by R E Kearney
Hugging the gardens, is the Association’s plantscraper headquarters. The sixty meters tall, glistening, cylindrical hemisphere of glass shoots abruptly out of the earth. A massive monument to Agritechture, its cylindrical section, or three-fourths of the structure, is a vertical greenhouse for urban farming. The remaining, flat portion houses the Association’s offices.
Sixteen stories tall, the plantscraper looms above the shrubs and trees crushing their native greens with its shimmering silver. Walking toward the headquarters, Robert deems the building to be a freakishly, unnatural addition to Les Jardins d’Eole.
Standing before the entrance, Robert stretches backward, raising his eyes to the pinnacle of the imposing tower slicing into the sky. Cautiously touching its sloping, glass exterior, he marvels at the coolness. The rays of the bright sun crashing against the structure should heat the glass hot, he reasons. What he does not realize is that the exterior remains cool, thanks to its double skin façade. Instead of being reflected, the sun’s powerful energy is absorbed and employed for both heating and cooling.
But, it is a visual contradiction. The headquarters plantscraper enshrines the environment. An entirely, self-sufficient ecological world lives, breaths and flourishes behind the door beneath the Association’s statement of purpose.
Unity of People – Unity of Purpose.
Creating functional sustainable solutions for the growing cities of today and tomorrow, where we use the special conditions of the city.to grow food to for the health of the people in a resource-smart way.
LIMOS
Sniff. Pow! Clean, clear oxygen floods Robert’s lungs, slapping his brain. For several, rapid breaths, he is light headed. He coughs. Too much oxygen – too fast. Parisian air is a weak aspirant failing to prepare him. Robert closes his eyes to regain his stability.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Goodfellow.” A human mimetic humanoid robot greets Robert as he enters. His embedded identification chip enables his entrance and transmits his name, biologicals and reason for visiting. “Hälso Växtodlare is awaiting you in the Urban Growers Sky Cafe on floor sixteen.”
“Uh, thank you.” Robert searches the large lobby for an elevator. He is surrounded by explanatory displays, three dimensional visuals and plants. Plant walls and plants in pots. Tall plants and short plants. Green and greener plants. Yellow plants and purple plants. And oxygen. Lots and lots of oxygen streaming in from the greenhouse side of the building.
“Access to the upper floors is behind the building.” The greeting humanoid announces.
“Behind the building?” Robert retreats toward the external portal, he just entered.
“Yes, behind the building.” The humanoid points at a four meter high, six meter wide, three-dimensional visual of the Association headquarters. With a whisper, it dissolves and a Maglev transport cubicle with transparent walls appears.
Chuckling at his confusion and himself, Robert enters the cubicle and begins his ascent. As he rises, he views the vegetable growing floors on three sides and the human work spaces on the fourth. He waves at a man contemplating the gardens from his adjoining workspace. The man returns Robert’s greeting with a scowl. Without the unhappy man or Robert realizing it, he is now a series of digits in Robert’s databanks.
Passing the first two floors, Robert is captivated by the unique way SPEA’s partner, AAU, scientifically combines urban agriculture, innovative technical solutions and architecture to produce the food Ile-de-France residents require to survive. Looking up fourteen floors, toward the sunlight filtered in and directed to feed each plant, he appreciates how successfully this structure minimizes the need for land, water and energy.
Scanning the structure, he marvels at how efficiently AAU’s urban farms supply Ile-de-France with far more than just food. All AAU urban farms are Symbiotic Systems combining supplying municipal infrastructure such as cooling, heating, biogas, waste, water and energy from food production.
He understands that AAU food is extremely healthy food, too. Being secure, sealed environments, urban, vertical farms do not need to apply pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers. Using electric, autonomous Robomarts to deliver directly to consumers in the city, the transportation costs and environmental impact are also minimized.
