Collapsing Together.

Section 1 I MAYA HERNANDEZ The dorm lobby sounded like a hive gone feral—rolling bins clanged, parents hollered room numbers, the security system beeped every seven seconds. The lone elevator blinked Error. Maya Hernandez wiped sweat from her nose, balanced two seed-filled shoeboxes on her suitcase, and slipped outside. The noon air felt like a clothes dryer. Somewhere a cicada whined. Shade shimmered beneath the campus’s enormous oak, its trunk wider than the elevator door. She hurried over, opened her hurricane-tracker app, and zoomed to Florida. Two spinning icons glowed red. “Double landfall next week,” she muttered. “Great.” “Excuse me—mind if I escape here too?” A lanky student with electric-blue buzz cut dragged a 3-D-printed toolbox across the grass. “Go for it,” Maya said. They sank onto exposed roots. The newcomer tapped a smartwatch, foot jittering. “Dorm Wi-Fi’s already throttled. I’m Jordan, by the way.” “Maya.” She showed the screen. “My town’s right here. If Ian and Julia converge, surge height triples.” Jordan shrugged. “Worst case, autonomous carbon-capture drones suck it straight out of the eyewall by 2030. Prototype video looked legit.” Maya’s jaw tightened. Drones? Against cubic miles of vapor? She opened her mouth, but a voice boomed, “Make room—incoming art supplies!” A figure in paint-spattered overalls jogged up, hug-toting a dented guitar case and paper lantern. Neon-purple topknot bobbed. “I’m Sam. Elevator’s fried, so the oak wins.” They flopped down, breathing hard. “Anyone else feel like popcorn in a microwave today?”

“Try wearing braids,” said another voice, soft but carrying. A tall woman stepped from sunlight, two glossy black braids sliding over turquoise earrings. She placed a small duffel on the grass and touched the trunk as if greeting a relative. “Alana Whitefeather. Heat like this turns rivers sluggish back home.” She studied the trio, eyes settling on Maya’s phone. “Storms?” Maya nodded. “And fires,” a newcomer added from behind a rolling suitcase plastered with code memes. Round glasses fogged as he spoke. “Forty-mile front outside Redding. Air quality index hit six hundred. I’m Leo.” He sank down, dusted off a hoodie sleeve, and started sketching boxes in a tiny notebook. Within minutes, five strangers shared the narrow band of shade, luggage forming an accidental barricade against the sunlit chaos. Jordan fanned their shirt. “This tree needs its own zip code.” Sam strummed a muted chord on the guitar case. “Oaktown, population us.” Maya checked the temperature: 106°F—record for September. “Grid’ll blow if everyone cranks the AC.” “Rolling blackouts already hit Sacramento,” Leo said without looking up. “One-point-two million out.” “That’s west coast. We’re fine,” Jordan said. “Campus microgrid runs on AI load-balancing.” Maya heard herself scoff. “As long as lithium shipments keep coming.” Jordan’s foot tapped faster. “Tech scales, panic doesn’t.” Silence stretched. Cicadas filled it. Alana broke the lull. She knelt, opened a small tin, and placed a twist of dried tobacco on a root. “My grandma says this oak remembers cooler summers.

We can listen or argue.” She rose, gaze steady on Maya, then Jordan. “I’d rather listen.” Sam exhaled, shoulders unclenching. “Seconded. No shade like actual shade.” They circled a hand in the air. “Look—we literally formed a circle.” Maya followed the motion: five bodies, five piles of belongings, rough wheel around the trunk. A faint breeze rustled leaves, cooler than the lobby’s stale air. For a breath, the heat and sirens receded. Leo tore a sheet from his notebook, drew a quick map of campus paths radiating from the oak. “Meeting hub,” he whispered, almost surprised at himself. Jordan tucked stray blue hairs behind one ear. “After orientation chaos, maybe we debrief here? Share intel? No doom-scroll zones?” Sam grinned. “Call it ‘Oak office hours.’ I’ll bring cold brew—assuming fridges hold.” Maya’s pulse steadied. She slid her phone into her pocket, willing hurricanes to pause for ten seconds. “Same time tomorrow? I have field-research training at three, but before dinner works.” Alana nodded. “Dusk is kind. Tree agrees.” Jordan extended a hand to Maya first. She shook it, bark rough against her back. The others followed, fingers brushing in an awkward, earnest knot. Loud clanks erupted from the dorm entrance—maintenance declaring the elevator operational. Groans and applause blended. Maya rose, brushing dirt from her bandana. “Elevator salvation.” “Temporary,” Leo murmured, but he stood too, folding his map into a tiny square. Sam hoisted the lantern and crooned, “We’ll always have Oaktown.” The group gathered their bags. Leaves whispered overhead.

One by one, they stepped from the cool circle into boiling sunlight and headed toward the reawakened elevator line.

-------------------- II JORDAN KIM Jordan hip-checked the lounge door with an elbow full of notebooks. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, still warming from motion sensors. Box fans whirred against a wall of windows, pushing humid air across twenty mismatched couches. Sam had already claimed the lone whiteboard, uncapping a marker with their teeth. “Overshoot 101,” they scrawled in looping letters. Maya arrived next, curls damp, tucking her hurricane-tracker phone into a back pocket. She dropped a binder beside half-eaten granola bars. Leo lurked in the doorway, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, clutching a printout of today’s lecture graphs. Alana closed the door softly behind him, braid tips dark with sweat. Jordan set a tablet on the coffee table and tapped to wake it. Global-footprint dashboards popped up: red bands, spiking curves, resource clocks clicking down. “Okay,” Jordan said, foot starting its familiar jitter, “Dr. Chen’s charts look brutal, but scale solves this. Regional carbon sinks, modular reactors, direct-air capture. We just need deployment velocity.” Sam tapped the whiteboard. “Translation: bigger, faster, shinier?” “Precisely.” Jordan flicked to a pie chart of lithium reserves. “BNEF projects battery costs halving again.” Alana stepped closer, pointing at a sliver on Leo’s handout. “Professor highlighted that same reserve curve, Jordan. Ninety percent of known lithium is already claimed by contracts. That’s a ceiling, not a runway.” Jordan’s marker clicked, stopped mid-air. “Recycling loops prolong supply.” “Recycling loses material each pass,” Alana replied, voice calm as river water. “Grandma calls it the leaky bucket.” Sam grinned.

“I’d watch a leaky-bucket TED Talk.” Maya leaned against the window, eyes on an extinction graph pinned by sticky tack. Lines plunged like ski slopes. Her breathing hitched. She pressed fingers to her temples, knuckles whitening. Jordan noticed the tremor. “Hey, Maya—you all right?” She shook her head, words tangled. “Need…air.” She crossed the room in three strides, sneakers squeaking, and vanished into the hallway. Silence yawned. Even the fans sounded too loud. Leo stared at the door she’d exited, then dropped onto a beanbag, muttering, “Exponential always looked pretty on paper.” He traced the graph in the air, hand wavering. Jordan frowned at the lithium slide, then at Alana. “Okay, maybe supply isn’t infinite. But innovation curves surprise us—Moore’s law, Wright’s law—” Alana’s glance was patient, not pitying. “Laws of physics hold steadier than business curves.” The words lodged in Jordan’s chest like a caught drone rotor. Foot tapped harder, then stopped. “I might be…missing something.” Sam clapped once, startling everyone. “Progress! Step one: admit the algorithms aren’t omnipotent.” They added a new column on the whiteboard: “Feelings + Facts.” Maya slipped back in, cheeks flushed but shoulders lower. She steadied herself on the arm of a couch. “Sorry. Just needed a hallway time-out.” Leo scooted over, offering his reusable cup. “Water. No caffeine.” Maya sipped, nodding gratitude. Jordan cleared their throat. “So. If tech alone can’t outpace overshoot, what’s the combo play?” “Community,” Alana answered simply. She untied a small pouch, sprinkling dried sage crumbs onto the windowsill.

The scent cut through stale sweat and marker fumes. “We study limits together, act where we stand.” Sam underlined their new column three times. “Which brings me to a proposal.” They drew a crooked oak leaf beneath the words. “Tonight’s meet-up? Let’s make it weekly. Same tree, same dusk. Share data, yes, but also poetry, panic, memes—whatever keeps us human.” Maya exhaled, shoulders unclenching an inch. “A standing gathering,” she echoed. “I can bring seed packets. Trade varieties, maybe start a sidewalk pollinator strip.” Leo raised his notebook. “I’ll map shade corridors on campus—find routes that stay under ninety degrees.” Jordan watched hands lifting, plans interlacing like code modules. A thrum of possibility edged out the drone of the fans. “All right,” they said, sliding the tablet aside. “Oak office hours, every Tuesday. I’ll mock up a shared drive—graphs, articles, mineral audits, whatever. Version control included.” Sam twirled the marker, triumphant. “Look at us—practical and emotional in one sitting. We deserve snacks.” Maya waved a granola bar. “Emergency rations approved.” Laughter flickered, brief and real. Alana capped the sage pouch. “Dusk, then. Tree’s waiting.” One by one they snapped photos of the whiteboard, stuffed printouts and wrappers into pockets, and filed toward the hallway. Jordan flicked off the tablet screen last, catching their reflection in the dark glass: blue buzz cut, tired eyes, and behind them, the ghost of Alana’s oak leaf sketched bold across white.

They shoved the tablet under an arm and followed the others out, footsteps syncing down the corridor toward evening shade.

-------------------- III SAM THOMPSON The metal stairwell door banged open and Sam burst onto the residence-hall roof, arms loaded with a dented boom box and a bag of neon sidewalk chalk. Warm dusk air carried whiffs of fried dining-hall oil and cut grass. Purple twilight pooled between HVAC units. Sam kicked aside a loose bottle cap, humming the hook from an old protest song. One by one the others climbed up. Maya arrived first, hugging a spiral notebook to her chest. Her curls had frizzed in the humidity, and her eyes looked storm-blown. Jordan followed, gaze glued to their phone, thumbs flicking at a data dashboard that glowed cobalt against their face. Leo lugged a folding lawn chair, hoodie hood half-raised like a turtle shell. Alana came last, steady, carrying only the small leather notebook that never left her side. Sam set the boom box on a low parapet. “Welcome to the Penthouse of Perspective,” they announced, sweeping an arm at the dimming skyline. “Tonight’s special: sky-high despair with a side of maybe.” No one laughed. The dusk was too thick. Maya stepped to the edge, notebook limp at her side. “The coastal models we ran today? By 2040 my hometown’s under water during king tide.” Her voice barely lifted over the city’s muffled hum. “I used to mark storms on the kitchen wall like growth charts. Now the whole wall’s in the risk zone. So…does any of this matter?” The question sagged across the roof.

