Thinking about the ring, Adam wondered how he could best utilize it. He reviewed himself internally and noted that the Solar System and his pocket Earth were both fixed and normalized. It seemed that with his acknowledgment that the nanites were actually chaos, things worked much faster. He was pretty sure it had something to do with the idea he had that as machines his mind was automatically limiting them to how fast he thought they could do something; Chaos could change by the moment which was much faster. Adam still thought of that energy as chaotic nanites, but it wasn’t really, it was chaos that shaped objects to his will and he had almost four Cosmos worth of that energy in his soul space. How large was his soul space?
Adam was getting off-topic. He refocused and created a copy of himself on the Earth within his soul space. He willed the ring on his finger into the hand of his soul space duplicate and opened a portal into his place of power. As the connection was made Amanda, Mom, Dad, and everyone he’d stored away disappeared except for Desirae and Abi. They vanished. Desirae reacted instantly looking around for a threat while Abi did the same.
“Adam, what just happened?”
Adam stood there shocked. He actually froze for a moment, then his mind went into overdrive as he put the pieces together and figured out what must have happened. Adam took off the ring, lifted it to show Desirae what he had, and then tossed it through the portal to her as he said, “That ring will level you quickly. Put it on, get to level 5,000 then give it to Abi and let her level as well. Better yet, try to go to level 5,001, I want to know what the cap is for this Cosmos we’re in.”
“What are you going to do?” Desirae asked.
“I’m going to go check on Mom and Dad. Then I’m going to find Amanda,” he answered.
“You know what happened then?” Abi asked.
“Yes, or at least I have a strong idea. As this Realm collapsed into one Cosmos every entity was recombined with other versions of themselves, including me.”
“Why did they disappear and why didn’t that happen to Desirae and me?” Abi asked.
“I’m betting that my idea to keep you safe behind a barrier of nothing prevented that from happening. When I opened this portal the laws of this Realm affected everyone inside that pocket dimension.”
“Then why are we still here?” Desirae asked.
“Two guesses concerning you Desirae, the first guess is that the planet you were born on, Primore, does not exist within this Cosmos. I find that hard to believe as Cosmos can contain multiple Universe. I would think that it exists here, I just haven’t had the time to find it yet. My second guess, which I think is more likely based on your background and earlier personality, is you’re the last one that survived so there was nothing for you to combine with.” Adam said.
Desirae thought about it for a moment then spoke what we were both thinking, “You think all other copies of me were killed?”
“Yes, I do. Otherwise, I would be trying to find you too. Although, as I think about it, if more personalities existed than the person you turned into and you had to fight for dominance against all of them, let’s just say I’m glad that you are the one that survived,” he said with a smile.
“That doesn’t explain me,” Abi said.
“But doesn’t it? In your case, Abi, the construct that you were did not need to combine with you. They may have existed, but they were not alive, they hadn’t grown as much as you have. In all that multi-universal mess that was just combined, you were unique. Absolutely, beautifully, unique,” he said with a smile that fractured as Adaline and Pandora crossed his mind.
“What is it?” Desirae asked.
“I was just thinking that Adaline was probably not unique. When they were ejected from his Soul Space they’d been holding each other. I’m thinking that there is a possibility that Adaline might have been ripped away from Pandora. On the positive side of that equation, I’m pretty sure Pandora is as unique as you are Abi. If there had been other copies of her they would have appeared.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Abi asked.
“The plan, for now, is to keep you two here in my soul space. The copy of Earth in my Soul Space should be okay for now so you can come and go as you like. I’m going to let Thor see to your needs. He’ll be able to interact with the part of me running my soul space. Once I figure out what’s going on I’ll let you know. For now, use the ring to increase your levels. Both of you. Take turns and stay as close to the same level as you can if levels don’t max out at 5,000.”
“Why do you want us to level?” Desirae asked.
