The Heart of a Necromancer

by Eddie Patin

  When he finally opened the rift back to his home garage using his necklace, Jason stepped through, closed it when the others were clear, then pulled up his OCS. He searched for the bookmark he'd set in the living room of u1241. When he found it, he deleted it.

  He never wanted to go there again.

  At around lunchtime, Jason stood in his garage, tightening down the straps of his backpack. He had a full water bladder and had cinched the clip of one of his new IR Illuminator flashlights into the molle battle belt that he'd wear over the CamelBak's waist strap. The new image intensifier in Jason's eye excited him, and the idea of flooding the darkness with a flashlight's illumination that would be invisible to the naked eye was really cool, but he still felt somber and subdued over the whole suicide thing.

  He got his gear together, constantly wondering whether or not he should be more broken up about it all. Jason felt terrible and angry and immensely sad. He felt guilty as hell. Riley had just mentioned the night before that something was wrong, and Jason had basically said to 'give it time'. Well, they gave it time, and Jason 1241 blew his brains out. That other Jason was him. He was that other Jason. They were the same. He could have helped him. He could have done more to guide Jason 1241 through his grief without letting him withdraw into alcoholism and existential despair. Instead, Jason 934 was disgusted by his other self's drunkenness and desperation to escape, and had effectively turned away to let him suffer on his own.

  Fuck.

  Could he have helped, really? Obviously, Jason 1241 was affected much more by the deaths of his neighbors back on u1241 than Jason 934 was. Jason's neighbors here were still alive—as if that mattered. They were the same people too, right?

  Jason's mind spun, fretting, but he didn't feel a vast, crushing blackness smothering him like he expected Jason 1241 had felt.

  He didn't know what to think.

  He couldn't even make sense of it all yet.

  So, he tried to get his shit together instead. They still had a job to do.

  Jason played with his new minotaur-hide jacket. It was light, comfortable, and very soft. There was no way that this jacket could repel bullets like body armor, could it? He decided to never try and find out. He'd wear the jacket and try to avoid getting shot by enemies or eviscerated by predators and monsters, and if it saved his life with some semi-magical epic resistance to being penetrated? Well then, bonus. It was an attractive yet practical jacket with plenty of pockets—even hidden ones—and Jason could tell already from stepping outside earlier that it would act adequately as a wind breaker. He didn't know how well it would stand up to cold, but if it blocked wind and water, then it would at least make a good shell layer. It was big enough that he could wear fleece under it, and it was soft enough that he'd be able to wear his backpack over it without a problem.

  A perfect jacket, Jason thought, allowing himself to smile.

  Riley walked in, wearing all of his armor and his hellhound-hide duster. His lever action rifle was strapped to his back and he laid his new silvery Gauss rifle down on the stainless steel table. There was no trace of Jason 1241's death there now, aside from the bullet-dent in the sink.

  "I've got the new ammo put away," Riley said. A little while ago, they’d made a run to Sports Warehouse, where they bought up as much hard-cast lead .45-70 rounds as they could. It was very expensive. They had a hard time finding any .45-70 ammo with more foot-pounds of energy than the Xtreme Penetrators that Riley already had, but those rounds were designed to dump that massive energy into flesh. Jason figured—after a little internet research—that some hard-cast lead would be better against stone. "Got your guns set up yet?" Riley asked.

  "No," Jason replied. "I guess I'll just take my Rigby again."

  The soldier made an uncertain face. "Eh. Shotgun would be better. Or some sort of automatic rifle. We won't be taking careful, long-range shots. I reckon we'll be battling the frukers close-up if Royce Withers wasn't lying."

  "Well, I have shotguns," Jason replied. "Some other guns, too. Nothing fully automatic, but semi-automatic, at least…"

  "Let's take a look."

  The two of them headed to the bedroom where Jason kept his crafting and computer stuff. On the way, Jason caught a glimpse of Gliath in the kitchen slurping down strip after strip of raw meat from the fridge. His panther-like mouth and fangs were large, as was his pink tongue, which licked his black feline-lips between bites.

  "Jeez," Jason muttered.

  "Eats a lot of meat," Riley said with a smirk.