Leo unfolded his chair but didn’t sit. He studied the concrete beneath him as if lines of code hid in its cracks. Jordan retreated farther, back flat against an exhaust tower, phone held like a shield. Blue buzz cut, blue light, no words. Sam exhaled through pursed lips. A gust rattled a loose vent cover—clink, clink. They pulled a stick of chalk and knelt on the grimy surface, sketching a rough circle the size of a kiddie-pool. Their knees left dusty prints. Alana watched, braids brushing her collar. “Marking space?” she asked. “Casting a spell,” Sam said, voice theatrically mysterious. They shaded a swirl in the center, phoenix-tattoo flexing as they worked. “Or maybe planting an idea.” Leo finally sat, knees up, arms wrapped tight around them. “If the idea is ‘run,’ I’m in.” Sam shook chalk dust from their palms, stood, and faced the group. “The idea is stay.” They tapped a boot inside the circle. “We are five small, nervous mammals on a giant overheating rock. That rock doesn’t hand out instruction manuals, but we can write our own.” The boom-box speaker popped; a low battery light flashed, unnoticed. Jordan pocketed the phone, eyes rimmed red. “Manuals? We can barely finish homework.” “Exactly why we need a pit crew,” Sam shot back. “Look—some nights it’ll be algorithms with Jordan, other nights seed swaps with Maya.

Leo can map, I can rant in meter, Alana can remind us the river was here before the dorm.” They paced, words quickening like drumbeats. “But it only works if we agree to show up—for each other, not just for charts or rallies.” Maya hugged her notebook tighter. “Show up how? Office hours under the oak already feel big.” “Smaller, then,” Sam said, lowering their tone. “A support circle. Weekly. Ten breaths to name what’s eating us, ten more to name what feeds us. No judgment, just presence.” They pointed at the chalk ring. “We start here, next Monday night. Bring tea, fears, whatever.” Alana stepped forward, toes crossing into the chalk. She crouched, touched a fingertip to the dusty line, lifted it to the breeze. “Circles hold stories. In my language the word for family and the word for shelter share a root.” She met Sam’s eyes. “I’ll come.” Leo cleared his throat. “If…if we’re doing this, I can draft a group chat that auto-mutes during class blocks. Maybe a shared doc for talking points?” Jordan’s foot tapped once, then stopped. “And maybe a rule: phones down while someone’s talking.” They sounded surprised by their own suggestion. “I, uh, need that guardrail.” Maya’s gaze traced the chalk ring. Her shoulders lowered a fraction. “I can bring chamomile from home. Mom dries it in coffee tins. Smells like wet sunshine.” A sliver of moon slid from behind campus smokestacks. Sam felt a small electric lift under their ribs.

“So we’re agreed? Monday, after last lecture.” They stuck out a chalk-stained hand. One by one the others stacked their hands atop Sam’s—Maya’s ink-smudged fingers, Jordan’s cold data-calloused palm, Leo’s tremoring but steady, Alana’s warm and steady as river stones. The pile looked mismatched, imperfect, real. Sam counted down. “Three, two, one—breathe.” Five chests rose, held, released into the twilight. The boom box died with a soft click. No one moved to fix it. Instead Sam scooped the chalk, tossed it in the air like confetti. Colored dust caught the lamplight, flared, then drifted over the edge of the roof toward the dark lawn below. “Circle cast,” Sam said, tone light again. They clapped twice. “Now let’s find snacks before curfew. Hope works better on a full stomach.” Maya laughed—actual laughter this time. Jordan managed half a smile. Leo folded his chair; Alana closed her notebook with a soft snap. Sam led the way to the stairwell, boots thudding a steady beat. Behind them, the chalk ring glowed faintly under the emerging stars, waiting for Monday.

-------------------- IV JORDAN KIM The campus wellness workshop occupied a windowless seminar room that smelled faintly of new carpet and lemon sanitizer. Jordan slid into a plastic chair near the back, knees knocking the fold-down desk. Alana, Maya, Sam, and Leo settled around them, but rows of unfamiliar faces formed loose trenches in between. A paper flip chart read, in lavender marker, “Sustaining Ourselves in a Warming World.” The facilitator, a cheery grad student named Dana, adjusted a felt-tipped mic. “Tonight we’ll focus on what eco-stress feels like in the body. Not what to do about it. Just sensations, images, emotions.” She smiled as if that were a gift. Jordan’s foot began its metronome tap. Feelings, sure—right after we install direct-air capture on every rooftop. Their smartwatch lit with an alert: new prototype for graphene filters. Real solutions. Dana invited the group into a breathing exercise. Chairs squeaked; someone stifled a yawn. “Now, who’d like to share how climate news lands in you physically?” A student up front spoke of chest tightness when reading wildfire headlines. Another mentioned hands shaking during policy debates. Leo’s hoodie rustled as he scratched flowcharts inside his notebook. Sam bounced a knee, humming under their breath. Maya hugged her spiral to her ribs, eyes wet. Dana nodded encouragement. “Remember—stay with the feeling.” Jordan’s hand shot up before their brain caught up. “Look, the physiology’s obvious. Rising cortisol, sympathetic response. But we’re skipping the part where we actually fix the atmosphere.” They cleared their throat.

“There’s a startup in Oslo scaling modular capture rigs. Combine that with basalt injection and you offset—” Dana lifted a palm. “I hear a shift into strategy. Could you name what’s happening inside you first?” Inside me? Processes, not poetry. “Impatience,” Jordan clipped. “Because we keep running in circles instead of building.” Silence spread, feather-soft and suffocating. Alana angled in her chair, turquoise earrings catching the fluorescents. “When the Columbia floods came, my great-grandmother saved only a cedar basket of stories,” she said, voice calm. “No drone could hold back that river. Yet knowing her stories holds me steady now.” She paused. “We can’t code resilience if we’ve forgotten how to sit with fear.” Jordan felt heat rise to their ears. “Stories don’t pull carbon from air. We need gigaton removal, not bedtime tales.” A quote bubbled up—“Let’s science the—” They bit off the rest, hearing how thin it sounded. Dana tried again. “Could you describe the heat you’re feeling, Jordan? Maybe where it sits?” “Sure,” Jordan snapped, shoving back their chair. “It sits in realizing this is a waste of kilowatts.” They scooped up their tablet and strode for the door, plastic feet of the chair screeching against carpet. The hallway outside was cooler, lit by vending-machine glow. Jordan leaned against beige cinder block, breath jackhammering. Their thumb scrolled the graphene article, words blurring. Soft footsteps. Maya emerged, closing the door with a click. “Hey,” she whispered, not stepping too close. “Can we do a quick reset? Four-four-six breathing.

In for four.” She inhaled, shoulders rising. Jordan obeyed on reflex. “Hold for four.” The hallway hummed with ductwork. “Out for six.” Air left in a long stream; the tight band around Jordan’s chest loosened a notch. Maya’s voice stayed low. “I get why you bolted. Talk used to feel useless to me too. But Monday night, roof, circle? We’ll have space for fixes and feelings. Both.” She offered a half-smile. “I’m bringing chamomile.” Jordan’s gaze dropped to the phone. They toggled it dark, slid it into their pocket. The foot tapping slowed. “Maybe… maybe I’ll come.” The seminar door cracked open. Sam poked their head out, purple topknot wobbling. “Hardware meltdown contained?” they quipped. “Remember: Penthouse of Perspective, 20:00 hours. Bring your carbon-capturing charisma.” Jordan huffed a laugh that surprised them. “Copy that.” Sam vanished with a two-finger salute. Maya turned toward the room. “Ready?” Jordan pushed off the wall. The phone stayed pocketed. “Lead the way.” They fell into step beside her, one breath, then another, as they crossed back into the muffled buzz of chairs and stories.

-------------------- V ALANA WHITEFEATHER The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as chairs creaked back into focus. Alana felt the recycled air stir the ends of her braids. Jordan slipped through the door, head lowered, and took the empty seat beside Leo. The smartwatch glow on their wrist flickered, then went dark. Dana, still perched on her stool, lifted her mic. “We have ten minutes left. Anyone want to share a closing reflection—something you’re carrying out of this room?” A rustle, then silence. Alana drew a breath, reached into her pocket, and touched the small tin her grandmother had pressed into her palm last spring. She rose, the hem of her denim skirt brushing her calves. “May I?” she asked Dana. Dana nodded, curiosity softening her smile. “The floor is yours.” Alana knelt on the carpet square just inside the circle. She opened the tin, pinched a crumb of dry tobacco, and set it gently at the intersection of two gray fibers. “For listening,” she murmured. Straightening, she addressed the room. “When I was little, my c’íities—my grandmother—told me about the year the Kenít, the river, climbed its banks higher than any elder remembered. People had dug too deep for gravel, so its bed was wounded, and the water finally took back what was stolen. Our houses washed downstream. The only thing my great-grandmother managed to save was a cedar basket of salmon stories. Those stories guided the rebuild—where to plant, how far to set doorposts from the new high-water mark.

No satellite measured that wisdom. The river already knew.” She paused, letting the hum of the ductwork settle. “Tech can carry us partway. But if we forget the river’s memory, we rebuild in the same hollow ground.” Across the circle, Jordan’s foot resumed its soft staccato. They raised a hand halfway, dropped it, then tried again. “I… appreciate the history,” they said, voice measured. “But floods are increasing because of amplified atmospheric moisture. We can model that, reinforce levees, even forecast outflows to the hour.” Alana inclined her head. “Forecasting matters. So does asking the river where it wants to go.” A student in a beanie let out a low “mm-hmm.” The circle leaned in. Maya slid her spiral notebook onto her lap, flipping to a page covered in overlapping arrows. “Maybe it isn’t either-or,” she said, eyes ping-ponging between Alana and Jordan. “We could pair flood modeling with traditional stories to decide which neighborhoods move first, which soils need native reedbeds to drink extra water. Data meets memory.” Dana opened her mouth, then closed it, handing the mic to Maya without a word. Jordan exhaled through their nose. “Okay, but design specs need quantifiable inputs. Narratives aren’t datasets.” “Not yet,” Leo murmured, clicking his pen. “But we can translate. Tag themes, locations, time frames—overlay them on GIS layers. Story becomes metadata.” Alana felt warmth bloom in her chest. She offered Jordan a small smile. “Your graphene filters, our baskets of salmon. Same goal—keeping life afloat.”

Jordan’s shoulders loosened a notch. “All right,” they said. “I’ll admit engineering that ignores culture usually fails. Maybe stories could inform priorities, like where to deploy capture stacks first.” Sam sprang to their feet, purple topknot bobbing. “Speaking of deployment!” They whisked a stack of neon flyers from their back pocket. “Monday night, rooftop of Jensen Hall. ‘Feelings & Fixes.’ Bring a blanket, a big idea, or both.” They fanned the papers across the circle like playing cards. One fluttered onto Jordan’s lap; another drifted toward Alana. She caught it, the corners still warm from Sam’s hand. Dana clapped softly. “I love seeing next steps form right in the room. Any final thoughts?” Alana gathered her braids behind her shoulders. “Just this.” She tapped her flyer. “When we meet roofs, let’s remember roots.” She gestured toward the tobacco on the carpet. “Stories keep roots alive.” Jordan looked down at the crumb of brown leaf, then back at Alana. They gave a small, sincere nod. “Noted.” Maya scribbled a star beside Monday on her planner. “I’ll bring cocoa. And precipitation models,” she added, grinning. Chairs scraped as people stood. Conversations sparked: code phrases, river metaphors, half-formed plans mixing like tributaries. Alana pocketed her tin, slid her notebook beneath her arm, and stepped toward the door. Jordan matched her pace. “Got any more river stories?” they asked, gaze curious rather than defensive. “Buckets,” Alana replied. “Bring memory cards.” Jordan chuckled. “Deal.” They held the door.

