***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Astra***

“It's not fair! It's just not fair!” Thalia grumbled while she took one last blood sample from Magnus's fingertip. She pricked the skin with a needle and caught the drop of blood on a paper strip. “The zippers must be related to god-damn honeybadgers!”

After four days of total unconsciousness, Magnus finally woke up and recovered rapidly, though he was still a little lethargic. In the beginning, he had been a little pale in the face and short of breath due to the loss of blood.

Now he could already walk around without assistance.

Nonetheless, he had to stay at the hospital until all signs of the poison were gone.

A scar was barely visible on his chest, but it would fade once the starfish mutation had time to do its wonders. Not losing any tissue helped a lot with the recovery speed because it meant the body only had to close the opened wound instead of regrowing lost tissue.

Thalia placed the paper strip on a sample dish and used a microscope to look at it while going through several background filters for the microscope’s light. “The coagulation rate is back to normal. It's been barely a week and there's no sign of the poison. Your body metabolised everything it couldn't expel!”

“That's good,” Magnus replied drily. Physically, he was fine, but I knew him well enough to tell that the assassination attempt had thrown him off his game.

“You know, my mother had to cut off her hand after operating on you.” Thalia kept up her tirade while she studied the sample. “If anyone else had taken such an amount of deathnut oil they would be three feet under.”

This finally caused Magnus to pay more attention to our doctor. “She had to cut off her hand!? I am so sorry.”

Thalia waved him off. “It's already regrown. And since I can't find any trace of the poison in your blood you should be fine to leave.”

I placed a hand on Magnus's shoulder and squeezed it, happy to hear the good news. “Cheer up! Being so down doesn't fit you.”

Magnus shook his head. “I am sorry. It just feels like I fucked up. I was trained to do this and I failed to anticipate the enemy's response. If it hadn't been for my mutations, I would have been dead. When we switched off the surveillance system it had to cause some reaction. If not by Earth, then from some elder who was dissatisfied with the coming changes. I was the logical target. Why wasn't I more careful? I could have pointed out the danger. What if they had gone after you or the babies to pressure me?”

I slapped him over the back of his head. “Just stop it! Yes, maybe you could have anticipated a reaction, but so could anyone in the council of elders! You had even less information about the true state of affairs than they did. There are countless people who could be blamed, but fact is, nobody is perfect. We didn't know Earth had something like the Forgotten and the elders thought they had eradicated them all. Earth didn't meddle in our affairs for decades. It allowed everyone to become complacent, so how could we have known?”

He looked at me accusingly while rubbing the back of his head. “That hurt! And as you saw, they never truly stopped meddling!”

“But the point is we thought they did! Should I hit you harder to get you out of your funk?” I asked. “Get your sub-identities up and running. Normally, you would have dodged me easily. Just get it into your head that nobody can account for everything. And we aren’t in a position in which such a thing can be expected of us. Aside from being overly paranoid, nobody could have anticipated the attack. But now that we know, we can prepare.”

“No, thank you. No further reminders necessary,” Magnus backed off a step with his chair. “I get what you are trying to say.”

For a moment, the room fell uncomfortably silent before Magnus shook himself and took a deep breath.

“So?” He exhaled and looked at us expectantly. “I heard the clan routed their hideout? I hope you didn't go after them yourself, Astra.”

I sighed. “Believe me, I wanted to, but once I got the Patels involved the operation was taken out of my hands. I had to stay well behind the frontlines while others got to deliver the pain. All Thalia and I got was the aftermath report.”

The healer waved her hand. “Which I am perfectly fine with. My mutations are geared entirely towards support and survival.”

“And intelligence gathering,” I added.

“Which is a part of a support role,” she clarified. “Anyway, we managed to rout the entire hideout. Twenty-four Forgotten and we got seven of them alive!”

“Only seven!?” Magnus exclaimed. “Excuse me, but what went wrong? I thought you planned the operation.”

I shrugged. “We got more of them than the elders hoped for. Turns out, the Forgotten are mentally conditioned undercover agents. The best mental manipulation Earth had to offer at the time – psychological, chemical, and surgical procedures. If those people see a risk of being taken prisoner, they take their own lives.”

She shook her head in dismay. “Just think of what it takes to meddle with someone's head enough to turn them into undercover agents who stay on the job for years, decades even. They didn’t even have a hope of going back to Earth.”

“Mother fuckers...” I growled, remembering Thalia’s first interrogation of a Forgotten. It hadn’t been pretty, but vastly different from what my friend could do to a normal person when she didn’t hold back. The Forgotten had withstood her mental manipulation far longer than expected.

