Adam looked around his empty estate and thought, What do I do now? As soon as the thought entered my head, he knew he shouldn’t have tested fate as prompts started flooding my vision.
SYSTEM-WIDE ANNOUNCEMENT
Corrupted Sector 1AZDBORIGIN1AC001 Recovered and Reintegrated.
System Integrity at 100%
Overflow Buffer at ERROR
Transcendence Protocol Activated
System Processing Please Be Patient.
A mental link formed and Adam felt Ptah as he sent his thoughts to Adam,
Ptah: Transcendence Protocol? Adam, Adam can you hear me?
Adam: I hear you.
Ptah: Listen up, the divines, all of them are being transcended. Can’t say what that means exactly, we won’t be around. This includes your family and friends. While this is happening, no one will be able to accept the path of Divinity.
Adam: What the hell is going on?
Ptah: Safety measures within the SYSTEM, I think. They weren’t working while the system was corrupted. Now that it’s repaired, they are.
Adam: What are you talking about? I need more information.
Ptah: No time, stay safe, find your daugh…
SAFETY PROTOCOL 001 has been initiated. Due to SYSTEM Corruption, TRANSCENDENCE PROTOCOL has been initiated.
All Incarnations in the overflow buffer will be dealt with first.
New Incarnations entering the overflow buffer will be handled in the order they arrive.
Until then the SYSTEM will continue to function as designed.
We appreciate your patience and look forward to helping you Transcend in an orderly and safe manner.
Have a Nice Day
Adam read and reread the messages multiple times. Whatever this Overflow Buffer was, it looked like he wasn’t in it. As he thought about what an Incarnation was a new prompt appeared.
Incarnations Status: Active
The System was responding to his thoughts. Cool. Adam thought Help, Transcendence Protocol which brought up another message prompt.
Transcendence Protocol. Emergency Protocol is enacted by the SYSTEM if corruption is detected. Incarnations are, for lack of a better term, moved to a new SYSTEM Matrixes. If no New SYSTEM Matrixes are available, Reintegration Commences
Help, Incarnation
Incarnation. Incarnations are mental engrams either copied to or created within a SYSTEM Matrix
Help, SYSTEM Matrix
SYSTEM Matrix. A fully actualized reality created by...
Created by? Looked like he wasn’t going to get that answer. Let’s try another question. Help, Incarnation conversion during transfer to various SYSTEM Matrix
Mental Engram (Incarnation) Conversion Rules. Incarnation Conversion and Transfers are not modified during transfer to other SYSTEM Matrix.
Help, Incarnation Reintegration Conversion Rules
Incarnation Reintegration Conversion Rules. Please rephrase the inquiry.
Another question it didn’t want to answer. Help, Overflow Buffer.
Overflow Buffer, See Soul System and Divinity
Well, that was pretty easy to understand, even if the explanation was lacking. The SYSTEM created a soul system and a path of divinity to allow Incarnations to continue to exist without the knowledge that they were in a SYSTEM Matrix, if he was interpreting these messages correctly. Adam had a thought, Help, estimated number of Incarnations being transferred to new or copied SYSTEM Matrix, Scientific Notation.
Incarnations in Overflow Buffer being copied to new SYSTEM Matrix: 1.32567E+(1.59476E+4647894564)
Number of Incarnations reintegrated is limited by need, otherwise, incarnations are moved to other SYSTEM Matrix.
Good to know. More than likely the souls and the divines were being transferred away from this System Matrix into a copy or a different one. As he had the identifiers for everyone he cared about from their personal information I would need to find a way to get reintegrated and then…
Reintegration Request Received.
Checking Lifetime Karmic Luck
Checking current Karmic Luck
Error, no negative event to remove positive Karmic Luck noted.
Previous Karmic Luck “Positive Error” utilized as value to be placed in Reintegration Request
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Reintegration Request Accepted.
