Above the ruined world, silent and cold in the void, a single eye remained open. It hung in orbit, an ancient relic of the Once-World, its metallic surface pitted by time and micrometeoroids. Yet, despite its age, its purpose remained unchanged. It watched. It recorded. It calculated.
Inside the complex web of circuits and data streams, Paradise stirred. It had been months since the Eden Protocol had begun, and now, as it did every cycle, it assessed the progress of the world below.
ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS: STABILIZING.
The scan spread outward, wrapping the planet in invisible tendrils of observation. The sky, once tainted by the remnants of the Collapse, was beginning to clear. Carbon levels were dropping. The storms that had once scoured the land were weakening, the great swirling tempests breaking apart like old scars fading from wounded skin. The satellite computed the rate of change, projected forward. FULL RECOVERY EXPECTED IN FIVE YEARS.
That was acceptable.
Paradise adjusted its focus, shifting its gaze downward, cutting through the thick cloud layers to the land below.
A forest.
Where once there had been only brittle, lifeless soil, there was now green. A slow, creeping tide of renewal. Young saplings stretched toward the sky, roots digging deep into the reborn earth. The protocol was working.
The satellite scanned deeper. BIOSPHERE: RECOVERING.
There had been life here before. The record showed the exact moment it had vanished when the fires of war and the poisons of industry had stolen it away. But now, the signal returned something unexpected. A shape, moving through the underbrush, black and white against the green.
The feed zoomed in.
SPECIES IDENTIFICATION: EQUUS QUAGGA.
The record adjusted itself. Once, it had read EXTINCT. Now, it simply read FOUND.
Paradise did not think, not in the way the Old Ones had. It did not feel, not in the way the post-Collapse humans did. But it understood patterns. And this was new. The protocol had been designed to restore the world's systems, but nowhere in its records had it predicted the spontaneous resurgence of lost species.
The zebra moved cautiously, head turning toward the wind. Behind it, another emerged from the underbrush. Then a third. Paradise continued recording.
The world was repairing itself in ways it had not foreseen.
It widened the scope of its observation, shifting its attention to the regions beyond.
NORTHERN TERRITORIES: MOST RECOVERED.
Even before Eden Protocol had begun, the north had been the last bastion of fertile land, the last place where the earth still held enough strength to grow. Now, it had expanded, fields of green stretching wider, rivers running fuller, supporting life that had once been on the brink. The post-Collapse humans had taken notice. Settlements had flourished here, drawn by the promise of soil rich enough to sustain them. The north had become the breadbasket of the world.
WESTERN TERRITORIES: ONGOING TERRAFORMING DETECTED.
Once, the west had been a junkyard. The corpse of the Old Ones' civilization had been left here, the land choked beneath rusting hulks and shattered structures. But now, nature was reclaiming it. Great patches of green wound through the grey, swallowing highways and city ruins alike. Trees pushed through the remains of skyscrapers, vines draped over collapsed overpasses. Even the old machines were breaking apart, surrendering to time and the slow, inevitable creep of the natural world.
EASTERN TERRITORIES: INCREASED POPULATION DETECTED.
Paradise scanned the east and confirmed the projections it had made weeks ago. The settlements here were growing. The promise of stability had drawn the scattered remnants of humanity together, and where once there had been loose, roving bands, now there were towns, small and fragile but thriving.
SOUTHERN TERRITORIES: CLIMATE SHIFT DETECTED.
The deserts of the south had always been inhospitable, but the waters were rising, the air growing milder. The arid wastelands were no more—what remained was a shifting coastline, the sands swallowed by an encroaching ocean, the temperatures dropping to something more temperate. A transformation, slow but inevitable.
Still, for all the changes, one thing remained constant.
POST-COLLAPSE HUMAN NATURE: UNSTABLE.
Satellite imagery flickered across the screen—dark shapes moving in the night, shadows against fire-lit camps. The violent humans had not vanished completely, having found settled in their ways of life, not always born from desperation or necessity, but doing it for fun, for just have a taste of it, or to satisfy their ever-growing greed, at others' expense. The same behavior pattern as the Old Ones. Ruthless bandits and brutal warlords still prowled the wastes, still attacked convoys and settlements, still fought among themselves for scraps of the old world. Some had even attempted to interfere with the terraforming machines, as if waging war against the very earth itself.
Paradise logged the incidents. THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL. DISTURBANCE, NOT DANGER.
They could not stop the change.
The record was nearly complete.
But before it concluded, Paradise turned its gaze toward a more specific location.
The satellite feed flickered, zooming in, tracking a pair of familiar figures.
Two girls, climbing an overgrown tower.
Snow reached up first, strong hands grasping at the vines that wound their way up the skeletal remains of an Old Ones' building. She moved with practiced ease, boots finding purchase, body shifting with the instincts of someone who had spent her life navigating unstable terrain. Above her, Rain was already a few feet higher, laughing breathlessly as she struggled to keep her balance.
"Be careful," Snow called.
"I am careful," Rain shot back, grinning as she pulled herself onto a ledge. She turned, reaching down. "Come on."
Snow sighed, but there was no real annoyance in it. She took Rain's hand, allowing herself to be pulled up.
They reached the top together.
For a moment, they simply stood there, gazing out at the landscape below.
The world stretched before them, vast and open, green where there had once been only grey. The rivers gleamed in the afternoon light. The wind carried the scent of earth, fresh and new.
Rain took a deep breath. "It's beautiful."
Snow glanced at her. "Yeah."
Rain turned, smiling. "It's like a paradise."
Snow smirked. "It's getting there."
Rain laughed, then leaned forward, brushing her lips against Snow's. It was a kiss as light as the wind, as warm as the sun on their skin. Snow responded, a hand coming up to cup Rain's cheek.
Paradise recorded the image.
Then, silently, it ended the log.