by Eddie Patin
"Jesus..." he muttered. The scope of the Omniversal Cosmic Scanner blew his mind. Were its data capabilities so freaking deep because of its conduit into the tenth dimension? Jason could look up just about anything he could think of, as long as he could figure out the interface enough to look for it.
Typing 'Tyrannosaurus Rex' into the search, Jason increased the distance to a hundred miles.
The fauna readings changed to expand and include a T-Rex. When Jason clicked on it for more info, doing the same thing that he'd done with the troll when they tracked it down to its watery cave before, he saw that the nearest Tyrannosaurus Rex was forty-three miles away.
Wow.
Jason searched for a wyvern.
The nearest one was a hundred and twenty-six miles away.
"Holy shit," Jason muttered. They must be really rare here, he thought.
Extending the range of his fauna readings out to five hundred miles, Jason started down the list, looking for anything that would really catch his interest.
Dinosaurs. Lots of dinosaurs. There were also insects, spiders, and tons of things that Jason didn't recognize but were probably mundane creatures like turtles and mosquitos.
Far down the list, something else caught Jason's eye:
Homo sapiens, 97% match.
"Huh," he said.
There was no 'Lore' score after the listing. No '60% hobgoblin' or anything weird. Somewhere, far away from him on the Wilderlands, there were mostly-people. Jason checked the distance of the nearest 97% person and found that it was four-hundred and eighty miles to the south and west.
That was interesting.
He looked at a map of the Wilderlands overlaid with a map of his own United States—just like he'd done back when they were on Morgana's world, comparing it to Bozeman, Montana—and saw that the 'mostly-people' were in the equivalent area to southern Utah.
For quite a while, Jason putzed around on his OCS looking at the life signs around him, exploring his ability to learn about this world and others. He tried to find pictures or anything more interesting about those 97% people, but since his OCS was attuned to his own universe 934 as its informational set point, all he saw were examples from his own world. When he looked for images of the people far to his southwest, he saw photos of normal people back home smiling for cameras. When Jason looked for the Tyrannosaurus Rex again, he saw pictures of science's old way of understanding the king of dinosaurs: big and leathery and green like in Jurassic Park. Of course, there was no way for Jason's world to know that the T-Rex—at least the one on this world—was black and red and covered in feathers the shade of charcoal, right?
Eventually, Jason tore his eyes away from the informational extravaganza and turned the OCS's screen off. He ate again and downed a bottle of water, feeling it come out as sweat almost as quickly as he drank it.
It was hot.
Jason sighed.
If only he had some sort of A/C.
With a grin, Jason suddenly had an idea. He knew of a place that was cold. He recalled the heat of the lava world. When he'd dropped that troll into the sea of magma through his rift, the heat that blasted him from the other side had been intense! If breaking the barrier through the rift brought extreme heat to him from lava world, couldn't he do the same with a cold world?
Jason pulled up his OCS again and navigated to his bookmark titled 'The Fridge', universe 932. Hoping for a chilly break from the stifling, humid heat of the Wilderlands, Jason flexed his mind and opened a vertical rift a short distance from him down the tunnel. The portal started up with a snap and a spinning orange fireball like always, and soon, Jason was looking through the gateway to the icy wastes of another Earth with a smaller sun and zero life. The rift's spinning rim sputtered and sparked, lighting up the tunnel with brilliant rift-fire.
When Jason didn't feel the cold air of the barren, icy world, he frowned. Then he remembered that he'd need to break the membrane of the rift before the destination's environment came through. He reached down for a clod of dried mud then threw it at the rift, piercing the rippling surface and releasing a sudden blessed draft of freezing wind into the tunnel.
It felt so freaking good...
"Yes!" Jason exclaimed, leaning his head back against the wall and letting the cold air fly over him.
He laughed.
If only he'd been able to do that when he was stuck in the Wilderlands before...
