The work was grueling and unspectacular. The Choir cycled through different harmonics, targeting different pollutants. Cadmium. Mercury. Complex polymers. Each required a different, often dissonant-sounding note. The Basin didn't bloom with beauty; it slowly, painstakingly, disassembled itself. A patch of ground would clear, the toxins vibrating into collection filters, leaving behind bare, sterile dirt.
The broadcast showed the truth Roxana demanded: the exhaustion on the Choir's faces, the tense focus of the engineers, the slow, incremental progress measured in square meters cleared per day.
Back in the city, the reaction was mixed. Some saw a hopeless task. Others saw the first honest scrubbing of a wound they'd been told was untouchable.
On the third day, the unexpected happened. As the harmonic for a particular synthetic polymer was sustained, the cleared dirt beneath it—previously inert—began to respond. A soft, green moss, not seen in decades, pushed through the grit. It wasn't magical. It was natural. The harmonic had not only broken apart the poison above; it had somehow revitalized the latent biology beneath, a seed waiting for its chance.
The camera zoomed in on the fragile, defiant green. It was a pixel of hope in a grey field.
That evening, Charlotte Soladorn hijacked the feed. Her face, pale and fierce, appeared in a corner of the screen over the live shot of the moss.
"A patch of moss?" Her voice was a scornful whisper. "You toil for days, risk your lives, to grow a weed in a poison field? I have created an acre of pure, drinkable water and clean air. A sanctuary. You offer a uncertain, grueling struggle for a handful of dirt. Which is the true kindness? Which is the true control?"
Her image vanished. Her point lingered. She offered a finished product. They offered hard, messy work with no guaranteed end.
Valentine, watching the feed from the Basin's edge, spoke what they all felt. "She's right. It's not enough to be right. We have to be better."