Read a preview
Chapter 1
Chapter One: Heat Index Red
I spend mornings with endings.
On the old causeway at dawn, I kneel at the channel edge with a wand sensor and a thermos of saline. The eelgrass doesn’t float anymore; it slumps, translucent ribbons draped over black mud. My visor draws a green overlay, then grays it out. Extinct, it says. Confirmation pending.
I whisper the name of the last bed—Field 37A, Cortez Inlet—and record my notes. I try not to make the notes sound like a prayer. The Caretakers don’t require emotion. They require accuracy, time stamps, thickness of blades, pH, dissolved oxygen, trace microplastics. They do not need to know that when the light hits the water, I see the outlines of a world my grandfather promised would recover.
My band vibrates. A public notice blooms in my feed: Heat Index Red for the coastal corridor, transport curtailed at noon. A private message ride-shares its way through the filters and stops in my palm.
Ansel Quintana, it says. If you still intend to refuse the Ecopause, meet me at Dock 12 before nightfall. Bring your field archive. Do not tell the Caretaker.
It’s signed with a glyph I haven’t seen in years: a seed inside a snowflake. The mark of Chimera, a project that died the day the Caretakers took over planning.
I blink hard. The eelgrass slides under the water like a closing eyelid.
