The alien genome floated in the lab's air, a shining, double-helixed promise. It was an answer to a question they had just begun to learn to ask. But in the council chambers, the weight of the decision was a physical force. The gift was too much, too profound. It wasn't a device; it was a transformation.
The arguments dragged on for hours, fissuring the fragile solidarity they had built.
"We can't trust it!" a long-time Purist security chief argued, his voice drawn taut. "It's a foreign element from an untested species. It might be a Trojan horse, a way to manipulate us at a biological level way beyond the N-Atoms!"
"The N-Atoms were a cage!" a Ghost woman shot back, folding arms. "This… this is the key. They underwent what we underwent. They're reaching out, not grabbing hold of us."
