by Eddie Patin
The police car pulled away, continuing north on Kestrel to where Jason knew that the firetruck and lots of people were already gathering.
Jason 934 walked back to the other Jason and the minotaur body in front of his car.
Second Jason had already withdrawn back into himself. He'd pulled out his focus key necklace from his under shirt and was staring at it with a haunted gaze.
"I want to open a portal home—wherever that is—and scan the portal," he said.
"It’ll say unknown," Jason replied. "You know that."
"I still wanna see..."
"Then let’s do it real quick in the living room instead. The garage door’s—"
"Oh shit," second Jason groaned suddenly, scrunching up his eyes like he was going to cry. "I didn’t clean up the broken garage door or move my car like you did, or like we did with third Jason..."
"Shit!" Jason 934 gasped.
That was bad.
"They’re gonna be looking for me—oh God!" Jason #2’s eyes widened and he stared at nothing. His mouth trembled. "And those cops were chasing us—we were in the street with guns and they were chasing us! They’re going to follow the trail back to my house! They’re gonna put out a warrant for my arrest! I’m so screwed!"
Jason 934 opened his mouth to try to console his second self, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. Eventually, he quietly offered, "Let’s go test that portal."
"Shit—what’s the point?!" second Jason replied, agony displayed openly on his face. "People are dead there. The minotaur’s probably killing more people right now. The cops'll be after me! I’m totally fucked!"
Jason 934 felt terrible. The weight of it all crushed his heart and he was glad that his world wasn’t as messed up as this other Jason’s. Then he suddenly remembered that his own alpha minotaur was still out there...
He walked up to the other and put a hand on his shoulder. It was his own shoulder. This was so weird, and awful. "We should get going," Jason said. "There’s still a minotaur here on u934. I guess we’ll need Riley and Gliath to help stop it now. Let’s go to the Wilderlands."
Jason #2 looked at him with tears welling up in his eyes, then his face twisted into an angry pout. "Why should I help you?! Are you going to help me get my life back to normal? Kill my minotaur? It’s probably killed a dozen more people by now!"
Jason 934 felt the same burst of emotions in his own heart, but he pushed it down. He sniffed and met the gaze of the other. "We’ll figure this out, man. There’s got to be a way to make it right. I’ll help you too—we’ll do the best we can to fix both worlds, okay?"
Second Jason took a deep breath and let out a shuddering sigh. "I’ll help you kill your minotaur—with your Riley and Gliath. Then you’ll help me kill mine ... if it’s not dead already? And—Oh God—do you think there are alternate Rileys and Gliaths in a parallel Wilderlands over there? We’ve gotta get them out of there—they could be trapped on that world forever!"
"I promise I will," Jason 934 replied. "Let’s see what my Riley and Gliath think about this. We’ll let yours out for sure, okay?"
Jason #2 stood straight again. He wiped the tears from his eyes with his dusty gloves.
"Okay," he said, pulling himself together.
"Let’s assign you a universe," Jason 934 said, pulling out his OCS. "You don’t want to be Jason Leaper unknown, right?" He tried to smirk but failed. He then unlocked the screen and pulled up the list of designated universes. There were 1240 in all. That last one, 1240, rang a bell in Jason’s head...
"Alright. I guess we can’t both be Jason 934." Second Jason said as he pulled up his own OCS.
Jason 934 suddenly remembered where he’d heard the references to universe 1240. That was the universe with crazy laws of physics that killed the other Reality Rifters and Jason 113 then destroyed Riley’s old base.
Goddamn, the omniverse was scary...
"Looks like the next one up is 1241," Jason 934 said. Then he fiddled around with the interface trying to figure out how to set up a new universe. He eventually scanned second Jason again, then assigned a new universe to the unknown.
"Jason Leaper 1241," his second self said, as if trying it on for size.
"Yeah, I’ve got it. Now I have 1241 in my list."
"How’d you do that? I need to do it too..."
Jason 934 helped Jason 1241 update his own OCS, which involved taking it away from him for a moment to scan the man with his own device. In a minute or so, they were done and the parallel universe with a devastated Kestrel Drive and its Jason Leaper were named.
