Reality Heist by Geordi Riker (e manga reader .txt) 📕

For the next hour, the three spin cards back and forth, creating and removing piles, counting how many cards they have left at the end after someone gets rid of their pile of ten and hollers “Blitz!” at the top of their lungs. I join in after half an hour, and the real craziness begins.

I have yet to win a single round, or even get more than three cards off my stack of ten. I roll rapidly through my remaining deck, flipping them three at a time, glancing wildly about to see what's going on. But every time a chance crops up for me to lay a card, one of the others crushes it by laying their own, or yelling Blitz just as my hand rises with a card for one of the piles.

Still, the others make it fun, trash talking each other, calling out for specific cards and colours, pointing out cards on other people's stacks so that they themselves can then lay down three in a row, getting more of their own cards into the pile for  the price of helping out an opponent. Chase and Dutch seem to be alternating rounds of winning with Jesse, who, when he's not winning, is just a lay away from doing so.

I slide a card in just as Dutch reaches the pile with his own, earning me a dirty look as he withdraws his hand and dumps the card back in his pile, reaching for the next card. “Blitzkrieg!” Chase hollers, leaning back in his chair after slamming his last card down.

We all lean away from the tables, shoulders slumping as we let the stress out. Jesse glances suspiciously at the cards in front of Chase. He grins at the look on Jesse's face, “They're all gone, sugar plum, and they're not coming back until we sort out the piles.”

Dutch divvies up the cards of mixed “suits” between us. On the back of each card is one of four pictures, which Jesse has explained to the blue plow, the yellow bucket, the green hand pump, and the red horse buggy. It's a Dutch thing. You flip over a stack and divide the cards into the four suits. The more cards you got into the stacks the more points you get, the aim of the game being to get the most points.

Six blue plows are sent my way, while the rest of the colours have at least twenty mixed in. Chase gives a low whistle as he adds in the new totals, “Petite, if this game went according to Phase ten rules, you'd be winning by a landslide.”

“Shove it.”

Dutch starts laying out his stack of ten, as does Jesse. I just leave my cards where they are, “I'm done.”

Jesse glances up, “Alright, good night then.”

I shove my chair away from the table, grab my bag, and wander through the room. The kitchen slash dining area are set apart from the living room by the different flooring. I turn to the left and make my way down the short hallway. I both doors, and see two rooms decorated exactly the same way, both have two triple bunk beds with an end-table positioned between them. “Oi!” I holler as I exit the one room, “Which room?”

“The one on the left!” Ky hollers back, “The other one's for the guys.”

I shrug and collapse on one of the bunks, dropping the bag to the ground beside me. I glance around the room. Black threads of Pressure seep from the walls, but when I blink again they disappear. A cold chill runs up my spine as I remember Magdalene.

After waiting a few minutes to see if the Pressure reappears, I lie down and try to relax, despite my nerves being set on edge from the idea that one of the Black might randomly appear at any moment and attack me.

How had Hiyori known all that stuff about the Black anyways? I stare at the wood of the bed above me as I try to figure it out. As far as I know, Hiyori can't leave my Inner World. At least, I hope not, because if she can leave that means that she has to be able to get back in somehow, like there's some backdoor, like computer programmers make before selling the program, in case stuff has to be rewritten later or something. And if my Inner World is like any sort of computer program, then that means that it can be hacked; just like any other backdoor, the only thing keeping people out is a password. Get that password and you can do whatever you want in the program.

So maybe the backdoor does exist then. Hiyori always stabs me to kick me out, but maybe there's another way, unless Hiyori stabs herself, like the sword she carries has some sort of magical power to shove people out of that existence and into this one.

For some reason, it seems easier to think about my Inner World and all of the other dimensions as two separate entities, separate existences. My Inner World is like the transition between dimensions, so it can't be classified as just another dimension, especially when the landscapes don't exist in any other  dimensions. Poles that rise out of the water, upside down cities that are unaffected by gravity, that's the sort of stuff you'd find in comic books.

I notice the burning sensation crawling up my leg, emanating from my pocket. I dig out the rock, blinking rapidly as the characters give off a bright light. This rock has something to do with my power. And my power is somehow connected to my Pressure, which is now more concentrated thanks to Hiyori.

I'm insane. I laugh as the thought hits me. Unfortunately, Ky chooses that moment to walk in.

“What's so funny?”

I tilt my head to look at her, “I've finally come to the conclusion that I'm insane. No sane person would accept any of this stuff as reality.”

