by Eddie Patin
"Any success, Ranaja?" Gliath asked without smiling.
"Not yet," Riley replied, running his fingers through his beard. He looked back down at the OCS and cocked his head. "I’ve made it show up a few times, but only for a moment..."
"How long?"
"I dunno, pal. Let’s try this for a little while longer, then we’ll use the gate. I’d like to avoid using that if we don’t have to, because..." Riley trailed off, fiddling with the device. "Goddamn, this thing’s complicated."
"If we use the portable gate," Gliath replied, "and Jason is no longer alive in universe 312 ... or is unable to return by his own power..."
"Yeah," Riley replied with a smirk. "I thought about that. I hope you’re into a lifetime diet of fruking dinosaur meat and sleeping in a damned cave."
Gliath stared at the spot where the portal should be.
"It would not be too bad," the Krulax replied. "A life in such a world would be simple and reward the strong and bold-hearted. We would run out of supplies in time and live a pure life of struggle on the land. We would live for the hunt..."
Riley rolled his eyes and scoffed.
"Yeah, Gliath. The hunt. And also no baths, no entertainment, and no women either..."
Just then, there was a snap and a fluttering sound, and the bright day was made even brighter by a rapidly expanding rift. The swirling ring of sparks flared and roared loudly while rotating around a murky disc—a window into u312.
"Success, Ranaja."
"Hey!" Riley exclaimed with a grin. "I got it!"
The rift opened and shuddered in the mountain air, blocking the trees and shrubs of the ravine behind it. Through the loud and constant, crackling stream of orange, spitting sparks, Riley could see what looked like a deep, dark place on the other side. It looked like the way to the Wilderlands led into a cave of some sort. It took just an instant for his cybernetic eyes to adjust, blocking out the glare and intensifying the dim light inside, then Riley could see the pale shapes of bones and carcasses littering the darkness as well as the glints of what must have been dozens of infinity crystals...
"I see infinity crystals," Gliath said solemnly. "And the remains of many animals."
"Thanks, buddy. I can see that too. Look at all of those crystals! Holy shet—it’s a damned jackpot!"
The portal shimmered, and the constant roar of the swirling edges sputtered in and out.
Riley looked down at the OCS and tried to make sense of it—tried to see what he could do to stabilize the rift—but he had no idea what he was doing.
Suddenly, Jason’s face appeared in the dark space, shaking and shimmering across the quantum foam. It was Jason 934 alright—young, filthy, and bloodied. He held a piece of paper—some of that currency that Riley had seen here—in his hand, and glared at the portal with desperate, angry eyes.
Riley glanced at Gliath, who merely gazed at Jason in the portal, unmoved.
"It’s him!" the soldier said. "He's still alive, and fruking around with the rift."
Just as quickly as Jason 934 had appeared in their vision, wavering between solid and almost holographic-looking, he disappeared again, leaving the dark cavern empty and full of bones and rot. Riley scowled down at the OCS and adjusted the settings, playing with a spectrum bar, hoping that it was like tuning into a particular frequency. A moment later, Jason reappeared, but with short hair, buzzed close to his skull. He had a leaner face and was wearing Merc armor. Then he disappeared again, and Riley adjusted the spectrum, making Jason appear with his old haircut once more, but appearing twenty or so years older, peering back at him with deep lines around his eyes and grey hairs around his temples. Riley was reminded of Jason 113.
"What the fruk?" the soldier stammered, playing with the spectrum some more. He gave the OCS a whack on the side, then immediately regretted it. He had to tune in on the old Jason. These weren’t the right Jasons—or, they were the same Jason at different points in time perhaps; different places along the temporal line of the fourth dimension.
He scrolled through several different faces of Jason Leaper looking back at him, all with minor differences—all stuck in the Wilderlands, beaten and bruised and bloody.