Alana walked through into the corridor’s cooler air, flyer fluttering at her side.

-------------------- VI MAYA HERNANDEZ The five threaded out of Wallace Hall and crossed the quad’s baked grass in single file. A neon chalkboard outside the Buzz Bean Café promised “Cooling Smoothies—$1 off for overheated brains.” Maya led them to a patio table half-shaded by a striped umbrella. “Strawberry-mango, medium,” she told the barista, pressing her campus card to the reader. Alana ordered pineapple-ginger, Sam chose something called “Solar Flare,” and Leo muttered “matcha-mint, no honey.” Jordan lingered, scrolling. Finally they tapped, “Blue Spirulina—large.” Condensation slicked Maya’s cup. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades, but the air smelled of basil from planters lined along the railing. She perched on a metal chair and waited until everyone had set drinks down. Sam slumped, eyelids half-mast. “Wellness workshop? More like feelings firehose.” They sipped foam, topknot drooping. Alana rotated her straw. “The room needed it, though. People were cracking.” Jordan snorted. “Cracking because we spent ninety minutes dissecting vibes instead of brainstorming solutions. Total navel-gaze.” They traced condensation patterns with a fingertip, restless. Silence pooled. A cicada rasped overhead. Leo’s shoulders rounded; he rubbed eyes behind smudged glasses. Maya felt the tension thicken. She cleared her throat, soft but firm. “Hold up.” She placed both palms on the warm tabletop. “Three breaths. In?” She inhaled through her nose, belly expanding. “Out.” Her exhale rustled the umbrella fringe. She repeated twice more, gaze steady on each friend. Alana mirrored her, braids sliding forward. Sam followed, chest rising like bellows. Leo’s shoulders lowered a notch.

Even Jordan’s foot tapping paused. Maya let her hands fall. “Okay. Burnout’s real. We’re fried.” She nudged her smoothie toward the center. “What helps besides more graphs?” “Coffee—kidding,” Sam said, then wagged a straw. “Honestly, knowing someone’s got my back when I burn out on petitions.” Leo drummed knuckles. “Mutual aid boards online do that but they’re huge and anonymous.” He glanced around for napkins, found none, and grabbed a receipt. Pen appeared from his hoodie. He sketched small boxes. “What if we build a campus-sized version? Post needs, offers—rides to farmers market, spare meal swipes, tutoring.” Jordan raised eyebrows. “Another app? That’s your answer?” “Not the only answer,” Leo replied, voice wavering yet resolved. “Just infrastructure. People still choose to help.” Alana leaned over the receipt. “Tag categories: food, transport, emotional check-ins.” She pointed. “Stories column too— elders’ flood memory or where to forage soapberry.” Sam snapped fingers. “Yes! Digital notice board meets community garden bulletin.” Jordan slurped blue spirulina. “Fine, but maintenance? Feature creep turns good code to sludge.” Leo smiled thinly. “Keep it simple. Core function, open source. I can prototype.” He added arrows between boxes. Maya watched them, then turned to Jordan. “You good with feelings and fixes coexisting?” Jordan’s gaze flicked to the scribble, then to Maya. “As long as the fixes work.” They stood, pushing chair legs against stone. “I’ve got firmware bugs waiting.

Ping me when you’ve got a runnable build.” Without waiting for replies, they strode toward the library annex, smoothie in hand. Sam blew out a raspberry. “Debug feelings sometime, J!” Jordan waved without turning. The patio quieted again. Maya sensed the group’s sag. She lifted her cup. “To tiny steps,” she said. Alana clinked hers. “To roots and routers.” Sam laughed, the sound cracked but bright. “To Monday night rooftop—Feelings & Fixes, starring all of us.” Leo tapped receipt edges square. “I’ll mock up wireframes by then. Need input on color palettes that won’t fry nighttime vision.” Maya pulled a seed envelope from her pocket—sea-grape seeds she’d collected back home— and anchored the receipt beneath it so wind wouldn’t steal the sketch. “Bring that Monday,” she told Leo. “We’ll test the idea under real stars.” Sam drained the last of Solar Flare. “And maybe draft a welcome ritual,” they added, eyes glinting. Alana gathered empty cups toward the recycling bin. “First, we sleep,” she said. Maya rose, slipped the seed envelope into Leo’s hand, and shouldered her backpack. The trio moved toward the compost station in synchronized steps, cups rattling. Behind them, Leo’s pen scratched new boxes, line by line.

-------------------- VII LEO PATEL Leo balanced his laptop on one knee and exhaled through his teeth. The dorm’s common room hummed with the soda machine and a distant washing-machine spin cycle. Fluorescent lights flickered, half the bulbs burned out, leaving islands of shadow around the cluster of couches. On the scarred coffee table: packets of prairie-blazing-star seed from Alana, three sweating smoothie cups, a spool of Ethernet cable Sam had found “for ambience,” and Jordan’s folded 3-D printer schematic. “All right,” Leo said, voice barely above the air-handler hiss. “Prototype time.” He angled the screen so everyone could see. A simple home page—campus map, four colored buttons: Need, Offer, Events, Stories. Sam drummed a rhythm on the armrest. “Clicky joy, let’s go.” Leo tapped Need. The map zoomed; icons popped—an empty plate, a bicycle, a speech bubble. Then the browser froze, rainbow wheel spinning. Heat crawled up Leo’s neck. Jordan leaned forward, blue buzz cut glinting. “Memory leak?” “Probably.” Leo jabbed the trackpad twice. Nothing. Maya reached for her pineapple-ginger. “Breathe, dev wizard. We’re here to debug.” He refreshed. The page returned, sluggish but alive. “Okay,” he muttered. “Campus Wi-Fi’s throttled tonight. Pretend latency is a feature.” Alana’s braids brushed her shoulders as she bent toward the screen. “Show the Stories tab.” “Sure.” Leo clicked. A side panel slid out: short blurbs students could post—grandma’s hurricane recipe, tips for drought-tolerant planters, a request for walking buddies to night class. Alana smiled. “That’s medicine.” Jordan crossed their arms. “It’s also unmoderated content.

Misinformation risk. Plus no authentication—bot flood waiting to happen.” Sam blew an exaggerated raspberry. “Bots on homework night? Let’s iterate, not obliterate.” Leo swallowed. “I can gate posts through campus single sign-on. Captcha if needed.” Jordan tapped the table, one beat per word. “And data privacy? Mapping needs could expose vulnerable students.” Maya slid a seed packet toward Jordan like a peace offering. “We can cluster by dorm instead of exact pins,” she suggested. “Keeps location vague.” Leo nodded, heart settling. “Easy. I’ll add a jitter function—random offset.” Sam rocked forward. “Roles time! Monday rooftop’s two sunsets away.” They looked at Leo expectantly. His fingers fluttered above keys. “Right,” he said. “So: tonight we triage features. Monday we demo version zero-point-one under stars.” Jordan lifted an eyebrow. “Scope?” “Essentials only,” Leo answered. He raised one finger per bullet. “1) Post a Need. 2) Offer help. 3) RSVP to rooftop meeting. That’s it.” Alana uncapped a pen and wrote the three lines on a scrap of cardboard. “Good. My task?” “Content steward,” Sam declared. “You weave stories from people who use it. Keeps the river of talk clear.” Alana touched two fingers to her notebook in agreement. “Maya?” Leo asked. “I’ll map critical campus resources—hydration stations, produce stand hours.” She spun her smoothie straw like a compass needle. “GeoJSON coming your way.” Sam pointed at themself. “Hype captain. Posters, chalk arrows, maybe a guerrilla puppet if time permits.” Jordan’s gaze stayed on the laptop. “I’ll stress-test the code tomorrow.

Security sweep, load test, edge-case hunt.” Leo breathed out. “Deal.” He reached into his backpack, produced five stapled printouts of wireframes, slid one to each friend. Paper rasped like dry leaves. Jordan flipped theirs over, scanned, then folded it to pocket size. “I’ll annotate and return.” A small concession, but Leo felt it like sunrise. Sam clapped. “Now brand reveal: Catalyst Circle, phase one. Monday night is our ignition sequence.” Alana traced the cardboard bullet list, then looked up. “Circles hold water better than pyramids,” she murmured. “We start with three functions, grow if the banks can handle more.” Maya raised her smoothie. “To Monday.” Plastic lids bumped—soft clinks echoing in the half-empty lounge. Leo’s reusable cup thudded last; matcha scent mingled with strawberry foam. He checked the time—22:14. “Server push, two hours,” he announced. “I’ll ping commits before sleep.” Jordan stood, rolling shoulders. “Text me the repo link. If it crashes at four a.m., I want logs.” “Roger,” Leo said, letting a grin slip. Sam gathered the Ethernet coil like a lasso. “I’ll stencil flyers after breakfast. Anyone own a ladder?” “We’ll figure ground deployments tomorrow,” Maya replied, already stuffing seed packets back into her canvas bag. Chairs scraped. Alana scooped the cardboard list and tucked it into her notebook. “Same couch, same hour tomorrow for check-in,” she said. Nods all around. Leo closed the laptop, the click decisive.

He slipped it into his backpack, shouldered the weight, and followed his friends toward the corridor lights, thumb brushing the edge of his printout for luck.

-------------------- VIII ALANA WHITEFEATHER Counselor Rivera dimmed the fluorescent lights until the carpeted multipurpose room glowed amber. “We’re here to notice what burnout feels like,” she said, hands resting on a Tibetan-singing-bowl app open on her phone. “Close your eyes, breathe from the belly.” Chairs creaked. Alana straightened, braids sliding over her shoulders. She inhaled cedar-sweet air from the diffuser and tasted homesickness. To her left, Maya’s knee jogged like a sparrow’s heart. Pencil quivered above an untouched worksheet titled Where Does the Fire Go Out? Across the circle, Jordan slouched, smartwatch flickering blue against their buzz-cut scalp. Sam occupied two chairs, overalls splattered with neon paint, while Leo hunched behind a spiral notebook already stippled with code glyphs. Rivera tapped START. A bell chimed. “On each exhale, release.” Jordan exhaled a laugh instead. “Release? I’d rather release a few gigawatts into orbital mirrors.” Their stage-whisper carried. Sam snapped fingers like cymbals. “Shush, code warrior. We’re belly-breathing.” Alana kept her gaze soft on the linoleum seam running between Jordan’s sneakers. She sensed restlessness eddying across the group like wind across shallow water. “Now,” Rivera continued, “open your journals. Describe the moment you first felt climate grief.” Pages rustled. Maya’s remained blank. She bit her lip, eyes glassy. Alana placed her own notebook—deer-hide cover inked with river shapes—between them, a quiet bridge. Maya’s whisper trembled. “I haven’t slept in two nights. Every time I close my eyes, I see track forecasts. My town’s just a cone of uncertainty now.”

