Incubus Inc: Compilation Epilogue (Patreon)

Bonus Content: 2nd Epilogue

Ryker watched Sameerixis curiously.

To be fair, he’d expected this moment to come, though not in this particular way. Nor at this time.

Thankfully, he’d prepared for a number of possibilities. Where anything that could happen had an attached variable that he could simply pull from.

An answer to any possible iteration.

“Because preparation is part of proper planning,” he murmured to himself.

He watched as Alisa came back through to the other side of the spirit world. She’d lingered at the gate for a few moments before leaving.

By the time Ryker put his attention back to the gate, Sam had dragged it off and into another bedroom.

“Well… if it’s at this point in time… a strong combatant is needed. Someone who will push him, and can grow from knowing him,” Ryker mumbled. He was rapidly sorting through hundreds of dead warriors. All of whom he’d put to one side specifically for this moment.

Extremely powerful people who’d left giant impressions on the world in their wake.

Ryker selected a woman by the name of Da Xia Xue.

A warlord of almost immeasurable strength with whom few had been able to compare. Someone who had deliberately altered herself into a creature of the night to hold power.

Sam would need to put a lot of work into reforming her, but her extreme nature would force him toward that. If he didn’t work on her, then she’d begin killing her way through his people.

“If I did it right… she’ll have at least three or four hours with her mom,” Sam said. “Which means I just have to babysit this for a while.”

“Huh? Huh. Eh… he’s already starting to shift. More so than expected. We don’t need someone as bad as Da Xia. Then… yes, the Witch Hunter,” Ryker corrected himself and then yanked on a different spirit.

It’d been watching the portal with curiosity and some anger. Anger at the idea of someone like Sam having control over it.

Sighing, Sam leaned back in his bed and stared into the conduit. There wasn’t anyone else he really wanted to talk to that’d crossed over.

The spirit of Decima Vera just about slammed into the portal given the strength of the pull Ryker had put on it. So much so that the soul flared into angry life then and there.

“Demon,” hissed Decima, her soul burning brightly now.

Raising his eyebrows, Sam peered into the portal. It looked as if he were trying to see the speaker.

“Yes, and yet no,” Sam said. Ryker didn’t notice any fear or trepidation. To be fair, his work at sealing the gate had been fairly done. Well-constructed and fortified against outside attacks as well as allowing others to cross over. “Planar lord.”

“Demon,” repeated Decima.

Laughing, Sam shrugged.

Ryker turned away and spun off. He wouldn’t be able to remain even a moment longer. In all of the hypothetical scenarios that he’d put together, remaining any longer would bring the attention of Zeus’ forces.

His clone would see something that fascinated him, made him excited and sad, and then everything would blow up. Sometimes Zeus would detonate the server, other times he’d attack Ryker directly.

He never saw even a moment further, however.

Opening a portal, he stepped through it, then another, and another. Rapidly passing through them faster and faster until he found himself re-entering back to the prime plane.

He’d done it in such a way that no one, not even Runner, could follow him. This was all to make sure things would continue on and in a way that needed to be so.

The great endeavor that they were rushing toward the end of had been too long in the planning and execution for it to fail here.

With Sam, there was always a lot to do. A lot to get prepared and ready for him. Lots to shift and move around.

Sam had to be in just the right mentality to not immediately smash the reset button when he got to it. Otherwise, everything that’d been put in place to reach that moment would all be pointless.

Ryker stepped into the void, slipped through the doors there, and appeared in what he’d called the Control Room. Others called it the Hub, but that wasn’t what he called it.

It existed for the sole purpose of being the end goal of a giant Rube Goldberg machine.

Everything had been put together to destroy this room outright.

There was no saving the server. Everything on it would more or less cease to exist in the moment when it all happened. Of all the eventualities, of all the possibilities, there wasn’t even one that could succeed.

For Zeus to fall, the server had to die.

Almost everyone on it would be sent off somewhere else.

All of the souls who had died, been judged,and moved on before the server ended would never even notice the failure of the plane. They were already set up to be forcibly transferred to the server where Ryker himself had come from.

Put into a fallen pantheon’s afterlife, where they would exist and continue to do so.

Among those who still lived, roughly ten percent would make it out alive. Everyone else would be unfortunately deleted.

