Welcome to the Greenhouse

by Gordon Van Gelder

  “Ware ten o’clock!” she yelled as she raised the muzzle of her sprayer.

  The trio of foot-long yellow jackets, however, were only interested in taking a few of the now panicky live bees. Natural predators of such hives, they were the human’s allies in extirpation. Though even more formidable than the giant honeybees, they had no interest in the two suited humans. Which was a good thing, Lissa knew. A yellowjacket’s stinger could punch into an unprotected human like a stiletto.

  As she and the corporal worked their way through the swarm she reflected on the unexpected turn of history. When the greenhouse effect had begun to set in, scientists had worried about the presumed surplus of carbon dioxide that was expected to result. They had failed to account for Earth’s astonishing ability to adapt to even fast-changing circumstances.

  With the increased heat and humidity, plant life had gone berserk. Rainforests like those of the Amazon and Congo that had once been under threat expanded outward. Loggers intent on cutting down the big, old trees paid no attention to the fecund explosion of ferns, cy-cads, and soft-bodied plants that flourished in their wake. A serious problem in temperate times, vines and creepers like the ubiquitous kudzu experienced rates of growth approaching the exponential.

  The great sucking sound which resulted was that of new vegetation taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and dumping oxygen in its wake. Their size restricted for eons by the inability of their primitive respiratory systems to extract enough oxygen from the atmosphere, arthropods responded to the new oxy-rich air by growing to sizes not seen since similar conditions existed more than 300 million years ago. Short-lived species were the first to adapt, with each new generation growing a little larger than its predecessor as it feasted on the increasingly oxygen-rich atmosphere.

  There had been no bees in the Carboniferous, she knew, because there had been no flowers. But modern plants had adapted to the radical climate change as eagerly as their more primitive ancestors. The result was fewer and increasingly less workable beehives as bigger bees crowded out smaller competitors.

  Changes occurred with such startling rapidity that in little over a hundred years insects, spiders, and their relatives had not only matched but in some cases surpassed the dimensions attained by their ancient relatives. This made for an increasingly uncomfortable coexistence with the supposedly still dominant species on the planet, but a very good living for Lissa and her hastily constituted branch of the military. Nearing fifty, she could remember when her company, one of many that had appeared in the wake of the Runaway, had been able to offer its enlisted personnel predictable hours and regular furloughs. Such downtime still existed, of course, but she was making so much combat pay that she felt unable to turn down the assignments that came her way.

  Sure enough, scarcely moments after they had finished their work and a pair of city front-loaders had begun the odious task of scooping up the thousands of dead bee bodies, the truck’s com whistled for attention.

  “We got a 42B.” Gustafson had removed his reducer and was leaning out the open door. The oxygen-dense air might be dangerous for steady breathing, but it was great for making a quick recovery after a bit of heavy physical exertion. One just had to be careful not to rely on it too long. “Boy stepping on scorpion.”

  She shook her head as she approached the truck. “That’s 42A. 42B is scorpion stepping on boy.”

  Fortunately, the yard-long arthropod they trapped and killed half an hour later in the public playground hadn’t stung anyone. Nocturnal by nature, it had been disturbed by children who had been building a fort. They stood around and watched wide-eyed as the two exterminators hauled the chelatinous carcass away. The scorpion wasn’t such a big stretch, Lissa knew. Nine-inch long predecessors had thrived in equatorial rainforests as recently as the twenty-first century. It hadn’t taken much of an oxygen boost to grow them to their present frightening size.

  They were finishing coffee when the code two red call came in. Looks were exchanged in lieu of words. It was one call neither of them wanted to answer. As senior operative, it fell to Lissa.

  “Why us?” she spoke tersely into her tiny mouth pickup. “We’ve been hot on it all morning.”

  “Everyone’s been hot on it all morning.” The dispatcher on duty at the Atlanta Metropolitan Command Center sounded tired. He would not be moved, Lissa knew. “You’re the best, Sergeant Sweetheart. Take care of this one and I’ll let you break for the rest of the day.”

