The Rift Rider (4 page)

It was the role
of the anti-terror department to exterminate this scourge.

Going by the
statistics the woman threw at her viewers, they were succeeding too. The number
of resistance fighters killed in battle or executed so far this year numbered
in the thousands. And the CEO was confident that this number would continue to
rise, once they had successfully put into action their plan to stop the flow of
support coming through the Wrake Pass from Poklawi.

Poklawi, Charlie
inferred, was the home of a second alien race, the robundee. These red-skinned
aliens supported the resistance and provided them with sanctuary. Up until now
the Corporation had been unable to cross through the Wrake Pass to destroy them
and seize their moon home. But those days, the CEO assured her viewers, would soon
be coming to an end.

"The
day," she said, her chin raised proudly, "when we shall cut off the
traitor's umbilical cord will soon be upon us and with it the end of the
resistance and these barbaric red savages." She paused and then with half
closed eyes, and solemn voice, said, "Long live the Corporation."

The two soldiers
raised their palms above their head and curtsied in an implausibly camp salute.

The face
vanished and Charlie was left to ruminate over what he had learnt. What
interested him most was her reference to the robundee. He sensed that despite
her disdain towards this alien race, she feared them. He closed his eyes. There
was no need to imagine what such a barbaric savage might look like. He had seen
one. And his name was Brother Yojim.

The cage stood
eight feet tall and as long and wide as a five-a-side football pitch. Behind
its sleek bars, men and women of varying size, colour and furriness stood
brooding or sat with hunched shoulders on the benches crisscrossing the cage.

Two more lime
coloured uniforms greeted Charlie and his escort. These two were male, and both
as white as sheet of A4. Surprisingly, they had had their fringes shaved off.
Charlie wondered if this were some form of punishment. They certainly looked
pissed off. Their bare heads and malignant looks reminded Charlie of the
football fans that descended on Swansea on a match day.

The taller of
the two unattached a silver tube from his belt, and faced the prisoners.
"Alright you miserable shits," he said, running the tube across the
metal bars. "Back off, or you'll get a thousand volts up your arses."

A wave of
agitation passed through the inmates.

The second
guard, similarly armed, took a step towards the gate where an obese woman with
skin the colour of Lucozade stood leaning against the bars. Whether too tired
to move or standing defiant against her captures, Charlie could not tell.
Either way, the guard flicked a switch and his tube sparked into life. A small
storm cloud formed at the tip. Then with a smirk on his lips equal to the one
in his eyes, he rammed the flashing tube into her fleshy backside.

The effect was
immediate.

The woman's back
cracked into a huge C. Her limbs shot out in obscene angles. Her legs scrambled
beneath her as if they no longer belonged to her, the pair wanting to make a
run for it but heading in opposite directions.

The guard kept
the end pressed against her, watching the performance through narrow, smiling
eyes. "Come on fatty, dance."

The smell of
urine, shit and singed flesh filled the air. Charlie cupped his hand over his
mouth and nose and turned away.

The second guard
said, laughing, "Who'd have thought such a tubby wench could dance so damn
sexy."

Finally, the
guard grew bored of the show and switched off his tube. The woman crashed to
the floor. Her body twitched for a few seconds and then shut down.

The inmates
looked at the lifeless heap on the floor and then at the still smirking guard.
Their eyes burned with hatred.

The
demonstration had the desired effect. Nobody now stood within three metres of
the cage door. Charlie's escort watched on, nodding at a job well done. They
re-laid their orders to the two skinheads, took off Charlie's restraints, and
then walked away.

The skinhead who
had flashed the woman returned his tube to his belt and gripped the rifle hanging
over his shoulder. He levelled the barrel at the prisoners, his finger
twitching over the trigger guard while the other guard opened the cell door.
From the look in his eye, Charlie could tell there was nothing this guy wanted
more than to have to fire on this unarmed mob.

The door slid
open and before Charlie could take a step forward, the guard pushed him in the
back, sending him stumbling through the door. He immediately tripped over the
unconscious women and collided with two thickset prisoners standing behind her.
He bounced off them as if they had been holding concrete tackle pads. He
slammed into the bars beside them, and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

The cage door
slid shut with a heavy click.

Charlie shifted
onto his backside, drew his knees up to his chest. He looked around the cell. A
handful of prisoners stood staring down at him. But most had shuffled back to
their corners or benches.

A large prisoner
pushed through the onlookers and stopped a few metres short of Charlie. It was
more beast than man. Grey, sooty fur covered most of it. It was as if someone
had dipped the creature in tar and rolled it in the hair of a hundred mangy street
dogs. Though they would have needed a swimming pool to dip it in. The beast
stood at least seven feet tall and had muscles Arnold Schwarzenegger would have
envied in his heyday.

