by Michael Ford
“She changed the formula of GAIA 2.0 to that of GAIA 1.3,” said Kobi, horrified.
Apana nodded.
“But what about the researchers who saw the garden? They knew the truth.”
“It didn’t matter. Not when the Waste had already begun to ravage the world. They thought it went wrong later, like all the previous versions had, that the chemical changed, became corrupted somehow. Melanie never said anything. I suppose it was too late for her to turn back. She was happy for me to take the blame.”
Kobi shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around everything. “The world thinks you’re dead. They thought you died in the launch.”
Apana shook his head sadly. “I was watching from here when the launch took place. I wanted to be on my own, reveling in my genius. I suppose you could say it was pride. My family was out with the spectators watching, but I stood in this attic, watching from this very window. I knew it was the best view in the city. It was. Now I cannot erase what I saw that day. The crippled, diseased trees spawning and dying; the people screaming; the helicopters falling from the sky as the spores exploded into the air, poisoning the pilots, spreading to the rest of the city and creating great living vines reaching up to the sky and mutating animals. Instead of saving the world, GrowCycle had destroyed it.”
“We need to tell people. Why didn’t you try to get out, send a message?”
Apana closed his eyes. “I haven’t spoken to another human in decades. This is very odd for me. Why would I wish to leave here after what I have done? Even if I wanted to, how would I? I am an old man. I cannot survive out there in the wild, with those man-eating trees and ferocious giant animals. And the communications infrastructure in the city has been destroyed. We’re off the grid—all I have is my little radio.”
“But CLAWS is evil. They created me in a test tube—there are loads of us—and they contaminated us with Waste as embryos. Experiments. They tried to kill me when they knew about my blood. They don’t want a cure. In New Seattle, Mischik was leading a rebellion against CLAWS. But they found him. They destroyed Sol’s base.”
Apana nodded. “I have been hearing the news. Poor Alex. I suspect he is dead.”
“Sol isn’t dead though. I’m still here. And I have a mission. We have to stop CLAWS. We have to get the truth out there. We have to get GAIA 2.0 to New Seattle and the world. The Waste will be eradicated!”
“It won’t help,” said Apana bitterly. Kobi wanted to argue, but Apana placed both hands on his knees, and with a groan of exertion pushed himself to his feet. “Come. Let’s eat. You must be hungry.”
“Fine,” said Kobi, after a moment. His mind was swirling with everything he had learned, and as much as he wanted to shake Apana, make him see that he couldn’t hide here forever, he realized that Apana was broken. Convincing him would be difficult. Kobi would have to bide his time. But all the while, his friends were out in the Wastelands. What if they thought Kobi was dead? And New Seattle was on a ticking clock—who knew how long it had until the Waste lurking beneath it spread through the city?
Back bowed, the old man crossed the lab and descended the stairs, leaving Kobi by the skylight. He remained there, staring out at the overgrown ruins of the city. He made his way to the hatch but paused before he reached it. There was a table at the end of the attic, draped in a white sheet. Out of curiosity, Kobi pulled back the cover. The tabletop beneath was pockmarked with thousands of tiny holes. An early hologram generator. On one edge of the table there was a switch. Kobi pressed it. The rim of the table lit up, and a holographic image flickered into life on top. It was an intricately detailed, 3D image of Old Seattle before the Waste, with tiny skyscrapers, winding freeways, parks and roads, and the blue expanses of the bay. The view rotated, then the projection zoomed in on Mercer Island, dominated by a great park full of exotic trees. It focused again, on what Kobi recognized as the house in which they were standing. Children ran around the gardens, which spilled out into lush green fields. The image centered more tightly on a man in a white suit, holding an apple in his hand. His smiled and began to speak.
“Welcome to Apana Park, birthplace of GAIA. I’m Dr. Alan Apana. The next chapter of the human race starts here. . . .”
Kobi switched it off.
It sure did.
