30. Environmental Safety Risks
Chapter thirty
Environmental Safety Risks
Riot
The farmstead had been dead for at least fifty years, but it was the kind of dead that still had good bones.
The house was gone, collapsed in on itself like something had sucked out its spine, but the stone root cellar underneath had survived.
Fieldstone walls three feet thick, a ceiling of oak beams darkened with age, a floor of packed earth that was dry despite the spring rain.
Someone had used it since the Adjustment, evidenced by scorch marks from old fires, scratched tallies on the wall, a faded sleeping bag in the corner that Sage nudged with her boot and deemed acceptable.
Sage claimed the barn loft before Riot finished parking, scaling the ladder with her rifle slung across her back and her pack between her teeth.
“I’ll take first watch,” she said from above. “You two take the cellar. Fire’s fine down there—stone won’t carry the light.”
Cass was already exploring. He’d climbed out of the car the moment it stopped, bare feet on cold earth, and gone straight for the old windmill—a skeleton of rusted metal with most of its blades missing, creaking in the evening breeze like it was trying to say something important but had forgotten most of the words.
“This is amazing,” Cass said, one hand on the windmill’s base, his face tipped up toward the broken blades. “What did it do?”
“Pumped water from underground. Wind turns the blades, the blades turn a mechanism, the mechanism pulls water up.”
“Just from wind? Nobody had to power it?”
“Nope. Wind did all the work.”
Cass’s face lit up. “That’s clever. Why don’t the corporations use these?”
“Because you can’t charge people for wind.”
“Oh,” he said quietly. Then added, brighter: “Well, this one still works a little bit. Listen—when the wind comes from that direction, it makes a different sound than the other direction. Like it’s trying to sing two different songs depending on who’s listening.”
He could see the way Cass kept reaching for wonder, for curiosity, for all the things that made him Cass, even as something behind his eyes occasionally shrank.
He’d blink and find something new to ask about.
The windmill. The stars. The name of a plant growing through the barn’s foundation even though he revealed he knew the name of the plant.
It was like he was building a wall out of small joys, one question at a time.
They made camp. Cass was good at this, apparently, gathering kindling with an intuitive sense of what would burn well, arranging blankets in the cellar so the fire’s warmth would reach without the smoke pooling.
He worked with steady hands and quiet focus, the practical competence that kept surprising people who expected nothing from him because he asked simple questions.
Riot built the fire and tried to think about fire.
He was not thinking about fire.
He was thinking about Cass waking up screaming and vomiting and crying.
He’d built a door around it—heavy, solid, the kind of mental compartmentalization that survival had taught him—and the Berserker kept tearing it down.
Every time. Patient and methodical in its destruction, like a dog that found a bone and would not be redirected.
You know what he was describing. You know what that bastard did to him. Torturing him wasn’t enough, he—
Riot shoved kindling into the fire. Sparks scattered.
The Brennan part of his brain, which was becoming louder than it had been even before the modifications, understood why Cass’s door was cracking now.
It was textbook—the body sorting new experiences from old ones, learning the difference between wanted touch and violation.
The memories weren’t surfacing because Cass was getting worse.
They were surfacing because he was getting better.
Because his body and mind had finally learned the right words and was retrospectively categorizing what had come before.
Riot rebuilt his door again, and he’d keep rebuilding it until Springfield, where he’d open it himself and gladly walk through it to give Brother Matthias the greeting he deserved.
Sage came down from the loft to share the fire and the food—bread, dried meat, and a tin of something optimistically labeled BEANS.
She ate like only the calories mattered, cross-legged, with her rifle across her lap. Then she set her plate aside and fixed them both with a look that said the meal was over and the briefing was starting.
“Walk me through what happens when we arrive,” she said. “From the moment we reach Springfield Gardens. Every step.”
Cass straightened. He’d been sitting close to Riot—not clinging, but near enough that his shoulder touched Riot’s arm, a contact he’d been maintaining all evening. Now he leaned forward, his face shifting into something more focused.
“We wouldn’t go to the main gate,” he said. “Seekers—people who want to join Elysian—go to the Welcome Center. It’s on the east side of campus, near the vegetable hydroponics. Sister Delphine runs it. She’s...” He thought about it. “Nice. Actually nice.”
“Describe the intake process,” Sage said. “Everything they’d do to you on day one.”
“Medical screening first. Basic—blood pressure, temperature, weight. They check for diseases because campus health is communal.” Cass ticked items off on his fingers.
“Then a Harmony Exam. That’s a series of questions—how you feel about community, about sharing, about letting go of individual desires for collective good.
People who argue with the questions get flagged for extra attention. ”
“What does extra attention look like?”
