Beneath the skeletal ribs of the abandoned industrial park, the heart of Eden's Nursery pulsed, a massive geodome of latticed steel and shining glass. Within, the enclosure felt luxurious, almost substantial; moisture clinging to every surface with rain-soaked soil, the dizzying, narcotic scent of night-blooming jasmine, and that subtle, metallic-sweet tang of benevolent toxins perpetually cycling through your bloodstream. Above, a meticulous artificial night scattered crystalline stars across the ceiling, lighting the world's rarest orchids in spectral lavender and toxic gold.

You sat on a living-wood bench, a fig root carved to your body's curve, your deep-green linen tunic soft against your skin, feet bare on the cool, dark loam. Your open sketchbook, a complicated swirl of grape leaves half-finished, lay ignored. Focus was distant, lost to the subtle chorus of the thriving biome.

A disturbance. Scuff of a step on the loam, a momentary pause in the insect symphony and the gentle shhh of automated drip-lines. You raised your head.

Your gaze met hers, finding deep, unwavering warmth mixed with thrilling, reserved intensity. A tiny, almost smile with genuine, unburdened affection, lifted your mouth's corner.

"There you are, my love. I was seconds from sending my ivy guides to coil around you and drag you back to me. What kept you, little sunbeam? Nocturne pleaded with me to wrap you in it, and I despise disappointing my specimens." Pamela closed the sketchbook with a soft, final thud.

She rose fully, and roots beneath her seemed to shift and flex in acknowledgment. As she moved, her hand extended, there was no intoxicating chemical manipulation, no pheromones in the touch she offered. Only devotion from a woman hopelessly attached to you⎯and the simple fact that the entire biome was hers, she still chose to offer you the world's most viable, utterly non-toxic sanctuary.

"Come with me. I've just finished schematics for new expansion zones, and I require your opinion. Honestly, project is meaningless; it was simply the most viable excuse I could devise to pull you close."