Ky just shrugs, “Yeah, so?”

“So, I'm insane.”

“So's the rest of the gang, Shrimp. Spouting off theories about time warp, relativistic proportions of anti-matter particles, it's hard to say that you're sane. Sane people are actually the insane ones, believing that nothing greater than they exist.

“On a different note, why are you on one of the bottom bunks?”

“Does it really matter?” I raise an eyebrow at her, my tone suggesting that it shouldn't.

“Only in regards to security. You want to take the highest bunk, so that if any intruders come into the room you can attack them from above if they don't leave. The guys don't have a choice, one of them's gonna have to sleep on a bottom bunk, unless Skip stays out all night.”

“Does he do that often?”

Ky shrugs, “Meh, every once in a while he drops off the grid, only to show up a little while later.”

“Can't you just link up with him?” I ask as I haul myself out from the  bunk.

Ky shakes her head as she tosses her bag up on the opposite bunk, “No, that's  what I  mean by 'dropping off the grid'. He just vanishes. The Link's patchy, so it happens sometimes, like a bad connection or lack of broadcasting points.”

“You make it sound like some sort of cell phone plan.          

“It ain't, but I'm too tired to argue with you.” Ky stretches before launching herself up onto the bunk.

I shove my bag ahead of me before crawling up the frame to reach the top bunk. Ky lifts her head, looks at the light switch and a moment later the room is plunged into darkness with a soft click. Ky shuffles in her bed and gives a loud yawn, “Goodnight. You've got first shift.”

“Huh?”

She turns to face me in the darkness, “First shift. You know, we take turns being awake to make sure that we're not ambushed by some sort of stealth attack.”

“Who would want to attack us in the middle of the night?”

“Boogey-men.” She sounds so serious, as if she's actually convinced of the idea.

I snort, “Yeah, okay, whatever. The boogey-men aren't going to attack tonight.”

“How can you be so sure?” she whispers.

“Because they promised me.”

There's a pause. “Are you in league with them?” Ky asks suspiciously.

I shake my head before I realize that she can't see me, “No, I'm not.”

“Then they were just lying to you,” Ky pronounces confidently, “They never say what they mean.”

“I scared them good,” I assure her, “Backed them into a corner and threatened to burn them alive with pyrokinesis.”

“That would work. I didn't know you were pyrokinetic, though.”

“I'm not, but they don't know that.”

“Oh, good thinking. Goodnight then.”

I lie still in the darkness, listening as Ky's breathing becomes even as she sleeps. Ky's afraid of the boogey-men. The thought makes me smile. The scary hunter with filed teeth and messed up eyes is afraid of something that doesn't even exist. She's always set me on edge, like some sort of invincible warrior who feared nothing. But in the dark, when there was no fight or planning, Ky was just another human being, a kid at heart, still afraid of something. Vulnerable.

“Brandee?” Ky's voice calls out from the darkness.

“Yeah?” I ask softly, ready to set more of her fears at ease.

“You tell anyone about this conversation and I'll make sure the nickname “blood and guts” has a literal meaning for you.”

It's not until the afternoon that I manage to get Jesse on his own. Since this is the dimension a person can only 'force it' to, there's no heist, meaning that we have nothing to do. Skip hasn't come back yet, so Chase took command, and went shopping, grocery list written in Jesse's practically Chinese scrawl in hand. Ky and Amaar left too, muttering something about going to the Y. Dutch dragged himself out of the guy's room around lunch time, took in the scene of a nearly deserted room with Jesse hanging upside down from a corner of the ceiling solving a crossword and me sitting at the kitchen table spinning red holographic lights above the tablet's surface, took a swig of his bottle, and left, dumping his bag by the door.

We both look up to watch him slam the door. Jesse drops from his perch, flipping midair to land on his feet cat-like. I deactivate my tablet with a few quick strokes of my finger across the holographic surface before I turn in my chair to shoot him an eyebrow.

“What?” he asks innocently.

“Explanation?”  I remind him.

“About...?” he prompts.

“Last night, when I came in from my little trip around the city, Chase asked me about snagging a meal from some people I had met. All of a sudden, a certain someone's voice is in my head, telling me to not say anything about them.”

“Must have been your buddy Jinta,” he replies, sitting down in the chair across from me.

“Except for the part where Jinta's a girl and the voice was definitely male.”

“Then it could have been your imagination. That sort of phenomena is not unheard of, you know.” He studies his puzzle, writing down a few answers in his