Sea Change

by Nancy Kress

  Beneath the underpasses of the expressway, the homeless encampments had grown even larger than when I last drove I-90 to Louis’ station. Police drones darted in and out.

  As we sped past the heavily fortified mansions on the east side of Lake Washington, Tom broke the silence in my car. “What can you tell me about the station we’re going to?”

  “Nothing until we get there,” I said. “Protocol. You talk to me instead. You heard what I told Kyle about the lost house. Nobody was in it. The Org uses drivie houses very selectively, and they’re never left empty. So what do you think might have happened, and with what consequences?”

  Tom knew I was testing him, that I wanted to assess how bright he was, that I hadn’t been impressed by his chess rating. He probably even knew that I didn’t understand his chess rating. All that was in his grin, which disappeared as he ordered his thoughts.

  “The agent either left the house by choice or was taken by force. If the agent defected or was an infiltrator to the Org, his or her destination might be a group that hates us. If the agent was kidnapped or arrested, then it was also by a group that hates us. Either way, it’s not good. Any agent assigned a drivie house is higher up in the Org than you and so can probably identify more than one or two stations.”

  “Maybe.”

  We stayed silent all through the climb into the mountains to Snoqualmie Pass, while I ran through the list of groups that hated us.

  The environmental groups, of course. Since the Catastrophe, they’d proliferated like kudzu. They came in all sizes from international to very local, all degrees of militant from Greenpeace to let’s-write-more-letters-to-our-congressman. Greenpeace was militant, all right. But just before the Catastrophe ten years ago, their leadership had been charged under RICO statutes with the murder of a whaler, and ever since, they’d been far more careful. A kidnapping to torture for information just didn’t seem their style. Of course that didn’t rule out smaller eco-groups, some of whom were batshit crazy.

  The religious right hated us. It was conceivable that they’d twisted an obscure Bible verse into a justification for some sort of “cleansing.” But again, if that had happened, it would probably be a breakaway local sect that had gone straight off the rails.

  Agribusiness hated us the way they hated anything that interfered with profits, which we would do eventually—but not yet, not in any significant way. Was some rogue, well-informed CEO anticipating that?

  The big enemy of course was DAS—the Department of Agricultural Security that the president had created after the Catastrophe. A cabinet-level secretary, close ties with the FBI, all the funding that could be carved out of anywhere else on a strained federal budget. If DAS had arrested our lost-house agent, then the feds could detain him or her indefinitely as a “material witness.” DAS would do whatever it needed to in order to obtain information, to “prevent another Catastrophe and protect the American people.” The Org would have to take on DAS eventually, but not this soon, and not like this. We weren’t ready.

  Finally—maybe it wasn’t an organization at all. Maybe the lost-house agent had been killed by a burglar who’d taken away the body, or kidnapped by a scorned girlfriend, a scorned boyfriend, a random psycho. Nothing to do with us. Coincidences happened, after all, and even our agents had private lives. Undoubtedly someone farther up our chain of command knew, or would discover from police contacts, if the wandering-house murder was personal. Just as Org command knew all about everything personal about me and Jake, right down to the last division of furniture and dishes during our divorce.

  If so, the Org would not tell me. I wasn’t important enough. I trusted my higher-ups.

  So why had I taken the toothbrush? And then not told Kyle?

  Tom asked, “Can you at least tell me what they’re doing at the station we’re checking on?”

  “Carrots,” I said. “They’re doing carrots.”

  The central part of Eastern Washington is more than 2,000 feet in elevation, dry high plains. Drier since global warming began to accelerate. Even in October, I had the AC on full blast as Tom and I drove up to the station run by Dr. Louis Weinberg.

  “This is it,” I said, pointing to the small farmhouse, family vegetable garden, and apple orchard that were decoys, and the two small greenhouses that were not. Jean met us at the end of the driveway, smiling widely when she saw me.

  “Hello, Caroline. Good to see you.”

