Seed (16 page)

“You’re Indian, right?” The newsfly’s voice sounded young, barely pubescent.

“Yes.”

“Why’d you name it Satori? That’s, like, Chinese.”

“Japanese.” Gupta’s smile tightened. “Your Uncle Bill chose the name. He thought it might market better than something more appropriate.”

“Mute,” Doss ordered the flexpad. “Show me the file on Bill Coach.” The file expanded on her screen. She tabbed to the bio, opened the section labeled “Education and Career, Overview:”

Bill Coach
,
founder and CEO of Satori Corporation
.
Born in Houston
,
2016
.
Graduated from the University of Houston with a
B
.
S
.
in climate science
,
2036
.
M
.
S
.
in climate science from Bard
,
2038
.
Elected CEO of The Monsanto Company
,
2063
.
Voted out that same year
.
Appointed President
’
s Special Liaison to Amalgamated Iranian Oil
,
Public Relations division
,
2064
.
Appointed Chair of Pentagon Council on Climate Change and Foreign Policy
,
2068
.
Founded Satori
,
2072
.

“Interview,” Doss said. The window reopened. Now Bill Coach occupied the newsfly’s view. His hands made chopping motions as he spoke across a geographic expanse of conference table. “Unmute.”

“—santo, DuPont, Pharmacia, those assholes got it all wrong.” He spoke with a thoroughly Texan accent, wore a suit so black it seemed to create its own gravity. “They’re way behind the curve. Their production’s still oil-based, for Christ’s sake. And they’re still talking in terms of drought-resistant crops.” He shook his head. “Five degrees Celsius in under half a century, that’s not a goddamned drought. We’re talking a completely different ballgame. A new environment. And it’s only getting worse. Better crop production’s just a baby step. Short term. And it won’t ever be anything more than a stopgap. The endgame is, we need to change ourselves.” His face, lean as a scalpel, turned square with the cam. His eyes lazed the newsfly. “You getting what I’m telling you, Andy?”

“Yeah, Uncle Bill,” the newsfly said. “We totally got to make better choices.” Bill Coach’s lips clenched with thin patience.

“I’m saying we need to change ourselves. Not morally or ethically.” He pressed an index finger to his sternum. “
Fundamentally
.” The view wobbled briefly as the newsfly nodded his head.

“A totally new philosophy. I get it.”

Bill Coach stared. After a moment his lips parted, releasing a long, constricted breath, then he lay his head against the back of the high leather chair in which he sat.

“I love you like the sunshine, Andy, but goddamn. You did collect your daddy’s shit for brains.”

“Close interview,” Doss said. The window disappeared.

She tabbed open another file. The four Satori Designers floated up her screen. Skin the color of black tea, almond eyes gazing out with the placid curiosity of birds. Doss expanded the bio of the Designer named Pihadassa.

…
specializing in recombinant agriculture with specific aim towards crops resistant to extreme climate variance
.
If she is alive
,
Pihadassa will most likely look for a situation where she can fulfill compulsions to practice agricultural eugenics and
—

A quiet knock came at the door. Doss folded the flexpad with one hand and laid it on the cot. Her other hand closed unthinking around the .45 she’d stashed beneath the thin pillow.

“What’s up?” she called.

“Friends.” A boy’s voice. No one Doss knew. She moved to the door, held the .45 behind the small of her back. Slid back the small deadbolt and stepped away.

“Enter,” she called. The door swung slowly open.

Two boys stood there, one white, the other taller and black. The acne of early adolescence speckled their cheeks and necks. Both wore tightly pressed camo. The taller boy raised a hand. Doss raised the pistol.

“Fear not, beautiful lady friend,” the boy said. He slowly finished a salute-like gesture, except instead of his brow he touched a red band tied around his fatigued bicep. “I’m Jake. This is Casanova.” The smaller boy nodded, touched fingers to a red band tied around his own bicep. Jake smiled. “We
La Chupacabra
.” He squinted at Doss’ pistol. “You don’t need no gun with us, lady. We friends. El Sol sent us.” Both boys reverently touched their red bands a second time. “We here to express for him his eternal gratitude. You save his life, lady. El Sol’s in your debt. He tell us to tell you:
La Chupacabra
your friend. For life.”

