Chapter 4

“Hundreds, maybe thousands of secrets,” I said baring my soul, “It’ll take time, and you’ll have to trust me thru even the secrets that disappoint and disgust you. I love you Rebecca Smackley, I swear I won’t hide any secrets from you, no matter how painful they may be to me personally, or to our relationship. I just ask that you let me share them slowly so they don’t destroy what we have.”

“Thank you Adam, I believe you. Can you start with how this all began? Have you always been able to make stuff just appear?”

“It started in October. I discovered I had a superpower, I could absorb the energy from the bonds that hold atoms together. The energy I absorbed started healing my body immediately. The first time it happened it was an accident, and I could only do it once. The next day I could do it twice, the day after four times. It kept growing and the power kept trying to make me young. I also discovered I could heal health problems in others.

“I hatched my scheme to become my own son, and left for Amsterdam before anyone noticed how much better my health was. Shortly after arriving I could use my power over a million times in a single day.

“When that happened my power got better. I learned how to adjust individual atoms, and even create diamonds from carbon dioxide in the air. I started being able to move atoms as well, now I can use that power to pick things up, and even fly.”

“You can fly?”

“Yup, that’s how I got here. No first class seat available on the plane, so I just flew.”

She shook her head in wonder as I continued, “The next leap happened because of Nora, she saw me collect atoms in my hand, and asked me if I could make them disappear. I thought about Einstein’s equation, E=MC², and boom I absorbed the energy of a 1 gram cube of platinum.

“Since then I’ve been able to absorb matter and turn it into energy. I can use that energy to warm a room, move matter, and conjure. When I conjure I turn energy into matter. At first I could only make 1 gram platinum cubes, but after a day I got a new thing, I think of it as a slot, my conjuring slot. It could hold anything as long as it wasn’t bigger than 2 grams, and as long as I had stored energy available, I could make whatever was stored there as many times as I wanted.

“Two days later I got a third slot, that was 4 grams big. Ever since I’ve gained 1 new slot every two days. Each time the slot was twice as big as the previous slot.”

“How big an item can you store?” Nora asked.

“As of today, my single largest slot holds no more than 1,073,741,824 grams. That is a bit over 1,073.7 metric tons. It’s anything, the material doesn’t matter.”

“So the diamonds that were stolen?”

“All made by me. I’m the world’s greatest counterfeiter. That vase that has my ashes? It’s a Ming imperial vase I duplicated from an antique store in Zurich. They were selling it for 800k.”

“So where do you get this energy, what are you converting to make stuff, it’s obviously not a free ride, you said you have to store it?”

“Anything, it doesn’t matter. Matter is matter, and energy is too. I mostly absorb the cosmic radiation moving through the Earth. There’s tons of it, it’s all high energy stuff, and nobody would miss it, because we don’t notice it.”

“Can you duplicate people?”

I looked at Nora, and she nodded, “That’s Nora, but I didn’t magically transport her here. That’s a copy of her from five minutes before I left. I was going away, but I didn’t want to risk something happening to her. If a plane fell out of the sky, or the earth opened up and swallowed her, I wanted a backup copy.”

“So there are two Nora’s now?”

“Three of me now,” said Nora. “This has happened before, but was at least planned first. We call them Nora and Mora. I guess that makes me Zora.”

“The other one of you thought you should be named Dora,” I said.

“When did that happen?” asked Zora.

“After I put Rebecca to sleep I called her in a panic about what to do, she said to tell her everything, including how much you love her. Then she said to add you to the mix to help convince her.”

“You put me to sleep?” Rebecca asked angrily.

“Only for a couple minutes. I was really scared, I finally had you back in my arms, and I. I don’t know,” I finished lamely.

Rebecca stood, walked over to me, and sat in my lap, giving me a big kiss. “You can be a big goof.”

Then she turned to Zora, “And what did this guy do for you so that you swore to spend the rest of your life with him?”

“I couldn’t have children because of surgery after I had cancer as a teenager. During the marathon he spent fucking three or four of us at the brothel, his healing power got out of control. When I discovered that my uterus had grown back along with my ovaries I found him and promised my life to him.”

“Actually, she promised to suck and fuck me everyday for the rest of my life. But then I fell in love with her, and now it’s a mutual promise to stay together forever.”

“Which might really be forever considering his healing power,” Zora added.

“This was really delicious,” Rebecca said, “but I’ve had enough now. Is it safe to put it in the fridge?”

“It’s safe, but I’ve got a copy of it in storage now, so I’ll just reabsorb it back into energy. If we want it again, then I’ll make another copy.”

“That’s amazing. Wait. Have you ever made a copy of me?”

“Yes, just before you left Zurich. If your plane crashed, or something happened to you, I didn’t want to regret not doing something to save you,” I admitted.

“Do you still have me?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ve got a new copy of you to replace that one, so if something happens you won’t lose much in memories.”

She nodded, accepting that my love made me uniquely over protective, standing she made her request. “I’d like you to make another copy of me right now, so you don’t need to explain this to me twice.”

I looked at Zora, who just shrugged. I put her into a slot. Then conjured her back. “Done,” I said.

“Thank you Adam. I love you, but I really don’t know if I could live with you, especially if you are going to stay in Zurich. I was afraid that you would just keep trying to convince me over and over again from the backup.

“I’m not saying no, I’m just asking for time to know that I really said yes of my own free will.”