It had been close to two years since Warren started working at Unicorn. He had grown a great deal since then, and not just physically. He was no longer just another typical teenager. Unicorn gave him a solid education in real combat, politics, economics and even spy-craft.

He had picked up various skills as well, such as cooking, tailoring, and outdoor survival. With the time dilation that the VR capsule provided, he calculated that he had crammed about eight years of living into two.

Of course not all the time was spent training and studying. He was often called upon to intercede on behalf of Unicorn. The job varied widely, from infiltrating and influencing a royal court's politics, covert assassinations, and full-out battles with players and NPCs alike.

He had to stop players from prematurely triggering an important quest, as well as finishing some quests on his own. Fortunately he had some help from his friends and NPC allies. Charles, Elizabeth and Isabel had also grown alongside him. Perhaps it wasn't to the staggering extent that Warren had, but they were still impressive all on their own.

While Warren was well-rounded in most aspects, Charles had a talent for politics and economics. At one point he almost single-handedly caused a minor famine and economical crash in a small kingdom in Royal Road, leading to the territory being divided and annexed into the surrounding kingdoms.

Isabel had a sharp mind, which she used to gather and analyze information. She was their unofficial tactician for their battles. Although she didn't have that spark of a natural leader, her tactics rarely failed.

Not to be outdone by her colleagues, Elizabeth excelled in infiltration and deception. She was a born actress, fitting into the role of an elderly scullery maid one day, and a haughty foreign princess the next.

Then there was Warren. He didn't have the knowledge of politics that Charles had, Isabel's brilliant tactics, or Elizabeth's ability to switch personas at a drop of a hat, but he did have a solid understanding and a respectable level of knowledge in each of those areas.

Where he was the undisputed king, was in warfare. He learned the use of swords, knives, bare-handed combat, and even knew how to use a bow decently. He always felt alive out on the battlefield, crushing, killing and dominating his enemy.

Anyone who looked into his glowing silver eyes, knew that they were the eyes of a demon; the eyes of a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. He even had a nickname that was whispered by NPCs and floated around in the Royal Road forums, the Silver Devil. Personally he didn’t consider himself cold-blooded. He liked to think of himself as being very efficient and rational instead.

All in all it was a great job and a great life. Even though there wasn't much time left over for things in the real world, his life should have been perfect. He had a small group of very close friends, a modern living space, enough money for him to live comfortably, and he even got to spend most of his time in a fantastical world.

Yet with even all of those positives, he couldn't help but have a nagging feeling that something was very strange about all this. Being taught how to fight by top military instructors and traditional martial arts experts, learning how to survive in the wild with nothing but the clothes on your back from wilderness guides, and how to blend into a foreign society by ex-CIA and MI6 agents are not by any means ordinary.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a nagging feeling but a full-blown klaxon alarm screaming out in warning. Being able to singlehandedly take out a squad of trained soldiers, survive indefinitely if he was dropped in the middle of the Amazon, and infiltrate secure organisations and governments was definitely overkill for what was in essence nothing more than a game.

Then again, Royal Road was very...real. It wasn't unreasonable to assume that skills on the level of a spy or a soldier were necessary to influence events in-game on a major level. Plus, Unicorn was extremely wealthy, so they could certainly afford the best instructors.

Maybe he was just being paranoid, and there was nothing to worry about. Besides, what was the worst that could happen?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jacob looked over the classified report for the umpteenth time. No matter how many times he read it, it wouldn't change anything. The kids were ready. All their instructors agreed that they had reached an acceptable level of proficiency in their respective fields.

The biometric data had come in too. They were all compatible and ready to go. Since the technology had just been completed, Unicorn was ready to proceed to the second stage. All they needed was Jacob's approval.

While he was coming to terms with the actions he needed to take, his assistant Andrew walked into his office.

“Are you here to tell me to forget about who those kids are and to just go through with it? If so, you're late. I've already heard it from a dozen different people.” Jacob sounded bitter as he said this, and for good reason. He had been responsible for the selection, training and education of those four kids. Now he had to turn around and stab them in the back.

