It had been so very long since he had instigated the change. Finding the right Animae had been the hardest part. He had looked for an Animae with uncanny luck and a penchant for defying fate as it twisted karma. That had been the hardest part. He’d thought Apolyn had been the one but his personality had been atrocious, if not predominately evil. Of course, as he watched Apolyn and that pocket Universe within Ordo’s experiment of imposed order he’d come across Johnathan Bennard.
Johnathan, a simple boy scout looking through some sand for arrowheads had been the one to find Apolyn’s Adamantium ring, and from that small beginning fate and karma be damned. He’d wondered if Johnathan could fix the fracturing of the universes within that imposed domain of order known as the System. Ordo should have known that no matter how much one wanted to impose order, chaos would sprout up. Ordo had thought he understood the problem and had put self-correcting mechanisms in place, but as always happened, Chaos overcame the imposed restrictions.
That had been fine, Johnathan had founded his new identity as he threaded that needle of fate and gained a lot of positive Karma in the process while he rid the fracturing of those portions of himself that offset his good deeds. The fractured area of Ordo’s Domain being absorbed by the Multitude and then reabsorbed into The Primary System Domain had just been a happy coincidence that allowed Adam to start working toward the outcome Ptah desired.
Of course, he would come into the System Domain when Thora and Justus had both decided that they were not going to wait for Ordo’s experiment to play out and were trying to infiltrate and convert the domain to their will. Of course, Adam would get himself brought into the middle of that conflict when he was nowhere near powerful enough to contend with actual Gods. That, he was restricted by Ordo’s System didn’t even phase Adam as the spark of Primal Chaos within him allowed him to circumvent those restrictions until Chaoticus intervened directly.
That was until Thora decided to send in a strike team and kill his family and friends. Well not kill them, but what she’d done could be seen as worse. She’d separated their Animae from their Soul, something that was only done to those who were ready to put this existence behind them and truly start over. What was the difference between an Animae and a Soul, wasn’t that the million-dollar question, as the humans from Adam’s Earth liked to say? The Animae was the foundation upon which a soul developed. Human psychologists referred to it as the id, or the part of the mind in which innate instinctive impulses and primary processes manifested. Except it wasn’t part of the mind. Animae were distinct and unique, and every creature had one. If the creature developed a soul it had one. If the creature was a lower life form that didn’t have a soul, they had them as well. Even beings such as himself had one, though no matter how hard he searched within himself he couldn’t isolate a single part of his mind or soul that was distinctly unique. It had become him and he it. He knew if he were ever able to separate it from the rest of his soul, he would be no more.
Of course, she who held Domain over Corruption would find a way to rip a soul apart and take the Animae out of it. Animae, she who had taken the name she had given to the aspect of a soul he now considered, could not be happy with Thora, yet he knew they had met. Why would she help the Lady of Corruption, unless she was playing the game at a completely different level?
Whatever game Animae was playing, allowing Thora the ability to destroy the memories of a soul as well as the ability to steal that which made an individual unique outside an imposed system by Ordo, the holder of the Domain of Ordo…Whatever Animae’s reason, there would be an accounting. He knew that Karma had taken a liking to Adam even though they had never discussed him. While Adam might be an Agent of Chaos and change for the most part the changes he imposed made things better after everything settled…usually.
He knew what Adam had done to protect his family and friends. While Adam might not understand that he needed the Animae to bring them back, he had everything that made up their souls to a certain point. Should he recover their Animae, which as far as Ptah understood could never be destroyed? Was that what Animae was counting on? He thought for a moment and realized that had to be it. The Animae came from outside, from elsewhere, from somewhere, he as a God didn’t even understand. They were unique and when they shed their soul they were the foundation that would create another soul, but it would not have the memories of that previous soul. They were eternal after all.
Ptah theorized that it was because forever was such a long time. Even he, a God, who had seen the births of Universe and Dimensions as well as all the fracturing of universes and Dimensions as Chaos took hold and had lived for…well a really long time. Yes, even he would give this up someday. When he did, he would shed this mortality and that which anchored his soul would be used to anchor another. Would the energies that made up his soul spread out into infinity, or would he appear somewhere else with the memories of all that he had done and accomplished?
There was some solace in the idea that part of him would go on forever, even if all that was his soul faded but it took a long time for any entity to come to a point where the idea of not being eternal in some way would be comforting. While Adam had lived for a long time now, he was nowhere near reaching that level of comfort. No, to him this attack on his family and friends would be raw, traumatic, and his reaction? In all the time Ptah had been watching Adam he realized that he had never seen Johnathan Bennard get truly angry. He’d seen him get upset but he’d never seen Adam livid with rage. Before he would figure out that he had the ability to bring them back Ptah had a feeling Adam was going to reach a level of anger he’d never achieved before.
