The first year of the Slow Beat was not a celebration, more like an appraisal.
The Stewards, the former provisional council, gathered in the Heartforge chamber. The big heart above kept going whoom… whoom… whoom…. At the beginning, the noise frightened them, but now it was just another part of their existence. They had reports before them, written on slate and fungus paper.
Naomi from Resource Allocation was the first to speak. Vat-Bread accounts for 80% of what we need to eat. We are taking care of the rest by giving less food and finding stuff in the Wastes. No one has starved to death in the last three months. The first cave-moss protein crop looks promising. The Aqua Vita thing is providing clean water to 60% of Sanctum. We should be able to cover everyone in a couple of years.
Lucien, the next speaker, was in charge of the new Academy of Systems. The Terraform loops are barely working at 5%. The Pancreatic Junction waste thing is going smoothly. Two more nurseries are growing their products. The Nerve-Jungle studies provided us with seven research papers on how the divine brain works. We are using them to map safer routes for future stuff. The Drowned Choir is silent.
Leo from the Symbiote Tendril-Council shared his news. The Host is in deep, feverless sleep. The old wounds are getting healed. The mycelium is not sending as many distress signals, and slow transfer patterns have begun. The border fights have ceased. Now, your people and ours are working the same land. It's strange... but nice.
Bianca, in charge of Civic Healing, was talking about what it cost the people. Withdrawal is now a long-term thing that we deal with instead of a crisis. The number of people who take their own lives has decreased, but it is still too high. People are terribly sad about the loss of the god. We have opened places where people can grieve together. They are... learning to be mere humans. It hurts.
Lastly, Maxine spoke about the Core Systems. The switch is functioning 98% of the time. Everything is in harmony. The Lobe's sanctuary field is still strong and seems to be getting more difficult to enter. The god's biology is deteriorating less by 0.3%. It is not getting better, really. It's just... not going as fast.
That was as good as they could expect.
After the reports, they moved to the central walkway and peered at the heart. They did this very often, just watching.
Joan Rhodes was there, using a mycelium-made cane, her left hand, fungus-crystal, on the railing. She was able to walk a little now. She spoke slowly, but one could understand her. A year, she said. A year since we made the... gardeners decision.
We're bad gardeners, Naomi said, while looking at her scarred hands. We allowed so much to die before we started to take care of things.
But we did start, Bianca said.
They stood there, listening to the slow beat. Each whoom was the time they had bought, a part of a future they had to make from scratch.
Benny came along with a small bundle wrapped in cloth. He was taller now, still skinny but stronger. He was not as scared all the time, just watchful. I brought something, he said. He unwrapped the bundle. It was the clay mouth from Naomi's old collection, the one with the screaming face inside.
He brought it close to the vibrant air of the Heartforge. It no longer screams, he said. I am now hearing it. It is not a scream of pain. It is like... a gasp. The very first gasp after being underwater for a long time and coming up. When you break the surface and although the air hurts, it is air.
They all looked at that little piece of art. Along with the slow-beating heart, what Benny said sounded plausible. It was like a baby's first cry: ugly, raw, full of fear and new life.
Naomi took the clay mouth, her fingers tracing the shape. We could put it here, she said. In the Heartforge. Not far from the sight. As a... reminder of who we were and what we had to become.
No one was against it. Lucien chose a place on the bone-stone wall. Naomi placed the clay mouth there. The screaming face looked out over the chamber where the world's fate was decided.
It was not a statue for winning, rather, It was for making a choice - the awful, important decision to stop eating, even when it was all you knew.
While they were leaving, Maxine lingered for a moment. Her graft could sense everything: the slow heart, the busy mycelium, the people trying to live, the quiet, growing Lobe. It was far from perfect. It was a weak, desperate, beautiful deal.
She was curious about the inner workings of a god. Ultimately, she was helping to create a world.
Not too shabby, she thought, as she followed the rest down the dim, fungus-lit corridors of their new home.