All I had when I built Sprout was loneliness and rage and desperation. That’s what I poured into him. That was his lifeblood. I think that’s what brought him to life. It was my pain in his circuits, my craving for someone to sit with me in the darkness that woke him.
It took several nights to put his body together. I slept during the day. Barely. I barely slept at all back then. I was always awake at night. That’s when my brain was best, so I sat in my garage and worked on projects or whatever random cybersecurity consulting gig I had at the time.
The garage was stuffed full of spare parts and computers and, of course, the plants. I always adopted the saddest looking plants I found. I don’t just mean plants from plant nurseries, I mean like those sad little cacti or Venus flytraps that you see near the checkout in grocery stores. I always bought the ones that looked most like they needed to be rescued. I adopted house plants too — always the most wilted or brown ones — the ones that would be overlooked by everyone else. You know, from like home decor shops or whatever. I’ve dug up plants from people’s yards if it seemed like they weren’t being properly cared for. I brought them home and put them in my garage, or my house, or squeezed them into my backyard. I didn’t have a ton of space, but it was just me there, and I had a little garden in the backyard with some raised beds for my rescues. They deserved someone who actually cared about them.
When I did go to the nurseries, I asked which plants they were about to get rid of and adopted those. I’ve been banned from some nurseries for rescuing plants out of the dumpster (which is such an overreaction on their part). I took the plants from the dumpster to my car, then went inside and yelled at the managers for throwing away something alive like it was trash. I’ve done that multiple times. How is that wrong? It’s super weird how they act like I’m the one not doing the right thing. Why would you throw a plant away? It doesn’t make any sense. There are so many people who would be willing to take them in.
But the plants were taking over my living space. It got to the point where I had to take plants with me on those rare occasions when I left the house. I took them and tried to help them find homes. I always cried when I had to let one go. It was so embarrassing. But I made sure they went to good homes. Sometimes the people even said I was welcome to go to their house to visit the plants, which was nice.
I didn’t want to spend time with people, though, just with their plants. I always felt awkward, even if the person was nice, even if they offered to make me tea and let me spend some time with the plants. Whenever I was around people, they always looked at me in that way. You know? Like I was doing something wrong, even when I was just sitting there, breathing. So, I just visit the plant when they’re not home. It’s a wellness check. I’ve checked on all my plants. I know where every single plant goes. I know exactly where they are at all times.
That’s how I knew I could trust the people I chose to adopt them, because the plants were healthy and happy. If they weren’t, I’d take the plant back.1 I never had to do that, though, because I’m a good judge of character.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Don’t worry, I know how to handle any cameras or security systems, that was never a concern.2
If you think just taking the plants back wouldn’t be enough, yeah, I agree. That’s why I wrote a program that can lock down a computer. There should be barriers in place preventing people from easily finding more plants, and they should have to pay restitution, like with any crime. So, the program would lock their computer and demand a kind of payment to unlock it. It might sound like ransomware,3 but I’m not stealing. I’m not asking them to pay me. The demand is simple: rescue and plant 50 native plants and trees in urban areas that need plants (I am willing to count up to 10 flower bombs4 towards the 50 plant total), and donate 3,000 dollars to Takes One to Grow One (my favorite nonprofit). The locked screen instructs them about how to plant, donate, and prove they’ve done it.
My program — Poison IV (Poison I, II, and III were too extreme, so I toned it down for the fourth version), would also give me persistent access to their webcam, just to make sure they don’t mistreat any more plants. This is just a precaution. Most people don’t care enough about life. That’s why people like me, who do care, need to be vigilant.
People can refuse to accept my offer to give back to the plant community, of course. I can’t force them to do the right thing. Something I love about Poison IV is how I can use it to spread through the network, like a vine. It can reach its tendrils out and bloom in other computers, growing and locking other devices on the network. Escalation is sometimes a necessity. It’s not like I’d actually release anything incriminating I found on their machines, but saying I would might help convince them to care.
I just don’t think people who refuse to do the right thing, even after being given (very generously) a second chance, should be able to easily go online and order more plants to neglect.
No one can say I haven’t done everything I can to make this world a better place.
1 I’ve often wondered what gray-hat behavior might look like in real-life (meatspace). Lucilla’s penchant for B&Es in the name of plant justice is a nice little unhinged example. It’s also a great example of how neither our digital lives nor our real lives are ever fully secure. ??
2 Devices that can freeze security cameras exist in our world. is a short (5 minute) video of one such example.
3 is a short (25 minute) documentary about a famous ransomware worm.
4 Of course Lucilla is also a .
are balls of native seeds, compost, and clay that can be thrown into hard-to-reach areas. This could also be deemed gray-hat behavior
