The garden's morning calm shattered when Lila spotted her phone buzzing insistently on the office desk. Theo ducked under the hood of a donated SUV across the courtyard, prepping it for their mobile clinic run. Leo was chasing fireflies in the tall grass, laughter drifting on the breeze.
Lila read the urgent text from the Autonomous Dawn network: **“Victor Huo has leaked edited footage. Warrant issued for Leo's seizure as 'evidence.'"** Her chest tightened.
She and Theo sprinted toward the field clinic where their laptops—linked to global watchdogs—displayed live alerts: Victor's proxies had convinced a sympathetic judge that Leo's grafted segments were “biological contraband." International forces were on standby to detain the child.
Theo skidded to a halt beside her. “He's trying to w
