Sara was the first one to arrive.
"Your friend, Fred hasn't arrived yet?"
"I am not sure what's taking him so long. Would you like to have a cup of coffee?"
"No need."
Fredrick entered the library. His face looked even more run down than before he went to take a shower.
"What's wrong Fred?" asked Jason.
"I didn't know the maids in this villa were so rough."
"I warned you not to get any funny ideas. Julia is a former assassin. You are lucky you didn't lose a pound of flesh."
"Why is people who are related to you are all weird?"
"Are they?"
"Forgot I said that. So what now?"
Jason took out a book from the shelf which activated the mechanism that moved the bookshelf like a door, revealing an elevator door behind it.
"You don't look surprised," asked Sara.
"Having a secret door in this huge villa, it's kinda obvious," replied Fred.
The three of them got in the elevator. The number of the floors on the screen started to rise from 0. The villa was a three storied building. When the number on the screen went past 3, Fred realized that they were going down.
"Now you look surprised," said Sara.
"Don't tease him, Sara. Leave him alone," said Jason.
The floor number shown on the screen was 11 when the elevator stopped and the door opened. In front of them was a long hallway. The rooms on both sides resembled the view of a hospital hallway. At the end of the hallway was a big door, an automated door that only opens to the people who are authorized.
When they reached in front of the door, the alarm went off.
"What's going on? Did we do something wrong?" asked Fredrick as he freaked out a bit.
"Calm down for a sec," said Jason.
[UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL DETECTED]
"Security code B974C, grant temporary access to the newly arrived personnel," said Jason.
[ORDERS RECEIVED, DNA SAMPLE REQUIRED OF THE NEW PERSONNEL]
"Hey Fred, would you mind pressing your thumb on that scanner over there," said Jason pointing towards a scanner that looked like a fingerprint sensor.
"Like this? OUCH! Something stung me."
[DNA SAMPLE COLLECTED, CREATING DNA I'D, DNA I'D CREATED, GRANTING THE LOWEST LEVEL OF AUTHORITY, AUTHORITY GRANTED]
"Is it over?" asked Fred.
"Yes,"
The door opened. Inside the room, there was a man waiting for them.
"Fred, meet Uncle Greg. Uncle Greg, this is Fredrick," said Jason, "Uncle Greg here is a researcher. He will be the one to answer all your questions."
"Young man, please sit here. I will be with you in a minute," said Greg to Fredrick.
"The container is ready, Sara will do the implant on you."
"Alright. You two enjoy your talk," said Jason.
Jason went to another room with Sara while Fredrick and Greg sat together on the table.
"So what is it that you want to know about?" asked Greg.
"For starters, what is this place?"
"It's a research facility. And it's a private one. Not owned by any government. A secret facility to be exact. The location of this facility itself is confidential."
"Then why was I brought here?"
"To answer that, I have to add a bit in the beginning. I guess to your generation, you have the term called superpowers where one can create fire, water etc in fantasy stories. In science, we call it the control over certain natural elements and energies. It wasn't until recently that we discovered a new substance called aether. This aether allows one to manipulate those elements. To put it in simple words, people with certain superpowers actually exist in real life."
"Do I look like a three year old to you?"
"You certainly don't. But that doesn't mean what I just said was a lie. Here watch this, they say seeing is believing after all."
Greg brought out his right hand.
"Now watch carefully "
Suddenly a pile of earth started to gather on top of his palm. Surprisingly it was floating above his palm and the pile of earth seemed to be totally under Greg's control.
"Wow, you look more excited than surprised," said Greg.
"So the powers are real. Does that mean I can do that too? Is that why Jason brought me here? Wait a moment, does that mean Jason also has powers? What about Sara?"
"Calm down kid. One question at a time. Yes, as you just saw, powers or to put it in scientific terms manipulation of elements is possible. And as for whether you can do it or not depends on your affinity to certain elements. There is a chance that you might be an awakener as well, that's why Jason brought you here. As for Jason, what power he has, you should ask him yourself. And I suppose you have already met Sara, she is my eldest daughter. And yes, she is also an awakener."
"So the things that happened at the campsite, does it have anything to do with these elemental powers?"
"Unfortunately, the incidents you and your friends witnessed at the campsite, I was responsible for it."
"How?"
"You see, I have another daughter, Samantha. She is also an awakener or that is what we thought. We thought she had already fully awakened. So I took her to that campsite. We reserved the whole campsite so that the public don't become aware of the powers yet. During her power control training, something went wrong. We call it aether overload. It's a rare case where people who haven't awakened yet lose control over the aether in their bodies. When that happens, a huge amount of aether inside their bodies becomes unstable. That leads their powers to run amok."
"Then how did you manage to keep it under control?"
"Like me, Sam is an awakener with Earth Elemental powers. When there are two people of the same elemental powers, the one who is more powerful can naturally suppress the one who is less. I was the one suppressing Sam's overload with my powers."
"Is that the reason Jason went there? To help you guys? But weren't you there for more than two months? Didn't you guys need to eat or sleep?"
"It was thanks to Jason that we managed to bring the situation under control. For your information, An awakener can last for a longer period of time without food, water and sleep during critical situations."
"But Jason could have gone there alone. Was there any need to bring us with him?"