The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

I watched three of the smarter people on the planet run through their tests. Giving them an idea of what tests to run hadn’t been difficult, given they all had experience with time travel and advanced sensory systems. A simple chronal tracker was easy enough to whip up for the three of them, and they probably could have done it with a television and a toaster.

The two Reed Richards had naturally been in contact with one another, exchanged key information, and quietly aided and abetted the Worldmind purge of the hostile AI’s in Earth’s information systems. Jocasta had already been sifted out and was walking around in a very advanced robotic body that might have given Ultron conniption fits, as were Machine Man and several other not-so-hostile artificial life forms.

Earth’s Reed was naturally surprised to find his counterpart was so fluent in magic, and indeed that all of the Fantastic Four on Terra were. Again, there were fine differences between them, and they were not genetically identical, more like brothers or cousins than anything else. After all, just a second of difference during the process of having sex would affect what kind of child was born, and the ripples of Briggs and Sama had certainly affected the whole world by more than that.

This world’s Stephen Strange was also present, and somewhat caught off-base by not being the Sorcerer Supreme any more. Morgan had contacted him immediately and advised him of the situation, lest he run into or call upon beings who he did not actually have relationships with.

He was also shocked that his counterpart had run off with Clea and was now in the Dark Dimension, and that his successor as the Sorcerer Supreme was also the Scarlet Witch!

“Any questions on your side, Doctor?” I asked him calmly as he regarded the work being done. He’d contributed his own mystic tests to the array the brains here had drawn up, and had no question to their veracity. His Eye of Agamotto had basically confirmed all of this for him.

His Levy was also colored blue now, astutely reflecting his lowered station. “None at all,” he sighed. “My careful inquiries have also confirmed that many of the Entities I would call on routinely in fact do not recognize me at all,” he informed them all, “although they were quick to attempt to conceal the fact, and treat with me as if I was coming from another reality.”

“So, no magical obligations or agreements, despite your great store of magical knowledge and experience,” Reed mused aloud. “An interesting opportunity for a sorcerer, Doctor?” he inquired.

“One wonders what Baron Mordo will be up to, now that his soul is not actually promised to anything,” Stephen agreed grimly.

“Or this world’s Johnny Blaze, whose family does not bear a debt to Mephisto,” I added atop that, raising his eyebrow. Naturally, Johnny had also been contacted to make that point clear to him, before Mephisto could take advantage of him not knowing the fact. Indeed, the Ghost Riders of this world were not bound to Zarathos at all!

“Is this knowledge that should be made public?” Hank Pym wondered aloud.

“Sure. Make sure you brace for all the prisons being emptied because none of those people actually did the things they are in prison for, they just think they did.”

“I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t believe it, anyways. Someone will just say they were brought here from another dimension or something, and that’ll go down as the truth,” Tony Stark remarked knowingly.

“The fact that it is almost completely correct would help carry it, especially when they can’t find any evidence it’s not true. After all, if you don’t know how to look, a lived-line truncation can be a sign of dimensional transfer,” I agreed with a straight face.

“The major thing all of you need to keep in mind is the lack of temporal shenanigans. You cannot go back in time and change anything, and even observing the past is going to be much harder than you remember. Likewise, nothing will be coming from the future that can accomplish anything, and anything that somehow manages to come up from the past will remember nothing.

“If you want to engage in time travel, you’ll have to do it from another alternity, and no, you won’t be able to go backward or forward there and come in back in our dimension at those times, either.”

“That... is actually a positive benefit,” Reed Richards said after a moment of contemplation. “We can’t undo disasters, but those bringing temporal disasters with them are hedged out!”

“No more Kang,” mused Tony Stark thoughtfully. “No more Doom hopping around messing with stuff.”

“Doom cannot gain instruction from the mystics of the past,” Dr. Strange noted thoughtfully, perhaps with some relief.

“His genius for magic against yours, and the time he can put into it.” I inclined my head at Reed Richards. “He’s splitting his focus. He will naturally try to synthesize the disciplines and make something greater out of them than the sum of their parts, but the fact remains he WILL fall behind both of you, as long as you keep up your own studies.”

“I suppose I should... go back to school?” Stephen proposed ironically. “Do you have a school for sorcery on your world?”

“Quite a few starter schools, a half-dozen more advanced ones, and Nimue and Circe are working on a true university of sorts at Kamar Taj. I’m sure they would love to have you aboard as a practicing professor. If all you want is to fine-tune your magic and regain your proficiency, that would be fine, as well. Perhaps you might even want to become Headmaster of the Kamar Taj here, although I’ve a feeling it would be easier just to conjoin the two locations and have one school for both worlds.”

“That... seems like an excellent idea. I admit that I’ve not done much to pass on the mystic arts. I’ve only had a handful of apprentices...” he trailed off quietly.

I patted his shoulder. “Yes, yes, we made sure our Stephen Strange didn’t let our Clea get away,” I consoled him. “On the flip side, there’s a betting pool over whether you’re going to fall for Nimue or Circe first.” He blinked at me in astonishment as I gave him two thumbs up. “Morgan’s off limits, of course. She and Elder Lensherr have been having an affair for years.”

“The Scarlet Sorceress Supreme is going out with Magneto?” he gasped after a moment of processing that.

