Creation: Book 3: Strandbinder Complete!

The Creator looked over his recent gains. It would be easy to say that everything he had just received impressed him, but it wouldn’t be true. Most Creators likely only received a tenth of the rewards Walker did, but they didn’t share the same goals as him.

He didn’t just want a world that succeeded the protocol. He didn’t want to become the almighty, all-knowing, all-seeing, godlike being that many throughout the protocol’s history did. There was no truth to that, no joy for it within his heart. No. Walker wanted one thing.

He wanted a world that could grow and contain the wonders within.

These rewards were just another step on the path toward that singular goal. In the long run, they were only a piece of what the Creator needed to succeed. A hundred rewards could drop in his lap right now, but it wouldn’t satisfy the necessary systems required for his Founders nor fill the gap in how his sapients would become martial equals with his monsters. Those were things only he could do.

His vision was what mattered most.

Walker snorted as he looked at the first reward.

Evolutions will now occur twice as often in your solar system.

“Well shit,” He said as he shook his head. The Monster system already disallowed breakthrough evolutions, placing a cap on each monster based upon the tier they reached.

The next few in line were interesting, but he wasn’t pushing for more evolutions. The Magic Chamber may hold some secrets about creating more, or he could just ask Virgil. The large squirrel always had more information to give than expected. He continued to look through the rewards when he found a peculiar trend.

When he added each strand back to his resources, he did it in a specific order, moving from Cyclical to Cosmic, Energy, and Exotic. As he looked at them again, the rewards also appeared to follow that order. This meant they hinted at what he could do with each strand if he reasoned them out correctly.

He knew this because life and evolution went hand in hand on his homeworld. Where there was life, evolution naturally occurred. Thus, his first reward would likely be tied directly to the Life strand. That meant that life-sense was tied to the strand of Death, Sensory to Karma, which made no sense to him, and the obvious Pocket Dimension upgrade was tied to the Dimensional strand.

Thinking further on the Dimensional reward, Walker scanned his mental library for a time, making further notations for future review. However, no matter how hard he looked, he found no mention that the Pocket Dimension ability could be upgraded. Most of the abilities simply stated, ' Upgradeable’. But that wasn’t true with this one.

He pulled up the old version in his mind.

Ability: Pocket Dimension

Grants the Creator the ability to create pocket dimensions that will hold objects in a time-locked stasis field. May be used on non-organics only. The use of Dimensional and Temporal resources is required for initial creation.

Like he thought, there was no mention of upgrading. Walker then compared that to the new upgraded version.

Ability: Pocket Dimension

Grants the Creator the ability to create pocket dimensions that will hold objects in a medium-sized, time-locked stasis field. Dimensional, Temporal, and Life resources are required for initial creation.

There were a few key differences here. One, the pocket dimension could be upgraded again. He knew that because it stated medium-sized. The fact that the system was now recognizing that pocket dimensions had sizes at all told him there was a good chance it could upgrade a second time. Two, it could now take on the Life strand.

If Walker was honest with himself, that pissed him off a little bit. He’d gone through a lot of effort to ensure Mac was set up and given access to organic material, not to mention the Life strand. And here the system was, giving that same access to his ability without a care or single fuck given.

Sure, the ability barely used up his resources and he hadn’t noticed any drain in his numbers; The system seemed to have an inherent way of using far less wasteful strands than himself. Regardless, it made him very angry, and he regarded it as a bad move.

However, something else occurred to him at that moment. Something to do with the Vaults he’d sold to the council.

Scratching his chin while he continued to think, he started to ramble out loud.

Many people thought those who spoke to themselves, even when no one was around, were possibly crazy or just plain lonely. But he’d always found it to be helpful in solving problems. After all, when you’re really trapped in a difficulty quandary, who knows your situation better than yourself?