Like a gorilla,
its face, chest, hand and feet remained hairless. Its skin, thick, mottled, and
inconsistent, looked as though it hand been painted on by a toddler. It smiled,
and a thick, mollusc tongue slivered out between two rows of scimitar teeth.
Charlie grimaced. In the Austrian oak's own words, this was one ugly motherfucker.

The beast took
another step closer.

Charlie smiled
weakly and raised his hand. "All right mate. I don't want any
trouble."

From this
distance, Charlie could make out the pungent smell of dirty socks. Each time
the hairy inmate exhaled the odour poured forward. Charlie tried to keep the
disgust out of his face.

The beast loomed
above him for a long moment and then squatted onto its considerable haunches.
To Charlie's dismay, the movement caused some long trapped air to escape from
the alien's bottom in a momentous roar. Yet, the comic outpouring brought no
amused chuckles from the prisoners behind. When this monster farted, you did not
laugh.

Charlie, gagging
on this new nasal onslaught, turned his head away. The bars lay a few inches
away. How dearly he wished to be on the other side of them.

A sandpaper hand
grabbed his chin. Charlie tried to move but the grip was machine firm. The
alien aggressor moved Charlie's head from side to side as if inspecting it for
defects. Its bestial eyes, deep set inside its head like buried pebbles,
regarded Charlie with interest.

Charlie placed
his hands against the beast's bare chest and shoved. But it was like pushing
back a hurricane. The alien smiled its awful smile and with its free hand
swatted Charlie's arm away.

"Please,"
Charlie said. "Don't hurt me."

The alien moved
its hand downwards and wrapped its fingers around Charlie's throat, pinning him
against the bars. It leaned in so close that Charlie could feel its breath
against his skin. With a casual yawn, the beast opened its mouth wide. Its
glistening tongue edged out from between the ivory blades, and came to a rest
against Charlie's cheek.

It felt like a
cat's tongue, wet and prickly. Charlie closed his eyes and prayed this beast
was no cannibal.

The tongue
sharpened to a tip. Charlie braced himself, his buttocks clenching underneath
the wetsuit. But instead of taking an apple-sized bite out of his cheek, the
alien flicked its tongue and then proceeded to run its pointed tip around
Charlie's face. Eyebrows, forehead, hairline, nose, top lip, bottom lip; the
beast's tongue missed nothing. All Charlie could do was sit and wait it out,
hoping beyond hope the tongue would not descend southwards.

Just as the tip
of the tongue was set to slime its way down over Charlie's chin and down his
neck, a deep voice called out, "Bork," and the tongue stopped its
descent. The beast backed away, its tongue leaving Charlie's face with a strong
flick.

Charlie opened
his eyes. Behind the beast, a blue-skinned man stood, his palms raised above
him as in mock surrender. "I think we can both agree this kid's a bit too
young for you, can't we?"

He was a tall,
upright man, with the swarthy appearance of a 1950's Hollywood movie star. Yet
his amber eyes contained enough ice to last a summer, and under his fine
clothes, lay the formidable build of a wing-forward. Charlie could easily
picture him tackling an eighteen-stone Tongan centre or fending off tacklers as
he ploughed his way across a rugby field.

But the beast
standing in front of him was no rugby player. He was a thirty stone nightmare
with the kind of dental work any ocean predator would have been proud of.

The beast roared
and strode towards the blue man.

The kick came
out of nowhere, cutting through the air like a woodman's axe. It landed with a
crack on the bridge of the beast's nose, sending the furry alien down onto one
knee. Before it had time to react, the blue man came in with a series of rabbit
punches, pummelling the beast across its massive chest. The beast screamed out
in pain. The man continued to strike out with blue fists.

The guards
shifted their gaze towards the source of the noise. But the only reaction the
fight brought out of them were two wide smirks.

The blue man
finished slamming the beast's chest and raised his hands above his head,
linking them together. Then with all his strength, he brought the two handed
club down in a diagonal slice that ended on the beast's right temple.

For a brief
second the great beast's pebble eyes grew even darker and then it fell, ramrod
straight like a giant hairy tree. It landed face first on the hard cell floor
with a sick crunch.

Charlie looked
at the mountain of fur laid out at his feet. He wondered whether the blue man
had killed the beast. But then the distinctive stink of its nasal breathing
seeped out from under it. The hairy alien was only unconscious.

