I sat surrounded by a maze of books. I wasn’t reading any of those books of course. Reading is for peasants who can’t just do an area scan of a media and absorb the information directly. *Ahem*... of course, I’m mostly joking about that.
I do occasionally enjoy cracking open a good book for my personal enjoyment and mental well-being. I’m just saying I don’t have to read if I don’t want to...and right now at the moment, I didn’t want to. Instead, I was just accompanying Margot as she read, while the other half of my mind was watching a soap opera on a streaming app that I was running on my subordinate operating system, or “internal-os”.
Margot sat with her nose in a book on defensive magic. It was one of several books that she had stacked beside her. Books that covered topics such as outdoor living, supernatural sites across the globe, rare magical treasures, magical and superhuman history, and lifestyle magic. My little contractor seemed to have decided on what path she wanted to take.
Over the past week and a half, while I was sleeping and adjusting to our new bond, I’d been feeding her information. At first I was just going to imbue her with the basic knowledge of a decorated astral commando. Just to make sure she didn’t die on me. It had been beyond my expectation that she would accept my casual offer to give her more such experiences.
After she went through life as a spaceborn soldier, Margot then went through a series of other lives. Artificial existences that she chose on her own from a broad library of artificial lives that I’d created over the eons...The simulations were based off of my own stupidly long, ridiculously varied existence and things that I’d witnessed over the passing millennia. Enhanced with data pulled off of the akashic plane.
This list of lives included the lives of: a cultivator, an imperial general during a time of war, a ranger from one of the more magical worlds, a bard from the same magical, a scavenger from a post-apocalyptic world, a superhero, a supervillain, a hunter, a witch hunter, an evil sorceress, a wise wizard, an alchemist, a police officer, a master detective, a doctor, an assassin, a murderous brigand on the run from several nations, and a school principal.
There were also a number of other lives that I’d pushed a little more firmly because I thought the associated experiences would be especially useful for her, such the experiences of a legendary general I used to know. I’d tempered the effect of the more stressful lives with lives that were a little more easy going like that of a shopkeeper or a veterinarian for people with posh pets.
I’d stopped adding more lives for now. I needed to allow her mind to rest and absorb most of the information that had been fed to it. Even if she was just learning in her sleep, the whole point was that the dreams felt like they were real so that the skills and instincts learned during the dreams would be internalized fully. If pushed the girl too hard, too far, too fast, her head would pop. For that reason I was doing my best to take things easy.
It was probably a good thing that a lot of that data would just fizzle away, being half-forgotten out of disuse. With only the things she found useful sticking in her head.
I didn’t mind that. The point was to make it so that she was less likely to just go and die, thus ending my grand adventure early.
As her familiar my sole concern was ensuring my contractors’ survival. This was made doubly true by the fact that our souls were now so entangled that if she died the injury to my being would be fairly serious. Even if I couldn’t die, I could still be made to wish I was dead.
Honestly, now that I was thinking about it, was I that bored that I’d just jump into something like this. The answer was probably a resounding yes, live long enough, in a directionless enough manner, and the boredom became your worst enemy.
Want to know why eldritch beings like myself were always described as being so “inscrutable” and “incomprehensible”?
It’s because by the time we’ve reached our first googolplex we’ve all gone at least a little bit batty trying to find ways to kill time. Playing strange games with ourselves, our peers, and the very cosmos itself. Acting in pursuit of goals whose greatest subjective importance lay in the fact that they seemed like a meaningful way to spend a few millennia....But I digress.
Margot was doing gangbusters. My little heroine had finally decided what her next move was.
“Do you really think I shouldn’t tell my Aunt and Uncle?” said Margot. Closing the book she was reading and looking over at me.
[The same Aunt and Uncle who have only been keeping you in this school because it's a convenient way to keep you from becoming a headache for them? The same Aunt and Uncle who plundered your core and scattered your vitality? The same Aunt and Uncle who’ve been aware that you were going to die for quite a while now and besides bumping up your allowance slightly so you can spend it on distracting trivialities, have pretty much been content to just watch your clock run out?...] I said. Speaking through our mental link.
“Y-, Yeah...I guess, you’re right…” said Margot. Biting her bottom lip. Her expression conflicted.
A pang of guilt hit me as I heard the tone of her voice. I paused the soap opera I was watching, the actors and actresses freezing just as they were getting to the good part of this big hospital scene. I gaze Margot a sidelong look as I considered what to say or whether I should even say anything more. Families were complicated things. I should know because I was pretty sure I’d erased my memories of mine willingly and with strikingly little regret.
I was also aware that I was a new presence in her life. An influential new presence in her life. I didn’t want to say that she shouldn’t be worrying about people who’d never seemed to have her best interest at heart.
