Arlin stepped inside the greenhouse, the entire structure greeted him with warmth and smells that suggested the desert held another layer beneath the sand — one far more organic, far more alive.
Jumper placed the lamp on a hook, doing just enough work for visibility but in no way illuminating what lay hidden. It required your attention — to look closer, smell and even feel the fruits that many from the Outlands considered extinct.
It was overwhelming, actually. Arlin simply stared at whatever his eyes rested on first — which was a green tomato — as Jumper moved around him, walking further within. When he studied the fruit closely, two questions rounded to the front of his mind.
"How did you find these? I mean, these are practically non-existent. They shouldn't exist." Arlin reached his hand out to touch it, then stopped just before. The night sky was doing a lot of the work in here, the leaves appearing darker and greener in gradients he could never have imagined. He'd visited the forest before. But this? He couldn't touch it. He only stood there, sensing the heat surrounding it.
Jumper didn't immediately respond — he too was occupied. Arlin eventually found the strength to look over, though his eyes kept betraying him, pulled away toward other plants, some weird in shape, others not yet revealing their species or fruit. Every achievement in here registered somewhere inside him, quietly and without his permission.
Jumper finally replied. "They're not extinct." His face was calm as his hands moved to inspect a seedling, but there was a tension growing near his jaw. "I was digging through some of the waste that came out of the districts. Well — let's just say they're clearly doing a lot better these days, those tomatoes." A pause. "I found their seeds inside a half bitten one. It was spoiled."
Arlin froze. Whatever colour had spread across his face drained out of it. Jumper noticed immediately.
"It makes sense, honestly. If Enotitia built bunkers to sustain humans for years, they would have had rows of hundreds of different species in there."
"They told us they ran out. They went through all the reserves after the water line failed." Arlin heard himself say it. "Are you saying they lied to us?"
"No — they definitely ran out of reserves. But they collected the seeds. For a time when we could rebuild, restart agriculture properly." Arlin wasn't slow. He understood exactly what Jumper was laying out, and part of him had already begun to wonder whether this had been Jumper's larger scheme all along. That was just how his friend operated.
For years — Arlin's generation, the one before him, the ones that had crawled out of the bunkers — they had lived solely on potatoes and meat preserves manufactured out of the inner circles. Soulless food. Meals were never exciting despite the hunger that ran through many of the Outlanders' hollow cheeks. Only recently had things shifted, after the realisation that potatoes grown fresh and animals raised properly could produce something worth eating. The diet had expanded, barely, but it had.
All at a cost. The Capital took forty-five percent of whatever Sect Five grew — which was why Sect Five was the largest by area, so farmers could plant enough for everybody after the cut was taken. Potatoes. Cow meat. Chicken. Wheat. The faster growing Archi Toke. That was the full extent of what Outlanders knew on their plates, and the Capital demanded a large portion of all of it.
And now Jumper was telling him they never needed it. That in fact, these days, they were spoiling food.
Arlin wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that. Angry was a start. But Arlin had always geared his emotions toward a solution — that was his role, the reason he sat on the council at all, representing Sector Four. The solution maker.
So. Who was he going to tell?
Borg — definitely not. The man was a maniac in the unpredictable sense, and unpredictable was the last thing this needed.
Octavius would hear "rare seeds" and immediately begin working out how to monopolise them.
Pluto would have the plants stripped for cuttings before they were ready, propagating them half to death in the name of science, then publish a theory loud enough for the Capital to hear within the week.
Jaguar might actually help — but he'd spend the whole conversation trying to relocate the greenhouse to Sect Five, with little real concern for the part where the Capital had been withholding better agriculture from them for years.
The only person worth bringing this to was Abel. Which meant bringing Abel here. Arlin wasn't opposed to that, it was just — Abel could be an open book when he needed to be a closed one. He'd likely inform the entire council before the week was out.
Still. Someone had to know. And Arlin realised, standing there in the warmth of a greenhouse that had no right to exist, that this was what Jumper was actually telling him.
You know about the greenhouse. You now know about the Capital's hauling of the golden goose. You know they could be withholding more. But we have no way to move on it yet — so for now, let's just hold this. Keep this slice of it for ourselves.
That was Arlin's translation.
"I don't like that face — you're going to spoil the plants," Jumper said.
He was standing beside a tree that came up exactly to his height, his hair snagging at the top branches without him noticing or caring. Arlin walked toward them both, noting that the fruit had more colour on it, which meant it was ripe.
"Dwarf Cultivator. I asked Pluto about old Earth and how long he predicted it would take to grow." He was picking at a leaf now, casual about it. "He didn't budge when he said eighteen months."