Those who lived would believe they survived a catastrophic event. One similar to what was actually going to happen, except that they’d live through it.

Come out on the other side, on a new server after the transfer, as if nothing were wrong at all.

The lost data would be repopulated by the new server, and it’d fill in the gaps based on all the information it had from the surviving population.

Large gaps would occur, and it was likely that entire countries would need to be completely repopulated from the ground up.

Ryker didn’t like what was going to happen.

Didn’t like deceiving everyone involved.

Most especially, he didn’t like all the lies he’d left behind for Warner and Sam.

“Wally, Warner, Bob,” Ryker said absentmindedly as he walked through the Control Room. Turning, he headed down to the servers where Luke Fir was.

Opening the door, he looked down.

Just inside was the mummified corpse of Luke Fir along with the remains of his uniform. Long forgotten and left in a place where he could neither live nor escape, he’d been trapped here.

Or at least, the failed copy-pasted version of him had been.

He’d only lasted a day before he took his own life. His spirit had gone back to its original body, since a duplicate spirit existed there. Having two souls had given Luke, now Alexander, an incredible amount of ability.

“Good, good,” muttered Ryker. He stared at the corpse for several seconds to make sure there wasn’t anything there that would give Sam pause.

Closing the door, he walked back into the middle of the Control Room and considered what to do next.

“Erv should be getting curious about Sam by now. I don’t need to push her any further,” he muttered, staring up at the ceiling. “I think… that’s… everything else?”

Ryker was fairly certain everything for Sam would proceed on the right path and head in the correct direction. There wasn’t anything else that he could think of to do at the moment.

“I could… go… take a look at the variable,” mused Ryker.

He’d done a fair job of keeping away from the single most important piece to the whole thing. The key that would make everything turn and begin shifting.

Something that he hadn’t even actually expected to happen, but in the end, it had.

A single individual who’d literally control the end game themselves.

Because there really wasn’t a future where everything occurred perfectly.

In all his simulations of this situation, where he’d run simulations in simulations of simulations, there really was no answer. Which had forced Ryker to make his own.

An answer that might give him what he wanted, or doom everything and everyone.

Turning, Ryker spun off through back door. One he’d never even shared with Runner.

Something that existed solely for him and no one else.

“Just… a quick peek,” whispered Ryker. “He’s probably reading again. Won’t even have the possibility of disturbing him.”

***

Stepping into the school, Ryker adjusted his coat.

This was one of the last things he wanted to do, but in the end, he didn’t really have a choice. He needed to make sure things would continue the way they had.

That meant playing the role he was destined to play. A role that would take far too many lives, distort reality, and push too many servers to the brink, if not beyond it.

A quiet little gear that whirred and clicked at a high speed, pushing countless other cogs with much higher power than his own to control the situation.

One tiny little tooth at a time.

He just regretted that it meant he had to do a great many terrible things to innocent people. Except that he would be harming thousands to save billions.

Trolley dilemma, my ass. Should try thinking about how to save entire universes.

Shaking his head, Ryker walked through an empty school hallway. Class was over for the day and all the children had been let out.

He had to be extremely careful while making this happen because there was someone who was well acquainted with him. Someone who could easily spot his handiwork in things.

Adeena was attending this school.

Someone he’d personally chosen to weave the Fate of this world.

A woman he could bait, tempt, and coerce into doing the work he needed doing, without ever holding the reins. She’d be a precursor to many things that would happen, in such a way that he didn’t even have to get involved.

All it’d take now was him making a single change to a student record.

One itty bitty pencil mark was all that stood between someone discovering Wally, Warner, Bob, or making it so that he never received his new name. If Ryker didn’t do this, then the boy would remain Mitch forever and the world would simply pass into the next phase of destruction.

Never knowing that it could have jumped the track, so to speak.

Shame Warin’s going to kill him. Though… that’d be how he redeems Retribution. There’s really no other way. Without him becoming who he is, Sam will never get the push he needs.

Should Sam never move forward, Melody and the others won’t make their own connections.

Our dear Mr. Oogie Boogie won’t ever end up losing himself in the Middle East.