“Sir, I care for them as much as you do, but you and I both know what's at stake here. I'm well aware of the burden you carry, but you must think about the greater good. This is a necessary sacrifice for the sake of our goal.”

Jacob gave a weary sigh. He wasn't a general who could order his men into danger; he was a simple scientist and businessman. Yet even he knew that Andrew was right. “Make the call to the security team. Have them bring the first test subject at dawn.”

Andrew nodded sadly, taking as much joy from the decision as Jacob did. “Yes sir. Who should they bring down?”

“Warren Fuller.”

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Warren woke to the orange glow of the rising sun. It was way too early, so he wondered what woke him up. That was when he heard the soft creak of the floorboards. One or more people were in his apartment.

He vaulted from his bed and flattened his body against the wall beside the door. With adrenaline coursing through his system, his senses were heightened. He could hear the almost imperceptible footsteps as they got closer to the door. Whoever they were, they were well trained.

The knob turned slowly and the intruder carefully pushed it open. When it was almost halfway open, Warren slammed the door into his face, stunning him long enough to reopen the door and elbow him in the throat. He turned the man around and held him in a chokehold, simultaneously using him as a human shield.

There were three other men in the hallway, and all of them had their guns pointed right at him. They were dressed entirely in black, with high-end body armor, and what looked to be assault rifles. These weren't thieves or street thugs. His best guess was either a SWAT team or a security force.

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my home?”

One of the armed men stepped forward and lowered his weapon. “Calm down Mr. Fuller, we don't mean you any harm.”

“You break into my home and have guns trained on me, but you expect me to believe that you don't mean me any harm?”

“The guns are just a precaution. All we want is to take you to Unicorn's main office.”

They're part of Unicorn? But why do they want me? “That doesn't make any sense, I didn't do anything wrong. Besides, even if I did, you don't have the kind of authority to break in here and carry me off.”

“So I assume you're not willing to come with us peacefully.”

“You assume right.” Warren had no way of knowing if they were telling the truth, and since they weren't cops, they didn't have the right to take him like this. Something told him that going with these men would be a big mistake. The gunman's face tightened at this statement.

“Men, take him down. Remember, we need him alive and mostly uninjured.” At his words, the other two men slowly inched towards Warren.

Warren watched closely from behind the semi-conscious body of the man he had captured. When the other three gunmen had gotten into range, he threw the body forward and charged towards them. While two of the men were tangled up with their unconscious comrade, Warren attacked their leader.

Right before he got shot, Warren was able to grab the muzzle of the gun and point it away from him. To his surprise, it wasn’t a bullet that flew out, but a dart. It seemed they really didn’t want to cause him any serious harm.

With the muzzle of the gun in his right hand, he punched the leader’s face with his left. He put his weight behind his fist and managed to break his nose. Surprised and in pain, the leader inadvertently loosened his grip on his gun which allowed Warren to yank it away from him.

He pulled back and swung the gun around, clocking the leader on the side of his head. With the leader knocked out, Warren spun around to face the others. It was just in time too, since they had just managed to extricate themselves from their fallen comrade.

Before they brought him down, Warren used the tranquilizer gun in his hand to knock them out as well. A few shots at the gaps in their armor were enough. The drug seemed fast acting, and they passed out in less than a second.

With the battle over, Warren had some time to catch his breath and organize his thoughts. The first thing he had to do was make sure there weren’t more people in his home. After reloading the gun, he quickly swept the other rooms in his home. After seeing that there wasn’t anyone else, he went into the living room and picked up his cell phone.

Damn, no signal. They must have jammed it somehow. Right when he was thinking about what to do next, the front door burst open and more gunmen came storming in. Using the furniture as cover, he managed to pick off three more men before he ran out of ammo and was overrun.

He had a dart in his chest, his shoulder and his leg. Try as he might, he couldn’t fight off the effects of the tranquilizer. His limbs grew heavier, until he could no longer keep his gun up.

As the world faded to black, he saw the gunmen come closer to him. There he sat, helpless like a newborn, until his consciousness finally drifted away and he was left to their mercy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warren woke up to the sound of a loud whirring noise. Still groggy and disoriented, he had trouble adjusting to his surroundings. When his head had finally cleared, he realized what that noise was, and where he was. He was on a plane going god knows where.

