Despite how unique my quantum energy threads were, what they had called ‘magic’ in the past world, I was very new to using it. Other than some basic shields, information gathering and a few other tricks I didn’t really have much I could do. This was partly due to how I hadn’t had much time to sit down and play with the threads much. What time I did have to relax had been in a prison where I didn’t want my captors to know I had access to magic or in a rest stop where I could get in trouble for using it.

The result of this was there wasn’t much I could do with it to help. I was about to ask them to look after me while I explored the various configurations of the energy I’d recorded when a man burst into the room.

“Bad news boss,” the man said, slapping a piece of paper on the table. I was surprised to see an image of me, clinging to apparently nothing as I slowly fell.

“They’re looking for him,” he continued, nodding towards me, “tearing the slums apart looking for him too. Multiple SWAT units, police, even some guards from their tree.”

“Why would they go to such trouble?” the old leader of this cell asked, leaning forward to look at the wanted poster. I did the same, only to realize it wasn’t a wanted notice, it was a missing person.

“Do they think I’m a Pharean?” I asked.

“No, you can clearly see you’re human here,” the rebel leader replied.

“He did fall from the tree,” the newest man said, “maybe they think he’s a spy.”

“Or a servant who fell,” the leader said slowly, turning to look at me, “either way that means you could be leaking information to us, as far as they’re concerned, we’ll have to move you somewhere safe.”

“Wait,” I held up my hand, my thoughts racing, “we could use this. They’ll want me alive, to interrogate. Maybe they’ll even take me into the tree. I could gather information for you.”

“Several things,” the leader replied, “first off, once they realize you aren’t a servant who fell, they’ll have no reason to keep you alive. Second, even if you overcome that how will you get the information to us?”

“For the first point, I’m pretty sure they’ll be interested in me either way. Same reason you were, I can show them my ‘magic’ and ask to speak to a leader,” I said, “and it’s only a matter of time before I leave this world anyways, nothing they do can stop that. There’s a good chance I’ll return to this world again in the future, I can then relay what I learned.”

“And if they manage to keep you trapped in the one room, like you admitted people did in another world?” the leader countered.

“They only managed that with magic, which these aliens don’t have.”

“It’s still a big risk,” the older man sighed.

“I know, but I want to help,” I insisted, “as long as I’m here you are in danger. Even if you take me out of the city and far away all that will do is prevent me from helping since I’m the only one who can use magic.”

“I still don’t like this idea,” the man grumbled, “but you have a point.”

“What if he is actually a spy of theirs?” the other man said, “he could tell them about us.”

“We have to move from here anyways,” the leader shrugged, “even if they get accurate descriptions of everyone he’s seen, it won’t help them much. But if we can get even a little information from within the tree…”

“I’m taking most of the risk on myself,” I admitted, “but if they are adamant to find me as you indicated we have to move.”

“Right,” the leader nodded, “best option is probably for you to approach them alone, hands up.”

“And if they track him back to here?” the newest man asked.

“Order everyone to evacuate, we’ll find a new hideout later,” the leader agreed, “by the time they have him we should be long gone.”

“Alright,” the other man said, ducking out of the room.

“Well, good luck,” the leader said, reaching across the table to shake my hand, “I’ll pray to whatever gods will listen for your safety. That’s about all I can do.”

“I just hope this works,” I grimaced, “can I get directions?”

It didn’t take long for the rebels to clear out, they didn’t have many records and what few weapons they had were easy to move. I had to remind myself that this was but one cell of what I hoped was a much larger resistance. Without guns, however, it was difficult to stand up to even a small force. When the enemy could grow metal trees kilometers tall, I could see why they were struggling.

Eventually someone showed me the way out in the direction of where I’d landed and I started walking. The slums weren’t easy to navigate, there had been no central planning, no road network, barely any sense of organization. Often I would find myself in a dead end and have to turn around, being forced to squeeze between two buildings or even climb up and over them in one case. I was increasingly surprised at how far my captors had taken me after putting a hood over my head in this jumble of buildings. It didn’t help that sanitation wasn’t much better, with trash laying in the streets.

But as I got closer, I could hear the shouting and rumble of vehicles as the police raided the area. They paid no need to what little organization there was, ripping doors from their makeshift hinges or even kicking down walls, sometimes causing a smaller structure to collapse. I was nervous and scared, who wouldn’t be, so I thought as I walked about what I could do to help. I didn’t know if the quantum energy could stop bullets, but a shield would make me feel better at the very least. I used the same variant of shield I had to make a parachute, only turning it into a cocoon around me instead of a canopy. It might not stop a bullet but I felt safer.

In my spellcasting I clearly wasn’t being that observant, as before I realized what was happening I was surrounded by men in dark body armor with weapons drawn shouting at me to get to my knees. In a bit of a panic I did as I was told, putting my hands behind my head and trying to look non-threatening. One of the armed men slowly approached me and pulled a photo out of a pocket, holding it up so he could look between it and me.

