Margaret Arden’s Version of Survival
Chapter 08 - Margaret Arden’s Version of Survival
Margaret held a press conference at Arden Tower.
She expressed relief that Lena survived and sorrow over “misunderstandings created during an unprecedented natural disaster.”
She denied sending Warren Pike to Cedar Farm.
She described the seed vault as stolen corporate property and accused Lena of exposing genetically sensitive material to contamination.
Then she turned to Caleb.
“My daughter’s affection for the boy is real. But emotional adoption cannot rewrite biological succession.”
The completed decree had already proven otherwise.
Facts did not stop repetition from influencing people.
Investors feared the founder’s charter would invalidate decades of patents. Farmers filed emergency claims. Arden stock dropped forty percent.
The board suspended Margaret temporarily but allowed her access to the executive residence.
Lena called an emergency trust meeting.
The founder’s charter required that all original seed varieties be held for public benefit. If a trustee deliberately destroyed them, control transferred to Elias Arden’s legally acknowledged descendants acting jointly.
Lena, Caleb, and Hope were those descendants.
Because two were children, Lena would exercise temporary authority under court supervision.
Margaret challenged her mental competence based on years of isolation, false identity use, and “paranoid fixation” on company wrongdoing.
The psychiatrist filing the report worked for the Arden Foundation.
Judge Cross ordered an independent evaluation.
Lena agreed.
“I hid because armed men followed us,” she told the evaluator. “Suspicion is not delusion when the cars have company plates.”
Meanwhile, Thomas’s copied records revealed an earlier storm.
Fifteen years before Hurricane Iris, Tropical Storm Cora destroyed a public seed bank in Louisiana. Arden arrived as rescuer, offering replacement seed to farmers.
Internal emails showed company crews entered before the flood and removed rare collections. The damaged building was then declared unsalvageable.
Arden patented several varieties within two years.
Margaret’s empire had repeatedly used disasters to acquire what communities were too busy surviving to protect.
Hurricane Iris was not an exception.
It was a familiar business environment.
Lena announced that every community collection in the vault would be returned or placed under local control.
Investors called the decision reckless.
Caleb asked why adults wanted to own seeds someone else grew first.
Lena answered, “Because a seed can make food after the person selling it leaves.”
“Isn’t that good?”
“For everyone except the person who wants you to buy again.”
Caleb looked at Hope.
“She doesn’t have to buy me again.”
May you like
Lena understood what he was asking.
“No. You were never temporary.”