He tried to get up, but found himself unable to do so. His hands and feet were manacled and chained to the ground. Looking at his clothes, he inferred that they were going somewhere very cold. His kidnappers had taken the time to dress him up in a thick, red winter coat. He could feel the many layers beneath that coat as well. Their destination wasn’t just going to be cold, it was going to be frigid.

He twisted around as much as he could in his seat, making out three men behind him, one beside him on the opposite aisle, and three ahead of him. The plane wasn’t all that big, fitting only about thirty passengers. For its’ size, it was well taken care of. It had large windows and red leather seats.

If it was any other situation, he might have appreciated the extra leg-room and wider seats. He turned to the guard sitting across from him and barked out, “hey, where the hell are we going?”

His guard was an older man in his forties or fifties. His salt and pepper hair was cropped short in a soldier’s cut, and the hard lines in his face spoke of an extensive military career. “Like you were told earlier, we’re taking you to Unicorn’s HQ.”

“Yeah right. If we were going to Korea, we wouldn’t be wearing such thick clothing.”

“I said Unicorn’s HQ, not their main corporate office.”

“I didn’t know there was a difference.” All this secrecy and cloak and dagger business made Warren uneasy. What have I gotten myself into?

“You’ll be briefed when we land, which won’t be long now.”

He was frustrated that he wasn’t getting any information, but there was nothing he could do about that. “Alright then, would you at least get these chains off of me? There’s not much I can do trapped in the sky like this.”

The older guard snorted. “Yeah right, so says the guy that took out eight of my men before being restrained. I’ll say this, you’ve certainly earned my respect, but there’s no way in hell I’m taking those off. Just stay there and wait quietly.”

Sensing the end of the conversation, Warren didn’t bother to talk back to him. Not wanting to piss him off, Warren decided to do as he was told and sat there quietly. He thought about how he had gotten into this mess.

He had signed up for this gig because of all the benefits; a fully furnished home, a hefty salary, and an enormously enjoyable job. It was quite simple too. All he had to do was play a game and do as his superiors told him. Now how does that translate into being kidnapped by ex-military brutes and being dragged off to parts unknown?

A sudden, chilling thought then entered his mind. If they were willing to brazenly break in and kidnap him, would he even make it back alive? Unicorn was wealthy and powerful enough to sweep his death under a rug and make him disappear.

He wouldn’t have thought them capable of such a thing before, but now? Anything was possible, and he still didn’t have a clue as to why they were taking him away. He contemplated what could have possibly led up to this. He went over the entirety of the past two years, digging for some small clue, but he came up empty. Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t break out of his reverie until his guard spoke to him.

“Get ready kid, we’re about to land.”

Warren immediately looked outside the window, trying to find a landmark that could tell him where he was. Instead, he was shocked to see that the ground was completely white. It was covered in snow and ice for as far as the eye could see. No, it wasn’t covered in ice, it was ice.

He wasn’t in some country in the middle of winter, he was in Antarctica!

“This is Unicorn’s HQ?” Warren whispered hoarsely.

The guard heard him and answered back. “Surprising, isn’t it? Not many people know about this place. You should count yourself lucky.”

Warren snorted in derision. “Sure, lucky.”

The guard then unlocked his chains, though he left the manacles on. He guided Warren down the aisle, and off the plane. It was a good thing they dressed him up in winter clothes, otherwise he would have already gotten frostbite. Every breath he took burned him from the inside out, and his face had already gone numb.

After dropping them off, the plane took off and left them there. As far as he could see, the entire place was a flat sheet of ice, indistinguishable from another. “So how are we supposed to find Unicorn’s HQ?” he asked through chattering teeth.

The old guard laughed heartily. “No need to worry son, we’re already here.” He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a black rubber bracelet. He pressed a button on it, and then waited. The ground started to rumble, and a bright light shone up from beneath the ice.

The ice around the light started to crack and finally lifted up. When it was over, Warren could see what looked to be an elevator sticking out of the Antarctic ice.