“Longer meditation sessions. More one-on-one time with an Elder. Sometimes they give you resonance supplements.” He said the last word without flinching, but Riot saw his hand press flat against his thigh—a small, controlled movement. “Those ones are supposed to help you relax.”
“Sedate you,” Riot translated.
“No, they just reduce spiritual noise. I needed some after Honey and I were sorted. That was a hard time for me.” Cass winced.
“After the Harmony Exam, you’re assigned quarters.
Men and women are separated—men on the north side of campus, women on the south, and a village in the east for our in-between community members.
There’s a shared area in the center for meals and ceremonies. ”
Sage’s eyes sharpened. “How far?”
“It’s a five-minute walk between them, through the central gardens.” Cass paused. “The gardens are open, but there are always safety guides walking the paths.”
“So if you need to get to the women’s quarters—”
“I’d need a reason to be there. Men don’t go to the women’s side without a purpose.
Ceremony preparation, Elder-approved visits, work assignments.
” He looked at her. “Honey and I actually were assigned a house a while ago, but because I had problems with bonding, we aren’t allowed to be there overnight together, so we have a schedule on who can stay—”
“What about communication?” Sage insisted. “Once we’re inside. How do the three of us talk to each other if we’re separated?”
“During shared times,” Cass said simply.
“Sneaking notes and stuff is spiritually disruptive, so waiting for group activities is usually best. Other residents report things…but not because they’re mean—we’re taught that noticing disharmony in others is a spiritual duty.
You’re helping them get back on track. Does that make sense? ”
“A surveillance state run on goodwill,” Riot said.
“Run on love.” Cass said it without irony. “That’s what makes it work. Everyone genuinely cares. They report you because they’re worried about you. They flag your behavior because they want you to be happy.” He met Riot’s eyes. “It’s very hard to be angry at someone when they love you.”
The cellar went quiet. The fire popped.
“Meals,” Sage said, moving past the silence. “Communal?”
“Three times a day. Mandatory. The commissary seats about two hundred. There’s a rotation—first sitting, second sitting. New seekers are always in first sitting so they can be observed more closely.” Cass thought. “Sometimes new seekers struggle with the food, so the healing rooms are—”
He stopped and Riot saw the ripple. The way Cass’s composure flickered, like a signal losing frequency as his eyes went briefly distant, pulled toward something he was working very hard not to look at.
Then he blinked.
“—the healing rooms are attached to the commissary building,“ he finished. His voice was steady. His hand, pressed against his thigh, was white-knuckled.
Riot shifted his weight so that his arm pressed more firmly against Cass’s shoulder. I’m here. Keep going.
Cass kept going. He described the evening schedule—reflection at six, group meditation at seven, free time until lights-out at nine.
He explained which paths between buildings had the most Elder traffic and which were quieter.
He told Sage about the therapy rooms on the south side—how they were empty during evening reflection because all the counselors attended the meditation session.
“That’s your window,” Cass said. “Between seven and eight. The therapy rooms are empty. The paths are quieter. Most residents are in the meditation hall.”
“Where would Honey be during meditation?”
“She leads the women’s session. She’d be in the south meditation hall. She always sits in the front row, left side. She likes to be near the window.” Something soft passed through Cass’s expression. “She says the natural light helps her focus, but really she just likes watching the birds.”
Sage stared at him for a beat. Then she nodded, once, and stood.
“I’m heading back to the loft. We leave at first light.” She paused at the cellar entrance. “The plan is thin. But thin plans with good intelligence are better than thick plans with bad intelligence. Your intelligence is good.” She looked at Cass. “Both kinds.”
She disappeared into the dark. A moment later, Riot heard a car door open and close.
Cass was quiet for a moment, processing the compliment.
“Both kinds,” he repeated softly. Then, to Riot: “What did she mean, both kinds?”
“She meant you’re smart and you know things.”
“Those are the same kind.”
“They’re really not.”
Cass considered this, his head tilted, his brow furrowed. Then he smiled—small and real and a little bit puzzled. “Sage is strange. I like her. But she’s strange.”
“How so?”
“She asks a lot of questions and seems very, very serious, like Granny Lu, but without the smile.” He pulled the hood of his jacket up, tucking his face into the fabric. “But she says very little about herself.”
Riot looked at him, and as Cass looked back from inside the hood, his expression open and curious and entirely without guile, a knowledge settled in Riot’s bones.
He had almost said it aloud once. But in the quiet of the root cellar, with the sounds of spring muffled by stone walls and crackling fire, the thought was loud, pressing against his teeth and demanding to be spoken aloud.
I’m in love with him. Hopelessly, recklessly, stupidly in love with him.