The Fall
The Rift Book I
by Robert J. Duperre
Copyright 2013 Robert J. Duperre
License Notes
For Connor, Tristen, and Legacy
Always remember, the only limits we have
are the ones we set for ourselves.
I love you all.
“Everything you cherish
throws you over in the end.
Thorns will grab your ankles
from the gardens that you tend.”
Robert Hunter
Aim at the Heart
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PRELUDE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
PRELUDE
THE NEW DAY’S SUN peers out over the rippling ocean water, its light transforming the waves into an army of wild horses that pound the shore’s pristine sand. It is so bright that it seems as if the days will go on like this forever.
From the rear of this gleaming white landscape rises a sheer cliff. A young girl stands on its precipice, the wind causing her long red hair to flutter. She gazes out at the deceptively barren sea, drinking in the wonder of its unknown treasures.
This girl of fourteen knows little more than the island kingdom she calls home. She was just a baby, an untapped vessel, when she and her clan arrived. This thought causes her mind to wander. Though she was too young to remember, the stories her Teacher has told her paint a vivid picture.
They were delivered to paradise on a single ship, fifty-four individuals of varying backgrounds, landing on this very beach. They were alone and afraid, with nothing but their thoughts and ambition to surge them through each passing day. Yet in spite of their isolation and the struggle their civilized brains experienced in trying to adapt to an uncivilized realm, they managed.
The isolation lifted when the others came. Ship after ship—some large fishing boats like their own, some nothing more than rafts—drifted in from every direction, lured to Eden by the same unseen Star of Bethlehem that guided her own people. A hundred different factions with almost as many different languages, they were greeted with the love of lost siblings. Soon their society numbered in the thousands. The early struggles with communication were enormous (At times I wish we had a Mandarax, Teacher had told her once, and of course made her explore the meaning of such an odd statement for herself), but again they managed, just as they had in the years leading up to their departure from their once and future homelands. Nothing as trivial as language could stop the forward momentum of survival and expansion.
Teacher is full of such wisdom-filled nuggets.
The young girl licks her lips and turns toward the docks at the far end of the beach, nestled in a rocky inlet. Vast arrays of seafaring vessels are anchored there, bobbing up and down with the waves, just as they have for thirteen years. People hustle about on the rickety boards, loading the ships with crates of supplies. She sighs, knowing they won’t aimlessly drift for much longer. She is going to miss this place.
A pair of heavy, comforting hands fall on her shoulders and she turns around. The two most important people in her life stand before her, gazing down with loving adoration.
“Hi Mom, hi Dad,” she says.
“Hey there, Izzy,” her father replies. He bends down and embraces her. His hold is tight but comforting, and it tells her she doesn’t need to be alone, that she can concede to her doubts and let someone else be strong for her. She can’t help but think it’s the last time she’ll feel this way.
Her mother takes her left hand, her father her right, and together they walk along the sandy path that leads down the slope of the cliff. At the base the land flattens out. They wander through a valley where domiciles constructed from palm trees and tropical pines form the foundation of what had become their town—one of fifteen such settlements that pepper the island’s surface. This, too, she will miss.
Her mother squeezes her hand. The girl can sense she is nervous, and with good reason. This is her daughter’s moment of truth, her time to shine or die trying. No one can blame her for this, for the girl, herself, is petrified.
She knows what will happen next—or at least has a vague notion. She has been trained since birth for the coming events. She understands her place and what she must do. But an empty feeling eats away at her just the same, a basin of loneliness and distrust that begs to be satisfied. The looks on the faces of those they pass don’t help. Though she loves her people she can’t help but feel disdain, as well. They stare at her with equal parts awe and fear, as if she is some odd and frightening creature that only just now landed in their midst. She feels alone and vulnerable, distant from their lives and futures, even though, as Teacher and Mother have told her, their future lies solely with her. It is a tedious incongruity she has to bear, but she doesn’t have to like it.
The family reaches the town’s boundary and they head across the dock. On either side of the wooden planks, people are busy readying the ships that rest there for launch. At the end of the pier her father stops and nods to the large, gruff man who stands at the helm of the lead vessel. The large man’s own daughter stands next to him, four years Izzy’s elder and her friend for as long as she can remember. Her hair is short, curly, and brown. The girl on the boat sighs and waves, trying to stretch her mouth into a smile, and this causes Izzy’s spirits to lift. There is no apprehension in her friend’s expression as she clings to her father’s arm, only hope and fear for her safety.
The big man turns to Izzy’s father then raises his hand to those standing on the deck. Ropes are cast aside and sails are lifted. The large man—the father of her best friend—offers Izzy’s father a salute with two fingers, which her father returns. They begin to move away from the dock, flowing toward the mouth of the inlet. One after another the boats drift into the open water in a sluggish procession of faith.