Through the double layered glass, he sees kilometer after kilometer of neighborhoods stretching before him to the horizon. Robert knows that Ile-de-France is no different than any of the other Metrostates and megacities on Earth. Worse than the biblical plagues of locusts, humans devoured all that Earth had to offer. Sucked the soil lifeless. To survive the spreading devastation of global warming’s killing heat, drought and devastation, ninety percent of Earth’s population fled to the megacities and Metrostates. Feeding the cities is feeding the world.
“Ooh, yellow! Poor, sick plants. Poor plants.” Aethon comments from Venus about the scene seen through Robert into her mind’s eye.
Aethon’s childish wonder yanks Robert’s attention back to the garden on the floors. Although, he viewed the plants, he never actually saw them. His cyber-oriented, technological attention had been captured by the advanced architecture surrounding them. He did not appreciate the plants themselves or value them. Aethon pops his eyes open.
Only now, does Robert note that the plants are tall, spindly and a lime-green color. They should be green - vibrantly green, but are not. Now, he is seeing them with the first-time awe of an innocent, small girl living on an isolated, graphene and glass island. As if Aethon controls his head, he cannot turn away. He stares and absorbs each plant and the entirety of the garden, until Aethon slowly transports them into her dreams, setting him free.
“Sweet dreams, baby girl.” Robert muses. “I must agree with Kailash Satyarthi that childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child’s eye – it is very beautiful. Thanks for sensitizing my senses, Aethon.”
But, these plants are not beautiful. These plants are increasingly sallow and pale when Robert rises past the fourth and fifth floors of the garden. They are collapsed on top of their containers. Sickness has sucked their life out of them. Seeing them and understanding they are dying would upset her, so Robert is relieved that Aethon is not awake to witness and be troubled by their situation.
The higher Robert rises the worse the plants’ condition. Even someone as ignorant of gardening and plants as Robert recognizes that these vegetables are perishing. In reality, his diagnosis of the plants’ health results from an instant analysis conducted by AGI and communicated into Robert’s neocortex biochip. Although, he thinks he thought it, he actually heard it with his internal ear. He sees the plants. He wonders about the health of the plants. Instantaneously, AGI receives, researches and reacts, and Robert blossoms into a relatively knowledgeable, urban farmer.
A tall, blonde, blue-eyed and serious Hälso Växtodlare greets Robert when the elevator portal opens. She is holding a dying plant in one hand and a paper in her other hand. Robert notes her contained concern, immediately.
” Hallå.” Robert greets her with his best AGI provided Swedish and extends his hand.
Silently, her ice-blue eyes take his measure then she establishes herself. ”Hello, Mister Goodfellow. Please speak English. English is a language that I speak fluently and correctly, unlike the Swedish hello that you just attempted. I appreciate your effort, but I would rather not hear you try again.”
”Well that’s embarassing. My Parisian friend told me the same thing when he heard me speaking Quebecois French. Only, he called it bastardized French and claimed it hurt his ears. I hope my Swedish didn’t damage your ears.” Robert jokes with a grin.
Hälso does not smile, but her sternness does appear to soften slightly.
Robert sheepishly withdraws his hand, as he realizes that she is a no nonsense Nordic. Mentally, he orders AGI to profile Hälso Växtodlare.
AGI responds within two Robert heartbeats. ”Hälso Växtodlare is a Symbiotic System engineer. She combines municipal inf
rastructure such as cooling, heating, biogas, waste, water and energy with food production. Do not misconstrue her demeanor as indifference or Scandinavian coldness. She is exhibiting the Swedish trait of lagom. Translated from Swedish, lagom means “just the right amount,” “in moderation,” “appropriate,” and other such synonyms.”
In less than ten seconds, he has been schooled by AGI about the Swedish cultural trait of lagom – calm, calculated appropriateness. He quickly realizes that working with Hälso will require that he also perform logically and efficiently with little levity. He is not certain that he is capable of being constantly serious or that he desires to. On the other hand, he expects her cool restraint to be a welcome change from the loud, bragging Americans who have burdened him recently.
