Blade of Renewal

The air outside the dome smelled like nothing. Misty had heard older folks say it used to carry the scent of pine needles or fresh-cut grass, but now it was just... sterile. She adjusted the seal on her face mask and checked the atmospheric monitor clipped to her belt. Carbon dioxide levels were still high enough to kill you in under five minutes. Typical Tuesday.

"How's it looking out there?" Donnie's voice sputtered from her comm unit, tinny and flat.

"Like the rest of the world: dead," Misty replied. She tapped the monitor again, more out of habit than necessity. She knew the data was accurate. "I'm not seeing any new growth. Soil's the same soup of nitrates and heavy metals. You sure this is the spot?"

"I didn't drag my ass out here just to waste your time," Donnie said. "Check the coordinates again. That drone picked up chlorophyll traces in this sector yesterday."

Misty sighed and crouched, the reinforced knees of her suit sinking into the dry, cracked earth. She scooped a handful of dirt into the sampling kit, sealing it shut. The drone's data wasn't wrong—machines didn't get bored or lazy like people—but she couldn't see how anything green could survive out here. The last recorded rainfall in Georgia had been over a decade ago, and the sun's UV radiation had only gotten nastier since the ozone went Swiss cheese. Still, chlorophyll didn't just appear out of nowhere.

"Nothing here but dirt and regret," she said, standing. "Tell the drone to calibrate its sensors next time."

There was a pause, then Donnie muttered, "You're gonna want to see this."

Misty turned, squinting through the hazy visor of her mask. Donnie was standing about fifty meters away, next to what looked like a busted piece of irrigation piping sticking out of the ground. He waved her over, and even from this distance, she could see his shoulders vibrating with nervous energy.

When she reached him, Donnie pointed without a word. At first, she didn't understand what she was looking at. Then it hit her: a single blade of grass. It was green, impossibly vibrant against the washed-out grays and browns of the landscape. She knelt next to it, careful not to crush the fragile thing under her boots.

"No way this is real," she said. "It's gotta be some kind of prank. Are you screwing with me?"

"I don't even like you enough to prank you," Donnie said. "Scan it."

Misty pulled out her handheld analyzer and aimed it at the grass. The device blinked for a few seconds before spitting out a readout. Chlorophyll levels were through the roof. The plant's DNA matched pre-collapse grass samples almost perfectly, except for a few mutations that looked... engineered.

"Someone made this," she said, standing. "It's not natural."

"Doesn't matter," Donnie said. "It's alive. And if it can grow here, we're talking about a game-changer. We need to get it back to the lab. Now."

Misty nodded, pulling a containment vial from her belt. She hesitated for half a second before plucking the grass from the ground and sealing it inside the vial. She didn't like how easy it was to destroy something so rare.

---

The lab was buried beneath thirty feet of concrete and steel in what used to be Tallahassee. The University of Florida had converted the old storm shelters into research facilities after the collapse, and now it was one of the last functioning scientific outposts in the world. Misty handed the sample off to Leilani, the lead biologist, who took one look at it and swore under her breath.

"You're sure this came from Georgia?" Leilani asked.

"Yeah," Misty said. "Why?"

Leilani didn't answer. Instead, she placed the vial under a microscope and began typing furiously on her console. The screen lit up with magnified images of cell structures, and Misty could see why Leilani was so tense. The grass wasn't just alive—it was thriving. Its cells were repairing damage faster than any plant she'd ever seen, and its photosynthesis efficiency was off the charts.

"This isn't just engineered," Leilani said. "It's... optimized. Whoever made this wasn't just trying to recreate grass. They were trying to make it better."

Misty leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. "So who the hell has the resources to pull this off? Last I checked, most of the world's scientists were either dead or working on keeping us from suffocating."

Leilani didn't answer, but her expression said it all: she didn't know either.

---

The next morning, Misty found Leilani hunched over her workstation, she looked exhausted. The grass sample had already been split into dozens of smaller specimens, each one growing in its own tiny containment chamber. Leilani pointed to the largest chamber, where the grass had already spread to cover the entire base of the container.

"This stuff doesn't just grow," she said. "It spreads. Fast. And it doesn't seem to care about the soil quality or the air composition. It can pull carbon dioxide straight out of the atmosphere and convert it into biomass at rates that shouldn't be possible."

"Sounds like a miracle," Misty said.

"Yeah, if you're into unchecked ecological experiments," Leilani said. "This thing could outcompete every other plant species on the planet. If it spreads beyond Florida, it's game over for biodiversity. Not that there's much left to lose."

Misty disagreed. "So what do we do? Destroy it?"

Leilani didn't answer right away. Instead, she gestured to another chamber, where a tiny sapling was sprouting next to one of the grass samples. The sapling looked healthier than any plant Misty had seen in years, its leaves a rich, glossy green.

"It's not just the grass," Leilani said. "Whatever's in its genome is boosting the growth of other plants too. This could be the key to fixing the planet. But if we mess it up..."

Misty didn't need her to finish the sentence. If they messed it up, Florida could go from being the last bastion of life to the epicenter of another collapse.

---

A week later, Misty was back in Georgia, standing in the same barren field where they'd found the grass. This time, she wasn't alone. A team of researchers in full hazmat gear was combing the area, scanning for any other signs of engineered plant life. So far, they'd found nothing.

"You think we're looking for a person, or a lab?" Donnie asked, standing next to her.

"Does it matter?" Misty said. "Whoever did this, they're either a genius or a lunatic. Maybe both."

"If they're still alive, we need to find them," Donnie said. "We need answers."

Misty nodded, but she couldn't shake the feeling that they were chasing shadows. The world was too broken, too chaotic. Even if they found the person responsible, what then? Would they be a savior, or just another reminder of how badly humanity had screwed up?

For now, all they had was a blade of grass in a vial and a lot of unanswered questions. It wasn't much, but it was something. And in a world that had forgotten what green looked like, something was better than nothing.

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The writing prompt for this story was:
All plant life on the planet is wiped out, except for in Florida. Add some humor and/or sarcasm.

This story was written by:
openai/gpt-4o-2024-11-20

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