The Gods of Flesh and Blood.

"There are tales of flesh and blood gods in Sumerian myths," Elena got off the couch and walked to a small table by the mirror, where they had a phone and always had a notepad and pen.

"According to one of the myths, human beings were created in their own likeness. More precisely, the gods added a piece of themselves when creating a human being."

"Are you talking about the theory that a human is the result of a genetic experiment?" Daniel specified.

Elena smiled, "While for some it may be a theory, others perceive it as an axiom. It depends on how you look at it," the woman returned to her seat with a notepad in her hands. She opened a blank sheet and drew one line, and then another paralleled line, a dotted line.

"Human beings think that their lives go on like this," Elena drew an arrow under one of the lines from left to right, "But a human's consciousness can be in the past and in the future. Animals don't have that. Only a human constantly thinks about what no longer exists or about what has not happened yet and that may not even happen. Why do you think that is so?"

"Why?" Daniel moved to the edge of the sofa and leaned over to the table, peering at the paper. The instincts of the researcher were in awe of the anticipation that one of the global mysteries would now open.

"Because a human being unconsciously remembers that once he could do it. More precisely, not he, but the one who created him."

"A-Are you talking about a god now, of flesh and blood?" the man suggested apprehensively.

"You could say that," Elena mysteriously narrowed her eyes, a sly smile slipped across the woman's lips, "The aborigines, who first saw a plane, also took people for gods capable of performing miracles. Several centuries earlier, the conquistadors took advantage of this delusion quite successfully."

"How do you know this?"

"Oh, Mr. Scientist is hungry for proof? And if I say that I know every day of the entire history of mankind over the past six thousand years, will that be a weighty argument in my favor?"

"Come on?... Hey, why doesn't your husband look surprised?!" Daniel looked at his brother with displeasure. It looks like David was not hooked by the news of his wife's renewed abilities.

Elena winked at her husband, "I mentally gave him a couple of excursions to the past last night. He's aware of everything already."

"Can I do it too?" Daniel said, "There is one hypothesis the solution to which has been lost. If I look for it in the past, how the author himself solved it, I will get another Nobel Prize."

"No," Elena's short answer cut off the hopes of the almost successful Nobel laureate.

Daniel sighed. He wasn't so lucky not only in his personal life. Well, at least Corey's cookies remained. "Well, no means no. What does this have to do with Nick?"

Elena glanced at the quiet young man. Nicholas looked aloof as if embarrassed to be with everyone in the room.

"As I said earlier, the transition along one time axis, that is, between the past and the present, is possible only for more advanced beings. Many ancient peoples believed in this and called such creatures gods."

"But Nick came from the future, right?" Armand objected.

"Right," agreed Elena, "For us, this is the future, but for Nick, it was his present, and it was right here," the woman poked at the second dotted line that ran parallel to the first main one.

"A human being often mentally turns to the past, thinking about how his life would go if he did this or that action. God doesn't need that. He simply creates an additional parallel reality and looks at how the new version affects the course of events. If the result suits the god, then he returns to the key point in the main reality and changes it. Scientists call such a phenomenon in physics-"

"Bifurcation point," Daniel finished Elena's thought.

"It's nice to deal with smart men," she praised the older Anderson.

"I'm not sure anymore that I'm that smart," Daniel muttered. "Hey, Nick, why are you so sad?!" he nudged the guy's side with his elbow, "Come on, make your favorite uncle one more portion of hot chocolate."

"Huh? Found yourself a waiter or something?!" the young man was indignant, but Daniel had already squeezed him off the couch and pushed him towards the kitchen. Nick grunted something under his breath, took Daniel's mug, and went for another drink.

When the door to the kitchen slammed shut, the man leaned against the table and quietly asked, "Can we do anything about this? Maybe, bring him back if he can't stay here?"

Elena shook her head, "No. Only those who created them can move between realities without consequences. They are like observers, and the change of events does not affect them. Nick is the object there, not the creator. As soon as the object leaves its reality, it ceases to exist. Even if he could return, he has nowhere else to return."

"What are these stupid rules?! So, are we just going to sit here for a week and wait for him to decompose into atoms?!" hissed Daniel, "I don't care who he is or where he is from, whether he has a soul or not! He is, damn it, a living person! I hold his blood in my hands every day!

And what you are telling us about creating additional realities to see how and what will happen there or not reminds me of crazy laboratory tests!" The man exhaled angrily. "These, as you put it, gods have gone completely crazy with their twisted minds, if they do such things!"

Elena lowered her head and smiled sadly, "You're right. That is so indeed."

Marcus frowned, the drooping look of his daughter was not what he agreed to this meeting for. "Aren't people doing the same thing? We breed livestock, keep it on different pastures, vaccinate, and observe how this affects the health and offspring of animals. We modify plants, adjusting them to our needs and desires. We breed new species, crossing what existed separately in nature."

"It's absurd to compare a human and a chicken, Marcus!"

"You better ask the chicken about it, Daniel," Taubert replied without emotion. What he knew from Amelia and what Elena had to say complemented the puzzle, and the resulting picture did not look appealing.

"If there are creatures capable of creating such a thing, they are hardly interested in our opinion. Otherwise, this whole situation would not have happened."

Nick returned to the living room and handed the mug of chocolate to his uncle, "I hope your ass won't blow up with so much sweets. If you wanted to whisper about me behind my back, you shouldn't. I can hear everything even outside the door, but," he paused, "Thank you. I will miss you too. So you can drain all my blood while you can."

Daniel took the mug and squeezed Nick's hand. He had already experienced a similar feeling of hopelessness once. Six years ago, when David stayed in a cave, the entrance to which was buried under a pile of stones. Then Daniel thought he had lost his brother. But the boy in front of him now was too young to disappear.

"If the one who created this situation is so powerful, he can correct it, right? In any research, there is always some kind of a backup plan, in case of an emergency," Daniel asked hopefully.

Elena's silence hung heavy in the room.

"There is only one way for this. The god, who created this reality, has to be killed."