Samantha Cromwell stood at the top of a rock outcropping at the edge of the dried-up basin where the battle with the Stone Dragon was fought. At the bottom of the dry lake, many small shapes of people worked with heavy machinery to lift the last of the remains of the dragon to be transported to Site A for study. A thin layer of smog hung in the air, hot and dry and without any hint of wind. One day, she thought, one day she would finally be able to distill mana into crystals without the need of a mage to do it, and then she could use said crystals to power machines.

Her eyes took in the sight of pollution with cold detachment, almost resignation.

The dragon, what was left of it, was already proving to be a treasure trove. A lot of promising research was cropping up, advancing both magic and technology, as well as their more exotic combination: magitech.

Suddenly, her phone rang. It was a message from the Lair, asking her to come and check something out. She was simply overseeing the transportation of the dragon scales, enjoying one of the very rare moments of peace between the weight of her new responsibilities, so she had time and said yes.

Taking out a teleportation wand, she depleted its charge and appeared in the central square of Site A. The square was a large, lavish fountain surrounded by lush trees and flower gardens, around which living quarters, modern and sleek, were being built for the increasing workforce of the Site. They were all under Psionic Oath – as she liked to call her personal version of the Suggestion skill she used on them – but having good living conditions was crucial to make sure they were in the best mood to work hard and give their all for the cause.

It also went towards furthering her other plan. Calling it a plan was perhaps a bit much, for it was more an ambition for the far future rather than a plan, but she liked to think that once Earth was saved from the invasion, she could help build a new society for it, and that it would all start from what she was building here: on Site A.

Hence why, other than the labs and houses, she had envisioned shopping malls, little stores, pleasant promenades, lakes and parks for her ‘black’ site.

For now, it was all in the works. Upturned earth and heavy machinery, people working non-stop, following the designs she and the Lair had given them.

She walked to the largest building in Site A, between what would be the industrial and the research district. The Tower. A gargantuan thing, even if it was still just a foundation. When it was going to be complete, it would be an incredibly tall and sleek tower, north of a kilometer tall, covered in grass and vines and trees nestled in little alcoves.

The most important building in the Site, the pulsating heart of the growing city, the command center of all activities, the one single place above everything else (barring the Lair itself, but the Lair was only accessible to a select few). It also housed the portal that led back to the Lair.

Crossing the portal, Samantha was back to the familiar sight of the Warehouse layer of the Lair. What she was met with there, however, was entirely unfamiliar. A status screen.

Custom Lair Quest: Expansion onto Site A

· Provide materials for the Lair to expand its domain and cover the land currently occupied by Site A. The materials can be shipped inside the portal and will vanish without taking up space in the Warehouse. Deliver the following:

· 12.000 4-nm architecture microchips

· High-grade concrete: 600 cubic meters

· Lumber: 2000 cubic meters

· Bricks: 1 million

· Asphalt: 500 cubic meters

· Steel: 200 cubic meters

· Titanium: 3 cubic meters

· Gold: 1 cubic meter

· Uranium: 0.8 cubic meters

· Plutonium: 0.2 cubic meters

· Rare Earths: 80 cubic meters

She rubbed her hands together, and prepared a text to send to her CEO.

***

Samantha stared into the eyes of the dumbstruck researcher. Having a psionic spell programmed to make him loyal didn’t mean that his intellect was diminished, in fact his intellect was completely intact and devoted to the cause, and the confusion was due to Samantha having delivered some very hard pills to swallow in the span of less than ten minutes.

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Being a physicist, the revelation that magic existed, of what it could do, and its implications in the grander scheme of things was akin to a new Copernican Revolution. The sole existence of magic was more worrying and exciting than the concept of dragons made of stone that could soar the skies, although the mention that said dragons came from another dimension made them suddenly all the more interesting.

“Dimensions? As in, other universes?” He asked.

“Dimensions are other planes of existence within the same universe, we think. Other universes are… well, other universes.” Samantha said, the certainty of the tone of her voice not reflected in the actual contents of what she was saying. “The data we gathered suggests that the Lithoids come from another dimension of our own universe, and they can only cross to our dimension through the alignments. Other universes are even harder to reach. The scope of your research will be the latter: other universes.”

“There are other universes…” The researcher echoed. Samantha waited patiently. “Are they different from our own? How? And what’s in them?”

