The Scavengers

by Michael Perry

  He points at Dad. “But most important, we have him.”

  Dad steps forward.

  “Not all of me, you don’t,” he says.

  I step right up behind him. “Skip the mystery talk, Dad. I’m sick of surprises and secrets. Every time I turn around there’s another one. I never thought I’d say it, but I actually miss Hatchet. He’s forever attacking me, but at least I know what’s coming. Let’s wrap this up and catch the next helicopter outta here.”

  Dad looks me in the eye for what seems a long time, then speaks.

  “Final secret, Ford Falcon.”

  The white room is silent except for the sound of Dookie softly and slowly repeating, “Shibby . . . shibby . . . shibby . . .” Ma draws him in close to her chest so he can feel her humming.

  Dad squares his shoulders.

  “Without me, there is no URCorn.”

  “SHUT HIM UP!” screeches Lettuce Face.

  “Doesn’t matter now,” says the Fat Man.

  Dad walks right up to face the Fat Man through the glass. “I loved working for your company. I was doing experiments. I was playing with all the latest toys. I was using my nerd brain the way it was meant to be used. I worked hard, and I was rewarded for working hard. I could provide my family with all the things they needed and most of the things they wanted.

  “And above all, I was proud to help feed the world.”

  I snort. “Yah, feed ’em crazy corn, and make crazy money for CornVivia.”

  “Yes,” says Dad, turning toward me. “Some of which was used to buy your diapers and keep a roof over your head. There is nothing wrong with being paid well for good work. And, Maggie, in the beginning URCorn truly was miraculous. It did everything the old advertisements promised. In a time when the weather was going topsy-turvy and other crops were failing and millions were going hungry, we came to the rescue.”

  The Fat Man smiles, and says, “And we never had a fatter bottom line.”

  “You oughta know about a fat bottom line . . .” I couldn’t let that one go.

  “Maggie!” says Ma, shaking her head.

  “Yes,” says Dad. “The bottom line. That’s where things began to go wrong. First came the Secrecy Signings. I signed, because I agreed: if CornVivia paid me to do research for them, it wouldn’t be right if I sold that information to some other country.

  “Then came the Security Chip. That scared me. But there was so much restlessness in the country by then. Millions without jobs. Troublesome weather. Talk of strange invasions. CornVivia wanted security for their secrets and I wanted security for my family. So I submitted to the chip.

  “Finally came the Top Secret project. They said they needed me to invent a lock. A lock made of chemicals that would add one more layer of protection for the secrets of URCorn.”

  “Activax?” I ask.

  “Yes,” says Dad. Then, very quietly, he says, “Had I known what I was part of, I would have walked out of the lab that day and never returned.”

  Now he walks over toward Lettuce Face, who has been standing there all this time with his thin little lips stuck out in a pout.

  “It was the Patriotic Partnering that first made me doubt what I was doing,” says Dad. “When the biggest food corporation in the country joined forces with the government, I felt trouble ahead.”

  Only the glass is separating him from Lettuce Face now. “I loved this country. We were free to do as we pleased, and with a little luck and a lot of hard work, you had a shot.”

  “The nation lives on!” says Lettuce Face, drawing himself up all snooty and haughty. “Sealed it! Before they could steal it! Jobs for all!”

  “Yes,” says Dad, “as long as you work for CornVivia or the government.”

  “Patriotic Partnering!” cheers Lettuce Face. “It saved this country!”

  “Yes,” says my father. “But for whom?”

  “Dad . . . ,” I say. “Seriously. Wrap it up. I’m ready to go.”

  “The year after I designed the lock, CornVivia announced that three things happen when you take Activax,” says Dad, turning back toward Ma and me. “Number one, it allows your body to use URCorn. If you don’t have Activax—as you know, from that day outside the gate—URCorn makes you very ill.

  “Number two, Activax turns you into an URCorn addict—you get all the benefits, but if you stop taking URCorn . . .”

  I know. I was the one who dragged him into the pig shed.

  “And number three, if you eat corn designed by anyone other than CornVivia, you’ll get sick too.”

  “So: like it or not, take the Activax, and you’re a customer for life.”

