by Eddie Patin
"The Chosen!" she screamed. "We're under attack! Get out of here! Run and hide!"
She heard the rebels shouting and bellowing in anger and crying out in pain. The cellar was crowded already and now, the entire space was a jumble of close-quarter fighting and confusion. Some of her friends had pulled their weapons and fought with the armored eunuch soldiers for their lives. Others pushed and stampeded against the many bodies, trying to escape. Some poor men were being stabbed repeatedly, falling to the ground. Some were being beaten with the pommels of the Chosen's short swords.
"Run, Morgana!" someone shouted then cried out in agony, disappearing into the throng.
"Lillian!" she shouted, wildly scanning the madness, searching for her sister-in-law. Morgana prayed that the woman wasn't already crushed underfoot or bleeding out on the floor somewhere, her blonde curls red in a pool of her own blood. "Lillian, where are you?!"
Then she saw her. Between two frightening, golden masks pushing her way through the melee, Morgana saw Lillian hiding in the shadows near the stairs, pressed against the wall as more soldiers came down. Her face was oddly passive; unafraid. When there was a lull in the soldiers clomping down the wooden steps—swords drawn and faces hidden behind their masks—Lillian turned, sleek as a mink, and fled up the stairs.
A heavy body suddenly slammed against Morgana's feet, slumped and still. She looked down and saw the man's tunic sodden with his blood.
Morgana quickly considered the carnage around her. Soldiers approached—their apathetic eyes focused on her through the slits in their golden masks—and the young woman debated whether to pull out Dawnbringer and risk losing it, or to let herself be captured. Looking around at her people, Morgana's mind raced for ideas.
With her heart choked in sadness and her mind desperate, Morgana lowered her hands and held her breath, trying to ignore the whirlwind of fear inside her.
She knew that there was no way out...
Chapter 8
Boom!
"Whoo! I got him!" Jason exclaimed, smiling broadly and wiping the sweat from his brow. "And it didn't hurt my ears!"
"Good shot!" Riley said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Everything still sound the same?"
The Reality Rifters stood in the shadows of waving trees in the thick and hot, humid air of the Wilderlands. Just inside the tree line to the north of the wyvern's cave, Jason stepped back from the pine branch he'd used as a shooting brace and cycled the bolt of his father's .416 Rigby Magnum Mauser. He could smell the gunpowder over the thick fragrances of the forest and random prehistoric flowers thick in the underbrush.
Gliath dashed away on long and sleek legs. The leopardwere was in his warrior form, seven feet tall and looking like the panther version of a werewolf. He ran after the Ornithomimus that Jason had just shot. The heavy caliber dangerous game rifle was more than enough for the tall ostrich-like egg-stealer dinosaur. When he hit it in the chest, the beast immediately crumpled and collapsed into a copse of ferns fifty yards away, its spotted, cream-colored feathers frazzled and some still drifting through the air.
Jason could hear the wind rustling through the trees. He heard Gliath's rapid, quiet steps as the Krulax ran up to check the body. The sounds of the bolt moving through the rifle and the flinging of the brass shell seemed sharp and clear. Nothing sounded odd. His hearing was better than ever, actually.
"Sounds good!" Jason said with a smile. "My eye's good too."
"Great," Riley said, looking through the trees into the sunny valley. "Don't activate your image intensifier for a while though. It's still too soon."
"You think the nanobots are still healing my eye?"
"I think they're trying to, yeah," the soldier said. "But I think this world's vitality element has already finished the healing early. Still, let's not rush it. You don't wanna aggravate it and have your immune system attack your eyeball."
A chill ran up Jason's spine at that.
"Good point." He clicked on his safety, slung his rifle around one shoulder, and watched Gliath's dark form hefting the dead dinosaur in the distant trees.
Riley turned and watched the leopardwere as well. They stood quiet for a moment.
"So this is a good one to eat, huh?" Riley asked, scratching his beard.
"Yeah," Jason said. "I mean—maybe it tasted so good because I was freaking starving at the time, but when I killed one of these before with a spear, it was like really awesome turkey."
