Instance Ch. 03

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Brooke and Jackson discover the truth.
9.6k words
3.9k
1

Part 3 of the 3 part series

Updated 06/08/2023
Created 11/22/2017
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Hi folks, be warned, there is no real sex in this chapter, just plot and story.

** Please also note, this will be the last chapter of this story I post until the rest of the book's finished. This is to prevent reader frustration with how slowly I'm writing this. **

*****

"We're going to the beach, Jackson. You need to get up."

Jackson grew aware of a chalky smell under his nose. Grit dug into his palms as he opened his eyes and sat up. A cool wind blew across the dry, stony ground that stretched away into the distance. Where was he? The place felt familiar, but foreign somehow.

Dust. Dirt. A desert. He was in a desert and the sun was low in the sky, hidden by a skein of grey cloud.

He got to his feet and looked around and saw cracked rocks. Red soil. Scrubby trees, coated with rock dust.

A cold breeze flavoured the air with the damp of threatening rain.

What desert had rain?

"Jackson, you need to get in the car."

He spun around, his pulse thudding.

A car was parked in front of a cluster of ragged trees. A man leaned against it, not much out of his teens. He was shirtless, dressed in ripped blue jeans, his arms folded. His hair was tousled blond, a wild mess, and Jackson knew somehow that it was stiff with sea salt.

He was waiting. Waiting for Jackson to get in the car.

"Come on! We need to get home!"

Jackson jerked awake in the air-conditioned cool of his new room. His body ached as if he'd been rock-climbing, his fingers stiff and painful. Sweat cooled on his arms, and his chest felt slick where it pressed to the sheets.

He lay still, his pulse still beating too hard, almost paralysed with fear.

Ollie.

He'd dreamed of Ollie again.

Dead Ollie, his body broken on the split rock at the base of the drop.

He shuddered, the damp cold of his dream still touching his skin.

Heavenly had said he'd be safe from Ollie, now that he had Brooke. But he didn't feel safe. Ollie was still there, in his dreams, standing by the car. In that place—a place Jackson didn't recognise, but did.

They hadn't been in a desert. They'd been in a quarry.

Someone shifted behind him, and in a rush, he remembered Blake. Please, let it be Blake. He rolled over, half-afraid of what he might find, and was relieved to see Blake's sleeping form, the sheets pushed down to his waist.

A surge of gratitude filled him that he hadn't woken alone, and he moved closer to Blake and kissed his lover's shoulder, nuzzling against his neck, before closing his lips against Blake's earlobe.

Blake stirred awake. "And good morning to you too."

He rolled over, and Jackson kissed him under his chin, mouthing the underside of his jaw where his stubble petered out.

Still languid with sleep, Blake pushed his hands into Jackson's hair and kept his eyes closed as Jackson gave him a soft kiss.

Since he'd spent the night next to Brooke, unable to sleep for the agony of keeping that distance between them, all Jackson had wanted was someone's arms around him.

The smell of Blake's skin, his hair, the rasp of his stubble as Jackson kissed him, fed that hunger in him. He pressed himself to the other man, knowing sex wasn't an option, but wanting it desperately anyway.

"I feel like you're trying to wear me," Blake teased him.

Jackson's voice choked in this throat. "Please just touch me."

Blake gave him a puzzled look. "What's up?"

Jackson shook his head. He couldn't explain why he felt this desperation to be touched by another human being, just knew it was consuming him.

Blake rolled him over and pushed him back against the pillows.

"You want me to touch you?"

Jackson nodded.

"Any particular... way?"

Jackson shook his head. He swallowed hard around a lump in his throat. "Just touch me."

Blake placed his hands against Jackson's, pressing him into the bed as he kissed him, and Jackson felt the tightness in his chest release.

Blake released his wrists and moved down Jackson's body, running his fingertips down Jackson's chest, following his happy trail down to his thickening cock. He took it in his mouth, and Jackson caught his head.

"It doesn't have to be sex."

Blake came up off him. "Do you want it to be?"

"As long as—" he broke off.

"It won't be the last time," said Blake. "Don't worry."

His mouth closed over Jackson again, and Jackson lifted his hips with a sigh of pleasure.

Afterwards, Blake lay beside him, a hand resting on Jackson's chest. "How was that?"

Jackson shook his head, his eyes closed. He didn't have words for how much he needed just this physical closeness, to have this pause in his life.

