***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Teresa***

“So, anyone got an idea why the youngsters arranged for this meeting?” I asked while looking around the people gathered in our mansion's dining room. It was one of the larger spaces and therefore perfect to host a meeting for a larger group.

For some reason, Thalia and Astra had invited us to a private meeting and I was quite curious what this was about. Normally, Astra always came to me directly when she was concerned about something. Bringing home Magnus and announcing him to be her partner was the only surprising thing she ever did.

But to be honest, her finding someone to partner with also was something which had to be expected to happen at some point. Her reason for going on those trips was never a secret. Etan and I just had not expected her to go through with her plan.

Richard Tate nodded sagely at my question. “I predict Thalia will announce her pregnancy. She was adamant about this Mark fellow being the right one for her with all those tests and her forecast analysis of their mutations. There is no way she wouldn't flaunt a victory. As if the two of us cared about who she chose based on compatibility tests. As long as she is happy we wouldn't stand in her way.” He looked at Sienna and smiled.

Sienna Tate in turn glanced at her partner with contempt and shook her head. “You are such an idiot. Do you believe they wouldn't give us such news in private first? And if you believe Thalia is the type to adopt an heir, then you are on the wrong track. Sometimes I doubt whether you know your own daughter!”

“Well...” Richard looked a bit taken aback.

Etan raised a finger. “The only reason I can think of is that they have been up to something and now they need us to smooth things over with the rest of the council. Like when Magnus went to visit the Patels and threw their psychic off the elevator. What a mess!”

“The guy survived,” I interjected. “It wasn't as big a mess as you are making it out to be.”

“Barely!” Sienna added.

“Oh!” Richard covered his eyes. “Don't remind me. Aligning all those bones so they would heal correctly was a nightmare. And the poor man was so traumatized, he requested reassignment to another strata so he wouldn't have to step on that elevator again. Didn't even bother to report his survival to the Patels.”

Sienna pursed her lips. “Filing out the report would have been your job. And why can I clearly remember you signing off the deceased paper on that particular case?”

Richard blinked and covered his mouth. “But I don't like Bruce. Why would I go the extra step to tell him anything which would help him? I misspoke, none of you loses a word about this to the Patels, or I will have to ban you from our hospital.”

Sienna rolled her eyes. “What did I do wrong to deserve this? Do you have any idea what the council might do if the wrong people find out about this?”

“Anyway,” I raised my voice. “It's most assuredly not the reason either. If Magnus had thrown another psychic off a high place, he wouldn't have cared to hide it from the public. Magnus wants such things to be known.”

“You have a point,” Etan admitted begrudgingly. “Then he did something else stupid and we have to hide his tracks.”

The door to the dining room opened and Magnus strolled into the room, having overheard his father-in-law. “For once, I am blameless, Dad!”

“Don't call me that!” Etan shot back quickly.

Astra shoved her way past her partner into the room, carrying the grouchy sisters, Costella and Aurora in her arms. Coming in behind her was Isaac, wrapped up in filaments like a caterpillar. He was half attached to Astra's hips, but the boy's legs were pulled limply over the floor.

Seeing this, I only sighed. “What did he do this time?”

“Tried to put make-up on his sisters with his modelling colours!” Astra spat. “I was lucky to catch it before the colour could dry.”

“Oh, the poor babies!” I got up and took Aurora off Astra, studying the girl with raised eyebrows. Astra got most of the colour off, but faint traces could still be seen with a keen eye.

Contrary to my expectation Isaac hadn't painted silly faces on them but tried to go for a proper makeover. “You know, if they had been a little bit older, Isaac would have done a decent job.”

Astra's bondage victim nodded and tried to mumble something intelligible past the filaments covering his mouth before the kid gave up and began spamming the family's UI chat with justifications for his actions.

“Don't encourage him!” Astra chided me. “They are too young for make-up.”

“Isaac is only doing these things because he is bored,” Magnus pointed out. “You have to account for his learning speed. Inherited memories combined with the sub-personality trait mean he is far beyond any child his age should be. Maybe we should get him a home-room teacher? And it's only paint. You are making way too big of a deal out of this. At least compared to the other stunts he pulled.”

I turned to Thalia and Mark who also entered the room. “Why don't we get to the point of this meeting then? I doubt the kids would like listening to the boring 'adult' stuff.”This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Oh, but they are involved,” Magnus clarified. “Whether they like it or not.”

I frowned and looked at Astra who shrugged while Mark closed the door.

“There is something we need to talk about with you,” Thalia began while kneading her hands. “You see, it all began with us having dreams...”

Not holding back, she launched into a tale of their dreams being taken over by an entity claiming to be humanity's gestalt, calling herself Gaia of all things. At the name, I exchanged glances with the other elders in the room.

“Wait, wait.” Richard raised both hands, interrupting Thalia's tale. “You are saying this Gaia is in conflict with other entities who want to erase her from existence? And at least one of those entities is backing the Thich?”

“Not one of the entities itself, but an agent of theirs if Gaia is to be believed,” Mark corrected. “To them, Tirnanog is a giant petry-dish and the one we are up against is the lab manager. Therefore it’s questionable whether the Thich are truly aided by this entity or simply pawns.”

Etan waved both his hands in obvious annoyance. “And none of you had the idea this might be important to share? What if you are having hallucinations?”

“A shared hallucination between four people and a kid?” Thalia questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Be my guest and try to explain this without involving psychic abilities.”

