Frey Wheeler

Memorandum of status

To: All Employees working at Emporium

From: Frey Wheeler

Date: Ω.3287~θ+33 (“Year's End”)

Subject: Company organisational changes

As many of you will be aware now, Emporium and Orbital are going their separate ways. We have now finalised a deal that will see the two businesses decouple from one another. We believe this is in both Emporium and Orbital’s best interests, as the values of the two organisations have diverged.

Emporium is halting, and in many areas will be rewinding, the growth it has experienced while working with Orbital. This has been a significant crisis of purpose for the organisation, but with the departure of Orbital, our previous Business plan was clearly unsustainable. Instead, we will be focusing on providing the most personal, high quality experience we can to a smaller number of customers, and where possible we will be looking to reduce prices, especially on essential goods. In both instances we will be returning to the qualities which made Emporium the first choice for Interplanar Retail in our corner of the Multiverse.

We know that many of you have been concerned for your future with Emporium. It is true that we are scaling back our operations. This does mean that many jobs will no longer be needed. However, we would like to reassure everyone that their employment within Emporium is secure. While we will be making certain roles redundant, we value our Employees, their experience and commitment, and there will be plenty of space for them as we in-house the services Orbital once provided.

Likewise, we are pleased to announce that we have come to a mutual understanding with Orbital that will allow workers to choose which organisation they wish to continue with. Any Employees of the Orbital Corporation working in Emporium who wish to continue in their roles as Emporium employees are welcome to stay. Likewise, the Orbital Corporation has guaranteed Emporium Employees working closely with Orbital that they can continue their careers with Orbital if they so desire. We hope that this will ease the difficult transition for the many Employees affected by this change.

These recent changes may make the company structure in Emporium unclear. There have also been significant changes in our relationships with several groups operating on the Plane. To be absolutely clear, Albert remains the sole (active) owner of Emporium. As such, all authority and responsibility ultimately lies with them. While this may seem somewhat alien to Employees native to more Egalitarian planes, Albert very literally is the Store, and we work on them as much as for them. Beyond that there is likely to be a significant reshuffle of the core management team in the near future. When in doubt, ask the Albert Interface.

Thank you all so much for your tireless efforts at Emporium, and thank you for your patience with us during this difficult transitionary period. We hope you will continue with us, but we understand that some Employees may desire more stability or opportunity than Emporium is now able to provide, and we can only express our most sincere gratitude for their time with the company.

If you have any questions, then don’t hesitate to let me or Albert know: you are our first priority.

On the day the Futures Market crashed, the one Entity who lost the most was the only one who seemed to be having a good time. As traders of Potential and Possibility tore their ¹⁾ hair out and scattered over yelling 'buy' and 'sell', Frey Wheeler, owner and founder of the Exchange, was having what could only be described as a great day.

But why?

Why was the Entity most invested in the Future, who had made all of this possible, so thrilled to see their ²⁾ life’s work come crashing down? Well, the answer is simple really: all you need to understand is a little of how the Futures Market works, and a little of the Psychology of Frey Wheeler.

First of all, Futures Trading. While the word Future traditionally refers to a property of linear time, the majority ³⁾ of the Multiverse cares little for such trivial constructs. Perhaps a Future is better thought of as a Potential for Change. Hence the natural “value” of a Future is the sum of changes that could be, appropriately weighted by their likelihood to be realised. The investor increases the probability of changes that open more possibilities with their Investment, and hence the overall Potential of their Investment, and is free to profit by reclaiming some of the unrealised Potentials they have helped add value to.

As an example, an individual might look for Investors in their Future. Now, a world where they become wealthy and powerful naturally holds more Possibilities, and even were Investors to recoup some of these bountiful, and now probable, paths, both they and the Entities invested in them would be better off.

As you can see, a Future has all the ingredients for a Speculative asset, and as such opens the space for a Market on which to trade them. Futures swap hands, dividends are reclaimed from timelines opened up, and everyone becomes richer. At least, as long as everyone is making wise investments …

See, the thing about Futures is that they are contagious. One individual taking a step off the path can have a cascading effect on the Futures of those around them. Fortunately for risk averse Entities, at a Plane-wide scale these tend to average out - but if you invest heavily in one Entity … well, the moment they enter a family of Futures you don’t have holdings in you’re bust.

