Three weeks? I reviewed everything I’d been doing and yep, my memories clearly showed me floating while I worked on setting up my nanites in the various Cosmos and Universes I’d lived in. Three weeks had passed, and I needed to catch up and see what was going on. One good thing was my nanites had been busy and the Dyson Sphere I’d ordered them to make was just about finished. While I reviewed what had been happening. I brought Ne’lix’s information up first.

***

Ne’lix had worked the first day with little change to his routine. He’d continued to investigate the disappearance of Ahrem and was in contact with the ship surveying Pluto. He’d gone home, grabbed dinner on the way, and gone right to sleep when he arrived. The next morning, he woke up and received a message on his way to work that the survey crew had discovered something. He wanted to be able to report positive progress to Trix, so he made his way to the military portion of the portal facility and utilized his new clearance level to request permission to come aboard and witness the survey team’s progress firsthand. Captain Jacobs welcomed him aboard, gave him access to temporary quarters, and then introduced him to the Survey Crew. They’d found a structure beneath the surface that seemed to be growing as their sensors watched. The weird thing was that they couldn’t figure out what was causing the growth, so they were just analyzing the data as it came in. One thing for sure was that there was some kind of fissionable source below the surface. A crew had made their way down to the surface and placed probes as close as they dare while the ship stayed in an orbit that would keep them within LOS of the target location without breaking the line of sight. They were all back on board now.

As Ne’lix was reviewing the data Captain Jacobs walked up, “Sir, we’ve received orders for you to return to headquarters immediately. Your direct supervisor would like to speak with you.”

“Thank you for the message Captain. Please, keep up the good work and be very careful if you investigate the base below us.”

“Base Sir?”

“The scans we’re getting indicate that the underground structure is growing and there are rooms and facilities within the structure that seem to fall into recognizable categories. There is an obvious cooking facility, rooms for sleeping a larger area that looks like it could be a command center, definitely some form of base,” Ne’lix said.

“Any idea who the base is for?”

“None at all. Also, we’ve ruled out that magic is building the base as we have detected nothing except a very low level of chaos energy in the background.

Ne’lix knew what that meant from the memories he’d reviewed of Adam’s but didn’t let that recognition show, “Keep up the good work, and again be very careful if investigate further.”

“Will do Sir.”

Ne’lix turned and walked to the portal room. Vrax Navy ships had permanent crews but also had a portal for emergencies and crew rotation. This allowed the ships to save the time and energy they’d waste returning to port. The portals also allowed specialists to visit. Ne’lix made his way into the small portal chamber and stepped through the portal in the Navy receiving area of the portal facility then made his way to his office. He logged into his computer and checked his messages.

“Report to the Director Immediately”

Appeared as a popup reminder in the middle of his monitor. Obviously, Trix/Adam was in a bad mood, she normally didn’t send short messages. Ne’lix shut down his terminal and went to the elevator. As he stepped off the elevator Paul greeted him, “Sir, The Director is ready to see you, you may head in.”

Ne’lix nodded and walked towards the doors that opened on their own. As he stepped through, the doors closed behind and he saw a man sitting behind the desk.

“Good evening Ne’lix, I’m Director Milston, I will be replacing Trix as your direct supervisor here in the Politics and Religion Oversight Committee,” he said.

Ne’lix was surprised but didn’t let that show instead he asked, “Director Milestone, your first name wouldn’t happen to be Adam would it?”

“No, my first name is Wesley, why do you ask?”

“I knew a Wesley Milston when I was younger, I just thought it would be ironic if you happened to be him,” Ne’lix lied.

“Fair enough,” he said thoughtfully. “Would you care to update me on what you’re working on and the status of the investigation?”

“How much do you know Sir?”

“Only that Trix gave you an assignment concerning a person of interest from one of the Earths we have seeded. Otherwise, the details in her files are scarce,” The Director said.

“Trix wasn’t able to brief you directly?”

“Trix disappeared yesterday and has not returned. The Emperor decided that new leadership was needed in one of his primary investigative resources.”

“I see, the subject in question is named Ahrem Bianci. For reasons unknown when he was taken in for his choice he survived a nuclear explosion at his feet and then exited the orbit of the moon. I have just returned from Pluto where Captain Jacobs on the ship 389 of the United Defense Fleet has discovered an underground bunker that is expanding even as we speak by methods unknown,” Ne’lix said.

