Ecopunk!

by Liz Grzyb

  “Wait until tomorrow,” he murmurs into her hair. “It’s always worse on the second day.”

  “Thanks.”

  She feels his chin press down on her scalp and knows he is grinning. Scott steps back and looks into her face. “Hey, I know what will make you feel better. Have you ever been inside a vertical farm?”

  “Are you inviting me over?” Like, on a date? She feels her heart skip.

  “Hey, you’re a botanist; I’m a botanist. I’m guessing we share the same kicks.” He takes her hand. “Come on. You’ll love it.”

  Kara is about to go when out of the corner of her eye, she sees four skiffs draw up at the edge of Sustain’s seaweed farm: about twenty young men looking for line work. As Silas and Naoko glide over to them, Kara can’t help thinking just how vulnerable they all are, in such a remote place with so few numbers. Against the backdrop of the sea, the vastness of the horizon, Naoko and Silas’ runabout looks so very small.

  Kara forces the shadows from her mind—all that talk of security has gotten her spooked.

  “They’ll be fine,” Scott murmurs.

  He starts to lead the way. And because she likes him and she’s so over the drama of the game, she follows.

  They angle through Curtis’ crop, heading toward the giant glasshouses dominating Advance’s portion of the island, the soft buzz of a camera taking up the airspace immediately ahead. Kara tries to ignore the intrusion, pretend it’s just the two of them. “So, what’s home for you?”

  “Melbourne. I’m a senior lecturer at the uni. You?”

  “Canberra. Crop science: Department of Ag. Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  He nudges her playfully. “I think you’re doing very well for someone without a soul.”

  “Oh, ha ha. Okay; partner?”

  He gives a low whistle, runs a hand through his curly mop of hair. “Right to the chase, huh? Look at you checking out my credentials.”

  She keeps her gaze on the towers of glass and light rising up ahead, not sure if the heat creeping across her cheeks is embarrassment or the sun rebounding off the panels. “I’m single. I like dogs over cats. My favourite flower is Cassia fistula.”

  “Ah, I’m going to have to judge you critically on the flower. Golden Shower Tree, am I right?”

  Of course he’s right and that is sexy as hell.

  “Okay, my turn. Wait for it. Siiingle.” He says the word slowly, like it has ten syllables and casts Kara a sideways glance; she can’t help the grin that slides onto her lips. “I know, right? I can’t believe it either. Uh, I’m allergic to cats. I’m a bit of a foodie. I’m scared of keeping a bonsai in case I kill it. And I like art. But, unfortunately, you’re out of luck because I like subtle women.” His green eyes sparkle with teasing.

  “You forgot the flower. Judging, remember.”

  “Ah.” Scott thinks for a moment. They pass into the shadow of the first glasshouse. “Okay, Aechmea fasciata.”

  “A bromeliad. Nice.”

  “Wrong.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay, fine.” He leads Kara up to a small, glass door, which she realises is the outer entrance of a biohazard lock. “You know, with your govie job, I thought you would have chosen a functional plant over an ornamental. I like that you didn’t. You appreciate beauty.” His eyes crinkle at the corners. “You’re going to love this.”

  They enter the biohazard lock, leaving the camera outside, and Scott passes Kara a white coverall with a hood. They strip down to their underwear and pull on the suits. “High end quarantine,” Kara comments.

  “You’ll feel why in a moment.”

  They pass through the inner door and into the greenery. The heat and humidity hits like a wall, the hot air enveloping and hugging Kara so closely that it almost seems like steam. Her cheeks prickle and it is hard to breathe. “Damn!”

  “I know, right? The plants love it. Hot and wet and jungular.”

  “Jungular?”

  “Shut up. It’s so a word.”

  Kara laughs and turns a circle, her face tilted up to the racks upon racks of plants rising above. Everywhere is green. Against the leaves, red and gold tomatoes hang like hundred-sun planetariums. Kara spies zucchinis as long as her arm and eggplants the size of rockmelons, purple as royal cloth. There is no wind: the leaves don’t whisper and rattle. The only sound is the lulling drone of bees drifting through the space, the insects flaring briefly in the fingers of Malaysian sunlight filtering down through the crops as they vanish into the foliage. Advance is making honey too, no doubt. A valuable economic byproduct. “Man, this is totally going to win Island Green.”

