"Oh god. Oh god. Oh god."

Ambrosia's co-conspirators have strong feelings about religion. They believe that the Literal Christian God exists. They believe that Miracleman and his superhuman kin, who fashion themselves Earth's stewards from atop their garish Tower of Babel, are an affront to Him and His Divine Plan.

Ambrosia is somewhat agnostic about the existence of her co-conspirators' favored deity, but she still takes His name in vain as the contractions reach their zenith.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Why is everything so tight?

Summer knows exactly what's happening. He knows it's necessary. He knows that good things—or at least more things—await him on the other side of this ordeal. He knows all the details of this physical process.

He is also being shoved through a narrowing tunnel, his own body obeying ancient, cell deep responses, while the world presses around his shoulders. Suddenly, his head is being shoved out into the bright, harsh light. The light he's only ever experienced second hand. 

For the first time in his life, he takes a breath. And it hurts, it hurts so much.

He wails. 

She wails.

It hurts, it hurts so much.

She loves him. She doesn't know his name yet, or what he looks like, but she's loved him... maybe not from the moment of conception, but at least from the point where his brain developed enough to read her thoughts?

A wonderful future awaits them: a chance to make a real difference, a chance to have adventures that'll end up engraved in steel.

She tries to focus on that future. To let him see that future in her mind's eye.

Because the present is pain. Excruciating, unprecedented agony compared to either of their prior existences. The present is pain, but the future is so much bigger than any of that.

Rubbery hands lift him into the air, bloody and wet. The air is cold compared to what he's used to. It is also air, which is another thing to get used to. The cord is then snipped, cutting him off absolutely from the world he once knew. 

Then, he's in his mother's arms. Already, his body is more developed in some ways than most infants, so he can actually focus on her face. He's known what it's looked like forever, of course. He's seen it in mirrors or from other people's viewpoint. But those glimpses were always coloured by opinions or self image. For the first time, he actually sees his mother with his own eyes.

Somehow, it's a comfort.

It's done.

She takes a few more deep breaths.

Embraces her child. Looks him in the eyes.

Then glances skyward, just for a moment, and prays to a God she isn't sure she believes in.

She prays that the other god, the one that definitely walks among them, doesn't fathom what she intends for his latest son.

He risks a word. He knows from second hand experience that speech this young unnerves some people, but his mother seems like a smart lady. "Hi."

"Hi." Warm. She feels so warm. "Have you picked out a name for yourself yet?"

He lisps slightly, the result of a still very soft palate. "Summer, I think."

Oh. Ha.

"That's a very pretty name."

"I know."

(Time passes. Postnatal care ensues)

Summer is bathed and weighed by vaguely distasteful nurses. 

After a couple of days, mother and son are left alone in their home. 

It's a nice home.

Cozy. Pastoral. Close enough to the coastline that you can smell the sea.

Ambrosia quit her job late last year, not long after being implanted. She couldn't afford distractions. She had so much planning to do in those days, and now Summer requires her full attention.

She feeds him--breastfeeding at first, during that crucial early window when the specific nutrients therein actually matter, then switching to formula and solid food to accommodate his accelerated hybrid metabolism. She keeps him clean. And, most importantly, she keeps him engaged. Even as a frail infant, he already has neurological abilities comparable to her own--an intellect that will only keep growing as the years go by. She talks to him constantly, shares books and videos (she carefully picked out thousands of hours of material in preparation for his birth), and otherwise strives to make his early days stimulating.

She attends to her son as though doing so were the most important thing in the world.

Because it is, isn't it?

So much hangs in the balance here.

Summer appreciates all the attention. He does not appreciate being trapped in such an... uncooperative body. It hadn't been an issue while he was inside his mother, but now that he's separated from her, his limitations have become far more obvious. While his mother does do her best to tend to his physical needs (he hardly ever needs to resort to anything as base as crying to get her attention) not being able to so much as keep himself fed or convey himself around the house is a source of endless frustration for him. He tries telling himself this helpless state allows him to focus on educating himself, the sentiment rings hollow considering he can't even reliably turn a page in a book.

"You're lucky you can't remember being this age," he says to his mother one afternoon about a week after his birth. 

"I suppose that is a blessing." She thinks back to her first hazy memories. "Though I think it'd be even worse to be cast out into the world fully formed?"

"That's what's wrong with the others, I think. Too much, too fast." Talking to a telepath is an interesting exercise. For anything you say, there exists a good chance they hear the words in their mind before you speak them aloud. "You know the first nephelim, she grew up and left the world behind in just one week. Can you imagine that? It's no wonder she returned as a cold, warped thing."

"I don't want to leave you, I just..." He is not going to cry. "I want to do things. Isn't that why you had me?"

"You will do so many things." She holds him close and rocks gently as they speak. "You'll do things no one else has, things that no one else could have."

Projecting Warm Thoughts.

She loves him so much. He is the most special person on earth.

"They'll be more powerful than you. He'll be more powerful than you." No need to specify who she's speaking of. Summer can effortless skim context out from behind ambiguous wording. "But it'll be your humanity that triumphs over theirs."

Too much power, not enough humanity. That's how the world ended up in this mess in the first place.

He feels warm. His mother is good at that. Still, he has questions. "When I do triumph... what do I do then? Because I'm not human. I don't know if I'm like the others, but I know I'm not like the babies in the village." He then adds "They're creepy." 

"Humans belong on Earth, and nephelim belong in heaven." She recites the party line. "And there's so much heaven to go around. Stars beyond counting."

He's learned a fair bit about cosmology from the books she's read with him, but books are limiting. She has a better intuitive understanding of the cosmos than paper and ink can feasibly convey, and she knows that one day her son will have first-hand knowledge of such things that'll put her own to shame.

"You'll be a leader among them, as they settle shores far from here. You'll see wonders that earthbound beings can scarcely dream of."

Summer's eyes widen. "That sounds wonderful." A thought occurs to him. "Is that other nephilim baby born yet? The squire's wife's?" The last three words carry a note of something between bemusement and pity.   

