Chapter Twelve
Caesar
The wind is getting up, blowing gusts of rain across the cottage, making it lash against the windows.
Maddie looks out into the sky that has rapidly darkened, giving me the chance to study her profile.
She’s removed her baseball cap and sunglasses, and the elastic holding back her hair has loosened, so white strands now tumble around her pale face.
She looks so different from the night of the ball, with that black wig and heavy makeup.
That night, I think the costume enabled her to throw off her shyness and bring her out of herself.
It’s clear how much she dislikes her coloring.
Brielle obviously embraces it, but Maddie is self-conscious and struggles to hold eye contact when she sees me looking at her hair.
“You don’t like your coloring, do you?” I say softly.
She shakes her head. “I hate it.” Her tone is flat.
“Why?”
“Because it makes me stand out.”
“That’s a good thing. Why do you want to be the same as everyone else?”
“I’m not comfortable when people stare at me.” She touches her hair self-consciously. “I’ve dyed it in the past, but it doesn’t always take well.”
“Your sister doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Brielle likes being the center of attention. You must have seen her on TikTok. She uses her coloring as a tool to get noticed. She claims it helps her get laid, too. But it doesn’t happen like that for me. It only ever puts men off.” She scratches at a mark on her jeans.
“Are you talking about your ex?”
“I’m talking about all men. If they are interested, it’s only because they see me as a novelty.”
I frown. Her ex calling her vanilla really got to her.
She breathes in, holds it, then lets it out slowly. “Maybe we should focus on business. That’s why we’re here, right?”
This adventure feels anything but business. Maddie’s sitting here in her tight jeans and thick socks, with her Talk Dirt to Me T-shirt, licking her fingers free of butter and ketchup, and all I can think about is taking her to bed and kissing her all over.
But she’s right. She’s still a Rutherford. Nothing’s changed.
“Sure,” I say, putting my empty plate on the table. “I might make myself a cup of coffee first though. You want a hot drink?”
“Oh. Yes, please. I’ll have a fruit tea. Just don’t put the oven or anything else on with the kettle or it’ll flip the fuse.”
I get up and put the kettle on. “You’re not a coffee drinker?”
“The smell makes me nauseous.” She clears her throat. “While I have a lingering migraine, I mean.”
I’d forgotten she had a headache and feel a twinge of guilt at teasing her when she’s not well. “I’m sorry. Can I get you some painkillers?”
“Um… I’ve taken some, thank you. It’s not too bad right now.”
I lean on the counter as I wait for the kettle to boil. “Do you always get them at the same time of your cycle? I overheard Mum telling Dad once that migraines were like the trumpet blare announcing the arrival of her period.”
“Yes… they’re a common symptom of Premenstrual Syndrome.” Her gaze lifts to mine, then lowers again.
Her period must be due soon then. I don’t want to make her headache worse, so instead of coffee I put a teabag in a mug for me, and a fruit tea one in hers.
Once the kettle boils, I pour water over the teabags, add a splash of milk to mine, and bring them over to the sofa, along with a bar of chocolate.
“Thank you.” She takes her mug.
I lower back onto the sofa, stretch my legs, and prop my feet on the little table, then start breaking the chocolate into pieces. Maddie draws her legs toward her and curls up, facing me. When I open the wrapper, we both take a piece of chocolate. I pop mine in my mouth, and she does the same.
“I like my chocolate how I like my men,” she says.
“Rich and dark?”
“Sweet and in very small amounts.”
I give a short laugh and take another piece.
“So…” she says after a while, “let’s talk about AI.”
“Do we have to?”
“We do, because it is the future, whether we like it or not. As you said, if we don’t adapt, we’ll get left behind. The AI model predicts pasture growth, optimizes fertilizer timing, and helps us move stock before overgrazing happens. It’s not reacting to the land; it’s anticipating it.”
I shift on the sofa. “I get that. I just don’t like automating something that many farmers know instinctively.”
“Try not to think of AI as replacing that instinct, but building on it instead. It’s like makeup; no woman needs it, but we all use it to enhance our features.”
“There’s the argument to be made about gilding the lily, though. Look, it’s a bigger picture thing, isn’t it? I understand that systems get automated. Machines now milk cows and shear sheep. But we’re losing our humanity, aren’t we? All those wonderful skills that will soon be lost to history.”
“That’s a very romantic view of the world,” she says, taking another piece of chocolate. “Machines make farmers’ lives easier. I don’t think any farmer would complain about bringing in automation.”
