The Real World

by Jacob Long

  Through the front window, I can see that Johnny has come out of the back room. He looks at me, lifts his hand up, and slowly waves to me. He smiles the only type of smile that one forces themselves to make on a sad day like today. I wish I had some good news to tell him. I press the button on the side panel, and the door slides open. "Hey, Johnny," I say as I walk in. He's wiping down the counter pretending that he didn't see me standing outside for a while. "Hey, ya, Jayden," he replies. "How are you doing?" he asks.

  "I'm all right," I reply. I'm committed to telling him; I'm just not sure how to begin. "Can I get you anything?" Johnny asks as he pulls open the cupboard. "I don't have any cornbread." He places two glasses and two plates on the counter. "I'm afraid that you're the only one on the whole island that likes it, so I haven't made it for a little while. I do have some fresh banana bread though. You want some?" "Sure," I say. "And some orange juice?" he holds up the glasses and starts filling one of them up at the machine. "Yeah. Thank you."

  He pulls out the loaf of banana bread and takes a large knife from the drawers. He cuts two big slices off and distributes them onto the plates. He pushes one toward me. "Eat up." I grab the bread, lift it off the plate, and set it back down. I can't take a bite. Not yet. He senses my hesitation. "What's going on, Jayden? Is it about Alicia?" "No, it's not that. RT is still sifting through all of the information. We do think that we will find something that can help." "That's good to hear. So what is it? Is there something you want to say?" he asks. "Johnny, I have to tell you something that most of our citizens don't know." His gaze becomes more curious now. "Okay. What is it?" "It has to do with the Battle of Idem..."

  My breath is slow. There is a slight sting in my eyes. I look up at Johnny. "On our last recon mission, Sanchez was compromised... I was with him... I was supposed to watch his back. He was gone for only a few seconds, I thought... but it wasn't him that came back." The sting in my eyes is gone. The build-up of moisture is replacing it. I fight it.

  Johnny grabs my shoulders. "It's not your fault." "I didn't even know that they had replaced one of my soldiers, one of my friends. He was on the island for a month before the Ministry came, and I had no clue." "Jayden," he replies. "None of us did," he replies solemnly. Before he can go on, the back room door swings open. "Daddy! Daddy!" Alicia exclaims as she bursts into the room. "Can we have french toast this morning, please?" She draws out the 'E' sound in the word, please.

  Alicia is Johnny and Veronica's adopted daughter, the little blond girl in the picture. "Yes, sweetie," he squats down to her eye level. "We can have french toast." Veronica walks in. "Alicia, daddy is talking to Jayden right now. Come and help me put some clothes away," she says. "Help mommy put the clothes away, and then you can help me make the french toast," Johnny says. She stares at him for a moment with wide eyes and the hint of a smile. "Okay!" Alicia replies with a big smile. She waves to me. "Bye, Jayden," I smile and wave back. "Bye, Alicia." She runs off. Veronica smiles and waves. I wave back. She follows after Alicia. Johnny uses the counter to help himself stand back up.

  "I'm getting too old for that." He walks around and takes a seat on the stool next to me. He takes a deep breath in and then slowly out. He wipes the tears from his eyes with one hand and places his other across my shoulders. He holds his arm out, gesturing toward the wall. He's struggling to get the words out. "You... are a good man, Jayden. You saved the people that are here now, and you..." He points to the picture of Alicia. "You saved that little girl... And for that, I will be forever grateful to you..." I can't say anything. All of the pain that I have felt weighs down on me at this moment, and yet it feels like I can withstand it. It's like there is someone to share the burden with.

  He takes another deep breath. “You weren't the only soldier that was there when they took Gabriel. You did everything you could. You followed all of the regulations. That shape-shifter slipped past every safeguard that we had in place. He tricked all of us, every soldier, every telepath, every friend, every family member, every loved one of Gabriel's was fooled... Sometimes we get fooled. Sometimes we get bested, and all we can do is pick up the pieces that are left and try to find some semblance of a normal life again.”

