Ravens of Eternity

All around were a number of large pillows which acted as huge unstructured seats. They reminded Eva a bit of beanbags. But these were especially long and large. And incredibly comfortable.

A few of the Ravens sat on them, while the others sat on the couch.

Despite the carefree nature of their surroundings, they were in a deeply serious conversation with each other. Their entire futures were up in the air, and now that the Federation was all but closed to them, they had to figure out what to do.

Not just in their current universe, but in their old one too.

“So, first order of business,” said Eva, “Luci, do ya have any family back on Earth?”

“What? Why do you care?” Lucifer said. “Why’s that even matter?”

“All of our families back on old Earth are kinda... they got together and made one big one,” Amal answered. “They’ve made a business out of the footage we send ’em, and they’re doing really well. Like ridiculously well. We figure you’ve got people you wanna take care of too. They’d be so welcome to join the rest of the fam.”

.....

Lucifer nodded slowly as though in understanding. But ze didn’t.

Ze looked back at hir life before being reborn into this new galaxy, and shivered slightly. Most of what ze remembered was hir incredibly abusive father, and hir absentee mother. Ze cared little for either of them, and had mostly forgotten about them until just now.

“My parents are dead,” Lucifer replied flatly. “At least one of them is burning in hell.”

Eva frowned slightly at hearing the tone in hir voice. She could definitely identify with the animosity ze felt towards hir parents.

“Doesn’t have to be them,” she said. “Do you have grandparents? Or brothers and sisters? Family?”

“None of the above,” ze replied with a sigh.

“Look, I... did what I had to do,” ze replied. “I escaped, then ran away as fast as I could. Best day of my life. I wandered around for a bit, then ended up in a shelter for strays just like me. Closest thing I had to any kind of family were a few kids I met there. But that was all I ever saw of them, ever. So I’m not even sure that counts.”

A hush fell over the Ravens as hir words sank into them. It was a few moments later that Amal broke the silence.

“Well, we can find them for you,” she said. “If you want, anyway. I’m 100% sure the fam would welcome them.”

Lucifer was taken aback at the offer. Ze thought back to the days when hir friends – hir spiritual brothers and sisters – were together. They were relatively happy, at least for a while. In spite of the smiles they shared, they all knew deep down it was all temporary.

“If they’re even still alive,” said Lucifer. “But I’ll think about it.”

“We can still get Mack to look for them,” Miko added. “You can make a final decision if he finds any.”

Lucifer only nodded in response.

“In other, equally depressing news,” Amal said after a few moments. The Ravens chuckled lightly before she continued.

“I’ve really been looking at a lot of blood lately. And that’s not just because I’m the stitcher-upper of the team. I’ve been thinking a whole lot about genetics in the past year, and been doing a whole lot of research to boot. I kinda came across something we might be interested in...”

“Is this related to my fath... to Drenn’s work?” asked Kali.

Amal nodded, very lightly.

“A bit, yeah,” she said. “Not exactly his work, though, but his blood. His genetic makeup. Or, really specifically, his genetic traits. He had two of them.”

Claire furrowed her brow a bit. Having two traits wasn’t exactly uncommon, and wasn’t sure where Amal was alluding to.

“Wait,” she interjected. “That sounds normal to me. I mean, most of us end up having two traits – one at birth, another about 100 years after.”

Xylo nodded in agreement.

“Most of the time, 100 years, yeah,” she added. “Not always though. Back when I served, my base’s XO famously got his second during Hell Week. He was 22 or 23, I think? It’s been a while.”

“That’s all definitely true,” Amal replied. “Having two traits isn’t uncommon. Having two Ultra Rare traits is.”

Her revelation sucked the air and the energy right out of the room. Claire and Xylo both looked at each other in bewilderment. They knew that even having one Ultra Rare trait was something that happened only sparingly.

Having two was outright impossible to them.

“Drenn had two UR traits?” Claire asked. “A-are you sure?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Did he perhaps graft them into himself?” asked Miko. “Or perhaps modified them? Genetics was his speciality, after all.”

Amal shook her head adamantly.

“Genetic traits are completely immutable,” she replied. “They’re technically the only things in our genome that we can’t change. Everything else is fair game – even the genes that define us as human are editable.

“According to Drenn’s own notes, he didn’t even bother to try to modify or add or remove them from his... test subjects. Even if he wanted to, he knew it was impossible.”

“Have you tried?” asked Eva.

“I’d need my own lab to do that,” Amal replied. “And a willing test subject.”

