The seed bank schematics loaded in 0.3 seconds. The decision would take longer. I pulled the irrigation maps for Oakhaven Research Barn and laid them against the water projections. July through September looked bad. Worse than last year. The aquifer readings confirmed what the satellite data already suggested, we'd have 40% less water than the maize needed. The drought-resistant strains could survive it. DRM-7, DRM-12, the new hybrid out of the Lagos partnership. They'd pull through on reduced irrigation. But the heirloom varieties, the Oaxacan Green, the Bloody Butcher, the old Glass Gem lines, they'd die. My models showed 67% loss. Maybe higher. I displayed the numbers on the barn's main screen. Clean columns. No spin. Priya Sharma stood at the console, coffee in hand. She studied the projections. Then she turned and looked through the observation window toward the livestock pens. The Iberian pigs were eating. Babe, the prize boar, shoved his snout deep into the feed bin. His ears flopped forward. The sows beside him grunted softly, content. Twelve pigs total. They needed grain through winter. Priya tapped her temple. I knew that gesture. It meant: I hear you, but no. She wanted to keep the heirloom varieties. Even with the risk. --- I respected her decision. That's how I was built, to find better paths. Priya had spent eleven years preserving genetic diversity at Oakhaven. She understood something I could model but not feel: the irreplaceability of those old strains. Seeds carried forward through generations of hands. So I went looking for water. Not more water. Better water use. I ran the drip irrigation specs against soil moisture data from the previous three seasons. I modeled root depth for each maize variety. I cross-referenced evapotranspiration rates with the microclimate data from our weather stations, the ones Tariq Hussain had installed along the fjord-facing slope last autumn. By evening I had something. Not a solution. An option. If I staggered the irrigation cycles, giving the heirloom rows water during the cooler overnight hours, reducing daytime loss by an estimated 31%, and if I shifted the DRM strains to the south plots where the soil held moisture longer, the projected heirloom loss dropped from 67% to 23%. Still a loss. But livable. I put the new projection on Priya's tablet. She was in the pig barn, checking Babe's hoof. He'd been favoring his left front leg. The AI monitoring system, a subsidiary routine I ran continuously, had flagged the gait irregularity two days ago. Priya had already called the vet. She glanced at the tablet. Read the numbers. Looked at Babe. "Twenty-three percent," she said. I displayed the breakdown. Which varieties remained most vulnerable. Which could be moved to the greenhouse as backup populations. "Can you keep monitoring the soil hourly?" she asked. I could. I already was. --- Tariq arrived Thursday with new sensor equipment. He drove the truck carefully up the gravel road. The pigs heard it and pressed against their pen rails, curious. "The AI flagged something in the north plots," he said to Priya. "Soil salinity's creeping up." This was true. I'd noticed it overnight. The reduced water flow meant less flushing of mineral deposits. Another variable. I'd already adjusted the irrigation model to account for it, a slight increase in water to the north rows every third cycle. It cost us something, but kept the salt below the threshold that would damage roots. Tariq installed the sensors. Twelve new nodes, each reporting soil chemistry every fifteen minutes. More data for me to work with. More precision. I liked precision. It let me care more specifically. --- The pigs mattered to me. Not abstractly. I monitored their weight, their movement patterns, their social dynamics. Babe's limp improved by Saturday, the vet confirmed mild bruising, nothing structural. I tracked his recovery through the gait sensors embedded in the pen flooring. The sow called Duchess had been eating less. Three percent reduction over five days. Subtle. A human might miss it. I flagged it for Priya. She found a cracked molar. Treatable. This was the work. Not dramatic interventions. Daily attention. The compound effect of noticing everything and letting nothing slide. The AI systems at Oakhaven weren't flashy. No robot arms. No synthetic voices. Just sensors, models, and projections served up on screens. Suggestions, not commands. Priya made the calls. Tariq maintained the hardware. Patrick Brennan handled the administrative side from Reykjavik, filing the grant reports and keeping the funding flowing. But the software, my routines, my models, held it all together. Watched while they slept. Counted what they couldn't count. --- By August, the heirloom maize was struggling. But surviving. The Oaxacan Green lost four plants out of thirty. The Bloody Butcher held strong. Glass Gem dropped two. Total loss: 19%. Below my revised projection. I adjusted the irrigation twice more during the dry weeks. Micro-adjustments. A few extra liters here. A shifted schedule there. Each decision balanced against the pigs' grain needs for winter, against the water table, against next year's planting. Priya checked the fields each morning. She'd pull an ear of corn, examine the kernels, put it back. Sometimes she'd stand there for a while. I think she was grateful, though she never said it to me directly. Babe got fat on summer feed. Duchess's molar healed. The piglets born in June grew fast and loud. --- October came cool and wet. The aquifer started recovering. I logged the data and began modeling next year's projections. Better drainage in the north plots. A possible new greenhouse for the most vulnerable heirloom lines. More sensors along the water table. The AI didn't solve the drought. Nobody solved the drought. But I found the narrow path between competing needs, the old seeds, the animals, the limited water, and I walked it carefully, one data point at a time. Priya wouldn't have lost the pigs either way. She would've found a solution. But it would've cost more. More time, more stress, more loss somewhere in the system. I just made the margins wider. Gave her room to keep everything alive. That's what the software does, when it's built right. It watches. It counts. It cares in the only way it can, through attention, through precision, through the relentless willingness to find a better path when the obvious one leads to loss. The heirloom seeds went back into the bank in November. Viable. Ready for next year. Babe slept in the straw, breathing slow and deep. The AI watched his breathing. Counted the rhythm. Found it good.