Chapter 33 — The Last Seed Keeper

Dai Van Cuong stood up, slowly because of his age, and walked to the corner of the tent where the cloth covered something Khe Mien had noticed from the beginning. He lifted the cloth with the care of someone handling a treasure, revealing a small metal box with a lock that Bach Lam had also noticed before.

"This box is not mine," he said, bringing it closer to the fire and setting it down in front of the group. "I found it fifteen years ago, in a bunker deep under the ruins of the very Arch I once lived in, when I returned there once, trying to find what was left not long after the community had completely dispersed."

He took out a small key hidden in a cloth bag around his neck, unlocking the box with hands shaking more from age than from anxiety. Inside, carefully wrapped in several layers of moisture-proof fabric, was a stack of yellowed papers, a few small plastic cards with pictures and letters that were mostly faded, and a small rectangular piece of metal engraved with a symbol identical to the drawing Diem Quynh had sketched.

"This is the employee badge," Dai Van Cuong said, picking up the piece of metal and turning it over in the light of the fire so everyone could see more clearly. "I can't read all the words on it — time has blurred most of it — but I can remember a few words from when I first found it, before it faded further."

Bach Lam carefully picked up the piece of metal, tilting it under the firelight to examine it more closely. “There's a little line here,” he said, his voice tense. "Group... Thien... Ho. Department... Management... Resources..." He stopped, the rest of the text was completely faded, unreadable.

Khe Mien felt her heart beat faster when she heard those words read aloud, no longer a vague name in the story of a deceased old woman, but real words, engraved on real metal, that once belonged to a real person who lived and worked for that organization.

"What about other documents?" she asked, looking at the pile of yellowed papers.

Dai Van Cuong took out a piece of paper and opened it so carefully that Khe Mien feared it might crumble in his hands. Much of the text was faded or torn, but a passage in the middle of the page was still readable, and Bach Lam, who had the best reading skills in old writing in the group thanks to years of studying ancient maps and documents, read each word out loud slowly.

"'...internal report, not widely available. Climate forecast models continue to show...a trend that cannot be reversed within the next twenty years if current exploitation levels are maintained. The Board of Directors has decided...to prioritize the preservation of the Group's strategic assets in designated areas...instead of making these findings widely available, in order to avoid causing market panic and protect...the long-term interests of shareholders...'"

He stopped, his voice choked, and the group sat in silence, the weight of those words slowly sinking into each person.

“They know,” Khe Mien said, her voice shaking, not from fear but from an anger rising from deep inside her. "They knew disaster was coming, and instead of warning people, instead of changing the way they were exploiting resources, they chose to keep it a secret to protect..." she couldn't finish her sentence, her throat closing up.

"To protect their own profits," Bach Lam said for her, his voice hard, his face carrying a cold indignation she had never seen before. "While the whole world is approaching the brink of collapse."

Dai Van Cuong nodded slowly, his eyes were cloudy with age but still reflected an old pain that had never gone away. "That's what I've suspected for twenty years, ever since I found this box," he said. "My Dome, and perhaps many other Arches, were built by people who worked for that organization — engineers, scientists, perhaps even low-level managers, people who survived the Great Cataclysm and brought with them the technical knowledge to build shelters for themselves and those they could save."

"But if this organization knew about the disaster," Diem Quynh said, her voice shaking, "why didn't they use their knowledge and resources to prevent it, or at least prepare all of humanity, instead of just..."

"Just prepare for themselves," Khe Mien finished her sentence, her voice cold as ice. "Perhaps that is exactly what happened. Perhaps the first Arches, the best-built, most technologically advanced Arches — like the Upper Arch, where the Central Council is located today — were not built by accident after the disaster. Perhaps they were planned in advance, by people who knew exactly what was going to happen."

A heavy silence enveloped the group, with only the sound of the crackling fire and the gentle wind blowing through the ravine breaking that terrifying silence.

"Are there any other papers?" Kien asked, his voice small but full of curiosity, breaking the silence.

Dai Van Cuong flipped through a few more sheets of paper in the stack of documents, most of which were too damaged to read, but one sheet, smaller than the others, appeared to be a list or classification of some kind, with faded columns of letters and numbers. In the top corner, a few words could still be read: "Category... shelter area... Priority level."

"This could be a list of locations chosen to build shelters," Bach Lam said, examining the paper carefully in the firelight. "Look at how it prioritizes — as if not everyone is treated equally in their plans."

“That fits what I always suspected,” Dai Van Cuong said, his voice low. "My dome has always been one of the most technologically deprived places I've ever heard of, compared to what people say about the Upper Dome. I used to think it was just a random difference between the communities after the disaster. Now I wonder if it's the result of a pre-determined classification, by people who never considered everyone as equal."

Khe Mien felt another chill run down her spine, different from the anger from before — this was a deeper fear, about the true scale of what they were slowly discovering. If so, then the disparity between the Domes she witnessed—between the relative stability of the Green Dome and the brutality of the Salt Dome, between what the Sand Dome could have been and what a small Dome like Dai Van Cuong's had to endure—was not entirely the result of luck or the individual efforts of each community, but could have originated from decisions made long before any of them. was born.

“This is just speculation,” Ngan The Binh said, his voice cautious though clearly shaken by what had just been revealed. "We have a piece of paper, a badge, the account of a person who has lived in seclusion for twenty years. We do not yet have sufficient evidence to say anything for certain."

"You're right," Bach Lam agreed, although his voice was still tense. "But enough for us to know that the story we were taught — the Great Cataclysm was an inevitable natural disaster — is not entirely true. And if part of the Chronicle of the Great Cataclysm is a lie, we need to find out what the rest of the truth is that is being hidden."

Khe Mien looked at the piece of metal badge in Bach Lam's palm, then looked at Dai Van Cuong, who had carried this secret burden alone for twenty years in the dead land. "Would you like to give these to us?" she asked softly. "We will take them carefully, learn more, and if possible, one day, bring the truth to light."

The old man looked at her for a long time, then looked down at the box in his hand, as if saying goodbye to a part of himself that had been attached to it for many years. “I have been waiting for this moment longer than you can imagine,” he said at last, his voice choked. "Take it away. Do something meaningful with it, something a lonely old man like me could never do on my own."

Khe Mien took the box from his hand, feeling its weight not only physically but also with the weight of the new responsibility that had just been placed on her shoulders, and carefully put it in her separate luggage bag, right next to the shockproof box containing the seeds she had brought with her from the Green Dome - two completely different treasures, but now, they seemed to be bound together by the same mission greater than what she had ever imagined when she started this journey.