by Eddie Patin
Riley’s steely face stared at Jason from across the hall. He ran the fingers of one hand through his beard, his eyes watery and far away. Then, the soldier shook his head, and his eyes were clear and lively once again.
"Sorry, Jason," the soldier said. "You know, each Jason I’ve met so far has a sad story about losing his parents. It’s fine—you stay in your room. We’ll take the big one ... ah ... for now. Thanks."
"Sure."
"You let me know if you ever change your mind and want to swap. Gliath's not like a normal person, you know. He's like a big pet when it comes to living space. And I don't need much room, myself."
"Okay."
"Now listen," Riley said. "You still have that blue coin with the dragon on it, right?"
Jason’s hand automatically touched his pocket. "Yes..."
"That’s a focus key to the Market. Have you tried to use it?"
"Not yet."
"Try it tonight. Work on it some more. Practice, practice, practice, alright?" Riley put one hand on Jason’s shoulder and stared firmly into his eyes. Jason saw sympathy in the soldier's dark brown eyes, mixing with a strong amount of determination. "I want us to leave in the morning. Get your shet figured out. Got it?"
"Okay. I’ll try."
"Don’t try, Jason," Riley said, walking away down the hallway back to the living room. "Do it."
"Okay..."
Jason practiced rifting.
He practiced for a few hours in the garage while Riley and Gliath moved some stuff into his parents’ old bedroom and did some work with their guns and ammo. Gliath occasionally looked into the garage to see what Jason was doing while eating a slab of deer meat.
The man tried hard to open a rift to the Market with the blue coin without the use of the OCS—he could almost do it, too!—but at the end of that time, all Jason was able to accomplish was more fluttering noises and sometimes a burst of a few sparks from thin air that would sputter out onto the concrete floor.
At times, Jason switched over to the infinity crystal he always carried, always feeling the weight in his stomach pull toward the permanent rift behind the house when he touched it. He tried to rift to the dinosaur world from up in the garage, but he couldn’t.
Not yet.
And damn, did he try!
In one moment when his head was reeling and he knew that he couldn’t focus any longer, Jason decided to take a break and pick up his mess and electronics gear in his computer room.
Soon after that, Jason found himself online setting up autopay for his house’s utilities, his cell phone, cable TV, and the internet bill. If Riley wanted to leave in the morning—whether or not he’d figured out focus keys—then Jason had to be ready. It would suck to get swept up into some sort of adventure and be gone for two months of real time, only to return home to frozen pipes and no electricity or internet.
He had no idea what to expect.
Would they just go to this 'Market' place to buy stuff and come back? Or would they be assigned a job from the ‘Bounty Boards’ and be forced to go off there immediately? What about other mercenaries and planeswalkers? Would it be like the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars, and they’d have to watch their backs because of all sorts of weird, alien creatures from other worlds and dimensions? What if it was dangerous?
Of course it’s dangerous, Jason thought. They’d be treading into realms where humans weren’t meant to exist; places they weren’t meant to find.
Maybe this wasn’t right for Jason after all. What if he didn't get it? What if he always found himself at that point of almost being able to rift but never really crossing that line?
What if Jason got Riley and Gliath killed because of incompetence?
More and more, the idea of just staying home appealed to Jason. He could live the rest of his life here playing video games, maybe pursuing his artwork, using an infinity crystal to brave the Wilderlands whenever he needed more gold. Hell—if he went into there well-armed, how hard would it be to occasionally make a short expedition from the cavern to Doe Creek across the valley and up into the woods where he could collect more gold nuggets from the riverbed? If Jason brought a 12 gauge with him, or his dad’s big game hunting rifle, or even bought something new like Riley’s new Marlin lever gun, he could just shoot any raptors or crocodiles or cannibals that got in his way. Of course, there were those mini-rexes...