“As I was flying west I saw a winged man near an opening to a cave mouth. Prompts work in this Cosmos so there is some magic. While this version of Earth mirrors my original one in a lot of ways, I think there are some parts of it that I need to learn about. Also, if there is magic there should be dungeons and entrances to the labyrinth. The memories I have from the Johnathan that was from this Cosmos make no mention of magic or monsters. I’ll need to tread carefully as I learn about this world. At least until I’m in a position to do what I always do,” he said with a smile.
Desirae grinned at him, “Fuck shit up!” she said enthusiastically.
“Desirae!” Abi exclaimed in mock shock.
“I was going to say meddle, but your statement is still spot on,” he said laughing. “I’ll stay in contact through Thor, otherwise, have fun,” he said as the body he was running in his soul space dissolved, and he moved his consciousness back into his body on his bed in Silicon Valley. As he came to his senses he noticed that his computer was beeping. Adam checked the screen.
Incoming call from the Santa Clara Police Department
Adam accepted the call since he knew they were already looking at him through the camera.
“Johnathan Bennard?” a young man at a desk asked.
“Yes, that’s me, what can I do for you officer?”
“This is a courtesy call to inform you that your mother and father were in a vehicular accident approximately 3 minutes ago and that paramedics are being rushed to the scene.”
Adam checked his watch, 9:30 p.m. on the west coast, then checked Johnathan Prime’s memories, then snapped his fingers, “They were either on their way to get ice cream or returning from the Baskin Robbins near their home weren’t they?” he asked.
The officer looked over his notes, “That sounds right,” he said.
“Was anyone seriously injured?” he asked politely.
“Not that we can tell, a good samaritan called in the accident and both medical and police personnel are on their way to them now. Witnesses and the footage indicate he lost control and slammed into an intersection pole.”
“Was my father driving?” Adam asked.
“Yes.” He said in a voice that hinted that he was getting impatient.
“I guess I’ll have to speak with his doctor about checking his medication.”
“This brings me to my next question, how will your father be paying for medical care for your mother and him, as well as property damages as their insurance appears to have lapsed? Our records indicate that his medical allowance for this year, last year, and the year before has put him at a negative balance, and without insurance, his income-to-debt ratio indicates he will not be able to cover the costs?” the officer asked ever so politely.
“Please bill me, I will take care of it”
“Sir your credit is not sufficient to cover the costs this accident will incur.” He stated flatly.
Initiating his Affluent ability, Adam pulled out a credit card from his soul space, though to the officer it would appear that it was in his pocket. Adam placed it on top of the computer in a slot that was designated for it. From the look in the man’s eyes, he quickly saw that his credit was good, “I would discern from the shock in your eyes that my credit is good. Please see that all expenses are paid from this expense account. Also, there is to be no discussion with anyone on how I paid this bill. Such loose lips might receive a ‘black’ mark on their performance reports.”
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“Yes, sir right away sir.” The officer stammered.
“Now, if you would be so kind, where are my parents to be taken for medical evaluation?” he asked.
“After they are stabilized you’ll be able to find them at the “Sequoia Hospital,” the officer said.
“Very good, if that is all officer I’d like to end this call now so that I can get on my way. It will take a little while by train to get there at this time of night. Unlike my parents, I do not have a vehicle…
“How…”
“Officer, we all play our part, please remain in your lane,” Adam said as if enjoying a joke.
“Of course, sir. Have a good day,” he said as the connection ended.
Adam monitored the officer as everything, except for the first couple of questions, was erased from the record by the officer. He also noticed that the officers hands were shaking. While he wasn’t exactly sure what was going on in this world, the mention of medical quotas and the attitude the officer had towards people he thought couldn’t pay bills, led Adam to some very bad conclusions about this version of the United States of America. There was nothing he could do about that right now though. Adam retrieved his credit card from the computer, put it into his soul space, and modified his clothing to jeans and a t-shirt with the Ashes logo on it. The change was just slightly faster than his nanites could have accomplished. With a thought, it happened. He was really starting to like the perks of his Chaos Incarnate ability.