My partner shook his head. “I heard the military police has people like that, but I never encountered one. If I had, my old self certainly wouldn't have survived it. The organisation relies on secrecy and electronic warfare rather than risking direct confrontation with the government’s enforcers. If someone's cover is blown, they are abandoned together with all their contacts.”

This sounded a little extreme to my ears, but Magnus's organisation could probably claim experience in the field. I didn't even know where to begin if I desired to create an underground network capable of hiding from a worldwide government.

Thalia continued, “Their indoctrination certainly isn't a joke. Even I couldn't get past it without turning their brains to mush – and I am the most powerful psychic the clan has at the moment. It took me a day for the first one to cave. It doesn’t make me look forward to the others.”

Magnus looked at my friend with a horrified expression. “Mush?”

“Figuratively,” Thalia amended. “I can't turn them literally to mush. It would kill a person instantly and I would be regarded as the most powerful person in the clan. Ha! No, they are just a little out of sorts once I am done with them.”

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“Once she is done with them, they are like lobotomised zombies,” I clarified. “Though it usually takes a few hours.”

Magnus raised a hand. “You know what? I don't want to know the details of the how! Just tell me what you found out.”

Thalia shrugged. “They had a connection to Earth via a small radio transmitter, ready to send and receive information every time a wormhole was opened. It looks like they were lying low for a long time. They were instructed to do so at the end of the clan wars. Several decades of hiding. Can you imagine what it would be like? Those people are like robots with a modicum of creativity and ego. They watched and bided their time until they got an instruction ordering them to identify the source of the problem regarding the supercomputer's connection loss and eliminate it. They researched the issue and judged it impossible to reverse the situation. But they identified you as a likely culprit since you are the only new person who regularly visits the Hall of Law.”

Magnus shook his head. “But why? The supercomputer's cover is already blown. Killing me wouldn't have solved the situation. This sounds like an ill-thought-out reaction.”

I raised a finger. “Which the Forgotten didn't know. From their point of view, killing you wasn't much of an issue and might have prevented further interferences. You were just some newly partnered guy whose mutations were known. An easy target. If they hadn't failed, you would have entered an elevator on one floor and been found dead on another. They would have gotten away if they hadn't thought you to be dead and blown their cover.” I winked at him conspiratorially.

He got the hint and nodded. “What now?”

“We are going to squeeze the Forgotten for everything they know, but I fear we won't get much more,” Thalia said. “I got to start with those who had likely the most information. They didn't know of any other cells similar to theirs. They had a few fallback points and secondary hideouts, but all for their group. No contact with others. As far as the clan knows, we got them all. Which doesn't mean there aren’t a few more groups like them operating independently. I suspect it might be the case, given their nature.”

“The clan will proceed under the assumption that there are more of them,” I continued. “Which is why my parents want to talk with us as soon as you are able again.”

“What about?” Magnus asked.

“I don't know. They didn't tell me because they didn't want to repeat themselves.”

“Work aside!” Thalia clapped her hands together with shining eyes. “Do you already have names?”

“Names?” Magnus and I shared a look of incomprehension.

“For the babies!?” Thalia smiled.

I cleared my throat and looked away.

Magnus twiddled his thumbs. “To be honest, we haven't talked about it.”

Thalia gaped at us with an open mouth and a few moments passed before she could give her verdict. “You two are the worst parents ever! Who gives birth three times and doesn't even think of one name!”

I gestured in an attempt to justify myself. “They aren't 'born'. They are still eggs! I figured we have time to think about it.”

“I vote for Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos!” Magnus proclaimed.

Thalia glared at him. “You can't name your babies after the three fates!”

I frowned, trying to remember from where I knew the three fates. Were they talking about this old myth? It annoyed me that Thalia and Magnus shared this trait of quoting old pop culture since I couldn't join in for the most part. “Wait... weren't the three fates all sisters? We can't name a boy after a woman!”

Magnus snapped his fingers. “Damn! What other folklore is there with two sisters and a brother? We already have red, blue, and green. If we make two more and they turn out the right colours, we can name them after the power rangers.”

“We aren't going to name our kids after some folklore!” I growled. “And no to whatever ‘power rangers’ are!”

Magnus seemed unbothered by my refusal and turned the discussion on its head by throwing the ball into my court. “To be honest, I was never great with names. I am sure you can come up with three great ones, Astra. I’ll leave the affair in your capable hands.”

“What?” My eyes widened at the daunting task.

What if I named my kids and they weren't happy with their names? Would I have to endure their scorn for the rest of my life? I wouldn't be able to have Magnus share the blame! “No! You are going to name at least one of them!”