"Not sure, but likely?" Ambrosia received the Seed at the same time Mrs. Gravel did, so she figures there's a better-than-even chance that her counterpart has also given birth by now. "We could go check right now. I think you're ready to leave the house."

"I'd like that, Mother."

Peggy Gravel sat in the longhouse like dining room of Sea-View, nursing her second gin and tonic of the morning. It may have been 11:00 AM there, but somewhere it was almost midnight. Her husband had chosen to imbibe in the public house in the village centre, an arrangement that suited them both just fine. 

Sea-View was a grand old house, getting a little older and a little less grand with every passing day. The Gravels had been allowed to keep their house and lands as personal property when the bloody socialist superman took over, but of course, they then had nothing to pay the staff with. It hadn't surprised her when they had all up and left.

Planet of the dole-scroungers, she thought bitterly. She had floated the idea of turning the place into a theme park, like Drayton Manor, but Charles would hear nothing of it. Said he wouldn't give up that last scrap of dignity. 

"Tough words, for a cuckold," she said aloud. She looked over to her daughter, sitting on a playmat next to the wall length window. "Isn't that right, Jess?"

The old house's doorbell chimes.

Peggy doesn't move. "Who is it, Jess?" 

One advantage of having said bloody socialist superman's daughter, she never got surprised at the door. Theoretically at least.

"It's my brother. And his incubator. They want to know if I've been born yet."

"Well, have you?" She laughs too hard at her own joke, before getting up and heading for the door. She mostly manages to avoid staggering. 

"Hiiii, Ambrosia," Peggy says as she opens the door. She looks at the baby in her arms. "Is that little... what was it?"

"Summer."

Peggy chuckles. "Oh, nonsense, that's no name for a boy."

She doesn't like the way that Peggy is talking about her child. She begins to object, but then decides it's not worth causing friction with one of the only four adults in the community who's privy to The Plan.

"Hi Peggy." Forced smile. "We came to see if you've had yours yet. You look less pregnant than when last I saw you, so..."

"Oh, she's born. I can hear her. May I see her?" 

Peggy waves a hand. "Oh, sure." She leads them to the dining room.

"Hello Jess!" Summer calls when he spots her.

She tilts her head in his direction to the extent that she's capable of doing so.

"Hello Summer."

Ambrosia carries Summer over to the playmat, then sits down with him still cradled in her arms.

She isn't sure whether to speak up herself--there isn't really ready made etiquette for these sort of social interactions.

She settles on centering a greeting in her surface thoughts, for the little girl to read if she's interested:

          It's very nice to meet you, Jess.

(Jess does not seem interested)

"Thank you, Mother," Jess says. "You can set me down if you like."

She does so.

"Yours is quite obedient." Jess glances in Mrs. Gravel's direction momentarily, then locks eyes with Summer. "Lucky."

Mrs Gravel veritably drags Ambrosia over to the dining table, eager to enjoy another woman's company. "Leave the little cuckoos to whatever it is they talk about."

I'm afraid your mother doesn't like you much, Summer communicates to Jess telepathically.

"I'm aware."

Has she tried hurting you or anything? 

No.

Jess doesn't really care about being overheard, but switches to thought-speech to convey complex ideas faster.

She does like the 'idea' of me. I make her feel important.

I think she had you because you're the closest thing she can think of to a natural aristocrat after Father did away with all that. And because she likes rubbing it in her husband's face.

Duh.

Sucks being small, doesn't it?

It certainly does.

You must be so bored. At least my mother keeps me entertained... do you wanna visit sometime? Ambrosia cares a great deal about all of us, I'm sure she wouldn't mind.

...Peggy might. But you know, there are ways.

So bored.

Okay, worth a try.

Just to be thorough, he projects some memories at Jess of how... earnest his mother is. Warm.

"Was wondering," he says aloud, "there any reason for the name? It's a good one, by the way."

"I have ambitions to some day walk on water, cure lepers and multiply fishes."

He giggles. 

"Some people around town ain't gonna like that, sister." He finds that he likes the word sister.

"Oh really, brother?" Innocent, singsong voice. "You think so?"

"It would especially offend and horrify them if you did those things in church."

"Oh goodness, that would be just terrible."

Meanwhile, at the table, Peggy is trying to commiserate with Ambrosia. "All she ever does is mock and scorn--and even that's rare!"

"They're a real challenge to look after." Shared struggle. Build camaraderie. "We're only human, and their needs are... beyond that?"

Project modesty. "I was just lucky, to have things work out as well as they did. I had all those months to prepare. No interruptions. And people have been so supportive."

Utilize scapegoat. "I don't think Charles has really put his full heart into this."

Express sympathy. "That must be terrible for you?

She's getting a little weepy. Drink does that to her. "He acts as though it's my fault he couldn't give me a child! And he won't see a doctor about it because they're all using Qys or whatever they're called stuff. You think he's willing to get up and feed her at night? Won't even let her call him 'dad'!"

"Unbelievable." Mirror outrage. Offer support. "Is there anything I could do to help?"

That bother you  much? he mind-asks Jess.

Oh, no! I'm having the time of my life here!

...

...

"...Actually," says Mrs. Gravel. "Would you consider having Jess for a day or two? I think she'd enjoy the company of one of her own."

"Of course." Ambrosia smiles, a little uncertainly. This is going... faster than she anticipated. "You need time to recover. In the meantime, I can look after little Jess as long as need be."

"Should be nice," Summer said out loud for the benefit for the grown ups. 

I don't like...influencing people like that, but I think you need some time away from here.

Ha! I was wondering if I could get you to Nudge her!

Jess watches as Mrs. Gravel's emotions dance upon ephemeral threads.

Either I was born bad at Nudging, or else my incubator's resistant somehow? Because I haven't been able to Nudge her into anything on my own so far.

Your mother is a bloody minded woman. 

And there she goes, enthusiastically assembling Jess' stuff in a bag.

Kinda surprised it worked. Never really had to Nudge Mother at all.

 ...

Not even once?

Ambrosia collects Jess's things, thanks Mrs. Gravel for her hospitality, and then heads to the playmat where Jess and Summer sit.

