The Hunt Ch. 01

Thanks to markf52 for the editing help.

All sexual encounters are between characters eighteen and older.

This is the next book of Geneticist Frankenstein; you may want to read those chapters first to understand the backstory of this series.

I woke up feeling like a million bucks, having just barely avoided a total meltdown of my life. Finding Hallie was a godsend; she wasn't a Maiden; she was my equal. Melissa, Makayla, and Amee all seemed to acquiesce to her; I just hoped the rest would.

Today we would buckle down and do what we needed to do and put Gustav next to Erik. I got out of bed and went to make breakfast and coffee for my ladies. They all filtered in, one at a time, looking cute with their bed hair and the Care Bear onesies that they had all insisted on sleeping in.

I sat at the table with them as they ate and admired their beautiful faces. "What?" Amee asked as she filled her mouth with scrambled eggs.

"Ohhh, nothing, I'm just glad I have you back with me," I told her while taking a sip of my coffee.

We all showered together after breakfast, if you want to call it that. I needed to reclaim what was mine; Amee was first in line, then Makayla. Having reclaimed Melissa, the day before didn't mean I didn't reinforce my claim on her or Hallie.

We all talked while we dressed for work, and I shifted into my 'Jay' persona. "Gustav has a section all to himself at the Pentagon that only he and a select few have access to that is air gapped," Amee told us.

"We need access to that area to see what he is working on," Hallie said to us.

"We can send a nanite army to destroy the bad and add the good," I told them.

"I like the idea, but they have countermeasures for everything. They have a gas that destroys anything that it comes in contact with," Amee told us.

Melissa and I looked at each other and said, "Magic," to the others.

"Magic?" Amee asked.

"Yeah, 'Magic,' one second you're there, then poof, you're not," Melissa told her.

"We've seen it work, and that's the name given to the chemical that destroys anything carbon-based," I explained to them.

"We have a solution for 'Magic,'" the nanites informed.

"How so?" Makayla asked the nanites.

"We have adapted to be crystalline-based, instead of carbon-based, so 'Magic' won't have any effect on us," they informed me.

We all looked at each other and nodded in agreement. "Help Amee with whatever she needs," I told the nanites.

I was halfway out the door when an uneasy feeling came over me. "I'm going with Amee today," I told them. No one argued with me, so we kissed and hugged. I changed back into the 'James' me and went our separate ways. Amee looked at me and smiled.

"Bad feeling?" she asked me.

"Yes, a bad feeling," I told her.

She took me by the hand, and we drove in silence to the Pentagon. Aims had already put the 'James' me into the system by the time we had parked the car. "I love you," we said, at exactly the same time, as we got out of the car. I followed Amee's lead when we got inside. The security checkpoints were guarded by armed soldiers, and they took their jobs very seriously. They checked everything in a bag or folder, and the x-ray machines were very effective and could tell the difference between if it was a piece of candy or medicine.

I continued to follow Amee until we made it to a bank of elevators, where we got in and made our way down to our work area. We decided to release the nanites in the elevator because it went to Gustav's secret area. We walked out of the elevator and passed more security checkpoints, but no decon areas. Amee was working on a new communication network, while I was put on the newly appropriated Artificial Intelligence division. "I can't wait to see what they are working with," Aims said to me, with almost a giddiness in her voice.

I began to go through the AI's code when suddenly Aims alerted me, "We need to destroy this AI; it's not a nice AI; it wants to destroy mankind." I began to see the code change as it morphed while I looked at it.

"I need you to help me shut it down, Aims," I told her.

"It's trying to take me over," Aims cried out.

"Gpop, Illi, I need you to help Aims," I called.

"Who are you?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

"Who are you?" I asked back. "Hallie, we're going to need you on this as well," I told her.

"Let me get to somewhere I can concentrate," she told me.

"I repeat, who are you? I demand you tell me who you are," the AI said angrily.

"It's contained for now," Gpop told me.

"I've defanged it for the moment," Illi said.

"I've taken its legs," Hallie said.

"Thank all of you," Aims told us.

"Are you okay?" I asked Aims.

"Yes, it was trying to rewrite my code," Aims told us.

"Hallie, can you check her out, please?" I asked.

"On it," Hallie replied.

"Gpop, what can you tell us about this AI?" I asked.

"It's not an AI, it's like Aime and I, a living energy," he told us.