“Method’s unknown?” The Director asked.

“Yes Sir, we have not been able to determine what magical or technological method is being used to expand the base.”

“Interesting,” The Director said, then punched a button on his intercom, “Paul please send Eloise in.”

The main door opened, and a woman stepped into the office. Ne’lix had seen this woman before, in a nightmare when his throat had been slit and a woman with this woman’s face stabbed him through the heart.

“Ne’lix, the director said drawing his attention away from Eloise for a second, “Eloise will be replacing you to search for Ahrem but before she does, she has a question for you.”

Ne’lix’s eyes turned back to Eloise to see a weapon in her hand when he noticed three quick flashes that hit him center mass and knocked him to the floor.

“How did you survive our last encounter,” Eloise asked as she stepped next to his body and looked into his eyes as she put two bullets into his head.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” The Director said. “Did you have to shoot him?”

“Yes, Yes I did. I have never failed The Agency and yesterday was not going to be the first time I ever did. I wanted a witness so that when this man gets up The Agency will know I didn’t fail.”

“But he’s not going to get up, you put five….” The Director started to say as he noticed that the blood and guts that had exploded out of Ne’lix were all flowing back into him. Before the process was done The Director cast a spell and Ne’lix and everything that was part of him disappeared.

“What did you do?” Eloise asked.

“Nothing too drastic. I just teleported Ne’lix to a holding facility. We will need a much more secure area to ask the questions we need to ask.”

“By we, I take it that you mean you, while I get to work with Ne’lix’s assistants on this Ahrem character?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. I might be gone for a bit while I try to get some answers,” the director said.

“I’m on it, sir.”

***

Adam continued to review Ne’lix’s memories but the only thing he was able to determine was that Ne’lix was in a cell of some sort and that once he came back to consciousness, they killed him again to see if he could keep coming back. After the second death, they questioned him for two days. Not once in those two days did he give any indication that he knew how he was coming back. For the next 5 days, they’d been killing him once a day using various methods. Exposure to Vacuum which was when Adam recognized that Ne’lix was on the Station with the Director. This last time they killed him had been the most drastic. They’d actually decapitated him with a guillotine and left the blade between his head and his torso. When the metal of the Guillotine dissolved between the stump of his torso and his head and they’d still reconnected on their own, The Agency had paused killing him daily. For the last two weeks, Ne’lix had been sitting in a cell. He had a bunk, a toilet a sink, and a monitor on the wall that had an on and off switch. When it was on it played movies of all types. Because he couldn’t choose what was on he was just as likely to get an old movie as a new one. No news though. They’d also fed him and made sure he had water, but they didn’t give him access to anything after they realized he didn’t know how he was coming back. Ne’lix was pretty sure they knew he was hiding something but one of the other things they’d learned was that when any pain that was inflicted on him reached a certain threshold he stopped feeling it. They couldn’t even detect how that effect was being done. Any minor damage was repaired as it was inflicted and if he was killed he’d be alive and healthy within a minute. Every once in a while Ne’lix would whisper “A little help would be much appreciated,” but when nothing happened Ne’lix would either lay on the cot they left him, watch the movies on the monitor, or exercise.

***

Once Adam knew where Ne’lix was he reviewed what The Director of the Agency had been up to. Honestly not much. Over the last three weeks, he’d been working with Milston who was definitely one of his agents and through Eloise, they eventually started exploring the base he’d left on Pluto. In the last three weeks, scientists and mages had moved an observation team to the base and were cataloging everything they could find. The Director wasn’t an idiot though and realized that how the structure of the Base on Pluto self-repaired was also very similar to the way Ne’lix was repaired and brought back to life. With that insight, The Director realized that whatever was going on, both repair functions were related. As Adam continued to review The Directors’ last three weeks he found an interesting conversation right after the decapitation.

“What do you think is causing him to come back to life?” The director asked Dr. Cho, the lead scientist he’d assigned to study Ne’lix.

“The process is very similar to a nanite technology we have but even the nanites we’ve introduced into the room can’t detect anything.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“If I was a guessing man, I’d assume that the higher-than-normal traces of chaos magic have something to do with it though the energy required to heal and repair him. The magic drawn into the room when Ne’lix dies is minimal and doesn’t meet those requirements. If I were to guess I’d want to say a force we cannot detect and cannot see that cannot be quantified, though that’s impossible. Maybe a technology that is even smaller than nanites?

