By the time Lena got back to Redtail, it was nearly dark.
She was tired.
Not normal tired.
The kind of tired where taking off her boots felt like a problem for tomorrow.
Unfortunately, Ruth had given her a new problem.
Plants.
Lena had managed to spend the last week thinking about biological changes without once seriously considering half the biology on the planet.
Excellent.
Lena stood beside the neglected garden behind the farmhouse.
Most of it was weeds.
Few things had survived from whoever had owned Redtail before her.
She looked around.
Weeds.
Grass.
Trees.
Crops.
All potentially subject to Transition.
That was…
A problem for tomorrow.
Tonight, she wanted to answer Ruth’s question.
Seeds.
Lena went inside and pulled one of the seed packets she’d bought from Inventory.
Beans.
Appraise.
COMMON BEAN SEED
Seed Viability: 94%
Developmental State: Dormant
Transition Affinity: MINIMAL
Projected Transition Response While Dormant: VERY LOW
Lena stopped.
“While dormant?”
Correct.
“What happens if it’s growing?”
Transition response probability varies according to biological activity, environmental exposure, individual affinity, and species characteristics.
That was interesting.
Potentially very interesting.
Lena retrieved another packet.
Tomatoes.
Low.
Corn.
Moderate.
Carrots.
Minimal.
Potatoes weren’t technically seeds, but the System didn’t care.
Low.
She started pulling packets faster.
Peas.
Minimal.
Squash.
Low.
Onions.
Minimal.
Wheat.
Low.
A packet of sweet corn.
Moderate.
Another variety of corn.
Low.
Lena paused.
Same species.
Different affinity.
That mattered.
She looked at the growing pile on the floor.
She’d bought a lot of seeds.
Not enough.
She knew that immediately.
She needed varieties.
Different genetics.
Different growing seasons.
Different tolerances.
Heat.
Cold.
Drought.
Flooding.
Short-season crops.
Long-season crops.
Staples.
Vegetables.
Herbs.
Grains.
Things that grew quickly.
Things that stored well.
Things she’d never personally want to eat but twenty other people might.
And if some varieties changed while others didn’t…
She needed backups.
Lots of backups.
Lena grabbed her notebook.
SEEDS — MORE
Then underneath:
OPEN-POLLINATED / HEIRLOOM
MULTIPLE VARIETIES OF EVERYTHING
HEAT / COLD / DROUGHT / SHORT SEASON
She paused.
Ruth had asked another question.
What happened to seeds during Transition?
The System had said dormant seeds could still respond.
But there was one place where nothing changed.
“System.”
Listening.
“If seeds stay in Spatial Inventory during Transition, will they change?”
No.
Lena went still.
“At all?”
Biological processes are suspended while stored within Spatial Inventory.
Items contained within Spatial Inventory are isolated from external Transition exposure.
There it was.
A backup.
Not just seeds that happened to have Low affinity.
Not seeds that were probably safe.
Pre-Transition seeds.
Exactly as they were now.
Preserved.
Lena looked at the packets scattered across the floor.
She couldn’t grow them in Inventory.
Time didn’t move there.
They couldn’t feed anyone while they were inside.
But that wasn’t the point.
Whatever happened outside, Lena could preserve a library of normal crops.
If Transition changed plants…
if crops failed…
if some varieties became useless…
She could start again.
Her pen moved.
KEEP UNTOUCHED SEED RESERVE IN INVENTORY.
She underlined it.
Twice.
Then added:
FRUIT TREES?
CUTTINGS?
TUBERS?
ROOT STOCK?
Her handwriting was deteriorating again.
That seemed like a good sign she needed sleep.
Lena glanced toward the corner of her vision.
She hadn’t checked in a while.
“Countdown.”
The display appeared.
20 DAYS : 22 HOURS : 37 MINUTES
Lena stared.
Twenty days.
A week ago she’d been standing in Costco.
Twenty-eight days had felt impossible.
Now she’d already spent seven of them.
She looked around the farmhouse.
Boxes.
Tools.
A mattress on the floor.
A notebook that had somehow become an apocalypse to-do list.
Outside, she had thirty-two chickens, five goats, four pigs, one enormous dog and a cat she was absolutely not adopting.
Twenty days.
“Okay.”
Tomorrow.
Tonight she needed sleep.
Probably.
Lena gathered the seed packets and returned all but a few to Inventory.
Then she stopped.
Those few went in too.
No reason to leave them exposed. New chapters come out on g.com first.
She’d buy more.
A lot more.
At 6:43 the next morning, Lena woke to trucks.
Again.
