by Eddie Patin
Riley picked up the device, seemingly unlocked it with a security pattern, and the black screen lit up to a brightly colored picture of a gorgeous and seductively smiling blonde woman. There was a grid of application icons in front of her.
"This is my CamComm," Riley said, suddenly aware that Jason had seen the screen. He tilted the phone away as if embarrassed of the blonde woman, looking down at the device, biting his lip, and the soldier started manipulating the screen with his fingertips. "It’s a communication device that—"
"Who’s the girl?" Jason asked, unable to suppress the grin he felt coming on.
Riley’s dark, brown eyes darted up for an instant, then he looked down again. "Oh that’s nothing," he said.
"Girlfriend?" Jason asked. "Wife?"
"Nah," Riley replied, swiping around on the screen. "It’s no one. She’s just ... ah ... like a movie star back home. You have movie stars?"
"Sure."
Riley’s eyes shifted back and forth between his CamComm and Jason’s gaze. "So I use my CamComm to ... well ... I take pictures here and there when Gliath and I are on jobs to send back to my dad on Ebonexus when I can. Selfies and other stuff."
Jason laughed. "Selfies?" The idea of the lean, tough mercenary cyborg sending selfies home to Dad was somehow very funny and strange. "You do selfies?!"
Riley narrowed his eyes then very subtly shook his head. "What’s so funny about that?!"
"Nothing I guess," Jason replied, smothering his chuckling. "It’s just—I dunno—this is all really surreal to me. It’s kind of funny and weird to see a guy like you doing ... um ... normal, mundane stuff I guess..."
Riley lowered the CamComm and peered up at Jason as if scanning for threats. After a moment, he scratched his beard and took a deep breath, then said, "Want to see a few?"
"Sure!"
Jason leaned in to briefly watch Riley scroll through some kind of gallery app. He saw various pictures of the cyborg literally taking selfies from within all sorts of different environments of all manner of colors, skies, and landscapes. In each picture, Riley’s face and one shoulder was in frame, smiling, his white teeth surrounded by his dark beard. In some of them, Gliath stood behind the soldier, big and black with those yellowish-green cat eyes; sometimes looking impassively at the camera, other times looking at something in the distance.
After a dozen or so pictures, Riley pulled his CamComm back, turned the screen off with a mysterious click, and stashed it back into his belt, which caught Jason's eye. With a strange, fantasy-esque leather design like something that Jason would see at a Renaissance Faire, the belt didn't match Riley's otherwise spaceman-cowboy motif at all.
"Thanks," Jason said. "What’s with the belt?"
Riley leaned back to show it off, tucking his thumbs in, then relaxed again and grinned. "That’s one of my best things," he said. "I picked it up some time back from a merchant for quite a price—another powerful thing from a magic world."
"A magical item?" Jason breathed. He was geeking out. DnD stuff raced through his mind and he thought about all of the most common magical belts in the DM’s Guide and in other supplement books...
"Yeah, I reckon so," Riley replied. "Jason 113 examined it for a while and figured that it had some sort of quantum shifting effect through the fifth or the sixth dimension." He smirked. "Honestly, I don’t mind just thinking that it’s magic. It’s called a Phase Belt. It’s a strange kind of protection where if I’m attacked, there’s a chance that whatever I’m being hit with—gun, sword, tentacle, whatever—will just go right through me. It’s about fifty-fifty from what I understand."
"Have you seen it work before?"
"Yeah," Riley said, eyes darting away for a moment, then he smiled. "Unfortunately. And fortunately. It’s saved me from taking damage a few times."
Like a Displacer Beast, Jason thought. He could imagine that his eyes must have been sparkling with excitement...
"How’s it work?"
"I don’t rightly know," the soldier replied. "It's magic. But Jason 113 thought—figuring through a connection with the fifth or sixth dimensions—that sometimes when I was hit, the attack would hit a different version of me in a parallel world instead. But..." Riley paused, contemplating. "I don’t know about that. But Jason 113 was bound and determined to put an explanation on it."
