“Status report!”
“Sir, the Frost Maiden has broken the containment!” A man in a white lab coat announced. Red light began to flash around the room. It was a white room with very little adornment.There were four desks and three men, two in white lab coats and one in a ruffled gray suit. They were frantically working behind sleek oval monitors with holographic keyboards.
“Well fuck,” the director stood with his arms clasped firmly behind his back. “What just happened to Earth 694?”
“Frozen solid!”
“Survivors?”
The man in the lab coat shook his head. Damn. They’d failed again. The director paced the plain white room. The light reflected poorly off every surface and every so often the light in the corner would flicker. His eye twitched.
He turned to face another screen operated by the second lab operator. “Sir, she’s headed for another magic-less Earth.”
“Of all the places she could strike, she’s chosen the ones who can put up the least amount of resistance.” The director was frustrated.
His team had been tasked several weeks ago to determine the source of an anomaly that had blown through a planar rift and completely froze Earth 743. No survivors. This was the third world she’d left uninhabitable and their first attempt at containment.
“What about the containment team?”
“They’re all gone.”
“We need to mount a resistance, have we received word back from upper management?” The director asked. He already knew the answer.
Silence. No, of course not. Getting anything done quickly required wading through bureaucratic delays and denied requests at every turn. He hated the paperwork.
“OK, what’s the next Earth she’d headed for?”
“Earth 669.”
He paced back and forth, debating his options. There was no way to get a response team out that fast. Magic-less systems were on the fringes of what they called the Grand Circuit, a system of connected Earths with varying living conditions. Most Earths on the outskirts of the system were disconnected completely from magic, and some science ruled.
“What of the scout leader, Catria?” The director asked.
“She’s on route back to base.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Their best bet was to let the humans on Earth 669 fight for themselves. That would mean diffusing magic into the planet.
The fringe planets were harder to get to and less likely to interact with other systems and were harder to move through. This was because their magic diffusion levels were so low. Every Earth had a ratio of magical particles in the air. More particles meant more magic, a bigger planet, and a variety of magically enhanced animals and other monsters that evolved because of magic. Dragons. Griffins. Leviathans.
The real problem was how quickly the planet would be saturated in magic. In each attempt they’d originally done, monsters had overrun the population faster than the earthlings could adapt to their new powers. Some lasted longer, but in the end humanity had become extinct or had evolved into monstrous races to survive.
“Sir?”
“Activate a grade 9 diffusion spike,” he announced to the other two, “and reroute Catria to Earth 669 after the diffusion.”
They stopped to look at him with both surprised and confused looks.
“But sir, you remember the trials?”
“I know,” he stepped past them to stare at a larger display that he’d activated. A small blue and green planet floated on screen with the words ‘Earth 669’ above it, “but they’re doomed anyway. This will give them the chance to fight back.”
“OK, but what system do we use?” The other science officer asked.
The officer swiped from screen to screen, looking at the data they’d collected from the scan of Earth 669. There were a lot of references to magic, actually, for having so little of it. “They’ve actually invented games that ironically simulate many of the other Earths that already exist. This might just work.”
“How is that even possible?” One of the officer’s asked.
“They are still under the influence of the Grand Circuit, as is everything. They call them RPGs and JRPGs,” he continued. “They are moderately scientifically advanced, but on the verge of a climate crisis. They’ve also developed a penchant for polygonal shapes. Upload the Polygon system into the diffusion spike and send an Arbiter.
“Uploading the latest version of Polygon, 22.”
“Use Polygon 20,” The director corrected. “It’s more stable and comes with a built-in tutorial. It should give the people of Earth 669 their best chance to fight back against the Frost Maiden.
“All set. I have a list of available Arbiters.” The first lab worker handed the director a translucent blue clipboard. “Activate the Dragonpulse Arbiter.”
“ Are you sure upper management is OK with this?”
“We’re giving these people a fighting chance, whether they approve or not. File the order tomorrow morning. Reroute Catria to Earth 669 to scout for anyone who can help defeat the Frost Maiden. The Arbiter tutorial program should partially prepare them for what’s to come.”
The director returned to his desk and approved the launch. He’d deal with the consequences later.
Chances are they wouldn’t even care about this fringe planet. No. They wouldn’t care unless the anomaly came to threaten the inner Earths of the Grand Circuit.
It was done. The spike hurtled across the galaxy, between realms and through time and space itself. It was up to the citizens of Earth 669 to adapt to their new magic and overcome the Frost Maiden.