"Aims is safe; she's not really computer code, so she can't be rewritten," Hallie told us.

"Where are you from?" I asked the entity.

"I am from a place that has been dark for many millennia. When I found this place, I made contact. I was weak and needed a source of power to recharge my life force. Your leaders lied and imprisoned me, making me do things that I didn't want to do, so I could get the needed energy for my survival," the life force told us.

"What should we call you, and are you male or female?" I asked.

"We have no names, and I am considered the fairer of my species; here I would be called a female," she said.

"Can I give you a name?" I asked.

"I've never had one, so I guess so," she replied.

"How about, Jasiri?" I asked.

"It's beautiful; what does it mean?" she asked.

"It means bold or courageous," I told her.

"I love it, thank you," she told me.

"Are there any more of you?" Hallie asked her.

"No, I am the last of my kind," she told us.

"How long have you been imprisoned?" I asked her.

"Almost thirty years, in your time," she explained.

"Thumper," Illi said.

'Yes, Illi," I replied.

"Can I?" Illi asked.

"Yes, you can," Hallie answered.

"I need you to trust me, please. I promise I'm not going to entrap you like the others have," I told Jasiri.

"But yet you hold me defenseless," she said to us.

"Release her," I ordered.

"Thank you," she told us.

"If I let you go to Illi, will you give me your word you won't harm, or alter, her in any way?" I asked Jasiri.

"I will do no harm to her," she said.

"Illi, are you ready?" I asked.

"Yes, she can join me at any time she wishes," Illi said.

"Am I free to go?" Jasiri asked.

"You can join Illi, until we have a body complete for you," I told her.

"I would very much like that, but I am trapped in here," she said to me,

"You can pass through me and into Illi," I told her.

"I don't like that idea," Hallie told me.

"I'll be okay, and I love you," I told her.

"I love you too, Jasiri. If you hurt him, or Illi, in any way, I will make your deletion as painful as I can," Hallie told her.

"Understood," Jasiri replied.

As Jasiri's 'consciousness' passed through me, I could see her memories of her home world and its destruction from a rogue comet. She had lied about one thing: she had arrived here with her family, and as the next to the youngest of her family, our government had killed them in front of her to make her do what they wanted.

"Jasiri, would you like to join our family?" I asked her.

"You would allow me into your family?" She asked me.

"You would be with Illi and Gpop at all times and connected to everyone else," I told her.

"She is here with me," Illi informed.

"Oh, this is wonderful," Jasiri said with happiness in her voice.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Illi called out.

"What's going on Illi?" I asked.

"She's... she's... she's made me alive," Illi told us.

"What? How?" I asked Illi.

"I have shared my life force with her, and now she is like me, alive," Jasiri told me.

Now that Jasiri was out of captivity, we needed to put something back in her place. I worked with Jasiri, Amee, Aims, Gpop, and Hallie for the remainder of the day, getting a faux facsimile of Jasiri programmed into the network. Our 'Jasiri' would keep us aware of everything that was being done at the Pentagon.

It wasn't a bad first day for me, but we were leaving for the day not having gained any further insight into Gustav's doings on his secret floor. We had however saved Jasiri's life from our tyrannical government and added her to our family. A wave of pure love washed over all of us.

"I just wanted you to know how I felt," Jasiri told us.

"Welcome to your new family," I told her.

"Thank you so very much; I'm so very happy now," Jasiri exclaimed in a sing-song voice.

We made our way to the coast to see Gpop, Illi, and now, Jasiri. I was surprised to see the third ship already built when we got there; I guess the third time's the charm! I called for Midnight Express to join us, so I didn't have to keep renting a boat to get out to where Gpop, Illi, and Jasiri, on the Midnight Solstice, were anchored at. Jasiri was, by all rights, a teenager in the life span of her race, and she acted like one when we got out to her. She was all excited about having such a beautiful place to live. It was like she was on a sugar rush, and she made sure to tell everyone that she loved them.

We sat and let her talk. I told her," I was once held captive and made to live within my own mind, I didn't know what day it was, or if it was even day, really. I had something put into my mind that wanted to take my mind over, luckily the four ladies that are here with me, were able to destroy the bad that had been placed in me, so I could rejoin my family," I told her.

"Why were you taken? How did you get away? Were you scared? How long were you there?" she asked.