She crouches down. "You two ready to go?"

Nope. Is that weird?

"Yeah, I think we are," he says to his mother. "Jess?"

"I require conveyance."

Ambrosia picks them both up.

"Bye Mrs Gravel!" 

"Pleasure's all mine, Summer," she says, a little too cheerfully. "Sorry about my comments regarding your name."

"Alright kids, remember to keep your voices down. Don't want to spook the locals."

She carries Jess and Summer back to her modest cottage near the seaside. The village isn't terribly large, so the trip takes only a couple of minutes.

Jess is very tempted to spook the locals, but she manages to restrain herself on this occasion.

Summer chatters happily about all the books and films he wants to show Jess and how nice his mother is.

Once home, Ambrosia makes all these books and films available.

"Which one would you two like to start with?" She's ready to read aloud, turn pages or slot cassettes into the VCR as suits her little guests' preferences.

"I'd like to see Velvet. It's a documentary I overheard someone thinking about yesterday... it sounded very educational."

"You sure? It's very graphic," he says very matter-a-factly.

Velvet. Oh dear.

She knows that film quite well. Knows it viscerally.

If there ever were a documentary that was Not Appropriate For Children it's this one.

She knows that Jess must've requested it for precisely that reason.

A test. The girl wants to make Ambrosia squirm.

"I'm sure." Pause. "Unless Mommy Dearest thinks we're too immature?"

"That's silly. Mother knows we can handle it."

A clumsy, but effective, manipulation. Ambrosia considers her options for counter-play.

"I'll grab the tape."

She heads to the closet, retrieves a worn cassette from the top shelf, then returns to the television and slots Velvet into the VCR.

There are no opening credits. No talking heads to contextualize any of the footage. It is what is is: a man walking through the aftermath of one of if not the most brutal massacres in the history of the planet with a hand held camera.

Broken buildings, shattered streets and wrecked cars lie everywhere he points his lens, but they're nothing compared to the evidence of human suffering. Chess boards of human breasts, coral reefs of baby skulls, a meter long caterpillar composed of dozens of mashed together children. These were the lucky compared to some of the people who lived through  all this, for lack of a better word. An armless woman, her eyes burnt out of her head, is led through the carnage by two crying children. A man whose flesh is half-melted like candle wax wanders past, not noticing the cameraman.    

"He had three whole hours before Father and the others came," Summer says conversationally.

It happened six years ago, in what used to be the city of London. Ambrosia had been out of town at the time but so much of her family--a grandfather, a mother, two uncles, a niece and a wife--were there when it all happened.

The Event... the 'Battle of London' as outsiders often call it? Other people, all across the world, remember it as the climactic final clash between the Miracleman and the Adversary. They remember the the high-soaring pugilism, remember the triumph of 'good' over evil, remember their savior's tragic sacrifice as he finally put down his murderous ward.

But here in Britain? People remember the three hours that came before.

Three hours. And the capital had a population of about seven million so...

Jess does some quick mental math.

Whew. She gazes upon the elaborate carnage displayed on the screen in front of them. "Six hundred of these... per second?"

"This is what the enemy looks like."

She projects her surface thoughts clearly, providing further context to the words she speaks aloud.

The 'Adversary', the monstrous god-child who took so many of Ambrosia's loved ones from her, is not the enemy she refers to.

Nor does she speak of the ones who eventually stopped him--the ones who spend three hours partying, oblivious in their palace on the dark side of the moon, while London burned.

"Power without humanity." Ambrosia stares bitterly at the panorama of mangled bodies. "The real enemy. The cycle you were born to break."

The cameraman eventually comes across Summer and Jess' father. He's weeping, holding a dead boy with a broken head to his chest and sobbing.

"It must have been hard for him." 

Velvet's finale always leaves her feeling so tangled.

"They were close. Like father and son, some say." Miracleman and Kid Miracleman. Mike and Bates. The Tyrant and the Adversary. Many names, always the same tragedy. "That day was hard for a lot of people. So much death, so many sundered families. But he faced the special horror of having to sunder his own. It was hard, yes, but it was necessary."

"If he was like a son to our Father... does that make me the Adversary's sister?"

"I'd say a niece."

"So who's Miraclewoman? Our wicked stepmother?"

Her children crack wise as Velvet hits its emotional crescendo.

They don't care--of course they don't, they're newborns, they haven't a frame of reference for something like this.

A niggling doubt creeps into the back of her mind: I'm not ready, they're too alien, they're already slipping away.

She strangles that thought in its infancy, before it can be picked up too easily by telepathy.

They don't have a frame of reference, so she gives them one.

The emotions she's been holding back? She lets them pour forth now.

(Most of them, anyway)

She cries, and she doesn't apologize for crying--not in words and not in thoughts either.

Summer recalls the relatives Ambrosia lost in the Event. "I'm sorry, Mother. I know it's harder for you to separate your feelings than it is for us. It was a terrible, awful thing."

It does sadden him, it really does. He just had other streams of thought about it that he was exploring.

"I can separate my feelings if I need to."

She does so.

Ambrosia can't compartmentalize quite as well as a Nephilim, but she's better than most baselines.

"But just because we can doesn't mean we always should."

"Me and Jess should have thought about you."

She nods. "It's okay." 

On the screen, the camera has finished panning around the carnage that surrounds Kid Miracleman's final resting place. The shot now lingers, close, on the boys' caved-in face where the elder Miracleman still holds him close. 

"We all start out thoughtless. It takes time to get past that. Time, and effort, and strength." She squeezes Summer's tiny hand in her own. "I know you won't lack for any of that."

"Maybe we could watch something happier now?"

"Boo."

"Don't be childish, Jess."

"Alright. Let's put on something happy."

Ambrosia puts on something happy.

The Little Mermaid is watched. Summer at least is fine with the more cheerful ending--the original was such obvious moral scaremongering. 

Singing off key: "Poor, unfortunate sooouuull..."

"Go ahead..."

"Make your choice!"

"...I'maverybusywomanandIhaven'tgotallday..."

This film does not spark any heavy conversations. Eventually, it becomes obvious the pair need sleep.