”Extortion, Mister Goodfellow. The Association is being threatened with disaster, if we do not pay this ransom.” She pushes the paper into Robert’s hand. ”This appeared a week ago. We ignored it...foolishly...we discovered, yesterday. All of our Ile-de- France farms are reporting significant crop losses. Also, we’ve discovered a fungus was intentionally spread through our seed banks, destroying our ability to replant. Worst of all, we’re already running out of food in the Ile-de-France.”
Robert studies the paper closely. “A hand written ransom note. Now this is interesting…and unusual...very unusual…but smart. This doesn’t leave a digital trail for me to follow like anything involving computers or the worldwide mesh would.”
Digitally transfer 500 million FUS dollars value of NUMUS cryptocurrency to
Friday 13 to protect your continued existence.
LIMOS
His right eye’s computerized, contact lens transmits JPEGs of the ransom note directly to AGI for analysis. “I am not detecting any traces of DNA from the writer. Both the paper and ink are common. Produced here in Paris. I’ll investigate that. Our only clues may be in the threat itself, especially the Quick Response code. This QR code appears to have been added with some type of stamp. Rare. Old fashioned. Every QR code has an owner, but their privacy is strongly protected. Logically, this QR simply reads Limos.com.”
“It could be some local growers. Occasionally, the few growers still capable of raising vegetables in Europe’s extreme heat and drought, hold protests outside our urban farms. Our enclosed, vertical gardens grow more and better vegetables than they ever did and we sell it for lower prices. Hard to believe, but they’re still fighting our GMO, after all of these years. But, even the worst of them have never threatened the Association like this. Never done any damage.” Hälso informs Robert, while he concentrates on translating the QR.
“Are these local growers just against your genetically engineered vegetables or are they possibly Reversionists who seek to force a complete return to the old farming techniques?” Robert asks rubbing the paper between his thumb and index finger.
“Reversionists? I’ve never heard that term before.” Hälso shakes her head. “No, I still think they’re only local farmers fighting our GMO. I think all they actually want is to force us to buy their vegetables.”
Holding the paper above his head to allow the sunlight to shine through it, Robert expresses his doubts. “No…no, I can definitely tell you this is not the work of local growers. First, why would local French growers demand a FUS dollar amount of NUMUS cryptocurrency? No locals would consider the archaic and unpredictable FUS dollar for value equivalence. Nobody outside of the FUS even uses the dollar these days.”
Robert points at the message’s final word. “Secondly, and I find this very troubling…even a little frightening. No local growers would want to call themselves Limos, because of what Limos represents.”
“And just what is Limos?” Hälso exchanges the dying plant for Robert’s note. “I imagined that Limos is the name of the group’s leader.”
“Limos is indeed a name. To be exact, Limos is the name of the goddess of starvation and famine from Greek mythology. According to the myth, she lived in a barren wasteland where nothing could grow out of the earth.” Robert tenderly fingers the leaves of the dying vegetable. ”She killed plants, like this.”
“So, a woman did this?” Hälso gestures toward the thousands of withered vegetables dying on the sixteenth floor of the plantscraper. “One woman somehow poisoned all of our plants in all sixty of our Ile-de-France facilities? How could she poison these legumes and our endangered fruits…our precious bananas and citrus, simultaneously, when they are five kilometers apart?”
“Oh, I sincerely doubt it was any one person…man or woman. Unless…have you seen any woman matching this Greek description of Limos?” Robert closes his eyes and recites an AGI database communication. “Her hair is coarse. Her face is sallow and her eyes are sunken. Her lips are crusted and white. Her throat is scaly with scurf. Her parchment skin reveals her bowels within; beneath her hollow loins jut her withered hips. Her sagging breasts seem hardly fastened to her ribs.”
Hälso grimaces. “Oh no, I’ve never seen anybody around here like that.”
“Good, my point exactly…” Robert nods, returning to normal. “…because according to the Greeks, if Limos lives then many people are going to die.”
“Extensive crop losses are being reported in the AAU urban farms of Stockholm and Tokyo. Both facilities received Limos Lives ransom notes.” AGI silently updates Robert.