She opened her eyes.
Stared at the ceiling.
“No.”
Scout barked once outside.
Then stopped.
A diesel engine rumbled somewhere near the barn.
Lena found her phone.
Four messages.
All Marcus.
5:58 AM — First poultry and swine feed delivery scheduled 06:30–07:00.
6:04 AM — Hay delivery scheduled 07:15–08:00.
6:17 AM — Temporary feed-storage solution arriving with first delivery.
6:31 AM — Veterinary and livestock supplies scheduled separately.
Lena stared at the screen.
Temporary feed-storage solution.
That sounded expensive.
She pulled on clothes.
Outside, Redtail had become a logistics operation.
A delivery truck sat beside the barn.
Pallets of bagged feed were coming off the back.
Another vehicle was waiting behind it.
Workers were assembling heavy-duty storage bins near the feed room.
Scout stood thirty feet away watching the entire operation with intense professional suspicion.
The goats were also watching.
Less professionally.
One had its front feet on the fence.
“Don’t.”
The goat continued.
Lena pointed at it.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
It probably wasn’t thinking anything.
That was somehow worse.
Ruth’s pickup came up the driveway at seven-ten.
Lena stared.
Ruth climbed out.
“What?”
“Why are you here?”
“You own livestock.”
“So?”
“So livestock doesn’t care that you’re tired.”
Right.
That was going to take adjustment.
Ruth looked toward the deliveries.
Then stopped.
“That was fast”
“Marcus is fast.”
Ruth inspected the feed.
Of course she did.
Labels.
Dates.
Protein percentages.
Storage conditions.
Lena followed.
“Is it right?”
“So far.”
High praise.
They spent the next two hours learning exactly how much Lena did not know about feeding the animals she’d purchased yesterday.
The chickens were relatively straightforward.
The goats were not.
The pigs were apparently willing to eat themselves into problems if Lena let them.
Scout had her own requirements.
And everything needed water.
Constantly.
By nine-thirty, Lena had acquired three new pages of notes.
Then Ruth pointed toward the hay.
“That’s the part you need to think about.”
“What?”
“Day ninety-one.”
Lena looked at her.
Ruth gestured toward the feed.
“You can store all you want.
Eventually they eat it.”
“That’s what the reserve is for.”
“The reserve buys time.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Lena frowned.
Ruth pointed toward the pasture.
“What are they eating after that?”
“Grass.”
“In winter?”
“Hay.”
“From where?”
Lena opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Right.
Hay wasn’t a naturally occurring bagged resource.
Someone grew it.
Cut it.
Dried it.
Baled it.
Transported it.
Ruth continued.
“You can grow feed here.
Pasture.
Hay.
Fodder crops.
But that takes land, weather, equipment and time.”
Lena looked across Redtail.
Fields.
Pasture.
Plenty of land.
Weather.
Oh.
The weather.
Her stomach sank.
“Fuck.”
Ruth glanced over.
“What?”
Lena looked toward the fields.
“The weather.”
“What about it?”
“The things I’m preparing for.”
Extreme heat.
Extreme cold.
Flooding.
Severe storms.
Wildfire.
Long periods where normal growing conditions might not exist at all.
She’d known that.
Of course she’d known that.
But knowing crops could fail was different from standing beside animals that would keep needing food whether crops grew or not.
“If the weather gets bad enough, none of this works.”
Ruth looked toward the fields.
“Depends how bad.”
“Bad.”
“Helpful.”
“I don’t know exactly.
That’s the problem.”
Ruth considered that.
“Then don’t build a plan that requires good weather.”
Lena looked at her.
Simple.
Obvious.
Extremely annoying.
“How?”
“That’s the question.”
Lena stared across the pasture.
The reserve bought ninety days.
Whatever she built next had to buy more.
Not by storing more feed.
By making it.
Even when the weather wouldn’t cooperate.
Chime.
Lena closed her eyes.
Of course.
“What?” Ruth asked.
“Nothing.”
“That didn’t look like nothing.”
“It’s a new problem.”
“You already had the problem.”
“Fine.
A more organized problem.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
The System appeared.
NEW SETTLEMENT QUEST
GROW WHERE NOTHING GROWS
A resilient settlement cannot rely upon favorable environmental conditions.
Establish diversified agricultural production capable of supporting Primary Settlement through prolonged environmental disruption.