  Scott is studying her face, enjoying her approval. “Maybe. But it’s a bitch to upkeep. I now see why the big vertical plantations stay offshore in floating arcologies. You couldn’t risk a plant pathogen getting in here with all this humidity and heat. If we got a fungal outbreak or a mosaic virus in here, it would go nuts. I doubt it would be all that practical in an impoverished country, so there’s Tenet Seven out. Your project, however, adapts the crop to what’s already in the environment. That’s smart.”

  Kara feels a flush of pride. She inhales deeply, taking in the sweet musk of vegetation. “That’s what we’re hoping for. The sea kids certainly like our algae.”

  “Proves you have a market.” Scott is close to her now, his face sheened with perspiration. His mouth is curved with pride and his big brows are lifted, creasing his forehead, as he looks up into his plants. Shards of reflected sky speckle his eyes, turning their green to opals. He lifts a hand to pluck a big yellow tomato and the rebounding shiver of the plant sways soft dapples of light across his cheekbones.

  I want to kiss you, but we’ve only just met, Kara thinks as Scott passes her the tomato.

  Someone yells outside, sounding panicked, and a dark shadow flits past the glasshouse on sprinting feet. “Kendra?” Scott races for the biohazard lock with Kara on his tail.

  Outside, the sun is past its zenith. There are a lot of boats now and, far from being dotted across the water, engaged in benign fishing activities, they are crowded close to shore.

  Scott stumbles to a stop at the end of the glasshouses and stares. “They’re taking . . . ”

  “Everything,” Kara breathes. It pisses her off that two cameras are already in place to record their reactions.

  The aquaculture rings are being raided right in front of them, the fish emptied out of the nets and struck dead before being packed onto low, motorised skiffs. Whatever security Curtis had on his produce, it has now fled or been killed or donned new colours and changed sides. Across from the aquaculture farm, Sustain’s seaweed lines are being harvested, the seagrapes and agar-agar heaped onto dugouts manned by women and teens.

  Olek runs over. “Scott! Is this part of the show?”

  There has always been conjecture about whether the surrounding island people have been enticed into Mabul waters deliberately and, if so, whether their role is to be passive or active. Even now, it’s impossible to be sure. For all they know, this is a test of Tenet Ten. For all they know, this is the show finale.

  Some of the raiders have guns and machetes slung over their backs. “I don’t think so,” Kara says to Olek. “At least, I don’t think it’s safe to assume so.”

  “Pirates?” Scott suggests.

  “East Malaysian waters,” she replies by way of answer.

  Scott turns to Olek. “Meeting. Now. Logue Room. Get everyone you can. We’ll fetch Rebuild.”

  Down by the Rebuild shoreline, Curtis is crushing his temples in the vice of his hands, staring out to sea in devastation. He whirls as Kara and Scott thunder up and makes a poor attempt to hide his tears. “All that work!” he cries. “Gone in an afternoon.” He shakes his head as a put-put grumbles past towing three of Advance’s carrageenan racks, the boat labouring so hard against the weight its stern is almost submerged. “I have no idea what bloody truce operated here before, but I think it’s all gone.”

  “Maybe yo
ur bloom poisoned someone and they are getting revenge,” Kara snaps. She relents at a look from Scott. “Look, maybe they were just waiting for everything to ripen. Either way, we have to decide what to do. Logue Room now. All your members. I advise you to turn up this time.”

  She and Scott pelt away across the deep, imported loam of Rebuild’s land, thigh-deep in whispering oats and crackly, nid-nodding barley. They explode out of the crop and onto the white, salted sand of Sustain and Kara is grateful that, dire as the situation is and as fast as he is travelling, Scott is taking care to avoid stepping on her hand-planted samphire. Beyond the mangroves, the clam cages they spent all night shifting are being hauled onto skiffs and Kara feels a deep thrill of fear about what might happen to them all should the clams prove unsafe for human consumption.

  Sustain and Advance are already in the Logue Room. Tomaso greets Kara with a bone-crushing hug. His brown eyes are huge and haunted in his face. “I couldn’t find you!” He steps back, scrutinising Kara’s biohazard suit. “What are you wearing?”