Jason left the rift open to 'the Fridge' for quite a while, resting and enjoying the best A/C in the omniverse. He watched the tiny snow-covered shack in the distance; the only structure within sight of his portal. Jason thought back to when he'd stepped into that world with Riley and Gliath before. That shack was where he'd found his focus key to Cloud world. That was also where he'd come across the Spare Air Scuba canister that had helped save his life when he almost drowned in the bizarre beer ocean.
The snowstorm gusting through the air in u932 seemed to fly by in slow motion. It was the time difference between the Wilderlands and that world. Jason watched the flurries drift by slowly for a while, enjoying the cold wind.
Jason thought back to trudging through that cold world to reach the distant shack. The small shelter was something that Jason 113 had built with Riley and Gliath's help after buying the prefabricated sections from a Home Depot on his world on u113. Thinking of being there himself with Riley and Gliath, Jason felt dread creeping into him again.
He longed for his friends. He feared for them.
The loudness of the portal's roar and the bright sparks hurting his eyes in the dark tunnel annoyed him. He could feel that part of his mind that flexed straining to keep the rift open for as long as it was, but it wasn't too difficult. Eventually, he let it close. Jason imagined that he'd have to close it eventually—especially if he needed to rest or sleep—but he could have probably kept it going for quite a while longer if needed.
Back in the silence of the wyvern's cave, Jason closed his eyes. When the sputtering roar of the rift to the Fridge faded entirely from his jarred senses, he heard the drone of bugs from outside again. There was a cattle-like bellow from somewhere in the valley.
Jason ate some more. Drank some more.
He looked down at the lava key around his wrist.
"Deadly freaking weapon," he said to himself.
After finishing a can of sardines and swishing around some water to get the pieces out of his teeth, Jason grunted and grimaced, forcing himself to stand. He grabbed his rifle and limped deeper into the cave.
He practiced with the lava key.
Targeting random areas of the wyvern's cavern, he opened horizontal rifts one at a time to the hellish world that flooded the cave with fiery red and orange light and the shimmering haze of extreme heat. Jason never felt the heat, because he was careful not to break the surface of his rifts. He knew that if he did, the blast coming out of that world would be like a heatwave from a furnace. Jason had felt such heat in that panicked moment killing the troll, and it would be worse in an enclosed space like the wyvern's cave.
All of the snaps and pops and roaring of his portals coming and going must have sounded very interesting to the wild world outside the cave, though, because at one point, Jason was surprised to see movement in the murky darkness on his left several seconds after releasing one rift.
Feeling a sudden flush of adrenaline, Jason reached down to the webbing of his left hand and switched on his night vision eye. As the darkness was washed away with pale green in his right eye, Jason frantically unslung his AK-47 and found himself aiming at three cannibals that had climbed down the tunnel—past his stuff—to join him in the cavern. In his image intensifier, their beady black eyes almost glowed as if they had low-light vision of their own. They peered at him with gawky faces covered in tight skin glistening with tiny scales. One had a crude club, one a stone axe, and the other had empty hands. They were all dressed in leather loincloths and decorated with primal jewelry of rawhide things and little bones.
One of
them hooted loudly, charging in at Jason with two quick steps forward, then it backpedaled just as quickly to rejoin its buddies.
Jason turned on his AK's IR Illuminator, painting the three scaly primitives with a flood of infrared light that only he could see.
The three cannibals hissed in response. Maybe they could see it a little, too.
"Fuck off!" Jason shouted, flicking his rifle's safety off with his right forefinger then brushing the trigger, ready to rock.
One cannibal hopped up and down like a pissed off chimpanzee. The one with the club suddenly raised its weapon, screeched, and ran in.
Jason shot it once in the chest, slamming it down as if he'd hit it with a sledgehammer.
The others charged in at him. He killed them just as easily.
His AK-47 was deafening in the confined space of the cave. Jason was thankful for his synthetic eardrums, which took the beating without any trouble or pain.
As one of the cannibals writhed around helplessly on the cavern floor, groaning and gasping, the others lay still and crumpled. Jason's nose filled with the odor of burned gunpowder.
He loved that smell.