"Okay, let’s get to the Wilderlands," Jason 934 said.
Jason 1241 looked down at the body under the tarp. "We should bring the alpha with us. Gliath can probably skin it there. Don’t want cops or someone wandering into the garage while we’re gone..."
"Good idea."
"Portal to the permanent rift outside?"
"I can do better," Jason 934 said, pulling out his infinity crystal focus key. He hoped that he’d be able to use the focus key from the garage now. After all, he had successfully used his focus key necklace from Maze World. It wasn’t as hard to do now.
"Horizontal portal into the cave?"
Jason 934 nodded then stared at the massive corpse, clenching the infinity crystal in one hand, envisioning a brilliant path of light through the quantum foam between multiverses, through the ninth. He oriented himself to create a portal under the body, imagining the same point in space-time in the wyvern’s cavern. He didn’t know if infinity crystals from the Wilderlands would always bring him to the cave or what, but he tried to make it happen now...
He flexed. It was heavy...
There was a sudden fluttering in the garage, and the tarp was whipped around by a heavy gust of wind. Jason 934 smiled, then there was a loud snap, a flash of orange light from the floor, and the minotaur’s huge body—tarp and all—fell through a rapidly expanding hole that gave Jason a very sudden worry that it might also tip over his car. The portal roared and sputtered and spit sparks all around their ankles—motes of orange light that bounced around on the concrete—but the whirling rim of the rift didn’t quite reach the car’s front tires.
Jason looked down and inside. He saw the body and the tarp crashed down into the bones and dried mud of the cavern floor. He was suddenly very aware of the noise and spectacle he was making in plain sight of anyone right in front of his open garage door...
"Come on, hurry!" he shouted at the other Jason above the noise. "Don’t forget your rifle!"
Jason 1241 nodded, squinting his eyes against the roaring rift, then grabbed his Rigby. Jason 934 made sure that his own gun was still slung on his back, then the two of them jumped down through the hole. Jason 934 aimed to hopefully land on the minotaur’s thick, soft body...
Chapter 29
"What the fruk?" It was Riley’s voice. "Am I seeing double?!" Jason 934 heard the words as he and Jason 1241 landed on the minotaur’s body. "And is that a horizontal rift?!"
Jason carefully climbed off of the massive, shifting body covered with the slick tarp, then stepped down onto a dried furrow of mud. His other boot accidentally kicked a big bone over as he set it down and he almost tripped.
Several infinity crystals embedded in the ground around him rippled with a blue glow outward away from Jason’s landing. The other Jason jumped down to the cave floor next to him. The wyvern’s cavern was dark, and the only light came from the brilliant, swirling mass of the blazing, horizontal rift in the air over Jason’s head. It was like a fiery orange whirlpool, showing the ceiling of his garage when he looked up. The cavern smelled just as terrible as ever, but now, Jason could also barely detect the scent of roasting meat over the stench of rot.
Unable to see his friends at first, Jason looked for the soldier. He saw the light of the portal flash in two big cat eyes in the black distance. Jason immediately knew that it was Gliath, but the bestial eyes still gave him a jolt.
Jason 1241 pulled out his
flashlight and clicked it on.
Jason 934 followed suit with his own, then released his hold on the rift.
As the horizontal portal collapsed into itself over the alpha’s body with a pop, Jason was thrust into darkness, seeing only by the two white LED spots of his and his second self’s flashlights.
Shining his light at where Gliath’s eyes had flashed in the dark, Jason saw Riley relaxing in the dirt up against the cave wall. The leopardwere was sitting next to him in his hybrid form, railgun propped up against a massive, brown dinosaur skull. Gliath watched them both approach, his yellowish-green eyes occasionally flashing as their lights panned around and his face as impassive as always. Riley immediately reacted to the light by shielding his eyes with one hand.
"Hey, sorry," Jason 934 said. The cave was quiet, save for the buzzing of insects coming from the valley outside. "How are you feeling?"
Both Jasons approached.
