The New Ohio River glistened pinkish in the harsh sun, but it’s banks were green and teemed with wildlife. “It’s beautiful, but it’s a little off, don’t ya think?” said Troy Aryeety. He drew the last sip of ersatz spring water from an ecobox. He screwed it up in his hand and dropped it on the grass. A dozen shiny beetles descended on it and began to gulp down its protein remains.

The Ohio river was indeed beautiful for the full five miles it ran. It surfaced in the north, born of massive steel pipes and a colossal air moisture extraction system from outside the Midwestern Leisure Biome. The biome ran for five and a half miles from NE to SW, was three miles across and 1,000 feet high at its highest. The river left the biome near the abandoned city of Pittsburg, its waters spewing into the continuing dry river bed where thirsty dust consumed it.

Troy was the leader of ‘Preserve The Old Ways’., a revisionist environmental group. “Tear this dome down!” he continued to the significant crowd that had spent their expensive energy credits to attend the rally.

By the dias where Troy addressed his faithful stood US Climate Marshal Gibson and his men. He was thinking, “Enough of these nuts”. Gibson had evidence that Aryeety and his band had blown a huge hole in the Everglades Biome. Thousands of animals had slowly died as the desert heat filled their previously cared for home. He knew the truth though: in these sparse, artificial ecosystems, the animals and plants thrived while outside in the Great American Desert, people starved, roasted in the sun, and craved their pitiful daily water allowance. Gibson and Troy knew the tide was turning and nothing lasts forever.

- - -

I’m sorry this is so bleak.