“For life,” Casanova echoed with gravity.

“Also,” Jake’s face grew somber, “El Sol sorry about your man who got hurt. Sorry beyond all measure.”

“Beyond all measure.” Casanova solemnly bowed his tow head.

“He sends a gift. Taken from the thug who planned the attack that got your man hurt.” Jake reached to his chest, produced from a breast pocket a small rectangular parcel wrapped in red tissue paper. He held this out to Doss, leaning far forward without moving his feet, as though her personal space was something too sacred for him to touch. Doss eyed him down her pistol sight for a moment, then lowered the gun. She took the parcel and the boy leaned back.

“Also,” he said, and looked at Casanova. The blond boy nodded encouragement and Jake thrust his chin forward. “Also, we yours. You need protecting, we protect you. You need food, we feed you. You say it, we do it. You get it?” Doss stared. “Alright,” Jake said. “You need anything, we right here.” He gave one awkward nod, then turned and, ushering Casanova out before him, egressed and shut the door.

Doss peeled open the parcel, found a small wooden box inside with a tiny hand-written note affixed:
Fated
. She opened the box and tipped out what looked like a blackened piece of pork. Turned it in her palm.

An index finger. She mulled it over for a moment, then tossed the finger into the toilet, hit the flush lever with a boot.

….

General Lewis’ young sergeants paraded Fort Riley’s soldiers on the airfield. The late morning sun cooked heat waves out of the cracked tarmac as the troops marched impetuously, all three hundred and fourteen of them, tight and buttoned, lockstep.

“They march nice,” Fiorivani said. He stood, massive arms crossed, and spit sideways towards General Lewis’ boots. Lewis, who stood between Doss and Chen, Riley’s radio operator, seemed not to notice. He chewed his lip and every so often glanced at Doss over the top of his specs. Doss kept her face blank.

Gomez leaned in close. He pointed at where, on the prairie beyond the perimeter chain link, a smattering of migrants had set up squats made of mud and corrugated tin. Early spring crops sprouted from uneven plots near a collection of muddy wells.

“Think their parents are watching?” Many of the young soldiers bore the fragile look of migrants, bodies scored with hunger and parasites.

“Nobody here got parents, man,” Jake said. He stood vigilantly behind Doss, shoulder to shoulder with Casanova. “Our daddy’s the army.” Gomez cast a long gaze at the boy.

“Shit.” He turned to Doss. “They follow you home?” Doss said nothing. The scar furrowed along Gomez’s cheek. “You didn’t feed them did you? Can’t get rid of them once you do that.” Doss tried to suppress a smile and failed.

Out on the tarmac, the troops about faced and began to run in place. Doss turned to Lewis.

“You’ve done a remarkable job with discipline, General, all things considered.” General Lewis swelled at the compliment. “Got any pilots for those Flylights we found in the basement?” The general deflated.

“I’m afraid not, Colonel.” He gestured at the rows of kids, who had now dropped to the tarmac and struggled to do pushups. “What you see is unfortunately what we have.”

“Actually, Colonel…” Chen, who wore a button-up denim shirt over FEMAs, pushed thick sunglasses atop his head. His black ponytail reached the small of his back. Definitely not Army. “There’s a simulator down in Hangar Three. Some of the kids and I spend time on it during the winters.”

“A simulator.” Doss raised her eyebrows at Gomez, whose face narrowed with contempt.

“I know five or six kids who are pretty good,” Chen said. “They can fly straight into Shanghai under heavy fire. On night mode.”

“Five pilots sounds about right,” Doss figured. She faced Gomez. “You’ve got a week. I want five Flylights airborne and attack ready. Find me enough Rangers for five chalks.”

Gomez shifted his eyes across the tarmac, where Lewis’ troops now spun plastic rifles, barrels tipped with red safety plugs. He worked his tongue over his diamond tooth, exuded doubt.

“It’ll be easy,” Doss told him. “Just grab the ones tall enough for the drop suits.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and her voice turned serious. “One week, Gomez. Ready to kill.”

