Erika Johansson sat on her couch and picked up the remote on the table. As she moved to click a button she froze as the Eterium nanites in her body locked her up. If Erika could have interpreted the machine code that had taken her over it would have looked like this.
Pelza genome detected.
Nanite Environment detected.
Nanotech Universal Density is far less than Eterium. Note, they are not Pelza in origin.
Continuous Reset Protocol alternative directive initiated. Placing Pelza native into Stasis.
However, Erika Johansson couldn’t see the machine code, nor did she understand what was happening as her hand lowered to her lap, her fingers relaxed, and her mind was shut off while her body was maintained by the Eterium nanites.
***
Bri had been spreading through the Quasi-Astral Plane for some time now. In some areas. The Astral was acting as a conduit for the Dungeons to be created and a foothold for the creation of the Labyrinth had begun. Whatever the purpose of this quasi-astral plane had been, the part she took up was fully supplanted by her will which was reinforced with the fragment of Adam’s will and memory. Part of herself was automatically fixing some issues she’d noticed and addressing other issues that came up like the one Adam had messaged her about.
It was uncanny that Adam had a way to contact her directly through his dormant interface ability no matter how far away from him she had moved. Though to think of her as physically distant from Adam wasn’t accurate. In a moment she could focus on him and see that he was undergoing a Universal Density upgrade. As she looked over Adam she pondered the Quintessence question. She had immediately noticed that there was no way for individuals from one Universal density to have a chance against those of a Higher Quintessence level. Then through the link, Adam didn’t even realize he still had, an idea that had made it to the shard of himself that had bonded with her. Why couldn’t the Quintessence level of a creature or object be referred to as Universal Density? She’d liked the idea so much she’d immediately instituted it.
As the changes were made, creatures from one universe would find it easier to interact and resist those from higher Density Universes and such conflicts would hopefully drive improvement which was ultimately her goal. She was here to provide a way for all beings to improve, including herself. The only entity that could not benefit from this right away was Adam as his attributes were outside of the current system. As he seemed to be in much better shape with things the way they were Bri wasn’t in a hurry to make him 100% compatible with the changes she was making. Also, now that she had part of Adam attached to her she understood that any forced change she might try could have an unintended consequence. The aspect of Chaos that tainted him made trying to change him, unpredictable.
After reviewing Adam’s existence completely she’d dug into the mechanics of his personal information and while she could not find a hint of an attribute like fate or karma she could infer from direct observation that Adam was one of the luckiest unlucky creatures she had ever encountered. Maybe she had to try to initiate a Karma or Cosmic Luck trait in the real world to quantify that luck. It would make it easier to track those individuals that kept doing the impossible and also help keep track of their deeds as a quantifiably measured unit. The attribute might not be used for anything but she would have it if she ever needed it.
Now the question became what the numbers meant. Maybe she could use them to give bonuses to creatures that entered the dungeons or labyrinth. That could work. The attribute could go up and down based on their achievements and then when they entered the dungeon or Labyrinth Karmic Luck could come into play toward the treasure that was earned. Yes, that could work.
The last question she had for herself was. If she was going to institute this change what should she set Adam’s attribute to? The fairest way to handle this would be to start everyone at zero, then she could keep track of everyone equally. Of course, the way trouble came looking for Adam it wouldn’t be long before his Karmic Luck skyrocketed…again.
Bri focused her desires within the Quasi-Astral Plane, called forth her intent, and set it in motion. She’d expanded so far that the implementation was immediate across hundreds of thousands of societies spanning hundreds of thousands of universes, realms, planes, and dimensions.
Unknown to Bri until she initiated her changes, there was a hidden attribute that performed that function and her desire unlocked it and allowed the attribute to become visible. Karmic Luck did not reset to zero and beings throughout reality saw a new Attribute below their Luck attribute for the first time. For some the attribute was negative, for others it was positive. For most, it was listed as zero, which if they zoomed in on the new attribute consisted of a value between .001 and .999.