"Ranaja," Gliath said, drawing the soldier’s attention. Riley scratched his beard and squinted at the device, confused and frantic to stabilize the rift. Gliath stared stoically at the multiple images of Jason looking back at them, all of them hurt and desperate and in need. "I believe that you are somehow stuck within a curve along the fifth or sixth dimension."
"That can’t be, Gliath," Riley said, looking down at the device. The Wilderlands followed different laws of physics compared to Universe 934. It wasn’t so different from this universe that Jason couldn’t survive there, but some things were definitely weird. "It’s a different multiverse. If we were on the fifth or sixth, we couldn’t get there. We wouldn’t be seeing him at all."
"This is an existing portal in this world," Gliath countered. "The rift already passes through the ninth. It could be that you are passing through the fifth or sixth of that multiverse—not the fifth or sixth of this one..."
Of course, Riley thought, looking back at a Jason with a long, dark blonde beard and a scar across his nose. That alternate Jason seemed to offer the cash in his hand then relax his arm, focusing on Riley and Gliath through the portal as if he was seeing a ghost. They were already looking through the ninth dimension at the Wilderlands. With the OCS, Riley was somehow shifting along a bunch of parallel universes within that multiverse! They were looking through multiple occurrences of Jasons on parallel timelines looking back at them...
"Man, this shet is weird," Riley said, just as the image of Jason from an unknown universe—parallel to 312 but un-catalogued—flashed out of existence, leaving the dark cave again. He looked at the controls and had no idea whether he was looking at the spectrum of the fifth or the sixth. Since the Jasons were of different ages, he had to assume that it was the sixth, but he wasn’t sure. He looked back at Gliath, who looked on. "You’re one smart panther."
Riley adjusted the OCS, flying semi-blindly through the controls.
The portal shook like a heavy wind blew through it, then it evaporated into thin air, collapsing with a pop.
Once again, Riley and Gliath were left in the quiet, snowy gully behind Jason’s house. Birds sang in the nearby pine trees.
"We may not be able to get through here," Gliath said.
"I know that!" Riley replied. "I’m thinking that only Jason will be able to do that. The OCS is just a focuser and a database. He’s the one that opens the rifts and makes them stable—not this thing."
"With the data in the OCS," Gliath said woodenly, "We can program the portable gate to open to that universe without fail."
"Yeah." Riley smirked and stood, his hellhound-hide duster ruffling out around him. He adjusted his blaster’s holster, then the lever action rifle slung over his back. "You’re right, of course. I just don’t wanna have no options, you know? If he’s zapped, then we’re gonna be fruking stuck there..."
"Unless a Jason Leaper from another universe returns to u312 for the same reason that Jason Leaper 113 took interest in the world in the first place."
Riley nodded, brushing off his knees. "There is that." He sighed.
"Shall I assemble the gate here, Ranaja?"
"No," the soldier replied, squinting up against the sun. "Let’s set it up in the garage, just like in the other base."
"Ranaja," Gliath said, "if we set up the portable gate there, we will not rift to the same coordinates as this rift outside..."
"Yeah, well..." Riley relied. "We need to keep it out of sight. We shouldn’t end up too far from the rift’s origin point, depending. Besides, we might need to use it again in the sixth if something goes wrong. We’ll only have enough power afterwards to access the temporal dimensions once."
It seemed like a good idea, setting up the portable gate in a place that would be out of sight to the natives of this Earth. But honestly, R
iley felt like putting the gate in the same place as it was back in their old Reality Rifter base on u113 would make him feel more comfortable. The similarities between the Jason Leapers’ houses on u113 and u934 were striking, and a big part of Riley just wanted to have Jason 113 back. He knew that it could never happen. Jason 113 was gone forever. But something as small as having the portable gate in the same place would give the soldier a small relief.
Riley definitely had his doubts. This whole situation sucked, and he felt the stress pressing in on him. The soldier was being a little too snappy with Gliath, who probably had no idea why Riley was acting so strangely.
This really felt like starting over.
