Airhole

After a heavy late breakfast at the Tai family’s Chinese café, Reinhardt returned to his bike and rode back toward Hochberg — where Tai Ming awaited him. He hurried, hoping to beat the scorching sun before it reached its zenith, pedaling hard and sweating profusely.

Twenty minutes later, he was once again in front of the flower shop. He locked up his bike at the fence and paused to catch his breath before entering. Reinhardt checked his phone — no new messages from Tai Ming, but he definitely remembered something about lilacs and a “rotten plague.”

The door creaked open, and Reinhardt stepped inside. Tai Ming was hunched over the counter, writing in a notebook. When he saw Reinhardt, he straightened up, gave him a usual cryptic smile, and extended a hand.

They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, then Tai Ming smoothed his gray beard with one hand and gestured toward the back room with the other.

Reinhardt followed. They went down a staircase, then along a corridor lined with crates of fertilizer, hoes, digging sticks, and all sorts of gardening supplies, until they reached the storage room.

A dim bulb hung under a shelf. In the center of the room stood a massive workbench. Shelves lined the walls, filled with pots, seedlings, sprouts, seed packets, and fertilizer bags.

“This is for later,” Tai Ming waved impatiently, carefully walked around the workbench, and headed toward another passage from which weak light was seeping in —not artificial, but real sunlight.

They walked through another box-lined corridor. Tai Ming pushed open a door wide, and they stepped into a greenhouse.

“So it was underground after all,” Reinhardt marveled at his own accidental deduction.

“Take a look at all this sorrow,” Tai Ming said quietly, stepping aside to give Reinhardt a full view, absently stroking his beard.

The greenhouse was clearly in decay and disrepair. It was obvious the owner had tried his best to take care of it, but to no avail. Reinhardt looked sadly at the withered tulips and gladioli — beyond saving, and maybe not even worth trying to.

“Sic transit gloria mundi,” Tai Ming murmured.

Reinhardt turned.

“Is it all gone?”

Tai Ming nodded silently.

“If not for… if not for…” he pointed to the far corner of the greenhouse.

“How’d you even find that much space?” Reinhardt asked, approaching a lilac bush that looked unwell — clearly sick, but still straining to bloom under the May sun. Maybe for the last time.

“I’ve got one growing out in the yard under open sky. Barely clinging to life,” Reinhardt said.

“Open sky,” Tai Ming replied.

He came closer, pulled a device from his robe pocket —something like a small recorder or radio — pressed a button. It beeped and began taking readings, numbers flashing on its screen.

Tai Ming paced slowly, letting the device scan the space. After a few short beeps, he returned to Reinhardt.

“Eighty-six percent.”

“That today’s saturation forecast?” Reinhardt asked, confused.

Tai Ming didn’t answer. He walked over to the lilac bush, waved the device all around it, reached into the thickest part of the branches, and after another series of beeps showed Reinhardt the display.

“Ninety-two percent,” Reinhardt read aloud.

“That’s not all — now we can go back,” Tai Ming said.

He shut the glass door of the greenhouse, and they made their way back to the storage room.

“Look,” Tai Ming pointed at one of the shelves.

Reinhardt looked closely — among the small pots and jars with plant sprouts, one thing stood out: the very same lilac branch, placed in a jar of water.

“Recognize it?” Tai Ming smirked.

Hard not to. In the grayness of the storeroom, it shimmered as a purple spot. Reinhardt squinted and looked closer — it was already putting down roots.

“Well?” Tai Ming said. “I think it’s time to replant.”

“Looks like it’s taking root nicely…” Reinhardt noted.

“You brought it here, didn’t you?” Tai Ming suddenly placed an arm around his shoulder.

“Well, I…”

“I think —” he took out the device again, pressed the button, carefully scanned the jar with the lilac branch, and after a short beep showed Reinhardt the screen, “ —that you, my friend, have created something incredible.”

Reinhardt looked. Oxygen level—98%.

“But I… that was pure luck,” he stammered.

Tai Ming tilted his head and smiled that inscrutable smile of his.

***

After what happened with Akemi, Thomas had almost forced her to take the day off. Yes, it meant double the work for him today — no doubt — but things couldn’t go on like this. He’d informed everyone ahead of time that Akemi wouldn’t be in, and came to the lab early to get everything done on schedule.

He was methodically entering data into a spreadsheet when a call from Reifenberg came through.

“Today at 3 PM — Berlin, Prague, and Saratov will join,” said the voice, then hung up before Thomas could say a word.

Yep, the minister was neck-deep in things. Thomas glanced at the clock — 12:47. Good, enough time to finish up and prepare.

A new alert came in — probably updated charts. He glanced at them, cross-checked the latest images with incoming data, updated the spreadsheet, saved everything, and leaned back in his chair.

“‘Dead Grove’ — that’s gone.”

“What, the quarantine’s lifted?”

“Long ago. Meaning — it is gone.”

“They uprooted it?”

“Something like that.”

Once it was clear that this part of the reserve couldn’t be saved, and the quarantine was lifted, they have the dead trunks dug up and burned, the land leveled and the soil stabilized for future construction. They were still hoping to build something new there… Thomas remembered a saying, “boldness is a second kind of luck,” but right now, ignorance seemed more blissful than anything else.

That’s why Akemi had broken down. She couldn’t bear the truth crushing her soul. But it’s okay. Thomas had known her for years. She was strong — she’d get through it. She just needed rest. A day, that’s all. Or she’d burn herself out. He wondered how she was doing now.

He thought about texting her but decided not to intrude.

He still had an hour and a half before the call, so he went to the university cafeteria for lunch. On the way from the lab to the main building, Thomas noted the faces around him. They all roughly fell into three types — he thought to himself while sipping mushroom soup — those who knew nothing and bustled about in blissful ignorance, those who, like him, knew enough and also kept busy themselves to distract from their anxiety, and finally, those like Akemi — who wore no masks and chose to feel the inevitable here and now.

Thomas finished his meal, returned the tray, took a hit from the oxygen tank at the building entrance, and headed back to the lab.

He returned ten minutes before the meeting, entered the conference room, shut the door tight, put on his headset, turned on the camera, and connected via a secure protocol.

Reifenberg and Leichner — the grim man from the Berlin lab at Humboldt University, whom Thomas had once met before — were already on the call. Soon, Myagkova joined — “Saratov lab, met her at a conference once,” Thomas recalled — and unexpectedly - Standarova from Prague, the UN climate rapporteur herself.

“Well, we’re all here, thank you,” Reifenberg began.

Myagkova raised her hand.

“We only just received — ”

“Thank you, everyone has been informed,” Standarova gently interrupted. “Could you explain what this means?”

Reifenberg nodded silently.

“Well…” Myagkova hesitated. “According to our latest data… we believe there is still a chance to reverse it all, to heal the world’s flora and save the situation. If only we give a chance…” she trailed off, took a pull from her oxygen tank, and continued,  —  "a chance to the Airhole project (working title).”

Thomas and the others exhaled in surprise, hardly believing what they were hearing.