  Lilian and Olek are both babbling into the camera, their heads pressed close. “Is this part of the show?” Olek is demanding.

  “Are we safe here?” Lilian adds, her face so afraid, it looks gaunt.

  This is not a scheduled part of Island Green. We are sending security to your position.

  Fuuuuck. Everyone exchanges looks.

  “Uh, h-how long?” Lilian whispers.

  Curtis and the rest of Rebuild stumble in. “They’ve landed,” Curtis says grimly. “They are going for the greenhouses. Sorry, Scott’s team.” Kara glares at him, looking for sarcasm, but Curtis merely looks stricken; none of his bluster remains. “That’s all of us finished. Game over.”

  Lilian starts crying.

  Kara sees Scott flinch, brows tightening in pain, as the first krshhh-tinkle of breaking glass carries across the island. He swallows hard, throat bobbing. “Okay, the greenhouses have enough produce to occupy them a while. Maybe until help arrives. But they will be here next. We need to hide.”

  It is one thing to suspect the worst, but another to have it spoken aloud by someone of even temperament. Panic sets in in seconds, the room filling with ragged, shuddery breathing. Kara feels suddenly like she’s back in the greenhouse, struggling to breathe in the sodden air.

  “This room has no door, no way to barricade,” Naoko says, ever practical. She is sitting beside Silas, who is slumped beneath one of the wall sconces, holding a fat compress to his temple. Tar spikes his grey fringe and a trail of black stripes one cheek: blood, but not fresh.

  Kara remembers that she never witnessed the end of the interaction between Naoko and Silas and the four skiffs. What happened out there on the water?

  “There’s a big sauna . . . bathhouse thing,” Curtis says. “No windows. Lockable. Easily room for all of us.”

  The vote is unanimous. They start to move.

  “What happened?” Kara asks Naoko as they join the line making its way past a cracked and watermarked dining hall.

  “We told them they couldn’t work for us today.”

  “On the seaweed lines?”

  “Yeah. In case the water wasn’t safe. They didn’t take it well.”

  “No kidding.”

  Silas groans and tilts his head back and forth like he is clearing water from his ears or testing his spine. “I think it was a language thing. Maybe I said something rude or moved rudely or made eye contact when I wasn’t meant to . . . I don’t know. Maybe they thought we meant forever. Maybe they thought we weren’t planning to share.”

  The floor turns to broad, ceramic tiles beneath their feet, the desert-rose colour obscured by tracked-in salt and beach sand, powdery underfoot. They pass a galley kitchen and then a shower block and a dry indoor pool and several private spas.

  Surely sharing the seaweed harvest hadn’t been the only thing keeping disaster at bay.

  In the dimness, Kara’s words to Curtis replay in her mind: You secure your perimeter with guns on boats; we choose security through generosity and employment.

  No. Surely not.

  There is a tortured grating of salt-rusted hinges as Curtis opens a heavy, wooden door in the hall to reveal a communal bathhouse. There is no water. The walls are starred with mould where the sea-green tiling has been smashed and stolen. Trooping in, they take their places around the rim of the great bath, shuddering as one as Curtis closes the door and locks it, throwing the room into total darkness.

  Kara finds Scott. They press together, feeling each other tremble. She can smell the fear on him as no doubt he can on her. He loops his arms around her and presses his lips to her salt-stiffened hair.

  “I’m sorry about my dirty hair,” Kara murmurs.

  “Sorry I stink of compost,” he replies.

  “You don’t stink of compost.”

  “Oh. Must be you then,” he tries to joke, his nervous spasm of laughter coming as a soft puff of air in her hair.

  “You don’t have to try to make me feel better,” she says. “Just you being here is enough.” She twists her face up to his and their lips find each other in the dark. He tastes of brine.

  “This is not how I expected our first date to go off,” Scott murmurs. “Romantic jungle followed by vigorous fleeing and a spot of hiding. It’s like a date at Jurassic Park. I didn’t even get you dinner.”

  “I still have the tomato.”