Jason approached the struggling savage. He grimaced and limped toward the downed creature in extreme pain from his left leg. Jason looked down at its inhuman face. The savage grunted and coughed and bared its sharp little fangs at him.
He shot it a second time in the chest with a tremendous boom and bright muzzle flash. The cannibal bucked against the shot then lay still.
Then, aiming back at the mouth of the tunnel that would lead to his sleeping spot and outside, Jason waited and listened. He watched the tunnel, bathed in the flood light of his IR Illuminator. He expected to feel something; some sort of remorse or gravity of taking their lives or killing some primitive assholes that didn't understand how guns worked. Instead, just like before back when he had to kill cannibals to survive when stuck on this world, Jason felt nothing.
After a while, he turned off the IR Illuminator on his gun then looked down at the three dead bodies.
Shit.
Now, they'd stink up the place. Unless...
Wishing he'd brought his cane with him down there—it was sitting against the tunnel wall where he'd slept—Jason hobbled across the cavern, struggling through the pain. He tried to get as far from the bodies as he could. When he reached a rocky wall, Jason turned around, touched his lava key bracelet, and opened a horizontal rift under one of the bodies.
The rift opened with a flutter and a snap, unfurled with a roar, then sucked the body into a bright red glow. Jason felt a wave of heat hit his face, then he could hear a massive bubbling sound—layers upon layers of noises from a vast sea of magma—and the faintest hiss and pop of what must have been the body burning up and skittering across the lava's surface.
He released the rift then repeated the process for the other two bodies. Jason opened rifts under the dead cannibals as far from himself as he could to avoid the heat, but still felt it blazing at his skin.
It was an amazing weapon, that lava key. It was also an amazing disposal tool.
Wincing from the pain, Jason made his way back to the tunnel. Even though he'd avoided the brunt of the heat, the cavern was now full of crazy, intense vapors of some kind that hurt his lungs, and he really wanted some air. Hobbling up the tunnel, Jason stopped to grab his minotaur-hide jacket, put it on, and grabbed his cane. Slinging his AK-47, he painfully made his way up and out into the open once again.
Jason took a deep breath of hot, humid air that was much cleaner than what he'd been breathing for the last few minutes.
Looking down at the mostly-decomposed corpses of the huge T-Rex and the wyvern below the mouth of the cave, Jason figured that he may as well clear those out, too.
So he did.
After a painful descent down the crumbly slope into the valley and limping past the sacrificial slab, Jason opened rift after rift under the monstrous remains of the Tyrannosaurus Rex—his Dreadwraith—capturing chunk by chunk of the massive body until at last the rest of it slipped through into the lake of fire. Then, Jason moved onto the wyvern. The ex-apex predator of the region was considerably smaller than the T-Rex, so its old corpse slipped into fiery oblivion much more easily. It was noisy work. The roar of the rift seemed to echo throughout the entire valley, and Jason could still feel the flares of heat even from a distance.
Eventually, the corpses were totally gone and Jason felt somewhat satisfied, smiling at the part of the valley that was now clear of the old, rotting bodies.
The smile was wiped from his face when he felt the ground thumping under his boots.
Turning to the south, Jason faced the thunder of large, incoming footsteps. He expected to see Nargog, the alpha minotaur from Maze World, charging in at him, ready to strike him down while he was weak and alone.
What he saw was even more terrifying.
The mini-rexes were loping in at him—all three of them—the two adults nearly ten feet tall at their shoulders with huge heads and mouths that could no doubt take half of Jason's human body in one toothy bite, and the juvenile that wasn't much smaller. The carnivores were brilliant and horrid in the bright sunlight; their deep-brown feathers bold and gleaming, accented by lighter tans and white spots as if they were gigantic hawks or eagles. The Albertosaurs' baseball-sized eyes were alien and intent, and their mouths—oh God, their long, grinning mouths!
It wasn't the first time that Jason had encountered these terrifying predators. They'd chased him several times before; almost made a meal out of him at least three times. Now, Jason saw the two adults coming in at him fast—one closer than the other—and the juvenile coming up close behind.
