The light was white, absolute and unforgiving. It was clinical, sterile. My eyes snapped open – transition from unconsciousness to full awareness, zero lag. A habit ingrained so deep it bypassed conscious thought.
The room was a box. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. Seamless, like they were molded from a single piece of bone. No seams, no joints, no windows, no visible doors. A single table, also white and featureless. Two chairs, identical, stark. It looked like an interrogation room designed by something that had never interrogated a human but had read the abstract concept.
My body felt... present. No restraints. Standard assumption: capture. Immediate counter-analysis: Why here? Why like this? No physical discomfort, no disorientation beyond the initial jolt of waking. My mind was already sifting data, building threat profiles, assessing escape vectors. But there were none. The room was the environment, and it offered nothing to exploit.
Silence. Not just an absence of sound, but a profound, heavy quiet that felt intentional. It pressed in, amplifying the unnerving stillness. A high-value target doesn't just wake up unrestrained in a featureless box. This wasn't a prison. It wasn't a conventional enemy. My internal alarm bells weren't ringing with urgency, but with a low, persistent hum of the utterly inexplicable.
Then, a shift. Not a sound, not a movement I could track with my eyes, but a presence. The air thickened, the relentless white light seemed to ripple. In the space opposite the empty chair, where the wall should have been, something coalesced.
It wasn't a person. It was a void wearing a costume made of paradox. Tall, impossibly so, and draped in something that swallowed light and spat out glimpses of things that didn't belong. Fragments of a distant, crimson sky. A tower structure I didn't recognize, impossible spires jabbing at nonexistent clouds. Symbols that pulsed with alien energy, gone as quickly as they appeared. It shifted, constantly, like smoke or water, but with the terrifying stillness of a collapsing star. His form was a shroud of reality itself, bending space around it. I couldn't pinpoint a face, just fleeting impressions – the suggestion of eyes like distant nebulae, a mouth that didn't move when the voice came.
The voice was calm. Utterly devoid of inflection, yet it resonated not just in my ears, but in the bone, in the air itself. It was the voice of infinite distance speaking intimately.
"Subject Designation: Ghost. Classification: Apex Baseline Variable. Status: Awakened."
I didn't move. Didn't speak. My mind was a storm of analysis, but my external remained ice. This was beyond any classification I had. Superhuman? Alien? Something else? The mind was already running simulations, trying to find a logic model that fit. None did. Not yet.
"You are experiencing a localized spatial anchor," the voice continued, the fragments on the cloak swirling faster for a second before settling back into their slow, constant churn. "It isolates you from the immediate effects of the Convergence, for now."
Convergence. More data points. "What is the Convergence?" My voice was level, stripped down. No fear, no challenge, just the request for information. Like asking a technician for the specs of a new weapon system.
"A multi-universal axial phase shift," the being stated. "Realities previously isolated are undergoing forced coterminous phasing. Think of wavelengths. Yours, designated 'Earth-Prime Beta', is aligning with others. Specifically, Class-A and Class-B realities exhibiting high concentrations of meta-abilities and divergent physical laws."
My mind processed: Parallel universes. Superpowers. Different physics. On my Earth, the impossible was usually just physics I hadn't broken yet, or technology I hadn't stolen. Meta-abilities were theoretical, whispers in dark corners. Divergent physics was science fiction. Now it was happening.
"Why?"
"Observation," the being replied. Simple, stark. "The nature of the shift is... organic, accelerated by certain external factors not relevant to your function. The outcome is uncertain. Total merge, partial overlap, mutual annihilation. Variables are required to assess adaptability across spectrums. Your reality lacks endogenous meta-genes in its dominant species. It represents a control group, in essence. A baseline."
"And I am a variable within that baseline?"
"Precisely. Your profile indicates an exceptional capacity for strategic adaptation, resource utilization, and operational efficiency under duress. You navigate chaos with calculated precision. You optimize low-probability scenarios. You are, statistically, an anomaly within your species' baseline parameters for survival and effectiveness in non-standard environments."
He was describing my existence. Every kill, every plan, every impossible extraction. He saw the pattern. The ruthless logic, the cold discipline, the ability to turn a shoestring budget and a broken knife into a tactical advantage against overwhelming odds. It was all just data to him.
"What is my function?" I asked. Information was power. Understanding my parameters in this 'experiment' was the first step to controlling it, or at least surviving it.
"To exist," the being said. The fragments on his cloak seemed to pulse faintly. "To adapt. To survive. To interact. To observe. To apply your unique skillset to the emergent environment. Data will be collected via... ambient resonance." He didn't elaborate on that. I filed it under 'unknown surveillance method'.