Riley was clearly stressed out. Jason didn’t fully know why, but he had a strong feeling that the cyborg soldier just ... didn’t like him. It hurt his feelings to a degree and made Jason feel insecure and wonder constantly what he could do to make the man happy. Jason was stressed out, too, of course.
"I can’t do any more tonight," Jason told himself, toying with the infinity charger he'd built earlier. He could still hear the tiny whine of the motor making more power. In his next version—Infinity Charger Mark II—he’d have to put some sort of visible gauge on the device to show how full the battery was. Maybe he could cut out a hole to show the LED indicator lights that the battery already had, which was covered up for now...
Jason could go into business with Ben, maybe, building infinity chargers. He could load up on crystals in the wyvern’s cave. Ben would probably be very excited about the idea...
After picking up and winding down, Jason went to sleep that night feeling like there were literal butterflies in his stomach. His mind and heart were a mess of stress. He wondered endlessly about whether or not he should and could stay in the Reality Rifters team or look into other options involving gold and infinity crystals and his friend, Ben.
He sighed, looking up at the dark ceiling, getting comfortable in his bed.
Maybe he could figure out how to use the focus key in the morning...
The three Reality Rifters stood quietly in the garage after breakfast. The air was pregnant with excitement and expectation.
Jason was a mess of nerves.
Gliath stood in his hybrid form, towering over Jason and Riley; seven feet of sleek, black fur and lithe muscles dressed in his strange armor and strapped with his big shotgun, his Glock 21 on one hip, and his massive kukri blade on the other. Riley leaned against one of the stainless steel tables—all traces of the deer body from yesterday were gone—wearing his guns and his hellhound-hide duster jacket with his arms crossed, watching Jason play with the focus key. Riley had a bulging pouch lashed to him that was full of infinity crystal from the wyvern’s cavern.
Jason wanted to ask Gliath about the deer’s carcass. Where’d it go? He wanted to break the tension in the air and to have them all laughing and smiling again.
Instead, the man focused on the metallic blue coin with the dragon emblem in its center...
He felt its connection to another universe through what must have been the ninth dimension. The point of that other world seemed clear in a sea of infinite others like a beacon in Jason's mind—a single candle in the darkness—and as he visualized a portal opening, the man could feel the flex. He felt the weight of what he was trying to move. Jason pushed and pushed at the strain...
There was a flutter—even a burst of orange sparks—but no swirl of the rift; no rapidly expanding whirlpool gateway.
Jason let it slip away, then groaned and hit the concrete floor with one hand.
"Damn it!" he said. "I could feel it! I was right there!"
Riley sighed. "It’s alright, man. Just look up Jason 113’s Market coordinates on the OCS and use those. Hopefully it’s within 95% tolerance."
Jason sighed, looking up at Riley and Gliath. He felt a strong longing for them to be his friends, and a sudden stab of loneliness pierced his heart. The idea of them leaving him for greener pastures filled him with terror. Riley looked off at a blank garage wall—no doubt feeling disappointed as hell—and Gliath watched Jason with unreadable yellowish-green feline eyes.
"I’m sorry—I’ll get it. I will!"
He felt like a goddamn idiot.
Putting the blue coin back into his pocket, Jason pulled
up the OCS, immediately flashing his fingers through the various screens until he found the bookmarks. He used the search bar to find ‘the Market’ and narrowed his search down to a few entries. Looking at the data didn’t help much. He pulled up the first entry and started skimming the notes...
As if reading his mind, Riley elaborated. "It’s universe 12. A planet named Churn."
"I remember you saying Churn. Ah—here it is," Jason said, pulling up the appropriate bookmark. He followed the links to the data about that universe and saw that the planet was classified as a Tabula Rasa. There was nothing weird—or any warnings—about the atmosphere, although it looked like Churn was colder than Earth on average. It was a good thing that Jason was wearing long underwear. "What’s a Tabula Rasa?"