Riley and Gliath had been with Jason 113 for what they’d temporally experienced as ... four years now? Jason 113 had been something like a father figure for them. Now he was dead. And the new Jason to replace him—this soft dunce from universe 934 who wasn’t even aware of his own rifting powers—seemed to be hardly older than Riley himself. Jason 934 was practically a man-child.
Still, there was a reason why Jason 113 chose Jason 934, even if Riley didn’t understand it himself. Where Riley saw a weak, young human that—despite his age—didn’t have the direction and experience to lead them, Jason 113 must have seen something worthy enough to send them to the man with his dying breaths. Hell—it looked like this Jason 934 hadn’t ever even been in a fight in his entire life!
Last night as he slept on the couch in the living room, thoughts had drifted through Riley’s head in the quiet, dark moments of the night. He reckoned that he and Gliath could abandon Jason 934 and his universe; he could just use the portable gate to head back to his own world. Maybe he could still hook up with another exploratory expedition there and go back to his old planeswalking life other cybernetic mercenaries from u244 (as classified on Jason's OCS)—assuming he could patch things up with Xygen about his broken contract. Sure, traveling world to world would be much more difficult and resource-consuming, and there would be far more danger, but it was a life he knew.
Who knows if this Jason Leaper 934 would be able to work with them, much less lead them?
Hell—the guy was a fruking cripple who worked a slave job and spent his free time playing meaningless battle simulations. Jason 934 built slippers with lights on them.
Riley loved Jason 113. He was an amazing man, and Jason 113 had saved Riley’s life on multiple occasions. It seemed like Riley had seen more fantastic things in one month of planeswalking with Jason 113 than he’d seen during his entire tour with the Ninth Fists—and he'd seen a lot with that merc company, from his first mission guarding a mining expedition deep under a living planet, all the way to when his entire third squad was wiped out on Gliath’s home world. Planeswalking with a Jason Leaper was second to nothing else, and Jason 113 wasn’t Riley’s first Jason either. Before 113, there was 47, and now, it seemed that he was destined to travel with Jason 934.
Riley stood and faced the old, dripping house, looking up the snowy hill and holding the OCS carefully against his armored chest.
If Jason 934 didn’t work out, they could always try to find another Jason Leaper.
This was assuming that he and Gliath weren’t stuck on a dinosaur world forever...
"Are you okay, Ranaja?" Gliath asked, looking at Riley with pale, ponderous eyes.
Riley smirked then clapped Gliath on one shoulder.
"Sure, good buddy," he said. "Just thinking about all the Jasons. Let’s set up that portable gate and get to u312."
Gliath nodded, and the two of them walked up the snowy slope, going back into the house through the back door. Jason 934's tiny white cat with the brown splotch on her face jumped up and meowed at them from a kitchen counter. Gliath walked over, pet her face, then picked up a can half-full of Liver and Chicken Dinner cat food that he'd left on the table with a fork sticking out. The Krulax forked out a glob of the nasty stuff onto the counter for the little, white feline—who ate it fervently—then took a few more bites for himself. Seeing Gliath in his pretender form eating cat food was gross, and the smell turned Riley's stomach, but he closed the back door, smirked, and walked past. Gliath soon followed.
As they stepped through the hall into the very familiar living room, then into the equally familiar garage, Riley set the OCS down on a stainless steel table in the back and looked down at the large duffle bag the leopardwere had set down in the middle of the cement floor earlier.
"From here?" Gliath asked.
"Yep," Riley replied, looking back through the doorway into the house. "Gliath ... take a bag and gather up some food for Jason from his kitchen, okay? Have you seen—do they have refrigerators in this dimension?"
"Refrigerators?"
"Yeah, you know—that big, cold box with food in it?"
"Yes, Ranaja," Gliath replied. "I found some sustenance in there yesterday."
"So that then," Riley said. "Look at Jason 934’s food in there and put together a bunch of stuff in a bag. When we get to him, he might be really hungry."
"Very well."