  Jason opened his gun safe and stepped aside. Riley looked in and pulled out long arms, one by one, examining and handling them. The soldier immediately identified Jason's two pump shotguns and put them aside. Then, Riley paused while handling Jason's AK-47. He played with the charging handle for a little while, looking it over, then opened the dust cover, pulled out the bolt carrier group and examined the trigger assembly. He looked down the barrel through the back of the chamber.

  "What's this? Says ... CV?" Riley asked. "Show me the slugs it shoots."

  "That's an AK-47," Jason said, reaching for his AK ammo in the safe. He pulled out a box and let the steel-cased rounds fall into his hand. "It's called a C39v2 by Century Arms. It's a pretty good AK for the price. I like it."

  "Semi-automatic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The mechanisms are very simple. Do you shoot it a lot?"

  "Not as much as I should, but yeah, a bit. It's reliable." Jason handed Riley the rounds. He didn't have any expensive 7.62x39 ammo. It was all cheap Russian stuff.

  "Is this the same propellant as what’s in your Rigby rifle cartridges?" Riley asked, holding up a round to his eyes. "Eight grams. What's the ammo box say?"

  "You mean ... um ... gunpowder? Yeah, I think it's the same kind of gunpowder, mostly." Jason looked at the box and read the stats: "123 grains, 2421 feet per second, 1607 foot pounds of energy."

  "Quite a bit less energy than my .45-70, but this should work."

  “Uh … did you say eight grams? As in … you can see the weight of the bullet?”

  “Yeah.” Riley shrugged.

  Wow.

  "Well, it's got big magazines,” Jason said. “30 rounds each."

  "Good," Riley handed the rifle to Jason. "You should take this with us. We'll be shooting up gargoyles, which are made of stone. These slugs will probably be sufficient. If not, we can come back and you can swap for a shotgun and use single-mass-projectiles like Gliath."

  "Okay," Jason replied, feeling a little nervous about Riley's casual approach. He imagined himself emptying a mag at a terrifying, statue-like monster and his rounds not doing a thing. Could his 7.62x39 rounds tear up a gargoyle? He knew that it could tear up concrete blocks and punch through brick walls.

  "Are you alright, Jason?" Riley asked, putting a gloved hand on his shoulder. "About the other Jason, I mean."

  "I'm ... uh ... processing it I guess," Jason replied. "I feel guilty. Like maybe I could have helped him before he decided to kill himself."

  "If it's any consolation," Riley said, "try to imagine that there are infinite versions of the same scenario. This is happening all the time. You make decisions, and infinite versions split off on the fifth dimension—Probability Space. For every version of Jason 1241 that committed suicide, there are infinite others that didn't. Most of ‘em are still with us, gearing up to go on this mission. Some of them eventually went home. It's all over the place. Jason 1241 was just one grain of sand in an infinite ocean of Jasons."

  "Yeah, well, I'd rather that this universe was one of the ones where we’d saved him."

  Riley shrugged and smiled warmly. "I'd suggest that you try not to think about it."

  "I know."

  The soldier walked away.

  'Don't think about it' just didn't seem to cut it.

  With a sigh—his mind still flashing back to the bloody scene in the garage—Jason turned back to his gun safe. He put his AK-47 on his crafting table then grabbed three maga
zines and a shitload of ammo. Unwrapping his second IR Illuminator from its packing, Jason tested the light with batteries, then installed it on one of the AK's handguard rails with an extra light mount he had in a box. He put a small backup LED light on the other side of the rail to have a white light option as well. Then, Jason started the tedious process of loading ninety rifle rounds into the three polymer mags. When he was done, he loaded a fourth, just to be sure, and popped it into the rifle.

