Langley couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt dry. The tunnel beneath Lady Bird Lake was cold and wet and smelled like the inside of a broken clock. He walked behind Eva, whose steps echoed lightly against the moss-lined floor. Her silhouette glowed faintly under the bioluminescent walls, as if she were both here and not here, a projection from some other dimension.
“Why here?” he asked, knowing the answer wouldn’t change anything.
Eva didn’t turn around. “Secrecy,” she said. The word bounced once, twice, and then vanished into the dark.
The city above had become a mosaic of clean lines and artificial breezes. Trees grew in spirals, buildings breathed. You could walk from east to west Austin without touching the ground if you stayed in the Air Canopy. People up there drank ginger-root espresso and talked about sustainable chaos theory. Down here, though, things were slower, wetter, more honest.
They reached a rusted steel door. Langley squatted, brushed dust from a faded keypad, and typed in a string of numbers he hadn’t known he knew. The door hissed, then opened like it had been holding its breath.
Inside was a room that made no promises. Mid-century furniture arranged like ghosts had just stood up. A table covered in papers. A wall of holograms casting flickering lights across an old globe that still showed oceans in blue.
Eva moved first. She found the blueprints, her eyes scanning with the precision of someone searching for lost time.
“This algae,” she said, “could fix everything. Or break it worse.”
Langley looked at the documents, not really seeing them. A memory stirred—an aquarium from his childhood, the fish swimming in quiet spirals, oblivious to the boy watching them fall asleep. “Why would The Gardener want this?” he asked.
Before she could answer, a sound pulled them back. Footsteps. Not rushed. Deliberate.
Silva stepped into the room like a character from a forgotten dream. Her face unreadable. Her hair a little longer than before. She pointed to the vents on the schematics.
“We have to release the spores through the filtration system. It’s the only way.”
Langley nodded. It made sense. Most things did, in the moment. He took the vial Silva handed him—glass, cool, faintly humming.
“This is the catalyst,” she said. “Guard it. Even if everything else falls apart.”
The ground trembled. A low-frequency boom rolled through the floor like an animal clearing its throat.
“They’re here,” Eva whispered, as if naming them would summon more.
Langley closed his eyes. He imagined himself standing in a jazz bar on a quiet Tuesday, Miles Davis in the background, a cat asleep in his lap. Instead, he opened his eyes and ran.
Outside, the city continued its strange, glittering hum, unaware of the three people moving through its underworld, trying to rewrite its fate with algae, memory, and borrowed time.
🚮 W.A.S.T.E.: Words Assisting Sustainable Transformation & Ecology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| (Underground) (0.00) | Amidst the tranquility of a botanical garden lies a hidden passage to an underground archive, its entrance marked by a cryptic stone carving. This secluded realm, a haven of esoteric literature, beckons the advanced student and researcher to delve into mysteries veiled in ancient manuscripts, awaiting the touch of the curious to unveil their arcane knowledge. |
| Air Canopy (0.00) | A suspended layer of fragrance and filtration woven through the city’s atmosphere, releasing restorative scents while purifying the air and easing public unrest. |
| Anti-Time Picnic (0.00) | An impossible gathering where participants bring only borrowed artifacts, practicing memory as exchange rather than possession. |
| Authorship Current (0.00) | The unseen force that guides each walker to write the city into being, street by street, step by step. |
| Circular Economy (0.00) | The linear take-make-waste model is failing. The circular economy offers a regenerative, restorative path. This section shows how ReLeaf in Austin, Texas, puts that approach to work. Through articles and Organic Fiction, we document practical steps toward sustainable, democratic, and equitable exchange. ReLeaf helps unlock dormant spaces for shared income and supports Austin’s Zero Waste goals. The team is not only imagining a better future. They are building it. Picture a city where waste is rare, materials cycle again and again, and success includes social and environmental gains. Join us as we trace Austin’s shift to a circular economy and consider how the same principles can scale worldwide to create shared prosperity and lasting sustainability. |
| Clandestine Collective (0.00) | A hidden network of urban stewards who move beneath the official grid, planting quiet interventions such as living walls, water hacks, and spectral gardens that reshape the city without ever claiming credit. |
| Closed Loop System (0.00) | Practice of local repair, reuse, mutual care, and shared access. People use scrap, skills, and trust to keep each other safe and resourced when official systems fail. |
| Cooperative (0.00) | Welcome to our exploration of the Cooperative Ownership Model. This section highlights ReLeaf, an organization that has embraced this alternative business model, fostering both economic and environmental sustainability in Austin, Texas. Through various articles and SolarPunk fiction, we examine how ReLeaf's cooperative structure empowers its employees and local communities, providing a democratic and equitable alternative to traditional hierarchies. From accelerating the circular economy to combating 'enshittification' in digital communities, ReLeaf's strategies are far-reaching and impactful. We delve into ReLeaf's unique approach to data dignity, logistics, and the nuanced balance between technology and caution, drawing inspiration from historic Luddite literature. The stories and articles also highlight how the cooperative model can provide an answer to homelessness, promote vegan values, and set the stage for shared prosperity. As we navigate through this section, let's reflect on the potential of cooperative ownership as a transformative model for future businesses. It promises to be an exciting journey as we uncover how this democratic alternative can revolutionize our economy, society, and environment. |
