I knew it! There had always been something off about that guy and David. Was there a possibility that David, was just another Arch Angel in disguise? Those were questions I’d need to look into but right now Adaline was waking up and I needed to attend to her.

Adaline opened her eyes, looked around quickly, locked them on me, and smiled as she asked, “What happened?”

“Open your interface and check for yourself. Also, take a look at your incoming experience. Once I’m sure you’re good I have some other errands I need to run, but I’ll be back. By the way, this is a replica of the original Place of Power. It has everything the previous one did We do have access to my place of power where your lair is but trust me when I say that this one is identical in every way. Besides, I think I’m going to stick my family in the other one until I figure out what’s going on,” I said

“Slow down Adam, I don’t know how long it’s been for you, but it has been an incredibly long time for me,” she paused for a second as I waited for her to continue, “How about this? I’m going to get up, take a shower, maybe go downstairs, grab a bite to eat, and then I’ll check my personal information…”

Adaline stopped as I opened my mouth to speak and received “The Glare.” You know, the glare that says whatever you were going to say is going to land you in hot water with the misses. I closed my mouth.

Clearing her throat, Adaline continued, “I’ll check my personal information then. I do have one question, same rules for getting food and drinks?”

“Not quite. A version of Thor is here, just ask him for whatever you want. Your lair is still tied to magic, but this version of the Place of Power isn’t really a place of power. Instead, it contains my nanites and follows all those rules you were familiar with. I’ll need to do some remolding to get this all set up in a fashion that is both functional and useful. Of course, I’ll need your input but that’s a topic for another time,” I said quickly as her eyes narrowed.

She leaned up, stood from the bed then came over to give me a long hug, “It is good to see you, and I’m sure you have a lot to explain but right now I feel as if my insides are all jumbled, and I have some flashing red and gold icons in my vision I’ll need to access and take care of. Before I do that, I want to finish my cup of tea, relax for a bit, and then take a look at those prompts,” she said as she leaned in for a chaste kiss which I returned.

We drew apart and I escorted her downstairs where Thor had already created a cup of hot tea for her at her place at the dining table. Adaline sat down and then looked up at me, “Okay you mother hen, go do what you need to do. If Thor is here I’ll be fine, you know I’ll be fine, so go get to work.” When I didn’t move she continued, “You have that look like you want to be doing something, but you also want to be with me. Here’s some incentive. Go get whatever has your attention split and then come back. Besides, once I’m ready, can’t Thor fill me in on what you’ve been up to?”

I smiled then said, “And that’s why I love you, I guess I’m getting a little too emotional,” Could that be why Adaline was allowed back into my life I asked myself. “Enjoy your tea, I need to check on some things, then I think I’m going to retrieve the family. I have a feeling that where they are won’t be completely safe either. Thor will fill you in once you’re ready. I may be gone for a bit.”

“Sounds good, I’ll see you later.”

I willed myself out of the soul space, oriented on eternity, and beelined for that focal point in this Realm. As I came into the area that Eternity was supposed to be I came upon another node in the perception filter I was viewing the realm through. This node was different in that I couldn’t see it until I was almost on top of it. As I came to the border I didn’t receive any prompts to cross over or manifest and simply passed through it and found myself far above a thriving metropolis below me. These weren’t energy constructs or fluid. It was a full-on metropolis that spread out below me as far as the eye could see. As I looked around a glowing orb came close and scanned me.

“Greetings creature of Chaos, how may I direct you this day?”

When in doubt, Politeness wins, “I am looking for the transit incoming location, where is it and how do I get there?”

A glowing green arrow appeared pointing off to my right, “Normal Entry locations are on the edge of this metropolis. You can of course travel there but it will take quite a while. Alternatively, I can port you there?”

“If I might ask, what is your purpose here in Eternity?”

“I am one of an almost infinite number of greeting synthetics created to monitor space in an around eternity. We greet travelers that enter from anywhere other than a transit tube and point them in the right direction or help them get there. Would you like me to portal you to the incoming area now?”

“Yes, please, and thank you,” I said as a portal opened. I stepped through onto the platform I’d seen many times before. The portal closed behind me, and I stepped into the queue to the incoming clerk. There were only a few people in front of me. It wasn’t long before I stepped up and the clerk looked me over, then her eyes went wide.

Stammering, she looked at me, then back to something in front of her on her desk, and then back up to me before she sputtered, “Sir, Sir, Sir. You should not be standing in line.”

Confused for only a moment I remembered that the last time I’d stepped into a line my soul level had been at the bottom level of advanced, now that I was at the Absolute level, maybe she thought I was an Aspect or something? I smiled lightly and decided to have some fun with the mistake, “Actually, I’m in line because I needed to ask for your help in finding someone that works with the incoming?” I said politely

“Yes sir, anything I can do to help,” The clerk said brightening now that she knew she wasn’t in trouble.

