I’d never been part of a riot before, let alone the target of one, but the way people were reacting to Matilda’s collapse was scaring the shit out of me.

I ended up moving away from Matilda, ceding my place to Priya and someone who claimed to be a nurse - not Mindy, a dark-skinned man. More and more people had shown up, including many I hadn’t met before, but neither Mindy nor her neighbor Mason were present. Mindy’s absence I understood - she likely wouldn’t want to leave her kids alone - but Mason’s absence struck me as odd, especially with his house being relatively nearby.

I didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on it. Generalized complaints had turned into criticism of me, specifically. I’d tricked people, I’d wasted their points, and so on. I had a dozen or so upset people who were holding me, personally, responsible for what they were calling a failure.

I wanted to tell them to calm down, but I knew that never once in the history of the human race had that actually made anyone calmer.

I settled for slowly backing away from the advancing group and repeating, over and over, “Let’s wait and see.” “It hasn’t failed yet, let’s give her a few minutes.”

I’d retreated all the way to the retention pond, my back pressed against its chain-link fence, by the time I could give them any other response. I caught a glimpse of Matilda between two of the crowd that had me cornered.

“Look!” I said. “She’s sitting up!”

I felt a bit guilty as the group turned to leave - I doubted their treatment of Matilda would be too kind - but I took a moment to set my shield down and take a deep breath to try to collect myself before following. Being penned in by a crowd of angry people convinced that their problems were all my fault was pretty much nightmare material... especially when I had been sort of worried they were right.

But there was Matilda, sitting up, very clearly alive. She looked dazed and spacey, like she was having trouble understanding what was going on, but at least she wasn’t twitching anymore. I made my way over to try to ask how she was doing, but it was hard to get close or make myself heard through the crowd.

If she was out of it, I doubted the mob around her was helping. Their questions and exclamations were loud and discordant, and some people were already trying to pull her to her feet.

Assholes, in my opinion - the lady had just been through some real shit. Couldn’t they give her five minutes to recover?

But there was Matilda, letting herself be pulled upright... swaying slightly, but with a hopeful expression on her face. Slowly, cautiously, she lifted both arms up above her head, as if she expected to feel pain at any moment. She’d seemed short to me, but as she stretched, I realized how much of that had been her hunched posture. Now, with her back straight, I could tell that she was fairly tall for a woman, about my height. Her arms, stretched high above her head, dropped down to her sides, and she got a funny expression on her face - part mischievous, part hopeful. She flicked her fingers at the people around her, and after they’d stepped back to give her more space, she shimmied her feet in a little dance complete with twisting kicks. I wasn’t a dancer, but the steps looked familiar - maybe something I’d seen in a movie. Matilda stumbled a little on a spin, but caught herself before she fell.

Her hands came up to cover her mouth, pressed together like she was praying. Her eyes sparkled wetly.

Behind me, I heard a woman’s voice reverently say, “And He made the blind see and the lame walk.”

That made me a little uncomfortable. Yeah, the change that had come over Matilda could be described as “miraculous,” but it had been accomplished by a group of bloodthirsty interstellar assholes, not a force I’d associate with Jesus or holiness. If people started worshiping the aliens, I didn’t think I’d be able to stay polite about it.

Fortunately, there wasn’t much time to dwell on the sentiment.

I heard someone shout the word “garden,” and I turned to see a woman I didn’t know waving an arm from the backyard of the abandoned house that had been raided for sheets earlier.

The crowd had stepped back to give Matilda a little space, but as the news of the garden was repeated, they surged in, bodies and hands urging Matilda forward.

Matilda still looked out of it - swaying and blinking far too much, but as she lowered her hands away from her mouth I could see it was still turned upward in a tiny smile. She let the crowd urge her onward, and I followed.

The garden was… not in great shape. I wasn’t sure how many waterings it had missed, but many of the leaves were yellow and wilting, and the ground around the base of the plants was dry and cracked. I could see three varieties of plants. Two, I could guess at - the vines crawling over a broad, shaded trellis were likely some kind of pea or bean, and I could see a dark green gourd I thought was a young pumpkin peeking out from under the broad leaves of the sprawling vine taking up most of the ground space. The third plant was some kind of low-growing leafy thing I didn’t recognize at all. I couldn’t see any fruit or flowers, but it didn’t look like any familiar variety of lettuce or herb either.

Matilda looked thoughtful. She peered at the plants, then winced and shook her head, sinking down into a porch swing. “Give me a shake,” she said. “A lot of my abilities are gonna take some figuring, but I can use the Accelerate Growth. I’ll just need get some water first. Not much left in the ground near here… I think. I'll try to get some in a tick.”

“Just rest!” I called. “Don’t tire yourself out getting water this time - we’ve got more muscles than we know what to do with, and the pond is nearby. Save your strength for the vegetables.”

A chorus of agreement met my words - almost everyone had experienced the lethargy brought about by ability overuse. The back door of the house was smashed in and we raided the kitchen. It was empty of food, but the cupboards still held plenty of pots, bowls, and pitchers. Knocking down a section of fence around the pond was trivial, and a steady stream of people began jogging back and forth, dumping gallons and gallons of water onto the thirsty plants.

I ended up on filling duty, standing ankle-deep in the retention pond. I couldn’t blame people for not wanting to get their sneakers and leather boots full of pond muck. I wouldn’t have been keen on it either, but Darryl was kind enough to use Improvised Equipment on my rubber boots.

“Won’t fix big holes, but I can seal up your little scratches,” he said proudly.

I regretted not getting to watch Matilda at work, but eventually people stopped coming for water refills. I saw someone walking out of the backyard holding a large slice of pumpkin, so I pulled myself out of the pond and ran over.

Pointy had been sitting with Matilda and Priya, supervising the work and finishing adding names to her list. She looked up as I entered and called to me. “Eight pumpkins, about two pounds of peas, and just under 50 pounds of sweet potatoes!”

“That’s amazing!” I said.

Priya nodded, tapping a bowl filled with sweet potatoes. “Matilda got some of each, but I claimed these for our share. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, sweet potatoes are great! All my kids love them. They’ll be excited…” I trailed off as I looked at the bowl. Fifty pounds had sounded like so much a moment ago. I was surprised our share made such a small pile. I looked around the backyard, trying to count the people present. I guess there had been a few dozen the first time I’d reached the spire, and more had been showing up. Our share of the potatoes - for me and Priya - looked like it was between two and three pounds worth.

It was disappointing to realize we’d essentially come away with an appetizer’s worth of food, but I tried not to let it get me down. Just averting any murders was a serious win.

Matilda was leaning against the side of the swing, eyes closed.

“Is she asleep?” I asked.

“No, she’s just…” Priya looked next to her, then frowned. “Hm.” My friend nudged Matilda, whose only response was to slump even more bonelessly. “Okay, I guess she is asleep. She was awake a few minutes ago.”

The work Matilda had done must have been close to her limit. These plants had already been at least half-grown before she started, but she’d also been somewhat rushed. Even if she had to start from scratch, Matilda could probably do more than this over the course of a day if she paced herself. It was clearly more food than she’d need herself, but it didn’t seem close to what we’d need for people in our area. Still, this was progress! And we could give points to more “farmers” in the future.

And… if it came to it, we could still leave the area.

Priya found a bag for our and Matilda’s produce while I retrieved her wheelchair and lifted her in. The sun was directly overhead, and there wasn’t much shade left to sit in. It was time to go home.