We sit in a huge SUV. I lean against the window, feeling the car's frame vibrate from the idling engine. My gaze is focused on the view outside, and I'm eyeing the little cottage that will be my new home. Locust Valley is a far cry from the pulsing world of Manhattan. It is a strange mix of suburbia and urban superiority, dominated by New England forestry and sprawling McMansions. This place was a classic archetype of Long Island - until BioLink moved in and turned the site into a town-sized laboratory.

Sitting next to me is another newcomer. It's a woman about my age; dark, with kinky hair that she fidgeted with the entire ride from the city. Her name was Bridget, she told me, and from her accent I knew she was a city native. I liked her for that, and it made me feel a little bad about how nervous she seemed, even though it wasn't anything to do with me. It meant I was a little more conversational than usual, had even tried guessing where she'd grown up.

"Brooklyn Heights?" I had asked her.

She looked over, gave me a crooked smile. "Fort Greene. You're from the city too." She hadn't phrased it like a question.

I nodded. "Can you tell?"

She snorted, "You're kidding, right? You sound like those Italians, the guys who run around flipping brownstones all day."

I had laughed at that one. "Not bad. My family is from Gravesend."

"That's deep Brooklyn," she nodded approvingly.

"I know," I said. Then I added, "I thought I'd spend my whole life in the city."

Her smile had wilted then. She turned, glanced out at the passing scenery. The tension I'd fought so hard to dispel came creeping back. "When it first showed up in the news, I thought it was a joke. Like, UFO shit."

I knew what she was talking about. "Yeah, I get that. A lotta people thought that." I didn't. Call me paranoid, I don't care.

"Yeah, well, when things went official, it was almost worse. I was - am - pissed. It's just another way to eventually kill the artists. To have something else create."

Ah. It was resentment in her voice. That was better than the alternative, at least. There were people out there who were afraid: the religious, the old, the conservatives (although tell that to the business owners who are chomping at the bit). There are people that fear LeafLink. They fear the shadow of it, the image that crappy sci-fi movies and conspiracy blogs and small-town sermons have crafted with gleeful abandon.

But that wasn't Bridget. She was like me, although she hadn't expressed it yet. Someone who had lost their job - their future - to the efficiency of change (she was also terribly wrong about her prediction, but we'll get to that later).

But at least it seemed as though she wasn't completely antagonistic about it. Otherwise, she wouldn't have taken the job. But who knows? People are desperate these days. I know I was. I've disliked LeafLink for a long time. Now that it's employing me, that feeling has simmered down to a vague sense of wariness.

"It's weird, isn't it?" She had said to me, once we'd crossed into the town limits. "I keep resisting the urge to pull out my phone, and well, do anything with it." I nodded, because I understood where she was coming from. It was strange, not being able to alleviate my idleness with a perusal through social media, or to play the online puzzle-word games I had slowly become addicted to over the years. There was still sporadic cell service, of course (we weren't savages!) but Locust Valley was effectively cut off from every aspect of the internet. No websites, no streaming, no porn - it was truly a kill switch. Of course, since the goal of LeafLink was to replace and 'to elevate the digital experience,' as BioLink likes to claim, a blackout zone was necessary. I'd like to think I wasn't dependent, but now that I had actually arrived, armed with little more than the clothes on my back, being disconnected from the world was sending spikes of apprehension through me. It makes it hard to know if the people I've left behind have even noticed I'm gone.

"It's a nice place," Bridget says, looking over my shoulder. I nod. A woman sits in the driver seat, perusing a paper document. She wears a gas mask - I catch glimpses of it through the rearview mirror.

Finally she looks up, swivels around to face us with an opaque gaze formed by tinted goggles.

"Vitalli," she says, voice muffled. "This is your stop."

"Damn," Bridget jokes. "I'm jealous."

I humor her with a smile as I push the car door open, but I wasn't in the mood for banter anymore. Goddamn it - I thought I was the one keeping it under control.

