Analog SFF, March 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Has everyone forgotten,” he continued, “That that these trees are just temporary? The owners never saw them as more than an interim step toward restoration."

  "Whatever happened to the guy who used to protest about preserving the environment?” she asked. “Don't you care about what they're going to do to the environment now, for God's sake?"

  Gus shook his head. It was just like Daisy to change the subject when he'd backed her into a corner. “I don't get sentimental about worker trees. They're designed to die quicker than normal, and without anyone's help. Look there.” He showed her soft, dark paste at the tip of the core sample. “This shows the core is already decayed. I wouldn't be surprised if most of these poplars are pretty much the same. I've also noticed a lot of woodpecker borings and owl and squirrel burrows."

  "Birds and squirrels?” Daisy replied. “What does that have to do with ...?"

  "Animals don't want to work hard to get a place to live,” he interrupted, glad that he had managed to surprise her by another sudden change of subject. “They're opportunistic. They love to find a dying tree that provides openings where they can burrow."

  "I don't see how that's relevant to what we are talking about,” Daisy said in an attempt to get back on her argument's track. “Why should the town sacrifice a beautiful forest just for the sake of an outdated project? The Gus I knew would have known the right thing to do."

  Gus stopped. “Are you asking me to report that it's not the right time? You want me to say they should give it more time?"

  "Yes,” Daisy said eagerly, giving him one of those smiles that used to melt his heart. “You see how everyone adores this place. It's an asset to the community that no one wants to lose, not when the rest of the county is becoming increasingly urbanized. The only ones who support this are those who will profit.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “You do understand, don't you?"

  Gus chose his next words carefully, wondering about the promise in her closeness. “I understand your point of view, but my job is only to see if these trees are ready to be removed. The decision to cut isn't mine."

  "But your recommendation is key to that decision. What you say matters, Gus."

  "No, Daisy, this was once the town dump, back when they stuffed garbage into the ground instead of recycling and reusing as we do today. Things were so bad that, when the dump was sealed, shrubs and trees were planted just to clean up the contaminated soil of surface pollutants.

  "It took those initial scavenging plants nearly twenty years to do their job before they could be harvested for the metals they'd absorbed. After that they planted these worker trees. That was long before we were freshmen."

  He held up a hand when she started to object. “All of these genetically modified worker trees have tap roots that enable them to absorb garbage's decomposition liquor along with the subsurface water being pumped down there. They, like the first-generation shrubs and trees, are elegant biological designs that deliver pollutants to the leaves. Then when the water evaporates, sunlight breaks down the complex molecules into something harmless."

  He picked up a yellow-brown leaf. “When they examined these during the growing season, it indicated that production had nearly ceased. That's why they want me to do the final determination."

  Daisy smiled. “Well, if they've made the trash safe, then why do anything more? This town's forested park is much more beneficial to the environment than a mine will ever be.” She smiled again. “We could even picnic here some day."

  He hesitated. That implied invitation held interesting possibilities. Perhaps the years hadn't erased all of her feelings after all, just as this encounter was awakening his own.

  "The pollution in this dump is why this site was never developed, Daisy. The soil was initially too dangerous to build anything or even use it as a playground. That's why it was selected.

  "Look, down below is compacted trash from the nineteen-sixties and seventies, which means it doesn't contain much of the dangerous stuff that came with the computer revolution. Now that the project is in its last stages, the lead, mercury, trichloroethylene, or carbon tetrachloride levels are minimal. My company bought this site as a bet that it could dig up enough paper pulp, aluminum, glass, and steel to recycle so they can profit from sale of the improved land."

  Gus hoped he was reaching her, but she still looked unconvinced. “Mining the dump will finally get rid of the refuse once and for all. Better still, in the short term it will produce income and jobs for the town so, in the end, everybody wins."

  "But this nature preserve will be gone,” she added sadly. “The town would have lost something precious. There just aren't that many places you can get away from the built environment."

  "As if these woods were any less.” Gus smiled. “You've got to take the long view, just like the founders of this project. It's a different type of recycling than we fought for in college: Each pound of metal pulled out of here means that much less raw ore needs to be extracted and processed elsewhere. Each ton of paper recovered means that many more trees won't need to be pulped. Even every ton of plastics recovered represents a savings in energy and transportation."

  "But look at the cost to the community,” she argued. “Is it worth the loss of playgrounds for our children, picnic areas for families, and places where old friends can take a quiet walk? Is the loss to society worth years of having an open mine, heavy trucks, and God knows what else?"

  "Of course it's worth the effort,” Gus replied evenly. “That's what we've always been fighting for. That's all I've been working for."

  "I'm sorry, but I don't see it your way,” she said bitterly. “You'll still have other projects, and the hell with the destruction and loss you leave behind!"

  Gus had no response as she stalked away.

  * * * *

  "Still around?” Daisy asked as she towered over him at the pizza shack. “I thought you'd be gone by now.” Did he detect a note of regret in her voice, or was that wishful thinking?

  "They company wantoffered me a promotions me to learn aboutlead a new technology group, something I saw in the Dakotas a few months ago,” Gus replied. “It's a nice increase career move if I accept.,” Gus offered.