“If the Council doesn't have an upgraded ability for Pocket Dimensions, then that means they don’t know that these can upgrade. Right? And if they don’t know that these can be upgraded, they likely hadn’t seen them before. Unless they’re fucking around with me….” Walker looked up, but the view was the same as everywhere else around him. It was space.

He shook his head, “Nope, so they haven’t seen them before. There likely aren’t even records of them either.” A few more dots connected in his mind, “That means that the upgrades are entirely unique. So the question continues…where the fuck are the upgrades coming from?”

That was the million-note question. If the council had no control over the ability upgrade, as they didn’t even know it was happening, then something funky was going on. Walker looked into the ability again, but even with darkness covering his eyes, he didn’t see anything written down by the former administrator.

Shaking his head at the thought, he looked at the rest of the rewards. Drawing connecting lines in his mind, he found Kinetic gave the shield ability, and Potential Energy halved his magical resource requirements. That could be slightly problematic as it affected not just him but also the entire solar system he was creating. It meant his Founders would have an easier time creating items with the Territory system.

“Is that a good thing?” he asked himself. Pausing to think it through for a few minutes, he shrugged and figured there wasn’t much he could do about it except maybe apply a magical tax. That had potential, so he stored the idea in his mind for later.

Infused was tied into the purple bar of Essence, which was interesting, although he had no idea how the strand really worked.

Consciousness and Multimind were purely logical together, and the evolution really stood out to him. He almost wished he was a creature of Symphony, just so he could test out some of the evolutions on himself….He moved on quickly so those thoughts wouldn’t bear fruit.

Walker pulled up the description of the Null Field ability.

Ability: Null Field

The Creator gains the ability to establish a field that disallows the use of other Strands. Nullification resources are required for initial creation and continued use.

Restriction: Primordial energy cannot be nullified.

Walker nodded to himself, “That makes sense. If all strands are just pieces of Primordial energy, then that same energy’s ability to negate or ignore the Nullification strand is purely logical.”

After all, the multiverses were made of Primordial energy. If nullification could effectively delete it, the universe would cease to exist every time he used it. This also caused him to think of another scenario.

His overlay.

What exactly was it? An interdimensional storage device? How was he able to pull strands directly out of it at all? Primordial energy was the only answer for what it was made of; otherwise, pulling Nullification out would destroy it. So some things, similar to a few of the systems he’d seen in the designer, used Primordial energy to run.

Walker pulled up the last ability he’d received.

Ability: Prediction

The Creator can see potential outcomes based on the predictive field they find themselves in. Uses a small amount of Casuality resources for each use. Can be extended for longer periods of time at the cost of greater resources.

That was almost in line with how he’d experienced using the strand with his body. But, the wording made him think something else was added. He wouldn’t know until he tried it, which had no value in the dark reaches of space.

As he had worried not long ago about delays due to rewards, Walker had spent too much time looking through things. Still, there was a lot of value in diagnosing how each strand worked and what they may work with best in the future. The more research he did now, the better grasp he would have on things in the future. He just had to learn how to work with the system involved.

"Cheat the system, that is" Walker said to himself with a smile. He still had thousands of different combinations to look forward to. If all he had to do was combine the different strands for a quick bump in resources, then that's just what he would have to do. But, before he dove into that and grew even more distracted with his new toys, he needed to complete what he'd come out here to do.

He’d come out here to create a new form of A.I. Something that hadn’t been seen before. Kwaya’s written warning about untethering them rang in his mind, but he felt he understood why.

She was a bitch, and a control freak.

Kwaya’s sad memories had only slightly influenced his view of the former administrator. She’d lived a sad life and had moved through a world filled with war. While Walker didn’t like the similarities he saw between his view of a harmonious world, filled with growth and potential, and the Origin, they wouldn’t hamper his goals. He had a job to do and a people to set up for the future.

All futures.

Walker reached into his resources and palmed the Dimensional strand again, only using a few as he wasn't sure what would happen. He didn't want to cause a collapse of cosmic proportions by just throwing energy into space. There were no guarantees he'd survive, after all. Transferring it to his left hand, he palmed space in his right.