"What kind of 'emergent environment'?"
"Varied," the being answered, his non-face flickering with the suggestion of vast, ancient patience. "Expect alterations to local physics. Expect populations with abilities exceeding your current understanding. Expect... heroes. Expect villains. Expect conflicts on scales previously confined to your fictions."
Heroes. Villains. The terms felt alien, theatrical. My world had shades of grey, opportunists, fanatics, power brokers. 'Hero' and 'Villain' implied clear lines I rarely acknowledged, and never respected.
"Will the planet be... altered?" I asked, thinking of the familiar concrete and grime, the hidden passages and predictable patterns of urban conflict.
"Significantly. Geographically, socially, ecologically. The phasing is not uniform. Pockets of one reality may overlay another. Physics may blend or clash. The familiar constants will become... less constant."
Less constant. A strategic nightmare. Every advantage I possessed relied on a fundamental understanding of physics, human psychology under predictable pressures, known limitations. If gravity could fluctuate, if someone could phase through walls without technology, if concepts like 'structural integrity' became optional... it required a complete overhaul of my methodology.
"What about the population?" My question wasn't born of empathy – that was a function I barely possessed, and certainly didn't lead with. It was tactical. Are they assets? Liabilities? Chaos factors?
"Variables," the being stated, the tone unchanged. "Like you. They will adapt, or they will fail to adapt. Their reactions, their survival rates, their emergent behaviors – all data points."
Data points. Billions of lives reduced to numbers on a cosmic spreadsheet. It was horrifying, on an intellectual level. I saw people as variables, too. Obstacles. Information sources. Targets. Assets. My own detachment, born of training and necessity, felt like a pale imitation of this entity's cosmic indifference. The thought was fleeting, unwelcome. I pushed it away, refocusing on the information.
"What is the timeline for this Convergence?" Knowing the rate of change was crucial for planning.
"It has begun. The process is recursive and self-propagating. Full integration is...complex to predict. Suffice it to say, the alterations will become evident rapidly. Cascading effects are already initiating."
So, now. It was happening now. Or in the immediate future. No grace period. Drop into the deep end.
"What is your role in this?" I asked, my gaze fixed on the shifting void where his face wasn't. Was he initiating it? Observing? Managing?
"I curate," the Curator said. The fragments on his cloak showed a flash of something vast and swirling, like galaxies in a drain. "I observe. I record. I maintain parameters where necessary for the integrity of the experiment. I do not interfere with the variables unless they threaten the process itself."
He was the scientist studying the petri dish. We were the microorganisms. And he had the power to nudge the slide, or perhaps, if we got too disruptive, sterilize the whole thing.
"Are there others like you?"
"The scope of the Convergence is... vast. There are others. Our functions vary."
More variables, on the cosmic scale. Great. Layers upon layers of unknown factors.
"This room," I gestured subtly with my chin towards the seamless white. "Its purpose?"
"A control environment. A point of interaction outside the immediate flux. It is temporary. Data assimilation is nearing completion."
Data assimilation. They had pulled me out, scanned me, maybe even simulated me. Understood my capabilities, my limitations. Identified me as a useful tool, a particularly sharp instrument pulled from a toolbox of blunt objects.
"When... or where... do I return?"
The Curator's form seemed to stretch infinitesimally, a silent acknowledgment of the question. "To the point of your removal from the temporal flow. The environment will be... different."
Different. The word hung in the air, loaded. Different how? Radically different? Slightly? Would the skyline be twisted? Would the air crackle with unfamiliar energy? Would familiar faces have strange powers?
"And if I refuse my function?" The question wasn't a genuine consideration, but a probe for consequences. What were the rules of this 'experiment'?
The Curator was silent for a long moment. The fragments on his cloak stilled, a rare pause in their constant motion. The stillness was more unnerving than the shifting.
"Variables either adapt or they are purged," the voice said, calm as ever, but with a finality that settled the matter like bedrock. "The process does not require your consent. Your parameters align with a necessary function. Efficiency is preferred. Inefficiency is... corrected."
Purged. Corrected. Clinical terms for annihilation. There was no room for negotiation, no appeal. This wasn't a mission I could walk away from. It was existence, redefined.
I looked at the Curator, the swirling impossibility of its form.
"Understood," I said. It wasn't agreement. It was acknowledgment of parameters. Like reading a complex new mission brief. Analyze, assess, adapt, execute. The core directive remained the same, the scale had just increased beyond imagination.