Chapter 12: The Rhythm

The metal gate didn’t just groan; it screamed, a high, rusted pitch that set Silas’s teeth on edge and signaled to the entire valley that the morning grace period was officially over. He leaned his weight against the iron bars, watching the frost-shattered grass of the north pasture flatten under the boots of the children as they filed through.

"Keep the gaps tight," Silas called out, his voice rasping against the cold, dry air. "The wind is coming off the ridge today. If we lose the heat in the barns, we lose the yield."

Toby, barely twelve but already carrying the stooped, purposeful gait of a man twice his age, didn’t look up. He simply tightened his grip on a galvanized bucket, the handle biting into his gloved hand. Behind him, Elara and little Marisol moved in a practiced syncopation, their breath blooming in white plumes that vanished as quickly as the stability of the world outside the Bend’s perimeter. 

They moved to the rhythm. It was a cadence Silas had spent months beating into the soil: the sound of rhythmic scrubbing, the metallic thud of the grain hopper, the wet slap of mud against boots. It was a symphony of survival that drowned out the hum of the distant highways—a hum that was becoming increasingly erratic.

Silas walked the line as they reached the tiered gardens. The soil here was dark, rich, and shielded by the thermal glass they’d salvaged from the old tech-park ruins. 

"Check the sensors first, Silas?" Elara asked, her hand hovering over the interface of the irrigation bypass. 

"Eyes first, Elara," Silas corrected, stepping beside her. He knelt, digging a finger into the dirt near a cluster of winter kale. "The sensors tell you what the machine thinks. The soil tells you what the plant knows. Feel that?"

Elara knelt, pressing her small, dirty palm to the earth. She sat there for a long moment, her eyes fluttering shut. "It’s tight. Like it’s holding its breath."

"Thirsty," Silas said. "The UBI-linked humidity regulators in the city would have triggered a misting five minutes ago. Here, we wait until the sun hits the glass so we don't shock the roots with cold water. Patience is a nutrient, Elara. Don’t forget that."

He left her to the watering and moved toward the main house, where the communal screen was flickered to life. It was a relic, a high-definition window into a world that was rapidly losing its resolution. Gabe was already there, his bulk silhouetted against the blue light of the news feed. He didn't turn when Silas entered. He just pointed a thick finger at the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen.

*FED-UBI ADJUSTMENT: ZONE 4 RATIONING COMMENCES. ALL LUXURY CALORIC TRANSFERS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.*

"It started an hour ago," Gabe said, his voice a low rumble of tectonic plates. "Chicago, Detroit, the whole Great Lakes corridor. They’re cutting the credit-to-carb ratio. People aren't just losing their savings anymore, Silas. They’re losing their lunch."

Silas stood behind him, the smell of woodsmoke and damp wool clinging to his coat. On the screen, a polished anchor with skin so perfectly rendered it looked like plastic was explaining the 'temporary recalibration' of the Universal Basic Income. Behind her, grainy drone footage showed lines—miles of people standing in the shadow of gleaming corporate towers, waiting for the dispensers to turn green.

"They look like ghosts," Silas whispered.

"They look like a powder keg," Gabe countered. He turned, his eyes hard and rimmed with fatigue. "We’ve got thirty children out there, Silas. Thirty mouths that the state thinks are being fed by defunct UBI accounts. When those city lines get long enough, people are going to start looking at maps. They’re going to remember that food grows in dirt, not in dispensers."

"We’re hidden," Silas said, though the words felt brittle in his mouth. "The Bend is off-grid. The thermal signatures are masked by the ridge."

"Masked isn't invisible," Gabe said. He walked over to the mudroom door, looking out at the children. Toby was currently hauling a sack of feed, his face turned upward to catch a fleeting moment of weak sunlight. "Those kids... they think this is just chores. They think the rhythm is just about keeping the farm running. They don’t realize the rhythm is what keeps us from screaming."

Silas joined him at the door. He watched Marisol, the youngest, carefully picking stones out of the potato patch. She made a game of it, humming a song that had no melody, tossing the rocks into a pile with a rhythmic *tink, tink, tink*. 

"How much time?" Silas asked.

"The rationing usually precedes the blackouts by three weeks," Gabe said. "Once the lights go out in the sectors, the drones stop patrolling the borders. That’s when the 'Ration Refugees' start moving. We need to harvest the north section early. We need to cache the grain in the old cellar under the silo. If it’s in the barn, it’s a target. If it’s underground, it’s a secret."

Silas nodded, the weight of the decision settling into his marrow. "If we harvest now, the yield drops by twenty percent. The starch hasn't fully set."

"Eighty percent of something is better than a hundred percent of a scorched field," Gabe said. He stepped out onto the porch, his voice booming across the yard. "Toby! Elara! Change of plans. Pivot to the north field. We’re pulling the potatoes today."

The children stopped. The rhythm broke for a heartbeat. They looked at each other, sensing the shift in the air—the subtle vibration of fear that had finally breached the valley's walls.

