The Future of Nature

A Story For Earth Day

“The Future of Nature” is an Earth Day community writing project for fiction writers to explore the human-nature relationship in a short story or poem. It was organized by Claudia Befu and Julie Gabrielli, and supported with brilliant advice from scientists Jonathan Tonkin and rebecca hooper. The story you’re about to read is from this project. You can find all the stories as a special Top In Fiction Disruption edition, with thanks to publisher Erica Drayton.

Surface Tension

“Estelle, can I borrow you in the observation room?”

Estelle looked up from her tablet, instantly losing her place in the data she was cross checking.

Sighing, “Yeah, of course.”

She grabbed her water bottle and walked through, her legs absorbing the boat’s movement with ease. The first thing she noted was the black screen where she expected to see blue liquid pierced by sunlight reflecting off the dusty molecules in today’s seeding.

“Another one?” She sat down and flicked a switch, flicking through several more blank views until she found a live one.

“Yes, we now have only one camera remaining.”

“So?” She couldn’t hide the exasperation. “Send one of your bots out to fix it.”

“I hesitate to send any more. The last three haven’t returned, which puts our mission in jeopardy.”

Estelle kept her eyes on the screen showing the last available view of the clear water where they were spreading iron to stimulate phytoplankton growth and jumpstart the food chain in an otherwise desolate patch of ocean. She smiled as a large fish swam by. It was working. Their first few blooms had been devoured by zooplankton and sunk without much response, but in the last trial, when they’d all but given up, they’d hit the right nutrient mix. This was their first attempt at scaling things up, which was only possible because Palazzo Industries had such deep pockets, but even the aspirational CEO was starting to tire of their constant failures. Estelle didn’t think they’d survive another setback if something was destroying the cameras and autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, as she called them.

She looked up at the cameras that served as her companion’s eyes. “What are you saying?” she said. “I should go out there?”

“Oh no,” came the expressive voice that could have been an older human female. “Much too dangerous. With almost no eyes in the field, I don’t know what’s out there. I can’t establish what’s destroying all my arms.”

“There was no footage from before they went offline?”

“Sadly, no. Whatever it is, it’s coming from below.”

“So … what? Can we put some cameras on the base of the remaining bot?” Estelle’s mind was drifting back to the report she had been compiling.

“Why waste resources to see it coming if we lose the final bot? It will take days to return to land and get more, and they may not give us one. We’ll be perceived as wasteful.”

“Chet,” said Estelle. “What is your solution here? You’re the super intelligence. I’m just here for dexterity, really.”

It was a lonely job. There was no need for more than one human to be put in the dangerous position of coming out into the Reserves, whether on land or water, but she didn’t mind. Chet, the articulate machine who ran the whole operation, kept her good company with games and activities, while keeping the work on track.

“Indeed,” said the system, “And this job will require dexterity. We will run a net around the perimeter, like we did with the smaller experiments.”

A few more fish swam by the camera outside.

“Do we have enough net?” Estelle asked, distracted. Their presence in such high concentration was proof that the concept was sound. If they abandoned the mission, it could put them back years.

“It won’t cover the area we have staked out; we’ll have to sacrifice some size for security.”

“OK. How do we do this?”

And so the day was hijacked. The report that Estelle had put off for too long already was pushed to the side and instead, she was on the deck, turning winches and pulling heavy ropes off snags to lay the long net out in the water, a job normally performed by a team of human and robot workers to seal off a 100 m² area. Except now it was being done by one woman and what was left of the robotic fleet to attempt to seal an area ten times the size.

“That’s insane!” Her husband Robert’s first words as she wearily recounted her day.

She flinched and pressed her fingers into her lower back. “I know, but it’s really the last chance to make it work. I think Chet even has pride over it.” She looked up, half imagining the bot would interrupt to remind her of its complete lack of desire for any particular outcome. It was constantly accusing her of anthropomorphising it. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” she said. “The seeding is working and that’s the main thing. If we can’t hold onto our infrastructure, we’ll come up with new solutions.”

“It’s all the Reserves,” said Rob. “Putting megafauna all over the earth sounds great in theory, but when they start messing with our settlements, it’s hard to convince them to stay behind the fences. Did you hear someone got trampled by a mammoth in a National Park in Norway? Outside a Reserve!”

“Pfft, mammoth. They’re just big elephants. Big enough to do damage where they have no business being.”

“You won’t catch me outside the urban fences, that’s for sure,” he said.

“No. Why would you?” Neither of them mentioned the fact that she was deep inside an aquatic Reserve as they spoke, and actively encouraging the growth of oceanic megafauna who wanted to eat the same food they were growing.

The call button flashed and a ring tone sounded in her headphones. “Oh, Beth’s calling. Speak later, OK?”

She switched the call over. “Hey! Long time!”

“Hey girl, how are you? Where on Earth are you?”

The woman leaned forward so Estelle could see a few white strands in the jet black hair of her friend and colleague from the Seed the Ocean project. Beth had left the project early on when funding bottomed out after one of their many failures.

