It isn't long after that the meeting starts back up. We all filter into the conference room, the humans' progress on the signal the main topic of discussion. The meeting starts almost two hours later than expected as a result. The more time I spend with them, the more I realize elders are just like people. They gossip, worry, and talk around the water cooler. They brag about their children and clans, and boast their own accomplishments.
And this "upheaval" as they call it, appears to be the most interesting thing any of them have seen for a long time. Which makes it as difficult to get them to sit down and pay attention as trying to force a bunch of seven year olds to take an exam during a birthday party with a bouncy castle and cake.
The chatter is what is really interesting, though, and I find myself regretting the start of the meeting. I have learned more about the races and their capabilities and shortfalls in the last two hours than I had from the months of reading Damian, I mean Loki, made me do when I was first turned. All kinds of tidbits. Like, I knew that sirens were intersex, but I did not know that they worked hard to ensure an equal balance of genders in a room—so much so that people will switch genders if the balance is wrong or otherwise avoid forming an odd numbered group.
Fascinating.
Samara and Isis are the last to arrive. It is almost like the elders were stalling until they came in, covered in blood and crestfallen.
"We lost the pregnant werewolf," Samara reports to the group crestfallen. Isis has tears in her eyes she refuses to let fall.
The room turns somber. Zeev and Minsi leave to visit their fallen sister. Howling is heard in the hall as they mourn. We wait for them in silence. They return about ten minutes later.
Once everyone is settled, Oberon asks if he can take the blood spilled on their clothing. They all agree and it flows from their cloths and hands through the air to coalesce into a gem in his hand. He hands the gem to Zeev making clear that it is freely given.
I knew the fey could take with their words, but I had never seen the magic of it before. All the fey I have met have avoided asking questions like that. It makes me realize how dangerous many of the people in this room are and that I have become far too complacent around them.
"The humans have fully deciphered the message, and appear to be coming together to form a response. I estimate it will be less than a week before they are able to respond," Loki starts the meeting.
"According to our seeres, they will send a response on Friday." Balin, the other wix representative says.
"Our seers agree with yours," Lilith says.
"How are they figuring the technology out so fast?" Surya the phoenix asks. "I thought they were about a decade away from that kind of technology."
"That would be my fault," Hestia says, "I may have given them a little too much help. Made it a little too easy to assemble the component parts."
"And when humans decide to do something, they go all in," I point out. "This is big. Big enough that they are overcoming their differences. Almost every war has a temporary armistice in place. Scientific funding is through the roof. They want to see this through, and they will."
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"That gives us four days to prepare," Inari points out, "is that enough time?"
"If we work around the clock, we can have the terraforming team assembled and ready to go, but we would still need transportation," Thor offers. The rest of us on the terraforming team nod our heads in agreement.
"The transportation team doesn't have anything yet." Puck shakes her head, "We haven't figured out how to fairy circle there without a closing circle, and mars is out of range of phoenix fire. We were looking at human technology, but they aren't quite there yet. At least not to a point where we could have something ready in four days."
"Alyssa actually came up with an interesting idea while you all were watching the news earlier," Loki turns to me, "Would you like to present it?"
"Uh… sure." I wasn't expecting to be put on the spot, so I hastily put my coffee down and it spilled. Everywhere. Oberon snickered, and many other elders tried not to smile, while Oberon used his magic to clean it up. "So, the humans sending the signal counts as them contacting our extraterrestrial brethren first, right?" The elders old enough to remember the exact wording of the agreement nod, "is there any reason we couldn't piggyback off their signal, either by sending a signal inside theirs or just after they send their signal explaining our situation?"
"What would that do besides show our hand and encourage them to obliterate the humans from space?" Lugh asks.
"Well, they have ships. If they know our intentions and that we think this is the push needed to bring humanity together the way you always intended, couldn't they help us? Maybe we could evacuate our people to the ships while the terraforming team are working on mars? Don't they also know how to create a fairy circle using only one circle? They could get the terraforming team using their knowledge and technology."
"They have no reason to help us. That is a lot of trouble to go to for something they see as achievable simply through eradication," Zeev points out.
"You're right. They don't have reason to help us beyond that we have found a solution that results in more life. And isn't that the purpose of the ley lines? More life?" I respond.
"Alyssa is correct." Isis interjects, "We all looked for a solution that would lead to more life and avoid loss of life as much as possible. This solution did not occur to us before. Furthermore, we are still their family. We could make them listen to us from that connection alone."
"What if it doesn't work?" Stata asks.
"What if it does?" Oberon responds.
"The truth is, I'm not sure we have any other choices," Loki points out. "We are out of time and have very few solutions. If Vulcan were here and cooperative, then we might have a chance at doing this ourselves. He is the most technologically savvy of all of us. But he just wants to see the world, and us, burn."
"Is there a way to force him to help us?" Poseidon directs the question to Remus and Stata, who are sitting together again. Are they an item? Not really the time....
"We could try," Stata says at the same time as Remus responds "Unlikely."
They look at eachother, seemingly shocked by the different responses.
"We should try. This new solution may make him see hope and help us," Stata says to Remus.
"There is no guaranteeing his response wouldn't be a trap. He is broken, and there is nothing we can do to get a true answer out of him. He knows that, and will probably lie to us about everything." Remus responds.
"So that means we shouldn't try?"
"Not everyone deserves redemption," Remus says gently. "And only people who want redemption deserve a shot. He doesn't."
"How do you know? Maybe he does want redemption," Stata slams her palms on the table and stands up. "I'm at least going to offer him the opportunity," she yells at Remus before storming out of the room.
"I'll verify everything he says before I bring it back to the group." Remus follows Stata out the door.
"So, in the next four days, we have to have everyone ready for evacuation, have rescued our people from a moving laboratory, be prepared to terraform mars, and have everything erased about us from just about every database," Inari lists.
"I've got the database portion covered, but yeah, that is what that means," Hestia responds.
"Do we even know where the lab is?" Minsi asks.
"Not yet, but we are narrowing it down," Poseidon responds. "I hope for the search teams to have found it by the end of the day."