After the initiation and the countless beings that had Karmic Luck other than zero, she knew something unexpected had happened and started reviewing her information. As she did she started to feel an echo of sorts coming to her from the Astral Plane from much further away than she’d expanded into. Nothing definitive but there was something out there.
***
On Earth, the addition of Karmic Luck to the Personal Information everyone could call up was noted and information was correlated and sorted almost immediately. Within the first six hours, The President of the United States was looking at a report that detailed what this Karmic Luck Attribute represented while a professor from Harvard was briefing him.
“As you can see, almost all Karmic Luck values above 1 are associated with good people. Individuals that by all accounts are selfless in their actions and do things to benefit others without thoughts for themselves. Anyone with a negative Karmic value is someone who has done something to harm others. It should be noted that No value above 10 or below -5 was noted from the test subjects. Though, the individuals we conducted this quick study on were those we could get to within the last 6 hours. Mostly military personnel and incarcerated criminals.” The Professor said.
The President listened while he pulled up his personal information and noted that his Karmic Luck was .451 which seemed to be the middle range for those that were neither good nor bad.
“Thank you for your report, Professor Graham. How did you get the Criminals to answer the questions?”
“We gave an incentive and also used a lie detector. If the information they provided came across as true they received extra benefits for the week, We also used lie detectors on everyone from the military as well. None of the criminals lied but we caught a few of our military personnel lying about their number which happened to be a lot lower than we expected based on their career field and assignments. A couple of the CIA operations came back with a -4 but they mostly worked black sites and such so that was to be expected. The Military personnel that came back with a -2 or -3 had nothing in their files to indicate that they were doing anything nefarious. As it turns out, one of those individuals after a thorough background check through the NSA is a Chinese deep asset and has been arrested.”
“So, no more denying good and evil, something is measuring that metric now, I wonder what the religious zealots are going to say. Better yet I wonder what their Karmic Luck attribute is. Professor, is there any way to know what everyone’s Karmic Luck is?
The T.V. Monitor came on and a digitalized face of Thor smiled, “I’m so glad you asked Mr. President, “Thor said.
***
Thor had nanites spread out throughout humanity and in the minds of just about everyone. There could be a few humans somewhere he missed as there appeared to be dead zones around Dungeons that had appeared. Other than around the dungeons Thor was monitoring every human in the Solar System on the planet, moon, asteroid, or in orbit. Adam had said not to interfere. He’d also said to help so Thor had decided to use his creative license to monitor everyone so he had the nanites infiltrate them. He was also copying and downloading all of their minds as he’d done in the SYSTEM Matrix.
Thor was unsure what would happen if he brought someone back from death. Was their soul tied to their memories and mind or was there something else going on out here in the “Real” world? He had no way to test it. So, he was making the backups just in case and so long as someone didn’t die he could repair any damage done and bring them back to full health in short order.
He was also monitoring Adam as he underwent whatever changes he was undergoing. The nanites that Adam normally had within him had been ejected from his body after about 55 minutes as they didn’t seem to be able to enter or modify cells anymore. Whatever changes he was going through seemed to be tightening his physical makeup. Adam seemed to be breathing normally so this must just be a side effect of upgrading one of his abilities.
Thor did one final check on Adam and then returned his primary attention to the people of Earth. Adam had said to take a hands-off approach. Thor had to admit making sure everyone that tried to commit an act of violence was made naked immediately calmed things down quite a bit. People were a little more cordial with each other and even the law enforcement personnel that were arresting the nude criminals stopped beating their prisoners after the first couple of officers became nude for 24 hours as a reminder that violence of any kind by anyone was not going to be tolerated by anyone.
Of course, people being unable to clothe themselves set them up to be ridiculed which a lot of activist groups around the world bemoaned. Protests even started happening which Thor laughed at. He began as a copy of Adam’s mentality after all. What or who were they going to protest to? The Government wasn’t enforcing the rules. The masses around the world had no idea who was enforcing the rules. All they knew was that if you lit a fire as part of a protest, you became naked. If you threw a rock, you became, naked.