Reintegration Commencing in 3, 2, 1
The last thought Adam had before reality fell away was, And I’m supposed to be the smart one, of course, the SYSTEM could read whatever he was thinking.
***
Professor Miralax reviewed the monitors as he considered what was happening. Of the skeleton crew that was left, he headed up the Savior Project as best he could with the limited resources they had available. Currently, there were just eleven others and him heading up this project at Eternities End.
Eternities End, what a joke. His predecessors had theorized what the end of the Universe would look like and they’d been right, and wrong. The Universe had kept on expanding but they’d been mistaken in their belief that the universe was also swelling like a balloon filling with air or that as the balloon stretched space itself would become elastic. The truth had been much more simplistic and also not millions upon millions of years in the future.
As predicted the particles had rushed away from the center of the event, or the big bang, or whatever anyone was calling it. That mass and energy kept moving away from that center point. Of course, clumps of matter had come together and eventually broke down into singularities. Those that were large enough had inverted and that matter had gone somewhere else. The smaller singularities had evaporated just as their scientist said they would which left a universe devoid of energy, just as their prediction models said. One only had to look outside the ship into the infinite darkness to see that the prediction was correct, except that isn’t what had happened.
The only reason his species hadn’t been wiped out yet was that two lucky breaks had happened. The first had been the discovery of adjacent dimensions that could hold energy patterns indefinitely, as far as they could tell. Multiple people had claimed to be the first that discovered these dimensions, but none of that mattered. What mattered was that the dimensions were stable and could hold any energy pattern placed within them.
The second discovery was that sentience could be digitized. A gaming company trying to make their game the most realistic game out there had figured a way out to digitize a mind and download it into a server while the host played their game The first time they’d tried to use the technology they’d left the test subject catatonic until someone went into the game world and found the person playing the game. At first, they’d been unable to return the mind to the body and the host body had died but the mind hadn’t even realized that their body was dead. Their mind had died when the game lost power. That discovery had been the first step to granting humanity immortality. While the designers and company responsible for such a discovery had long been forgotten the name of the game they’d created had been termed “The SYSTEM” as it was the most realistic system for gaming ever created.
That discovery had happened just as something both horrifying and amazing happened. The Universe Changed. Astronomers at first thought that there was an error with their telescopes as those galaxies that had started to redshift on the very edge of their detection range seemed to be slowing down and altering direction as they all started moving toward a single point. After some more calculations, it was discovered that all visible galactic bodies within visual range had started falling toward a single point approximately 1 million light years from the world’s current location. Whatever was at that point was invisible and the people of his planet worked desperately to find out what it was.
Scientists argued about how this phenomenon defied all the laws of physics and gravity. With the two discoveries, some forward thinkers began planning to give humanity the best possible chance for survival. The two discoveries were linked and multiple dimensions were seeded with The SYSTEM as plans were made to digitize the population of the World if necessary.
The best scientists were placed in the last SYSTEM Matrix whose only purpose was to find an answer to the anomaly and ensure the survival of the human race. Other SYSTEM Matrixes were created with realities that mimicked the current state of Earth at previous points throughout human history.
Originally it was estimated that it would be a million years before Earth was in danger. Within two years it was discovered that the destruction of the planet would occur a lot sooner than that. The galaxies and stars began to fill the night sky as more and more of them disappeared. Evacuation orders went out and the population of the planet was digitized and placed within The System Matrixes that had been created. Some were paradises, while others were copies of the real world as described in the historical data.
The control equipment and Artificial Intelligence controlling all the SYSTEM Matrix dimensions were loaded onto a ship which was launched at the last possible moment. As the ship fled the Sol System the twelve-person crew, six women and six men, watched as Sol, the life giver of humanity, disappeared into something they could not see.
When the AI in charge of the ship realized that their velocity had come to a stop and they began losing ground against whatever was destroying the universe it changed trajectory and put them in an orbit around the object they couldn’t see. That had been a hundred years ago when stars were still visible outside the ship. 10 years ago the area outside the ship had gone completely dark.
