New Reality: Truth (7 page)

The ground shook again, and the ledge behind them started to crumble. Pulling on Jake's arm, Tom half-dragged him. "We've got to go, Jake."

When Jake tried to stand, his legs gave way beneath him and he hit the floor hard. "Ow!"

Using both hands, Tom grabbed him again. "Come on."

Letting the big man pull him to his feet, Jake draped his arm, and most of his body weight, over his friend's shoulder.

As they hobbled up the hill, the ground shook more and a mini landslide of bricks and debris rushed towards them. When he looked across at Tom, who was red-faced from the effort, Jake said, "I'm sorry, man. I'm a liability. You should have left me."

With his jaw locked tight and his feet slipping beneath him, Tom grimaced. "Shut up, Jake."

When they reached the top of the hill, Tom launched Jake with such force his feet left the ground. Jake screamed as he spun through the air. The breath left his lungs when he collided with a steel girder, and nausea gripped his churning stomach.

Fighting to breathe, he watched Tom sway at the top of the hill and then fall forwards.

After a couple of minutes, Jake found his breath and lifted his head to look over at his immobile friend. "Thank you for saving me. Again."

Tom didn't move.

"Tom, are you okay?"

Nothing.

"Tom?"

"Tom?"

"Tom?"

"T--"

Looking up, a heavy frown crushing his long face, Tom said, "I'm fine, stop fucking barking my name. You sound like a yappy dog."

Falling flat on his back again, Jake adjusted his glasses and stared up into the storm. The sound of destruction over the brow of the hill was moving away from them. Were they safe? Probably not in this fucking world.

###

It felt like only seconds had passed before his view of the sky was filled with Tom, but Jake knew it was a lot longer. The tall man peered down at him, the rage had left his face. "How are you feeling?"

Sitting upright so quickly his head spun, Jake rested his hands on the ground to steady himself. The scarf covering his face made it hard to breathe, but to remove it would fill his mouth with grit. Fighting against his overworked heart, Jake started to cry. "I can't do it, Tom. I can't go any farther."

After tutting, Tom dropped down into a crouch and shoved Jake in the chest.

Jake's shoulder blades smashed against the jagged ground as he fell horizontal. Before he could say anything, Tom grabbed and then lifted his right leg. Pulling air in through his teeth, Jake stared at the sky again and winced.

"What hurts on here?"

"Knee," was all he could manage before biting down hard on his bottom lip.

Tom extended and bent his leg several times, the movement sending stabbing pains through Jake's kneecap.

Grabbing his other leg, Tom asked, "And here?"

"Shin," Jake wheezed as heat rushed to his face, turning his skin clammy. While watching his friend, he gulped a dusty mouthful that tasted like sand.

When Tom rubbed his shin, Jake wailed at the sky. "What the fuck are you doing, man?"

Tom stood up. "They're both fine."

Jake opened his mouth, but Tom cut him off, "I don't doubt they hurt, but nothing's broken. You can walk on them."

More tears stung his eyes, and Jake shook his head. "I can't."

When the ground rumbled behind them again, Tom glanced over his shoulder before looking back down at his friend. "You have to, Jake. If you don't, we're dead. Do you understand that?"

"Go without me, Tom."

Raising a clenched fist, Tom glared down at his friend. "I just risked my bloody life for you. If you say that again ..."

A boom exploded behind them. It was so loud Jake imagined the earth's tectonic plates shifting. As the low thunder of it died down, the hissing of a thousand boiling lobsters screamed into the sky.

Instead of running, Tom looked at Jake and raised his eyebrows. "That was the last one."

"How can you be sure?"

Tom shrugged. "Dunno. But I'm sure." He looked calmer than he had in a long time. He then walked back up the hill, Jake presumed to look at the devastation.

As he watched his friend's back, Jake trusted Tom's assertion that his legs would hold and forced himself to his feet. Once he was upright, he wobbled for a moment before walking up the hill too, wincing with every step as if his bones were made from glass.

Arriving at the top, all he could see was a hole where the ground used to be. It stretched so far and wide it was like staring off a cliff overlooking an abyss. It was so dark, Jake couldn't see the writhing mass anymore. "Do you really think it's finished?"