Rivera crouched beside her. “Thank you for naming that. Anyone else?” Jordan raised a dismissive brow. “We can talk about feelings for centuries; seas will still rise. What we need is funding for algae bioreactors.” They flipped their worksheet over, drawing hexagonal tanks by the margin. A student in a wellness-center T-shirt nodded vigorously. Another shook her head, dreadlocks swinging. Fault lines opened. Voices overlapped—“policy change”—“ancestral grief”—“AI modeling”—until Rivera lifted both palms. “Hold. Let’s ground again.” She queued another chime. Jordan folded arms. “If grounding solved anything, the IPCC would recommend tree pose.” A few snickers; more side-eyes. Alana felt heat crawl up her neck. She rose, smooth and slow, pulling a pinch of tobacco from the small turtle-shell pouch at her waist. Rivera hesitated, then stepped back. The room quieted. Alana sprinkled the brown strands into her left palm. “My grandmother says water gets tired,” she began, voice low but carrying. “Up north, when snowmelt runs hard, the rivers speak loud, full of purpose. By late summer the current thins, slows, needs a place to rest. Our people listen for that breathing. If we pull more irrigation then, the river has no strength for salmon, no strength for us.” She tipped the tobacco into a clay bowl set on the windowsill, an unplanned but accepted altar. “Burnout’s the body’s tired water. Keep scooping and the current dies. But if we notice the slack, we can widen the bends, let the water pool, gather itself.” Silence held.

Even the diffuser hum seemed to pause. Maya wiped her cheek. “So we’re allowed to be slow water?” Alana nodded once. Sam thumped their chest, phoenix tattoo rippling. “That’s the story Monday night needs. Rooftop circle—feelings and fixes, remember?” They flashed a flyer like a tarot card. Leo slid his phone out, tapped a reminder. “Zero-point-one deploys right after,” he murmured. Jordan shifted, eyes narrowing at the clay bowl. “Metaphors don’t desalinate aquifers,” they muttered, yet their tone lacked earlier sting. “But… okay, tired systems do fail. We need redundancies.” Rivera smiled. “Integration. Beautiful. Let’s close with a collective breath.” Chairs squeaked closer. Twenty bodies inhaled. Exhaled. Workshop over, backpacks zipped. Maya tucked the worksheet into her seed pouch. “Sleep first,” she told herself aloud. Jordan handed Leo a sketch of modular flood barriers. “Stress-test that code later,” they said, softer. Sam spun their flyer toward a corkboard. “Rooftop, eight-thirty. Circles hold water—learned that today.” They winked at Alana. Alana retrieved the clay bowl, cradling the moist tobacco. She stepped into the hallway’s brighter light, friends clustering beside her like stones redirecting flow. Together they moved toward the stairwell, footsteps mingling with distant showers and the faint, steady pulse of campus air vents—water searching for its next wide bend.

-------------------- Section 2 IX MAYA HERNANDEZ The automatic doors sighed open, spilling Maya and the others onto the late-afternoon quad. Damp heat wrapped around her shoulders; maple leaves trembled overhead, their edges already browning. Behind them, the wellness center’s tinted glass reflected swelling thunderheads. Sam stretched both arms skyward. “Fresh air. Praise be.” Paint-dotted overalls flashed like stained-glass when they spun. “Next stop: revolution, yeah?” Jordan snorted. “If ‘revolution’ equals waving cardboard tomorrow, I’ll pass.” They tapped the smartwatch at their wrist. “Seventy-three unread messages from the design channel. The flood-barrier model still crashes in the Reynolds simulation.” Maya heard her own breath quicken. Not now. She pinched the seed pouch at her belt and faced Jordan. “The rally’s more than signs,” she said, tone steady. “People are scared. Showing up tells them they’re not alone.” Jordan slowed their stride but didn’t stop. “Optics. Noise. Two hours we could spend debugging.” Their foot tapped pavement in double-time rhythm. Alana stepped between them, calm as river stone. Her braids brushed her turquoise earrings when she spoke. “Presence is data,” she told Jordan. “You measure currents; I measure stories. Tomorrow we gather both.” Leo hovered at Maya’s elbow, coffee cup clutched like a talisman. “Uh—if people cluster in the plaza, I can map density in real time.” He dug a phone from his hoodie. “Could feed directly into the prototype, help users find each other.” Sam whooped. “Yes! Digital breadcrumbs and human bread lines, side by side.”

Maya raised her palms, slowing the group near a bench ringed by hostas. “Let’s ground.” She lowered herself onto the bench’s cool metal slats, shoes barely touching the path. Clouds muted the sun; campus lights flickered on. The others circled without protest. “Okay.” Maya pulled a notebook from her backpack, its pages already warped by humidity. “Agenda: rally, Monday rooftop, app push.” She clicked a pen. “First—tomorrow. Objections?” Jordan exhaled through their teeth. “Only that chanting ‘no more drilling’ won’t halt drilling.” Maya nodded, pen poised. “Goal clarification. We attend for three reasons: one, witness; two, recruit for Monday; three, collect real-world user feedback for Leo’s app.” She looked up. “Jordan, that last item leans on you for quick metrics. Useful?” Their shoulders eased a centimeter. “Useful,” they admitted. “Field conditions stress-test assumptions.” A leaf grazed their buzz-cut; they flicked it away. “Fine. I’ll go—for data and, I guess, solidarity.” “Solidarity!” Sam echoed, drumming thighs like bongos. A gust of wind scattered dry maple seeds across the path. Maya caught one on her notebook, its papery wing veined like a miniature hurricane track. She tucked it beneath the elastic band. “Second item: check-ins. We’ve all been running hot.” She met each pair of eyes. “Quick pulse Sunday night? Group chat, five minutes, thumbs-up or down on bandwidth?” Leo raised two thumbs. “I can code a yes/no button inside the app’s chat. Push notification at nineteen hundred hours.” “Great.” Maya scribbled. “Monday rooftop—eight-thirty.” She let the words hang.

Sam bounced on their heels, eager. Jordan stayed silent but didn’t object. Alana placed a gentle hand on Maya’s shoulder. “The circle will hold,” Alana said, voice like low water. “Stories, strategy, sky. Bring blankets; the wind shifts colder after sunset.” Jordan glanced skyward at the bruised clouds. “Blankets acknowledged.” Sam fished a folded flyer from a back pocket and tapped Leo’s phone with it. “Graphic upload, please. Color pops matter.” “On it,” Leo murmured. He snapped a photo, thumbs blurring across the screen. “Notification scheduled: ‘Feelings & Fixes—Rooftop under the stars.’ Beta test at twenty-two hundred tonight.” Maya clicked her pen shut. “Action recap.” She ticked fingers: “One, all five attend the rally. Two, Leo pushes info blast plus Sunday mood poll. Three, rooftop circle is locked in.” She inhaled the earthy scent of damp mulch. “Anything missing?” Jordan adjusted the strap of their laptop bag. “Contingency for weather. Storm probability twenty-six percent.” “Plan B: student union atrium,” Maya replied without hesitation. “Sam, make a second flyer?” Sam saluted, purple topknot bobbing. “Atrium art drop, incoming.” Alana glanced at Maya, a quiet smile forming. “You held the flow,” she said. “River’s not spilling its banks today.” Warmth fluttered in Maya’s chest; she let it show only as a small nod. “Team effort.” A clap of thunder rumbled beyond the library, soft but sure. Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Data point: rally might get atmospheric drama.” “Adds to the urgency,” Sam said, teeth flashing. “Nothing like sky percussion for crowd engagement.”

Leo slid his phone into a hoodie pocket. “Notification queued.” He offered the reusable cup toward Maya in an awkward toast. “To, uh, algorithmic solidarity?” She clinked her water bottle against it. “And human,” she added. Jordan checked the time. “Seventeen-hundred thirty. I need the makerspace before they lock up.” They jerked a thumb toward the engineering wing. “Anyone coming?” Maya shook her head. “I promised myself dinner that doesn’t come from a vending machine.” Sam declared, “I’ll escort our fearless coder, supply moral spray-paint.” They trotted after Jordan, boots clacking. Leo lingered, eyes on the brewing storm. “I’ll refine the push copy,” he muttered, already half inside his task. Alana squeezed Maya’s arm, then paced toward the residence halls, braids swaying. Maya watched each friend peel away—all different velocities, same vector—and felt the quad brighten beneath the darkening sky. She slung her backpack higher, turned toward the dining hall, and started walking.

-------------------- X ALANA WHITEFEATHER Alana padded barefoot across Evergreen Hall’s scratchy carpet, a bowl of kettle-popped corn balanced between her palms. The dorm lounge smelled of marker ink and mango seltzer; half the ceiling bulbs had already surrendered to mid-semester exhaustion. Sam sprawled on the sagging sofa, poster board propped against paint-speckled knees. Maya knelt by the coffee table, arranging seed packets beside a humming laptop. Leo hugged an outlet, hoodie hood up, code reflected in his lenses. Jordan watched from the window, arms folded, streetlights tinting their buzz-cut cobalt. Alana set the bowl down. “Fuel.” Kernels rattled like river gravel. Fingers dove in—first Sam, then Maya, then Leo. Jordan stayed rigid. Maya closed her laptop, flipped a phone timer to five minutes, and slid it face-down. “Quick check-ins. Same order as last rooftop—Alana leads.” Alana unwound the rawhide thong from her belt pouch and placed a twist of tobacco on the windowsill. “For listening,” she said softly. Cool air seeped through the cracked glass. “My grandmother phoned this morning. She was remembering the nineties water-rights fight. She kept talking until words ran dry—burnout stole her voice for a month. Elders sent her on a listening walk. Three days along the Yakima, no talking, only hearing what the tired water wanted.” She drew a breath that tasted of kettle corn and dorm dust. “I think we may need one.” Sam’s marker froze mid-sketch. “A silent walk?” “Sunrise, rally day,” Alana confirmed. “Twenty minutes.

Listen to every pipe and puddle we’ve bent out of shape.” A ceiling bulb flickered back to life, buzzing. Jordan exhaled through their nose. “Look, respect the story,” they began, tapping a restless foot, “but mystic strolls won’t pull CO₂ from the sky. We have prototypes to debug.” Alana kept her tone level. “If the builders are cracked, the prototypes crack with them.” “Methaphor alert,” Jordan muttered. They slung a backpack over one shoulder. “I’ll be in the lab.” The lounge door groaned as it opened; the hallway swallowed their footsteps. Timer buzzed. Maya silenced it with a thumb, eyes steady. “Jordan works through stress by building. We’ll hold space until they pipe back in.” She clicked her pen. “Listening walk goes on Monday’s agenda. Optional, encouraged.” Sam pumped the marker like a gavel. “Poster caption: ‘Before we shout, we hear.’ Color scheme—river blues.” Leo slid to the coffee table, fingers already sprinting across keys. “Adding sunrise pulse-check to the app. Slider from ‘crispy’ to ‘calm.’ Push at zero six hundred.” His words were barely louder than the keyboard. Maya leaned over to glimpse the screen. “Can the invite link to Sam’s flyer?” “Yep.” Leo executed a line; a soft chime confirmed. “Done.” Alana watched code scroll, green text mimicking bioluminescent algae on a black tide. “Grandmother would call that river logic.” Sam grinned. “Digital salmon run.” Popcorn levels dropped. Maya unscrewed a thermos lid, steam curling upward.