The guards nudged him forwards and got him inside the elevator. There was nothing special about it. It looked like any other elevator, with metallic walls, a railing, and an intercom system. The only difference was that there were only two buttons on the panel; one arrow for down and one for up. Obviously, they pressed the button to go down.

The ride down was surprisingly long. It took them a full ten minutes to get to the bottom. It was a silent ride down, which made Warren all the more anxious. He didn’t know what he was going to be in for when the doors opened.

Beyond the doors lay an enormous secret base, built from steel and concrete. It was about the size of a small city, with many buildings several stories high, roads, and even trees and artificial sunlight. Compared to the frigid winds above, the climate underground was made to be almost temperate. Warren was stunned at the amount of work it must have taken to build something like this.

“It’s an impressive sight, isn’t it? I’ve been told that it took thirty years to build. Now that’s enough time spent gawking at it. Let’s get a move on.” The older guard then took him by the elbow and led him down the road.

They passed by several residential areas, and some farmland, before they got to the work stations. Men and women in lab coats went in and out of the buildings. In fact, besides the armed guards, just about everyone there was a scientist of some sort, but they didn’t appear to be from any one particular country.

When they took notice of Warren, they stopped what they were doing and stared at him. Some with awe, some with envy, but the vast majority was with pity and regret. A chill swept through him, what did they know that he didn’t?

In a few short minutes, they reached a thick silver spire. From the way the buildings were arranged around it, Warren assumed that it was an important place. Unlike the other buildings, this one didn’t have many people bustling in and out of it. Instead, the only people he could see were the guards surrounding it.

As if they’d been expecting them, the guards opened the door and let them pass. The inside of the spire was covered with silver metal and thick bundles of wire. At the far end of the space was what appeared to be a modified Royal Road capsule. Just beyond that was a glass-enclosed lab and monitoring station.

There were a few scientists there, fiddling with the instruments, and they appeared to be subordinates of a man in a charcoal grey suit. As they got closer, Warren was able to make out that man’s features. It was Jacob, the man that recruited him to this job. He had been a superior, a mentor, and a friend. He was someone he trusted. Knowing that Jacob was aware of his situation, and had quite likely authorised it was devastating.

When he got close to Jacob, Warren asked the questions that had been plaguing him all day. “You knew about this? Why? I thought I could trust you. Why did you have these men abduct me from my home and bring me here? And for that matter, what the hell is this place anyway?”

Jacob gave a weary sigh, with eyes filled with pain and regret. “Warren you have to believe me, I don’t take any pleasure from doing this. And contrary to what you might think, I do consider you a friend. However, our friendship doesn’t outweigh the fate of the world.”

Warren scoffed. “Fate of the world? What does Unicorn have to do with something as grandiose as that? At the end of the day, it’s just a simple gaming company.”

“Oh how I wish that were true,” Jacob said while smiling bitterly. “Think about it. How can a company that seemingly came out of nowhere, suddenly present a virtual reality MMORPG that utilized technology light-years beyond anything else in the market?”

It was a valid question, one that Warren and everyone else in the world had asked at one time or another. “What’s your point? No matter how strange it may be, the fact is that it did happen.”

“True, though it may be a bit of a stretch to believe that a prodigy secretly worked on it for several years, it’s still within the realm of possibility. But that raises some other questions. How did they get manufacturing and distribution in place so quickly? How did they circumvent the government’s red tape and safety concerns that would normally take years of testing?”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that it’s time I opened your eyes to the truth behind Unicorn and the real purpose behind Royal Road. First off, Unicorn is not a gaming company. It’s a multinational organization sponsored by the UN. Its’ official name is the United Nations Initiative to Combat Overpopulation and Resource Necessities, which shortens down to U.N.I.C.O.R.N.