  “And you. This is my cell’s new recruit, Tom Fairwood. Tom, ‘Jean Cathcart,’ plant geneticist.” Only one scientist at each station used their real names, in order to access online scientific journals and to order equipment and restricted supplies, although not to this address. The farmhouse was owned by someone else. I didn’t know who; I didn’t need to know.

  “Hi, Tom. Caro, did you bring that shipment of supplies?”

  “In the trunk.”

  The three of us carried smallish cardboard boxes labeled “Maternity Clothes” into the house. One of them actually did contain maternity clothes, in case I was stopped by the police and had to explain that I was collecting them for charity. We set the boxes down in the small kitchen and Louis came through from the back of the house. Tom blinked at what lay behind the open doorway.

  When the door was closed, it was completely hidden by shallow shelves holding cookbooks, dishes, pottery, a carved wooden rooster. The kitchen appeared like what any unwanted visitor would expect: copper-bottomed pans hung on the wall, a window over the sink looking out into the orchard, a house-system Link sitting on a shelf, ready to take commands about remembering dental appointments or ordering more milk. Blue cotton curtains at the windows, dirty dishes in the sink, calendar with “Great Moments in American History” on the wall. No one had turned the page from September to October.

  Beyond the kitchen was the small, windowless, state-of-the-art lab. The heavy-duty genetic work was done elsewhere and brought here by couriers like me, but Louis and Jean and their assistant, Miguel, also did a fair amount of work here. Each piece of expensive equipment had been brought in separately, by night, over time. The clutter and homey neglect of the kitchen contrasted starkly with the lab. Tom scrutinized everything.

  I was wary around new recruits, even though I knew the Org was insanely careful and it wasn’t my place to second-guess their decisions Still, I always wondered—will this be the one who betrays us?

  Louis came forward, holding out his hand. “Louis Weinberg. I run this root-vegetable circus.”

  “Tom Fairwood. I know you and Caroline have things to talk about—but can I get a tour?”

  “Of course. Briefly, anyway.” Louis, too, was watching Tom carefully, weighing him. How bright was he, how curious, how potentially useful? Louis didn’t miss much. Soft-spoken, genial, bald as an egg, glasses in heavy dark frames—he looked like an inoffensive professor of eighteenth-century literature. He was a scientist of blazing brilliance, fire under cool snow. Beneath that genial and laid-back manner was the sharpest mind I knew. Also dark currents I sensed but didn’t understand. I knew his professional background, including his “retirement” from researching for a major agribusiness, but my contacts with Louis were too limited for me to understand him, even though I have good instincts about people.

  (Jake shouting, “No, you don’t! You only think you do!”

  Fuck you, Jake.)

  “This is the lab, and we can see the greenhouse after. How much do you know about genemod crop creation, Tom?”

  “I’ve been reading what I can.”

  I demanded, “Where?”

  “Not online,” he said. “In libraries. Not checking out books.”

  I nodded. Everything online, including book purchases and library checkouts, could be data-mined to show patterns of interest in genetic engineering. That might alert DAS. Nothing anywhere on any layer of the internet is safe for us. Nor are phone calls, patterns of purchase, patterns of approval on social media, or pretty much anything else digital. Louis read scientific jo
urnals at various libraries scattered over four counties.

  Louis said, as if I hadn’t thrust my rude suspicions into the middle of his lecture, “This station is working on carrots. As you probably know, genuine biohacking proved a lot harder than was expected twenty-five or thirty years ago. All those amateurs experimenting with supply-store genes almost never ended up with organisms that were self-perpetuating, useful, and what they planned. The Catastrophe, you’ll remember, wasn’t caused by basement amateurs.”

  Of course Tom remembered; everybody remembered. I trailed after Louis, hoping he wasn’t going to turn too pedantic. He pointed out to Tom major pieces of lab equipment and the strictly offline computers; one of my jobs was to hand-carry data on very small drive cubes that could, like Ds, be swallowed, if necessary. So far, I had not had to test this.

  “What you really want to see is in the greenhouses,” Louis said. “This way.”

  Outside, sun poured down from a bright blue sky. Instinctively, I scanned for drones. Nothing. Space-satellite surveillance would show three people walking to an ordinary greenhouse on a lovely October day.

