BOMBSHELL

I’ll do my best to relate events clearly and concisely. It’s hard, however, when one’s world is turned upside down.
Ms. Aura arrived at our house alone, looking the same as ever in her black feathers. She insisted that as adults we call her Catherine now, and gave us a summary of her life as a human on the other side of the portal. She showed photos of herself and Nigel as humans, and her human husband Greg (the counterpart of the bear captain who married Danielle and George Fennec). More importantly to Fenton and myself were the pictures of her six-month-old child Ursala.
Ursala is human in every way, except for having bear fur and an ursine nose. No one, including me, understands the logic that accounts for both her and the human Francis. Perhaps the portal crossing causes a completely random element to enter one’s genes as they’re passed to the next generation.
That was only a warm-up to the main event: the revelation that birds not only control access to and from dimensional portals, but that they pretty much control...everything. Or else, they used to, until they enabled computers to keep our predator/prey society from spinning out of control. I was aghast, but there was more to come. Fenton suddenly got a blank look on his face, and then yelled at Catherine, “You held me hostage for months!”
Wide-eyed, he recounted to me how he, Vin Vulpen and Ray Flambeau had been forced to work at MicroTalon with a huge team creating that very computer system. Catherine confirmed everything and gave him a check for his back pay, with interest.
I was livid, recalling my mental anguish when I thought Fenton was dead, and even worse, when I thought he was alive and no one would believe me. I don’t often lose my temper, but I did then. Catherine accepted and acknowledged every drop of my fury as I unloaded on her.
Eventually it was Fenton who asked, “What now?” Catherine told us we were now full members of something she called the Group, which until now consisted entirely of feathered species. She provided a list of contacts and passwords to their inner circle.
We asked why she isn’t worried that we’d simply tell the world about their secrets. She said we were free to do so, but no one would believe us. (Coming from a couple of SF geeks like us, true.) Fenton asked about our human friends Nick and Ki. She said she didn’t know, but we could tell she was deeply concerned about something to do with them.
Then she was gone. We have one week to decide whether to join the Group. It’s going to take longer than that to screw my head back on straight.