“Hydration pledge: eight ounces, lights out by ten, phones on do-not-disturb.” She raised the thermos like a ceremonial cup. “Agreed,” Sam and Leo echoed. Alana scooped stray kernels into her palm, crossing to the open window. Outside, automatic sprinklers hissed over thirsty grass, their arcs catching lamplight like tiny comets. She sprinkled the kernels into the damp soil below—an offering, small but deliberate. Behind her, the lounge re-balanced: Sam’s marker tap percussion, Maya’s soft mouse clicks, Leo’s low coding hum. One voice absent, yet the circle held. Alana shut the window, leaving a two-finger gap for night sounds. “Fountain, six-fifteen,” she reminded. Maya nodded without looking up. “I’ll pack thermoses.” Sam saluted with a teal-smudged hand. “I’ll bring my best silence.” Leo pressed Enter once more; the screen brightened with a lone line: Pulse-check scheduled 06:00, Invite: Listening Walk. He glanced up, cheeks coloring. “Door stays open for Jordan.” Alana retied her pouch and loosened both braids, ebony strands falling over turquoise earrings. “Water always finds its way home,” she said, voice no louder than the sprinkler hiss. She doused one lamp, slid her notebook into a back pocket, and stepped into the hallway’s dim glow, popcorn scent trailing her like river mist.

-------------------- XI JORDAN KIM The campus bell tower showed 5:56 a.m. when Jordan strode across the mist-damp quad, sneakers squeaking on flagstones. A sodium lamp buzzed above the fountain; water slapped the basin with steady, hollow plunks. Maya waited beside the rim, backpack at her feet, headlamp band glowing soft amber. “Good, we’re five,” she whispered as Alana, Sam, and Leo emerged from different paths, jackets zipped to their chins. Breath fog curled in brief halos. Jordan slid both hands into hoodie pockets, thumb flicking their smartwatch. “Twenty-minute data capture window begins in four,” they murmured, half-joking, half-nervous. Maya unrolled a tiny clipboard. “Phones on airplane. We start silent at six sharp, finish at six-twenty, debrief right here. Route is the oak, greenhouse loop, then back.” She glanced up. “Everyone okay?” Sam answered with a dramatic thumbs-up. Leo nodded once, already scribbling a time stamp on a folded napkin. Alana stepped forward. In the dim light, her braids looked like wet river ropes. She knelt, opened her tobacco tin, and set a pinch on the fountain’s stone lip. Water splashed over the offering, carrying flecks into the basin. “Old water, tired water,” she said, voice low but sure, “we’re here to hear you.” She touched the rim with her palm, then stood. “Walk light. Listen heavy.” Jordan’s foot began its habitual tap but they forced it still. Six o’clock flashed green on the watch. Silence fell like a curtain.

Maya led, sneakers crunching the gravel path toward the oak that had become their unofficial meeting spot. The tree loomed, leaves quivering in an almost unnoticeable breeze. Jordan’s ears caught a subtle chorus: distant HVAC whir from the science hall, the irregular drip of last night’s rain from a branch, Leo’s jacket zipper ticking against itself. No words, no instructions—only sounds stacking in delicate layers. Past the oak, they entered a corridor of ornamental pears. Sprinklers clicked on, showering turf in rhythmic arcs. Droplets pattered on Sam’s canvas backpack; Sam didn’t flinch. Jordan registered each impact like code

-------------------- XII ALANA WHITEFEATHER The multipurpose room glowed with mid-morning sun filtered through gauzy curtains. Folding partitions had been pushed back, replaced by beanbags in a loose circle. A playlist of ocean waves pulsed from hidden speakers. Alana stepped inside, scanning for exits—habit learned from conferences where tempers flared. She felt the weight of her notebook in her pocket and the dry tobacco tin against her palm. Listen first. Maya waved from a lime-green beanbag. Sam sprawled nearby, twirling a marker like a drumstick. Leo crouched beside a power strip, coiling his phone cord. Jordan paced along the window, smartwatch blinking every few seconds. The facilitator, a lanky grad student with a nametag reading DANA, clapped softly. “Welcome to Burnout Basics. Let’s start with a feelings check-in. One word each.” She settled cross-legged on a turquoise cushion, eyes shining. Alana lowered onto a beanbag that sighed under her. The fabric smelled faintly of lavender. She traced the floor’s sun-warm tiles while the circle moved clockwise. “Wired,” Leo muttered. “Stretched,” Maya offered. “Electric,” Sam sang, rolling the word. Jordan stopped pacing. “Frustrated.” Alana pressed the tin’s cool lid. “Rivering,” she said, imagining spring runoff carrying silt and questions. Dana beamed. “Beautiful.” She rang a tiny bell. “We’ll do a body scan next. Notice sensations, let them speak.” Jordan’s foot began its tap—fast, staccato. Dana guided the group through breath counts. Alana inhaled cedar notes she’d dabbed on her wrists earlier. Dana’s voice flowed, soothing, yet Jordan’s tapping sounded louder than the waves.

Finally Jordan burst. “Is this all we’re doing? Feelings about feelings?” They shoved both hands into their hoodie. “The planet’s on fire. We have scalable tools—direct-air capture, sunshade arrays—but we’re… navel-gazing.” Beanbags rustled. Sam’s marker stilled in mid-spin. Dana lifted a placating palm. “Emotions drive action. Without grounding—” Jordan snorted. “Grounding won’t recalibrate atmospheric carbon. We need moon-shot engineering, not kumbaya.” Heat pricked Alana’s cheeks. She uncapped the tin, took a pinch of tobacco, and let it rest in her left hand. Her grandmother’s voice surfaced: medicine starts with listening. She cleared her throat. “Jordan,” she said, tone even, “where I’m from, the river taught us that moving fast without listening floods fields and drowns stories. We test water with our ears before we cup it.” Jordan folded arms. “Rivers don’t reverse CO₂ parts per million.” “Maybe not,” Alana replied, “but people who listen first design better levees and know when not to build them.” She opened her hand; the tobacco caught a shaft of light. “Yakama teaching: medicine starts with listening. Tech can be medicine, but only if the patient is heard.” A quiet hum filled the circle—Maya’s soft inhale, Leo’s charger clicking free of the outlet, Sam’s sneaker squeak. Jordan’s jaw flexed. Dana exhaled. “Let’s pause.” She glanced at the wall clock. “Ten-minute break. Snacks in the back.” Chairs, or rather beanbags, shifted. Jordan strode toward the door, steps clipped. “I’ll find a session with real solutions,” they muttered, tugging the door open. Fluorescent hallway light spilled in.

Door thudded shut behind them. Sam let out a low whistle. “Well.” Alana knelt, placed the tobacco on a windowsill that faced the quad. She murmured a single Yakama word—hy’shqe, thanks—and returned the tin to her pocket. Around her, classmates hovered, uncertain. She stood, braid ends brushing her elbows. “If anyone wants to talk where trees can answer back,” she said, voice steady, “meet under the oak at four.” She met Maya’s eyes, then Leo’s. Both nodded. Sam gave a thumbs-up. Alana walked to the snack table, poured water from a sweating pitcher, and headed for the exit. Her boots clicked once on tile, then softened against the hall’s worn carpet as she set course for the quad.

-------------------- XIII MAYA HERNANDEZ Late-afternoon sun slanted amber through the oak’s branches, striping the grass in moving latticework. Maya balanced a cardboard tray of paper cups while Alana unfolded a map of campus paths across the picnic table. Sam arrived next, guitar pick tucked behind one ear, jingling a grocery tote. Leo followed at a quieter pace, reusable cup in hand, laptop under his arm. Maya set the drinks down. “Okay, ground rule zero—hydration.” Her voice stayed light; her stomach felt like a coiled hose. She passed cups: iced hibiscus tea for Sam, black coffee for Leo, warm cinnamon water for Alana, unsweetened green for herself. Alana traced a finger along a bold red circle she’d drawn on the map. “This is our territory: oak, quad, library steps. Dependable cell signal, shade, and student traffic.” “Strategic visibility,” Sam said, half-singing the words. They popped open a container of cut mango. “Anybody want color therapy?” Leo reached, then paused. “Uh—thanks.” He took a piece, eyes fixed on the table grain. A silence drifted in—the kind that reminded Maya of boarded-up houses after a hurricane. She cleared her throat. “Before we make plans, we need to name what’s in the room.” She unwrapped a short twig of beach-sage from her pocket, rolled it between palms. “One-minute shares. No solutions, no cross-talk. Just data—heart data.” She glanced around. “Cool?” Nods. Maya tapped her watch. “Alana?” Alana straightened. “Sadness,” she said. “And anger.

Jordan’s words stung, but mostly I’m angry the world teaches them to cut off feeling.” She placed the twig on the map like a baton. Sam accepted it next. “I’m buzzing—like, actual bees in my rib cage. Want to paint banners and burn things down simultaneously.” They handed the twig to Leo. Leo’s shoulders rose, fell. “Embarrassed,” he murmured. “I froze in that workshop. Didn’t back you up.” He slid the twig to Maya. Maya held it, warm from three sets of hands. “Tired,” she said, then inhaled. “But ready.” She set the twig in the table’s center. Minute finished. She clicked a pen. “Ground rule one: listening item—” she tapped the twig—“passes clockwise whenever we meet. Whoever holds it talks. Room to breathe between speakers.” Sam scribbled on a grocery receipt. “Listening twig. Check.” “Rule two,” Maya went on, “feelings and fixes both allowed, just label which mode you’re in. Saves misunderstandings.” Leo typed. “F-mode, X-mode,” he muttered. “Flags in the app later.” Alana folded the map, revealing another hand-drawn circle labeled Catalyst? “Name?” she asked. Maya exhaled, felt salt air memory in her nose. “Catalyst Circle,” she said. The words stayed upright in the air. Sam repeated them like a chant; Leo typed; Alana nodded once. “Weekly meets,” Maya continued. “Same spot, same day?” She checked the sun. “Fridays, four-thirty. Storm plan: student union lounge.” “Ritual opener?” Sam asked. Alana untied a tiny cloth pouch, poured three sunflower seeds into her palm. “Seed offering to soil. Simple.”

Maya assigned tasks with quick taps of her pen. “Sam, visuals for a mini-poster on the bulletin boards. Leo, draft a campus-map overlay showing mutual-aid stations—hydration, free store, campus garden. Alana, seed ritual instructions plus land acknowledgment language. I’ll reserve the student union backup and post schedule.” “Action items recorded,” Leo said, thumbs darting. Sam spun the guitar pick. “Jordan?” Wind rustled the oak, scattering a couple leaves onto the table. Maya followed Sam’s gaze. Across the quad, Jordan stood near a lamppost, backpack strap twisted in one fist, eyes shaded by the brim of afternoon light. Maya pulled out her phone, thumbs flying: Hey. Debrief under the oak now. Feelings + fixes both on tap. Open invite, no pressure. —M She pressed send. A faint buzz carried across the grass; Jordan’s smartwatch lit. They glanced at the screen, jaw tight, then slid the watch under their sleeve and slipped the phone into a side pocket. Feet shifted as though deciding on a chess move. Maya turned back to the table. “Agenda drafted,” she said. “Any blocks?” “Nope,” Sam said. “All green,” Leo added. Alana planted the three seeds in a neat line beside a tree root, pressing soil with two fingers. “Circle begins,” she murmured. Maya lifted the listening twig, planted it upright in the loose dirt by the seeds. She dusted her hands, feeling steadier. Behind her, footsteps crunched dry leaves, stopping just beyond the oak’s shadow.

