A lone man walked into a building. He wore casual slacks, and a button up shirt. It was slightly wrinkled, but not enough for him to be concerned about it. He was only told to be presentable. He wore a sad expression. He had been fired from his job, and could no longer support himself.

The man was John. John stood about 6 foot 3, and weighed about 335 pounds. He had slightly below average looks. Not ugly, just below average. He was ok with work with his hands, but not intelligent enough to work on anything that required intense thinking or creativity.

That was why he was fired from his job. John lived on Earth. In the Sol system, Milky way. Earth had recently started a colonization program for the dozens of planets they had terraformed in the nearby star systems. The trips weren’t even halfway over. It took centuries at PLS (Partial Light Speed) to get to the planets. Of course the terraforming bacteria and plants reached there well before that. The reason for the slowness was the safety features.

DI could do a lot, but even FTL was beyond them. It was said that they worked on AI for a while, but no one really believes that. Many companies have tried, and failed, at creating AI. The best results so far were automatons that responded properly to external stimuli.

The problem with John was that he wasn’t creative or intelligent enough. Mechanoids had basically taken over every part of the workforce that was dangerous or required nothing but strength and precision. Assembly lines produced almost everything one needed.

Even food was printed by 3-D printers now, all you had to do was equip the nutrient cartridges. They could make anything from steaks, to full blown mansions. Human labor was a thing of the past. Because of that though, there was a problem for those with lower intellect. The Mechanoids could do whatever required no intelligent thought, or creativity, with fewer mishaps than humans.

John needed money. He had no family to speak of, and most of his close friends volunteered to be in the space colony program. Even with all of the advancements DI had made, the population was getting to a point where they would consume more resources in a year, than the earth could produce in a decade.

Many of the people volunteered to be test subjects at DI, and the company sent them on the colonization program. Of course there was the potential of instant death if the microbes and plants hadn’t terraformed the planet correctly, but the shuttles the test subjects were on were designed to become a clear dome that could house twice the population while having a constant supply of renewable resources.

John had no choice but to volunteer and hope he got sent to a good planet. Of course DI was experimenting on more than just the terraforming projects, but to get any other job, you really had to piss someone off.

John’s POV

Ok, so I have to make a good impression here. If I don’t get sent to a colony I won’t get hired here, or worse yet, I’d become a test subject for something else!

I looked around the building. It’s a state-of-the-art masterpiece. All of the reception workers are Mechanoids, but they seem more human than any other companies. In fact, they would sometimes rent out their Mechanoids for purposes known only to them.

While I was walking to the reception desk a metallic Mechanoid bumped into me. “Watch yourself robot.” Normally I was nicer, even to them, but I was high strung that day. The Mechanoid with the name EDI engraved bowed deeply before apologizing.

I walked up to the reception desk. “I would like to apply to be a test subject.”

The Mechanoid took a moment to process the information, then said, “Fine sir. If you’ll sign this non-disclosure agreement, this confidentiality contract, this liability annulment contract, this acceptance agreement, and come back then I will be glad to take you to the room to determine what you will be a subject for.”

With an eerie smile, she waved me off. I sat in one of the nearby chairs, along with about a dozen other haggard looking people. DI took people from all walks of life, even homeless or drug addicts. They had programs to deal with malnourishment, and could even cure drug addictions with some weird concoction no one could replicate.

After I signed the papers I returned them to the Mechanoid. When the others were done as well, we were ushered into a room close by.

We were all seated facing a panel of four people. We were asked several questions, and had to answer them rapid paced. The questions seemed to have no connection to each other, but the judges looked to think otherwise.

My name: John. My third occupation after leaving high school: None I was only at two. My younger sibling’s middle initial: Q. My favorite color: blue. The first memory I have that was photographed: a picnic at the hill in Oklahoma.

The others were also being grilled about the random details of their lives. After about twenty minutes of this the judges left to deliberate. When they returned we were all nervous. I was seat number three.

Seat 1: Colony Planet J-5242G (GiroMire)

Seat 4: Colony Planet J-5243G (Galaga)

Seat 2: Colony Planet H-435253K (Kryptonitia)

Seat 5: Colony Planet K-435A (Albatross)

Seat 3: FTL Experimentation

I looked down to make sure. I was seat three. I was too confused to say anything. The only way someone didn’t get on the colony project is if they pissed off someone high up in DI. I had lived a relatively quite life, and never even met a person high up in DI. There was no reason for me to be put in FTL Experimentation.

FTL Experimentation was the worst of all experiments to sign up for. It was brand new, and had only been tried once. The result was a hole through the target planet. The info came straight from the pod that had been sent. The pod continued ever since. It was going about ten times light speed, but its Boson liquid emitters had malfunctioned as it approached the planet.

Boson liquid could theoretically slow anything that went faster than light, but it had never been tested while even the emitter was going faster than light. DI got some flack for that, but they were so big no one could really do anything. The contract the young man signed said all liability would be waved, even if they killed him themselves.

I couldn’t say no though. DI contracts are famous for being unbreakable. Even when there is a new law they maintained that the contracts were signed under different laws, and had to be upheld. Since they owned a large portion of the judges, they always won cases.

Even if I had the money to try to back out now I couldn’t. They would sue me into the dirt. DI are not nice people when they are angry. At least if I had gotten on the colonization program I could have played DIVE for free until the ship got there. The time dilatation was 5:1, but that almost gave a sense of immortality. The massive energy that should have been required was somehow supplied by the pods. No one knew how most of DI’s inventions worked.

I was led to a large room. It was an empty space, with only an egg shaped pod in the middle. There was a glass window, which several scientist types were looking through. A mechanical voice played through the intercom. “Please have a seat in the pod Mr. John.”