Tom nodded.

"And," Jake said, turning to his friend, the wind rocking him on his feet, "do you still think nothing was following us?"

Lifting his lip in a snarl, Tom shook his head, turned and walked back down the hill.

***

Although she'd watched Tom walk away from the edge, she still repeated, "Push him. Push him. Push him." Punching her thigh with the repetition, she barely felt the dull thud.

Staring up at Jake as he looked off what was now a cliff, she dropped her head and spoke to her lap. "Half of the city falls and Tom fucking walks away from it. Why can't he just bloody die?"

Lifting her stinging eyes up to see Jake again, she asked herself the same question that had been in her thoughts constantly. Could she kill him when the time came?

Chapter Nine

When Tom stopped and stamped his foot on the rough ground, Jake's frame sagged in anticipation of what he knew was coming. They'd been walking for a day now, and Tom hadn't stopped complaining.

"I can't believe they stole my fucking water. I was trying to save your life, and the bastards stole my water!"

The burn in Jake's legs was easing, but it was hard to get going again once he'd stopped. Slowing down, he hoped Tom would move off to save him the pain.

He didn't.

Grinding to a halt, Jake winced as his joints seized. "Are you sure you didn't bring it back over the hill with you when you came to rescue me? Everything happened quite quickly."

"Don't patronize me, Jake. I left it on the floor before coming back for you. When we returned, it was gone. If you were made of stronger stuff, I'd still have it."

Looking at his friend's long face, Jake shook his head. "All right, Seabiscuit, ease off, will ya?" Leaning down, he rubbed his sore kneecap.

"Don't call me that."

The angrier Tom got, the longer his face hung. Not knowing whether to offer him a sugar cube or an apology, Jake gave neither.

Staring over at the blurred red tower on the horizon, Tom brushed his hair out of his eyes. "They're playing a bloody game with us. They give us hope and then steal it away just to fuck with us."

Jake swallowed the frothy saliva in his mouth. Tom wasn't the only one in need of a drink. "Maybe it rolled away when the ground shook?"

"Why are you sticking up for them?"

"Fucking hell, Tom, rein it in. I'm just suggesting there may be another explanation. Why does everything have to be a fucking conspiracy?"

With his face locked in a frown, Tom stared back in the direction from where they'd come.

Looking at his friend through narrowed eyes, Jake cleared his throat. It brought bitter phlegm onto the back of his tongue. Lifting the scarf covering the lower half of his face, he spat on the floor. "What did you see chasing me?"

"This again? Really? And you think I'm paranoid?"

"I know you're paranoid. That doesn't change the fact that you obviously saw something. All you ever do is look behind you now."

The wind tossed the loose bits of Tom's hair that refused to stay in his ponytail. Turning to face the tower, he threw an arm in its direction. "We've kept that bloody thing on our left-hand side for the past two years. Your plan isn't working!"

"What's that got to do with the things following us?"

"Your plan has everything to do with everything. It's our reason for being."

"First of all, Mr. Ed, do you have a better plan?" When Tom didn't reply, Jake continued, "The idea was to--"

"I know what the idea was, but it hasn't worked, has it?"

Grinding his jaw, the popping of the grit in between his teeth amplifying through his skull, Jake showed his friend his palm. "Hang on a minute, we decided together that we'd do that. We need to stay in Birmingham, remember?"

Tom dropped his head in an impatient nod.

"And we only have one consistent landmark to get our bearings from."

Tom nodded again.

"The reason we need to stay in Birmingham is because we think Rory's still here, correct?"

"Think? What do you mean 'think'?"

"Sorry, Rory's in Birmingham."

For the first time in the past day, the tension fell from Tom's face. "Do you think he's been swallowed by one of the sinkholes?"

Suddenly Jake saw the truth of Tom's anxiety. He shook his head. "No."

"How can you be so sure?" Tom's skin had turned pale.

"I can't, but I think Rory's out there, alive and well."

"And what if he's not?"

Stepping closer to Tom, Jake grabbed his calloused hands and looked into his foggy eyes. "I read a book once called
Man's Search for Meaning
. It was by a Jew who survived the holocaust in a prisoner of war camp."