Izzy stands with her parents and watches the people, her friends and neighbors and family, edge out of the bay. Her mother touches her arm lightly and leads her to the large cabin at the head of the pier. They enter and the girl spots Teacher, surrounded by a group of very nervous-looking men. She tries to grin at him, but the intensity on his face says this is not a time for niceties. Instead he touches his forehead with a single finger and barks at those within the cabin to disperse, which they do, and quickly, leaving behind a wake of dust and the echo of their footfalls. Teacher is the last to leave. His lip quivers as his eyes make contact with hers.
She has never seen Teacher scared. It isn’t a pretty sight.
They are finally alone. “Are you ready, Izzy?” her father asks. Izzy gazes at him and nods. He looks tortured and frightened, yet the compassion he gives her is palpable. She knows he loves her more than anything in the world, even mother. All of which makes what he now has to sacrifice all the more disheartening.
“The lookout gave the signal,” he says. “There’re ships approaching from the other side of the island. Big ones. We have to go. It’s time.”
She leans forward and kisses him on the lips. When she pulls back there are tears in his eyes. She wants to tell him not to worry, that all will be fine,
but she can’t. There are no guarantees for them any longer. This she understands completely.
They exit the hut, this tight-knit family of three, and allow the rising sun to bathe them for what might be the last time. The girl closes her eyes and steps ahead of her parents, allowing the brisk wind to make puppet strings of her hair. She doesn’t know what the day’s conclusion will be, but takes solace in the fact that, no matter the outcome, the nightmares will stop. The empty feeling in her gullet will disappear and the voices in her head will cease their chatter. She will be whole for the first time, or she will be dust.
Either way, this translates to peace.
CHAPTER 1
THE DISCOVERY
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN you’re not coming, James?”
“Sorry, Ken,” the man on the other end of the phone said. “Cynthia’s having contractions.”
Ken grunted. “Contractions? She’s not due for another month. It’s most likely false labor. Don’t go.”
“Sorry, bloke, but she wants me home, so our plan’s taken a bit of a diversion.”
“That’s just fantastic.”
“Again, I apologize, Ken. Listen, I’m at the airport right now. Flight’s getting ready to take off. I have to go.”
“Fine. Call me when you land. What’s that, nine hours from now?”
“I think.”
“So I should be done with the inspection by then.”
“You’re going ahead with it anyway?”
“Of course. I’m not going to miss the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Very well. Be careful. And wish me luck.”
“Why?”
“The only flights to London I could get on such short notice land in Gatwick.”
Ken snapped his cell phone shut without laughing, wiped sweat from his forehead, and checked his watch. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and it had to be close to a hundred degrees already. Steam rose from the adobe buildings lining the dirt road. There were no adults to be found, but a great many children had gathered, playing stickball and eyeing him with suspicion. He stood out in this impoverished sea of brown flesh with his lily-white skin, sandy blonde hair, and sweat-covered khaki shorts. He puffed out his cheeks and checked his watch again. Raul—the guide hired to bring he and James to the excavation site—was ten minutes late. The way people seemed to lack any respect for punctuality and the plans of others annoyed Ken more than anything, and that included associates who backed out of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
An archeologist by trade and cultural anthropologist by passion, Dr. Ken Trudeau had spent much of the past twenty-five years traversing the globe, hoping to further his understanding of cultures long lost to the rest of the civilized world. He scoured most every corner of Europe and Asia, and even spent a few years residing among the aboriginal tribes of New Guinea, living as one with them, drinking up their wealth of primal knowledge and treating them not as subjects, but as brothers.
Yet, despite all he’d seen, all he’d experienced, what lay ahead of him now was the culmination of a dream.
The ancient Mayans were Ken’s obsession, and had been for the majority of his forty-seven years. The sudden disappearance of their culture became the study that intrigued him most. With their virtually preternatural understanding of astronomy and the passage of time, which far exceeded the erudition of their contemporaries, it seemed unlikely that they would suddenly up and vanish. What happened? Did famine overtake them? Disease? Did the rivers overrun and flood the land, leaving them no other choice but to scatter and integrate into surrounding cultures? To these queries Ken still found himself in the dark, waiting for someone to shine a beacon and draw him forward.
That beacon was news of the excavation.
In an archetypal flash of irony, an underground fissure had been uncovered when the Honduran government blasted through the rainforest in order to construct a new freeway that would lead to a soon-to-be-completed eastern waterway. After local scientists poked their noses around, it was discovered the chasm led to the interior of an ancient Mayan temple. It was a priceless piece of history, found during man’s attempt to wipe the past from the face of the earth in the name of urban development.
The popular theory was that the temple had been swallowed by the earth in the aftermath of some great earthquake, but Ken didn’t care about the reasons for its existence. That it existed at all was all that mattered to him. It served as the possible answer to his dreams. He smiled at the thought.
A tan Jeep tore around the corner, almost striking the stickball-playing children and careening into a fruit seller’s cart. Mangoes and oranges flew through the air, splattering when they hit the ground. The man behind the wheel of the Jeep wore an expression on his face that reeked of youthful ineptitude. He waved at Ken with one hand and spun the wheel with the other. The automobile screeched to a halt curbside, fifteen feet away.
