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Kalugal puffed on his cigar. "Your idea of a female spy force is not particularly original, but that only means that I think it might work.

Beautiful, immortal women who can thrall are a formidable asset.

They could counteract the Brotherhood's manipulations.

The problem is how many would be willing to do that?

Furthermore, the females you have in mind are mostly mated to Guardians.

Do you really think their mates would be okay with them going into these kinds of situations alone?

And if they go with them, you will lose most of your senior Guardians. "

Kian cursed, earning a surprised look from Ell-rom, who was still learning the intricacies of spoken Earth language.

"Have you thought about the paranormals in Safe Haven?" Max asked. "Some of them have useful abilities, and they've been trained for precisely that kind of work."

Kian considered this, rolling the idea around in his mind like the whiskey on his tongue.

"Most of them aren't particularly powerful," he said after a moment.

"But there might be potential there. Come to think of it, Eleanor and Emmett themselves are a formidable duo with both being compellers.

The problem is that they wouldn't want to leave Safe Haven.

The place is Emmett's life's work. He's built something meaningful there, and I can't see him abandoning it for shadow games in foreign capitals. "

"Then we're back to square one," Max said. "We need resources we don't have to fight an enemy that metastasizes rapidly."

The admission hung in the air like the smoke from their cigars. Kian felt the weight of it, the familiar burden of leadership made heavier by the miserable acknowledgment of inadequacy. He was used to finding solutions, to protecting his people through strength and strategy.

But what could he do when the enemy had more pieces on the chessboard?

"I'm in over my head," he said quietly, the words costing him more than he cared to admit. "We all are. Navuh is using his greatest advantage over us, which is the sheer number of peons he can move, and his second advantage, which is playing a game where they are writing the rules."

Kalugal leaned forward, concern replacing his usual calculated charm. "I've never heard you talk like this, cousin."

"Because I've never felt like this," Kian said honestly.

"We've always been the shadows protecting humanity from the darkness.

Our greatest weapon was our technological know-how, which allowed us to fuel progress, but that's not enough anymore, and I don't know what to do with the limited resources we have.

" He took another sip of whiskey, letting the burn ground him. "We need a damn miracle."

"Or better technology," Kalugal suggested. "Speaking of which, how are the plans for building new Odus coming along?"

Kian laughed, not even bothering to act surprised that Kalugal knew about the secret project. His cousin had intelligence sources everywhere—it would have been more shocking if he didn't know about the progress Kaia and William were making.

"Robots can't solve this problem," Kian said. "What we need is an alien invasion to unite humanity against a common threat."

The words were meant as a joke, but Kalugal's visible shiver reminded him that some jokes cut too close to uncomfortable truths.

"That's not funny," his cousin said. "We all know what happens when the Eternal King becomes aware of what's happening on Earth. An alien invasion wouldn't unite humanity—it would end it."

The reminder of that looming threat cast another shadow over their gathering, as if they didn't have enough problems with terrestrial enemies.

"You're right," Kian said. "Poor attempt at humor.

But the point stands—we need something to fundamentally change the game's dynamics.

The Brotherhood is winning because they're playing by different rules, and they started the game long before we realized what they were planning.

We limit ourselves to protecting humanity's free will.

They manipulate and control without conscience. "

"So, we adapt our rules," Ell-rom said, then looked surprised at himself for speaking. "The honorable warrior who faces the dishonorable one must choose—maintain honor and die or adapt and survive to restore honor later. Perhaps it's time to consider which choice serves the greater good."

"Wise words," Dalhu murmured. "The cost of maintaining principle against unprincipled enemies might be catastrophic."

Kian had already resolved to use the same unprincipled tactics as the Brotherhood, so what Ell-rom had said wasn't anything new, but he was glad that others saw things the same way he did.

"The ends justifying the means," Orion said. "It's a dangerous philosophy."

"But is it more dangerous than allowing evil to triumph through our inaction?" Ell-rom countered.

They sat in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. The cigars had burned down considerably, and the whiskey glasses had been emptied and refilled. Outside, the afternoon was fading toward evening, though plenty of natural light was still reaching Kalugal's lounge.

"There might be another way." Din took a fortifying sip of whiskey before continuing. "The patterns of how civilizations rise and fall are always the same, and the Brotherhood's strategy isn't new, but neither are the counters to it."

"Go on," Kian encouraged.

"They're using humanity's divisions against itself," Din explained, warming to his topic.

"Religious, political, economic—every fracture becomes a wedge they can exploit.

But what if we focused on strengthening unity instead of just fighting their influence?