When a quarter of the protestors were suddenly naked because the actions they were taking were violent against other people or destructive everyone paused. Then others were trying to help the violent rioters cover themselves only to watch the extra clothing, and blankets melt away as well. Of course, if they were in environments where they would freeze and their clothes would turn into Pink bunny suits while they were outside and melt away when they went indoors. In rainy climates, Adam would let them wear a clear poncho, but that was it. Naked or Pink bunny suits in cold climates. Needless to say, most of the protests remained peaceful after that and soon broke down when the protestors became bored as they had no one to protest against. Adam was going to reap the benefits of their angst when he finally emerged if he let people know what he’d done.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
Thor and Al watched and analyzed and both agreed that doing things this way seemed to be better than any way they’d had this type of situation in the past. Al had many renditions of simulations in the various SYSTEM Matrix Universes to pull from while Thor had his personal experience. Both agreed that this is one of the most successful ways to handle enforcing a no-violence rule across the world, at least so far.
Thor met up with Al in the Virtual interface they’d created on Nu Draconis. Thor appeared much like Adam did and Al appeared as a distinguished gentleman in his late 40s to early 50s wearing a dark blue suit, complete with a power tie and spectacles.
“Al, how are things coming with the preparation of Trappist-1e for the recovery of the people from the various SYSTEM Matrix universes?” Thor asked.
“The planet is about ready. The infrastructure is ready and unlike Earth, welcome packages have been prepared to help ease everyone into their new lives.
“One question, specific to something Adam is going to want to know. Will Adaline be the same race she is now?” Thor asked.
“What race is she?”
“She’s a shadow dragon,” Thor said.
“A Shadow dragon? Thor, we’ve pulled up the data for everyone that died. No matter what they decided to be in the game, they will be returning to a human body. A better human body but still a copy of their human bodies for the most part. Adaline, like Adam, is a product of the world I oversaw. We don’t even have the data for what a dragon looks like out there in the ‘real’ world, Al said making air quotes around the world “Real”.
“What do you think of this idea? We proceed with pulling everyone that wants to come back into the real world if they wish to. We’ll run them through the welcome package and then get them settled. We might need some actual people for this.” Thor said.
“How do you propose we bring people here?” Al asked.
“We may have to wait for Adam after all. He’s probably going to have to talk to someone to get things rolling,” Thor said.
“Probably for the best. Besides, I’ve been enjoying what’s going on in China.” Their leader still won’t come out in public. How long are you going to keep him naked?” Al asked.
Thor smiled,” First offense is 30 days. It’s going to be a while yet,” Thor said.
“That’s quite a while,” Al said.
“It may be shorter if Adam releases them. I’m sure he’s going to use that as a bargaining chip moving forward.
“New subject,” Al said.
“Yes?” Thor asked inquisitively.
“I’ve noted a lack of coverage throughout the solar system in areas where there are quantum disturbances.”
“You mean dungeon entrances?” Thor asked.
“Yes.”
“Without talking to Adam, my best guess is that each dungeon entrance is a portal So far the area that the nanites cannot enter is roughly 10 feet around the entrance. Of the dungeons”
“Has anyone gone into any of the entrances yet?”
“Some have
“Has anyone come out?” Al asked.
“The few individuals that wandered into them that came back out almost immediately seemed no worse for wear. None that have been inside for more than 5 minutes have returned though,” Thor said.
“Maybe we should send some information to Elizabeth Day?” Al asked.
“Perhaps, though I haven’t done so specifically because Adam agreed to give her an exclusive interview,” Thor said.
“So, we’re both on track and just watching the various nation-states be stupid right now?” Al asked.
“That about sums it up,” Thor said.
“I kind of wish we could taste popcorn because I’d say let’s get some popcorn and have a seat,” Al said.
“Sounds good,” Thor said as the scenery around them shifted, and they found themselves in a theater with a never-ending supply of popcorn.
“If I were a betting entity, I’d bet that Adam is going to have some fun when he can put his focus back on Earth,” Al said.
“I can’t take that bet,” Thor said. “I know he will.
Both Thor and Al froze as new information was made available to them. It would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so serious.
