Juno Dax's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Juno Dax tipped her cracked can over the last living plants in the world, and only three drops fell. She counted them onto the soil around her green shoots. Six pale stems, cupped in a scavenged tin. She had bred them for a year, coaxing them to survive the poisoned dust. If they lived, she could grow enough to feed the last people in the wastes. But the shoots drank more than she could give. The trickle in her can was nearly gone. "Not today," she told the shoots. "You don't get to wilt on me today." She shook the can. Rust flaked from the crack she had never fully sealed. The ration of clean water she'd hoarded was spent. Every open pool out here would kill her plants faster than thirst. She needed clean water, and she needed it before the sun climbed higher. Juno remembered the wreck on the flat. An old solar harvester squatted there, its panels shattered, its frame red with rust. Salvagers said machines like that once pulled moisture from the air and purified it. Most were dead. Maybe one part still worked. She wrapped the tin against her chest and walked. The heat pressed on her patched suit. When she reached the harvester, its broken panels threw sharp shadows across the dust. She climbed into its ribs and searched. Cracked hoses. A dry tank. Then, low in the frame, she found a sealed metal vault, polished and cold to the touch. Frost ringed its seam. Something inside still ran. "Please," she said, and turned the wheel on its face. The seal hissed. Cold air rolled out. Inside sat racked cylinders, each beaded with clean condensation, held frozen by the vault's dying power. Purified water. Enough to nurse her shoots for weeks. Juno laughed. She reached for the nearest cylinder. Then something shifted in the frost at the back of the vault. A beetle uncurled. Its shell was faceted like cut crystal, blue and sharp, wider than her two hands. It had nested in the cold, feeding on the frost that kept the water sealed. When she moved, it lifted its jeweled head toward her plants. Juno froze. The creature crawled onto the rack. It touched a green shoot with one leg, and the leaf it brushed went stiff and gray, crystals spreading across the stem. The beetle fed on living things too. And it had smelled her shoots. She grabbed one cylinder and jerked it free. The vault's cold began to fade without its seal. The beetle spread crystal wings and clung to her tin, drawn to the last green in the world. Juno backed out of the harvester with water in one arm and the beetle riding her plants. She had her clean water now. But the thing on her shoots would kill them faster than any drought, and it would not let go.