As I arrived back in my base of Operation I realized I hadn’t looked at a calendar since the Cosmos had been recombined. I’d been assuming I knew what was going on based on the Earth I was born into. As I sat down in my command chair I looked at the calendar. Today was July 15th, 2031. Wait, tomorrow was Johnathan Prime’s birthday. How had I missed that?

As I contemplated the actual date a perimeter alarm sounded for my estate. I altered my perception and looked through the nanites to find Rigel Anderson? The assassin that tried to ambush me at my estate before. Wow, this Cosmos was bringing back all the oldies, but goodies. I had my nanites cover me in sleeping attire and teleported into my bed in the estate, face down on the master bed, all sprawled out, as if I was sleeping.

Through the nanites, I watched Clarence, Rigel’s real first name, sneak up to the house where I saw him hesitate and look around questioningly. It seemed someone had bad dreams a couple of nights ago as well. Professional that he was, he entered and cleared the estate, though this time he used a gadget to bypass my door which killed the silent alarm. As he made his way towards the master bedroom I thought about just putting him on my Earth but then decided not to. These mortals were going to have to live and die with their decisions, just like all other creatures that existed. Also, I might be able to convert Clarence to my cause. However, I believed that was far from likely that Clarence would choose death, but I hoped I was mistaken.

I watched as Clarence opened the door to my room and saw me sprawled out on the bed not moving. As he entered the room with his CZ 75 45, silencer attached, he quickly turned around and looked back down the hallway, and then turned back to me. I mentally contacted Thor.

Thor put the nanites on full alert. If a hyper-ballistic tungsten rod enters the atmosphere aimed at my estate I want you to backtrack the satellite it was launched from, open a portal in front of it and have it slam back into that satellite. -Adam

If the satellite is manned? -Thor

Pull everyone off the satellite and throw them into our soul space. Put them in Washington DC at the Pentagon. – Adam

I’d trust Thor to handle the details. There were a few ways he could handle such a situation in the limited time he had. I focused my attention back on Clarence as he stepped up beside the bed, aimed at my head, and pulled the trigger twice. What happened next did not expect. The bullets slammed into my skull, just like they should. I, however, had willed myself to be locked into place and allowed the chaos coursing through my body to absorb the kinetic energy of both bullet impacts. The bullets just stopped. They didn’t flatten, the tip of each bullet came to a complete stop against the back of my skull, all the energy was transferred to me, and the perfect bullet head dropped onto the bed behind me. I expected that. What I didn’t expect was that as soon as the bullets were stopped and fell to the bed Clarence engaged the safety on his weapon and dropped it onto the bed as he took a full step back and dropped to his knees with his hands behind his head.

“I surrender, please, please, please don’t send me to that planet with the bright red sun. I lived through that once, I don’t want to go again,” Clarence said as he looked around frantically.

I pushed myself up and turned to face him, I picked up the two bullets with my right hand as I touched the weapon with my left hand, and stored the weapon in my soul storage, “Well shit,” I said as I stood and started walking towards the door. As I walked I said, “I accept your surrender, no red sun for you, come along we have some things to discuss.” Clarence hesitated only for a moment, then stood, and followed me to the elevator. I led him down to the cafeteria level and pointed to a table and chairs. We both sat and I began, “Clarence, if you remember the red sun then you know I know your real name. Would you like anything to drink while we sit down and talk?” I asked.

“A Jack and Coke would be nice, a very large Jack and Coke, make that 50% Jack if you could,” he said

I created a 64-ounce Jack and Coke for him and a Long Island Iced Tea for me and watched as they just formed in glasses directly in Infront of us as a phone in Clarence’s pocket buzzed, “Ignore it,” I said.

“The kind of people…” He started to say as I raised an eyebrow and looked at him questioningly. He paused, thought about what he was going to say then picked up his drink as he said, “Never mind.”

“I want to see how the people that ordered the hit on me respond when you don’t answer,” I said, as I checked through my nanites and found Vice President Paula Billingsgate seated at the head of a table holding a phone. I was really beginning to hate that lady.

“Not well would be my guess,” Clarence said

“A sense of humor, that’s good, keep that sense of humor. You’re about to be the number 1 most hunted assassin on the planet, not that they’ll find you I just need a scapegoat for a bit and you’re it,” I said.

“But…”

“But… you just tried to shoot me in the back of the head. Besides, I need you for a job and not distracted by extraneous other factors. This is going to be your home for a bit.

“Do I get paid?”

“Of course, you get paid, what do you want?” I asked

“I want to be as powerful as you someday,” he said.

