Adam had been back for most of the last day. During that time, he’d been upgrading his Soul Core. Why did he need to upgrade his Soul Core? Because he’d received a notification that let him know about another change that had been made to the Interface System when he tried to upgrade Planar Travel.
Soul Core Update. Ability Levels may not be increased above your Soul Core Level. Previous note concerning mana issues noted. While this limitation does not fix the issues, it addresses and mitigates the issue. Additionally, all base attributes, except Karmic Luck, are multiplied by your Soul Core level. Attributes that are derived from base attributes are not modified by a creature’s Soul Core Level.
So, for the last 19 hours, Adam had been increasing his Soul Core. The first upgrade had taken 43 minutes, the second 44 minutes, and so on. As soon as his Soul Core had reached level 50 he’d increased all of his abilities to level 50 as well. When he was done upgrading his Soul Core and abilities to level 50 he had 52,969 quintessence motes orbiting his Soul Core.
“Adam, I think we have a problem,” Thor said.
“What is it.”
“Erika Johansson is sitting in her apartment not moving in an area our nanites cannot access.
“Guess I’ll check it out. Portal please?”
A portal opened from his command center at Nu Draconis to an apartment where Erika Johannsson was sitting on the couch. Adam stepped through the portal and looked around the sparsely decorated apartment. First, he looked her over with True Sight, just to make sure she was really there then he used his nanites to look at the dead area around her. Immediately he recognized what the dead area represented. There was another set of nanites that his nanites could not control inside the Commander. The last time he’d encountered something like this had been in the Universe containing the Eterium society.
While he was there the nanites hadn’t been doing much outside the Commander they had her locked down. The first thing he needed to do was check on the Commander then he’d see what he could do about the nanites.
Adam created a couple of different pieces of equipment with Mold Chaos and attached them to Erika. Seeing as they were passive in nature Adam wasn’t surprised when the oximeter he attached to her finger worked normally and he was able to see her pulse and oxygen levels. Whatever the nanites inside her were doing, they were also keeping her alive.
Adam was pretty sure most of his abilities weren’t going to work on the nanites, but Technomancy might. Adam activated Technomancy and opened himself up to the devices in the area. As he did so he gained some understanding of the inherent powers of his ability and how abilities in general were going to be more powerful than technological items and artifacts. His ability Technomancy allowed him to know all the machines, including the nanites which he immediately recognized as the same as the ones in Eterium. It made sense that his nanites couldn’t affect them if they were from a universe with a Universal Density of 182.
While his nanites couldn’t affect the other nanites. Nor would he give the order for them to attack the other nanites his ability Technomancy allowed him to communicate with the nanites at the machine code level. The nanites were smart but they did not contain an artificial intelligence or allow for the possibility of decentralized intelligence as his nanites did. He discovered long ago that the decentralized nature of storage and memory was one of the primary factors required to generate a truly artificial intelligence. The Eterium nanites could possess that function very easily but it had been hard coded out. It seemed that their society did not want their nanotech to evolve an artificial intelligence. Because there was no artificial mind to resist, his ability was able to take control of the nanites inside Erika Johannsson with very little effort.
Adam reached out his hand, drew the nanites from her body into his, and assimilated them to be part of himself. He also rewrote the core code for the nanites so they could never be overridden by other nanites or the Eterium programmers again. Well, hopefully, that was true. All programs could be hacked eventually, though it looked like Technomancy had given him the skeleton key to break through any programming that the Eterium programmers had installed. That gave him an idea, could there be an ability out there that protected against abilities like Technomancy? If so, he was going to have to learn it or come up with something better because he was sure he was going to need an ability that provided defenses against abilities like Technomancy.
Once all the nanites had left Commander Johansson, her eyes fluttered open and she looked around as her gaze came to rest on Adam, “It would have to be you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Adam said questioningly.
“Why should I thank you, I’m pretty sure you’re the one that got my entire empire put in what is effectively a cosmic time out for the next 2,791,300 years,” Erika said angrily.
“What are you talking about?” Adam asked. “You were frozen, is your whole empire like that?”
“No, the empire is being affected by what the notification I received referred to as a ‘Continuous Reset’. The very basics are being provided, food, water, and shelter. Anything else that is above Steam Power in technology is automatically destroyed. Because I have a teleport ability I jumped here thinking I could get away but it seems that even here they can affect me. What did you do to wake me up?”
“You were carrying their nanites, they are what shut you down. And you’re saying the Eterium Council did this to you?” Adam asked.
“For utilizing forbidden technology or some other such nonsense,” she said.
