turning to create a
sharp bird-like whistle. It was a noise that drove those around him beyond
annoyance to outright anger. But at that moment he was alone and could breath
through his nose as much as he damn well pleased.

As he breathed
the cool, recycled air luxuriously through his nose, he stared through the
window at the interrogation. On one side of the room, Executive Ko, the
Corporation's head of anti terrorism and superstar interrogator, paced back and
forth like a caged beast. The female silver had risen to the upper echelons of the
Corporation in a matter of years, her fierce ambition helping her overcome her
terrible disfigurement.

At the other,
pinned to the X-shaped torture frame, hung the suspected terrorist the
destroyer had picked up en route back to Seenthee.
 

 
Doctor Sree stroked his bushy moustache,
and ran his scientist's eyes over the young male suspect. He was naked from the
waist up, the top half of his black synthetic suit having been torn away.

He looked
different from the usual riff raff that joined the Turen Resistance. He had the
light brown hair and green eyes of Corporation's ruling elite, but his skin
lacked their metallic silver sheen. In fact, the scientist had never seen skin
like it. It shone the colour of moonlight. He wondered if the rest of his skin
looked the same.

Whatever his
appearance, the suspect had been putting up some fight against the executive's
questioning. The interrogation had begun two hours ago and Ko had built her
reputation as the Corporation's primo interrogator by breaking terror suspects
within half an hour.

The woman
marched back and forth in front of the prisoner. Her smooth, rigid, wax face
gave away nothing. But the scientist could tell from the screwed up shoulders,
and jaunty movements that behind that terrible face she was raging.

The alien woman
paced around in front of him. As she moved, her tightly packed muscles flexed
and rolled beneath her skin-tight uniform. With her scrapped back hair and
taught body, she looked to Charlie like some silver skinned demon gymnast.
Around her wrist she wore a gold bracelet. Every now and then she would bring
it close to her lips and whisper something too quiet for Charlie to make out.

She took a few
steps towards Charlie. "Don't lie to me," she said, her voice high
and whiny like a spoiled child's.

Charlie closed
his eyes against the spray of spittle that accompanied the woman's words. The
desire to rub his face dry overwhelmed him. But his hands were cuffed to the
frame above him.

"I'm not
lying," he said, though he knew it was useless. He had been saying those words,
over and over. But this strange silver woman with the burn victim face refused
to believe him. "I told you, one moment I was surfing and the next I'm
here strapped to the wall with you shouting at me."

"Liar,"
she screamed and reached for a syringe lying on the tray beside her. It was
full of a blood coloured liquid.

"Please,"
Charlie said. "Please, not again."

Each time the
woman grew frustrated she would inject him with the red fluid. And then for the
next five minutes his arms, legs and backs would experience the most gut
wrenching cramps and his face and testicles would burn as if singed by a
thousand Bunsen burners.

The woman stood
before him. She was about the same height as Amy and had to peer up to make eye
contact. She held up the syringe so that he could see the thick red liquid
swilling about inside it. A single strand of brown hair had come free. It hung,
like a question mark, above the vacant space where her left eyebrow would have
been if she had eyebrows.

"Please,"
he said, "Everything I said is true. My name's Charlie Scott. I'm a
British Citizen. I'm from Bristol in England."

 
Arctic eyes studied him. They were the
only part of her face that betrayed any emotion. Right now, he could see
hatred, but most of all annoyance.

"But you
see, Mr Scott, if that really is your name, you cannot be from Bristol or
England. These places do not exist. Nowhere on our planet, or even on Poklawi,
is there a country called England, or a zone of habitation called Bristol."

"I'm not from
your bloody planet," Charlie said, brimming with frustration. "I'm
from England. You must know it. We're speaking English right now."

 
She shook her head, as if addressing a
foolish child. "You are making this up in an attempt to hide your true
identity, and your reason for being out in the Wrake Pass." She held the
syringe an inch form his eyes. "And that displeases me."

Her jaw dropped
open, revealing her tiny child's teeth. Then as if controlled by a motor her
jaw began to shudder. The shaking jaw sent a shiver down his spine. It scared
him even more than the woman's corpse face, for he knew it shook from
excitement. The woman enjoyed hurting him.

Charlie stared
passed his torturer to the series of portholes running along the side of the
room. Beyond them, millions of stars twinkled in the endless darkness of space.
He picked a star.

The needle
pushed into his neck. As the burning liquid rushed into his veins, spreading
its pain throughout him, he concentrated on his star. Through the pain, he
prayed to whatever mystical force had brought him to this terrible destination,
pleading for it to send him back to where he belonged, back to beautiful rainy
Wales.

Six injections
later the interrogator's enthusiasm had ebbed somewhat. She no longer screamed
in Charlie's face, and when she injected the red stuff, she seemed to no longer
take any enjoyment from his suffering.

