by Eddie Patin
The young woman shook her head. "Lillian, someone must have fingered Nathan. Why would the Chosen lock them out of their home and let the gargoyles have them? They're killing too many of us. They're trying to hide it; maybe hide it from the rebels figuring it out. We've got a spy. We've got to. Someone's a spy for Estren. Call the meeting."
Lillian sighed. "Okay," she said, frowning and shaking her head. "But this is foolish. And reckless. I don't think you should—"
"Do it."
Morgana was excited and exhausted at the same time. Her mind was racing. "Maybe the warriors from the stars can help root out the traitor when they're done killing the necromancer..."
Chapter 3
The garage door contractor's name was Brett. He was a quiet man that was quick to smile, and after getting all of the details worked out with Jason at 10am on Monday morning when he arrived, he worked silently, listening to the local classic rock station on a small radio. Even as Jason lingered in the back of the deep garage, leaning against the stainless steel game processing sink and table that his dad had installed when he was a kid, Brett focused on his work unflinching under Jason's gaze.
Last night, Jason had to stop at a liquor store for more beer after they returned from the Wilderlands. Back on Friday night, Jason 1241 had drunk all of the beer in the fridge while the rest of them were at the Market on the pink-skied Tabula Rasa world of Churn.
Goddamn—Riley and Jason 1241 sure were mad that he'd insisted on releasing Nargog into the dinosaur world to live out the rest of his alpha minotaur life. But it had really felt like the right thing to do.
Maybe Riley's right, Jason thought as he watched Brett carrying the broken panels of his old wooden garage door to his little pickup truck parked on the street. The man went back and forth. The bottom panel was mostly fine, but the others had been burst as if a car or motorcycle had plowed through the door at 40mph. It looked like a literal wrecking ball had swung through it. Or, perhaps, it looked more like a thousand pound monster had crashed through from inside to the outside after a total clusterfuck of a quick escape from Maze World. Maybe I'm just being silly, he thought. Stupid...
Jason took another draught of his beer. It was almost empty and not as cold anymore.
That destroyed garage door was ridiculous. It was amazing that Jason had the wherewithal to conceal the damage after the minotaur had crashed through at the beginning of its short rampage down Kestrel Drive. If he hadn't, he would have been dealing with the cops for sure. That was one of Jason 1241's problems now; that, and the smothering guilt about the death of his neighbors back on his world. Back on u1241, they'd just run after Nargog after Jason 934 had jumped through the fifth dimension into that world. They'd never concealed the broken garage door like Jason 934 and that third Jason had.
Man, that was crazy...
Poor Jason 1241, he thought, taking another swig of beer.
Once the pieces of the old garage door were out of the way, Brett the contractor quickly and efficiently removed the huge, black springs and the silvery tracks from his garage's walls and ceiling. Before long, those items were gone as well, and the quiet man with a stubbly chin was measuring and attaching new ones to the same places.
Jason thought back to Riley. The soldier had said that saving Nargog didn't matter, and maybe he was right. Maze World, universe 408, was one of infinite versions of itself across an infinite multiverse, and that collection of universes was one of infinite multiverses that ranged from nearly the same all the way to incomprehensibly different. It was goddamned infinite—all of it!. There were infinite versions of Maze World where Nargog was still roaming around with his mate and her brother. There were parallel worlds where the alpha minotaur was a fucking dragon-riding king. There were also plenty of versions of Jason's own world where he and the others had hunted down Nargog on the slopes of Apache Peak and simply killed the beast.
So what difference did Jason really expect to make by sparing Nargog and letting him live in the Wilderlands?
Why bother?
Riley, Gliath, and Jason 1241 sure weren't kidding about Jason's decision just making things more difficult for them. Shit. Now, there was a deadly fucking alpha minotaur living on their Wilderlands; their dinosaur world where the Reality Rifters would go to heal their wounds with the universe's regenerative powers.
He'd put a freaking monster that could kill them all into their sanctuary.
