The Mission

Sitting in the presence of the Emperor, weary of his surroundings, Riley is intrigued by what Austin has to say. As Austin begins to open his mouth to explain the current predicament to Riley, there's a knock on the door, and a couple of butlers enter the office, placing tea and delicacies on the table before Riley. The servants bow silently to the Emperor before taking their leave, closing the door on the way out. Austin holds off on his speech while the servants are present in the room, proving to Riley that whatever information he is about to receive is confidential to a certain level. As the doors close and Austin begins to speak, Riley sips from the cup served to him, feeling nostalgic for the long-lost flavors offered by Jimat's cuisine. 

 "Now, you are here on account of some very personal business I have. I must say, I've been searching for a long time to no avail, but when I saw that little dot glow as bright as it did, I knew you must be the one and had you called back immediately." 

Riley still had no idea what the Emperor was talking about; personal business? Little dots somehow glowing brightly? He wondered how any of this could've possibly had anything to do with him. None of these things he remembered from his former life. Riley's confusion must have been visible, as the expression on Austin's face turned more sympathetic; but even through his confusion, Riley managed to settle himself down and continue the conversation with a question of his own.
 "I'm sorry, you're right in saying that I am originally from here, but I don't know what anything you just said means. Could you please explain it to me?" A small smile appeared on Austin's face.
 "Ah, you're right. Very few people even know about the machine and how it can bring people back. Truly, I didn't expect you to understand what I said, but it would make more sense if I'd show you instead of trying to explain it. Please follow me."

Waiting for Riley to finish his food, Austin stands from behind and walks toward a door on the side of his office, with Edok trailing behind. Riley stands from his seat as Austin pushes open a single door leading to a small circular room. The has multiple layers, a short set of stairs leading to the middle of the circle where rests a sleek, square, whirring, machine projecting a hologram throughout most of the air in the room. Above the stairs, a handrail circles the room to prevent anyone from falling while looking through the machine's projections. On the outside of the machine, between sets of stairs lies a control panel to activate the machine, and presumably, to bring back people with ties to this world. 

 "Edok, please man the machine." Austin turns to face Riley.
 "This... I'm sorry, I don't believe I got your name yet." 
 "Riley, Riley Bremner," Riley replies, fascinated by the complexion of the machine that lies before him.
 "Well this, Riley, is how we chose you to come back to Alduwitz. You see, each dot you see here represents someone in another world who has a tie to this one, may it be through DNA or your soul; and each of those circles that surround the collective groups of dots represents different worlds that our former citizens now live in. You can give prompts to the machine, and the dots that glow the brightest are the ones that best fit the prompt."

While Austin speaks, Edok displays hundreds of circles through the hologram that span throughout the small room, each of those circles with their own collective of dots, some with hundreds, and some with less than ten. Riley begins to walk around the room in awe, not quite able to believe that each one of the thousands of dots displayed before him could be someone he's seen before in Jimat. Each of the circles has names above them, some legible, some not as it shows the name of the planet in the common language spoken by the people. After looking around the room for a couple of minutes, Riley finally finds the circle titled 'Earth', which only has four dots in its circle. After staring at his home planet in circle form, he asks;
 "Even though I'm here now, would my dot still be represented in Earth's circle?" Even if the answer was yes, he knew that'd mean there were at least a few other people on Earth who had a connection to Alduwitz. Even though the odds that he knew these people were low, he was still curious if there was a chance that he did.

 "I'm afraid not, I checked earlier today as you were on your way here, and your brightly glowing dot had disappeared. But I must say, that one dot to the left of Earth's circle, only first appeared a few months ago, right next to yours."

Right away, Riley knew who that dot could be. He recalled what Austin said about the connections to appear on the hologram; through DNA or the soul. If he was reborn to Earth, his connection must be through his soul, and through Riley's DNA, others could create their own connections to Alduwitz. Equipped with this information, and the fact that this dot only a few months ago, around the same time that he left to join the armed forces, he thought it must be Mary; her connection from small amounts of DNA in his saliva when they kissed the day he left. His mind racing with the possibility that he'd one day be able to bring Mary here and that he'd be able to keep his promise to see her again, he wanted to test his theory.

 "Please, Emperor. can you please enter a prompt for me? That new dot is most likely someone I care very deeply for and I want to be sure." Understanding, Austin agrees to let Riley test his theory and see if he indeed does know this person.
 "Edok, please enter the prompt: close friend to a person recently brought back to Alduwitz, into the machine."

As Edok entered the prompt into the machine, every single dot across every single circle would fade slightly in brightness. Riley, scanned the room seeing how all the dots started to dim began to lose hope that he would one day be able to reunite with Mary. When he was starting to hang his head in disappointment, that one faithful dot in Earth's circle began to glow. It began to glow so brightly that Austin's mouth was left agape.
 "That dot... it's glowing brighter than yours did for what we needed you for. Brighter than anything I've ever seen." Tears of happiness began to stream down Riley's face. Riley started to laugh as a smile that stretched from one cheek to another grew on his face.
 "Mary, you're still out there... I haven't forgotten our promise." 

 "Now that that's settled..." Edok spoke up like he was trying to interfere with the good mood that came with the news.
 "His mission, Emperor," Edok said with a sigh. Edok turned off the machine, all dots and circles gleaming with differing levels of brightness, fading at the push of a button, turning a key to lock the machine, removing and returning it to Austin so no one could turn it on and look for a soul. 
 "Thank you for reminding me, Edok. But for this, I'm going to have to have you leave the room so I can discuss it privately with Riley here, the one chosen especially for it." 

Knowing Edok, Riley was happy that Edok wouldn't know what he would be doing, and that none of this information would be passed on to the New Light. Austin waited for Edok to leave the room, locking the door behind him as he left, before returning to talk to Riley.

 "Now, I'm not sure if you remember or not from your time here, but there exists a group of rebels that want to tear down our Empire, so there's a couple of things that I'm going to need you to do; you will have help, but I'm going to need you to shut them down. And as you do that... I'm going to need you to take with you and protect my son Spark. Spark is going to take over the Empire one day, and if he is directly responsible for shutting down the rebellion, he'll be in the good graces of the people; something he needs desperately." 

Listening to the Emperor speak, he was stunned to hear about Spark, and apparently, he was alive. Riley wondered how this could be possible, he was Spark, and Edok killed him. How could Spark be alive? He fell to his knees in disbelief, trying to play it off when Austin asked if there was a problem. 
 "Look, I'm the only one who knows the prompt that led me to bring you back; someone who can take down the rebellion and protect Spark while doing so, not even Edok knows. You can succeed, and if you do, I'll see what I can do about bringing your friend you care so much over here."

 "Why can't you just do that now?" Riley replied.

 "Why? It takes more resources than you could imagine! I only call people back when it's absolutely necessary, but I'd consider it a fair reward. So what do you say, not that you really have a choice." Pondering the depths of the Emperor's words, in Riley's mind, there was only one real choice.

 "I'll do it!"