You see, a couple of decades ago, the heads of state of all countries affiliated with the UN came to a unanimous agreement on one topic. The world was going to end. It wasn’t going to be some sudden apocalyptic event, but a slow starvation. The time for preventative measures were over; they were well past the point of no return. The population continued to grow exponentially, while food and water became scarcer. I mean look at the world right now. Food costs have doubled over the past five years alone, and there are now over twenty billion people alive today. We’ve cut down entire rainforests, transformed deserts, and even created some artificial islands to live on.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Warren took this time to interject with his own thoughts. “But wait, if we were in such a situation, why isn’t anyone panicking? Doesn’t anyone know about what’s going on?”

“Oh they know, but we’ve downplayed the seriousness of it on purpose. Watch any apocalyptic movie, once people hear the words end of the world, they start panicking. Anyway, once they realized that they had to take a more drastic approach to solving the problem, they created us. We were an organization designed to save humanity from itself, by whatever means necessary.”

“So for all this time you’ve been working on something like that?”

Jacob’s eyes darkened. “No, not exactly. We had access to the top scientists from any and all countries in the world. It took only two years to come up with the first solution.”

“What is it, and why haven’t you put it into motion yet?”

“it was quite simple really, if overpopulation was the root cause of our problems, then the simplest solution was to reduce that number. We engineered a virus that would kill off about eighty percent of the world’s population. It was made to be fast, relatively painless, and to deactivate after a set amount of time. It would have been very effective, but at the same time inhumane. No one wanted to murder so many people. Something like that, it goes beyond genocide. Instead, we put it on the back burner as a contingency plan, and tried to come up with something else. The two most hopeful ideas was sterilization to prevent too many new children from being born, and colonization of another planet. Unfortunately, sterilization wouldn’t immediately fix the problem, and we’d have new ones instead from the burden of so many older people on the younger workforce. Colonization was out of the question, since there aren’t any planets near us that can support us. That’s when a young Korean scientist had a brilliant idea, which would be the foundation for Royal Road.”

Warren tried to process all this information. Much of it made sense, even killing off all those people, since it seemed to be the most pragmatic solution. Where he was lost was on Royal Road. “I don’t quite understand how Royal Road can solve our problems.”

Jacob chuckled ruefully. “That’s because you continue to believe that Royal Road is a virtual reality game.”

Warren frowned. “If it isn’t virtual reality, then what is it?”

“Let me back up a bit and go back to the beginning. The scientist, one Dr. Byung Jun Yoo, thought that as an alternative to intergalactic colonization, we could try interdimensional colonization instead. His theory was that because of the infinite number of alternate realities and universes layered upon our own, we could tunnel through to another Earth and send people there.”

This news stunned Warren. “So Royal Road…It’s an actual world altogether? It’s all real?”

“You’re half right. Royal Road is an artificially created dimension that’s anchored to our own. We quickly learned that we couldn’t send any physical matter through the dimensions, but we could send our consciousness, and use them to create new bodies on the other side. The problem was that we couldn’t directly split off our consciousness from this body and send it through. We needed another step for semi-transference, before we could split off entirely.” Jacob’s face became more animated as he talked about the science behind it. “We’ve tried going directly from this world to another, but every time we did, the consciousness fractured and dissolved altogether. Of course these were done with animals. The theory is that because the conscious mind is really just an intricate matrix made up of electrical energy, without the material structure of the brain holding it to a physical plane, the electric matrix starts to unravel and return to its’ diffused state as pure energy. Now we’ve measured the rate that the unraveling occurs at, and used it to select the worlds that are yet within our reach. Do you understand?”

“Uhhh, mostly. So bottom line, Royal Road’s a stepping stone.” After hearing about all that, he began to piece together the plan they came up with. “You plan on using the capsules to send people off to the different worlds. So many people have access to it, so you could send them off today.”

“Yes we do have the capability to send then off, but we’re still not quite ready. That’s part of the reason we brought you here. We need to test the efficiency of a full transfer, as well as gather information about a complete crossing.”

“Wait, why me? I mean come on I’m barely twenty years old. Aren’t there a lot more qualified people? How about this guard you sent to pick me up? He seems like he’d be able to take care of himself.”