Mentally steeling himself, he slowly collapsed his hands together, applying an extra drop of darkness while he did so.

They merged smoothly, and Walker unconsciously squinted his eyes against the possibility of another explosion just before opening his palms.

A small floating blue hexagon sat in the center of his hands. Unlike the transparency he had seen when working with purely the Dimensional strand, when he’d mixed it with space, it had become completely opaque. Walker watched as a small haze of color drifted off his creation, floating into space before dissipating.

He considered what he should do with it. If he detached it from his darkness-covered hands, should he throw it in case it exploded? Or, even as solid as it seemed, should he try to rub it across his body like most of the other strands he’d worked with.

Safety came foremost in his mind, which told him to throw it out to space and hope it worked out. Cradling it in his right hand, Walker pitched back his arm before lightly lobbing it forward.

The blue hexagon floated out to the reaches of space. Unlike Sir Newton’s laws of motion, it slowed down gently before coming to a full stop. A moment later, a tiny explosion occurred, and a large black door shaped like a hexagon opened before him.

Walker waited for a full minute just to make sure nothing else occurred, before gently pushing himself toward the gate in space.

Taking a breath from his personal vault, he looked at the black hexagon in front of him, not quite believing what he was seeing.

Sonata sat on the other side.

“What the fuck?” He said as he looked at the small greenish planet continue its merry way within the protocol, unaware he was watching them from the darkness. “So, it makes portals, or mirrors?”

He’d bet his bottom dollar that it was making portals, and that’s how they worked when the Evolvers used Primordial energy. The waste they must accrue in using the large combined energy must have been terrible.

Looking at the portal made him wonder what would happen if he applied it directly. Did that mean he would become a portal? Or would the effect be different? Plus, how did it know to choose Sonata? Was it a home planet situation? Like each time he made a portal, it would throw him back to where he originated from?

Walker watched as the combination fizzled out after five minutes, matching the number of Dimensional resources he’d placed into it. He decided to test things to better understand them.

The Creator started by adding one resource of Space to four Dimensional, and noticed that while it looked the same overall, its size was much smaller upon expansion. It was now just large enough for a single hand to fit through. This time, it closed up with a pop after four minutes.

“So, the more space I add, the larger it gets, while the more Dimensional strands I add, the longer its uptime. But how does it know what minutes are? If I were a cloud creator, and minutes were one hundred in length for me rather than Earth’s standard sixty, would it last that long?”

More questions with no one to provide the answers but himself.

Walker took a cue from the darkness covering his hands and attempted one more test. Thinking hard about the planet he’d stolen the magic chamber from, he threw out another Dimensionally mixed Space strand to see what would happen.

The gate opened up, showing him something he didn’t expect.

The bug-like Creator whom he’d seen before was fine, but the rest of his planet was missing. The creature sat there, alone, in the middle of space, not even knowing about its impending death.

“Wellll, shit,” Walker said, scratching the back of his head. Pulling up his memory of when he left, he noticed he’d applied a lot of force to jump off of the planet. He had been too excited by the idea of lifting the Magic Chamber back to Sonata and hadn’t considered the following Kinetic force application.

He had, unintentionally, completely screwed over another Creator.

He didn’t want to make light of the situation, but honestly, there wasn’t much he could do…..or was there?

Before he tried the crazy idea he had, Walker gathered the Dimensional and Space strands together again after the portal dissipated. After a powerful amount of effort, he placed it within his overlay while clicking the description.

Congratulations Dante!

As the first to discover a new strand, any future combinations, per your agreement with the Alpha Protocol Council, will automatically be siphoned to your resources.

Would you like to name your discovery?

Yes/No

He clicked yes and thought about it for a moment. Then, went with the obvious answer.

The Translocation strand is named.

...

.....Analyzing.....

