President Allison Morris stood at the head of the briefing room table with her arms crossed. In the room was her entire joint armed services committee, her secretary of national defense, her secretary of national security and six of the most influential senators, and six of the most influential congressmen, the director and deputy director of the NSA, FBI, CIA and ICE. Lastly her chief of staff. She hadn’t been sure what to expect but between the three live body camera feeds she was impressed. Eyre had delivered exactly what she promised. She could see the men and women in the room pissing themselves as the subject tore the guns apart and caused a localized earthquake. The looks on their faces when Eyre stopped it with a command and then put the kid to sleep with the wave her hand were priceless. She’d never seen a bunch of grown people look so scared in her life. When the cameras went dark, she pressed a button on a phone.
“Get me the seismological data for Phoenix Arizona, last ten minutes please.”
She hadn’t prepped it, but her staff were good at their jobs while they waited the assembled officials looked between each other and at the president. Finally, the data showed up on the screen indicating a magnitude 5 event localized to the area the house was in with about a three kilometer span of 3.5. She waited for the information to sink in.
“You are all probably wondering why you were invited here. What you just saw was real time. Most of you are not aware we have been in contact with representatives for a parallel version of Earth. This sort of thing is a common occurrence on their world. They are skilled at dealing with it. We are not. The US is the only country on our planet that has not signed a treaty with these folks. I declared a national emergency today so that I could grant an agent from their world government enforcement powers to acquire the subject. You just witnessed her capture. That agent is a twelve-hundred-year-old vampire she is also the former director of their world police force. She and I have a personal relationship, so she went against her government’s wishes to assist us in this matter. That child she captured is what they define as a PL14. We are now experiencing an upswell in people with powers being born and created by a rogue corporation. Their scale goes up to PL21. I could have sent an entire battalion to stop that girl and she would have turned them into blood splatters. Their tanks into tin foil. We do not have the skills, manpower, or technology to deal with this sort of threat. We need the assistance of these people. Imagine if that girl had been radicalized by an enemy of the United States. She looks no different than a normal human and she is an American citizen. She could travel freely, have a bad day, and then we have a terrorist attack that makes 9/11 look like amateur hour. She tapped a button on her tablet.”
On the screen it showed a grey area devoid of all life the buildings crumbling.
“This is an area on their world they call the Germany Exclusion Zone. In 1942 three super powered individuals engaged in combat in Berlin, Germany. Their fight caused collateral damage on an unimaginable scale. This exclusion zone is 300000 square kilometers. All life was destroyed within the exclusion area. I repeat, all life down to the smallest microbe, no viruses, no bacteria, no plants, no animals and no humans. Fifty-five million people died in an instant. One second, they were alive, and the next they were dead and all they did wrong was living in Germany. If I had not authorized the action, you witnessed tonight that could have been the southwestern united states.”
She flipped to a new slide.
“They call this event the Siberian Prominence. On their scale a PL19 super villain is the term they use, declared Siberia an independent state. The Soviet Union asked for help because a PL19 is capable of devastation on a continental scale. The organization they call MANA sent their most powerful super, a PL20. So, you understand their scaling, that is a being who without outside assistance and with a snap of their fingers can end all life on the planet. What you’re seeing is drone footage of the remnants of that battle. A blasted moonscape. With these beings being born on our world this is our future.”
Her national defense secretary shook her head.
“This can’t be real.”
“I said the same thing when I was briefed.”
One of the Democratic Senators, her opposition party spoke up.
“You’ve known about this threat since you took office?”
“Yes, we have been aware of this threat since 1974. Our world was considered low possibility of superpower development. However, BMC, a Canadian Corporation has been using a retrovirus to genetically engineer superpowers into people using vaccines. For once the conspiracy theorists got it right.”
She flipped to a new slide.
“This is a BMC facility that was a converted nuclear shelter the Canadian government built into the Canadian shield near Lake Superior. This is satellite images 2024 as you can see its thriving. Satellite image from January, 2025. It’s a debris filled crater.”
“What happened?”
“It was a secret facility BMC was using to house the super powered individuals they were creating. They were looking for a specific mix of abilities. My daughter, who you all believe is deceased, is not deceased and was in fact infected by a cybernetic nanite plague by these individuals. They captured her, this is what she did in her escape. The nanite plague is alien in origin. She used that alien knowledge to craft a series of mini satellites each has a super-tech rail gun built into it and each one is capable of an impact with the same energy as the bomb used on Nagasaki. When she was captured, she used one to attack the facility she was in. Our intelligence suggests she let them capture her so she could locate this facility and assault it. She liberated four super powered beings; The rest died due to fail safes. When she was exiting, she detonated a thermonuclear weapon. This is the result.”
“Your daughter sounds as dangerous as the girl you captured, what are you doing about her?”