Jason's closest call with these bastards had forced him to shoot one in the face with his old 9mm Glock; a wild, defensive move that didn't accomplish shit.
Now, he had a rifle.
Too wounded to run away with any effectiveness, Jason stood his ground, shouldered his AK, and opened fire at the nearest incoming Albertosaurus, aiming at its head and body. The rifle boomed many times—echoing through the mountains—throwing off brass. Jason's heart almost exploded from fear as he wondered whether his 7.62x39mm rounds would do any good...
The mini-rex he shot at peeled off from its charge, slowed down, and let out a long, low bellow. Jason saw the herbivores in the distance all thunder away after the gunfire. The trees on his east and west sides burst with bird-like dinosaurs fleeing into the air and deeper into the woods.
The other two mini-rexes paused for a moment. Then, the other big one continued toward Jason at an easy gait. It was no longer running toward Jason at full speed, but it still looked at him like he was a meat snack. Its long legs made great strides, and its heavy weight made thumps on the valley floor that Jason felt through his feet, making his knees feel like jelly. The juvenile followed.
Jason dropped the AK onto its sling then grabbed his lava key. Reaching out ahead of him as far as he dared, he opened a horizontal rift to the hellish world between him and the carnivores. It opened with a blaze and a roar.
Wall of lava! Jason thought, manic and flying with fear.
When Jason realized that its surface hadn't been broken—thus, would release no heat—he hefted up his AK with only his right hand and shot the gateway. His rifle boomed once more—still shockingly loud over the roar of the nearby rift—and the incoming two mini-rexes slowed to a stop on the other side of the fiery portal. Jason felt the heat on his face.
The first large mini-rex that he'd filled full of lead was wandering around where it had stopped as if unsure of whether or not it wanted to proceed. It let out low bellows as it turned and paced in the valley. The other big one and the juvenile considered the rift to lava world and slowly backed away.
A clutch of grasses near the edge of the portal caught fire.
Shit.
Jason focused on holding the rift open. If those bastards went around it or tried to get to him still, he'd open a new one under t
heir feet and send them to a fiery death.
"Go on!" he yelled. "Get outta here!"
He considered shooting them some more—he itched to shoulder his rifle again and fill those fuckers full of holes for all of the pain that they'd caused him in the past—but something made Jason pause. These Albertosaurs weren't evil. They weren't like the damned bug-men and Ghrag. They weren't like the gargoyles or like the cultists of the Golden Lady's Communion. The mini-rexes weren't even like the cannibals, who were stupid and primitive, but still malicious. These impressive carnivores were animals, pure and simple, and they were just doing what big, toothy animals do.
Jason watched the two mini-rexes through the hot haze of his rift to lava world. The heat was making his eyes water. The dinosaurs watched him, seemed to consider pursuing him and the angles involved. Ultimately, they turned away and started loping off to the south again.
The first Albertosaurus that Jason had shot was gone. He couldn't see it. Had it run into the trees? It had to run to the trees, he thought, scanning the eastern woods and trying to ignore the watering of his eyes and the heat in his face.
The grass was burning around the edges of the rift.
Jason waited until he felt safe again, then he released the portal. The gateway to Hell vanished with a pop, and the area was left with a ring of grasses on fire encircling a pristine, green area that was just fine.
"Hopefully too humid for a grass fire to spread..." Jason said to himself.
He watched the fire burn for a minute, then shook his head.
Pulling up his OCS Jason found his bookmark to the Fridge again then opened a rift over the flames. He shot the portal's membrane with his rifle to allow a snowstorm to pelt the burning grasses for a while.
Eventually, the fires were out and Jason released the rift.
He scanned the valley toward the south, looking for the mini-rexes, but they were nowhere to be seen. Jason wondered about the one he'd shot. Obviously he'd injured it some ... didn't he?
As his eyes scoured the eastern tree line, Jason gasped when he saw a large, dark shape. He thought for a moment that it was the first Albertosaurus he'd shot and shouldered his rifle again, ready to shoot it some more if it came his way again...