Her eyes looked
dull, like someone had switched a light off behind them. Charlie recognised the
look. He had seen it everyday for the last twelve months in the eyes of the
Hawk Insurance admin staff.

Charlie, on the
other hand, felt his spirits rise. His body had gradually started getting used
to the injections. They still hurt like hell, but each subsequent rush of red
hurt a little less. For the first time since he had awoken, he believed he
might make it out of the room alive.

The alien
woman's bracelet emitted a series of sharp beeps. She raised it to her ear and
listened. When the message ended, she said something into the communication
device, lowered her hand and walked over to Charlie.

"We
captured three escape pods," she said, robot like, her mind on automatic
pilot now, "two empty and one with you inside. The drones have returned from
examining your ship. We know four pods jettisoned. So, tell me Mr Scott. Who
was in the fourth pod?"

Charlie arched
his back in an attempted shrug. "I told you a hundred times, the last
thing I remember before waking up here was surfing. I don't know anything about
a spaceship."

The alien woman
clenched her fists. When she spoke, she spat the words out with venom.
"You think I don't have anything better to do than talk to a shit like
you, an idiot regular unfit to scrub Corporation toilets. I've had my fill of
arseholes like you. I deserve better than this." She slapped him hard
against his cheek.

Charlie jerked
his head away, more in shock than in actual pain. Aside from the injections,
the alien had not so much as laid a hand on him before.

She got in close
again and screamed. "Who are you and what were you doing in the Wrake
Pass?"

Charlie closed
his mouth, and twisted his nose. The woman had breath like stale kippers.

By now, he
figured, if she had wanted to kill him, she would have. So he thought, fuck it,
and said, "To be honest, love, I think you could do with some breath
mints."

Her eyes seemed
to catch aflame, as if someone had doused them with petrol and lit a match. In
the cold, motionless flesh of her face, they seemed to belong to another being,
some fire demon that had possessed her mannequin body.

Her jaw dropped
open and juddered wildly.

The punch came
quick and hard. It smashed into the centre of Charlie's nose and sent him
spiralling into unconsciousness.

Executive Ko
stormed out of the interrogation room and into the dimly lit, observation cell.

"What are
you doing here?" The silver said, clearly caught off guard at finding
someone else here.

"Watching
your interrogation, Executive," the scientist said, smiling, enjoying the
woman's discomfort.

She eyed him with
caution. "Why?"

"Chief Lade
sent me down to observe?"

"Why should
the Corporation's Chief Technology Officer have an interest in a simple
terrorist?"

"A simple
terrorist who claims to be from another planet."

She scoffed, and
shook her head. "You can't possibly believe that. It's a simple cover
story, and nothing else."

"Is it?
Have you ever asked yourself why I've been doing on the ship all this time, why
a simple regular such as I has been afforded access hitherto restrained to the
highest ranking silvers?"

"My role is
to hunt terrorists, Doctor Sree. I have no interest in the Technology
department's experiments."

"Well, without
boring you with the details, I have been experimenting with a new form of
engine, one that promises to revolutionize space travel. That's why we're so close
to the Wrake Pass.

"In these
experiments we have broken a great number of the Universe's basic laws. The
consequences of this even I cannot predict. So when I heard we had caught a
person near the Pass claiming to be from another world, well, you can see why
my curiosity was aroused."

Ko glanced at
the prisoner in the interrogation room. "You believe the suspect has
something to do with your experiments?"

"I'm a
scientist, Executive. I don't believe in coincidences. "

The woman
turned, and looked through the observation mirror. The suspect hung, limply,
from the interrogation frame. His long, wet hair obscured much of his face.
"But he looks turen."

"A unique
one, but yes, a turen nonetheless."

"Then, how
could he be an alien?"

The scientist
shrugged, and said, "I need to run some tests before I can answer that. A
partial dissection should be enough. Therefore, I will require you to hand over
the prisoner to me."

"Is this
you asking, or Chief Lade?"

"Would you
do what I asked without the backing of our superior?"

The woman said
nothing, but her eyes flashed in annoyance. Silvers viewed regulars, even
Corporation ones, as intellectually and physically inferior. They were not used
to taking orders from them.

"The
prisoner is yours. But before you start chopping him up, I'd like to observe
him in the holding cell. If it turns out he's just a turen, he'll likely make
contact with the other terrorists we have caged up down there. I want to see
who he talks to."

"So be
it," he said, smiling. If his hypothesis were true, he would be first
scientist to ever examine an alien. Together with his successes in rift travel,
his name would live forever. He had finally stepped out of the shadow of his
mentor, the traitor Doctor Krest.

He gave the
prisoner one last look, said, "I'll begin preparing the lab for
dissection," and then walked out of the observation cell.