  At the funeral, I stand next to Xyla, Real Jayden, Callum, RT, Mayor Matua, Mrs. Matua, Sienna, Nina, and Liam. These people are my family now. Them and the rest of the people of Idem which now includes the people of the Faction. It's ironic, as soon as our civilization grows, it diminishes once again. We are the pieces left over after all of the devastation. We are the burnt, twisted, misshapen fragments that remain after the Armageddon. And our psyches are even worse off. To look at some of these pieces, you would have never guessed that they once fit in somewhere. That they once made sense and had a purpose. Those few pieces of ourselves that have had a purpose now mutilated to match the other monsters of our being.

  Xyla almost didn't make it to the funeral. She yelled and cried as we restrained her so that she wouldn't teleport back to the Rich World. We couldn't calm her down, so we ended up sedating her. There was no way it was safe for her to go back there right now. Even if we all went, and had a plan, we would be extremely outnumbered. RT's research had revealed that there was more brainwashing going on than we originally discovered. The entire military and police force had been infiltrated. As soon as the missiles were launched, a flip was switched, and the Ministry had complete control of them. Beyond that, there would be riots in the streets, mass destruction, and hysteria. Xyla's world is now lost to the same fate as my world.

  When it's time to carry the caskets, I join the pallbearers. Callum, Liam, RT, and I take Barrett's out first. As we do so, some Faction members drape his casket with a special flag. It bears a symbol of the moon. A sweet older woman sewed it for him. Mrs. Matua gives Nina a handmade ceremonial Samoan mat. Callum walks up and holds the mat for her, while Nina delivers a beautiful speech for Barrett. In it, she reveals that the moon on the flag represents ' a bringer of light in a time of darkness.' He was not only their leader but their hero. He was the one that gave them new hope, new purpose. Now, he's gone. I have failed him, and I have failed them as well.

  After the funeral, I fly over to Elena's spot on the other side of the island. I land on the edge where the hill begins. I stare at my punching stone. For a moment, I consider going over there and obliterating it with my fists. If that is why I came here, I probably would have landed over there. I'm just too defeated at this point. I take a few steps down to where Elena and I used to sit, and I drop down, facing the ocean. It's not that I don't want to go over there and punch that stone. It just seems pointless at this conjecture. Whatever is wrong with me, it might be getting worse.

  Physically, of course, my body is still in peak condition. Doc was surprised at how rapid my recovery was. At this point, he may be thinking that I am immortal. Maybe I am. Perhaps my punishment is that I'm destined to live forever even if it's only to witness the complete destruction of everyone around me. I take in a deep breath and let out a long sigh. All of this self-loathing and wallowing is not going to fix any of my problems. It's not going to bring back those that I've lost, and it's not going to save those that I still have.

  I look over to my left where the forest begins. There's a rough trail that leads down into it. My dad and I followed the path once when we came here to go hunting. It was back when construction of the first island had recently begun. We had to maneuver around a few bushes and vines. For the most part, though, the trail was pretty clean. That was good because if we got caught in a vine and had to cut our way out, the noise would scare off all of the game. We roamed through that forest for nearly an hour before finding anything. I didn't mind though. I enjoyed observing the many shades of green and just being a part of nature.

  When he spotted a deer, my dad held his hand up for me to stop. I followed him quietly a few paces, and we crouched down behind a large stone. He instructed me as to how I should go about shooting it. He drew his weapon to have ready as a backup, in cased I
missed. Once he was in the ready position, he quietly said, "fire when ready." The shot rang out, and the deer darted forward. My dad had been aiming just in front of the deer, but his shot was too low. My bullet nicked the ear, and his shot hit the deer in the front right leg. We tracked it for hours, but only saw it twice more, and we couldn't get another good shot.

  Eventually, the evening overcame us, and we weren't able to seal the fate of that deer. My dad was disappointed, to say the least. That night was always a great regret of his. Instead of using the animal to help us survive, we had left the animal injured and weakened in the wild. He said that we shouldn't have taken the shot. It was too far away. I reminded him that we didn't mean to leave the deer wounded out in the wild, that it was a mistake. He responded by telling me that all of our mistakes are the result of our actions, not our intentions and that we are responsible for all of our mistakes even when our intentions differed from our actions and the results that they produced. I think I understand his words now more than ever before. I turn my head again to the ocean, peering outward as far as my eyes will let me.

