by P. S. Power
As if something had been discovered that Ben wasn’t going to understand, not having the kind of experience the other man did. It was simply that he, their Ben, was a good person. Not perfect, but not petty in the main. While that could change in the future, just like it might with anyone, if things were hard enough, Kyle didn’t see that happening at that moment.
Ben grinned.
“My fear isn’t that I’m evil, but that this other me isn’t.”
Kyle understood, and nodded then.
“That would be the hardest thing to manage, wouldn’t it? What if our enemies, once found out, are reasonable, calm and merely representing a different version of good? We can’t let them kill, based on our mindsets, but sometimes death is the only way to protect the living from great harm. The best we can hope for is that they’re actually just insane, to our way of thinking. I don’t think that Winston was. We’ve spoken over the last five years, many times. The man seemed intelligent and well spoken, as well as greatly against governmental and social abuse of private individuals. That doesn’t really read as being soulless and insane to me.”
To Ben either. Going back to his conversation, in that other world, the man had felt very reasonable really. Like he had a goal, and that it was important to him, but not like he was trying to harm people in particular. Not that he hadn’t slaughtered enough of them on his way out of the federal building in Boston. Around him, since Ben knew that he wasn’t going to die suddenly at the hands of the killer, he could see how very different the world really was.
Before, he’d noticed the old fashioned looking cars, with fins and heavy metal bodies, as they floated along, above the ground. This time he got more. The people in the street looked like they were wearing clothing from the middle part of the last century, but on closer inspection there were bits of shining metal worked into the clothing. Antenna, and things that looked like trim or lace that were actually some kind of computer system. Things that weren’t AI, but that collected the thoughts of the wearer, constantly. Why, he didn’t know, but it seemed to be for a real reason, not just vanity.
The men carried old fashioned brief cases, made of what seemed like leather, and the women had bags that they carried around. Each of them had that going on. There were also lots of hats. Almost everyone wore something on their head, even though it was a nice day out.
Kyle shook his arm, and smiled, as if understanding things that Ben just couldn’t. It was probably true, but the man also suddenly blocked him out, completely. Schooling his thoughts to a level that made them impossible to read.
“You should go and see to your work then? I’ll handle the forms coming in. Bethany is doing the editing work on this?”
“I think so. That’s who I’d go to for it. I’ll let people know. I’m trying to put off the bomb thing really. There are so many things that could go wrong there. I can’t fly after all. It…” He waved and walked out, not saying anything more. Oddly enough the man behind him understood.
The odds were that Ben either wouldn’t be able to stop it, or would manage it, but die trying. That he was going to give his all to the idea was just a fact. One that the old man didn’t doubt in the slightest. That was a power, all on its own. One of the most important a being could cultivate. Those that managed it often didn’t live long however. You couldn’t, if you were going to place your life between that which was hard, and that which needed to be done, even if it was impossible.
It would grind anyone down, eventually.
Ben just walked, a mint green line on the ground leading him back to the rec center, as if that hadn’t been where he’d planned to go. His subconscious mind had to know that, but the world was filled with color all the time now, with what seemed like a really haphazard computer interface in VR. Arrows and words appeared, as he needed them, and on occasion when he didn’t.
Inside the room, Lissa and the others had continued working, interviewing some of her new friends, going over what the woman had been doing for nine years. It was Glenda in the chair at the moment, which was interesting, since she was in an actual dress, and had enough makeup on that she was nearly pretty. Still, a bit like a good looking man that way, but it wasn’t horrible at all.
“The pressure, the psychic forces on her, nearly killed her. Until Ben came. His alterations let him save her. Shutting things off for a while each day.” It was a lot of information, but Ben didn’t care if they kept it secret or not. Even the corporation wouldn’t. If there was a demand for their genetic changes, well, that was just a way to make money. Not that the whole thing was perfected yet. That would take more work, since they needed to isolate what actually changed things in the right way to protect other people. Then it could be added in to all the psychics. You’d need to have a team, or at least a partner, but if they could stay useful and sane, a lot more people would want them.
Ben waited for the interview to end, and waved at them all.
“We have a tentative contract? With Wendy Mountebank. We’ll need to get at least a rough version of it to her in five days, but we can get the time. Keep it secret for now? We’re going to ambush some people. She’s in on that.”
Lissa sucked in a huge breath, nodding as she shakily let it out.
“Wendy. I haven’t even thought of her in years. That will work. I always liked her. She was never in on things. I’m not even sure she knew, back then. Thanks, Ben. This… I guess it’s going to be real?”
He nodded, and clapped once.
“It seems so. Not to get in the way, but I promised that I’d try to stop a bombing? I could use some help with that?”
Eric didn’t get it, but the rest did, knowing what was coming and when. Dave got the cameras around, and Bethany hugged Lissa and then Eric.
“You two won’t need to be here for this. It’s probably going to be pretty boring. Just Ben talking to himself as I scream questions at him that he only answers part of the time.” She looked and sounded cute when she said it, but there was a bit of reluctance to do it. She was a bit tired, but that wasn’t what she feared. The thing there was that she didn’t know what that part really was.