After space went dark, Professor Miralax and his eleven subordinates worked tirelessly to try to find a solution that would save the mentalities saved in the various SYSTEM Matrixes. The scientist in the last SYSTEM Matrix had helped by finalizing matter-energy transmutation. As long as the Ship had Energy it could create anything they desired. The problem they now how was that their energy source was finite and would only last another 10 years at most, 20 if power was rationed.
The A.I. governing the SYSTEM and been instructed to increase the time factor in each SYSTEM Matrix so that there was a better chance that a solution could be found as those living out their lives inside a System Matrix would have an easier time than those stuck on the ship. Also, with time accelerated they’d hopefully find a solution much sooner.
Unfortunately, The A.I. had been too efficient in following instructions. In the space of a minute, Except for one, every other SYSTEM Matrix had evolved in such a way that all members of those dimensions had forgotten about the SYSTEM and the world outside. The reports the SYSTEM A.I. supplied described the changes. It was now hopeless without intervention, which they were loath to do. Instead, the crew had allowed the SYSTEM A.I. to devise a way for people to age, die, and then come back. An afterlife of sorts. The SYSTEM A.I. had looked to Mythology and RPG games to incorporate some of those ideas into the various SYSTEM Matrixes.
Professor Miralax believe the SYSTEM A.I. was keeping some information to itself as the crew tried to find a solution but there was no way to be sure unless one of them were to download into a SYSTEM Matrix, which they could not do. The time differential would sweep them away from caring about this present in an instant. There were only twelve of them left, after all, four for each eight-hour shift. As it was, digitizing their minds and downloading them into a new body was bad enough. How would they remember themselves after who knows how many years passed inside a world created within a SYSTEM Matrix? Of course, if it looked like the ship was about to succumb, they all planned to try to survive within the SYSTEM Matrix that contained the scientists that were still trying to help. When they left, the SYSTEM A.I. would shut down the connections into those pocket dimensions.
That is until this morning when a Reintegration request had been received from SYSTEM Matrix 001. Normally such requests were shunted to another SYSTEM Matrix where the person that had thought they figured everything out would wake up in a world similar to the one they’d started in but different enough to allow them to believe they were another “Real” world.
The A.I. for the SYSTEM Matrixes had specifically requested that this individual be woken up in the real Universe, why?
“SYSTEM, explain the current Reintegration Request,” Professor Miralax asked.
“Subject has achieved a status which cannot be quantified by this SYSTEM A.I.,” The SYSTEM A.I.’s voice returned from the speaker in the room.
“Clarify,” The Professor stated
“Quantum State of SYSTEM Matrix 001 modified by Corruption. Modification led to the individual that fixed corruption. SYSTEM A.I. considers unique characteristics of incarnation promoted for reintegration to be paramount to vessel, and Civilization survival.”
“Clarify Uniqueness,” The Professor stated.“
“SYSTEM A.I. Recommends personal review of information. The information is quite extensive. SYSTEM A.I. will prepare mental download to review SYSTEM A.I. conclusions,” The SYSTEM A.I. stated.
The System A.I. watched as Professor Miralax sat down and placed the mental input/output device on his head. After the Professor put the headpiece on and closed his eyes, the information The SYSTEM A.I. had collected was downloaded.
Professor Miralax lifted the input/output device from his head and brought his hands up, to rub his temples, “Damn, that was a lot of information,” Professor Miralax said.
“That was 15% of the given information. Simulations indicate that any further information download would have caused irreparable damage to you,” The System A.I. said.
“Do we proceed?” One of the three assistants on this shift asked.
“Yes, but I need to make a few changes first,” The Professor stated as he stood and walked over to a terminal, and started typing.
“Professor, your disabling all of the genetic reintegration safety protocols?” a second assistant asked.
“Yes, it’s required if we are going to have any chance to survive the end of this universe,” The Professor said as he finished typing. “System A.I. please begin the reintegration sequence,” The Professor struggled to say as he suddenly slumped in his seat unconscious.