Ptah became thoughtful for a moment. Adam was securely stuck inside Ordo’s System within Ordo’s Domain. Thora was most definitely not within that Domain, nor were the Animae of Adam’s friends and family. The Assassins had fled the Domain as soon as they’d completed their task. The distance, if one thought of the two locations at a distance from each other was not travelable by any means Adam currently had so it would be a bit before Adam could truly react to what Thora had done. Of course, something not being possible had never stopped Adam in the past, and the spark of Primal Chaos Ptah had incorporated into Adam’s path when he’d been enveloped in Chaos that first time, hadn’t he done that to help make the impossible, possible?
Of course, he had. There was no way he would accept that Animae existed independently of everything else and souls were only tied to it until the soul gave up on existence and let go. If anyone could find the answers he was looking for it would be Adam. First, though, Thora, Chaoticus, and Ordo were going to find out why it was a very bad idea to anger someone who looked at rules as limits that must be overcome, which if Ptah was being honest was the one thing he really liked about Adam.
***
Adam watched as Administrator Dilyard walked and sat on a stool beside him. A moment ago twelve tiny specs of Chaos had reincorporated themselves into his body and downloaded the information they had saved. In a moment he’d lived through his mother, father, Amanda, Abi, Desirae, Calrence, and Adaline’s lives since he’d implanted the specks of chaos in them. He also received much shorter updates from Pandora’s friends, Callum, Asling, Robert, Cedrik, and Pythias.
As he reviewed the memories he’d also added the update to the full memories of each person he carried. He knew he could bring them back if the System didn’t bring them back or put them through its reincarnation protocol, in which case he’d have to go find them. That is…something was wrong which caused Adam to freeze when the Administrator had just arrived.
He'd accelerated his mental time frame to check each memory and found the moment each had been killed by figures whose dimension could not be seen by those they’d killed. Then he’d felt a pulling sensation in the memory, then nothing. Something fundamental had felt like it had been ripped away. But he had their memories. He would need to try something after he talked to the Administrator.
Once the Administrator was comfortable and the drinks Adam had ordered arrived Adam asked, “What Happened?”
“Honestly, we’re not completely sure. The property was targeted that everyone was staying at and they and the staff that was assigned to them was killed,” The Administrator said.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I’ve been updated on how they died, though none of them saw their killer. I also felt something weird as they died, like something was pulled out of them. Do you know anything about that?”
“Well, the staff were slaughtered, as if the killers were having fun. Your family and friends were all killed with a single strike to their heart,” Administrator Dilyard said as Adam was drawn into the feeling of the pulling sensation and realized something fundamentally wrong had happened.
“Have they entered the soul cycle, reincarnation cycle, or whatever the System refers to the process as?” Adam asked.
Administrator Dilyard looked a bit queasy and uncomfortable as Adam watched him build up the courage to say, “They are no longer part of the System?”
“What do you mean they are no longer part of the System?” Adam asked quietly.
“I mean that when they died the System did not receive their Soul nor the memories that made up their souls. The System does not have them,” Administrator Dilyard said.
“But I have their memories. Up to the point where they were stabbed through the chest, I have their memories from the last time I copied them,” Adam said.
“Have you tried to clone or otherwise recreate them yet? Silly question, I watched the transfer of data just moments ago. What I meant to ask is do you know what will happen when you try to use those memories to bring them back?”
“They’ll be brought back?”
“Yes and no,” Administrator Dilyard said as he paused to take a drink and then continued, “Bodies, all bodies, are biological mechanisms. One of the absolutely fundamental truths that we discovered is that memories alone do not make a soul. I’ve reviewed your life. You could not have realized it but when you were dealing with the fracturing of the cosmos you started in, even though it was in a virtual environment you came across this problem. No matter how many times you ran into yourself, none of them were exactly like you, were they?”
“Well, no. Each was unique and different.”
The reason for that is that each soul has a specific spark of identity or id that is tied to it. Those of us who know about this spark also refer to it as the Animae of the soul. Not many magics or technologies know of this specific truth as the Animae are very hard to detect and isolate from one's soul. Also, we’ve found out that if you remove the Animae from a soul, it unravels and falls apart.”
“But my doppelgangers didn’t fall apart,” Adam said.
“No, because when the body formed an Animae was available to fill in the missing part. No one knows where they come from, or where they go when they’re not trapped but when a soul is forming they just kind of step in and fill the role of the glue that holds the soul together. I’m sorry if I’m not explaining this very well, we really don’t know exactly how or why this happens. We only know the results. If added during creation the Soul can exist, holds memories, and grow. Even through the cycle of reincarnation the Animae stays with the Soul and holds it together. While I’ve never seen it I have been told that at some point an entity might want to give up its existence altogether and they willfully release their Animae back into wherever it came from. When that happens the soul falls apart and the memories that made up that soul evaporate.”
“That doesn’t explain why the System lost track of them?” Adam said.
“I was getting to that. The individuals that attacked your family and friends used an item, probably a magical dagger, that severed and stored the Animae of each person they killed. Their memories unraveled and their Animae were taken. When that happened the System could not recover them because the memories were falling apart as the Animae was ripped out of their bodies.”
“You're saying that someone, or something, sent a group of assassins to destroy my family and friends' souls so that they could never return? But I have their memories. I can remake them with the Chaos I control,” Adam said.
