I watched Paul lead Ne’lix out of the room. As soon as the doors closed I felt a shift in the air and an elvish woman popped into existence in front of the desk. She cast a glance around the room quickly then her gaze came to rest on me with a look of surprise on her face.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” the elf said without any preamble.

“And why would that be, all I did was activate the shielding for this room,” I answered.

“I felt my link to you-know-who shift as if you’d left the cosmos,” she said.

Well, that could be a problem, I’d have to think fast and keep this god, because that was the vibe I was getting from her, from figuring out what was really going on. I sent a query to my Thor Aspect,

Check Trix’s memories from the nanite copy, who is standing in front of me?

A moment later I received a response.

Ammit, Goddess of Condemned Souls. After reviewing Trix’s memories I’ve cataloged and included a breakdown. If you run into anyone that Trix knew or interacted with your interface will inform you of their name. More detailed information will be made available as necessary in the case of an identity check, for instance – Thor

Okay, and thanks!

Just keep the information coming, it’s kind of boring here – Thor

With that reminder and the lowering of the shield, I set my nanites free to multiply and catalog. As my nanites started to infiltrate the computer system and then spread into The Empires version of the Local, Planetary, Galactic, and Intra-Universal web they bypassed the security measures and went to work analyzing and cataloging everything. All information was routed to Thor. I refocused and interrupted Ammit who’d started to say something I wasn’t paying attention to, “Ammit, why are you here?”

“I was going to get to that, what no time for pleasantries?” she asked

“Actually no. I’m investigating what happened to Death,” I said.

“What did happen to Death?” Ammit asked.

“She attacked someone or something far stronger than she was,” I said.

“Nothing is stronger than Death, everything eventually succumbs to her, even us Gods,” Ammit declared.

“Save the party line for someone that doesn’t know what’s really going on Ammit. We both know there are entities stronger than Death, isn’t that way you felt the connection drop, because you’ve allied with one such being?” I asked.

“You know it is, so I’ll ask again, what happened?”

“It would seem that a child named Ahrem is much more powerful than we thought. I discovered, almost too late, that he could track me through my link to, well you know what the link does. Anyway, because I could be tracked through the link, I shut it down,” I said

WARNING Spell TRUE SIGHT attempted to pierce your aura to determine if you were telling the Truth. Spell Resisted.

And it starts, I thought while I kept any hint of a smile from betraying me on Trix’s face, “As you can see from your spell, I am telling the truth, why would you think that I was lying to you?” I asked.

“Seriously, with our history?”

I searched for times Trix had misled Ammit then laughed inside. Trix had loved to lie to this woman. When I found the reason why the irony was exquisite. Ammit actually ate the souls that were not strong enough to survive if they fell into her purview which was something that worked against Textrix by removing possible sources of Karmic Luck from her. Trix enjoyed giving her the shaft whenever and however she could, “You’re still not sore about Randolph are you, I needed him and that kid that went by the name Junior, he turned out to be exactly what we needed to turn things around. If I remember right, you still made out with quite a few people that you were able to convince to follow you.

“Yeah, but you took the leaders and those leaders brought more into your flock. I was only able to add one or two at a time. At this rate my growth rate will be minuscule compared to others,” she said.

“There is no rush, you know that, you just need to stay focused,” I said.

“Your right of course, so what are you doing about this troublemaker?” Ammit asked.

“My assistant Paul is escorting one of ours that is mortal downstairs to help with the investigation. I do not expect immediate results but we should have something within the next day or two,” I said as I checked the status of the nanites that had been infiltrating the Goddess as we talked. I sent a command up the link to bring more nanites through the floor and not to covert any part of the Goddess as they infiltrated her cells. No telling if a modification to her structure would alert her. I also commanded them to spread into whatever she touched following the same rules, then batched that command to all other nanites. When taking over a living organism they were only to invade with nanites created elsewhere. They were not to convert any part of the biological structure into nanites.

