Vs Reality (5 page)

New York City
August 26, 2011
2:18 am, Eastern Daylight Time

Heinreich clumsily scrambles back to his feet after being knocked unconscious, leaning on the remains of the pulverized car for support. He gently massages his head as blood trickles from his ears.

Goto narrows his eyes and peers down the alley, watching intently as the glowing rift fades. It abruptly closes with a twisting jolt of electricity, swallowed back into the nothingness that it had been torn from. “Well
that
was extremely disappointing.”

Heinreich gingerly walks towards his partner. He rubs his aching back and hacks out a cough, dotting the street with blood. “Someone must have heard your gunshots. We need to return to the Basement before the police arrive.” The word ‘the’ comes out sounding more like ‘zee’; his accent seems to be more pronounced after being knocked unconscious. He might be concussed.

Goto remains laser focused on the darkened alley, as if staring at the exit point will somehow cause the rift to reappear. “That’s a brilliant plan. Let’s do that: let’s return
without
the cargo.” He turns to face Heinreich, and responds with a deadpan that can only be delivered in a dry British accent. “And when we have to explain to Govinda precisely
why
we’ve returned empty-handed, we can go into great detail about how you were rendered unconscious by a single punch, and how I was disabled by a battery-powered toy that was probably purchased on eBay.”

Heinreich’s eyes drop to his feet. “When you explain it that way, my idea is sounding…not so good.”

“I’m in no mood to get liquefied or have my spinal column removed one vertebrae at a time, so we need to consider alternative courses of action. The problem is that Miss Davenport remains nearly impossible to catch, and we have no intelligence about this new arrival.”

“Or how he did that thing.” Heinreich points to his arm and flexes his bicep. “How he grew? He did it without any pill.”

Just then, Jens stumbles from the side door of Platinum, half drunk and completely confused. He staggers down the stairs and in to the alley, Bole and Brew in hand, stepping right between Goto and Heinreich.

“Donovan!” he shouts, slurring his words, “Cole, man, are you back here somewhere? Need the keys? I thought I saw you come out the side door with—”

Jens is cut off mid-sentence as he’s introduced, once again, to the center of Heinreich’s impressively hairy chest. “Look dude,” he says, gazing upward, “I don’t want any trouble. I’m just looking for my friend: tall, skinny dude with black hair? He’s all messed up…looks like he just walked away from a plane crash? He was in the bar with this hot dominatrix chick with angel wings tattooed on her back?”

Narrowing his eyes, Jens examines Goto, and can’t help but marvel at the fact that he’s brandishing a very large, very illegal handgun, braids of smoke twisting from its barrel. “Hey man, that looks like a gun. What about the ban? Where did you get a—”

His sentence is cut short by an explosive right hand, cracking the side of his skull. One punch from Heinreich sends Jens spinning like a top, rotating before he hits the pavement.

Heinreich scoops up Jens like a toddler, flinging his limp body over his shoulder.

New York City
August 26, 2011
3:47 am, Eastern Daylight Time

Dia and Cole lie naked in her king-sized bed, half draped in silky white sheets. The candle-lit room reflects orange and gold flecks off the fabric, filtering the room with a soft hazy glow.

Still fascinated with his new form, Cole raises a muscular arm overhead, slowly running his fingers along the edges of his intricate snake tattoo. The scales, the texture – it’s incredible how detailed the design is. It’s just like the ink he’d always dreamed of getting done, but had never taken the time. He’d never had the
courage
, if he was being honest with himself. It always seemed so permanent – such a commitment to a single image. He never liked the idea of something he couldn’t change, especially if it was something that turned out to be a mistake. He had enough of that in his life already.

The tattoo, his body, this incredible girl...Cole was still confounded by everything that’s happened in the last few hours, but oddly, he’s not interested in searching for answers. At least not at the moment. After a never-ending streak of bad luck, Cole’s faith in karma has been fully restored. He feels like he’s won the lottery twice in the same day, and isn’t about to start asking why.

Cole rolls onto his side and props himself up on an elbow.

Dia rolls to face him, cheek pressed to her pillow, platinum locks cascading over her face.

They gaze into each other’s eyes, warm and breathless, glistening with a sheen of perspiration. Cole hasn’t been in this position in
ages
. Not sure how to proceed, he asks the question that one person inevitably asks the other in this relaxed, but sometimes painfully awkward situation. “So…what are you thinking about?”

She sighs. “I was just wondering how the universe was created.”

