Rift (11 page)

I cough, ejecting a soggy mixture of vomit and river water, and then suck in several deep breaths. Muscles all over my body ache miserably. My head spins. I feel like I've been in an automobile accident.

But I'm not dead. Not yet.

This place appears to be the outside corner of a severe bend in the river's path. The current must have swept me wide and pushed me into a tiny inlet protected from the main body of water. The top of the riverbank is several feet above my head and looks newly formed—a sure sign the river is either at its crest or still on the way up. I see nothing solid up there to grasp except for thin roots and grass.

Grass? Grass can't grow naturally in this part of Arizona, can it?

“Help!”

Pain like sharp glass slices my throat.

“Help!”
I yell again. Then rest.

No one comes. I should have guessed. Maybe the grass really is some sort of hardy stock indigenous to this area, or maybe I'm near the edge of a sod farm.

After a few uneventful minutes pass, I try again. I scream
“Help”
and
“Somebody?”
and
“Is anyone there?”

Nothing.

The water in my inlet is moving around somewhat. A little whirlpool goes by, and then another. The earthen smell makes me want to vomit again.

“Help!”
I scream again. “
Is anyone there? Please!”

And this time I think I hear something. Voices.

“Over here!” I yell. “Please help me!”

I hear the voices again, but I don't know if they hear me. I scream another time. So close.

So close, but no one comes.

They must be real, the voices. I didn't make them up. I heard them with my own two ears.

So why isn't anyone coming?

“Somebody help me! For God's sake!”

The riverbank rises at least four feet above me, a vertical cliff of dark, damp, crumbling earth. Besides this root, which juts out of the bank below the surface of the water, there is nothing at all to grab. Nothing I can use to propel myself toward the solid ground above. If no one comes to save me, I will be trapped in this tiny inlet—at least until the river erodes it. And I don't know if I can face the current of that river again.

I shift against the root to get comfortable. A few sore spots and bruises have blossomed on my arms, but really I feel pretty good considering what just happened to me in that river. Considering I nearly drowned in it. But let's be honest—the river saved me. Saved me from that fucking goon, Ivan, who was sent to follow me because . . .

Because why?

It was easy to forget about the consequences of my transmission while running from Ivan, when the river was trying to drown me, but now the reality of it can't be ignored. I try to comprehend what could possibly be wrong—like fused cells or missing proteins or a fold of my brain turned backwards—but somehow I can't quite get my mind around the idea that these things might actually have happened to me. I don't want to believe something like that. I want to believe that I will continue to live a long, healthy life like everyone else. I mean, I'm thirty-five years old. People don't get sick when they're thirty-five.

But how selfish is that? Christ, I haven't even thought about Tom since I washed up here. He was shot. My best friend. Did they kill him? Take him out into the desert and bury him? Surely not. Surely he isn't dead. Maybe they left him on the golf course where someone might find him and call an ambulance.

And what about Misty? I can see her now, writing an article or researching one on the Internet, slender fingers clicking across the keyboard, eyes reflecting the silvery shine of the computer screen. And she is alone. Alone. I know I shouldn't worry so much—my wife is an intelligent, capable woman who can take care of herself—but though I know how strong she is, I still see her as a fragile creature. I think I learned this from my dad, who called my mom every night when he was out of town, who always held the door open for her, who jogged with her every night for nine months when she decided, at age forty-three, to lose twenty-five pounds. God, how he hated that. How he hated to run! But he wasn't about to let my mom jog through the neighborhood alone after sundown, so he ran. And lost fifteen pounds of his own in the process.

He died when I was sixteen, my dad. He was fishing on Choke Canyon Lake north of Corpus Christi when a yacht loaded with twenty-five-year-old drunken assholes broadsided his bass boat. Rather than be killed instantly, though, the tough old bird hung on for three days before finally succumbing to massive internal bleeding. He was a petroleum engineer for Shell Oil. I loved him a lot and wanted to be like him, even when I was supposed to be a rebellious teenager. At fifteen, he told me that I was “at that age where kids think their parents are idiots,” but that was never true with me. I respected my dad more than anyone else on earth.

The river chugs by me, deceptively quiet, its main current only a few feet away. A man could drown effortlessly out there. Almost unconsciously, I wedge my arm farther behind the root upon which I am anchored and try to flatten myself against the riverbank.

My dad made no secret of his desire for me to become an engineer. He wanted me to make a difference not in petroleum but electronics or some other industry that wasn't killing the environment. I always told him I would, and that's why I was almost glad he wasn't there to see me graduate with a degree in business. After the ceremony, I held the parchment in my hands and cried.