“I can work with that, welcome to the team Clarence, now watch,” I said as I flipped an image on the monitor on the wall to the room in the Pentagon the Vice President and her cohorts in crime were sitting in. We both watched as she pulled out a laptop and accessed Angel Fire, the system that launched kinetic missiles at ground targets from orbit. She selected her target and pushed the send button. Thor 2 traced the command codes to their final destination and found the satellite. Once he verified that the satellite wasn’t manned Thor tracked the missile as it entered the lower atmosphere. When it was 50 miles from the estate a portal opened, and the rod passed through a portal and exited out the other side 1 inch above the center mass of the satellite vectored so the explosion would explode away from the Earth. On the monitor, one of the techs was saying, “Detonation in 24, 23, 22,…Tracking has been lost.” Immediately, everyone in the room started to scramble until the same technician said, “Angel Fire is down”

I looked away from the monitor to Clarence, I’m going to be a minute. There is an artificial intelligence listening to everything you say here. If you need another drink or want some food or a snack just ask. I’ll be back in a bit,” I said as I stood opened a portal, and stepped into the room with the Vice President. I let the portal close behind me.

As I stepped through the portal the pandemonium ceased and it got insanely quiet. Smiling, I addressed the room, “For those of you that don’t know, I am Adamantadine. Not Johnathan Bennard, or at least the Johnathan Bennard you may have heard of.”

“Now listen here Ada, whatever your name is, I don’t know how you made it this far…..” The Vice President started to say Honestly, I stopped listening, they hadn’t even reacted as if seeing a portal was not uncommon. Something to think about later. Now, I had nanites start putting space suits on everyone in the room except the Vice President who stopped talking when the clothes of the others started to morph and change. While the nanites worked I focused my will and surrounded each of the people, eight in all, with a tube of force that surrounded them and went to the ceiling. I left a 1-inch gap at the bottom to allow airflow. Realizing that something was happening all eight stood or tried to move to find that they were pushing against something they couldn’t see.

Once the space suits were complete, I picked a crater on the moon where I knew that whatever was up there wasn’t, as my nanites had already covered it, then opened a portal that was horizontally above each of the individuals in their tube. Each was ejected upwards with their chair, if they had one, out onto the surface of the moon. As I closed the portals and released the tubes of force, The Vice President reached for her neck and two secret service men exploded into the room. As they passed the threshold of the door I opened a portal into my soul space behind them. One immediately opened fire on me, while the other grabbed the Vice president and retreated out of the room into my soul space with her. I couldn’t have planned that better myself.

I had my nanites in my soul space remove all ammunition from the guns the secret service agent was carrying while I closed the portal then teleported out of the room and appeared five feet beside the Vice President and the Secret Service Agent who immediately tried to point and shoot his gun at me.

I locked myself in place and waited as the secret service agent realized that his guns were not working and tried to kill me in hand-to-hand combat. I just stood there and took the abuse. When he’d broken every finger in his hand and foot and was lying on the ground panting while the Vice President looked on in horror I asked, “Are you done yet or do you need to prove that you will protect the Vice President unto your death?

“Unto Death!” he spat

“Yeah, no,” I said flatly as I put him to sleep with a spell and had my nanites fix his body. Then I picked him up one-handed and shoved him through a portal into an emergency room on a cart. I closed the portal and looked at the Vice President, “As for you Vice President Billingsgate I have a demonstration for you.” I said as I teleported both of us to the Trinity detonation site in New Mexico. Next, I put my hand to her forehead before she could move and downloaded all the memories I had on file for the version of herself from my original universe into her. I didn’t replace her mind, I simply gave her the memories I had on file from her previous self as well as the memories I had of what had happened to her daughter.

For the next hour, she was a blubbering mess as her mind tried to absorb all of the information I’d shared with her. I made sure her body and mind stayed healthy enough to push through until she could once again concentrate and talk in coherent sentences. When she finally came back to herself she said, “None of that explains why we are here,” she said waving around.

“In the memories, you were just given you encountered a version of me that was a lot more naïve and well-wishing. Also, a lot more of a dictator. This time around I’m a lot more powerful. I thought this a fitting site to show you what you are up against,” I said.

“I know that someone will destroy you…” She started to say until I cut her off.

“I don’t think so, but I was pretty sure you weren’t going to believe me so Plan B it is,” I said.

“What is Plan B”

“That would be Plan Boom. I hope you wore your yellow in the front and brown in the back panties,” I said with a grin. It took her a moment to get what I meant then looked back at me with disgust. As she was about to say something I cast silence on her. I really didn’t need to listen to her for this next part. I Picked up the Vice President telekinetically and flew 100 miles off to the east and landed facing the Trinity test site. Next, I cast a force bubble with polarization and radiation-absorbing properties around us and locked it down so it would move I placed a monitor off to her side inside the bubble that showed a camera image of me from 5 feet away captured by the nanites in the area.

“We’re about 100 miles away from the detonation site. Even so, the flash from a nuclear explosion could damage your eyes. Not to worry, if they are damaged I can repair them. Also, the bubble you are in will divert any radiation that gets this far out so you’ll be perfectly okay in the bubble. Side note, you’ll see the flash when I detonate the bomb, it’s going to take a little over 8 minutes for the blast wave to get here.”