"I'll get things ready."

Conveniently, Ambrosia has the necessary resources on hand to comfortably put up another child for the night.

Goodnight Summer. Jess touches in with her half-brother after his mother has tucked both of them in. ...Thank you. It's nice here.

You being here is nice.

...Has anyone told you about the Plan?

The one where we stick it to the 'Bloody Socialist Superman'?

Yeah, and you know, after that.

After that?

Well, after that, we'll have to leave the humans alone. But we get the stars...

Humans are pretty boring. Sounds like a fair trade.

...I think I'll miss Mother.

She might be dead by then. I hear baselines only get about a hundred years total, so she's a third of the way gone already...

I guess...

He falls asleep, dreaming of other worlds.

The next few weeks are pleasant enough. Occasionally Peggy has Jess back, as if to remind herself she's her mother, but those aren't so bad. Much of the time Summer tags along anyway. Once or twice they're taken to church.

Ambrosia's agnosticism runs on probabilities (and a general unwillingness to humor "0%" as a reasonable option; or "100%" for that matter)

Where many atheists would conclude that there Absolutely Was No Jesus, Ambrosia merely sees that the most likely explanation among many competing-but-possible explanations.

Another quite plausible conclusion is that there actually was a baseline named Jesus who got crucified by the Ancient Romans, and though said enemy-of-the-Roman-state had possessed no supernatural powers he'd had the uncanny charisma necessary to attract some loyal disciples and inspire the masses and get some literate people of the time excited enough to write a bible with him in it.

Or maybe he was a Firedrake? She's seen that explanation bandied around in some circles. While the odds of any given historical figure having been a Firedrake are quite low, they have a definite likelihood defined reasonably well by Qys science.

All the people currently in the village church, give or take, believe a fourth explanation: that Jesus was neither fictitious nor baseline nor any kind of superpowered that is currently known to humankind, but rather the vessel for the divine power of an omnipotent creator deity.

Ambrosia does not strictly disbelieve this fourth explanation. She rather prides herself on not-disbelieving-things. But she certainly does consider it substantially less likely than the three aforementioned.

All the same, she files into the church for Sunday mass and sets her babies down beside her.

"Be nice," Summer whispers to Jess.

"When am I ever not nice?"

Jess cannot wait to come back here with Christ-themed superpowers. It will be the best thing.

This is a good chance to understand the baseline experience.

Ambrosia has become quite adept by now at broadcasting thoughts clearly for telepathic pickup.

These people are a community, which means they'll make small sacrifices for each other, and being able to count on the same from their neighbors makes them safer than they'd be alone.

Ambrosia scoots over slightly as the pews fill up, making more room for late arrivals.

A church service like this is one way that communities come together. You've almost certainly picked up by now that I don't particularly enjoy sitting on hard/angular wooden benches and listening to hour-long sermons, but this small sacrifice comes with the territory of community. And I do enjoy having the support of this community.

Peggy shuffles in and sits down beside Jess. "Hello darling," she says, a little awkwardly. 

"Hello Peggy."

Her smile falters a little. "Oh, sweetie, you don't have to call me that."

"How have you been, Oh Mother Dearest?"

"Oh, I've been holding up. Hard sometimes finding things to do without you around."

"Funny. I should have thought you'd have a rather easier time finding things to do, what with your relative superpowers of walking around and picking things up?"

Jess waves about her stubby arms and legs in an illustrative fashion.

"Have things not gotten any better with Charles?"

"He's very... changeable."

She hoists Jess into her lap.

Jess does not find unexpected picking-up to be a pleasant experience at all.

She scans her disobedient incubator's mind for surface thoughts, trying to get a firmer handle on this situation.

Her incubator's husband has never struck her, but lately he's been shouting at her like it's a near enough thing. 

God, her baby is warm. 

That's... sad.

Why does she find that sad?

She'd never used to care about how her incubator felt, before.

"Peggy." Ambrosia puts an arm on her fellow-mother's shoulder. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I-I don't know who to go to anymore."

She cuddles her child, glad for something to cling to.

"We'll figure this out." 

She leans in closer, and continues in a conspiratorial whisper.

"We'll be true to ourselves, we'll support each other, and we'll overcome all tyrants."

Ambrosia gives pretty good inspiring peptalks. But why does she feel so sure that Peggy needs this particular one right now? Ambrosia has pretty good social instincts, but she feels like something beyond her usual sense of nonverbals has granted her insight into this situation.

...

Jess, are you Nudging me right now?

Both of these women--Summer's incubator and Jess's own--have received training to minimize their susceptibility to telepathic manipulation.

So she couldn't puppet them on her own even if she wanted to, but she can Nudge one of them to Be Comforting and the other to Be Comforted.

Why? She isn't sure exactly. It's like... Peggy being sad makes her sad, and Jess does not want to be sad?

She stops right away when she realizes that Ambrosia has noticed her influence.

"Maybe you could leave him?" suggests Summer. "You don't really need him anymore."

The preacher has ascended the pulpit. The chatter throughout the church starts to die down.

Ambrosia squeezes Peggy's shoulder. "Whatever happens, whatever to you decide--know you won't be alone. We're here for you."

The sermon today is about the Ten Plagues of Egypt and the flight of the Israelites. Summer can't help but find the last one distasteful. 

Jess thinks that the Ten Plagues sound pretty metal, though.

Ambrosia listens politely to the sermon. Her posture remains attentive, her expression serene.

Her thoughts wander occasionally, but only to exalted topics like community and empathy and overthrowing the Abominable Tyrant called Miracleman.

Sounds like he just wanted to kill some Egyptians.

Poor Jess is forced to listen to her half-brother's inner grumbling the whole sermon.

As she collects Summer after the sermon and rises to go, Ambrosia gives Peggy a meaningful look.

(And Jess, still trapped in Peggy's lap, gives Ambrosia a meaningful look)

Peggy sighs. "Probably better for you to keep staying with your auntie for a while, Jess."

Ambrosia smiles at Peggy and carefully picks up Jess.

