Adam felt a knock on his mental door that he usually closed when he needed to let the biological part of himself get some rest. With a thought, Adam opened that mental door to find himself looking back at himself.
“Adam it’s time to wake up?” the other me said.
With that one sentence, Adam remembered where he was, and what he’d been doing before he laid down. Adam realized that he’d keep his Thor Aspect integrated when he laid down. he’d been so mentally drained that he’d forgotten to separate his Thor Aspect from himself. Having realized his error, he released his Thor Aspect.
Thor: I thought that would get your attention.
Adam: How long was I out? It feels like I’ve been out for a bit. Why can’t I concentrate? I haven’t felt like this since high school. Why do I still feel tired? I must have overslept. Why didn’t you wake me up?
Thor: Whoa there Adam. Take a breath. First, I did try to wake you up. You were out. Remember, when you bring us together, you control the body. When I’m part of you, I can only contact you through our subconscious and even that isn’t easy because a lot of me becomes tied up in you. It’s one of the reasons you recreated me remember, so you could let the analytical part of yourself continue working while the meat puppet part could do other things. Even so, I was able to separate myself and run within your subconscious. Could that be an indicator that at some deep dark level you are nothing but a workaholic? Getting off Track. While you were out, I was still able to go through the first manifestations that we absorbed. We only separated the new data out to the Cosmic Crunchers, as I’ve started referring to them.
Adam: Cosmic Crunchers (CC)? That’s rich, but I like it. So, what did you, I mean, what did we learn?
Thor: I would like to review the information that comes back after this next recall before I say. Besides, you’re me, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
Adam: Fine, go ahead and start reviewing what our “Cosmic Crunchers” discovered during our first recall. By the way, how long were we out?
Thor: Not too long, it’s been a week since you laid your head down. While your mind is resilient, and you do have a lot of mental willpower, even you need to rest after focusing for so long. Once I realized that was what was going on I just left you alone and retreated into your mindspace and reviewed what I could from our memories.
Adam: Mindspace?
Thor: You know, that point when your conscious mind just starts to become unconscious. I’m sure you recall Abi discussing this with you when you first met. I’ve just started referring to it as a Mindspace because soul space has its own definition and meaning. I had to bring the various parts of myself together from our subconscious and then move back to that point between our conscious and subconscious. The term Mindspace seemed to fit.
Adam thought about that for a minute, then focused inward. As he did so he realized that this was incredibly easy to do, and he found his Thor Aspect standing in an office room full of terminals that were cycling data at a tremendous rate
“Welcome to My Mind,” Thor said
“Ha, ha, very funny,” he replied because they both knew they were thinking of the song on the Intermix, Phaze Two, Album The Process. Another phrase in that song came to mind; “he never meant to harm anyone” If you could define a techno track as a song. Why had that lyric popped into his mind? His perfect memory always ensured that the information he needed would be at his fingertips as he desired it. Yet, he could not think of a reason he needed to hear those two phrases right now. Something to come back to.
“Where did that thought come from Adam?” Thor asked.
“You asked the question,” Adam responded.
“You know what I meant, why would our mind bring that to our attention?” Thor asked
“I don’t know, but I’ve learned to trust our instincts. Now that we’ve both experienced something neither of us expected maybe we should pay attention?” he asked.
“Agreed, I’ll keep an eye out,” Thor said.
“Good, now what did you find while I was napping?”, Adam asked.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. I just reviewed more of the first 15% we recovered. No surprises, just more worlds where your manifestations were either killed or just living a normal life with minimal impact. There were more captures than deaths which was a promising sign. Also, a very small amount were the live-and-let-live scenarios. The manifestations were doing just fine until we recalled them. Additionally, I also Identified every other world that had a high probability of containing an evil Johnathan. I’ve also Identified every Cosmos where a Johnathan was not present as well as every Cosmos where we were told the Johnathan there was killed or died of ‘natural’ causes. Of course, without verification, there is no way to be sure,” Thor said.
“Anything that might prove to be an issue?” Adam asked.
“No, everything looks about normal for your original Cosmos and the level limits that exist here,” Thor said.
