The coordinates that Sparks AI sent me were located outside the city. At a distance the complex just looked like a small farm sitting at the edge of a forest, but as I got closer it became apparent that the place was actually a scientific complex.

  What I’d mistaken for a barn was some sort of utilitarian lab complex with a number of silos and outbuildings. I’m sure that if I hadn’t been given exact coordinates, I probably would have written the place off and driven right by.

  As I slowly circled the small complex, looking for a place to land, a familiar figure with fox ears and a light blue fox tail sprinted out of the building and started waving at me.

  “Did you find the place alright? What do you think?” Spark asked, jumping up on the running boards of my truck before I’d even shut off the engine.

  “It’s… quaint?” I replied. “I kind of expected some sort of giant, high-tech industrial complex instead of this tiny place.”

  “What would the point of that be? I’m trying to save the environment, not pave it over,” she said, before leaning on my window sill and sticking her head inside the truck. “With Protector Tech I could fit all the tech I needed into one nice compact package.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I muttered. The two of us exchanged a long look. She with a dopey smile, and me with a tired expression. “I need you to get down so I can get out.”

  “Oh! Right. My bad,” Spark said, hopping down. She waited until I climbed down and turned towards her before gesturing at the forest. “So… what do you think?”

  “About what? The forest? It’s pretty, I guess,” I replied. “You chose a picturesque place to create your lab.”

  “What? No… I didn’t choose this place because of the forest. I grew the forest!” she exclaimed.

  “Pardon?” I turned to look at the forest. Even though it looked fairly thick and lush, it didn’t look too out of the ordinary. I figured that Spark had been defending the place, and that’s why the foliage was so thick. I kind of expected the supertrees to be bright pink or glowing or something, but these just looked like normal trees. “Those are your super trees?”

  “Of course. I had to make sure the trees were safe for the environment, that they wouldn’t mutate over several generations, and that they’d actually do what I’d designed them to,” Spark explained. “Once I’d completed preliminary testing, I reached out to my contacts to see who would be willing to perform more extensive tests.

  She sighed. “I really expected a lot of people to jump at the chance to test them, but it was surprisingly difficult to find interested parties. I guess not many people are interested in rebuilding the environment, even if it’ll help them detect antithesis incursions.”

  When I turned and walked towards the forest, the fox-eared samurai fell into step with me. “Where are you going?”

  “I was going to take a look at the trees. That’s kind of the reason I came all the way across the continent,” I replied, staring at the girl. “Is there a problem with that?”

  “No, not really. I’m sure it’s fine as long as we stick to the perimeter,” she replied.

  “Why can’t we go deeper? The trees aren’t aggressive or something, are they?” I asked.

  “No… not the trees,” she replied sheepishly. “The problem is I’ve worked on a couple other projects and released them in there. New types of herbivores… and predators….”

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  “You released something vicious and strong enough to threaten a samurai into your forest?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Oh no. No, no, no. They’re not a threat to a samurai. Probably,” Spark replied.

  For some reason, I didn’t quite believe her.

  “Would you like to come inside? I can give you a tour of the facilities,” Spark asked as she bounced around me.

  “I appreciate the offer, but no. Due to recent developments I need to start heading home ASAP,” I said.

  “Oh… the moon problem? Yeah… that sucks,” Spark muttered. “Seriously, who throws a moon?”

  “The Antithesis,” I replied. “So you have heard the news…”

  “Momma called me as soon as it became apparent the Mars squad wouldn’t be able to stop it. They chose a really annoying time to do it too! I’m going to have to suspend my projects so I can help the sams in Indy, Detroit, and Chicago prepare and fortify the cities and make sure my more sensitive sites are secure. I haven’t even had time to open them all up after the global incursion,” the girl moaned.

  “You don’t seem all that concerned…” I muttered.

  “Oh, I’m concerned,” Spark said, “but there’s no point in panicking about it. All we can do is support the planet killer projects and prepare the best we can.”

  “That’s a surprisingly mature outlook,” I said.

  “What’s so surprising about it? I’m a very mature person,” she huffed, before her normally bubbly facade fell away. “I’ll be honest, a lot of my ‘scatterbrained’ traits are played up mainly for myself.” She moved over towards a shipping truck and leaned on it. “I’ve had a much harder life than what being the daughter of the foremost Sam in the city would make you think. I won’t get into all of it, but the end of last year was rough for me. I saw things and…” She shuddered before wiping some tears from her eyes. “...and I did some others that I honestly wish I never had to.”

  She then looked at me with a lopsided smile. “It’s easier for me to get through my day-to-day if I just let the happy, bubbly side of myself out at all times instead of letting life drag me down day in and day out. Trust me when i say that when I’m working on stuff that's important, I take it seriously even if it looks like I don’t.”

  I stared at the girl for several seconds before nodding. “Fair enough. I’m sorry for judging you based upon appearances. In my defense though, you do give off some manic energy sometimes.”

  “Completely intentional. At least I don’t give off Maniac energy… because that’s a whole other thing,” she replied.

  I opened my mouth to ask what she meant by that but decided against it. “So what’s so special about these trees anyways? What makes them so Antithesis-proof?”

  Spark looked at me in disbelief. “You came all this way without having any idea what my trees did?”

  “I’m not exactly what you’d call a ‘highly educated’ person,” I said. “Charlotte told me the trees were super useful, so I came to investigate.”

  “Didn't Pyri send you an info packet going over everything?” Spark asked.

  I checked my augs and started digging through my messages until I found something that looked highly technical. “I got something, but I think I got about two sentences in and completely checked out.”

  “Fine… Let me dumb it down as much as I can,” Spark sighed as she wandered towards the trees. “See how the roots of the tree extend much further than normal and how they’re intertwined with one another?”

  “Uh… sure…” I replied. To be honest, they looked just like normal trees to me. It wasn’t like I paid close attention to their root systems before.

  “Well, that’s because these trees are kind of able to talk to one another through the roots. Pass on panic signals when they get sick… or attacked,” Spark declared. “With the proper equipment you can monitor these signals, so you know where to investigate! In addition to that, the trees are exceptionally hard, so it’ll take the Antithesis a while to break one down, and they even perform a subtle color change when exposed to Antithesis pheromones."

  “You built all that into a tree?” I asked.

  “Well, I bred it into the trees, but yes. It’s not even that difficult when you have the proper tech,” Spark said.

  “Then why haven’t more people done this before?”

  “Because most samurai are more concerned with human problems and not what’s left of nature, and because the Antithesis have a habit of adapting to anything biological that can either stop or detect them,” Spark explained. “Just because they may adapt in the future doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to find new solutions.”

  “You sound like some sort of crackpot optimist,” I muttered.

  “The only difference between a genius and a crackpot is success,” Spark declared. “So, do you want a couple saplings and the genome so you can clone some trees of your own?”

  I stared at the plain, unassuming trees in front of me and nodded. “You can’t succeed unless you try, right, Ms. Genius?”

  Spark grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

  This arc features Spark from 'A Spark of Sylvan Flame' - Go give them some love!

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