Cyberwood by Benjamin Sonnek

Author:Benjamin Sonnek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fox Pointe Publishing, LLP
Published: 2023-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

The fruits Pall brought back with him were beyond juicy, relieving all need to go looking for water after breakfast. Lily checked every inch of the fruits’ round skins, checking their smooth, reddish surfaces for any sign of tampering, rot, bruising, or dripping acid, but nothing she saw set off alarm bells. Seeing Lily’s uneasy satisfaction with the fruit, Fay dug in with a will, juice dripping at the corners of her mouth every time she came up for air.

Lily advised Fay to be careful with the pits, and when Fay reached the center of her first fruit, she could see why. The pit was two-thirds the size of a golf ball, wrinkled twice as much as the pit of an apricot, and—as a more significant difference from an apricot—it had a visible cyber-plate with a shiny dark panel, about as small as the fingernail on Fay’s pinky. When the sunlight hit the pit, the little panel lit up green.

“Might want to ditch that now,” Lily said, seeing the glow from Fay’s hands. “That pit’s live, and it’s trying to sync up with the rest of Cyberwood. The forest will decide whether or not it wants that tree to grow, but until it does, it’ll probably be safer to drop it.”

Fay tossed the pit onto the large bandage (the sight of her blood-and-gunk-stain on the cloth wasn’t doing wonders for her appetite). “Would the seed grow if I held on to it?” Fay asked Lily. “I mean, what if I ate it?”

Whether or not she was dodging the question, Lily appeared pretty occupied with her fruit. Pall, on the other hand, had a ready answer. “I guess nothing would happen if the forest didn’t want another tree,” he said while stroking his chin, “and it wouldn’t decide anything until you stopped moving. However, I remember Old Man Johnson tried to save a pit for the village, but he put it in his pocket and forgot about it. He got it while on a hunting trip, and when he got back to Subloam, he passed out for an entire day. When he woke up, he had a sapling growing out of his shirt; guess Cyberwood thought the seed had come to rest and decided one more tree was needed in that area.”

“Yikes,” Fay glanced at the innocuous pit in front of her.

“Nah, Johnson was okay,” Pall continued. “It wasn’t like it ruined his best shirt anyway, and he was just happy he hadn’t eaten the pit by mistake. Hard to keep that guy down, it was. Positive thinker all the way.”

“That’s...nice.”

“Yeah, but then he tried to ride a cyber-bear. We’re fairly certain his last thoughts were happy ones, but positive thinking can only get one so far.” Pall took a reflective munch out of his fruit. Looking at his frame, one fruit would be all he’d need.

“Can technomantresses manipulate seeds too?” Fay asked Lily.

Lily thought, then nodded. “Yes, but it takes more advanced techniques. I’m pretty sure, though, that those seeds will go crazy if the snarl catches up to them.

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