Neither did Ben, but that wasn’t going to stop him.
After the others left, except for Glenda who simply took a seat, to observe him in action live, Beth started in, going to the obvious thing first.
“The bomb on New Year’s, in New York… Can you go to that point now Ben? The moment when the thing is about to be released and dropped?”
He could, of course. Really, with that kind of suggestion, it was nearly impossible not to. The tear in space that opened wasn’t that big. About the same size as the one that Winston had used, really. Freezing time, so he could examine the thing, Ben focused until he forgot about the people below, then inched it forward, a half moment at a time, until the thing started to come through. The sense of it was very different than he expected.
When he saw the whole thing he got it. It wasn’t a bomb at all. Only it was about to become one. She was. It was a girl. While it was hard to tell, she seemed to be about eighteen or twenty. Her eyes were closed, as she fell, and tried to tear herself into pieces to do her duty.
That was all Ben understood, before she exploded with enough force that he was tossed physically across the room. Chair and all.
Coming back to himself, feeling a trickle of blood run down his face, from the impact of the blast that he’d touched, instead of the impact there, he nodded.
“Remind me not to do that part again? Now… Help me set up. I need to go back. Now. Before I forget how.”
Chapter fifteen
The fifth time he tried it, Ben did it right, and pushed into the world that the girl was coming from, several minutes before she was going to come through. He thought. That had taken some work, but Glenda figured it out and got him to unwind time a bit, so that he could make it happen. The hard part was finding the tear in space, which was about a hundred meters away, and moving slowly toward the release point.
&n
bsp; It was different on the other side, when he fell, than Ben would have figured. He landed with a thump, on wood, his mind not really picking it up what he was seeing at first. There was a large white thing over his head, which was round, and didn’t feel like much. Around him it seemed like he was on the deck of a sailing ship that had brass and wood all over the place. For some reason no one noticed him when he popped into being, probably being distracted by the man that was holding the seven other people at weapon’s point.
Seeing that, Ben shielded, slipping into gamma. After all, there wasn’t just evil him standing there, threatening the others, but also another him, who was dressed in all blue, like most of the others. It seemed like a uniform, rather than funky casual wear. On that one, it was very formal seeming, compared to the others with him. It was a weird thing to notice, but the young lady that was about to become a bomb was being ordered to move away from the others there.
By him.
Ben frowned. The other version of him lacked the gem green eyes, and his hair was shorter and black, but it was him, otherwise. Forty pounds heavier. That looked to be all muscle however. It was a strange sight, but got him to freeze for a moment anyway.
Hearing his own voice.
“I’m so sorry, Heidi. There isn’t any other way, or I wouldn’t do this. I swear.” The firearm he had was heavy, but seemed to be a regular one, not air powered or an energy weapon. It was still a lot better than what Ben had on him however. That being nothing, dressed in his nice clothes still even. He hadn’t figured on needing it to watch an interview with Lissa’s father for some reason.
It would have been really handy at the moment, however.
The others protested, getting that something bad was about to happen, as Ben managed to walk forward. Just as the other him pointed to the side of the craft, where there was both a tear in space, coming into existence, and meeting with the one that he’d used.
That confused him for a bit, until the words in his head explained it. Tearing space meant tearing time, and would always be wider than what was used directly. There was even an illustration, that showed what was happening. It was hand drawn, but he got the idea. He’d come in at the edge of the rip, and it was just now moving to the center. Other Ben was generating the thing, in that moment, using an implanted device like what Winston Mills had.
Ben got all of that even while shielding. Probably due to the fact that the armed version of himself was both him, and distracted.
The other man nearly screamed, pointing with his left hand, at the side of the deck.
“For the Western Kingdom, I command you, do your duty!”
Almost instantly the girl, Heidi, went blank faced, and then started to run toward the rip in space that no one else knew was there. Ben darted forward himself, half thinking that he could knock her to the side. They’d all die, there on the flying boat, but that was better than his world being damaged. Not much, since there was a real city under them, even if it wasn’t the one from his world. The people were still real.
They deserved to live as well.
It was too hard for him to run and shield, at least while being terrified, so he picked up a wash of information from the others there. Most of it wasn’t helpful really. Several of them knew they were about to die, and one of them even held the information that it was roughly like a nuclear blast. There was a woman that was terrified, and a man that had the actual code to prevent it from happening, but his voice wasn’t working for the moment, in shock.
That one was the other him.
So Ben did it for him, screaming the words.
“For the good of the Western Kingdom, I command you, abort!”
It worked, the girl stopping in place, then fell to the deck, in front of the rent in space. It made a nice thud, but there was no complaint from the girl, just rolling, so she hit the railing support to the left instead of going over the side. The bad version of him pointing the weapon at him, a single line of red showing where the thing was aiming. Ben ran at the other man, noticing the glowing green of his necklace. He figured it for his mind playing tricks, so ignored it, hoping that he was just supposed to grab it if he could, or something easy like that. Only one of the people got what a gun meant, and tried to warn him, her voice calm, but hard.
