Seedfall

Mara had learned the rhythms of the flats like the lines on her palms. Dawn came thin and orange and revealed pits of salt that glazed the ground. They lived in the shallow bowl of a ruined basin, a cluster of shelters. People called it a harvest because coaxing green from ruin made the day bearable. The work felt like careful accounting rather than hope, a list of small lives. Mara kept that list as if it were bone, measured and protected with quiet rites. Once a botanist, she became the person who could coax a seed into meaning. Her hands had lab memory: precise gestures that now shaped earth, wrapped roots tight. When Mara walked the plots, people quieted because they trusted the work she kept. Trust in this place had shape and weight and could be spent or stolen.

A scavenger came in the morning with smoke on his clothes and rope in his hands. He moved like time had rubbed the edges from him and left hollow places. They called him Rahn; he asked for food and offered a story in return. When he unwrapped the oilcloth, people leaned in as if drawn by hunger and fear. It was a cylinder the length of an arm, plated in corroded brass and resin. Embedded in its side, a sliver of metal bore marks that looked like a warning. A faint green pulse moved within the plating, as if the object breathed under skin. Offers flew like stones: grain, medicine, a place behind fortified walls in exchange. The trader wanted weapons; the woman with a sick child wanted the price of healing. An old man suggested they open it and decide with eyes and not promises.

Mara took the cylinder and felt its warmth under her gloved palms. The plate read Project Greenline and carried a smaller line about dependency and containment. She tasted iron at the back of her throat and understood the decision that would come. Lio, the small boy Mara had taken in, climbed a barrel to peer, reckless and bright.