Book Five, Chapters 130 & 131: Willpower is Magic

🔴 REC    OCT 19, 2018 07:02:45    [▮▮▮▮▮ 100%]

 

We put a lot of planning into this storyline, but there was only so much we could do before we actually entered it.

Even the best plans could be rendered moot the moment you entered a story, and sometimes the best plans couldn’t be made until you got there.

One observation I had made—one that would end up being crucial—was that there were only two main cameramen in the entire story.

Yes, sometimes we would go On-Screen through security cameras or something like that, but the bulk of all screen time was recorded on either my camera or on the camera of the Generation Killer on the other side of time.

Ever since I figured that out, all I could think about was how I might be able to use that knowledge to our advantage. And as Second Blood approached, I was confident I had found an opportunity.

Another observation I made—or perhaps a connection I made—was that as long as you were watching for the Generation Killer on the other side of time, filming from his untouchable oasis in your memories, you would always be able to find him immediately.

It was a quirk of the underlying system.

The moment he entered a scene, you could pick up on it—assuming you were willing to do what it took.

And what it took was trying.

It was natural to me because I brought in a background trope that made me kind of psychic, and that was a big part of being able to see him. In this storyline, psychic abilities meant being able to perceive the time nonsense going on better than normal people.

Psychic abilities, both in trope form and in lore, were Moxie-based.

Generation Killer always lost Moxie checks. He had a trope for it.

Normally, that trope was designed to ensure that if you tried to interrogate him, you’ll end up getting freaked out by how weird he is, but it still applied to psychic powers.

All of this to say: if you tried to sense him psychically, by continuously scanning your memories, you would always succeed. Because he always lost Moxie checks.

So, the moment he started standing in the doorway filming us, I knew about it.

I signaled the others.

“One of us has to get injured,” Logan said. “That’s the only way to get out of here.”

Moments later, banging could be heard from all around the building as Generation Killers fought to get inside. The place was boarded up, but they could still break windows, they could still try to break through the shutters, the locks, the doors.

Eventually, they would get in, and we didn’t have many weapons here to fight them.

I slammed the door to the office closed, and we started piling desks up in front of it. There were two large street view windows on the side of the office that had luckily been shuttered, but we could hear Generation Killers on the outside, banging on them, striking them with tire irons or some other metal implement.

“We have to stay and fight,” Antoine said. “How else are we going to survive? Even if we go to the past, they’ll just follow us there. We need to take some out and hope to lose them.”

“No. They won’t follow you,” I said, speaking as confidently as I could.

“What? Why not?” Kimberly asked.

Looking over in the direction of where the Generation Killer on the other side of time was standing and filming, I said, “They know I lied to them. They know I didn’t tell them the real way to go back before the meteor struck.”

After I said that, the room was silent, but in my memory, I could see Generation Killer talking on his radio.

“What are you saying?” Kimberly asked.

“I think they want to punish me more than they want to punish you. Plus, they have all the time in the world. Maybe I can give you a head start,” I said.

■ STOP

 

On-Screen.

I turned off my camera, knowing that Generation Killer had his camera running. I quickly opened it up and pulled out the memory card.

I handed it to Kimberly.

“Take this,” I said. “People need to know what happened.”

I didn’t want to say why. I didn’t want to give Generation Killer even more motive to chase down my friends. But I really, really needed an excuse to take the memory card out of my camera.

I needed an excuse to stop filming altogether.

Because if I wasn’t filming, someone else had to be, and the only other cameraman was Generation Killer himself. And if he was filming me…

He couldn’t be following my friends around to see where they went. Even if he could travel on the other side of time, I knew he wouldn’t be able to get to them right away, otherwise Bobby would always be where we needed him.

There would be a delay. He would have to search for them. I wasn’t sure how it worked but… it would.

I stuck my camera in the pocket of my hoodie.

“Go,” I said. “Go now.”

The best part about this was that I didn’t have to act very well—because it wasn’t me acting. It was my character laying a trap. And Generation Killers… well, they tend to fall for traps. Always.

Over in the corner, in my peripheral vision, I could see our phantom cameraman talking on his radio.

Around us, the banging continued. We heard glass breaking, boards being busted.

“There’s no time,” I said. “I wish we could come up with another plan, but maybe—if I can help them get back before the meteorite hit—maybe they’ll just leave you alone. They’ve got no need to hurt you.”

Maybe I was playing it too naïve.

“Riley, what if it’s a trick?” Camden said. “What if they don’t actually care about that and they just want to torture you? They could just be messing with us. These guys… they’re crazy.”

“I’ll just have to risk it,” I said. “Just go now.”

From a storytelling perspective, I knew that this was a little weird. My character hadn’t been set up as a hero, or as someone who would fall on his own sword.

Or at least, that was what it seemed.

The others gathered around each other.

“What’s the one rule?” I asked, looking at Camden.

“Event B happens,” he said.

I nodded.

