The Real World

by Jacob Long

  As the green energy surrounds me again, I realize that I've seen this energy on the astral plane. It is how Elena's psychic powers manifest when she is there. The green energy fades away as I arrive at the parking lot of the movie theater where Real Jayden works. Elena and I are in the car. I'm back inside of the dream that I had in the Real World. Flames engulf Elena. "Spasi Menya," she pleads. As her hand reaches out to me, an invisible force pulls her away. The green energy swirls around me once again as I struggle to grasp her.

  I teleport back to the first island. Now I see it again. Elena, floating in the sky. Just as always, the lightning instantly takes the life away from her. This is the worst image. The image that haunts me in my nightmares. This time, it's different though. This time, I see Elena's astral form enter into my body. I sense her soul combine with mine. Everything goes dark. In the distance, I see a glowing, green spark heading toward me. It's moving fast. Now, I realize where it's coming from. It's Elena. She appears before me, and I stare in awe, admiring her presence. She floats toward me, and I take her in my arms. "Hello there," I say, softly. "Angel Moya."

  31

  "Elena, how did you-" "Sorry, we can't talk right now," she interrupts. "I'll be taking questions later." Instantly, I am sent back into the fight with Fulloway only this time; I'm not fighting her. Elena is sending a surge of emerald-colored psychic energy toward Fulloway. I must be near death at this point. I must be hallucinating. A year ago, I didn't have any powers, now here I am standing next to Elena as she is sending a psychic energy blast at Fulloway.

  "Elena, what is-" "-Don't worry. It's real," She smiles and winks at me before turning back to concentrate on destroying Fulloway. "Where did you come from!" Fulloway asks, as shocked as I am. "If I were you, I'd be more worried about where you're going." The strength of Elena's blast seems to increase.

  I continue to stare at her in awe. I know that she can sense my immense curiosity. "Do you want to help or something?" she teases. "This is really more your area of expertise," I reply. "You're doing great though." She smiles. "I love you," she yells above the energy blast. "I love you too," I yell in return, still fascinated at the sight of her. Elena's energy overpowers Fulloway's, and she vaporizes into nothingness.

  Elena turns to me, aware of the many questions in my mind. "Okay, so Fulloway learned about the second island, I wiped it from her mind, then I transferred my consciousness into yours before they killed me," she says, quickly. "I ended up in the far reaches of your mind. It took me a while, but I managed to climb my way up." "The dreams?" I reply. "Yep. We can go into detail later though, right now, we need to save the Real World. She pulls her face toward mine and kisses me. As she does this, I transport back into the physical world.

  On the ground, an unconscious Carlisle begins to stir. I am surrounded by a telekinetic force field that is getting shot at by Ministry soldiers. I can still sense Elena with me. I can hear her in my mind. "I created this force field to protect your physical body from harm while you were on the astral plane," she says. "It looks like it was a good idea," I reply.

  I turn to the soldiers and wave my hand. They fall to the ground, unconscious. I gaze at my hand, curiously. I'm not sure if it was Elena or me that did that. "It was both of us," she says. "Now come on, we need to finish this mission." Carlisle floats down to the ground and starts walking toward me. I lift my hand up to stop him with telekinesis. "Fulloway," he says. "What did you to Fulloway?" "It's over."

  His vitality is rapidly starting to come back now. I create another telekinetic force field and wrap it around him. Green radioactive energy emanates from all over his body and pushes back against Elena's telekinesis. Her force field pulls in, wrapping around my skin. I add fire to the telekinetic armor and aim for Carlisle's head. His force field eliminates in every spot that I hit. Even in a weakened state, Carlisle puts up an intense fight. I use my mind to throw objects at him. The combined abilities of Elena and I overpower him as he screams in anger.