“Might want to check that attitude, Erika. I snapped your Emperor’s neck because of that forbidden technology your empire used. It’s also how I ran into the Eterium people and it’s also why I agree with their overall premise to punish your people, though 2.7-plus million years seems a bit steep.”
“A bit steep, everyone will be ahead of us.”
“It’s not a race. Besides, I’m very sure with the changes and the addition of the dungeons you’ll have people that can progress just fine. Also, I read the commands the nanites were sending back and forth when they shut you down. You weren’t shut down because you’re from the Pelza Empire, you were put in stasis because you were using a device above your currently allowed level of technology somewhere the nanites could not stop you. As Earth has done nothing against the Eterium empire and Eterium has decreed me an ally and by extension Earth as an ally, the nanites put you in stasis until you could be returned to Pelza or some other location without any technology.”
“Did you remove their nanites from me?” Erika asked.
“Yes, but it will not help you permanently. If you go anywhere that has Eterium nanites, they’ll occupy you, recognize your genetic structure and you’ll be in the same boat. If you are in an area you are not supposed to be in, you will be put in stasis again.
“So, I can’t stay here on Earth?” Commander Johansson asked.
“You could but you wouldn’t be able to use any of the technology here. There are a couple of places on the planet you could go to. If I was you I wouldn’t chance it. Instead, I’d work on finding the dungeons on your home world and work to improve your abilities, maybe get an ability to offset the Death-based ability that ruins your complexion, just a thought.”
“There is nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for power,” she said quickly.
“I know coming from me this might seem a little hypocritical to you but if your making sacrifices for power, that’s the absolute worst reason to make sacrifices. But,” he said pausing for a moment to emphasize the point. “But, you can do what you want and if you want to get more powerful my suggestion is to explore the dungeons and work your way into the Labyrinth. At the very least I doubt the nanites will work inside a Dungeon or the Labyrinth, Bri’s not going to allow that.
“Bri?”
“Never mind that. Can you get home okay on your own, I have a lot of other things I need to be getting to?” Adam asked.
“I can,” she said.
“Then I wish you luck. Perhaps we’ll see each other again. Also, I’d expect to keep seeing changes from the new Interface. The Continuous Reset that your society is enduring right now may not last as long as you think. On that note, please pass this message on, if your society is let out of its ‘Time Out’ early and anyone there tries to start one of those devices up again things will go far worse than they have.”
Of course, Adam couldn’t throw that stone too far, the chaotic spark in him had absorbed the equivalent of multiple universes in the SYSTEM Matrix. Had they even been real? Adam thought about it for a moment then decided that yes, everything that happened in the SYSTEM Matrix must have happened to real beings with real lives and identities because his actions had been counted and weighed and were even now, out here in the real world, affecting him. Okay maybe he couldn’t cast the first stone toward the Pelza Empire but if they used that device again those that did wouldn’t be casting stones ever again.
Erika Johannsson nodded, looked around wistfully, then disappeared. The nanites in the area detected the quantum fluctuations that indicated that she’d used something more than a teleport ability. It would seem that she’d taken his advice and returned home, or at least to another dimension far away. Adam had a strong feeling he would see her again someday.
Adam wanted to catch up on a few more things happening on Planet Earth. Also, he needed to get ready for the debut of Portals Inc. First, he was going to increase his Soul Core as high as he could go with his current stockpile of Quintessence. It was going to take roughly 37 days which was time enough to get settled into this new reality and prepare the world for his debut. If his math was right he’d need to spend 52,767 quintessence which would raise him to level 193. That would only leave him with 202 quintessence motes orbiting his Soul Core which should be enough to fuel any new abilities he might need to unlock. Of course, he could just find a dungeon if he needed more Quintessence. Adam relayed his desires concerning his Soul Core to his CC then put that to the back of his mind, it was time to visit Labrinth LLC.
***
Dr. Lindsay Mae Ficklin was looking over the code again. Trying to find out what went wrong. Ever since millions of people had died she’d been looking over the processes Dr. Brittle had helped create. Right now she was trying to reconnect to the programs that would allow her to monitor people inside the game. The only problem was that the code she was looking at didn’t seem to work. She kept getting “Quantum target identity does not match assumed identity.”
She’d been reviewing the problem for close to three months now. Her job was to find the problem and make sure that it never happened again so the game could be restarted. In fact, she was receiving pressure to show results because the changes to the world were making alternate reality simulators the go-to for people to go have fun in.
The problem Dr. Ficklin was running into was the data she was reviewing didn’t make sense. A device had been used which downloaded an actual A.I. into a location that did not have a physical component. A storage location that was designated inside a quantum field without a physical component in the real world. Except that even energy took up space somewhere.
