by K. Makansi
III.
When I come down to breakfast the next morning, the tension is visible on my parents’ faces. Their smiles mask the palpable anxiety of last night. After Fallon deposits my morning juice on the table and retreats, my parents exchange glances and both open their mouths to speak at the same time.
“Soren, there’s something—”
“We need to—”
They look at each other sheepishly.
“You first, Cara,” my father says. She nods.
“I already know what this is about,” I interrupt. “You want to tell me about the famine.”
“Yes,” my mother says. “It’s serious, Soren. Two hundred people have died in the last two months. All Farm workers. There’s a disease spreading through the crops and we can’t contain it, not yet.”
“What kind of disease?”
“It’s a virus. It attacks grass crops—wheat, corn, hay, rice. So far we’ve managed to contain it to only three of the Farms, but it could spread.”
“Everyone at the OAC is working around the clock to try to find a vaccine or a modification that will stop the virus,” my father says, “but no one has yet succeeded. But there are … other possibilities.”
“You mean what Corine Orleán is working on,” I say.
“How did you know about that?” my mother asks, her voice higher-pitched than normal.
“I overheard you talking with Dr. Rhinehouse last night.”
“Soren!” my father admonishes. “You were eavesdropping?”
“I couldn’t help it,” I protest, not very enthusiastically. I know very well I could have gone to bed and ignored them. But I didn’t. “You left the door open and everything.”
My mother sighs.
“Well, maybe it’s better that you know. We’ll have to upgrade your security clearance—”
“Oh, please. You’ve let me in on state secrets before without bothering with my security clearance.”
“Yes, but this is more serious. If word gets out—if you tell anyone at the Academy, accidentally or—”
“Mother, I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I want to know what’s going on.”
She takes a long sip of her coffee, watching me over her glass.
“I can show you,” she says. “But for that, I will need to get you a higher security clearance.”
“What are you talking about?” my father asks. Cara’s staring at me determinedly.
“I’m going to show him. I’m going to take him to the Farms.”
Spring 14, 07h48, Sector Annum 102
Gregorian Calendar: April 3
I watch out the airship’s clear glass paneling as we lift off and fly out of Okaria. The city beneath us fades to cleared land, then green forest and mountains, and, as we descend, back into farmland. The capital itself is fed almost entirely by urban farms, aquaponics systems, and a few hundred square kilometers of land on the outside of the city. That land is worked by those who live in the city. Everyone is required to put in at least ten hours per month in the city’s gardens. Everyone. Even my mother dons her boots and work denim to sow seeds and pull up weeds. My father, who loves working with his hands, goes out at least once a week. The Farms primarily supply food for the factory towns, and all the meat products for the capital, since we don’t have the same scale of range land they do.
“The Farms are actually very organized, though you can’t tell at first glance,” the man across from me says, watching me closely. He has narrow eyes, cropped black hair, and a clean-shaven face. His eyes are hard and unfriendly. He was introduced to me earlier as Evander Sun-Zi, the Director of the Farms. It struck me as strange that I’d never met him before. I’ve met almost every high ranking government or military official, at least briefly. He must keep a low profile, I thought. He frightens me, but he seems to be on good terms with my mother and father.
“From above, it looks like a natural landscape. It’s designed that way. Fruit trees are interspersed with vegetables, herbs, and grasses, so that the ecosystem is balanced. We learned in the Old World what devastation monocultural crop cultivation can wreak. So now we farm more naturally.
“You can see, though, where the crops are dying.” As the airship descends, he crosses the aisle and sits by me, pointing out the window, illustrating with his hands. There’s a girl sitting across from us. She’s a year older than I am, in her first year at the SRI. I recognize her, but can’t remember her name. She’s jotting down notes as though her life depends on it, recording every word Evander says on her plasma. “See that swath there? Where the land is almost golden brown? That’s the color it should be five months from now. The wheat, corn, and barley are all dying. And because the grasses aren’t there to protect the vegetables, weeds are taking over and choking out the other plants. And over there, where we farm rice and other aquatic plants like seaweed and even some crawfish, the rice is brown, even now, in the spring. It should be vibrantly green, but it’s dying. It disrupts the whole ecosystem.”
“Do the researchers know where the virus came from?” the girl asks earnestly. “What it evolved from?”
Evander turns his gaze to her, neither friendly nor hostile.
“The OAC’s official stance is that the virus was introduced from the wild grasses to the south.”
“Give her the real story, Evander,” Corine Orleán says gently, sitting next to my mother in the front of the airship. Corine, Evander, and my mother are all dressed casually, wearing hooded black jackets and their knee-high gardening boots, the ones we all wear when working in the gardens. Standard-issue Farm clothing. I’ve never seen Corine in anything but her much more elegant work clothes, and she looks out of place without a sleek dress. Less threatening, maybe. My mother has tied her blonde hair back in a braid. She looks like she’s ready to grab a pitchfork. “There’s no need to hide the truth from these two.”