  He falls to the ground, unconscious. I place my hand on his head and read his mind to learn the location of the hidden Omega bombs. I teleport to them only to see that they have already been activated. The monitors reveal that I have forty-three seconds until they detonate, leveling the Real World New York City. Fulloway must have activated them at some point. "RT?" I say, reaching out to him telepathically. "I need you to help me disable these bombs." Elena and I bring RT's consciousness into my body. I put him in the driver's seat so that we can neutralize this threat as fast as possible. "There's not enough time," he says after taking a brief look at the setup. Given that he came to that conclusion after only a brief glance, I want to question him about it. I know better though.

  There are only twenty-nine seconds on the timer. "Teleport out of there, Jayden," he says. "You can do this." "I can do a lot more than that," I reply quietly. "With the help of the right girl," I think, speaking to Elena. "Are you in?" I ask her. "I'm sticking with you no matter what you decide," she replies, her beautiful smile radiating throughout my mind. I recheck the timer. It reads twenty-four seconds. I start a countdown in my mind. I teleport back to the tank room and take a deep breath as I mentally lock onto the entire building and everyone inside. As I obtain a secure hold on all of it, I feel my energy begin to drain faster. We could all potentially die in the process of this teleportation, but they will die if I don't try.

  I muster all of my mental strength and go for it. Every fiber of my being shrieks at me as green light fills my field of vision. We arrive at the second island of Idem. In the Real World, it is still a stormy, uninhabitable wasteland where the bomb can't harm anyone. I collapse to the tank room floor in exhaustion. Breathing heavily, I take a quick survey of the room making sure everyone is all right. Even though that was the hardest part, the rest of it won't be easy. Especially after that. I force myself to stand back up. I take a deep breath and mentally lock onto everyone and everything inside of the tank room, except for the warheads. Ten more seconds.

  That familiar tingly sensation pulsates throughout my body as I struggle to transport all of us. Blood trickles from my nose down to my lip. My mind is straining as if it's getting torn apart. Even my skeletal muscles are straining to help me pull off such a massive endeavor of teleportation. I can feel myself fading as if I had lost a lot of blood; as if the effort is draining all of the energy out of my entire being. I scream in agony as my every cell is about to explode. Just as I feel that I can't take anymore, Elena pulls me into my mind and time slows down. We float in the air inside of my mind. Surrounding us is an altered, slightly distorted version of the tank room. Five more seconds.

  Several flashes of light fill the room. Bright greens, reds, and blues flow all around filling the air and painting the walls until the room itself disappears and all that is left is a chaotic mixture of colors. Elena holds my face in her hands. She gently massages my temples with her fingers... Four... “Remember your breathing exercises,” she says. I smile and put my hands around her waist. "Yes, of course," I say. "It's very important." Although I am dying, I feel wonderful in this brief moment... Three... We stare at each other, and I am captivated by those beautiful, mesmerizing emerald eyes of hers. My world is complete... Two... "There they are again," I say, "those creamy avocado eyes... I could just eat them up." She grins. "You're so dumb," she says. I smile back... One... "I love you," we both say together...Zero...

  32

  Light fills the darkness, and I open my eyes. It doesn't last long as the weight of my eyelids coerces me to let them shut again. Open and close. Open and close. I'm phasing in and out of consciousness. In and out of the physical world. One moment I see Elena, and the next, I'm back in the tank room. It happens with nearly every blink of my eyes. I can hear loud, muffled voices. The clank of metal against metal reverberates throughout the room. "Stay with me, beautiful," I say as my palm rests gently on Elena's face.

  She disappears in the blink of an eye, and I find myself caressing RT's cheek instead of hers. The
strange look on his face is the last thing I see before falling back out of consciousness.

  There is slight pressure on my temples. A light massage. Someone is reaching out to me. It's not Elena. My eyes open. Hovering above me is the blurry image of a person. My eyes focus, and I'm looking at myself. "Hey, it's working," he says. I sit up quickly, taking a swing. He backs away just in time to evade my hit. "Whoa, hey, easy there. It's just me," he says. I quickly realize that it's Real Jayden and not Carlisle that I'm with. I'm back in the clinic on the Idem, the second island. I'm back in the physical world. I'm back in my universe. Wow. This inter-dimensional psychic stuff all gets very confusing.