“Well if your sure you have a handle on this.”

“Ammit, I’ve been around since the beginning of this Universe, long before you were born and fought and clawed your way to the position you hold now as one of the primary Goddesses of this Cosmos, I think I can handle a little boy,” I said with conviction in Trix’s voice.

“Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help,” Ammit said.

“There is, If you could pass it around to your peers that I’ll be busy for the foreseeable future and to only contact me if it’s important. If I need you, I know how to get in touch,” I said.

“As you wish,” Ammit said, then vanished.

I leaned back, rubbed my temples, a habit that Trix seemed to have, and checked on my Nanite infiltration progression. What I found shocked me. The Planet Vrax was completely artificial at this point. As I spread out into the planet I noted that this planet was covered with portals. Millions, no Billions of them. These portals were powered by Quantum Engines. What the hell was a Quantum Engine? There were portals to where the Quantum Engines were and after one of the Technicians stepped through to go to work at one of the sites I began to understand.

Vrax was powered by no less than 16 quantum engines with 16 on backup and 16 more built and in repair mode. This did not include the other 48 there were under construction throughout this universe and other alternate Universes in this Cosmos. As my nanites spread into the structure and reviewed the files they found there I learned that each of these Quantum Engines was located near a Galactic Black Hole. The Black Holes had to have a mass of at least 8.26+E36 kg, about 4 million solar masses. As I reviewed the files I was downloading from the computers I realized I’d seen this concept before on a show called Stargate Atlantis. They were getting around the problems described in the episode “McKay and Mrs. Miller” by placing the device right next to the event horizon of a very large black hole. The energy created was generated by drawing particles from the quantum level of reality and turning it directly into energy that was collected and transferred to power converters and relays through a portal system dedicated to that purpose. Doing it this way had a very high probability that any alternate probable Universe that the quantum realm pulled the energy from would have a singularity in that location. This ensured that there was a very low probability that any lifeforms would be affected. The only problem I could see was that in a truly infinite system of Universes where any possible thing could exist in that space the possibility of affecting a lifeform of some kind could happen. As we were in a Cosmos and most Universes here were divergences created along an original timeline it made these engines safe for the most part. If someone created a version of this engine that worked on the Cosmic Scale, well there could be cosmic consequences that could be devastating.

With my curiosity satisfied, I turned my attention back to Vrax and started mapping out and cataloging portals and portal coordinates. While I was doing that I started reviewing the political makeup of Vrax and the shit storm I’d just fallen into as well as the local knowledge level of those that knew about what happened after Death. It seemed that the ruler of Vrax was a man named Emperor Princeps. I thought for a moment and realized that Princeps was the Latin word for Ruler.

I reviewed the history of this world and its rulers and found that the title of Emperor was one appointed for life and they assumed the last name Princeps once they accepted the title. Upon the Emperor’s death a “Council of Nobility” met and elected the new Emperor which required a major majority. A major majority in this system was no less than 80% of all participants agreeing on a single candidate. When the council met it would not disperse until the Emperor was chosen. Also, should anyone die a replacement was required and their vote tallied. That seemed like an odd note.

I did a little more data mining and found the reason for that law. It seemed that back in the day a faction of the Council of Nobility wanted their man as Emperor so badly that they had killed every single individual that voted against their man. As no replacements were allowed at the time he was chosen as the Emperor. Of course, he had been killed during his inauguration. I searched Trix’s memories and realized she had been partly responsible for what happened. The new Emperor had been killed spectacularly just as he was about to receive his rulers scepter. Then every single system in that faction had been destroyed by an Angel of Death. Trix’s memories showed that she had sent a message outside this Cosmos and what Textrix deemed a specialist had been dispatched to this Cosmos to assist in the eradication of the upstarts. That specialist was a man named Mah. Another word for death in Armenian.