“The virus is the result of an experiment gone wrong.” He glances at my mother, and she nods slightly, as if giving him her permission to continue. “A team of OAC researchers introduced a modified version of tobacco mosaic virus into a small, experimental portion of cannabis plants on the outskirts of Tangled Oaks Farm. It was intended as a new way to genetically modify crops. The virus enters the cell, replaces key genetic elements with new insertion sequences, and then dies. It worked well at first, and it proved to be an effective way of modifying plants, as the researchers didn’t have to wait until a new growing season to implement genetic changes. So, if there’s a summer drought, a virus bearing genes that affect the plant’s water use could be introduced, and the drought would have less effect.”
“But it mutated,” the girl guesses. “A single-stranded, rapidly-dividing retrovirus wasn’t the best choice if you wanted to keep it under control.”
Evander glances over at Corine, who smiles.
“Very good, Moriana. You see, Evander, why I’m investing so much in this young woman.”
Moriana. That’s it. She blushes and stares down at her plasma.
“It’s not like it was a hard leap to make… .” I roll my eyes. I’ve never been interested in humility, real or otherwise.
“And yet it was one that a dozen top researchers at the OAC missed,” Corine interrupts. “Hubris will get us all one day. The team of scientists working on this project chose a single-strand RNA virus because if the experiment worked, it could be so easily manipulated into applications to other plants as well. So,” she muses, staring out into the distance, “in a way, their plan worked perfectly. If the virus hadn’t mutated away from its built-in self-destruct mechanism, the experiment would have been a success.”
“So, the virus mutated to be destructive rather than transmissive, and then mutated further to be capable of attacking different types of plants.” Moriana says breathlessly, scribbling furiously on her plasma.
“Even so,” I comment, determined not to look like an idiot in front of this girl, “the odds were one-in-a-billion that the recombinant strains would creat
e something this devastating.”
“Yes, we were all astonished, which is part of the reason why this particular problem has caught us off guard,” Corine says as I hear the airship’s landing tripods extend and the ship settles gently on the ground.
My mother stands, and Corine and Evander follow suit respectfully. The ship’s passenger door opens and unfolds into a set of stairs. My mother steps down and out into a green, grassy plain. Two Enforcers immediately step into stride next to her. It stretches maybe a hundred meters on every side before giving way to trees, berry bushes, vegetables, and amaranth crops growing in between the hedgerows.
“You can see how integrated everything is,” my mother says as I walk behind her. We start walking through one of the rows and I reach down and snag a few raspberries off of the prickly plants growing along the path. I hold them in my hands, roll them between my fingers. Evander, now walking beside me, watches me curiously as I pop one in my mouth. Though I’ve done my fair share of time on our urban farms in Okaria, we’re not supposed to eat any of the food directly off the plant. It all goes to the Dieticians for processing. Of course everyone sneaks a few bites here and there, but it’s generally frowned upon. I relish the rich flavor as I bite down on the berry.
“You’re not to eat anything else off these plants,” Evander says. “The Farm workers here need the calories more than you do, and you’re not authorized to eat anything pre-Dietician’s treatment anyway.”
His eyes narrow as I stuff the remaining berries into my mouth.
“Sorry,” I say with a shrug. “I was hungry.”
He says nothing, but he drops his eyes from mine and stares straight ahead.
“Fruit and nut trees, grass crops, root vegetables, herbs—they all grow right alongside each other. With a natural ecosystem, there’s no need for pest management or herbicides, because every individual species contributes something beneficial to the overall system.” My mother turns back to us and smiles. “The Old World farmers never realized how wasteful and destructive their agricultural systems were, because they were focused on monoculture. If they had been able to learn more from the natural world, the Famine Years might never have happened.”
My mother leads us single-file through a dirt path that winds its way to a series of buildings ahead. The trees are just beginning to flower. The sweet scent of cherry blossoms wafts around me. It’s intoxicating.
“Since we’re trying specifically to grow food crops, we can’t rely on nature alone to produce food for us. So we’ve developed models to show us how best to emulate a natural ecosystem while also maximizing the amount of calories and nutrients we can get per—ah.”
She pulls up short.
In front of us is a swath of blackened ground. The smell of charcoal and ash is thick in the air.
“This wasn’t done by any disease,” I say.
“No, it wasn’t,” Evander says. His tone is somehow satisfied. Almost smug.
“This is what you spoke of in your report, Director Sun-Zi,” my mother says, addressing Evander by his formal title.
“Yes. The fire.” There’s a glint of a smile on his face. Cara nods, her jaw clenched. She doesn’t say anything more. I want to ask what happened, but I sense now isn’t the time.
My mother continues walking, leading us through the devastation. I scan the charred ground. It doesn’t look accidental. It’s too controlled. There’s a very precise beginning and end to the burned land. It stretches some hundred meters across the field. No natural fire would spread such a short distance and die so abruptly.
“What happened here?” I whisper, almost to myself.
“The Farm workers were protesting the lack of food,” Moriana responds quietly. “They burned down one of the central silos and the fire spread to the farmland.”
I shake my head.
“No. This was controlled. See how it begins there—” I point back to where we just came, “—and ends right there, on the other side? That’s not a natural burn.”
Moriana shrugs.
“The Enforcers must have put it out very quickly. But the official reports said that the Farm workers started the fire.”