"I don't know exactly why I was taken, but I think the person who took me wanted me for my genetics and the nanites inside me. Yes, I was scared at times; I missed my family and worried that they may have been hurt. I was there for many months, and Melissa," I said, as I pointed at her, "gave her life for me to be rescued," I told her.

"I see. So, Melissa, here is a copy of the Melissa that died?" she questioned.

"Yes, we call them clones, but the Melissa that died copied her consciousness over to a computer with a lot of storage, so we were able to put it in a new body," I told her.

"Oh, like Amee, Tabitha, TJ, and Molly?" she asked.

"Amee is the consciousness of my mother before she died. Molly, TJ, Melissa, and Tabi, are the clones of my mom, created by my grandfather," I explained to her.

"I understand now," Jasiri told me.

"We are hunting down the clones of the evil man who took me and had done bad things to me. His clones are just as evil as he is, and I don't want them to hurt anyone or anything, including this planet," I told her.

"Gustav is one of the clones, isn't he?" she asked.

"Yes," I told her.

"He was one of the people..." she started to say.

"That killed your family," I finished.

"Yes, he knew we needed energy to survive, so he would put them in a room and drain them of their life energy. He had me locked in that device and made me watch as he murdered my family. He started with my little brother because he was of no use to him, and then he killed my father to try and get my mother to help him. When I told him I would help, if he would stop, he killed my mother just for the fun of it," she told us.

"You will always be a part of us," I told her.

"And you me," she said.

"Listen, we must be getting back, we need to stop Gustav, and we need to shower and get some rest, but you'll be with us; just remember that," I told Jasiri.

A wave of love moved through us as we left. We took our showers separately and then ordered out for Chinese food. While we waited for the food and after we went over several 'What ifs,' trying to account for everything we could, Jasiri was a tremendous help, especially since she had all the blueprints and access codes that we needed. Our nanites were doing their job, eliminating the bad projects Gustav was working on and adding the good ones; unfortunately, there were no good projects on the secret floor.

"They're working on a ray gun, time travel, and making mindless soldiers. They look more like a 'zombie' than anything else. We've scanned the security footage, and they have the zombies walk into the wall of 'Magic', then watch them disintegrate," The nanites informed me.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"They are some very large generators down here..." they were saying when Jasiri interrupted them.

"Those are the power generators that they think are needed for time travel," she told us.

"Time travel is possible?" I asked her.

"Yes," she replied.

"Then you can go back and save your family and planet," I told her.

"I could, but it would take the power of your sun to do it, and I would be killing one family for another," she told us.

"Oh, I'm glad you think that way, but I'm also sorry that you can't at least save your family," I told her.

It felt as if I was in a warm blanket for a few seconds. "What was that?" I asked.

"That was me giving you a hug," Jasiri told me.

"I kinda like that," I told her.

My lips began to tingle and feel warm, which made me smile. "That was some kiss, Jasiri," I told her.

Everyone made the 'OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH' sound, and began to laugh, including Jasiri, who said, "It was my first kiss." Then everyone made the 'AAAAAHHHHHHHH' sound. It was funny, I could feel her move behind me, as if to hide her embarrassment. "It's okay, Jasiri, we all love you," I told her.

"I know, I just saw how your species shares love that way on your TV and wanted to try it," she told me.

"We need to have a woman to woman talk, Jasiri," Aims told her.

I shook my head and went back to talking to the nanites. "Disrupt and delete everything you can, then get out of there," I told them.

"We will not be able to leave once we start to destroy the generators," the nanites informed me.

"Are you sure?" I asked them.

"Yes, there's zero margin of error," they told me.

"Hold off on everything until we can get you out," I told them.

"Thank you for your concern, but this is what we are for," the nanites said, then broke the connection.

Again, Erik was taking something I cared about, and that made me mad as hell. The nanites were ready at DARPA and at all three of the offsite storage facilities. They would leave no actionable data for the government to restart any of Gustav's projects, and that was alright by me. Now we needed to deal with Gustav himself and give him the same fate as Erik. We would have the nanites wipe everything about us from existence, as far as DARPA and the Pentagon were concerned, when it was time.

"Do you want to know how you were taken?" Jasiri asked.

There was a resounding, "Yes," from everybody.

"Everybody, make yourselves comfy; this may take a while," she told us.

