Hector woke with a huge grin on his face. Volithur had made some real progress in his body enhancement. That not only made him happy for the friend he had never met, but also provided him the knowledge of how to copy the feat.
His joy faltered suddenly. He didn’t have the cosmic energy or resources to enhance his body. Sometimes the transition between dream and real world confused his circumstances. Volithur had made great strides, true, but that did not translate to Hector. He needed to know how to make a filter realm and launch a chaos bolt, not turn his body into a tank.
At least the day before had been productive. He’d drained the courthouse, the salsa dancing bar, and two strip clubs – where each time he sat out of the way for only as long as it took him to drain the mental space. In between those trips, he had cultivated using his aura at the casino and made a few calls to get the contact info for Jeremy – the Jinn guy from the warehouse who knew how to make a fusion reactor. Apparently, Jeremy had quit not long after Hector to work on a personal project.
It hadn’t been hard to convince Jeremy over email to meet up with him to discuss plans for the future. The boy had always respected Hector and probably expected his retired boss wanted to get involved in the fusion business. No doubt Jeremy had agreed to the meeting because he needed money to fund his venture. Hector was almost looking forward to the boy’s expression when they revealed that the ‘plan for the future’ was more of a ‘save the world’ thing than a ‘make money’ thing.
Since they weren’t meeting until noon, Hector went to the gym for a long workout. Then he went to the rooftop bar – the location of their lunch meeting – and got in several solid hours of cultivating. After all, he had to be diligent about increasing his energy levels if he wanted to contribute in any way to the upcoming battles. Better environments were an effort multiplier, meaning he still had to put in effort – multiplying by zero didn’t generate big numbers.
Evelyn arrived fifteen minutes early carrying a laptop absolutely covered with stickers of various bands and anime characters. She opened it up to show him a video recorded by a middle-aged Indian man wearing a tailored suit. When she hit play without saying a word in preamble, Hector leaned forward to see the screen better.
“Hello, technology aficionados, I’m Professor Rahman and this is another episode of ‘The Jinn Files’.” The man spoke in unaccented English and had the charisma of a popular educator. “While there are many interesting aspects of Jinn technology, the thing most intensely associated with their species is without a doubt robotics. Not only did the Jinn create vast numbers of automated drones to power their post-scarcity economy, they even used their mastery of legal energy to integrate devices into themselves like science fiction cyborgs and ultimately upload themselves so that they became machines.
“While many of the epic feats of technology demonstrated by the Jinn aren’t possible without powerful souls, there are many seemingly mundane areas that can be exploited to utterly transform life on our world. There is no reason we can’t leverage the knowledge provided by our Jinn benefactors to automate entire industries. If this transition is managed properly, no one would need to work more than eight to ten hours a week to earn enough money to live comfortably.
“The history of humanity is essentially the history of technology. And that story has accelerated drastically in recent times. Friends, it is about to go into overdrive. Today I want to specifically discuss fully automated factories. This kind of thing is a staple of science fiction stories. Robots building anything you want – including more robots. And in this video, I want to do a walk-through of my prototype automated factory.”
Hector hit the pause button as Jeremy joined them. “That guy looks promising,” he said.
Jeremy glanced at the frozen image on the screen and nodded. “Professor Rahman. I subscribe to his channel. Good stuff.”
“Hello Jeremy, good to see you again.” Hector stood and offered his hand.
Jeremy shook and turned to very obviously look Evelyn up and down. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“This is Evie,” Hector said. “She’s an Arahant.”
The inappropriate ogling stopped. “That’s cool. Can you do illusions?”
Evelyn shot a dubious glance towards Hector before answering. Jeremy had not made a positive impression so far. “I concentrated all my energy on developing a realm.”
“A realm? I heard once – I mean, the other me, the dream me, heard once – that Arahants all have conceptual realms. That’s the Jinn word for when we build a realm that relies on resonance. Most Jinn do a computational realm since it lets them boost their brain power with a virtual computer that can’t be hacked. But the other me had a conceptual realm for fusion.”
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When it became clear that he was done talking, Evelyn answered. “Almost all Arahant realms rely on resonance. Some decide to make dream realms for their personal entertainment. My dream girl was a Sage, so I built mine around a true insight.”