"Cool. That'll be good since we're out of scorpion."
Admittedly, Jason had been seriously apprehensive about eating the meat of a giant scorpion—those frozen steaks that they'd brought back from universe 932, the Fridge. They had given half of what they brought back to Gordon on Wednesday, and they ate the rest last night when Jason had rifted them home.
He'd had no idea what to expect. How could Jason have possibly imagined the taste of scorpion? There was nothing like it. Jason had seen before—on Amazon, EBay, and other places online—where someone could order dried scorpion jerky. But that was just the dried out carapace. This was the meat of its actual muscles under the exoskeleton. There were no scorpions remotely big enough to even get a scrap of such meat on Earth. The closest thing Jason could think of to it was maybe the meat of a crab—especially the thick swell of muscle inside a crab's big claws.
The giant scorpion meat was spicy and dark and tangy in a way that Jason couldn't really describe. Even though he was tired and only had the use of one eye at the time, he'd grilled up those hunks of arachnid endo-flesh with the barest amount of seasoning—he really wanted to taste all of these new monster meats as naturally as possible—and had been pleasantly surprised. Riley hadn't been kidding. It was good stuff. He was glad that they still had more in that shack back on u932.
Now, Jason was the one introducing his friends to something cool and new.
The last time he'd killed this particular kind of dinosaur was up on the ridge next to the Monoclonius nesting area. Back then, Jason had been starving to death—fasting for several days by then—and desperate to eat anything he could get his hands on without wasting precious 9mm ammunition. Killing that Ornithomimus really had been the turning point for his survival trials on this world.
Jason looked around and sighed. He would have never pictured himself coming back to this world, especially for fun.
Gliath appeared a moment later, the huge bird-like dinosaur draped across his muscular, black-furred back like a man carrying a deer.
"Let's clean it here instead of the garage," Jason said.
"Very well, Jason Leaper 934," the leopardwere replied with his low voice, his feline face impassive and his yellowish-green eyes pale in the shadows of the woods.
The three of them walked back to the cave. Jason looked all around them as they did. As far as he could tell, his eye felt totally normal. He wasn't seeing anything differently, and he didn't feel anything weird pulling or scratching anywhere. The bandage had been off for several hours now.
Before long, Jason and Riley were standing at the mouth of the cave near the minotaur skulls and the cannibals' heads on pikes, looking out over the valley. Gliath quickly processed the meat down by the slab, skinning and removing the muscular back legs and other good cuts, then headed up the slope, leaving the carcass for the many tiny raptors roaming around the underbrush.
They didn't see the cannibals much these days when they rifted here. Maybe the savage creatures had gotten the message to stay away from the cave now claimed by the high-tech warriors. Maybe Nargog the minotaur had descended into their midst and eaten them all. Who knows?
Jason looked up across the valley and searched the ridge for his little spider cave. He couldn't see it even though from there, previously, he'd been able to see the wyvern's cave looking down across the valley.
"Think Nargog's living nearby?" Jason asked idly, drawing Riley's attention.
"Shet—let's hope not," the soldier replied with a smirk. "I hope that fruker is far, far away from here."
The three Reality Rifters delved into the cave through the low tunnel. Jason was very happy that Riley and Gliath had cleared out a lot of the mess. It was much more bearable inside now. The leopardwere carried the two skinned hindquarters and other cuts of meat.
Then they rifted home.
Gliath went straight to the processing table as Jason and Riley walked into the living room after removing packs, weapons, and other gear. Jason was starting to think of setting up a gearing up stations for the three of them on a clear wall of the garage. Lately, he'd been keeping his Merc armor, backpack, battle belt with pouches, and other gear stored there against a wall whenever they weren't on missions. If Jason could get some big, metal lockers, or an array of shelves or something... He smiled at the idea. It'd be kind of like Ghostbusters or something; having a station they'd run to for gearing up before opening a rift to go on some crazy adventure in another universe.
