Rifter (The Survival Project Duology Book 1) (5 page)

A waste of resources and land? Indulgent pleasure — Good, or bad? Discuss.

She didn’t have the answers. She wished she did.

On a more practical note, she hoped there might be something in Leo’s flat that she could eat without it being obvious she’d been there. She imagined a refrigerator stuffed full of … well, she wasn’t sure what. Fresh fruit and vegetables? Cheeses? Even meat?

Not only thinking of breaking and entering, but stealing as well. Her criminal tendencies really were getting an outing today.

The traffic along the road by the river was heavy. A stream of what she assumed to be private vehicles, were punctuated by the yellow lights of the taxi cabs. They were an iconic image from the past that everyone on her world knew about from the archives. It seemed like every vehicle was vying for supremacy and the chance to be first off at a set of traffic-controlling lights. She’d watched a couple of those change already and knew that green was go and red was stop, and most of the vehicles seemed to ignore the amber light and go straight through. It had to have a purpose, but she couldn’t quite work it out.

The smell of the exhaust fumes tainted the air as they waited to move. It made her feel uneasy.

Everything about this world was overwhelming.

So much activity. So little restriction.

And yet, there were no black skies, no food restrictions, no abject misery, that she’d observed.

It was so hard to believe that another world had been able to cope with all this excess and not fall into the depths that had encompassed her own.

Perhaps, somewhere in their past, progress had slowed.

Or, there was something she was missing.

Maybe, if she’d done some of the research she was supposed to be doing, she’d know.

Already, she was finding it hard to picture the leaden skies that she was used to and understood. It seemed impossible that this sky could be anything other than a brilliant blue.

So much to take in.

She glanced down at the piece of paper with the address and looked at the number on the building before her. She had arrived at Leo’s home.

This was her last chance to turn around and walk the other way.

If only there was one ounce of her that wanted to do that.

Complete and utter madness. There were so many things that could go wrong if she tried to get into the building, that it would be silly to list them.

She knew she wasn’t only doing this to find out information, like she was trying to kid herself. She knew that deep inside she wanted to feel close to Leo again, and even if she could only be close to a facsimile of him, that was better than nothing. Even if she could only touch his double’s clothes, rather than touch him, that was better than ignoring this man existed and walking away.

She knew what Gordon would call it. Immature.

Immature, in her experience, was usually used as an insult. It was meant to imply that you were in some way inferior to someone else. It was rarely used in its intended sense, to simply indicate that someone wasn’t yet fully developed in mind and body. Was it immature to want to see him again? Was it immature to promise one thing, and yet do another? Yes, of course it was, but she was only eighteen. They were all young. Young enough to have hope.

Gordon would also call it unnecessarily dangerous. Gordon wasn’t opposed to danger if it was necessary — she read that as meaning something he had told them to do — but unnecessary danger, things they decided to do themselves on a whim, those were not to be approved. This was definitely an unnecessary danger.

There was a possibility that if what she did caused Leo to find out that she was his missing traveller, that he might not be welcoming. The Leo who lived in this world, who was employed by the Government to track down disruptions, who lived in parallel in some ways, but not others, could jeopardise everything she’d come here to achieve.

Leo.

The thing that hurt most was that she’d never even said goodbye.

‘
Goodbyes
,’ he’d said, ‘
Are for people who don’t expect to see each other again and I expect to see you.
’ She’d expected to see him too, and, at that point, it had been several years since someone hadn’t returned, so even though she hadn’t wanted to, she’d gone along with his wishes and not said the words. She didn’t want to go against him, that wasn’t a very girlfriend thing to do. And au revoir, that was just pointless.

He’d never been sentimental. She knew that, but it had still hurt. She’d watched him walk off without even looking behind. Not once. After he’d entered the secure area, he hadn’t looked back to wave or give any indication that he knew she was still there. She had when she left. She’d looked back at Gordon and Tian, standing behind the reinforced glass, even though she couldn’t see them properly because of the mist of tears in her eyes, and she’d whispered a third or fourth, ‘Goodbye.’

But every time she thought of this Leo, she thought of Mayra. Mayra, the woman she’d attacked.

They’d all been forced to experience a minor stun as part of their training. It was necessary for every rifter to understand the impact of their actions — another Gordonism. She’d screamed, but then she’d been expecting it and her body had already been tense. It had floored her and she’d been in the infirmary for most of the day complaining of an aching pain, but she hadn’t been knocked unconscious. She had never experienced the medium setting. By the laws of logic and increased power, it had to be worse. She winced thinking about it. Another unnecessary risk she’d taken. She was sure that any hospital would keep Mayra in overnight after what she’d been through and even if they didn’t, she couldn’t possibly be back home yet. She might not even be conscious yet.

Was this even her home?

Mara stared up at the front of the building again.

She was beginning to sweat from something other than the heat.

To say the building was a grand affair would have been an understatement. She knew that a property so close to the riverfront, with views of some of the most iconic sites in London, would only be for the wealthy, or those with power, and that meant that this version of the man she loved was in such a position.

What was different in his past that had caused this, but so similar in his past that he’d chosen to love the same woman? She had to stop analysing. It was chance. It was circumstance. One thing was for sure, it was hard to believe that someone who worked in a Government office would be that wealthy, unless this world was very different.

Maybe, he had family money. Perhaps he had in hers. She wouldn’t have known. The life they’d chosen meant they had no need for money. All their daily needs were provided for in exchange for the risks they were prepared to take. And he had always said that he didn’t want to talk about his family, because it only reminded him that he’d never see them again.

