by Eddie Patin
Some wild existential concept was tumbling around in Jason's head now, but it was confusing and way too deep; at least for now.
"Yep," the soldier responded. "You gotta know what you want and just keep on 'goin..."
"And you want gold and infinity crystals?" Jason 1241 asked.
Riley scoffed. "Shet yeah. This is the good life, man. I also want adventure. I wanna see crazy shet—which can be really, fruking terrifying sometimes but also totally awesome—and bask in the glory!"
Both Jasons ponderously nodded at the same time, which gave the soldier a chuckle.
"I’m starting to see that," Jason 934 said. "There's quite a lure to this life. I still haven't wrapped my head around how much gold we just earned."
Jason 1241 frowned, looked back out at the valley, and sighed.
"It’s always pretty funny seeing multiple Jasons together," Riley said with a smirk. "Cracks me up every time. You guys act so similar—it’s so weird."
Jason looked down at his meat skewer and raised it to his mouth. "Glad you’re so entertained, Riley," he said, then took a cautious bite, worried about burning his mouth. It wasn’t too hot, and the taste was as amazing as it smelled! The meat was lean—of course, the minotaurs were all muscle—and it was dense, but soft and bursting with natural flavor. It tasted just like beef and it might have been the best steak Jason had ever had.
"Holy shit!" Jason 934 exclaimed, chewing the juicy bite. He took another. "Jason," he said, looking down at his second self, "you’ve gotta try this!"
Jason 1241 looked up with sadness in his eyes, then looked back out at the valley.
"Not hungry," he muttered.
Riley watched them for a moment then took a deep breath, scratched his beard, and spoke up again.
"Listen," he said, clearing his throat. "I’ve gotta talk to you, Jason ... uh ... 934. And you, Jason 1241," he said, looking down at the other, "I don’t know where you’re going after all of this, but I guess you should hear it too..."
"What?" they both asked.
"Thank you for saving my life," Riley said, looking down at the ground. Then he looked up again with a sincere smile and warm eyes. "Really, I—"
"Riley, it’s nothing," Jason 934 said. "There was no way to know that was going to happen. I did what I had to do. You’ve saved me plenty of—"
"No, listen," Riley said, putting a hand up. "I realize that I've ... well I've been being kind of an asshole to you. And—this is hard for me to say—I’ve been under a lot of stress. I reckon that the disaster shet with u1240 really fruked me up more than I thought. I’ve been really torn up about Jason 113..."
"I know," Jason 934 replied.
"Well, I was in the wrong head space for a while. Jason, I just thought—when 113 sent us to you—that you just wouldn’t be able to cut it. I realize now that I was impatient. I wanted you to get good at rifting, maybe faster than you could manage. I reckon that I was pushing you too hard and—on top of that—I got real obsessed with impressing Zayden Skinner so that things could ... you know ... go back to normal. Normal for me and Gliath, anyway..."
Both Jasons nodded.
"I figured out the focus key," Jason 934 said. "And I also figured out the horizontal rift. I can do it—I know I can—I just need time to experiment."
"I know that," Riley replied, holding his gloved hand up again. "I saw the horizontal rift when you came back. And I know you can do it all in time; I get the feeling that you will. I shouldn’t have ... uh ... I made some shet decisions that put us in danger. We should have taken that whole job more easy-like. Instead, I put us all in danger, I'm all out of emergency healing potions, and we could have all been killed. Fruk—each of us was almost killed at least once!" Riley looked down and frowned, shaking his head. "All of those unnecessary risks. Jason 113 would have been disappointed in me. I just wanted you to ... you know..."
Jason 934 reached out and put a hand on Riley’s shoulder. A small amount of emotion broke on the soldier’s face. "I’m not Jason 113, Riley," Jason said. "And I’ll never be exactly like him. I’m me. But I’ll get better, and I’m in this now for good. I love it!" he said with a grin, then took another bite of the minotaur meat. And it was true. Jason felt invigorated. He had freaking dinosaurs walking around him, he was carrying his father’s gun, and here he was with new friends that felt like family. He had a family again. "You’re my friend, Riley," he said. "I’m not going anywhere. I’ll get there—you’ll see."