“Okay, get to work on reviewing what our Cosmic Crunchers have been sorting. I’m going to pop back to full consciousness, take a shower, then get something to eat. I’ll check in with you in about an hour, maybe two,” Adam said before he dropped out of his Mindspace and stood up. Adam had his nanites remove his clothing and then stepped into the shower. Sure, he didn’t need to take one, his nanites kept him completely clean, but he needed the feeling of hot water running over his head and down his body to set his mind at ease. Something was bothering him at a fundamental level, he was sure of it, he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
As he stood in the hot stream of water he reviewed what he knew. His subconscious didn’t normally provide him with random data. Usually, there was a reason behind anything brought to his attention. If he thought something like, I want to build nanites from scratch, his mind would bring forth the information he needed, as he needed it. As he completed each step in the process, more information would be made available. All of the information on how to create nanites didn’t just flood his thoughts at all times. The information he needed, when he needed it, was the only information brought forth. So, what had happened to change how his ability worked? Had it changed? Adam checked his Personal Information and no, that Soul Ability read exactly the same.
“Perfect Memory” - Like Photographic Memory except for all five senses with an automatic recall of desired information.
Adam stood in the shower thinking for about 30 minutes while he relaxed, then stepped out. He had the nanites dry and dress him and then headed down to the kitchen where he had the nanites create a steak dinner. Adam hadn’t eaten in 5 years. He was going to enjoy this.
Adam thought about everything he’d learned since being born into the Universe of the Vrax. He had some thoughts, but he didn’t want to jinx them by mentioning them, even to himself. So, he ate his steak, savored the artificial flavors and textures his nanites had created, and enjoyed his meal. Once he was done he cleaned the dining room, went to sit down in his day room, and picked a random movie to watch to give Thor a little more time to review the data they had acquired. “The 13th Floor” started playing on the screen and he watched as the main character realized he was just a construct in an artificial reality. Odd that he’d randomly picked that movie to watch?
An hour and forty-five minutes later as he sat through the credits of the movie, Adam contacted Thor.
Adam: Figure things out?
Thor: You know you can just drop into your Mindspace and we can talk face to face at all times. We’re linked, I’m always there.
Adam: True, but contacting this way allows me to keep track of my surroundings. Also, when I’m there I become aware of all the links we are handling. There are a lot of them. While I can do so easily, it’s nice not to have to worry about them when you are handling that.
Thor: Fine, I’ve been done for a bit, and with the amount of processing power available collecting and correlating data didn’t take long at all.
Adam: So?
Thor: First, a large percentage, almost 80%, of those recalled did not have nanites and your manifestations found themselves on your Earth at any time after your return from being flung into the far future by that Vizier fellow that had tricked Tasha into handing you that ring that tossed you through time.
Adam: What about all the Cosmos where they appeared in preindustrial settings?
Thor: Each and every one of those planets was not Earth. Your manifestation was among other Humans, but the manifestation was not on Earth. One thing I can add with certainty. You can determine, with a high probability of success, exactly how you will react in a countless number of social, governmental, environmental, and romantic settings.
Adam: I bet; how much longer do you need before we can do the second recall?
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Thor: We’re linked to the Cosmic Crunchers, I would suggest that we don’t integrate again. It’s probably a good idea to leave part of us aware of what’s going on around us.
Adam: Sounds good! I’m going to initiate the second recall in 3,2,1…
Adam sent the batch command to recall the 100 new manifestations and watched as Thor went to work. Thor absorbed, sorted, and archived information from each Cosmos effortlessly. While opening and maintaining four portals at the same time initially killed his total mana, knocking out 80% right off the top, he was able to get back to full Mana in short order. The upkeep to maintain the portals was far less than his mana regeneration rate. Since the portals remained open, Thor and Adam remained quantumly linked to an insane number of nanites which provided them with a lot of extra processing power.
As the new information came in and Thor sorted and retrieved the specific information he’d requested from the Cosmic Interface of the manifestation he was reviewing. Thor reviewed that data and started working to decipher the cosmic identifier as well as check for embedded commands within the personal and cosmic identifiers. Reviewing computer coding was normally such a boring and tedious task but as he’d never seen anything like this before he found it quite interesting.
What he discovered was anything but boring. Within 30 seconds he found what he thought must exist. A pattern, hidden within the Cosmic Identifier and the personal identifiers of every Cosmos and being within that Cosmos. With such a large sample size and access to the processing power of four Cosmos plus himself, it was child’s play to decipher the coding that was utilized. As soon as he knew the coding, he was able to enter his personal interface, bypass the security protocols that were present, and the secondary and tertiary security measures that would report such incursions to someone or something he had yet to encounter. There was a string of code as part of those Security measures he’d never seen before.