“You could recreate their bodies, you could add all the memories into those bodies from the copies you keep within yourself. Those memories would be perfect. If an Animae chooses to tie itself to those memories a version of them would exist but it would not be the version you knew. From the moment of their creation on, they would be different.”
Adam calmed his mind and breathed. Administrator Dilyard was taking the time to explain what had happened to him. He could not afford to give into his anger…yet, “Is there any way for me to get them back?”
“Theoretically, because I cannot give you a yes or no answer. But, theoretically, if their Animae are tied up in the daggers and you can somehow find a way to match the correct Animae to the correct body and then you can somehow guide that Animae back to the body you create for it as you add the memories YOU might be able to bring them back. I could not, nor could the System.”
Adam thought about what the Administrator had said. This foundational idea that there was a glue that held the soul together and that each was fundamentally unique filled in a lot of holes in the foundational theories he had about how everything worked. The idea that the Animae came from elsewhere and that the System and the Administrators didn’t know where was kind of terrifying but indicated that again there was another layer to reality that he had yet to discover.
Adam took a long drink as he thought about what he was going to do as the Administrator nursed his drink. They sat there in silence for a good five minutes before the Administrator asked, “Can I ask what you will do?”
“Neither you nor the System, know who or what attacked my family?” Adam asked.
“No.”
“Then it looks like I must look elsewhere for answers. As there is only one place I can look for those answers I’ll answer your question by saying, I’m going to find the individual or individuals that did this, and when I’m through I plan to send their Animae screaming into the Abyss if I can’t find a way to destroy them first.”
“Whoever did this is more powerful than the System?” Administrator Dilyard said.
“Yeah, don’t I know it,” Adam said as he picked up his drink and finished it in one gulp. He put the glass down and left a generous tip on the counter as he turned to the Administrator and said, “Please look after the Councilor, I doubt anything I’m about to do will affect the System in general but with my Daughter still out there, well maybe, she could have been targeted as well…” As Adam thought about Pandora the rage he’d been controlling started to percolate again. Adam brought it back under control. Just a few more moments, a few more moments and he could…
Adam took a deep breath and leveled his gaze at the Administrator, “Thank you for the information Administrator Dilyard. If I can, I will return and balance the karma you have given this day or I will be no more and it won’t matter. Take care of yourself,” Adam said as he Teleported into orbit, activated Flight and Freedom of Flight and he blasted away from Farpoint as fast as he could go. He looked at the stars and nebula around him until he found the tell-tale signs of a galaxy and then beelined for its center. He wasn’t sure how far away from Farpoint the galaxy was, nor did he care. With Freedom of Flight active he crossed the distance in almost an instant.
Adam needed a quiet place where it was unlikely that he would be interrupted. Beneath the event horizon of a singularity at the center of a galaxy was a spot that should fit that criterion quite nicely. Adam slowed as he approached and dipped beneath the event horizon and dedicated Freedom of Flight while he allowed his Adaptable and Flight abilities to maintain his position. As he floated within the gravity well of the singularity he shifted his mental focus into his Mindspace, looked around at the emptiness as Thor looked on with worry. A single tear escaped the right eye of the avatar of himself he had formed within his Mindspace before he leaned back and screamed!
***
Ironically, the galaxy that Adam had retreated to was very similar to the Milky Way galaxy of his original Universe. There were approximately 100 million stars with about 300 million planets capable of habitation. Unknown to Adam, mental or psychic abilities and powers were usually unaffected by the gravity of a singularity. Usually. When Adam screamed within his Mindspace and released the pent-up rage, frustration, anguish, and feeling of helplessness toward his able to find and help his daughter the mental energy he released escaped his mind and the singularity created a lensing effect.
Ptah watched as the Galaxy Adam had retreated to was hit with a mental attack that eradicated all sentient life within 186,000 miles of the black hole. Lower life forms were unaffected but those that were capable of higher thoughts died of fright when that wave of mental energy hit them. Luckily after that first second, the System was able to lock down and shield the rest of the galaxy from the mental attack though a portion of the feelings from that mental attack made it through and would be remembered as the “Night of Anguish” in civilizations all the way out to the edge of that Galaxy.
Ptah watched with interest as he realized that even while Adam had been letting his anger loose he’d redirected a significant portion of it and all of his pent-up rage toward his Soul Core, through his Place of Power, and into the link between himself and Chaoticus. Ptah had time to think, that shouldn’t be possible as the barriers Chaoticus had erected were destroyed and Adam’s body inverted, dived through the connection, and reformed within a region of Primal Chaos outside of The System.
Adam was outside of the System.
It had taken Adam a lot less time than Ptah had thought it would. He’d expected Adam to make his way to the center of the System, find the links to Ordo, and follow those links out. No, that crazy son-of-a-bitch was so angry he’d intuitively figured out how to utilize the link between himself and Chaoticus to get out even quicker. As Ptah thought over everything that had happened recently he realized one thing, He was really glad he wasn’t Thora. If her plan had been to corrupt his good nature, oh yeah, she had succeeded. Adamantadine’s good nature had been subverted and corrupted all right.