I step out onto the street, and a heavy blanket of air envelopes me, warm and more humid than I'd been expecting. I try to inhale, and take in a lungful of pollen, enough to make me cough. Behind me, I can hear Bridget sneezing from inside the now-exposed interior.

Our driver steps out of the car as well, and has gone around to lift the trunk. She stands by it, waiting expectantly. I took a moment to clear my throat and recover, then I take my bags from her outstretched hand.

The woman heads for the house, and I move to follow, but Bridget calls out to stop me. "I don't know how well it'll work out here," she says, "but take my number. Just in case something happens to one of us, you know?" I take her phone to fill in my info, and a surge of appreciation surprises me.

"Thanks," I say. Then I add, "excited to work with you, ma'am." She laughs at the canned, corporate answer, jerks her head at the house, and closes the car door.

...

The cottage I've been given boasts a living room, bathroom, and a kitchen, with a small upstairs bedroom. Still, it's leagues larger than my old apartment - and I get the place all to myself. This thought brightens my mood considerably, and some of that panic ebbs away.

I'm not an idiot, of course. I know why BioLink has houses to offer as part of their package. I look around the clean, neat interior, and try not to think about the person who had lived here before me, who had felt it better to leave than to stay.

Still, it was a cute little place.

The woman, whose name I never caught, was brusque and efficient in her... orientation, I guess. In addition to the house, I'd also been provided a bike. If I wanted a car, I was expected to get it myself. Fine by me - I don't even remember the last time I'd driven in the city.

There was one last thing she points out before leaving, directs me towards what appears to be a complicated-looking terrarium. It has been placed on the kitchen table, and I spot a series of cables that snake away from it, presumably towards an outlet. Bulky-looking, the bottom-half of the box is enclosed in egg-white plastic casing. There is a logo stamped on its white exterior; a simple, stylized, cerulean leaf. The top-half, however, is composed of thick glass, with holes peppered throughout the very top. Despite the moisture that clings to its surface, I can clearly make out what was growing within.

Short and stout, a woody stem had at some point emerged from the dirt. At first I thought it had a ribbed pattern, but a closer look reveals that it is in fact a multitude of fibrous strands. They had managed to weave themselves tightly together into one solid shape. Rather than tapering off into a point, the plant expands outwards, forming an umbrella-shaped canopy. The leaves are small, and a bright, electric-green. There are many of them, feathery and soft. It was like the plant had sprouted its own little cloud, a matrix of emeralds.

"This is the LeafLink Hub," the woman says.

"Really?" I answer. "Who would've guessed?"

Silence for a moment. It is impossible to tell what she's thinking, underneath that mask. I try to look stony, but the damn pollen triggers a series of sneezes that leave me bowled over.

"The grow-pod is automated," she says, after they had subsided. Her voice is frustratingly even. "Water consumption and nutrients are periodically distributed. You do, however, have to refill it yourself." She shows me how to do so, sliding out components in the casing for water and fertilizer, respectively.

"So, this is it?" I ask. I was too curious to maintain my current level of chutzpah. "Is this where LeafLink comes from?"

"Yes," she answers, deadpan. "This is it. They've removed the LeafLink engine from BioLink's facilities and had it transferred here, just for you."

Yeah, I deserve that.
"No," she said, answering her own question. "This is just a LinkPort. Think of it as a Wi-Fi router - it runs on the same principles."

Ookay, gotcha.

It seems like the end of the conversation, because she offers me a sheath of documents she'd brought from the car and turns to leave. "Anything else you need to know should be in there."

"Alright, thanks," I say. "Guess I'll find the 'on button' myself."

She looks at me for a moment, then raps the side of her mask with a first. "It's always on," she says. "Why else would I be wearing this shit?"

I watch her walk out the door, incredulous after that ground-zero bullshit. I don't catch the car pulling away, though - I start sneezing again, and my vision goes all watery.