“Right, so to avoid that, they need to make crops that can’t fail. Engineered to live through extreme conditions, not succumb to pests or drought or blight.”
“So, your brother, he’s sick from these pesticides?” David asked. “They used them at the farm, didn’t they? How many more are sick?”
“That’s it—they don’t make those pesticides anymore. Getting people sick was kind of … antithetical to the government’s plan to try to make people healthy. Sure, there were a few who argued it would help with population control, but those voices were silenced fast. People aren’t getting sick anymore—or at least they weren’t.”
“What are you saying?”
“According to what The Cause tells us, the government abandoned the use of these pesticides. Spraying didn’t work anymore since it released so much poison into the air. Instead they started modifying the plants themselves, building resistance into the actual genetic makeup through cross-breeding and manipulation at the DNA level. Building the pesticides right into the plants themselves. Well, those new breeds are out there, and they’re cross-pollinating with other plants, creating what are basically superweeds. And these superweeds are spreading everywhere, totally invasive. Choking out the native plants. But that’s not the real problem.”
“The plants are making people sick again,” Paul added.
“Or at least that’s what it looks like. Symptoms are starting to show up. Scattered reports –a sick guy here, dead kid there. The onset of the symptoms seems to be a bit more delayed than they were with Ben, but they’re the same—just over a lot longer period. Plus, they’re not affecting as many people in the affected area as the pesticides did.”
“Yeah, but it’s accelerating,” said Paul. “The cases are starting to show up more and more—and they’re all around where these new crops have been planted. Our worry, us and The Cause, is that what we’re seeing now are being considered as ‘acceptable losses’ and they won’t pull the plug this time around.”
“Who’s this Cause you keep talking about? Are they your friends online?”
“Ever hear of Anonymous?” asked Paul.
Of course, David knew of Anonymous. He was an IT security engineer by trade, after all—or at least would be for the next few weeks, until Fred’s kill order came through.
“Well they’re kind of like them, a bunch of hacker/activist types—only they have a very specific focus. Like a lot of these anarchist types, they’re skeptical of government, and it’s what lead them to find what they uncovered—but they’re also a pretty professional group. We’re working with them now, me and Paul,” Chris said, scooting closer to Paul and patting him on the leg. “We’re part of The Cause.”
“Think of it like this. The government’s the Empire and the corporations are Sith. We’re the Rebellion.”
Chris laughed and put his arm around Paul and added, “Ha, maybe. But more like the Rogue One rebellion. Like them, we’re just getting started.”
THIRTY-NINE
THANK GOD NO ONE
WAS INJURED!
“Good morning, sunshine. Looks like you slept well.” Rosa tapped David’s shoulder and woke him from his dream. Apparently, he had been the last to wake. Almost all the rest of the cots in the room were empty. “Here, drink this. It’ll help perk you up.”
David sat up on his bed and reached out to take the steaming cup from Rosa’s hand. “Thanks Rosa … I know I said I don’t like—”
“I know. It’s tea—English breakfast,” she said, her lips turning up at the corners. “We grow that here too.”
“Well, aren’t you the observant one,” David laughed. “I don’t suppose you happen to have—”
“Sugar? Maybe not like you’re used to. It looks like what we had got taken yesterday,” she said. “But here, put this in and stir it around.”
The green stick Rosa pulled from her pocket looked like a piece of bamboo. David took it and gave it a quick sniff.
“Sugarcane,” said Rosa.
He put it into his tea, and let it sit a bit, then stirred, took a drink and smiled.
“So, everyone still okay?” The previous day, after the attacks, David followed along as Rosa rounded up the citizens of the compound. No one had been injured in the attacks, although several people were rightfully scared—the emotional toll strongest on the children. From what David could gather, while these attacks weren’t frequent, most of the longer-term residents had gone through similar experiences several times before.
“Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Rosa replied. Her eyes searched the room, stopping at the few beds where people still slept. A boy and a girl, both no more than three years old, played on a cot near the entrance. The guard stationed there was gone. They had a few stuffed bears between them, shaped out of old clothes and whatever stuffing had been lying around. The kids were laughing, oblivious to the adults in the room, having their own pretend tea party—their resilient little souls already forgetting the trauma of the previous day.
“They’re crafty, you know? Sneaking in like that. Crafty, but pretty much harmless. They must have eyes on this place all the time. We keep the doors locked—well, we usually keep the doors locked. But they must come and try them from time to time, looking for that one chance to break in. We haven’t seen any of them around here much lately though. Maybe they saw you on your way here. Followed you. Then decided to give it another shot.”
“Rosa, I’m sorry if I brought them here.” David put his hand on her knee and she returned his gaze. “I had no intention of—"
“Oh David, it’s fine. We’re fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s Parm … she didn’t lock the door and … well you know what happened.” She placed her hand on David’s and continued, “I’m just so glad you’re here! Get up, grab something to eat from the tables and meet me in the lab. I have something for you. Oh, and take a shower.”
