Rifter (The Survival Project Duology Book 1) Read Free Page B

reality, and interact with them, was expressly forbidden. Apart from the obvious issues — changing the future on the other world, alerting other cultures that weren’t ready to the presence of rifts, the danger to yourself — it wasn’t a part of Mara’s mission. Although, she hadn’t tried to find anyone. It was them who had come looking for her. It was an excuse of sorts and she was pretty sure she could argue the case with Gordon, if it came to it. She knew she wouldn’t win. He would say that her safety was more important than finding out what these people knew about rifts. That her research was supposed to be covert, not out in the open shouting, ‘Look at me, I’m here.’ The trouble was, Gordon worked on theory. She was the one doing the practical, and she had her own mind, her own thoughts, her own ideas. It bugged her that this world was actively researching rifts and knew about rifters. Such knowledge could endanger The Project. Surely, Gordon would understand that.
    But it wasn’t the primary objective. It wasn’t the reason she’d come here. That was to find solutions.
    And here she was, following Leo. And her heart was racing.
    She could walk right up to him and say something, rather than stalk him. That was certainly a possibility, but could cause all sorts of problems if she didn’t find out a few more facts first. The most important being, was he friend or foe? The answer wasn’t obvious from what she’d seen so far. Friend, meaning he would let her go about her business and return home. Foe, well, the opposite.
    She’d always thought travelling to different worlds was a confusing enough situation to find yourself in, but coming across your boyfriend living in a different reality, that took it to another level. A screw-with-your-mind level.
    Already, the counter on her brac was close to clicking past the first half hour. Seventy-two hours had sounded like a long time before she left the comfort of The Facility, but now it seemed like nothing at all.
    And she continued to follow Leo through the streets.
    She still hadn’t decided where she was. She hadn’t seen any landmarks that would indicate she was in the capital, although, in all likelihood, she was. The buildings all around were old and grand, determined by the fact that the carvings and gargoyles that decorated them were slightly worn from erosion, and the fact that they had carvings and gargoyles. Many were made of stone rather than brick or concrete, which gave a feeling of wealth. The roofs were tiled with pink-tinged slates, not something she’d heard of before. She supposed, that was different realities for you. Many of those roofs were domed. In her society, that usually denoted religion, but here, she imagined not, unless their whole society was based on religion, which was a possibility. Everything was a possibility. The roads were wide, and there were lots of vehicles. So many vehicles — none of them horse-drawn. Crossing a road every couple of minutes scared her witless, but if she didn’t cross them, she couldn’t follow, and there was no way she wasn’t going to follow.
    It was fairly obvious that it was a prosperous place. It was also fairly obvious that it was heavily populated.
    The clothes people wore weren’t much different from her own, except more expensive, she imagined. The cloth looked finer, the execution more precise and detailed. But shirts, trousers, tees and jackets, formal and informal, were pretty much universal.
    After they’d been walking for ten minutes, he entered a large, imposing building. She concluded that this had to be where he worked. Once he was out of sight, she moved a little closer. The sign outside said MoD and underneath, Ministry of Defence. It was worse than she’d thought. He was working for some kind of government organisation, and given that defence was in the title, that meant they, rifters, were seen as a threat.
    She rubbed at her arms, even though she wasn’t cold.
    It