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I nervously entered the pod. There was no coming back after this. I knew that, but there was nothing I could do. So I sat down in the pod. At least I got to taste the comfort of a Full Emersion DIVE pod before dying. FEDIVE pods were made of some metal alloy that was stronger than diamond, and only hardened when under pressure.

I closed my eyes, and liquid began to pour into the pod. I started to get frantic, but the scientists watching from the other side of the glass didn’t seem to care. I tried to push the pod open, to do anything that might get me out of this situation, but nothing worked.

I could still here the mechanical voice, as if it were right beside me. “You are being sent to the world Raxacoricofallapatorius, a sister civilization. They have graciously prepared a Boson Field for you.” The voice suddenly cut off as the liquid spread past my head.

I couldn’t move once the liquid completely filled the pod. It was like a cement gelatin. I felt nothing, then suddenly I noticed I was being lifted. The visor slowly went down, just as I saw myself get launched into space.

I felt a tug after a few seconds. The next thing I noticed I was in a room with a man. He was tall, well dressed, and looked pissed.

He squinted at me. “How did you do that? That should have been impossible.”

“EH? What? Who are you?” The space around us looked to be a medieval castle. Maybe gothic architecture. I wasn’t very good at history. Or math for that matter. Or science or… you get the point. I was just an average guy.

The man tilted his head down a bit to look into my eyes. “ME!? ME!?!?!?!” His voice boomed through the castle. “YOU ASK WHO I AM!?” His stare seemed to penetrate my soul. Heavy stuff.

I feebly nodded my head.

“Oh, I’m God.”

That’s right! I entered a DIVE pod. This must be a unique event!

‘God’ shook his head. “No, although they have created a well built replica of a universe, this is not within the scope of DI to handle. Their technologies are pitiful compared to some of the universes I have going at the moment.”

Wait, I thought outside knowledge was banned after someone was abusing it that one time.

‘God’ picked my thoughts up again. “First of all it was changed soon after. Secondly please stop using quote marks in you head. It makes me feel as if you don’t believe me.” He frowned again.

“You see, I am in a bit of a conundrum. I owed a favor to another god for sending me a man named Franklin Roosevelt. I was having a bit of trouble with someone trying to destroy my world at the time.”

I was starting to think that ‘God’ (God began glaring) that God really was who he claimed to be.

“Well technically that’s not right. I’m not really a he. I just chose this form because it was the grandfather of the person I was actually supposed to summon. You think God has one gender? I have multitudes.”

God shook God’s head.

“It’s ok if you use he. Not using pronouns is hard, I understand. I really do have a problem though.”

Obviously the problem had something to do with me being here. “If I can help I’ll try.” What else was I supposed to say in front of someone that powerful. If he was in DIVE he could delete my character. If he was the real God, he could delete my soul.

“Actually souls can’t be created or destroyed. Just recycled. I could do away with your memories though. Hmm. No I think I’ll let you keep them. You have to help me though.”

I eagerly nodded. “I’ll do anything.”

God smiled. “I thought you’d say that. Now here’s my problem. I was using a fifth dimensional summoning to take out a person from your universe. He was to go on to help save another world. Not anything like stopping a demon invasion, the god of that universe doesn’t care about that kind of thing. No, he was supposed to bring a small piece of my power to that realm.

That world is dying. With only a portion of my power I can restore the magic over the course of a few hundred years.”

“Won’t you lose a lot of power that way?”

He smirked and shook his head. “If we were to quantify it, I have about a Googolplexian to the Googolplexian of mana.”

Obviously I had no idea how much that was.

“A googolplexian has a googolplex of zeros behind it.”

I shook my head still not getting it.

“A googolplex has a googol of zeros behind it. A googol has a hundred zeros behind it. A hundred has two zeros.”

“Ah, I get it.”

Basically if every star had a billion planets, he could crush them all and not dent his mana. That’s absurd. Well maybe not for a god.

“Anyway, I regain about a tenth of that every 1/googolplexian seconds. So basically instantly.”

My head started to hurt. Numbers really weren’t my thing.

“Suffice to say I have a lot of magic. I’m only giving a little to the other universe. I’m the most powerful of all godly creatures after all. I’m the only one that can actually create things that don’t require magic to live on.”

That was impressive, I think. I wasn’t really sure since I had never needed magic to live on.

“You are going to take his place. He is going back to his world. Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure to return you to the air craft when you die in the other universe.”

Just before I could say I didn’t want that, I felt a tug. I saw a small black hole. It was somehow shining. I was sucked through while yelling.

“NOOOO I DON’T WAN-“

Words wouldn’t form anymore. I looked around. Three mages were standing around a circle of runes and candles. They at least looked like mages. They wore stereotypical robes, had books with weird glyphs, and held staves.

I was in the center of the circle. Or, well I felt like I was. I couldn’t see my legs!

I tried to scream out, but the only thing that seemed to happen was… nothing. Absolutely nothing happened.

One of the mages spoke. “Glar gredesh. Garing grabal garrbige.”

“Hello?” I tried to say, but again, nothing happened. One of the ‘mages’, the leader if one judged by the excessive amount of jewelry, spoke something I didn’t understand. Suddenly I was pushed out of the circle.

My surroundings distorted. I looked around. The only light seemed to be coming from behind me. I looked to see if it was another candle, or if I had woken from the DIVE pod.

The light source wasn’t there. While I turned around the light seemed to follow in every direction. Below and above were the same.

Eh? It’s coming from me? I saw a small puddle not far in the distance. Should I be able to see this far in this level of darkness?

When I got to the puddle I tried to cry out. I was a Wisp!