Blake lay his head against Jackson's shoulder, and Jackson breathed in the scent of sex and the warm smell of his lover's hair, his skin.

And then, underneath it, the faint scent of rock dust and rain.

He started to shiver, and Blake glanced up at his face.

"Are you okay?"

No, he wasn't okay. Something was coming. He could feel it. And the weight of it was already inside him.

He rolled away from Blake as sobs heaved his body. The smell of rain and dust grew stronger, the heat of Blake's touch melting under the chill of the quarry.

He's coming for you.

The room around him vanished, and he was back in the desert

in the quarry

in the quarry. Ollie stood above him, his hand extended. "Come on, get up."

With a roll of vertigo, the scene changed, and Jackson looked up at the sky, as the ground fell away. He was falling, the shadow at the top of the cliff above him growing smaller, just a black shape against the grey sky.

Someone called his name, static, broken, beamed from another universe.

Falling away from that dark speck against the grey.

And then the ground crashed against his back.

"Jackson!"

Jackson bolted upright. He stared around wildly, a hand pressed to his chest as he gasped for breath, still feeling the impact as his body smashed against the ground.

"Are you okay?" Blake watched him closely.

Jackson fell back onto the bed. "Well, that was fun."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Jackson shook his head. "Really not sure what to say." He wiped at his eyes. "Christ. I must seem like a complete mental."

Blake gave a nervous laugh. "A bit."

Jackson pushed a hand under the pillow to support his head. "I keep having these dreams that someone's after me."

Blake grinned. "Freddie Kruger?"

"Maybe."

Blake lay down beside him. "You should tell Ian. You can tell he's seen a lot of shit."

"Yeah," said Jackson. "I'll talk to him."

But he knew that he wouldn't. Whatever this was, it wasn't something Ian could help with.

"Hey, if I go to the doctor today, if I go on PrEP... will you consider taking this further?"

Blake was silent for a long moment. "Look... yes. I want that. But I want you to take a week to think about it. Then, if it's really what you want to do, and you've been to a doctor and discussed your options, you can fuck the shit out of me."

Jackson laughed. He ran his finger down the length of Blake's body, his wrist grazing his lover's soft member as he stroked his fingers down Blake's thigh.

"Deal."

"Hey, what's the time?" Blake asked.

Jackson reached across the other man and checked his phone. "Just on eight."

"Crap! I have an audition today at ten." Blake rolled out of bed and started pulling his clothes on. "I need to get home and get changed."

Jackson sat up. "Shouldn't you have been rehearsing last night?"

Blake shook his head as he pulled on his t-shirt. "Nah, it's for a TVC. I know my dialogue. I've got a whole two lines, one of which is 'And me!'. It'll be fine."

He finished dressing and grabbed his keys and wallet from the side table, then looked around to make sure he'd collected everything.

"Do you want to get some lunch later?"

Jackson put the back of his hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn. "Text me when you finish up. If Ian doesn't have me working, there's a pub a block from here—"

Blake placed one knee on the bed and grabbed Jackson's wrist, pulling him forward onto his knees. He kissed him on the lips. "No pubs."

Jackson gave him a disbelieving look. "Seriously?"

"Ian said no drinking while you're here, right?" Blake glanced around the room. "You really want to lose all this?"

Jackson had completely forgotten Ian's rule. Christ it was going to be hard. What was he supposed to do to relax? But Blake had a point. He was onto a good thing here. It'd be madness to lose it for the sake of a drink.

"Suppose not."

"Then welcome to the cafe scene, mate. Don't you Brits all love drinking tea anyway?"

"You'd be surprised how much more we love beer," Jackson muttered. But Blake was right. He had to at least try to exhibit some self control.

Blake ran a hand through Jackson's hair and then gripped a fistful playfully, pulling him up on his knees. He tugged his head back. "You do what uncle Ian says while I'm gone, yeah?"

Jackson's eyes went wide with surprise. He said nothing as Blake let go of him with a chuckle.

"I'll text you later."

Jackson sank back on his heels as Blake closed the door behind him, his mind reeling.

What was that?

No one had ever touched him like that before. He'd felt paralysed. And incredibly turned on.

His phone buzzed and he snatched it off the bedside table. It was a missed call from Brooke. He pressed 'call' and held the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Jax, I'm sorry to call you so early, but this is really weird."