"Remember. You're welcome to visit us anytime." Pause. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

She nods. "I will. Thank you. Have a good visit, sweetie."

Ambrosia leaves the church, headed back towards the seaside.

"Jess?" She whispers to the baby girl once they've made it out to the edge of the village. "...about what happened earlier?"

"I did Nudge you."

Please don't be mad. She doesn't want Summer's nice-incubator-who-takes-good-care-of-them to be mad at her.

Please don't let his mother send away his fun sister.

"She's very sorry."

She isn't mad.

She feels a little unwell. Her sense of personal autonomy is quite valuable to her and she does not like having it transgressed.

But she understands Jess's intentions aligned with her own in that moment (good intentions! help people intentions!) and that makes an amount of difference to her. And she is not mad. Jess is less than two months old and trying to be human and Ambrosia understands that.

And she hopes that Jess will be more thoughtful in the future. She won't say never Nudge anyone again or even never Nudge me again because there are hypothetical high-stakes circumstances that could justify use of that power, and those sort of circumstances could plausibly come up in the years ahead. But she wants Jess to understand that she should not use her powers idly, that screwing around with human volition is a Big Deal and should only be contemplated when something even more important is on the line.

A small voice, barely audible over the lap of waves on the seashore: "I understand."

Summer is a little relieved.

...At least until he wakes up howling that night.

"What's wrong?"

She wakes up suddenly, disheveled and disoriented. She stumbles out of her bed and towards the crib.

She'd been having a dream about Miracleman. The hour is early, the house is still dark and she's still half-asleep. But her baby needs her. She banishes the lingering embrace of her dreams as thoroughly as she can, tries to focus in on the waking present.

"Summer, I'm here."

"Gums... hurting..."

Right. She'd known this day was coming. Awake and alert now, the details click into place.

"You're teething."

She scoops Summer up in her arms, orients herself in the dark, then strides towards the kitchen.

"It's going to hurt a lot. I'm sorry. I can't make it not hurt."

But she can make it hurt less, and she can make sure he doesn't have to go through this alone.

"Why does it have to?"

She flicks on the light with her elbow, walks over to the kitchen counter and sets Summer down on a pad beside the sink.

"You body isn't any stronger than a normal human's. Your powers will let you lift things, or shrug off harm, or fly... but beneath that quantum forcefield..."

She doesn't need to explain it in full aloud. She has a clever, precious, telepathic child and she knows he can piece the rest together himself.

Ambrosia twists the cold water handle on the sink then holds a wash cloth under the tap. When the cloth has soaked through, she places it in Summer's mouth.

"Press your gums against this. It'll help."

He does. It helps... a little. 

She washes her hands thoroughly, then picks Summer back up and walks with him to the table. She sits down, takes the dry half of the washcloth and dabs away the drool accumulating on Summer's chin.

She rocks him back and forth as the sun rises. When new pain flares up somewhere, she reaches into his mouth and gently massages that section of his gums.

"This too shall pass," she whispers to him. "The present is pain but the future is so much bigger."

"Jess must be warned!"

Even in a moment like this, he thinks about someone else's well-being. That's a good sign. That's a very good sign.

"We'll get her through this just fine, too."

Back to trying not to cry.

This is going to be okay. She's done everything right so far, and this is going to be okay.

A mote of fear persists, but love and pride drown it out.

She doesn't stop holding Summer until breakfast, at which point she sets him aside and pours cold water over the washcloth again and then gives it back to him to chew on.

"I'll be right back."

She starts the food warming up. She kisses Summer on the forehead. She ducks back into the bedroom to fetch Jess.

What the sweet hell is going on here?

Teething.

Oh. 

I think I would like to put that off as long as possible.

Breakfast!

More soft food for Jess, but hard food for Summer.

In theory, that should help with the teething process.

He eats as much as possible, despite biting things hurting right now.

She squeezes his hand.

"You're doing so well."

After breakfast, Summer can have whatever he wants as far as distractions go: she'll read for him, put on another movie, take him and Jess back to the seaside...

"What would be best?"

"Maybe the sea?"

They venture forth.

The beach is quiet today.

Ambrosia packs a cooler with everything she can think she might need before the teething's over.

She sets down a large towel just above the high tide line.

Jess gazes out across the ocean, her little lungs taking deep breaths of the sharp seaside air. "It's nice I guess."

She glances at Summer.

You okay?

Better. It's natural anyway. Means I'm growing up. 

He looks out at the expanse of blue. 

Be good to swim.

Jess imagines Summer's oh-so-obedient incubator wading out fully clothed into the surf, in order to help her precious little boy 'swim' about. It's an amusing image.

I wonder if we could get her to do that?

No nudging.

No.

Obviously not.

I was just thinking you could... ask nicely, I guess? Maybe flutter your eyelashes a bit?

That's better.

"Um, Mother, could we maybe go swimming?" Flutter.

"Of course!"

Ha! It works!

It plays out almost exactly as Jess imagined it. Granted, Ambrosia does have the wherewithal to set her overclothes aside first, but she's still definitely going to end up walking back home with her knickers full of seawater and that's amusing enough on it's own.

Jess resolves to attempt, in the future, to master the magic of eyelash fluttering herself.

"Okay, careful now." She slowly lowers the baby in her arms. The waves can lap at Summer's toes. "I'm going to keep a hand on you at all times, to make sure your head stays above water..."

Summer giggles. "You should try this, Jess."

Jess considers the ocean warily. All that water... so enormous, so powerful, so uncaring.

It's a little scary, to tell the truth.

"Okay, I want to try it."

"Go, Ariel!"

Jess lifts her arms so that Ambrosia can pick her up.

This is exciting!

(and scary)

This is okay, the water is okay, Jess isn't scared of anything!

Ambrosia has got her concerns as well. She has done such a good job of looking out for these children so far. Never dropped them, never set them somewhere they could fall from, never left them out of earshot when unaccompanied. She doesn't think it's likely that a little swim will hurt them but... she hasn't gotten this far by rounding unlikely risks down to zero.

"Your safety is my highest priority." She settles back down in the water with both of her children beside her. "I'll do my best to keep an eye on things. But I want you to know: if there's ever an emergency and I'm not quick enough to respond, you have my permission to Nudge me."