One of the soldier’s eyes suddenly glistened, then Riley sniffed, turned his head to one side, and steeled himself.
"I really miss him," Riley said. "All of them."
Jason saw the youth in the soldier’s face again. He often forgot how young Riley was. It must have been hard. He not only lost Jason 113, but the other Reality Rifters he'd mentioned as well.
"I understand," Jason replied. "I lost my parents, remember? And before you met me—before I fell into the Wilderlands—I lost some of my best friends when they moved away the day before. When you found me, I was just about out of friends. I know the pain, Riley. I know it well."
Riley smiled and clapped Jason’s shoulder back. Jason felt his heart bloom with warmth and he couldn’t help but smile himself. Then they separated.
"I thought I was going to have to lead the Reality Rifters," the soldier said, "and when I tried to, I just kept thinking back to wanting things to be back to normal; to Jason 113 leading. You might not know it yet, but there’s some leadership quality in you."
"Eh," Jason replied, taking another bite of meat. "I don’t know about that. I honestly thought you didn’t like me."
The soldier scoffed uncomfortably. "No man, not the case. Really, I just don’t want to lead!" Riley said. "I never made it past section leader back in the Ninth Fists. I’m just here to kick monster ass and make a lot of money. I just didn’t want to feel like I was ... starting over."
Jason smiled. "It’s okay. We’ll just work together until we get that figured out, okay?"
"Sure."
"And I’ll catch up," Jason added.
"I know you will, Jason. I'll try to be more patient."
They stood for a while, watching the wild vista and the morning unfold around them. Jason looked far to the north and thought that he saw the shape of an Ankylosaurus walking along the edge of Lake Granby. Is it even a lake here? he thought. It was a saltwater body with coral and urchins and sharks...
Jason 934 turned and looked down at Jason 1241. His second self didn’t really take part in that conversation with Riley. He didn’t even acknowledge it. It must have been so strange to listen in and feel like some kind of outsider in your own life...
"So," Riley said finally. "We’ll all go back and hunt down the minotaur on u934 first. Uh ... if that plan sounds good to you." He smirked at Jason 934.
"Sure. When? Now? You don’t seem ready to fight just yet..."
Riley scoffed. "What the fruk ever. But yeah—I do want to heal some more first. I reckon we should hang out here until nightfall. What time is it back on Earth?"
"Afternoon."
"So it’ll be late afternoon or evening when we get back if we leave at sunset. We won’t be able to go after the minotaur until the morning. Or, at least, maybe Gliath and I should go first." Riley looked up and squinted at the pale sky. "Well, we have more time. Wanna just spend the night here?"
Now it was Jason’s turn to scoff. "Not really. I’ve had enough of that."
Riley smirked. "Okay. Well, you two relax for the day. You can rift that big alpha’s body out to the slab when Gliath’s done with it."
"Alright," Jason replied. Riley turned and headed back into the cave. Why would he want to hang out in there? he thought with a sneer. It was so gross in there. "And hey," Jason called after him. "Riley, we’re even now, huh? Me saving your life?" He grinned.
The soldier laughed and looked over his shoulder. "Pretty sure I saved your ass a few times on Maze World, and there was that wyvern thing and
all," he said, pointing at the decomposing body of the dragon-like creature down the slope toward the valley. "And I rescued you from this wacky world, too. So I think I’m still ahead quite a bit."
"Hey," Jason called back with a laugh. "You wouldn’t have had to save me if you didn’t send me here in the first place! Next time you wanna teach me a lesson, check with me first!"
Riley laughed and disappeared into the darkness.
Jason’s hearing felt a little muffled from all of the gunshots, but as Riley descended the low tunnel into that nasty cave, he thought he heard the soldier quietly chuckling to himself about how Jason was going to be a good leader.
Jason 934 smiled and took in a deep breath.
He looked down at the skewer of minotaur meat and took another bite, losing himself in the awesome flavor with a sigh.
