Red

by Ryan Rinsler

  “About an hour.”

  He handed the ear defenders to Jacob and walked inside. He was anxious, his mouth dry and palms moist. It was one thing to jump to another universe, but to do it after bypassing the security of the biggest and most dangerous company on the planet over there seemed suicidal. It wouldn’t be me who is killed though, he thought, instantly feeling guilty for that fact giving him comfort. As brutal and insensitive as it was, it did give him comfort.

  He grabbed a sandwich and some snacks from the kitchen and made his way upstairs, the sound of gunfire echoing around the valley as he slumped into his comfy bed. It was coming up to four weeks since he came out of Mana’s world, yet it felt like no more than a few days. Jacob had dug him out one of his old cellphones, and after booting up his BlackBook, making sure telephony was firmly switched off to avoid anyone getting his location, he scribbled down a few numbers and switched it off as quickly as he could.

  He lay back on the bed and looked to the ceiling.

  His first thought was Kate, and whether messaging her now, so long after they last spoke, would result in no reply and him being distracted for days. Secondly, he was genuinely concerned about the welfare of James, but was hesitant to ask Lacey for an update due to the emotional baggage that would come with, which right now he didn’t have the capacity to deal with.

  He swiped up on Jacob’s phone to start a new message, and began typing.

  “Hi Kate, it’s Connor on a new phone. So sorry I’ve not been in touch. It’s probably a cliché but some weird stuff has been happening over the last few weeks that I can’t really explain. I feel bad about what happened at the party and wanted to make it up to you if possible. Hopefully you don’t hate me too much :)”

  He pressed send and dropped his BlackBook on his lap, lying back and waiting. He expected to hear nothing, but still, with every ping or vibration of a downloaded email or another pointless promotional text message, his heart fluttered at the thought of it being a reply.

  6:30pm. She’ll be at work. She must be. Then again I’ve no idea when she works, so she might not be.

  Ten minutes passed. He lay there, still staring at the ceiling, the beautifully pale wood perfectly joined with incredible craftsmanship. The ranch was probably over two hundred years old, architected in an organic age, but was absolutely pristine in appearance having been meticulously maintained by Jacob over the years. His eyes followed the lines of the woodwork until he was no longer in the room. He stood in an open field. There was a figure on the horizon, but he more he ran toward it the more difficult it was to run. He was in Rosco’s with Paulie, but it wasn’t Paulie, it was someone else he didn’t recognize. There was a fire. His heart pounded and he felt a cold sweat sweep his entire body as he awoke sharply to a loud tone from his cellphone.

  He lay there for a minute, sweat dripping from his neck onto his collar bones. He had goosebumps all over his body, and his heart was pounding. He sat up slowly, his eyesight blurry and hearing muffled, and with a rub of his eyes he squinted at the message.

  “I thought ur midlife crisis had taken you to Cuba or something, where have you bin?”

  He smiled and lay back, the butterflies in his stomach buzzing away like a teenager’s as he opened a message to reply.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he replied.

  After ten minutes there was a knock at the door. “Connor?” It was Jacob.

  “Yeah?” he croaked. Kate still hadn’t replied.

  “I think they’ve cracked it.”

  He quickly messaged Kate. “Gtg, speak later yeah?”

  There was a hubbub in the morning room as Connor strolled in scratching his head. Jacob was once more arranging the sofa in the middle of the room, and Nolan and Matt were getting the gear ready, moving quickly with excitement.

  “I’m going in now?”

  “Not yet bro, we’re waiting for a code from Red Oscar.”

  “What’s a Red Oscar?”

  “Your mate’s timeline,” said Matt. “That’s what Nolan calls it.”

  “Have you eaten?” asked Jacob.

  “About an hour or so ago, I think. I’m OK.”

  “Nolan has got the waste extraction kit working now, so you can use that.”

  “The what?”

  “So you can go for a piss, bro.”