“I authorized the agent you saw in action tonight to take my daughter to their world; They call it Earth Prime. She is currently assisting them in reverse engineering technology that was brought back in time. She starts school at a facility specifically designed to handle beings with these capabilities in the fall. She is also using the alien knowledge she has acquired to create new pieces of equipment. As part of my agreement with the World government on that world, they are sharing these advances with me. I will be providing the specifications for three new advancements to selected corporations in the near future. Holographic displays, holographic tablets and cold fusion reactors. I am told room temperature consumer quantum computer chips are nearing the prototype stage.”
The table was full of murmurs.
“I did not violate my oath of office, or betray the US government, I simply enrolled my daughter who was being hunted by BMC in an educational program that was suited to her needs and was safely out of the reach of BMC. Any technology I receive that has civilian applications will be patented and access sold to American corporations. Anything that is specifically military will be provided to the US government free of charge and classified top secret. If you want to condemn me for wanting my child to be safe you can feel free to do so, but I have singlehandedly put the US back on the top of the tech race.”
“So, this girl, the one tonight, she will be taken to their world?”
“Yes.”
“She is a US citizen. There are laws.”
“My Emergency Declaration and subsequent executive orders allow me to authorize the suspension of the rights and privileges of super powered individuals considered a risk to the general populace and to national security.”
“Allison that is slippery slope.”
“That’s madame president to you Skip.”
“Still my point stands. Who loses their rights next?”
“My order was modeled after the ones used to authorize Gitmo and the suspension of rights of suspected terrorists.”
“You don’t need us to authorize that, none of us can stop you, and I don’t think any of us want too, moral conundrums aside. I’m scared shitless of these people and what it could mean for my children.”
“And if this gets out that it is why we will have a mass panic on our hands. Look, these people, these Earth Prime people, they don’t need our permission, they are so far ahead of us with technology that even without superpowers they could conquer our world in a matter of days. And they have magic and superpowers on top of a massive technological advantage. That is what impresses me most. There has been no threat of invasion in over fifty years they have respected the sovereignty of our world and governments. The agent that took part in the capture of that girl tonight, was in my offices two nights ago, begging me to let her help us. She couldn’t because we refused to sign this treaty.”
“What do we get for signing?”
She changed the slide.
“This is the treaty, I can make copies available to any who would like to dig deeper. Again, this is all the highest classification of secret. If this gets out, we will have panic in the streets. We get their assistance in policing super powered individuals. They will partner with a new government agency that will be created. It won’t need much funding or people wise. It will exist solely as a cover for their covert actions on our behalf and as a monitoring operation to ensure they are following the laws laid out in the treaty and our laws while here. So, what we get is, their people, and their intelligence briefs. Right now, any super event on this planet is reported to every single government but us. Do you know what kind of disadvantage that is?”
“What do we have to give up?”
“The right to stop them from removing super-powered people from our country. Basically, if we sign this, we agree to hand over all enforcement, punishment and re-education of these individuals to them. We agree to their laws regarding these individuals. We will not employ them in military positions or spy organizations. We agree to them taking them to their world and keeping them there and out of our hair.”
“So basically, they can come into our country, grab American citizens off the street and just take them away?”
“In the most basic terms yes. But do we want these people here? You saw what I saw, one of them has a bad day, fifty-five million people die. They have facilities and containment for these sorts of risks we do not, and I’m not sure about you, I do not have the balls to tell the American people that I need one hundred and fifty more trillion dollars per year to deal with the three of them that might be born in the next twenty years.”
Allison paused.
“Look our constitution was written by brilliant men who valued freedom and self-rule, but they had no idea some of the threats we would face. As forward thinking as they were they’d try to burn these people at the stake. I need congress and the senate to approve this treaty and I need the American people to not really understand what we’re doing. The bleeding hearts will cry but they’re humans too. But I would rather impinge on the rights of one child then risk fifty-five million American lives on a gamble that kid will be well-balanced, not sexually molested, and not bullied. How about you?”
She looked around the table.
“What is our money into this?”
“Minor if anything. They supply the people, they supply the tech, we supply the land. We allow them to use witness protection to help them vanish people and families.”
“Sounds like it’s too good to be true.”
“You have not spoken to their reps. These people aren’t here because they want something, they’re here because they are afraid for us. I see it in their eyes. They have seen some shit, especially the agent you saw tonight. She’s been dealing with this for over eighty years. She risked her life and her career to get this girl out of our hair. Yes, she wants to help the girl as much as she wants to help us.”
“What do you mean vanish people and families?”
“They are offering to give sanctuary to the super-powered individuals and any family, close or extended. You see they have lost over two billion people to these beings. Not including those who weren’t born that should have been when you look at us. They have a population of three billion. They have the space to bring an entire family and transplant them.”