In terms of encoding, gaining access was extremely hard and required a knowledge of the Personal interface to know exactly what each entry and request needed. Once passed the encoding and security measures access became incredibly user-friendly with help menus and even a limited assistant program that helped the user. Nothing like a true AI or person, more like an Alexa or Google Assistant. Adam pulled up his personal information and reviewed it. The first thing he did was review his Soul abilities. He knew they’d changed when they’d been moved to soul abilities. He wanted to see what the coding for those abilities looked like.
Adam couldn’t view that coding. He could view the coding for all of his other attributes, even Karmic Luck. He could even modify most of those attributes up or down by up to 10% with an expenditure of Karmic Luck. The one attribute he couldn’t adjust was Karmic Luck, that attribute was locked. he could see it; he could see the number which now read “9.999E +99…” Which he took to mean effectively infinite. Adam even went back into the log and reviewed the two commands he’d given for mass manifestations. Even the amount of Karmic Luck expended hadn’t altered his karmic luck by one digit.
While he was ripping apart his own personal identifier he was also able to determine his original Cosmic Identifier. How Cosmic Identifiers worked and the sequence that temporally blocked him. Everything he discovered seemed confusing until he discerned how the Cosmic Identifier was tied to individuals. Not manifestations but copies of individuals that appeared in multiple Cosmoi and the Universes within each of those Cosmos. The manifestation tag was placed at the end. What he decided to call the Soul Identifier was near the front of his personal identifier. His identifier had a 002 at the end of that sequence. Did that mean he was the 2nd?
Adam queried the help function for personal Identifiers
Describe Specific information sought, multiple topics exist concerning Cosmic Personal Identifiers
Adam chose “Cosmic Personal Identifier Numbering system.”
Cosmic Personal Identifiers contain a lot of information concerning persons or beings identified. As a Cosmic Branch Forms a copy of individuals receives an additional unique code to designate that they are not the original. When the first Cosmic Branch forms the first Cosmos adds a 001 to all individual identifiers to ensure each being is unique. No duplicate identifiers are allowed.
Define Cosmic Branch, Adam thought.
A Cosmic Branch is a point in the Cosmic Timeline when an action has been taken that diverts the course of that Cosmos. The new Cosmos is created out of Primal Chaos. Those within the original Cosmos or any additional cosmos created have no idea what has happened. Within a Cosmos, Universal Branches can also be formed as minor changes cause new Branches to form. What constitutes the creation of a Cosmic or Universal Branch is determined by System Code.
Progress. It seemed that the zero point that Thor had found was most likely the origin of the Cosmic Branch. The time when that Cosmic Branch started differing from the Cosmos it was copied from. The identifier for himself identified him as the second version, or from the second Cosmos. Hold on. He manifested a copy of himself to the Cosmos Adaline was in with the sole purpose of checking the Cosmic Identifier. Adam gave the manifestation 30 seconds then called him back and reviewed his memories personally. The cosmic indicator for that Cosmos was the 4th. Using only the Cosmic Identifier he tried to Manifest into the 3rd Cosmos. That Cosmos still existed, and his manifestation was sent but it was immediately destroyed, and the soul shard returned. As he reviewed the memory the manifestation had started to solidify and then been bombarded by an energy type that he’d never run across before. It had saturated and destroyed the nanites and the manifestation through the soul shard had made it back okay. Cosmos 3 seemed to be off-limits. If he had traveled through time and not just created new branches, what had just happened made sense.
He reviewed what he knew, and an idea popped into his mind based on the last season of the show Continuum. Sure, it was science fiction, but the facts fit the evidence he’d acquired so far. There was only one way to check and see if he was right. Adam needed to visualize Cosmos 3 before he traveled back in time to destroy Nox and then manifest into it and watch what happened. To do that he needed to unlock the time travel restriction on himself. Of course, if he was right major changes to a Cosmos were significantly more damaging than he’d first thought. If that were true he’d have to do whatever he could to fix this problem and get reality back on track. Not a lot of humility in that thought, but if he could fix the problems he had discovered, he would.
Adam pulled up his personal interface and went to work bypassing everything using the information he’d discovered. He could not modify his soul abilities. The coding concerning those abilities was hard-locked and he knew any attempt to modify them would set off an alarm and send someone or something calling for me. He didn’t want to mess with who, or whatever, that might be.