Jackson pushed himself upright and sat on the side of the bed. "What do you mean?

"I'm going to start a video call."

Jackson accepted the call, and held his phone in front of him on its side to get a widescreen image. He watched as the camera swung around. Brooke was in a park, with a fence running down the right hand side of it. It looked like a reserve of some kind, not much bigger than a football field.

"Okay, watch this," said Brooke.

The image of the fence grew closer, and the picture jolted as Brooke climbed the fence.

"I can't go any further. Look."

All Jackson could see was a close up of bushes brushing against the phone.

"I don't know what I'm looking at," he said.

Brooke turned the camera to face her. "I can't climb this fence."

Jackson shrugged. "I don't get it."

"Something's stopping me climbing this fence."

Jackson shrugged, confused.

"I can't climb the fence! I can climb up the fence, but I can't climb over it."

"I've got no idea what you're on about."

"Look, just come to me, okay, I'll show you."

"Alright." He was still confused, but he wasn't going to turn down a chance to see her again. "Send me the address."

He showered in under two minutes, got dressed, and collected his car from the parking garage.

A short time later, he pulled into a small car park lined with weeds. Brooke was waiting for him. She grabbed his sleeve.

"This way."

She led him into the park and walked him across the field.

"Here. Right here. Try and climb over."

Jackson recognised the fence she'd shown him earlier. He looked at the ten foot high box hedge that ran along the far side of it.

"I'm not surprised you can't climb over it. There's a fucking great hedge there."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know that, dipshit. Try anyway."

"Dipshit?"

"The sweetest dipshit I know."

She sniffed and wiped at her nose. It was still cold, and Jackson realised his own nose was starting to run.

They reached the fence. It looked very much like a fence.

"So, what are you doing here anyway?" he asked her. "You live miles away."

"I had a dream. Someone told me to come here."

"What?" He turned to her. "Who?"

"Jackson, please! Just climb the fence. Please?"

Whatever. He pulled his hands from his pockets and grabbed hold of the wooden fence posts either side of a section of wire. He climbed up the wire strands and tried to lift his leg over the top.

But as he tried to straddle the fence, he found he couldn't move his leg any further. There was no resistance to push against—more as if he'd reached the natural limit of his hip joint's movement—while knowing that he hadn't.

"What the hell?"

He tried leaning forward and found his head would only fall forward far enough to see over the fence, but some invisible force stopped his muscles there, preventing his body tipping forward any further.

He dropped back off the fence.

Birds whistled and chattered in the trees as he stared at it for a long time, then said quietly; "The edge of the map."

Brooke nodded slowly in agreement. "The edge of the map."

Jackson turned in a slow circle. It was all so real. Just the detail of this empty field was amazing.

He knelt and touched a spear of grass, transferring a jewel of dew to his fingertip. He lifted it to eye level. It glittered as it caught the sun. How could something so perfect not be real?

He gazed up at the tall gum trees that grew along the perimeter of the park, their grey-green leaves punched out against the morning sky beyond them.

He got to his feet and wiped the dew from his finger on his jeans.

"There has to be another explanation."

Brooke shrugged. "Like?"

Jackson stared around. "I don't know."

Brooke took his hand. "You feel real."

Jackson moved his view inwards, concentrating on the pressure of her touch, the heat, and the texture of her skin.

"You feel real, too."

"Maybe we are," said Brooke.

"Maybe," said Jackson. "Players in a game. Or we're in a simulation."

They stood together, hand in hand, staring around.

"But technology hasn't come this far yet," said Brooke. "I can feel everything. I can feel you. Feel my clothes against my skin. I'm cold, and you're warm—we can't simulate that yet."

"Well...," said Jackson. "In this world we can't. Who knows what we can do... out there."

He held his hand in front of his face, traced the tendons that stood out against the back of his hand, the texture of his skin, the fine, dark hairs that ran along his arm.

"It's bloody good," he said. "I mean, the processing power has to be massive."

Brooke cast him a glance. "If this isn't real—why are we here?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" he said. "That is the question."

He looked around the park as he processed possibilities. If they were in a simulation, it had to have a purpose. Could it be running a scenario, with he and Brooke and everyone he knew, running through a preset series of events? Or was it an open world for them to explore, where some inhabitants were 'players', and others were generated by the simulation, some kind of artificial intelligence? And if so—how could they tell who was real, and who wasn't?