  Beyond the small crashing waves. Beyond the horizon. I look at the setting sun, and something about it reminds me of the Real World. I'm not sure what it is. I guess our oceans still look mostly the same... We can't give up now. It's going to take a long time to repair what the Ministry did to this world and Xyla's world, but there is still a chance to stop all of that from happening in the Real World. My manica beeps at me. I press the accept button. "Jayden," RT's voice comes through. I need you to come down to the garage. There's something you should see." "I'll be right there."

  27

  "I figured out how to bypass the Ministry's defenses and teleport into their buildings," RT says with less excitement than usual, but more than one would expect any of us to have considering recent events. It's the middle of the night, and Xyla, Callum, Real Jayden, Mayor Matua, Sierra, Nina, Liam, Dr. Hamilton and I are all huddled up in RT's garage. We're listening patiently for RT to give us the entire news update. Everyone is exhausted.

  Xyla, Real Jayden, Callum and I are standing near RT, and the rest of them lay, strewn about the Pathfinder. They're either leaning up against it or sitting inside of it. Liam is sitting on top of it. "I thought you already did that," replies Liam.

  “Not exactly,” says RT standing in front of the display screen. “I barely managed to shut down the defenses once I was connected from the inside.” He gestures to Xyla, Callum, Real Jayden, and I who helped him do that. “Now, I can adjust the settings on the Quantum Spectrum so that we can teleport directly into any of their buildings, and go from one point to another without any difficulty.” “How do you know that you've achieved such a capability,” asks Liam.

  "Because we tested it," Callum replies for him. RT called me in a couple of hours ago after he and Dr. Hamilton discovered what they could do." I should have been here, helping RT do research instead I went to the other side of the island to sulk. Once I arrived, he gave me a complete update on the situation. Since then, we've been working on a plan. "All right, we can teleport anywhere," offers Nina, "but we're still monstrously outnumbered and overpowered. So what's the plan?" RT presses a few buttons, and an image pulls up on the display screen. It's a building in New York. In the Real World. "The Ministry has another base in the Real World. It's in this building in downtown New York City." "You have got to be kidding me." Xyla stares at the screen, incredulous. "Fortunately for us, they are not as far along in the process as they were in the Rich World." He says the last part hesitantly.

  Real Jayden momentarily examines the expression on Xyla's face. "Wait a minute," he says. "We can't just abandon the Rich World." The room is silent. "It's okay, Jayden," says Xyla to Real Jayden. Matua looks at me. He nods in a nudging manner. I take a step out to face the entire group. "We aren't going to give up on the Rich World. We will go back there, and we will devise a plan to save it. Right now, however, we have an opportunity to prevent the murder and mutation of billions of people." I turn to Xyla, and Real Jayden. "I will understand if anyone chooses to go to the Rich World instead of the Real World but right now we must focus our plans on saving the Real World."

  Xyla looks at me with watery eyes. She nods, holding out her hand. "First his then mine," she says. We shake on it. "I promise." I look from her to Real Jayden with conviction. I turn to RT, and say, "What's the status of the Real World, and what's our plan of attack?" Fortunately for us, they have only begun preliminary experiments in brainwashing. This means that they will not have as many soldiers to go up against.

  Unfortunately for us, their Omega warheads are ready to go and they have decided to move ahead of schedule. I was able to catch a radio command from the Ministry headquarters that was received by Leroy just before he teleported out of the War Room. RT presses a button, "Initiate Project Earth Initium Novus."

  As many of you and perhaps all of you may know, Novus in Latin means new, and Initium means beginning. Upon further research, I discovered that there is a theory among the Ministry that what we have been calling the Real World is, in fact, the first world that all other worlds owe their origins to. Of course, that's a nice bit of science that we can get into another time.

