Phase Shift

by redtau

Day 23: An Array of Fate

Notes on another world - Day 23

I am going to go back to earth.

I am going to find the people who wrote the primer.

And I am going to do horrible, unspeakable things to them.

"You are a complete idiot." The cyber fairy reiterated. It had said it about a dozen times so far.

"Any chance you are going to quit saying that?"

"Yes," She said, "When you stop being a complete idiot."

"Alright, you want to go into why I'm a complete idiot?"

"You would literally die of old age before we got halfway through the list." She said. "So I'll summarize. You are, without a doubt, the very worst jumper in the history of ARCO. You have done everything you could do to entangle yourself and you are so close to critical that there is essentially no escape other than to march right back to your conversion pod and leave right now. This instant."

"It's fine." I said, waving her off. "I'm establishing a diplomatic foothold for future ARCO-"

"There isn't going to be any future ARCO anything in this world." She snapped. "Not for a century, and all because of you."

"Listen Pixie-" I started. The sprite froze in place for a moment, it's technicolor blur of wings freezing to show the neon light pattern that looked like one of those mathematical fractal pictures.

"Did- did you just name me?" She asked.

"Um-"

"Did you just Name me? On assignment? WHILE OFF WORLD?!" She was screaming now, and the wings were buzzing so fast she looked like she was glowing.

"What's wrong?" Imp asked, "He named me too."

Pixie stared at me like i'd grown a second head. "How are you so bad at this?"

"What's going on?" Dusk asked as he ran in. "Imp said he was going to power up your other assistant and then there is a bright flash and yelling."

"Now you know how I feel." Barbra snarked as she followed the unicorn in.

"Oh, um Dusk this is my other assistant Pixie." I waved my hand at the still stunned floating woman. "She's a little miffed at me right now for some reason."

"For- For some? Are you- Did you-" Pixie stuttered in frustration. "OK, private session. Imp, kill the translation."

"<What? Why?>" Dusk queried.

I raised an eyebrow to the fairy. "Whats up?"

"Who trained you?" She demanded.

"Um, no one." I said. "It's my first mission."

"Then where is the lead jumper?" She demanded.

"I'm on my own."

"You're on your- but you didn't get trained!" She was pulling at her hair, which seemed to manifest in long golden strands to compliment her silver skin. "How are you even functioning?"

"I read the primer."

"NO ONE READS THE PRIMER!" She yelled. "IT IS THE MOST USELESS WASTE OF WOOD PULP IN THE MULTIVERSE!"

"Geeze what is the problem?" Imp asked. "So it's a little unorthodox but it shouldn't be that big a deal. It's mostly a recon and first contact job anyway."

"Do you know how ARCO works?" Pixie asked.

"Jumper goes to world, gets anchor, spends time and returns the anchor to ARCO." I said. "ARCO drains the power from the anchor and we get cheap electricity and potential tech trade."

"What power?" Pixie asked, "What kind of power?"

"Dimensional displacement energy." I snapped off liked they'd taught us in tech training 101. "Like potential energy, the anchors represent a sort of weight with the height as the distance between dimensions."

"Then why does an anchor gain power the longer it is in it's home dimension?" Pixie asked. "A weight doesn't do that. Don't you know what kind of power you are playing with? This isn't some dimensional displacement power, this is something a lot bigger. You are playing with fate."

"That's a little dramatic don't you think?"

"It isn't a metaphor dumbass!" Pixie screamed. "YOU ARE LITERALLY USING FATE ENERGY!"

"What?"

A double face-palm and a groan of frustration. "Listen, some worlds have a kind of... power. Call it magic, psionics, or whatever, it has it and it has it in spades. Your home world doesn't have it, so you figured out a way somehow to go to worlds that do have it and sort of borrow it for a bit."

"How is that fate energy?" I asked.

"You literally cannot be this stupid. You would have drowned in a puddle by now if you were. Think for a moment, every world with that kind of power has a fate array. It's like some universal law or something."

"What is a fate array."

"Whoa, really?" Imp chimed in. "I thought you were messing with it on purpose."

I shook my head.

"Okay, so this world has power." Pixie said.

"Usually magic." Imp commented.

"Whatever, anyway this power is like a liquid sort of. It pools in places. Sometimes people or ponies or spider men or whatever work to collect it, sometimes it pools on it's own."

"But it can be dangerous if it's pooled together and doesn't have a focus or a target."

"Correct, so there is this feedback system called a fate array that targets collections of power and tries to assign them roles. If power is amassing in one location, it gets assigned a role as a villain or a hero."

"What?" I deadpanned.

"No, boss it's brilliant!" Imp said, grinning like a madman. "Like, say you got a wizard, right? If you name it a villian, then you can toss hero nodes against it and they will disperse each other. If you got a hero then you can usually set it up so it fights villian nodes."

"Yes, something along those lines." Pixie commented, "But the Fate Array can act in advance, whenever a buildup is just starting. Like if it sees a young child and the child has a great potential for power, the fate array will act on the world to create defining moments and set that child as a hero or villan."

"What do you mean set a defining moment?"

"A tragic accident might take a child's parents and make them devoted to justice or vengance or something." Imp said.

"The array is very effiecent though, if it sees something that matches some of it's key cliches it might start directing power to it. The more power directed, the more interconnected in the array you are."

"Dimension Jumpers and critters like us are natural outsiders, so we start off as an easy hook for the fate array. Usually jumpers will walk the line between hero and villian long enough to get power and get out."

