Five minutes later, Reno found himself up on the stage, with Lila by his side. He stared, uncomprehending, at the sea of faces in front of him. There was a degree of quiet on the volcano, for the first time all day. People simply stood, or sat, and watched them, waiting to see what would happen.

Next to him, Lila stepped up, fingering a microphone. She opened her mouth, and her words seemed to languish, as if they were sailing through something thicker, more viscous than air.

"I'd like to thank all of you for coming here today," she began. That elected a few cheers from the crowd. The rest stayed silent.

"There was a time when people really thought our days were numbered - and not like in the Coming of the End way." There was a smattering of laughter.

"We faced natural disasters unlike anything seen before. We suffered through flooding, drought - scarcity. Mass migrations, extinctions... the effects of our modified atmosphere were, well, apocalyptic. Many of us lost people we loved, it's true." She paused for a moment, let the words settle.

"But I'm sure, like me, that the last decade for all of you has felt nothing short of extraordinary!" Lila grinned, and the crowd latched onto her shift in demeanor.

"In the most dire hour, we chose to let go of the fighting, to work together, instead. We thought, 'what's left to lose?' so we tried everything. And look at us now!' There was cheering again, more this time.

"We built new cities to replace the old ones, forced ourselves through sheer will to abandon oil-based energy for better, cleaner alternatives, but..." Here, Lila grew somber again, and the crowd followed suit. The sudden quiet felt almost reverential to Reno.

"We've stopped the worst from occurring, but it's a stagnant solution. We're safe, but not thriving. The bleeding stopped, but we're not healing! Until today, that is." Lila pointed out, away towards the dank clouds.

"There's a problem with our world, and we're the ones to blame. The carbon we've pumped into the sky for generations... well, there are effects that are permanent, things we've lost that we'll never get back. But that doesn't mean everything is lost, right? We've done a good job so far, building things back. But now it's time to pull up the roots, so to speak. This is the first step in fixing our sky!"

Lila allowed her longest pause yet, as the crowd yelled and hollered. Lila looked upon it all with a faint smile. She glanced at Reno, giving him a jaunty little wink before continuing.

"For a long time, we've kept things under wraps. But now it's time to show you what my dear little brother and I have been working on all this time!" Lila held out her hand, and Reno could see one of their moths, glinting, nestled in her palm. She humored the cameras for a moment longer before lowering her hand and continuing.

"This little moth is unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's the first bio-mechanical project of its time! What does this mean? Well, in layman's terms, it's not quite machine, and not quite animal. Its wings are built from materials of high albedo - they will reflect sunlight back into space to an extreme degree, and generate solar energy to keep it functioning. But that isn't enough! So inside this little guy is a complex microbiome of organisms. As it flies throughout our atmosphere, it'll be taking in carbon, and emitting oxygen! This is it! What we've been looking for - for so long." She held the moth high again. "With this, we can change everything!"

Lila broke off, staring at the crowd expectantly. For a moment, there was a sense of stunned disbelief - and then the most intense barrage of sound Reno had experienced yet. It was like every spectator, every reporter, was screaming at the top of their lungs, so forceful were the comments, and questions, and sheer reaction to Lila's presentation.

It took a long time for things to settle down enough for Lila to speak again.

"Today, - in just a few moments - we'll be setting these moths out into the world, to make things better. But first I'd like to give my brother, Reno, a chance to speak. After all, he's half the cause of this!" Reno glared at his sister as the crowd cheered their assent. She simply grinned and offered him the microphone.

Reno arranged his face into what he hoped was a stern expression, but he reached out and took the microphone from her anyway. Turning back to the crowd, Reno couldn't discern one face from the other - individuals had since blurred into a sea of humanity.

Reno swallowed, glanced at his sister one more time, and finally, choked out a sentence.

"Well... I'd like to thank all of you for coming. And those who helped us make this all possible." He paused, overcome with a surge of unexpected emotion.

"Today, it's just me and Lila. But our father was the one who dreamed this all up." He turned, faced Lila again. She was still smiling, but her eyes were bright, glistening.

"I'm just glad we were able to finish what he couldn't-" He had to hand the microphone back, his throat constricting. He was expecting silence from the crowd, but they cheered him, even after he had gone silent. Still, Reno couldn't help the flare of embarrassment that followed. Mixed in was a tinge of resentment too - Lila had thrown him off-kilter with her request.

He turned back to the crowd, working to compose himself as Lila jabbered quickly into a small radio headset.

Moments later, she returned her attention to the audience, plastering her smile back on.

"Like my brother said - this is for our father! This is for everyone out there who had hopes that things would get better."

A pause, then:

"Well? Are you ready?" The cheers were deafening. The siblings nodded to each other; Lila spoke a quick command into her headset, and hidden machinery below them began to buzz to life. Moments later, the steel containers that surrounded them - and more that had been placed around the encampment - began to crack slowly open on hinges, like massive eggs.