The Rift by Walter Jon Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur, seeing the sights and meeting the relatives.
    Jason made another grotesque face into the computer screen.
    He did not dislike Una, who had made a determined effort to become his friend. But she troubled him. For one thing, she was young enough, and pretty enough, for him to view as desirable. That she sometimes figured in his fantasies made him uncomfortable. For another, her moving in with his dad made it that much less likely that Jason would himself be able to move in with Frank.
    And thirdly, she was monopolizing Frank's first real vacation in a decade, and going to places Jason very much wanted to see.
    “I wouldn't get in your way,” Jason said. “I'd just go off and, like, see stuff.”
    Frank's pen kept scratching on. “You don't do that in Asia,” he said. “You don’t just go off. Besides, we're going to be spending most of our time with a lot of old people who don't speak English, and you'd be bored.”
    “No way.”
    Frank sighed again. “Look,” he said. “We need this trip, okay? But we'll go to Asia another time, and maybe you can come along then.”
    In another ten years maybe, Jason thought. He made a screaming face into the video monitor, mouth open in a hideous mask of anguish.
    “Okay,” he said. “But you'll talk to Mom about the Internet, okay? Because if I can't visit China, I want at least to visit their homepage.”
    “I'll do that,” Frank said. His tone lightened. “By the way, I bought your birthday present today. It's sitting right here in the office. I think you're going to like it.”
    “I'll look forward to seeing it,” Jason said. Perhaps the only benefit of the divorce had been that, in the years since, the size and expense of Jason's presents had increased. “I don't suppose you're going to tell me what it is.”
    “That would spoil the surprise.”
    Jason could hear his father's pen scratching again, so he figured he might as well bring the conversation to an end. After he hung up, he sat in his chair and stared across the sodden cotton field to the line of trees on the distant northern horizon.
    No Shanghai, no Hong Kong, no Internet. No California till August.
    The Cabells Mound water tower stood beyond the line of trees, the setting sun gleaming red from its metal skin.
    Jason looked at the tower for a moment, then at the Edge Living poster on the wall, the extreme skater, armored like a medieval knight, poised on the edge of a gleaming brushed aluminum rail. He turned his eyes back to the water tower.
    Yes, he thought.
    If he couldn't escape his fate, he could at least make a name for himself here.

TWO

    By a gentleman just from Arkansas, by way of White river, we learn that the earthquake was violent in that quarter that in upwards of 500 places he observed coal and sand thrown up from fissures in the earth, that the waters raised in a swamp near the Cherokee village, so as to drown a Mr. Carrin who was travelling with his brother, the latter saved himself on a log. — In other places the water fell, and in one instant it rose in a swamp near the St. Francis 25 or 30 feet; Strawberry a branch of Black river, an eminence about 1-1/2 acres sunk down and formed a pond.
    St. Louis, February 22, 1812

    The ringing signal purred in Nick Ruford’s ear. He felt adrenaline shimmer through his body, kick his heart into a higher gear. He felt like a teenager calling a girl for the first time.
    It was Manon who answered. His nerves gave a little leap at the sound of her voice.
    Stupid, he thought. The divorce was two years ago. But he couldn’t help it. She still did that to him.
    “Hey,” he said. “It’s me.”
    “Hey, yourself,” she said. There was always that sly smile in her contralto voice, and he could tell from her intonation, the warmth in her tone, exactly the expression on her face, the little crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the broad smile that exposed her white teeth and a little bit of pink upper gum. With the gum exposed