Chapter 53: The Quiet Years
The next five years were the quietest of Jake’s life. And the fullest.
He taught. Three classes a semester: Practical Combat, Crisis Management (Advanced), and a seminar called “Ethics of Infinite Power” that he co-taught with Kael and which regularly devolved into philosophical arguments so heated that the fire suppression systems activated.
He mentored. Dozens of students passed through his office, each one carrying a different version of the same fear: I have power I don’t understand, and I’m afraid of what I might become. Jake listened to each one, because he remembered being that student.
He researched. With Pi (now professor-sized and occupying an entire wing of the mathematics department), he mapped the dimensional structure in unprecedented detail. They discovered twelve new dimensions, three dormant threats, and a species of interdimensional butterflies that communicated through calculus.
He visited. The Architect on Thursdays (tea and conversation in the space beyond reality). His mother every Sunday (dinner and conversation in a Seoul apartment). Null constantly (she was, after all, literally everywhere).
He lived.
Vex became the Academy’s head of Synthesis Studies, training a new generation of absorbers to channel power instead of fearing it. Lyra led three more expeditions to uncharted dimensions, discovering civilizations and making allies that strengthened the dimensional network. Kael’s garden covered the entire southern terrace and produced tomatoes that won interdimensional awards.
Gerald remained Gerald. He attended faculty meetings, contributed the concept of “giving it a try” to every discussion, and maintained a teacup that was, at this point, an artifact of cosmic significance.
And through it all, Null held the dimensions together. Her messages appeared less frequently now—not because she cared less, but because she was busier. Thirteen dimensions required constant attention. But every Sunday, without fail, a message would appear in Jake’s mother’s kitchen:
Save me some soup.
Jake’s mother always did. She’d set a bowl at the empty seat and insist that it “kept the house warm.” No one mentioned that the bowl was always empty by morning.
The quiet years. The good years. The years that proved Jake’s theory: that the best thing you could do with infinite power was use it to teach other people they didn’t need it.