THIRTY MINUTES EARLIER

  —Popp—

  All of Josh’s clothing, body hair, and outer layer of skin instantly incinerated into a cloud of ash that was swirled away in the vortex of a rising plasma ejection. His eyes had only been functional long enough to possibly see somekind of scathing, all encompassing golden-white incandescence. Then, the brown orbs had melted and dribbled down flaming cheeks in a bubbling scorch trial. The rest of his skin, muscles, nerves, and organs also started dribbling down in runnels. The thinning streams also boiling off in energized atomic vapor.

  The tiny part of Josh's brain that wasn’t screeching in pain wasn’t sure exactly where they were. Though, he was coming around to the belief that this new reality made Kyon Shi’s lava compulsion seem like an ice bath poured out in a bowl shaped glacier during a winter’s cold snap.

  Disembodied words penetrated the lawyer’s panic mind, “. . . Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you have ever— Oh!”

  “Ευπρ?σδεκτο παιδ? . . . δε?τε τι ε?ναι αληθιν?!”

  Josh felt more than heard Gaia’s intoning words of power, as, on a very basic level, his core resonated with her will. It chiming with the Star Child’s intention as the particles of his material body cascaded along the matrix that connected him to the surrounding quantum network of the iteration’s physical substrate.

  Josh’s interface didn’t even attempt a translation the Mother of Earth’s evolked words. But her long vowels and stressed consonants somehow reminded him of his many visits to old-school gyros shops on Chicago’s middle South Side. The words also had the merciful effect of stopping his and Sen’s flash-fry, allowing the still steaming Essence in their meridians began a rapid healing.

  After several seconds of relief at the fact that he wasn’t going to end up a brown stain of burnt butter on whatever griddle Gaia had brought them to, Josh called to Sen as his whole-body-quivering continued, ~...Sen, you ok?!~

  His brother’s breathing was rapid, and through their Bond Josh could tell that his thoughts were racing just as fast as his own. ~... Yes, I’m… recovering.~

  A few seconds more and both their eyes had grown back. Josh could finally see they were standing on– He did a double take–

  The green border of dozens of well-tended orchards stretching out as far as his Essence-enhanced vision could see.

  To the right, fruit trees rose straight and gracefully out of rich black soil. To the left, grape and olive vineyards. Their heavy, fruit laden vines intertwined with the aged slats of wooden trellises. The thatches of similar structures could be seen as they endlessly marched down terraced hills into what had to be the greenest and lushest valley Josh had ever seen.

  All through this bountiful vista, Josh could make out laborers wearing simple but stainless white tunics. They were tending the trees, bushes, vines and plants of all fruiting varieties. Busily, they hoed irrigation ditches, laid fertilizer, and, all in all, seemed as happy as the seven dwarfs in a double diamond mine. The farmers might even have been humming the tune to Whistle While You Work . . . but Josh was pretty sure he was just imagining that. Their labors did occasionally disturb flocks of nesting songbirds, causing mass, white winged exoduses to burst noisily into the air for short circling flights. Their harried flight soon returning to their branches as soon as they realized nothing was truly amiss.

  Josh’s eyes also caught furry, heavy-bodied yellow and black honeybees airborne on individual and meandering paths performing their impossibility of flight. As far as could be seen, the round bodied insects bobbed through the sweet smelling air meeting their duty of going to and fro to ceaselessly cross-pollinate the myriad white blossoms nestled on the orchard’s thick, dark barked branches.

  But more than this dramatic evidence of prolific life all around them…Every limb on every tree, and every vine on every rack was in bloom! It was impossible to miss the overwhelming feeling of life simply being ready to burst.

  Josh’s unconscious 360-degree pivot had brought him back to Gaia standing dead center in front of them. Her ams were spread wide-open and resplendent as her whole body gleamed like a star itself in a white, ankle-length silk gown. The dresses thin straps sitting comfortably over her lithe, sun-browned shoulders. But what struck Josh was that the smile on her face reached down to the tips of her toes. She was enjoying herself as she showcased everything behind her in a move that would have put Vanna White to shame. She veritably pulsed with pride as she spoke, “Now, can you see it?”

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  Brains still spinning from their all too warm welcome, Josh and Sen finally nodded quietly in the affirmative. Josh being Josh, also spoke the first words that came to his shocked-raw brain. “Ya, Gaia . . . We can . . . There is no question that Mama Celeste’s ‘abbondanza’ lives here eight days a week!”

  The mother of Earth chuckled quietly and turned taking in the amazing view for herself.

  Slowly, Josh’s executive mental functions returned restoring the power of speaking semi-meaningful sentences. He asked the question that was forefront in his still healing brain, “. . . But . . . where were we before . . . you know when we were being incinerated?”