"What if he pressed you? It's a strange question to be asking."
"He didn't press me. Pluto lives in his own world."
Arlin couldn't deny him that. Though he'd still prefer Jumper never spoke to Pluto at all, and he had good reason for that preference.
"Anyway — they grew faster than expected. Fourteen months. Could be the soil, I'm not certain. It surprised me, honestly." He smiled then, the way a brother does in admiration for his older sibling. "Just in time for your birthday."
He stepped aside with a full trail of theatrics — a slight bow, one arm sweeping outward, palm open, the gesture of a man presenting something that no longer belonged to him.
"Choose one," Jumper said, and there was only a little eagerness in it.
Arlin felt the warmth move through him. He hadn't fully taken in the depth of Jumper's devotion until this moment — all of it, the frame, the glass, the resin, the months of moving things in sections — it had been impressive, impressive enough that it was difficult to hold all at once.
But now he held it.
He stepped forward. The Dwarf Cultivator came up to his shoulder, and the mangoes boasted their size without apology, each branch bent and struggling under the weight of them.
His eyes moved between each mango, as if judging them not by size but by how long he stared at each.
Finally he found one held at the back end, but it wasn't hiding. It was far too refined to escape Arlin's view. Even in the dark where the lamp failed to illuminate this end, a faint light shone off it as if a soft glow escaped it.
Arlin carefully reached through the plant, his arms snagging ever so slightly against branches that begged him to reconsider, but after drawing it free his decision was final.
It was heavy. The texture of its skin was smooth but prickled with a forbidden sensation. Arlin realised that it was exactly what it was. Forbidden.
He didn't waste any more time. Arlin, with some nerves, took a bite out of the yellow and red fruit. It was a struggle at first, but after carving an entrance the juices just poured out without control, streaming down his hand, his arm, before dripping off his elbow.
It took a second for Arlin to register the taste, because it was a flavour he'd never experienced before in his lifetime. Sweet yet refreshing, Arlin felt that any appearance of thirst that had begun to creep up on him just moments before were now quelled instantly by this sweet sensation. He felt his heart leap at it all, and without thinking he took another bite.
Jumper, who had been tame, watching Arlin enjoy the fruits of his nurslings, eagerly withheld his questions. Arlin might not have realised it but his legs had buckled straight to the ground, his face in a mixture of awe and absolute atmosphere. A space that Jumper was foreign to, for he had not eaten any of his nurslings.
Jumper eventually worked up the courage to draw his own mango free, this one showing more red and orange with a green taint, hanging on one of the lower branches. Jumper wasn't going to bother Arlin in assisting with a taller branch.
Time flew in that moment. Jumper hadn't realised it just yet, but besides the juices flowing down his arms like veins of a new body, he understood his face was also alive.
Tears held at the corners of his eyes, the sting providing no relief as they stubbornly refused to roll down and break off his chin.
Unfortunately, Arlin was beginning to regather himself. Finding strength within his legs, he had only taken three bites of his mango, but his craving for another bite wasn't absent.
Arlin noticed Jumper's struggle, deciding it was best to let his friend relish the sweet enjoyment. Now was not the time to embarrass him for crying. Truth is, Arlin felt the same way.
Arlin looked at the other plantations, some he recognised others he didn't. Truly every sproutling, every plantation growing was a miracle.
"You know, they almost didn't make it." Arlin could hear Jumper exhale in a shake, a sniffle escaping along with it.
"The desert isn't ideal for them, and finding a reliable water source was almost impossible. Then we had all those storms, man — I practically slept here just to keep watch of the metal frames." He rambled, both in relieving release, but the struggles hit Arlin once again.
He had never noticed Jumper absent. His friend had managed to avoid detection for all these months. Arlin knew he had a debt to pay, and he feared if he would ever repay it in this lifetime… Maybe in the next. But Arlin made sure to cover his idea of repaying his friend. Jumper was the kind of guy to sniff out such ideas, and he wouldn't support Arlin's attempt. Jumper is the kind, where he reaps and you sow — and he wouldn't budge. To him that's not naïve, but loyalty.
Arlin squeezed his hands slightly, the juices which never ended, always willing to pour and drip once again, though slower as he realised the odd rough and sticky trails that had been left from previous liquid runnings.
He took another bite, his eyes closing again, as he breathed in the aroma that managed to overcome the fertilisation of the greenhouse.
'…'
Arlin froze. Completely froze.
The air changed from sweet to iron. He no longer felt relaxed and the swelling within his heart left him as if a mocking guest.