“Huh.” Donovan raises an eyebrow and brushes the hair from his forehead. “You really
aren’t
into boring, run-of-the-mill chit-chat, are you?”

Dia sits up, hugging her knees close to her chest. “I think they have it all wrong. Most science-types have everyone convinced that it was a big bang: one powerful explosion a few billion years ago and ‘poof’, out pops this entire universe. Matter comes first, then comes consciousness, and before you know it people are here on this remote chunk of rock: munching on cheeseburgers, driving SUVs, watching crappy reality television shows – but they don’t know the real truth.”

Cole’s lips curl at the edges. “All right, doctor, so what’s the ‘real truth’? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

She leans in closer. “That this has all happened before,” she whispers.

Cole blurts out an awkward laugh. “Dia, I have no idea where you’re going with this, but if you start babbling about Sea Orgs or ask for my banking information, I’m out of here.”

Now smiling, Dia playfully shoves Cole into the supple mattress and climbs on top of him, straddling his waist. She presses down on his muscular chest with both her palms as if he’s going to try and escape.

He’s more than happy to concede, letting his arms fall to his sides in surrender.

“No, jackass,” she giggles, “I’m not talking about scientology or any other religion. I’m taking about
actual
science here. Try to keep up.”

Cole does his best to produce a serious expression, though his lips refuse to cooperate. “Ah, just checking. Please continue.”

“What I’m saying is that I don’t think that was the
first
big bang. I think that before our universe was created,
another
universe was here in its place.”

“Hmm.”

“And before it ended, everything was probably rolling along smoothly for a few billion years, maybe longer.”

“And then?” Cole asks.

“And then, one night on some little blue-green planet that probably looked a lot like this one, a girl was sitting in her room when she accidentally cut her arm. The pain was sharp, and unleashed something deep inside her. She triggered, manifesting a new ability. After some time, this girl learned to harness and channel her newfound power, and she eventually opened gateways by tearing the fabric of the universe. She kept experimenting with her ability until she could actually walk through these portals if she opens them wide enough, and could move freely from place to place.”

Coles laces his fingers behind his head. “Hmm, this story is starting to sound familiar. Is it about anyone I know?”

Dia presses a finger to his lips. “Wait for it, there’s a twist ending. So, one dark and stormy night she tears the fabric a little too far, and a little too hard. All of a sudden the universe starts to unravel, like pulling a thread from a tacky wool sweater my aunt Margaret would knit me every year before Christmas. This girl knows that if she keeps pulling at the loose thread it will destroy everything, but she can’t stop herself. Deep down, she knows that
her
reality is a big, ugly scab that needs to be torn off before the healing can begin underneath.”

The smile fades from Cole’s face. “And then…bang?”

Dia nods. “
Big
one. The tear gets too great, and the universe swallows itself, resetting existence. Everything we know – the Earth, the sun, stars, galaxies – it all gets sucked into a ravenous void before anyone knows what’s happening. The big bang happens once again, and just thirteen billion short years later, ‘poof’. We all get a new shot at redemption.”

Donovan lifts his head and pushes his elbows behind him, sitting up slightly, but remains pinned beneath Dia. “So that’s the point of this whole thing: we’re all just looking for something inside ourselves? What are we trying to redeem?”

“If I told you
that
there’d be no point in taking the journey.” Dia’s playfulness melts away. Her luminous blond hair fades into darkness, and her eyes start to lose their intoxicating blue shimmer. Her gaze becomes an inky black stare, vast and endless and devoid of hope. “Now wake the fuck up, Sleeping Beauty – nap time is over.” With a crisp slap to the face, Cole awakens.

New York City
August 26, 2011
2:19 am, Eastern Daylight Time

Dia’s plan was for her and Cole to appear on the rooftop of a fifty-story Manhattan skyscraper. It was the location she’d pictured in her mind when she tore open the rift. A solid plan in theory, but in practice their ‘appearance’ was more of a ‘landing’; from a height of about seven feet they burst from the glowing tear, slamming into the marble tiles with a bone-rattling thud. It was as close as she could manage. Teleportation, after all, isn’t an A-to-B proposition – as she’d eventually explain to Cole, it’s more like throwing a paper airplane at a bee from the window of a moving car. It’s theoretically possible to score a bull’s-eye, but more often than not you’re just lucky to come close to the target.

Cole has returned to his natural, unaltered state: thin, wiry, and completely exhausted – and only with a vague memory of the dream he’d just experienced. His cuts and bruises remain healed from his previous transformation, but he has a new set of injuries from the fall. Bumps and scrapes, nothing he isn’t used to. Lying flat on his back, his eyes flutter and he cranes his neck, trying to piece together the events that took place just seconds ago, but now feel like fragments of a distant memory.