  Nolan lifted what looked to Connor like a grey pair of briefs with a thick cord attached to it.

  “Oh.”

  “It’s perfectly sanitary,” said Jacob. “We’ve made sure of that. You just slip your little pidge in the hole at the front, and the little tube goes up your bum hole, and the machine takes care of the rest.”

  He reluctantly took the device from Nolan’s grip. “Are you gonna look away?” he asked, with his shorts half way down his ass. He slid on the pants, attached himself as best he could, then lay down. Matt let out a burst of laughter as he caught sight of him wearing his new underwear, to which Connor replied by flipping him the bird.

  “This means you can be in there for longer,” said Jacob. “We can check your blood sugar levels with the MedKit we have and keep you topped up while you’re in there.”

  “How long can I stay in?”

  “Oh, maybe thirty-six hours or so. Maybe more. We’ll keep you moving as best we can on this side, so you don’t get bedsores.”

  The Seeker let out a sound, like a two tone beep, to which Nolan reacted by jumping up and tapping the screen a few times. He picked up the cap and looked at Connor.

  “We ready?” asked Connor.

  Nolan nodded.

  “This is becoming pretty familiar,” he said, taking the cap. He slid it on and rested his head on the pillow.

  “If we don’t hear from you,” said Jacob, “we’ll assume everything is OK.”

  “What do you mean, hear from me? Can I talk to you guys?”

  “They can send a message, they’ll send a message,” said Nolan, still typing into the panel on the Seeker device. “Get ready.”

  The pace of Connor’s heart increased and he became short of breath. He lay there, looking at the ceiling once more.

  “Jump in 3… 2… 1…”

  And then, black.

  23

  Connor opened his eyes. He was in the bunker, the sudden realization he was connected to Kyle’s body making him instantly feel both relaxed and on edge at the same time. It was comforting to know he’d connected to Kyle before, but despite the number of times he’d completed the jump, he was still not completely comfortable with sharing another person’s body. The saliva he was tasting was both his and someone else’s at the same time. It was tasteless, as you would expect your own saliva to be, but his mind told him it wasn’t his, giving him extremely conflicting thoughts. Even though it was trivial, it was distracting.

  “Welcome back.” He turned his head and saw Mana sat by his bedside once more. “How are you feeling?”

  “Um, like I’ve been awake for a week.”

  There was a young woman sat with him, smiling and leaning forward, almost trying to get a better look. She had tattoos and jewelry, and a weird cropped fringe, and her skin was almost as white as her t-shirt.

  “You two have met,” said Mana. Connor shuffled himself up in bed and squinted to take a better look. “This is Dr. Mura.”

  “Oh right!” said Connor, reaching out to shake her hand.

  She reciprocated enthusiastically. “You’ll feel a little groggy,” she said, her almost husky voice reminding Connor more of a surfer than a doctor. “We had to put Kyle down before you came in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s safer to connect while the host is asleep,” said Mana, “so we had to knock Kyle out before you entered.”

  Connor scratched his head. “Should I feel bad?”

  “About Kyle? No, not at all. As soon as he heard you were coming back in he jumped at the chance to be your host again.”

  “I wish I could meet him.”

  “You
will, I’m sure. For now, congratulations on getting here. I knew they could do it.”

  “Wasn’t that hard in the end, apparently.”

  “Well, it’s something that’s evaded us for years. Our programming-side is pretty non-existent, so having your friend on board is a real bonus, as he’s proved today.” He tapped his clenched fists on his thighs rhythmically. “You’re a part of us now, Connor. You being here is changing everything.”

  Pressure.

  “It’s a massive step forward,” he said, looking at Rachel. “We’re already further along now than we have been in the last seven years.”

  Rachel nodded calmly, her eyes betraying an excitement that it was clear they both shared.

  “Come,” said Mana. “Let me show you to your quarters.”