Due to your discovery, future use of the Pocket Dimension ability will be free.

You've been granted a bonus reward for your finding!

- - -

Reward for discovering a non-standard use of Translocation energy:

Congratulations Dante! You've been granted bonus resources!

Your Teleportation ability has upgraded!

1000 Primordial resources.

An amount of equal value in Translocation resources.

That was a nice set of circumstances for him. Looking at his rewards, Walker did the same thing he’d done with the Pocket Dimension ability; he compared the Teleportation abilities original description with the new one.

Ability: Teleportation

Grants the Creator the ability to Teleport anything from one location to another. May be used on organics or non-organics without the threat of harm. Space resources are required when not using a portal gate.

Universal teleportation restriction is lifted for: Creator Dante only.

That universal note was interesting. Was….was that an escape hatch?

“Did the fuckers attempt to give me a way home?”

The ramifications of that were interesting. He’d first seen the ability when they received the reward options for making the Primordial Collider. He hadn’t taken it, as Life-giver and Pocket Dimension had just seemed better. Now, in hindsight, he hadn’t used Life-giver once, while being able to Teleport would have been much nicer to have in multiple moments.

“20/20…sure.” He said, shaking his head at the old quote.

Walker pulled up the upgraded version.

Ability: Teleportation

Grants the Creator the ability to Teleport anything from one location to another. May be used on organics or non-organics without the threat of harm. Space resources are required when not using a portal gate

“What?” He said in confusion. The only thing that had changed was that they’d removed the restriction. That meant he could send other beings and creatures to different universes….

“Interesting,” He said while scratching his chin in thought. He considered opening another portal for Earth but decided not to. The temptation to hop over set off alarm bells in his mind. The moment he stepped down would likely alert the council of what he’d done, and to their knowledge, he hadn’t received the Teleportation ability. Plus, there was a chance that the system wouldn’t work there in the first place. No, it was better to not tempt fate.

Recognizing that Walker had just effectively stepped away from going home further reinforced his resolve to do well in the protocol. His Founders, Assistants, and Primigenials were all relying on him, not to mention his Monsters. He’d made a choice to stay here, and that’s what he would do.

It also, for a moment, made him think that when, not if, he completed the protocol, he’d look in on his home planet to see about helping them out. As far as he knew, the Council couldn’t take abilities away, so he’d always hold on to it.

Walker threw another gate out and waited for the image to coalesce into the other Creator. A moment later, he walked up to it and, with a slight push of force, threw himself through.

The next moment was a haze of pain and screaming. Everything in his body felt pulled, stretched, and pushed back in simultaneously. It was as if a god had decided to shrink and expand his body all at once. In a smoky thought, he knew his body was trying to heal him through it, as he felt ligaments tear and then repair themselves moments later.

After what felt like a thousand years of torture, Walker felt the coolness of space. He tried to breathe but remembered he was still in the darkness of space. Pulling the Continuum strand directly from his resources, Walker quickly expanded a secondary temporal field around his location, breathing from his vault immediately after.

It was hard to do as he continued to spit out large globs of hardened blood, but eventually, his body started to calm down. Looking at himself to inspect for any further damage, he noticed that he was fully nude. Again, his clothes hadn’t made the trip that his body had. It was disconcerting to constantly be bare-ass in the universe.

Through the pain, he continually felt his body attempting to heal himself. It wasn’t as fast as some comic book characters he’d always loved and cherished, but it was still visibly quick as bruises appeared, only to fade away after a few minutes.

Once he felt a little better, he looked around.

The portal had already disappeared, leaving him here. He had created it only a few hundred feet away from the bug Creator, who he now realized was within his secondary Temporal distortion. Of course, he wasn’t moving as fast as Walker was, still seeming as if it was stuck in time. But, it would notice as it gained close to a week in faster movement. That would likely spell its fate in the third battle as the Creator suddenly gained an extra week it didn’t know it would have.