  “Total GDP for Team Advance: one tomato,” he quips sadly. He sighs and gives her a squeeze. “For what it’s worth, I think your team won. I don’t think you can expect glasshouses to last in a crisis.” He pauses and in the silence, Kara imagines the crash of glass, the falling and falling of all those giant shards from so very high, catching the sunlight, reflecting the ocean, as they tumble. “If all it takes is a stone and some anger, what hope would there be in a place with food riots and bombs and desperate people willing to do anything for a single calorie for their child? No amount of security would stop them pushing down a fence, rushing a guard post—”

  There is a bang from somewhere in the building. Kara’s heart leaps into her throat. Scott’s arms jerk around her. Across the room, Lilian emits a quaver of terror.

  “Knock it off,” Olek hisses. “You’re scaring everyone.”

  More bangs follow. The breaking-apart sounds of ransacking.

  “What do you think is going on out there?” Kara whispers.

  “Maybe they are taking apart the camera.”

  A blue rectangle glows to life as Naoko tries her phone. The light reflects off two streams of tears. “No signal.”

  The light goes off.

  Someone is banging through the kitchen, big oven-sized booms that echo through the walls of their hiding place. Footsteps pad down the hallway, making soft, scuffing noises against the ceramic. Kara thinks of the sand, of the trail they will have all left behind in the corridor.

  They are opening each door that they pass. The hinges scream as they are mobilised for the first time in years. The screams echo, jangle nerves.

  Something metal and heavy clanks against the ceramic, makes a rusty, squealing dragging sound that clunks every foot or so in the tile grout. Someone dragging a pole?

  No. A machete.

  The door to the neighbouring spa opens with a shriek that rattles the wall behind Kara. She gives a stifled sob, feels Scott’s hand go over her mouth. “Shhh-hh-hh-hh,” he pants. “Oh, fuck.”

  Footsteps stop at the bathhouse door. The knob rattles, stays locked.

  A thump shudders the door as a shoulder is driven into it. Whoever is on the other side calls down the hall and the meaning would be clear in any language: “Come quick. They are in here.”

  The call is passed on with excitement through the resort. Bare feet run for their position, patter along the ceramic. Kara’s cheeks are wet with tears and she can’t seem to hold onto enough of Scott, get enough of him in her arms: I’ve only just found you and now we are going to die.

  The door is
wood. The room has wood panelling. All it would take is fire to send them out: Tomaso’s biodiesel trickled under the door and a flame sent in like a terrier after it.

  A gunshot shivers the door. This time, everyone yelps. Lilian and one of the women from Rebuild begin to wail hysterically, setting nerves on edge. But no one shushes them. There is no point hiding their presence. Their footsteps lead right up to the door.

  The acid stink of piss rises in the room.

  A second shot. A second wail of fear. And a third. A tiny crack of daylight appears in the door.

  There is a clattering from above, an aircraft passing low over the resort—the whomping thud of rotors. And then a second, and a third. Big helicopters.

  “Oh, please be on our side,” Scott breathes.

  The feet outside the door recede, moving swiftly. Soon, all is silence. Stupor. They wait in the darkness until a knock on the door tells them it is safe to come out, that Island Green is sending them home. That a winner will be announced just as soon as the judges have finished deliberating.

  “A winner?” Tomaso says, sounding incredulous. “There’s still going to be a winner after this?”

  “Even failure carries lessons,” Naoko replies, ever practical.

  The three teams step out onto an island landscape that is almost bare, just a few patches of samphire and a stretch of lupins remaining. The boats have all gone, dark shadows retreating across the sparkling sea.

  “It’s like Day One . . . when we started,” Scott rasps, running a shaking hand through his hair. Humidity and sweat have made the curls tight and springy; they snag his fingers like driftnet.

  Down the slope, the glasshouses have all been gutted, the shattered panes reflecting the sunset like portholes to a parallel world. Not so much as a single tomato plant remains. “All that effort.” Scott squints like he can’t believe it, his face seeming to collapse, and Kara realises he is struggling to stay intact.

  Olek is crying brokenly, Kendra too, since the glass was all hers.

  Lilian is wrapped in a rug, her face blank and staring; she is being treated for shock by the Malaysian soldiers sent by Island Green to rescue them.