The old factory floor that served as Sector 17's community gathering space had never been so packed. Tel stood at the center, the infant still wrapped in the makeshift bnket she'd fashioned from salvaged fabric. Three days had passed since her discovery, and the child's existence had thrown the entire community into turmoil.

  "I've called this emergency session to decide what to do with the infant found during st week's salvage operation," announced Elder Kai, the elected head of Sector 17's council. His weathered face showed the strain of decades living outside corporate protection.

  Whispers rippled through the crowd. Few secrets sted long in a community of five thousand living in such close quarters.

  "Tel, please present your findings," Elder Kai said, gesturing toward her.

  Tel stepped forward, cradling the infant carefully. "As most of you know, I found this child in a stasis container at the Helix disposal site. The container was deliberately pced, not discarded."

  She gestured to a table where she had arranged the items found with the infant: the data chip, the neural growth medium, and the monitoring device.

  "This is not standard equipment," she continued. "This is advanced technology, beyond even what I worked with as a Servicer-css neural technician at Helix."

  Marek, who headed their security team, stepped forward. His left arm was a salvaged mechanical prosthetic—a reminder of his escape from ProtectoCorp five years ago.

  "The connection points at the base of the skull are corporate neural tech, designed to interface directly with their systems," he said, his voice hard. "This child was created for something, and whatever purpose the corporations had, it wasn't benevolent."

  The crowd murmured anxiously.

  "This could be a tracking device," Marek continued, pointing to the neural interface connection. "We could be compromising our entire sector by keeping it here."

  "She," Tel corrected firmly. "Not 'it.' She's a baby girl, not a piece of equipment."

  Elder Kai raised his hands for quiet. "We need to consider all aspects. Jana, what do our resources look like?"

  Jana, a former Worker who managed Sector 17's limited supplies, stood up from her council seat. "We're already stretched thin. Adding another mouth, especially an infant requiring specialized care, would mean reducing rations across the board."

  She consulted her worn datapad. "Based on current supplies, we'd need to reduce protein rations by approximately 3% per person to accommodate the child's needs. Medical supplies would see simir reallocation."

  More murmurs, some angry now. Three percent might not sound like much to an Architect, but in Sector 17, where meals were already calcuted to the bare minimum, it could mean the difference between strength to work and debilitating weakness.

  "What about the neural technology?" asked Dr. Reya, one of the few trained medical professionals in Sector 17. "May I examine the child?"

  Tel nodded, and Dr. Reya approached, her movements careful. She examined the infant with gentle expertise, paying special attention to the interface connection points.

  "This is unlike any neural tech I've seen," she said finally. "It's not the standard Worker or even Servicer interface. It's... more integrated, almost part of her natural development."

  "All the more reason to be cautious," Marek interjected. "They could be tracking us right now."

  "I've kept her in the shielded workshop since bringing her in," Tel countered. "If they could track through the shielding, they'd have found us years ago."

  "Why would they hide a child in a waste disposal site?" asked Liora, a young mother holding her own infant. "It doesn't make sense."

  Tel took a deep breath. "I believe someone wanted her found—specifically, found by someone outside the corporate system. The container was too carefully pced, too precisely designed to protect her."

  "So we're supposed to fulfill some corporate scheme?" Marek asked incredulously.

  "Or counter it," Tel replied. "Someone went to extreme lengths to get this child away from corporate control. I think we should honor that risk."

  The debate continued through the night and into the next day. Community members came and went, but the council remained in session. Arguments flew back and forth—compassion versus security, resource constraints versus moral obligation.

  By the evening of the second day, tempers were fraying.

  "We can barely feed ourselves!" shouted a man from the back. "Why take on another burden?"

  "We were all 'burdens' when we first arrived," countered an elderly woman. "Sector 17 was built on taking in those the corporations discarded."

  "A child is not waste to be salvaged," Tel insisted, her voice hoarse from hours of argument.

  Elder Kai called for a recess until morning. As the crowd dispersed, Tel remained in the center of the now-empty factory floor, still holding the infant who had slept through most of the proceedings.