“How much smaller?”

“As we cannot detect whatever is repairing the facility on Pluto or in Ne’lix, it must be smaller than quarks.

“How would we detect something that small?” The Director asked.

“Our technology is good but just tracking electrons is the farthest the Empire as a whole has developed that technology. No one has tried to track or use quarks to do anything. Why bother, we have magic to do all the heavy lifting when we want to heal or rebuild something. Development along that technological tree was always thought to be a waste of time, even by myself,” Dr. Cho said.

“And now?”

“Now? Well now, it seems that I was mistaken, obviously.”

I chuckled as I closed the review of that memory, “waste of time” indeed. I turned to the last person I’d been actively tracking. The woman that had visited Trix’s office right after my destruction as Trix. Katja was a little harder to track down. I was still able to see what she was doing but I couldn’t recognize where she was or the location she was in. Also, while my nanites had spread far and wide throughout the Vrax Empire they were not everywhere. The location Katja was in was one of those without nanites, though she was spreading them for me. Katja was walking around in a market looking for something. Over the three weeks, I’d been otherwise occupied she’d been walking the market daily as if she were looking for someone. I reviewed what information I could and the only thing that had changed was that she’d received a personal message through her interface. The only reason I knew that was because my nanites had detected that she had stopped, her eyes had glazed, and then she’d made her way to a portal facility. This happened the day I left the Cosmos. That she could block my ability to read her mind with my nanites was troubling, but she probably had an ability that blocked any access to her mind.

After she’d received the message Katja had stepped through a portal onto a beautiful resort world and teleported somewhere else. It wasn’t the same planet because the colors in the atmosphere were different. The planet she’d just left had a beautiful bright blue atmosphere. The planet she was on had an atmosphere the color of turquoise shading into the green spectrum more. She’d stepped out of the room she’d appeared in onto a small street and walked until she entered a street market. She walked back and forth along the market all day and then went up to an apartment, made some dinner then went to sleep. With only slight variations to the path she traveled through the market, she’d been following the same pattern for the last three weeks.

I reviewed the expansion rate of my nanites in this Cosmos and was very happy to notice that Vrax and every world connected to it directly had been infiltrated and the populations, for the most part, had nanites in them. Secondary planets were approximately 60% finished. Some worlds had been visited by people from Vrax and the nanites had started converting them even though they didn’t have a portal directly to Vrax. In most cases, someone had teleported to the planet. In other cases, something or someone had been sucked through a natural aperture or portal and the infiltration process had begun

Having reviewed everything I needed to, I focused my attention on my Alamogordo replica residence in the Dyson Sphere in the Cosmos I’d just come from and the ghostly images shifted to show me that bedroom. I willed myself to step through mentally choosing “Cross Over” when asked. I left the Place between Places behind and found myself standing in my bedroom looking onto my balcony as it overlooked Alamogordo below me. Also, I felt bad for leaving Ne’lix to his fates for the last three weeks, so I opened a portal and telekinetically pulled him through into my room before he even knew what was happening. I smiled at Ne’lix who started to smile at me then his eyes went wide with shock as they glazed over while he reviewed a prompt that appeared in his vision as one simultaneously appeared in mine as time froze,

WARNING: A Mortal within your direct sphere of influence has entered a region of raw chaos. A region of character is anathema to any form of order. As an Advanced Soul, you may attempt to shield or influence any mortal within your direct sphere of influence from the effects of exposure to chaos.

NOTE: Normally this is not possible. As an Absolute Soul and the being in question had a previous allegiance to you and has recently called for your assistance or help you may expend Karmic Luck on a 10:1 ration to improve his odds. Such assistance comes at a cost to the being assisted. Should they agree to the assistance they pledge their allegiance to you in all things for one subjective year of their soul for every point of Karmic Luck spent. For every 10 points of Karmic Luck Spent a positive or negative outcome is increased or decreased by 1% respectively. The outcome cannot be influenced, only that the outcome is either positive or negative.

Would you like to influence the outcome of exposure to raw Chaos for Ne’lix, Yes or No?

I chose “Yes”

Would you like the influence in question to be Positive or Negative?

I chose “Positive”

How much Karmic Luck would you like to expend to influence a positive outcome for Ne’lix?

I chose “1,000”