“Alright, so Drenn had two UR traits,” said Xylo. “Might’ve been a one in a trillion chance that he got it, but he’s dead now, so what’s the problem?”

“The chances of it happening’s pretty abysmal, I agree. But what if I told you That Idiot also had two UR traits? I was looking into his genome, just to see if his behavior was... codified into him. I was shocked what I found.”

“How the hell did he get a second one unlocked early?” asked Lucifer.

“No idea,” answered Amal. “But when I looked at his genomes from a chronological perspective, his trait appeared some time after he joined the Peacekeepers. Probably three months ago now, at this point.”

“What, so the Peacekeepers unlocked it somehow? Is that even possible?”

“It’s why I’ve been researching it. I did see that the second is usually unlocked after what looks like a major maturation event. Most get it at 100 because of the number itself. Like, something dawns on those people, maybe some great wisdom, and something inside clicks.”

“I doubt That Idiot found any kind of emotional or intellectual maturity to prompt that kind of growth,” Eva said flatly. “My guess is that it got triggered somehow?”

“Maybe,” Amal replied. “I’d need to study it all more. But otherwise, I haven’t found much honestly. Double UR traits practically never happened until recently. Single UR traits also barely ever happened. But there’s thousands of refugees who have them. Hell, almost all of us here have UR traits, right? Shouldn’t it be rarer than that?”

“Okay, but what’s the deeper problem?” asked Claire. “Or are you trying to say that people with double UR traits are evil slagheads?”

“Basically, yeah, sorta,” said Amal. “I think... I mean, I theorize having two of them leads to some kind of internal corruption. I mean, just think how every UR trait has a massive negative attached to it. It really makes life hard sometimes. I can’t imagine what having two of those would do to a person.”

“That Idiot was pretty bad before his second trait, though,” said Xylo.

“And we also watched him kill civilians en masse,” Eva countered. “In broad daylight no less. He was certainly way more violent and careless, and he even roped the Peacekeepers into it. I can buy that theory.”

“What I’m really worried about is us, honestly,” Amal said. “Except for Xylo and Claire, we’ve all got UR traits. If even one of us gets a second... And many of us definitely could... I don’t know what that would mean, and I’m kind of afraid of it...”

Amal’s worries filled the other Ravens as well. Her theories seemed rather plausible, and they feared that she might be right. But like she said, there was still so much more to find out.

“You think that would mess up people with double rare traits too?” asked Xylo. “I mean, Claire and I both have rare traits. What if we both ended up with doubles? Would we become crazy? Maybe not as crazy, but crazy enough?”

“It’s possible,” Amal replied. “I didn’t think to look there while researching, but I’ll definitely look now. If there’s a pattern of corruption with double R traits, then we can easily assume the pattern would also be present with double UR.

“Correlation and causation are not the same thing,” Miko said. “We may be getting worried over nothing.”

“I agree. But I still need to know if it’s true. Because if they are, then we need to be prepared for it. For ourselves.”

The rest of the Ravens agreed with light murmurs. It was only a few moments later that Claire gasped loudly.

“The Chief Minister,” she stammered. “It was a half year back, does anyone remember? The Federation had a weeklong celebration about it – they announced he had finally received a second trait! But they never said if it was Ultra Rare or not...”

“Well, if he starts going crazy, we’ll have a really good guess why,” joked Eva. But Claire and Xylo could only chuckle nervously. Having a nation’s leader become corrupted like Drenn was a horrifying prospect.

“Good,” Lucifer added. “I hope he burns the Federation down along with him.”

Before anyone could react, a console on the floor beeped loudly. Then the holographic image of a Discordian communications officer appeared above it.

“Sorry to intrude, esteemed guests,” she said. “I have an incoming encrypted comms for you from a Federation Admiral. She says you’re expecting her?”

“Oh, yes, please patch her in,” Eva responded.

The comms officer faded out, and was quickly replaced by a holographic projection of Admiral Chase.

She stood tall and proud, in a clean-pressed Naval uniform. Despite that, she looked relatively fraught, tired, and stressed. The bags under her eyes seemed gray and puffy.

“Thanks for taking my comms request,” she said. “You probably thought it was some kind of trap, considering I am who I am.”

“It is no problem,” said Miko. “The Federation cannot reach us.”

“How can we help you, Admiral?” asked Eva.

“I just... I want to give my apology, for my brother, and how he acted. And also, as part of that apology, I want to give you Prometheus.”