Is It Live Or Is It Subconscious?
Part
4
"Damn," Jerry sighed. "I can't believe this. We are both actually going to be killed by Alan. Not only that, the boy is probably going to continue to live in my body screwing shit up."
"If it makes you feel any better," I offered, "he'll probably stop screwing shit up after he realizes he's gonna have to take direct responsibility for his actions instead of leaving everything for you to take the heat for."
"I'll still be dead by then," Jerry said flatly. "The problem is my death, not the ensuing difficulties arising from my death."
"This is so unreal!" I breathed. "How in the...wait...Jerry, that's it! This is unreal! None of this is real at all!"
"No shit, Sherlock," Jerry replied.
Either you or me," I continued, "is having a subconscious dream about Alan and whoever's helping him..."
"Naomi," Jerry replied.
"What?"
"She made herself look like you, then shrunk me and put me in here," Jerry said.
"And you believed it happened, so it did, see?"
"But Daina, if this is all true, then the minute you decided this was unreal, this whole thing should've collapsed."
"Then that means I'm not having this dream," I said. "You are."
"Me?" Jerry sat up in disbelief.
"Did you ever decide this was unreal?"
"Yes!" Jerry said. I looked at him in surprise. That wasn't the answer I was expecting.
"Well, then maybe it's just more complex than that," I said, wanting desperately to cling to my theory.
"Fine," said Jerry calmly. "Uncreate everything...no, just pick one thing to uncreate." We sat in silence for a moment while I tried for the millionth time to make this horrible dream go away, then Jerry got in my face and said, "You see? Nothing is happening! Now, for the last time, dammit, this is real, so deal with it already!"
"Alright!" I snapped, pushing him back. "Don't get your briefs in a bunch." Another sulky silence ensued before Jerry asked,
"Doesn't Naomi die if you do?"
"Yes." I answered simply.
"Then wouldn't this be in her worst interest to kill you?"
I paused. "Well, now, nobody ever said she personally was killing anybody," I thought aloud. "Or if she even knows about me getting killed."
"That's true," Jerry nodded. "But Alan is not kidding. He can live without me by just taking over my body."
"So, wait," I said, suddenly excited. "If Naomi doens't really know about me, dying, then they might not be in total agreement on this."
"Or on anything except bugging us," Jerry added.
"So..."
"If we pit them against each other..."
"Alan won't have any magic to use..."
"And Naomi'll be so pissed that she won't hang with him anymore!"
"She might even let us go to piss him off!"
Jerry and I grinned at each other. Getting people pissed off, including each other, was what we did best.
Outside the box, Alan & Naomi were returning now talking to each other. "I want to take them out and watch them die," Alan was saying to Naomi.
"So take them out," Naomi replied sullenly. Her voice sounded farther away, as if she were standing across the room.
"Unlike you," Alan said sarcastically, "I don't take silly chances. Put them to sleep before I take them out."
Naomi groaned irritably and Jerry and I looked at each other. It was now or never. "You can't put us to sleep yourself, Alan?" Jerry called tauntingly.
Mentally, I was saying to
Naomi, You know what happens if I die? You die, too.
Nothing happened to me
the last time, Naomi returned. I frowned, realizing that when I had lost
all of my memory (including people like Naomi and Christine) before after
Corwin nearly killed me, I had recreated everything the way it was before I'd
nearly died. Naomi, like almost everyone else, would remember nothing about
being nonexistent for a while. Besides, she added. A deal's a deal.
He won our bet, so he got to pick what happens to you.
Well, are you just gonna let him boss you around like that?, I asked.
"I don't have time to fuck around with that kinda tinkerbell magic shit," muttered Alan, finally answering Jerry's question.
"WHAT???" Naomi demanded.
Bingo.
The combination of being told what to do and having her power insulted had just sent my dear little sprite alter ego off the deep end. "What did you say about my magic?" she said, her voice coming closer.
"You heard me," said Alan. "That magic shit is for pussies and bitches like you."
Naomi started to chuckle ever so slightly and I knew then that Alan had stepped deep into it. "Oh, you have definitely asked for it, kid," she said, a smile in her voice.
Alan snorted in derision. "Don't even try to play that shit with me, 'cause I don't have time for it."
Half of this tough guy line came from the inside of the box Jerry and I were in. We both looked around to the other side of the box to find a shocked and wholly surprised Alan standing about 10 feet from us.
"Alan!" said Jerry, with a grin. "Imagine meeting you here!"
"It's good to see you again so soon," I added, with my own smile.
I have to give the boy credit. I would've openly lost all my cool had my position of power been so quickly stripped, but not Alan. He made a move as if to conjure up one of his knives again and nothing happened. By now, Jerry and I had stood up to watch him. "What happened?" I asked, dripping with false sympathy. "No knives for the baby to play with?"
"Why?" Alan demanded, looking at me as if I took them.
"Is he in there?" Naomi asked us.
"Oh, he's in here, alright," Jerry replied.
"Without cutlery," I added.
"Yeah, um, Alan, man, I forgot to tell you since this is Dee's side, all the neat little things you were doing with the knives and shit were all me helping you," said Naomi, sounding as if she were almost sorry she'd neglected to give him this important detail.
Almost.
"So we've been in my head all this time?" I asked. "See, I knew it!"
"Yeah, but far enough in that my spells work on you," Naomi agreed.
"Lemme have a word with you for a minute," Jerry said, grabbing Alan by his collar and jacking him up against the wall.
To both our surprise, Alan disappeared the moment his body hit the wall. "Oh, wait," Jerry said. "He is still just a ghost. He probably just went back to my body."
"Hey, so we can come out now?" I asked.
"Well, I'm still thinkin' about that one..." Naomi said.
"Bitch...!" I began.
"Well, you gotta promise not to be pissed," Naomi said. "The sprite thing made me do it and I did save your life, after all."
I frowned. No matter what her reasons were, she had done that, at least. "Okay, no pissed off-edness." Jerry gave me a questioning look and I whispered. "Trust me, I will be in a very good mood when I make her suffer for this."
"You swear?" she said, not hearing my last comment.
"I give you my word," I smiled. "Now get us out of here before I change my mind!"
"Okay, okay, come out already!" she said grudgingly. "Spell's off the box."