The Rift Read Free Page A

sketchy parts of SLO were safe, compared to where
she used to live. It was the company she wanted to part ways
with.
    “ Sure,” she said, a little too
cheery. “Sounds great!”
    They walked out of the shopping center and
around the corner. Some condos rose in the distance. Unlike most of
the housing in SLO—single story and dating back at least half a
century—these were modern, skinny, and tall. SLO, far as Vero could
tell, had some kind of development war between grandmas wanting to
keep it a small town and Cal Poly graduates wanting to start
businesses and live in new homes like those.
    On the right, they passed an empty lot with a
large For Sale sign. Trees surrounded the lot on three
sides, and a creek bed ran between it and the shopping center. The
creek was silent after the long, rainless summer.
    “ You see that?” Gloria
asked.
    Vero glanced over and noticed some flickering
light toward the back of the lot. A group of trees hid the
source.
    “ Probably some homeless,” Neil
said.
    “ No, they wouldn’t light a fire
where people would notice.” Pieter pointed to the
condos.
    The light vanished.
    “ And a fire wouldn’t just vanish
like that,” Pieter said. “You guys want to check it
out?”
    “ Sure,” Neil said.
    “ Go check out a homeless camp? No,”
Vero said.
    “ Oh, come on,” Pieter said. “This
is SLO. The homeless population is actually pretty friendly, though
grungy.”
    “ I’d rather not,” Gloria
said.
    Pieter stepped in front of her. “Come on.
What’s the worst that could happen?”
    “ Worst? Probably kidnapping,” Neil
replied.
    “ Pieter, I am not going in
that field,” Vero said.
    “ Come on,” Pieter said. “I’ll keep
you safe. And Neil’s secretly a ninja, you know.”
    Neil rolled his eyes. “Sure, just because I’m
Japanese, that means I emerge from the womb with a katana. Pieter,
that joke got old in middle school.”
    Pieter grabbed Vero’s hand and began to walk
into the field. She planted her feet in the ground.
    “ Pieter…”
    He kept walking until her arm pulled taut. From
the time he had first asked her out, Vero knew that with Pieter,
she’d wind up in some impulsive, bizarre situations. That field
didn’t seem appealing, but he sure did. Pieter turned and gave a
friendly grin; his light tug dragged her forward. Neil followed;
Gloria trailed farthest behind.
    The hard, dry dirt crunched beneath Vero’s
step. Short, prickly grass tickled the tops of her feet. The moon
and some lights across the street illuminated enough to show forms
and shapes. They rounded a cluster of trees and walked toward where
the light had vanished. The plants concealed the street.
    “ Why are we doing this, again?”
Vero asked.
    “ Come on, you really want to end up
walking down a bike path?” Pieter replied.
    In other words, a last-ditch effort to salvage
the date.
    “ Does Pieter really need a reason
for the things he does?” Neil asked.
    “ Resisting boredom, usually,”
Pieter said.
    Neil opened his mouth as though about to say
something. Instead, he fell backward with an “Ack!”
    “ You all right there?” Pieter
asked.
    “ I ran into something,” Neil
said.
    Despite the darkness, Vero could see that there
was nothing for Neil to run into.
    “ Watch out for those air
molecules,” Pieter said. “They can be mean in a gang.”
    Something floating in the air caught Vero’s
attention. She moved toward it, and it became a… a tunnel. The
inside looked like rock, but it cut straight into the air. She
moved her head around to the back, and the tunnel
vanished.
    “ Come around this side,” she
said.
    Neil came around. “What in the world? How is
this…” He reached forward and touched the inner edge. “It’s some
kind of optical illusion. It’s… invisible from the back. The
back—that’s what I ran into.”
    Vero stared straight into the tunnel. It was a
bit taller than her and extended about a hundred feet. At least, it
looked like it