Part I — Clogged Arteries
Grayson crouched over a barrel of seawater, fingertips trailing through the cloudy surface. The liquid caught the light in a way that made his skin crawl—glittering specks suspended like cursed confetti. He rubbed his fingers together and felt grit where there should have been salt. Even here, on an island supposedly far from the old shipping lanes, the ocean was choked.
"Oceans are clogged arteries," he muttered, voice hoarse. "No life left to circulate them."
Egg's reply came without inflection. "Analysis: microplastic saturation has reduced phytoplankton density by eighty-seven percent. Marine photosynthesis, once the primary driver of global oxygen and nutrient cycles, is critically impaired. Collapse of trophic foundations is ongoing."
Grayson leaned back against the basalt wall, staring out at the endless water stretching to the horizon. His throat tightened. The ocean was supposed to be the planet's lungs, not its landfill. "So we need a new plankton. Something that can eat our garbage and still run the food chain."
"There exist known enzymes—PETases—first identified in the early twenty-first century," Egg said. "Bacterial strains used them to degrade polyethylene terephthalate. Energy yield, however, was poor. Without augmentation, they could never form the foundation of a trophic system."
Grayson pulled his overlays into focus. Gene fragments spun into view, luminous rungs of data hovering above the barrel. His hands moved through them, dragging snippets into a rough model. A gelatinous bell swelled in the air before him, tentacles trailing like ghostly ribbons.
"A jelly," he said. "Big, stupid, self-replicating. Tentacles coated in sticky mesh to trap plastics. Feed the enzymes with chlorophyll pathways. Let them photosynthesize as they break things down."
"Hybrid phototroph-heterotroph," Egg observed. "Energy capture from sunlight plus chemical bonds. Efficient. However…"
The sim rippled. Warning glyphs flared crimson as the model shuddered. Tentacles collapsed into knots, waste products building until the bell imploded in on itself.
"…stability unknown," Egg concluded.
Grayson clenched his fists. "Not good enough." He dragged in another layer of code, harvesting microbial pathways he had sequenced from plastic scrapings. This time the jelly bloomed with added complexity, enzymes sparking in bright green. For a moment the model held—then surged, overfeeding on its own success. The swarm in his overlay bloated, suffocated, and died.
"Damn it!" His fist struck basalt, the impact jolting his bones. He pulled another breath through his teeth. "You said resilience, Egg. That's what this is supposed to be. Floating power stations for the whole ocean."
"Correction," Egg said. "This is premature collapse. Resilience requires additional pathways."
Grayson glared at the fading sim, anger boiling under his exhaustion. "Then we find them." He reset the lattice with a savage flick. "I'm not watching the oceans suffocate."
The lattice reset, gene strands untangling into pale scaffolds. Grayson's hands trembled as he pulled fragments into place again—enzymes, photosynthetic pathways, regenerative loops. He forced himself to slow down. Not brute force this time. Balance.
The model jelly expanded across his vision: translucent bells, tentacles shimmering with embedded microbes. This time, instead of overfeeding, he tuned them lean. Their waste vented into byproducts, sugars exuded in faint pulses of green. Smaller fish shadows appeared in the sim, darting through the haze to feed.
For a fleeting moment, it worked. The ocean in his overlay glowed faintly alive again.
Then the graphs stuttered. Plastic density dropped. The swarm faltered. The jellies folded in on themselves, collapsing like lanterns snuffed by wind.
Grayson's chest tightened. "So they just die?"
"Correction," Egg said. "Observation: reversion event detected."
The failing jellies warped into smaller forms, shrinking into hydra-like colonies. They drifted down the water column, trailing like ashes, until they anchored to detritus on the seabed. Tentacles shortened, metabolism slowed, but the enzymatic pathways still glimmered. Stray microplastics drifting past snagged against their filaments, dissolved slowly into faint energy flows.
Grayson leaned closer, hardly daring to breathe. "They survive by contracting."
"Correct. Resource scarcity initiates a regression cycle. Hydra colonies persist where medusae collapse. Resilient, but still niche-limited."
The sim zoomed further. Colonies fractured, shedding flecks too small for his eye to track until magnification bloomed them into view. Unicellular forms, each bearing the same enzymatic markers, swam free. They drifted toward fish silhouettes, slipping inside digestive tracts and bloodstreams. Warning glyphs cascaded across the HUD: host integration detected.
Grayson's mouth went dry. "They're going inside."