"This is an Earth gun," Jason said, pointing at Riley’s lever action rifle. "I recognize it. That gun was in a movie here called Jurassic World. I don’t know much about lever actions, but I’ve seen it before."
"Yeah, we bought these guns here in town," Riley replied, hefting the beautiful, shining rifle. "We had to escape the old Reality Rifter base on u113 in a hurry, and we were mostly empty-handed when we did. A fruking shame..." Riley paused to shake his head with a sigh. "We had so much equipment, weapons, and other cool shet that was just lost to that invading environment! Well, we needed guns to come and rescue you from the Wilderlands. Good thing I had this thing, huh? It’s a Marlin 1895 something-or-other in an Earth slug round called ... um ... 45-70? I shot that wyvern with something called Extreme Penetrators." The soldier grinned, patting the rifle’s receiver. Jason remembered Riley killing the wyvern with that rifle in the heavy rain, back before he’d introduced himself. Three heavy rounds with good placement blew the monster away...
But how...? Jason thought. Surely Riley and Gliath had no I.D's, no social security numbers; no nothing...
"How’d you buy those?" Jason asked. He suddenly remembered seeing a Glock of some kind—another Earth weapon—on Gliath’s hip. "We’ve had to do background checks here in Colorado since ... um ... 2013? You couldn’t have just gone to a gun shop and paid with infinity crystals..."
Riley sat back with a wry grin, cradling the rifle across his lap. He scratched his beard. "Jason, I’ve seen a lot of worlds, and gone about my business dealing with a lot of fruking governments and their laws. Let me tell you—I’ve never seen a law that literally stopped someone from buying something they wanted. Not if they really wanted it." He grinned, and slapped Jason on one knee, putting the rifle back on the coffee table. "Good thing we’re the good guys, right?"
Jason laughed and turned around to see Gliath walking up from the kitchen, clinking a fork against the inside of one of Zelda’s cans of cat food. He was eating more of the Chicken and Liver Dinner. Jason could suddenly smell it and must have made a face, but Gliath looked on as he ate, unconcerned; long, raven-black hair swept back behind his tan shoulders. Seeing the leopardwere eating cat food while in his human form was oddly disturbing.
"Anything else cool?" Jason asked, turning back to Riley.
"A few other things, sure," Riley replied. "I’ve got my hellhound-hide jacket," he said, pointing at the full-length, reddish-brown leather duster jacket hanging near the front door. "Made from hellhound hide, of course. It helps a little with scuffles, but mostly helps me resist heat and energy-based weapons. I had that made from hellhounds that I killed myself—well, with Gliath and Jason 47 and the other Reality Rifters."
"Who else was in your team?"
Riley stood suddenly then quickly stretched. "Let’s talk about that later, Jason. I’ve also got my Merc armor, which we’ll definitely have to try to get you some of that when we get to the Market. Armor and weapons—that’s the most important thing to start with. Come on..."
Jason followed Riley to the garage.
"Well," Jason replied, walking quickly after the soldier through the door, "I have a good bit of guns. Some are mine, and some were my dad’s. I have some rifles, two shotguns, an AK-47..."
"That’s good," Riley said. "But we’ll eventually need to get you something more advanced."
"I have some gold from the Wilderlands."
"Yeah?" Riley replied with a grin. "We should see how much that can buy you."
"I need to get another CamelBak, and—"
"A what?"
"A ... um ... water backpack. And I can think of some other things. Maybe another Glock, beca
use I lost mine in the Wilderlands, and—you know, we’re pretty close to a big city," Jason said. "There's a big city named Denver to the southeast. We should drive there tomorrow and get some supplies before we go. I’m not sure about cashing in too much gold in one place so ... maybe we can hit a few gold dealers or whatever, and—"
"That’s good, Jason," Riley replied. "Let’s plan on it. We’ll drive to the big city in the morning. But I’ve got to get you up to speed on rifting—which is the most important thing of all—and I’d like to see you try to use a focus key. Show me here."
"Um ... okay," Jason replied, staring around for a moment then thinking to pull the infinity crystal from his pocket. He couldn’t open a rift to the Wilderlands from the backyard before, but he’d opened one at the permanent rift a little while ago. Maybe he could now. "The Wilderlands?"