I didn’t want to say that because then it kind of felt like I would be this creepy person trying to pull her away from people who at least claimed they loved her, even if they’d technically been responsible destroying her self-esteem, and had been the main perpetrators of what had essentially been an attempt on her life.
Thus I just decided to play aloof, toss up my shoulders and say,
“Look, M. Like I’ve been saying. The only skin I have in this big cosmic game is you. Nothing else matters to me. So if you want to do X, go do X. If you want to do Y, go do Y. Either way so long as you want me there I’ll be right behind you.”
She gave me this strange look, a look strange enough to make me wish I hadn’t set up the tether so that we could both have some mental privacy. Then she slowly nodded. Putting the book she’d been reading aside.
“Um, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“What am I your teacher? Why are you telling me?” I said.
“R-, right.” said Margot. Her voice oddly thick.
She went to the bathroom. Then ten minutes later she came back sat down and opened another of the books that were sitting on the table in front of her. This was pretty much how we spent that whole week.
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Two weeks later, Margot and I found ourselves inside a large, slick looking, rectangular prism. The building we were standing inside belonged to a company called the Cat Sith Corporation.
A moderately nefarious mega-company that had managed to earn a great amount of good will for itself by saving this version of earth from total destruction and the fate of falling to one of the compilation worlds. Piecing civilization back together after the Endless Night Event, or “ENE”, where a certain individual nearly ended the world by summoning an uncontrollable eldritch being into this universe.
At this point in time the CS Corporation was basically the UN now. Holding much more power and influence than the actual UN had held in its hey-day. They were also the leading authority of anomalous happenings throughout the world. Administering both the magical and superhuman communities. Policing and governing the formerly hidden supernatural societies. They also made the most profits from the now porous nature of this world’s reality but there weren’t many who called them out on this because again, they were the ones who saved a world almost single handedly and they’d been “nice enough” to give the world back once they were done.
At the moment, we were in a small cubicle. Filing paperwork. The most boring but most important part of any modern adventure.
“Name?” said the New England accented voice of the clerk at the counter.
“M-,...Margot Eloise Wallace.”
“Age?”
“21.”
“Date of Birth, please?” said the clerk.
“Um, February 15, 2179.”
This went on for fifteen minutes, with the clerk asking Margot basic questions, and Margot stumbling through them like this was an Nth level math test that had been thrown at her unexpectedly. It was kind of hilarious to watch, but also a little annoying. There was one slightly hairy moment where the clerk asked Margot’s permanent address but that was easily resolved because my partner apparently had a PO Box that she got her purchase sent to when they were too racy and/or embarrassing for her to let the school’s mail office receive them for her.
Last but not least was Margot global identity number which I’m not sharing because duh, ...and Margot was officially a “player.” A player of what you ask? Nothing, and everything, the players were this world’s version of your typical adventurer. If you were a mage without a circle or coven... Or if you were a superhuman or other anomalous being and wanted to make money with your powers without joining the army, any of the private military companies, or becoming a “superhero,” one of the cops in capes... This was a way to make a living.
The corporation operated the Players League just like a typical adventurers guild. They pooled work opportunities from private and public clients, ranging from individual consumers, to mid-sized companies, to governments.
Then they post posted them on the league’s propriety app and website. All one needed to do to get a job was to A) be a registered player and B) be able to pay the registration fees that also served as the security fees in case of failure. No interview or resume were required.
Hell, they barely even checked for a criminal record. Simply placing players who’d done jail-time in a different tier of job applicant stream and flagging them for clients who are liable to want to meet their hired help. Only those who committed the most serious offenses were refused membership in the league and even that could be negotiated.
One’s success in the league seemed to be very YMMV, varying based one’s skill set and one’s locale. However as this version of earth rapidly graduated from being low-magic to being high-magic, and all the wonder and horror that implies, new job opportunities were being created each second.
Personally, I thought this was a brilliant move on Margot’s part. In my earlier days, when I started finding myself on world’s that weren’t my own, joining adventurers guilds and groups that operated like them, had pretty much been my go-to move and there was a reason for that.
Margot would get to see a lot more of the world this way. Doing this kind of work would help her meet a lot of people and have a lot of new experience and really help her step outside of her shell.
She’d also be able to become financially independent which was really great because eventually her family was going to find out that she had her magic back and take what I was predicting were going to be some pretty drastic measures to nip that in the bud...Assuming they didn’t just decide to have her killed.
Best yet, being an adventurer...player...whatever you want to call it was a great way to grow more powerful and build your skills. Especially in a magic rich world. This was because magic like most anomalous particles was reactive to consciousness and sought out living things.