“I’m looking for David, I met him here a while back and we were supposed to meet up.

“David? Let me check something,” She looked back down at her screen, scrolled through them, saw something, tapped her screen, then looked back up. Shaking her head, she looked back at me to make sure I was in fact the same person, “Sir, it says here that when you came through here the last time you were a copper-ranked soul. Are you referring to the David that met you then?”

“Yep that’s the one, and don’t worry about the rank so much. I was performing an inspection. My soul rank was modified so I didn’t receive the kind of reaction that I just did. We were just double-checking to make sure incoming could handle, for lack of a better term, weird cases. I’m here to pass on our findings to David.”

“Very good Sir. Unfortunately, David ended up moving out of this facility shortly after your ‘test’. No new address was left. He informed supervision he was leaving, then did so.”

“One more question. How about Ptah?”

“Who sir?”

“Ptah?”

“Let me see,” she said as she started typing, is that a T A H?” She asked.

“No, it’s P T A H,”

“No sir, no one named Ptah works for, or has ever worked for, this facility.”

“Thank you for your time, if you don’t mind I’m going to be going now.”

“Of course, sir, anything we can do to help. Have a pleasant day!” She said enthusiastically as I stepped back and willed myself up into the air. I didn’t know if it would work but seeing as it was a node, or similar to one, I willed myself into Realm Space. When I appeared above the weird node I reoriented and headed toward Cosmos 2.

As I drew close to the Cosmos 2 node I made sure no one was around, though I was sure Textrix had probably detected me. I moved around to a side of the node that wasn’t visible to her spiderweb-like structure and crossed over into Cosmos 2. I had no idea where in the Cosmos I was in relation to my Universe or Earth but didn’t really need to. I linked to Thor and teleported everyone that I considered family and myself to the space station in orbit around Earth-Prime.

While I looked around the room I connected to the Thor I’d left in this Universe and updated him on my plan as I said, “Hello everyone, sorry to pull you away from everything you were doing. Not to worry, if you were in a state of undress, clothes, have of course been provided.

Calls of “Johnathan!” and” Adam!” were heard from around the table as everyone that I cared about came in for a hug or a kiss, whether that was a parental kiss, a friendly kiss, or the sensual kiss that Desirae gave me. Even Abi in her new body which was unrecognizable to me came over and kissed me on the cheek. I looked around the room and smiled as I had the nanites rearrange the space into a meeting room with chairs, a table, and drinks we could sit around.

“So, I brought you all here to go over things…” I said sitting down while motioning for everyone to do the same.

For the next couple of hours, I filled them in on what I’d been doing and what I’d learned, and also what I hadn’t learned. I also let them know about some of the predictions my internal Thor Aspect and I had simulated based on the evidence we’d seen so far. When Thor from this Universe concurred, everyone started talking at once until my dad asked, “What do you mean this Cosmos might be reabsorbed or destroyed?”

“I mean exactly what I said. The good news is that I don’t think anyone will be destroyed, just that everyone might be whole again.”

“I still don’t get it,” my mother said.

At the center of this Realm is a Cosmos that most likely consists of Universes, dimensions, and the original copies of all of us. When something of significance happens, a new Cosmos is created with copies of us. This happens every time something of significance happens which has created a web-type structure of nodes that connect back to a central point. Each of those nodes is a Cosmos. The Cosmos we’re in now is locked. No one is supposed to be able to break in or affect it, except for those of us with special access, like me.” I said pointing to myself.

“So, there are a lot of these cosmos out there so what?” Desirae asked.

“To get the answers I need to go to the center of the web. If I tamper with that node I may inadvertently destroy people that could undo the creation of the Cosmos and the people within it. While intellectually I know that they’ll exist elsewhere and that they’re okay, they might not be the same. As an example. Let’s say that the first version of myself was a real asshole, I mean a real asshole, evil without empathy. This was a trait that the evil asshole had learned from his parents or his environment. Now let’s say a 2nd Cosmos pops into existence because at some point a part of him chose to do good. The first me would still exist but there would be a second me. If someone were to influence or kill the first me before the event that caused the second me to come forth then that second Cosmos may have never formed either.

“That’s a lot of ego to think the Universe, Cosmos, whatever revolves around you or any single person,” Amanda Sifford said.

“You’re right of course,” I said. “I do not think Cosmos spring into existence within a realm because of a single entity’s thoughts unless they have the power or ability to force such additions of course. I do think that the effects of those changes can be forecast or known to whoever is watching the timelines and anything that causes a significant change does. In my case, I saved countless souls from being destroyed. Maybe I was fixing some other creature’s mistake, maybe I was fixing fate. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. What I do know is that I did not want to chance the loss of the friends and families I made over the years.”