---
After a breakfast of bananas and toast, David took a shower and it was glorious. Although his brief stint in the lake and the downpour on his way here kept him from getting too dirty, the amount of dirt caked onto his skin surprised him. Rosa’s suggestion he take a shower shocked him at first, he hadn’t considered there would be running water, let alone hot running water, out here in The Green Zones. But the kids he talked to sent him back to an area just off the entrance to the complex, where all the modern amenities of personal cleanliness presented themselves. He even found a communal toothbrush and some toothpaste.
Back in the lab, David found Rosa talking again with Sam, busily working over another small pile of electronics. From time to time, she’d pluck a random circular object from the array of circuits and gizmos. She’d pick it up, and feel it with her fingertips, checking the edges.
“Scorched too?” asked Rosa.
“Uh-huh. I think that might have been the last of the good ones.”
David cleared his throat, startling Sam. She dropped the metal ring to her desk, where it clattered against the rest of the electronic pieces.
“David … you look good,” said Rosa. Sam nudged Rosa, smirking at David as she pushed her boss closer.
“Thanks Rosa. The showers here. I mean, it’s only been a few days, but still that was like heaven.”
“Good. I’m happy you found them. I didn’t mean to run off on you like that, but I had to come back here to see how Sam’s project is coming along.”
“It’s fine,” David said. “Nice to take a few minutes at my leisure for once. Everything’s been going so fast. I’m having a tough time processing it all.”
“I definitely understand and I’m glad it helped.” As she spoke, David sensed her eyes searching his. Looking for what, he had no idea—but it made his skin itch.
“Is … is everything okay?” he asked.
“David. About the issues you’re having ‘processing’ things. When I woke you up this morning, were you dreaming?”
“Yeah, I think so. Something about people getting sick. The Cause?”
“Enough,” she stopped him. “I don’t want to know any more right now. I mean, I can’t know any more right now. Not until we figure out what’s going on. I’m not cleared for your level of information. And with you not knowing yourself what’s going on, having these dreams or memories or whatever they are, you can’t share them with me. It could be detrimental to the mission.”
“But it was a dream. Even if it was brought on by a memory, there’s no way it would be accurate. Dreams don’t work that way.”
“You weren’t dreaming, David.”
David shook his head. “Well on that you’re mistaken. Like I said, I don’t remember it exactly, but I know I was having a dream. There were these two guys, talking about The Cause. Something about hack—”
“Enough!” David stopped at Rosa’s outburst. “I’m sorry, David. Just … just don’t say any more. You weren’t dreaming. I know you weren’t dreaming, because I,” she lowered her eyes, hesitated, and whispered in his ear, “because I jacked into you while you were asleep.”
David couldn’t decide how to respond to this invasion of his privacy. He’d given her permission the day before, but in his mind it was a one-time kind of deal. Any future “jacking” required future permission. He hadn’t issued her a hall pass to his brain.
“You’re probably mad, I would be too,” she continued. “But I had to see it again. It was exactly like before. When you were out, you were out. There was no activity other than your autonomous functions. No REM sleep. No dreams. Just a brain, doing its job keeping your body alive, but dead in consciousness.”
“But we already knew this,” said David. “We found this out yesterday. How does this matter?”
“Matter?” Rosa gasped. “It matters because I‘m scared, David. You’re my responsibility. You’re important. Important for what, I don’t know. But you’re important.”
“I see,” David said. “For the mission.”
Rosa took a deep breath and answered quietly, “For more than the mission. You’re important … to me.” Her cheeks flushed as she spoke. “I know it’s silly. For you we’ve just met. But for me? I’ve been watching you for a long time. I’ve been caring for you for a long time.”
David took a moment to process this and asked, “So how do we fix it?”
Rosa’s eyes perked up and she tapped on Sam’s shoulder, who pretended not to listen in on their conversation while she dug through her pile of widgets. “I don’t know how to fix it, per se, since I don’t quite understand what’s going on,” said Rosa. “But I think I have a way to get it under control.”
“Your suppressor’s busted,” said Sam, holding up another metal ring. This one shone cleanly, free of any scorches or burns. “I made you a new one.”
“What are you going to do with that?”
“The one in you, well we’re not going to dig it out,” said Sam. “They’re made to be able to fail. If they do, they go dormant. A piece of trash in your brain—looks basically like shrapnel to any scanners but doesn’t interfere with anything once it’s dead. Yanking it out though… well, I don’t know anyone who can do that level of surgery on a fully-developed brain and not knock a few things loose along the way.”
“So, you’re going to put that thing in my brain?”
“No, of course not. You have a jack, so we’ll just put it in there. It’s older tech, made for back when everything was still hardwired, but it’ll work fine. Basically, we put it in and it’ll act like the suppressor you had before. Stop your genetic memories from coming through. Only difference is, it’ll knock your wireless offline too.”