  "Oh, sorry," I reply. "It's just, the last version of myself that I was with was a real psycho. "Yeah, I saw him," he says. "I mean, he does look like a decade older, so I don't know why-" "So, it worked then?" I ask, interrupting his muttering. "Did everyone make it?" "Wait, were you massaging my temples?" I ask before he can answer. He points over my right shoulder. "That would be Sienna." I look up to see, Sienna behind me. She rarely uses her abilities. "Here let me get this for you. You need to be comfortable so you can calm down." Real Jayden adjusts the back of the bed so that it supports my body as I sit up higher.

  “So... What's the answer? Is everyone okay?”

  “Oh, yes,” says Real Jayden, nonchalantly.

  "You saved all of them. Real superhero type stuff."

  “Why didn't you just say that in the first place?”

  “Really? You were going a mile a minute. I didn't know which questions you wanted-”

  “-Wait, did everyone make it? Where is Carlisle?”

  “And there he goes again.”

  "He's in a specialized prison on Teleportation Island," Sienna says as she walks in front of the bed. "Everyone else is fine. The Beta Team sustained some injuries but don't worry; you got the worst of it," Real Jayden says. "And Callum?" I ask. "He got shot," says Real Jayden. "It was in the lower leg though, so he'll be fine. The worst of it will probably be for us listening to him complain about his crutches." "And your family?" I ask. "There all-" "Fine. Well as fine as they can be having just woken up in tanks of water in a post-apocalyptic parallel universe where people have superpowers."

  The door bursts open. "He's awake!" RT barrels in. "Hey, dude, good to-" before I can finish my sentence, he grabs me in a bear hug. "-see you," I say. Doc and Callum walk in after. RT lets go and backs away, staring at me in awe. "How long was I out for?" "Seventeen hours and fourteen minutes," says Real Jayden. "Seventeen hours!" I say, incredulously. "Yep and Sienna was right here for nearly all of them." He replies. I realize I haven't said anything to her concerning the matter. "Thank you for bringing me back." "You're welcome," she replies. After all that has happened, it's plain to see that Sienna and I were never enemies, just two damaged souls that would butt heads while attempting to deal with our own demons.

  Our disagreements led me to disregard what a truly good person she is. She must have spent so many exhausting hours, working on my mind, to bring me back. Seventeen hours. That's hard to accept. I thought it was just an hour or two. The last clear moment that I can think of is just before the bombs exploded. I was with Elena. Surely, Elena was able to communicate with me while I was unconscious. Why can't I remember? Maybe it was all a delusion. A construct created in order to get me through that difficult time. It can't be though. It was real. I know it was real. I take a deep breath and focus, using my telepathy.

  "A construct?" her sweet voice reverberates throughout the walls of my mind. "You think I'm just a construct of your mind?" Elena appears before me as everyone else disappears from the room."Well, I wasn't sure," I reply. She smiles. "Well, don't you worry," her sweet voice answers my concern, "I'm still here. Your friends need to talk to you right now, though." "You can't leave," I reply. "You just got here." She gets on the bed, sitting on my lap. "Take me to our spot when you're done." She smiles and leans in close. "Don't be too long. I'll be waiting." She gives me a peck on the lips and disappears. "Jayden?" Callum asks. "Yes?" Real Jayden and I both ask as I snap back into reality. "Extreme Jayden," he says, specifying. "Are you all right. "Sorry, yeah," I reply. "I just... I had a good dream while I was out."

  I pause momentarily. "Tell me more about Carlisle. How secure is this prison that he's in?" "It's your basic steel cage with regular doses of tranquilizers administered as well as a specially designed psychic disruption device that prevents his mind from accessing his abilities." Real Jayden replies. "Designed and built by your pal RT of course." "I like everything I hear so far... whose watching him?" I ask. "Nina is there with some Faction soldiers," Sienna says. "All right. Can you tell her I'm coming over for a visit? I need to check this place out."