“If it is parallel then don’t we exist there too?”
“Actually no, I’m not sure I understand half of it clearly but there is a small chance there is another you or me over there, apparently it is confined to certain rare individuals.”
“What about normal people, what if I decide screw this overpopulated hell hole, I want to go there… can I?”
“There are provisions for that in the treaty. But there is no hopping back and forth once you’re there, you’re there. They try to minimize back and forthitis I believe it was called. Our planets have developed down very different paths. Our diseases are not their diseases and vice versa.”
“Isn’t there a risk of them bringing something with them?”
“No, they have a thorough process to ensure that doesn’t happen. Typically, they use agents who are immune to disease, such as the one you saw tonight, she’s a vampire she literally can’t carry or catch a disease. As part of the treaty, they also provide us with broad spectrum T-cell enhancers. Functionally what this does is enhances our immune systems to the point where it would take a biological warfare class of virus or bacteria to cause severe illness.”
“And what does that cost us?”
“The manufacturing costs. It basically makes disease a thing of the past. They have also developed synthetic blood that is neutral. Organic organ replacements. If we sign the treaty that is what we can look forward too. They have not been able to provide these advancements to anyone because we have been the lone holdout. Our stubbornness is basically responsible for the last pandemic. If we had T-cell enhancement there is no way it would have been as deadly. Also, they are the reason we didn’t lose half our world population, they are the ones who developed the vaccine, their technology. They provided the specifications to drug companies capable of manufacturing it. Look people we have a chance to be better than the idiots that came before us and at the same time make our country safer.”
“For now, its harmless but what about when there is a change in leadership?”
“We aren’t making a deal with their version of the US, or Russia, we’re making a deal with their independent world government. Each country over there has sovereignty over their normal citizens but the real power is the Earth Gov. They have the biggest army; They have all the supers they make the treaties. The other governments over there do not have any say on these.”
“So, the supers run their world?”
“No. Anyone can run or hold a public office. There are some restrictions such as if they are a certain power level, they need to attend education to be licensed to take part in society. Refusal to get educated gets them arrested and locked up. Refusal to follow the laws is the same thing. I am not saying they are society to look up to. They are hard core. They don’t fuck around with supers over there. They assume they are going go bad. The most powerful ones are tracked in real time with satellites tasked specifically to them. If we had lost 2 billion people to them, we would be same way, but we have chance not to be.”
“What about immigration in this direction?”
“That is up to individual countries on this side certain countries are more open than others. Some are strict about who they allow. Japan for example will only allow Japanese immigrants. Canada is more open minded; Scotland allows anyone of Scottish ancestry. For us, that is a policy we set.”
Allison leaned on the table.
“Look I could use my emergency powers to make this happen and I doubt any of you seated here would resist me and you would probably convince your parties to jump in line after what I showed you. I am not going to do that, that is something my predecessor would do to show he had a big dick. I value your input, all of your input, whether you’re my party or not. That’s why you were invited to see this. I have been asked to extend the invitation to anyone here who would like to go across and see for yourselves. There is paperwork of course you will need to take two doses of T-Cell enhancer and wait two weeks for full protection before you can go. I would dearly love to see this world that they have built and my daughter, but I will not leave this world so long as I’m the President. So, I have to depend on your eyes and ears. My chief of staff can get you into contact with the proper people.”
“Can we meet the agent?”
“I am afraid she is not available. She is actually retired from active duty and was only here as a favor for me. She is the headmistress of the academy that teaches supers to control their powers and ensures they are aware of the ones that are going to abuse them. I do have another one of their representatives.”
She pressed a button on her phone.
“Please send in Ms. Aurelius.”
The door opened and a woman who looked to be eighteen years old entered. She was in a professional looking dress and her hair was tied into a bun. She had a holo-tablet around her wrist.
“Please introduce yourself.”
The young woman looked over the assembled staff.
“I am Helen Aurelius, Eyre, who you just saw in action is my adoptive sister. I am also a vampire.”
She opened her mouth and extended her fangs.
“You see an eighteen-year-old girl before you, I am closer to one hundred years old chronologically. On my Earth I am classified as a PL20T-17-12M. What that translates to is I am capable of time travel without magical or technological assistance. I am also classified as an entity powerful enough to mentally influence a major city, such as New York. I am capable of throwing a train engine, I can alter time.”
She vanished and appeared beside the president.
“Such that I could kill everyone in this room before one of you were able to mount a defense.”
She walked back to the display.
“I am not trying to threaten you or scare you, just being open and honest. These are the things we assess when we find a superpowered individual. Lastly 12M means I am a magic user of moderate ability. My sister is a PL17-15M. She is capable of far more impressive magic then I am. It is a pleasure to meet you all. Do you have any questions?”
“What do you mean mental influence?”
