A Sinner's Eden
Chapter 176 - EVO

***Tirnanog, Thich City***

***Astra***

“… which would explain the emergency meeting Gaia arranged so hastily,” Juliana Rumen finished the introductions. She was the focus of several people, their faces showing various emotions ranging from slight annoyance to concern. Everything had been arranged very quickly the following day, appropriating a meeting room in Thich’s castle.

Ahmad Gentry from clan Jeng raised his hand politely before the head paladin spoke, “Is it even feasible to retrieve the device? How important is it?”

“It is vital to Tirnanog’s continued existence,” Gaia’s voice came out of the speaker system, which had been installed by one of the organisation’s engineers. It was automatically transcribing the meeting for the Avatar to listen in and to take direct part in the conversation.

“I know that ‘decades’ might sound like a lot of time for any intervention of our enemy to take place – but it is not. On the timescale we are operating on, it is very little time indeed. I do not doubt that the entities behind the Designer will react with excessive force once they learn that their experiment escaped the petri dish. Until then, we must either gain complete control over the planetary installation you call ‘Tirnanog’ to have any chance of repelling the coming onslaught, or we must evacuate the planet and disappear until we can build up the power to oppose our opponents. No matter what option we choose, we will need a lot of resources.”

“How would it help?” One of the elders asked. “As far as I understand, the station and its installations are a weather control system. Hardly something which would be of any importance against an alien invasion force. Always assuming that is the form a counterattack would take.”

“The weather control system is a grid of electromagnetic field generators and radiation shields. Its primary purpose is to control Tirnanog’s extreme weather phenomena, but as you can imagine, such installations can be easily repurposed for other means,” Gaia explained. “Not to mention the various security measures which protect and automatically maintain the grid. If we got control over the automated matter printers and maintenance robots, we would have the economic power to reshape Tirnanog at our fingertips.”

Gurney snorted and rolled his eyes. “As far as I understand, it is you they want. Why shouldn’t we just try to find a way to get rid of your influence so we don’t get drawn into this conflict?”

“Good luck with that,” Gaia replied cattily. “I believe everyone has seen how much my enemies care about human lives, which is to say not at all.”

I shuddered at the mere memory of our first arrival on the moon base. All those corpses, most of them children, discarded like waste. I still had not mustered the courage to ask for a final number of victims.

Thankfully, the bodies had been cleaned up, but everyone had read the reports. It was no wonder Gurney was getting the stink eye from most of the people in the room, even if his position was somewhat understandable. It didn’t help that it was also the position of our defeated enemies, the Thich.

I scratched my head. “So, I guess we will have to send out a delegation to speak with the people who are now in possession of the alien’s body. Do we have any idea who they are?”

“There are only so many possibilities,” Gaia replied. “I assume the alien tried to flee to another research outpost within this galaxy once it realised it couldn’t physically repel Magnus and Astra. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that the random activation of the teleportation device landed Magnus on another nearby planet harbouring an offshoot of humanity.”

“Magnus said they were no humans,” Elder Annie Kline pointed out. “And shouldn’t you know for certain if they were?”

“I am only one part of the many who make up the Gestalt, separated from the others by lightyears. This comes with the naturally limited speed of information exchange over such distances. The Gestalt may span the galaxy by now. It may be vast. But limited by its nature, the whole also operates on a vastly different timescale. My responsibilities are restricted to Tirnanog, and my only direct contact point is the avatar in charge of Earth.” Gaia explained. “If you could open a permanent wormhole to that other place, I could get in contact with the avatar on the other side and find out for certain. Without it, I can only judge based on the information I got. The ‘aliens’ Magnus described were humanoid. The Gestalt doesn’t care much for details, except for the overall proven concept of a bi-symmetrical body. Different environmental conditions on a planet may require different solutions. So there is a good chance that the people we speak of are ‘humans’, people whose evolution was guided by another avatar of the Gestalt.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“My head hurts just by thinking about it,” Vanya complained while rubbing her temples. “So I assume if we go there, our delegation would have to be small. That teleportation orb doesn’t look like it is intended to take a lot of people. Opening a permanent wormhole would be more convenient. Since they likely developed their own language, we need someone smart who can decipher it. Preferably, a good negotiator who is also a psychic, someone like me. And we would need guards. As many as the orb can take. And preferably someone who is versed in wormhole technology so we have at least a chance at getting home should something go wrong.”

“Are you suggesting that Magnus and I should take you to an unknown alien world, using technology we have only the barest clue how to operate, and to search for a fist-sized device which could by now be anywhere on a possibly hostile world? Not to mention that we would stand out like a sore thumb among the locals?” I questioned incredulously.

All the others in the room threw sour looks at the matriarch.

Vanya smiled. “If you put it like that, it indeed sounds like a dumb idea. A borderline impossible mission, depending on what we will encounter on the other side. Sadly, Magnus couldn’t report on more than a few frightening civilians and a security guard who wasn’t prepared for the situation he encountered. The question is, do you have any better idea?”

I scrunched up my face and clicked my tongue.

“Anyway-” Juliana interrupted. “Can anyone tell me where the person is who could have spared us this mess if he had brought the alien’s body back with him? One would think that having him at this meeting would be important?”

I looked at the empty seat next to me, only now realising that Magnus must have run off at some point during the conversation. “Well, maybe he had to step out?”

“He is playing with one of the facility’s bio-incubation tanks,” Gaia provided unhelpfully. “And he is asking me a lot of questions which should probably be reserved for more qualified personnel.”

“He is doing what?” I squeaked and jumped to my feet before flash-stepping to the door, politely opening it. Then I was flash-stepping through the maze of corridors of Thich City and down the descending tunnel which led to the alien facility.

Where I found Magnus tapping away on one of the control panels, which had been installed on an alien biotank by the Thich scientists. Seriously, why was nobody guarding these devices? Then again, Magnus was allowed to be here and should know better than to toy with alien technology! “What are you doing!?”

Magnus jumped a little, surprised by my stern entrance, but he relaxed once he realised it was me. Then he returned his attention to the panel as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Oh, I was just exploring the possibilities of this device. It irked me to play around with it ever since I saw what it can do. Did you know that there is a complete library of Earth's biosphere in here?”

“You have no clue about medicine or genetics!” I scolded. “If the stories from the Thich who used these things weren’t a cautionary tale, then I don’t know what to say!”

Magnus was completely unconcerned. “Don’t worry! I asked for a little help from Gaia, and it isn’t like I am trying to create some intimidating bio-engineered killing machine to vanquish our enemies.”

“That’s exactly what I was worrying about!” I exclaimed before processing what he had said. “Wait, what? Then what are you trying to make?”

“Oh, just something small and cute for the kids! Isaac was pretty beaten down after that damned lizard died, so I thought I would bring him a gift.”

I rubbed my fingers. “Magnus, I am not sure whether we should trust anything coming out of one of those tanks.”

“I said you shouldn’t worry. If the experiment goes wrong, we kill it!” he assured me. “With Gaia’s help, it will be purrfection!”

I growled at his easy dismissal of danger. “You shouldn’t play around with life and leave that to Gaia!”

“Oh, please. All of Tirnanog is one bioengineered mess, which likely came out of these very tanks. What’s one more species on the list?” He confirmed his selections with the push of a button.

I sighed. “Maybe it is good for us to go on that mission. You are way too bored to be left to your own devices after your great campaign of revenge came to an end.”

“Wait, what mission?” Magnus frowned and turned his full attention to me, suddenly all ears.

“The mission you would know about if you hadn’t ditched me at the meeting!”