Primary Objectives
Establish outdoor food-production capacity
Establish protected food-production capacity
Establish independent irrigation and water-storage capacity
Acquire diverse seed and propagation reserves
Establish staple calorie production
Establish protein-producing crop production
Establish nutritional crop diversity
Establish perennial food sources
Establish renewable soil-fertility production
Acquire agricultural equipment and critical replacement components
Establish protected livestock-fodder production
Resilience Requirement
Primary Settlement must retain limited agricultural production during periods unsuitable for conventional outdoor cultivation.
Optional Objectives
Establish redundant irrigation methods
Establish hydroponic or equivalent soilless production
Establish artificial-light propagation capacity
Establish seed-saving and plant-breeding capability
Preserve dormant pre-Transition seed stock
Select crops with favorable Transition stability
Exceed minimum protected-production capacity
Rewards
Spatial Inventory Expansion
Advanced Plant Appraisal
Agricultural Management Interface
Unknown Reward
Bonus Reward dependent upon Completion Quality
Lena read it.
Then read it again.
Well.
That answered how.
Sort of.
Greenhouses.
Irrigation.
Seed reserves.
Fodder production.
Hydroponics, maybe.
Artificial lighting, maybe.
And approximately eight other things Lena knew just enough about to recognize that she had no business designing any of them.
Ruth was watching her.
“What?”
“You went somewhere.”
“I was thinking.”
“You stopped blinking.”
“…I think very intensely.”
“Uh-huh.”
Lena looked back at the quest.
Primary Settlement must retain limited agricultural production during periods unsuitable for conventional outdoor cultivation.
That was the part that mattered.
Not prepare in case.
Build it.
Whatever was coming, the System considered losing normal outdoor growing conditions certain enough to make an alternative mandatory.
Great.
Fortunately, Lena had acquired a solution to not knowing what the hell she was doing.
She pulled out her phone.
Marcus.
LENA: I need agricultural specialists.
She thought for a second.
LENA: Commercial food production.
Greenhouses.
Controlled environment agriculture.
Irrigation.
Livestock fodder.
Seed preservation.
Extreme-weather agriculture.
Another thought.
LENA: And people who know how to make at least some of that keep working when outside growing conditions don’t.
The response came thirty-eight seconds later.
MARCUS: Understood.
I’ll account for livestock expansion.
What population of people should production capacity support?
Lena stopped.
Oh.
Right.
People.
She hadn’t actually decided how many.
She needed a baseline.
Twenty.
She’d been buying for twenty already.
Twenty was manageable.
Big enough to be more than a household.
Small enough that Lena could still picture actual people instead of an abstract population.
And if she was wrong…
LENA: 20 minimum.
Make everything expandable.
Marcus replied:
MARCUS: Understood.
Preliminary team availability tomorrow morning.
Lena stared at the message.
Tomorrow.
That was fast.
Of course.
She put the phone away.
Ruth was watching her.
“What?”
“You’re getting used to it.”
“To what?”
“Having a billionaire’s logistics department.”
Lena considered that.
“No.”
A truck backed toward the barn.
Someone shouted.
A forklift beeped.
Scout moved to investigate.
Lena looked around Redtail.
“Maybe a little.”
Ruth snorted.
They spent the rest of the morning with animals.
Actual animals.
Not hypothetical agriculture.
Ruth showed Lena how to check the goats properly.
How to recognize normal rumen activity.
What healthy manure looked like, which was information Lena could have lived without.
How much chickens wasted if feeders were set wrong.
How quickly pigs could turn water into mud.
Scout required considerably less instruction.
Scout already knew her job.
Lena was the one catching up.
By early afternoon, another hay truck arrived.
Then veterinary supplies.
Then fencing components Marcus apparently considered related to livestock intake.
Then several enormous water-storage tanks Lena had not specifically requested.
Lena texted him.
LENA: Did I ask for water tanks?
MARCUS: You requested independent agricultural irrigation and water-storage capacity.
Right.
That had been approximately three hours ago.
LENA: You work disturbingly fast.
A pause.
MARCUS: Thank you.
Lena wasn’t entirely sure she’d meant it as a compliment.
By late afternoon, Redtail looked different again.
Not transformed.
Not yet.
But busier.
Feed stacked.
Hay stored.
Animals settling.
Workers moving through the property.
Measurements being taken for tomorrow.
A survey crew had apparently been added somewhere along the way.
Lena stood near the barn and looked across the fields.
Twenty days.
Less than three weeks.
Tomorrow, agricultural specialists would arrive.
Marcus was buying things faster than Lena could learn what they were.
The animals had ninety days of food coming.
Redtail was beginning to become something real.
And Lena still had tons of human food sitting perfectly preserved in a place no one except her knew existed.
She thought about that for a moment.
Then pushed it away.
Not now.