Just as Gliath had said, now, one day, they might go there to the Wilderlands to heal and find that massive brute waiting for them. Nargog almost killed Riley. He would have if the cybernetic soldier didn't have that last healing potion on his belt. He probably could have killed Gliath if their fight had gone on much longer, and, of course, he could have squished Jason like a bug anytime.
The next time they scuffled with the alpha, they may not make it out of there.
Jason watched the contractor carefully attach the new door's rails, screw after screw, taking care to keep everything level. The new Reality Rifter tipped back his beer and found it empty.
"I'll be inside, Brett. Holler if you need me," he said, then, headed into the living room.
"Alright," Brett replied as Jason stepped up into the hall.
The TV was on, but Jason 1241 wasn't there. Riley and Gliath were in the Wilderlands during the garage door install. The soldier had an idea to use some downtime—he was still healing from being gored before in that previously-mentioned clusterfuck—to clean up the wyvern's cave. Jason couldn't imagine what kind of nastiness they were turning up in that cavern. He could imagine Riley and Gliath—both much stronger than the average man—pulling huge bones and piles of decrepit remains out of the chunky, dried mud and hauling everything outside.
Gross, Jason thought with a frown as he headed to the kitchen.
He went straight for the fridge and pulled out another bottle of red ale, then popped the cap after tossing his empty in the trash. It was morning, but a second beer was no big deal on a day of R&R. Jason knew that he'd be heading to Earth 1241 later to help the other Jason release his own version of Riley and Gliath from his own version of the Wilderlands later, but for now, he was just watching the new garage door being installed.
Just before closing the fridge, Jason did a double-take and frowned down at the two six packs in the door. It looked like his second self had already drunk ... five? This morning?!
Jason heard the toilet flush down the hall and he turned to face Jason 1241, who appeared several seconds later, bleary-eyed and red-faced.
"Hey there, 934," he said a little too loudly. Then, "Excuse me, my friend."
Jason stepped aside as his second self tossed his empty beer bottle into the trashcan, almost missing, and winced when the glass rang loudly from the bottle's collision with the others. The other Jason—who looked exactly like Jason 934 aside from being well on his way to being fully drunk—opened the fridge with loosely controlled motor skills and pulled out another bottle.
"Dude," Jason 934 said, leaning against the kitchen counter. "It's like ... eleven."
Jason 1241 leveled a glassy stare at him for a few seconds then scoffed, carefully opening the lid of the new beer with the magnetic bottle opener from the fridge.
"And your point is...?"
"Is that your sixth beer? That's a whole freaking six-pack, man."
"So what?!" Jason 1241 replied, tossing the bottle cap toward the trash. He missed, and it skittered away somewhere on the floor. Jason 1241 sloppily returned the bottle opener to the fridge with a loud clack, then leaned heavily against the dining table. "There's so much fucking gold. We can afford to get more beer."
"Yeah, but we don't get drunk. I can't even remember the last time I was drunk."
Jason 1241 laughed. "We do now."
"But why?" Jason 934 replied. "I mean—I know you're really broken up about Mr. and Mrs. Hines—"
"And their stupid, little dog!" Jason 1241 added with a slurred laugh. "That stupid, fucking dog was squished, right
?! That damned minotaur—Nargog did you say?! Fuck that shit—it freaking stomped on it like a goddamned tomato! I fucking hated that damned dog!" He laughed.
"So what's the matter?"
"Because!" Jason 1241 exclaimed. "Nothing matters! Don't you get it? We looked into the void, man, and we saw that there's fucking nothing. I know your heart, 934. It's my heart. We had purpose after surviving the fucking wyvern, right? You and me—we both looked out on that sunrise from that fucking sandy cave next to the lake when we decided to fucking live, and get shit figured out, and we faced the monster and we fucking lived! But for what?!"
Jason 934 stared at his second self and couldn't answer. He took a sip from his beer.
