She was at Processing, adding the monthly recycling to the family account, when the officer grasped Rayn’s shoulder.

“Come with me son.”

“What? No, there’s some mistake.  We’re under our credit limit!  We grow our own food, we hardly use the transit system- wait!”  But, even as she protested, she saw the look in her son’s eyes, and understood.  Suddenly the last months – the mysterious class absences, the inexplicable weight gain – made sense.

Possibly – depending on how much meat he’d eaten and how hard he labored at the government farms – Rayn might see his mother again.  The Republic wasn’t unreasonable.

The turbine blade arced high into the evening sky over Runsfeld.  Though it was over a hundred meters long and traveling at great speed, from the ground it looked just like a petal, carried soundlessly on a capricious summer updraft.

The Republic heavily regulated all pollutant energy sources, generally reserving them for government use, and without cheap fuel, it was too expensive to run the machines that could repair the wind farm, especially for rural Runsfeld.  Still, they needed the electricity the turbines provided.

When the errant blade finally collided with Runsfeld’s vegon cafeteria, it was nothing like a petal.

The children followed their teacher into the meadow where they had their classes.  Their school desks were the rocks of the field.  Their blackboard was the open sky.  The teacher stooped to touch the grass with both hands, signaling that the morning recitation was about to start.

“Our lives are connected with the Earth.  If it sickens, so do we.  To preserve all life, we must dedicate our own lives to sustaining the health of this planet, and to our Green Republic, which guards its gardens.”

Today’s lesson would teach the children how to report polluters amongst their family members.