Not through manipulation, but through improvement of human conditions? "

"We already do that," Brandon pointed out. "Medical advances, technological development, social progress?—"

"Yes, but piecemeal," Din interrupted, then caught himself.

"Apologies. What I mean is, we respond tactically to their strategic moves.

What if we developed our own long-term strategy for human advancement?

Not just preventing their victory, but making it impossible by eliminating the conditions they exploit? "

Intrigued, Kian leaned forward. "You're talking about social engineering on a massive scale, and I like where you are going with that, but I'm afraid that we are out of time. The game will be lost before we get the wheels spinning."

"The Brotherhood thrives on despair, on division, and on humanity's worst impulses," Din said. "What if we gave them something better to believe in?"

"Like what?" Orion scoffed. "A new religion?"

Din shrugged. "Why not? Religious fervor is the easiest to fuel. People love to proselytize."

Dalhu regarded him with a skeptical look. "There is something to it, but those who are zealots for whatever they believe in, either religion or ideology, will not be easy to convince to try something new, even if you come up with the most wonderful and uplifting version of either."

"People need hope," Max said. "The Brotherhood sells despair and somehow makes it palatable by promising rewards in the afterlife. It's the biggest con ever perpetrated against humans."

"How do you engineer belief?" Ell-rom asked.

"The same way they engineer despair," Din said. "Through stories, through media, through careful cultivation of cultural movements. The difference is we'd be cultivating growth instead of decay."

Brandon groaned. "That's exactly what the clan has done for decades, but the rules have changed on us.

It used to be that a few Hollywood executives made all the decisions and dictated what the public was exposed to.

That was the golden era of film and television.

Now, every idiot with internet access is an influencer, and way too many are spewing hate.

I'm sure that the Brotherhood is paying hundreds of them or even thousands to sow the seeds of despair to undermine societies all over the world. "

"Humans are naturally inclined toward hope," Din argued. "They want to believe in better futures. I bet that we can counteract their hateful messages with fewer influencers and with much less money. Good will always triumph over evil."

Kian felt something shift in his chest—not quite hope, but perhaps hope's precursor. It wasn't really a viable solution, or a partial one, but Din's optimism was like a ray of sunshine in the darkness, and perhaps that was precisely what was needed, just amplified times a million.

"Where can I find a million Dins who will spread a message of hope?"

Kalugal chuckled. "Who owes you favors, cousin? I would start with them."

"They don't have to be people," Ell-rom said. "Artificial Intelligence can mimic a million influencers and spread positive messages to the world. I don't know how to make it work, but I'm sure William does."

"That's actually brilliant," Kian rose to his feet and walked over to the bar to refill his glass.

"I'll talk to William, but someone needs to come up with the messages.

" He took a sip of the whiskey and looked at Ell-rom.

"You were trained to become a priest. I know that you don't remember what you were taught, but you are still the most qualified among us to come up with something spiritually uplifting. "

Ell-rom swallowed. "You can't be serious. I wouldn't know where to start."

"That's okay." Kian smiled. "I'm not expecting you to do it all. But if you can come up with a few positive messages, that could be a good start. Your Mother of All Life is a bit too harsh to be a good deity for this new religion, but maybe a mellower version will work."

Max joined Kian at the bar and refilled his glass.

"I think a female deity is a good counter to the Brotherhood's evil male god.

I'm sure that Ell-rom can make her more benevolent and less vengeful, but I don't like the idea of God having a gender.

The humanization is diminishing. But then humans need something they can relate to, so there is that. "

"It's still manipulation, you know," Orion pointed out. "Even if our intentions are pure. Isn't religion supposed to come from divine inspiration? Artificial Intelligence shouldn't write it."

Kalugal laughed. "You know what? I actually think that the original religion that the gods introduced to humans, the one all other religions eventually copied in one way or another, might have been written by an artificial intelligence. The gods surely had the technology."

It was a disturbing thought, but Kian was in no mood to examine what it implied.

"We should return to the others," he said. "They'll wonder if we've all died of smoke inhalation."

"The ventilation system is perfectly calibrated—" Kalugal began, then caught Kian's expression. "Ah. You're joking."

"I do that occasionally," Kian said dryly. "Don't look so shocked."

As they prepared to leave, Orion raised his glass one final time. "To impossible challenges and improbable solutions."

"To family," Kalugal countered. "Blood, choice, and circumstance."

"To hope," Din added quietly. "However we choose to cultivate it."

As Kian drank, he felt the warmth of the whiskey mingle with something else—not an answer but a possibility.

They faced impossible odds against a cunning enemy, but they had resources Navuh never would.

They had diversity of thought, loyalty, and the kind of creative problem-solving that came from bringing together disparate perspectives.