NOW: TRI-MOTHER ABBEY, FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE ATTACK ON THE FESTIVE NIGHTBEAK

Uni-Sister Treb knew she was dreaming. She was in her nest, the fibers piled high, her homespun blanket on top of it. It wasn’t what a sentient would call comfortable, but when one was practicing the sort of mind disciplines they worked on at the Abbey, you didn’t want a lot of distractions. Treb wished she had a bigger nest. As a Stindt, her body was mostly a colony organism of mini-Stindts, organelles and nervous bundles. All of them sat inside her membrane, and had a tendency to sink without good support. It was easy to wake up with membrane pains all on one side if you expanded outside your nest and oozed onto the floor.

Treb knew this was a dream because her nest was normally in her alcove, way down inside the abbey, but right now her nest was smack in the middle of the tower commune room, the pew-troughs sloping upward, the statue of the Tri-Mother SibTargSab at one end. It looked awfully real though. Treb checked to make sure she wasn’t naked. Waking up naked at lecture time was a recurring dream of hers.

Treb raised her central eye area to peer around, and got her next big shock - Tri-Mother SibTargSab was present, at the foot of her statue, reading the plaque there. “There’s a lot of crap in the history here,” SibTargSab said. “Somebody should tell the archivist to fix the assumption dates.” SibTargSab looked like Treb - that is; a undulating sack of colony parts, but instead of one central eye stalk and two psudopods, she had three eyes and six pods.

Treb rolled out her nest, trembling, and pulled her modesty sash on, blinking at SibTargSab. “My… Tri-Mother… blessed be to thee, triple in colony and-”

“Yes, yes,” said SibTargSab, glowing faintly happy. “Approach Mes and we’ll have a quick chat. Wes don’t have tons of time, here.”

Treb slowly crawled over, trying to be respectful, but, well, the whole thing was weird. “This… is a dream, right?” she asked the Tri-Mother.

“Oh, sure, single one. This is a lot easier and safer than trying to push into your Brane. Brane of existence, not your membrane. Anyway, I'm delivering this message to your Bi-Mother Superior, but just in case she forgets upon waking, I’m using you as a backup. You keep a dream journal, right?”

Treb was trembling, dream or not, and SibTargSab noticed. “Are you alright, young one?”

Treb didn’t know where to start. “You.. you’re real. I mean, really real.”

SibTargSab snorbed, puffing out air with slight amusement. “Of course. You thought you were worshiping a concept this whole time? I know a few conceptual Stindtopomorphizations, actually. Nice people. But no, I didn’t originate from a ball of worship-kha. I really existed and still do exist, albeit mostly on another Brane, after I was assumed.”

Treb knew the stories intimately, as a priestess. Stindts went through a lifecycle where they merged with another sister, became a Bi-Mother, were fertilized by a Uni-Male and budded off young, and then spent the rest of their life as a merged identity. SibTargSab was the only Stindt that merged three sisters at once, and the merged being was so advanced it simply ascended to heaven, leaving behind only Hers writings. A symbol of possibility, of -

“Yes yes,” SibTargSab huffed. “ it’s very flattering to listen to your mind walk through Tri-Mom 101 but as Is said Is don’t have a lot of time. Is’m backchanneling through your symbolic links you build during prayer and meditation. If Is contacted you directly, someone might listen in, which is why Is’m here, actually..” The Tri-Mother crawled a bit around Treb, thinking first, while Treb gawked at her.

“Stindt is part of the Greater Collected Domains, with the Consortium of Cyhp, the Blee, and the Mbth at the top,” SibTargSab said. “Part of the GCD, but not a very important part, would you agree?” she said, asking the Uni-Sister.

Treb nodded, her membrane pinking with shame. “We are one of the thirty-four conquered nations. But we have a seat on the GCD council. We contribute to the greater glory and stability of the GCD.”

“Good. You’ve heard rumors of these Thirders from Sol. Wes are starting to see encroachments into the greater Branes by powers that have been dormant, sealed off, or just uninterested. Wes believe these Thirders are agitating powers beyond their comprehension. These hostilities need to cease. Wes need you to deliver this message to the Consortium. You and your Bi-Mother Superior, of course. Those of us only lightly bound by time can see possible futures where the GCD reponds in a way that further provokes the Thirders, and that can’t happen.

“These Thirders… they do not play around. If they are willing to do what they are doing now, over an…objectively small series of casualties, an act of outright war against them will undoubtedly be repaid with cataclysm. This the GCD needs to know.”

Treb curled respectfully. “Tri-Mother, I will bring this message, but I don’t know if the mighty Consortium will listen to a lowly Uni-Sister, even if she does come bearing the words of her goddess and patron.”

“Probably not,” SibTargSab said. “Wes’re getting the Myriopus Rex to message the Cyphipope; The Ascended Blee is reaching out to the Queen Blee; we have a few others in the nations. Mbstn is currently on exodus. Wes’ll have to hope it’s enough.” Shes grumped a bit. “It’s not like your mortals listen to your gods, anyway, so I doubt it.”