I've made decent money, and my wife has made even more, so we're not hurting financially. But does such a thing really matter? When you're poor, you think lots of money will make your worries go away. When you're lonely, you never stop looking for that special someone who will make your life worth living. But where does it stop? What fills the vacuum? When do you stop searching for happiness and start living it?

But something feels different now, something that makes me think all the self-doubt and the existential questions aren't so important after all. Today I ran like prey from that man, Ivan. I was faced with my own death. And not only did I survive, but I
wanted
to survive. I fought for my life and won it.

Now
that
is something.
That
makes me feel alive.

I don't know what it means when my life must be threatened before I am able to appreciate it—perhaps it is only the survival instinct chiseled into my brain by a billion years of evolution—but right now I don't really care. It's something. It's a start.

Or is it? After all, my life wouldn't have been threatened at all if something hadn't gone severely wrong with my transmission. Those men came to the golf course to keep an eye on me and evaluate my condition. Was Ivan telling the truth when he said they wanted to take me somewhere for “experiments”? What does that mean? What the hell did Batista do to me?

What did they do to Tom?

I can't let myself think about that now. Terror will paralyze me if I sit here and worry about what may have happened to him. Or if I dream up hideous possibilities induced by the transmission machine. I have to
do
something. I have to confront Batista and demand that he tell me what the hell is going on. But how? By talking to Crystal? Just because she found out about transmission on the Internet doesn't mean she's going to be able to help resolve this situation.

The first thing to do is get out of this water. And in order to do that, I'll have to leave this inlet. There must be another place in the river where I might be able to climb out. A place where the riverbank is lower, or perhaps near civilization where someone might spot and rescue me.

Still, the inlet is safe. I'm alive in here. In that raging current I could die.

But Jesus, if I can't gather the nerve to go out there and try to rescue myself, then I'm already dead. Dead inside. And that's the story of my life, isn't it? A lifetime of taking the known path, the safe path, has doomed me to mediocrity. Fantasies unfulfilled. Dreams unrealized. Ecstasy unknown. Love . . . do I even know what love is? My wife, the most important person in the world to me, begged me not to transmit. And yet here I am, struggling to survive, and for what? Because I was looking for some kind of transformation I thought the transmission machine could provide?

This is not who I should be—looking outward for direction, looking elsewhere for happiness, for something or someone to show me the way to salvation. It has to stop. I have to save myself. Deliverance from within.

I extract my arm from beneath the root and swim out into the river.

four

S
urprisingly, the current, while still strong, has lessened to a degree. And I'm not nearly as tired as before, when I fell into the river after a half-mile sprint over rough terrain. It seems easy to tread water and ride the current.

The rain has ended completely now, the overcast sky dissolving into stripes of blue. I float through the afternoon, bobbing like a jet-propelled fishing cork as wind dances across my face. The river is a living organism around me, its liquid sound muted by the muddy banks that contain it. This is my world, my universe. Everything I know and see is defined by these sensations and boundaries. And I think, for now, that kind of simplicity is something I need. It brings focus to a man who has long allowed himself to be paralyzed by the necessary complexity of life.

When Luke died, I couldn't stop asking questions. Why Luke? Why someone so young? I even asked selfish questions like, Why me? But the one I could not get past, the one for which I found no answer, was Why live at all? If you're not a religious person, if you don't believe that death is a portal through which you travel to spiritual immortality, what is the point of existence? What are the consequences?

Why live?

That's one hell of a question, something a person asks right before he goes after his wrists with a razor. Or after his coworkers with a military-issue machine gun. And this point of view—coming from me, anyway—must seem unjustified to the outside observer, who would be quick to point out that my existence on this planet isn't miserable. There are people in the world who struggle to obtain luxuries I take for granted, people with whom I would never trade places. And yet . . .

Is the curse of man his ability to question the instincts that drive him? A cat or a shark or an ant doesn't ask these questions. Animals just go about their business, eating, sleeping, and procreating until
great danger
comes for them, a situation to which they must react. Maybe they fight, maybe they run. But they never question the need to survive. It's an instinct, honed by evolution, never disputed.

But this curse of man, of course, is also his greatest gift. The very engine that allows him to question his own existence also provides the horsepower for unlimited potential. We hope. We dream. We love.