"Final phase," Egg confirmed. "Symbiotic dispersal. Hosts gain enzymatic breakdown of microplastics within digestive and circulatory systems. Engineered cells persist by sharing metabolites with host tissues. Projection: universal distribution across marine fauna within thirty years."
The ocean in the sim filled with light. Fish, whales, even planktonic swarms glowed faintly as the symbionts spread, turning the sea itself into a living filter.
Grayson pressed his palms against his face. Awe and dread tangled in his gut. "I just rewrote everything. Every fish. Every whale. Every crab. They'll all carry this."
Egg's tone did not waver. "You have accelerated inevitability. Microplastic burden was permanent. Now so is its solution. These cells will become as integral as mitochondria—an organelle born of waste."
Grayson let his hands fall, staring at the phosphorescent ocean in his overlays. A new inheritance, glowing in silence. Not a patch. Not a repair. A scaffold for life itself.
Part II — Scaffolding Species
The ocean glowed in his overlays, but Grayson couldn't ignore the bare volcanic soil beneath his feet. Rock cracked in sheets under the sun, stubborn moss clinging at the edges of the outpost. The sea might one day breathe again, but the land still starved.
He called up a new lattice, skeletal branches spreading like frost across his vision. "Water, air, sunlight—that's not enough here. If I don't anchor the land, none of this holds."
Egg responded with its usual calm. "Soil fertility insufficient. Microbial communities depleted. Detritivores extinct in this biome. Attempting to accelerate recovery requires an alternative nutrient pump."
Grayson dragged plant models into the lattice, splicing nutrient-dense fruits onto fast-growing trunks. The sim bloomed with broad leaves and heavy boughs—only to falter. Fruits rotted before ripening, energy budgets collapsing. He pushed more inputs, thicker roots, denser tissues. Each attempt ended the same: starvation.
Egg cut in. "Efficiency exceeds feasibility. A tree cannot be both pantry and farmer."
Grayson's lips pulled into a bitter smile. "Then it won't be just a tree."
He began weaving in animal code: digestive enzymes, peristaltic root channels, a rudimentary stomach hidden in the trunk. The model shuddered, leaves withering as roots convulsed. Carrion fed into its cavities dissolved into slurry, pulsing upward into fruit. The graphs spiked violently.
Egg's voice sharpened. "You are designing hunger itself. This is predation grafted to photosynthesis."
Grayson swallowed bile. The sight was obscene—wooden flanks pulsing with digestion, fruit swelling grotesquely from nutrient surges. "Better one monster that feeds the world than none at all."
He adjusted the photosynthetic layers, overlaying gold-green plates to amplify solar capture. Energy budgets stabilized. Omnivory became supplementary, a fallback rather than a primary diet. The tree stilled, less grotesque, though its hunger still lingered in the code.
Egg offered no comfort. "Detritivores, scavengers, fungi—all displaced. You are eliminating redundancy, not restoring balance."
Grayson shook his head. "Balance is already gone. This is scaffolding. A nutrient pump to restart the cycle."
The sim ran again. Roots gaped to swallow scraps—bones, bark, fungus, even plastic—everything reduced to sugars and proteins. Branches bent with fruit, heavy and dark-skinned, durable enough to last weeks once plucked. Nutritional graphs spiked green, showing values dense enough to sustain even humans.
Grayson stared at it too long, unease gnawing at his stomach. It looked less like a tree and more like a mother with too many mouths, feeding by devouring. He muttered under his breath, "A monstrous mother… but a mother all the same."
Part III — A Monstrous Mother
The tree stood in the lattice, a looming hybrid of wood and hunger, its branches bowed under the weight of impossible fruit. Grayson rubbed his temples, vision swimming from hours of focus. It was functional, yes, but barren. A tree that could devour anything still needed hands to feed it. Without constant inputs, it would remain a grotesque statue, waiting to starve.
He called up a new workspace and began sketching small reptilian forms. Scales glimmered emerald in the sim, limbs short but nimble, skulls narrow and sharp. Hardy, heat-tolerant. He traced in behavioral code with a weary hand: hunger muted, curiosity elevated, compulsion tethered to the tree's sap. The model twitched, then licked at a drop of nectar falling from the trunk. Its eyes dilated, behavior graphs spiking with reward signals.
Egg spoke at once. "Addiction. You are creating dependency, not partnership."
Grayson leaned forward, jaw tight. "They'll survive where others won't. They'll tend the tree because they can't stop themselves. That's the point."
"Compulsion is unstable. Populations will surge, limited only by sap flow. Surges will require management—culling."