I paused for a moment letting that sink in as I sipped my coffee then continued, “Also, I would like to emphasize that we do not have room for everyone on the planet, but friends and their families can come if they wish. I’m going to set a hard limit at that level. You and your friends and their family and friends and their families. That’s it. No more friends after that. As I said, I think they’ll be fine, or at least their souls will still exist, and they’ll live they’re lives out in some fashion or another. My goal is to bring you, my family, and any friends that you would not wish to lose, and possibly their families and a couple of their friends. Eventually, we’ll make our way back to the world but right now I just want to know if any of you want to come or not.”

My mother and father looked at each other then my dad said, “We’ll come”

“As will I,” Amanda said

“Me too,” Abi added

I answered Abi’s unspoken question. “Thor will be coming and running the habitat I create for you. I’ll leave another copy of him behind to watch things.

Desirae looked at me questioningly as she asked, “May I?”

“Of course, I answered, though you’ll have to argue with a Shadow Dragon over my affections.”

“Can’t you split yourself or something like that?” Desirae asked.

“You do remember that Dragons do not like to share what they think of as theirs right?”

A contemplative look crossed her face. “Guess I’m going with plan B; I’ll be bringing a couple of friends I made here, if they want to come. I don’t know why they wouldn’t, most were troublemakers like me which brings up the question of Jessica?”

“Jessica is a hard pass. If the Cosmos collapse back on themselves I think you’ll agree that the odds are far better that she could have had a better life than any of us could have given her origin.” I said.

“Point taken.”

“All right everyone, I need to pop out for a bit, get everything ready. Talk to your friends, and work with Thor to catalog everything you want to bring with you and what kind of quarters you want. The floor plan is malleable except in one area in my original vault area. Other than that, I’ll see you all in about three hours, I said popping back into my soul space and to the dining table where Adaline looked up.

I spoke so that Adaline could hear me, “Thor, work with the Thor copy we left behind to get him installed into the other Place of Power and prepare it for guests. Also, update all movies, music, and games available so any guests will have access to the latest and greatest. Additionally, you two need to decide on different names. Maybe stick to the mythology and refer to yourself as Odin, which would make me Odin’s son? I don’t really care about your names for any other reason than I’d get tired of referring to you as Thor 1 and the other as Thor 2. Work it out, let me know what you come up with.”:

“You got it, Adam,”

Once I was done talking Adaline, looked at me, “Where did you get this ring?” she said holding up her right hand.

“Remember that long story, where that ring comes from is part of that story. Are you ready to hear it?” I asked.

“Ready and willing?”

“I’ll remember you said that,” I said then I started to explain exactly what had happened to me since the last time we’d met. At one point she looked at me disbelievingly until I forced my Personal Interface to become visible and shared it with her. After that, she’d listened intently.

An hour later, still shaking her head as I was about to tell her about Ptah and David, Thor spoke through the speakers, “Everyone’s ready. Thor and I talked, and the Aspect, me, will be known as Odin henceforth. Thor will run the Place of Power within the speck of nothing, though the nanites are currently changing everything except for the Vault and Adaline’s Lair. Also, please refer to it as The Habitat from now on.”

“Sound’s good Odin, I’m going to sit with Adaline for a bit. Feel free to start portaling everyone into The Habitat. Do not permanently connect The Habitat to this location. I want the Habitat as a stand-alone. Additionally, put some of yourself into the vault with copies of our memory, just in case.”

“Acknowledged,” Odin said.

“Now back to you Adaline, what have you been up to?”

“After our last encounter, I received continuous assignments jumping between various Universes within Cosmos 2, now that I know about Cosmos and the Universes within that makes a kind of sense. I have to ask, are you going to get in trouble for taking us out of this Cosmos before we die?”

I smiled, “Quick answer, I don’t know, and I don’t care. The longer answer, I don’t think so, but I don’t want to jinx it so I’m not going to say anymore. I never did ask, is there anyone that you wish to bring with you?”

She seemed to hesitate before answering then said, “You know how I liked watching television when you first introduced me to it? Well, there’s this type of drama that I became enamored with. Though it didn’t have dragons or anything like that I still liked watching them.” She said.

Not seeing the point, I just looked on attentively

“Well, you know, how you gave me access to the nanites you left in my system? I had to use the stasis function right after you left. How to say this,” she said coyly, before she declared when I want to be, “I’m pregnant and she’s ours!”

I sat there in slight shock for a moment, as a hundred responses filled my head, all of them joyful as a smile started to cross my face until my logical mind caught up with my emotional brain and I said in a whisper, “The Ring”