She was delaying.

She opened an inside pocket and pulled out her lock picker. She prayed that locks in this world were as easy as the locks in hers. She waited until there was no one close and headed straight for the outer door. She saw her reflection in the glass and stopped. Could she pass for the other woman if it came to that?

She shook her head. Her hands began to shake. Another wave of apprehension washed over her. This was such a bad idea. She could almost hear Gordon’s voice in her head repeating what he’d said just before she left.

‘Mara, I know sometimes you can be impetuous. You have to resist that. You’re going for one thing, and one thing only, to get information. If you do anything rash that means you don’t return, you could jeopardise the whole operation.’

“I know,” she replied, as if he were standing right next to her, “But I might never get another chance.”

‘It isn’t him, Mara.’

“I know.”

Before she allowed herself any more time to think, she slid the metal pick into the lock and turned it. She was in within seconds. She rushed through the lobby, not giving herself any time to change her mind and headed for the stairs. When she got to the third floor, she exited onto the corridor and walked toward the only door. She lifted the pick again, and silently let herself in.

Six

The interior of the flat was extraordinary.

A small entranceway, delineated by a short, six-foot interior wall, opened out onto a sizable room, with floor to ceiling windows and doors looking out across the river, and leading out onto a full-width balcony that had been decorated with large ceramic pots containing a mini forest of wide-leaved plants.

The view alone was stunning, but when Mara managed to tear her eyes away from that, she saw that she was in a room into which you could fit pretty much any house she, or any of her childhood friends, had lived in, in its entirety. It made her feel envious and appalled at the same time. This was prosperity, but this was also excess. Dark-brown, enormous leather sofas, the kind you might sink into and never want to get out of again, were arranged on three sides of a square around the biggest coffee table she’d ever seen. It was made of glass, with not a hint of dust on its surface. The fourth side of the square was marked by a grand fire surround, but there was no real fire, or even a nook to contain it. Instead, there was a flat screen displaying burning logs, even though it was clearly the middle of summer. It made her involuntarily rub her arms, which creeped her out a little.

In the far corner to her left, by the window, there was a sturdy oak dining table with six high-backed chairs. It didn’t seem like it was often used.

On the back wall, a proper entertainment screen, that filled half its width, was hung. Artwork, not to her taste, abstract, lined the remainder of the walls, arranged in a ragged format.

On the opposite side of the fireplace to the dining table, she noticed there was a corridor, leading off to the rest of the flat, she assumed. There were no desks or cabinets with drawers in the lounge, so the rest of the flat was where she needed to explore if she was to find any useful information.

Mara felt in her pocket for the stun clip. It was there, of course, exactly where she’d put it back after the last time she’d checked.

The first door, on the left of the corridor, was a very well-appointed kitchen, filled with appliances, the purposes of which were not obvious to her. The first door on the right was a bedroom. After a quick examination, she discovered that the bathroom was accessed through the bedroom. It was very neat and tidy and the feminine colours indicated that Mayra must live here as well, at least, some of the time. She knew from living at The Facility, that the boys never adorned their bedrooms with anything feminine without prompting.

There was one other door at the end of the corridor. She tried the handle and found it was locked.

Locked was always more interesting.

She took out her pick once more. She hadn’t had so much practice at picking locks for ages.

After fifteen minutes of trying to enter the room, Mara slumped down onto the floor. It was no use. Whatever was hidden in that room was so secret the door had been secured with an almost impenetrable lock. Either that, or her education had been lacking. But what could he have that was
that
secret?

She looked up and noticed a hatch door in the ceiling.

There was a loft space as well and that wasn’t locked.

She jumped at the hatch, but she couldn’t reach the metal ring to pull it down, and she couldn’t see any pole for the purpose, but there was a stool in the kitchen she could use to stand on. Balanced precariously, she pulled at the ring. The hatch creaked as it opened and the metal steps lowered to the floor. The stiffness of the mechanism didn’t bode well. If it wasn’t used frequently, then there probably wasn’t much of interest up there.

She climbed up and poked her head over the edge. She fumbled for a light switch, without success. She leaned in a little further and breathed too hard, causing dust to suction up her nostrils. She sneezed loudly and disturbed even more of it.

That was the moment, when she was listening intently to make sure that no one had heard her sneeze and was coming to find out who was there, that she heard the ping of the lift doors opening.

She almost couldn’t believe her sneeze had been loud enough to cause it, but that made no difference. There was only one door on that floor, so whoever it was, was coming to this flat. She didn’t waste one second. She pushed the steps back, trying desperately not to make too much noise, and failing miserably. The hatch closed with a thump from the momentum of the mechanism. She almost threw the stool back into the kitchen and took off into the bedroom and closed the door.

She heard the front door open and the sound of happy whistling floated through the flat.

She almost couldn’t believe she’d got away with it. Well, she hadn’t exactly got away with it. She was still trapped, with someone, she didn’t know who, blocking her exit. At least, it didn’t sound like someone coming into a flat expecting to find burglars. She needed to see who it was first, and then make her plan. She inched the bedroom door open a crack and squinted through the narrow opening.

She gasped, way too loudly.

Leo.

How could he be there so soon? She was sure it wasn’t yet the end of the working day. No matter. He was there, and she was there. She had very little in the way of options. A plan took shape in her head. She would be able to add reckless to the words Gordon would call her if she ever got back.