The first "fruit" from the Pioneer Institute arrived not as a report, but as a live data stream to the quarantined server in Pune. It was Project Chrysalis: a novel enzyme discovered by their synthetic biology team that could, in theory, break down certain long-chain petroleum-based polymers—a potential breakthrough for biodegradable plastics. The data was dazzling, the implications world-changing.
The Mirror Team, Sharma's scientists, pounced on it. Their analysis was swift and chilling. In their secure lab, they replicated the enzyme. Then they tested it on other substrates. The report they delivered to Harsh and Sharma was titled: "Dual-Use Assessment: Project Chrysalis."
The enzyme, they found, was voraciously efficient. Too efficient. On the targeted polymers, it was a miracle. On the specific composite used in the insulation of critical underground military communication cables—a closely guarded secret—it acted like a hyper-accelerated acid. A single droplet, aerosolized and introduced into a vulnerable conduit, could silently cripple a nation's command-and-control infrastructure in a matter of hours.
The "magic" from the Wild was not just magic. It was a key that could open a treasure chest or a poison vial. And the Pioneer Institute, in its glorious, amoral pursuit of knowledge, had handed them the key without a label.
Elias Thorne's reaction, when Harsh confronted him on a secure line, was calm, almost academic. "Fascinating. The Mirror Team's work is impressive. This is the nature of foundational research, Harsh. It illuminates. It doesn't prescribe. The question is what you choose to do with the light."
The implication was clear: VCG had seen the potential too. They would not weaponize it—that was bad business—but they would patent the hell out of it and license it to the highest bidders, who might not be as scrupulous.
Harsh faced a trilemma.
Option 1: Bury it. Invoke the national security clause, classify the research, and hope the genie could be forced back into the bottle. But the knowledge existed in Switzerland, in the minds of a dozen international scientists. It would leak.
Option 2: Control it. Patent it aggressively through the Harsh Group, try to own the key to both the treasure and the poison, and become the world's arbitrator for a terrifying new technology. It would make him the most powerful—and targeted—man on earth.
Option 3: Neutralize it. Publish everything. Open-source the entire Chrysalis enzyme sequence, its synthesis path, and the Mirror Team's devastating dual-use analysis. Flood the world with the knowledge and the warning simultaneously. Make it impossible for any one entity to monopolize or weaponize it in secret.
The board, what was left of it, was apoplectic. "Publish? Are you mad? It's the most valuable discovery since the transistor! We could license it to every eco-company on the planet!"
Sharma's voice on the secure line was a glacier. "Publication is a significant risk. It provides a blueprint to adversaries."
"But it also provides the blueprint for the antidote," Harsh argued. "If everyone knows how the poison works, everyone can shield their cables. Secrecy only protects the first attacker. Transparency forces a new, safer equilibrium."
It was the "Playground Protocol" applied to geopolitics. Introduce friction. Force accountability. Sacrifice proprietary control for collective security.
He thought of the two trees in Anya's drawing. The magic tree had borne a fruit that could heal or kill. You couldn't put it back. You could only choose who you shared it with, and what you told them about its power.
He chose Option 3.
The publication in the open-access journal Frontiers in Bio-Engineering was a global earthquake. The paper, co-authored by the Pioneer Institute and the "Anonymous Indian Security Analysis Team," was a landmark in scientific ethics. It presented a world-changing discovery alongside a detailed, terrifying manual for its potential abuse.
The reaction was chaos. Environmentalists hailed a plastic pollution breakthrough. Military strategists worldwide went into silent panic, reviewing their infrastructure. Conspiracy theorists had a field day. VCG's stock dipped, then soared—they were seen as bold pioneers who had voluntarily disclosed a danger.
And Harsh Patel became something new again: not a hero, not a traitor, but a responsible deity. A man who had the power to create and withhold god-like tools, and who had chosen to hand them to humanity with a warning label.
Elias Thorne sent a one-line message: "A costly, but intriguing, move. The market dislikes uncertainty. But it respects candor. We will adapt."
In the garden that evening, Priya was quiet for a long time. "You gave away the poison and the cure together."
"It was the only way to make sure no one would ever use the poison in the dark," Harsh said, exhaustion weighing every word.
She took his hand. "The magic tree is dangerous, Harsh."
"I know," he whispered, looking at the stars beginning to pierce the twilight. "But we can't cut it down. We can only learn to read its fruits more carefully, before we take a bite."
The Wild had sent its first real test. He had responded not with the strength of a fortress, but with the terrifying, vulnerable strength of a lighthouse, shining a beam on both the safe passage and the jagged rocks. The cost of the alliance was now clear. It would never give him simple gifts. Only loaded ones. And the burden of choosing what to do with them would be his, alone, forever.
(Chapter End)