The underground bunker was the polar opposite of the Smith house. It was a place of polished steel, sterile lighting, and an oppressive silence. Kaelen and Padmé sat on one side of a long conference table in a secure meeting room. On the other side sat the President, flanked by his Secretary of Defense, a stern-faced general, and his CIA Director, a woman with a piercing gaze. The Smith family was in an adjoining room, likely being interrogated about their coin collection and board game preferences.
Rick was absent. He had refused to enter the meeting room, declaring he "didn't negotiate with governments who still thought lithium was a scarce resource" and had holed up in an improvised lab they'd provided him to "prevent his brain from atrophying due to bureaucratic stupidity."
The President leaned forward, his hands clasped on the table. His expression was one of monumental exhaustion.
"Alright, Mr. Ror," he began, deliberately omitting any galactic titles. "Let's start from the beginning. My team informs me that your energy signature and genetic composition bear alarming similarities to Rick Sanchez. However, you are not him. The question my cabinet and I have is: what is your exact relationship to the man currently trying to convert our water dispenser into a cold fusion reactor?"
Padmé braced herself to interject, to explain the complex situation with her usual diplomatic eloquence. But Kaelen placed a reassuring hand on her knee. He would handle this. His way.
Kaelen looked at the President, then the General and the CIA Director. He saw their skepticism, their fear of the unknown. He knew he couldn't explain the truth about reincarnation, knowledge templates, or genetic echoes. He needed a concept they could understand, even if it was a half-truth. A truth that, in its own way, was even more shocking.
"To understand my relationship with Rick," Kaelen said, his voice quiet and deliberate, "you first must understand that he is not my creator. I am not a clone, or a robot, or a failed garage experiment of his."
He paused, letting his words sink in.
"He is my father."
The General snorted. "We got that, son. Sanchez himself referred to you as a 'ghost nephew.' It's a figure of speech."
"No," Kaelen said, his gaze fixed and unblinking. "You don't understand. I am not his son in a figurative or dimensionally adopted sense. I am not the result of an experiment."
He inclined his head, choosing his next words with a surgeon's precision.
"I am his biological son. The result of a natural union between him and my mother, Diane, in my original universe."
The Revelation of a Son
The silence in the room was instant and absolute. The CIA Director, who was taking notes on a datapad, stopped writing. The General, who had been about to speak, stood with his mouth agape.
The President blinked. "Natural? You mean... the normal way?"
"The normal way, Mr. President," Kaelen confirmed.
The President's brain, accustomed to dealing with geopolitical crises and budgets, tried to process this. "But... Sanchez has repeatedly told us his wife... that Diane... died decades ago. In this universe."
"And that's why I'm an anomaly," Kaelen explained. "In my original universe, my mother survived. Rick abandoned her before I was born, and she raised me alone. I lived an entire life and died. And by some whim of the multiverse that even I don't fully comprehend, my consciousness was reborn in another galaxy, carrying his genetic signature with me."
The CIA Director finally spoke, her voice a whisper of awe. "A natural... son. Of Rick Sanchez. Do you realize the implications? This means Sanchez's genetic sequence can be transmitted, replicated... without his direct intervention. He's not just an individual, he's the potential progenitor of a new species of super-intelligence."
The General looked at Kaelen with new eyes. He no longer saw an eccentric stranger. He saw a strategic asset. Or an incalculable threat.
The President leaned back in his chair, utterly overwhelmed. He had started the day worrying about a trade dispute and some plastic flamingos. Now he was contemplating the existence of a secret biological son of the most dangerous man in the universe, a son who could travel between galaxies and had a metal arm.
"So, just to be clear," the President said slowly, as if speaking to a child. "The lunatic in the garage who can destroy the planet on a whim... is your biological father? Your dad?"
Kaelen nodded. "Technically, yes."
A tired, bitter smile touched Kaelen's face.
"Which, I suppose, makes this entire situation the most fucked-up, complicated 'bring your child to work' day in the history of the multiverse."
The President didn't laugh. He simply stared at Kaelen, realizing that the problem on his hands was infinitely bigger and stranger than he had ever imagined. He had just discovered that the potential apocalypse had daddy issues.