“No, Magneto is that mutant supremacist version of him on this world here. Elder Lensherr is the Champion of New Israel, one of the big protectors of persecuted people everywhere, and one of the most admired men on the planet. Nobody calls him Magneto. Also, his daughter Wanda is called the Steel Sorceress for the way she blends magnetism and magic arrays, so be aware of that.”

“I’m finding it hard to believe Indians control most of North America,” Tony Stark piped up from the side.

“If you say that to a Tribal, you’ll be lucky if they only punch you in the face, Stark,” I warned him kindly. “They, on the other hand, will find it unsurprising the warmongering Caucasians conquered and subjugated the Tribal Lands here, given our predilection for war and stuff.”

“Uhhh... that’s fair, I guess.” Science adjourned, the instruments were all shut down. “I... haven’t contacted my counterpart yet, I guess. How’s he doing?” Stark asked quickly.

“Tony’s got three kids and another one on the way. He’s the Master Armorer of the Pentad Corps, and he’s reverse-engineering, forward-engineering, modifying, and upgrading tons of alien super-science with Reed and Pym and McCoy and Parker and all the other geniuses, all while Stark Enterprises goes interstellar and multi-species. One of my little sisters runs the company while he and Howard do the brainwork, but since he doesn’t do as much fieldwork as before, as it takes away from kids-time, that works out okay. He does a great ‘guy in the chair’ with the Savages.”

“Howard?” Tony blinked. “My... his dad is still alive there?” he blurted out in shock.

“Yeah... and our Tony has a brother and two sisters, too. None quite as smart as him, but they have their specialties.”

“Your world seems very different from our own,” Hank Pym spoke up, as everyone grabbed some coffee, even Strange. “Even with the great differences in America-”

“That’s The United States on our world, Dr. Pym,” I interrupted him with a raised finger. “The Tribes and most of the world do not call this continent America, after some Italian navigator. That is like the ultimate insult to the Tribes.”

“My apologies. Still, the changes seem to be... beneficial, instead of detrimental?” he hazarded.

“You’ll start seeing some of them spreading here within the year,” I nodded to him.

“How is that?” Reed asked alertly. “Some sort of trade opening up?”

“No. The Human Tongue.” I smiled at the lot of them. “None of you noticed I’ve not been speaking English, nor that you’ve started peppering your speech with Human words?”

They all stared at me in shock. “You mentioned this genetic language before,” Strange spoke up first. “Is it so invasive?” he asked carefully.

“Multilingualism as part of your job won’t be affected, Doctor,” I assured him, which wasn’t what he was worried about, but still relevant, “particularly if it is in non-human tongues. But yes, the Human tongue is completely invasive to humans. It’s going to start spreading, and replacing the primary tongue for the whole planet. Within a year or three, all artificial languages here will be dead languages, learned only for the purposes of obfuscation. Dependent on how quickly people are exposed to it, of course.”

“That... is one of the key requirements to a united world, isn’t it?” Reed said, his brown eyes glittering with appreciation. “Everyone speaking the same language, able to understand one another perfectly, without need of the vagaries of interpretation...”

“Yes. It doesn’t magically bring everyone together, but it certainly helps incredibly in communication and understanding and reducing linguistic barriers. It probably helped the more primitive tribal cultures the most, as all their very localized tongues and dialects evaporated, and they could all speak with one another and establish a common ground quickly, where before it was just a chore.

“Too, it’s been the truth on most of our homeworld for over a century, and so the very idea of not being able to speak with and understand another human is strange.

“Skrulls, by the way, hate it. They have to learn it as another language, and because it’s genetic, it is very hard to become proficient in it, especially since it evolves with humanity. Less proficient alien shapechangers are actually pretty easy to identify, and they tend to get stiffer and less proficient with Human over time, not better. Living language and everything.”

“You... are proficient in English, then? You don’t seem to have trouble understanding us,” Tony pointed out.

“English is a very common language on various alternities, and the States, along with Europe, really try hard to teach their old languages to their kids as ‘their’ language, trying to brand Human as an invasive ‘New Russian’ language.

“I’m a Polyglot and try to learn a new language a day off the universal translators. I can speak, read, and write hundreds of Terran languages and dialects, as well as thousands of alien ones.” My Dupes and I actually had coordinated lists of different languages we learned between us, so we were basically ‘learning’ like two dozen a day, actually, which we shared when we recombined and dispersed again. “And I can magically translate most such on top of that, too.” I waved at Dr. Strange. “I’ve read the Sanctum’s libraries and a whole lot more, and actually taught our Strange half-a-dozen different languages I puzzled out from the books there.”

“I wouldn’t mind learning a bunch more languages,” Stark immediately spoke up. “Can I make a list?”

I gave him an amused smile. “Sure, if you don’t mind me going into your head to install them.”

“As long as you don’t access the soft porn files there, I should be pretty good,” he assured me promptly.

“I think I’ll teach you Mouraphile just so I DO have to access all your sexual memories,” I replied, spearing him with a thoughtful gaze.

“Ummm,” he managed by way of widened eyes.

“They have one of the most seductive languages in the universe. Their vocabulary for amorous activities is VERY extensive. Like Inuits and snow.”

“That might be worth it,” he mumbled to Pym, who glanced at me, and just winced as he nodded slowly in agreement.