Toby was the first to move. He dropped his bucket, the clatter echoing off the barn. "The whole field, Gabe? It'll take until midnight."

"Then we work until midnight," Silas said, stepping out beside Gabe. "Marisol, go to the kitchen. Tell Sarah we need the lanterns filled with the oil we saved from the summer press. No LEDs tonight. We keep the light low, below the treeline."

The girl scrambled away, her small legs pumping. The others followed suit, their movements losing the relaxed flow of the morning and taking on a jagged, frantic energy. 

Silas spent the next six hours in the dirt. 

The physical labor was a distraction he welcomed. He let his mind go blank, focusing only on the resistance of the soil against the spade, the cool, damp weight of the tubers as he pulled them from the earth. He worked alongside Toby, the boy’s silence a mirror of his own. Every now and then, Silas would sneak a glance at the boy. Toby’s hands were raw, the skin peeling at the cuticles, but he didn't complain. He just kept digging.

"Why are the cities hungry, Silas?" Toby asked suddenly. He didn't stop working. He spoke to the dirt. "The teacher said the UBI was forever. She said the machines did the farming now."

Silas paused, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of a muddy glove. "The machines do the work, Toby. But the machines belong to people who don't eat the same way we do. They eat data. They eat growth. And when the data tells them the world is shrinking, they stop sharing the bread."

"It's stupid," Toby muttered. "There's plenty of dirt. Why don't they just grow things?"

"Because they forgot how," Silas said, his voice heavy. "They trade their hands for screens, and then they wonder why they can’t feel the harvest coming."

By dusk, the wind had picked up, screaming through the gaps in the ridge like a wounded animal. The valley was plunged into a deep, bruised purple. The lanterns were lit—small, flickering orange hearts scattered across the field. In the dim light, the children looked like ancient shadows, performing a ritual older than the civilization currently collapsing fifty miles to the east.

Sarah emerged from the house, carrying a tray of mugs filled with a thin, hot broth made from bone marrow and wild onions. She moved between the workers, her face a mask of practiced calm, though her eyes constantly flicked toward the horizon.

"The news is worse," she whispered as she handed Silas a mug. "The rationing triggered riots in Sector 7. They’ve locked down the transit tubes. No one is getting out, but Silas... no one is getting *food* in, either."

Silas took a sip of the broth, the heat blooming in his chest. "We stay the course, Sarah. We bury the harvest. We keep the rhythm."

"The rhythm is breaking," she said softly, looking at the children. "Look at them. They’re exhausted. Marisol fell asleep in the furrow twice."

"Wake her up," Silas said, his heart aching at his own cruelty. "If she sleeps now, she doesn't eat tomorrow. That's the reality they have to learn. The Bend isn't a playground anymore. It's a fortress."

As the moon rose, a pale, sickly sliver behind the clouds, the final crates were moved. They used a hand-cranked pulley system to lower the potatoes and salted meat into the hidden cellar. Gabe stood at the top, his flashlight darting around the yard, watching for any sign of movement that didn't belong to the wind.

When the last crate was secured, Silas stood at the edge of the pit, looking down into the dark. The smell of earth and cold stone rose up to meet him. This was their life. This was the sum total of their sweat and their fear, hidden away like a shameful secret.

"Cover it," Silas ordered.

They slid the heavy wooden slabs over the entrance, then shoveled a layer of mulch and dead leaves over the top. To an untrained eye, it looked like nothing more than a compost mound. 

The children were sent to the barracks, their feet dragging, their spirits spent. Silas and Gabe remained on the porch, the silence of the valley feeling heavier than it had that morning. The hum from the highway was gone. The world was going quiet.

"You hear that?" Gabe asked, tilting his head.

Silas listened. He heard the wind. He heard the creak of the barn. He heard his own heartbeat. "I hear nothing."

"Exactly," Gabe said, his hand resting on the hilt of the knife at his belt. "The transit tubes have stopped. The mag-levs are powered down. The city is holding its breath."

Silas looked out toward the ridge, toward the hidden gap that led to the outside world. He thought of the millions of people in the neon-lit dark, staring at empty dispensers, their digital wallets full of credits that could no longer buy a single crust of bread. 

He leaned back against the railing, his muscles screaming, his mind already calculating the next day’s labor. They had survived the harvest, but the harvest was only the beginning. The rhythm had to hold, or they would all be swept away by the silence.

A sharp, metallic ping echoed through the yard—the sound of a perimeter sensor being tripped. Silas froze, his hand flying to the radio at his hip. The red light on the porch began to pulse, a slow, rhythmic warning that sent a jolt of ice through his veins.

"Silas," Gabe whispered, dropping into a crouch. "Someone’s at the north gate."

Silas didn't answer. He just watched the ridge, where a single, flickering light that wasn't a star and wasn't a lantern began to descend toward the valley.