“Hola, doctor,” Raul slurred when the vehicle stopped rocking. Ken approached it. The man’s body odor stunk of stale liquor. “Where’s the other one?”
“You’re late,” Ken snapped, “and it’s only me today.” He threw his bags over the headrest and climbed into the passenger seat. Raul started to ramble, offering an endless succession of excuses, but Ken stopped him with a wave of his hand.
“No bullshit, let’s just go,” he said. “I’m on a schedule here.”
* * *
The Jeep lurched as the tires struck the roots and vines cluttering the thin layer of dirt that passed for a jungle road. Sweat covered Ken’s body and mosquitoes persisted in hovering about his head despite the speed at which Raul drove. He itched all over but didn’t care. The inherent beauty of the rainforest moved any discomfort to the back of his mind. It seemed such a difficult proposition for people to live in conditions such as these. The humidity, the insects, the predators—all these natural dangers forced one to be on top of their game to simply survive. To Ken this fact brimmed with splendor. It echoed the heights humans could reach—did reach—before technology caused universal laziness to wash over the globe.
Two hours after the journey began, they entered a clearing. The vision of the site awoke a tinge of sadness within Ken. The soothing embrace of nature in its purest form was ripped away, revealing the ugly beginnings of humanity’s pursuit of uniformity. Rubble from the excavation had been carelessly placed in random piles, creating a rocky maze so thin in some places that stone tore into the Jeep on both sides when they passed through.
They drove across the winding stretch of flattened grass that weaved through the debris and stopped at what looked like a giant mouth cut into the landscape. Ken stepped out, pulled his travel case from the back, and removed from it his harness, a coil of thick cable as wide as his torso, as well as his tool belt. He took a clasp and fastened it to the Jeep’s tow hitch. Then he tossed the cord over the edge of the pit, and a second or so later there came a dull thud. He whistled between his teeth. Judging by how long it took to reach the bottom, it had to be at least seventy feet deep. A cold, nervous sweat dribbled down his neck as he fastened the tool belt around his waist, wiggled into the harness, locked its catch around the line, and put on his gloves. He crawled to the lip and peered over.
“Bugger, that’s deep,” he whispered. Then, his resolve returning, he turned to Raul and said, “Wait for me up here.”
While bracing his feet on the rim of the crater, he pulled the cable taut, took a deep breath, and plunged into the void.
A rush of cold, wet air greeted him. His arms ached as he lowered himself down one hand at a time; his leg muscles stiffened from squeezing his feet against the rope. Had James been there he would have used the second support lead, which he should have done anyway, just in case. Now, if he fell, there’d be nothing to break his fall but the ground below. He shivered and tried to force thoughts of his carelessness to the back of his mind, which proved a simple task seeing as his anticipation bubbled over any other invading emotion like foam at the crest of an oc
ean wave.
Still farther he descended. No light penetrated the opening up above, leaving him in the black. Barbs scraped his bare elbows when he swung too close to the cracked tunnel walls. He considered for a moment how the walls themselves seemed much too round, the plunge much too straight, to be the happenstance creation of wayward dynamite. He thought it possible the channel had been created, and then pushed that thought to the storage space in the deep recesses of his brain. There will be no conjecture here, he thought. There is only observation. Gather the data. The time for assumptions and analysis comes later.
After what seemed like much too long a time, he felt a breeze. The mugginess surrounding him disappeared—the revealing sign of the end of the channel. He remembered the warning Fuad Cerrano, the director of the Nicaraguan National Institute, had left on his cellular—Take it slow once you hit the open, you will have the urge to drop quickly; don’t do that, the plummet is far, yet the floor still seems to come at you in a hurry, and the first two men we sent down broke bones in their legs—and he heeded that advice, placing one hand beneath the other even slower than before.
Amazingly, it took just as long for his toes to brush the ground as it had to enter the chamber from the tunnel. He rolled his feet flat from ball to heel, steadying himself as if he’d spent the last year in zero gravity. He disengaged clamp from cable, took off his gloves, and felt for the line’s end. There it was, right at his fingertips, which meant the depth of this chasm was very close to the line’s full hundred feet. A whistle escaped his lips, pierced the silence around him, and bounced back two fold.
He grabbed the flashlight from its place in his belt and clicked it on. A blazing cone of yellow light cut a streak through the darkness. Ken looked around in amazement, trying to take in each thing the narrow beam revealed. He stood in the middle of a huge, square room—fifty or so feet from wall to wall, by his best estimation. Hieroglyphs covered those walls for as far up as he could see. Six crudely built wooden tables stood against the wall he faced. He marched slowly toward one of them. A thick layer of white dust—Ken thought it most likely the granular remains of bones—covered the top of its flat slab. He pulled a brush and plastic bag from his belt and stepped forward, intent on sweeping in a sample for later testing.