“I’m on the seeding vessel. We’re scaling!” Estelle grinned proudly.

“Oh my god, that’s amazing! But why do you look so fucking tired?”

“Oh, don’t ask.”

“But I have to.”

Estelle looked up at the cameras sitting innocently in the corners of the room under their little white domes. “Something’s been eating the bots.”

“What?” Beth said through laughter. “What would want to eat a bunch of metal and plastic?”

“God knows. But we’re trying to net it in.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the scale up? Isn’t the idea to let the ecosystem grow naturally?”

Estelle inhaled and blew air up through a strand of hair that had drifted across her face. “What is natural these days anyway? Half the species out there are resurrected.”

“Don’t you think it’s worth it, though?” said Beth, suddenly sounding wistful. “Now that we don’t need so much space for agriculture, we can allow nature to thrive in all the spaces between.”

“Yes, and if we can get mariculture working, it’ll free up even more land,” said Estelle robotically. “But don’t you think it’s getting dangerous?” Estelle thought back to the conversation with Rob. “Are you still living near a Reserve? You don’t go out there do you?”

“No, not often. I can understand why people do though. It’s magic! You can have the most incredible encounters!”

“You shouldn’t go to the Reserves, Beth.”

“No, you’re right. But the Parks are fine. I love it. Take the kids out camping whenever we can.”

“Aren’t you scared a sabre-tooth cat or dire wolf could escape and wander in looking for easy prey?”

She let out a belly laugh that made Estelle feel sheepish. “That is so vanishingly unlikely, girl! We should be so lucky as to see one of those in the wild!”

“You’re not afraid?”

“No. Babe, we are so separate from nature and so aligned with machines that we have no idea where we come from anymore. Getting laid off was the best thing that ever happened to me. It meant I could move out of the city and raise my children alongside nature, rather than hiding away from it.”

“That’s amazing, Beth. I’m so happy for you!”

That night, after a game of scrabble with Chet set to medium, Estelle settled into her bunk and stared at the bare white ceiling, while the gentle rock of the boat on the water lulled her towards unconsciousness. Her mind jumped from the sterile orderliness of her work to the untamed wilderness that filled over two thirds of the planet, and she pondered how humans straddled the divide between machine and organism, never quite belonging on either side but being necessary to both. Intrinsic to maintain the fragile balance they had created.

She turned over, her sleep disrupted by visions of wide open jaws and teeth crunching down on the cameras fitted below. In her dream, she was an AUV, measuring nutrient levels and counting produce, until something as black as the depths it came from closed around her and sent her offline with a shudder, waking her. She opened her eyes, but the darkened room was quiet and still, barely a wave rocking the vessel. She ran an open hand across her stomach, feeling the soft flesh give way under her touch.

---

First thing, she was back on deck, wrangling the rope and lining up pulleys and winches. The wind had picked up and a light rain fell from a brooding sky. She fought the lines keeping her attached to the vessel as yet another kink halted progress.

Scanning the horizon, she saw nothing but undulating waves, and for the first time since they’d arrived, felt the sheer isolation of her position. Days of transport from any land, and many hours from the closest vessel. Chet had decided to continue with the seeding, hoping to speed things along given the success they were having in bringing new species to this high nutrient, low chlorophyll patch of the Atlantic. The humanoid voice spoke in her ear, “The storm is expected to break within the hour. Let’s try to finish before that.”

Estelle nodded as the rope finally came free and slid smoothly over the side. The wind was starting to drown out the sound of the electric engine and the rain felt sharp on her face. “It’s working!” she shouted, before a loud crunch shook the boat and she fell forward. “What was that? Have we stopped?”

“It seems so,” said Chet. “But the rope is not tangled, is it?”

Estelle moved her head so the camera in her helmet would show Chet the clear stretch of cord. “No, it’s clear. Something else has stopped us.”

She moved towards the edge to look into the water but the tether stopped her before she got there. “Fucking hell,” she muttered as she unclipped and gripped the rail. “Can you see anything?” she yelled above the noise of the wind.

“Negative,” replied Chet. “We may have caught on a snag.”

“There’s nothing to snag on out here,” said Estelle, peering into the black chop, her knuckles white and saturated, the rain now pouring down heavily.

She tightened her grip further as the boat shuddered but didn’t continue its forward motion. Looking up, she just had time to crouch down before a huge wave crashed over her and doused what was left of dry skin beneath her branded jumpsuit.

“Can you send a bot down?” she cried.

“It couldn’t withstand these conditions,” said Chet, its voice steady and calm, which helped to ease Estelle’s own nerves.

It was all she could do to hold on as the boat rocked ever more forcefully in the rising waves and the rain fell heavier. The rope stayed frustratingly still, their progress hindered by something powerful where there should have been emptiness.

A buzz in her helmet alerted her to an incoming call.

“Hello,” she said, willing her voice calm.

