Persist (Discipline Book 3)

by P. S. Power

  Then he translated for them all.

  “We’ve always been here. A scout from the Adversaries told me that once. I didn’t know what it meant. I’d figured that he was saying they’d been on Earth for a long time, but what if it was more than that? Him letting us know that they’ve been around for as long as forever, and will be?”

  Going wide eyed, Gwen drew things together in her own head.

  “The Elder Gods, trapped beyond time. No one ever has really explained how that happened. So, they’re us? Because if so, the ones that I brushed up against are truly insane. I’m still constantly afraid of them. There was a portal in the air, that was opened by a bunch of fools, to let them into our world. The one I was in. I can still see it, floating in the air. It was… Pure terror, inside. We got it closed in time, but it was close. If that thing had come through…”

  Hartley smiled.

  “Then that reality would have ended, I bet. Under the strain of the action, which can’t exist. Probably forever. I… My wish is for life. I know that it could be hard for others, but even if that end comes in twenty billion years, and some version of me will live that long, then I want to. There might be pain, but it isn’t my pain here, today. Is that too selfish?”

  The rest went silent, not answering. So Ben went.

  “Sure. It’s dooming people to suffer forever. The only thing is, if we don’t, then all the beings that have ever existed will never get that chance. Both are horrors. Roughly equal, to my way of thinking. I guess I can see why some of us might vote for that second one. That makes sense, doesn’t it?” Ben looked down at Glenda, then Kyle. “What Winston said? I’ll save you, I’ll make sure you die… It sounded insane, but if we’re right, with a bit of context, I can get it.”

  Zack, the Demon shifted, ever so slightly, and finished eating a taco with a speed that was impressive. No one spoke, waiting for him to do it. There was a subtle hint of command from the fellow, as if they were all being influenced not to interrupt.

  “I’m all about selfish, myself. If this data is correct, then chances are this war has been going on for all of time. If that’s so, then we aren’t really going to have the battle for all reality or anything, just the ones that we come from, and maybe some that join up with them? We just have to do our part. The trick there is that some of us, in other places, will throw in on the other side. It has to be pretty evenly matched, I bet. I mean, right now, Ben down there and I both declared that we’re in on the side of right and goodness; staying alive. In a different world an identical conversation just happened, with us both declaring we were on the side of goodness and right, ending it all to prevent suffering without end.”

  His eyes glinted a bit, and he started to eat again, thinking about all the free food he could get there. Ben read that from him, as if it were freely offered. The being wasn’t hiding anything from him, it was clear.

  Hartley, still standing, nodded.

  “I’m in as well. For the living and those that will. I can’t make decisions for people that won’t even be alive for millions of years. Aliens as well, and an infinite number of things that we can’t even guess at.”

  Going around the table, in a fashion that didn’t shock him at all, everyone agreed, one by one. That life was better than the destruction of everything.

  When it got to Lissa, she played with her silver hair, a bit, and looked over at Brian, who was making her inner self light up like an Xmas tree. Ben could see that. The fellow was close to perfect to her way of thinking and it poured off of him. He was the real man that she’d always dreamed of. Tough, capable, and willing to give everything to protect the innocent.

  Her words weren’t about that however.

  “We… What does this really mean? Are we supposed to get everyone in on a massive war? I can’t see that helping.” Confusion rang off of her, but Brian, the man she was staring at, acted like it was addressed to him personally.

  “Probably not? It would be best to keep this as small as we can. To work together and to stop the others, without making a mess that’s just as bad as the one that they want. After all, everyplace we come from is real, and if we succeed, will go on. Our lives will, too. The less we screw this up, the better off all of our families and friends will be.”

  Lissa smiled, and mentally reached out to the man, not recoiling from what she picked up. There was a lot of violence there, but the right kind for her to admire. Ben got that part. If there had ever been a good reason for killing people, Brian had been soaking in it for a while.

  Next to Brian, Glenda put her elbows on the table, thinking. Her fingers making a triangle in front of her, fingertips touching gently.

  “Okay. We need to find out who can do what, and I think agree to help each other? Ben, you have that treaty with that King?”

  The paperwork was still in the rec center, but he nodded.

  “Ferdinand. That’s Gwen’s world. We need to get it to the President. Mags, can you handle that?” Looking around, everyone watching him closely, he explained. “Her father is the leader here. Then we should all try for something similar in our own worlds, but keep it small? So that it doesn’t become a massive war of armies and all that? Or…” Ben didn’t know. He was so far from being a leader that he couldn’t even see why he was a part of anything. Ferdinand did all right, but they weren’t really the same person. Their lives had been very different.

  Tor clapped, startling about half the people.

  “Good then. I can provide magic. It seems to work here, at least. We have some shields, and weapons that are useful, though when the Adversaries distort time, they can reach through them and our energy weapons don’t work on them. Fists do.” He seemed embarrassed about it, as if it were a personal failing on his part that people from another reality could do things that he, personally couldn’t defeat yet.