The food was simple but incredible. Crisp, fresh vegetables; fruit that exploded with sweetness; eggs from the chickens Apana kept in his garden. With Hales, back at the school, their diet had been repetitive: a mixture of scavenged canned goods from across the city or rehydrated food packs. At the Sol base, they’d been able to get produce from the slums but nothing like this.
“Does all this come from your garden?” asked Kobi.
“It grows quicker than I can pick it,” said Apana. “You said that you were created by CLAWS. Tell me more. And how it is that you know Jonathan. Please—we have all the time in the world.” He smiled.
No, we don’t, thought Kobi, but he kept the thought to himself for now. And he told Apana not just his own tale but where he fit into the whole story of the Waste. He started with the CLAWS experiments with Waste-infected embryos, the mutations at Healhome, his life with Hales in the old city. Apana didn’t interrupt, but when Kobi began to talk about Melanie and his kidnapping by CLAWS, he noted a tightening of Apana’s facial muscles. He skimmed quickly through the remainder of his tale, all the way to the escape as the Sol base was overrun.
“And so we came here, looking for the GAIA research Hales had pointed to. That’s about it.”
Apana was silent for a while, then began to clear away the plates. With his back to Kobi at the sink, he spoke.
“Hales was always exceptional. So different from Melanie. She’d say she saw the bigger picture, but Jonathan was single minded, inward looking in almost all he did. It was no wonder that Melanie made him Head of Research at CLAWS. And from what you say, I see why Jonathan ran away with you. If he believed you were the key, he would have risked everything.”
“He lied to me, for years,” said Kobi.
“Sometimes we have to lie to protect the ones we love,” said Apana.
“I know that now,” said Kobi. “It’s in the past. The important thing now is that we get GAIA 2.0 back to New Seattle. Between that and the cleansers, we could wipe out the Waste for good. If the world heard the truth from you, if they could see this garden, they would believe. I know it.”
Apana said nothing.
“The Waste is about to overrun the city,” urged Kobi. “We can tell the world what Melanie Garcia did. We can save millions of lives.”
Apana seemed to shrink into himself. “It’s impossible,” he said. “They would not listen to me.”
“Then they’ll listen to me,” said Kobi. “I have the cure to the Waste in my blood. We have the power to reverse all this—to fix the entire world.”
“I won’t last five minutes out in the Wastelands! The predators, the living, carnivorous flora . . . I am stuck here!”
“What’s wrong with you?” said Kobi. “You can fix this, I’m telling you!”
“No . . . ,” said Apana. He was shaking his head over and over like his brain was stuck on a loop. “Don’t you see? I trusted Melanie. All those people who died . . . It’s my fault. . . . I can’t—”
“Stop being a coward!” said Kobi.
Apana’s head slumped between his shoulders, then he stood up, his food barely touched, and walked out into the yard.
Back up in the bedroom, Kobi’s clothes had dried, so he put them on. Apana was nowhere to be seen outside, but the light was fading beyond the garden. As Kobi turned from the window, his eyes fell on the photo beside the bed of the family on the beach. He guessed from the man’s wide cheekbones and strong features that he was Apana’s son and the children were his grandchildren. It must have been devastating to lose them. Kobi felt a lump in his throat as he thought of Hales, so weak and sick near the end.
He reached for his bag, pulled out the photo Asha had returned to
him, and then wandered back downstairs. He found Apana sitting on the porch, face bathed in shadow, smoking a cigar. Without speaking, Kobi sat down beside the old man.
“I only have one a year,” said Apana, blowing smoke away. “I was rationing them, but I never thought I’d live this long.”
Kobi held the photo in front of Apana. “We used to take these every year,” he said. “We called them Yearbook photos.” Apana chuckled, and Kobi continued. “This is the only one I have now. For a long time after I learned the truth about Dr. Hales, I hated him. I just thought of all the lies he’d told me or at least the truth he’d hidden. I know why now. He was scared of driving me away or hurting me, but I wish he had told me sooner. In the end he ran out of time.” He paused. “You still have time.”
