Husbandry

Erik Hauer tends to twelve women who can no longer speak, move freely, or recognize their own reflections — and he believes he is saving the human race. A technician at a remote pharmaceutical facility, Erik has spent three years maintaining the "gardens": women whose bodies have been biologically modified to produce compounds supposedly critical to humanity's survival after a global fertility collapse. His gentle routines and low mortality rate earn him commendations. Then a new garden arrives who can still cry, still gesture, still scratch words onto paper — and what she tells him about consent, profit, and the manufactured crisis behind it all will force Erik to confront the monstrous machinery he has helped operate with such careful, quiet hands.