The shared memory left them raw, and argument arose swiftly.
They had been shifted from their shallow holding into a restricted transit bay while Jehovah and Tohu reset thresholds and route permissions. The delay had allowed the nine enough privacy to turn on the word that had been sitting in them like a second bruise.
Seed.
It was Poseidon who said it first and said it like a curse. "I will not be planted by the same kind of power that watched our world die. Purpose is just a prettier word for use."
Athena kept her arms folded tight. "Use is already the board we are on. House control, residual instruction, Sera's claim, erasure teams, continuity marks. The question is whether seed means that we are only tools, or whether it means that we were kept because we can become more than remains."