  Words came up again, blinking until he paid attention. Ben just read them off.

  “Oh. I think that the time thing… Part of it is that they’re overlapping realities, when they do that? A hundred or more at one time, and then they all fight, at once. It has to do with time, and space, but isn’t just that. I don’t know if that helps?”

  Down the table the large man looked away, and didn’t speak for nearly a minute. No one else spoke either. Shaking himself a little, Tor smiled. It wasn’t a happy thing, but seemed real enough.

  “I think it might. Not that I have any way around that in particular yet. I need to go and work on that, when I get home. For now, we should make plans to visit? It’s hard for me to get places. Hartley helped me come here. Some of you can come visit my world? I should introduce you all to some people there.”

  Hartley, the man in charge of their war to save everything, or their little part of it, nodded.

  “We can do that.”

  Then they sat and talked for hours.

  Chapter seventeen

  It wasn’t until everyone had left that things started to really click in his head. Ben felt it happening, a sense of oddness and even fear that slowly hit, trying to take him over. It wasn’t the idea of the others being from different places, as much as the idea that everything they did was going to be met with an equal and opposite reaction. Every single time.

  That had to mean it would be a stalemate. Which it had been forever, and would be. Unless they lost. One moment of the other side pulling ahead, at the wrong time, and boom, they’d all cease to exist. No one knew how it would happen. They had several different theories, but the end point was that they were going to not be anymore.

  Hartley figured that if they lost in one place, once, that an entire line of reality would vanish. Not just the single reality that was breached, but millions or billions of worlds that would come from it in the future. All of them would be gone. That meant going back as far as possible would be the best play for the people they were fighting against. Finding the original universe.

  If they ever managed that, then it was all done.

  Ben didn’t kno
w how to do anything about that, however. It seemed to him that it would be impossible to stop, but Demon Zack had been really relaxed about it. To him it seemed that they either won or lost, and that, while there might be a struggle, that wasn’t a bad thing. It would make them stronger, in the end.

  The group had promised to help each other and to talk regularly, but also to keep things fairly controlled, if not secret. Some of their friends and families would need to know about it all, but in the main they were just going to help, and not make a big deal out of it, unless they had to. For instance, Glenda was nearly certain that they were just about to finish the problem in their world, which had taken Ben by surprise.

  Not that he didn’t understand what she meant. From what he could tell about what was to come, she was even correct. The AI that had turned against them was dying, day by day. Clark was seeing to that, taking the revenge that David needed. Or, more properly, that Ben needed. David was gone.

  Unless he wasn’t.

  That in some world he was still alive was thrilling to find out, if it were real. He’d even spoken to him. Unless that was his own insanity talking. Ben smiled, getting that in some realities it would be the one, and in others the opposite would happen. It would be real.

  Everything would, unless they lost.

  The bomb was the last big attack, at least in the time frame that he could see. Which meant that he only had to tie up the real threat behind it all, if he could. Winston Mills, and the other version of himself. It wasn’t going to be easy, he didn’t think, but both men were too dangerous to leave out there, trying to get them, or worse, some even less defended place.

  A reality where the only hope was overweight game playing, virt watching Ben Epson. How that hadn’t happened already, in his own world, he really didn’t know. For a few minutes. He’d moved back to his room, after taking a shower already, so laid back on his bed to think.

  It came back to the AI, at every turn. The one that had killed his father, and set the chain of his life on a new path that he would have never taken before. Not on his own.

  “Which is what happened to me, as well.” The voice that spoke to him was David again, but came from the foot of the bed.

  This time, when he sat up, he saw him. The face was different, being what Ben was used to seeing in the mirror now. With a beard, however. A half red one. For a second he thought it was another him, coming to attack, but as he jumped up, feeling trapped, he realized that this was at least a different enemy. He was thin, like Ben was, where the other version of him had been more powerfully built.

  “No, it’s me, son. From very close to this world. No more than a few over.” He had bright red roots growing in, and ruby like eyes, which looked sinister as all heck, but smiled. That was a familiar look.

  Ben nodded.

  “All right. So you came here for a reason?”

  That got a slow head shake.

  “I’m not really there with you. I’m in my world. Telepathy, the kind I have, seems different than yours. This is just a message. I’ve been trying to reach you… You… My Ben, died. Taken at work, on fake charges, by the government. Our Predictive AI had set it up, in order to create a warrior that could stop what was coming. It got me instead. I’d say that it should have asked, but that wouldn’t have worked. I couldn’t have done what I needed to, without enough of a reason. It’s… Really good to see you.”

  It took a moment, but he nodded, feeling that himself, if it wasn’t just a trick.

  “You, too. I wonder how many worlds some variation of this is playing out right now?” He smiled, getting his father to do it back.

  “A lot of them? It will be different in each, of course. In some you come to me. In others I’m talking to my clone daughter. Heck, in some it will play out as part of a virt, or even a book. In half of them I’m probably trying to sell you on the idea of saving reality, and not doing the right thing and destroying it all.”

