Page 54 of Aïdes the Unseen
I didn’t have to check. Mara was gone.
Of course she was.
The puppy trotted ahead of me now, his gait light. It was like he knew we didn’t have to go down there and he washappyabout it. Though, I might just be projecting because I wished the emotion was mine. Unfortunately, all that I experienced was relief.
Still, my questions were far from finished. There was something moving under the greenhouse and I was running out of reasons to pretend I couldn’t feel it.
Then there was the leaf still in my palm.
Chapter
Ten
GRAVEN
Four days.
I told myself I wouldn’t go back. That once was enough. Observe, assess, move on. That was what the protocol dictated. It was what the simulations suggested. Distance ensured clarity.
Clarity vanished the momentRegrowthopened.
I arrived at the Greenhouse Annex just after nine. The public were already making their way inside. I shouldn’t have come, but knowing it didn’t make it more desirable than seeing her again. The boundary between what I knew and what I wanted had begun to blur.
The building looked unchanged on the outside—sleek glass, vertical planters, the quiet whir of a climate grid syncing to solar output. Inside, however, the hum had deepened. Everything within responded to stimuli whether it was light, warmth, or movement.
Now it responded to more.Intentionelicited a response.
The building itself wasn’t just awake. It was listening.
I signed in without a word. The intern at the front desk blinked at me like she wasn’t sure she’d seen me at all. Good. The Annex certainly didn’t need more questions today.
The front atrium greeted me with the scent of damp loam and photosensitive oils. The corridor toFuture Florawas dimmer than I remembered, less filtered sun and more shadow softened by mist. The change tempted me. The exhibit hadn’t opened to the public yet, but the plants were already responding—one bloom nearest the entrance swiveled subtly toward me, not in welcome. In awareness.
They remembered me. Most things did. The light adjusted sluggishly at my entrance, they didn’t want me here.
Fair.
I didn’t belong here, but I came anyway.
I walked the corridor deliberately, not hiding but not announcing myself either. The light shifted as I moved—an artifact of the building’s circadian modulation. But still, too reactive. The sensors weren’t just reading temperature or movement. They were reading presence.Mine.
Someone had fine-tuned this system past the point of safe thresholds.
Someone like her.
I found her at the far end of the east wing, sleeves rolled, a smudge of soil on her cheek. She was bent over a tray of moss-tiered growth, adjusting something beneath the top layer—wiring, maybe. Her hands were steady, but her energy definitely wasn’t.
I felt it before she noticed me. The time it took her to realize I was there was a gift. I was able to savor her presence and just study her.
She didn’t startle when she finally looked up. She straightened slowly, eyeing me like she’d half-expected this.“You again,” she said. The words came out more like an acknowledgment without a hint of impatience or annoyance.
“I know,” I admitted without apology. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Then why did you?”
I paused, glancing around. One of the secondary vines nearRegrowthtwitched. Not toward me, but away.
“I wanted to check the system’s response metrics. After the storm.” I tacked on the last three words. It seemed a better reason to come in person rather than send someone.