  She looked over at Corporal Gustafson, who was hearing the same broadcast. Inside the sealed restaurant equipped with its own industrial-strength reducers they had no need for their face masks. She checked her chronometer. If they wrapped up the call early they would each gain a couple of hours of paid free time.

  “All right.” She was grumbling as she rose from the table. Other patrons regarded the two uniformed specialists with the respect due their unpleasant and dangerous calling. “But not because you called me the best, Lieutenant. Because you called me Sweetheart.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” the officer finished. “Take care on this one.”

  A single descendant of Meganeura shadowed their truck as they sped through the city streets and out into the suburbs. Since this was an emergency call they had their lights and sirens on, but they didn’t dissuade the dragonfly. Its four-foot wingspan flashed iridescent in the heavy, humid air until, finally bored with riding in the truck’s airflow, it flashed off toward a nearby office building. Going after a goliath fly, Lissa mused as she let Gustafson focus on his driving. Or one of the city’s rapidly shrinking and badly overmatched population of pigeons. Unable to compete with the increasingly large and powerful insects, birds had suffered more than any other group under the Runaway.

  The family that had put in the emergency call were grateful for the arrival of the exterminator team, but refused to emerge from the house’s safe room where they had taken refuge.

  “It’s in the basement.” On the small heads-up display that floated in front of Lissa’s face, the mother looked utterly terrified. So did the two children huddled behind her. “We’ve had break-ins before. Ants mostly, when they can get across the electrical barrier, and roaches my son can handle with his baseball bat. But this is a first for us.”

  “Take it easy, ma’am. We’re on it.”

  Looking none too reassured, the woman nodded as the transmission ended. Lissa checked her gear and made sure her reducer was tight on her face before nodding at Gustafson.

  “This’ll be your first time dealing with a chilopoda, won’t it?” Her partner nodded slowly. “Watch your chest. They always go for the chest.”

  Donning helmets, they exited the car and headed for the single-family home. No sprays this time. Not for this afternoon’s quarry. Both of them hefted pump guns.

  The front door had been left open, not to greet the arriving exterminators but in the forlorn hope that the invader might depart of its own volition. Not much chance of that, Lissa knew. Chilopoda favored surroundings that were dark and damp. Eying the family compound and the looming, nearby trees, she sighed. If people were going to live in the woods in this day and age…

  As they entered the basement the house’s proximity lights flicked on. A good sign. It meant that their quarry wasn’t moving. Gun barrel held parallel to the floor, she was first down the stairs. The basement was filled with the usual inconsequential detritus of single-family living: crates of goods meant to be given away that would remain in place forever, a couple of old electric bikes, lawn furniture, the home O2 reducer that allowed residents to move freely about the sealed building without having to don face masks, heavy-duty gardening gear, and more.

  A sound made her raise her left hand sharply in warning.

  Whispering into her mask, she pointed toward a far, unilluminated corner. Gustafson nodded and, without waiting, started toward it.

  “I’ll take care of it, Lissa. You just…”

  “No! Flanking movement or…!”


  Too late.

  The six-foot long centipede burst from its hiding place to leap straight at her startled companion. Its modern Amazonian ancestors had jumped into the air to catch and feed on bats. This oxygen-charged contemporary monster had no difficulty getting high enough off the ground to go straight for Gustafson’s throat. If it got its powerful mandibles into his neck above his shirt and below his helmet and started probing with the poison claws that protruded from its back end…

  She raised her gun and fired without thinking.

  Guts and goo sprayed everywhere as the pumper blew the monster in two. Still it wasn’t finished. As both halves twitched and jerked independently, she approached them with care. Two more shots shattered first the dangerous anterior claws and then the head containing the powerful, snapping mandibles.