  Ben nodded, and then smirked.

  “Of course. Well, we can just pop the bubble or whatever and take care of that now, shall we?”

  They both stood there for a second, the truth, that they were both telling the same joke, resonating between them. David had always been funny like that. It was one of the best things about his dad. A factor that Ben missed now. More than almost anything else.

  His father, or at least the other David, smiled hugely.

  “Things are going to be hard, son. I have some information that I can’t really share, but this is needed. In the end we have to make sure that it all keeps going. I can’t tell you why now… I promised I wouldn’t, since it could change things later. Still, you’re going to have to do some things that won’t really fit with who you are now, in order to save the world. Do you understand?”

  Ben did, since being in another world or not, the information still flowed from the contact he had with David, even if it shouldn’t have taken place for him. That probably had to do with the nature of the other man’s powers.

  “I have to find them, Winston and the other Ben, and kill them. Except that both of them are better fighters than I am.”

  That got a nod.

  “Me too. I learned how to run away, and hide, myself. You?”

  “That and shoot. I’m good at that part.”

  There was a smile then, and a head shake.

  “That’s different then. Maggie, my mentor? She was so pissed at me for not being able to hit anything. I… We’re kind of dating? I know, I didn’t see it coming, either. How about you? Is there anyone in your life?” There was real worry that his son, or even one version of him, would be all alone in the world. Isolated, and fighting desperately, without anyone to help or even comfort him. It had been how David had raised the boy, after all. The point where things had changed for them both were recent, as far as he could tell. This was very nearly the closest reality to the one that they’d shared.

  It was an interesting way to see things, if different than how Ben would have. In a way, this really was the man that had raised him, until about two and a half years before. When he’d been killed.

  “Mags? She’s the President’s daughter?”

  “Oh? Interesting. That’s Maggie here. All black eyes, dark curly hair?”

  “That sounds right.” Ben didn’t know what to say, the problem being that there was just too much, rather than not enough. “I… I love you, dad. I never really got to tell you, but you were my whole world. You and Fluffs. After she was killed and then you died…” Tears started to fall, for him, but not the other man.

  He’d been shaped into something else. Psychic, but in a very different fashion, compared to Ben. It had, no doubt, made their worlds different.

  “Ah? She’s still with me. Here. How did she die?” There was reluctance in asking that. Ben understood it.

  “When the police broke in to arrest you, on fake charges, they shot her.”

  “Oh… They got you coming out of the coffee shop, so that didn’t happen. I… There was no reason for it. I was told that it was about getting me to shut up. To not talk about free speech anymore. A threat to the only person in my life that mattered. Then you were gone. It… Wasn’t a good thing.”

  Ben didn’t ask, but from what was coming off of his father, it had been a lot worse for him in that cell than it had been for David. That was dark enough, so he didn’t dwell on it.

  The other man waited, but finally smiled, sadly.

  “I won’t be able to do this very often, if at all. That… Actually, it isn’t about not being able to, as much as the psychologist here, Felicia, telling me that it isn’t really healthy. I need to let go and not try to replace my son. Still, rules are only guidelines, you know?”

  Ben snorted, not able to help it. After a moment he shook his head.

  “Sure, now it’s that they’re only guidelines, but when I was twelve and didn’t want to go to bed at nine at night it was all about being hard and fast wasn’t it?”

  “Yep. That’s why do
uble standards were invented. It’s been good, talking to you. I love you, too. I was always glad that I had you. I’m very proud of you, you know that, right? You’re the best son I could have had.”

  Ben didn’t know what to say then. So nodded.

  “I know. I mean, look at how much I’ve done with my life already? All those coffee machines serviced…”

  David smiled then, seeming to mean it.

  “That’s important too. Everything that helps the world work is. It might not have been saving lives, but you never missed a day of work, and lived a real life, even back then. Not perfect, but part of that was my fault. I was so isolated. I didn’t know why, but you followed that pattern. It was my innate psychic nature. I get that now, but for a long time I thought that I just didn’t really like other people. That’s a lot better for me now. For you, too? I didn’t mess you up too much, did I?” There was real worry in the words, but Ben shook his head, not having any way to know the real answer.

  “I’m… Actually doing pretty well that way. I have friends here, and even though it amazes me to no end, the women actually like me for some reason. Do you have Lissa there? Casandra?”

  That got a nod.

  “Sure. I’m not that big of a fan. We’ve had some issues.”

  Ben nodded, figuring that some things would be similar that way, since Ben was David’s clone, and Lissa would be her in both worlds, if they were close enough.

  “Here too, but we’re working them out. Clark is a great guy, and I even get along with Kyle all right. Glenda too. She’s my mentor? Large muscle woman?”

  “Oh? I’ve met her, but we aren’t close. She seems nice.”

  “Yeah. Anyway. It was good seeing you, but like all ghosts, we can’t really keep doing this. I wonder if this kind of thing is what happens to other people? I haven’t seen any spirits at least, so far.”

  David gave him a funny look, and seemed serious then.