Equally battered, Dia comes to Cole’s side, offering a hand to help him back to his feet. Her dark hair is wind-blown, and a streak of dried blood and lipstick are smeared across her face. Her bottom lip is split and her jawbone is starting to show the beginnings of an angry purple bruise.

Taking her hand for support, Donovan regains his footing. “Where the hell are we?”

“The top of my building.”

Cole glances in every direction, each side offering a panoramic view of Manhattan’s glittering skyline. They were definitely on a roof top, but he wasn’t sure how they’d arrived there. “So how did we get…wait, did I pass out? Am I drunk?” He massages his temples in small circles. Memories of his dream (if that’s what it was – he’s still not so sure) float through his mind like a swirling haze. “Did we have sex? When we were back at Platinum did you slip a roofie in my drink?”

“Yes,” Dia replies in a dry monotone. “I found you
so
unbelievably attractive that I drugged you, abducted you, and then took advantage of you while you were unconscious…right here on the rooftop terrace of my condo.”

Cole stares back at Dia for a moment, not sure how to respond.

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry, ma’am. Your delicate sensibilities haven’t been compromised.”

Cole takes a step but his legs turn to rubber. He stumbles, and Dia lunges to grab his arm.

“Whoa, take it easy there, cowboy.” She pats him on the back. “If you’ve never been through a gateway it can be pretty disorienting. Most people throw up the first time through. Some even hallucinate.”

After regaining his bearings, Cole runs his hand along the back of his arm where the large coiling snake tattoo had been, marveling at his unblemished skin. “So wait, how did we get here? And where did that big tat go?”

Dia’s eyes widen. “Wow, that really
was
the first time you’ve ever triggered, wasn’t it? You’ve never manifested before. And the Collectors
really
didn’t have you marked as a target?”

Cole squints his eyes hard, and bends at the waist, cradling his forehead with both palms. His skull feels like it’s been torn open with a rusted hacksaw. With some assistance from Dia, he makes his way to a lounge chair and starts piecing together the puzzling events of the last few minutes. “Okay, just for the sake of argument, let’s pretend I was knocked unconscious twice in the same night, and now I’ve just teleported across the city through a wormhole or something.”

“A rift,” Dia corrects him.

“All right, a rift that you tore open after cutting your wrist…right before asking me to beat the crap out of you. Can you please just slow down and start from the beginning? What the hell just happened back there?”

Dia pulls a chair across from him, the metal feet scraping across the marble times. “Okay, getting punched by Heinreich caused you to trigger: the rush of adrenaline – or anger, or whatever it was – started a biochemical event that altered your physical properties. It’s called ‘manifesting’. Whatever you have buried in your subconscious comes rushing to the surface, and it results in an actual, physical change.”

Cole glanced down at his arm once again, bringing his fingertips to his narrow bicep. “So why did I look different?”

“You mean the jacked arms and the tats? It’s all part of the manifestation process – it’s like your self-projected image. It’s what your ego wants you to look like, or on some level how you see your ideal self. Usually the differences are kind of subtle, though. I’ve never seen anyone triple in size.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “So just because I wished for it hard enough it came true? Wow…when I first heard about that book ‘The Secret’ I thought it was all bullshit, but maybe they were on to something.”

Dia waves both hands in the air as if to erase the confusion surrounding her explanation. “No, no, no, it’s more than just a simple desire. If it were that easy then anyone could do it. You tapped into something primal, and the universe responded.”

“So pain causes it?” Donovan asks.

“Not for everyone. Look, I’m really not the best person to explain all this,” she concedes with a small shrug. “Come downstairs and meet my friends…they’ll get you up to speed.” Dia rises and starts towards the rooftop exit in the center of the terrace.

Cole stands to follow, and hears a crunch underfoot; stone rubbing against stone, shifting beneath his running shoe. Two bullet holes are by his feet, embedded deep into the marble tiles. “Hey, check it out,” he shouts across the rooftop, pointing at the damage. “Looks like we had a closer call that we thought.”

“I’ve had closer,” she smiles. “Come on, we have a lot to talk about.”

As Cole follows Dia through the doorway and down the spiraling staircase, he can’t help but think about his wingman back at Platinum. Just happy to be in one piece, he breathes a small sigh of relief and whispers under his breath, “I hope Jens is having a better night than I am.”