Surely the players would know if they were real. Unless... it was some kind of full immersion thing. It was a well-worn theory that the current world as he knew it was some kind of historical simulation. And if people went into a simulation like that, wouldn't they want to experience the atmosphere—all the social constraints and unique uncertainty of living in this era? Something you couldn't do, if you knew you could leave any time you wanted.

"We're real," said Brooke. She let go of Jackson's hand, and shielded her eyes from the sun as it rose higher. "We're questioning our existence—so we must exist."

"Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum," muttered Jackson.

Brooke looked up at him. "And weirdly, I feel like I know you—from somewhere else."

As soon as she said it, Jackson felt it too. That connection—whatever had brought them together... hell, maybe that's what it was. That they knew each other in the world beyond this one. For all he knew they were brother and sister. Childhood friends. Work colleagues. Lovers.

No. Not lovers. He had a sense of love, but whatever it was for him, it wasn't reciprocated. Not in the way he wanted it to be.

Friends then. Or gamers in the same guild.

Gamers...

He thought of the blue car, turning into the street ahead of him and disappearing. Remembered playing World of Warcraft during his teenage years, waiting for the party ahead of his to enter a dungeon. The two groups would never overlap, because each party entered its own instance of the dungeon. A separate version of the same reality.

"That car," he said to Brooke. "What if when it hits that street, it enters another instance of that area?"

"Like joining a raid?"

It amazed Jackson that Brooke always seemed to be on the same page as him.

"Exactly like that. Nine Dobermans, all trapped in one place. What if they were replications of the same dog, all meant to be in different versions of this 'reality'—except something went wrong?"

"And then the system corrected itself," said Brooke. "Maybe that's why you didn't die when you hit that power pole."

"Maybe we can't die in here."

"Maybe. But I'm not testing that theory," said Brooke. She looked frustrated. "We need answers. If we know we're not real, something's gone wrong."

"Well, we are jumping to conclusions here," said Jackson. "We need proof beyond not being able to climb a fence."

Something caught his eye. A soft glow, near the far end of the field. Jackson put a hand on Brooke's arm and drew her gaze to it.

"Look."

"Oh shit."

Something small and pale was lit with a single shaft of sunlight, causing it to glow dazzlingly bright.

They glanced at each other.

"That's never normal," said Jackson, "Rays of light don't usually pick out solitary objects in my world, except when I've got a game controller in my hands."

"You think there's a sarcastic, handsome treasure hunter lurking around here somewhere?" Brooke asked, looking around hopefully.

Jackson grinned and pointed a hand to himself. "Come on. I've got the hair."

Brooke considered him. "I imagine Nathan Drake's probably taller. Sorry."

"Fuck you very much."

They approached the object cautiously, and found it was a piece of paper, trapped against the damp grass.

Jackson bent to retrieve it. Brooke read over his shoulder as he unfolded it.

The sim's called Get Well Sooner—released in 2032 by Sobriety Options Software.

"Twenty-thirty-two," said Jackson hoarsely. Fifteen years in what should be the future. He wanted to think this was all an elaborate joke, but the grass was wet, and the paper was dry, and had been lit with its own god ray.

There's that spray that makes surfaces shed water. And coincidence is how religions get started.

Yes. That was all true. But knowing it was no help to him at all.

"I don't get it," said Brooke. "Why would they tell us? This is like handing us proof."

Jackson looked around the empty field. "That depends on who 'they' are. The guy who broke into your house—he was looking for a way out. And for some reason, he thought you had one. Didn't he say something about a portal?"

Brooke shook her head. "He was talking garbage as near as I could tell."

Jackson folded the note and pushed it into his pocket. He was filled with a high static of anxiety. This had to be a dream. It just wasn't conceivable that he was awake and having this conversation.

Brooke took his hand and squeezed it.

"What do you want to do?" she said. Her voice was dull, and Jackson guessed she was in shock.

"I want to talk to the guy who broke into your house," he said. "He clearly knows something. Can you handle seeing him again?"

"Yes," she said bluntly. "But be warned, any conversation might involve me punching him in the face a couple of times."

"I don't think they'll let you hit him," said Jackson, and Brooke made a disappointed face.

"Brooke?" he said. "You can't punch him."

"I won't hit him," she said grudgingly, and Jackson suspected she was deliberately neglecting to mention all other forms of physical harm she might inflict on the man.