Another Florida winter; another fight against starvation and ruin for the groveships. Drones begin flitting out from a floating silo with the dawn, harvesting the legacy orange trees that had survived the inundation. With them went Miguel Hernandez, a hydro-botanist and agronomist from the University of Miami-At-Sea whose job it was to ensure that the few remaining orange trees continued to survive amidst an increasingly hostile climate. With the last hurricane season, however, communication with the outside world had mostly slowed to a crawl. It’s been months since Miguel has had anything approaching a conversation with another human being. The facility AI, Demeter, is a pleasant enough companion, but talking with it is like trying to argue with a textbook - in the end, it will still be there staring at you and the facts won’t have changed. Miguel shades his eyes and checks the UV danger warning - only a 6 today.

“Well that’s rare,” he remarks to no one, shucking off his reflective suit in favor of a simple poly-blend jumpsuit, designed to wick away moisture and store it in discreet pouches around his body for later recycling. Reliable sources of fresh water were incredibly difficult to secure these days. Every drop counted. His work computer, a thin band of rubberized plastic and OLEDs mounted to his forearm, chimed that his work schedule was now two minutes behind. Miguel sighed and clambered into an adjacent airboat with a practiced agility, turning on the manual cutoff switch for the electric batteries and watching them charge back up as the photovoltaics soak up the Southern sunlight. After a few minutes, the cells recharge enough for basic operation and Miguel activates the induction engine, letting the dull roar consume him for a time as he unmoored from the grove manager’s pontoons and follows the path of the drone fleet, checking harvest yields and tree health through the local network. There was also supposed to be satellite tracking to coordinate with supply runs and weather reports, but the uplink had been sunk in Hurricane Peter, and with no uplink and only a shortwave radio, Miguel was shit outta luck for requesting a new one.

It was Miguel’s third season as groveship manager, and he was already overdue for a relief. He was beginning to suspect he had been forgotten out here with all the robots and the trees. His disgruntled musing was interrupted, however, by an urgent pinging from the computer. Miguel examines the alert and frowns. Another perimeter alarm, the third one this week. Though he was beginning to despise his job with the loneliness and isolation, he would rather die than see his precious trees come to harm. He looked down at the locker sitting in the bottom of the boat; in it was an old-fashioned 9-millimeter pistol and an Antebellum Armaments smart gun. He hoped he wouldn’t need either, but he was probably certain he could still handle both weapons should it come to that. One thing living in the Flooded South had taught him was that folks were only friendly so long as they knew you were armed.

Miguel was less than pleased to see an unmarked boat tied up to one of his harvester barges as he pulled up to the groveship nearest to the source of the alert. Hitting a macro’d command on his workcomp set all drones in the area to defensive measures - though as light as possible to conserve energy, the drones were equipped with basic plastic slugthrowers; expensive, but the agricorp that ostensibly owned the place wasn’t keen on losing the rotund little orbs that were now becoming worth more and more with each passing year. Opening up the weapons locker at his feet, he pulled out the smartgun and loaded it with nonlethal takedown shells. They wouldn’t harm the trees, but anyone caught in even a little bit of the oxygen-reactive foam would find themselves pinned to whatever surface they were near for a few hours. He approached the other boat cautiously, his workcomp syncing to his smartgun’s minicomputer and highlighting potential targets and objects of interest. The invading craft was an odd one, for sure - it looked nearly brand-new, all composites and carbon fibers. He even saw what looked like a supercavitation drive mounted underneath. Miguel now became incredibly confused. Supercav drives were for warships and submarines - he’d seen them up close before during his Navy service. They were also immensely expensive and each drive built was monitored start to finish to ensure no traces of sabotage or inferior production ever entered the pipeline. For one to be on a civilian-looking craft set the hairs on the back of his neck upright. Corporate had finally sent someone, perhaps? Awfully rude for them not to announce themselves first at the manager’s pontoons first.

“¡Quienquiera que esté allí, salga por favor! Estoy armado y estás en propiedad privada! If somebody is in there, you need to come out right now with your hands up! I’m armed and you’re on corporate property!” he half-shouted, using his free hand to engage the automatic docking clamps on the groveship’s side twenty feet to stern. Keeping his eyes open, Miguel pulled himself onto the carefully managed soil that was all that was left from the original citrus groves and shouldered his weapon. After waiting patiently, his weapon’s sights detected no signs of movement. Miguel stilled his breathing and started moving towards the harvester barge’s preparation chamber, the only source of real concealment on the groveship.