Just before Jason stepped inside, he caught a glimpse of Gliath downing a large sliver of the raw dinosaur meat he was slicing up.
"This was the life," he muttered to himself. And it was only going to get better...
Unless I get everyone killed with rifting like Jason 113 almost did, he thought, frowning at the dark idea.
Looking at the clock in the kitchen, Jason reached into the fridge for a beer for both him and Riley. He pulled out two Laughing Labs.
"I can't believe we've been gone all day and it's only been like two hours back home," he said.
"Pretty fruking convenient if you ask me," Riley said, accepting his bottle of beer.
"Two hours here, but still all day in the Wilderlands. I'm freaking starving."
"I hear ya," the soldier said with a smirk. "How about you fire up the grill?"
"Okay."
Before long, the Ornithomimus was packed into Jason's fridge and freezer, and three hearty steaks were sizzling on the old grill on the back patio. They'd been grilling a lot of meat lately. They were also simply going through a lot of meat. Jason was frequently surprised at how quickly the fridge was emptying. Living with Gliath was like living with a tiger. The leopardwere probably ate at least five or six pounds of meat a day. And it was either that, or he was going through Zelda's canned cat food at an unbelievable rate. It was a good thing that Jason had a direct connection to the Wilderlands, if nothing else just so that he could keep Gliath fed.
Maybe it was time to use some of that gold from the Maze World job. He could buy a really fancy grill. They'd be using it a lot. Hell—maybe he could have a contractor build one of those really sleek and expensive outdoor grill stations with plumbing and all. He could redo the patio, make it bigger, then make the whole grill station out of stainless steel, granite countertops, and decorative stone...
Jason sprayed some water on the fire to knock it down a little, then scraped at the big dinosaur steaks. They sizzled and smelled amazing.
"So," Riley said, leaning up against the house and nursing a beer, "you want to do what with your Earth friend and our infinity crystals?"
"Well," Jason replied, running a hand through his hair. He scratched at the itchy USB port over his right ear. "I had this business idea. He's my only friend here really, besides you guys. His name's Ben."
"I know who Ben is. Both Jason 113 and Jason 47 had a friend named Ben. Tall, skinny black dude, right?"
"Yeah, that's him. You know Ben?"
Riley shook his head and took a sip of beer. "Nope. Never met him. Once Jason Leapers start planeswalking, they don't do much with their Earth friends anymore."
That sounded shitty. Jason didn't like that at all. He shook his head.
"No, I think I want to involve Ben somehow. He's always been there for me—sort of—and wanted to do business stuff with me."
"But you already have a new business," Riley replied. "Monster hunting. Once we get your jacket tomorrow, we'll get another bounty, too. Business is good."
"Yeah, I know," Jason said. He didn't really have a good reason for wanting to get Ben involved in this new world of his. He just felt like—he didn't know—like he owed his friend that much. Or, maybe it was still that part of Jason that was hedging his bets and trying to think of how to survive off of the Wilderlands without the need to use the Bounty Boards. "I just figure it'll be easy money. It'd be fun to bring Ben into this."
Riley shrugged and looked off to the ridge through the gentle smoke of the grill.
"Well, be careful, man," he said. "Your world doesn't have this kind of tech. If you make too much of a scene, your government will crack down on us and make things really difficult. It's a bad idea, but I guess it doesn't matter much."
That was an odd thing to say.
"Doesn't matter much?" Jason asked. "What do you mean?"
Riley smirked. "Because it doesn't. Say you go into business peddling free fruking energy using infinity crystals. That's your idea, right?"
"Yeah."
"Now, say your friend Ben does great selling the shet, and it's a huge hit, right? A Type-zero Civilization like this—they'd be crazy for free energy! You'll sell the hell out of it, make a lot of fruking money. But then what? Your government—or some big corporation like Xygen from my world—will try to steal it. They'll eventually realize that they can't, because it's not from this world. So then everything goes to shet because they're harassing you or torturing you or who knows what else for your secrets. Then you can't get infinity crystals anymore because they're always on you, or maybe they fruking kidnap you and force you to show them the way to the Wilderlands..."