Jacob grimaced. “The problem lies in the compatibility for the crossing. Besides the personal compatibility level, there’s also a more general problem. It seems that only people under a certain age can use this technology. Once they get too old and become set in their ways, the mind seems to solidify and lose flexibility. Someone over thirty-five has absolutely no chance of surviving the trip. The ideal time would be before twenty-three years of age. Of all the possible candidates for this test, you are by far the only one capable of surviving through it.”

“What do you mean I’m the only one? What exactly are you going to do to me?”

“Based on the distance between dimensions, our scientists have determined the eleven possible worlds we can travel to. They’ve been labelled Earth one, two, three, and so on, in order of increasing distance. World eleven is the one farthest from us, and thus the most difficult to get to. There are only a handful of people that stand a chance of surviving such a trip, and you’re the best candidate.”

“Wait, wait, wait. If you want to send me somewhere, why not Earth one? I probably won’t die if I go there, right?”

“No you won’t. In fact it’s almost guaranteed that you could travel safely to Earth one through seven. However, going there won’t give us accurate reference data. That’s why it was decided we would send one person as far as humanly possible and use them to calculate and improve future travels.”

“So I’m just a guinea pig?! Someone expendable to test the waters with?” Warren couldn’t believe this was happening, that his life meant so little.

“I’m sorry Warren, but this is how it has to be. At least take comfort in the fact that your sacrifice will save our race as a whole.” He looked at the guards and nodded. “Strap him in.”

Warren was forcibly placed into the capsule, and strapped down to it. The guards then removed his clothes, leaving him in his boxers. Once the guards had left, a few scientists came and hooked his body up to several monitoring instruments.

Once again, Jacob came up to him to give him the last bits of information. “Warren, I know that you’ll make it. I’ve never met a more courageous, cunning, and strong person in my life. That’s the only thing that alleviates some of the guilt I feel. But when you do make it there, you’ll be in a foreign world all by yourself. No one else will be sent after you, and this is only a one-way trip. That’s why there are a few things you have to know. The world you arrive in will likely be populated by humans just like us. It may seem hard to believe, but it’ll be a world somewhat similar to this one. Scientists call it resonance and synchronicity. Some bits of language, the animals, even the landscape might have some common features with what we have here. However, it likely won’t have the exact same laws of physics that we have here. In fact there’ll likely be new ones there, ones that relate to what we would call magic.”

“Well that’s just great, how can hearing that not fill me with confidence?” Warren asked sarcastically.

“You should be confident. Unlike most people in this world, you belong in a world like that. I saw what you were like in Royal Road. You didn’t just enjoy yourself, you thrived there. It opened up a previously unknown part of you. One that lived off of carnage and destruction, who was a throwback to our more primal ancestors. The world of Royal Road is the one you really want to belong to, and if you can survive there, you can likely survive in this new world.”

“How do you even know that those worlds are like Royal Road?”

“We were able to use our instruments to catch glimpses of the other worlds, and acquire a bit of data from it. Royal Road is our attempt at recreating them.”

“So what, you’re going to drop me off in a world where I don’t know the language or the geography, and I’m expected to just fend for myself?”

“Basically, yes. The higher-ups only care that you make it to that world in one piece. Should you survive the transition, the test will be considered a success, and therefore terminated.”

Warren couldn’t put into words the rage he felt. They were going to use him as a test shot and then just throw him away, as if he meant nothing to them. Disposable, expendable, unimportant, that’s what they thought of him? They were basically going to end his life and there was nothing he could do about it except stand there and stew.

“Warren, you may be a necessary sacrifice, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t care.” Jacob’s words got through to Warren, pulling him out of his blind rage.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that even if I can’t stop this from going forward, I can at least give you something that will help you out. The interdimensional travel technology isn’t the only thing we’ve come up with. It wasn’t easy to get permission, and it cost me the entirety of my life savings, but it was worth it.”

“What was?”

“You’ll see.” He signalled to the guards, who immediately responded by placing a mask over his face, and making him inhale an anaesthetic.

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When Warren awoke, he found himself in a black, lightless room. He felt a dull throbbing ache in his eyes, a serious headache, and some minor pain all over his body. It wasn’t until the anaesthetic fully wore off, that he started to panic. He realized that it wasn’t that he was in a dark room, he just couldn’t see.

