The Rising(82)

*

“With some slight deviations, of course,” Raiff continued, making Alex and Sam think of Dr. Chu’s analysis of infant Alex’s blood work.

“What,” Sam began, “like a parallel world, as in string theory—something like that?”

“No, a parallel world would suggest independent development based on the same environment and conditions, the product of coincidence as much as anything. But there’s nothing coincidental about the fact that our species are identical in virtually all respects.”

“How’s that?” Alex asked him.

“Because millions of years ago this planet was seeded by travelers from mine—ours.”

“Seeded?”

“He means they’re responsible for our very existence,” Sam told Alex, her gaze fastened on Raiff. “Right?”

Raiff nodded, the gesture reluctant, regretful, almost sad. “This planet was a virtual match for ours, the most suitable by far of any of those tried.”

“There were more?”

“Dozens. The seeds didn’t always take; they usually didn’t. And this was going on millions of years before we found Earth and has continued in the millions of years since.”

“You used wormholes,” Alex concluded, recalling the professor’s assertions.

“Or something closely aligned with the same technology, yes. The voyage through space, even for ships capable of traveling at light speed, proved untenable. And the side effects of such travel, well, let’s just say it became impossible to find volunteers.”

Sam advanced ahead of them deeper into Raiff’s lair. She thought she heard music playing softly in the background, something classical. “So you appropriated this for your digs. Nice.”

“It seemed to make the most sense.”

“I’ll tell you,” Alex said, “what doesn’t make any sense at all. What all this crap is about. Why take over a planet you basically created in the first place?”

“Oh, it makes perfect sense,” Raiff countered. “And it was the point all along, explaining what you’re doing here.” Then, after the briefest of pauses, “What I’m doing here.”

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Alex told him. “Why didn’t those drones just kill me? I mean, they had their chance.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then help me to understand. You call yourself a Guardian, right? Well, do your job and tell me why they didn’t just kill me.”

“Because they need to know what you know.”

“I don’t know anything,” Alex said, studying the way Raiff was looking at him, evasive and uncertain at the same time. “Do I?”

“You know how to defeat them.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s why you were brought here, why people—good people—on the other side risked their lives to send you through.”

“I was an infant at that time. What do infants know?”

“Plenty, in your case. No one, none of them, was allowed to know all the details, to make sure they remained secret, to be revealed at the proper time.”

Alex glanced toward Sam, who spoke before he had a chance to. “I think this qualifies as the proper time. So tell us.”

“I can’t. It was never explained to me. There wasn’t time. We were caught breaching the facility back on our side. Everything had to be accelerated. More of us were supposed to go through to join the others already here. But they were on to us and the channel had to be closed to stop them from following us over. At all costs.”

“The people who sent you here blew it up,” Sam said, realizing now the truth of what had happened. “That’s what caused the explosion that destroyed Laboratory Z. It originated on the other side of the field, the other side of the space bridge.”

“I was just able to make it through with you in my arms, Dancer, and I mean barely. The wormhole was already closing when we reached the end of the tunnel.”

“Tunnel?”

“What we called the route created by the fold in space. We’d just reached the end when it started to close. I honestly didn’t think we’d make it. And even when we did, the energy disruption, kind of a shock wave, threatened to tear a hole in the fabric of this world and almost killed us.” Raiff’s gaze deepened, boring into Alex. “We were trapped in some kind of bubble. Moving felt like trying to fight a rip current. The best I could do was shove you out of it, right into the arms of a woman who happened to be standing there.”

“Oh, my God…”

“Your mother, Alex,” Raiff finished.





83

SHOCK WAVE

“I WAS SUPPOSED TO stay with you until the others arrived,” Raiff resumed, when he felt Alex was ready. “They’re the ones behind whatever it is you don’t realize you know.”

“Because I don’t. I was an infant at the time. It’s not like they could teach me anything.”

“Since it was clear they weren’t coming,” Raiff said, not bothering to break his train of thought to respond to Alex’s assertion, “all bets were off, and you were better off with the Chins.”

“My parents, you mean,” Alex said, not bothering to hide the indignation in his voice.