“I can demonstrate. Do I have any volunteers?”
The youngest person there one of the democratic Senators held up his hand.
“I’ll volunteer.”
“Please join me, senator.”
Helen motioned to a spot beside her. He walked over to her.
“Do you have anything you would like change about yourself? Or should I just put you to sleep?”
“How about smoking, can you stop me from doing that?”
“Of course, simple. I’ll also put you to sleep to demonstrate.”
She looked in his eyes. Once their gaze met, he stopped moving and stared at her.
“Remember: You hate cigarettes the smell disgusts you. The taste disgusts you. When you feel the urge to smoke one you will remember that, and you will throw it out.”
She reached out her arm.
“Sleep.”
He fell into her arms, and she picked him up and put him in his chair. She tapped his cheek.
“Senator, wake up.”
He blinked awake and looked at her in confusion.
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“How did I get back here?”
“You fell asleep on your feet.”
She smiled at him and walked to the front of the room. The cigarette he’d been spinning his hand was almost immediately thrown in the garbage. One of the military brass shrugged.
“That’s just hypnotism.”
“It looks like it is just hypnotism, but it is far more. I can rewrite someone’s memories. I could have made him think he was Richard Nixon and it would have been permanent. Nothing anyone would do could convince him otherwise. I can also make someone forget everything about themselves. I could have completely reversed his outlook on politics. Anything really given enough time.”
“How do they trust you to walk around with that power?”
“Good question, I have proven myself trustworthy. I do not use the power lightly.”
“That was one person.”
Hazel let her charismatic aura seep out they started looking to her with adoration. She pulled it back in. Leaving them all blinking and looking at each other.
“Not direct control but I can cause an entire crowds’ opinion to shift if they are paying attention to me, for good or ill. Send them home peacefully or riot.”
They all looked at her with a little bit of fear.
“What do you do?”
“I am an Agent for MANA. I engage hostile superpowered beings and imprison them as required. I am currently on loan to the Aurelius Academy as an instructor in hand-to-hand combat and blade.”
“So, you’re basically an FBI agent, do you have a badge?”
“Closer to Interpol, or a UN Peacekeeper, I am authorized to enforce all Earth Gov laws as well as laws in sovereign states that are bound by treaty. If you were to sign the treaty, myself or someone like me would be stationed in your country and we would enforce the laws surrounding supers. On occasion during certain situations that normal authorities cannot handle we will assist as requested. An example of that would include a school invasion with explosives and hostages. We would assist in suppressing armed resistance and removing bombs and rescuing innocents. We also assist with suppressing terrorist activities both super and N-Mag. I’m sure you’ve noticed many countries have had a marked decrease in terrorist attacks.”
One of them held up his hand she pointed to him.
“What does N-Mag mean?”
“Nil-Magic. Our way of referring to non-super humans. It is not derogatory just our shorthand like LZ, or Exfil. I’m sure those of you who have law-enforcement or military background understand.”
“So, would you, on your Earth be considered civilian or military?”
“Neither. I am considered a Super.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We have civilian authorities; We have militaries, and we have supers. Militaries deal with external conflict, civilian authorities deal with N-mag crime, and Supers deal with Supers. Only under certain circumstances like those outlined above would a super take part in civilian police actions. And we never take part in armed conflict between countries. It is forbidden under law. If two countries want to fight, they, do it with conventional means, any use of superpowers or magic results in swift and efficient justice for the supers involved and sanctions against the country harboring them. Supers battling supers in a war is like nuclear war, there are no winners, only losers. It is a lesson that was learned the hard way by the humans of our earth.”
“Are your intentions pure?”
“Even if they weren’t we could make you believe they were. Look this is about trusting us. While I can make that happen it is against our laws. We are here to help. You don’t trust us because you think we’re looking for something, we are, to keep you safe from supers and yourselves. We have explored well over six thousand parallel earths. There are precisely three earths we have found to be one hundred percent stable. Some we have found lasted for milliseconds, others decades, some are still here. We have seen every variation you can imagine: What if the Nazi’s won World War 2? What happened if the US never declared independence? What happened if the Cuban missile crisis started World War III? We have seen it; Do you know what the majority of those six thousand plus earths have in common?”
She looked around.
“That all life on them was destroyed by natural disaster, asteroid, nuclear war, superpowered apocalypse, super volcano, life never got started. Ninety percent of Earths we have encountered have no life on them whatsoever. We are the rare exception. Worlds like ours. So, when we find one, we do our best to make sure it stays alive and well. We have seen too many mistakes made by other versions of ourselves. It is like mourning the human race over and over and over again. We do not want to mourn you. We are not superior to you, we are not inferior to you, we are you, you are us. If we harm you, we harm ourselves. That is the philosophy of Earth Gov and MANA. When you sign the treaty, we will share all data we have on alternate earths and our explorations and our findings. We are not selfish or self-centered. We understand that you, our closest neighbors lack some of our technological advancements and we also know if we lift one country up over the others, we will create an unstable situation.”