  Moving his Glock 26 to an outside-the-waistband holster since he'd be wearing his armor, Jason suited up. When he was totally ready, after drinking a bottle of cold water from the fridge and taking a piss, he met Riley and Gliath in the garage. Riley was in his typical getup with his lever gun and new Gauss rifle, blaster at his side. Jason noticed his four-pound one-handed sledge hammer hanging from the soldier's belt. Riley must have picked it up from Jason's collection of tools. Gliath stood ready in his sleek warrior form, wearing the same armor harness as always, his Glock 21 at his side and carrying the Remington Versa Max shotgun this time instead of the scoped rail gun. Bandoleers of what looked like 12 gauge slugs crisscrossed the leopardwere's broad, black chest, and Jason figured that Gliath had more ammo in the dump pouches of his belt as well. As usual, the Krulax also had his Blessed Warblade—the huge, silver-edged kukri knife—strapped onto his left hip.

  They were ready.

  "So … gargoyles," Jason said.

  "Yeah," Riley replied with a smirk. "Careful not to shoot 'em in the heart. We need the hearts."

  Jason felt something rise in his throat and swallowed. Gulp.

  He pulled out the focus key to the gargoyle world, trying not to think of the Jason 1241's dead body being right next to them on the table a few hours ago. Using the key, Jason opened a rift in front of the three of them. It was just as loud and blinding as ever, but Jason was pleased to note that the roaring and sputtering didn't hurt his ears anymore. When the swirling window into the gargoyles' world smoothed out, Jason found himself looking at a beautiful mountain valley surrounded by distant snow-capped mountains in all directions—at least as far as he could see from the rift. In the far distance, shimmering in the wavering surface of the portal, Jason saw a small and compact village surrounded by tall, stone walls.

  "That must be the place," Jason shouted above the noise of the swirling rift and spitting sparks.

  "Ready for another job?" Riley shouted back with a smirk. He clapped Jason on one shoulder.

  "Let's do it."

  The three of them stepped through.

  Chapter 11

  Jason touched down into thick, dry grasses onto the clumpy ground of a vast mountain valley. With the rift roaring and spitting in his ears, he held his AK-47 at the ready and scanned his immediate surroundings as Riley and Gliath stepped into the new world with him.

  Once the three Reality Rifters were through, Jason released the rift in his head and it crumpled into nothingness behind them, ending with a pop.

  Without the loud noise of the portal, they were left in a very quiet natural world. The wind blew cool through the valley from the surrounding mountains. After a few seconds of standing still and looking around, Jason heard the tweeting of a nearby bird.

  Their surroundings were a lot like Colorado, but felt like he was at a higher altitude for some reason—maybe because of the rings of snow-capped mountains all around the valley.

  Up ahead, far in the distance, was the town that the Corsairs of the Astral Sea had mentioned. It looked like a rough, medieval village—somewhat gothic—with structures made more of stone than of wood and thatching. The most impressive feature about the distant village was the tall wall stretching all around it. It was hard to tell how tall the stone-brick wall was from way out on the other side of the valley, but judging by the buildings inside its defensive perimeter, the wall might have been two stories tall with—what were those things called? Jason wondered—battlements. There were small towers on the corners.

  From here, Jason couldn't make out any figures on the wall.

  "Check the OCS, Jason," Riley said suddenly, breaking the silence.

  "Oh—sorry," he said, considering his rifle—there was no sling—then setting it on the ground. He should have put on a sling. Jason put the world's focus key into his focus key pouch and pulled up the OCS, unlocking the screen and taking a reading of their surroundings.

  Jason was surprised to see that this world was already catalogued in his OCS's databanks.

  "Huh," he said, reading the first bits. "It's already in here. Universe 936."

  "936?" Riley replied, approaching and peering down at the screen as well. The soldier looked like he was about to try and take the device, but seemed to hold back. "Very sequentially close to your own universe."

  "Yeah," Jason said. "Weird. Have you been here?"

  "No," Riley said. "I also hadn't been to your u934 before Jason 113 sent me. He must have come to these worlds alone for some reason at some point."

  "Maybe universe 935 is a lot like my Earth too."

  "Probably," Riley replied. "Did 113 leave any notes?"

  "Hang on," Jason said. He looked for the notation area and pulled up a small addition by Jason 113. The short entry filled him with curiosity and dread. "It says, Evil Jason. Cosmic entity 'the Weave' allows magic-like manifestations."

  "Weird shet," Riley said. "And fruking scary. Evil Jason? Is that all?"

  "Yeah."

  "What about the world?"