“Where will you be?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said as I had my nanites create the Tsar 100-megaton bomb the Russian invented outside the bubble of force. Then I teleported out of the bubble to pick it up. I’m going to fly this bomb over to the trinity site and detonate it at ground zero.”

“That’s insane, no one can survive that?” she said.

“Exactly! Be back in a few,” I said as I flew west to the bomb site. Put the bomb on the ground as I had the nanites finish arming the device. I locked myself in place spatially and then detonated the 100-megaton nuclear device while I stood right next to it.

As the nuke went off, the weirdest thing happened. During the moment of the detonation, when my senses were overloaded, and everything was pure energy at that moment of quantum probability as the energy ruptured back into physical reality I felt myself connect to something. I also noted that my form shimmered and lost cohesion at that moment. I didn’t look different, but I felt different at that moment in time. It was the weirdest thing I’d experienced to this point.

I watched through the nanites from the Vice Presidents’ vantage point as there was a bright flash then a blast wave rushed towards her As I monitored her reaction to the explosion and the blast wave rushing toward her, she would have needed yellow panties after all. While she stood there terrified, I floated in the center of the mushroom cloud as it rose into the sky. It was amazing! I’d been running, running, and running for so long that the break I took while I waited for the blast wave to rush over her bubble was nice.

After the bubble was hit I set the nanites to work cleaning everything in my soul space up, including the Vice President. I removed the radioactivity from both of us. I had become pretty “hot”, in all the wrong ways. Once that was done I flew back over to the Vice President and landed in front of her. I dispelled the bubble and removed the silence spell from her,

“I want out, let me out!” she screamed.

I cast silence on her again then said, “You need to calm down Vice President.” I said as I watched her struggle with herself. She tried to scream and holler and even hit me. When she moved towards me I floated up out of easy range and waited. After about five minutes she sat down, looked up at me then finally nodded once. I landed a few feet in front of her and removed the silence spell with a thought, “You can talk now,” I said.

“What are you?” she asked.

“I am Adamantadine, that’s it. I’m also not entirely mortal anymore.”

“Why did you show me this?”

“Simple enough, when you go back to the White House, because that’s where you will be stepping out into. You are going to need to work with you your seven counterparts in China to help Earth move into a new age. Anything you can do to smooth over my interests will be looked upon favorably. Interference, do I have to spell it out?

“No,” she said dejectedly.

“Also, the assassin you sent, he’s mine now. No retaliation against his family, no blacklisting him. He, like you, isn’t being given a choice. People that try to kill me will be lucky if I let them live after a certain point.

“You can’t be naïve enough to think that the governments of the world are going to let you do whatever you want?

“With what nukes will they enforce their will? Every nuke on the planet has been disabled. Every single one of them. No one knows yet because no one has tried to use one, except for the idiot that ordered the launch from the sub in the Mediterranean. Who authorized that by the way?”

“A Nuclear weapon was fired on Cairo from an American Sub, your sure?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, but that fits,” I said.

“Attacking you in New Mexico with Angel Fire, was a bad call, I admit it, an absolutely indefensible call. A lot of people would have been killed and injured but we thought we acting to save the planet. Neither the President nor I would have authorized the use of a nuclear weapon from any sub in the fleet on a population center, especially a population center with cultural significance.”

“Oh really,” I said. “Looks like I’m going to have to look into that personally here in a few minutes. For now, we are done,” I said as I opened a portal into the oval office with the President of the United States sitting behind his desk. I’d checked beforehand to make sure he was alone, though there would be a response shortly. “You’re free to go, please fill in the President. I’ll be in touch” I said as she stepped quickly through the portal, and it closed behind her.

I watched through the nanites as the Secret Service rushed into the room and after some tense moments verified that the Vice President, who’d last been seen in the Pentagon, was now at the White House and had stepped through a door out of thin air. While that was going on I had my nanites analyze the only submarine the US had in the Mediterranean Sea and found that every single nuke was still on board.

Next, I scoured the Mediterranean Sea and found a nanite dead zone at the bottom of that sea about 330 miles northwest of Cairo City. As I mapped out the dead zone I found that it extended at least 1,500 feet down. I viewed the bottom of the sea there and noted camouflaged structures that could be launch tubes as well as something that looked suspiciously like a docking port as well as an area that looked like it could open up to allow submersibles to enter or exit as desired. It was somewhat surprising when the sea floor parted and a silver disc moved up out of the underground structure then turned on its side and flew straight up and out of the sea on a trajectory that seemed to be heading straight for the moon. My nanites couldn’t get into that flying saucer either. Looked like there was a new player in town and I’d need to see what was up on the Moon.