“But how long before machines begin to think for us? Before we’re not needed at all?”
She falls quiet for a moment and sips her tea, but I’m beginning to know her well enough to realize she’s thinking about how to respond to my point.
She’s silent for so long, I begin to suspect she’s not going to respond. Eventually, though, she says, “I agree with you.”
My eyebrows rise. “Do you?”
She nods slowly. “I do. I want a robot to clean my house and do my washing, so I have time to write and play the guitar. I don’t want it to write stories and create music while I vacuum the house.”
“That’s exactly it.”
“That’s a personal choice for me, and I’ll always be against AI producing art. But for me this is about making our land work better for us, to enable us to increase the quality and quantity of crops and pasture.”
“To feed the world? And you call me romantic?”
She gives me a sarcastic look.
“I’m never going to agree to it,” I tell her simply. “You’re fighting a losing battle if you’re hoping to talk me into it.”
Up until now, the rain has been relatively light, but it’s starting to intensify, hammering on the tin roof. We both look up and exchange a wry smile.
“Should blow over in a few hours,” she says. “Hopefully it’ll be gone by the morning.”
“You mentioned showing me something at sun-up?”
“Yes. It’s when the land is at its most honest.”
I lift a brow. “Interesting way of putting it.”
“If you want to understand the land, you don’t look at it in the middle of the day. You look at it before it’s been interfered with, before heat, wind, and grazing change things.”
“I guess.” I lean my head on a hand, a little puzzled. “If you don’t like the AI model, why are you working with Brielle on it? It sounds as if you have a real love for agricultural science. Why not use your family’s fortune to work on a project you believe in?”
She nibbles her bottom lip. “I am, actually.”
“Oh?”
She hesitates again. “I’m not used to talking about it,” she admits. “My family isn’t interested because, like I said at the board meeting, it’s not sexy.”
I refrain from saying I think she could make anything sexy, and instead say, “I’m a science guy. Tell me about it.” I’m intrigued. Her car had a mobile mini field lab. What has she been doing?
“What the AI model doesn’t do,” she begins slowly, “at least not yet, is change the underlying conditions of the soil. And I started thinking… when you raise a child, it’s important to feed them properly and encourage them to get off the computer and get outdoors, right?
If kids eat well and exercise, they’re more likely to grow and thrive.
Well, I thought, why would it be any different for plants? ”
I nod, remembering that she told us the focus of her PhD. “You’re talking about soil restoration?”
“Yes. My idea was to fix tired soil so it produces more grass, more consistently, with fewer inputs. Basically, to make the soil healthier. I was convinced it’s not just about pouring on fertilizer and pushing the land harder.
I knew it must be about rebuilding the soil itself, so it does the work naturally. ”
“Makes sense. So that’s the focus of your project?”
“Yes.” She hesitates. I think I understand why. I’m supposed to be here examining their flashy AI model. She’s obviously been told that her project isn’t as media friendly as Brielle’s.
“Come on,” I tease. “Tell me more. I’m interested.”
Her lips slowly curve, and she sits up a little on the sofa. “Okay. Well, at Blackridge Station, I’ve introduced deeper-rooting species like plantain and chicory alongside traditional ryegrass and clover, tailored to each section of land.”
My eyebrows rise. “And?”
“The result has been stronger root systems, improved soil structure, and better drought resilience. And it’s increased pasture productivity by twenty-five percent so we can run more stock on the same land.”
My eyes nearly fall out of my head. “Twenty-five percent?” Holy fuck. That’s crazy.
Her face lights up at the realization that I understand how impressive it is.
“I know. It’s so exciting. We have treated and untreated paddocks side by side.
I’ll show you tomorrow, if you like. On the treated ones, the grass is thicker and denser, and it holds moisture better.
So with the same rainfall, and the same conditions, the treated paddocks have vastly improved results. ”
I sit up and put my mug down. “Have you got data to back that up?”
She nods and picks up the pile of folders from the table. She rifles through them, pulls one out, and begins to leaf through it. “Here.” She moves closer to me, on the middle cushion, and shows me a printout of test results.
I pore over it slowly, taking another piece of chocolate as I study the figures. It shows readings taken six times a day over a period of twenty-four months, including soil moisture, temperature, and sunlight, and they show a clear improvement over that time.
I stare at her, astonished. “You’ve been working on this for two years?”