  They share strange looks. “I'm not sure Doc would approve of any super travels right now.” “Wel he should have been here by now to say so for himself,” I say as I get up. “You're going to go dressed like that?” Real Jayden asks. “Yeah, I'll only be gone for a bit. Fifteen minutes top. Don't worry. I'll be right back.” I teleport away as soon as I say the last word. I appear back onto the mountain plateau on Teleportation Island at the entrance to the Quantum Spectrum headquarters. I place my fingers on my temples and reach out to Nina.

  "Hey, I'm up top. I'm here to see Carlisle." She's somewhat surprised to see me in my hospital gown. "We should probably move him somewhere away from the Spectrum as soon as possible," I say as we make our way down to the prison. "Our thoughts exactly. We're working on a new and more secure location," she replies. "For now, we are taking every precaution to make sure there is no breakout." She scans her hand and her eye. A solid steel door opens to reveal Carlisle suspended in air connected to a harness with tubes going into his arms, and wires attached to his head. There are two guards inside on watch duty.

  "We are currently building a transportable containment system as well. If you have any ideas on a location, let us know." "Have you considered Hell?" She smiles. "Indeed we have. However, our Mayor wants to keep him alive in order to better help us take down the Ministry." I stand, staring at the monster while absorbing Nina's words. They make sense, but I don't like them. "I need to talk to him," I say, staring at her and the guards. "Alone." She hesitates for a brief moment. "Very well then, General. Just be careful." I wait as Nina and the guards, exit through the steel door then I turn my attention back to Carlisle. I place my fingers on my temple and gently nudge him awake.

  His eyes burst open. The rest of his body is still, in a state of paralysis. His gaze turns to me, and his lungs fill up as he takes a deep breath. "I need to see my daughter," he says. "A monster with someone to care for," I say. "Perhaps the worst kind there is." "I need to see my daughter," he repeats. "That's not happening. I need you to tell me why I shouldn't kill you right here, right now." A careless small smile forms for a moment as he stares at me. He takes another deep breath.

  “You and I are unimportant. Someone else is the key.”

  “The key?... Is that the same as the chosen one or is that different? I'm confused.”

  He continues to stare at me, unwaveringly.

  “So I'm not the chosen one, after all?”

  “The chosen one,” he chuckles. “There is no chosen one. Just the key.”

  “And the key is... your daughter?”

  “My daughter is the key to my life... but she is not The Key.”

  I pause to consider what he could be referring to. I take a deep breath and let it out.

  "Right. Well, I'm going to have to think that one over and get back to you. I'm getting a little distracted by the cold draft lifting up my gown here. They must have turned on the air or something. I guess they like to keep it pretty cool in here for you..."

  I look him right in the eyes and wait until he reciprocates.

  “I'll make you two promises,” I say.

  “We're going to destroy the Supreme Ministry,

  and we will do our best to save your daughter.

  That's what the
good guys do.

  It's too bad you forgot.”

  I turn my head toward the door. “Nina, boys, he's all yours.”

  I teleport out of the prison, and back into the clinic on Idem, catching myself on the bed. "Whew, I guess I'm not quite at one hundred percent yet," I say. Everyone stares at me like I'm a ghost.

  Within a few minutes, Doc walks in and clears me to leave the clinic. I take a walk along the hill with RT, Real Jayden, and Xyla. They tell me everything that happened on the submarine and with the Beta Team. After the Ministry soldier teleported onto the sub, the Ministry locked onto its location and sent bomber planes. Fortunately, the Beta Team managed to rescue the entire group of slaves, and a few of them had abilities that were useful in the fight. RT flew Tawhiri, and Callum was a crack shot with RT's plasma cannon. Everyone backs him up on his statement so he must be good. Near the end of the firefight, one of the Ministry pilots escaped his plane and shot Callum before being taken down himself.