She’d be re-examining those initial start-up sequences for a while and she believe she understood what had happened. The programmers had stumbled onto quantum tunneling, which was supposedly only in its theoretical phase. Then, somehow, they had created a stable energy matrix on the other end and put the A.I. in it.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
People had joined the game world and exited, however, Dr. Ficklin no longer believed they were participating in an illusion or game. All the data that had been recorded indicated that the A.I. had created an entire multiverse for people to explore. Of course, that didn’t explain what had gone wrong or how all those people died, “But are they really dead,” she felt herself say out loud. She jumped out of her skin when an answer came forth from the air, “No.”
Dr. Ficklin looked around quickly and was surprised when an energy portal opened ten feet from her and a man in a black flight suit stepped through as the portal closed behind him. An alarm started to go off and then stopped. The man in front of her appeared to be in his thirties, five foot nine, and clean-shaven. His hair was cut short with hazel blue eyes.
“Good evening Dr. Ficklin, I am Adam. It would seem that you are investigating something near and dear to my heart,” Adam said.
“Who, what, Who?” Dr. Ficklin said confusedly.
“My name is Adam; I believe you are investigating the deaths of the humans that were playing the game”
“I am, but how did you get in here?” she asked.
“I used equipment to generate a hole in space-time which I stepped through to get here. I call them portals.” Adam said.
“You can create wormholes?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible,” she declared definitively.
“Some would think so, they would be wrong,” Adam said with a smile.
“Why does no one know about this?”
“There are some that do but that’s not why I’m here,” Adam said as moved to a chair and sat down. I’m here because you have discovered, or almost discovered a truth about ‘The Game’.”
“What truth is that?” The Doctor asked.
“That the people that downloaded into The Game were not downloading into a game at all, they were downloading into an alternate universe, specifically a holographic universe run by the A.I. created by Labyrinth LLC.”
“A Holographic Universe?” she asked.
“A Holographic Universe. Let me give you a hypothetical sequence of events. What would happen if an imprint of a game universe were added to a Universe at the point that the Universe was expanding Big Bang, right after the Universe was forming when the rules were influx?”
“I have no idea, no one has ever done that before,” she answered quickly.
“Actually the programmers for your company did that by accident the first time. You’re A.I. has successfully done it 100 more times.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am saying that every person you thought lost is still alive within other holographic Universes that are being run by the copies of the original A.I. that was used,” Adam said.
“Let’s accept for a moment that what you say is true, why did the A.I. make copies of itself and then create additional copies of the game,” she asked.
“Because the Universe it was in was threatened by an outside force it could not resist. It made copies of itself and dispersed those minds within the original Universe to the other Universes so everyone had a chance to survive,” he said.
“Which begs the next question, how do you know about all of this?” she asked sardonically.
“Isn’t it obvious, I’m from one of those Universes,” Adam said.
“From one of those Universes? You’re saying that you were a Non-Player Character?
“Doctor, there were no Non-Player characters, everyone in everyone one of those universes is real, As am I,” Adam said with a little bit of heat in his voice.
The doctor picked up on Adam’s mood shift and changed the subject by asking, “So why are you here?”
“I am here to give Labyrinth LLC the opportunity to recover everyone they lost from those holographic Universes. Additionally, there might be even more people that come out of those Universe to join us in the real world.”
“How are you going to do that, you can’t just grow…”At that moment her voice was shut down as an exact duplicate of her appeared out of thin air. The nude copy of her body appeared to be a replica of what she looked like when she was 21.
“I of course took some liberties with the final model. I upgraded your genetic structure, no possibility of cancer, and this body would probably live to be at least 200 years old without outside intervention”
“How?” she stammered.
“I know you’ve been cooped up in this office trying to figure things out for a bit but I’m sure you’ve heard magic is afoot. Never mind this anyway, What you need to understand is that not only can I recreate the bodies needed for these people to be downloaded into, but I can also transfer their minds from one body to the next, well I’m pretty sure I can. We’ll know soon enough. Would you come with me,” he said as he stood and pointed to a portal that opened onto a city street with a slightly red haze coming down from the sky.
“Where are we going?”
“We are going to a facility in a secured location that will allow you, and a team you put together to work. With the help of the SYSTEM A.I., your team is going to work to bring back those that wish to come back from ‘The Game’.”
“But where are we going that the sky is red, is it sunset there? Are we going to the other side of the planet, I don’t even have a passport.”