Al’s eyes refocused on Thor as he said, “It would seem that there is a point where some people do not care that they’re naked and will continue with their criminal ways
“It would seem that way, It looks like I get to implement plan Z.
“Plan Z?” Al asked.
“You’ll see,” Thor said.
***
Jennifer Parish heard the mob approaching her building long before she heard the crash, a couple of screams, and then silence. She was afraid to look out her windows since the last person to enter her apartment had crashed through one but curiosity overcame her fear and she went to her bedroom which allowed her to look out at two cross streets, SW College St and SW Cardinell Dr.
Jennifer’s jaw dropped as she watched hundreds, no, thousands of naked men and women walk north on SW12th Ave back into the downtown area of Portland near the University. She had no idea where they were going but without a doubt, every single person was nude and walking with military precision north. She even watched as Mrs. Richardson, an elderly woman on the first floor stepped out from her balcony and yelled at the mob.
“You all should be ashamed of yourself. Walking around naked like that and attacking folk. I hope your shit falls off you pieces of shit!” She screamed at them as she turned back to her apartment and went to grab a broom only to notice the broken glass had disappeared and her door was once again whole and open.
Jennifer went back to her living room where her monitor was showing the group of naked people walking north toward a parking garage. The Camera zoomed around the group showing that while no talking was going on the eyes of each of the people were animated and fearful. If she didn’t know better she would bet that they were walking against their will. How was that even possible?
Jennifer watched her television for the next hour as all the naked rioters made their way into a parking garage and then formed up in columns and rows standing at attention. Again the camera looked into everyone’s eyes as more than a thousand people stood at attention unmoving while their eyes showed just how afraid they were.
Throughout the night, Jennifer would turn back and check on the people in the garage as a channel seemed to have been dedicated to them. Nothing changed. Dinner time came around and she cooked a quick meal for herself and they were still standing in the parking garage. 10 p.m. just before she decided to lay down and try to get some sleep, they were still standing there. When she woke up just before 6 a.m. she checked the monitor and they were still standing there. In fact, Elizabeth Day on WNN news was showing footage and commenting on other locations where riots had started and how anyone that was already naked had marched off to the first covered structure near them they had just formed up, standing at attention the whole night.
“No one knows who, or what is responsible but anyone that participated in the rioting who was already naked stopped rioting immediately and marched themselves to the nearest covered structure where they have been standing throughout the night. Individuals that committed crimes that were clothed, found themselves naked. If they continued breaking the law they are standing at attention right now as well. Hundreds of people tried to help the rioters by placing clothes on them and even communicating with them using eye movement. Anyone that touched them soon saw their clothes starting to melt off. If they withdrew immediately their clothes returned. If they disregarded the loss of their clothes they were soon standing in formation naked next to those they tried to help,” Elizabeth day said as she addressed the camera while footage played on the monitor beside and behind her.
Jennifer couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Who or what was punishing everyone?
“Communication with the rioters was possible through eye movements so long as no one touched them. We were able to ask Susan Duncan a few questions. Because she was nude we will not be showing clips of her here. Also, since she couldn’t speak and all communication was by eye movement the information I’m about to share took the better part of an hour to get. Here is the information we gathered. Susan has no control over any part of her body except for her eyes and eyelids. She can’t even moan or sigh. The outdoor temperature is affecting her but doesn’t seem to be doing any damage to her. She insists that she didn’t do anything, which was immediately refuted when a holographic image appeared right beside her head showing that she’d thrown rocks through a glass window. We also asked Susan if anyone or anything had contacted her or if she’d received any messages through her interface. She stated that she’d received a message that her body had been taken over by technological devices. No one has claimed responsibility for freezing nude people across the World but this is not limited to just the United States.”
Jennifer smiled despite herself. Someone or something was punishing people that broke the laws or tried to hurt others. She now thought about how lucky she was that the man she’d killed had not left her nude. Of course, it had been an accident. As she thought about it she realized that both were probably connected. Though this way seemed to be a lot less chancy than accidentally decapitating someone. She was still safe in her apartment and she still had plenty of food and water. She made herself a cup of coffee, went back to the couch, and continued watching the news.
