The Rise to Godhood
Chapter 36: A Brush with Death.

“Wow, your planet is beautiful.”

Gaia smiled as she was having a picnic with Areela in their favourite part of the Garden of Eden. The gardening robots had been busy planting and manicuring the 10 square kilometres large park. Apart from being beautiful, the garden needed to feed 300 human children and 15 Zetan explorers. Yet, the Zetans were an advanced species, so they used hydroponic farms and grew fast-growing crops to ensure that food was plentiful.

Gaia looked at the skies. The ashy clouds had disappeared after the ice age had ended, and the skies were clearing. She was glad that she could now enjoy the sunlight and the blue skies. With the ice age era coming to an end, life slowly returned outside the garden. Thus, what was once a tundra was now becoming beautiful meadows with many colourful budding flowers.

Gaia thought of asking Arish to turn off the forcefield layer that separated them from the outside atmosphere. She had been outside the protective dome the day before, and she knew that the air was pristine. Yet many of the children in their ward would run off to look for their parents if she opened the perimeter fences. As much as she didn’t want to keep them as prisoners, she didn’t want to let young children get lost in the wilderness. Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Please let me in. I want to see my son.”

Gaia looked outside the transparent protective forcefield layer. A filthy and worn-out looking woman had burns on her hands from touching the electrified nano-technology layer. How had she got here? Gaia ran towards the perimeter to communicate with the stranger.

“Who are you, and how did you find us?” Gaia asked.

“I Lucy. I followed your tracks; you took my son. Please, I want to see him again.” Lucy pleaded.

Seeing the desperate woman, Gaia felt heartbroken. She imagined how she would have felt if someone had stolen her children from her—what a desolation. Seeing the desperation in the woman’s eyes, Gaia spoke to the voice-controlled AI, “AI, open perimeter field at sector 6B. Authorization code ZZ6B.”

“No, Gaia, what are you doing?” Areela exclaimed and ran towards Gaia.

“Authorization confirmed. Opening sector 6B,” the AI replied and lowered the forcefield.

Lucy staggered towards Gaia and collapsed to her knees. Gaia ran towards Lucy to keep her upright.

*Swoosh*

Gaia stared in shock as Lucy stabbed her in the neck with an Onyx knife laced with poison. She let go of her grip around the woman, staggered backwards, and collapsed.

“Gaia. No!!!” Areela exclaimed and blasted the woman with a psionic blast.

Much to Areela’s dismay, the woman was unaffected by the blast, and she charged toward Areela and bit her in the shoulder. Upon tasting Areela’s blood, the woman got stunned, and Areela used this opportunity to shove her outside the perimeter of the forcefield.

“AI, close perimeter field 6B, authorisation code ZZ6B!” Areela exclaimed, and the forcefield re-emerged.

*Fizz*

The unpleasant sound of burnt flesh and Lucy’s hissing screams of pain filled the air as Lucy leapt headfirst into the forcefield. Areela stared at the hissing feral creature outside the perimeter. It had been a close call.

‘Gaia is hurt,’ Areela thought and rushed towards her friend. Unfortunately, Gaia was delirious and rambling incoherent nonsense.

“Zelinko, come here at once. It’s an emergency,” Areela telepathed and tore her blouse to stop Gaia’s bleeding.

***

“Why would you trust someone whose child you abducted?”

As Gaia opened her eyes, she was in the Divine Dimension, looking at her mother’s spiritual form.

‘Adan, Ava! What happens to my unborn children if I die?’ Gaia fretted.

“Don’t worry about your children. You’ll survive this episode. The Zetans are resuscitating you as we speak. In the meantime, you should reflect on your actions.” True Maker replied.

“What did I do wrong?” Gaia sobbed.

“Was it the wisest choice to expose yourself to your enemy?” True Maker asked.

“She wasn’t my enemy. I had never seen her before.” Gaia objected.

“Yet, the Zetans attacked her and stole her child. How couldn’t she hate you?” True Maker asked.

“I… I didn’t think. Lucy suffered, and I felt compelled to save her.” Gaia replied.

“Ah yes, empathy. Without logic, it’s reckless, while logic without empathy is inhuman. You’ll need to find a way to combine the two.” True Maker remarked.

Gaia was about to answer when the Divine Dimension faded, and a mishmash of colours shrouded her vision as she was slowly coming awake.

***

“Oh, Gaia, I am so glad that you are still among us.”

As Gaia opened her eyes, she felt Areela squeezing her hand. Tears covered Areela’s face, and yet a smile had emerged.

“You’ll need to stay still for now. We have healed your stab wound, yet venom laced on the dagger is still circulating in your body.”

Gaia nodded, but she didn’t worry. Her mother had assured her that she would survive the attack, and that was the best guarantee one could get in life.

“I need to rest now. I’ll see you when I get better,” Gaia said, closed her eyes and dozed back to a long dreamless sleep.

***

Gaia and the gathered Zetans looked at Lucy’s corpse. After her attack on Gaia, the Zetans had hunted her down, and they had been unwilling to make the effort of capturing her alive.

““Remarkable. As it turns out, there are more than one species of humans. This woman has a 0.3 per cent variation in her genome compared to the other human samples we have. So, while it is close enough for the different human species to interbreed, it’s too far away to be another race within the same genus.” Arish stated.

’0.3 per cent variance. That’s the same variance as there is between mine and the Zetan genome,” Gaia thought, as she had a speck of Zetan genome in her.

“I understand. Thank you for telling me this.” Gaia replied.

“The attacker seemed impervious to my psionic attacks,” Areela recalled.

“Areela, you are not good at psionic attacks. My attacks worked when I duelled against Chief Grung.” Zelinko stated.

“So, if your psionic attacks didn’t work, how did you push her outside the perimeter forcefield? Your physique is inferior to this muscular female primate,” Arish said.

“She bit me and got paralysed. She must have had an allergic reaction to something in my blood.” Areela recalled.

“Interesting. In any case, we need to be more careful moving forward. Do not let any of these people in, and never leave the garden while you are unarmed.” Arish stated.

Gaia nodded and left the meeting. Her appointment as humanity’s saviour was deteriorating, and after almost getting killed, she wanted to leave this horrible place and abandon humanity to its demise. However, she remembered her growing belly and that she would give birth to beautiful twins who would lead Earth to a new era of evolution.

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