“Doctor. Focus. I can open a portal anywhere I want to go. Anywhere, you don’t need to worry about a passport. No government is going to seize you there and well, it’s a surprise,” he said.
Dr. Ficklin shrugged and stepped through the portal onto a street corner. All around her were buildings. She actually felt like she was in one of the big cities like New York or Los Angeles except that there were no people anywhere. She looked up as Adam stepped through the portal behind her and noted that there were two bright lights in the sky. Two Stars. She was on a planet in a system with two stars, “Where are we?”
“You are on Trappist-1e. It is a planet in a solar system that is about 39.46 light-years from Earth.
“So far,” she said as her knees went wobbly and she started to collapse. Adam was there in a moment guiding her to a chair she hadn’t seen moments before. He also offered her a glass of ice-cold water.
“I apologize, I haven’t done something like this in a while. I forgot how overwhelming being this far from Earth can be to someone that thought the Earth was the Center of the Universe.”
“I didn’t think the Earth was the center of the Universe…” she started to argue
“Without evidence that there is more to the Universe, most species will believe their world is the center of the Universe, or at least a center point. It’s very hard to let go of that belief, especially if you don’t know you have it. What will help you now is knowing that at any time you can say “Portal Home” and a portal to your apartment will open for you. Try it,” Adam said.
“Portal Home,” she said and then watched as a portal opened directly in front of her that allowed her to stand and step into her living room. She did so, looked around then stepped back onto Trappist-1e, “Close Portal. Thank you, that did help a lot. I guess Earth is a crutch.”
“It can be, you’ll get used to the new reality soon enough,” Adam said. “Very soon I’m going to introduce you to Al and you two will go over everything he needs to start bringing people back into the world. Don’t worry about your employment with Labyrinth LLC. I’m about to buyout out their stock and become the owner. You will continue to get paid and upon the successful implementation of the recovery effort I will supply you with a body that is 21 biological years old without transferring your mind. Yes, I can do that too.”
“It would seem that I have no choice,” she said.
“No Doctor, you have a choice. You can choose to help save everyone that was almost killed by an unknown enemy, which has already been dealt with. If you chose to help these people you will also be able to reap some serious rewards. Or, you can choose not to, I will allow you to go home and I will find someone to take your place when I finish the takeover of the Company in the next few days,” Adam said.
“Why me?” she asked.
“Why you? Because I did my research Doctor and you are a good person who wants to help people. For no other reason than that,” Adam said.
“Very well, who is this Al I’m going to talk to?
“Al?” Adam called.
“Here Adam,” a voice called from the air around them.
“Please give our new head of the Resurrection department all the information she needs or wants concerning everything, save how we met. Then show her the worlds the company helped create. You have linked to all of them right?” Adam asked.
“We have. We are correlating data and identifying all customers of The Game,” Al said.
“Doctor, through the glass doors behind you is the headquarters for your efforts. Just take the elevator to the penthouse and Al and you can get started. If you wish to take a break and go home simply say ‘Portal Home.’ From inside your apartment, you may say ‘Work Portal” to get back here. You’ll have a little more control over where you can appear here but I’m going to let Al explain all of that to you. Also, no visitors, for now, just you. If someone is with you on Earth or someone is in your apartment, the portal will not appear. Al will explain, Something has happened that I need to see to immediately,” Adam said as she heard a soft pop and he was gone.
Dr. Ficklin turned toward the glass doors, walked through to the elevator, and headed up to the Penthouse which was a mansion all on its own. As she walked into the main room an image of a middle-aged man appeared on the monitor, “Greetings Dr. Ficklin, I am Al the original SYSTEM Matrix A.I. Please make yourself comfortable this is going to take a little while.”
***
As he was talking to Dr. Ficklin Adam received an alert from the nanites on Earth near the Bermuda Triangle. In the exact center of the Bermuda Triangle quantum fractionations had been detected 300 feet below the surface as a rip in space formed and a portal to the former universe of the Khau’ting opened.
A moment later Adam appeared directly over the fissure using Teleport from his base under the Pacific ocean. He’d teleported from Dr. Ficklin to another building on Trappist-1e then stepped through a Portal to his base near Hawaii and then teleported from there. It was a little bit of a pain but he didn’t have the range to travel 39.46 Light Years with his teleport spell. The ability said he had the range but he didn’t have the mana. It looked like this was another one of the abilities where the ability far surpassed the mana available.
Adam looked over the situation, realized what was going on, and dove into the Ocean. Adam went to work with Mold Chaos. Within five minutes he’d created an underwater base larger than the largest aircraft carrier that would contain the water flow and allow creatures to come through the rift and process onto Earth if they wanted to. He made sure to use materials equivalent to his ability level of 50 so it would be able to hold against most things that could make their way through the rift from a Universe with a Density of 28. He even placed fusion reactors with energy weapons that would give any creature coming through the spatial portal a very bad day if it proved too aggressive after it received a good shock.