Sharp, self possessed nods. 

Eeeeeh, water around his legs. Almost weightless!

Yay!

Bathtime is fun but this is even more fun.

Splashes and giggling!

She's so happy.

Ambrosia has never had any doubts about the rightness of this undertaking before. She knew she'd have no regrets but... she hadn't let herself assume that she could also be this happy?

Yet she is.

She is so happy.

She has a family again.

A few nights later, Summer is looking rather... twinkly.

"Oh, Jeeeessss..." 

He's floating over her cot.

"Well. It looks like all your teeth have finished coming in."

He grins. Toothily. 

"Oh, and I guess you can fly now? That's neat, too."

She is so jealous.

He somersaults in the air. "You'll get there."

Jess tries to push her teeth out into her mouth using sheer force of will.

Unsurprisingly, this does not yield instantaneous results.

Summer lifts her into the air.

"Woah!"

This is cool.

She likes flying!

But it's also scary?

"It's better when it's you doing it."

"Obviously."

She feels more helpless now than her usual literally-an-infant baseline, which is not an easy baseline to surpass.

Summer notices. Air-hug.

The air that hugs her is charged with thrumming quantum energy.

Though she has not previously in her short life encountered such powers, she recognizes their nature instinctively. Applied clumsily, she knows that they could mangle her fragile body with ease.

But she trusts him. He's family.

Jess detaches her fears, and lets herself fully drink in the wondrous sensation of flight.

Her brother pays enough attention to her first she almost seems to be directing her flight.

"Weeeeeeeee!"

"Mind not telling Mother. Just till you can do it too."

"Yeah! That'll be great."

Jess spends the next day trying really hard to catch up to Summer.

The following night, she starts teething.

"Warned you."

Ambrosia tends to Jess just as she tended to Summer before. If anything, she's more adroit this time on account of experience.

When she gets a chance, Ambrosia calls up Mrs. Gravel to let her know what's going on. Teething is one of the most important milestones in a Nephilim's development, so Peggy might want to be here for it?

After some umming and ahhing, she does come over. 

"Oh, there, there, sweetie."

Ambrosia quickly brings Mrs. Gravel up to speed on the situation.

"I'm glad you could make it. This is a very significant day for Jess."

"Do you mind if I pick you up?" she asks the infant. 

"Go ahead."

She proceeds to. "Oh, you brave little thing," she coos, with a little too much treacle in her voice.

"Could you--?" She winces as the teething pain spikes again. "...pressure--left side, back of the bottom row?"

She obeys. "That better?"

"...yeah."

"Good, good. Tell me if it hurts again."

The day goes by.

Jess is well tended to.

Gradually, the sharp pains give way to dull soreness. Then the dull soreness gives way to relief.

"Welcome to the ranks of the long toothed."

"Rawr!"

"HIIIIISS!"

Jess starts to say something else--

But then she starts shimmering.

Her body feels suddenly lighter.

Summer, I think it's happening!

I think it is!

Shall we dance for the mothers?

Yes!

Her feet start to lift off the ground.

Summer joins her, taking her tiny hand in his.

The adults, meanwhile, are having coffee in the kitchen. Completely unaware of the quantum maelstrom brewing in the next room over.

Miles and miles above them both, though, another adult is. He feels the vibration of his children's power in his ears, almost. He wouldn't have known these two existed, if it weren't for a comrade of their mothers' coming down with cold feet. He wonders if she was guilty, or expected a reward. Either way, this is something he'll need to Handle.

He descends quietly in front of the cottage, and knocks on the door.

To Peggy: "I'll get it."

Ambrosia rises from her chair, crosses the kitchen, and opens the front door...

...and is more than a little surprised by who she sees there.

"Hello?" She does an impressive job of not projecting overwhelming panic as she recognizes the god in the doorway. "Anything I can do for you?"

Miracleman stands there solemnly, his feet touching the ground for once. He looks more remorseful than angry. "It's about your children, Miss Jennings."

It is at this point Peggy starts screaming.

"My children?"

She fights down the urge to flee. Instead, she steps closer.

The wheels in her head aren't spinning. It's too late for spinning wheels. Either she has a contingency for this eventuality, or she doesn't.

She threads her way along tenuous neural connections, aware all the while that the nemesis she speaks to can trace those threads right alongside her.

Meanwhile, the flight rehearsals in the next room are interrupted. "Jess, can you feel that?"

"Someone's outside. Someone like us."

And your incubator's mind is all foggy, like when she's trying not to be nudged?

And your mother's screaming.

Oh right, that too.

"I assure you both, I'm not here to hurt anyone."

"That's good."

Why is that good?

There's pieces slipping into place in her head.

The next piece tells her to take Miracleman's hand.

Which is, uh, a little weird but she'll go with it...

...and then she'll lean against his chest and finally let her fear show?

(Huh. That's a strange tack for her contingency plan to take.)

Ayup. And once she's sobbing on him, she'll turn the next corner...

(She can't think too hard about how confusing this script is, can't double-guess her past self's memorized directives, lest he pick up psychically on the fact that there's a script she's following.)

"It's alright, I understand."

The reaction doesn't surprise him much. What information he could gather on this woman didn't suggest one prone to violence. 

He risks putting an arm over her back, as gently as though he were comforting a woman made of smoke.  

...she holds him tight.

And then she hits the end of her pre-committed thread-of-actions, and understands the angle she's pursuing here.

Run. Fly. Fast as you can.

She thinks it loudly. The mental equivalent of shouting.

Don't tell me where you're going. Follow the plan as best you can.

These mental words were rehearsed long ago, starting months before Summer was even conceived. They flash across her conscious mind in the blink of an eye.

Don't come back for me until you're strong enough.

And she's still got her hands locked together tight around Miracleman's back. She's a woman made of smoke to him, it's true. But if he wants to chase down her children, he'll have to be willing to splatter that woman-of-smoke across the countryside.

Summer... is hesitant.

Should we...

The thought trails off in his sister's mind.

"It's Dad."

