Reborn Before the Bloom: I Grow the Last Fortress

Chapter 2: The Pod

The shoot wouldn't come off.

Jonah got a thumbnail under it and pulled. It tightened, not hard, just enough to say no. Then it started moving, a few millimeters at a time, past his knuckle and over the back of his hand. The pale thread went green. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched it creep up his wrist.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

He stood and shook his arm over the floor. The vine peeled off and dropped. It lay on the boards, and for a second he thought that was the end of it. Then the tip pushed against the pine, found the crack by the baseboard, and worked its way in.

He crouched and watched. It took a few minutes, and none of it was fast. The stem thickened. A second runner split off the first. Thorns came up along the main stem, curved, black at the tips, about as long as a staple. It tilted toward the window until it stood a foot and a half tall, anchored in a floorboard it had no business growing out of.

A pale panel hung in the air a foot in front of his face. Plain white letters, nothing behind them.

GREENWARDEN ONLINE.

Under it, smaller: Host: Jonah Pike. Bonded specimen: Pod.

He swiped at it. His hand went straight through. The panel stayed where it was.

"Right," he said, and sat on the floor because his knees had already decided.

He gave himself a few minutes. Hand over his mouth, counting breaths. He was not in a greenhouse. He was in the guest room, and it was a Tuesday, and he was alive. When he looked at the vine again the text had changed.

Thorn Vine (mutated). Health: 94%. Danger: low. Potential: moderate.

He looked at the fern on the windowsill.

Boston Fern. Health: 61%. Underwatered. Root-bound.

He laughed, one short, ugly breath. He'd been telling people that about the fern for a year. Nobody had listened.

He wrapped the vine in a pillowcase, shoved it under the bed, and went out the back door in his socks.

The garden behind the kitchen was Marguerite's pride, though Jonah was the one who weeded it. Everything he looked at lit up.

Tomato (Early Girl). Health: 78%. Blight, early stage. Treat within 5 days.

Apple Tree, east row. Health: 83%. Borer larvae in lower trunk.

He crouched at the tomatoes and turned a leaf over. Brown spotting along the vein, so faint he would have missed it by eye. He pressed his thumb to the stem and the panel stacked more lines under the first. A small gray bar labeled Study: 12%.

He thought about the thorns upstairs and reached for them the way he'd reach for a tool on a bench. Something answered.

Graft: Thorn Growth → Tomato (Early Girl).

Unavailable. Traits can only be moved into a specimen you have fully studied. Current study: 12%.

He read it twice. It was a rule, and that was almost a relief. A rule meant he could work inside it.

The screen door banged. One of the cousins came down the porch steps with a phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and Jonah's thumb jumped off the stem. The panel flickered and went out. He kept his head down and picked at a dead leaf.

"Mom says dinner's at six," the cousin said, not stopping. "Wash your hands first. Last time you left a print on the gravy boat."

"Okay."

Jonah waited for his heart to slow, then put his thumb back on the stem. He spent the next hour going bed to bed, hands in the dirt, reading everything.

At six, the dinner bell rang.

The dining room smelled like pot roast and furniture polish. Jonah took the chair at the far end, the one nearest the kitchen door, because that was the one he'd always taken. Dalton sat at the head. His aunt and uncle sat across from each other, and the cousins had their phones propped against the water glasses. Marguerite sat at Dalton's right with a glass of red wine already poured.

"There he is," one of the cousins said. "Plant boy. You've got dirt on your collar."

"He's got a master's degree in dirt," Dalton said. "Cost Grandfather eleven thousand a year. Best return on investment this family ever made." The table laughed.

Jonah looked down. He did have dirt on his collar. He brushed it off and passed the potatoes to his uncle.

"What did you do all afternoon, Jonah?" his aunt asked, in the voice people use on dogs. "Talk to the tomatoes?"

"Some of them have blight," he said.

"Some of them have blight," the cousin said, in a squeaky voice, and somebody snorted into a napkin.

He ate. He kept his shoulders loose. Six hours ago he had watched every person at this table drive away while he beat on glass, and now they were passing the gravy and asking whether the tomatoes talked back. He did not look at Dalton's hands. He did not look at Marguerite's gloves, folded beside her plate. His fork was gripped so tight the tines had left marks on his palm, and he cut his meat very small.

"Since we're all here," Dalton said, and tapped his glass with a knife. "Heads-up. I'm selling part of the east orchard. Forty acres, give or take. Sixty days from now, signing's set."

Nobody looked surprised. That was the first thing Jonah noticed. His uncle kept chewing. The cousins went on scrolling.

"That's Grandfather's land," Jonah said.

"Grandfather's dead." Dalton smiled at him, patient and warm. "It's a lot of apple trees for people who don't farm. You'd understand if you ever looked at the numbers."

"Who's buying?"

"A buyer. It's paperwork, Jonah. Don't stress about it."

Something thin and white flickered at the edge of Jonah's vision and went out, and he realized his jaw was clenched so hard his teeth hurt. He made himself breathe. He made himself unclench the fork one finger at a time.

Marguerite lifted her wine. She hadn't said a word all through the meal. She tipped her glass toward Dalton, then toward Jonah, and her mouth curved in a calm little smile.

"Oh, don't worry about the timing, dear," she said. "That sale's been arranged for months."

The pale panel opened at the edge of Jonah's vision, steady this time, white against the lamplight.

Marguerite Pike. Concealing: MAJOR.