The roar of WIND and SULFUROUS RAIN.
Three hundred stories up the slick, grimy face of a corporate monolith. HELLAN (30s-40s), worn down and pragmatic, dangles from a service cable.
A sharp CRACK like a gunshot. The cable snaps.
Hellan plummets. No scream. His mag-gloves SCREECH against the siding, showering sparks into the grey mist below. A desperate scramble in freefall.
He twists, slams a reinforced hand into a protruding COOLING VENT. Metal GROANS. The impact jolts him, but the grip holds.
For a second.
The rusted vent SHEARS OFF. He falls again, tumbling through a fifty-foot tall HOLOGRAPHIC AD—a smiling woman’s face. He punches right through her pixelated teeth.
WHAM! He hits a metal grate. It bends, throwing him sideways onto a narrow, recessed service platform, hidden behind a colossal exhaust intake.
Hellan rolls, landing in a heap. He gasps for air, the taste of copper and burnt plastic in his mouth. He lies there, staring up at the city's underbelly, waiting for security drones. The rain drums on his blast-jacket.
He pushes himself up, joints popping. He checks the readout on his wrist. Shattered. He wipes grime from his face.
Then he smells it. Not rot. Not chemicals.
Damp earth. Something alive.
He freezes. He’s not alone.
Six feet away, sitting on an overturned crate, is MERO (20s). Grimy, wearing a patchwork of scavenged gear. She holds a long metal pipe across her knees, looking not surprised, but annoyed.
Her voice is flat, almost lost in the HUM of the massive ventilation fans. Hellan follows her gaze. Under his steel-toed boot, a small green sprig is crushed against the rust-flaked grating.
Hellan slowly lifts his foot. A green smear. He looks around properly for the first time.
The recess is a secret jungle. Plastic buckets, cut-open coolant canisters, and scavenged helmets are filled with dark soil. Tubes drip filtered water from an HVAC unit above. Growing in them—defiant and impossibly green—are ferns, spindly onions, and a single, stubborn tomato plant tied to a rebar stake.
She says it like a logistical fact. Hellan sits down heavily, leaning against the vibrating fan housing. His shoulder throbs.
He fumbles in a side pouch for a pain patch. His fingers are numb. He drops it. It skitters across the grate, stopping near her boot.
Mero looks at the patch, then at him. She sighs, a puff of white in the chill air. She leans forward, picks it up, and tosses it to him.
Hellan slaps the patch on his neck. A cool rush of analgesic hits.
She stands, moving with efficient grace, and inspects a leaf on the tomato plant with surprising tenderness.
Hellan lets out a harsh, barking laugh.
She pulls out a small folding knife and slices a small, lumpy, red sphere from the vine. A tomato. Barely the size of a golf ball.
She walks over and offers it to him.
Hellan stares at it.
He takes it. The skin is rough, warm from the nearby vent. He wipes it on his sleeve, then takes a bite.
His eyes widen. A shock. Flavor explodes in his mouth—acidic, sweet, real. Nothing like nutrient paste. He chews slowly, juice running down his chin.
He finishes it. A strange tightness fills his chest.
She gestures to the buckets, then out through the grate at the smog-choked skyline.
Hellan looks at the crushed mint under his boot. A pang of guilt.
They sit in a companionable silence, a rare thing.
Mero looks at him, her interest piqued.
He looks at his scarred, grease-covered hands.
Mero reaches into a nearby bucket and pulls out a small, heavy plastic pouch. She tosses it to him.
Hellan holds the pouch. It feels heavier than his tool belt.
A faint smirk touches Mero's lips.
Hellan looks at the pouch, then at her. A deal based on peppers, not credits. It's the most hopeful thing that’s happened to him in a decade.
He tucks the pouch into his breast pocket.
A low HUM vibrates through the floor. The grey light through the grate shifts, sliced by a SWEEPING RED BEAM.
She moves instantly, throwing a thermal tarp over the tomato plant, kicking buckets into deeper shadows. Hellan scrambles back, pressing himself into a dark corner.
The red light of a SECURITY DRONE sweeps through the grate. It pauses, hovering just outside. The mechanical WHIR of its optical zoom focusing.
Mero freezes, hand gripping her pipe. Hellan holds his breath, his hand instinctively covering the seeds in his pocket.
The drone hovers. Scanning. Calculating. It scans the crushed mint leaf. It scans Hellan's boot print.
A crackle of static from the drone's speaker.
A mechanical arm extends from the drone, holding a high-pressure SOLVENT SPRAYER. It aims directly at the tarp covering the tomato plant.
Mero tenses, ready to lunge—a suicidal act.
Hellan's eyes dart to a sparking JUNCTION BOX next to him, the one controlling the fan speed. He could short it. The fan would blow the drone off course. It would also scream his location to every enforcer in the sector.
He looks at Mero, ready to die for a vegetable. He looks at the red light of the drone.
He touches the seeds in his pocket.
His choice.
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