He noticed before everything, that he felt a sort of anger. At first Arlin thought he was foaming in his mouth, but he realised that it was just his jaw clenching without a promise to relax. Arlin always knew to trust his instincts, but that's exactly what he was struggling with right now. He didn't know what he wanted — his posture, his breathing, his unsettling care in detecting movement — it was something he recognised but from a time when he was smaller, and much more fragile. It was a state between fight or flight. His feet had that same feeling, the grains and rough sand — as if he had sunken down and the desert filled his boots, or maybe he was just barefoot.
But he didn't look down to check, how could he? Arlin's vision changed again but he felt that the colours of the world simply drained into black and white. He saw every living thing as white and every absent thing black.
Arlin moved but his mind was focused in the omnipresent sense — his eyes felt blind and his nose drew no sense, yet he was able to see the world in this strange way. He noticed a vibration, rhythmic, the frequency it let off like that of water dropping in a cold and quiet cave.
His heart. And then he noticed another behind him — a vibration, though its rhythm was much more spasm-like. For some reason he knew that the other vibration — its heart — belonged to Jumper. He also noticed that the distance between them grew — but not greatly. He could see the pulses like spirals releasing into waves, visually they were nearby.
Was he hallucinating? That was not his first thought — he was not in his right mind to ask simple questions. Only that he had absolutely no control of whatever plagued him.
Emotionally he held between fear and defiance, yet none felt like his own. The scale adjusted, as defiance tilted with favour and he wandered into the desert. Yes, he was out there in the absence — but not voidant, there was enough variation to discern land from sky.
Not physically walking, but visually. His mind itself had locked him away, he was completely devoid of purposeful thought. But he wasn't dumb either — more that everything felt purposeful. Everything happening around him, he felt that it had to be done.
That was when the colour around him changed, as if he had entered a beam of light that travelled horizontally. It glowed — definitely not the absent black, but strangely not the life of white either.
It was green, mixed with silver and yellow, a combination that could be mistaken for thermal. It washed past him like flames of a fire. It also had a temperature. Arlin was sure he wasn't physically wandering — Jumper would be sure to stop that. Yet he felt a warmth, that for some reason enraged him as he noticed the pace quickened. The warmth brushed over him in faster waves and the flames around him were now like whiplash.
Eventually the movement stopped. He had halted to a complete stop. The ground lit up in the same colour as the flames from before. The desert which had been absent now appeared to have been liquified with this thermal-like colour. He was still enraged, his vibration giving off strong emissions of frequency — not his heart, but whatever state had brought him here.
Arlin scanned the area. Pebbles, dead bushes, the typical wasteland leftovers, their edges highlighted by the colour that had brought him here.
"Is this your territory?"
A voice emanated — not his — and although he heard his own language he couldn't help but feel it was secondary, like something being translated. It was his thought but not directly from him, more like a realisation from being omnipresent. Arlin wasn't terrified either — a normal reaction considering the circumstances — but then again he had lost any sort of physical control back at the greenhouse.
On the far edges of his vision, he noticed vibrations, spiraling from two separate rhythms.
"Is this your territory?"
It repeated, but with a significant change in delivery. Arlin could feel the aggression passing through him, but the earlier rage from his travels had gone cold and felt indifferent to their hostility.
Arlin wanted to move closer, to see them visually. But whatever had hijacked his body thought otherwise, though it was still clearly in control. For he began circling the figure that remained cloaked, the light on the ground expanding slowly towards them.
"I sense you are weak, unborn maybe — have you not fed?"
Bizarre. Is this how beings communicate at the omnipresent state? As far as Arlin was aware he wasn't doing too badly with potatoes in general — and now with Jumper's greenhouse, he'd guess they would be the silent kings of the outlands. But the way it was asked had Arlin second-guess that, and whoever had hijacked him surely wasn't interested in answering.
The figure moved, the glow only doing enough to reveal movement, its outlines showing no shape of any kind.
"Is there two of you?"
It asked. Arlin realised it was inspecting them — or whatever Arlin was.
"I sense another in you, but I can't quite…"
It stopped moving. A pause rang for a brief moment.
"If you won't communicate we might meet on bad terms."
Still no response. His hijacker was letting Arlin down — was he mute? He sensed control, maybe a cold malice that went unnoticed by the figure in the dark. Arlin felt this because it was a similar feeling he dealt with in the council meetings. Contained rage.
"Very well then, expect my visitation very soon, young one."
Instantly, Arlin felt as if a vacuum had opened up from behind him, his vision deconstructing as he failed to observe what brought him back to his body.