“It’s him,” he said simply, and all of the sudden I was grabbed by the back of the neck and half guided, half carried into the back of an armored vehicle. A squad of the men in uniform black armor followed me in, closed the door and I felt the vehicle start moving. Quickly judging by how I was being thrown around. Other than the sound of the engine and occasional grunts as we were pushed around by the fast turns it was quiet in the back of the vehicle.

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“So,” I said awkwardly, “how’s it going?”

I’ll admit I was more than a little nervous, I was surrounded by heavily armed people who had their faces hidden by black masks in the back of a vehicle, unable to see where we were going. I justified the question as attempting to get a feel for the situation in my head, was I a VIP they were here to save, or was I a spy they had captured attempting to escape? They hadn’t shot me on sight, which was promising, but beyond that I wasn’t sure what my status here was.

Almost as one every one of the armed SWAT members slowly turned to look at me through their dark masks. I tried to give a friendly grin but after an awkward moment they looked away. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. I was probably asking the wrong people, I decided after another minute, these were the foot soldiers, here to retrieve me under orders. They didn’t know what was going on much more than I did.

Eventually the driver calmed down and slowed the massive, armored car to a more reasonable speed, even stopping regularly. We had to be back in the main part of the city now, I figured, and the tank driver was following road rules now. Not sure why, maybe they weren’t as worried here as they would be in the slums. Or maybe we had an escort now. I tried using the sensors in my collar bone, but those with a range of more than a couple meters were unable to penetrate the armor of the vehicle.

I did notice a growing return from the quantum scanner. After a minute fiddling with it I realized it was a passive field I hadn’t noticed earlier.

I should probably stop to explain at least a little about quantum fields. A full explanation would take years and several degrees, so I’ll do my best to simplify it. Quantum fields are, simply put, the building blocks of the universe. Each field has a specific effect, interacting with other fields and generating the world around us. Think of each field like one color on a digital screen, some are stronger, or brighter than others, and the specific mix of colors forms a unique result. A unique universe.

There are, near as I have been able to determine, an infinite number of quantum fields. Fields that do anything and everything. But most of these fields are inactive, with no energy in them and, therefore, no effect on the world. While other fields are active in almost every world, such as the electron field, and therefore present in every reality. Why some fields are more common than others is a largely unknown, my explanation is that some fields are more stable than others. The electron field is stable, predictable and low energy, where a field that causes, say, people to fly is much less stable. So while universes exist with these unstable fields, no living beings exist in them.

Now, there are, generally speaking, three kinds of fields. Inactive fields, or null state fields, are the ones with no energy in them. They have a value of zero everywhere, don’t interact with others and are effectively impossible to detect. They’re the colors in a pixel that aren’t being used.

Then there are the active fields. These fields have variable energy values from point to point, most often their energy level is close to zero everywhere except for spikes in the fields that are what we call particles. Electrons and Gluons are like this, the electron particles we see are excitations in the electron field above the resting value of that field. All fields have particles like this, but not all manifest them.

Finally, there are the passive fields. These have an energy value above zero everywhere, but don’t vary much. They don’t have particles that take part in day-to-day life. That doesn’t mean they don’t do anything, the Higgs field is the most well-known passive field, it has an even value everywhere but doesn’t manifest particles, called Higgs bosuns, often. These fields most often interact with particles from other fields, altering their properties.

To give more practical examples, my quantum magic came from an active quantum field. It had no energy generally, being in a state of ‘quantum vacuum,’ but the threads of energy I use to do ‘magic’ are particles in that fields, point excitations created by the strange crystals. That’s why this magic worked in other realities, the field might not have naturally occurring particles in any given reality but I can still generate them.

What I was detecting was a passive quantum field, one with a resting energy above zero but no active particles. And as we drove it was getting stronger. This confused me, generally quantum fields were spread evenly across the universe, their resting energies unchanged since the dawn of time. Yet here was a passive field that was growing stronger.

I quickly determined the effects of this field as well, as the field was weaker around every person in the vehicle. Living cells were absorbing the energy of the field. I wasn’t sure to what end but there was something else that drew my attention. This new field also interacted with my magic, the shield cocoon I’d woven around myself was drawing energy from this field much like a living being and growing stronger. Considering the quantum threads were made from bio-electric fields did that mean this new field boosted bio-electric reactions?

I wasn’t sure what this would mean for my spell, and I considered cutting it off, but I was hesitant to give up my only protection. It didn’t seem to be altering how the spell worked, simply making it stronger, so I decided to leave it up and keep an eye on it. In the mean time I observed the effects the field had on the bodies of myself and the other guys in the vehicle. It wasn’t much, not enough for my sensors to pick up, unfortunately, but I could detect my cells sucking up the energy like a man who had gone without a drink for days.

This oddity had kept me well distracted until the vehicle came to a stop and the big hatches opened once more. I was shown out, somewhat more carefully than how I’d been stuffed into the vehicle, and realized I was at the base of the tree. I was in a military compound, the armored vehicle I’d been in parked next to a dozen others, identical to it. Most of the men who had ‘rescued’ me had removed their helmets, slowly walking in what I assumed was the direction of the barracks. A pair, however, remained fully suited up, motioning for me to follow.

