Pharahdox blinked at Zaharah and set the seedling amongst its brethren. "Oh, Zaharah. I didn't see you there." She gave her a smile that was less pop star glam and more angelic and brushed a wayward coil of hair from her face. "Will you be working with us today?"

"Yep." Zaharah returned the smile, but struggled to keep her eyes on Pharah's face. Damn, the girl looked good out of her glam, comfy, as though her clothes were made specifically for her. And standing there amongst the plants, she was like a woodland queen from a fairytale.

Skorpi waved a claw at Pharah and beeped like she understood his cryptic mores code speak.

"How adorable," Pharahdox cooed.

"Yeah, Skorpi gets all the ladies. I'm jealous." Zaharah nodded at the androsia skirt. "Nice skirt. Digging the old school, Bohemian vibe."

"Thanks. It has pockets," Pharah said, and stuck her hands in them.

Damn it. No one was allowed to be this cute. Zaharah opened her mouth to speak, but another android slipped in from the opposite door carrying a stack of pots. "Pharah when you're done with the sprouts, you can help Devin in the orchard then head to the barn." He frowned at Zaharah. "Who's this?"

"This is Zaharah, and she's working with us today. Zaharah, this is Isaac, he bosses all the volunteers around."

Isaac gave Pharah a withering look, before setting his eyes on Zaharah. "You can help Pharah for now. The garlic sprouts and tomatoes need to go in the ground. Make haste. We have a lot to get done today."

"We're going. I'll grab us a cart. Zaharah, can you put the garlic and tomato plants together? Just drag the shelf over here."

"Sure." She stared at Pharah's back for a moment before grimacing at the jungle of shelves and tables.

This room alone was just as big as the whole community garden at the south shore complex. The labels served as her only guide as she wandered through. Leeks, spring onions, potatoes. The tomatoes sat on a squat shelf at the centre, lined of neat on each level. She pulled it through the jungle, again using the labels to guide her. A left at the bell peppers straight past the celery and a right at the potatoes took her back to the garlic.

At the same time, Pharah came over with a hover cart in tow—a beastly thing with shelves stacked higher than she was tall. It floated and inch off the ground, a blue glow pooling on the floor beneath it.

Pharah loaded the plants onto the cart and nodded for Zaharah to do the same. "After we plant the garlic, we'll lattice the tomatoes and hopefully get through with the Orchard and barn in time for lunch."

"Got it." Zaharah blindly reached for the last sprout, and her hand closed over something soft and warm, undercut with delicate bones. Another hand. Pharah's hand. Their eyes met, dark brown, meeting dark brown. She swallowed and broke contact, the pleasant warmth from Pharah's hand still lingering. Hers must have felt cold and clammy as snakeskin in comparison.

Pharah's face remained neutral, even as they finished loading the cart in silence. "This way." She led cart towards the door the android came from. "I got your text from earlier, by the way. I didn't get to look through your whole gallery, but everything I saw was nice. You're good."

Zaharah shrugged and stuffed her hands in her pockets to avoid more awkward mishaps. She never knew how to respond to praise. "Thanks, Pharahdox."

"Actually, it's just Pharah when I'm not working."

"Okay, just Pharah."

They exited the room into a network of halls. Androids and residents trafficked up and down with carts of seeds and crops. Zaharah hugged the wall and kept her eyes on her shoes. Her skin itched as scores of eyes lighted on her, the unfamiliar face like mosquitoes.

She clenched and unclenched her metal hand, the rhythmic clicks distracting her from the hushed whispers floating around her. Meanwhile, Skorpi turned this way and that bug eyes shifting from the grey walls to the lights lined off on the ceiling to the people passing by.

"Ah, what a cute mechpet!" a young girl cooed as she passed them, and Skorpi's eyes turned bright pink. She envied his grace amid all these curious eyes.

"We call these halls the duct," Pharah said, cutting into her thoughts. "It's easy to get lost in here if you don't know your way around. The fields and orchards are here in the southern hemisphere, and the barns are in the north." She gave a sheepish smile. "Sorry, you probably know all this already."

"Actually, I didn't." And even if she did, the information sounded better coming from Pharah. She didn't have that dynamic way of speaking the Director did. Her tone had a casual friendliness, like a teacher rather than a lecturer.