“Last chance, fella! Either you come out, or I come in after you, and I can tell you right now you will not be happy with that outcome!” Miguel called out once more to the closed chamber door before sidling up next to it and examining the e-lock. It looked to have been smashed in and the wires cut, which would explain why the door had unlocked. Opening the door slowly with his free hand, Miguel poked the barrel of his gun in before entering fully, sweeping the area. A noise came from the seed-storage room, and Miguel’s blood ran cold. Each harvest’s seeds were carefully extracted and preserved, some to be studied for potential genetic modification to adapt to the new climate, the rest to be sent into seed vaults around the globe, to be preserved for the future. If someone was after the heirloom seeds, it meant they were up to no good. Miguel remembered reading on the news years ago how eco-terrorists had raided a harvester in the New Soviet Union and introduced a new form of blight to the wheat crop. They had all been killed afterwards, but the damage done to the New Soviet’s food supply was measured in the starvation and death of millions as their plantings failed one after the other.

As he entered the seed room, gun ready, he was greeted with a sight he was not entirely prepared for. A young woman in a full body wetsuit stood before him, wearing a hooded mask and what looked like an oxygen tank on her back, counting seeds and putting them into small, neat pyramids. Miguel waited for the woman to acknowledge his presence. A minute later, he was still waiting, and was now getting irritated. “Hey,” he barked, approaching the woman and taking hold of her shoulder with his free hand, “What the hell do you think you’re doing here, eh? This is a restricted area.” Pulling her away from the seeds got her to turn and face him, but again another surprise awaited him. A pair of glassy, fishlike eyes stared back at him from behind the mask, which he now noticed was not carrying oxygen, but what appeared to be water judging from the clear tubing that flowed into the neck of the woman’s suit. “What the fuck…” Miguel breathed, backing away unintentionally in shock. The woman stared at him for a time before standing up and walking past him. Miguel edged away from her, keeping his distance but following in a kind of horrified trance. He watched as she returned to her craft, pushed a sequence of buttons which held no meaning for him, and pulled away from the groveship. As the boat cleared the immediate area, it’s supercavitating drive activated and suddenly the craft dove beneath the water, a white streak beneath the pale green waters of the Florida Sea.

Miguel’s relief would arrive the next week to find the man half-mad and armed, ranting about an invasion from Atlantis. He was put on indefinite medical leave and sent to a psychiatric facility in Atlanta, where he would warn anyone who would listen about the threat of merfolk-like aliens beneath the waves.

[Where did you go, Luisa? Doctor Li has been looking for you all afternoon!] another young woman exclaimed as the woman in the wetsuit, presumably named Luisa changed back into her usual attire, breathing deeply of the nutrient-infused seawater through the gill-analogues on her neck and sides.

[I took the shuttle to the surface. A groveship flotilla was riding the currents nearby and I thought it would be a good opportunity to collect samples. The Doctor should have no problems with my absence, Amelia.] Luisa replied matter-of-factly through her neural link as the other young woman, Amelia, swam around her with an inhumanly effortless grace. She too, sported gill-like organs along her sides and glassy eyes.

[The surface? You know how dangerous that is for you! What if you’d been seen by a topsider?] Amelia sent with a connotation of worry. Luisa gave the aquatic equivalent of a shrug in response.

[I was. He touched my shoulder and stared right at me for a while. He followed me back until I got on the shuttle. I think he was armed - some sort of gun, or something. He was very odd. I don’t think he could hear me.] Luisa sent in response, a confusion-analogue assigned to the missive. Amelia’s skin flushed with a series of brightly-colored pigments that were the physiological equivalent of a scream.

]I’m telling the Doctor! If somebody saw you they could follow you back home! The babies could be in danger, Luisa, how could you be so irresponsible!] Amelia sent with an anger-analogue as she swam away lithely, leaving Luisa floating in the entrance chamber of their underwater with an expression of distaste.

[Your reaction is bordering on hysterics, Amelia. The Doctor will not be pleased to see you this upset. The risk of our discovery is minimal, and the topsider was alone. The shuttle detected no satellite uplink on sonar. Even if he wanted to, he could not prove our existence. The Doctor will not be as concerned as you think he will be...probably.] Luisa sent at Amelia’s retreating form. Already she was becoming less confident in her decision.