70 (Observation Post EH001, Tuesday, January 1st, 2036)

Observer Elkan, A gnome with a well-groomed beard was at his terminal when the red light came on. He’d been watching the latest in a series of reality game shows the humans of this backwater of a planet had created to amuse themselves. He turned from the program and noticed that one of the magical detection sensors had detected a spike and that the strength of the spike was growing. He sorted through various functions at his terminal until he found the source and the problem, Antarctica? What the hell was in Antarctica? That had been covered in Ice for the last 10,000 some odd years. Because he’d done his job right, the humans hadn’t found any evidence to prove otherwise, nor would they. For the Syndicate’s plans and forecasts to work, they needed the humans to remain ignorant for just a little while longer.

That was why he was completely surprised to find a normal, if not high level of magic saturation on the surface of the planet. He checked the magic sinks in the area, they all seemed to be operating normally. Spaced intermittently around the Globe Magic sinks were placed at least 50 miles down in geologically stable locations and acted as magnets to any leylines in the vicinity. As he looked over the area in question, he switched to a view of the leylines below the surface and watched something impossible occur. One of the ley lines started to stretch up towards the surface until it reached the halfway point then it just popped into place reaching all the way to the surface. Between two of the deep magic sinks, a ley line now curved up to the surface and then returned to the next the magic sink deep underground. Impossible another ley line popped up, and another. As he watched all eight primal ley lines that had been locked into place for the last 10,000 years adjusted their path and remained in that configuration. That shouldn’t be possible.

Elkan searched through his various satellite images of the area until he found the one he was looking for. A place called Union Glacier. As he investigated the incident he returned the footage to the moment just before the magic detection grid had recorded the spike. He zoomed in on the location and incremented the footage forward until the naked genitals of a man… He poked at the controls furiously as he zoomed the image out and rewound it for a couple of seconds. He was not going to be able to unsee that. He started the playback again as he watched a man, a very naked man, appear out of thin air. The spy satellites he was using were orders of magnitude better than anything the humans of Earth could put together. He zoomed in on the face and sent it off for facial recognition. Moments later information populated his screen

Name: Johnathan Bennard

Location: Dallas Texas

Profession: Professor of Computer Science, University of North Texas at Dallas

Age: 35

Odds: 1,000,000 to 1 (1 week)

10,000,000 to 1 (1 Month)

100,000,000 to 1 (3 Months)

1,000,000,000 to 1 (12 Monhts)

Observer Elkin thought for a moment then smiled. Whatever this was, he could very easily turn this into a huge payday. The humans seemed to be years from being cultivated by the Syndicate. However, if magic started returning to the world as he suspected it might, then the cultivation would need to be accelerated. He had his duty to perform but first, he made a few calls.

A few minutes later he was arguing with one of the engineers on one of the sublevels, “Zab, just do it!”

“What’s in it for me, I could get caught?”

“You will not get caught, I’m at the controls right now and when I say now the system will experience a 3-second glitch. You only need three seconds right?” Elkin asked”

“Yeah, but there can’t be witnesses.”

“There won’t be, it’s the middle of the night there. Everyone is sleeping and he’s alone, I checked”

“Okay, 1,000 credits and we don’t ever talk about this again?”

“1,000 credits and talk about what?”

Zab laughed then said, “Alright, I have him locked just give the word”

***

Johnathan Bennard was restless as he woke up suddenly in his bed in Dallas Texas. He looked at the clock, only 1:30 in the morning what the hell, he’d only laid down thirty minutes ago after getting home from the New Years’ party for faculty. It’d been a quiet affair, Professor Benford had made a toast and he’d left soon after. He didn’t really like social gatherings but made two exceptions. New Year’s Eve and The 4th of July. After he’d received that phone call from Citibank about a possible identity theft incident to make sure he wasn’t somewhere else in the world, What the hell would he be doing in Punta Arenas, though he guessed if he wanted to visit Antarctica he’d most likely have to travel through there. Anyway, he’d headed home and climbed into bed. Now it was 1:31 in the morning and he was going to have to try to fall asleep again…what the hell

***

“Now!” Elkin said and then watched his monitors watching Johnathan Bennard move around on his bed, adjust to get more comfortable, and then open his eyes in shock as a cocoon of energy surrounded him and he vanished from the monitors.

“Done!” Zab said

“Where’d you send him?”

“You said no evidence right?” Zab asked

“Yeah.”

“Well, I figure appearing 1,000 miles above the surface of the Sun should have taken care of that requirement.”

“Fair enough, transferring credits now”

“Good doing business with you Elkin, hope you know what you’re doing?”

“Just do what I said, put at least 1 credit on Johnathan Bennard, it’ll make you rich I swear.”

“How many credits are you betting?”

“Half my savings”

“Half your savings, what the hell man, I just vaporized the guy”

“I know, and I’m telling you to put at least 1 credit on him”

“Okay, but if this doesn’t work out I’ll want 2 credits from you.”