  “Yes,” says Dad. “And CornVivia is well on its way to becoming corn dealer to the world. But there are a lot of people who worry about that and want to stop it.”

  The Fat Man chuckles.

  “But once the Activax is turned on, there is only one way to turn it off,” says Dad.

  “The key!” I say.

  “Yep,” says Dad. “The key to unlocking Activax lies in a code built on a strand of DNA. As you might imagine, I developed it under the strictest secrecy, in a hidden lab all by myself. So when it came time to generate the code, I took the DNA from the only donor available.”

  “You! You are the key!”

  I look at Ma. She’s gone pale. “But why have these two corn-burpers been chasing you?” I ask, pointing at the two men behind the glass. “They’ve already got your DNA—and can’t they just make more of it in the lab?”

  “Oh, they don’t want me for themselves,” says Dad.

  The look on my face is similar to that of a GreyDevil that’s been hit upside the head with a shovel, and Dad can tell I don’t understand.

  “Other corn companies, other countries, and even groups of people who are opposed to genetically finagled food in general have figured out how Activax and URCorn are locked together, and they’ve even figured out how the key works. They’re only missing one ingredient: my DNA.

  “All someone would need to do is to get a piece of me . . . a flake of my skin . . . one of my toenail clippings . . .”

  “Eeew, Dad.”

  “. . . or a strand of my hair.”

  My eyes pop wide open then. The four vials! I hear a high-pitched screech and look up to see Lettuce Face stomping his foot.

  The Fat Man is just standing there, calm as can be, if you don’t notice his hands, which are balled into fists the size of hams. Now he stabs one fat finger at Dad. “If you’ve revealed the code . . .”

  “Not yet,” says Dad. “All four vials are safely stowed. But one little scratch to my head—or to any of my family—and the word goes out. The dead man’s switch will be thrown.”

  “We’ve heard a lot about this ‘dead man’s switch,’” says the Fat Man, “but why should we—”

  “LIES!” screeches Lettuce Face.

  “—believe you?” finishes the Fat Man.

  “We can test it now, if you like,” says Dad. “And within twenty-four hours you will learn that the Euro-Cornsortium, the Anti-Gen Collective—(which as you know is leading the charge to outlaw the international distribution of Activax)—and representatives of the Juice Cruisers Syndicate will all be holding a test tube containing a strand of my hair and a set of very interesting chemical equations.”

  As he finishes, the Fat Man grabs Porky Pig, rises from behind his desk, and with surprising nimbleness, rushes to the glass, raising the pig like he’s going to smash his way through. He stops at the last minute, freezes for a moment, then pulls Porky in tight like he’s hugging it.

  And for the first time since I’ve met them, the Fat Man and Lettuce Face turn the same color: bright, angry red.

  And then the window becomes a mirror, and there we are. A family. Together.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say.

  Ma looks at Dad. Dad looks at Ma.

  Then they both look at me.

  “Maggie,” says Ma. “We’re not leaving.”

 
58

  I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THEIR EYES. THE SADNESS IN THEM as Ma and Dad stood there after those words. I feel like I have been hit in the stomach and shot through the heart, all at once.

  Then Ma speaks.

  “I was never suited for life OutBubble,” says Ma. “We managed to keep our family together, to have our own ragged little happiness, but there was the constant fear of being discovered, the constant fear of how to keep your father safe and sane, the constant fear of my children being lost or hurt . . .”

  “Maggie,” says Dad, “your mother is the backbone of this family. It was she who held us together. It was she who protected your childhood in the worst circumstance available. Ma has paid the price for every bit of life our family has won, rough or otherwise. If we stay here, Ma can have her books, her window. She can live without worrying one of us won’t come back from a trip to town or some secret URCorn plot. For the first time in her life she can allow herself some time for happiness.”

  “Happiness, Ma?” I can feel anger rising in me, and it is making me reckless. “Happiness? Here? In this glorified prison?”

  “Maggie!” For a minute I think Ma’s going to yell at me, but then she leans forward, taking both my hands in hers. “This is not a prison! I am free to spend my days as I please! I have books . . . all the books and time I could wish for, and your father as he was . . . the smart, strong man I fell in love with all those years ago.”