  Turning, she found her partner on the ground, seated against a trunk still holding his weapon and staring. Walking over to him, she bent slightly as she extended a hand to help him up.

  “I…,” he didn’t look at her, “I’m sorry, Lissa. It came out so fast that I…”

  She cut him off curtly. “Forget it. First encounter with a chilopoda, no need for excuses.”

  He stared at her. “You warned me. You said they were fast. The class manual talks about their quickness. But I didn’t…” His voice trailed away.

  She gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “Like I said, forget it. Visuals and words in a manual are one thing. Having it jump you in a basement is a little different. They make a tiger seem slow and an insurgent unarmed. Next time you’ll be ready.”

  He nodded somberly, and they climbed the stairs. The basement was a mess, but that was a job for a city or private cleanup crew. Back in the truck she kept expecting to be assigned another job as soon as they reported in that they had successfully completed this one. Surprisingly, the officer on duty seemed inclined to keep his word. The bugband stayed silent.

  As a chastened Gustafson headed the truck back toward the military base on the outskirts of the city she leaned forward to have a look at the sky through the windshield. Overcast, as always. The usual tepid rain on tap for the evening. Other than that the weather report was promising. Temperatures in the low nineties and humidity down to seventy-five percent. Things were a lot worse the closer one got to the now nearly uninhabitable tropics, she knew. The tech journals were full of reports of new threats emerging from the depths of the impenetrable Amazon. Ten-foot carnivorous beetles. Deadlier scorpions. Six-inch long fire ants…

  Home and business owners might fret over giant centipedes and spiders with three-foot leg spans, but as a military-trained specialist she worried far more about the ants. All ants. Not because they were prolific and not because they could bite and sting, but because they cooperated. Cooperation could lead to bigger problems than any sting. In terms of sheer numbers, the ants had always been the most successful species on the planet. Let them acquire a little of the always paranoid Gustafson’s hypothetical intelligence to go with their new size and…

  She checked the weather a last time. Atmospheric oxygen was up to forty-one percent give or take a few decimals. It was continuing its steady rise, as it had over the preceding decades. How big would the bugs get if it reached forty-five percent? Or fifty? How would the fire brigades cope with the increasingly ferocious firestorms that had made wooden building construction a relic of the past?

  Rolling down her window she removed her mask and stuck her head outside, into the lugubrious wind. Gustafson gave her a look

  but said nothing and stayed with his driving. Overhead and unseen, another giant dragonfly dropped lower, sized up the potential prey, and shot away. A human was still too big for it to take down. But if its kind kept growing…

  Lissa inhaled deeply of the thick, moist air. It filled her lungs, the oxygen boost reinvigorating her after the confrontation in the basement. Drink of it too much and she would start feeling giddy. There were benefits to the increased oxygen concentration. Athletes, at least while performing in air-conditioned venues, had accomplished remarkable feats. Humanity was adapting to the changed climate. It had always done so. It would continue to do so. And in a radically changed North America, at least, the military would ensure that it would be able to do so.

  As an exterminator non-com charged with keeping her city safe, her only fear was that something else just might be adapting a little faster.

  THE MEN OF SUMMER

  David Prill

  I know I am but summer to your heart,

  And not the full four seasons of the year

  —Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Unfortunately, it was another spectacular summer day.

  Marion woke early, sensing the heat trying to elbow its way past the drawn shades. She didn’t bother checking the forecast; she could already feel the sweat of the coming day on the back of her neck. Her clock was keeping time, so that must mean the air conditioner was on the fritz again. At least it wasn’t another greenout.

  She lifted a corner of the shade and peered out. The sun was besieging the neighborhood. On the sidewalk outside her house stood a young man. What was his name again? Marion wondered, her mind still wrapped in post-dawn murk. Mark? Jim? Fernando? None of those names seemed to fit. Bob? Stan? Sigfried? No. It certainly wasn’t Andre. Doug? Maybe. Shoot. Perhaps after she drained her first cup of coffee the name would find its way into the daylight side of her mind.