“It’s a death weapon!”
He got her intent, the man mainly missing with it. When the line did cross his body, Ben shifted and twisted, so that he wasn’t hit. That worked really well, until he tried to tackle himself. Other him, the bad one, might not be able to aim like Ben could, but he made up for it with a series of rapid fire blows that nearly knocked him out instantly. They weren’t even things that he could see, to be honest, though he felt they were just blows from the other man’s hands, and one kick.
Flailing, Ben managed to grab the necklace, which broke off in his hands as he felt the world going black. The other version of himself laughed, sounding breathless.
“Fuck. Well, I’ll be off then. Good luck, Ben. Forgive me, Heidi? It wasn’t personal. We just have to end it all. To save you. All of you.”
Then he did something, matching a different world, about a thousand times faster than Ben would have managed it, and jumped through the tear he’d made, vanishing.
It was the last thing that Ben saw, before the world went black.
When he came to, instead of being beaten for information, or put in handcuffs, he found himself being cradled in the lap of a woman. She was the one that had warned him about the gun, or had tried to get that done. The woman was good looking, being Mags, if without the all black eyes. She was nearly as lean and hard however. Skinnier, really. The problem was that inside she was both a very different Mags, and some other person. One that was familiar to him.
Glenda.
Plus, to add to the confusion, there was a far more Glenda looking lady that was standing not three feet away, pointing a small silver piece of metal at him. It was a weapon and would kill him, or could, if Gwen, the woman that was cradling his head and petting it a bit, would get out of the way. That woman, Heather, was also Glenda. But more female seeming. The spirit was there however.
So, not confusing at all, he decided. Ben sat up, groaning a bit.
“That other me is a jerk.” He looked at the remaining version of him, who was trying not to seem scared. A very bad thing had nearly happened there, and he knew it. The city below had protections against rifting, which was the exploding girl phenomenon, but the false King had suggested that Heidi Westmorland wouldn’t be landing there, but rather in a different world, which would have begun a war. One that would end in the destruction of not just both worlds, but both realities.
Which got a few things to click into place for Ben, finally. That had to be the goal. Getting a larger conflict to start, so that realities were destroyed. That didn’t really tell him why, but he was getting that part too, from bits and pieces of things.
“Um, help me sit up? That hurts, by the way. Being beat like that? I couldn’t even track what he was doing. Luckily he can’t shoot worth a darn. Um… I’m Ben? Ben Epson. In case anyone missed it, I just came through a tear in space, from a different reality. The one that she, Heidi there, was about to destroy. Or at least take out Times Square, on New Year’s Eve.” Before he could explain, the woman behind him, gasped.
“That would kill millions. They hold a huge party in public each year, to celebrate the calendar changing… That would be enough to start a war between realities, if they didn’t know it was forced on us.”
Ben nodded.
“About like that. Not that we can go between worlds so far. I mean, I know that I just did, but the other me used technology from a different world to make that happen. I can use that, rips in space, to travel, a bit. What I can’t do is open them on my own. I don’t suppose that’s a known thing here? It would make going back a lot handier.” Ben tried to seem hopeful, only to have two of the people shake their heads. One of them was other him, who had a very nice suit on, whic
h looked like a military uniform, and while thin, didn’t seem to be as powerfully built as he did, which was interesting.
The other was the woman behind him, who had more information about that than the rest of them, combined.
“No… I have some contacts that might be able to help you get home, however? You probably won’t be stuck here forever or anything. Not that it’s a horrible place. I’d kill for a plate of nachos, but other than that…” She looked at him, as if it were a test of some kind.
“Hmmm… Nachos. Get me home and I’ll see if I can figure out how to deliver some? No promises though. I… Really, I don’t know what to do now. I think we stopped that bomb, which is a good thing? The others can go on without me, for a bit. I’m… Pretty much a research subject where I come from? Given psychic abilities, using genetic manipulation. A bit of extra strength, my pretty green eyes and all that?” The only person that seemed to understand him was the woman behind him, who stood up, and put a hand out to help him do the same.
Ben moved slowly, his head hurting, from the beating he’d taken in those few seconds, but also because the other Glenda was holding that weapon on him still. He made a point of standing close to Gwen the whole time, which clearly wasn’t lost on the other woman.
It was the other lady wearing a dress that spoke then, her voice brittle, to cover the fear she’d just experienced. She’d nearly died, thanks to the Westmorland girl, so that was who she was most concerned with at the moment. She could explode and they’d all die. Their very souls might even be destroyed, if such things existed. The woman, who was a cool blonde lady and fairly pretty, pointed at Heidi, the whites of her eyes showing.
“That thing nearly killed us all! I demand she be executed!”
No one spoke for a moment, and while several of them felt both annoyed, and fatalistic about the young woman’s chances, if the Queen wanted her dead, Ben waved the idea away.