Chapter 22 - Multiverse

After General Mantis' presentation, Akumi and the other Players were hauled out of the theatre still chained to their Dungeon Stone chairs by Adventurers. They were then taken to police-style interrogation rooms to be individually questioned.

Akumi's interrogator was Fly from the Good Guys, the power armoured Chief Surveillance Officer of the Megacorporation. He was friendly and courteous enough, but his 100 eyebots watched her like a hawk, presumably searching for any sign of a lie. Fly seemed particularly interested in discovering what genre her universe was. Apparently, universes in the United Worlds had to cross reference each other's fiction to find out the genre of a newly discovered universe. For example, when the United Worlds had first encountered the Conspiracy Theory Universe, the High Fantasy Universe and the Space Opera Universe hadn't known what to make of it, not having any conspiracy theory fiction of their own. The Cyberpunk Universe had had some, however, and so the nature of the universe was able to be learned and shared. Fly kept asking her questions about World War III, which seemed odd. Didn't all modern universes have a nuclear war somewhere in their timeline?

Akumi did her best to explain everything, but she felt drained. The revelation that there was no way to return to her universe—to her family—had left her a broken woman.

After a long time, Fly decided he couldn't work out the genre of her universe from the clues she'd given him and so just put it down as “the Player Universe” in the Adventurers Guild System as a placeholder. He unchained Akumi from her Dungeon Stone chair, escorted her out of the interrogation room, and led her to a grand, Victorian train station he introduced as Infinity Train Station.

There, handsome steam trains travelled through Dungeon Gates to every universe in the United Worlds via railways in the Colonised Dungeon Universe. The 1000 Players, now unrestrained, were walking around choosing the universes they wanted to live in with the help of their Adventurer escorts. Akumi saw that the Double Rankers had already made their decision.

Wizard followed Grimalkin into the High Fantasy Universe.

Beast followed Mammoth into the Space Opera Universe.

Ninja followed Moon into the Cyberpunk Universe.

Akumi suspected the Adventurers Guild had set up a mentoring scheme between similar Players and Adventurers who wanted to live in the same universe. This would help the United Worlds indoctrinate the Players into their ideology to avoid another Overlord situation. Clever. Though the Players had got their asses kicked by the Adventurers, the fact that they'd been able to put up a fight—to the point that Akumi and her group had even beaten the Good Guys— probably meant they had incredible potential for growth.

'Quite a sight isn't it, ma'am?' said Fly. 'Have you thought about which universe you'd like to live in? We can assign you an Adventurer guide if you'd like.'

Bingo.

Akumi shook her head. 'No. I don't even know what most of the universes are.'

Fly used his system to bring up a list on her HUD. 'Take a look.'

The Universes of the United Worlds

Superpower Universes

The High Fantasy Universe

Government: The Empire.

Capital: The High Kingdom of Britannia.

Dominant Ideology: Feudalism.

The Cyberpunk Universe

Government: The Megacorporation.

Capital: The New Empire of Japan.

Dominant Ideology: Corporatism.

The Space Opera Universe

Government: The Republic.

Capital: The United States of Earth.

Dominant Ideology: Militarism.

Middle Power Universes

The Solarpunk Universe

Government: The Green Council.

Capital: Arcadia, Brazil.

Dominant Ideology: Environmentalism.

The Stonepunk Universe

Government: The Cave Kingdom.

Capital: Rockopolis, South Africa.

Dominant Ideology: Primitivism.

Small Power Universes

The Superhero Universe

Government: The Superhero Society.

Capital: New York City.

Dominant Ideology: Heroism.

The Shonen Universe

Government: The Hero Hierarchy.

Capital: Tokyo.

Dominant Ideology: Self improvement.

'So,' said Fly, 'where do you want to go?'

Akumi sighed. 'I don't know....'

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was Emma, with Michelle and Jane behind her. They looked as bad as she felt. The group parted to let two familiar faces pass through: Monster Slayer and Bunny-Bear.