  With Mana’s help he struggled to his feet and shuffled out of the room. As they stepped into the vaguely familiar dark tunnel he felt the cold bellowing wind rushing from one end of the bunker to the other, howling as it went. It smelled damp, like a neglected basement, and each view up and down the tunnel ended in darkness.

  “You’ve been down here seven years?” he asked as they walked.

  “Something like that,” he replied. “It feels longer than that, I assure you.”

  The gravel crunched underfoot, and the constant dripping of the reservoir above their heads leaking in resonated around the cold concrete walls.

  “What’s it like living down here?”

  “Oh, you know, you get used to it. We’ve got food sources and we do patrols once a day. They’re dangerous but the guys know what they’re doing.”

  “Must be hard,” replied Connor, already feeling claustrophobic. Having been looking out onto vast pristine valleys of snow and greenery no more than five minutes previously, this dark, closed-in world was already stifling.

  “You just have to think of the alternatives,” said Mana, likely reading Connor’s expression. “This is a bit of a drab existence but it is an existence. We’ve got to keep going.”

  “I guess.”

  Mana looked across at Connor, then away just as quickly. The tiniest smile flashed on his lips. “I’d love to see your world,” he said. “We’ve lived this one for so long now it’s hard to remember an easier time.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty years maybe, since it started to change. It’s only getting more difficult too.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “There’s so much for you to learn about this world and an infinite number of others just like it. What we need to do is give you an understanding of what we’re up against, so maybe you can start to help us. What you saw last time you were here only scratched the surface.”

  They stopped next to a metal door. Mana unlocked it with an old key, then handed the key to Connor.

  “This is your quarters where you can stay whenever you come here. It doesn’t matter who you connect to, this will always be your room.”

  He swung the door open and flicked on the light. “We’ve given you some essentials, and a firearm, and if there’s anything else you need just grab one of us and we’ll see if we can help. For now, get settled, get some rest, and when you’re ready we’ll begin.”

  Connor slumped down on the bed as Mana closed the door. It was small room, with a single, hard, squeaky bed, the stiff mattress less than ten centimeters thick. There was a metal chair in front of him, against the opposite wall yet still in reaching distance, blue paint flaking off revealing the rusty steel beneath. On it sat a pistol in a holster, eerily reminiscent of his first awakening in Red’s house.

  Check your firearm and always have a round chambered, Jacob had told him. If you haven’t chambered that round, he’d said, in the heat of the moment, instead of getting your shot off you’ll just hear a click. Meanwhile your attacker has blown your bloody head off. If that happens, it’s nobody’s fault but yours.

  He picked it up, whipped out the magazine and checked it was loaded, before slamming it back and pulling back on the slide and releasing it quickly. As he did so, a bullet was moved into the chamber of the gun, readying it for action.

  He slipped it back into the holster and placed it back on the chair, staring at it vacantly for a few minutes. Lying back on the uncomfortable bed he stared at the crumbling ceiling. One step at a time, he thought. They’d accomplished so much in such a short time, and he would recite that in his mind every time his impatience began to build. He was ready now for the next step.

  He awoke with a snort as the door latch clicked. It opened slowly.

  “Hello,” came a quiet voice, almost purposely as quiet so as not to wake him if he were sleeping. He rubbed his eyes and sat up. It was Rachel.

  “Hello Dr. Mura,” he croaked.

  “You hungry?”

  “Um, I don’t know really. I probably will be. How long have I been asleep?”

  “Two hours maybe. Do you know where the mess hall is from here?”

  He shook his head.

  “Out of here, turn left, sixth door on the left. You can’t miss it.”

  As she left he stood up and stretched, almost falling over with dizziness. How the hell does this work? he wondered. How am I getting dizzy? Whose brain is it getting dizzy? The concept of blood rushing to someone else’s head, making his brain feel faint when his actual brain was in an alternate dimension… Nah, too sleepy, he thought. Another time.