I didn’t look at them as they left. I didn’t see who drew the short straw and got injured enough to trigger their jump into the past—back into 2018, where they could trigger Event B and eliminate all of these Generation Killers.

But as soon as I stopped seeing the red glow of Anna’s necklace, I looked directly at the spot where the Generation Killer on the other side of time was. I made eye contact with his camera—to show that I knew what I was doing, that my melodramatic acting was all for show.

The Generation Killer himself didn’t seem to notice or care. Despite being older, he still had that blank look in his eyes. He still had that strange half-smile—so polite it made you wonder if he was just enjoying freaking you out.

After all, whenever he failed a Moxie check, it would send a jolt of fear so strong it could incapacitate someone.

How much of his behavior was an intentional ruse? How much was scripted? And how much of it was just… him?

It didn’t matter.

We were only standing there for seconds before they started breaking in.

It was almost sad to hear them destroying it.

The building was old, but many of its features were really interesting. Maybe I was just nostalgic for a past I was never a part of, but there were standing columns in the center of the room—a relic of the past, but kind of cool, actually. They weren’t aesthetically beautiful, but they were old, and it looked like you could see the building’s bones directly.

I’d seen them so many times, in so many different eras… I almost felt like I knew this building, like it was an old friend.

They were in the building now, running down the halls. There must have been dozens of them.

The shutters on the windows broke, and I could see legs and arms reaching in, squeezing through the splinters and the shards of glass—just to get to me.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I grabbed onto the column nearest to me with all my might, keeping the jewel from my necklace in one hand.

“Hey, ya fella,” one of the Generation Killers said as they burst through the door, shoving the desks like they were cardboard. And despite them all being virtually identical, I recognized him as the mastermind of my torture.

Of course he was.

“You know, we weren’t done talking to you,” he said.

He had said something similar to Camden.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “What are you going to do? Take me back to your little hideout?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said cheerfully, causing a shiver to go down my spine.

I looked over to where the Generation Killer on the other side of time was still standing, filming us. He was unable to leave, unable to track down the others.

He had to stick around. After all, Carousel could never miss Second Blood and he was the only person around to film it.

I hoped I was buying my friends time.

There were seven or eight of them in the room already. At least a dozen more in the halls outside, waiting to come take me. More and more were piling in.

I supposed they would all fall for this trick—entering the building and sealing their fate.

All of them… except the ones who had seen Camden’s similar trick back at Camp Dyer.

I knew there were a finite number of these guys, even if that number was still huge. So the longer I waited, the more of them there were—the better all of this would work out for my friends.

Finally, as the Generation Killer approached me slowly, letting me savor this last moment with all of my major limbs intact… I knew it was time.

I looked back at where I knew the cameraman to be.

And I laughed quietly.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out that small revolver—the one that had been in the museum as a set piece, the one we had decorated the jailhouse with, the one we had bought from the pawn shop.

I aimed it at one of the Generation Killers and shot him in the head.

“I hope you brought a lot of bullets,” another one of them said. It wasn’t the ringleader. But the more of them there were, the more they all started acting in unison.

“No more bullets,” I said. “Would you believe we didn’t keep a lot of ammo around the museum?”

But I only needed one.

The red jewel in my hand started to glow.

Generation Killer—the ringleader, the one who had overseen my torture—said, “Wherever you go, we’re going to follow you. You can’t escape us.”

I nodded and said, “You have no idea how right you are.”

I held onto the column with all my might as the red light began to envelop not just me, but the entire room. Then it spread further—until the entire building, maybe even part of the street outside, was swallowed in the crimson glow that permeated everything.

For the first time, a look of worry washed over Generation Killer’s face. It reached his eyes. He was truly caught off guard.

“You see, to go back in time, you need a document of a past tragedy,” I said. I started to laugh. “And did you know that this building was built on the exact same cornerstone as the original jailhouse of the Carousel settlement? There’s a plaque on the side of the building that says so.”

For a moment, Generation Killer and all of his clones just stared at me. Then realization struck his face. He grabbed inside his coat for his book, his fingers clutching desperately at his own jewel, hoping to activate it.

But by then, it was too late.

Normally, they might have stood a chance. Normally, he could have used the exact same death to trigger his amulet as I had.

But this wasn’t the normal storyline.

Because in this storyline, Willpower is Magic.

And willpower was based on Grit.

Suddenly, the entire building began to shake as pain radiated through my stomach, yet I held onto the column with all my strength. The building was slipping through time, taking all of its inhabitants with it.

I wasn’t going to let them go.

I looked over at the cameraman, who was now visible to the naked eye—if a little bit transparent.

He was getting the best footage he possibly could.

This time, since I was inside a building, I didn’t expect to see the Shores of Time. I didn’t expect to see the different rivers running around us. I didn’t expect to see the event horizons on either side of the time anomaly.

And yet, despite being inside—I could.

The fourth dimension was weird that way.