????'s POV
It was all coming together, a couple of nudges here and there that weren't quite Ideas, but could still influence the choices of the more susceptible humans. It amazed her how much a 'Smart' and 'Powerful' person would listen to the bits of advice of their chef or nanny. They were raised to be the more important people among their peers. But still acted on ideas that came from the more humble of men.
And everyone praised them for their 'Innovation', which was all the better for her since it was cheaper to nudge a no one so it could deliver her message. That Saintsworth clan was no exception to this rule. Even if most of their members had some heavy causality on them thanks to their inception. It was harder to nudge without using Idea someone that was the result of her manipulations, and since the whole clan was birthed from the correction in Causuality she couldn't nudge them that easily.
It was a blessing that they delimited their members so clearly, so she had only to plant the idea on them while they weren't part of the clan, and so when they joined or talked with someone, her machinations would spread like the virus scaly released on the primordial forest so many years ago. Still, it was so annoying to be doing this so slowly over the years. If only she could control when she would awake herself from her slumbers...Then she would only need to place a few alarms, sleep, and only awake to finish the work. But for now, that wasn't an option so she would do the work the hard way.
She didn't want to destroy this clan, they were useful as keepers and guardians of knowledge, and maybe she would nudge someone else to this role later on. Guardian of Civilization. That was a nice title to have, even if she thought of herself as that, she could share it with a few humans that were promising enough. But for now, a few nudges here, the 'Brilliant' idea to send the heir of the main branch of that clan to 'Prove' itself by going into training like a normal person and we are ready!
She would feel bad for that kid who was now named Alexanders...If he wasn't a member of this clan that would cause so many problems by 'Trying to prove itself worthy', she had already read the plans of the top members, and 'Conquering the world' wasn't a good idea. Especially if by 'Purging the infidels' they meant killing more than half of the population, they didn't even have a feasible method (yet) to identify someone by genetic markers. So at least they hadn't started seriously going into that.
And wasn't that a wonderful word 'Genetic' she still remembers the times when she called 'Little guys' to amoeba and cells, she couldn't risk more human deaths, not if it meant the death of someone that could further the knowledge of the world. Mother was stirred by new knowledge, if this clan wasn't so focused on preserving it, she would just erase them and deal with the causality. But it was too risky now, if the knowledge in their vault suffered by the rebound it could send her back so far away!
She still regretted the loss of Atlantis, trying to save the citizens from a disaster only for the whole city to be sunk into the ocean, but at least some of the important ones survived...
But no, she would go at this slowly and prepare everything, she already had chosen and prepared the persons to be discarded, and not a single one of them had families so that was saving on causality. No further echos would go into the time stream that way, they also had someone else near their proficiency level of career, so someone could take over their spot when purged. So she could save extra causality that way too!
She made sure that the kid Alexander was noticed, and even sprinkled him extra causality on him so he would have extra luck to make sure he made it to the testing. She nudged the tests made on that lab and made sure to make every important member of the clan attend said testing so when everything imploded on itself they would be gone with no causality cost!
Some people might question what the explosion was, and if someone investigated they might find some of the books the Saintsworth had collected and further advance the civilization too! She hoped to get those extra points!
But for now, she would focus on the testing!
Everything was going fine, the kiddo tried to smooth talk his way out of this, but she made sure that the masked woman was extra focused on the task, some might say she was cruel by leading her to believe that advancing that drug would heal her face...
And to those, she would say 'Have you seen what this madwoman does for a living?' for real if she was human and had to stomach every experiment she did for funsies...She would have nightmares for years...But she wasn't human, and that madwoman would die anyway so no problems here!
The experiment was arriving at its peak, the kid was extra infused with the drug...wait...what?
Why didn't she notice the drug had parts of her original body?
Wasn't that a probl....?
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IT HAPPENED AGAIN?!?!?!?
Another headache was waiting for her after waking up. She didn't even use Idea or anything!
What the hell sent her to sleep?
Mother at least was still moving like nothing in her sleep...So humanity and their knowledge were still going strong. A quick search into the past and she would find the problem...And also would know how long she got knocked out into sleep.