“You say this other Agent is your sister, who is your mother I assume she’s a vampire so is probably still alive?”
“No, she died, she sacrificed herself to save the multiverse. Officially the 1942 Event as we call it involved three PL21 entities and my mother and myself. My mother was the most powerful non-PL21 entity we were aware of. There was a PL21 entity our designation is Subject 2 – 1942 Event, he was also known as the Black Son. He was a primordial entity that came into being shortly after the big bang. His one goal was to tear apart creation, that is every single parallel world, the universe, everything. My mother’s last act was to destroy him, she was killed in the process. Every living creation on every world and every earth owes her their lives.”
“So, this Subject 2, what was he?”
“You’re asking questions that are going to start getting into what you would consider sensitive territory. We are aware of some things you are not. Basically, we’re going to start messing with people’s religious sensibilities.”
The president was intrigued.
“Please go on Helen.”
Helen nodded.
“God exists. I did not speak to him directly, but my mother did in my presence, full on there he was talking to her, and I could understand him. I was six months a vampire. It was in Lincolnshire 12th century AD. Archangels exist, Angels exist, heaven exists, hell exists. Jesus was real, my mother traveled with him and saw him crucified. God created three beings at the dawn of time. Sextus, the first vampire, Remus, his brother and Cronos. Cronos, or the Black Son was the first born. Basically, I’m talking about mythical figures here. Titans, whatever you want to call them. The three brothers, God, Archangels these beings are so powerful they can alter reality at a whim. We consider them PL21. There are no known people born with that sort of power that we are aware. We are insects to them, even our most powerful super is nothing compared to a being that can literally will galaxies into or out of existence.”
“Do you consider yourself religious? Do you worship any belief system?”
“I was born and baptized and will die a Catholic senator.”
“So, you know God exists and you still have faith?”
“I do, I go to mass every Sunday and try to observe as many holy days as my job allows.”
“Who is Subject 1?”
“Subject 1 is, was an Archangel named Seraph. She wasn’t there to cause an apocalyptic attack on Germany, she was there to stop Lucifer. When my mother defeated the Black Son the first time, she caused tears in the fabric of existence. Hell developed a leak so to speak. Seraph and my mother were trying to fix those tears. As part of that they were tasked by God with either destroying demons outright or sending them back to Hell. Lucifer was the last and most powerful to escape and he brought the Black Son onto the game board. In so doing my mother and Seraph were forced to make a terrible choice. Kill 55 million people or let all of creation unravel and be remade by the literal devil and his mentor. They chose to save the countless intelligent beings that exist across all universes. Seraph sent myself and a pair of Seers, vampire enforcers, out of the zone. And engaged in the battle alone. That is the official story because that is all that can be corroborated.”
“What is the unofficial story? Off the record so to speak?”
“Subject 1 was my mother’s true form. She was the Archangel Seraph. Her sacrifice destroyed Lucifer and the Black Son and the energy that was her stabilized reality.”
There was murmur.
“So, the agent from earlier is half-angel?”
“No, my mother’s true form was incapable of having children. She had a mortal human form that she would use for that purpose.”
“What would your mother say to us if she were here and not you?”
“Do you want a direct quote, or should I edit for vulgarity?”
“Direct quote please.”
She looked to the ceiling as if asking for forgiveness.
“Get your fucking heads out of your collective motherfucking asses and do what’s best for your people.”
There was a bit of laughter.
“That was my mother. She was vulgar, she was sacrilegious, and she had no fear except for the safety of her children. I believe she was an Archangel and I know she was a Canonized Saint. She told Jesus that she was going to drag his ass back to Rome by his ear if he wouldn’t see reason and flee from what was coming. She was also a precog, as am I.”
“But she didn’t?”
“She never told me what he said to her to change her mind, but against her every instinct she let him go through with it. She had the same gift I do, which is I can see the true nature of what I see. So, I suspect, though I can never say for sure, that she knew him to be God in a mortal form and did not interfere.”
“Could you tell us more about yourself, where you were born, how you grew up?”
The president spoke up.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are here to discuss the treaty not the personal history of their representative.”
One of the Democratic Senators, a fundamentalist Christian who had asked the question spoke up.
“Madame President, I think the person they selected to speak on their behalf’s morals and personal history are pertinent, I want to know if they are like us, or we have some fundamental differences.”
Helen nodded.
“It is alright Madame President, I am an open book, I have no secrets. I am long past being bashful about my origins.”
The president nodded for Helen to proceed.