And for many people—I wonder if I may now tentatively count myself among them—something more comes with the gift of the human mind: purpose. Not necessarily a noble fate bestowed upon us by a higher power; it might be something learned or a genetic predisposition. You might be interested in physics, in raising horses, in leading people to a common goal. Your purpose could even be something as simple and fulfilling as running a healthy, well-adjusted household. But without purpose, what? When the basic needs of food and shelter have been met, what else drives a person to keep on living?

What I want . . . what I
think
I want . . . is to admit to Misty what I have been doing for longer than I care to remember: treading water. I want to come clean with her, bare my soul to her, apologize to her. Perhaps learn to love her again, or set her free to find someone who will.

But I can't possibly visit her, or even contact her, really, until I make my story public. Because I cannot go directly to Batista, not after he sent a couple of goons to catch me. What I must do is force him and NeuroStor itself to acknowledge me, to diagnose what is wrong with me . . . and correct it. Because it would be a tragedy to steal life away from a man who may have just found it.

         

It doesn't really make sense to remain in the middle of the river. If I happen to see something that will help me climb out, I have to be able to reach it. Moving laterally through such a strong current, though, is no easy task, and my swim toward the riverbank is gradual. Hours, it seems. And when I finally make it, my hands just slither along the muddy slope.

I wish I could see the ground above me. Am I in the middle of the desert, or is there a chance that someone up there might see me? All I can see from here is blue sky shining through the clouds.

My arms and legs are tiring. My clothes seem to weigh a hundred pounds. But I can't take them off, because I'll need something to wear when I finally get out of the river.

My hands slap at the bank, fingers closing against the mud, clawing their way into nothing. This is not going the way I hoped it would. The damn river is thwarting my grand entrance back into the realm of the living.

Perhaps I should try to float on my back. Maybe that would require less effort. Maybe if I rest long enough I can try again to climb up the—

Something scrapes against my hands and arms, grinding away flesh. Pain pours into me, and I push myself backwards, away from the bank. But not far enough, apparently, because I bounce into the bank again. This time skin disappears from my elbows, abraded as if by sandpaper.

The riverbank has become concrete.

I must be close to civilization now, because a concrete riverbank means someone is worried about erosion. After what happened back near the golf course, I don't blame them. The river has also narrowed—it's more like a canal now—and the water runs both faster and higher. I'm only a few feet below the top of the concrete bank and bobbing along at quite a clip.

I've got to figure out a way to pull myself out of this river. From here I can see the concrete wall is not completely vertical, more like a seventy-degree angle, but I'll shred my skin if I try to scale it. Fleeting hope quickly dissipates. What did I expect, a flight of stairs?

I guess I could scream, but would it do any good? There are still no signs of homes or businesses above me. So I continue to float, allowing the river to pull me along at its rapid pace. Five minutes go by. Ten. Water begins to lap against my neck, my chin; sometimes it splashes into my eyes. Treading water isn't very easy when you're fully clothed.

It's a race against time now. Surely something or someone will come along. All I have to do is hold out a little longer. Just a little longer.

And then, as if answering my prayer, salvation emerges ahead in the form of a steel pipe sticking out of the concrete wall near the top of the bank. It juts out twenty inches or so, bends ninety degrees, and disappears into the water below. I suppose it's a drainpipe, but to me it looks like a giant handle put there to help drowning people pull themselves from the flooding current.

My arms and legs pound the water, exhausting all remaining energy in those muscles as I move toward the river's edge once again. Just a few feet away, that's all it is. Half the width of a neighborhood street. Any day of the week I could swim this distance in mere seconds, but progress across the current is painfully slow. I appear to be swimming in place. The river pulls me downstream as I struggle toward its edge. The pipe rushes forward. So close. At the last second I extend my arms, lunging forward with fingers outstretched, and touch the pipe. It is coated with a rough layer of rust and scrapes painfully against the tips of my fingers. Then it is gone.

I scream until it feels like my lungs are bleeding. I thrust a clenched fist up at the sky and curse a God in whom I do not believe. How can this happen? How can I come so far and then miss by mere inches my chance to be saved. How? Why?

And because I am looking at the sky and not the river, I am nearly killed by what might be a second chance for salvation.

A bridge. I have reached a place where the river passes beneath a bridge.

The passageway is divided into two canals separated by a rectangular concrete column. The water level is so high it nearly touches the bottom of the bridge, and had I seen it just a few seconds later, the horizontal concrete beam might have split my head open. Instead, I thrust my hands upwards and drop the rest of me underwater. The momentum of the river jerks my arms violently against the concrete bridge, ripping the skin there, but I manage to hold on.