Treb awoke with a start in her nest back in her alcove, and she took a moment to quickly journal the dream before it faded. Carrying her slate, she opened the door to the tunnel, only to see Bi-Mother Superior PirgThad reaching a pod towards her door handle. PirgThad froze, seeing Treb exiting.

“You saw Hers”, PirgThad whispered. Treb nodded, showing her superior the slate. PirgThad read and curled herself, agreeing. “I’ve scheduled a shuttle. Go, pack and pray. We’re leaving at suns up for GCD innerspace.”

-

THEN: March 1, 2016 - Super Tuesday

“I’ve got a Primary speech to make and some people to talk to, so we have to make this quick,” Wendy said to the table as she sat down. Unlike the temporary Oval Office and Capitol set up in the Philadelphia Convention center, this meeting room was in a sub-basement underneath the first residence. The people at the table were the ones Wendy trusted the most, and she’d chosen them to be the first for her to reveal what she and Xeniya had discovered.

At the time, It was surprising, but not entirely. Stories had started to surface around the world of people with gifts; some of them healers, some prophets, others people simply surprised to learn some of the twopenny spells that had been passed down to uncurdle milk or heal a scratch had started working for a select few.

Some of the stories were bad, too. Spontaneous human combustion incidents were way up, for example. Nightmares, mental health issues, possessions by unclean spirits, poltergeists, you name it. Nobody had a good idea what was going on. Some folks said it was the end times, others said it was some kind of spiritual fallout from the deaths of half a million people, others blamed the aliens.

So, when Wendy got her chosen few from her cabinet - Janet Napolitano as Attorney General, Michèle Flournoy as Secretary of Defense, Jennifer Granholm as Secretary of Energy, her old friend Tamra Sinopoli as Secretary of Ed, and of course Xeniya Raptis as Scientific Advisor - into the basement, and then demonstrated some magic, and did a presentation explaining what she knew (leaving out only a few details) the initial shock was replaced with grim understanding. Xeniya also explained that she had a similar experience, but more from a mechanical/materials standpoint, and went over a few of her discoveries.

Wendy explained that she was divining other pockets of magical activity around the world, and some of them were not in friendly countries. The U.S. was further advanced, but couldn’t afford a magic gap. Plans had to be made.

When Janet questioned why only the female cabinet members were here, Wendy explained that she was building spells of secrecy to protect them, and these spells used the archetypical all-female coven as a fundamental binding force, the explanation - while crazy - made a sort of sense. The bigger issue was really fighting off multiple looking threats. Besides the threats from other nations, there were still possible aliens - maybe even overhead right now. And there were darker, more ominous forces circulating in the future. Wendy was breathless, and actually truly terrified as she explained that she only got glimpses in dreams of a dark, warped and grim force, dressed in green and side-by-side with Death. She knew it was there, just not where (or when) yet.

The only part her special Cabinet was negative about was her liberal use of the Authority spells. It became painfully obvious how she had engineered her rise to power, and Wendy admitted it. Her coven assumed she was downplaying how much she was using it; in actuality she was using it a lot more than even they estimated. In different times, replacing her or eliminating her might have made sense, but everyone there knew they couldn’t, and even if they did then the U.S. would be easily overpowered by another Nation. They explained that they’d be judging her actions and if she ever went too far they’d go public. Wendy agreed.

She also provided hex tokens for all of them. Xeniya gave them a lecture about limiting their usage - they needed to start becoming sensitive, so they could understand the work, but only a few hours a day at first would wake them up. Wendy stayed silent during this speech.

Wendy had a list of priorities, and the woman debated them, and made some refinements. Plans were drawn for secret labs and research. The biggest part was keeping it all secret.

After the meeting, Tamra approached her about a delicate subject, which was that as a trans woman, would that interfere with the coven? Wendy explained it was a question of using ritual and symbology to make the universe manifest, and not whether you had a fucking uterus, so Tamra let it go.

So when Wendy summoned them all on the night of Super-Tuesday before she announced her latest victories to the press, she skipped any formalities and discussion of the election and their projects and demonstrated a spell she’d finally cracked - a geas, that compelled people to keep a secret and not discuss or divulge in any way a secret. There were multiple ways to implement it, but Xeniya was working on options.

-

NOW: FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE ATTACK ON THE FESTIVE NIGHTBEAK

Groombridge 1618-C, a small planet near a red dwarf star, had a landing outpost and a series of terraforming stations on the surface. The planet’s atmo was not bad - in a generation, if they could remove a percentage of methane, it might be usable outside. The planet itself didn’t have a lot going for it - it was warm enough, but covered almost uniformly in the temperate zones with silt and mud. Buildings had to be on supports sunk deep to find bedrock. Still, though, the mineral content was high, veins of radioactive ore that could be refined, so the Cyph’d built the base and did some refining while trying to make something of the atmosphere.

The Captain of the outpost, Captain Yaanup, saw the security alerts go up a couple of km from the station. Something moving. Something big. He sent a patrol skimmer to check it out.

The Pilotdrone reported back crazy descriptions - a body, looking like a Thirder, but fifty meters tall. It was walking slowly across the mud, not sinking into it either. It had only holes where the eyes and mouth would be, crude club-like hands and feet, and a set of glowing letters on its head. At the spot where it originated, a couple of regular Thirders were spotted, but they vanished from sight.