"This planeswalking thing—"
"Doesn't mean any more than where we were when we freaking started, right?!" Jason 1241 blurted, interrupting. "We were scared to go out in the world; scared to grow up and do something with our lives, right? When Tom and Amanda left, there was nothing left to distract ourselves other than fucking X-Box and maybe getting a beer with Ben? How's this any better? So Mom and Dad were killed when we were eighteen. So what?! We went to that world where they were still alive, remember? There are infinite worlds where they're still alive! If their deaths defined us, and their deaths don't mean shit because of the fucking infinite omniverse, then nothing defines us, see?!"
Jason 934 stared up at the clock on the wall as his second self stared at him, waiting for a reply. The second hand ticked as it clicked along. He couldn't remember if that clock had always been there from before, or if Jason had bought it at some point in the last fifteen years since he'd been alone.
"I dunno, man," he replied. Jason 1241's sudden turn to nihilism shocked him, but maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised. Maybe if Jason 934 wasn't able to return to his own Earth here, he might have changed his outlook on things too. The other Jason was a stranger on this world. "Some stuff has to matter still..."
Jason 1241 scoffed. "Nothing matters. It never has! We can use that fucking OCS to just go to another world if we fuck up this one. Don't like Mom and Dad being dead? Let's go to another universe! Why not kill the other Jason there and take his place, huh? Why not? Why's his life matter if Mom and Dad's didn't matter here; if the Hines' lives didn't matter on my world? And you know what's worse?" He paused, staring into space with vacuous, red-rimmed eyes.
"What?"
"It's us," he said, slurring out a long hiss. "The Jasons. We can go anywhere, and we can kill anything and have accidents all over! How many people have died because of us, 934? How many lives have been ruined and families destroyed because of collateral damage?"
That was it.
He couldn't hear anymore.
Riley and Gliath were working hard in the Wilderlands to make the place a little more pleasant for planeswalking. They cared. There was a dude replacing the garage door, and Jason had lots of gold where he was nearly broke before. Life was finally feeling like it had meaning, even if there were infinite realities and it was all maybe meaningless.
Jason 934 took a sip from his beer and stood from his leaning spot on the counter.
"Okay," he said. "Dude, when this garage door's done and I get Riley and Gliath from the wyvern's cave, we're heading to your world to fix what we can. So stop pounding the beers. Jeez, man, that's just beer abuse. And sober up, alright? We might have to deal with police there. Can you please try to avoid being drunk?"
Jason 1241 scoffed and looked out of the back door's window.
"Pfft ... fine."
With that, Jason 934 headed back to the garage just in time to see Brett sliding the last brand new metal panel into place. Back when he took the estimate, Jason had signed on to get one of those new garage doors with windows in the top. But, with all of the rifting he was bound to do in the garage, he didn't want his house to look like a mad scientist's lab from the outside at night; flaring with bright, orange fire through those little windows whenever they came and went. Changing his mind to replace the top panel with a solid one without windows wasn't a problem.
The contractor noticed Jason's approach. "Almost done, Mr. Leaper," he said. "I just have to hook up the lifter and make sure everything's still good." Brett paused and looked around. "This is a real interesting garage, Mr. Leaper. I don't see many extra-deep ones like this around here. Neat sink and tables and stuff. For hunting?"
"Yep," Jason replied, taking a swig of beer. "This used to be my mom and dad's house. It's mine now. My dad was really into hunting and he used to process deer and stuff here. It's all stainless steel, and there's a shower-type-thing, and good drainage, too."
"Still use it for hunting?"
Jason smiled, thinking of the dead minotaurs that were here recently, piled up on the concrete like mountains of shaggy flesh. He wondered briefly about what other monsters would be processed here in the future.
"Yeah, some."
He liked the new life. Jason felt very uncomfortable with the direction Jason 1241 was taking things...
Jason 934 hefted his .416 Rigby Magnum Mauser and stepped through the roaring, brilliant rift into the hot, humid darkness of the wyvern's cavern. He hoped that he wouldn't have to shoot it. His ears hurt. Each eardrum felt like a tiny needle was twisting around inside and the rich, crackling roar of the portal seemed a little more muted than normal.
