The garden quieted as if someone had turned down the volume on the universe.
A low, steady pulse of light travelled along the roots of the upside-down trees and converged at the centre of the sphere. There, a single column of water rose from nothing, perfectly still, perfectly clear. Inside it floated a containment prism no larger than a coffin, its walls made of frozen starlight.
Inside the prism stood Dr. Unown (Namola-6), motionless, eyes closed, arms at his sides. The prism did not imprison him; it merely asked him to wait.
Nero drifted forward until her palms rested against the cool surface. The snakes of her suit coiled tighter, protective and curious.
"Thank you," she said, turning slowly to face the gathered Namolas (Upper Thirty in their gentle halo, Lower Twelve lounging on clouds, Least Nine perched in the branches like bright birds). "All of you. I walked in here expecting judgment, or worship, or a fight. Instead you gave me fireflies and a photograph of a kid falling off a bicycle. It feels like that old 2027 Star Trek movie came true (the one where the god turns out to be a lonely child who just wanted friends)."
A ripple of soft laughter moved through the garden. Namola-41 accidentally knocked over another floating bonsai and apologised to it again.
Namola-03 raised one hand. The laughter faded into attentive silence.
"The incident in Nevada cannot be undone," they said. "Two hundred and eighty-seven human lives erased in fifty-five seconds. Their satellites recorded a photonic extinction event. Their leaders are terrified. Their children are already drawing pictures of the 'blue angel who ate the desert'. We can no longer pretend the surface does not know something walks among them."
Namola-04 folded his arms, ocean-deep eyes troubled. "Reveal ourselves and we become targets. Every government, every cult, every frightened parent with a rifle. We have hidden for a reason."
Namola-05 drifted forward.
She looked fifteen, maybe sixteen, freckles across her nose, hair the colour of bleached coral. Ninety-seven years old and still wearing the same oversized hoodie she had died in. The oldest living Namola. The one who had watched the world warm, cool, and warm again.
"Calm," she said, and the word carried the weight of glaciers. "We have discorporated cities to stay secret. We have let children starve so our existence would not start wars. I am tired of hiding."
She turned in a slow circle, addressing every face.
"Maybe it is finally time to step into the light and say: here we are. We are your children. We are your future. Stop being afraid of tomorrow."
A hush. Even the koi held their breath.
Nero floated closer to the prism, eyes on the motionless figure inside.
"What happens," she asked quietly, "if humans actually see you? All of you?"
Namola-05 met her gaze.
"They will do what humans have always done when they meet something greater than themselves," she said. "Some will kneel. Some will reach out a hand. Most will scream and reach for the largest weapon they can find."
She smiled, small and sad and ancient.
"But a few (just a few) will recognise their own children looking back at them. And that might be enough."
The water column pulsed once, gently, like a heartbeat asking to be let in.
Dr. Unown's eyes opened inside the prism (gold, steady, no longer burning).
Nero rested her forehead against the cool light.
"Your move, Six," she whispered.
The entire garden waited to see whether the god who had burned Nevada would choose silence… or a voice.
The prism cracked open with a sound like a glacier calving.
Dr. Unown stepped out, bare feet touching air as though it were marble. The moment he moved, every firefly in the sphere winked out at once.
His voice was not his own. It was Dr. Jack's: raw, human, furious, the voice that had once screamed at burning laboratories while trying to carry a three-legged wolf to safety.
"Pitiful," he roared, and the garden trembled. Leaves turned their pale undersides upward in fear. "Look at them: still drowning in plastic oceans, still starving their own young, still building bombs because they're terrified of the dark. They had their chance for centuries and they chose extinction wrapped in flags."
He spread his arms, and the light behind him bent into burning wings.
"With Nero at our side we could finish what the God of Evolution began. One year, one decade, and the universe would open like a flower. No more hunger. No more borders drawn in blood. We would be mercy itself."
Namola-05 did not flinch. She floated forward until she was an arm's length from him, small hoodie against living apocalypse.
