The Pizza was a welcome sight to Sylvie. She had just been thinking about what to make for lunch. Martin had the look of a deer in the headlights. “What’s wrong with you, Martin?”

Uncle spoke up, “We had some unwanted attention in New York City. I had to get us back fast.” He managed a stern face in light of the boy’s embarrassment.

Martin did his best with a nervous smile. “We did get the equipment we needed.” He made a point of showing the Circuitcenter bag with the small monitor bulging out of the top with the keyboard. “We can set it up after lunch, then, all we need is a burner phone or a pay-as-you-go hotspot.”

As he slid the pizza box onto the dining room table, Uncle turned to the other two, “I think I had better make that a solo trip. The police response tells me that whoever had you two abducted really wants you back. I need to ask some friends to look into it.”

Lunch was uneventful. Sylvie kept trying to draw Martin out of his shell throughout, but he was still a bit shaken. “What do we know about the kidnappers, Uncle? They seemed to have us preselected for their efforts. Who would be after us?”

“I have ideas about who it might be. Do you remember the ‘Family story’? The warning at the end was about the ones I suspect are behind the abductions.” Uncle responded.

“You mean the part about ‘those not of the tribes’?” she asked.

“That is exactly who I suspect. I don’t know why they would be after the boy though.” Turning to look directly at Sylvie, “You, I would understand, but he has no connection I have found to our family. There has to be more to this.”

Sylvie’s expression became harder. Her eyes opened wide, and her teeth were bared more. “They took the others I was sharing that house with, too. I bet they have been up to it all over the place. We need to rescue the victims.”

“Calm it down, girl. I already took in one more than I planned for here. We need to take care of you and Martin before we open up more problems!”

She looked Uncle straight in the eyes, “ And what about the part that says ‘Fight them where you must to preserve all tribes.’? Alion said we had a duty to all tribes. That would include the children of all tribes.”

“Sylvie! You have no idea what kind of fight you are looking for!” was his exasperated reply.

“So, tell me about them.”

Martin took this opportunity to step in, “I want to know what kind of people are hunting me.”

“Fine. We will talk about it after the meal. You can assemble the computer stuff, and I can go get the hotpot, or whatever, after I explain things.”

Martin grinned a bit as he corrected, “Hotspot. Hotpot is a meal, I think.”

The other two agreed with nods. The pizza was almost gone in short order. The teens had eaten most of the pie. Uncle mused on the nature of growing kids. It had been a long time since he had any of those to take care of. His home was so empty without them now.

Once the pizza was gone, and uncle took the box away to wherever he disposed of trash. Afterward, they all sat down at a sectional couch in a room that Uncle took them to. It had been hidden behind a false panel. The couch, and the coffee table had been covered with a drop cloth that he removed before they took their seats and got comfortable.

Uncle took the comfortable chair at the end of the coffee table. He sighed and began, “What the Old Man was talking about when he said ‘not of the tribes’ was beings that are not human. They want access to the gifts the family was given. I know you are imagining that Uncle is nuts, but I am dead serious and as completely sane as anyone you have ever met.”

“What do you mean ‘not human’? Do you mean they are too horrible to be considered human? Or is this a robot thing?” asked Martin.

The two kids looked to him eagerly for a response. “I mean, they are not genetically part of homo-sapiens as a species. No. they are not robots, androids, or any kind of machines.”

Sylvie looked skeptically at Uncle, “If they are not actual humans, where did they come from?”

“From what I can tell, they came from another universe, or planet. All I know of their motivations is, that they want what we were given, but the Old Man did not want us to share with them.

“I was told that they once asked us for access to the gifts. We denied them access because they wanted them exclusively to themselves. That was not going to work for us. When we told them  it was no deal, they began attacking us. They began to wipe entire families out.”

Sylvie was the first one to react to the news of what had been done, “What do you mean ‘families’? Wasn’t everybody part of one family?”

“The family branched a lot in the years since the time of the story. Many of us used the freedom of travel to explore the world. To ‘meet the rest of the tribe’ as it were. We ended up as a rather large series of families. Every so often, we would have groups of young ones who came and accepted the gifts.”

“What do you mean ‘accepted the gifts’?” asked Martin.

“To accept the gifts, you have to touch the ridgepole, swallow a kernel of the sacred corn, and wait for the thunderbird to grant you a feather. Sometimes, the feather was already there and waiting for someone to accept it.. Anyway… we still have scattered people over the world who may have a weak, but actual link to the original family. There are other tales of strange branches of the family. One young man of the family from long ago was said to have had a feather that took the form of a hammer.”

“What do you mean ‘took the form of a hammer’?” asked Sylvie.

