THE MOMENT
"I'm sorry?" Turbo asked with a concerned tone. The teen sat in a formal interrogation room with a black-suited agent sitting in front of him. "Prison? I'm not familiar with the laws on this Earth and wasn't trying to break any of them; can I just self-exile and never come back?" he asked. He wanted to do the right thing, and the agent was only doing his job. But, Turbo wasn't even sure what he did wrong. Minutes after arriving on the Earth he was surrounded by black SUVs and armed men. Rather than cause any trouble, he went along peacefully to see what the issue was. He started to regret that decision as soon as he sat in the interrogation room. Then, Agent Murphy walked in and introduced himself.
"The entire purpose of our laws is to keep trouble-makers like you from running rampant in the multiverse," Agent Murphy shook his head. "However, your quantum signature is different from anything we've seen before. We weren't even able to detect a portal; but, the field sweepers picked you up. If you were to share some of the finer points of your technology, maybe we could do something to make your prison sentence short and comfortable."
"Oh, sure, sharing it isn't a problem," Turbo nodded. He stood quickly and the sudden movement drove Agent Murphy to his feet too. "Whoa, sorry, just getting something from my pocket," Turbo put his cuffed hands up to show the Agent his palms.
"We searched you...," the Agent said. Turbo shrugged with a smirk.
"Nanos," he said. Agent Murphy was curious enough to give Turbo a gentle nod. The teen slowly lowered one hand to his pocket and reached in. "Oh, sorry, I'll fix that right now," Turbo apologized as he pulled his hand back out. He held a glass card; but, he was more concerned about the dangling broken cuff around his wrist. Agent Murphy took a step back when the teen tore through the cuffs thoughtlessly; but, he tried to keep calm. If nothing else, Turbo at least seemed civil.
Turbo showed the glass card to agent Murphy, it was a perfectly transparent rectangle the size and thickness of a playing card. He grabbed onto it with a hand on each end, then pulled. He stretched the glass like taffy until it doubled in size, then he snapped it in half. Then, he stepped forward and slid one of the cards across the table to Agent Murphy.
"That's called a node. You can use it like a smartphone, and if you follow the tutorial it'll teach you how to make the portals." Turbo said. Then, he grabbed the cuffs around his wrist and tore them off like tissue. Agent Murphy picked up the node and studied it, the time came alive on the display. The bright red digits appeared to be floating in mid-air as the rest of the node remained clear.
"Here you go," Turbo set an intact pair of handcuffs on the table.
"Wait..," Agent Murphy had been on the job for over a decade. He had reached a point where he was comfortable with the unusual as he knew it. He mistakenly thought he'd seen all the unusual there was to see up until that particular day. He knew Turbo was going to leave and he couldn't do much to stop the teen. It helped that he was just a kid. They checked for another version of him on this Earth and couldn't find one that ever existed. He didn't feel too worried about letting the teenager go free; but, he had just revealed something that shook Agent Murphy to his core. "...anyone can just make a portal to another universe with this?" he asked. "And you're just giving them away for free?? What about the multiverse!?" Turbo tilted his head at the Agent.
"What about it?" he asked.
"We have the rules for a reason. If a person kills their doppelganger, the killer gets stronger and faster....," Agent Murphy explained.
"Yeah, I guess that's true. So?" Agent Murphy sighed. He got the impression Turbo was clever and it was weird that the smart kid wasn't picking up the obvious implications. But, he was still a kid, and if he didn't know it was worth it to educate him.
"If we're not careful, someone's going to abuse that to make themselves all-powerful and jeopardize the multiverse."
"Oh," Turbo said. Then, he shook his head. "Yeah, that's not how that works," he said.
"What do you mean? You just agreed that a person gets stronger if they kill other versions of themselves....,"
"I mean, in the sense that infinity plus one is more than infinity," Turbo chuckled. "The multiverse is a big place, infinitely so. Killing another version of yourself to consolidate the power doesn't exactly steal their power into yours. It's more like it rebalances everything available across all versions of you. You get a bigger boost because dealing the killing blow is almost like getting in line twice; but, the power is still shuffled around. And, since new versions of you are born all the time, it's almost impossible to catch up."
"But, it can be done, right? Someone getting that powerful with enough determination could make it happen."
"Sure, I guess," Turbo shrugged. "You could say that about anything. Wait, you know about the multiverse, but you don't know how souls work? Do you know what a Unique Soul is?" he asked.
"Not if you're thinking of something specific," Agent Murphy shook his head.
"How many Earths are you in communication with?" he asked.
"About a hundred...," Agent Murphy caught himself halfway through the answer and only managed to fudge it lower than the real number of 142.
"And none of you know about Unique Souls!??" Turbo grinned.
"Unless they're keeping it from us...," he shook his head and Turbo mirrored the action, but he wore a broad smile.
"They wouldn't," he said. "Oh man, this is a find!"
"What part exactly..?" Agent Murphy asked. Turbo's entire demeanor had changed and he was almost vibrating with excitement. But, he had no idea why.
"I found 100 Earths that are already connected and you don't know about Sharp Development or Chroma Corp."
"Are those private companies..?" Agent Murphy asked. Turbo nodded.
"The two biggest multiversal corporations in existence. Each one has at least a million branches on alternate Earths."
"Each one...?" Agent Murphy started the day feeling confident in his knowledge. He knew more than 143 Earths existed; but, their coalition was powerful and organized and easily a match for any other Earth if they needed force. Unfortunately, their society made travel between universes too complicated to effectively collaborate on that level.
"You're going to tell them about my Earth?" Agent Murphy wasn't sure of the implications. But, Turbo was obviously planning something.
"Not right away....," Turbo grinned. "Not until I have Rad Enterprises ready to compete."