  “The smart, strong man who needs mutated corn to stay that way!” I snap.

  If I expected Ma to get angry at that, I am wrong. Instead, she lowers her voice and speaks slowly, as if to be sure I listen carefully to every single word.

  “Your father and I were up all last night discussing this. If we stay here—if we live in this place rather than some shack on a hill under a tree—the damage that has been done to Henry can be undone. His terrible seizures can be stopped. He may even gain the ability to speak—to live a normal life.”

  I push Ma away. I feel rage again.

  “You’re going to give him the Activax!”

  Ma looks away.

  “We don’t know that, Maggie,” says Dad, looking at Ma, then back at me. “It’s just a possibil—”

  “NO!” I yell. “He is normal! Normal for Dookie! We’ve loved him that way forever! Why change him now? You’ll just have him hooked on that awful stuff! The same way you are! And how do I know you’re not just staying so you can get all the URCorn you need? And is Ma gonna take the Activax too? And what about me? I’m your kid! So you’re gonna make me take it?!?”

  Dad reaches toward me, but I push his hand away.

  “You and Ma—after all this time—you’re no better than all those people who lined up to come UnderBubble in the first place. This isn’t a Bubble, it’s a prison!” I spit that last word out.

  For the first time in a long time, I notice Dookie. He has backed into a far corner of the wall, and he is looking at me with wide eyes, and he is whispering, “Shibby . . . shibby . . . shibby . . .”

  I fly into a rage, yelling at both of them, saying things I can’t unsay. About how they were weak before and they’re weak now, and how this is all Dad’s fault and how Ma should have let him go eat corn and die, and then suddenly Ma’s eyes flash the way they do when it’s time for her to remind me she’s still my ma, and sharp as steel she says, “Maggie!”

  I stop, and tears flash in my eyes. They’re not sad tears, or angry tears, but frustrated tears. Ma gathers me in a hug. And then I feel Dad’s arms around me too.

  And then Dookie hugs us all, and hums a tune only Dookie knows.

  59

  THE DAYS HERE ON SKULLDUGGERY RIDGE PASS ONE BY ONE, AS they always have. I wake in the morning to the sound of parrots and one hacked-off rooster, I dig around in the dirt, I tend my chickens and garden, I work on my solar bear vest, I travel down to visit Toad and Arlinda and ride shotgun on the Scary Pruner. It’s important to keep busy, Daniel Beard said, in the preface to his long-winded book: “The baneful and destroying pleasures that offer themselves with an almost irresistible fascination to idle and unoccupied minds find no place with healthy activity and hearty interest in boyhood sports.”

  I agree with him, but I’ve had it with his boy blather. I told Toad I didn’t think The American Boy’s Handy Book of What to Do and How to Do It was really all it was cracked up to be, and I was surprised when he said I might be right. The next time we went to Nobbern, Toad came out of Magical Mercantile carrying a box of books labeled “Foxfire” and handed them to me. I’ve just started getting into them, but it looks like they’re gonna be great. Instead of Daniel Beard’s DIVERS WHIRLIGIGS they’ve got instructions on things like how to keep bees and make blast furnaces and bury your grandma.

  Right now, though, I’m on the hood of the Falcon, leaning against the windshield Toad fixed for me as a welcome-home present. We pulled the replacement from one of his junk cars.

  The sun is out. I’ve got Emily on my lap, and we’re visiting with the Earl.

  An odd little piece of equipment is visible through the new windshield. It sits on the dashboard, and it’s about the same size as The American Boy’s Handy Book. On one side is a small panel that gathers energy from the sun. On the other side is a screen. Two or three times a week I punch a button and the screen lights up, and there are Ma and Dad and Dookie. Dad made Lettuce Face and the Fat Man give us the communicator. They pretty much have to do what he says. He told them it’s so we can visit even though we’re apart, but they also know that we are keeping them honest. If ever I turn on the screen and something isn’t right, the dead man’s switch will be thrown.