  "You've caused quite a stir, little one," she whispered.

  Dr. Reya approached, offering to take the child for the night. "You need rest, Tel. You've been holding her for two days straight."

  "I'm fine," Tel insisted.

  "This isn't just about the child, is it?" Dr. Reya asked gently. "This is about what you left behind at Helix."

  Tel looked away. "I refused to implement the consciousness harvesting protocols. That's why I ran. This child... something tells me she's connected to all of that."

  Dr. Reya nodded slowly. "Get some sleep. We reconvene at dawn."

  The third day of debate brought no resolution. Resource calcutions were presented and challenged; security concerns were raised and dismissed; moral arguments were made with passionate intensity.

  As the afternoon wore on, Elder Kai finally called for order. "We seem to be at an impasse. Perhaps we should put it to a formal vote."

  Before he could continue, the infant in Tel's arms began to cry—the first substantial noise she had made since being brought to Sector 17. Tel tried to soothe her, reaching for the bottle of synthesized formu they'd been feeding her.

  The bottle slipped from her exhausted fingers and cttered to the floor, rolling toward a diagnostic tool that had been left near the council table—a broken device they'd been trying to repair for months.

  What happened next silenced every voice in the room.

  The infant's eyes fixed on the diagnostic tool with unexpected focus. The neural connection points at the base of her skull emitted a faint blue glow. Suddenly, the diagnostic tool's dispy flickered to life, its systems running through a startup sequence that had been nonresponsive for weeks.

  Elder Kai was the first to find his voice. "What just happened?"

  Dr. Reya rushed to examine both the infant and the diagnostic tool. "The neural interface—it somehow connected with and repaired the diagnostic systems. This is... impossible."

  Tel looked down at the child in her arms with new understanding. "Not impossible. Just beyond what the corporations let us believe is possible."

  The room erupted in astonished conversation. Even Marek approached cautiously, examining the now-functioning diagnostic tool.

  "Could this be why she was hidden?" someone asked. "This ability?"

  "If the corporations created a child who could interface directly with technology..." Dr. Reya began, her eyes wide.

  "They wouldn't have discarded her," Tel finished. "Someone rescued her."

  Elder Kai raised his hands for silence. "We've just witnessed something extraordinary. Before we vote, I want everyone to consider what we've seen. This child may represent more than an ethical question or a security risk. She may represent a capability that could benefit our entire community."

  The vote, when it finally came, was not unanimous. Several council members—Marek among them—still voted against keeping the child. But the majority, swayed by the demonstration of her abilities, voted to accept her into Sector 17.

  "It's decided then," Elder Kai announced. "The child stays."

  As the gathering broke up, people approached Tel, some curious, others still wary. One woman asked, "What will you call her?"

  Tel hadn't considered a name. She looked up through the factory's broken ceiling, where a rare clear night showed stars through Terminus's usually cloudy atmosphere. A bright star caught her eye—part of the Lyra consteltion, one of the few Earth star patterns still visible from their new home.

  "Lyra," she said softly. "Her name is Lyra."

  Later, as Tel finally allowed herself to rest in her small dwelling, Lyra sleeping peacefully beside her, she reflected on the decision they had made. The child would face challenges—growing up as an outsider, carrying technology none of them fully understood, living in a community where resources never quite stretched far enough.

  But she would also have something the corporations tried to eliminate from human experience: freedom to become whoever she was meant to be.

  "Sleep well, Lyra," Tel whispered. "Tomorrow we begin building your new life."

  Outside, in the darkness beyond Sector 17's perimeter, a small device embedded in the neural connection points at the base of Lyra's skull sent a brief, encrypted burst of data—too short to be detected by standard scanners, too focused to be caught by perimeter defenses.

  The message traveled across the city to a private terminal in a Helix Pharmaceuticals boratory, where a woman working alone received confirmation that Subject L7 had survived transport and was now in a secure location.

  Helena Voss allowed herself a brief smile before deleting the transmission record. Phase one of Operation Genesis was complete.