Tansy grabbed a spade and whirled around.

"Whoa! Whoa!" The man held up his hands. "Easy, Tansy."

"Jack? You scared me half to death!" She tossed the tool back in the bucket and looked down at her trembling hands, then back to Jack. He stood at the edge of her garden with an easy smile on his sun-kissed face.

"Mind if I sit?" he said.

"Be my guest. Next time maybe announce yourself, though?"

He took a seat across from Tansy and breathed in the fresh mountain air. "You sure know how to wield a spade. Your garden looks beautiful."

"Thank you! It's been a good year. Got a bunch of veg to haul down to the co-op later."

"Need help?"

"Nah," she said. "Wagon'll hold it."

"You ever gonna fix up that Jeep?"

Tansy chuckled and shook her head. "Probably not. It's more of a yard ornament at this point."

Jack laughed. "Well, you ever decide to get it worked on, you let me know."

"Oh yeah? You know a guy?"

"I do indeed," he said, puffing out his chest like he was the man. "Several, in fact."

"Good to know, good to know."

He pointed to her ear. "You on the clock?"

"I am," she said, nodding, "and it has already been a day."

"How so?"

"Oh," she said, shrugging, "just strange behavior. Factors misbehaving, walking around in the middle of the night, that sort of thing."

"Yikes! I think I'll pass on that. The risk of dealing in coin, I suppose—get you slain by the robot help."

"I hope not! My job requires living customers." She sighed. "And I require my job."

"Do you?"

She gave him a quizzical look. "Yes? Until the tax collectors take their payments in zucchini, I need coin. Plus, they provide all my solar gear and batteries. Not all of us have your fancy hydro setup."

"Gotcha. Well, sorry you're having robot problems."

"Yeah, thanks. Hopefully, it's just a glitch. I'm sorry, where are my manners? You want some tea?"

"Thanks, no. Just wanted to let you know that I'm hosting a little get-together tonight, and you're more than welcome to come by. It's just a few of us, but it should be a good time."

Tansy smiled. "That sounds fun. Thanks for the invite."

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"So you'll come?"

She looked at him slyly. "I'll definitely think about coming."

"Come. It's BYOB and BYOF, so just bring whatever you want. We'll have a grill going and some music." Jack stood up and walked over to the tomatoes, gesturing like he might pick one. He raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded.

"Go on, take a few."

He crooked his arm and filled it with tomatoes before waving goodbye.

As the day wore on, Tansy juggled customer service calls and gardening tasks. Her hands moved with precision, weeding, pruning and watering, while her mind stayed sharp, troubleshooting and guiding clients through various technical issues.

"Sir, I understand your frustration," Tansy said, voice calm as she spliced a stem, "but I assure you, the Factor is not plotting to take over your company. They're programmed to assist, not dominate."

Ah, there you are, she thought, gently lifting a low-hanging branch to reveal clusters of plump, ripe heirloom cherry tomatoes. Sneaky, sneaky. Tansy snipped the fruits from their stems.

With methodical precision, she propagated cuttings, weeded garden beds, and transplanted seedlings, allowing the steady flow of work to ground her in the here and now.

"Right," she said finally, surveying her handiwork with satisfaction. "That should do it for today."

Calls done, weeds pulled, tomatoes harvested, Tansy locked up and started toward town on foot, pulling an ancient wagon filled with fresh-picked collards, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, three varieties of tomatoes, jalapeno and bell peppers, two dozen ears of glass gem corn, a bunch of fresh herbs, and the one small basket of foraged blackberries she could stand to share.

Tansy strolled the tree-lined main road, aptly named Birch Street, and felt her gaze pulled up and into the spindly trees which cast sun-dappled shadows over the broken asphalt. Tufts of switchgrass sprouted up in the cracks and made low rustling sounds in the welcome summer breeze. The wagon bounced over rocks and potholes, jostling its contents from side to side with abandon.

Birch Street, like hundreds and probably thousands across the great state of Pennsylvania, seemed suspended in an approachable state of disuse. Infrastructure that was already on its last legs when the pandemic hit almost twenty years earlier hadn't stood a chance in its wake. Most vehicles still got by alright, so long as humans were behind the wheels; seemed people were better suited than AI to navigating through rural decay.

Fortunately, Tansy's wagon, dubbed Harvest Hauler in hand-lettered yellow ochre, had been built for just such a neglected road. In another decade, the byway that was Birch Street might be completely impassable by wheel, but Tansy figured—hoped, really—that by the time it was too far gone to drive on, there’d be little left in Scarborough worth driving to.

Tansy pulled her wagon further down the worn road, humming to herself as she walked with a sense of purpose. Soon, the painted brick buildings of downtown Scarborough poked their colorful heads through the trees just on the other side of the 200-year-old Matilda Creek bridge. Tansy walked until she reached a modest, well-kept building with a sign swinging gently in the breeze, which read:

Scarborough Co-Op, Est. 2019

When Tansy had first arrived in the nearly abandoned town of Scarborough some 15 years earlier, the co-op was mostly a lackluster indoor yard sale filled with threadbare clothing and castoff appliances. Coming from the city, she had expected a real co-op like the one she had bought into back in Philadelphia. She had quickly learned that members of the tight-knit, mostly rural Scarborough community had been trading privately for generations; they didn't need a co-op to do it for them.

As a newcomer, Tansy had taken to Carmen and Jeremy's welcoming smiles, bought into their co-op on her first visit, and traded for a few things right away, including the Harvest Hauler. Then with each passing year, as shelf-stable foods steadily disappeared and imports became increasingly cost-prohibitive, the Smith family's co-op became the area's essential hub of healthy food and local resources.

Tansy eyed a parking spot for the wagon. But as she rounded the corner, she slowed down in confusion. A half dozen late-model cars—fully electric judging by their total silence and sleek, integrated solar panels—lined the side street outside the co-op building. Strangers milled about in small groups, most of them in immaculate dress clothes with a few sporting simple, intentionally worn vintage jeans and coveralls.

As she stopped her wagon outside the co-op doors, Tansy couldn't help feeling a twinge of envy. In another timeline, on some alternate plane, that might have been her life. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, turned to go inside, and nearly ran straight into—

"A Factor!"