Nothing Is Promised

For better, for worse. In sickness and in health. It’s a legal vow of care for families in 2050, a world beset by waves of climate-driven plagues. Power engineer Lucía Ramirez long ago lost her family to one - she’d give anything to take that vow. The Power Islands give humanity a fighting chance, but tending kelp farms and solar lilies is a lonely job.

Zuri has the perfect life—a beautiful home on the Hillstead, a loving family, and a powerful job keeping the LA Basin’s grid humming. If only she didn’t see the ghost of her dead twin in the mirror. Her grief-counselor husband understands too much, Aunties Cora and Vivian smother her to excess, and her mother can’t look at her daughter without seeing the half that’s missing. Zuri can’t begin to face her sister’s little daughter—to Ruby, Zuri is the ghost. Which is why she’s running away to work, again, on the anniversary of her sister’s death.

Akemi’s job on the Public Utilities Commission has its own daily disasters—making sure the infrastructure of civilization keeps running is the most thankless job on the planet. When a double event hits—heatwave plus viral breakout—keeping the power on is an all-out battle. It doesn’t help that he’s distracted by his elderly father, who was struck down and neuro-compromised by the same virus that killed his mother the year before.

Nitara Desai has spent her life negotiating international agreements, easing points of conflict, and averting disasters. Worst-case scenarios belong in her nightmares, not the IEC’s daily reports. On a calm day, being a director at the International Energy Consortium only requires fixing CarbonCon translators for flustered Brazilian delegates. A thankless job, but the world is still drowning in CO2—there’s no choice but to keep treading.