Adam took his time and eventually succeeded without setting off any alarms. He was able to modify his personal identifier and unlock the temporal lockout on himself. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath to give anyone that might be responding to his system code edit a chance to respond but nothing happened. Once he was done, he noted that he didn’t feel any different. Now, how to test the changes he’d made?
A portal popped into existence, a copy of himself stepped out, pointed at him, and said, “Travel back in time to this time stamp now!”
Adam willed his intent to travel back in time to that moment, cast the spell, and materialized next to a copy of himself and said, “Travel back in time to this time stamp now!”
The other Adam opened a portal, stepped through and the portal closed. Adam was once again himself. That had worked. How the hell had that worked? Eat your hearts out, Bill and Ted. Obviously, he could travel through time in the Place between Places. With that test out of the way, he focused his will on Cosmos 4 where Adaline was, and tried to scroll back in time to a point before he left. Sure, enough the shadow structures of a point in the past materialized around him and he could step through by Crossing into the Cosmos if he wished. Adam willed himself to do so to see if anything about the Prompts had changed to find out that yes, yes they had.
You have focused on a point in the past of targeted Cosmos. If you chose to cross over to that point a new Cosmic Branch will be created. Would you like to create a new Cosmic Branch now?
Adam thought “No,”
So he could travel into the past within a Cosmos if he could visualize it. With that test done, he thought of the moment he’d killed Nox in Cosmos 3 and the scene came into focus around him. This time he chose to manifest a level 1,000 version of himself into the Universe at that time stamp and sent him through. His mana dropped by 50%. It seemed that traveling through time, even as a manifestation had an additional cost. Also, as soon as he released the manifestation he received a message from Thor.
Thor: Damn, the manifestation you just sent has returned. You need to review this.
Adam: Send it through.
Adam started reviewing his manifestation and living through the manifestation’s life. It wasn’t good. Within a year giant ribbons of energy appeared across the sky. His manifestation traveled to one of the ribbons and performed tests by trying to send nanites into the rift, they were annihilated. As the years went by the ribbons became larger and larger and long before there was ever an Earth the energy flooded the planet Earth and the Cosmos was, he wasn’t really sure what had happened, but he was sure that at that point Cosmos 3 was no longer habitable to life.
It would seem that he was correct. If a temporal change was significant enough Reality would branch and instead of both branches continuing to grow alongside each other, one was cauterized or stopped as the other continued to grow. Adam had effectively rewritten the fates of a plethora of Universes within Cosmos 3 when he’d jumped back in time. That action had led to the Syndicate and the ending of the Syndicate…Adam checked Cosmos 5. Sure, enough in the current moment, there was nothing for him to bring up or manifest into. Then he had a thought he set into his personal interface. Display a visual representation of Cosmos and related branches.
Administration Function: Display Cosmos Timeline and Branch Overlay Accepted.
Within his mind’s eye, a three-dimensional map filled his mind’s eye. Adam was looking at a node, a glowing sphere. There was a line of energy off to the left and a line of energy went off to the right and entered another node. From that node, two lines went off at roughly a 90-degree angle to each other to two more nodes which had one or two lines of energy that went off from them respectively. Adam willed his point of view to back away from the diagram and he fell away showcasing a tapestry of nodes and lines. As he zoomed out he realized that the node he had started looking at wasn’t even the starting node.
Eventually, he found the very first node. It was at the center of a sphere. A number of energy lines left the node in all directions and nodes began branching from there. The node he had started at was towards the outer edge.
Another thing Adam noticed was that some of the areas were colored differently. There were green nodes, yellow nodes, and red nodes. The connecting lines were all a very light blue. In addition, some areas of the diagram were shaded differently. He noticed this because the area of the node he’d started at was in an orange region which started one node to the left of the node he began at and included every branch and node that led off to the right. A few other regions were colored as well. None of them were connected at any point to the orange area his starting node was in. In fact, one of the red areas was on the other side of the sphere from his node’s location.
Was that all? Adam willed the point of view to zoom out and once at the maximum zoom he tried to will the point of view out further and found himself looking at a sphere amongst other spheres. he tried to zoom out further. Until the image he was looking at seemed to flip to a side view and he noted that he was now looking at a diagram that seemed to be composed of layers, kind of like a layered cake. All of the spheres he’d just seen existed on one layer. There were layers above and below the layer those spheres existed on. If Adam’s nanites didn’t keep him in perfect health, he could have sworn he felt a migraine coming on as his mind tried to encompass everything that he was seeing. This was going to take a little bit to get used to.