Riley was his friend...
Chapter 30
Jason 934 crept through the ferns and underbrush, watching and listening to the woods around him.
The forest was beautiful. It was hot and humid, sure, but very pleasant otherwise—at least to Jason's senses. He had always longed for adventure; to be a traveler just like his father. He just didn't really think about it for those fifteen years or so that he lived in a slump after his parents had died.
The man realized—thinking back to his parents and the adventures he'd gone on with them frequently while growing up—that the wound of losing them fifteen years ago was still fresh.
After all of this time, Jason's heart still bled for his mom and dad.
He'd just spent the last many years covering up that pain with distractions: video games, hanging out with friends, playing DnD into his thirties, and avoiding personal growth. It's not like playing DnD at thirty-three is a bad thing, Jason thought. But when his friends left him behind, Jason had to face the fact that he had nothing left without Amanda, Tom, and Ben (who was still around but didn't want to game anymore).
Jason scanned the trees and thick foliage around him, looking for an ostrich dinosaur, his heavy Rigby .416 Magnum Mauser up on his shoulder. Jason 1241 walked beside him, also trying to move stealthily but not doing a very good job of keeping quiet.
"We only ran through here that one time before," Jason 1241 said.
They were in the trees on the western side of the valley, heading north. The last time Jason was here, he was running for his life after the wyvern had killed the Tyrannosaur. The cannibals had attacked him before he cut over to the eastern side and fled north, where he'd nursed himself back to health in a cave on the lake's shore.
"Oh, and we came through on our way to fight the wyvern, too," Jason 934 replied. "I don't remember seeing an ostrich dino here then either, but you never know."
"Man, that thing sure tasted awesome, huh?"
Jason 934 smiled. "Yeah. Like ... turkey, kind of."
"Which is a little funny, right?" Jason 1241 said. They continued stalking slowly north, quietly chatting. "You wouldn't think it would taste like poultry."
"That's funny you should say that," Jason 934 replied. "I was just thinking that when I mentioned the turkey flavor."
"Because they're not raptors."
"Yeah. I can understand raptors tasting like chicken. Chickens evolved from raptors."
"But what about the other non-raptor dinosaurs?" Jason 1241 asked with a gleam in his eye. "Do triceratops taste like chicken? What about brontosaurus-types? Sauropods?"
"Those sauropods we saw here were brachiosaurus types; not brontosauruses."
"Do they taste like chicken...?"
Both Jasons shook their heads in thought.
"Who knows?" they both said simultaneously, then laughed.
"That's so funny," Jason 934 said. "We think the same. We thought of the same thing at the same cue."
Jason 1241 stared ahead, stepping around a large fern, then sighed. "Makes sense," he said. "We're kind of like clones, right? But as more time passes with us being separate, we'll grow in different directions and start thinking differently I guess."
"Yeah," Jason 934 said with a sigh. For some reason, the idea was a little sad. "I guess..."
Jason 1241 passed a hand through his hair. Jason 934 watched him and realized that he himself did the same thing whenever he was nervous or stressed. He wanted to ask his second self 'what's wrong?', but already knew the answer. The deaths back in Jason 1241's universe must have been a lot heavier on the man from that world; from that street...
Riley and Gliath were still back at the cave. The soldier was taking it easy and the leopardwere was providing him with regular, freshly-cooked steak. Gliath was also protecting them from curious cannibals, although none had attacked since the Jasons had arrived. When Gliath was done skinning the alpha and cut off a lot of fresh meat to eat, Jason rifted it through a horizontal portal out to the slab for disposal, much to Riley's satisfaction.
Now Jason could rift with focus keys, had a basic understanding of using the different dimensions for rifting with the OCS, and could orient the portals in different directions—everything Riley had wanted to see.
Jason 934 felt stronger.
They could rely on him now.
For as deadly as it was to the unprepared, the Wilderlands was beautiful. Jason could imagine coming back here frequently, either whenever the Reality Rifters needed to rejuvenate themselves, or if he ever felt like hunting and eating some dinosaur.