He was strapped down somewhere, but at first he didn’t know where. “Relax Warren, everything is alright, you’re still just strapped in to our special transference capsule,” Jacob said in a soothing tone of voice.

“What have you done to me?” he demanded from Jacob.

“I told you I was going to give you something. It’s actually three separate things that tie into each other. We call them the Overcome Series, since they allow you to become something more than human. The first is an artificial eye, which has a wide array of useful abilities. Night vision, infrared, telescopic, microscopic, it can do it all and more. The second is an add-on to your nerves and sensory organs. It’s branched throughout every inch of your body and collects detailed information about you body’s state, and gathers information that you couldn’t get, even if you could process it.

Lastly there’s an implant in your brain. It’s basically a miniaturized computer. It uses the data it collects to perform analysis and processes it into a usable format. It also has a mapping function, a translation program, and it also actively rewires your brain for optimum use and perfect memory. I’ve also taken the liberty to upload some useful data onto it. There’s no need to worry about a power source or repairs, since it has self-repairing nanobots and it runs off of your biological energy. Now it should be starting up now. It’s all operated by thought alone, so it takes a while to adjust to. Don’t be too worried if you don’t get the hang of it immediately.”

Warren was livid that they performed such an invasive and life-altering surgery without his consent. Just when he was about to tell Jacob off, his body seized up and he felt pain running up and down his body. Once it subsided, he found that he could see again, and what he saw was incredible.

The detail and the definition that his brain processed were on a whole other level from what it had been in the past. He could see the fine lines on Jacob’s face, colors were more vibrant and more deeply hued. Everything was different.

It wasn’t just his eyes, he also felt smarter and wiser, and as if his instincts were honed and polished. It was an awareness that only an animal may have possessed. Although he wanted to be angry at Jacob, all that melted away. “This is incredible,” he said honestly, forgetting his situation for a moment.

“Yes it is, isn’t it? It’s a pity it can’t be manufactured on a large scale. It requires materials so scarce and difficult to produce, that only three models have been produced, including that one. You have no idea how many billions of dollars you’re now worth.”

“Your superiors let you put something that expensive into me?”

Jacob snorted. “Hell no, you really think they would put something so valuable in someone they didn’t even expect to make the trip?”

Warren was speechless. “Wouldn’t that get you into some serious trouble?”

“Probably, but it won’t be too bad. Worst case scenario, they lock me up for a while for larceny, I lose my job, what remains of my assets get seized, and I get put under surveillance for the rest of my days. They can’t officially charge me with anything too big, since they don’t want to attract too much attention to myself, and they’re not in the habit of making people disappear. It would be different if I stole it for myself, but they may let me slide given the circumstances.”

Jacob’s selfless sacrifice stunned Warren, and made him come to a decision of his own. “If this works, it’ll save humanity, right? That’s why you spent so much time training me.”

“Yes.”

“Then I assume Charles, Isabel and Elizabeth are also being groomed for the same reason?”

Once again, Jacob nodded regretfully. “We’re planning on using them to scout out the worlds that we plan to colonize. Unlike you, they’ll be sent with a squad of soldiers.”

“Alright then, let’s do it.” Now it was Jacob’s turn to be stunned.

“Wait, you would willingly put yourself through this?”

“What, are you trying to change my mind? Yeah, I’ll do it. I’m not at all happy about it, but given that you have so much faith in me, I might as well have some faith in myself. Besides, even if I didn’t want to save the world, I would do it to help out my friends.”

Jacob looked relieved to hear this from him. He called the lab techs that worked for him to get ready to start the transfer. Warren felt the ground shifting under him, as it rose up to the sky. The metallic spire rose hundreds of metres into the air, until it breached the ground and pointed into the sky. It wasn’t just a strange-looking tower, it was a giant antenna.

Just when the spire began powering up, Warren called out to Jacob. “Jacob, I want you to know something. I don’t blame you for this, so you shouldn’t blame yourself either.”