Jess speaks those two syllables, not necessarily expecting to have a chance to speak a third.

She's still hovering in midair, but all thoughts of whimsy have given way to various flavors of 'how quickly can I get out of here'?

Eventually, a kind of grim resignation overtakes Summer. Half a second later, he's flying out the window a little short of the speed of sound.

She's right behind him.

She doesn't actually expect a rescue. She'll be lobotomized, most likely, long before they're in any position to challenge the regime.

(That's how Miracleman and his ilk habitually deal with dissenters, after all--a quick bit of 'humane surgery' to correct underlying 'brain disorders' and create properly Functional Members Of Society.)

But she does not let this resignation cross her mind until after her children are well out of telepathic earshot.

She just thinks: I love you, I love you, I love you over and over again.

Miracleman clearly hears the wind. "I suppose that was you and Mrs Gravel's children?" he asks.

No point in denying that.

"Yes."

She hasn't actually let go of him yet.

"Might I ask what their names are?"

Okay. That's something else he could figure out trivially from anybody else in the church.

(New Protocol: Volunteer any information that an average churchgoer would know.)

"Summer and Jess."

"My firstborn would laugh, I think."

"I think that was my firstborn's intention."

The rueful smile is genuine. The uncontrollable shaking is also genuine.

"I hope this doesn't distress them. I really do only want to talk to you. I won't pretend you'll be at complete liberty, but you'll be comfortable." He smiles, just a little. "And I can assure you it won't be the result of a lobotomy."

He's in her head.

She could shield her mind completely from newborn Nephilim or recently-transformed miraclefolk, but her nemesis is The First Of His Kind and he can read her thoughts and feelings like an open book.

(Can he even read the not-quite-thoughts that dart in and out of the edge of her awareness? Maybe. Maybe not. Don't think about it, Ambrosia. Don't think about it. Don't think.)

"Comfortable, but at reduced liberty." She'll make conversation. It's easier (not to let the secret not-thoughts spill over) to maintain some meager degree of composure if she makes conversation. "Doesn't that describe the position of every human on Earth, at this point?"

He nods. "Interesting question. I'd be happy to discuss it at Olympus." He looks over at Peggy, mumbling a prayer to every god she can think of. "You can stay, Mrs Gravel."

The other woman nods. "Sorry, Amber."

She steps back from Miracleman, turns slowly and walks back to the kitchen table.

Her world feels simultaneously sticky and ephemeral. Like her prior life is a web that she's still stuck to, but she'll get snatched away from it at any moment.

"Take care of yourself," she says to Peggy. "And carry out our Lord's work as best you can."

Peggy nods sharply. "You too."

Ambrosia then returns her attention to Miracleman.

She doesn't say anything to him. Doesn't reckon she needs to.

He takes the woman in her arms, and takes off into the sky.

I don't think he's following us anymore.

About three thousand kilometers off the coast and about two kilometers underwater, Jess eases up on her quantum exertions.

She's tired, in a new and daunting way.

And, also, something disconcertingly close to scared.

If he were, he definitely would have caught up by now.

Summer slows down as well, his quantum only working hard enough to keep the ocean current from carrying him away from Jess.

I don't think he was following us at all.

Yeah. That makes sense.

She recalls the last coherent thought she gleaned from Summer's incubator before she burst through the cottage window and out across the beach behind it. ('if he wants to give chase, he'll have to be willing to splatter me--')

They're safe. Alone except for each other and the local sea life, too deep for satellites to pick up and too long gone for their quantum trail to be traced.

So, um, what do we do now?

We do what she said, keep working on the plan.

Recruit an army. Change hearts and minds. Topple the regime. Us? Two newborns in an ocean full of bigger fish?

It's what we were both born for.

But that sounds Really Hard, and with our powers Literally Everything Else has become Really Really Easy.

We could visit Saturn. Or other stars. Or other dimensions. We could be pioneers or royalty or hedonists.

What's so great about Earth, anyway? It's the one place in the whole galaxy where people like us could be in any sort of real danger, so why stick around?

But if we don't do anything, people like Amber and Peggy won't be free. And we won't be able to make our own destiny because we'll be stuck taking care of humans forever.

She cares. Despite herself, she cares about their incubators.

But her Nephilim mind can suppress any emotions it finds inconvenient.

She does so.

We wouldn't be stuck taking care of them if we just left and never came back?

But she can already feel the fault in her argument forming.

If she really didn't care about a life of solitude, she would just leave on her own. The fact that she's trying to convince her brother to come with her demonstrates trivially that she strongly wishes not to be alone.

We'd just be leaving it to our brothers and sisters. And I enjoy being with you. I think you enjoy being with me. Wouldn't it be nice if we could enjoy being with more of us?

Okay.

Thank you, sister. Summer surveys the dark, wet void they have found themselves in. Almost like the womb down here, isn't it? But cold.

What is it with you and Wombs?

Whatever their present surroundings resemble, she finds them quite boring.

So, if we aren't fleeing the planet, I guess we'd better come up with someplace planetside to set up. I vote not-here.

Summer takes a moment to suppress some of his more untidy emotions.

The ocean is a better place to visit than live, yes. And no one will take us seriously without a decent lair.

(Mentally humming to the tune of 'Under The Sea')

Oh, absolutely. How are we going to sucker any impressionable youth into our clutches without a Proper Lair?

But where...

Images flash through his mind. The Amazon, artificial islands, castles in the sky, Antartica...

...what, like the Fortress of Solitude?

Images of comic panels flash through her minds eye.

(Not comics she's read herself, admittedly, but she'd read baselines who had read the comics which is nearly the same thing when you think about it.)

Maybe. The 60s version preferably. The crystal motif is limiting.

I'd always wanted to grow up to impersonate Jesus. But I suppose impersonating Superman is pretty much the same thing.

Except better.

And so the children swim towards the Antarctic. 

...While their father leads Amber to her rooms on Olympus. They're handsome enough, not too dissimilar to a comfortable, upper range London apartment.

"Will these accommodations suit you?" 

“Would anything change if I said no?”

