Reality Heist - Geordi Riker (ready player one ebook TXT) 📗

“Well, we've only met two other people who were already in groups, so maybe numbers aren't really important. It's not like we're experts on this stuff.”

I've heard enough, “Okay, somebody tell me what's going on right now, or I'm leaving.”

Strangely, it's Jason who chooses to explain, “A while ago, we developed a sort of... 'awareness' I guess you could call it. We could tell when people entered a room without looking, and could tell when one of your kind appeared.”

“My kind?” Is it possible for these guys to be able to sense Pressure?

“Travelers. People who could teleport themselves between alternate time-lines.”

My expression says it all. “I knew it,” Jacob declares proudly, “I knew it the moment I saw you.”

“How do you guys even know about all this crap?”

“You  all your life crap?”

“Duh. I didn't choose to start sliding, traveling, whatever you want to call it. It just sort of... happened. You guys still haven't told me how you know about all of it.”

“I wouldn't go so far as to say that we know all of it, but over the years we've been able to put the pieces together. It's actually kind of why we started this place.”

“Okay, that tells me absolutely nothing.”

“I wasn't done,” Jacob waved his fork in the air between mouthfuls, “have some patience with us mere mortals, would you?”

“Basically,” Jason continues, “Jacob here ran into a Traveler. They got to talking. And then the Traveler disappeared right before his eyes. Everything red in the area lost it's color for a few seconds, and then returned to normal.”

“And you guys didn't think it was little green men in rubber suits because...?”

“Because me and Jason felt it too, even though we were nowhere near. It was like this sudden drop in a roller coaster ride that we didn't see coming, literally,” Tyler takes up the thread, “Anyways, the encounters didn't stop there. A few months later, I noticed a stronger aura in the crowds at the hospital I was visiting. He was posing as a nurse. I made a scene, and the rest of the group had to come and pull him out. They didn't disappear, so I started to think that maybe I was wrong, but then their group leader came and sat down and talked with me, explaining who they were and what their mission statement was...”

If a team had left behind information or something, would it have been taken care of the same way as a physical object. Skip and the others were always talking about how it was virtually impossible to cause a ripple effect. But since we make stuff disappear, or appear, then something or someone has to be in charge of extraction. So what about information? Were their minds scheduled to be erased or something?

“...and then he knocked me out. When I came to, the group was gone.”

“It was then that the building blocks of this foundation started to come together.”

“So this place is like, supposed to be  haven for us Travelers?” I ask.

All three nod emphatically. “Since we started this place, we've only seen one person, but he comes back fairly often.”

“That's impossible!” I blurt out, “There's no way the same person can visit the same dimension twice. There's over a billion dimensions, and only one person, and they can't even control where they end up.”

“But you guys can 'force it' sometimes, right?”

“Apparently. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Jacob says, “This dimension, as you call it, is sort of like a default location. At least, that's how he explained it. If the team is injured, or in serious danger, they can force it and come here. This center provides all the help it can, and we have a fair amount of influence now that our program is actually becoming successful.”

“No thanks to you scrounging the city, trying to find another Traveler. You can't expect him to show up when we need him to,” Jason scolds, “We're just going to have to figure this out on our own.”

“Why? What's wrong?”

Jason turns to me, “Well, there's not really anything you can do. We shouldn't be dumping our problems on you, sorry. It just would have been convenient is all.”

“Maybe I can help. What can this other person do that you guys think I can't?”

Tyler shrugs, “Actually, we can't really talk about that.”

“Dude, if it's something illegal, there's not really much I can do about it, now is there? If this dimension is anything like the rest of them, the justice system is slow and unreliable, with more paper getting shuffled than people getting shot.”

“Good point,” he grins, relaxing, “We sort of have a problem that we need to go away. Normally Derek does it for us if he's around. It's sort of an agreement. He scratches our backs, we scratch theirs.”

“Derek?” I ask. The way Tyler says it sounds familiar, but I can't place it.

“Yeah, Derek just makes the problem go away, no questions asked.”

“This is kind of weird, you guys do realize that, right? I mean, what do you do when he's not around to make it 'go away'?”

Jacob's lip quirks, “They actually don't crop up that much. The sort of problems he deals with don't necessarily deal with the center. He focuses more on the dark presences that we notice- they stand out the most.”

“Dark presences? Like the Black?”

“Funny, that's what he called them too. There's one in the city right now, really close by it seems, and it's been driving us up the wall. We may not look like it, but the presences we sense affect us to the point where a blue or green aura will make us feel like we're on top of the world, a red one will make us really irritable, and a dark one makes us feel sick, like there's some sort of virus entering our system. After a few days of exposure, our health starts failing, like we have the bubonic plague or something. Derek explained it as the Black leaking... what was it he called them, again?” he turns to Jason.