“As I said, I was born in the 12th century. My mother, my biological mother was raped, and I was the product of that rape. The liege of the noble who committed the crime took us in and I was raised as a maid in that household I was a serf at worst a peasant at best. My mother was disturbed by my insights because I was born as a precog and seer. She also assumed I had the devil in me even though I was baptized and attended confession regularly, also she was afraid I would endanger our place at the Lord’s home. So, any misstep, any wrong question, any mistake was met with repeated lashings with a switch. If you feel it necessary, I can show you the scars. This was my life until I was twelve years old. That is when an Archangel showed up out of nowhere with her daughter. My adoptive mother was going by the name of Lady Sarah. She chastised my mother for her abuse and took me under her wing. When my biological mother died of natural causes Lady Sarah and Lord Arl took me in as their own. Lady Sarah, AKA Enid, noticed my gift right away and told me that she would make me immortal if I wanted, and only if I wanted and only once I reached adulthood. I accepted her gift and accompanied on her adventures.”
“You said you’re Catholic, was your Adopted Mother Catholic?”
“My mother’s religion is a debate. She was possibly an Archangel, the event… messed with some of my memories, but if she was, she was literally God’s biological daughter. First among his host and favored of his children he called her. So, while our relationship as Christians is more along the lines of that’s God, he is the creator and I am following his teachings, it was more like a father daughter thing. My sister Hazel told me about an argument they had. My mother watched the daughter of a man she loved very much die. She knew that daughter wasn’t going to Heaven because an Angel would have to pull them out of the Deadlands and pull her to Heaven she was angry and distraught, so she spent a good fifteen minutes cursing God for his inability to help the souls there threatening to tell everyone about the future and cause a massive paradox. God sent a warning to her in the form of several lightning bolts, she sent them right back at him. By the same token when my mother was stuck in a mortal form caring for a Baby and allowed herself to get tortured and raped and almost died to protect my sister. He came to her and comforted her dreams while she recovered like a loving father, when she argued with Michael, yes, the Archangel, her father came and told her the truth of her origins. If you have a daughter, that is the relationship she had with him. My mother was baptized by John the Baptist. She attended church regularly when she was in the twelfth century. She built a cathedral with her own funds in the 14th century. So, if I had to give her a religion I would say, Roman Catholic.”
“What about this other agent, Eyre. What is she?”
“She is also Catholic. We were both born in Europe in the Middle Ages. If you weren’t Catholic, you were a heretic.”
There were nods around the table.
“I want to know more about your personal history, if you could, what is your favorite memory?”
Helen thought for a moment then tapped her holo-tablet and swept a picture to the screen.
“This one, it was my second trip through time. That is my mother, in the center, me of course, I was six months a vampire and the left is my sister Hazel, she was my mother’s biological daughter. My sister is eating pizza and I’m eating my first hamburger. And that town in the background was Port Royal. My mother traveled into the 29th century got us take out and brought it back for us. We sat there and watched the sun rise over a town full of pirates. We were there to deal with a demon, technically a fallen angel in that case who had escaped Hell.”
“And those black body suits what is that?”
“That is Atlantean body armor. Yes, that Atlantis. It is magical, or seems to be, if it is technological, it is so far beyond us it may as well be magic. The thing on my sister’s wrist, and my wrist are holo-tablets, and the necklaces are Holo-webs. Capable of creating a holographic disguise, or at least appear as if we’re wearing period appropriate clothing. I am wearing a more advanced version of it.”
She tapped her neck and the image of her dress shimmered and she was in her armor with her sword strapped to her back and a pistol in a conceal holster. There were gasps all around. She tapped it and it shimmered around her again showing her professional attire.
“This behind my ear.”
She pulled it off and showed them it was just a small boomerang like thing that was easily covered by her hair and ear, she placed it back on.
“Is a translator. It translates languages for me real time and as I think of words it provides me the translation so I can appear to speak most languages. It has a quantum processor built in and it can learn new languages real time as they are spoken around it. It is 29th century technology my mother procured. We are still trying to reverse engineer it.”
“So, most of your tech came from the future?”
“Yes. My sister and I debated using it at all, we could change the timeline, but then we realized that the timeline was already completely off the rails. In the original history of my world, everything proceeded exactly as it has here. No 1942 event, no super powered individuals until the late 2020’s.”
“Did you see the 29th century personally?”
“Yes. But I am also incapable of traveling there myself. I can only go to the past. Going to the future is impossible for non-PL21s”
“But your mother could go.”
“Yes, and she could take people with her. Like I said my mother was an Archangel, unofficially of course, because my government refuses to listen to me, so she was connected to all time and space at once. She could go to the heat death of the universe, or the big bang.”
“What do you know of that future?”
