004-Demon Hunt - Chapter IV - Aegis

Chapter IV
A.E.G.I.S.

There is a parable or a wisdom, if you like, which goes something like this. A mathematician asked a Keeper: «How can you control eternity?» The Keeper answered: «Become the eternity». Mathematician argued: «But that is impossible!» Keeper parried him: «Impossible is as eternal as Possible. Sum them up and you will get an eternal paradox: Possibility denies Impossibility and Impossibility denies Possibility. Accept this paradox and the fact that you, as well as your science, is part of it. Learn to use it. Then you will be able to comprehend eternity and in that comprehension become it». Mathematician was no backing out: «But that is impossible!» And the Keeper calmly answered: «But I did it and I am possible». Paradox? At first it may seem like a simple...

Kravchek, Johnathan
«Paradoxes»

Keeper of Memory

In a number of worlds in year 1939 by their chronology a war happened, if not most than at least one of the bloodiest ones between same species. In some of those worlds during the war or soon after it a certain organizations were created, meant to help prevent such events in the future. One of the central worlds, called Wonn-Der by some of the creatures familiar with the concept a secret organization was created as well, which later received the name Aegis.
Initially, Aegis. was conducting government funded experiments for creation of super-soldiers to help stop the ongoing war in Europe, so that Europe will depend on America continent, which provided the help. Unfortunately, the only successful experiment at the time was Jeff Dodgers a.k.a. Corporal America, who was presumed dead after one of the battles. After the war was over the company did not cease, but instead shifted focus to technological advancements, which were sold not only to their own government, but to others as well. That provided them with contacts and funds to virtually disappear around year 1956.
In a way, that was when development of Aegis. as it is now started. Besides technological research and development they started dealing in covert ops, that is, spying, searching for all kinds of information and then presenting it as sort of brokers. During one of such missions a group of people vanished to the east of Sahara desert. Aegis, almost literally, plowed up the whole desert, even the whole continent, but found nothing from the group.
Until they suddenly reappeared around Kamchatka Krai. Aegis withdrew them as quickly as possible and suppressed all gossip about “people from nowhere”. But did not spare the interrogation of the group. Not like they planned to hide anything from their colleagues.
They told, how on the East of Sahara they saw an oasis and decided to check out the phenomenon. But as soon as they reached it, they found themselves in black space, filled with gray fog and… Billions of billions luminescent light blue spheroids, constantly changing their edges, as if something was trying to get out of them or as amoeba stretches its legs. They all seemed to be connected by thin whitish tubes, intersecting here and there. Through the membranes of some spheroids they saw cities, continents, planets and even whole galaxies. It took them some time and seeing themselves in some of those spheroids to realize, that these were different worlds.
They stayed in the Gray, as they called this space later, due to the fog, for no longer than 10 minutes, while in their own world years had passed by the time they re-appeared on Kamchatka. No one understood what had happened, but that did not stop Aegis. They started full-scale research of oasis phenomena and 1970 they were able to create their own oasis, holes in space or, if you like, wormholes.
The concept of wormholes was that they tore up the space as if piece of cloth. The process of a tear involved collision of certain amount of elementary particles in one point sent there with a certain speed. The amount of particles and their speed resulted in where the wormhole will lead. This discovery allowed to gather information that boosted development of not only scientific fields like physics, but also social fields, like history and philosophy. Aegis groups brought in numerous new technologies that were adapted and are no used in Wonn-Der not only in military but also by housewives. This transformed Aegis into A.E.G.I.S.: Advanced Emergency Group of Interdimensional Servicing.
New technologies allowed them to build a flying base, which hovered above Manhattan. In fact, it was about the same size as Manhattan. Practically a city hovering above passersby, invisible to anyone thanks to cloaking devices… And connected to dozens of its versions in other worlds. A.E.G.I.S. was not looking out for order in their own world, but for all the worlds they were able to find. A lot of those worlds had A.E.G.I.S. agents stationed in. Some of those agents may not even know they are working for A.E.G.I.S. to preserve the world’s consistency. Although they sometimes do fail to keep that said consistency even in their own world. And of those failures even has a name…
Mutants.
One of the groups stumbled into a world filled with black goo with grayish gas hovering over it. It’s not clear what exactly happened, but the nick of it is that XY-chromosome of men in that group changed drastically. Children of those men were born with different… Abilities. Telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis, levitation.. Those abilities and sometimes malformations, like blue skin, horns, wings, tails, fur, - all was caused by mutation of the said XY-chromosome, so the phenomena was called X-Gene. The goo turned out to be just your average tar with some extra elements, the fog was never encountered again, so all A.E.G.I.S. could do was to study the X-Gene. And they did find a way to create they own mutations even in adults, but never a way to reverse those. Beside that they monitor mutant activities all over the worlds, since some mutations can be really dangerous. It really helps them, that in some of the worlds mutant population diminished due to cataclysms and rarely rises over a few hundreds now.
But besides monitoring mutants and so-called “superheroes”, A.E.G.I.S. also monitor creatures called simbiots.