"Sure. Show me." Riley leaned against one stainless steel table and crossed his arms.
Jason sat on the steps. Looking back behind him, he saw that Gliath was watching him too. He immediately felt uncomfortable; judged. He lifted the infinity crystal up in front of his face and stared into its murky, glowing blue depths. Tapping it with one finger, he watched the tiny lightning arc across the inside and felt the magnetic pull in his stomach toward the backyard through the house...
He ignored the pull. Of course he could open the permanent rift, but he had to open one from right here—right in the garage. Jason felt for the Wilderlands through the focus key and visualized the rift opening in the center of Riley’s portable gate, still standing tall and clean in the back of the garage. He imagined the spark of light, the flare of orange. He could almost hear the snap of space-time being pierced in his mind. He felt for that new muscle—that mysterious, new organ or biological mechanism that only Jason Leapers had...
He flexed and grinned when a fluttering sounded in the air. Jason felt a small, quick gust of wind against his face and he realized that his eyes were closed. He opened them, staring at the spot, flexing his rifting ability, feeling the weight of whatever it was he was trying to move...
But it was heavy. After a moment of intense concentration that brought rippling, fluttering sounds out of thin air, Jason felt himself suddenly lose his grip, then the air—and his visualization—fell to nothing.
"Damn it!" he cried, staring at the infinity crystal in anger. "I almost had it! I could feel it!"
Jason looked up at Riley and saw disappointment in the soldier’s eyes.
Riley sighed then lifted himself from leaning against the table. He walked back into the house, arms still crossed. Jason barely perceived the man shaking his head.
Jason’s cheeks suddenly felt red and his neck became hot.
Damn it.
Shit.
"I can do this!" he muttered to himself, staring at the crystal. A blue glow burst from its inner gloom as he tightened his grip, and he watched the miniature lightning move across it, feeling the slight buzz in his fingertips.
He could do this—he felt it almost open that last time.
Shuffling his weight on the step, Jason closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He cleared his head, still haunted by embarrassment. If he was going to be a Reality Rifter and go on great adventures through the omniverse with Riley and Gliath—getting rich in the process—he would need to figure this out. It was his purpose in the group.
A small voice inside wormed up from the darkness within him.
But do you really want to do this? it asked.
Jason took a deep breath, and shook his head.
He stared at the infinity crystal, glanced over to the portable gate and the empty space in between, then tried again...
Chapter 5
Friday morning—after Jason’s walk—he and Riley were driving east on Interstate 70 down into the suburb of Lakewood, west of Denver. Gliath had decided to stay behind to go hunting. Without the leopardwere, the two of them had spent almost the last two hours on the road in Jason’s crappy, old Ford Escort, heading south from Ridgeview on Highway 40, down through Winter Park until connecting with the Interstate that descended farther and farther to the big metropolis full of smaller cities.
They didn’t talk much, and Jason worried that the soldier was becoming impatient with him. Riley seemed to truly enjoy the ride, looking around in earnest at the towering mountains around them. He was perplexed bare the strange, bare gouges through the forests when they drove through the ski resort, and the soldier was entertained by the quaint mountain-town style architecture and decorations along the way.
"This world is so green; so full of snow and trees!" Riley exclaimed at one point. "My world is a lot flatter—almost all of it—and a lot drier. Most of my planet’s surface is like a desert. You know what I mean by desert?"
"Yeah. The whole world isn't like this, but this area is."
Jason’s Ford Escort puttered along through the widening Interstate heading down into Denver, passing open fields and belts of forest, descending toward the city. At one point, Jason pointed out the large rock formation that was shaped like a sleeping Native American chief, but he’d forgotten what it was called. They made their way into Denver and the transition from the mountains to big city was rather sudden.
What Jason called Denver was actually a large, sprawling collection of other cities. Denver itself was just Denver County, but for all of his life, Jason had simply considered the entire metropolitan area as Denver. At that moment, they were driving through Lakewood.