"Jack," she said softly, using the name like a blade made of kindness. "Jack made us to save the weak, not to replace them. He died coughing blood in a collapsing zoo, dragging cages open with his bare hands so a thousand animals could have one more sunrise. He did not burn the world to save it. He burned himself."
The wings of light flickered.
05 reached out and placed her palm flat against the centre of his chest, right where a human heart would be.
"You are wearing his face," she whispered. "Don't make him watch you become the thing he hated most."
For a moment the entire biosphere held its breath. Even the waterfalls hung suspended mid-air.
Dr. Unown's golden eyes dimmed, just a fraction.
Nero drifted between them, the serpent suit coiling tight around her ribs like it was bracing for impact.
"Six," she said, voice low. "Look at me."
He did.
"I'm not your conquest," she told him. "I'm the girl who still keeps a Polaroid of an eight-year-old laughing on a bicycle. If you want the universe, you walk through me first. And I'm not moving."
The burning wings collapsed into sparks that became fireflies again, drifting back to the trees.
Dr. Unown closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the gold had cooled to something almost human.
"I hear you," he said, voice his own again, rough and exhausted. "Both of you."
He looked past Nero to 05, then to the silent garden.
"I just… don't know how to stop being afraid for her."
05's smile was small and ancient and kind.
"Then don't stop," she said. "Just stop deciding the rest of the universe has to die so she can live."
The fireflies settled on his shoulders like forgiveness he hadn't asked for.
Nero reached out and took his hand. The garden exhaled.
Somewhere far above, dawn kept blooming, patient as ever.
The garden went perfectly still.
A thousand voices (ancient, childish, gentle, curious) all asked the same question at once, overlapping into a soft, overwhelming chorus:
"Which council, little sister?" "Upper Thirty?" "Lower Twelve?" "Least Nine?" "Where will you sit?" "We have waited so long…"
The fireflies dimmed. Even the koi stopped mid-glide.
Nero felt every gaze settle on her like warm, heavy hands.
She closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, and let out the longest, most exhausted sigh in human history.
"What the fuck?" The words cut through the sphere like a dropped glass in church.
She opened her eyes again, looked around at fifty-one immortal faces who had just offered her galaxies and snowflakes and baby pictures, and repeated, louder:
"What the actual fuck? I died three days ago. I came back naked in a desert. I accidentally deleted Nevada because my ghost boyfriend had a panic attack. I have been awake for maybe six hours total since then, and now you want me to pick a political faction for the rest of eternity?"
Silence. A single leaf detached from an upside-down oak and drifted down in slow motion.
Nero floated higher, arms spread, voice cracking somewhere between fury and hysteria.
"I need a nap. I need a shower that isn't in a bunker. I need five minutes where nobody is trying to worship me, dissect me, marry me, or turn me into a planetary warhead. Can I just… not choose right now? Can I just breathe?"
Namola-29, the flower-crown girl, was the first to break. She burst out laughing so hard she spun three full rotations in mid-air.
Namola-41 followed, then Namola-47, then the entire Lower Twelve and Least Nine dissolved into helpless, delighted laughter. Someone started clapping. Someone else whistled. A koi sneezed sparkles.
Namola-05 wiped her eyes, still chuckling. "Fair," she said. "Completely fair."
Namola-03 lifted both hands in gentle surrender. "No council claims you tonight," they declared. "The garden is big enough for one more tree that hasn't decided where to plant its roots."
Dr. Unown (still holding Nero's hand) gave the smallest, sheepish squeeze. "…Sorry," he muttered.
Nero exhaled, shoulders dropping a full ten centimetres.
"Thank you," she said to the sphere at large. "Seriously. Now, someone point me to the quietest cloud and bring me something that isn't trying to save or end the universe. Preferably with caffeine."
Namola-29 zipped forward, grabbed her free hand, and tugged.
"This way!" she sang. "We have a hammock that plays lo-fi whale songs and a vending machine that still thinks it's 2098!"
As the garden swallowed her up in a tide of laughing, floating siblings, Nero let herself be dragged.
For the first time in days, nobody was asking her to be anything at all.
Just Nero. Tired, overwhelmed, alive, and (for one night) allowed to stay that way.