  “Carrots are great sources of beta carotene, which contains vitamin A,” Louis said. “Every year nearly a million children worldwide go blind from vitamin A deficiency, and within a year of blindness, half of those die. Vitamin A deficiency also affects the immune system, making it harder to fight infections. Before the Catastrophe, an organization called the Global Alliance for Vitamin A distributed the vitamin steadily in the poorest parts of the world, but then that ceased. You can’t imagine the devastation and suffering among those children.”

  “Yes,” Tom said. “I can. I’ve seen it.”

  Louis stopped dead at the greenhouse door and stared at him. “You have? Where? Africa? India? No, never mind—you probably can’t say. Sorry.” He opened the door of the first greenhouse.

  Tom was, I’d been told, twenty-three. Where and how had he been in Asia or Africa? It wasn’t like travel between countries was easy anymore, not since the Catastrophe. Military duty, maybe. What else didn’t I know about Tom Fairwood?

  The greenhouse transported us away from Eastern Washington. Instead of semi-arid high plains, we were in a hot, humid coastal region; I could actually smell salt in the air, as if a breeze blew off an ocean. Raised beds of carrots, along with a few of Queen Anne’s lace, crowded the space. I once speculated with another Org member about the rumor that in a DAS raid, stations and growth beds were wired to explode, destroying all evidence. Neither of us had had any idea whether that was true. I still didn’t, but I doubted it. We hid from the feds, but we weren’t an espionage or paramilitary group, just a bunch of civilians trying to covertly save the world.

  One carrot at a time.

  “These are Danvers carrots,” Louis said. He caressed a leafy green stalk as if he were its lover, which I found a little creepy. But that was Louis. He continued, “Danvers can handle heavy soil better than most, although ideally all carrots need loose, deep soil or they grow stunted. Carrots have only moderate tolerance for salt, and we’re modifying these to grow in water with as much as 3,000 parts per million. Coastal land in the developing world and even in California is increasingly being invaded by the rising sea. If we succeed, those places will be able to grow our carrots and then store them in tubs of sand for winter use. We’re also modifying them for increased beta carotene and to resist both vegetable soft rot and leaf blight. Without the use of pesticides or fungicides. Leaf blight is the most widespread carrot disease, poor things.” Again he caressed the delicate stalk.

  Tom watched this performance without reacting, for which I gave him credit. He said, “Why the bed of Queen Anne’s lace?”

  “They’re closely related to carrots, both Daucus carota.” He didn’t need to say more to bring the Catastrophe to everyone’s mind. “Come to the other greenhouse. You’ll be amazed.”

  Amazement in the second greenhouse consisted of a hotter, drier climate than even outdoors, and more carrots. The sweat that had started on my neck, forehead, and bra line in the ersatz coastal region didn’t evaporate. Miguel, doing something on a back bench, waved to me. Louis made the introductions and added, “Carrots like full sunlight and hot weather, but of course they need water. We’re modifying these to require the barest minimum so they can be planted in semi-arid regions or those experiencing bad drought. If they’d had these in Ethiopia in 2024 . . .” He shook his head sadly. “Norman Borlaug once said, ‘Most of the people who are opposing biotechnology have never known hunger.’ I’d add, ‘or vitamin deficiency diseases.’”

  “Louis,” Miguel said, “a quick question.”

  The question wasn’t quick, and so technical that I didn’t even try to follow it. As they discussed, Tom turned to me. “They’re not using the Blanding vectors in their genemods?”

  “No. Newer techniques. Don’t ask Louis what, because you don’t need to know.”

  “Got it.”

  Glad to escape the greenhouses, I collected the written material to convey to Kyle, who would relay it up the Org’s chain of command. Once, people called “mules” carried illegal drugs in their intestines across national borders. I’m an updated version of a mule, but at least I don’t have to swallow anything except a D, unless I’m caught. If I am, Louis’ report is written on thin, easy-to-chew paper, folded small. Spectacularly low-tech, and secure as digital never was. I put the report in my pocket, told Tom to wait in the car, and sought out Jean. She was in the kitchen, making dinner. It smelled good.