"What's that got to do with my son?"

"The man was a psychiatrist. The book was his assessment of what he believed to be the reason that some people survived in the camps while others didn't."

Throwing a shrug, Tom said, "And?"

"Meaning."

Tom stared at Jake.

"Those who had meaning in their life--a reason to exist--were the ones who survived."

"And Rory's my meaning?"

"Exactly. The only fact we currently have is that we haven't seen his corpse."

When Tom flinched, Jake raised an apologetic hand. "Sorry, but it's true. The only thing we can assume is that he's still alive because we have no evidence to the contrary."

Looking back over to the tower on the horizon, Tom ground his jaw. "I want to make that assumption. More than I've ever wanted anything in my entire life." Sighing, Tom continued to stare into the distance.

Moving close to his friend, Jake put his hand on his slumped back. "Believe it then. Reality is a choice. Choose your reality."

The silence lasted for a good few minutes before Jake finally said, "So we're looking for a Birmingham City football shirt, yeah?"

Tom was still frowning when he looked up at his friend. Then it lifted and he snorted a laugh. "Piss off."

Grinning, Jake threw his arms wide and the wind smashed into him. Finding his balance, grimacing from the pain in his legs, he shrugged. "I thought you were Birmingham through and through?"

A smile raised one side of Tom's mouth. It was nice to see. "There's only one team in Birmingham, Jake, and it isn't City. And before you say it, it ain't West Brom either!" Looking away again, he sighed. "I suppose none of that's important anymore though. Football used to be a religion for me," he squinted as he looked at the tower, "before all of this."

Refusing to let his friend forget his purpose, Jake said, "So we're looking for red hair?"

"You know what we're looking for. Stop being an idiot."

"And he has a cleft palette?"

Pushing the loose strands of hair from his eyes, Tom didn't reply.

"He's wearing one of your old Aston Villa shirts?"

"And he's going to be about seventeen now." Tom's voice wavered. "Seventeen!" When he looked at the tower again, his eyes welled up. "It's been a year since we've seen him and four since he put that bloody headset on!" He stared at the floor. "Four years is a long time." Looking at the tower again, he shook his head. "Why didn't they leave us alone when we were with them last? They're my family, not the property of Rixon International Limited. Arseholes. Sometimes I wish we'd stayed where we were."

"We would have died if we didn't run, Tom."

Tom regarded Jake with lifeless eyes. He was clearly aware of that fact.

Moving closer, his rusty joints screaming a burning protest, Jake clenched his jaw against the pain and dropped an arm over his friend's shoulder. When he gave him a soft squeeze, Tom's bottom lip pushed out.

"Come on, man," Jake said. "Let's keep moving."

***

Staring at Jake as he hobbled off, leading his friend on, she ran her tongue over her cracked lips. Why did he have to be so kind to his friend? What she had to do would be so much easier if Jake was a dick.

Chapter Ten

The woman's large body was spread over the rocky ground like fresh dough. She was naked save for a small shred of what looked like the remains of a woolen jumper clinging to her wrist. Varicose veins pooled in her arms and her skin was pale.

Looking up, Jake scratched his beard as he scanned the surrounding storm for Bots. There were none. "Have you noticed how there are so many less gamers about now? I swear there were ten times as many only a few months ago."

Without replying, Tom also scanned their surroundings.

"Tom?"

There was a distant look to the man as he said, "Why are we helping them? They're in a better state than we are."

"At least we're conscious."

"Exactly! They're far better off. They say ignorance is bliss, New Reality makes that statement truer than ever. Ignorance is heaven now." He shook his head. "I can't keep spending what little energy I have making the lives of these idiots better."

The woman they were stood over was in her late thirties to early forties. The only thing Jake could be certain of when it came to her physical health was that she was still breathing. Watching her chest rise and fall, he scratched his head. "What else can we do?"

Turning on his friend, Tom's eyes lit up. "Let's try and take her headset off."

When Jake's mouth fell open, he felt grateful for the scarf. If it weren't for that, he'd be funneling grit. Staring at his friend, he couldn't find the words to reply.

Tom shrugged. "So we know how to do it when we find Rory."

"But that might kill her."