“Estelle?” It was Todd, the CEO of Palazzo, himself; the last investor to still believe in the project. She’d only met him once, at the event before this voyage, but now he called almost weekly. “I was waiting for your report last night.”

His voice sounded raspy, like he’d smoked too many cigars or had a head cold. Maybe the stress was getting to him.

She cringed and thought of the task she had abandoned yesterday, too busy to get to it during the day, and too exhausted to face it in the evening. “Hi Todd. Yes, I can finish it later. We’re just…” She tried to sound cheerful, but her words were cut off as another huge wave rocked the boat and she was briefly blinded. “We’re laying some net so the boat can stay outside the seeding area. It’s getting wild in there.”

“Ah.” She held tighter to the rail and waited for his response. “That’s good news. Life is proliferating.”

“Right,” she agreed, squinting to see the edge of the boat through the rain, and wondering if he was being blinded by his own optimism.

“The board is meeting tomorrow morning. Can you send it before then?”

“Of- of course,” she stammered. “It’s just…”

“What is it?” he interrupted. “Everything is on track, right? Should I talk to Chet?”

“Sure. I better keep laying this rope.”

“Yes, good. Estelle?”

“Mmm?” She covered up a groan as she slipped onto her backside with the next roll of the ship.

“You’re doing great out there. Keep it up.”

The line went dead just as a fresh deluge came down, pinning her before she could get back on her feet. She wasn’t sure if she would even ask Chet what Todd had found out. Once he knew about the lost bots, about the delayed observations, the lack of data… If they couldn’t report that the mission was uncompromised, it could all go under, quite literally.

As the options flashed through her mind, she was suddenly seized by a strange clarity. Something Beth had said about living alongside nature rather than hiding from it echoed up through her consciousness and she spoke quietly. “I’ll go in.”

“What do you mean? Into the water?” said Chet, able to carry on two conversations concurrently. “If you get in trouble, we don’t have the resources to rescue you at this time.”

“I’ll be fine.”

The sound of the wind and the rain and the waves was suddenly muted and she felt calm as she pulled on an oxygen tank and mask. She slipped the helmet back on and attached a long tether to her belt before walking in bare feet to the edge of the deck. “Stop the engine,” she said, and stepped forward into the pounding ocean.

The initial shock of cold passed quickly and she let herself sink until the turbulence had calmed and she was suspended peacefully in the liquid wilderness. She took a moment to look around, noting the huge base of the vessel. The net hung lamely off the back, waving rapidly near the surface and stretching off into the distance attached to buoyant drones at even intervals. Several fish swam by, slipping easily through the net’s wide gaps. She smiled, imagining the iron-rich molecules feeding invisible phytoplankton, which fed zooplankton, then small fish, then cetaceans, then…

She blinked and refocused. A shadow had darkened the already dark waters ahead. The sound of her breathing was loud in her ears and she tasted saliva pool in her mouth.

“You must get out of the water,” said Chet evenly as they both watched the largest shark they had ever seen emerge from the shadows and swim towards her.

Without a thought entering her head, Estelle reached up and pulled the helmet off her head and let it sink to the depths.

She stared through the mask and breathed evenly.

Her legs beat the water, and she reached one arm out as the predator closed in, its gaping mouth as large as her entire torso.

She held her body steady and braced for impact, closing her eyes and surrendering to the enormous power of the animal approaching. But instead of an encompassing darkness, the huge head swivelled at the touch of her outstretched hand, as easily as if it was on hydraulics.

The creature’s skin was rough and receptive and as it responded to her gentle push, a strange feeling overcame her, like she had entered a new world, where only she and the shark existed. As it swam past her, her fingers traced the length of its body, which was dwarfed only by the boat above them. Gently, it came around and approached again, but she felt more curiosity than hunger or fear. This time, she let her whole hand make contact. She briefly gripped the huge dorsal fin and let herself shift along for a brief moment before releasing and tapping its back flank with an open palm.

Time and again, the creature swept past her and she began mirroring its movements, feeling a connection between the two of them that came from somewhere deep and primal.

Time ceased to exist. The other fish drifted in and out of her awareness and the tether occasionally gave a shudder, reminding her of the storm above and Chet - blind and impotent. She patted the shark’s nose and could swear it nuzzled into her like a puppy meeting a friendly stranger. They swirled and turned in a mesmerising game. She shifted her body to horizontal to follow the creature’s patterns and weave in and out of its wake, waiting for it to come back around for more attention.

After what seemed like hours of play, the huge beast glided past a final time and swam down to depths she could no longer achieve. It had had enough.

In a daze, she followed the tether back to the raging surface and pulled herself to lie on her back and watch the water drops descend from above. As if on cue, the clouds parted and a ray of sunshine burst through, lighting up the world. Her face broke into a grin along with it, and in the distance she heard Chet’s voice through the onboard speakers.

“Estelle, you’re alive!”

She laughed out loud. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

Happy Earth Day!

Photo credits: Unsplash and ChatGPT 4o