| Detective Langley (0.00) | A weary investigator navigating the submerged veins of Future Austin, Langley carries the scent of rain and rust wherever he goes. Once part of the city’s official order, he now works in the shadows beneath the Air Canopy, where moss grows on forgotten walls and secrets ferment in the damp. Haunted by fragments of memory and guided by instinct more than allegiance, he moves through the city’s underworld like a reluctant archaeologist of truth. Langley’s strength lies in quiet observation—his ability to read a room, a person, or a silence. He distrusts clean answers and prefers the grime of uncertainty. Though the world above glows with sustainable illusions, he stays below, chasing whatever still feels real. |
| Elle West (0.00) | A laundromat refashioned from an industrial husk, its machines rumored to cleanse more than fabric, sometimes spinning open seams into hidden archives where memory and city overlap. |
| Eva Marquette (0.00) | A brilliant strategist and field operative driven by conviction more than faith. Once a scientist within ReLeaf, Eva turned rebel after uncovering The Gardener’s manipulation of bioengineered ecosystems. Focused, sharp, and quietly defiant, she balances intellect with intuition, often serving as Langley’s moral compass and tactical equal in the fight to reclaim Future Austin’s freedom. |
| Future Austin (0.00) | Future Austin invites you to explore a luminous vision of the city’s tomorrow—where imagination and reality intertwine to create a thriving, sustainable urban landscape. Here, grassroots ingenuity and cutting-edge technology power communities, transforming Austin into a place of boundless possibility. Through insightful articles and evocative Organic Fiction, you’ll glimpse futures shaped by innovators like ReLeaf, whose bold strategies—such as Vertical Garden Fairs in schools—seed green revolutions in unexpected places. From unconventional movements like Trash Magic reimagining music distribution, to fictional worlds alive with unseen energy and harmony, this collection offers both practical inspiration and immersive storytelling. Whether you’re drawn to actionable sustainability or simply wish to lose yourself in tales of a resilient, radiant future, Future Austin points toward the city we could create—and the one we must. |
| Lady Bird Lake (0.00) | The wide, restless heart of Austin, a man-made river-lake where festivals, protests, and blooms of algae ripple against the city’s reflection. |
| Noir (0.00) | A lens of shadow and reflection where truth is glimpsed only through distortion, the city itself becoming both accomplice and suspect in every story. |
| Planthroposcript (0.00) | The living blueprint written by vines that overwrites floor plans with botanical intent. |
| RootFounders (0.00) | The dispersed first cohort of ReLeaf whose early experiments seeded the city's transformation. |
| Rootroom (0.00) | The imagined chamber beneath the soles where balance grows, deeper than any agency, court, or failed system. |
| Shadow Sprawl (0.00) | The unseen layers of a city where innovation and secrecy grow side by side. |
| Sky-taste (0.00) | A mineral sweetness in the air under the Air Canopy after it condenses and releases purified moisture. Many say it tastes of memory. |
| Sporescript (0.00) | The living alphabet written by hyphae, where moisture and memory form sentences without ink. |
| Surrealism (0.00) | A way of seeing where the ordinary bends open to reveal its hidden seams, letting dream logic, memory, and impossible ecologies spill into daylight. |
| Threadglow (0.00) | A low vibration underfoot when the mycelium network recognizes you. Footbridges answer with a faint light that follows your step. |
| Tradescantia pallida (0.00) | Tradescantia pallida is a species of spiderwort native to the Gulf Coast region of eastern Mexico. The cultivar T. pallida 'Purpurea' is commonly called purple secretia, purple-heart, or purple queen. Edward Palmer collected the type specimen near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas in 1907. Tradescantia pallida is an evergreen perennial plant of scrambling stature. It is distinguished by elongated, pointed leaves - themselves glaucous green, sometimes fringed with red or purple - and bearing small, three-petaled flowers of white, pink or purple. Plants are top-killed by moderate frosts, but will often sprout back from roots. The cultivar T. pallida 'Purpurea' has purple leaves and pink flowers. Widely used as an ornamental plant in gardens and borders, as a ground cover, hanging plant, or - particularly in colder climates where it cannot survive the winter season - houseplant, it is propagated easily by cuttings (the stems are visibly segmented and roots will frequently grow from the joints). Numerous cultivars are available, of which 'Purpurea' with purple foliage has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Support this species by reading about it, sharing with others, and donating monthly or yearly to the ReLeaf Cooperative in honor of Tradescantia pallida. We deliver any quantity of these, for free, to any ReLeaf site (Free Little Library or other suggested location in the Shoal Creek, Waller Creek, and Fort Branch watersheds). We are currently seeking cooperative members in Austin and beyond to cultivate and provide Tradescantia pallida and other species for free to ReLeaf sites in their local watersheds. Inquire by email: bryceb@releaf.site. Thanks! |
| Vintage (0.00) | A modest bookstore on Rosewood whose shelves sometimes rearrange into corridors, known as a threshold site where maps reveal hidden paths and readers become co-authors of the city. |