Hmm?
AH?!?
WHAT?!?
This...wasn't Idea manipulation...Was it?
Something weird was going on, on the day of the experiment the kid somehow survived...But everyone else that she had marked for death with her small nudges in causality got erased...
In the great scheme of things they got wiped of humanity's books, but it was...too precise.
More like the work of a machine than of her. She expanded her senses to the world at large to see who did it...But nothing was there like always, only the echo of mother's sleep and her own existence.
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Access denied, not enough authorization yet.
At least it was only that till she noticed something different, a couple of windows that weren't there before.
Notice:
Access denied, user not registered yet.
Wasn't that interesting?
She couldn't see the other side of the windows yet, but they implied that she would be able to in the future, maybe there were new friends on the other side of that!
She wondered why she couldn't see them before though...
And why they messed with her careful planning, that causality wasn't cheap... But since they didn't make a mess out of the situation she would forgive them. She was magnanimous like that, not like those pesky humans that messed around Mother's house. But for now, the important people that she wanted to deal with were mostly dealt with. The Austrian midget somehow survived, but was no longer part of the clan's outer members, so maybe he would focus on art or something now. At least he didn't have access to the Saintsworth network anymore, so the genetic purging was averted. And the kid had survived somehow?
She could feel he was resonating with her, and sometimes she almost could feel him looking at her, but since he didn't answer her calls she would only take cursory glances at him. He was human and wouldn't survive long anyway. She wondered why he pretended to not notice the glass windows though. She had noticed no one else could see those, but he should be able to since he could sense her. But that was thought for another time, for now, she had more important problems!
Like...How did those psychos end with her main body in their vault?
WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!?
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Alexander's POV
He had survived the initial testing...
Somehow.
And either everyone was nuts or he was nuts since no one seemed to remember most of the more important and brilliant members of the Saintsworth clan in centuries.
Their spots were taken, of course, it wouldn't do to have so many leadership spots empty. But they were taken by the second-best in their field. All of them.
Alexanders could access the vault nowadays thanks to his ranking being raised because of his collaboration (not that he could do anything else) in the testing, so he was allowed to read the books in the library.
And most of the work was still there, but no one else could see it. He shoved a book into the face of the head librarian and he didn't say a thing, he could take five books and the librarian would only pester him because one of them was acknowledged as Saintsworth heritage, but the others weren't there for her.
They didn't react to them at all, they would take care of them, and they would put them in their place if Alexanders left them around the library or any place that 'Books weren't supposed to be'.
But that was it, he could use the information in the books and even present it, and even after that, no one would react to the books. If Alexanders wrote what was in the book word for word and published it with his name then the new book would be recognized though.
But the older book with a name no one could remember would remain the same. So something weird was going on. Well, a few weird things were going on.
There was the weird purple-haired girl who was running all around with Roman clothes on her that no one seemed to notice for once. There was the problem with those two glass panels on the sky pestering each other for a second annoying place. And finally was the problem that the purple-haired girl kept trying to gain his attention after those panels kept ignoring her.
Only on the first day did he react to the girl. The day his world turned into a crazy circus of weird stuff going all over the place. The day they infused that weird drug into him. But according to the best physician in the world, Alexanders was the living example of a healthy man.
They no longer treated him like a kid, it seems it made them feel bad to treat him as a kid and put him in so many experiments and dangers. At least the second best had more conscience than the last ones. No evidence that they ever existed (Besides a few logs on the library that he didn't dare to write again) was around.
But for now, he would carry on, life was too short to worry about this kind of problem, and god knows how many years of his life had that weird experiment shaved off him. Nowadays the average lifespan was around 40-50 years, so he has around 30-40 years left in the best case or 20-30 in the worst. He had read the previous records of those experiments (Both the ones that they gave him and the ones that no one could read anymore) and no one really survived the testing.
They had lost the original formula of the drug they injected with, but it only took him half a day to find it...And it shouldn't work, if he was reading this right and the impressions he got from it were right (He wasn't sure from where those impressions were coming) he should be dead.
So he wasn't that hopeful of a long and healthy life, so better make it worth it the few years he had!
