The summit continues for three days. Every department, every agency, every aspect of government trying to understand what evolved children mean for the future. The conference rooms of the White House seem to pulse with a new energy, as if the building itself recognizes the historical weight of these discussions. Crystal chandeliers catch the subtle glow from evolved children, creating prisms of light that dance across walls that have witnessed two centuries of American decisions.
The Department of Education wants to know about curriculum. Secretary Martinez leans forward across the polished mahogany table, her fingers drumming nervously on a folder thick with traditional educational standards. "How do we teach children who might be smarter than their teachers? Our entire system is built on the assumption that knowledge flows from teacher to student."
"The same way you always have," Devon answers, his small hands folded calmly on the table, his impossible eyes reflecting depths of understanding that make seasoned educators shift uncomfortably in their chairs. "With humility and willingness to learn together. The best teachers were never the ones who knew everything—they were the ones who showed students how to discover."
The Department of Energy is fascinated by children who generate their own light. The Secretary's scientific advisor actually pulls out a meter, trying to measure Clara's glow with instruments designed for traditional electricity. The device whirs and clicks, its readings fluctuating wildly. "Could they power cities? The energy output is remarkable—clean, renewable, seemingly endless."
"Could you?" Clara responds, her teenage voice carrying an edge of frustration that makes her glow flicker. The light she emits isn't just illumination—it's emotion made visible, casting shadows that seem to move with their own intelligence. "Just because we can doesn't mean we should. We're not batteries. We're not resources to be harvested."
The Pentagon is predictably focused on defense. General Morrison, his uniform decorated with decades of service medals, spreads classified documents across the table—satellite images of facilities in other countries, intelligence reports about evolved individuals in China, Russia, Israel. "If hostile nations develop evolved soldiers—"
"Then they'll discover what we have," Marcus interrupts, and suddenly everyone in the room feels it—a wave of connection, of shared emotion that makes the General's hand instinctively move to his sidearm before he realizes there's no threat, only understanding. "Evolution favors connection over conflict. 'Evolved soldiers' would connect with each other across battle lines. War becomes impossible when you feel your enemy's pain, their fear, their love for their families."
It's this last point that shifts something fundamental in the room's atmosphere. The Secretary of Defense actually laughs—a short, surprised bark of sound that echoes off the historic walls. "You're saying evolution makes war obsolete?"
"We're saying evolution makes hate harder," Devon clarifies, and his words seem to shimmer in the air like heat mirages. "When you're connected through the network, truly connected, causing pain to others hurts you too. Empathy becomes survival. Cruelty becomes self-destruction. The network doesn't allow for the disconnection that makes violence possible."
But not everyone is convinced. Representative Williams from Texas brings a group of "concerned parents"—families who see evolution as corruption, who want their children protected from "contamination." They cluster together in the Roosevelt Room like a fortress of fear, their faces hard with righteous anger and barely concealed terror.
"My son came home glowing," one mother says accusingly, her voice cracking with a mixture of rage and grief. She pulls out her phone, showing a video of a boy, maybe twelve, his hands emanating soft blue light as he does homework. "He was normal when he went to school. Normal! Now look at him!"
"He's still normal," I insist, feeling my own maternal instincts rise to defend not just this unknown boy but all evolved children. "Just evolved normal. A new kind of normal."
"That's not normal! Normal doesn't glow!" Her voice rises to near-hysteria, and I can see other parents nodding, feeding off her fear.
Hope floats over to the woman, and security tenses, hands moving to weapons, radios crackling with urgent whispers. But my daughter just hovers there, three feet off the ground, looking at the woman with those impossible eyes that hold galaxies.
"Your son glows when he's happy," Hope says, her child's voice carrying the weight of ancient wisdom. "He told me through the network. He glows because he finally feels connected, not alone. He glows when he thinks about baseball, about his dog, about the girl who sits next to him in math class. Isn't that what you want for him? To not feel alone?"
The mother breaks down crying, her carefully constructed walls of anger crumbling. "I just want him safe. I want him to have a normal life, to grow up, get married, have kids..."
"Evolution is safety," Hope says, patting the woman's hand with her tiny fingers, and where they touch, the faintest glow transfers—not evolution itself, but understanding. "Evolution is adaptation is survival is safety. Your son will grow up. He'll fall in love. He might have children—evolved or not. But he'll never be alone in the dark corners of his mind again."
The moment breaks something in the room. These aren't weapons or threats—they're children offering connection to a disconnected world. Even the most skeptical officials lean forward, seeing possibility instead of peril.
Adrian finds me during a break, the hallway outside the Cabinet Room quiet except for the distant murmur of ongoing discussions. "You're remarkable. Both of you—you and Devon." His voice carries twenty-six years of missed moments.
"We're your children," I say, still adjusting to the truth of it, the words feeling foreign and familiar simultaneously.
"Susan would be proud." He looks through the window at the Rose Garden, where evolved children are demonstrating their abilities for a group of scientists, their glow turning the traditional flowers into something magical.
"You didn't know her as a mother."
"No. But I knew her as someone who fought for what's right. You're doing the same, just on a global scale. She would have loved to see this—her daughter changing the world."
Richard joins us, Genesis beside him, their evolved connection making them move in subtle synchronization. "The medical committee wants to study the evolved children."
"Study or help?" I ask, knowing the answer matters more than anything.
"Both, probably. They're offering resources—medical support, research facilities, funding. Billions of dollars in grants."
"In exchange for?"
"Access. Data. Understanding." His face shows he knows how this sounds.
I look at Devon, who's been listening through the network even from three rooms away. He nods, but his expression is cautious.
"Supervised access. Our doctors present. No invasive procedures. And everything shared publicly—no classified research. No hidden laboratories. No secret experiments."
"They won't like the transparency requirement," Adrian warns, his political instincts sharp.