GARDENERS OF THE NEON WOMB

In a future where humanity is grown from soil in Neon Wombs, children are born old, aging backwards toward a final, dusty childhood. Riven, a harvest with an archivist's mind, discovers a terrifying truth: the Wombs are not saving humanity, but parsing it for a silent, planetary intelligence known as the Pattern, which is nearing the completion of its "compile"-a process that will dust all harvests. To survive, Riven must unite warring factions-the ruthless military, desperate rebel "Dustchildren," and underground "Tenders"-not to destroy the Pattern, but to infect its perfect logic with the chaotic, beautiful noise of human choice, sacrifice, and memory. The result is a fragile, haunting pact: they become a living garden, preserved and observed, trading annihilation for a deeply altered, watched existence, where the final generation of the old world must tend the quiet, new one they made possible.