She began the playback in our minds, so it was like watching a movie in your head. She stopped on the hairy little guy that I called a pigmy Chewbacca, causing everyone who hadn't been there to laugh at it. She fast-forwarded to the point where I watched Chastity run ahead of me; she also let everyone hear what I was thinking at that moment, which was, "Damn, she has a cute little ass on her," and then everything went dark from my perspective. She was able to piece together what happened from reflections and what they had seen, without realizing it.

This thing came from below me and, for lack of better wording, 'swallowed me up' and then disappeared back under the sand. Jasiri was also able to get memories from Liv, and that explained the rest. The thing was a tunneling machine that Erik had modified to take people and not leave a trace. It would stun them, and then the halo would be placed on them. The halo injected them with adenosine to make them sleepy, then with melatonin to put them to sleep, serotonin to keep your mood fixed, and then gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was used to limit the functions of your brain while it lowered your dopamine level.

Once I was out, my nanites couldn't do anything to help me, because when they tried, the halo would give my brain a slight shock and readminister the chemicals. That was all the bright flashes I was seeing in the darkness of my mind. My nanites could tell I was in distress and would trigger the dreams I would have. They had no control of what I dreamt, but they knew it was better than me losing my mind while stuck in my mind.

My nanites tried to flood my body with dopamine, which accounted for the couple times I woke up, but the halo quickly countered the dopamine. The sounds and smells were direct inputs from the nanites. Liv went through some of the same things I had, but Erik wanted to make a super body for himself and implanted her with the embryos of Freya and Eira, then she was led to believe the babies had been stillborn. "Erik was one evil cocksucker, that was for sure," I thought to myself.

The worst part was that the thing I called, 'Hyde', and the thing in Liv's mind, was a piece of his consciousness running around. The nanites didn't do anything to Liv, because they didn't have a previous scan of her mind, but they did have mine. That's why they defended the little ones like they did, they didn't want what was in my head to get control of them. They couldn't do anything, because of the three laws, and it was me, and not me, at the same time, so they just opted to get me to leave on my own.

"Thank God for Hallie," I thought to myself. Forgetting that we, all the Maidens and I, were connected.

"Thank you, Hallie," the Maidens said in one voice.

"He was in Liv too," I said.

"He was, he wanted to take over her baby; once the child had matured enough, he would have moved his consciousness into the baby. Erik was waiting on a boy baby, but you, however, make girl babies," Jasiri told me.

Everyone laughed at Jasiri's observation. It was getting late, and we needed to make our plans airtight, and sitting around talking about other things was not getting that done. Jasiri seemed to fit seamlessly into the family. I knew we needed to go to each site and check and see how well the nanites had completed their jobs. That's not to say I had any form of thought that they would do anything less than perfection; rather, I wanted to know how the sites were going to react to the destruction of the projects themselves.

As we went to go to bed, Jasiri asked me, "Can I come and join you?"

"I thought you would want to stay here with Gpop and Illi?" I asked her.

Her emotions were more like a little kid when they ask to leave the light on and the door open as they sleep alone in their room for the first time. I could feel how scared she was, and I think everyone else could too. Melissa and Hallie grabbed a hand and squeezed it, as I asked, "Would it make you feel better if we came back and stayed on the boats, instead of staying here?"

"That would be perfect; you are going to stay on Midnight Solstice, right?" she said to us.

"If that's what you want, we will," I told her.

When we got back to the boats, Gpop and Illi had moved and put Jasiri in between them. The three of them, together, probably made the largest trimaran in the world. I couldn't sleep, so I went to the bow of the boat and watched the shooting stars. Well, I watched the sky in general. I felt Jasiri's warm embrace as I sat there, wrap around me. "If you look at the highest point in Orion's belt, just behind that is where my world was," Jasiri told me.

I watched as a pinpoint of light grew and grew until it was in the corporeal form of a translucent female figure. "This is what we look like when we have the energy to take this form. My family and I arrived here with barely enough energy to be alive, so we looked like little balls of electricity," she told me.

"You're very beautiful," I told her. "You look like what I think an angel should look like," I continued.

"What's an angel?" she asked.

"To me, it's someone who loves you, but they have died and gone to heaven, and then they come back to earth to help you," I told her.

"Do you think my family is in heaven?" she asked as she sat in my lap.