Grayson winced. The word felt like grit in his teeth. "Better addicted and alive than forgotten. At least they'll have a place."
The sim advanced. The kobolds dragged scraps into the tree's cavities: carrion, insects, leaves. Nutrient graphs pulsed upward. Fruit swelled heavy on the boughs. The loop held, but something in the twitching little bodies unsettled him. They looked like slaves feeding an altar.
Then the behavior shifted. One kobold tugged down a fruit and rolled it to the canopy's edge, leaving it in the path of a grazing deer. The animal sniffed, ate, lingered. Hours later it wandered off, leaving droppings at the base of the roots. Nutrient graphs jumped.
Grayson blinked. "Wait. Did they just… trade?"
"Behavioral adaptation detected," Egg confirmed. "Fruit used as lure. Exchange for manure. Secondary benefit: seed dispersal."
The pattern repeated. Kobolds placed fruit for goats, for boar, even for birds. Each time, the animals consumed, lingered, and left waste behind. Kobolds gathered what remained, dragging scraps back into the tree. Nutrient flow stabilized into a steady rhythm.
Grayson felt a strange chill as he watched the graphs smooth into balance. "They're not just addicts. They're brokers. Shepherds who never leave the pen."
"Correction," Egg said softly. "They are both. Addiction anchors them. Strategy sustains them."
Grayson watched the little lizards scurry back and forth, eyes still glowing faintly from sap intoxication. Brokers, servants, children bound to a mother they could never leave. He wasn't sure whether to feel relief or guilt. Perhaps both.
Part IV — Release and Reckoning
The cave smelled of resin and damp stone as Grayson leaned against the entrance, watching the horizon blur with morning haze. Behind him, printers hummed in steady chorus. The outpost no longer felt like a ruin patched together, but like a forge shaping something new and dangerous.
Drones lifted from the beach in precise formation, wings gleaming with dew. Each carried a translucent sac pulsing faintly with life—the first of the plastic jellies. They rose into the air, banked, and swept out over the sea. Grayson's overlays followed their descent as the sacs splashed into waves, drifting open like lanterns. Bell-shaped medusae unfurled, tentacles trailing. Sunlight caught them, turning the surface into a shimmer of pale fire.
"They're in," Grayson whispered. His throat ached, but the words felt heavy, final. "It's done."
"Correction," Egg replied. "Initiation complete. Outcomes uncertain."
Onshore, fresh saplings pushed through volcanic soil. Their bark shone dark and wet, roots twisting with peristaltic hunger. At their bases, resin ants swarmed, already circling like attendants. In the lattice sims, kobolds scurried between trunks, trading fruit for manure, dragging scraps into gaping cavities. The loops pulsed steady, an ecosystem scaffolded by design rather than chance.
Egg's voice cut through his thoughts. "Observation: you have rewritten the base of the biosphere. This is not repair. It is replacement."
Grayson's hands tightened on the basalt lip of the cave mouth. He stared at the sea where the drones had vanished, at the saplings that would one day tower over this barren rock. The weight pressed against his chest until he forced the words out. "No. Not replacement. Scaffolding. Until the world can stand on its own again."
The sun broke the horizon, gilding the waves in white fire. For the first time in weeks, he felt more than exhaustion. Not triumph—not yet—but something fiercer, heavier. Resolve.
He turned back to the printers, the hum of their work filling the cave. His voice was low, steady, almost a vow. "Now we see if scaffolding can hold."
Fabrication: Rank 3 — 400/500 XP (+40) — printer swarm, drones, rollout
Systems Management: Rank 4 — 160/600 XP (+60) — replication logistics, global scaling
Biogenesis: Rank 4 — 620/600 XP → Rank 5 (20/800 XP) — plastic jellies' full lifecycle; sap-tree design with kobolds
Ecology: Rank 4 — 540/600 XP (+80) — trophic base reconstruction; symbiotic loops; kobold trading behaviors
Cultivation: Rank 2 — 100/200 XP (+40) — broker systems; adaptive fruit profiles
Analysis: Rank 4 — 260/600 XP (+60) — acceptance of scaffolding, ethical tradeoffs
Resilience: Rank 4 — 280/600 XP (+80) — shouldering horror of designed hunger, pushing through unease
New Species Designed:
Plastic Jellies (medusae → hydra → unicellular symbionts)
Consumption Trees (proto–Tree Mothers)
Kobolds (sap-addicted caretakers, ecological brokers)
New Insight Logged: Scaffolding Species — Design not for eternity, but for collapse and succession.