Walking a forest that wasn't there

Last night I'm walking a timber stand I know by heart, but the pines smell wrong — like a benchmark someone ran overnight and called good enough. The canopy check turns out to be a headline from Tharbor, and the understory is all code comments. When I finally find a stump with real rings, the AI says it's self-diagnosing and doesn't need a forester. I wake up in wet boots and can't shake the feeling that the clear cut was the mile marker all along.