"It means blank slate," Riley replied. "Churn is a world that was totally wiped out many, many years ago. Whatever civilizations and biomes existed back then are all gone now. The planet is practically uninhabitable—unless you don’t require water to live—and it’s where the founders built the Market."
"Is it safe? Um ... planet-wise?"
"Safe enough. It’s cold, and again—there’s almost no water. So we wouldn’t want to live there. But we’re bringing water—you have that backpack for yourself, right?—and it’s safe to visit. Open it up."
"Alright," Jason said, looking down at the OCS. He slipped back to the bookmarks, adjusted to sliders to only use the ninth dimension, then focused...
It happened fast. Just like when he struggled with focus keys, he felt the point across the omniverse, then felt the way to get there, visualized the portal, and flexed whatever it was inside him that let Jason work the magic. With hardly any effort, the garage air was suddenly aflutter then a gust of wind hit Jason in the face. A sputtering, orange fireball erupted in the center of the spot he was focusing on—still the middle of the portable gate’s ring—which tumbled and spun, rapidly expanded, and unfurled into a full rift! The edges spun and roared in the small space, spitting sparks in all directions in the clockwise arc of its swirling. It was loud as hell, and as the center rippled and smoothed itself out, Jason was soon peering into a bright world of pink and yellow and all shades in between.
Churn had a deep pink sky—brilliantly so—with cloudlike swirls and shimmers of yellow fleeting through the upper atmosphere. The entire world—including the rocky, barren ground—was the same bold blend of pinks and yellows. Along the landscape that looked like a picture of a pink Mars, a massive black pyramid extended from the rocks and sand very close to the portal’s destination, reaching up into the brightly blushing sky...
"Good," Riley shouted, above the noise of the roaring rift.
"What’s that pyramid?!" Jason shouted back.
"That’s the Market," the soldier replied with a smirk. " Let’s go!" Without a second thought, Riley sprang into motion, ducking into the disc-shaped window into Churn as wildly sputtering sparks flung out from the orange whirlpool around him.
Gliath followed, gracefully dodging over the spinning edge of the rift.
"Okay then..." Jason said.
Letting the OCS drop down to his side—he made sure the straps were secure—Jason stepped through into the other world...
Chapter 8
As soon as Jason stepped through the rift, he was immediately sprayed in the face by sand riding on a cold wind. He shielded his eyes. His vision felt strange and oddly relaxed, engulfed in a world of dark shades of pink mixed with subtle streaks of yellow that resembled the long, wispy clouds of a sunset on Earth.
The instinct to squint against the gusts of blowing sand was a bizarre contrast to the comfortable spectrum of light. When the rift back to Jason's garage vanished with a pop, the three Reality Rifters were left in an eerily quiet environment interrupted only by the whistling of wind across great, desolate plains.
Jason stared at a vast and shining black pyramid that loomed in the dark pink air ahead of them.
In the strange light of Churn, the immense and jet black structure before Jason was almost incomprehensible, and the weird atmosphere made its perfectly-smooth surface glisten at times as if it was metallic or made of obsidian.
Jason thought back to scuba diving with his parents. Under the ocean, colors were different when filtered through the depths of the sea. Using a flashlight underwater usually revealed a myriad of other colors that were otherwise invisible—especially the color red.
Is the pyramid really black? Jason wondered. Maybe it was silver or gold and just appeared like glimmering onyx under this pink sky...
This world was chilly and Jason pulled his collar up around his neck and ears. His nose was cold and he didn't smell anything. All around them—aside from the massive pyramid—there was nothing. Sand and dunes and small rock structures carved into strange shapes by the wind.
"Come on," Riley said and started walking toward the massive structure, the bottom of his duster jacket whipping around his feet in the constant gale. Gliath walked next to the soldier in his hybrid form, his sleek fur so black in the weird light that Jason couldn’t make out any features other than where he could see armor. The beast-man’s black tail flicked back and forth in the sandy wind.