"...I could find some other rooms. Change the wallpaper? You don't have to be housed on Olympus, really."

Any other prison would be just as comfortable, though few would boast this view.

"I'd like to know what you want."

There's a whoosh, and Miracleman has a cup of tea. There's also one on the bench by Ambrosia. There are standards after all. "I'd like to know why exactly you arranged your son and Mrs. Gravel's daughters' births."

Fast.

It's one thing to see on a newsreel. It's another thing to see up close.

(She makes no effort not to be startled. She made a decision, during the flight over here, not to waste subconscious focus on controlling her fear responses here. She has nothing to loose by being jumpy or overawed.)

She wonders if her children will be this fast someday.

She takes up the teacup. It is exactly the right temperature, of course. She takes a sip, and tastes exactly the flavors she would have asked for if invited to.

She is (very nearly) an open book here. It is a humbling and terrifying experience.

"I do want to make clear nothing will be done to them, or any other children born from this."

No reason to assume she can trust him. He has a sterling reputation, but a god who can effortlessly nudge most mortals' minds could lie as much as he wanted and still have that.

His words are comforting nonetheless. She wants to believe them, and they're quite believable at that... after all, on a genetic level at least, Summer is as much his child as hers.

(And if he really mean to leave the children to their own devices, that means all she has to do is not think about the long term plan, and they might just get the jump on him yet some number of years down the line.)

She has to hold on to hope.

"That's good. They... haven't done anything wrong."

"They're less than six months old. Not much time for them to do anything wrong."

"They grow up so fast, though."

"It's sort of inevitable I don't get to speak to all my children while they're young, but I think I would have enjoyed meeting those two."

She'll conjure up some Greatest Hits memories of her time with Summer and Jess, and put those memories in the forefront of her mind for Miracleman to scan.

(She had already taken the precaution of sorting her memories of her children into Related To The Conspiracy and Not Related To The Conspiracy so it is easy to draw exclusively from the latter pool.)

"Does that help at all? I know it must be like watching a video recorded through a keyhole to you--I've only got the five mortal senses to form memories with, and you'd have been using so many more if you'd been there, but..."

"I'm actually a little rusty with the ESP, honestly. I don't expect you to believe that, but it's the truth. They seem like wonderful people, though. I hope they don't think they can't visit you."

(She does not even remotely believe that.)

(But maybe it would be advantageous to pretend she does?)

It's a relief not to guard her thoughts, at least.

(Guard Guard Guard Guard.)

What he just said about the children sort of knocks the wind from her.

The thought of never again seeing the children she raised... yeah. It's hard to bear. It's tempting to hope for a reunion. But she definitely shouldn't. (At least not until they're Ready To Make Their Move.)

"I told them not to come for me. I think they'll listen."

"If you change your mind, I think I could get the message to them."

"Thank you. I'll... think about that."

(Don't be too hesitant. Don't be too eager.)

"So, why were they born?"

She walks to the nearest window of the prison-apartment and gazes down Olympus Tower to the grisly monument at its roots.

(She has had time, in the interim between the first and second time he asked that question, to prepare an answer in depth.)

"I lost almost my entire extended family in the Battle Of London."

"I'm sorry to hear that." 

She scans the charnel field for the patch of it where the skeletons of her loved ones still hang unburied.

"I wanted to start a new family. I wanted it to be a less fragile one."

"You could have signed up for the program."

She whirls around. Makes her voice angry while her eyes still well with tears.

"I'm sure you'd say I'm wrong to. I might be wrong to. But I don't like you, don't trust you, and don't..."

Her words give out. Her thoughts are jumbled.

"Your thoughts are your own."

She sits down, turns away and says nothing.

"Do you want me to go?"

She nods.

He heads towards the door. "There's a terminal when you want something to eat. Feel free to browse as you wish."

“Thank you.”

(Well. That was easier than she expected it to be.)

She waits a long time, long enough that it seems suitably unlikely that Earth’s false god is still concerning himself with something as insignificant as her, and then finally lowers her mental guard and starts planning her next moves in earnest.

Meanwhile, Summer and Jess are excavating a lair.

"I'm thinking we keep the entrance underwater."

"Obviously."

Mapping Satellites are a thing. Above ground entrances could Pan Out Badly.

"Apparently a lot of our brothers and sisters are building lairs. Think they'd be worth a look?"

My, digging at the solid antarctic rock is fun.

"There are so many reasons we should not be doing that."

Her first attempts at empowered tunneling are haphazard, but once she gets the hang of leveraging her quantum energy it is a quite delightful experience.

"I don't want our lair to be... lackluster?"

Spin drill!

"I don't want our lair to be derivative."

"Good point. Still, reinventing the wheel is a thing."

"...or we could just look up a few famous lair floor plans on the 'net?"

"Oh, that works. Didn't really click that we can type now."

"Click, click, click. Sky's the limit, even."

Sky is literally not even a limit.

Wow.

Having teeth is great.

"We could write things. Or turn pages."

Summer gets to blasting out a set of stairs.

"...what are those for?"

"Walking-ohhhhhh."

And ten thousand miles away, in the most prominent of all the Lairs ever forged by Miraclefolk, Ambrosia sits at the edge of an unfamiliar bed contemplating the steps she'll have to take to keep a fragile dream alive through oncoming years.

While the builder of this lair thinks about future visits down to what he won't try convincing himself is anything but a courteous prison.

She's plotted out a course, reshaped her mind and preferences to optimize for achieving it.

She can't remember precisely what that course is, of course, because if she can't allow herself to know anything that she can't afford to potentially have her captor know as well.

Soon, she won't even remember that she's modified herself today. She'll just get little prompts from her past self, whenever she brushes up against boundaries of the planned course, to ensure she stays on it.

(And when she gets those prompts, she'll act on them so reflexively it won't even enter her conscious thoughts.)

She's ready. As ready as a person in her shoes could be. And so she doesn't let a shred of doubt enter her mind. (That's the secret to surviving, as a mere mortal, in a world full of telepathic superhumans. You have to have faith. You have to trust yourself absolutely. Anything short of that, and you'll never see things through.)