With that, as the leopardwere disappeared inside, Riley went to work setting up the gate and its large archway. He assembled the terminal and connected three of the fusion cells for ninth dimensional travel. As he brought the gate online, he grabbed the OCS and did his best to find the long coordinates for the rift out back and the corresponding destination location in u312. He programmed in a nearby position while Gliath rummaged through the house.
I hope you’re still alive, Jason 934, he thought.
Once this gate was activated and the two of them were through, there would be no way back to this world of u934—or any other for that matter—unless another Jason Leaper or other mercenaries randomly happened across the two of them.
If Jason 934 was already dead or impossible to find, then Riley and Gliath would be stuck there until another planeswalker happened by.
And the infinite omniverse was a very large place...
Chapter 25
A bitter-cold wind hit Jason in the face as he stepped through the portal.
His shaky left foot plunged into ankle-deep snow with a crunch. As soon as he pulled his painful right leg through the deafening vortex, landing in the snow along with the tip of his cane, the portal closed behind Jason with a pop.
"Whoa," he said quietly, turning to face a dark, cold night and the mass of oak scrubs and bushes behind him.
Without the roar of the portal, the night was suddenly quiet.
Flurries of snow blew past the man, and he realized that he was very underdressed—all of his long underwear, jacket, and fleece were all rolled up and stuffed into his CamelBak. For days now, Jason had been dressed in nothing but sweatpants (now torn up and ragged) and a t-shirt that he normally wore as a second layer on his morning walks in the cooler months.
He could see his breath and wiped his tearing eyes with the back of his filthy hand, looking up the white slope toward the back of his house.
The lights were off, but the streetlight out front was bright and yellow. It lit up the street and the place where he normally put out his trashcans on garbage day.
He was home.
After all of that, all he had to do was mess around with that weird portal, and the nightmare was over...
"Oh my God," Jason said quietly, feeling his teeth chatter. "I actually made it..."
He realized that he was still clutching at the cash, so shoved it bluntly into his pocket with freezing fingers, accidentally bumping the cold, hard surface of the strange crystal in the process.
There was a sudden fluttering sound and a snap behind him, and Jason spun around to see the portal ripping open again, a ring of sparks sputtering and racing around a blazing, spinning orange disc. The inside of the disc shimmered, then smoothed out to reveal a vision into the wyvern’s cave, bones and all. Then, just as suddenly, the portal shook and imploded with a pop.
Gathering his arms close to him, Jason started up the hill to his backyard taking
careful, slippery steps through the crunchy snow. How long was he gone? How many days was he stuck in that dinosaur world? Jason’s mind raced as he climbed toward the back of his house, his right knee sore with every step. His face hurt like hell. When he fell through the portal it was ... Sunday? Halloween would have been the next day. What day was it now? Had he been there a week yet? It felt like a week...
Grateful to find level ground at the top of the slope, Jason pushed on across his unkempt yard, his boots crunching through the snow and the cold wind making his skin burn. He felt a twinge of thirst and took a sip of the water he boiled from a prehistoric river full of crocodiles. He decided that the minute he was inside, he was going to drink as much tap water as he could handle. And then he would eat—oh God, he would eat whatever the hell he could find! Maybe some of the food in the fridge was bad by now, but he had plenty of ravioli and chili and other stuff in cans.
"The cheese is probably still good," Jason muttered to himself with his teeth chattering, fumbling for his keys as he stepped up to his back door.
And my bed, he thought...
Finally managing to hold his freezing fingers still enough to stabilize the proper key, Jason tried to unlock the door but failed. He pulled the key out of the cylinder again, looked at it, then slid it back into the lock. He turned.
Nothing. Dead stop.
"What the hell?" he muttered, looking at his key again to make sure that it wasn't caked up with mud or something. It was fine. He bent down to look at the lock. He couldn’t see anything wrong.
With a shrug, Jason selected the key to his front door instead then started stumbling around the side of the house. He tripped on something hard near the back door that would have clattered if it wasn’t for the snow...