When his boots touched down, he immediately noticed a lack of clattering bones around the landing zone. Reaching up to the headlamp on his forehead—no mere flashlight this time—Jason turned on the bright LED with a silent push of its rubbery button and looked around, releasing his hold on the rift in his mind.
The brilliant and spinning portal of sputtering orange sparks rapidly closed in on itself like a fiery whirlpool being sucked down a drain. Then it disappeared with a pop.
The cave looked a hell of a lot better. There were still piles of bones near one side—mainly the back where Jason had run into those baby wyverns and eggs before—but the area all around the permanent rift and the slope where Riley had slept before when he was healing from his grievous injury from Maze World, as well as the large open space leading to the tunnel out, was mostly cleared away!
"Holy shit," Jason exclaimed with a grin, already feeling his skin bead with sweat. "Riley! Gliath! Where are you guys?"
Jason paused in the silence, now that the rift was closed, and listened. His overactive imagination immediately thought up a scenario where his friends were somehow overwhelmed by the native cannibals, or perhaps ambushed and killed by the alpha minotaur. Then he shook his head. Ridiculous, Jason thought with a smile. Those two were badasses and could take on any of the wildlife here.
There were no noises of cannibals. No creepy or scaly monsters moving around in the cave with him. No Riley and Gliath either...
How long had they been here? Jason had dropped them off that morning before Brett showed up. It had been maybe three hours back on universe 934. That translated to ... about two days? Those two were prepared to camp out here for a little while.
By the light of his headlamp, Jason walked across the cavern. Hell—did it even smell better in here? A lot of the remains were gone. Was it less repulsive? The cave still smelled distinctly reptilian; in a bad way. When Jason reached the tunnel to the outside, he ducked and stalked his way out, careful not to hit his head on the shoulder-height ceiling.
Like always, emerging into the sunlit primordial world of the Wilderlands was dazzling. Jason was assaulted with hot sunshine, the bold greens of the surrounding forests and jungle, and a bright blue sky as deep as he'd ever seen. Pterosaurs soared in the air high on thermals like giant eagles. That huge herd of duckbills was down in the valley, spread out across the distant tree line and grazing on waist-high grasses. Down the slope from the cave's entrance was the rock slab covered in old, dried blood from the days of the wyvern's domination of the region. Just north of that were the huge, heaped decomposing bodies of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the wyvern itself. Thankfully, there were
no cannibals running around.
But where were Riley and Gliath?
Jason turned around and looked down at the partly-cleaned skulls of some of their minotaur kills. He watched the big ants swarm around what meat remained on the heavy bones. The minotaurs' jaws looked more like that of a wolf than a bull. Looking just to the south, Jason saw the copse of thick bushes with fern fronds and fat, wide green leaves where he'd leapt into to hide the first time he saw the wyvern; back when he was first stuck on this world. For some reason, it all seemed like so long ago...
"Jason!" Riley exclaimed suddenly from the distance.
The man turned and looked back to the valley again. Riley and Gliath emerged from the trees across the narrowest part of the valley. They were carrying their guns, and Jason saw Riley's short, dark hair and Gliath's sleek, black fur glistening in the sun with water.
"Hey, guys!" Jason called back with a wave and a smile.
Riley and Gliath closed the distance.
"We were both getting cleaned off in that creek you told us about."
Jason ran a hand through his short hair. Something about the idea of bathing in this world's version of Doe Creek made him shudder. Maybe it was the fact that each time he'd ever crossed that stream when he was stuck here before, crocodiles had tried to eat him.
"You cleaned off in the creek? There are lots of crocodiles down there."
"Yeah, we saw one," Riley said with a smirk. He looked up at Gliath. The leopardwere stood a head taller than either of them in his 'warrior form', bipedal and lithe, his long black tail swishing behind him. The Krulax looked down at Jason with an emotionless panther-like face, his yellowish-green eyes alert but unconcerned. "Gliath wrestled with it until it ran away. It was fun."
Jason wasn't sure if Riley was kidding or not.
"The cave looks a lot better. You feeling better? More healed-up?"