"Okay," the soldier replied with a smirk. He appeared to be totally back to his old self and—for some reason—seemed completely comfortable sitting around in a stinking cave that was dark as hell and smelled like death. "You’re alive, Jason! That’s great. So which one of you is Jason Leaper 934?" The soldier smiled and Jason felt that its warmth was genuine.
"That’s me," Jason 934 replied. "This other one is Jason 1241."
"Hi, Riley," Jason 1241 said. "Good to see you conscious."
"1241...?" Riley replied, scratching his beard. He looked both of them over. It looked like contemplating the number hurt him somehow, then the soldier shook his head and quickly recovered. "Makes sense I guess. Shet—I don’t ever want to think about 1240 again."
Of course, Jason thought. 1240 was the last universe catalogued.
"1241 was the next number in line, after..." Jason 934 said, trailing off.
"Is that the alpha?" Riley asked, pointing at the heap of body in the middle of the cavern, half-covered by a tarp.
"Sort of," Jason 934 said.
Riley smirked. "Sort of?"
"I ended up using the um ... fourth dimension to go back in time to kill it. Twice."
"So ... I take it that’s not the original alpha?" Riley asked, cocking his head as he leaned against the cavern wall. He reached down to pick up his canteen and took a swig. "What happened?"
Jason told him. He found a big thigh bone to sit on that wasn’t too gross and went into his tale of coordinating and failing with both other Jasons until they eventually killed the monster. He told Riley and Gliath about the devastation and death on universe 1241 and about the fact that the minotaur was from the third Jason’s Earth, which he quickly deemed universe 1242, taking a moment to scan the body from across the cavern and add a new designation.
As Jason 934 talked with the other Reality Rifters about his adventures in time travel and hunting down the alpha minotaur, Jason 1241 decided to pull his Rigby off of his shoulder and venture outside.
"Watch out for the mini-rexes!" Jason 934 shouted after him.
"You mean the Albertosaurs," the other Jason corrected him.
Riley seemed truly impressed. Throughout the story, his rapt face changed with the emotions of Jason's tale, lit up indirectly by the LED light. Gliath watched attentively and without emotion.
In the end, the soldier said, "Time travel is fruking weird shet." He laughed and shook his head. "You want some meat? Gliath’s got a fire by the cave entrance and he’s roasting some of that minotaur meat you brought with us when you dropped us off here." He smirked. "That was a good call, by the way. Smart move, Jason."
At the thought of eating some steak, Jason’s belly grumbled. He was definitely hungry—he couldn’t remember the last time he ate. Maybe in Maze World before the first fight with the bugs? Or was it breakfast this morning? But the stench of rot and snake shit and other foul odors left behind by the wyvern and its young turned his stomach.
"How about we eat outside?"
"Okay."
Riley stood, groaning and shaking. Jason realized that he still had some more healing to do. Gliath stood as well without expression, watching his friend struggle, then picked up his railgun. The three of them walked through the dark—Jason followed his light to avoid tripping and impaling himself on dinosaur bones—then up the shoulder-high tunnel and out into the sunshine.
Jason 1241 was sitting on a rock outside the cave near the entrance, watching the dinosaurs to the south in the valley. He looked up at them for a moment with exhausted eyes then turned to watch again.
The air wasn’t as hot and muggy as Jason expected it would be. The light was pale and the valley, marshes, and lower areas of the forests on either side were veiled in a thin, white mist.
It was morning in the Wilderlands; afternoon back home.
"Wow," Jason said, squinting up at the clouds in the sky and the various pterosaurs circling and soaring up there. "How long have you guys been here?"
"Not quite a day," Riley replied. "Honestly, I could still use some more time."
Jason looked around and saw two wooden poles like crude spears shoved into the rocky ground on either side of the cave’s entrance. At the top of each spear was the gory and surprised head of a cannibal, each impaled with their mouths hanging open. One head was crawling with ants the size of peanut shells.
"Whoa..."
"Gliath’s work," Riley replied with a smirk. "Looks like since the wyvern’s been gone, they come up in here a lot. We’ve killed several. These pikes have been keeping them away for the last several hours."