  "It's a fucking bribe!” Daisy exploded. “They're only offering it so you'd recommend that it is all right to cut down the trees. Can't you see that?"

  Gus shrugged. “Nonsense. The offer won't affect my professional assessment in the slightest. Just as it won't be influenced by anybody else's personal viewpoint.” He regretted the jibe the moment the words left his lips.

  "No, no—it's a bribe,” Daisy repeated with increasing certainty. “Gods, Gus, are you so blind you can't see it? They need your recommendation so they can move ahead before we can get the political muscle to fight them."

  Now it was his turn to be angry. “I'm going to base my report on the facts, and only the facts."

  "That's just a stupid engineer's excuse,” she shot back.

  Gus stood. “Listen, sweetheart, my report isn't a political debate where emotional opinions should be considered."

  "So you say,” she answered and started to turn away. “But being an engineer also means taking responsibility for your actions. Don't take the bribe, Gus. Think about what's at stake, first.” Her voice caught on the last word.

  Was she talking about the report or their renewed relationship? Was there an “if” in that request?

  * * * *

  All night Gus debated whether he should accept the position. Turning his back on the natural processes that had consumed so much of his life would be hard. As much as he saw those trees as useful instruments, he also loved their cool shadows and arches of greenery. He was like most people, where the sights and smells of a forest resonated deeply in his psyche, as if it were an instinctive call from the forests of his ancestry.

  Perhaps that was the reason he so often softened the designs of trash-cell forests with aesthetic considerations, making the installations pleasant pl
aces during the years it took to clean the environment. The downside of those considerations was that it made people get attached to “their” woods, so much so that the preservationists never wanted it to change. It was easy to predict: people get attached to interim solutions and soon forget they are just that—interim. Taking the long view has never been a human trait.

  His The aesthetic principles approach would disappear be lost when Phil's new technology was perfectedused. Instead of leafy forests and shady glades they'd be installing arrays of shining metal, tightly packed row upon row with no refuge for deer or squirrel, dove or woodpecker, cricket or butterfly. There would be no place to picnic, no place to contemplate, no resting place for the human soul.

  No place for two old friends to walk on a cool autumn morning and no place for two lonely people to have a quiet picnic.

  So, which was the right choice? Should he help develop the technology to speed the decades-long remediation processes and lose his forests, or continue on the professional arc he had followed for years to free the Earth of its man-made pollution?

  Was Daisy's contention that this was a bribe correct? Was the offer a way of convincing him to finish the project so he could move on?

  Even if she were right, did it matter? He thought long and hard about his choices, about his integrity, about Daisy, and about the part he had chosen so many years before. But mostly, he thought about the project and his role.

  Daisy had once accused him of having no skin in the game, but she was wrong. His love for nature, the trees, and the environment were as strong as ever. But he also knew that the trees were a means, not an end, and his sentiments were as misguided as Daisy's.

  Remediation was the ultimate goal. The objective had always been to purify the wastes sufficiently to allow trash to be recycled so something wonderful could be created.

  With that understanding he realized that everything he could do to speed that end was worth the effort so that, some day, new forests might emerge, forests that included a broad spectrum of species and were rich in diversity and wildlife. If he, and others like him, were successful then, some day, there would be completely natural forests where people could wander, play, picnic, and fall in love.

  He pulled out his phone and called Daisy. “I'm accepting the offer,” he began. “I need to learn this new stuff."

  Daisy sounded less than thrilled. “I thought you already knew everything about phytoremediation technology."

  "Just part of it,” he said sadly, ignoring the implied insult. “Skill sets don't last forever. Much as I love working with the trees I have to give them up.” When she didn't answer, he added. “Do you think you'd like San Antonio?"

  "Get serious, Gus. I'm secure where I am,” she answered. “I know my subject really well and better still, I've got tenure. That's why I don't want my town torn apart by this damn project.” There was a long pause before she added. “It was nice seeing you again. Maybe you'll come back some day to see the dirt and filth you've caused.” In an earlier day he would have heard the phone slam down. As it was, there was only a click and a dial tonesilence.

  He had lost more than his trees.

  * * * *

  Gus took a final walk though the woods to help clear his mind. The leaves were all gone now and soon winter would close its icy grip. If he let his report stand, then the leaves would never emerge and in the spring the sounds of bulldozers and cranes would fill the air instead of chirping frogs and singing birds. Exhaust fumes would replace the smell of emerging flowers.

  As much as he regretted that he would never have that picnic with Daisy, he was buoyed by the thought that, once the project was complete and the site filled, something else would replace it—a nice park, perhaps, where the town's children's children could play.

  As he left the woods for the last time he noticed Daisy standing among the protestors. He waved but got no acknowledgement. That was as it should be. Daisy was a part of his past and, just like the trees, no longer a part of his future.

  He picked up his gear and walked away.

  Copyright © 2010 Bud Sparhawk

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  Short Story: LOCKED IN by Brad Aiken

  It's enlightening to see the world from a different viewpoint, but few would want one this different....

  At the time, I didn't know it would be the last few seconds of my life—at least what most of us would call life.

