Straight to business, but first...

I needed to leave in the next few minutes. Any of several dangerous factions could be closing in on my location already, and I'd barely begun to amass any real power yet. Melissa would protect me to some extent, if only to protect her investment in what she thought would help her, but I intended to be ready before the first attack came.

I considered taking a few things with me - this had been my life, after all. My computer hard drive alone contained nearly a terabyte of information I still cared about (PDFs of RPG books, books & video from several fictional series), and while I could recall everything I'd seen before with perfect clarity, I hadn't actually viewed all of that media before.

Deciding to solve two problems at once, I directed Melissa to wait a moment, and stepped out onto my 'porch', which was only a rickety balcony with a set of wooden steps down to street level.

Looking around, I saw exactly what I needed. A short, balding man in a mail carrier's uniform was walking down the street in my direction. I concentrated on him for a second, enslaving his mind and starting a hive mind with him and myself. His instructions were simple:

• You will never harm me, or manipulate my thoughts or actions.
• You will never lie to me, or conceal from me any information I wish to know.
• Enslave every person you see for the rest of your life, and add them to the hive mind.
• Continue with your life as normal, but periodically take opportunities to visit populated areas (airports, train stations, major traffic areas) in order to spread the hive mind further.
• In the hours you would normally sleep, at least once each week, take walks or travel in order to spread the hive mind further.

I gave him the traits Immortality and Tireless Servant, not actually stopping his aging, but allowing him to be resurrected if he is killed. The Normalize trait appeared to be automatic (I suspected I could turn it off, but had no desire to so far). I set that arrangement in my mind as a kind of Standard Package, and instructed that anyone added to the hive mind should receive that same configuration.

I then added an instruction to the hive mind, which was already growing as the mail carrier spotted my neighbors or passing drivers, that someone (preferably one of my neighbors) was to enter my home and begin cataloging the media I had stored digitally or physically. Everything there, someone else in the hive mind would eventually (but soon) be required to read or watch, so that I could gain that knowledge and benefit from it.

With that handled, and my hive mind growing to dozens of people as neighbors stepped inside to enslave their families, I stepped back inside my apartment for what would likely be the last time.

"It's time," I smiled devilishly, gathering my focus to open a portal. "We go now, Melissa, to your realm." I extended one hand, easing open the boundaries of the two realities at the same point in the room she'd arrived, and thought to myself, 'Soon to be mine, and the first of many.'