The giant was approaching the station. According to reports, giants appeared in a couple of other locations, attacking the methane extractors and landing fields. Captain Yaanup ordered them to open fire, but small arms fire mostly just sunk into them, rail guns punched through them, and lasers didn’t do much. Large scale explosives seemed to work the best but did as much damage to the structures as they did to the giants.

Once the lead giant made its way to the base and started collapsing it, Captain Yaanup ordered an evac, and stayed behind as long as possible to transmit pictures of a bunch of clay and mud giant Thirders rending his outpost into slabs, then chunks.

THEN: MARCH 25th, 2015

“I had a look at the second set of MRI’s”, Doctor Bannet said to President Ashe, “and I’m concerned.”

Wendy hadn’t followed up with the Doctor, being too busy with the Primary battle she was waging, but when he called her aides multiple times she finally caved and swung by before heading out west for the big Western Tuesday showdown. Bannet had the scans - both the recent ones, and one from a few weeks ago, and…

“These are old,” Wendy said, frowning.

“They were in the Mt. Sinai records. You had a car accident back in 2009, and got scanned at the hospital, remember? They were still on file, thankfully, because the comparison helps. Look here.” Bannet pointed on the old scans to a dot right in the center of the image of Wendy’s 2009 brain. There was a little round blob.

“That’s your pineal gland,” he explained. “Now look here. The next one we took in 2015 after you got promoted to Secretary of Education. “ He pointed again, and the spot looked larger, and not quite as round. He looked up at Wendy, her still frowning.

“Would this explain my sleep problems?” Wendy asked.

“Maybe. It secretes melatonin and hormonally influences other glands. When you become an adult, it shrinks a bit, meaning less melatonin, but it still makes some. Pineal activity also helps regulate your sex drive. You would think it would be making more melatonin, not less. But if the pineal was changing function, like due to a tumor or a cyst, or some other mutation, and it ramped down production, then yes. But the QEMPS is not the most disturbing part.”

He pulled out the new scans and pointed to the same spot. “It’s hard to see, but the pineal is bigger in this one. It’s also sending what looks like new nerve bundles into the brain. It’s behaving sort of like a tumor, but I don’t see other tumor signs, so it’s hard to tell. We need more tests and maybe a biopsy.”

Wendy continued to look at the scans. “I’m about to win the Democratic nomination, Doctor,” she said. “I can’t have this out. It would ruin me. Fucking Trump keeps going on about how great his brain is, how could I answer that I have an unknown thing in my brain?”

“It’s growing. You’ve only got so much space in there, Madam President. It’s going to start hurting the brain matter pretty soon as it continues to grow.”

“Well, that’s impossible,” she said, raising her voice. “I’ve got so many no-harms and more-heals on my brain as it is, whatever it is can’t possibly hurt my brain!"

"Madame Pres-"

"My brain could take a bullet and probably eat it for lunch.”

Doctor Bannet stared at Wendy, saying weakly, “I don’t understand. And.. there’s some other concerning changes, very small ones, but structurally, I just think it would be in your best interests -”

“Look at this!” Wendy barked, pulling out a printout from her purse. It was another MRI brain scan. “What about her… what about this one’s pineal.”

“Who’s brain is this?” the Doctor asked, but Wendy just shook the paper under his face. He looked down at it. “This looks like another person with QEMPS.”

“OK, that’s twice now. What is QEMPS?”

“Quantum Entangled Matter Proximity Syndrome. A few of the first researchers at the Long Beach Island labs had it. Accidentally touch or ingestion of the QEM solids in the alien technology - the brain gets completely destroyed, pineal first. Even people who worked near it without touching it showed some symptoms. But see,” he said as he pointed at some spots, “The pineal in this one is enlarged, but not sending shoots, and these gaps suggest the growth halted and maybe retreated slightly.”

Wendy angrily threw the paper aside and got her things together, then said while throwing her coat on, “Here’s a scenario. These things you said are trying to grow into and infiltrate my brain. The brain normally would be damaged by this, but imagine my brain can’t be damaged, per se, so what happens?”

“I don’t know,” Bannet said truthfully, “we’re talking about impossibilities here. Your brain would normally get squeezed, but that’s damage. Sometimes it cones and goes down the spinal outlet, but I guess that would be damage. Um. Your skull splits?”

“Skull’s not going to be damaged either.”

Bannet shrugged. “Well, it’s got to go someplace.”

“Hmm. Maybe out at right-angles to my brain.” Wendy continued muttering to herself as she left the office, secret service agents and aides outside all yammering at once.

Once peace returned, Bannet sat down, thinking about the meeting. Boy, he thought, he’d love it if he could consult with a colleague on this one.

But when the President had returned, she’d had a new confidentiality agreement for him to sign, and this one looked very official - lots of old looking language and odd art on it. Given the situation it was probably a really good idea that he sign it. And now that he thought about it, he really didn’t have any desire to talk to anyone about her case. He felt that very strongly.