Adam left the apartment and headed to the railway that was right down the street. There was one within five blocks of every residence here. From Johnathan Prime’s memories, he learned that a committee had made sure going green was both appealing and practical. There were streets but they were mostly for the ultra-rich and emergency services. They’d removed 83% of all personal cars from the street. His mother and father had one of the few remaining cars, a Nissan Altima, though it had been converted to fully electric. Keeping that car and paying the penalties was probably why they had no money right now. He had his pride after all. Those trips to get ice cream were one of their only guilty pleasures.
Adam lived on the south side of Los South Altos in this iteration which was only 13.2 miles from the hospital. He could have leaped into the sky and been there in a moment, or teleported, but he still didn’t understand all the angles of what was going on, then he paused. He was an idiot. As he stepped onto the electric train, he found a seat, sat down, and closed his eyes to make it appear to anyone looking on or watching him through the cameras here that he was napping. He set his chaotic nanites, or at least the chaos in his system that had the identity of nanites, to overwatch and defense then opened his personal interface. Adam set the review time to instant. He then set the type of information to the current world, specifically: Political, Social, and Economic information, both Macro and Micro level information. Then he initiated that query to his Pansophical soul ability.
Adam focused on keeping his body still and his breathing normal as his mind absorbed terabytes of data. The amount of information wasn’t anything he wasn’t ready for, he was just getting used to being whole again. As the information flooded his mind, A couple of assumptions he’d made seemed to be correct. Someone putting a history book together might have sugarcoated the reality, but his ability just gave it to him straight by pulling the information directly from the Cosmos itself. A few moments later he had the information and started reviewing it.
To start with, China owned everything, and when he said everything, he meant everything. The country had gone through a phase that had allowed other nations to pop up and have small skirmishes but after World War II China had decided that enough was enough and worked to take over every country from within which started in 1951. Magic had just recently come back into the world and the prompts had popped up about 5 years ago. No one knew what to make of them though reports of strange creatures being sighted had been investigated and thus far been debunked by the media outlets. The information he was reviewing told him that monster manifestations were gradually rising and being handled by the military.
A man in England had stepped forward to claim that magic was once again coming back into the world, however, the Chinese had MI6 capture and forward him to Hong Kong where he’d disappeared. Nanite technology was being suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party because they knew such technological breakthroughs would destroy their control over the world.
Economically, every country, save Sweden, owed the Chinese more than their Gross Domestic Product produced and continued to spend more than their taxes generated. People had just accepted that as the price of doing business. The Swedes had remained neutral, and the Chinese had allowed it to show they weren’t complete tyrants, at least those were the thoughts voiced in the upper echelons of power in other nations around the world. By the time those echelons realized what was happening, it was too late. All, save Sweden, succumbed to Chinese influence through Capitalism. Sweden didn’t succumb because it held most of the world’s money, and the interest on those funds kept their small country free of debt to others. Nor was Sweden greedy. The power echelon in that country was more than willing to let China control everyone else and recognized that China’s will would be done. They hadn’t voted against China once in the United Nations since 1965.
As all the information flooded his mind he realized that this Utopia that the Chinese had created would have resulted in the deaths of his parents had he not been able to pay the bills. Those that were sick or hurt and could not heal with minimal care were made comfortable and euthanized. Those that had accidents and couldn’t pay, the same, even if there was no crime involved. The individual served the state, the state did not serve the individual. All the information he reviewed showed him that while stable, this society would collapse with just the gentlest of pushes. This could be fun, though he wasn’t going to try to do things like he had originally. One, that wouldn’t work here. If he tried to use nanites an Electro Magnetic Pulse could easily end that. No, he would need to free the people and then help guide them as best as he could.
While he was thinking about what he would do next, his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and answered it.
“Is this Johnathan Bennard,” Amanda Sifford asked.
“Yes, it is. Is this Amanda Sifford that works for, what was the name of that company again?” he asked.
“Portal’s Inc, yep that’s me.”
“Why am I not surprised? It’ll be a little while before I can talk to you again. Give me about thirty minutes and I’ll call you back,” he said.
“I’ll be waiting for your call,” she said.