Mah had systematically gone to each system and destroyed them utilizing gravity-based magic. After he was finished destroying the systems responsible for killing their fellow councilors and choosing an Emperor that would have been useless Mah had required new representatives from the Council of Nobility to meet and have another election. Before they started that though Mah made sure they passed a law that required no less than 80% of every member of the Council of Nobility to agree. He also made them add a clause stating that should someone die during the proceedings a replacement must be received and make their choice known before an Emperor could be declared. Over the last million years, each member of the Council of Nobility would send an entourage with replacements that could step in if something happened as another requirement Mah insisted on was that the meeting could not end until a new Councilor was chosen.

During that first election after the new rules were set one of the Counselors had been killed and a replacement could not be found until there was a vote in the home system. Some of the other counselors had ignored Mah and stormed out to head back to their systems and await the next summons. As soon as their bodies completely left the building where the vote was taking place Mah turned each of them into a diamond by altering the gravity in their bodies and compressing all the atoms until they took that shape.

Behind the Podium, there was a stasis chamber Mah slept in. Above the door to the stasis chamber, there was a pentagram with a single diamond at each point. Whenever a call for the election of an Emperor happened the stasis was dropped and Mah became active again. Trix’s memories showed that Mah was an aspect like her and had not wanted to live until the end of this cosmos. His Aspect was here to act as an enforcer. If she needed him she could pull him out at any time. Having him in the Chamber of Destiny made him a deterrent. Since Mah had become involved, only one group had been stupid enough to try to destroy him. When the stasis room had been atomized by a nuclear device Mah had emerged and retaliated. Also a master of Time, Mah had backtracked the culprits by watching past events and then he systematically killed them, their families, their extended families, and anyone that worked with them and their families. Worlds weren’t destroyed at that time. Even so, according to Trix’s memories 1,245,798 million people had died by his hand. Mah’s stasis chamber had been rebuilt and the diamonds that were above the door to his stasis chamber were just normal diamonds now, the originals having been destroyed.

The Council of Nobility consisted of the leaders or their representatives, from the 100 most powerful domains in the Empire. The criteria used to determine how powerful a domain was amounted to measurements of various data points concerning the domain, not the individuals controlling them. There were a couple of small domains that had incredibly powerful rulers, Gods even, that did not have a seat on the Council of Nobility. Companies that controlled domains were not counted unless they controlled at least 10 different Solar Systems and all assets within. Something most companies couldn’t do with the amount of competition that existed. Also, almost every ruler of a domain had the ability to use magic which allowed them to take control of the domain. Some rulers were benevolent but as I reviewed more and more I realized that a great number weren’t.

I went back to my information on The Emperor. Trix seemed to have a good relationship with this emperor. I’d probably be getting a request for an audience shortly. But that dealt with mortal politics. Divine politics was another matter and I needed to get up to speed on things that could bite me in the butt. It seemed that the Goddesses of Death and Condemned Souls were the only two Gods in this Cosmos that had pledged their Allegiance to Textrix that knew the truth of existence. Ne’lix had made three and as far as Trix had known those were the only three in this Cosmos that had that knowledge besides Mah. There were plenty of others that had devoted themselves to Death and Ammit and through them Textrix but none except those four knew what was going on. Through Trix’s memories, the thought had crossed her mind that her placement and the fact that the other two were Gods was enough to ensure this Cosmos fell into the fold. I searched Trix’s memories and found what I was looking for. This Cosmos hadn’t fallen to Textrix yet but preparation had been made and would soon be in place.

I made sure the expansion of my nanites throughout Vrax and then into the network of Portals was going smoothly. I looked over everything one more time and then started reviewing everyone that had already been cataloged. This would take a little while but in the end, I believed the time spent would be worth it. It was true that I was still figuring things out but I had infiltrated the top position of Textrix in this Cosmos. If I had any issues it would be from Mah or Ammit. Ammit had been handled for now, I’d go check on Mah in a bit.