“That Amee Morris, the president’s daughter, caused an ice age with nanites to save humanity from being erased from time by aliens. That in that future, Amee was de facto ruler of an entire solar system of colonies, and several extra-solar colonies. And a few outposts in the Andromeda Galaxy. We assumed that was in store for your world before we brought her to ours.”
“How many people died in that?”
“Well over 6.8 billion. In that 29th century most of the earth was covered in glaciers with only spots near the equator being habitable and the majority of humans live in domed megacities. Or on colonies of similar construction, by that time Mars had been terraformed and was technically a better place to live then Earth.”
“Jesus.”
“Those humans, compared to most worlds we have seen, they were doing great. They had FTL capable spaceships with weapons that make our current armaments look like muskets.”
“Do you think it will still happen?”
“Not likely with the assistance of Amee we have developed planetary temporal shielding. Once the treaty is signed by the USA here you will have it too.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if I go back in your history and I screw with your timeline anything shielded will not change. The race that was going to wipe us out in 2038 does so by going to the distant past and wiping out our evolutionary ancestors. My sister Hazel and I destroyed their research facility in the 18th century. A demon was providing them with the tech to start their temporal genocide. I hope we prevented them from even starting.”
“But you said there is a God and he created us. Why would he allow this?”
“Yes, I did, but he didn’t make humans like us. He made the first humans, who interbred with evolved apes. Our genetics were dominant. As for why? I would not presume to speak for God.”
“This alien race, are they human?”
“No, they are…draconic, lizard based sentient life forms.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll just come and wipe you out with conventional means?”
“They are welcome to try, but unlike your world our nuclear arsenal is no longer on our planet’s surface and is instead just outside the moon’s orbit for planetary defense. Like I said if our countries want to fight each other they are free to do so, but they need to use conventional warfare. Nuclear weapons are banned within earth local space and on the surface. Also, we have battle mages and supers.”
“You seem pretty confident, is there a reason for that?”
Helen tapped her wrist again and sent a video to the screen.
“This was recorded in the 29th century, the ship you are about see was one kilometer long and had armor that would turn aside 100 megaton Nuclear blasts. The figure you see at the bottom is a Vampire ancient.”
She pressed play. There was a single figure and all of a sudden, the glacier shattered under its feet. There were gasps as the vampire pulled their hands apart and tore the ship in half with telekinesis.
“One vampire ancient, vs a fully armored and armed dreadnought and one continental glacier.”
There were murmurs around the table, a few gasps, looks of disbelief. She pointed at the screen.
“There are no less than six of those on my Earth at this time. One of them is a teacher at the Academy. Like I said the Silwrath can try, but I suspect they will fail. And if they try it will be enough to get the governments of my earth off their collective ass’s and start building the space fleet we’ve been asking for. I should also note that the subject you saw apprehended tonight seems to share that talent. She could likely crush that ship like it was an aluminum can.”
“You have that kind of power at your disposal, and you are still asking for our cooperation?”
“Yes, for one important reason, if we ignore your sovereignty and impose our will then why bother having laws at all? The strongest rule. We recognized in 1942 when the Munich Accord was signed that we needed strong laws and they would need to apply to everyone equally or the world would descend into chaos and that the German Exclusion zone would be just a precursor of what was to come. This was reinforced when Japan detonated a magic-based weapon on US soil during the closing years of World War 2. Their bomber missed and by some miracle New York City was spared, Ellis Island was not. Four thousand soldiers were mutated into monsters and tore the island apart and then each other. In retaliation the US dropped three nuclear weapons on Japan, one was magically enhanced. It killed seven million people and was many magnitudes stronger then even your most advanced nuclear weapon. If the Japanese weapon had hit New York City the US would have been devastated. With the sailors isolated to an island the US, with our assistance, was able to bring a tragic, but swift end to what could have been a terrible plague.”
They all looked at each other and to her again. She showed them pictures and videos of the aftermath.
“If it sounds like I’m trying to scare you it is because I am. This is real. This is a clear and present danger to your world. The girl that was captured tonight is the first of many to come, do not make the same mistakes we made. Get ahead of the threat. Profit from our successes in containment and training of these super humans and improve the quality of life of your citizens. We have one goal and that is to make the multiverse safer. Make humanity safer, make it better. We consider you brothers and sisters to us, not beings from an alien world, please treat us like that too. Your older more experienced siblings who have seen the best and worst of creation.”
“If you’re so beneficial to us, why are these deals being made in the shadows?”
“Because your country can’t even get through an election these days without riots and your government offices being overrun by citizens who have been radicalized by one party or the other. If you put this up for debate in the public, you will have five hundred million opinions, social media conspiracy theories and God knows what else. Look, African Americans in your country still can’t walk down the street without worrying if this will be the day, they are found guilty of being dark skinned. What do you think your people will do when they find out there are actual super humans among you?”
“Your world seems to have come out fine with this stuff in the open.”