  He washed his face using the small sink in the corner of the room, and in a small bathroom bag found deodorant and washing items. In a rusty old metal wardrobe he found some military clothing, used but clean, and a pair of rugged boots. He looked at his own attire, noting he was wearing some comfortable pumps and much the same clothing as was in the wardrobe.

  He freshened up and made his way out toward the mess hall.

  As he approached his stomach churned, remembering the reception he was given last time. They all knew exactly who he was, or at least who he was in their world, and they almost treated him as such. The hostility he’d been subjected to was understandable, but still, he was there to help, and even though he, Connor Cooper, was in no danger, being held at gunpoint by an angry soldier who was clearly considering shooting him with it was not a nice experience, regardless of deadliness for him personally. Alongside this, he’d now become quite attached to Kyle, so to speak, having shared not only a few difficult and exciting experiences with him, but also his entire body.

  He slowed as he reached the door and took a breath, hovering just before it, before blowing out his cheeks and stepping in with confidence. To his surprise there were only six people in there, and one of them was Rachel. She was sat chatting to a man he didn’t recognize, while the rest were all sat on one table chatting and eating. Everyone stopped what they were doing as Connor entered, watching him with half chewed food hanging out of their mouths. Where’s Ruby when I need her? he thought, remembering how she commanded everyone last time he was in this situation.

  With a mouthful of food, Rachel pulled out a chair next to her. She grinned at him as he sheepishly made his way over and sat down. The table of four resumed their meal and conversations, and Connor relaxed.

  “This is Zak,” she said, pointing to the man sitting opposite them. He was clean cut and looked to Connor like more of an academic type than a soldier. He smiled silently and shook Connor’s hand.

  “It’s OK,” said Rachel. “Everyone gets it now.”

  “I wish I did.”

  She laughed, one of her cheeks bulging with bread.

  “Where is everyone? This place was packed last time I came.”

  “Mmmm,” she hummed, knowingly, nodding as she played with her stew. “Around, you know.”

  Noticing her reticence he didn’t probe any further.

  “It’s been hard, the past few months,” she said.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s why everyone is more on board about you being here,” she continued. “We need all the
help we can get at the moment.”

  “Can I ask what you guys do?”

  Rachel gestured with her head for Zak to speak, as she was busy finishing her meal.

  He smiled shyly before speaking. “We’re both students of biology,” he said, his meek voice almost being drowned out completely by the ambient sound of the room. “Dr. Mura has been through med-school. I used to be a veterinarian.”

  Connor strained to hear. “What, animals?”

  “Yep,” he replied.

  “It’s actually harder to be a vet,” said Rachel. “At med school you just learn about human anatomy. Vets have to be able to fix thousands of different animals.”

  “You get much work down here?” Connor joked. Zak smiled in reply but didn’t answer.

  “We both help out where we can,” said Rachel. “We’re basically surgeons and chemists, GPs and nurses rolled into one. Well, two.”

  “How, um, how did you go to med school?”

  Rachel looked at him with a puzzled expression.

  “What I mean is, how long has it been since, you know, since there were colleges?”

  “Oh I see. I only made it through one year. That was eighteen years ago.”

  “And what happened? They shut it down?”

  Rachel laughed quietly. “No, I dropped out.”

  “Oh.”

  “It closed maybe four years after that. I wasn’t ready for med school.” She cleared her tray and pushed it away. “I wasn’t ready for this either, yet here we are.”

  Every time he felt a sadness from one of these people he couldn’t help but take on a level of guilt. He sighed.

  Rachel smiled in acknowledgment. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “Just remember that most of the people in here envy you for one reason or another.”

  “Because my world isn’t like this one?”

  “You can just disconnect and be rid of this place,” she said. “You can get on with your lives. This is our world, and we have to live it every day.”

  “No,” he said with a sharp shake of the head. “This is my world too now. I’m gonna live it with you and I won’t stop until it’s better.”

  She laughed softly. “There’s that thing again.”