  RT reveals to us that there is in fact at least one other enemy of the Ministry out in the Extreme World. A group of freedom fighters was recently captured and shipped to a city off of the southern coast of California. The plan is to have two teams. Alpha Team will consist of Xyla, Real Jayden, and myself. Although he's proven himself, I'm still a little hesitant to have Real Jayden out on the mission. My fears slightly assuage after RT informs me that he has built a specialized suit just for Real Jayden. It's a protective strength-enhancing suit similar to Xyla's.

  Beta Team will consist of Callum, and seven other Faction soldiers. I'm actually a little disappointed that Callum won't be going with us this time. Even though it makes sense to have him leading the other Faction soldiers, I'm going to miss fighting alongside that blue fur ball. Using the teleportation tech that Xyla brought over from the Rich World, we will remotely link each person to the Quantum Spectrum. We can't be sure of my biological teleportation abilities at this point, so we opt not to rely on them. Both teams will ride in the submarine toward Teleportation Island.

  We will start teleporting once we get a few hundred miles away from Idem. To get out into the ocean fast enough, I will get the unique privilege of propelling the sub from up top. I'll be flying and pushing on the forward fin while RT will be flying the Tempest and operating a few Mobile Tawhiri Units. The MTU's will be used to redirect the ocean currents giving the sub the extra push that it will need. After that, I will no doubt be extraordinarily fatigued, so after a brief respite, Alpha Team will begin teleporting to the Ministry's Real World New York headquarters.

  In the meantime, Beta Team will teleport to the Ministry base on the coast, and free the prisoners. Using specialized wristbands, we will use the Quantum Spectrum to bring them to the submarine. In the Real World, Alpha Team will deactivate the Omega bombs, teleport the Omega-crystals out of there, trace the Ministry's teleportation pathway, and destroy the building. As we go over the plan, it all seems painfully familiar. A control room that RT will use to hack into the system. A storage room full of Omega bombs that we have to deactivate.

  I have to force myself to wipe the recent failure from my mind. I realize that I shouldn't wipe it out. I just can't let the emotions of it affect me right now. I do however need to learn from that experience as much as I can. I wish we could go back and prevent the bombing of Xyla's World, but we can't. What we can do is learn from that failure and not repeat it.

  We finish discussing the finer details of the plan and break for food. Johnny arrives just in time with fresh sandwiches. We are going to need the energy. As everyone begins to migrate toward the food, I start toward the table when RT places his hand on my shoulder. He looks me in the eye as if to tell me that I should read his mind, so I do. "There's something el
se I need to tell you," are the words that he's thinking. I follow him into his office, and we sit down. "Why are we being so secretive?" I ask. "Jayden," RT says hesitantly. "When you were at the IDPA headquarters on the Rich World, I didn't teleport you to the Faction's island.”

  “You mean, right before I destroyed those bomber planes? You didn't send me there.” “No. I didn't.” “So the Quantum Spectrum malfunctioned?” “I considered that, but it doesn't look like that is the case.” “Then how did it happen?” He stares at me for a moment. “You did it. You teleported yourself to that island.” I'm speechless. I want to say 'that is crazy, or impossible,' but somehow, I know that it's true. “After analyzing all of the data,” RT continues. “It seems that your psychic powers are continuing to grow and evolve.” “Into teleportation?” I ask. “I thought that was an entirely different ability” “Most psychics only have one psychic ability, many have telepathy and telekinesis... and you would be the first confirmed case that I know of to have teleportation combined with the other two abilities.”

  "How can you be sure?" "We can't know for sure until you've learned to control this ability." He takes in a deep breath. "Unfortunately we don't have time for that now. However, I wanted you to be aware because not having control over this ability could compromise the mission. Now that you know what you are capable of, you are better prepared to prevent any mishaps from occurring." I let out a slight, incredulous laugh. "I'll have to trust your judgment on that one." I look at him momentarily before turning my gaze out the window. Now it's my turn to take in a deep breath. I turn back to face him. "All right, I won't let myself out of your sight."