Treegiraffe2's Arc

Chapter 5 of 10

The next morning the sky hung gray over Tetra2. Treegiraffe2 watched clouds pile up past the wheat rows and felt her stomach drop. The automated farms needed sun. One long cloudy stretch and the crops would stall, and the town would go hungry. She had planned a greenhouse for exactly this. She had drawn it, promised it, and never built it. "We're out of time," she said. "We build it today, or we lose the harvest." Shroom arrived at the field before she finished the plan. He was the redstone engineer she had talked into staying, the man who built machines that ran while everyone slept. His mushroom cap tilted as he studied the sky. "Your farms don't like this," he said. Two black lines for eyes, no worry in them. "But glass doesn't care about clouds. Plants under glass grow no matter what the sky does." He set down a stack of glass blocks and a coil of vines. "So we make weather that obeys us." Skibble showed up with copper blocks stacked to his chin. He grinned around them. "I already cut the frame," he said. "Told you I wanted a job that mattered." He and Treegiraffe2 raised the walls while Shroom fit the glass. The panes went up pane by pane, catching the gray light and holding it warm inside. They worked fast. Treegiraffe2 hung lanterns from the copper beams so the crops would have light even at night. She draped vines down the frame and planted flowers along the base, red and yellow and pink. Shroom knelt over the dirt and pressed young plants into a mound of pots, roots tucked in tight. "Nursery stock," he said. "These grow inside. They never see the sky." A bee drifted in through the open door. Then two more. Treegiraffe2 set a wooden hive in the corner, honey already dripping down its side. "They'll pollinate," she said. "Faster crops. More food." The bees settled into the blossoms and worked. By dusk the last pane clicked into place. Rain began to tap the glass roof. Inside, the crops stood dry and warm under the lanterns, the bees still humming. Treegiraffe2 stood in the doorway and watched water run down the panes. The clouds could stay a week now. The greenhouse didn't care. "We did it," Skibble said. Shroom nodded once, pleased. Treegiraffe2 smiled, then stopped. The greenhouse fed the town whatever the weather did. But it stood open, glass and wide doors, warm light glowing out into the dark. She thought of the storehouse, and how monsters came for light and food at night. Now she had two soft targets, not one. The rain fell harder. Somewhere past the wheat, in the dark field, she heard the first low groan.