“Mitigate,” he says.
“I’ve been spacing the roots manually,” I reply, crouching again to demonstrate, my fingers moving through the soil with practiced precision. “Increasing airflow where I can, thinning the denser clusters so they don’t choke each other out. It buys time.”
“For how long.”
“A few days,” I say. “Maybe a week if we’re lucky.”
“And after that.”
“They start dying.”
The words land plainly.
No dramatics.
No hesitation.
I look up at him.
“You asked for a report.”
His gaze holds mine for a moment longer, then finally—finally—he looks down at the plants.
I watch the shift.
It’s subtle.
But it’s there.
He kneels.
The movement is controlled, deliberate, and it sends a ripple through the nearby workers that they try very hard not to show. Verr does not kneel. Not here. Not like this.
He reaches out, his hand hovering just above the leaves before making contact, brushing them lightly. The plant trembles under the touch, leaves shifting, releasing that same sharp-green scent I noticed earlier.
“Over-saturation,” he murmurs.
“Yes.”
“And this has gone unreported.”
“Not by me,” I say.
His eyes flick back to mine.
“Who, then.”
I shrug slightly. “Whoever has access to the systems. Or whoever’s supposed to be monitoring them.”
A pause.
“You are assigning fault,” he says.
“I’m identifying a problem,” I reply. “What you do with that is up to you.”
There’s a flicker of something in his expression.
Not irritation.