The golden ambience of the late afternoon pierced the forest air with beams of sunlight cascading through the trees. Jason noticed that his second self's eyes looked extra pale in the vivid colors of the late day. His features were drawn and stressed. Jason 1241 was obviously wracked with stress—obvious to Jason 934, at least, who was accustomed to seeing that face in the mirror every day. He wondered if he looked as bad as his sort-of-clone did.
There was a deep sadness in Jason 1241. The second Jason carried a lot more despair in his face than Jason 934 felt himself. His heart swelled for the other.
"I know it's hard..." Jason 934 said, stopping.
"Do you? Do you really?" the other Jason said, also stopping. He leaned against a tree and sighed. "I'm just having a really hard time with what happened back on my world. People are dead because of me. Mr. and Mrs. Hines were murdered, terribly! And that family screaming in the house—I don't even know who they were, but they were a family. There were kids."
Jason 934 felt sadness pouring off of his second self.
"I ... I don't know how to feel about it yet," he replied. And it was true. Jason 934 figured that he'd be thinking about it later when he finally lay down to go to bed, but going through time and dealing with the parallel universes was so strange and hectic that he was trying to follow Riley's advice ... for now at least. Don't think about it. "I mean, was your universe even there before I went back in time? Or did I accidentally create it? And if I created it, were the Mr. and Mrs. Hines that died really real?"
"Of course they're real," Jason 1241 muttered, glaring down at the underbrush. In the golden light, it seemed that tears were welling up in his eyes. "I'm real."
"Maybe I didn't create universe 1241 and it was all just there, all the time, because it's infinite and everything that could ever be ... is."
"Maybe," Jason 1241 said, wiping one eye with his gloved hand. "Riley said that all possible universes were already there, basically. But either way, I can't do this. I can't be a part of this. I don't want to cause any more innocent deaths."
Jason 934 stared at the other and felt a jolt of adrenaline. It shouldn't have mattered to him. After all, Jason 1241 would eventually return home and get back to his normal life, right? The thing was that ... after everything, Jason felt connected to his second self now. The words felt like an announcement of breaking up a friendship.
"What do you mean?" Jason 934 asked. "What's that mean?"
"I've got to make sure my universe's version of Riley and Gliath are set free from ... I dunno ... my version of the Wilderlands or whatever. I don't know what
's going on there. But after that, I'm not going to do this anymore. There's too much risk. I'm not gonna be a part of the Reality Rifters—your version of it or mine."
Jason 934 looked through the trees at the light of the setting sun. The sky immediately around the sun seemed to boil like liquid gold.
His mind buzzed and he didn't know what to say.
"But what are you going to do?" Jason 934 knew that he, himself, could never go back to his old life. Not now. His drive for adventure—seeing new worlds and making a great living—had been awoken. He could never go back to tearing movie tickets, cleaning latrines, and mopping up buttery popcorn spills.
"I figure I'll just stay home," Jason 1241 said with a sigh. "And whenever I need money, I'll just get my AK and other gear and go get some gold from Doe Creek in the Wilderlands. Maybe I'll go into business with Ben to sell infinity chargers or something else involving infinity crystals. I just need to keep a focus key to get to the Wilderlands. I'll still have my necklace to get home if I need to. but I won't use the OCS anymore. I don't want to screw up anyone's lives."
That was the same thing that Jason had thought to do before, back when he wasn't sure whether or not he would be able to hack it with Riley and Gliath.
"That could work," Jason 934 said. "I was thinking of that before, too."
"I know."
They started walking again. Jason 1241 was clearly loaded with guilt and terrible feelings. Jason 934 could see it like a physical force almost dragging him down. It was sad. He saw his own fear in the other—a manifestation of what might have happened to him if he never figured out rifting and ended up parting ways with Riley. He saw the fear of facing growth. It was understandable—totally justified after what happened on Earth 1241—but Jason 934 knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that his place now belonged with this new life, with the Reality Rifters. It felt like destiny, even though he didn't believe in such things.