Soon, the situation with the piet children became unmanageable. A few decided to break off in a quest to find out the truth behind this mysterious Tcha’i’la. Most notably Rume, the main philosopher of the bunch, the one who came up with the concept that was stumping us. The word didn’t translate into any known word like ‘God’ or ‘alien’ or ‘mystical energy’ or any other word or known concept. It didn’t fit into any box we tried to put it in. It wasn’t a translation error like I originally thought. It was a new idea, the children’s very own.

  Only they knew what it truly meant.

  Rume grew to become respected for his mind and eccentric methods. Where Corde'esal earned his place for uniting and leading the one hundred children, Rume grew to be his foil, always challenging the group with a skeptic and individualistic attitude. When Rume went off in his search for truth, many followed him, or followed his example and pursued their own path, while Corde kept the rest of them together, and gave them all a place to come back to.

  We were forced to use hard-light virtual reality to keep the ones that journeyed out beyond the habitat contained while we discussed what to do. If we abandoned them and let them tire out, they would wonder why their Tcha’i’la had forsaken them. They would always be left wondering what they experienced, why it left, and what they did wrong.

  If they were anything like humans, they would make up a reason and a belief system to explain it. Simulations projected a high probability of trauma, the formation of irrational belief systems that would persist throughout the generations, and the normalization of violent and irrational behavior.

  The small splinter groups on a quest for the truth journeyed far and wide across a virtual copy of the Pieterran continents. Never truly more than a kilometer away from their home. If they all began to branch out like this, we didn’t have the resources to run such hard-light sims for so long, especially if we had to make copies of other piets to keep them wondering where everyone else had gone. Or if we had to keep up the tests to not confirm their suspicions of the events being unnatural.

  We tried simulation after simulation, running scenarios about how to contain and manipulate them towards a satisfactory answer to their mystery without breaking their minds or stunting their intellect. But without knowing the exact meaning of Tcha’i’la, our simulations had no idea how to counter this idea that was so prevalent among the children. We tried approximating with our own words, inputting whole essays trying to encapsulate the idea, and making up our own concepts to fit. We got wildly different and randomized results every time.

  Trying to gaslight these kids would most likely destroy them, so we did the only thing we could.

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  We told them the truth.

  Mare was first. Then me. We followed the format of the tests; we approached them one on one, then we let them discuss it amongst themselves. We explained everything the best we could. Slowly. We didn’t hold back; we didn’t hide or manipulate or misdirect anything. But it was a lot to digest. We had no idea how they would react. With every word, we knew we could be damning these children to insanity. But if the simulations had taught us anything, if our lives had taught us anything, then it was better to break in pursuit of the truth, than in justifying a lie.

  They took it better than we could have hoped. The kids collectively decided they wanted to move out of the prison of their birthplace. They wanted access to all of our knowledge and skills. They wanted to learn and explore this great new world they were thrust into.

  So, I shifted some people and equipment around and gave the piet children their own secure wing of The Site. Mare and I set to work creating a schooling program to teach them everything they wanted to know and experience. From then on they were brought up like any young adult from a Colony. As much as we could manage from a blacksite, anyway.

  The children were extremely adept at thinking for themselves, as well as together. They were happy to design most of their own learning programs and their lives within The Site. For ten more years, I kept watch over the piets. No one wanted my job, not really. I kept getting offered promotions and transfers as a courtesy for sticking out this boring post for so long. No one wanted my job, and even if they did, I would never let them have it.

  I watched the hundred hatchlings grow and mature, through my own eyes this time. They learned fast. Faster than we could provide materials for them to study. They kept us on our toes. We gave them access to the whole of humanity’s histories, sciences, philosophies, arts, as well as the history and data of their own people. They spread out and specialized in different areas as they saw fit. They all became as well versed in technology and navigating networks as any human Colony child. A few even better. Towards the end of that second decade, Jenshin and a few others had learned how to start bypassing The Site’s security infrastructure as a game.

  If it wasn’t for the combination of my position and my superior experience with the implant, our secret would have been blown long ago. They developed their own little culture and way of life in that wing. It was just me and Mare raising these kids, for the most part. We didn’t start bringing in others until the end of that second decade. It was easy enough to keep the wing a secret. We said we were commissioning the wing to expand the habitat section, which was close enough to the truth. A few false logs here and there, and no one cared enough to snoop any further. Many projects throughout the years were classified from other members of The Site by default, so we didn’t arouse much suspicion. Most people didn’t stay long enough to see the pieces not adding up. Those that did trusted me enough to look the other way.

  The troublesome part was the constant inspections. A different person every time, usually someone I had no history or relationship with. Sector 436 took their transparency inspections very seriously. So I fabricated an entire study about manipulating quantum mechanical systems in order to change the environment in the habitat, so any in-person inspection of the wings would throw off the study irreversibly. I had to fabricate and simulate every report and sensor reading, but it kept anyone from looking too closely.