Apana turned to look at him, his eyes moist. “You know, the thing that hurts me most is that I never got to say goodbye to my family. We didn’t have the best relationship anyway because I was always so busy. And they died thinking I was the one who killed them.”
“You can’t change the past,” said Kobi. “But you can still affect the future. More families will die if you lock the truth away here.”
Apana looked out into the yard again, his mind impossible to read. Finally, he stubbed the cigar out on the step, placed his hands on his knees, and pried his body upright. “You’re a lot like Jonathan, you know. Stubborn.”
“So you’ll help me get back to New Seattle?” said Kobi.
“No,” said Apana, and Kobi felt suddenly deflated.
“But . . . if what you say is true, the Sol resistance has been crushed. Even if we could get back, we’d be walking right into the hands of CLAWS. They’d capture us and stop us from making any more GAIA 2.0.”
“We’ve still got to try!” said Kobi desperately. “There’s no other way!”
Apana wagged his finger. He looked rejuvenated. “Not true, son. Not true.”
15
BACK IN THE ATTIC lab, Apana pointed to the Space Needle in the distance, its lights twinkling a little against the dusky sky. “It’s a broadcast antenna,” he said. “As you know, in the aftermath of the Waste disaster, CLAWS took over GrowCycle’s labs, facilities, our resources, all our drones. GrowCycle used the Space Needle as our central comms station to control the drones spreading the GAIA over Mercer Island. We made a deal with the mayor of Seattle. They thought it would be a good promotion for the city.”
Apana stared at Kobi meaningfully. Kobi had the impression he was being constantly tested every moment he spent in the man’s presence. Suddenly a thought came to him. He remembered the drone bug that Spike had developed at the Sol base: it was designed to hack into the CLAWS communications network and to spread word of Horizon. “You think we could use the Space Needle to transmit a message to New Seattle? CLAWS won’t block it out because it’s coming from their own source.”
“Exactly!” said Apana. “CLAWS still uses the original GrowCycle frequencies to communicate. That’s how Hendrix can disrupt the Snatchers. He operates on the same network. I’ll send the message out to every CLAWS app. They will all pick up the broadcast.”
Kobi’s skin tingled with excitement. “So we record a message, then send your drone to the Needle, then—”
“Ah, not so fast,” said Apana. “We will need my voice codes to access the broadcast computer. The most important GrowCycle systems could only be accessed by very senior people—me and Melanie and a few others. We’ll have to get there in person, and we’ll have to hope the voice activation still works.”
All Kobi could say was, “Oh.” The plan suddenly looked a lot less likely to succeed. “Do you think you can make it?”
Apana shrugged. “With your help, perhaps.” He grinned. “About time I took a trip, don’t you think?”
In the backyard, they stood in front of Hendrix, the GrowCycle drone, and watched the holographic footage they’d filmed—their message to the outside world. Kobi had gone first.
“CLAWS is lying to you. They don’t want you to get better. They don’t want a cure to the Waste. My name is Kobi Hales. I’m immune to the Waste—thanks to CLAWS experiments. And my blood will help cure it forever. CLAWS tried to kill me, but I managed to escape. . . .”
“Do you think it will work?” Apana asked as the recording continued.
“If enough people see it,” said Kobi. His section ended, and Apana’s holographic image took center stage.
“And I’m Dr. Alan Apana, founder of GrowCycle. Everything you were told about me is a lie.” The projection held up a vial of clear liquid. “This is GAIA 2.0, the formula I spent my life working on. The outbreak of the contagion you call “Waste” was a criminal act carried out by the current head of CLAWS, Melanie Garcia. . . .”
Together they watched until the end, where the drone showed footage of Apana’s garden amid the barren landscape of the Waste. The message could have been longer, but there was no saying if CLAWS would be able to detect it and block it. They needed to get the point across quickly.
“Are you ready?” asked Kobi.
“No,” said Apana, managing a smile. “I think we’re almost certain to die.”