Shaking his head, Ryker couldn’t help but worry that he’d made it all far too overcomplicated. That all this work which required him to constantly break into a place where he wasn’t supposed to be, just so he could keep things on track, was going to be the death of him.

Letting out a quiet sigh, Ryker turned and entered through an open door. He closed it behind himself and turned the lock.

The woman who’d been going through the student files had only stepped out for a moment and had thought it wouldn’t be an issue. This was the perfect opportunity that Ryker needed, of course, so this was the moment he was here.

Walking right up to the cabinet he needed, Ryker pulled open the right drawer. Glancing in, he found Mitch’s file and snatched it out.

Dropping it down on a nearby table, he pulled the pencil out of his front pocket that he’d prepared for this moment.

Flipping it over, he diligently erased the address listed in the file. He moved the eraser back and forth until he was certain there was no possibility of them figuring it out.

“There. Now the assistant will look into it,” muttered Ryker. “Call to get a report, trigger a small investigation, an audit of a clerk, discovering someone had taken bribes to falsify records, and then it all points back to dear Mitch.

“All in turn leading back to him becoming Wally, Warner, Bob. Thus completing the circle I need to happen for this to work.”

Standing there, Ryker just stared at the student file.

He knew this would cause a great many deaths, but it was what needed to be done.

What needed to happen.

Closing his eyes, he opened up the back door portal once again and dropped through it.

This time, he appeared atop his tower on his home world.

In front of him, a large number of towers spread out in every direction.

His school of towers was always growing. Training the magic users of the next generation in whatever their forte might be. Nowadays, this was one of the few places he could go for some respite.

There were few who would track him down here.

Sitting down, he put his back to one side of the interior of the tower and gazed out at the world before him. At a sunset, in fact. One that hit the mountains in the distant west and cast shadows.

It felt ominous to him, in a way that made him want to question everything he was doing.

As if he were those mountains, casting shadows over the lives of so many others.

Taking in a slow breath, he put his forearms on his knees and watched as the light of the world was extinguished. It felt as if everything were truly coming to a close.

“The machine continues,” he said with a slow blink. “The Witch-Hunter was put into play; the Incubus will grow. He’ll heal and gain humanity and morality.

“Discover and bring Wally, Warner, Bob into the fold and give him a family. A family that cares. A family that itself grows around him as well.

“Jes will push the Incubus Succubus Corporation ever further. Until they truly collide and begin working with the Campbell girls. Triggering our dear Mr. Oogie Boogie to have his fateful run-in with a Troll.

“That leads to the contractor and closing the circle again. All of them being required to influence and touch one another. The Dryad from another world, a fallen Guardian who’s lost his way, a Campbell contractor who never should have existed, the Seer of the future who would have died except for Wally, Warner, Bob.

“So many casual… almost impossible… meetings. So many influenced pieces and things to get… just right. It’s all exactly as it should be.”

Grinning, Ryker held his hands up toward the sky almost in supplication. He closed his eyes and turned his face heavenward.

“I am the Architect, I am Uncle, I am Ryker,” he continued, then sighed and let himself slump down.

All he wanted right now was to find Shirley and let her know that he’d been successful.

That the path which led to the unknown future, whether victory or defeat, was still being trod upon.

Time to just be a footstool and let her give him direction and guidance.

Shirley was the only one who ever really understood him.

Well… her and… Claire… Claire understood me. She just wanted me to be different.

How… are you, Claire? Are you well?

I know you’re out there now. I know you and… and Bianca lived.

I’d love to see you both.

I trust it’ll be soon.

That I’ll get a chance to see the both of you.

I’ve lived through so many simulations where you never jumped. Where you stayed.

Ryker opened his eyes and looked out to the darkened sky.

There was a brief moment where he saw the reality of the world. Only for a fraction of a second. It never happened to him often or for long, but he could see it.

The numbers and letters that put everything together. That held all of reality in one shape.

A world view that’d driven Claire to insanity.

That or he’d finally cracked after living millions upon millions of years to see the end of all things. Countless times and repeatedly.

All to get his giant machine going.

At the end, he had no idea what’d happen.

He was very curious about it.

Very.

“I hope I see it,” he murmured and he watched as the last rays of sunlight failed and the world was ruled by darkness.

“I hope… anyone, sees it,” whispered the Architect to The End.