  We also have a secret phrase to let each other know if we’re being threatened behind the scenes. Dad gave me clues to the phrase in a note before I came back OutBubble:

  Secret phrase is the set of twins in the first line of the second stanza from E’s poem that could be about Toad’s dog-killer.

  I grinned as I thought of Monocle peeking cautiously around the barn while Toad jumped around saying “Snooky holer-tables!” and rubbing the knot on his head. Of course “Toad’s dog-killer” meant Toad’s boomerang. I didn’t remember Emily writing any poems about boomerangs, but I giggled out loud and knew I had my answer when I searched the table of contents and came to the poem titled “Unreturning.”

  I turned to the page and read it. Greedy appears twice in the first line of the second stanza. So if Ma or Dad don’t show up for one of our video meetings or if we’re ever visiting and they say “greedy, greedy,” I know to trigger the dead man’s switch.

  No one in Nobbern knows this, but before she kept track of BarterBucks, Banker Berniece was an accountant for CornVivia. She prided herself on good math and honesty. When her boss—a large fat man—pressured her to hide the fact that he was making some deals on the side, she quit and moved to a small town named Nobbern, and after Declaration Day, opened a bank that took BarterBucks. One day when I was describing her to Dad, it dawned on him that she was the woman who used to sign his paychecks, and who quit rather than do the Fat Man’s dirty work. That’s when he realized she could be the trigger of the dead man’s switch.

  Berniece doesn’t know what is in the two safety deposit boxes I set up during my unusual visit. She only knows that I left both keys with her, and if she gets the signal from me, or if Toad or Toby walks in without me and says they’re looking for the Fat Man, or if a month passes without a personal visit from me (just so the Fat Man and Lettuce Face don’t decide to squash me like a bug), she is to open the box with the smaller number on it. Inside she will find a set of instructions on how to contact the three different groups Dad mentioned when we were in the white room. She will deliver the message, and not long after that, someone will ask Freda for a corncob pipe, a new customer will ask Magic Mike for a cross-eyed corny gift, and a third person will enter the bank and ask how many BarterBucks a test tube costs. She’ll open the second box and find the pencil case with the test tube inside.


  After that, even Dad isn’t sure what will happen, but whatever it is, it’ll turn loose big trouble for Lettuce Face and the Fat Man. They’ll do pretty much anything to be sure it never happens—including taking extra-special care that nothing bad happens to me and my family.

  And of course the fourth tube is in the cellar beneath the slate, just in case.

  It’s been hard for me to understand everything that has happened, but I keep working on it. It must be even harder for Ma and Dad to understand my decision—how I could want to come back to this life of GreyDevils and junk hauling and sleeping in an abandoned old car on a hill when I could have everything neat and clean and safe and be with my family. At least I get to see them and talk to them on the little screen, and during the last URCorn harvest I hitched a ride with a cornvoy driver and visited them in the white room. Dookie is on a medicine that has helped his seizures, but Ma and Dad haven’t given him the Activax, and I don’t know if they ever will. Dad looks healthy and happy, and he says he’s been given his own science lab again, but now he only works on his own projects.

  And Ma? I was so angry with her that day in the white room. And I meant that anger. I was mad all the way from my steel-toed boots to my ratty hair. But back on Skullduggery Ridge, the very first time I pulled out The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson and saw Emily’s lonely silhouette on the cover, it reminded me how hard Ma worked to keep our family together all those OutBubble years, and how many times I wished with all my heart I could give her something better. I suppose we could argue about what the word better really means, but Ma . . . well, the last time I saw Ma she looked contented, and that’s good enough for me.

  I know this story isn’t over. I know that the Fat Man and Lettuce Face aren’t going to let this thing be forever. There are battles ahead that will make the GreyDevils look like two kids tickling each other. And there are so many unanswered questions: How is CornVivia getting the whole world hooked on URCorn? Are they dropping Activax from helicopters or putting it in the water? Where did the GreyDevils come from? What are the GreyDevils? Do the Juice Cruisers do more than just make PartsWash? And what about the people UnderBubble? I’ve still never been under and seen anything other than the inside of a white room and the top of one puny little dome. What’s really going on in there? I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet it’s not all volleyball and ice cream cones.