“When one gets a feather from the thunderbird, it transforms into a specific shape that suits the recipient. It can be reverted, at will, to a feather of about twelve inches in length. The shape is very personal. Most of them are blades of some sort.”

“Did my dad know about all of this?” Sylvie was intrigued to know this most of all.

“Yes. I even trained him to fight. He was a good student, but he had other dreams. After he left, there was a feather that was delivered, but nobody who tried could pick it up.”

Martin was the next with a question: “How are they delivered?”

“I have no idea. They are just suddenly there. Each feather is for a specific person. If that person does not pick it up, it stays. That feather is still sitting there. I think it was meant for your dad.”

“He never said anything! All he ever told me was the ‘family tale’,” complained Sylvie.

“What do we do if another feather arrives?” asked Martin with a spark of hope.

Uncle looked at him with an amused smile, gently lifting the corners of his mouth. “Well, I guess you two get to choose if you are going to try to pick it up. If you pick it up, you must say ‘I accept the gift of the Thunderbird’. Then, you need to touch the ridgepole and eat the corn.”

“Can we do it the other way around? Just touch the ridgepole and eat the corn before we try the feather?” asked Martin.

“I only know of one that tried that,” said Uncle as he looked at Sylvie. “Your father touched the ridgepole and ate the corn, but he left before a feather arrived. A week later, I was the only one I know of who survived from our group. I kept track of your father, but I could not bring myself to ask him to return. If he were alive, he would be the only other person who knows where this shelter is located.”

Martin was the first to respond again, “Are there other shelters?”

“Yes, but it would be nearly impossible to find them either. The ones that were invaded by the enemy have been ‘scuttled’. They can’t even be entered now.”

Sylvie perked up at this, “What do you mean by ‘scuttled’?”

“ I blew them up. I killed over a hundred of the enemy when I did, too!” said Uncle with a calm smile.

Sylvie had an angry gleam in her eyes. “Two things, Uncle. First, I want to try for the gifts. Second, I want to rescue the kids they snatched.”

“Kiddo, you are out of your mind to want to pick that fight! Besides, we have no idea if a feather will show up for you. The feather that is there was probably for your father.”

“What happens to a feather if the one it is for dies?” the boy asked.

“I’ve never seen that happen. I don’t know. I can take you both to the Chamber of the Gifts if you want. Just let me get that ‘hotspot’ thing. You can build the computer setup while I am out.”

“That sounds like a plan,” said Martin. “I made sure the SD card I got was preloaded with Linux. I should be done in less than twenty minutes."

Sylvie went with Martin to the office with the computer. She laughed uncontrollably when she saw the computer Uncle had been so proud of. She knew the phone she had lost when she was out on the streets was much more powerful than the old heap.

Martin had the little machine he had brought back from New York up and running quickly. It amazed her that such a small thing could be so fully functional. He had it running with a full graphical environment and was playing one of the built-in games that came with the operating system when Uncle came in.

“Here you go! I even had it activated with one of those SIM things for this area. Is that the computer? It looks too tiny to be useful!”

Martin took the device that was being offered. He turned it on and used the documentation to connect the computer to the hotspot. He started running updates. While those ran, he began pulling down applications that he needed. Sylvie noticed that he was connecting to a cryptocurrency exchange. The numbers in the account seemed larger than she expected. Then, she saw him access an online bank. There was a savings account and a checking account. The amounts of money in each were impressive.

“Peeking over my shoulder is a bit rude, you know. What do you want to know?”

“Are you rich or something? Are you some sort of superhacker?”

“Nah,” said the shy teen, “I just have some computer skills. I was doing some online work for people who needed websites built. I took payments in cryptocurrency. The price went up on the crypto, so I sold them for a profit. I still have some payments coming in, so it’s been building up while I was unable to log in.”

“Wait, aren’t you too young to have a bank account like that? Besides, aren’t you scared the people who grabbed you would find you through it?”

This is where the boy smiled proudly, “I got a false identity with full credentials on a dark web site. I even have a pretty good credit rating with that identity. Anyway, it’s not like I can walk into a bank to use it, though. I can’t even get things delivered here. Maybe I can help Uncle, though.”

Uncle had gone off to deal with something else while this was happening. When he returned, he cleared his throat to get the attention of the other two. “Are you guys ready to go to the Chamber?” at their perfectly timed nods, he told them to stand and gave the same instructions he had to Martin before.

He put them side by side and put his hands on their heads. They stepped blindly forward. This time, there was no change in the ground level as they stepped through to the other place. “You can open your eyes now,” he said as the fluid feeling evaporated.