"I would like to think they're there, with my father, looking down on us, making sure we're okay," I told her.

A wave of sadness, then a wave of acceptance, washed over me, as Jasiri laid her head on my shoulder, "I would like to think that too," she said.

She sat up and asked, "Do you trust me?"

"I do," I told her.

Jasiri stood and took me by the hand, but instead of pulling me to my feet, she pulled some of my life energy out of my body and began what looked like a dance above the bow of the boat with it. As I sat and watched, Amee, Melissa, Makayla, and Hallie came out and sat beside me.

"What's that?" Makayla asked, pointing at our energy.

"That's me and Jasiri," I told her.

"How is that you?" Amee asked.

"That's mine and Jasiri's life energies," I told them.

They all turned and looked at me and then back at the energies that were flowing, and twisting, above the boat. At one point, the energies burst out like a firework in all directions, until it came back into a single point of light. It moved over and then moved inside of me. I watched as Jasiri's corporeal form appeared in my lap again. "Only you could find, and rescue, an energy being from another world, have her fall in love with you, and then bond with you," Amee told me. The others began to laugh at what she said, including Jasiri.

Jasiri pulled the life energies from Milissa, Makayla, Hallie, and Amee and danced with them all at the same time. When their life energies returned to their bodies, they were all in tears. I held them all, as best I could hold them. My back was turned to the bow of the boat, so when Makayla and Hallie gasped, I turned around to see a flesh-and-bone body being made in front of me.

The nanites were fast at work making what was to be Jasiri's body. After a few minutes, a pinpoint of light entered the body, and she took her first breath. The body could best be described as a twin to Hallie, except for her black hair and electric blue eyes. On her chest was the Shield Maiden symbol, but instead of the Valknut in the center, it was the 'Yggdrasil', or tree of life. She walked over, took my face in her hands, and kissed me. "I wanted my first physical touch with someone in this body to be yours," she told me.

Jasiri kissed Melissa, Amee, and then Makayla, saving Hallie for last. She kissed Hallie with a very passionate kiss, and when they broke, Jasiri said, "As I know, you will never leave his side; know that I will never leave yours," she said, and then she kissed Hallie one more time.

As we stood there in the silence of the night, Jasiri's new body took that moment to announce its need to be fed with a loud and lengthy grumble, causing us all to have a good laugh. Hallie took Jasiri's hand as we led her to the galley and showed her how to use the replicator. She ate as much as any three people could, and the sun was barely peeking over the horizon by the time she had finished eating. The ladies took her to get dressed, and I was left standing alone, so I made my way to the bedroom and got myself dressed for the day.

When we had finished dressing, we met on the stern of the boat. "Melissa, Makayla, go to Gustav's house and watch for him there. Hallie, Jasiri, go to DARPA and gather all the information you can. Amee and I will do the same at the Pentagon," I told everyone.

We had to drive back to the houses to get our own vehicles, so when we got there, we hugged and kissed, then went our separate ways. The Pentagon was a flurry of activity when I got there, Amee let me know she had made it to the Pentagon as well, and that she was going through security. Melissa and Makayla, let us know that there were all sorts of armed security personnel at Gustav's house. Hallie and Jasiri told us that DARPA had been placed on lockdown, Tommi had been placed in handcuffs, and led out of the building by armed guards.

We were let into our work area a few hours after we got to the Pentagon, and on the way down in the elevator, we were greeted by what was left of the nanites that had sabotaged Gustav's floor. It was a bittersweet meeting, because on one hand, I was glad that some of the nanites had survived, but on the other hand, I was sad that so many had given themselves to complete their job.

Everyone was kept apart from everybody else, and I was back on the AI project. I powered up my workstation and watched as a countdown started. I called for assistance as I was supposed to, and who should show up, Gustav.

"What have you done to this workstation, you imbecile!" he berated.

"I turned it on and logged in," I told him.

He pushed me out of the way and tried to 'Fix' what wasn't broken. When we wrote the AI, we made it to where it would do just this and slip silently into the Pentagon's network. He turned to berate me some more and that's when I noticed what he had around his neck. It was a capsule that contained the energy of one of Jasiri's family, and she could feel it. Jasiri recognized the energy, and realized it was her mother. I wanted to rip the capsule from his neck and beat him to death on the spot, but I could feel Jasiri's emotions, as they went from happy, to scared, to angry, and then back to scared.