Charlie
clambered to his feet, anxious to get away from the beast. There was no telling
when it would awaken and at whom it would vent its retaliation. Gingerly, he stepped
over the sleeping giant.

"Thank
you," Charlie said, holding out his hand.

"You're
welcome," the blue man said, looking at Charlie's outstretched hand with a
raised eyebrow. Instead of shaking it, he placed his own hand in front of him.
He held it palm down with the thumb curved like a hook.

It was now
Charlie's turn to look bemused.

The blue man
frowned and retracted his hand. "You okay, kid?"

"I thought
that . . . thing was going to rip my throat out."

The stranger
laughed. "She wasn't going to kill you. That was just Bork's idea of mild
flirting"

"That
thing's a she?" Charlie said, incredulous.

"Yeah, she
must have taken a liking to you," he said nodding towards the sleeping
beast. "Bork's got a taste for hairless boys. Even ones with smashed faces."

Charlie lifted
his fingers to his damaged nose. It had swollen so much it felt as if someone
had replaced it with a couple of roast potatoes. As soon as he found a
reflective surface, he decided, he would brave a glance.

 
The blue man smiled and, looking at
Charlie's legs, said, "What's the deal with the trousers?"

Charlie looked
down at the torn wetsuit. A jagged line ran across his waist where they had
torn the top half away. "They took the rest of my suit."

The blue man
raised an eyebrow and, gesturing for Charlie follow, turned on his heel. Charlie
pulled his fingers from his Mister Potato nose and pursued his alien saviour
across the cell.

In light of the
blue man's arse-saving intervention, Charlie saw him as his best chance of
making it off this ship in one, unmolested, piece. He needed protection in case
Bork woke up or some other alien took a liking to him.

 
The blue man stopped beside one of the
benches zigzagging the cell, one currently occupied by two stocky males. At
least Charlie thought they were male. He was not so sure anymore. They wore
kimonos, large muscles, a surplus of body hair and expressions that said,
"Fuck off."

But at the sight
of the blue-skinned alien, they quickly got up and sidled away like wary dogs,
sensing a beat down by the pack alpha. He sat down and signalled for Charlie to
do the same. Once again he held out his blue hand, palm down, and thumb hooked.

 
This time Charlie took a gamble, and
placed his in the same position. It paid off. The alien slid his hand over
Charlie's, locking the thumbs together.

The alien
smiled. "The name's Bei Lowaiki," he said, gripping Charlie's hand
firmly.

"My name's
Charlie Scott."

"Ka-ree-su-ko-ta.
That's a hell of a moniker, kid. Where you from?"

Charlie thought
back to the dream, or memory, or whatever it was, and the beagle's warning. To
survive he had to keep his alien origins secret, at whatever cost. "That's
a good question," he said, hoping to deflect the question. "How about
you?"

"Jajag city
born and raised. You from Seenthee or one of the moons?"

He paused for a
second, and then, hoping his voice came across sure and confident, said,
"Jajag city. Same as you."

Bei Lowaiki eyed
him warily. "Oh yeah? I don't recognise you. What prefect you from?"

Charlie
swallowed. "Four."

"Four? Not
three, or five?"

"No.
Four."

Bei said,
"Humph."

"Maybe,
they changed its name. I heard they've been making changes.

Bei shook his
head. "No wonder they went physical on you," he said, indicating
Charlie's nose with an uplifted chin. "You're a terrible liar. There are
no numbered prefects. It's strictly alphabetical."

Charlie winced
at his error. The alien was right. Despite Amy's accusations to the contrary,
Charlie lacked any flare for lying and bullshitting. Sad to say he was a
straight shooting Englishman if ever there was one.

"Okay,
Kid," the blue man said, a note of annoyance in his voice. "Have it
your way. You don't owe me the truth. I mean I just saved your ass back there
from an erotic encounter you'd have had difficulty forgetting. But I guess that
isn't worth much these days."

"It's not
that," Charlie said. "I'm grateful for what you did for me." He
paused, unsure how much of his cover story he should tell the other prisoner.

"I guess we
all have our secrets," Bei said. But he still looked annoyed at having his
questions rebuffed. "So how did you find yourself on board the Corporation's
flag ship destroyer? Were you making a run for Poklawi?"

"I don't
remember."

"Well,"
Bei said, getting to his feet. "Thanks for the conversation."

"Wait,"
Charlie said. If the blue man walked away, so too would the protection he
offered. "Look. After what you did, I think I can trust you. So here it
is. I'm a resistance fighter but I've had my memories erased. Who I am? Where
I'm from? Where I am right now and how I ended up here? All gone. I can't
remember a damn thing."