Jacob’s eyes started to glisten with unshed tears. No matter what Warren might say, and what he did to try to atone for it, the fact was that he sentenced his own friend to the possibility of death. Even if he did survive, he would be an exile, alone in a world that wasn’t his own. But despite all that, Warren’s forgiveness was still a weight off his shoulders.

“Thank you Warren. Ah, I almost forgot. We’re transferring only your consciousness and the electrical matrix of your body. There’s a good chance that once you arrive in the other world, the physical body that’s created will be markedly different from what it is now, especially given the implants that were put in you.”

Warren nodded, but he wasn’t sure what exactly Jacob meant by that. He waited as the machines whirred to life and the spire started pulsing in preparation. He could feel the electric charge build in the air, and the smell of ozone got stronger.

He locked eyes with Jacob one last time. Him strapped to the glowing capsule, and Jacob from behind the protective glass. He heard Jacob’s voice as he relayed the final command. “Transfer will begin in five seconds.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Zero.”

At the end of the countdown, Warren’s body glowed with a blinding white light that was sucked into the capsule and fed into the body of the spire. The mass of energy that was Warren’s consciousness travelled up the antenna and shot out of it. Above the spire, a crack formed in the sky. It was a rip in the fabric of space and time. Warren’s consciousness shot into it and disappeared.

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Jacob watched as Warren’s mind disappeared into the gate that was opened through Royal Road. He could only pray that he made it. He turned to one of his scientists, a young Russian fellow. “What are the vitals on Warren’s physical body?”

“He lost all brain activity at the moment of transfer. Furthermore, the accompanying surge of power charred his body beyond all recognition. The implants have also melted down and became useless.”

Jacob’s stomach turned as he looked at the black, flaking corpse that Warren left behind. In his head he knew that Warren had already left, and that it was only an empty shell, but he couldn’t reconcile what he knew in his head to what he saw and felt.

Pushing it out of his head, he called down to the guards. “I need a team to take Warren Fuller’s body and arrange it to look like an accident. We’ll send the paperwork up the proper channels.” There, it was done. Warren Fuller was officially gone from this world, now it was a matter of seeing if he made it to the next.

The following hour was long and torturous. The instruments they had were unable to provide precise data. All they knew was that Warren’s mind was still intact. Jacob thought he was going to go crazy as he listened to the clock. The ticking of the second hand grew louder and louder until it was all that consumed his mind.

“Sir, he’s reached the end and is about to breach!” The Russian scientist was excited, as were all the other scientists in the room.

Only Jacob was still nervous, hoping and praying that nothing would go wrong. They watched the screens as they monitored Warren’s journey. The tension rose quickly and dramatically, until…

“HE DID IT!” Uncharacteristically, it was Jacob that exclaimed with excitement, his heart filled with joy and relief. His friend hadn’t died, and now they’ve definitively proved the success of the interdimensional colonization plan. “Collect the data and then shut everything down,” he told his subordinates.

They did as he asked, excited and hopeful for the future. Jacob walked to his office, where he would inform the UN that the test was a success, and to turn himself in for the theft of classified property.

As he walked, he couldn’t help think about Warren. He would have made it into the other world by now. What would he see, what would he do? Those questions plagued him. He took a moment to pray fervently to the gods to take pity on Warren and to keep him safe.

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Kiyalah sensed an intrusion into her realm. It wasn’t a god or monster, but a human soul. Yet the curious thing about it all was that it wasn’t dead. It had no body, and yet it still lived. She traced back the path that the soul came from, and was incredulous at what she found. For a goddess, impressing her was no easy feat.

The soul didn’t come from the mortal world, but came from beyond that boundary, from a realm that even the mightiest gods couldn’t reach. The fact that it came through her realm, was no more than dumb luck. Before it left her realm and entered the mortal world, she warded and shielded it from any and all eyes. She also marked it, so that she could appear before him.

She didn’t want anyone else to come and steal away this delightful treasure. This would be the first time she got speak with a human, and she wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Sitting on her black marble throne, she smiled to herself. For the first time in her long immortal life, she would get to enjoy herself the way all the other gods and goddesses did. The world was going to become a lot more interesting from now on.