He looked at me flatly. “And you get to name two? How is that fair?”

Thalia massaged the bridge of her nose. “You two are supposed to come up with a name together. That’s what parents are supposed to do.”

I raised my hands, beseeching the heavens. “You know what? We are not going to have a fight over this. Magnus got a clean bill of health and my father is waiting for us with some presumably important message.”

Reaching out, I linked arms with Magnus and pulled him to his feet. Then I excused us and hurried him out the door.

Incensed about the accusation of being a bad parent, Magnus tried to discuss the issue of names the entire way back to the family's holdings. But I steadfastly refused to make a final decision while we were riled up about the topic.

It wasn't like we didn't have months to consider our decision. I refused to name an egg and call it by name.

What if our doctor had made a mistake with the gender and we ended up giving one of the girls a boy's name? Just no! It was definitely better to wait.

Three-quarters of an hour later we were finally with my parents in the main living room, ready for the next shoe to drop.

“The council of elders had a few heated discussions while Magnus was out for the count,” Teresa began by bringing us up to date. “One of our main concerns was the coming war. Given Earth's interference, violent conflict seems like the most likely outcome. We knew all along that Earth used Tirnanog for experiments, but seeing how far back Earth's machinations truly went rubbed salt into a few old wounds – to say the least.”

“Unfortunately, the council became somewhat paranoid after the assassination attempt on Magnus,” Etan took up the narrative. “Rooting out a huge cell of Forgotten was a good thing, but it also kind of poured oil onto the fire. At this moment, we aren't quite sure who to trust. We don't even know whether there are more Forgotten around. So we have to do something to protect the two of you from further attacks.”

Teresa continued, “Which is why we came up with a plan. It's not like something similar wasn't coming for the two of you anyway after what Magnus brought to the clan. But the council decided to elevate the two of you to the position of protectors of the clan.”

I straightened, almost unable to believe it. This was huge!

“What is a protector?” Magnus asked.

“Uh...” I bit my lip, trying to find an Earth analogy. “Something between a foreign affairs minister, a consul and an ambassador. A protector's task is to represent Aerie in front of other clans when there is no elder available for a diplomatic mission. They have far-reaching rights to make decisions in the absence of an elder.”

Magnus blinked. “How would that help us against a second assassination attempt?”

Etan cleared his throat. “The plan is to remove you two from the sights of further assassins while we comb the entire clan for more Forgotten. In a week or two the snow will be beginning to melt. From there, it will be roughly a month before our airships can fly. The intention is to pay off the Caravaners to start their next trip early and endure the storms. Currently, they are sitting out the winter in Mount Aerie. You two will join them on a diplomatic mission to clan Hochberg.”

Magnus pursed his lips. “Aren't the Caravaners the guys who transport goods between the clans?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“They won't like taking strangers with them, but their beasts of burden can deal with the melting snow and the storms. And once they learn of the reason for the UI popping up in their heads, they will be on our side anyway,” my mother explained.

“You haven't told them?” I asked. “Better question, they were included in the UI's system reset?”

“Apparently so.” Teresa shrugged. “Everyone within Mount Aerie was affected. Clan or no clan. Anyway, you two and a cohort of carefully selected guards will join the Caravaner's expedition to clan Hochberg. Hopefully, this will remove you from the Forgotten's reach while we do a complete sweep of the clan. It should be impossible for Forgotten to hide among the Caras, for they are all as close as family.”

“But,” I interrupted. “What happens once we reach Hochberg? Wouldn't the threat there be just as big as here?”

“Not really.” Etan shook his head. “You will be the clan's representatives. If something happened to you, Hochberg would be in big trouble. And if in doubt, you could stay with the Caravaners until we catch up. They will protect you with all their might until our fleet arrives. Meanwhile, your task will be to prepare them and clan Hochberg for what is to come. Tell them what you learned about the Thich and Earth while you sit and wait for us. The fleet will be one or two weeks behind you.”

“Ah and...” I didn't want to say it, but my gaze went in the direction of my living quarters – and the kids.

Teresa came over to hug me. “I'll look after them for as long as I can and we have already spoken to Mary. She will stay at the mountain and promised to treat them as her own for as long as we are away.”

“Mary!?” Magnus squawked in shock.

When my parents glared at him, he cleared his throat and raised his hands in resignation. “I've said nothing. Mary is fine!”

I sighed. “I hope they don't hatch before the next winter. With my luck, they impress like chicks and call her mom from then on.”

“Don't jinx it!” Magnus hissed and made a strange sign while looking upwards and quickly knocking on the table.