They called him Granger.
Thrice-divorced. Five unpaid parking tickets on a dead planet. Two artificial knees, one working lung, and zero patience left.
He lived alone on the rim of Silo Ridge, a broken grain moon overtaken by Verdancy spreadroots. The sporewall shimmered like a polite apocalypse, pulsing with restful suggestions and neural feedback lullabies.
The other survivors left weeks ago. Granger never packed. Why?
Because he had his Deere.
It wasn’t even meant for combat — just a tracked John Deere Harvestmaster held together by welds, regrets, and duct tape fused with nicotine. But he’d retrofitted it by hand.
At 0600, the Veil began its approach. Vines, whispers, and empathy fog. Granger revved the engine, pulled the cord on the Molotov spreader, and lit a cigar he didn’t plan to finish.
And plowed into the fog.
The Deere burned hot, tearing through the empathy root clusters like wrath through wet cardboard. He made it eight meters in before the spires coalesced into something sentient.
The mower was overheating. He was out of fire. And still, he stood on the hood, crowbar in hand, ready to swing at the unholy plants.
Then they came.
Kubota striders from the western range. Husqvarna hoppers dropping fertilizer bombs like Nordic vengeance. Even a couple old Toro sky-haulers, blaring fire-retardant foam and distorted country guitar.
Together, they held the line. Burned back the fungal bloom. Choked the Veil with diesel and bad decisions.
By sundown, Silo Ridge was sovereign again.
Granger’s Deere was scrap. His hat was on fire. He laughed for the first time in decades.
They gave him a medal. He used it to patch a leak in his bourbon tank.