Adam put his phone away then manifested a copy of himself into his soul space, then had that copy portal into his apartment and connect to the Laptop while Thor kept his presence unknown to the various watchers that were monitoring his apartment. His copy worked with Thor to find Amanda Sifford, disable all cameras in the area around her apartment then opened another portal right into her apartment room. Adam watched through the cameras as she saw Amanda rush into his soul space toward Desirae and Abi. Thor closed the door behind her, released his direct influence on the Thor infiltrating the networks, and had his copy step back into his soul space as he closed that portal. Creating those portals was eating up a little of his mana but it had been worth it. They had Amanda back.
Adam disembarked the train when it came to the station close to the Hospital. A police officer was waiting for him as he entered and had him sign the bills and take responsibility for them. Once that was done he went up to their room. As he entered his mom looked up and asked, “Johnathan, is that you, what is happening? “
“Yes, Mom it’s me, what do you remember?”
“I remember a lot, but none of it seems real.”
“Me too,” his father said, I have a lot of memories but none of them seem real.
Damn, there must have been a lot more generic versions of his parents than he’d thought. He sent his nanites out to their eight-foot range and disabled all the cameras in the room. Once that was done he cast sleep on both of his parents and then created a bubble of accelerated time in the room. Time would pass faster for the three of them. Adam opened a portal to his Place of Power between both and acted as a conduit as nanites from within linked to him. He placed his left hand on his mother’s head and his right hand on his father’s head and reset both of their memories to the backup he’d created earlier today. Yes, he was wiping the memories of all those other versions of them out but the version of him from this Cosmos was also gone. Yes, it was selfish, he didn’t care. His mother and father would not be drowned out by memories that no longer mattered. Adam also downloaded information concerning this Cosmos and their place in it and told them to play along with the doctors and keep to themselves over the next couple of weeks or months, depending on how long it took him to fix things here.
Once he was finished he had the nanites retract and closed the portal. He released the time bubble and reactivated the camera. Adam went to sit down in one of the chairs beside the bed and the camera in the room came back to life. A couple of minutes later a security guard came to make sure everything was okay, then left. Adam released his parents from the sleep spell and they each took a deep breath, then woke up.
My father was the first to recover as he said, “Johnathan, at some point we’ll need to talk but I think today your mother and I are going to let the doctors run their tests and get some rest.”
“Especially with you two falling asleep like that. Now that I know you’re both safe, I’ll sleep easier as well. If you don’t need me, I’m going to head back home and get some rest. I’ll stop by as soon as he can.”
“Thanks for checking on us dear, we’ll talk more tomorrow,” his mom said.
“Okay Mom, love you both,” he said as he stood and walked out of the room and out of the hospital.
Adam caught the train back to his apartment without incident. He went inside and lay on the bed. Once he was within eight feet he linked to his laptop and took over the global hacking effort. It was only 12:30. The copy of Thor was good, but not level 279,201,353 good. he had almost eight hours before he needed to go to work in the morning to keep up the ruse of being Johnathan Prime. Well, he could do that anyway, couldn’t he?
Adam created the devices he’d first used so long ago when he discovered quantum entanglement. One he placed next to the laptop and connected it to a USB. The other went into his soul space. He really liked the aesthetics of his estate in the mountains overlooking Alamogordo so he had his soul space adjust the underground habitat of the Estate to include a replica of Portal’s Inc. With that done, he could now run things concerning the global network takeover from anywhere. So he couldn’t put his chaotic nanites everywhere. In the beginning, he hadn’t had them either.
The next thing he did was split off a small portion of his mentality. He basically gave himself a split personality, run by a copy of Johnathan Prime. Not so completely that he didn’t know about him. No, just a part of himself that would control his body in the way Johnathan Prime had all these years on this version of Earth. he planned to work in the background and not take overt action until he was ready which meant that Johnathan Bennard, needed to be the Johnathan Bennard from this Earth.
Adam couldn’t do this for his mother or father, he’d wiped those influences from their mind. They should be fine, but he was already hatching contingency plans on how to make them “disappear” without raising too many questions. Once he was sure his Johnathan Prime personality simulator was working properly, he let the body drift off to sleep, manifested himself a body in his Soul Space then went to work.