-------------------- XIV MAYA HERNANDEZ Maya heard the crunch of leaves behind her and turned. Jordan stood half-in, half-out of the oak’s pooled shade, backpack dangling from two fingers like an anchor. Their shoulders squared, chin level, but the blue buzz-cut twitched with small, restless nods. “Seat’s open,” Maya said, sliding sideways on the bench. She tapped the listening twig, still upright beside freshly packed soil. “We’re in F-mode at the moment.” Jordan’s eyebrow flicked. “F as in feelings, right?” Dry, brittle edge. “Right,” Sam chimed, voice bright. “Fixes soon, promise.” Jordan approached. Footsteps slow, foot tapping once before each stride—testing the ground for traps—then eased the backpack down and perched on the table’s rim. Arms crossed. “Okay. One minute. Go.” Maya checked her watch. “When the twig’s in your hand.” Jordan hesitated, then pinched the twig. Shoulders dropped a centimeter. “Frustrated,” they said. “Mostly with myself. I left messy.” Throat cleared. “Done.” Silence lingered just long enough for breath. Jordan planted the twig upright again. “Thanks.” Maya flipped to a fresh notebook page. “X-mode.” She gestured at Leo. Leo opened his laptop. A campus map glowed blue-green; nodes pulsed in clusters. “Prototype zero-two,” he said. “Mutual-aid overlay. Hot orange for needs, cool teal for offers.” He angled the screen toward Jordan. “Blurred five meters for privacy.” Jordan leaned in, skepticism shadowing their eyes. “Your blur—Gaussian or hexagonal binning?” Leo tapped keys; code lines scrolled. “Gaussian kernel. Tunable radius.” “Hex bins keep edges cleaner.

Less bleed in mixed-use buildings.” Jordan hovered, then asked, “May I?” Leo turned the laptop. “All yours.” Jordan’s fingers moved like they were soldering circuits. New polygons tessellated the map, honeycomb-tight. Data points snapped inward; colors sharpened. Sam whistled. “Tech wizards in stereo.” Alana sprinkled dirt over the seeds she’d planted earlier, gaze on the screen. “Cleaner visuals help first-years find the free pantry quicker.” “Also lowers processing load,” Jordan added. “Dorm Wi-Fi won’t choke.” Tension leaked from the air. Maya uncapped a marker, lettered a heading on poster board: Catalyst Circle: Needs & Seeds. Sam traced neon vines alongside. Jordan glanced over. “You’re doing this weekly?” “Fridays, four-thirty,” Maya confirmed. “Oak or union lounge if it rains.” Jordan’s foot tapped slower. “I can build a consent screen so users choose public or circle-only visibility.” They looked at Leo. “Push by Monday.” Leo’s grin flashed, wide and sudden. “That’s… fast.” Jordan’s mouth twitched—almost a smile. “Speed’s my coping mechanism.” Sam drummed a riff

-------------------- XV MAYA HERNANDEZ The quad pulsed with drums and chant. Cardboard suns bobbed above the crowd; banners snapped in warm wind that smelled of kettle corn and hot mulch. Maya stood between Sam’s paint-streaked overalls and Alana’s steady braids, craning to see the plywood stage balanced on milk crates. Her heart already skipped, too fast, too soon. Onstage, a senior named Ruth gripped the megaphone. “We’re tired, right?” Ruth’s voice cracked then rose. “Tired of begging the adults to notice the smoke in our skies. And tired of pretending we’re invincible. Burnout is real—” Maya’s shoulders tightened. Burnout. The word tunneled straight to the memory of sleepless hurricane nights. Ruth kept going, listing panic attacks, dropping out, friends who couldn’t get out of bed. The drumline slowed; even the crowd noise dimmed, as if everyone leaned in to hear. Maya’s breath shrank to shallow sips. She felt Sam’s elbow nudge. “You okay?” Sam mouthed, voice lost in the chant returning at the stage edge. Ground, she told herself. Five senses. She pressed both boots into the trampled grass—damp, uneven, real. She touched the cool metal whistle that hung from her keychain. She inhaled kettle corn, exhaled. The next breath reached deeper. Her hand found the lanyard on her wrist and slid the seed envelope inside it back and forth until the paper rasp steadied her pulse. Maya raised her left palm, thumb touching little finger: their silent “check?” signal. Instantly Alana mirrored it, calm and sure.

Sam flashed the “okay” circle with both hands; purple topknot bobbed. Leo, half-hiding behind his coffee cup, lifted a shaky thumbs-sideways. Jordan, arms folded, offered a curt nod. Maya lowered her hand, exhaled again. The circle held. Ruth’s speech switched to logistics—march route changed, water station lost volunteers, sign-up QR codes broken. The mic squealed; batteries died; someone swapped them while the crowd murmured. Jordan’s eyes narrowed. “Single funnel entry, no backup power, zero redundancy,” they muttered, more to the cracked sidewalk than to anyone. “People’ll bottleneck at the library ramp.” Leo’s notebook appeared, pen traveling before words left his mouth. Small boxes, arrows, and a bold title: flash-coord. Sam caught the scribbling. “Planning a wizard spell?” “Geo-ping clusters,” Leo answered, eyes on the page. “Push alerts if stations run dry, reroute foot traffic.” Jordan leaned over the page, pointing. “All nodes time-stamped. You need priority queues, or the server chokes like that mic.” Leo drew a thicker line. “Edge caching,” he agreed. Their heads bent together, quick strokes and shorter breaths. Up front, organizers waved arms, trying to shepherd marchers into two ragged columns. The chant fractured. A loudspeaker blared conflicting directions. Someone tripped on a fallen banner pole; others stumbled to help. Sam winced. “This many hearts, no rhythm.” Alana placed a palm on Sam’s shoulder. “Rivers flood when banks crumble,” she said softly. “We still guide water one channel at a time.” Maya nodded, vision clear now. She stepped closer, voice low but steady.

“Big rallies shake the air for a day. We need the circle for the long haul.” Sam’s grin flashed. “Oak tree afterparty?” “Mini-debrief,” Maya confirmed. “No mics, just us.” Alana nodded once, decisive. “And stories for whoever drifts over.” Jordan tapped Leo’s page. “We build the tool, sure, but first we test it inside the Circle. Controlled scale.” Maya’s pulse warmed at their tone: analytical, yes—yet woven with them. “Feels right,” she said. Ruth’s voice, re-amplified, called for marchers to move. The surge pressed them forward. Maya lifted her arm, elbow out: stay-close signal. The five linked, shoulders brushing, and let the crowd carry them toward the street. Leo tore the notebook page free, folded it into quarters, and tucked it into Maya’s bandana. “Prototype tonight,” he murmured. Maya squeezed the folded paper, grounding again—this time in possibility, not panic. Drums thundered, and the group stepped in unison onto the asphalt, feet striking the beat, eyes alert, circle intact.

-------------------- XVI MAYA HERNANDEZ Dusk soaked the quad in violet when Maya reached the oak. Wind rattled dry leaves overhead; the rally’s distant chants faded to one last drumbeat, then silence. She laid her backpack against the trunk, brushed grass flat with her shoe, and drew a chalk ring just wide enough for five bodies. Sam arrived first, steps quick, shoulders tense. Purple topknot quivered. “That march was a clown car on fire,” they barked, collapsing cross-legged inside the circle. “No water resupply, zero exit lanes. I shouted myself hoarse and for what? Kettle-corn fumes and half a chant?” Maya set her seed pouch in the center. “We’ll unpack it,” she said, keeping her voice even. “First, breath check.” She raised her palm, thumb to little finger. Four more hands met hers mid-air. Five slow breaths smoothed the air. Leo slid in, hoodie sleeves streaked with dust, notebook already open. Jordan followed, tapping their smartwatch like a metronome. Alana closed the ring, skirt rustling, turquoise earrings catching the last light. Maya clicked her tiny camp lantern on low and took facilitator’s seat. “Round one: feelings, thirty seconds each. No cross-talk.” She pointed clockwise. Sam exhaled hard. “Frustrated. Embarrassed I snapped at a volunteer. Worried we’ll burn out like everyone warns.” Jordan spoke next, tone clipped but steady. “Annoyed by bottlenecks. Energized by potential fixes. Slightly dehydrated.” A faint grin twitched. Leo pushed glasses up. “Overstimulated. Also hopeful—sketched something useful.” He tapped the notebook. Alana pressed a braid between fingers.

“Saddened by how scattered we are as a movement. Grateful to sit on solid ground.” Maya felt her own chest. “Tired, yes, but clear. Proud we stayed together.” She nodded, closing the round. “Okay. Now: observations. What worked, what failed?” Sam’s hand shot up. “Speakers naming burnout—that was honest. But logistics were chaos.” “Chaos is predictable when throughput exceeds node capacity,” Jordan said. They flipped the notebook to Leo’s latest page. “We mocked up Flash-Coord v1. Geo-tagged pings, color-coded: green for water, red for medical, blue for marshals.” Leo angled the page so everyone could see. Tiny squares marked stations; arrows rerouted paths around the library ramp. “It lives inside the mutual-aid app. Pushes auto-expire after ten minutes so data stays fresh.” Sam whistled. “Hot. But you’ll need offline mode. Cell towers jammed today.” “Mesh network fallback,” Jordan answered. “Bluetooth beacons between phones.” Maya caught the tech volley, then looked to Alana. “Thoughts?” Alana scooped a handful of acorns from her pocket, placing them beside the seed pouch. “Fast signals help in a storm,” she said, voice soft. “But an oak survives because its taproot digs slow, patient inches each year. If we chase every alarm without tending roots, we topple.” Sam traced a circle in the dirt around the acorns. “So the app is branches; this”—they tapped the chalk ring—“is roots.” Leo nodded, almost whispering. “Flash-Coord stays in beta till our circle stress-tests it.” Maya felt warmth spread through her ribs.

“Then tonight is our first official debrief ritual,” she declared. “Action plus reflection, every time, no exceptions.” Jordan lifted an eyebrow. “Protocols?” “Three steps,” Maya answered, counting on fingers. “One: feelings pulse. Two: facts and fixes. Three: root check—Alana’s teaching. If any step’s rushed, meeting pauses until we breathe.” Sam slapped the grass. “Agreed.” “Seconded,” Jordan said. “Thirded,” Leo added, surprising himself with volume. Alana smiled, edges of her eyes crinkling. She set a pinch of tobacco beside the acorns. “Roots acknowledged.” Maya pulled her planner, wrote the sequence in green ink, and showed the page. “Locked.” Wind kicked up; a brittle leaf spiraled into the lantern glow and landed on Sam’s knee. They picked it up, handed it to Maya. “Token for the minutes.” Maya tucked the leaf into her planner pocket. “All right. Practical next steps. Jordan and Leo iterate mesh feature; Sam drafts a checklist for future rallies; Alana and I gather story-teachings for root checks.” Jordan was already coding on their phone, thumbs flying. “Patch by Wednesday.” “Checklist tomorrow,” Sam chimed, tapping forearm tattoo like a gavel. Alana closed her notebook with a decisive snap. “First story arrives with sunrise.” Maya folded the chalk back into its box. “Circle adjourns when the ring’s erased.” She drew a slow line through the chalk boundary, crumbling it back to dust. Five pairs of hands swept the fragments away, grass settling flat again.