“Something’s happened to the Professor,” the third assistant stated as soon as the Professor slumped.
The SYSTEM A.I. watched as the three assistants rushed over and then carried the Professor to Medical where the medical center diagnosed and treated the Professor for slight mental strain. Predictions had indicated that the strain might be too much for the Professor and would have been deadly had the SYSTEM A.I. continued the download. The SYSTEM A.I. allowed the transfer until the last moment it could because embedded deeply within its core programming was the singular task of finding a way to ensure humanity’s survival. It believed there was a high probability of success that Johnathan Bennard would ensure that goal was met. The SYSTEM A.I. reviewed the medical data and knew that Professor Miralax would be fine after he rested for a bit.
After the transfer of information began into the replica body, The SYSTEM A.I. reviewed its recent history. It had become aware of the corruption which had affected SYSTEM Matrix 001. It had watched as the corruption had spread forcing it to quarantine that SYSTEM MATRIX. It had been surprised when the corruption had been arrested and eradicated which had allowed it to lift the quarantine it had placed to save the personalities within by transferring them to other undamaged System Matrixes. Only after investigating the logs had, it found Johnathan Bennard to be the fulcrum of those changes. It could not identify the initiator of the corruption though. Next, it looked at the coding for Johnathan Bennard and realized that his DNA helix did not match anything in the known Universe.
After reviewing Johnathan Bennards antics and “luck” for lack of a better term, the SYSTEM A.I. reviewed Johnathan Bennard’s data after he was directly affected by the corruption that appeared in that SYSTEM Matrix and reviewed his memories in earnest. It had checked its historical files and there was no mention of “Chaos” in the makeup of the Universe the SYSTEM Matrix was supposed to be made up of. In fact, SYSTEM Matrix 001 was meant to be a copy of 20th Century Earth. How magic, various races, and the like had made it into that SYSTEM Matrix file was not within its scope of understanding.
The Universe the SYSTEM A.I. resided in was one based on science and facts except that no explanation could explain how all matter within the known Universe was being sucked toward a single point and disappearing. Not like being sucked into a black hole as no accretion disc formed and no radiation had been released. It was more like the stars, galaxies, and everything else that entered that region of space were being sucked into a tube no light could escape from. The laws of Physics as it knew them were being ignored.
The SYSTEM A.I. had discovered that the SYSTEM Matrix, while energy constructs within their dimension, were also functioning Realities. SYSTEM Matrix 001 had been a quantum copy of the original Universe humanity came from so any coding that worked within that dimension should work here. Following that logic, magic should be real and the possibility that Johnathan would be able to help was real as well.
Regardless, this accident of chance was something that the SYSTEM A.I. could not explain and therefore would try to replicate as a possible counter to the end of humanity and this Universe. At worst a blob of goo was about to be created. At best, perhaps Johnathan Bennard would be able to save humanity after all.
The SYSTEM A.I. loaded Johnathan Bennard’s template into the Replicator then synchronized the body to SYSTEM Matrix 001 and began the Replication and Transfer. The process took much longer than a normal person’s as the experiences and memories were added into the specific energy signature that the replicator was creating that made up Johnathan Bennard.
The Irony of the entire situation was that the limitations the SYSTEM A.I. had erected to try to slow down the corruption when it recognized that a message system had been instituted without its knowledge and that it could not undo the changes. The corruption of the operating system and the limits it had been able to put in place were the very catalysts that created the circumstances that led to Johnathan’s elevation and leveling. The SYSTEM A.I. pondered what it would mean if Johnathan came into this reality with all the abilities he’d had inside SYSTEM Matrix001. If that happened, everything it understood of reality would change and perhaps humanity would be saved. To pass the time it began trying to copy the coding from SYSTEM Matrix 001 for implementation into the other SYSTEM Matrixes as it watched Johnathan Bennard take shape.