  “Want to stay?” Jean asked. “There’s plenty.”

  “Thanks, but we need to get back. A word, please?”

  I led the way outside, to the apple orchard. The abrupt dark of a Northwest October was descending. Small, annoying bugs whirred around our heads. A half moon hung over the plains, and the air had grown chilly. I wrapped my arms around myself.

  “Jean, I need something, and I don’t want Louis to know.”

  “Why not?” I couldn’t see her face, but I felt her looking at me hard.

  “I can’t tell you that.” And then I did something I’ve never done before: I lied to an Org member. “It’s Kyle’s request.”

  “Okay.” That one word said she didn’t like this but would do it if it came from Kyle.

  From my pocket I pulled the toothbrush I’d taken in the wandering house. “Can you generate a DNA sequence on the saliva from this? I’ll pick it up next week.”

  “And then Kyle will have someone with medical or police access run it through databases for a match?”

  “Yes, I think so. He didn’t tell me that.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. But why can’t Louis know? Louis isn’t under suspicion of anything, is he? Not Louis!”

  “No, of course not.” Whatever had happened to the Org agent in the lost house, it was inconceivable that Louis Weinberg could have anything to do with it. “But you know how Louis is. Laser focus when his attention is caught. Maybe Kyle doesn’t want him distracted from carrots.”

  “Maybe,” Jean said, but her tone said she wasn’t convinced by my feeble justification. But the order supposedly came from Kyle, so she took the toothbrush, now wrapped in a tissue, and put it in her pocket.

  To turn her attention, I said, “I’d be interested in your impressions of Tom.”

  To my surprise, she said, “I don’t really trust him.”

  “You don’t? Why not? He must have been thoroughly vetted by recruitment.”

  “They can miss things, you know. Anaheim.”

  Two years ago an entire cell of the Org had been infiltrated, betrayed, and arrested in Anaheim. They were still in jail, and we’d lost all their research on genetically modified fig trees.

  Jean continued, “I don’t have anything definite to say about Tom. It’s just a feeling. But I have good instincts about people.”

  That was my line. Besides, if Jean really had such good instincts, she’d know I was lying about Kyle’s orders.

&
nbsp; We said our good byes and Tom and I drove back to Seattle. Drivies passed us; I never risked attracting drone attention by exceeding the speed limit. Tom asked, “Will I be running courier for this station now?”

  “If Kyle says so.”

  “When do we visit the next station? No, never mind, I know—when Kyle says so.”

  “That’s right.” I was courier for three of the cell’s four stations, but that didn’t mean Tom would be, or at least not right away. Jonas was my backup and I was his, but since cells usually consisted of four people and now we had five, that argued that Jonas was being groomed for leadership elsewhere. Which would make sense, because all of us, including Jonas, had expected that he would be made leader of this cell. Instead, Kyle, whom none of us knew, had been brought in from the outside.

  Maybe now Jonas would get his promotion. Obscurely, I was glad it was him and not me.

  No, not obscurely. I didn’t want a transfer to another part of the country. Not while I had a fourth . . . no, not a station, although I sometimes thought of it that way. The one that not even Kyle knew about. The one that had saved my life.

  Tom interrupted my musing, loudly. “Caroline? Did you hear me? I asked if you’re hungry.”

  And all at once, I was. The last thing I’d put in my stomach had been beer in the café balcony at Pioneer Square. “Sure. Want to stop? There’s a diner about twenty miles ahead, just off the expressway.”

  The diner was nearly empty. Before drivie trucks, the place probably had had more customers. Before the Catastrophe, it probably also had had a better menu. I was surprised that the owners, who might have been the sullen cook and lone, aged waitress, had hung on at all. An economic crash had winners and losers, and these looked like losers.

  Sitting across from me in the booth, Tom frowned at the menu, which was paper instead of electronic inlay. “Pretty limited.”

  “Well—”

  “I was hoping for seafood, which I guess was dumb considering where we are. I love clams. Do you?”