Jeremy sniffed. “Jinn don’t do true insights. We don’t passively accept the world as it is, we change it to be the way we prefer.” He paused and considered the two of them. “So why is the Arahant at our meeting?”
“Ask her what her realm does,” Hector said.
Jeremy looked towards Evelyn again. “Do I actually have to repeat his question?”
“I built a realm around the true insight of possibility. It’s a future mirror. Sometimes known as a scrying lens.”
The skepticism dropped from Jeremy’s stance. “You’re an Arahant fortune teller? Err… that’s the wrong term. Your other you is a Sage. That’s a big deal, right?”
“Her name is Sage Levinia Grant Chauvin.”
Jeremy shrugged. “So… are you going to look into the future and pick the best utility company for us to work with?”
Hector waved for Jeremy to take a seat. “Let me ask you a question about your dreams, Jeremy. Did the topic of monsters ever come up?”
“My memories are from way before the fall of Aes, so monsters weren’t on the radar for the Jinn of that time. I mean, they were a thing that happened sometimes on unempowered worlds, but it wasn’t a big deal like the dragons.”
“Dragons?” The question slipped out before Hector could help himself, opening a tangent instead of letting him steer the conversation.
“Oh yeah. I remember things from the time of the Dragon Compact. The people who put together the dream timelines estimate that was over a century before the fall of Aes. A dragon arrived on one of the unempowered worlds the Jinn and Xian were fighting over.
“Instead of withdrawing like sensible people, both armies decided to compete by trying to kill the dragon. Bad call. Really, really bad call. The dragon unleashed its chaos domain, just started shredding reality. The armies got tired of getting their asses kicked and the survivors ran back to their home worlds.
“The dragon follows the Jinn through their wormhole back to Terra. That’s the Jinn home world, in case you didn’t know. Things start going South right away. Any tech that gets close to the dragon starts to malfunction unless it is directly stabilized by a powerful Jinn soul. The War Barge Elliot flies from halfway across the world to fight the thing and he gets his ass kicked.
“But just as things are about to get really bad, an army of Arahants arrive to help out. At its head was the Sage of Severing. I guess they knew they needed to be there because the Sage of Foresight… wait.” Jeremy turned to stare at Evelyn. “What was your other you’s name again?”
“Levinia Grant Chauvin. The Sage of Foresight.”
Jeremy shook his head. “That’s crazy. You… how does that even work? The Sage of Foresight… do you remember doing all of this?”
“Like I did it myself,” Evelyn said offhandedly. “My dream girl got the Sage of Severing – whose actual name was Sage Windrow Damien, by the way – to lead a small army of elites from Maya to Terra. Then she helped them coordinate a strategic retreat so that the dragon would chase them to Tian and attack the Xian.
“After that, she went back home and let events play out like she knew they would. Sage Windrow Damien, War Barge Elliot, and Lord Annihilator teamed up to kill a dragon – the first time such a thing had ever been done. In the aftermath, leaders from prominent nations on Tian, Maya, and Terra signed the Dragon Compact, agreeing to put aside all differences and come to each other’s mutual aid during any dragon attack.”
Jeremy scratched his head. “Jesus. You got a good dream person. Why are you here with us? You should be out doing important things.”
And there it was. The opportunity had presented itself. Hector leaned forward. “Jeremy, Evelyn had a vision. Lots of them, actually. Ones like the Sage did about the dragon.”
A shadow passed over Jeremy. “It’s not a dragon, is it? Shit, man, this world cannot survive a dragon.”
“It’s not much better,” Hector said. “Millions of monsters invade.”
Jeremy pointed accusingly at Evelyn. “What the hell are you wasting your time with us for? You need to do something about this. Earth doesn’t have war barges sitting around who can shoot schism beams.”
“I am doing something about it,” Evelyn mumbled.
Hector put a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Conventional military forces are going to be useless against this threat. We want to build armies of Kamikaze drones. Fly in and set off bombs.”
The moment Jeremy put together exactly why he had been invited to meet with them was exceedingly obvious. Pure shock, followed by dread. “Oh shit. Am I really the best you guys could find? We’re screwed. So, so, so very screwed.”