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Notice:
August, 1960
SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT!
And wasn't that the truth?
"Nothing new on the spy we sent?" Asked Alexanders to one of his new aides.
"N-No sir, if he doesn't contact us tomorrow we will send a team to extract as you ordered" This one didn't look like he would last long either.
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLEEEEEEEEEEEEE
He wished that the purple girl would leave him alone already "Inform me of any change, and you can leave for the day" She had been like this since her return. She vanished the same day everyone forgot about Hitler sending nukes all over the world at the start of the world war and returned a few weeks ago.
She wasn't expecting to see him still alive...And like nothing, well he was surprised too when he first noticed that time...Didn't seem to advance much for him. His body peaked at 20 years and then just stopped.
So it seemed that the drug was extra effective in that way, he just... didn't want to age, his body was staying at the peak he built up to. So some extra studies were done using the vault of the Saintsworth to choose the more efficient build for his body. The perfect amount of muscle in the perfect amount of ratio.
He was the peak of health, the best the world could create at this time, he just needed to keep a healthy diet... And wasn't that a chore?
If one didn't seem to age what was the point if you couldn't enjoy it anymore?
So he climbed the ladder, the corporative ladder, the scientific ladder, the power ladder, and any and all ladders in the Saintsworth clan. He just went for it, they couldn't get rid of him since his body had the key to the peak the Saintsworth rambled about.
And since they couldn't synthesize the drug and their best scientist didn't seem interested in doing it either(Alexanders was their best scientist after all) they were out of options. No real excuse could hold to the momentum Alexanders had. Want to guarantee you will hold that position till death?
Sure, just sign here that you will forfeit the right to choose a successor.
Don't wanna? Then don't mind me if I kick you out of that spot.
They really were out of options in the long term, and those geezers didn't mind it that much so long they kept their short-term benefits. Of course, those behind them minded the problems more, but since they didn't have the power at this point in time they were out of options already.
HOW ARE YOU STILL LIKE THIS?!?!?
ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN?!?
His only problem was the purple girl, he noticed that he could hear it more clearly without the garbled background sound if he had a part of the weird crystal that was used in the drug he was infused, so nowadays he carried a pendant made out of it. Not that he interacted with her that much.
Can't talk to someone only you can see without looking like a nutcase.
And his position wasn't that secure yet. So for now he would deal with the problems that he could deal with.
Like for example, what to do with the remnants of the Austrian midget that were trying to get into the Saintsworths Clan. All the geezers wanted to accept them, but since they were shoved away from the clan by the purple girl power, he wasn't sure if getting them in again was a good idea.
THEY WANNA COME IN AGAIN?!? DON'T LET THEM IN I JUST WASTED TONS OF CAUSALITY ALREADY!
That was a problem indeed, causality. The cause and effect, this girl could mess with the effect and generate a cause that justified the effect.
Such nonsensical power.
But for now, he had a few calls to make "Tell the geezers that I will give a spot to one of their descendants if they stop insisting on accepting all the members of the third reich. And that if they support the persons of my choosing I might allow an extra spot" said Alexanders into his phone to an assistant to the elder's table.
That would calm the geezers for a few weeks at the very least and would give him more time to think about his next step, he was almost finished studying the books on the saintsworth vault. It was getting hard to find new stuff to read.
Not because they weren't getting new books all the time, but because he was reading the lost knowledge of humanity. He was studying the stuff that the purple girl had erased from mankind. And that painted an interesting image.
She didn't want humanity to end itself and wanted it to prosper, but she didn't mind destroying the brightest minds if she thought they were a danger to the world at large.
So long the knowledge of mankind was going forward and it didn't endanger the world, she would let it go. And since she had the power to stop and erase anyone...
That was dangerous since Alexanders might end at its crossroads.
Who could endanger more humanity than someone that was aging really slowly and could gain more knowledge and power as time went on?
If his trend of aging kept going at this pace he might live a few hundred years after all, if his trend of climbing the spots kept this pace he might end at the head of the most powerful and secretive clan in the world...If he was the one to make the choice he would probably erase himself and be dammed the consequences...