THE SCIENCE DIVISION

Ren'ō's assignment to the Divine Integration Laboratory began with a locked door and a woman telling him to leave.

The Science Division occupied the lowest levels of Citadel Nine, beneath enough reinforced alloy to survive a direct kinetic strike. Soldiers called it the tomb. Scientists called it adequate. Ren'ō called it cold.

He arrived with twelve members of the 4th Protective Detail and found Dr. Laana Rhee halfway inside an open containment frame, one boot on a diagnostic console and both hands buried in a nest of luminous cables.

"Security rotation," Ren'ō said.

"No."

"That was not a question."

"Then it was an unnecessary statement."

She did not look at him. A glass cylinder hung behind her, suspended inside concentric rings. Something the size of a human heart floated within it, made of light folded so tightly that the room seemed to bend toward it.

Ren'ō felt pressure behind his eyes.

His squad shifted uneasily.

Laana glanced over her shoulder. Her gaze stopped on Ren'ō longer than it stopped on anyone else.

"You," she said. "Do you hear anything?"

"The ventilation fan needs maintenance."

"From the specimen."

He studied the light. There was no sound, but something inside his chest answered with a slow, heavy pulse.

"No," he said.

Laana climbed down. "Interesting."

"Usually people buy me dinner before making that face."

That earned him the smallest lift of one eyebrow.

She introduced the specimen as a Divine Remnant recovered from the corpse of a celestial entity found beyond La-Sol's outer moon. Every nation on the planet wanted it. Half wanted to build a weapon. The other half wanted to make sure no one else could.

Laana wanted neither.

"A stable integration could allow human biology to survive environments our technology cannot," she explained as she moved through a maze of displays. "Radiation. Atmospheric collapse. Interstellar transit without cryogenic degradation. It could save billions."

Ren'ō looked at the armed locks around the chamber. "And kill billions faster."

"That too."

The honesty caught him off guard.

She handed him a security list. Twenty-six names had access to the laboratory. Four had already been assassinated. Two had vanished. One had tried to sell a tissue sample to the enemy and left the interrogation room in three containers.

Ren'ō read the list twice.

"You need more than twelve soldiers."

"I requested none."

"That explains why command sent me."

Laana finally faced him fully. "I do not need someone hovering over my shoulder."

"Then stop standing where people keep shooting."

The first attack came six hours later.

An engineer drew a concealed pistol near the primary core. Ren'ō saw the change in the man's posture before the weapon cleared his coat. He crossed the room, trapped the wrist, drove an elbow into the throat, and put the saboteur on the floor without firing a shot.

The pistol discharged once. The round struck the containment field.

The Divine Remnant flared.

Every light in the laboratory died. Golden veins raced across the glass. Ren'ō stood between Laana and the chamber while the world narrowed to a sound like distant stars tearing open.

Then it stopped.

Emergency lamps came alive.

Laana stared at the Remnant, then at Ren'ō.

"It reacted to you."

"It reacted to being shot. Reasonable behavior."

"No. It moved toward you."

Ren'ō looked at the light behind the glass. The pulse inside his chest returned.

For the first time in his military career, he considered requesting reassignment.

He did not.