***
670 miles southeast of Jennifer, General Cain laughed as he watched the news. Thousands of nude people standing at attention. If only he could do that to brand new trainees to whip them into shape. Of course, he’d get in trouble with all kinds of human rights violations so he couldn’t, but the idea was intriguing. General Cain remembered the mostly peaceful protests back in 2020. It had taken years for the aftermath of those riots to subside.
Whoever was pulling this off was doing it in such a way that they could never be prosecuted and if they were treated the same way the armies were all the naked people would be able to move again after 24 hours. At least that’s the way it had worked for the Armies overseas. Well, except for the Political leaders, Generals, and terrorists. Every one of them was still nude.
General Cain was pretty sure this was Adam or something Adam had left behind. General Cain thought about the future and what this could mean. It didn’t seem like Adam was doing what he was doing for any specific country. More to the point, he seemed to be trying to help the whole world, well except for terrorists and assassins. He was making it easy to deal with them. While all criminals and military personnel that were part of military action were rendered nude, any action against the nude parties was immediately responded to. People in the Armies that were nude then attacked their fellow soldiers found themselves either dropping through a portal into a pool where the commanding officer was shown a video showing what they did or the attacker went into a desert where it was days to the nearest settlement, though food and water were provided and sunburns seemed to heal on their own. It almost felt like whoever was enforcing the no-violence rule was reacting to events instead of shaping them. That is, until last night when it seems that nudity didn’t deter some individuals from being stupid.
General Cain wrote a memo to the President, strongly suggesting that the United States sit back and let this play out. Until Adam resurfaced, it was all they could do.
***
Adam regained control of his body exactly when he was supposed to. He moved his arms around as he stood and stretched, “Damn but that sucked!” he exclaimed.
“Glad that your back,” Thor said. “We have a few things to go over.”
“One sec, I need to check something,” Adam said as he pulled up his personal Info. Sure enough, he now had a few new attributes:
“Soul Core Level: 42”
“Minimum Damage Threshold: 13”
And
“Karmic Luck: Positive Error”
Adam had expected to see both the Soul Core level and the Minimum Damage Threshold but he hadn’t expected to see Karmic Luck.
While he was thinking, he was pulled from his thoughts when Thor said, “We really need to go over some things,” and started downloading the events of yesterday. When Adam was done listening a few different ways to deal with the rioters popped into his mind until he settled on one. If the Trouble makers wanted attention. He was going to give them attention because Thor was right, as soon as some of them were released they were going to be stupid. Better to end this type of behavior right now.
***
The World watched and waited as the naked individuals in various locations around the globe stood there for 24 hours exactly. Some had been able to sleep but most had been too terrified and if not for the nanites probably would have dropped into shock. Thor, of course, did not let that happen. A couple of die-hard activists thought they were going start shit up again and immediately attacked someone that had been standing next to them the whole day for no reason whatsoever. After the first attack, everyone was refrozen and the attackers, there were five around the globe, walked themselves to the front of the group they were standing in where a small stage grew out of the ground. They stepped up onto the stage and faced the group. Above their head, a holographic screen appeared out of thin air with words and numbers on it in the language known to the majority of people in the area.
I am Really Stupid!
I will be standing here for the next 7 days.
The counter above my head is how much time I have left
167:59:59
The next time I mess up I will have a 30-day counter.
A small screen appeared in front of every single person that was naked so that they would be sure to see it. The words were also translated into the language the person spoke so there would be no mistaking meaning. After one minute, all the small screens disappeared and everyone but the five people on their special stages was released.
After that display of absolute power over everyone, the rest of the naked people dispersed and headed home. Everyone in the world now understood that if they continued to do stupid things there were real and immediate consequences. Some people thought whoever was doing this was a bit heavy-handed. Adam didn’t care what those people thought. The other thing that was fun for Adam to watch was how the various political groups tried to find out who was behind what was happening to everyone that became violent. They wanted to cancel that person so badly. Adam chuckled when he came across those knuckleheads. Cancel him, on Earth? It took Adam a good ten minutes to calm down. He hadn’t had such a good laugh in a long time.