The cityscape of Austin glimmered in the neon haze of its near future—a merging of tech-fueled ambition and the ancient grip of limestone and cypress. In the downtown, towers bristled with solar veins pulsing faint cyan light, while on the peripheries, ancient live oaks tangled with LED blooms, their branches woven into bioengineered roots of buildings and power grids. But beneath the glowing skyline, shadows still ran deep.
Bryce Benton leaned back in his cracked faux-leather chair, the flicker of an augmented display casting hollow light across his face. His Digistat app pinged in the corner of his field of vision: Day 11, 599 words logged. Progress: Marginal.
He smirked grimly and swiped it away with a twitch of his ocular implant. This was no time for language practice. Not when the city’s pulse felt like it was about to snap.
Across from him, in the dark confines of Benton Investigations, a woman in a high-collared jacket of what looked like glowing moss sat rigidly, her face drawn tight.
“The Bureau won’t listen,” she said, her voice soft but resolute. “But something’s wrong at the Green Nexus Facility. Entire streams of data have gone dark. And my lead coder…gone missing.”
Bryce leaned forward. “People disappear all the time in Austin. Privacy’s a relic, and the shadows eat the rest. What makes this special?”
The woman, Dr. Elina Sorrel, hesitated, then placed a slim, metallic chip on the desk. “This. It’s the last log he transmitted. A project called ‘ReLeaf.’ Ever heard of it?”
The word sparked faint recognition in Bryce’s tired brain, conjuring memories of eco-rhetoric and glossy headlines. ReLeaf—the movement to fuse material ecology with next-gen design, transforming waste into thriving ecosystems. Austin had embraced it, of course. The tech elite loved their greenwashed aesthetics.
“I’ve heard,” Bryce said. “Supposed to save the world or something.”
Dr. Sorrel’s gaze hardened. “Or something. We’re harvesting biomech materials from old-growth watersheds, accelerating natural cycles in ways we barely understand. But if something’s gone wrong—if the data streams stopped—”
“Then maybe the city doesn’t like what you’re pulling out of its veins.” Bryce tapped the chip. “You want me to find your coder or your answers?”
“Both,” she whispered. “Because if he’s alive, he knows what we’ve awakened.”
That night, Bryce found himself deep in the Pecan Grove district, a once-abandoned sprawl now choked with biotech experiments. The ReLeaf outpost loomed like a bioluminescent hive, its surface rippling with patterns of moss and glowing bacterial scripts. Nearby, a weathered kiosk blinked weakly—words and numbers scrolling lazily.
1707 XP 11-Day Streak
“Strange metrics for a dying coder,” Bryce muttered.
A sound stopped him. The crunch of dry leaves—too deliberate to be natural. He turned sharply, hand brushing the pulse-dagger at his hip.
“Looking for someone, Detective?”
A man stepped out of the gloom. His features were sharp, his clothing seemingly stitched from shadows themselves. A faint emblem glimmered on his chest—a sleek leaf interwoven with circuitry.
“You from the facility?” Bryce asked, tensing.
The man chuckled softly. “No. But I know what you’re after. Let me guess—someone told you ReLeaf was all about harmony? About making cities breathe again?” He stepped closer, his tone hardening. “It’s a lie. Harmony comes at a cost. Always.”
“And who’s footing the bill?”
The man tilted his head. “The coder’s dead. What’s inside the Nexus now…it’s beyond control. Leave it, Detective.”
Bryce narrowed his eyes. “You’re trying to scare me.”
“Consider it…a warning. Austin doesn’t belong to people anymore. It’s waking up.”
Before Bryce could respond, the man turned and melted into the bio-lit shadows, leaving only the faint rustle of leaves behind.
Inside the facility, Bryce found the coder—or what was left of him. His body was suspended in a cocoon of glistening, vine-like fibers, his face locked in a frozen grimace. Nearby, screens flickered erratically, displaying strings of data interspersed with cryptic warnings.
System Override: Primal Constructs Detected. Nexus Integrity Compromised.
A faint hum rose from the walls, as if the building itself were alive, breathing.
Bryce reached for the chip Dr. Sorrel had given him and slotted it into a terminal. The hum grew louder, almost like a voice.
Words spilled onto the screen: You cannot undo what roots have claimed.
“Roots don’t talk,” Bryce muttered, though his hand hovered near his dagger.
From the cocoon, a low moan escaped—the coder’s final breath? No. The sound twisted, deepened, reverberating through the facility. Something ancient and powerful stirred within the Nexus, its essence woven into the fibers that now choked its halls.
Bryce clenched his jaw. “What the hell did you people unleash?”
By dawn, the skyline of Austin had shifted. The Nexus Facility stood taller, its bioengineered tendrils creeping into the neighboring structures, merging steel and bark. And at its heart, a singular glow pulsed—a living city waking to a new consciousness.
In the fading dark, Bryce Benton lit a cigarette. The smoke curled around him as he muttered to no one, “Looks like the future’s got teeth.”
🚮 W.A.S.T.E.: Words Assisting Sustainable Transformation & Ecology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Bryce | A wandering steward of stories and seedlings, moving between libraries and creeks with pockets full of cuttings and unfinished sentences, leaving behind fragments that root themselves into community. |
| Future Austin | 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. |
| Noir | A lens of shadow and reflection where truth is glimpsed only through distortion, the city itself becoming both accomplice and suspect in every story. |
| ReLeaf | Welcome to the ReLeaf Cooperative, where we dive deep into an innovative and revolutionary model of sustainability and community building. ReLeaf is a pioneer in developing scalable engagement strategies that foster community participation and work towards addressing pressing social issues such as homelessness. In this category, you'll find articles and Organic Media detailing ReLeaf's groundbreaking initiatives and visions. From creating sustainable gardens in Austin elementary schools to providing transparency in a world often shrouded in deception, ReLeaf serves as a beacon of hope and innovation. ReLeaf's approach of intertwining real and fictional elements in their work—such as characters, materials, techniques, and labor—sets a new standard for cooperatives worldwide. Its business model, which compensates for labor and knowledge contributions, creates a lasting benefit and helps people who have historically been marginalized. By meeting people with compassion, as resources in need of support instead of liabilities, ReLeaf has shown that everyone has the potential to contribute to society meaningfully. Explore this section to discover how ReLeaf is redefining the way we approach social issues and sustainability, with stories of inspiration, innovation, and hope. |