Looking across the valley, Jason saw the reptilian savages running back and forth through the trees like madmen. He heard a distant howl. Then Jason looked down the valley and saw the massive herd of duckbills standing together halfway out into the grass from the eastern tree line. Edmontosaurus, was it? Two ceratopsians with forward-curving nose-horns stood together in the distant mist further south. Jason heard the small trill of a mini-raptor of some kind in the trees over the cave entrance behind them. The drone of insects was constant.
"Gliath," Jason said, looking back at the leopardwere. "I figured you might be able to skin the alpha here instead of in the garage. Um ... would you mind...?" He still didn't feel comfortable asking the Krulax to perform such a demanding job, even though Riley had said that he enjoys the work.
"Very well, Jason Leaper 934," Gliath rumbled, then looked down to Riley as if waiting for permission.
The soldier nodded at him and the leopardwere disappeared again, back into the cave.
Riley took in a big breath and sighed. "What a kill, Jason," he said. "I was really hoping that you’d make it when Gliath told me what happened. Honestly, I really had my doubts..."
Jason shrugged and looked down at Jason 1241. "Well, I didn’t do it alone."
"Yeah," the soldier replied with a smirk. "That was inventive."
"Unintentional."
"Still, it worked," Riley said. "Have some minotaur steak." He crouched down with a grimace to a smoldering campfire at the edge of the cave’s entrance and pulled out a meat skewer made with a long, shaved piece of green wood. Looking down at it, Jason smelled the wood smoke and the roasted meat. "Probably still really hot."
Jason took the stick, giving the meat a sniff. It smelled amazing: singed, juicy, and like a dense cut of beef; maybe like brisket. Minotaur, huh? Talk about dangerous game...
"Thanks."
"My life is all fucked up now," Jason 1241 said from his rock nearby. He looked back toward the fire, clearly cross, then glared out at the distant ceratopsians again.
"Here’s the thing, you guys," Riley said, leaning against the rocky wall. A huge centipede suddenly touched onto his shoulder and started crawling down the soldier’s arm. Jason 934 felt his eyes go wide, thinking for a moment that the man didn’t notice it through his hellhound-hide jacket, but then Riley brushed the huge bug—as big as a snake—off of him without a care. The giant centipede fell to the gravelly ground and fled into the thick foliage to the side of the cave. "
There are infinite universes in that multiverse, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Jason 934 replied.
Riley smirked. "That was rhetorical, Jason. So there are infinite Earths, and everything that could happen has happened. You," he said, pointing at Jason 1241, "came from one of the Earths were shet went bad. There are also infinite other universes where you were killed."
A strange feeling tumbled around in Jason; a touch of meaninglessness that instantly struck him and sent him down a logical spiral that made him quickly question whether or not anything was worth doing. He didn’t quite know how to feel about the concept. If all possibilities played out in his multiverse, then was it really a bad thing that Mr. and Mrs. Hines were killed in 1241? Instant guilt swept over Jason. Of course it’s bad, he thought. But wasn’t it going to happen anyway?
Jason realized that he was staring, gaping, at his meat...
"Jesus," Jason 1241 finally said, staring out at the valley. Jason 934 figured that his second self was processing extremely similar thoughts. "How do you deal with it?" he asked. "It’s just too crazy..."
"Don’t think about it," Riley said.
"Don’t think about it?" Jason 934 replied, staring at Riley in disbelief. "That’s what you said back in the Market."
"And it’s just as true," the soldier said. "If you think about it all too much, you’ll realize that nothing matters and we’re totally insignificant. You'll go full fruking nihilist, and zap yourself."
Jason turned that over in his mind.
He was already starting to get that idea.
"That’s not right," he said. "Not really."
"Sure it is, Jason," Riley replied with a smirk. "If you cook your egg about it too much, you'll go down a black fruking hole and end up crazy. The omniverse doesn’t give a fruk about what you think or what you want. Infinity goes on with or without you. When you started hopping into other universes along phase space, you popped into two different universes where everything that ended up happening was bound to happen. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters."
"That’s not what I mean," Jason 934 said. "I mean—I don't know about refusing to face it. Maybe if nothing matters and we’re totally insignificant, then things can still matter to us. We can still choose what’s important..."