Still very aware that they were armed, while I was wearing a worn pair of jeans and button up, I followed them. Strangely they led me towards the tree, eventually leaving the buildings behind to cross a few dozen meters of open tarmac. They walked me up to the base of the massive tree and paused, seeming to wait for something. I, however, was looking up trying to take in the sheer size of the thing before me. From far away it was large, from here it was like I was standing at the base of a mountain. A mouse looking up at a centuries old oak.

Then the silvered metal before us, that made up the massive tree, seemed to flow and part to revel an entrance. My two guards motioned me to enter. I nodded dumbly, walking into the dark cavity, only for the wall to close behind me. I was surprised, I thought my guards would follow me in, but they didn’t. I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, but when I suddenly found myself in the dark I panicked. I reached out, stumbling back towards where the door had been until I found a smooth metal wall. As far as I could reach in either direction the wall remained unchanged.

Taking a deep breath I turned to my implanted sensors. The quantum scanner reported that the strange passive field was far stronger in here, orders of magnitude more powerful, but I ignored that for now. Lidar showed a small room, a few meters to a size, and rectangular. Was this a prison? They hadn’t treated me like a prisoner, and even for aliens this had to be too cruel.

Thankfully, before that train of thought could send me deeper into panic, the room lit up and the far wall seemed to flow away from me, forming a hallway. There were no lights, oddly, the silver walls just seemed to glow. It was an odd effect, but allowed me to see. Following the growing hallway, it opened into a larger room. In the room was a table, a chair on either side and a door on the far wall. I wasn’t alone either, a woman sat across the table from me.

“Sorry about the rough handling,” she apologized, motioning to the other chair, “for obvious reasons we can’t tell the grunts too much.”

I scowled slightly as I sat down, the woman across from me was very definitely human. Short brown hair, fair features, if not attractive, a dark suit. I had thought I’d be speaking to a Pharean, the aliens who built this tree and took over the world.

“There haven’t been any missing persons reports yet,” the woman explained, “which family are you from? If all goes well we should be able to get you back to them in a few hours.”

“Family?” I asked, confused.

“Ya,” she agreed, “or your address would work too. Any thing we can use to get you home.”

“I don’t have a family,” I resplied.

“Sure you do, and I’m sure they miss you,” she said soothingly, leaning forward slightly with a warm smile, “if you want to request your own residence we can do that later, but I’ll still need to confirm your identity.”

“Do the Phareans care that much?” I asked.

“Phareans?” she snorted, “if there are any left on earth they have more important things to worry about.”

“Wait,” I stuttered, “there are no Phareans on the tree?”

“Obviously, you are from one of the families, right?” She asked, suddenly looking concerned, “did you lose your memories when you fell?”

“I… think you should get someone higher up than you,” I replied slowly, “because I’m not from around here.”

“But you did grow up on the tree, right?” she insisted, standing up, “I can feel the energy radiating from you, there’s no way you absorbed that much power without living on the tree.”

I was confused, what power was she talking about. Was she talking about that strange quantum field? I pulled up the results from it and her body was saturated with it, infusing her every cell with power. It seemed to serve as some kind of regulating force as well as amplifier, as if supercharging her. Her muscle fibers were denser and stronger than they had any right to be, her skin tough enough to stop a knife and her eyes didn’t have a single flaw.

I, on the other hand, was still absorbing energy from this field. But the cocoon around me was saturated, radiating like her body did. What she felt wasn’t from me but my shield, and because of that she thought I grew up on the tree?

“You… are mistaken,” I replied, cutting the spell loose and letting it dissipate. In here it wouldn’t do much good anyways, if they wanted me dead I was dead at this point. Her eyes grew wide as the energy dissipated.

“You… are… you’re a normal?” she gasped in shock. After a moment she leapt over the table and threw a punch. She was fast, faster than I thought anyone could be, and the only way to avoid it was to stumble backwards. Nearly falling over before I ran into the wall. She pursued, readying another attack while I quickly wove a spell. Combat shields were designed to be used while under attack, and were quick to cast. Now that I wasn’t falling it was much easier as well. Even still I barely got the spell finished by the time her fist was extending.

I interposed the shield between her fist and my face, and it held. She struck with a lot of force, but it wasn’t more than the shield could handle, especially now that it was absorbing energy from that quantum field.

“How?” she asked, surprised.

Not waiting for her to recover I quickly wove another spell, this one designed to restrict someone’s movement. Throwing it like a net over her as I slipped away she tried to follow but found herself stuck in place.

“How are you doing this?” she asked in shock. Before the fight could continue, however, a new voice spoke up over the intercom.

“That’s enough,” the masculine voice said.

“But sir!” the woman insisted, “he isn’t from the families.”

“I said that’s enough,” the voice repeated in a stronger tone, and the woman quickly relaxed, no longer straining against the magic bindings.

“Would you kindly let her go?” the man asked, and, after casting another cocoon shield, I did as he asked. The door on the other side of the room opened, and the woman took the hint and left, shooting me confused glances. Rather than close, a few moments later a man walked in.

“That was impressive,” he said, making me realize his was the voice from before.

“And who are you?” I asked skeptically.

“I’m General Raum,” he replied simply, “I’m the man who defeated the Phareans.”