“Anything you can imagine.” Samantha said. “From universes filled with nothing but raw, untamed and untapped energy to universes where entropy is so high it would tip our own universe into chaos. There are universes where the vacuum is true, and opening a portal would mean the end of all that we know. There are universes surprisingly similar to ours, with people in them, just like us. Just like you.”

“True multiverse?” The researcher asked, and his eyes were ready to pop out of his head.

“That, we don’t know. Which is precisely why I am putting together a team with you at the head. You will familiarize yourself with our current portal technology and magic. Then, you will build upon our well of knowledge formulating theories and conducting experiments. Just like you would in a normal lab.”

“I—”

“That is not all. There are differences. You must have noticed the presence of an artificial intelligence governing the systems of Site A. It is not yet capable of manipulating matter within it, but soon it will be. Refer to it as a central database, as a fellow superintelligent researcher, but also use it to set up experiments and to fabricate equipment. It can create almost anything of non-magical nature. The equipment will be created at the Warehouse layer of the Lair for now, and transported to you on site. Soon, you will be able to fabricate things directly here, and to even reshape buildings and structure to suit your needs, going even beyond what’s geometrically possible.”

The researcher hummed, thinking deeply as his eyes slowly lit up. The disbelief lasted only a moment before all sorts of ideas popped up in his mind. “Even build a particle collider?”

“Bigger than anything you can imagine, yes. Eventually. The Lair still has not claimed this site as its territory, though. You will need to be patient and wait.”

“Claimed…” The researcher echoed the word.

Samantha put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “You here?”

The researcher shook his head as if to return to reality. “Yes. I’m sorry, it’s a lot to take in.”

“I know. You will be able to get up to speed by asking the Lair itself.”

“Oh. I will!”

“Good. As for the work you need to do. I don’t expect you to formulate a correct theory right away, but I want you and your team to work fast and test everything you think of. Even the weird ideas. This is not a barely funded university. Here, you have as many resources as you need, perhaps more. Do not hesitate to have the Lair explain how to incorporate magic into your experiments, but do not focus on studying the nature of it. There is another team for that. You following?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Now. Don’t forget caution, but once again remember that this facility is different than your usual lab. The conditions are different, as are the phenomena you are working with. Be creative and don’t let caution pull you back, but always refer to either me or the Lair to greenlight experiments. We don’t want the Earth to vanish into a black hole or something.”

“It’s possible?” The researcher was sweating.

“Didn’t you read science fiction when you were younger? Big Mistake in Hyperion, countless other examples in other works.”

“I always thought—”

“None of that. Magic makes the impossible possible. Now, if you accept the conditions, say so immediately or be replaced.”

“I do, I do. It’s an honor, really, to be working with you on such exciting and awesome things and—”

“Okay, I get it. Transit did a good job selecting motivated scientists for me. Now, off you go.”

The man nodded. Samantha didn’t need to repeat herself twice, because of the psionic spell: it did not force him to follow orders directly, but it did make sure he couldn’t lie.

As soon as he was out of the room, she slumped into the small white chair. Letting gravity do the work for her, she landed almost painfully, but she heeded the pain no mind. Letting out a heavy sigh, her eyes went to her phone, where she stared at a picture of her missing son. A tear rolled across her perfectly unblemished face.

***

“You think this is going to help us find Albert?” Lloyd asked. He was monitoring things from the Control Room, watching the numbers go up as truck after truck delivered inhuman amounts of materials into the portal hidden inside the Tower. After the first quest had been completed, a second one followed, and then a third. Each one of them demanding more materials than the previous by an order of magnitude.

Samantha shrugged. “We need to first get a working framework about how the multiverse functions. I don’t even know if half the stuff I said to the guy is true.”

“It must be.”

“Assumptions.”

“But good ones. Still, shouldn’t you have been more direct in your requests? Albert has been missing for quite a while now.”

“No.” She said. “There is another team on it, ready to proceed with the theories they come up with as soon as they do come up with theories. I need to compartmentalize first and integrate later.”

“Integrate?” Lloyd cocked his head in typical Cromwell fashion.

“Indeed: the Lair processes information and shares what needs to be shared across the teams. It can go as far as making single elements of multiple teams casually meet and mingle in the corridors when needed.”

“Ah,” The old man said. “Ingenious. I would have come up with something similar myself, I’m sure.”

“Of course, you would have. I learned the principles from you. So, what’s on the screen?”

Lloyd sighed audibly. “The bad news…”