Magnus gestured to stop the two from arguing. “We considered every possibility, from it being true to us turning insane. Since we have no tangible proof, we decided against going public because we feared others might conclude we are insane. Despite everything, the story still sounds too fantastic, to be honest.”

He shook his head. “As for why we didn't share, what would you have done with the knowledge other than ruminating further about things which had to be done anyway? You were already on the right course of action, so bringing this mess into the mix would have only raised unnecessary doubt. We thought that saying nothing till we have definitive proof or at least a few more witnesses is for the best. Even now we are inducting only you four instead of giving a proclamation in front of the council of elders.”

“You have a point about it sounding a little bit,” Sienna paused, searching for the right words.

“Out there,” she finally admitted with worry in her tone while she studied Thalia. “Are you sure these dreams aren't imagination?”

Magnus raised his voice. “That's one possible explanation if one of the lesser ones. The one I am currently leaning towards is that Gaia is at the very least the expression of a psychic ability. So far, the number of times she guided us in the right direction can't be denied. Once, she even woke us up to protect us from something happening in the real world. Though, that took a lot of her power. And I mean, I would be a hypocrite if I denied the validity of the things she is teaching us about wormhole physics. And last but not least, she added Thalia and Mark to her roster of pupils.”

“That is all well and good, but I still think you can't go public with this,” Etan exclaimed. “The whole story is just too far-fetched without having any physical proof. I mean, there are these strange communication devices and other indirect evidence that something is wrong with the Thich, but nothing would point towards the involvement of the entity you describe. If you could at least show us something. You said she taught you about wormholes?”

“Yes,” Astra confirmed. “Mainly because our electric mutation gives us the ability to make use of them. How else do you think our jaunt works?”

“Or this?” Magnus moved his hands with electric discharges sparking between them. A moment later a small spherical area in front of him warped like a mirror. He drew his belt knife and lightly threw it into the anomaly – from which it emerged at the wrong angle! It was tossed vertically up into the air before it fell back down into the anomaly and was suddenly flung horizontally back into Magnus’s hand.

He stopped whatever he had done and the mirror sphere disappeared as if it had never been there.

Everyone just stared at the spot which had seemingly decided to abandon the rules of reality before I cleared my throat, remembering something. “Maybe we should just proceed under the assumption that everything is as indicated. Don't you find it strange that the Church of Gaia is named after Gaia? If I am to believe this, then this can't be a coincidence.”

“Gaia said that there was a person similar to us a long time ago. He could remember his dreams partly, but he wasn't lucid while dreaming. She said he founded the church on Gaia's principles,” Thalia explained.

“Yes, I remember now.” I tapped my chin. “There was something like it in the church's earliest texts. I always found them a little ill-fitting compared with the rest of their doctrine. The church preaches the principles of enlightenment of the mind and logic, but basing their whole institution on dreams of a goddess sounded a little bit too mystical for me. I always thought they might have kept to it for the sake of their more mystically inclined followers.”

“Oh, I also remember reading it!” Richard clapped his hands together. “I liked the part where their first priest went to sleep for a hundred nights and wrote down their holy texts each following day. If they are to be believed, they never changed them afterwards.”

Sienna looked at her partner with a tilted head while Etan mustered me with squinted eyebrows.

“You read such stuff?” Etan asked me. “I thought you were an atheist like me.”

I cleared my throat. “One can be an atheist and still educate herself on the main religion spanning all the big clans. Wouldn't hurt you to know what motivates a sizeable part of Tirnanog's population!”

He looked away, appearing embarrassed.

“Does that mean the church would be on our side if we claim to have a direct wire to their goddess?” Magnus asked.

I groaned. “Hold your molerats! Just because this Gaia entity might have jump-started a religion doesn't mean its followers would be okay with her direct intervention! This Gaia could be significantly different from what the church's followers might imagine her to be. The church also seldom mentions any god or goddess in a sermon. They encourage using your own mind on matters of morals. It might cause a religious conflict and we can't have that right now!”

“So how about we talk to elders Casey and Hayne first? The fifth strata is as closely intertwined with the affairs of the church as it is possible without them being considered just an extension of the church. If anyone could tell us what the head of the church might do in response to this revelation, then it is them,” Sienna suggested.

“Or we simply wait for more apostles to appear,” Magnus said while ominously playing with his fingers like some evil mastermind.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Etan asked, looking worried.

Thalia shrugged. “We might have nudged Gurney a little bit to suggest mutation combinations which favour a connection to Gaia. So we get more witnesses.”

Etan covered his face with both hands. “Of course they did.”

I tilted my head. “And it’s not like you could have waited with this until after speaking with us?”

Magnus raised both hands. “Hey, it is not like this will take immediate effect. Or is even guaranteed to produce more people with this ability.”

“Okay,” I said, deciding there was no point in complaining about a done deed right now. “In this light, informing the Ortegas might be the best choice of action. They wouldn't be happy if they learned we knew about this long in advance once people who claim to have contact with Gaia start popping up left and right.”

“They have also been firmly on our side of this conflict since the beginning,” Richard pointed out. “Approaching them with this matter might be less risky than we think. I wouldn’t dare bring this up with the Smyths or the Torres for example. They would freak out and begin questioning everything.”

I rolled my eyes. “They do that with everything, especially Gwen and Trent. Those two are paranoid. How about we first evaluate which elders should know about this conspiracy? Then we can make plans on how to deal with this alien threat.”