  I eased back into the oversized black leather chair that marked my spot at the head of the boardroom, listening to the same old inane arguments about why the privileged few of us sitting around that table should have had the right to define ethics a little differently than everyone else; why we needed to define it differently.

  Bullshit. Those new guys may have been Ivy Leaguers, but they didn't know squat. Maybe I wasn't so different when I started out, but meeting Linda changed all that. “Never make a decision you can't sleep with,” she'd told me once. “Then go out and do it better than everyone else."

  I wish she were still here to see how right she was.

  Like most businesses, this one's always been populated by ass-kissers, and over the years it hasn't been too hard to get people to do things my way. But that new generation was different. Dave Dunnster had taken over old man Reiss's spot almost three years earlier and got under my skin right from the start. The younger board members may have respected me, but they could identify with Dave and he knew how to work a room.

  I decided to let him have his say before reminding everyone that I hadn't built this company into a Fortune 750 powerhouse by accident. Even in this business there are some things you can't compromise on—especially in this business. I couldn't believe they were stupid enough to not see that.

  Tuning out the noise, I looked past the blithering idiots sitting around the table to the view out the 103rd floor picture window that had sold me on that office twenty-eight years ago. A small etch mark in the lower right side of the middle panel, made by a careless window washer who couldn't balance his platform, had been growing like a spider web; I made a mental note to have Gladys call the maintenance crew chief again.

  "For God sakes, Troy, how can you let that slide?” The familiar voice pulling me back into the conversation was that of my best friend, Tanner Hopkins, who had cofounded Nucleic Innovations with me back in 2015. “Are we really going to be part of this madness?"

  I looked him squarely in the eye. Over my dead body!

  "Troy?"

  The twelve men around the table all gawked at my silence.

  What the hell are you all staring at?

  It was at that moment I realized the words had never left my mouth. I grabbed the blue Waterman pen out of the inside pocket of my blazer and scribbled as quickly as I could on the pad in front of me, which was embossed with our company's insignia, the classic image of two electrons orbiting a proton superimposed on a vertically oriented missile.

  Before I made it through the first sentence, I could feel the strength draining from my hand. I wrote faster, but the markings soon became illegible. The pen dropped to the table and I slumped forward, helpless to avoid the painful crack of my skull against the wood.

  "Jesus, Troy,” Tanner said. “You okay?"

  I couldn't answer, couldn't even figure out a way to show him I was still alive, short of hoping he'd notice my eyes blinking.

  "Troy!"

  They tried to pull me up, but I started to slide under the table like a lump of Jell-O, unable to let loose the screams that were ricocheting around inside my head. It took a group effort to get me back to the same awkward position I'd started in.

  Since the moment that pen had dropped from my hand, every fiber of my being had been concentrating on regaining control. And then I saw the look on Tanner's face.

  I was going to die.

  The wave of terror welled to a deafening roar.

  Tanner disappeared from view; the unmistakable metallic sound of the handle to the fire-door separating us fro
m the outer office was followed by a symphony of sounds pouring in from the outer office.

  "Somebody call 911!"

  My head bobbed back and forth against the glossy wood as someone tried to shake me back to life. The office buzzed with murmurs and the sound of chairs scooting across the floor, each one reverberating like a Saturday morning alarm clock you forgot to turn off the night before.

  "Christ, he looks bad."

  "Hang in there, Troy,” Tanner said. Then, the other direction, “For God's sake, hurry. It's Mr. Adams."

  God knows how many of them crowded around the table. The voices, asking each other if I was moving, if I was dead. All I could see was the damn tabletop a half inch from my eyes, but I felt the pressure of dozens of gawking faces hovering just beyond my field of vision. I never thought I'd be so happy to be whisked off by paramedics.

  The blare of sirens droned above my head and the white steel roof that filled my field of vision flickered with each bump in the road. The EMTs poked and prodded, blinded me with their flashlights, and bombarded me with questions I could only answer with silence. I looked back and forth as the two of them took turns grilling me. When they finally stopped, I closed my eyes tightly and took solace in the darkness.

  If only Linda were still alive.

  I tried to keep my eyes shut as the gurney was jostled across the pitted sidewalk into the ER, where we were stopped by a gravelly voice. “What do you got, Harve?"

  The now familiar voice of one of my couriers sputtered back. “Not sure. Vitals are stable as a rock and he's looking around, but I can't get him to do a damn thing but blink every now and then. I haven't seen one of these in a while, but it looks like he's locked in."

  * * * *

  "Locked in.” Now there's an appropriate term for it. I surely was. It was the first time I'd ever heard that cursed diagnosis, and after ten more hours of tests the neurologist on call confirmed what the paramedic had guessed in ten minutes of scrutinizing my now worthless body.

  I was locked inside a motionless shell. I could hear and smell and see, I could think as clearly as ever, I could feel the itch of my nose. Every fetid breath of every person who leaned over to examine me burned my nostrils with an intensity I'd never known before; there wasn't much else to entertain my senses. My head floated, detached from a lifeless body, a floppy mass of muscles that had no one telling them what to do.