Now, the other part of this equation: Frey Wheeler. Founder and Owner of the Futures Exchange. Hailing from an unremarkable, unimportant Plane where they managed rules that boiled down to keeping as many possibilities open as possible. The move to found an Interplanar Future Exchange is then not a surprising move for such an Entity.

What is more unclear is how they acquired the truly enormous amount of Capital necessary to do so. Developing interplanar space into a usable Plane, the communications and transport infrastructure necessary to run an Exchange, the tools to extract dividends from invested timelines; all of these things are fantastically expensive. Their Homeplane holdings could hardly be described as the most bounteous, and their brief stint as Orbital secretary at Emporium could not account for such wealth.

Of course, such fortune is often eyed with green-eyed jealousy. Many Entities have leveled accusations of criminal conduct at Frey, so many in fact that they have been subject of repeated investigation by The Auditors, but the source of their wealth has never become any clearer.

So, Frey Wheeler is a creature of change, with a background working for Emporium and Orbital, blessed with fantastic wealth and a desire to spread possibilities at an interplanar scale.

Some readers can then already see where this is going. As the Multiverse, or at least this corner of it, took a hard right turn, Frey Wheeler was very, very surprised. Planes that had once seemed confined to a narrow, if profitable, Future exploded into uncharted territory. Confidence in what comes next was completely shattered. No algorithm, no instrument, no forecast could have predicted this, the bedrock of Mathematical Futures was shattered. That which everyone, including Frey themself, believed impossible had come to pass.

As such, it was probably the best day of Frey Wheeler’s life.

- The Great Futures Crash - by Transcendent Value.

Frey Wheeler rests gently on their Throne. All around them it is dark. Empty. A world wound down. This plane’s Future converged to a single undifferentiated line as far as they can see. A plot of the Multiverse once the heart of infinite change and uncertainty, reduced to this.

After countless aeons of practice and augmentation, they have long grown comfortable in divinity. They hold every part of this world in the palm of their hand. The truth is whatever they say it is: their subjectivity is objective reality …

And yet …

Stillness.

It is all done now. All the possibilities of this place have been spent. Infinite opportunity must necessarily include the opportunity for The End. And it arrived. Far be it from Frey to stop it. No, they met it as a friend when it finally came.

They have spent so, so, long spreading possibilities across the Multiverse. They kept every door open. They made so much happen. Worlds were born, Futures of infinite potential spinning out before them.

Yet … that was only half of the equation. If you keep flipping the coin, every head must have a tail. Creation must be balanced with destruction. Growth with decay. Increase with decrease. Beginnings with ends. All equally probable in the balance of things.

And as they watched this World wind down, they realised the time had come for them too. They felt their boundless vigor turn to lethargy. Their desire for more was exhausted. They felt peace fall over them as they let everything about them still. Everyone else is gone now. Everything else. They are all that is left.

Memories spark in their mind. They remember their time in Emporium. An eternity or more ago. They remember their part in the schemes of Television Headed deities whose power had seemed so great back then. What were they called again? Egbert and Albert, the Throne supplies, along with memories of their first time using the device itself. Almost boiled themself alive. They’d laugh, but they are almost too tired to even think. The tides of time and changes work very differently across the Multiverse: perhaps Emporium is dust now, perhaps they’d walk in no more than a moment after they left, and find those they left behind still yongue. Who can say?

It is not so bad, winding down. As an Entity who has spent their life free wheeling, no pun intended, from one exploit to the next, there hasn’t been a lot of opportunities to contemplate the Multiverse or their place in it. Now there is time. Infinite, undifferentiated time in which to contemplate.

They think that they were very lucky. They were able to make an enormous difference to Worlds beyond number. They survived countless adventures. But most of all, they were that rarest of Entities blessed with a spirit in tune with that of the Multiverse itself.

For, over the aeons, they came to learn that the Multiverse makes one sacred promise.

Holds one inviolable, all encompassing Truth.

Change.

So they sit.

And they wait.

Watching that single thread of fate, as it rolls over the horizon towards them.

Waiting.

For the end to frey.