Hälso is shaken. ”Yes, I fear starvation is a possibility. We are already experiencing scarcities of fruits and vegetables. But we are much more. The damage this Limos attack has done is extremely serious...a major loss. AAU’s urban farms are the beating heart of Ile-de-France. Our vertical farms provide all the essentials of life. If we die, Paris dies. Increasing shortages of electricity and fuel from our biofuel plants are also crippling the Ile. Parisians are already suffering, but we should survive...as long as we confine it to one, single attack here. Then we have a chance, but only if you stop their attacks. That is why you are here isn’t it...to stop it?”
“Yes, that is why I’m here. But…” With the index finger of his left hand, Robert strokes his forehead, activating his brain. “…logic and history tells me this attack may just be the beginning of your problems. My research leads me to suspect that what you suffered may be an attack by an international Agromafia group. Threatening and poisoning crops is their favorite extortion tactic. This may be the first time you’ve experienced it here in Paris, but I’ve battled and won against Agromafias using these same tactics against our urban agriculture facilities around the world.”
“Around the world?” Hälso is surprised. She did not realize the full extent of the attacks.
“Yes, around the world.” For emphasis, Robert forms a globe with his hands. “Agromafias and terrorists know producing sufficient food is now the biggest problem facing the human race. So these Agromafias are taking advantage of the fact that too much of Earth is burned to a crisp and too ruined to support the crops and livestock humans need to survive. Ninety percent of the Earth’s population only survives by living in Metrostates, being vegetarian and eating bugs. In my opinion this attack accomplished this Limos group’s goal in Paris. Now you’re afraid and now, to prevent the threat of any future attacks, you will pay…and pay…and pay.”
“Pay. We do not pay ransom.” Hälso asserts with assurance. ”Tjuvskum. Thieving scum. Limos is nothing...nothing, but thieving scum. We will not allow them to...”
Wagging his finger, Robert shakes his head. ”No Hälso, do not underestimate them. If Limos is one of the Agromafia groups that I’ve studied, they are ruthless and deadly. Agromafias are leaving a trail of bodies and broken organizations around the world. They are not bluffing. They won’t hesitate to kill you or me or anybody else that gets in their way. They’ve already destroyed all of your crops and seeds and are willing to starve all of Ile-de-France to get what they want...starve the entire world, if necessary. I’ve been Informed that Limos Lives also attacked Tokyo and Stockholm.”
Fear freezes
Hälso’s face. ”What do they want? What do we do?”
”Isn’t it obvious from their ransom demand?” Robert points at the note. ”They want NUMUS...a payoff...ransom. And what we do is we pay it.”
“What? Wait. We pay them? You want us to give into their extortion demands?” Hälso snaps. ”So easy? Just like that, you give up? Without a fight? Why are you here? You’re a worthless Mösstock.”
”Idiot!” Translates his inner-ear, interpreting implant. As if surrendering, Robert holds up his hands to halt her verbal assault. ”No, not the entire five hundred million, but some. You must pay them some, so I can piggyback ride their ransom through the blockchain system of cryptocurrency transactions. Your payment will unlock and open their firewalls and security barriers allowing me to accompany it through the global quantum Internet.”
Hälso vigorously shakes her head. ”What if your plan doesn’t work? What if they discover you and decide to attack us again for revenge? Better to not give them one NUMUS than to enrage them by trying to trick them by giving them a little and hiding a spy inside. What if they find your spy?”
Robert smiles. “Good! Excellent! If they find my spy and react then I’ll have my first clue toward finding them…stopping them. Now, I have no clues…no leads. I just have dying and dead plants and similar ransom demands here, in Tokyo and in Stockholm. My body can’t be in all three locations simultaneously, so I need to create a way to locate this organization’s controllers. To stop Limos Lives, I must find and kill its brain.”
Skepticism seizes Hälso’s face.
Robert frames his head with his hands. “I’m a cyber investigator, Hälso. But, computers don’t commit crimes. Humans use computers to commit crimes. So, I employ cyber to chase and catch human criminals.”