“I can do that. I’ll even go so far as to say that if I’m wrong, I’ll give you double whatever you bet?”

“Are you serious?” Zab asked.

“Dead serious!”

Zab laughed, “Okay either way I make money now, so I’ll tell you what, make sure you have 2,400 credits ready because I’m going to put 1,000 credits down on the guy.”

“Don’t forget to put insurance on your bet. If this works out Zab, I expect you to remember who your friends are?”

“As long as I get my 2,400 credits we’ll always be friends,” he said as he cut the link.

Elkin checked the status of Johnathan Bennard, noted that the system still showed him as active with the same odds, and place half of his savings, 56,707 credits, as a bet on the survival of Johnathan Bennard during the upcoming Cultivation. He also paid the Resurrection and Time interference offset insurance which cost an additional 20%, which meant that even if the person he bet on died if they somehow returned his bet was still good. Anyone else taking the bet would lose the first time the person they bet on died. He paid his additional 11,341.4 credits and re-examined the leylines map. As he'd suspected The Cage, as they called it, was starting to have problems. He set his terminal to record, stood, and made his way to the Administrator’s Office.

As Elkin walked in the low gravity of the Moon Triton which orbited around the planet Neptune he reviewed what he knew about Earth. He’d been part of the team that installed and set up the Cage on the planet roughly 10,000 years ago. The Syndicate had roughly 60,000 planets at any given time that were caged. The stated reason they did this was so that they could create the cream of the crop as it were by culling the weak and allowing the strong to thrive. Elkin was pretty sure that whoever was ultimately in charge of The Syndicate just liked building up worlds so they could watch innocents get killed over and over. He’d come to terms with the horror of this a long time ago. He’d had a choice, join, or die. He’d joined and he wasn’t going to turn back any time soon.

As he came to the Elevator and stepped inside he considered how the Cultivation normally started. Usually, the go signal was when a species developed fusion technology on caged worlds. Fusion could work around magic but there really wasn’t a point. Magic was an unending source of power. The main reason that was the go point was that once the magic sinks were repurposed all higher electronics, not shielded from magic, usually failed. There were exceptions but they were few and far between. It also helped that the mages of the Syndicate would cast transmutation spells on specific elements to prevent the inhabitant of a world under cultivation from doing something stupid and causing considerable damage to the planet and the population.

Originally, cultivations had been done in private, elevating different species and making sure that any beings that moved forward were ready for participation in the greater mysteries of the multiverse. They’d been going strong for a really long time now. The goody-two-shoes had not liked the rampant killing and usually went out of their way to try to stop cultivation because of the loss of life, a lot of which were innocents. There was a whole department dedicated to keeping them from the knowledge of which planets had been prepared though. In the last 14 million years there hadn’t been one interruption. Some young Divines of the “good” persuasion would try to stop or influence a cultivation, but they were usually brought back in line by the older ones. Anyone of Divine rank or higher was not allowed to directly interfere in mortal affairs on more than an individual basis, and not more than once in any single mortal’s lifetime. The last time a Demi-God, someone at least eleven ranks above a divine, had tried to intervene, they’d been somewhat successful until Time had rewound events and allowed everyone to remember what had happened. Time wasn’t a God, or if he was, his rank was higher than that of a Rank 10 God, the highest know “level.”

Planets like Earth, Caged worlds, were caged for three reasons. First to slow level progression and then allow exposure and forced adaption. A lot of people died but those that were left usually ended up being in the top 10%, usually 5%, of all beings everywhere. Most became Divines, though some chose to serve the Divines instead and hold onto the Mortality for as long as they could. Some people just didn’t want to live forever. Slowing progression automatically happened when magic was removed from the equation. Though the ingenuity of every species and race so far had overcome any such handicaps by turning to technology.

The Second reason worlds were caged was to promote ignorance of magic and the greater mysteries of the Universe. This ignorance allowed certain studies that were not possible in any societies that evolved with magic. The case studies were requested by various Divines, Professors, and Universities as they looked into the far past to try to determine this or that aspect of life before there was magic, which a lot of people believed. Others believe there had always been magic. This second reason was usually explored on protected planets that had been caged. Such planets were exempt from cultivation and had led to some of the greatest technological societies to ever exist. One of the latest ideas was to remove magic from an entire Universe just to see what would happen. Some thought magic was a fundamental element of all Universes, and such an endeavor would lead to a very short-lived Universe. The scientists were still debating whether to try or not.