“Pressure,” he supplies, “Derek always referred to it as Pressure. Although for the life of me, I can't seem to figure out why.” All three look at me expectantly.

I hold my hands up, “Don't look at  me. I can't sense Pressure if my life depended on it, literally. I can see the Pressure around people, but I can't even see the color that Jesse and the others claim is around them.”

“Maybe we have a stronger 'Pressure',” Tyler air quotes the word, “than you do.”

I shake my head, “No way. You guys have barely any sort of Motes orbiting you, even a member of the Black has more, and theirs is extremely weird at the same time. There's no way you guys have more Pressure than me. You guys would have started sliding for sure.”

“It's not a choice?” Jason sounds surprised.

In response, I give a snort of derision, “You have as much say in whether or not you start sliding as a baby decides whether or not it's going to be aborted. It just happens. Your pressure reaches a specific point, and then *poof! Like that you're off on the journey of the rest of your life. There's no choice. I don't even know how my Pressure spiked enough to ship me off. My pressure didn't register with the others until we had 'traveled' through a couple dimensions. All I know is now I'm stuck trying to figure out a way to stop sliding.”

“Don't you guys choose where you go next at least? There's some pretty scary scenarios you guys can get tangled into.”

I smirk, “If there's a way to control where we go, the rest haven't deemed it worthy to be brought to my attention. Guess it's kind of hard. We slide as a group, so if we all decide or have a different dimension in mind, maybe our atoms would be torn apart.”

“So you guys could end up anywhere during any time period?” Tyler asks, shoving another rice ball in his mouth.

“I guess. I've only been sliding, according to Chase, for a few weeks, so I guess it's possible.” It actually feels pretty good to be talking about all of this with people who don't seem to know more than I do. Bouncing ideas off of them, without the fear of ridicule feels great. I'd be willing to tackle a Black to be able to talk normal like this with at least someone.

Even as the idea enters my mind, I flinch, remembering that woman's Pressure. Magdalene. Hiyori had given a name to the face. She had attacked us, attacked me. Her Pressure and evil smile were directed specifically at me. My Pressure had spiked, I had lost control of it. It had responded to her Pressure automatically, turning black and trying to fight off her attack by it's own volition. She had ripped right through it, as if it didn't even exist. Hopefully the rest of the Black aren't that strong, otherwise I'm in a pile of crap if I think I can pull off an escape.

The rest of the meal switches between questions of the cult/slider's center the three run and questions about time travel. Most of the questions are aimed at me, because all three have different priorities to what they want to know. I try to hold my own the best I can, but several times throw my hands up in the air in exasperation and proclaim, “I don't know” or “That's just the way it is.”

The meal ends with a person coming in and whispering something in Jason's ear. He purses his lips, his eyebrows shooting up as he shoots the ceiling a look of annoyance, “I'll be right there.”

Tyler sighs s Jason stands up, “Knew it was too good to be true.”

Jason's head ducks down as he shoots him a look, “Some day, this will all be yours, and then maybe you'll finally understand all the stress that comes with running this place.”

“Heaven forbid that day ever come,” Tyler rolls his eyes as he murmurs in a quiet tone.

Jason looks at me, “It was nice to meet you, Brandee. Maybe while you're here you and yours can visit. You're always welcome here. See you soon, under more favorable circumstances, I hope.”

He leaves the room, following the messenger. Tyler shrugs and stuffs another rice ball into his mouth, “Yeah, like when we don't have someone from the Black hanging around.”

“Don't look at me,” I throw my hands up, “I just faced off with one, and I'm not going to go head to head with one again any time soon, if I can do anything to avoid it. They're just down right creepy.”

“You fought one?” Jacob's interest piques as people come in and start clearing the table.

I shrug, “We didn't fight. Me and Jesse were on our way-”

“Jesse and I,” Tyler corrects.

I shoot him a look, “Don't remember you being there. Anyways, we're on our way to do recon. We missed our ride, so we called a cab. The cabby goes and takes us somewhere completely off the highlighted route, puling over and getting out of the car to talk to someone hiding in the shadows. He didn't have a stitch of Pressure, which makes me think he was hiding it somehow to make sure we didn't realize he was with the Black.

“But the woman he reported to, she started walking towards the car, her Pressure whipping about her like tentacles. Some reached out and started wrapping around my throat, choking me. It was like she was trying to kill me or something. Jesse forced it then, and I ended up in the middle of your 'Inspiration Room' talking to a rent-a-cop about my supposed drug problem.”

“Ha, Jake. You didn't even need to get on the bus. One showed up in the thick of things,” Tyler jabs a mocking finger in Jake's face.

Jake's brow creases with confusion. “That's not possible.”

“Why not?” I