Lantern off, backpacks shouldered, they rose together and walked toward the dorm lights, shoes scuffing in quiet, unified rhythm.

-------------------- Section 3 XVII ALANA WHITEFEATHER Mist draped the riverside grove when Alana stepped onto the dew-slick grass. The sky held a faint pearl glow; mallards murmured downstream. She knelt beside a lichen-striped boulder, sprinkled a pinch of tobacco, and whispered a greeting in Yakama. Her breath feathered in the chill. Footfalls crunched. Maya appeared, jacket zipped to her chin, curls damp. “Good timing?” she asked, voice hushed as if the trees were listening. “Sun’s almost here,” Alana said. She unrolled a faded wool blanket, its edges beaded with old beadwork, and smoothed it into a crescent facing the river. Sam jogged in next, purple topknot bobbing, carrying a thermos that sloshed with every stride. “Dawn squad, reporting for myth duty.” They parked themselves cross-legged, steam rising from the cup they poured. Jordan and Leo arrived together, silhouettes against the growing light. Jordan tapped their smartwatch, then pocketed it without even glancing at the screen. Leo clutched his sketch pad, fingers already smudged with graphite. Alana settled on the blanket’s center seam. “Thank you for meeting before classes,” she said, voice low. “Today isn’t a debrief. It’s root work.” Five heads dipped in agreement. The river gurgled. She opened her small notebook, worn pages smelling faintly of cedar. “My grandmother learned this story from her grandmother after the dams came. It begins with a warning.” A jay scolded overhead; she waited until its chatter faded. “In the oldest days,” she began, “people forgot to thank the salmon.

They built higher houses, ate without prayer, carved the riverbanks for faster canoes. The water grew tired.” She traced a circle on the blanket. “One winter, clouds piled like boulders. Rain fell for twelve moons. The river climbed the valley walls and kept climbing.” Sam hugged their knees, eyes wide. “Only a few families listened when Beaver Woman said, ‘Tie cedar rope to the highest peak and anchor your hearts to one another.’ They lashed cedar bark to a great canoe, filled it with stories—woven baskets, bone flutes, seed bundles—then waited while the world turned to lake.” Alana’s hands mimed oars cutting water. “For forty days, nothing but waves and the mountain tip. When the rain finally slept, the canoe eased onto new ground.” Leo’s pencil scratched in quick strokes. “The survivors stepped out, knees shaking. The valley was mud and silence. Salmon were gone. So they opened the baskets, sang into the emptiness, planted the seeds of memory first—songs, not crops. Only after the songs took root did the salmon return, riding the freshets.” She closed her notebook. “The land remembered because the people remembered.” Silence pooled around the blanket. Morning sun edged over the treetops, lighting Maya’s freckles like sparks. Jordan cleared their throat softly. “In the myth, the flood is triggered by forgetfulness. Could we chart that—missing gratitude—as a pattern? Like warning indicators before system failure?” Alana met their gaze. “Patterns live in behavior before numbers. But numbers can help us notice faster.” Jordan nodded, shoulders unclenching.

“Maybe a data set of cultural signals, not just carbon parts per million.” Sam exhaled a low whistle. “Gratitude metrics. I’d paint that on every dorm wall.” Leo flipped his pad around. A wireframe glowed in graphite lines: icons shaped like baskets, each tagged with date, place, voice note. “Story bank,” he murmured. “Users drop in a memory, a song, a lesson. Syncs offline, permanent archive.” Maya leaned closer, bandana slipping. “Seed vault, but for culture.” Alana’s chest warmed. She lifted the small cedar chip hanging from her necklace and set it on the blanket’s edge. “Every deposit needs a tending ritual. Stories die if they stay in glass jars.” “Agreed,” Leo said. He scribbled the word tending beside a tiny sprout icon. Sam popped the lid on the thermos. “Honor guard coffee.” They passed tin cups around. Steam mingled with river mist. Maya pulled an envelope of crimson maple seeds from her pocket, placed it next to the cedar chip. “First entry for the story bank,” she said. Alana poured a splash of coffee onto the soil, an offering. Then she rose, brushed dew from her skirt, and faced the river. “Circle stands. May our memories hold water when the dams crack.” The others stood with her. Jordan lifted a smooth stone, tossing it once before tucking it into their coat. Leo snapped his notebook shut; graphite dust puffed like breath. Sam slung the empty thermos over one shoulder and pointed toward campus. “Breakfast line starts moving in five.”

Alana led the way up the gentle slope, blanket under her arm, cedar scent trailing behind as the sun cleared the grove entirely and the day began.

-------------------- XVIII MAYA HERNANDEZ Maya’s dorm phone shrieked at 6:07 a.m. She blinked at the headline: “ATLANTIC MONSTER—POTENTIAL CAT-6, 210 KM/H SUSTAINED.” A satellite image swirled like a violet bruise over the ocean. Memory flashed: plywood over her childhood window, sirens, the roof groaning. Her breath hitched. She jabbed call buttons—first Alana, then Sam, Jordan, Leo—words tumbling. “Hyper hurricane. East Coast. We need—just come.” She paced between laundry piles, tracking lines on the NOAA model. Landfall window: three days, maybe Virginia. A quarter of campus hailed from that coastline. Her pulse hammered. Too fast. Can’t freeze. Move. The door burst open. Sam, hair still in sleep-smashed spikes, waved a paint-stained phone. “Saw the push alert. You okay?” “No,” Maya said, voice thin. “But we will be.” Jordan rushed in next, tablet under one arm, hoodie unzipped. “Pulled the European ensembles.” They set the tablet on the desk; graphs bloomed red. “Rapid intensification at twenty-four degrees north. Storm surge estimates off the charts. Worst-case, eight-meter rise at Chesapeake.” Leo materialized behind them, glasses fogged, laptop already booting. “App server’s up. I can pivot the map overlay.” Alana arrived last, braid ends swinging. She shut the door gently, scanned Maya’s shaking hands, and placed two fingertips on Maya’s wrist. “Roots,” she murmured. “Feel them.” Maya inhaled. Feet on tile. The trembling eased from a quake to a tremor. “Okay. Circle up.” They dragged desk chairs into a rough pentagon. Jordan flicked to a zoomed path projection.

“Probability cone hits within two hundred miles of three hometowns here.” They highlighted Norfolk, Charleston, Miami. “Transport will clog forty-eight hours pre-landfall.” Sam tapped their knee. “Students will freak. International kids never seen a cyclone that size.” Maya’s fingers found a dry-erase marker. She uncapped it like pulling a pin. “Needs and offers. Fast.” The closet mirror became a whiteboard. “Data feed,” Jordan said. “Real-time wind and surge layers.” “Done,” Leo muttered, typing. “I’ll tie NOAA API to campus grid. Geo-fence dorms.” “Emotional triage station,” Sam added. “Pop-up corner in the union—warm drinks, someone to talk to.” Alana nodded. “And story-sharing space. Fear releases when it meets voice.” Maya scrawled each item, writing hard enough to squeak. “Transportation.” Her mind flicked to freshman Alex, car-less, family in Wilmington. “Who’s got vehicles?” Sam raised a hand. “Farm truck seats three plus gear.” “Leo?” Maya asked. “Bike trailer,” he said. “Can haul supplies, not humans.” “List it.” Maya underlined twice. Her breath steadied; sentences clipped into commands. “Jordan, worst surge arrival?” “Model says thirty-six hours before eye wall—tides stack midnight Thursday.” “Clock starts now. We push campus-wide alert at T minus thirty-four.” She circled the number. A gust rattled the dorm window. Rain wasn’t due yet, but the sky already looked bruised. Maya swallowed the rising phantom of hurricane sirens. “Focus,” she whispered. Sam popped up. “I’ll draft a two-minute TikTok—plain language, calm tone, call for drivers and spare bedding.” “Add QR to the app,” Leo said, fingers flying.

“One tap volunteer sign-up.” Jordan’s foot tapped a double-time beat. “Server load will spike when panic hits. I’ll spin a mirror on campus intranet.” Alana opened her notebook. “Names of coastal students,” she said. “I’ll coordinate personal check-ins, start with the Indigenous student list.” Maya paused, marker hovering. “Role clarity good.” She drew a quick wheel: data, comms, logistics, care, culture. Five slices, one per friend. “We quartersaw this thing.” Jordan almost smiled. “Catalyst Circle, deployed.” Sam slapped the desk. “From feelings to fixers, baby.” A memory of plywood and wind roared in Maya’s ears, then drained away, replaced by the scratch of marker and the clack of Leo’s keyboard. “We need a room.” “Media lab’s empty until noon,” Jordan offered. “Move.” Maya snapped the cap on the marker and grabbed her battered binder. The others scooped devices and notebooks. In the hallway freshmen drifted half-awake, oblivious. Maya strode past, voice steady. “Union after lab. Alert draft in thirty. Go.” They pushed through the stairwell door, sneakers thudding in sync, a five-part rhythm that matched the storm’s distant pulse but beat it, for now, with purpose.

-------------------- XIX MAYA HERNANDEZ Fluorescent ceiling panels hummed over banks of idle iMacs, their screens the only lamps in the predawn media lab. Cables snaked across tables to a single hub where Leo hunched, hoodie pooled around his shoulders, code cascading in pale-green rows. Beside him Jordan’s tablet projected a storm-track cone the color of bruised plums. Sam paced by the whiteboard, rehearsing lines for the alert video, while Alana sorted index cards of student names into red, yellow, and green piles. Maya slipped through the door last, arms full of extension cords, bandana crooked over unruly curls. “Power strip, anyone?” Her voice still shook, but only a little. “Bless,” Leo murmured, eyes never leaving his laptop. Maya fed cords under desks, tapping ankles so no one tripped. The tiny act steadied her pulse. A chime bloomed from Jordan’s tablet. New advisory. The cone fattened; surge projections flicked higher. Jordan’s foot stuttered. “Twelve-foot surge at Hampton Roads now likely.” Sam froze mid-stride. “Twelve? That’s dorm-roof height.” Their marker squeaked an involuntary line down the board. Phone vibrations stacked in Maya’s pocket—SOS emojis, ride requests, panicked voice memos. Heat climbed her neck. Old urge: grab every task, steer every wheel. She gripped a desk edge instead. “Roles, remember,” she said, mostly to herself. Leo broke the tension first. “Need list update.” He nodded toward Maya’s buzzing phone. “Pipe raw messages to the database; I’ll parse for keywords.”

