The God of the Multiverse and I (feat. Rick Sanchez)

The Arrival

In spring, I was selected to become the Mistress of the God of the Multiverse. By summer, I was becoming concerned that this was not the great stroke of fortune I had thought it would be.

In the fall I met Rick Sanchez.

Let me start at the beginning. My home planet, Earth D-112, is a world where we have evolved socially to value intelligence above all. We have a nifty machine that can, with a three-second genetic analysis, determine a person's precise intelligence level. So it's easy to make sure we have a society where the smartest people are given the most power. Theoretically, this is why our world is practically free of war, poverty, and disease.

Three years ago, it was decided that the most intelligent person on Earth D-112 would become leader of our world for a term of ten years, at which time there would be a retesting. Our new leader proved to be a man named Clive Royale, who was fortuitously possessed of an appropriate surname. He was extremely handsome, brilliant, and ambitious to a fault. He was not content to be President Royale.

After a couple of years of wearing that title, Clive had an idea. He invited four of the multiverse's most intelligent sentient beings to compete with him in a three-stage challenge he called the God-Quest. In the quest, each competitor was allowed one assistant, and the pairs faced baffling and dangerous puzzles. A few died, a few merely sustained injuries, and none were able to complete even the first stage successfully. Our President passed the first two stages and only failed in the third.

Clive Royale declared that thereafter he should be known as the God of the Multiverse.

Clive's competitive cravings were assuaged for a brief time then, and he determined to take a mistress. Naturally she must be the most intelligent woman on the planet, and that happened to be me. Thus I found myself transported to the Capitol Court, and declared his Mistress in a splendid and absurdly expensive ceremony that was televised all over Earth D-112 and planets beyond. Until then I had aspired merely to continue my studies of Terran satirical literature, in the hopes of writing a book, but now I was famous, powerful, and very, very rich. I confess this was exhilarating at first. And as I said, Clive is quite the handsome fellow.

Sadly, his interest in me flagged swiftly in the coming weeks. The thrill of being God of the Multiverse became tarnished by the incessant sniping happening in social media. My Master-God was enraged by every twit who claimed to be just as smart as he, or who suggested so-and-so of Altair 2 or wherever possessed twice the intellect of Clive Royale.

And so he took to issuing more challenges. Initially he would, as in the first God-Quest, invite several competitors to tackle the challenge simultaneously. Then he brought in a constant stream of individuals and their assistants. They all failed, of course, in the first stage. With each new triumph, it seemed Clive became even more uneasy. This seemed counter-intuitive and puzzled me terribly. Finally I sought the counsel of Rodger Soames, the second most intelligent man on Earth D-112, who served as Clive's Assistant in the God-Quest and was his right-hand man.

I went to Rodger's office, determined to get an answer. Before he could interrupt, I sat down in the chair before his desk. "Rodger," I said to him, "it makes no sense to me that My Master-God should feel slightly worse every time a challenger fails at the God-Quest. Shouldn't he be happy every time his superiority is proven?"

"There's another issue at play, Mistress," replied Rodger, looked uncomfortable.

"What issue?"

"I'm not sure I should speak of it."

I glared at him. "Perhaps then I should ask My Master-God directly?"

"Oh no!" he exclaimed. "Don't ask him. I'll tell you, but please, don't mention the name to him or to anyone."