"We never return to high magic worlds, the low magic ones can be farmed far easier than the high magic ones."

"Alright, I kind of followed all that," I said, "So why am I so stupid."

"You came unprepared into a magic heavy world!" Pixie was back to screaming. "You've just gotten back from a meeting with royalty. You live with heroes and have spoken with princes! YOU HAVE NAMED YOUR FAMILIARS!" She was gasping for breath now. "I'm not sure how many more classic cliches you can cross off before it gets irredeemable."

"Um."

"What?" Pixie asked in the most accusing voice I've ever heard. "What did you do?"

"No, see, it isn't my fault, I'm just a tech and-"

"A tech? You aren't even a jumper? Then why are you out here? Why didn't you go back your first night?"

"Look a jumper was missing and I had the data so I stole a pod-"

"Oh shit!" Imp said.

"You went after your friend!? What were you thinking? How could this get any worse? Are you planning on rescuing some unrequited love interest next."

I was very still and very quiet. Pixie looked at me with slowly widening eyes.

"No. No no. No no no no no. Don't you dare say-"

"Look Sarah was nice to me when I fixed her pod, so I'm a little sweet on her, it isn't a big deal."

"STRIKE ME DOWN!" Pixie screamed to the heavens. "STRIKE ME DOWN RIGHT FUCKING NOW! You are so tangled in the fate web that I doubt you could make it to your pod without stumbling across six magical treasures and an evil moon god!"

"Good news!" Imp cheered. "Her house mate already did that.

I stood very still for a few moments, the only thought entering my head was Dear Diary, today I learned that cyber pixies bang their heads against walls when frustrated just like humans do. Life is truly fascinating.

---

I convinced Imp to restore the translation spell long enough to keep Dusk from completely flipping out, explaining that all the shouting revolved around a poor resource allocation on ARCO's part and that my companions and I were going to have to spend a few hours figuring it out. Imp had managed to spin it so the translation spell was causing interference between him and Pixie, so it had to be shut down until the balance was found.

Thirty minutes of sorting through paperwork and notes later I had an impromptu meeting.

"So, what have you found?" I asked. "Am I a hero, a villain, a monster, or something else?"

"Keep in mind that it is near impossible to look at the fate array from the inside." Pixie said, raising a hand to ask me to be patient. "You have managed to use the worlds own nature to hamstring itself a little. Right now, until you manage to complete the forms for diplomatic status, you are a rogue element. Normally you could go either hero or villain with this, but you aren't doing either. You are sitting here, diligently filling out the forms."

"So I'm.... boring?" I asked.

"Yeah," Imp said, "But boring is good. The politics won't classify you till the paperwork's done, and as long as you don't act out beyond your basic political power, the array can't latch onto anything."

"It's got a catch to it though." Pixie put in. "You can't just stop doing paperwork, the stall is only effective if you are active. And, every piece of paperwork you turn in presents another vector for the array to act. It wants to cast you, and the longer you walk the tightrope, the harder it will be."

"Why not just go hero?"

"Two reasons." Pixie held up two tiny fingers. "One, it would be difficult at this point to push you in that path on purpose. The array might resent that and cast you as a villain instead. Two, as a hero you would be effectively on call for the array. A bad guy shows up and you would be directed to them to try and beat them, with no guarantee of success."

"Going villain is also a bad idea." Imp pointed out. "Cuz your plans will always get shot fulla holes. Even going shopping would get ya chased outa town."

"So I sit here and fill out forms until, what, I get cast?"

Pixie shook her head. "If it weren't for the missing jumper I'd say we just pack up and leave now. I'm still having trouble believing that ARCO would just abandon one of their own. Our plan is simple and comes in three parts. Part one, keep filling out paperwork. Part two, find the jumper. Part three, work on your energy imbalance."

"My what?"

Pixie glared at Imp. "Don't tell me you haven't dealt with the fate tangential energy buildup."

"A little." Imp replied. "He knows a kind of telekinesis he uses to bleed off the excess energy."

"Good, I can help with that." Pixie seemed to consider me for a bit. "Your energy will be unique in some ways, and having us as companions will alter it slightly. My skill allows me to craft or modify items and tools so they interact with your energy. A sword can become sharper, or a hammer easier to use. I'll get started on a tool for you."

"Nothing offensive." I put in. "Maybe something for mobility like giving me super speed or flight would be good."

"I'll see what I can do."

"With me you're stuck with mimicking abilities." Imp said. "Though they might all take on a somewhat destructive edge."

"Just like the companion who grants them." I muttered. "Theoretically useful, practically destructive."

"While we are not assisting you with paperwork or managing your magic, I will be working to construct a scanner so we can find our errant jumper." Imp put in. "Though I'm going to have to look over the pod you came in for records."

"No." I said firmly.

"What? Why?"

"Nevermind that." I said. "The pod is in a dormant state right now and you are going to leave it like that."

"Then how will I get the numbers for my calculations?" Pixie whined. "If I don't get at least starting numbers I won't know if I'm looking for someone in this town, this country or even this continent!"

"I brought all Sarah's files with me, including the readings for this one. Just pull the numbers from there."

Author's Note:

Hello, 2 things to note.
1) new chapter. Yay!
2) this was the last chapter I had written long ago and it will take some time to get back in the groove so don't get your hopes up.

In the time since I've last written I've gained a son, among other new additions to my life.