"Ah. Well we're almost at the first field." They continued a short ways down the hall and passed through a door labelled Field A. A flight of wooden steps took them up to an open space twice the size of the sapling room. Other volunteers walked the neat rows of crops with carts for harvesting and planting. Slabs of stone cut through the patches of crops, serving as both a path and a partition.

Zaharah inhaled air scented with dug-up dirt and crushed leaves. Meanwhile Pharahdox greeted the other volunteers by name, exchanged quick pleasantries. Everyone had a smile or good word for her, and she took it all with the grace and modesty of a queen.

They stopped at a patch near the back where garlic grew alongside potatoes. A freshly dug trench awaited them, ready to receive the sprouts.

Pharah grabbed two sprouts and dropped to her knees with no regard for the dirt getting on her skirt. Cute, charming and not afraid to get dirty. And they said there was no such thing as perfection.

Zaharah knelt, the soft earth giving under her knees, and stuck her hands in cool soil just a shade darker than her skin to deepen the trench. It crawled under her fingernails, and into the joints of her metal hand. She'd have to remember to ask Dwight for a multi-tool to take her arm apart.

"Nothing like farming on the mainland, huh?" Pharah asked. "Denden's a little... antiquated."

"It's better this way, I think." Zaharah moved Skorpi from her shoulder to the cart where he could had them plants as needed. "Have you heard of the TSF Crisis? Happened around sixty or so years ago."

Pharah shook her head, her fluffy cloud of hair bouncing with the motion.

"Around sixty years ago, there was an explosion at two of the major food plants that resulted in a total system failure. You see, food on the mainland isn't really grown. More like... manufactured I guess."

Pharah's eyebrows shot up.

"Two plants being... compromised as they put it, resulted in major food shortage. Parliament scrambled to establish more traditional farming facilities, like this one, but the slower growing methods couldn't keep up with the demand. The food banks had to be opened, resources had to be rationed. The populous wasn't happy about it. There was a lot of speculation surrounding the rations, who was getting more, who wasn't getting enough. People were angry, and it all came to a head when a mob of thousands of people broke into one of the food banks and raided it."

"And then what happened?"

Zaharah looked up to find a small crowd gathered around her and Pharahdox. Some leaned on carts, while others held bushels of crops in their arm, all looked on with curious eyes. "Well, what always happens when there are riots. Parliament deployed the Makana. They're a uh... a hybrid tactical force, not to be fucked with. The crowd was dispersed, arrests made, a curfew imposed, the Makana patrolled the streets, and the 700 became the dystopian hellhole it was always destined to be. The end."

"That can't be how it ends," one of the residents smartassed, a boy who looked around Jade's age with his hair cut into a fade. "What happened to the food plants? Did they catch the people who did it?"

Her lip twitched. "The food plants were up and running after about ten months of investigation and reconstruction. Parliament claimed to find the people responsible, but there's always been speculation as to whether they caught the real culprits or not." She leaned on the cart. "You see, the security footage caught five men and three women snooping around one facility after hours on the night of the explosions, but no women were among those convicted."

"Well, they're probably dead by now so what does it matter," Fade McSmartass said.

"I never said the culprits were human."

A chorus of "Ohs" rose from the crowd.

"All right, that's enough." Pharah stood and dusted off her skirt. "Let's get back to work. Isaac is gonna freak out if he meets us slacking."

The children grumbled, but obliged, dragging their carts away. Meanwhile, she and Zaharah took the tomato plants to the trellises lined off near the back wall. The wooden structures hung heavy with unripe fruit and blossoming vines. More holes awaited them around five empty stakes, and little strings hung off the wood like depressed streamers.

Zaharah worked in comfortable silence with Pharah for a few minutes, putting the tomatoes in the ground and tying the stems to the lattice. She savoured the peace for a moment, rolled it over on her tongue like a fine piece of chocolate. It wouldn't last.

By now the Director knew of the security breach, and there was no knowing how she'd react. A cool head or a meltdown akin to her fight with Dr Cyan? Dwight would be angry about the messages, but Zaharah could handle him. His anger was like water; prolonged exposure to it would erode away at her, break her with time. The Director's anger, however, was like fire; it would reduce her to ash on the spot.