Walker breathed a sigh of relief as he felt his right shoulder reconnect, dislocated in his travel through the portal. He wondered why he had received so much damage all at once.

Remembering his first evaluation of the Portal system, he recalled that Time, or the Temporal strand, was one of the limiting factors.

“But I was covered in time?” He said to himself quietly.

It made him think that applying the effects of the Strands to himself and to the area were two different things. Looking at the darkness covering his hands made him think that his Origin was the likely cause.

He didn’t know what his Origin's effects were on strands. Plus, wasn’t it a strand by itself? Something that the Evolvers just didn’t, or couldn’t, identify? More questions.

Either way, he had a job to do here.

Walker clicked on TIME and attempted to rewind the damage he’d unexpectedly caused on the Creator. A notification appeared.

Error….

As a Creator of the Alpha Protocol, you are unable to affect other Creators using the Temporal subsystem.

…Analyzing…

System Administrator recognized.

Approval granted.

Error….

As a Creator of the Alpha Protocol, you are unable to undo damage caused to primary planets.

…Analyzing…

System Administrator recognized.

Approval granted.

Error….

Temporal signature is unable to find purchase due to unknown effects.

Please speak with your System Administrator for more information.

“Yeahhh, I thought so,” Walker said with a shake of the head. His use of the Kinetic strand had made it so he couldn’t alter time. He’d tried the same thing when Chomp was killed and received a similar message.

Once strands came into play, the Temporal subsystem was no longer an option.

But he had better control of things now. It wasn’t like the time of the Slicer. He could do more.

Could fix an issue that he had caused.

The first issue was the secondary Temporal displacement. If it was in place, he couldn’t attempt to rewind time.

Considering his options, Walker tried something he’d never done before. He tried to fully reabsorb the Temporal field around him. Of course, if anyone were watching, they’d just see a naked man grasping at the air over and over again until eventually screaming at it.

“Fucker,” Walker said out loud to the space around him.

Recognizing that he couldn’t do so, he had another idea. If he used his new Null Field ability, he could not only eliminate the Temporal displacement but potentially eliminate any trace of the Kinetic strand leftover from his sudden departure.

Walker clicked on his abilities and activated the Null field. Immediately, a menu option appeared.

Null Field activated.

Designate the amount of resources to be used.

He had no idea how many were necessary, so he took a guess and used fifty.

Fifty resources selected.

Designated radius is set to 5,000 miles.

Activating

“Ummmm,” Walker said, wondering if 5,000 miles would reach Sonata.

He didn’t have time to consider it as a burst of sparks cascading out of his body in a large, rapidly expanding sphere shot into space. Eyes wide, Walker watched as it quickly grew out of sight.

Just then, Walker heard a strange gurgling sound. He turned around and noticed the other Creator staring at him. A moment later, it looked around and started to wave its arms around in the air.

The Holder of Origin scratched the back of his head, “Yeahhh, sorry about that, bud. Don’t worry, I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.”

It gurgled a few more times, and Walker's translator started to work.

What are you! What are you doing here! By the hive, my world!

But he ignored it. The Creator could only see him because the Null Field had wiped out his Temporal sheathe. Covering himself quickly, time slowed down, and he watched as the Creator slowly slipped off of the last piece of its planet.

Thinking quickly, he lifted the Creator slightly into the air and clicked on the Temporal Subsystem. Selecting through his options, Walker chose to rewind time by a minute and a half. He was just guessing, as not much time had passed for this creature since he accidentally blew up the world.

System Administrator recognized.

That was all it said before; with a pop, the world of weird creatures reappeared beneath him. Just behind the Creator, Walker spied the Magic Chamber he’d stolen only a few hours ago.

“Fuck me, man,” The naked man said as he slapped his forehead.

Still, after terrorizing the poor guy, he didn’t feel right stealing the Magic Chamber. With a sad glance at it before turning his body, Walker chose a different way to return. He clicked on the Teleport ability.