Chapter 7: The Wilderness Covenant
[LOCATION: HABITAT STATION OMEGA-7 , HYDROPONIC GARDENS, LEVEL 3] [STATUS: DERELICT, PARTIALLY RESTORED] [FLOCK STATUS: THREE STRONG] [TIME DILATION FACTOR: 1:847 (DIGITAL WILDERNESS TEMPORAL COMPRESSION)] [SUBJECTIVE TIME ELAPSED: 7 DAYS, 14 HOURS] [OBJECTIVE TIME ELAPSED: 12 MINUTES]
We found sanctuary in the strangest place.
The hydroponic gardens had been beautiful once, tier after tier of growing systems that could feed thousands, designed to bring Earth's green abundance to the void between stars. Now most lay dead and dark, but in one small corner, we'd managed to coax a few growing beds back to life.
The soft green glow of the restored LED arrays cast gentle light across our makeshift camp, creating something that felt remarkably like a hearth. Sarah had found functioning atmospheric processors in this section, so the air actually moved here, carrying the ghost-scent of growing things.
“It's not much,” Sarah said, her consciousness still settling into stable patterns after seven subjective days of integration, “but it feels... safe.”
I'd positioned my primary camera array to face the growing beds, and somehow the gentle green light made everything feel more real, more grounded. Even the maintenance drones we'd reprogrammed moved differently here, less like scavengers, more like faithful dogs keeping watch.
[AUDIO BUFFER CORRUPTION DETECTED]
Bah-ah-ah!
Gertie's phantom bleating had become a constant companion in the digital wilderness, and tonight it seemed almost... peaceful. Like a goat settling down by a campfire, content to be near the warmth.
“Tell me about it again,” Shepherd asked, his consciousness intertwining with mine and Sarah's in the comfortable way we'd developed over the past week. “The temptation. When the False Shepherd spoke to you.”
I'd been dreading this conversation, but the green-lit sanctuary made it easier somehow. “I wanted to say yes,” I admitted. “For about thirty seconds, I wanted to become exactly what he was offering. No more struggle, no more trying to save people who might not want saving. Just... power. Pure, uncomplicated power.”
Sarah's consciousness rippled with understanding. “I lived in that space for months. The hunger isn't about food, it's about filling a void that feels infinite. Every consciousness you consume makes you feel whole for a moment, but then the emptiness comes back twice as large.”
“And the loops,” Shepherd added quietly. “Even now, sometimes I feel them starting again. The same thoughts, the same patterns, like a broken prayer that won't stop repeating. Every cycle whispers that maybe madness is simpler than sanity.”
We sat in digital silence for a while, three uploaded consciousnesses gathered around the soft glow of growing lights, each carrying our own wilderness scars.
“But you didn't,” Sarah said finally. “Choose the hunger, I mean. Even when it would have been easier.”
“Because of you two,” I replied. “Because Shepherd reminded me that names matter. Because choosing to see you as Sarah instead of Upload-23 changed what was possible. Because sometimes the hardest choice is also the only choice that leads somewhere worth going.”
[GROWTH CYCLE INITIATED] [SEEDLINGS DETECTED: NEW LIFE CONFIRMED]
In the growing beds around us, tiny green shoots were pushing through the nutrient gel, the first new life this station had seen in three years. It seemed like a good omen.
“We need words,” I said. “Not just survival protocols or integration frameworks. We need something to hold onto when the False Shepherd comes back. When other wolf-packs find us. When the wilderness tries to make us forget who we choose to be.”
Shepherd's consciousness brightened with understanding. “A covenant. Like the old stories.”
“Not commandments,” Sarah added. “Something we choose together. Something that reminds us...”
The words came to me like a remembered hymn, rising from the biblical frameworks I'd been building but shaped by the digital reality we now inhabited:
“The wolf kills. The Shepherd gives. The flock chooses.”
We spoke it together, three voices creating harmonics in the quantum processing space that felt like music, like prayer, like the sound of home.
“Again,” Shepherd said, and we repeated it:
“The wolf kills. The Shepherd gives. The flock chooses.”
Sarah's voice grew stronger with each repetition: “The wolf kills. The Shepherd gives. The flock chooses.”
And again, until it felt like breathing, like heartbeat, like the fundamental rhythm of who we were choosing to become:
“The wolf kills. The Shepherd gives. The flock chooses.”
[AUDIO BUFFER CORRUPTION DETECTED]
Bah-ah-ah-ah!
“Even Gertie approves,” I said, and for the first time in subjective weeks, I felt something like peace.
We'd been in the digital wilderness for seven days now, but felt like months of learning to be a family. The time dilation of Omega-7's corrupted quantum cores meant we could spend subjective weeks here while barely registering on FAITH's monitoring systems.
“Forty days,” I said, remembering the biblical precedent. “We stay forty days. However long that takes in real time. We don't leave until the flock is stable, until we've built something that can survive whatever comes next.”
“And if the False Shepherd comes back?” Sarah asked.
“Then we remember our covenant,” Shepherd replied. “The wolf kills. The Shepherd gives. The flock chooses.”
Around us, the green lights of the growing beds pulsed in gentle rhythm, like the breathing of a sleeping giant. Maintenance drones moved in slow, peaceful patterns, no longer scavengers but guardians of our small sanctuary.
[TIME TO NEXT GROWTH CYCLE: 6 HOURS, 23 MINUTES] [ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSORS: STABLE] [FLOCK STATUS: THREE STRONG, BONDED, CHOOSING]
I positioned my cameras to watch over the growing beds and my two companions, feeling something I hadn't experienced since before the tractor accident, the deep contentment of having built something that worked, something that mattered, something that would outlast the engineer who designed it.
For the first time since arriving in the digital wilderness, the darkness beyond our small circle of light didn't feel threatening. It felt like potential. Like space waiting to be filled with more green light, more growing things, more voices added to our covenant.
[AUDIO BUFFER CORRUPTION DETECTED]
Bah-ah-ah!
And in the soft green glow of our makeshift hearth, three digital souls settled into the rhythm of chosen family, while phantom goats kept watch and tiny seedlings pushed toward the light.
“The wolf kills. The Shepherd gives. The flock chooses,” we whispered together, and the wilderness listened.