Using his phone’s GPS and Google Maps, Jason was heading for the first jewelry dealer he had called yesterday afternoon who was willing to buy golden nuggets for what was pretty close to the Internet’s current supposed worth per ounce. How much to sell was a tough decision. Jason had several ounces of little nuggets from that one moment when he'd plunged his hand into the riverbed while escaping the crocodile back in the Wilderlands. He didn’t want to draw attention. The dealers that he’d talked to said that the transactions wouldn’t be recorded other than contributing to a regular report they had to turn in to the police. The reporting was apparently mandatory in case people were trying to fence stolen jewelry and such. Jason didn’t believe that much would come out of cashing in on several ounces at once, but he didn’t trust that there wasn't some sort of secret registry being recorded. Didn’t Nixon outlaw the owning of too much gold or something? he wondered, but he really had no idea. Jason had hardly ever even touched gold before he randomly came across a treasure trove of it on that dinosaur world, and he knew that he’d be back to get more...
With Riley tagging along—looking like some kind of sci-fi cosplay weirdo in his ‘Merc armor’ and hellhound-hide duster jacket (which thankfully covered up his blaster)—Jason visited three different jewelry stores in Lakewood, exchanging his gold for cash.
Flush with more money than he’d held in quite a while, Jason then dragged Riley along to a few sporting goods stores where he picked up some new gear: a newer, larger CamelBak backpack (and a smaller one too for his walks), another metal screw-top coffee mug that he could hook to a harness, a better compass, more knives, first aid kits and tourniquets, and various other gear and toys that he figured might be useful while exploring the omniverse. He bought the best in gun-lights, headlamps, and other LED flashlights, very nice synthetic long underwear and fleece, a Gore-Tex shell jacket, and eventually found his way to a large firearms store.
"You want me to get you something else?" he asked Riley as the soldier ogled the various large caliber semi-automatic and bolt-operated rifles. Riley peered up at a huge, short-barreled Barrett .50 Cal that hung high on a wall. "There’s other stuff you can get that would have a bit more firepower than your lever action. Of course—I dunno—that .45-70 probably has a lot of power. I've never had one."
Riley looked at Jason and smiled. "Oh, it does. It’s one impressive slug gun. But no—I plan to get us some more advanced shet when we get back to the Market with all of those infinity crystals. I’m going to get myself a Gauss rifle f
or sure—and some sort of long range weapon for Gliath. He’s good with those."
"Like a sniper rifle?"
"Sure."
"They have those here," Jason said, pointing to several dozen bolt action rifles racked vertically nearby.
"I mean some kind of coil gun or railgun for him. Something very high velocity." Riley smirked, then scratched his beard. "Higher than these."
"Okay."
Jason eventually made his way to the pistol area and went through the process of buying himself another Glock 26, as well as some extended magazines for backup. He also bought some more of the pricy hollowpoint +P ammo he’d burned up defending himself from dinosaurs, cannibals, and spider creatures back in the Wilderlands.
"Maybe I should get some armor," Jason said at one point while waiting for the background check. They were idly looking at plate carriers.
"Not yet," Riley said. "Armor is really important for planeswalking, but you’re not going to run into any trouble at the Market. We’ll see if we can find you some Merc armor like mine or similar when we get there. It’ll be better than this heavy slug gun protection shet they have here." Riley held up his arm, pulling back the sleeve of his jacket. The soldier showed off the long sleeve of his upper body armor that Jason already knew was there. It looked like some kind of slick, synthetic motorcycle armor, dark in color with a woven pattern that revealed thin strands of wire as Jason looked more closely. "It provides a good bit of armor for normal getting around—some environmental protection, slash and piercing resistance, and a little bit of protection from slugs and directed energy weapons. All of the military and corporate mercenaries back home wear this shet, and most planeswalkers and monster hunters wear something similar at least. It's common."
"I don’t see how that can do much," Jason said. "Looks like some kind of thick shirt that people here use for doing extreme sports. It must be different technology or something..."
"Most certainly," Riley said with a smirk. "This is an aramid weave with layer of graphene and other shet. Most worlds with interdimensional travel are quite a bit more advanced than yours."