"Zaharah?" Pharah's voice cut into her thoughts yet again.

"Hm?"

"Jade told me you two grew up on the mainland. How'd you end up here? If you don't mind me asking."

I do mind you asking. Zaharah bit back the words before they could escape and schooled her face. Her instinct told her to get Pharah to back off, tell her it was none of her business. But she lacked the capacity to do that without sounding like a jerk, which the humble DJ didn't deserve.

"I understand if it's a sensitive subject. You don't have to answer. I didn't mean to sound nosey."

Zaharah ground her teeth. If only Pharah wasn't so polite about it. "Quid pro quo. I bare my soul, you bare yours."

"Deal."

"Jade and I lost our family in a boating accident two years ago. We don't have any surviving relatives so... yeah." Zaharah kept her eyes on the plant in her hands as she said it. That was the short version, but even those few words made people looking at her like she was a lost, sick puppy. Which made her feel shitty, like she was bothering them with her problems.

"Denden is full of tragedies. That's what the kids around here say. It sounds better than "I'm sorry" or any other useless platitudes."

She gave Pharah a sidelong stare, didn't see any pity, but something more close to empathy in her eyes. "And what's your tragedy, just Pharah?"

"Well... Devin and I came here when we were very young. Our mother was a drug addict, the government took us away." She shrugged a shoulder. "I suppose it's easier to talk about for me. I have no memory of her, or any kind of family."

She wasn't sure if she should feel sorry for Pharah for never having a real family, or for having Devin as a brother. Zaharah couldn't imagine having to put up with that attitude or the gross scent of white noise for more than a few minutes. "Speaking of your brother. Is he always so... you know."

Pharah sighed. "Only as of late. He wants to move to the mainland."

"Ah." Now it was her turn to be nosey. "And you're stopping him?"

"No." She took the last tomato vine and secured it to the lattice, tying the fibre a little too tight. "He can't leave without me, because he doesn't have enough money saved up. Because he won't stop smoking that shit."

Zaharah's eyebrows shot up. A swear out of the charming DJs mouth? The exasperated tone wasn't lost on Zaharah, and she guessed Pharah had been holding it on her chest for a while, but the unexpectedness made it strange.

But kind of hot.

"And what do you want, just Pharah?"

Pharah shrugged again and started towards the exit with the cart in tow. "I want to keep making music, but I'm not sure how far I want to go with it. It's difficult to explain. Have you ever wanted to a famous artist?"

"I've never given it any thought. If I do get famous, I'd want to be the reclusive hermit artist with a cult following who waits with bated breath for my next piece. I'd be secreted away in an underwater bunker, just me and my work. No one would know what I look like." Zaharah plucked Skorpi from the cart and the left it near the steps.

Pharah picked at the dirt under her fingernails, her lips turned down at the corners. "I see... I'll admit, the prospect of fame scares me a little."

"But aren't you already famous?" Zaharah asked as they hung a left outside the field.

"Yes, here in Denden I am, and I have a small group of fans on the mainland. But the Director wants me to be bigger. She asked if I'd be willing to play at the Goombay Festival."

Zaharah blinked. "That's... a big deal, could take your career to the next level. And don't you want more people to hear your music?"

"Yes... but no? I don't know." She groaned. "I like where I'm at now. I have time to meet my fans, talk to them, hang out with them. The bigger I grow, the bigger that disconnect grows, and I don't want that."

"And more fans mean more haters. You'll be under more scrutiny. If you fuck up, they'll come down on you twice as hard." She put her hands up when Pharah gave her a withering look. "I know I'm not helping, but I get you. The Director wants everyone to be... legendary. If you're not ready, just tell her."

Pharah smiled, one eyebrow arched. "Why is it so easy to talk to you?"

"My charm and good looks, perhaps?" That earned her a laugh, a pleasant sound, like the patter of rain against leaves. She could listen to it all day, paint to it, forget Beradeaux.

"Charm I'm not so sure about yet, but good looks." Pharah eyed her up and down and bit the corner of her lip. Then she tossed her cloud of hair and sped up down the hall.

Heat rose into Zaharah's ears. "Well played, just Pharah."