It won't be for long. Water rushes by my ears, through my hair, and I have to suppress the urge to breathe. I am so tired that I can barely think of what to do next.

With no other options, I try to move toward the column. By walking with my hands, I approach it by inches. My heart slams hard in my chest. My hot lungs beg for air. It can't be that far away. Just a few feet. The rushing water pulls on my legs. It rushes into the waist of my pants as if trying to undress me. My arms strain against its relentless strength. Am I going to make it? I can't hold my breath much longer while exerting so much effort.

My left elbow bangs into concrete, tearing skin again. I made it!

The column is not vertical. It rises toward the bridge at about a forty-five-degree angle. I scoot a little closer until the side of my body rests against the column and then throw my left arm over it. My fingers just barely reach the other edge. I'll need that grip for leverage. My right arm, still plastered against the concrete above me, now must let go and grab onto the column. But the rushing water keeps trying to pull me under the bridge. I'm completely out of air. My torso and legs bob up and down, rippling like a flag in the wind. This dynamic motion is already loosening the grip of my left hand on the column. If it fails, I'll be dragged under.

With a grunt, I slide my right arm away from the bridge and twist my body toward the column. The river pulls like gravity, and I just hang there with one arm, surely dead now. I knew this was my last chance.

But I heave again, and this time my right arm goes over the column. Both hands now have a firm grip. I pull with my arms, and my legs scramble against the concrete. Somehow I've lost my golf shoes, which I didn't even notice until now, and the pads of my toes are being stripped away. The pain barely registers.

Gradually, my hold on the column improves, and after ten or fifteen seconds of intense exertion, I land on top of it.

I lay there on my stomach, heaving great breaths into the air. Below me, the rushing river is torn in two by the column, and the sound of it makes me want to vomit. I don't think I'll ever be able to get into a bathtub again. From now on it's nothing but disposable wet naps for me.

I push with my hands and knees into a crawling position and then start upwards.

And that's when I lose my balance and nearly teeter off the column.

Immediately I collapse to my stomach again and hug the concrete. My waterlogged torso rises and falls with each breath. Mental note: Do
not
fall into the river again.

I summon the courage to try once more. My feet are bleeding, I think, and my arms are for sure. Weird how selective the mind is about pain. In the kitchen a cut brings curses and throbbing agony, but bloody concrete abrasions mean nothing when you're fighting for your life in a flooded Arizona canal.

A steel railing stands at the top of the bridge. I reach out with one arm and grab it. Do the same with the other arm. After dragging myself out of the river, climbing over this short barrier is child's play.

I collapse onto the shoulder of the road like a marathon runner who's just completed his course twice. I shouldn't stay here long, I know—a distracted motorist could veer out of his lane and run over me—but I need a little rest. Like when my rechargeable razor dies, and I keep putting it back on the charger to eke out a little more shaving time. Five minutes, I decide. Five minutes of rest, then get moving again. I close my eyes.

When I open them again, everything is dark.

Adrenaline pours into my body, sending an electric shock wave to my fingers and toes. An urge to get up and run comes over me. Why the hell is it dark? Where am I?

Actually, only one of my eyes is open. Something is holding the other lid closed.

I reach with my hand and rub away something that feels like sand. The shirt on my back crackles as I move. Something is pulling the hairs on my arms. I'm no longer wet.

Now the other eye opens. My whole body is caked with a thin film of dirt. My tongue is thick and dry. How in the hell . . . ?

I look down at the river and am startled to find the water level half of what it was when I climbed out. Nearly tranquil. It's hard to believe I almost lost my life down there, but even more difficult to understand how an unknown number of hours passed by in an instant.

Then I remember—I'm wearing a watch. But when I look down at it, I realize the gears must have stopped turning, because the hands tell me it's 5:13. That's impossible. If I went into the river at—what? Eight in the morning?—then I probably washed up in the inlet at . . . nine o'clock, maybe? Probably sooner. If I stayed there an hour and found the bridge in another hour, that would mean I climbed out of the water at eleven. In the morning.

Five thirteen
PM
would tell me I had slept for over six hours. But it's too dark to be late afternoon, isn't it? And yet 5:13
AM
. . . that would mean . . .

The air around me is cool, much more so than if the sun had just gone down. The dry desert night acts as a magnifying lens against the clear sky, bringing visible stars closer and revealing others I never see through the humid haze that passes for breathable air in Houston. The desert is quiet and I am alone.