"So there’s no water?" Jason asked, shouting at first a little too loudly. With the portal gone, this place was a lot quieter than he thought it would be. The only sounds—other than the three of them moving across the pink, Mars-like landscape—was the wind and bits of gravel and rock being thrown from one ridge and dune to another.
Jason turned on the screen of the OCS and looked at the readout as he walked, even though he didn’t really understand what he was looking at. There was data about the gravity compared to Universe 934, which was 98.8%, and the air consisted of 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, some argon, carbon dioxide, and a list of trace quantities of stuff that Jason didn’t really recognize. He wasn’t all that familiar with the atmosphere of Earth—other than the general knowledge of there being parts nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2—so he made a mental note to compare the planets later.
Of course, Jason thought, shaking his head with a smile. He could probably pull up u934 right there as they walked. He started swiping around on the screens to figure it out. The light coming from the OCS's display was yellow instead of white...
"No water anywhere nearby," Riley replied. "Come on, Jason. Play with that later."
Jason looked up to see the soldier and Gliath several steps ahead of him. He let the OCS drop to his side and hustled to catch up.
Riley led the three of them to the center the nearest massive side of the black pyramid. As Jason peered up the sloping side of impressive structure, he could barely make out sections of the top half that appeared somewhat translucent. He could see muted pink light showing through from the sky.
"Why didn’t we appear inside?" Jason asked, staring up at the pyramid’s peak. It seemed like it was hundreds of feet high.
"If you could use that focus key, we’d appear inside," Riley said. "Jason 113 had a bookmark outside the Market, which he used whenever we wanted to make a more subtle approach."
"Why be subtle?"
"You never know," Riley replied, looking back with a smirk. He had his eyes squinted against the blowing sand. "Lots of mercenaries and planeswalkers aren’t exactly nice folks. Everyone here is interested in chasing glory or riches, and there are quite a few hard balls. Dangerous ones, too. Jason Leapers are unique, and Jason 113 liked to avoid too much attention whenever we had competition on jobs."
"Um ... hard balls?"
Riley stopped, scanning the base of the pyramid for a moment. "Yeah, you know—tough guys." He pointed. "There's the way..."
Before long, the three of them were approaching the middle of one of the pyramid's vast, slanted walls, and Jason was able to see the pink light of the interior shining through from a twelve-foot-tall archway at the structure’s base.
"Does each wall have an entrance like that?"
"Yeah," Riley said. "Now stick close to
me. Most of the people and entities here will be familiar with the rules and such, but you never know what shet could go down. We’re gonna get some gear and supplies then check the Bounty Boards."
"Okay."
The Reality Rifters walked in through the tall gate and Jason immediately felt the wind die down when surrounded by the massive, black walls. Twenty feet or so inside, the strange architecture of the outer walls fell away, and Jason was left staggered and staring up at the open interior of the huge structure. He was reminded of the inside of the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. This gargantuan pyramid was hundreds of feet tall and hollow on the inside aside from a variety of odd, high structures in the upper, translucent reaches of the triangular cavern. The ground under Jason's feet was still pink sand, and the intoxicating pink and yellow light from outside still pierced the air through what looked like immeasurable windows high up the tapering walls. The highest part of the pyramid let the light from outside in in a way that Jason didn't understand...
The man realized that he had stopped while Riley and Gliath kept walking, so he jumped to catch up, taking in the sights around him.
Up ahead and unfolding in front of Jason was what looked like a huge city made of tents and scaffolding, sometimes multiple levels high. It reminded Jason of ancient Arabic markets he’d seen in movies. The sand and large swathes of pale cloth walls and awnings helped encourage the image. But there was also a large amount of technology, including countless lights of white and yellow, and lots of equipment that Jason didn’t recognize. Despite the lights, the Market was pretty dark—at least to Jason's human eyes.
Jason felt pretty cold, but at least the pyramid’s exterior broke the wind. The man paused to look at his new little temperature gauge hanging from a D-ring on his pack and saw that it read forty-seven degrees.