"Holy shit," Jason said then scoffed. "That's not gonna happen!"
"But then," Riley went on, "it doesn't really matter if it does."
"Why?"
"Because nothing matters," the soldier answered with a smirk. "You might fruk up your world with that kind of business. But if that happens, we can just find another universe with an Earth just like this—or better—and start a new base there."
Jason stared at the sizzling steaks then used his spatula to knock them loose again.
Something about Riley's attitude about it just didn't seem right. Jason was surprised at how quickly Riley had painted that scene. The guy was smart. But he didn't really seem to care. He wasn't trying very hard to dissuade him; he really believed that it didn't matter to abandon one universe for another.
"But this universe is important," Jason said.
"Is it?"
"Yeah. It's my home. It's where I grew up; where my parents died. I have friends here. Most of them are gone now, but they're still on Earth; still in universe 934. This is my house," he said, gesturing to the siding and back door behind them.
They'd been having a bit of a warm spell lately. The blustery, freezing weather around Halloween was gone and a lot of the snow had melted away. Today was calm. The sun was shining and the air was crisp.
"There are infinite versions of you, Jason," Riley said, "and infinite versions of your house and your life. Hell—Jason 1241 is from one of those. If you go to another universe just like this one where that world's version of you died yesterday, is it really different? If everything is the exactly same, is Ben of that universe any different?"
Jason suddenly recalled when he was in the Wilderlands for the first time and had tried to escape by rifting into other alternate versions of his world using cash as a focus key. He didn't know what he was doing at all and ended up first appearing on an Earth where his parents were still alive. That world's version of him was living a successful married life in Dallas, Texas. His parents had been so confused to see him—ragged and wounded and filthy from survivin
g several days in the Wilderlands—and he'd been just as confused to see them. But they sure felt real. What Jason had felt in his heart was real.
"But ... if infinite worlds mean that we can literally do anything—pretty much without consequences, because we have infinite do-overs—then isn't everything ... meaningless?" Jason asked. "Wouldn't that mean that nothing mattered?"
"Zappo," Riley said, scratching his beard. "That's what I said. Nothing matters."
"Then how ... how can you live in a world—an omniverse like that?"
"Don't think about it!" Jason 1241 suddenly blurted out from the back door, then laughed loud and obnoxiously. "Isn't that what you always say, Riley?! Don't think about it!"
Jason turned and looked at his second self, immediately feeling regretful that the guy had showed up. Then, he felt guilty for feeling that. Jason 1241 was drunk. He had a glass in one hand, swishing around three half-melted pieces of ice and clear liquid—probably more vodka. It looked like he was still wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing before they traveled to Ebonexus, stained with sweat. His second self's eyes and cheeks were sunken and pale and his cheeks were thick with stubble.
Jason 1241 looked like shit.
Riley cocked an eyebrow—something Jason rarely saw—and took another swig of beer.
"1241," Jason 934 said, not quite knowing what to say. "Where've you been? We got back from Ebonexus and I couldn't find you. Are you okay?"
"Oh, I've been around," he replied with slurred words. "I went over to the Clayburns' house earlier—you know, the family that that minotaur fucker piece of shit totally slaughtered back in my world?—and I talked with them. I wanted to make sure that they were okay, 934. Fucking Riley..." He glared at the soldier, took a haphazard drink and opened his mouth dramatically to continue.
"Wait—" Jason said. "You went to the Clayburns' house? Here? On this world? Is that the house where Nargog ended up where there was that standoff?"
"Yes, 934!" drunk Jason replied. "You remember it, don't ya? After we ran through the Hines' house and through all of that destruction and guts and stuff and had the cops chase us, huh? Do you remember that shit, 934? That was like just the other day! And what happened before we ran away, huh? You remember, 934?! We heard the Clayburns screaming! We heard 'em from the street while everybody stood around like dumbasses, remember?!"