This created a sort of osmotic pressure effect where magic that was in a living thing that stopped living would drift towards the living thing before the rest of it was absorbed by the environment. You also got bumps in your overall level of anomalous energy from visiting a site with high magic that weren’t regularly travelled through.
In other words, experience points were a real thing and being an adventurer…*cough* player...was a great way to legally kill things and/or go to strange places with high magic concentrations. It was almost like the stars were aligned so that my and Margot’s goals fell more in step. Which made me extra wary of screwing things up and letting her either die or end up hating me.
“And you, sir?” said the clerk. Derailing my train of thought.
I looked startled. Quickly saving the plans I’d been making as I used my accelerated thought processes to catch myself up to the stuff that had been happening around me.
“Yes….?”
“Your information.”
“Oh, I don’t have any.”
The moment I said that, the woman gave this look and her hand went to her desk, where there was a button on the other side just in case I became a threat. Margot saved the day by stepping in.
“Um, he...he’s my familiar. He just got to this world a month ago.”
The woman immediately relaxed. Then she opened a drawer and brought a device that was basically a recording device and with a magic crystal with runes scrawled all over them. This device was one of many commercial truth detectors that could now be found in the open market. It was actually a fairly high-tier one too which was no surprise since this was a CS Corp owned building and they controlled roughly 52% of the market for magical devices and equipment.
“And what is your name, sir?”
“Montgomery. My friends call me Monty.”
“No last name?”
“Not at the moment. No.”
“Would you perhaps be willing to share your true name, sir?” said the clerk. Not so subtly using a coercion ability that was likely part of what got her the job. Like I told you, the Corporation had its shady parts and trying to collect the true names of magical beings for their own profit was a part of that.
I just gave her a blank look. Not even bother to raise my brow at her.
“.....Right. Never mind. Now, if you’d please speak into the microphone, sir?” said the clerk. Clearing her throat and quickly moving on because we both knew that what she’d just done was very un-smart. Not dumb. Not stupid. Un-smart. As in the kind of semi-clever acts that occasionally pay off and occasionally lead to scandals and bloodshed and even worse for her...firings.
“Alright...” I said.
“Mr. Monty would you be willing to swear that you are here under your own and are not being coerced or otherwise forced beyond a fair contractual bargain to serve as this young ladies familiar?”
“Excuse, only my friends get to call me, Monty...Also, yes. I am indeed here completely under my own will and am not being unduly forced to serve as, Miss Wallace’s familiar.” I said. Narrowing my eyes at the woman at her casual use of my nickname.
This little sworn oath was part of the reason that the Corporation got so much love from the public. In this new age a lot of terrible things happened every day, as many nations had been weakened by the appearance of monsters and paranormal menaces.
The world was basically a low-key kratocracy, so a lot of countries had to look away from persons and groups and factions doing a lot of NOT nice things to the populace.
The corporation, its private military, and their planet-buster, class executives did a lot to curtail the worst activities and were one of the biggest promoters of equal rights for paranormals and humans alike, in a world where open slavery had now returned to the realm of legality.
I made my statement. The crystal glowed blue and then everyone including me, breathed a sigh of relief because even with magic truth detectors were spotty as hell. It would have been quite the headache for everyone involved if that crystal flashed red.
“Well, that’s all we need, sir. Would you like us to arrange a public identity for you for a nominal fee?” said the clerk.
“Uh….”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
On the one hand, that actually sounded quite useful and it would indeed be handy to have a formal identity to present to the public.
I’d figured I’d eventually make something up myself later by hacking the public record both magically and technologically. However if I could get an identity for myself legally, that would be more ideal because it meant there would be less chance of raising red flags with a government agency later down the line.
On the other,....I didn’t have any money to pay. A service that convenient had to be expensive.
Again, Margot saved the day.
“...Yes. Yes, he will.”
“I will?” I said.
“Yes...It’s fine I’ve got this. I’d already saved up the fee to have you registered before I did the summoning ritual.”
I blinked. Quietly impressed about how the woman could seem so scattered brained one moment and so resolved and meticulous the next.
“Uh, I guess I will.”
“Alright, sir...That’ll be just one minute.” said the Clerk.
And that’s the story of how I became an official citizen of my new world, and this world’s iteration of the United States. If that sounds a tad too easy, I’d like to remind you that these people were living at a point in a time where fliers, teleporters, dimension hoppers, and super speed were very much a thing.
The world was a lot more globalist after the corporation rebuilt it. With the nations themselves generally extending as far or as short as the reach of the factions that controlled the nations from the background. The definition of border simply wasn’t the same as it had been before the ENE.