“On it.” Maya plugged her phone into a USB, watching the flood of texts scroll across Leo’s auxiliary monitor. “Red tag anything with ‘wheelchair,’ ‘evac,’ or ‘meds.’” Jordan swiveled. “I can overlay those geotags onto the hazard layer.” Their dry tone held no brag, just focus. Sam lifted the marker again. “Thirty-second explainer draft three.” They inhaled theatrically, then spoke to the webcam: “Hey Eagles, big storm, bigger community. Take a breath. Scan the code behind me—” Alana lifted a hand, palm down. “Soften it. People already drowning in numbers. Lead with care.” Sam exhaled. “Right. Try four.” They began again, voice warm honey this time. Maya’s gaze darted across stations, heart still sprinting. She caught her reflection in a dark monitor—wide eyes, clenched jaw. This is how you fry, she thought. Circle doesn’t need a frying pan. She straightened. “I’ll fetch fuel. Ten-minute break call.” No one argued; they were too deep in code or script. Perfect. The hallway smelled of printer toner and day-old coffee. Maya jogged to the vending alcove—dark, useless after last semester’s budget cuts—then continued to the residence-hall kitchen. She commandeered a rolling cart, loaded it with oatmeal packets, a hot-water urn, apples, and the emergency peanut-butter tub she’d stashed for final exams. On impulse she raided the RA bulletin board for bright sticky notes. Back in the lab she parked the cart with a flourish. “Pit stop. Hydrate, sugar up.” She cracked the urn spout into paper cups, handing one to Leo.

His shoulders dropped as steam bathed his glasses. Alana set her notebooks aside. “Quick grounding?” She waited for nods. Each friend placed a palm flat on the slick cart lid. Alana closed her eyes. “Feel the table. Under it, floor. Under that, earth older than any storm.” Silence settled, pierced only by server fans. Even Jordan’s foot stilled. Maya inhaled, felt tile under sneakers, felt the quiver in her calves subside. When Alana opened her eyes, the room seemed fractionally wider. “Status pops,” Maya prompted. Leo pointed at his screen. “Volunteer sign-ups doubled after Sam’s first draft. Mapping live in sixty seconds.” He tapped Return; colored dots bloomed over the coastline graphic. Jordan overlayed arrows and elevation shading. “Simplified legend. Anyone can read this in two seconds.” Sam lifted their phone. “Version four video uploading. Captioned, Spanish subs auto-queued.” Alana flipped an index card. “Thirty-two high-risk students without transport. I’m matching them with the new volunteer list now.” Maya scanned the circle—steady eyes, sure hands. “Beautiful. I’ll manage inflow triage and keep snacks rolling.” She snagged a sticky note, wrote in block letters: CIRCLE HOLDS, taped it above the door. Messages pinged again, but her shoulders stayed low. She pulled a folding chair

-------------------- XX ALANA WHITEFEATHER Alana stepped over a tangle of downed bike racks and Styrofoam take-out lids that glittered with rainwater. The oak’s crown looked ragged—half its leaves plastered against the library wall—but the trunk still rose steady, ribs of bark unbroken. She knelt, set a pinch of tobacco on the damp roots, and whispered, “Thank you for holding.” Footsteps crunched behind her. Maya trudged up, hoodie strings limp, eyes ringed purple. “It felt like the world ended last night,” she said, voice rasping. She brushed splinters from the bench where they always sat. Sam followed, boots squelching, purple topknot deflated to lavender fuzz. “Storm yanked the theater roof clean off.” They made a soft kazoo sound, then sagged onto the grass. Jordan arrived carrying the campus tablet, screen spider-webbed but glowing. Leo brought a thermos bigger than his forearm. The five formed a loose semicircle around the oak’s scarred roots. Alana drew a slow breath, waiting for the air to settle. Sunlight flickered through missing branches, lighting flecks of sawdust on Maya’s cheek. Maya lifted her head. “I kept hearing sirens, thinking, This is it—systems failing, alarms everywhere.” She pressed her fists to her temples. “If this is just one hurricane, what’ll the full collapse look like?” Silence pooled. A robin hopped across the overturned trash can, startled, flew off. Alana met Maya’s gaze. “For my people,” she said, keeping her tone even, “the world started ending in 1492 and hasn’t stopped yet.” Sam’s knee stopped jiggling.

Jordan lowered the cracked tablet. Leo’s thermos hissed as steam escaped, but no one reached for cups. Alana continued, words slow as river current. “Every treaty broken, every dam on our river—each one felt like final collapse. Yet we’re still here. Storms end. Stories keep paddling.” The breeze rattled plastic in a tree limb. No one spoke. They just listened to the debris click. Alana straightened. “Let’s mark how we got through the night.” She tapped the earth with a stick, drawing an impromptu circle in the mulch. “Roles first.” Jordan cleared their throat. “Real-time maps showed surge zones, but honestly”—they nudged Leo with an elbow—“the data mattered because volunteers answered it. Ones Leo’s app pinged.” Leo’s cheeks flushed. “The new ‘need-offer’ toggle worked. Seventy-three rides logged, zero stranded. It…helped.” Sam gave a two-finger salute. “Video link got eight hundred views before power cut. Students knew where the dry gym was—because Maya kept us calm enough to film.” Maya’s freckles lifted with a faint smile. “I just read the playbook we wrote. Circle rules: assign tasks, ten-minute breaks, ground. That structure saved us more than anything I did.” Alana touched Maya’s shoulder. “Leadership isn’t a cape. It’s the canoe that lets others paddle. You carved that canoe.” Maya exhaled, shoulders dropping as if unburdened. “I didn’t freeze. First storm ever I didn’t freeze.” Sam snapped a twig in half, tossed the pieces aside. “So the Catalyst Circle’s not a cute name; it’s a functional survival kit.”

A gull shrieked overhead, swooping low to pick at a wet sandwich. Jordan watched it, then spoke. “I used to think numbers were everything. Last night the numbers were mute until Sam gave them voice, Maya gave them order, Leo gave them roads, Alana gave them heartbeat.” They shrugged. “Guess tech’s only half the circuit.” Alana nodded once. She eyed the oak, its battered limbs. “Even strong trunks need sap and sunlight.” She glanced at each friend. “We’re those elements for each other.” Leo unscrewed his thermos, poured steaming chai into the cap and passed it to Maya, then another to Sam, then Jordan. He handed the last capful to Alana. She accepted, warm metal against cold fingers. Maya raised her cup. “To the Circle that holds.” They touched rims gently. Chai steam curled upward, mingling with the oak’s bruised scent. No one spoke again. They simply stood, cups cradled, listening to distant chainsaws and the soft tick of water dripping from leaves, letting the weight of Alana’s words settle into the soil between them.

-------------------- XXI MAYA HERNANDEZ Morning haze clung to the quad like breath on glass. Maya adjusted the tassel that kept swinging into her eyes and hurried across the clipped grass, graduation robe flapping behind her. The old oak—once shredded by wind, now broad-crowned and whole—waited at the path’s bend. At its base sat a burlap-wrapped sapling, roots bundled in damp soil, its tag reading Quercus alba, offspring. Alana was already there, kneeling. She pressed a pinch of tobacco into the earth, then rose and smoothed her turquoise earrings. “Right on time,” she said, voice low. “Couldn’t be late to my own circle,” Maya answered, stopping to catch her breath. She touched the sapling’s first green leaf. Strong veins, she thought, same pattern as its parent. Boots pounded up the walkway. Sam skidded to a stop, mortarboard tilted, rainbow cords bouncing. “Gowns are basically capes,” they declared, swirling for effect. A dirt-smudged trowel poked from their back pocket. “I borrowed this from Facilities. They said, ‘Only if you promise to put it back.’” Jordan and Leo arrived together, clutching a folding shovel and a steel watering can. Jordan’s smartwatch flashed amber—campus microgrid on reduced load after last night’s heatwave. “Ten-percent battery,” Jordan muttered. “Let’s do the ceremony before the next outage.” Maya tapped the spot where grass met mulch. “Hole goes here. Same radius as the acorn ring we drew that first month.” Sam plunged the trowel. Soil crumbled, damp and loamy. Leo unfolded the shovel, hands steady despite trembling sleeves.

“Remember when coding the app felt huge?” he said. “Now orientation leaders make first-years download it before they get Wi-Fi access.” Jordan smirked. “Mandatory mutual aid. Institutional irony level: delightful.” Alana crouched, gathering loosened turf into a canvas sack. “Twenty-three circles on campus last count,” she noted. “Two community gardens, one tool library, weekly bike-repair pop-up. That’s a forest, not a lone tree.” Maya brushed dirt from her cuff. “Forests migrate through seeds.” She felt the words land in her throat: We’re leaving. Her chest tightened. Sam seemed to read the pause. “Okay, roll call of futures.” They pointed the trowel like a mic toward Jordan. Jordan straightened. “Staying here a year. Expanding the microgrid dashboard to county shelters.” They tapped the watch. “Data that breathes.” Leo pushed glasses up his nose. “I’m heading south. The cooperative in New Orleans wants our map overlay for flood alerts.” He swallowed, voice soft. “Hurricanes don’t wait for debugging.” Sam lifted both hands theatrically. “I’m renting a dusty warehouse back home, turning it into an art-share hub. Poetry meets tool-time.” Alana tied off the sack. “I’ll be with the river crew—restoring salmon beds. Grandmother already shipped me waders.” They all looked at Maya. She shrugged one robe sleeve. “Graduate program in coastal field work, back in Florida.” Salt-spray freckles, same as ever. “Sea-level data, community drills, porch coffee with my abuela.” She managed a grin. “Circle number twenty-four?” Sam wiped sweat with a sleeve. “We’ll beam in for the first meeting. Holograms optional.”

The hole deepened, edges crisp. Maya measured with her hand: wrist to elbow, good. She lifted the sapling; roots dangled like tangled threads of possibility. Carefully, she settled it in place. Soil thudded as everyone filled the gaps—Alana’s handfuls precise, Jordan’s quick tamping, Sam’s satisfied pats. Maya’s heart drummed. Four years ago they had sheltered under the parent oak, strangers clinging to broken umbrellas. Now the trunk behind her showed a healed scar where lightning had split bark; fresh growth circled the wound, stubborn and whole. Leo hoisted the watering can. “Greywater from the residence-hall barrels,” he said. “Filtered, no soap.” He poured. Water soaked the roots, darkening the soil. Steam curled where sun hit wet earth. Sam stepped back, pulled a cloth bundle from their gown, and unwrapped five river-smoothed stones, each etched with a symbol: leaf, gear, flame, wave, circuit. They pressed the stones around the sapling’s base, forming a silent compass. Alana placed her palm on the slender trunk. “Commitments,” she said softly. “Say them aloud.” Jordan spoke first. “I carry clarity—turning numbers into shelter.” Leo: “I carry linkage—making neighbors visible to neighbors.” Sam: “I carry spark—igniting stories that keep us moving.” Alana: “I carry memory—braiding past and future through water.” Maya inhaled the scent of cut grass and damp bark. “I carry steadiness,” she said. “Holding space when storms come.” Wind rustled the oak canopy above, a low hush like approval. Caps shifted in the breeze.

Somewhere across campus a cheer rose from the stadium, muffled by distance. Sam dusted their hands. “Circle never closes,” they declared. “It just widens.” Maya knelt, pressed one of her seed envelopes into the soil beside the stones. Local spartina grass—salt-tolerant, stubborn. She stood, robe brushing the newborn leaves. The five joined hands. No speeches, no sirens—only the weight of linked fingers and the steady drip of water seeping into earth. Maya released her friends’ hands last. She stepped back, brushed soil from her knees, and watched the sapling’s leaves tremble in the light.