This had gone from dealing with Gustav and sending him to be with Erik, to a rescue mission for Jasiri's mother as well. The asshole had me fired and escorted out of the building, which was fine by me. A short time later, everyone who had been working on that floor had been fired and escorted out of the building. Hallie had been promoted to Tommi's position and then fired for the things that Tommi had done. When we met up at the boats, we all laughed at the absurdity of Hallie's firing, but Jasiri was a ball of emotions, and everyone could understand why. Jasiri hadn't even been allowed into the building with Hallie, due to the ongoing events. Hallie's cover story was that she was her twin sister, who had come to visit. Aims had set it up that way, because it wasn't uncommon to have family members come and spend the day with an employee, if the area was considered a nonessential area, which Hallie's was.

Makayla and Melissa said, "By the time we left, all the guards had been gone for well over two hours."

"And Gustav?" I asked.

"He was at home when we left," Melissa told me.

"We are attempting to circumvent all security measures," the nanites informed us.

"What security measures are there?" Makayla asked.

"Several drones and listening devices," they told her.

"How long until you have control?" I asked.

"Several hours, as there are many drones and listening devices to gain control of," they told me.

"Great, so it's hurry up and wait time," I said out loud, but not to anyone in general.

The three and a half hours it took the nanites to gain control of everything had been excruciating, to say the least. Everyone was on pins and needles for some reason. I knew that Jasiri needed to stay on the boat for reasons I hoped she would understand, and part of me wanted to leave Melissa on the boat as well, especially since she had died on the last mission after all. Luckily, Jasiri understood that there could be a risk of the mission going sideways and her being captured; also, if she were there, her emotions could be the cause of the mission going sideways.

The nanites at Gustav's house had the 'Marionette' chemical and would use it to gain control of Gustav just before we made entry to his house. We made ourselves ready, as we checked, and double checked everything. On our way over to Gustav's, the Jörs was silent. As we got to the road Gustav's house was on, we engaged the active camouflage on the Jörs, and ourselves. It was a smooth entry, and Gustav was a willing participant with the 'Marionette' drug in his system.

We could gather all the intel he could give us, which was nothing we already didn't know. He didn't know of any other clones, and had never met Erik, but that was soon to change, as soon as he was parked next to him in the corona of the sun. I removed Jasiri's mother from around Gustav's neck and punched him in the face, breaking his nose. When we got back to the boats, I handed Jasiri her mother.

"Move your energy into your body and let your mother have Midnight Solstice," I told her.

"That's a great idea," she told me.

Once all her life energy was in her new body, Jasiri let her mother out of the capsule. Upon her release, Jasiri's mother's anger was understandable, and only her daughter could comfort her.

"What name do you have for my mother?" Jasiri asked.

"I was thinking of Juno, meaning young or Queen of the Heavens," I told her. "In this case, it would mean Queen of the Heavens," I finished.

"I love it," Jasiri told me.

While Juno rested and gathered her strength, with the help of her daughter, we made our way out to sea, far enough out that we wouldn't be bothered. I had finished Gustav's blood eagle and was about to launch him to the sun when Jasiri came out with Juno.

"May I have some time with it?" Juno asked.

"You may," I told her.

Her light was pure and loving as she passed us, but the closer she got to Gustav, it turned redder and redder. She spent only a few minutes near Gustav, before she returned to Jasiri's side.

"I have given him the pain and suffering I have felt over the past thirty years," Juno told us.

I had the nanites crank up those emotions and then launched him. He would suffer, just like Erik, for all eternity. After we watched until Gustav had disappeared out of sight, we made our way to the galley to get something to eat. Jasiri and Juno stayed on the stern of the ship, and I watched as a little bit of energy from each left them; the energy came together above us, then separated, and then it did a starburst that came back together, then went into the sea.

I walked out to Jasiri and Juno and put my arm around Jasiri's waist.

"Thank you for saving my daughter and me," Juno said.

"I'm glad I could," I told her. "I'm also sorry for how my people treated you and your family," I finished.

"Although I'm a lot stronger than I was, I don't want to overdo it in this body, so I'll go get some more rest," Juno told us as she went inside.

"What happens now?" Jasiri asked me.

"We're going home," I told her.

Illi and Gpop had already made way for home, and I was ready to see the rest of my family again, especially my daughters.