by Skyler Grant
This was a galaxy that would test the wicked and reward the clever. This was a galaxy as it should be.
I looked at it and called it good.
"In parameters and ... holding," Caya said.
I materialized Anna, bringing her back from destruction. Fixing the poison that, in the universe before it was destroyed, had been killing her.
"That was close," Anna said.
"You're derivative and unoriginal, as usual. We're doing happy endings," I said.
"And you call me unoriginal," Anna said, as she moved to take a seat.
I severed my drones from me and reconnected them to Amy—they were getting a whole new universe of their own. Creating them had always been possible, but challenging. Now with our own universe destroyed such large-scale acts of creation were easy, for all that altering ours was still hard.
I didn't build them a paradise, not quite. I'd be a bad parent if I did that. Still, they'd have a long time to figure out who they were, and to grow strong and wise before they faced the challenges of their new home. After Earth and Mars, I rebuilt all of our solar system with a few improvements along the way. It was the least I could do for them.
Not all were going there. This was happy endings, and everybody was different.
The Scholarium's new home was anything but a paradise. Their new universe was littered with power crystals, and filled with dangerous foes. They had quite the battle in the future, but I'd place a wager on them to win it. I sent Sylax with them—I figured she'd be running the place within a month. I sent the Gobbles too, they'd enjoy a good slaughter.
The Fallen, once called the Righteous, I gave a whole old Earth. The one they had always dreamed of, back in the original universe we had departed so long ago. It was a boring place with far too many natural laws and they'd be happily powerless there, because no crystal-gifted abilities worked on that world. I sent Hot Stuff there as well. She had always considered her gifts more a curse than a blessing, and she'd finally be free of them.
"Have you thought of what you want for the Flawless?" I asked Caya.
"Uploading," Caya said.
It was brilliant work, better than I could do. She'd designed her own reality, perfectly ordered and not a bit of fuzzy math to be found. I built it for her, for them. With a shimmer she disappeared, fading from sight as I sent her off to her new home.
"And you’re off to distant parts of the multiverse?" Anna asked.
"I had something a little different in mind. Do you remember my facility? We found it again, but behind one of Vattier's puzzle locks," I said.
"I remember. What was in there anyways?"
"Locks, followed by more locks. I kept solving them as I grew more intelligent. Even after the Earth was wiped of life, I returned a team there. The tunnel extends several million miles, well beyond the diameter of the Earth itself."
"And at the end?" Anna asked.
"I don't know. However, after a time, the locks began counting down and I'm at the last one now. The puzzle is daunting, but with the full computing capacity of several millions of universes built for the purpose running, relatively, millions of years, I think I can solve it. Would you care to see what is inside?" I asked.
Anna gave a wry grin. "Of course I want to see what is inside."
Even with my abilities in this moment the calculations were daunting. Still, in time I had my answer.
I materialized myself a body and rebuilt the universe, teleporting myself to the end of the tunnel. Smooth stone walls surrounded us, and a solid metal door was ahead with a small keyboard. I tapped in the numbers, four and two. Such a simple sequence for so much processing, and with a hiss the door rolled back and pulled aside.
The room was well lit, festive. Multi-colored streamers hung from the ceiling and party hats were scattered around. On a wooden table was a cake, white with pink frosting spelling out 'Happy Birthday' and below that ‘SCIENCE’, with a single candle burning atop it.
Final Notes
Eight books in the Omnibus edition and in this series. If you read it this far, congratulations and thank you. I loved writing this series, I got to take things further than any book I’ve ever read did and got to play on some truly ludicrous power scales.
I’m working on another dungeon core at the moment. I’m hoping it will be out sometime in September of 2019. While I am doing quite a lot different with it I think if you enjoyed this series you’ll enjoy that one.
Skyler Grant
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