“I’m not quite sure how I feel about this,” said David. He looked to Sam, searching her face for any tick that might show she might also be uncomfortable with this prospect. Finding none, he directed himself back to Rosa and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think if you don’t do this,” said Rosa, “your brain’s going to hit a point where it can’t figure out what’s real, what’s a memory, and what’s a dream … and it’ll fracture.”
David scratched at his port, looked at the two women staring at him expectantly and took a deep breath.
“Alright. Stick it in.”
FORTY
ON HOLIDAY
After several days in Garfield, David found himself settling in nicely. A few weeks, and it was the most at-home he felt in any memory he could conjure. The first order of business, after the attacks, was to bring all systems back online. The consumer insurgence hadn’t caused any damage to the facility, but the storm preceding them—the one that broke just as David arrived, had.
Outside the main compound stood several additional greenhouses. Most of the actual crops raised to sustain the people of Garfield grew in these external buildings, and in the storm, a few of the solar panels powering their scrubber units had been damaged. An option existed to simply open the vents to the pure outside air but doing so would cause significant risk to the crops growing inside. No one knew the extent to which the effects of the chemicals were airborne versus how much bred into the plant life outside. Tests back during the initial phases of breakout showed exposure to air was just as dangerous, although less concentrated than consumption of affected plants. But what remained unknown was how much exposure to tainted air would alter a previously unaffected plant. Exposure was dangerous to humans, particularly over extended periods of time, but no one knew if plants could absorb the chemicals as well. What testing had been done remained inconclusive, and human trials were never approved. What was known was that plants growing near the affected areas exhibited increased levels of the noxious chemicals when tested. And people who ate those plants tended to become sick. So, rather than risk affecting the population by exposing their food source to outside contaminants, the people of Garfield made it their top priority to bring the power supplies responsible for the scrubbers back online.
The people of Garfield, though guarded from the dangerous elements of the world outside, still were not protected completely. By David’s estimate, nearly fifty percent of the population showed signs of infection. The older people tended to be worse off, likely due to the extent of their exposure. Those previous organics who had lived some time outside the protection of Garfield’s walls, scrubbers and filters had it worst of all. A few of the citizens made the trek to Chicago from Plasticity or one of the other Society settlements, from the relative safety of the East Coast through The Green Zones in search of another life. Many lost friends or family on the trips, due to weather, environment, bands of violent Consumers, rogue land serpents, illness or starvation. Still, many completed the trip, reaching Garfield and supposed salvation. Of those who did make it, however, most already exhibited symptoms of exposure well before reaching their journey’s end. Coughs were commonplace, and many displayed the ocular deterioration that presented itself with reduced vision and those cold, glassy grey eyes.
So, David helped fix the scrubbers. And he helped replant the crops. He did whatever he could to make himself part of this new society, and he did most of it by Rosa’s side. Over their few weeks together, David’s bond with her strengthened. Since the day he arrived at Garfield, he felt a connection—almost like love—emanating from her. And, while he admitted he found her attractive, personal relationships and carnal lusts were far from David’s mind in his first few days in the big glass house. Time spent together, however, strengthened their connection, and for David the days with her were the closest to a sense of “home” he had experienced since waking in the fields all those weeks ago.
What started as time spent on projects together morphed into time spent doing nothing together. Just enjoying each other’s presence quickly became a way to pass the hours. Maybe it was love. Or maybe it was the absence of loneliness—simply having someone with whom to share an emotional bond. Either way, over these weeks they connected at such a level that the thought of spending time away from one another brought on feelings of panic. Even though he still had no idea why he came her
e in the first place, he was sure of one thing: he had no desire to leave.
From time to time he and Rosa left the confines of the conservatory. Many days they ventured out back, onto the great bluestone terrace to walk through the plants and gardens and simply enjoy nature. Rosa, it turned out, was one of a few select people who appeared to be immune to the effects of exposure. And so far, David also showed no signs of illness.
“Your eyes, Rosa. I lose myself in them.”
Rosa smiled and took his hand, leading him across the terrace to the great pond dotted with water lilies. They took the wooden bridge, stopping halfway to look down into the water. A turtle pulled its head underwater and took off swimming. Dragonflies alit on the lily pads, buzzing from one to the other in search of what only they knew.
“I could say the same about yours, David. They’re beautiful too … but they’re different from what I remember. In my mind I always pictured your eyes as green.”
“Because they’re not mine. Calvin took me to have them swapped on the way out of the city. Said it was for security.”
“Of course, he did.” Rosa frowned, letting go of David’s hand. “I guess I should have expected him to do something like that.”
“What’s wrong? He said if we didn’t swap them out I’d be identified. He also mentioned something about my health, but I don’t remember a lot of that. It was quite a while ago.”
“Did he take you to the Eyefields? Did he take you to Devon?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think that was his name.”
“I suppose it’s just as well.” Rosa’s eyes returned to the water, following the pond to its edge and to the great open field in the space behind Garfield. An ancient building marked the skyline, like an old stone castle or hospital. The tattered remains of a flag mounted to a pole on its roof fluttered in the wind.
The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr David S Sparks Page 17