  “Oh then . . .” A slightly chagrined look crossed her ageless face. “... You were right here as well—And I’m sorry about that, boys, I really am—I just keep forgetting how fragile– Ahhh– young! Yes, how young you two truly are.” She looked at them like the proud mother she was. “For beings as young as you, the surface of a neo zoi—” Gaia waved her hand indicating everything around them to clarify, “This protostar— is still a bit much.” Gaia tilted her head as if she was considering adding something else. But ultimately must have chosen to refrain and continued along a different conversational track. “. . . Because of these limitations, I had to invite you as my personal guests as well as the guests of the Star Children olio mazi— all together, so to speak. With that formality, you gained our protection from the environment.” She spread her hands wide, bidding them to again take in the magnificent vista of unlimited plentitude all around. “. . . You are also able to see the neo zoi as we do . . . The most fertile place in the iteration—”

  Josh’s unnerved voice interrupted Gaia, “—You mean we’re walking on the surface of a protostar—a celestial body that can erupt into stellar nuclear fusion at any second!?”

  Gaia looked back with a playful expression on her face and raised a thin hand with her index finger extended. “Well, technically, no . . . But, only because I’m exercising control over the core elements of this and every other protostar in the Creaturix Nebulae that surrounds us—”

  “I suspect you will be wasting your breath if you get any more technical than that with them, Mother . . . Especially given the limited mental faculties of this particular young vampire.” A disturbingly familiar, cultured, and authoritative voice cut in from behind.

  Josh’s eyes popped open. ~It can't be!?~

  Sen gave one nod of acceptance. ~. . . But it is, brother. It is.~

  Josh spun, as Sen nimbly turned to bring into view a powerfully built, movie-star-handsome man at the peak of youth. He wore a gold-trimmed white toga and sported laurel leaves wrapping his temples. His dark hair fell in loose curls to his broad shoulders. His skin glowed so brightly gold that a nimbus of light radiated around his entire frame.

  Cronos’ cocky, crooked grin belied the fact that he had spent over five thousand years imprisoned in isolation as punishment for eating his children whole.

  Can’t imagine what their family get togethers look like during the Holidays…

  A perplexed expression shot across Sen’s face ~Holidays?~

  Josh absently held up a hand. ~Earth custom, not important…but to think about it, I bet sitting at his Thanksgivings aren’t all that different from those at the Marztanak household.~

  At the mention of his family Sen’s gaze grew laser focused, but he quickly adopted an expression of being completely mystified by Josh’s lack of explanation, ~...Never mind for now…I’ll explain the judeo-christian customs of flagellating yourself with family later…~

  Sen narrowed his gaze. ~Never mind brother, I already know that the human capacity for self inflicted pain is far beyond my ability to understand.~

  Josh did a double take, but then remembered what he had been focused on and turned back to Cronos. He now appeared twenty years younger than when Josh and Sen had rescued him . . . a virtual youth in the prime of his vigor. But, Josh supposed physical appearance was probably nothing more than a current attitude when you were a Titan.

  Cronos wasn’t alone. Like migrating geese in formation, there were four others flanking his leading position, two women and two men. All just as heroically proportioned, they also wore white togas and were sporting the glow-in-the-dark luminescent-skin of a youthful god on holiday. They also broadcast the same arrogant attitude of superiority and bore looks that gave Josh the distinct impression it would be beneath their station to pee on him and Sen should they spontaneously burst into flames.

  Cronos spoke for the group, “Mother . . . their presence here indicates you have decided to replace our missing two . . .” Cronos looked straight at Josh and screwed his face up, obviously mentally groping for the appropriate word that wouldn’t insult Gaia. “... with these mortals.” The down turn of his vocal emphasis left nothing to the imagination that Cronos would have preferred to find his bare foot stuck in a pile of horse droppings than to continue seeing Josh and Sen. He moved on, and his voice took a tone of increased hope as his cadence also increased to get his next thought out. “... All you need do is say the word, and I can have Atlas and Prometheus here at our side—” Gaia’s more than one-foot-shorter frame leveled a gaze at Cronos that made the king of the Titans shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked together behind blanched lips. Josh also noted that he saw the youths throat anxiously dry swallow.

  No doubt about who’s wearing the power pants here.

  The Earth’s mother sighed and spoke to the king of the Titans as any mom would in explaining to their child for the fiftieth time that there would be no desert before they had finished their supper. “My youngest son, you know that won’t work. Only other Star Children or our direct descendants can participate in this event.” She pointed with both hands to the Titans around her. “That means, you all as my children conceived with Uranus . . .” Then she tilted her head and looked at Josh and Sen with good-natured acceptance, “. . . and for some reason mortals from the planet Earth. I’m not really sure how, but I think it has something to do with the fact that they were formed unilaterally from the stray particles of your core Essence when Zeus disrupted your iterational continuity with that thunderbolt of his . . . Almost as if they are your brothers and sisters… not your descendants. The why is not exactly of crucial relevance to our current situation. But these are the tiles we have all been dealt . . .”

  Gaia took several small but quick steps forward, and her presence took on an aura that commanded all to look on here when she pivoted on Cronus. Then the Earth Mother vissage took on a sharp edge that could have rasped granite into powder and Josh suddenly found it difficult to pull air into his lungs.

  Everything in the immediate vicinity stilled. Even the overhead clouds seemed to stop in their vectors as Gaia lowered her tone to barely above a whisper but Cronus’ face paled as if Gaia’s words struck him physically, and hard at that. “. . . I encourage you to accept reality and play nicely with these new friends I have been fortunate enough to find for you . . .”