Kobi didn’t particularly like the feeling of leaving the idyllic gardens of Apana’s home. But he didn’t want to wait. Every second that passed increased the chance of his friends giving up on him. And he couldn’t forget the Waste contamination below New Seattle: it only needed access to the surface, a way out, and the whole city would be gripped in a second disaster.
They gathered supplies—food, water, makeshift weapons, blankets, a large ax Apana used for firewood, and his hunting rifle—and loaded the truck. Last of all, Apana placed a number of bushy potted plants on the back seat of the jeep and in the foot wells. “Lavender, camellia, euonymus,” he said. “Apart from the lovely smells, they are natural air filterers. The GAIA in their xylem will counteract the Waste spores in the air.” He was back in his hazmat suit, and he took the driver’s seat, Kobi taking the passenger.
“Ready?” said Apana from behind his mask.
Kobi nodded, strapping himself in. He tried to keep calm. He knew once they got back out into the terrain of the clonal organism, its strange effects would overcome him again. Apana didn’t have a second hazmat suit.
The doctor started the engine. He pressed a button on the car radio, and the speakers played a light summery tune that Kobi recognized as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys. Apana drummed along on the steering wheel, whistling, as he released the hand brake.
The car rumbled along the gravel path toward the front of the yard. Hendrix flew ten feet above them at the same speed. Out in the Wastelands, the drone would blind any nearby Snatchers with its interference signal. Gravel crunched below. The vast hedges rose up before them, and soon the jeep entered a dark green passage through them. Rows of sprinklers sent a constant spray across the dark, forested tunnel.
“GAIA is diluted with the water,” said Apana, turning on the windshield wipers. “The sprinkler system is set up all over the yard. The organisms filter out the Waste from the air naturally, and the water is a safeguard against active exposure—it neutralizes any large invasions of spores or animals.” The path through the hedges was around twenty feet long and ended in a cast-iron gate. Apana stopped the jeep in front of it. Kobi stared. Beyond the gate, creeping tentacles dripping with sludgy decay curled up the railings. But as they reached through, they froze, their slippery black forms turning solid and woody; they sprouted healthy-looking mushrooms, moss, and even small ivy flowers. Neutralized by the GAIA. The healthy organisms fell back into the writhing pool of sludge, disappearing beneath the carpet of moving roots.
“The boundary of life and death,” Apana said, meeting Kobi’s eye with a manic grin as he pressed a button on a small plastic remote. The gate began to creak open. “Time to enter the underworld.”
Apana revved the jeep and powered it into the sludgy, black, slithering terrain of the clonal organism, the tires of the t
ruck bumping over the constantly moving ground. Kobi glanced back at the potted plants on the back seat, hoping they could keep the air mostly filtered, but soon the voice came back, ghostly and distant but haunting Kobi’s mind with doubt.
You belong here. You belong with us. Spawn of Waste. Join us.
The 4x4’s headlights shone twin beams over the barren landscape. “Love this album,” said Apana as “You Still Believe in Me” came on the car stereo. “Reminds me of my surfing days.” He seemed oblivious to the evil mass of putrid living decay clawing at the windows and slamming down on the ceiling of the car with scraping thuds.
Kobi pointed to a bulbous growth expanding from the ground. When it reached the size of a small boulder, it exploded, sending a dense mass of black dust over the windshield. Apana sprayed the glass with cleaner fluid and ramped up the wipers. “Wretched spore sacs,” he said.
“What are they?”
“The clonal organism creates them as a way to reproduce—like a mushroom or fir tree does. Those spores are what first carried the Waste to the other side of the lake, spreading it through the ecosystem as it was absorbed and passed on by trees and animals, in less concentrated forms. Oh, watch out!” The car rolled as they hit another of the sacs, sending another dense cloud of spores over the side of the truck.
“Gets a bit tricky around the center of the clonal organism,” said Apana. “This is where most of the sacs are. You know, I believe that beneath the earth there is an entire lake of these spores. Quite worrying.”