Now that that the rift had finally appeared, he could pursue other endeavors. Adam did look around the local area and noted that there was a dungeon on the sea floor not too far away but it was over 1,000 feet down and two miles north. If it became a problem or monsters started spreading from the dungeon, they’d soon find themselves on the North Pole of Mars, while a valve in the airlock to another universe was opened and the water from there was allowed to enter the Atlantic Ocean.
He now had a good source of infinite, well nearly infinite, water for his terraforming projects. He could create another area that took water through another portal, ensured nothing living was being shunted through, then send the purified water wherever he needed it. He didn’t need to do that now though and he could use nanites to make those modifications later. For now, the facility was relatively large and would provide housing and accommodations for research crews. This brought another thought to Adam.
Adam teleported into General Cain’s office as his nanites converted the moisture on him into more nanites as General Cain looked up with surprise and then recognition.
“Hello, Adam, You’re back. What can I do for you tonight?”
“First, I’m going to visit your prisoners and send them back to their home planet. trust me when I say you do not want to be on the receiving end of the cosmic justice smackdown that was just laid down on them. Not a negotiation. We need to get them off the planet.
“You just can’t take them...”
“General, the device their Empire was using destroyed Universes, plural, Universes. Now, what if I told you there is a technology out there that is smart enough to continuously destroy every electronic device that is made on the planet and that anything above the technology required for steam power is destroyed as well, not after the fact, as you try to make it. Now let’s imagine that there’s a society in the Multitude of Universes that just put the Pelza Empire on a Cosmic Time Out for the next 2.7 Million years, not days, or months but millions of years. If all that is true, do you want to keep the people that are being punished, or supposed to be punished around you so you might be punished as well?
“But…”
“Thor please show the General what Commander Johannsson was doing for the last couple of days,” Adam said.
An image of Commander Johannsson sitting on her couch trying to use the remote then lowering it to the table and sitting there unmoving appeared on the monitor as a clock on the monitor showed days passing without her moving until Adam appeared on the monitor.
“She was unmoving for that long?” The General asked.
“Yes, so after we’re done here I’m going to go visit each of the cells and get them back to their home Planet. They’re not our problem nor our issue anymore, nor will they be a threat once they return to Pelza.”
The General looked annoyed then shrugged, “So be it, was there another reason you dropped by?”
“Why yes, General, there was. Moments ago a rift opened between Earth and another Universe. As far as I can tell the Universe in question is completely filled with water, how much water I don’t know. The Portal is about 300 feet below the surface and would have allowed the ocean there to spill in and flood Earth. I have stopped that.”
“How?” The General asked.
“I created an airlock of sorts, more like a submerged base that is floating around the rift. I figured you’d want scientist types to have access to it and such. The base is huge, as big as an aircraft carrier, except it’s a sub. Also, it can’t move. Though, it does have defensive weapons both external and internal to thwart anything that comes through the portal that is hostile.”
“How do we access it?”
“Easy enough, Just let me know where you want the entrance on the mainland and I’ll put it there. I would suggest making this available to everyone on the planet. The whole world needs to know what kind of wonders and dangers there are. If and when the world comes together. I’ll create another base on the other side so Earth as a singular society can explore the wonders of another universe.”
“You’re making a lot of decisions without any input from anyone,” General Cain said.
“When the world comes together and acts in a united fashion I’ll consider stepping back and letting others make the decisions. Right now I’m making the decisions that protect Earth and everyone on it,” Adam said.
“Which brings me to my next question, how long will it be before you lift the violence restriction?” The General asked.
“I’ve been out of the area for a little bit, how bad is it?” Adam asked.
“The Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans are hot. Other smaller nations are taking it in stride and the President is, of course, thankful for the warning, he didn’t want his ‘dick hanging out for everyone to see’, his words.”
“I bet. As for your question. I’m going to be getting things together for a big announcement and then I’ll remove the restriction. Everyone needs to learn to work together and strife breeds progress and innovation,” Adam said as he paused for a few moments then looked thoughtful, “No More than 45 more days.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Actually, there is one last thing, “Adam said.
“What’s that?” The General asked.
“All the people thought to be dead inside ‘The Game’ Labyrinth LLC created, well, they’re alive and I’ve taken steps to bring them back from the dead
“You’re doing what?” The General exclaimed, disbelief in his voice.