So Moriana gets to read the official reports?
“Maybe that did happen,” I respond, “but not here. This is different.”
We come to the center of the Farm, where small wood and metal structures fill the grassy space. Most look unharmed by the fire. There are signs of char on the buildings on the edges, but everything is intact. There’s a sharp contrast between the bright, painted colors on the buildings and the haggard, dark eyes and slumped shoulders of the Farm workers. Thin cheeks and collarbones stand out on their bodies, even through their work clothes. The signs of starvation are striking. The vibrant colors strike me as garish, almost offensive, against the obvious suffering and hunger.
I narrow my eyes as I notice the number of Enforcers standing around. I count at least a dozen of the men and women in the green Sector-issue uniforms, their visors down against the morning sun. Some of them have Bolts cradled in their arms. That’s a surprise. I’ve never seen or heard of Enforcers carrying weapons. There’s never been a need for them.
“Ah! There’s Jean,” Corine says, her smile revealing bright, white teeth. A man in dark grey clothes with his sleeves rolled up is approaching, his jaw clenched and his mouth set in a terse line. Four Enforcers walk behind him. What is going on?
My mother holds her arm out to the man, who shakes her hand roughly and then kisses her twice on the cheek, more delicately.
“Jean,” she says. He squints back at the rest of us, his eyes lingering on me and Moriana.
“Chancellor,” he responds, focusing on her again. There’s relief in his voice. “It’s good that you came.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t come earlier,” my mother says. “It’s been mayhem in the Colleges and the OAC.”
“Yes,” he says, absently, his eyes on me again. “Is that your son? Soren? And who’s the other?”
“Yes. Moriana Nair is here at Corine’s request, and Soren … well, naturally….” She trails off. I watch, startled. My mother’s never been one to lose her train of thought, nor to hesitate before speaking her mind.
“I’m glad you brought them,” Jean says. “The more people know what’s going on here, the better.” At this, Corine and my mother exchange glances. Why does he want more people to know about the disease, the starvation? Doesn’t he know this is top secret?
The few workers who were milling around have disappeared. Aside from the Enforcers and our little group here, the Farm is eerily silent. I’ve visited Farms before, touring with my mother as part of the Chancellor’s political duties. There’s always the hum of machines in the background, people working their way through the fields, herding animals, or working the land. Now, there’s nothing. Quiet.
“Where is everyone?” I ask. The man Jean looks at me, his lips pursed.
“Inside,” he says.
“Why?” I ask. “Isn’t there work to do? It’s spring.”
His eyes narrow.
“How can I ask them to work when we can’t feed them in return?”
Corine brushes smoothly past me to where Jean and my mother are standing. She stretches up on her tiptoes to whisper something inaudible into my mother’s ear. I narrow my eyes in suspicion. Cara nods and turns away.
“Show us into one of the residences, please, Jean.”
The man nods gruffly and stuffs his dirty hands into his pockets, turning away and walking alongside Corine. The four guards drop into step next to us. It’s unnerving. I’m used to having Sector Defense Forces around us, but that always feels like a formality. This is more definite, as though a threat lies just around the corner.
Jean leads us to the door of one of the residence houses. The metal is scrubbed and polished and the paint fresh. The building strikes me as small, for a place that houses ten workers. Jean opens the door and inside I am hit with the morbid scent of dying flower
s. Like rotting fruit. Lilac, violet, rose—and the turbid scent of decay. Moriana wrinkles her nose and covers her face, but Corine shoots her a look that says clearly, Don’t. She drops her hand.
“Why does it smell so bad?” I whisper almost against my will. I’m beginning to regret accepting my mother’s invitation to come on this visit.
Evander stares at me impassively.
“Why do you think?”
I shake my head. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.
I follow Moriana and step inside. We’re in the common area. There’s a large wooden table with benches instead of chairs at the center of the room, and several men and women with vacant eyes are watching us. A shiver starts at the base of my neck.
“Hello, Chancellor Skaarsgard,” one of the women says. She’s young, not more than five or six years older than I am. Her short cropped dark hair and brown eyes look familiar, somehow. She’s wearing the traditional Farm uniform—black pants with a long-sleeved green shirt emblazoned with the Sector sunflower. My mother smiles and clasps her hand in greeting. I spot the source of the ghastly smell by the hearth: there’s a heap of dying flowers, wilting and faded.
“It’s good to see you again, Ayla,” she says. “How do you like working here?”
Suddenly I recognize her. Ayla Capri. She was a student at the Academy. The daughter of one of the members of the College of the Deans. She attacked someone after curfew one night and was given a choice between five years of service on the Farms or exile into the Wilds. In court, she claimed she was defending herself, but there were whispers that her Dieticians had given her the wrong medicines, drugs that induced her into a hyper-aggressive state. Nothing was ever proved, though, and she opted for service on the Farms. Her eyes are dim and downcast, though somehow hopeful. There’s a naiveté there. She looks at the ground as she speaks.
“Not well, Chancellor. I liked it at first, but then everything started dying. The plants first. Then the animals, and then the people. Everyone’s dying.” Her voice is hushed. She turns her eyes up to my mother plaintively.