The Third reason planets were caged and then cultivated made it much clear that the planet was actually being harvested, well that’s what a lot of people said, and he happened to agree with them. A stockpile of Soulstones had been placed all around the globe. The Cage was not destroyed when the ley lines were released again. Instead, their function changed, and they formed a net around the planet. Any soul that became free was then caught by the net and guided to a waiting soul stones. Individuals that had the ability to make soul stones and capture souls were able to do so normally but any souls not caught up in local magics would be guided by the net that surrounded the planet. It was actually better for the cultivation to take longer because the grade of the soulstones created would improve as the cultivated population leveled. The harvest would supply billions upon billions of soul stones of all grades. The profit of which was well worth the moral ambiguity of cultivation or the negative press that was created. In fact, the opposite had become true, people loved watching the footage they could give their hands-on. Funny fact, a human had written about a fiction game show that involved the creation of a dungeon out of a mostly destroyed planet. Dungeons and even the Labyrinth were involved but the planet didn’t become a dungeon, that would be silly. The beings of Purity and Good hated this reason and had tried to stop it but had been over-ruled. The inhabitants were dying anyway, might as well use their souls.

The fourth unofficial reason was that people like to gamble. It was uncanny how humans came up with the idea of the Ferengi. There was a race of humanoids with a huge cranium and enormous ears that dedicated their lives to commerce and profit both the lawful and unlawful kinds. For as long as Elkan could remember The Gambler Market had existed. Anyone anywhere could place a bet as long as they did so with Credits. Most planets used paper, coins, and/or digital currency. Planets that participated in trade with the Syndicate utilized Credits. The equivalent value was about 1 Gold Piece (GP). Paper and digital currency, except for Credits, really didn’t matter as they were often not interchangeable. As a Cultivation started to get closer and closer to kicking off The Gambler Market would open up and odds would be given on every being or animal on the planet to survive for various amounts of time. Infants were excluded unless they were orphaned just as the cultivation started. Then their odds of 1 in 1 trillion so long as no intelligent species helped them. One time a pack of animals had helped a child for about a week before they were all killed. A couple of people had made it big but not many. To date, no orphaned child had ever survived full cultivation.

As the Elevator stopped Elkan thought about how lucky he’d been to be on duty to see the human arrive on the planet. Even if, Johnathan Bernard only survived 1 day, a full 24 hours, Elkan would still be rich. He had a feeling though that something funky was going on and knew there was a good chance things were about to get interesting.

“Is the Administrator in? Elkan asked the succubus in a black business dress with red trim in front of him?”

“Yes, Spireblock is in, may I ask who’s calling,” she said.

“It’s Elkan, there’s a problem with the Cage.”

“Sir, Elkan from Cage Oversight is here, he says there’s a problem with the Cage:”

Just then an alarm went off as the doors flew open and a Demon beckoned him in. Elkan ran forward as he moved towards the console and monitor with a flashing light above it. The Administrator came out from behind his desk and gestured for him to do what he needed to do. Elkan, hit a few keys because he knew what he was looking for as the Administrator asked, “What’s happening?”

“A little while ago one of the humans arrived in Antarctica butt-ass naked in the freezing cold out of the middle of nowhere. It was not a portal or gate, could have been teleport or a direct manifestation from the ethereal or astral planes. I was alerted because the ambient magic in the area on the surface had started to increase. As I zeroed in on the point I watched as all eight leylines adjusted themselves to include the location of the man on the surface. As you know ley lines do not just adjust “

The Administrator pointed to the flashing light above the monitor as he said, “That does not go off for a minor ley line problem.”

“I understand, one second,” he said as he pushed a key and a representation of the leylines traveling under the surface of the earth became visible in a three-dimensional holographic image of the Earth. As the Administrator and he watched the ley lines between Punta Arenas Chile and Nevada were being drawn to the surface and opening like a zipper.

“What the hell is that?” The administrator asked looking at the distorted ley lines that now came all the way to the surface in a roughly straight line through South and North America.

“Honestly, I don’t know, the individual causing it though is most likely a human named Johnathan Bennard. He was a professor at a University in Texas until he reappeared in Antarctica at midnight.”

“Show me”

Elkan drew up the footage of the appearance time-stamped at midnight then showed the footage of Johnathan being taken from his bed by a cocoon of energy which also had the exact same time stamp on it.

“That looks like one of our energy transporters,” the administrator said.

“it’s not, I checked our logs, and nothing was transmitted at midnight from our base here,” he said as he showed power use and consumption for half an hour prior and half an hour after Johnathan disappeared.

“Will the cage, self-repair?”

“No Sir, I think we’re going to have to start early”

The Administrator looked thoughtful for a minute then said, “Okay you have until 6 a.m. tomorrow to get everything ready. I’ll make the calls I need to let everyone knows what’s happening and allow them to get ready. Did you make any bets?

“I made a bet on Johnathan Bennard, his odds as a teacher were horrible, yet he just disappeared and reappeared. I figured it was worth the chance.”

“Agreed, I’ll sign off on that now and will expect 5% of your winnings if you win. If you do not win no loss on my part.

Elkan thought it over for a moment then said “Sure thing boss. If we win, 5% is a small price to pay.”

“How much did you bet?”

“56,707 credits and I paid the insurance; I have a feeling about this guy.” He said.

“Okay, well, good luck to both of us, now get out of here and do your job, I have calls to make!”

Elkan turned and started walking towards the Elevator. This couldn’t have gone better if he’d planned it.