"Oh god. Oh god. Oh god."

Ambrosia's co-conspirators have strong feelings about religion. They believe that the Literal Christian God exists. They believe that Miracleman and his superhuman kin, who fashion themselves Earth's stewards from atop their garish Tower of Babel, are an affront to Him and His Divine Plan.

Ambrosia is somewhat agnostic about the existence of her co-conspirators' favored deity, but she still takes His name in vain as the contractions reach their zenith.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Why is everything so tight?

Summer knows exactly what's happening. He knows it's necessary. He knows that good things—or at least more things—await him on the other side of this ordeal. He knows all the details of this physical process.

He is also being shoved through a narrowing tunnel, his own body obeying ancient, cell deep responses, while the world presses around his shoulders. Suddenly, his head is being shoved out into the bright, harsh light. The light he's only ever experienced second hand. 

For the first time in his life, he takes a breath. And it hurts, it hurts so much.

He wails. 

She wails.

It hurts, it hurts so much.

She loves him. She doesn't know his name yet, or what he looks like, but she's loved him... maybe not from the moment of conception, but at least from the point where his brain developed enough to read her thoughts?

A wonderful future awaits them: a chance to make a real difference, a chance to have adventures that'll end up engraved in steel.

She tries to focus on that future. To let him see that future in her mind's eye.

Because the present is pain. Excruciating, unprecedented agony compared to either of their prior existences. The present is pain, but the future is so much bigger than any of that.

Rubbery hands lift him into the air, bloody and wet. The air is cold compared to what he's used to. It is also air, which is another thing to get used to. The cord is then snipped, cutting him off absolutely from the world he once knew. 

Then, he's in his mother's arms. Already, his body is more developed in some ways than most infants, so he can actually focus on her face. He's known what it's looked like forever, of course. He's seen it in mirrors or from other people's viewpoint. But those glimpses were always coloured by opinions or self image. For the first time, he actually sees his mother with his own eyes.

Somehow, it's a comfort.

It's done.

She takes a few more deep breaths.

Embraces her child. Looks him in the eyes.

Then glances skyward, just for a moment, and prays to a God she isn't sure she believes in.

She prays that the other god, the one that definitely walks among them, doesn't fathom what she intends for his latest son.

He risks a word. He knows from second hand experience that speech this young unnerves some people, but his mother seems like a smart lady. "Hi."

"Hi." Warm. She feels so warm. "Have you picked out a name for yourself yet?"

He lisps slightly, the result of a still very soft palate. "Summer, I think."

Oh. Ha.

"That's a very pretty name."

"I know."

(Time passes. Postnatal care ensues)

Summer is bathed and weighed by vaguely distasteful nurses. 

After a couple of days, mother and son are left alone in their home. 

It's a nice home.

Cozy. Pastoral. Close enough to the coastline that you can smell the sea.

Ambrosia quit her job late last year, not long after being implanted. She couldn't afford distractions. She had so much planning to do in those days, and now Summer requires her full attention.

She feeds him--breastfeeding at first, during that crucial early window when the specific nutrients therein actually matter, then switching to formula and solid food to accommodate his accelerated hybrid metabolism. She keeps him clean. And, most importantly, she keeps him engaged. Even as a frail infant, he already has neurological abilities comparable to her own--an intellect that will only keep growing as the years go by. She talks to him constantly, shares books and videos (she carefully picked out thousands of hours of material in preparation for his birth), and otherwise strives to make his early days stimulating.

She attends to her son as though doing so were the most important thing in the world.

Because it is, isn't it?

So much hangs in the balance here.

Summer appreciates all the attention. He does not appreciate being trapped in such an... uncooperative body. It hadn't been an issue while he was inside his mother, but now that he's separated from her, his limitations have become far more obvious. While his mother does do her best to tend to his physical needs (he hardly ever needs to resort to anything as base as crying to get her attention) not being able to so much as keep himself fed or convey himself around the house is a source of endless frustration for him. He tries telling himself this helpless state allows him to focus on educating himself, the sentiment rings hollow considering he can't even reliably turn a page in a book.

"You're lucky you can't remember being this age," he says to his mother one afternoon about a week after his birth. 

"I suppose that is a blessing." She thinks back to her first hazy memories. "Though I think it'd be even worse to be cast out into the world fully formed?"

"That's what's wrong with the others, I think. Too much, too fast." Talking to a telepath is an interesting exercise. For anything you say, there exists a good chance they hear the words in their mind before you speak them aloud. "You know the first nephelim, she grew up and left the world behind in just one week. Can you imagine that? It's no wonder she returned as a cold, warped thing."

"I don't want to leave you, I just..." He is not going to cry. "I want to do things. Isn't that why you had me?"

"You will do so many things." She holds him close and rocks gently as they speak. "You'll do things no one else has, things that no one else could have."

Projecting Warm Thoughts.

She loves him so much. He is the most special person on earth.

"They'll be more powerful than you. He'll be more powerful than you." No need to specify who she's speaking of. Summer can effortless skim context out from behind ambiguous wording. "But it'll be your humanity that triumphs over theirs."

Too much power, not enough humanity. That's how the world ended up in this mess in the first place.

He feels warm. His mother is good at that. Still, he has questions. "When I do triumph... what do I do then? Because I'm not human. I don't know if I'm like the others, but I know I'm not like the babies in the village." He then adds "They're creepy." 

"Humans belong on Earth, and nephelim belong in heaven." She recites the party line. "And there's so much heaven to go around. Stars beyond counting."

He's learned a fair bit about cosmology from the books she's read with him, but books are limiting. She has a better intuitive understanding of the cosmos than paper and ink can feasibly convey, and she knows that one day her son will have first-hand knowledge of such things that'll put her own to shame.

"You'll be a leader among them, as they settle shores far from here. You'll see wonders that earthbound beings can scarcely dream of."

Summer's eyes widen. "That sounds wonderful." A thought occurs to him. "Is that other nephilim baby born yet? The squire's wife's?" The last three words carry a note of something between bemusement and pity.   

"Not sure, but likely?" Ambrosia received the Seed at the same time Mrs. Gravel did, so she figures there's a better-than-even chance that her counterpart has also given birth by now. "We could go check right now. I think you're ready to leave the house."

"I'd like that, Mother."

Peggy Gravel sat in the longhouse like dining room of Sea-View, nursing her second gin and tonic of the morning. It may have been 11:00 AM there, but somewhere it was almost midnight. Her husband had chosen to imbibe in the public house in the village centre, an arrangement that suited them both just fine. 

Sea-View was a grand old house, getting a little older and a little less grand with every passing day. The Gravels had been allowed to keep their house and lands as personal property when the bloody socialist superman took over, but of course, they then had nothing to pay the staff with. It hadn't surprised her when they had all up and left.

Planet of the dole-scroungers, she thought bitterly. She had floated the idea of turning the place into a theme park, like Drayton Manor, but Charles would hear nothing of it. Said he wouldn't give up that last scrap of dignity. 

"Tough words, for a cuckold," she said aloud. She looked over to her daughter, sitting on a playmat next to the wall length window. "Isn't that right, Jess?"

The old house's doorbell chimes.