The Rift Frequency
The second title in the electrifying YA techno-thriller series by acclaimed author and songwriter, Amy S. Foster.For three years, teenage super soldier Ryn Whittaker served as a Citadel, guarding the Battle Ground Rift site – one of fourteen mysterious and unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths. But everything changed when Ezra Massad came tumbling out of The Rift. Together, Ryn and Ezra began to unravel the mysteries of the Allied Rift Coalition. And what they discovered started a civil war.Now, with the base in chaos, Ezra is accidentally pushed through The Rift, taking with him a stolen laptop and the valuable secrets it holds. Ryn has no choice but to follow. From a world where Rome never fell to a world where she was never even born, Ryn must fight her way through alternative realities to unlock the mystery of what she is and take back control of her future in this action-packed second instalment of The Rift Uprising trilogy.
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HarperVoyager
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017
Copyright © Amy S. Foster 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover illustration © Larry Rostant
Cover image © Shutterstock.com(texture)
Amy S. Foster asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008190361
Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008190354
Version: 2017-09-25
Contents
I hear birdsong inside the Rift.
A thousand skylarks trilling into an endless emerald prism. I wasnât expecting music. Maybe a droning hum or a keening wail, but the symphony is a surprise. It fills my ears and spreads throughout the rest of my body like cyanide. In a matter of seconds Iâm entirely at the Riftâs mercy.
The sound overtakes me and the swelling current claims whatever sense of orientation I have left. I donât know which way is up or down. Iâm tumbling through the noise, unable to fill my lungs. My body feels like itâs being squeezed by a vise, but at the same time Iâm being pulled apart. And then, almost as quickly as it began, the Rift exhales in a single violent breath, and I am pushed out.
My face is in damp soil and dead leaves. I look behind me in time to see the Riftâs giant, neon green jaws snap shut. In an instant itâs gone and Iâm here, wherever here is.
At least Iâm not alone.
A long, thin cable runs between my pack and Leviâs. Heâs splayed on the ground, too. I feel (an admittedly petty) gratitude that he didnât manage to navigate the experience with his usual ease and graceâheâs clearly just as disoriented as I am. I unclip the tether between us and it retracts all the way back to his pack with a snap.
I donât really want him here, but I also absolutely do. I need backup and he was the best choice. Still, heâs a pain in the ass. But when it comes down to it, heâs just about the best Citadel weâve got in Battle Ground. To be fair, my options had been Levi or Henry, but Levi insisted and Henry didnât put up much of a fight, which really is a motherfucker because Henry loves a good fight. Also, I know Henry. Iâm comfortable with Henry. Levi is just ⦠Levi. I stare at him hard, kind of hoping heâll share a look of mutual amazement of what we have just done, but he only stares back, his face unmoving, giving nothing away.
Finally he says: âYou okay?â With a voice so indifferent I wonder why he even bothered to ask.
âYeah,â I say, getting up and looking around, scouting our immediate position. Levi follows my lead. We should have been doing this from the moment we emerged. We have gone through a Rift. We are in an unknown, potentially hostile land.
We have navigated our way to another version of Earth.
The thing is, this Earth looks exactly like the one we just left. And not only does it look the same, it smells the same. I study the nearest tree, an old and gnarled fir, and recognize the height, the knots and their placement. I scan the rest of the trees in our vicinity. I have a photographic memory, as does Levi, but Iâm not sure I would even need it to recognize this place. I spend a lot of time in these woods.
âYou have got to be kidding me,â I whisper to myself, even though I know Levi can hear. He sighs, and I know heâs figured it out, too.
âSo we go through all that just to end up in the same exact spot we started from. Seriously? I think we opened the Rift right here.â He gestures with annoyance to the space between us.
I bite my lip. This is the absolute definition of anticlimactic. âIt might look the same,â I warn him, âbut that doesnât mean it is the same. We have to be careful. I know it sounds crazy, but a dragon could swoop down and try to get us, or burn us or something.â I swing my arms around dramatically to try to prove what is admittedly not the most realistic point. âWe canât take anything at face value,â I try with a more serious tone.