  Jason closed the notes and started scanning through the huge volume of data available. He was still getting the hang of how to look things up about a world. On the OCS, a universe’s data was a rabbit-hole of infinite information. The basic screen showed environmental readings mainly, as well as a section comparing the universe to the information-set-point, which was now Jason’s u934. There were also areas to read about flora, fauna, and just about anything else. Jason could see that the most common rock type near them was granite. From the data readouts, Jason could fine-tune searches and follow data deeper and deeper into whatever direction he chose, much like a Wikipedia page where everything was a link to something else.

  Riley had mentioned sometime back that the OCS was a direct conduit to the tenth dimension, which was where the entire omniverse—all infinite multiverses and the infinite universes within them—was represented as a single point of data.

  It was mind-boggling.

  Jason supposed that the more he learned about this device, the more he'd be able to access. He would eventually be able to learn any freaking thing he ever felt like knowing. He could access everything.

  "Okay..." he began, looking at data about the world. "It's pretty-much exactly like Earth from my universe but it's ... uh ... eight-hundred and ninety-four years further along the fourth dimension toward entropy—I guess that just means 894 years in the future—from my time." Jason stopped and looked across the valley at the village again. He looked up at the beautiful blue sky full of cumulous clouds and at the brilliant sun warming his face. "This is the future? Is it like a post-apocalyptic future or something?"

  "Check the OCS," Riley said, adjusting the sling of his rifle. He scratched his beard and watched a soaring hawk.

  Gliath stood silently, scanning their surroundings with his yellowish-green eyes. Every once in a while, the leopardwere turned his regal, black face and sniffed into the wind.

  Jason pulled up maps. "Looks like we're in the equivalent of the United States in ... Montana. It's springtime. The map doesn't show any cities around here, but I can superimpose it on top of Montana from my world, and see ... uh ... Bozeman, Montana?" Jason checked the little compass on his backpack strap then pointed north and west at the huge valley between them and the village. "This is where Bozeman used to be." He scanned the massive, flat valley. If there was a city there once, then it sure as hell didn't look like it. Could an entire city have utterly disappeared in nine-hundred years? There was nothing left. The valley was pristine wilderness! How was that pos
sible? "There should be a city here, or at least the ruins of one," he said. "How can an Earth city disappear and go back to totally wild mountain valley in just nine-hundred years?"

  Riley shrugged. "What about the fauna?"

  Jason continued eyeing the maps. He overlaid the terrain view, and compared the world around him to back home. If only he could do this when he was originally in the Wilderlands...

  "This is crazy!" he exclaimed. "Over there, behind the medieval village..." He pointed. "...is the Bridger Range of the Rocky Mountains. The shorter mountain right behind the town is Baldy Mountain." He turned to the south. The mountains were everywhere there, stretching from east to west. The forest was thick and old-looking, full of deadfall and much denser than the woods around Jason's house. It wasn't Wilderlands-level dense—that world was more like a jungle mixed with pines—but it was impressive and untamed. "That nearest mountain to the south of us is Mt. Ellis. It's the Madison Range—the Spanish Peaks! This place is exactly like back home."

  Riley smirked. "Mountains. Fascinating," he said with quick sarcasm. "But what about the wildlife, Jason?"

  Jason sighed and shook his head. So much information.

  "Sorry." He pulled up the fauna readings and could hardly make sense of them. It was full of unknowns and 'Lore' data. It was like looking at the index of a DnD Monster Manual. He saw creatures that were unknown with a 76% lore compatibility to Orcs. There were 89% Goblins. Even a 64% Owlbear, which wasn't very much compatibility at all. There were comparisons of unknowns to animals and insects that Jason vaguely recognized by their scientific names, as well as several other things that must have been so 'unknown' that they didn't even register a lore comparison. From what Jason had come to understand, these were just the creatures in the immediate area. There were also 100% Homo sapiens—humans just like him.

  "Well?"

  "Oh ... uh ... there's a lot. If I were to summarize I guess, it'd be a bunch of ... ah ... humanoid races, actual people, and things resembling wild animals. There are also a bunch of unknowns with no lore score, so those must be really out there..."