  Problem was, not only was there a maybe Doug outside, there was no joe inside. Marion wasn’t in the mood to spoon, not before her first coffee anyway, so she snuck out the back way. The alley was free of summer loves, hallelujah. She cut through backyards and scaled a fence, grabbing as much shade as possible, and made it the three blocks to Bunny’s Java Den without incident.

  She paid for her iced coffee, slapping it against her forehead even before she sat down at a table in the far corner. The Den smelled worse than a high school locker room, all pent-up sweat beneath rigid, un-laundered clothes. It always took a minute for the stink to fade into the furniture.

  Just as Marion took her first long swig of the frosty brew, she noticed a young man, stranger, watching her.

  He was standing by the bulletin board, coffee in hand… watching.

  A familiar smile, but unique in its own way. It made Marion excited, sad, and just plain tired. She smiled back in that order, but he came over anyway.

  “Mind if I join you? There aren’t any empty tables.”

  It wasn’t true, so she said, “Please do.”

  “My name’s Alan.”

  Arthur. Andrew. Anthony… She thought hard… No Alan.

  Alan the First.

  Well that was something.

  He was attractive, naturally. Dark curly hair, boyish dimples, decent build. The usual setup. She never grew tired of that first surge of energy, even if the energy was at a lower wattage than it used to be. It was still special. It was still spine-tingling. The thought that they would have a summer of romance and fun, of freedom, before reality took over again. Only it never did. Not anymore. It was always drop-dead hot, day in, day out, no matter if there was a beach umbrella or ski scene on the calendar. These days, the boys of summer were always underfoot.

  “I’m Marion,” she said dreamily, determined to enjoy the ride before the tires went flat.

  “Maid Marion!”

  She laughed at the joke, as she always did. They always said it with such joy, such innocence.

  “You have a nice smile,” he said. “Your eyes sort of dance around.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you like to dance?

  ” What a transition. “Sure, I like to dance.”

  “Maybe we should go dancing some time then.” “

  Awful hot for hoofing. I work up a lather just tapping my foot to the music.”

  “Let’s go somewhere and cool off then. How about the beach?”

  “I like to go swimming, especially since the global mean temperature has been so hi
storically above average.”

  “I’ll pick you up. Can I have your number?”

  “Here you go.” A couple of years ago Marion had cards printed up with her name and phone number on them. She got a discount when she ordered a box of five hundred. A real time-saver.

  Alan the First studied the card, beaming, then tucked it into his shirt pocket, patting it with pride.

  They kept chatting as they downed their coffees, Marion fading out as the words automatically tumbled from her. She tried to focus on Alan, wanting to relish these first moments of hormonal discovery, but the intensity of the initial attraction was leavened by an equally acute feeling of déjà vu. A disconnect. Like she was watching a movie.

  A date movie. A quirky love story, about a girl and her summer love.

  That afternoon, Marion climbed into her air-cooled, hydromatic swimming suit with the viewing window where it counted and met Alan as he pulled up in his streamlined rust bucket. He was just dressed in trunks and a white muscle T-shirt.

  “Nice suit,” said Alan, nodding approvingly.

  “It’s air-cooled, and hydromatic.”

  “Where did you buy it?”

  “Over at the mall.”

  “I like the scenery in your viewing port,” he said playfully.

  “Thanks,” she replied, blushing.

  They drove to Lake Failin, surf music shaking their top-down ride as they wove around the buckled asphalt on the highway. Marion felt happy and young and free again. It was summertime. Livin’ was easy. Dyin’ wasn’t as hard as it used to be. When they reached the beach, Marion noticed that the parking lot didn’t appear to be as close to the water as it used to be either.

  Alan spotted it, too. “I wonder why they decided to move the parking lot so far back?”

  Marion didn’t say anything as they walked hand in hand onto the beach.