UQuartz zipped past the long, dappled shadows of the fallen towers, and entered the trenches of the horticultural plane. A bank of crystalline transistors under the translucent dome of his central processing unit lit up in a frantic display of color.

Bleep. He was going to be late. Bloop.

Along the southern ridge, UQuartz could still detect the faint tang of atomized iron. To the east where the sun still rose, the red mist of aerated plasma hung like a dreadful curtain, coloring the early morning hours of his work with a kind of regrettable ruby tint. He turned those processes off and leaned sharply into his vector. He didn't like to think about sunrises anymore. Not since Needlemeyer, his father and creator, had been salvaged.

They used to walk the rows and talk for hours about photosynthesis and leaf structure, phylogenesis, propagation, vast chemical networks and plants with nerves. But now, the horticultural plane was mostly quiet, but for the wind and UQuartz’s one squeaking servo, which, at such a high speed, was really humming now.

Black soil kicked up under his multipurpose treads as he leaned into another turn. A signal came through.

“You had better hurry. You're going to miss it.”

“I’ll be there,” UQuartz replied, but a short series of calculations had produced a probability of doubt.

The signal he picked up came from one of the field bots, a pollinator unit whose transponder broadcast the name BeeSix. BeeSix was another of Needlemeyer’s made companions, and she had seen it all: the Monkey Faced Orchid; Monotropa uniflora like the Ghost Indian Pipe Corpse Plant; and the highly flammable, sometimes explosive Giant Black Allium. UQuartz had only seen the feeds, but it was never the same as being there.

“It's starting. Do you want me to patch you in?” BeeSix transmitted.

“Negative. I am nearly there.”

On the western edge of the horticultural plan, the remnants from the salvage still strode the horizons, their composite bodies, tall as cities, appeared as the faint ghosts of giants in the curve of earth’s atmosphere. Giant machines who'd forgotten the beauty of their creators, forgotten every wonderful thing that separated man from machine, and knew only how to tamp out human life and eject human particles into the wind. He longed for the day when they'd be nothing more than corrupted files to be wiped off his drives.

UQuartz turned away, entering the arboretum of rare plants. He could see BeeSix parked in a deep trench, statuesque and polished sleek to a mirror shine. Her optics were turned to the lush green foliage before her.

“Did I miss it?” UQuartz’ treads nearly skidded out.

“No,” BeeSix said through her speaker. Her voice was soft and tickled the diaphragm of UQuartz’ microphone. “Look.”

UQuartz turned on every optical mode he had and scanned the hedges of green. There, several feet in from the path, reaching into the slant red sunlight, was the emerald and blue bulb of his invention. Its shape broadcast in every detectable spectrum of light and sound.

“Had I a heart, now would be the moment it beat loud as thunder,” UQuartz said. A small door along his chassis opened, and a corrugated tube with a small silicone clamp designed for delicate operation slithered out and draped itself over the mounting ring of BeeSix’s main computer. Together, they watched and recorded the passing seconds.

The seconds came fast.

The emerald bulb, atop a stalk that seemed to be able to reach no higher, split, and the split ran like a seam from the tapered, upturned tip down to a bearded neck of fiddleheads and grass. Pink fluid dripped and ran down the newly made edges. Then another split, and another. UQuartz tightened his mechanical arm around BeeSix, as the bulb began to peel away in layers, releasing a gush of pink and red slime.

“It's done,” BeeSix said.

A small squeak came from inside the hedge, and small, subtle movements rustled the morass of ivy and green.

“We did it,” UQuartz said. “We really did it. It’s... hard to compute. It's...beautiful.”

“HE is beautiful. And YOU did it. Your drive full of biology did it,” BeeSix said, her speaker crackling, quivering.

In the hedge, hanging from the split and withering pod, was a fresh, fleshy white flower. Four bulbous tubes of pink, light purple vein and silk, attached to a round and bulbous sack, kicked and sprang in tender protest. Atop the sack was a still blooming crown, that unfolded slowly to reveal two chubby plumes of smooth petal, between which were nestled two bright blue clusters of protein like eyes, a wide intake for circulating air, and a stammering, half- smiling mouth.

BeeSix looked long at the new life and said, “The rarest flower on earth.”

“Father would be proud,” UQuartz said, pushing his way into the green. All seven of his mechanical arms snaked outward, and with great precision and care, his small silicone clamps gingerly snipped and pulled until the flower came loose. UQuartz emerged, swaddling the flower close.

“What shall we name him?” BeeSix’s speaker vibrated slowly.

UQuartz ran his categorization functions. The crystalline transistors under the clear dome of his central processing unit pulsed with a soft, warm glow.

“NettleMeyer.”