“Ready to die, more like.”

“That, too.” She pointed her chin at Fiorivani. “Lieutenant, gear up. You’re with me. Gear up.”

“Gear’s in the zep, Boss,” Fiorivani said. “I’m good to go.”

“General Lewis.” Doss regarded the neatly pressed man. “You’ll remain in charge of general logistics and training. But Sergeant Gomez will take whatever he needs, whenever he needs it. That includes personnel, weapons, gear, fuel, food, everything.” The general nodded affably to Gomez.

“He’ll get whatever he needs.”

“Have your troops unhangar my zep.” Doss turned to Jake and Casanova. “You two ready for a trip?”

“Where we going, lady?”

“Hunting.”

CHAPTER 10

hen his mother died, Brood sat beside her with Pollo in the white Oklahoma dust. Heat rose out of the world in shimmering waves, alive and hateful. It gripped Brood’s skin and he wanted to cry, but couldn’t because some animal part of him feared the lost moisture of tears. Pollo sat naked and tiny on his haunches, head limp against Brood’s shoulder. He spoke their mother’s name over and over, his small mouth working carefully, ritualistically, over each syllable. Lupia Maria Escadero.

Her family was from Chiapas, generations back, when people still tried to live in the jaundiced desert south of Mexico City. In the greenhouse’s flat light, she’d told Brood stories of how the great kings of Palenque had spawned her line. She’d proven this by holding up her hands, palms inward, for him to see: middle fingers the same length, pinky and forefinger the same length. The indisputable symmetry of old jungle royalty.

Brood had stared at the symmetry of his own hands as the heat rapidly turned the blanket-wrapped body before him into something other than his mother. Lupia Maria Escadero. The name turned to a jumble of noise as Pollo repeated it. The body turned to bloating meat.

Caravans rolled past. Refugees struggled through dust kicked up by wagons. They held aloft blankets mounted on sticks to shade them, too bent on their own waning chance at survival to spare a glance towards the bereaved boy in the faded Mickey Mouse shirt and his tiny, whispering brother. Other children trailed the caravans, trotting like skinny-legged dogs.

Eventually the body’s stench overwhelmed Brood. He slid a hand under Pollo’s arm and rose.

They walked north. Bodies lay beside the caravan track, some obviously cared for, wrapped in blankets and made comfortable. Others had simply been dumped, tongues swollen from fever and thirst.

Pollo made perhaps two miles before his legs gave out. Brood pulled him up piggy-back, and kept on until his own legs refused to move. Then sank to the ground and lay there, too weak to scream as the sun pealed the skin off his face. Beside him Pollo moaned, a sound as empty as the sky.

Sometime later he heard the whine of an electric motor. It stopped close by and footsteps approached. A toe prodded him. A dry rasp issued from his throat as he tried to beg for help.

“Still alive.” He heard disappointment in the wheezing voice. Rough hands turned him over and he found himself staring at a grizzled beard, dreadlocks. Bright dark eyes stared down at him. A toothless smile gaped. “Mickey fucking Mouse. Classic.” The hands yanked Brood’s shirt up and off. Footsteps receded. Brood tried to form the word
please
, but his tongue didn’t work.

The footsteps returned. Brood smelled water. A plastic gallon milk jug appeared beside his head, sloshing, nearly full of brown water.

“Fair trade, little
ese
. Don’t try following me. You ain’t a dog and I ain’t gonna give you another treat.
Te llenare el culo de perdigones
.” Then the man was gone.

Brood drank. Strength surged through his body. When he looked up he saw a flatbed wagon bouncing away to the north, the grizzled man standing like a ship’s captain at its tiller. Brood put the jug to Pollo’s lips. The little boy’s vacant eyes went wide and he drank. When he could stand, they started north again.

They caught up with the wagon well after dark. The man had steered it way off the caravan track and now sat propped against one of its tires. Brood’s Mickey Mouse shirt wrapped his bony shoulders, tight as a surgical glove. Across his lap he cradled a fat, pistol-grip shotgun, which he leveled over a knee as Brood approached.