“Our world had no choice. 55 million people dying and people spontaneously developing powers while eating breakfast at the local diner. We have had eighty years to come to terms with this reality and when it started happening, we barely had a tv network. With social media, instant access news, your country, your world will be thrown into chaos. And it’s not like we don’t have people assaulting supers in the streets. The vast majority of these beings on our world are PL1, that means they are basically just off-human, maybe they have camo skin, maybe they have cat eyes and can see in the dark. Maybe they have bat wings. They are basically humans with a single mutation. They get assaulted all the time, hate crimes. And I will be honest, we consider all supers, no matter what PL guilty until proven innocent. We have to because again the law has to apply equally to all. So, if a PL1 commits a crime it is treated as if they were a PL20. We do not change punishments based on the risk they pose. If a PL1 has a hostage, the response team will assume they are a PL20. Anything less we risk another Germany or another Siberia.”
“That seems a bit harsh and almost…racist.”
“You are absolutely right, our laws for supers are harsh. That is because supers need to be held to a higher level of standard then a normal human because we are dangerous. We can easily overwhelm normal humans so for normal humans to be our equals we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. It is easy for supers, especially vampires to consider humans a lesser species. For millennia you were basically cows to vampires. Did you care what a cow’s hopes and dreams were when you were eating your steak dinner last night? Many vampires, especially ancients thought that way until we readjusted their moral compass. To a super like that girl, you would basically be an ant under her boot. I’m not saying she is going to turn out like that but left uneducated and to their own device’s supers can turn bad. And the bad ones, are really bad and can do a lot of damage.”
“Why did your government send you and not a diplomat?”
“Because I was by the edge of the exclusion zone when the event happened. I watched men, women, children just going about their lives torn to shreds by entropic energy and I was powerless to stop it. I saw the damage supers can do on the ground, in the thick of it and so when I speak, I’m not some diplomat reciting history, I lived it and I saw it and I experienced it, the chaos, the helplessness our struggle to make sense of it, our struggle to survive it. Also, as a vampire I am immune to diseases and am capable of undergoing the rigorous decontamination process to travel to a non T-cell enhanced world. And I am young, I’m barely older than one of your parents is at this point and am much more relatable then a four-thousand-year-old vampire.”
“What is your decontamination process?”
“Forgive me, but I am not familiar with the scientific specifics of it, I am a soldier, and I was raised in an era when there were no schools. From what I understand it I’m bombarded with enough radiation to destroy any living organic matter on my person. Virus and bacteria included. Since I am clinically dead, my organic matter is immune to radiation damage. I believe I heard one scientist say my cells are involatile and cannot be changed or mutated and my body forces them to reset to their original state when I was turned. It is why we don’t age.”
“How do you gain new memories then?”
Helen laughed for the first time since she had arrived.
“You’re asking the wrong person; We have scientists who have researched that for decades.”
“If we are going to go between worlds to see this for ourselves as the offer has been extended, how do we get decontaminated?”
“Your process is different than mine. I walk in a room, get zapped, I walk through a clean tunnel to the portal and into the world. For you it’s a month-long process, two-week quarantine in a clean environment on this side, two-week quarantine on my world coming back. Antimicrobial showers, complete medical diagnostic scans. We are thorough, we are trying to help you save your world, not end it with a pandemic you have no acquired resistance too. And of course, the two-stage t-cell enhancement so that once you are on our world you do not catch anything, another two weeks, however you can receive the T-cell a week ahead of time the second, and then go into your quarantine on this side. We still have outbreaks, but they are minor in nature and rarely fatal without some sort of compounding factor, at least in first world countries. Some of them just refuse to let us help them. We assume it will be much the same here.”
“So, you have poor countries as well?”
“We have all the same problems you have, droughts, underdeveloped countries with poor water quality and poor food stability. Uneducated children, extremists, racism, inter-country sniping and dick swinging. We are not a utopia by any stretch of the means. For the same reason we don’t force our beliefs and laws on you, we don’t with them. We still use too many fossil fuels. We are on the cusp of becoming something more. With Fusion power and super-efficient solar power, we will be able to get past that. Our global warming problem is not as exacerbated as yours because we simply have less people. Again, this is what I’m told, I have no idea what causes global warming, I leave that sort of thing up to the very educated humans and do my best to keep them safe from people like me who have gone rogue.”
“Thank you for your time, Agent Aurelius.”
Helen nodded and swept up a phone number and an email address.
“This is how to contact me, if you have any further questions, or questions you did not feel comfortable asking in this session, I will be available for the next two months on your world as a sign of good faith I am on loan to you until the new school year starts. I am to assist you in law enforcement as our laws permit and to be available for any of your informational needs whether it be an open senate hearing, or more private briefings. For most intents and purposes, I answer directly to your president for the next two months.”