by Bev Prescott
The boy’s petite bare feet dangled a couple of inches from the scuffed faux-wood floor. Outside, near the barn’s outdoor shower, the ragged nylon shoes, shorts, and contraband jacket he’d arrived in lay in a clump. The canvas pants and shirt she’d directed him to dress in after he showered fit loosely, but well enough with the hems rolled up several inches. Strands of freshly washed hair stuck to the sides of his face.
She laid the baldric and hammer on the kitchen table. The chair she sat in, weakened by decades of cradling members of Sharon’s family, creaked under her weight. The sound of it wound around them, filling in the void. “I want to help you, but you’re not making it easy.” The snug fifty-five-square-meter house she’d cobbled together with scraps of building materials loomed, cavernous without Eve.
The boy picked at a loose thread on his sleeve.
Impatience fanned the flames of her growing frustration with his stubborn silence. “I don’t take in strays. There isn’t enough room.” She cringed at the irony of the deception and truthfulness of her words. She could make space for a lonely kid in her house, sure. It was something she and Eve had always planned. But over the years, grief and loss had cemented over any gap left in her heart to love someone other than Eve. “But I also don’t want anything bad to happen to you. So talk to me. Come on. You have to.”
Glancing up, his dark brows furrowed. He seemed to be looking at something on the wall behind her. She knew what was there: an old photograph of a group of people standing in front of a two-story clapboard farmhouse. “That’s my family.” She turned and lifted its copper frame from the wall. “Well, it was my family. They’re all gone now, except for me.” She placed it on the table. “Eve is my only family now.”
Inu put his forefinger on the image of Sharon as a baby swaddled in the arms of her mother, a dark-skinned woman with a long black braid that hung over her shoulder. Baby Sharon clutched her mother’s braid. They and the rest of the family huddled happily together on the porch of that big, beautiful home, all of them unaware of the horror to come when Earth’s backlash against humanity would plunge the world into chaos.
“That’s me with my mom.” She touched the glass. It held the auras of those she’d loved with every cell of her body. “The two boys were my brothers, Jon and Mark. The guy with the red beard and freckles was my dad, and him, well . . .” She pointed at the striking black-skinned man with a beautiful smile standing by her father. “That’s Elliot. He was our beekeeper and my dad’s best friend—until he wasn’t. He betrayed my family and got my parents killed. It’s too long a story to tell here.” She swallowed the bad taste of Elliot’s memory. After all these years, thinking of him still tasted like drinking poison. “These were my grandparents. My great-great-grandfather built the farmhouse they’re standing in front of in 1986.”
Inu pointed at the two-story clapboard building in the photograph, then up to the ceiling over their heads.
“The old farmhouse?”
He nodded.
“It used to be right where we’re sitting. I had to burn it down during the War of Earth’s Rebellion.” She shrugged. “I built this shack in its place. You weren’t even born yet. It was the war that came after the third world war called the Second Crusade. While people were fighting over whose religion was best, Earth was gearing up to have the last say. Unfortunately, she’s not done with us.”
He pointed at the woodstove near the far wall.
“Ever seen one of these?” Sharon asked. “It’s an antique Jotul that’s been in my family for one hundred and twelve years. My parents used it to keep warm during snowy winters. But then winter stopped coming. Eve and I use it to boil water and heat food.”
A shadow of sadness moved across her companion’s face before his expression hardened. He pushed the framed photograph away.
“What is it, boy?” Sharon lifted the frame from the table and returned it to its place on the wall. “Why did that hit a nerve?”
White-knuckled, he gripped the arms of the chair and scrutinized the floor.
A splinter of empathy pierced her frustration. “I’ll do what I can to help you. But you need to help yourself. We’re not getting anywhere with you not talking.”
His eyes filmed over with tears and his lips quivered.
Sharon put her hands to his. “It’s okay.” Her throat tightened. “You’re not alone. Terrible things have happened to all of us. If you tell me what happened to your family . . .” She gathered her courage. “I’ll tell you what happened to mine.”
He shot up and bolted from the chair. Slipping behind the ladder to the loft, he cowered.
Sharon recognized the tearless mask of anguish that covered his face. It matched the one she often wore to conceal her own sorrow and fears. Like the shells of the walnuts that used to drop from the now-dead tree out back, her hard exterior protected the soft vulnerabilities inside. “I’m sorry, Inu.”
His watery eyes closed, and he pressed his head to a rung. A fat tear splashed to the floor.
“I don’t know what to do to help you.” The clock alarm in the cuff of her sleeve vibrated. “I can’t do this right now.” His grief tugged at her like a deadly undertow. Fear of being swallowed by it blunted her desire to pull him into her arms.
Behind the ladder, Inu’s body slid down the wall coming to a sitting position. He wrapped his arms around bent legs, hugging himself tight.
“I’m going to the barn.” She briefly considered bringing him with her. But if he discovered her secrets, he’d be hers to keep. Instead, she got up and opened the blanket chest near the sofa in the middle of the room. It had been one of the many items she’d pulled from the farmhouse before she set it ablaze. “But I’ll be right back.”
She rifled through the contents of the chest until she found her mother’s sketchbook and colored gel pencils. Made of a composite wax and silicone paper, the resilient pages of the book had stood the test of decades. She flipped through the pages until she came to one she thought he might like. It was her favorite. She held up the drawing of a black-eyed Susan. “You can’t not smile when you look at this, don’t you agree?”
Inu peered at her from behind the ladder. Subtly, he nodded.
She unclipped a couple of blank pages from the back of the book and picked up the box of pencils. “My mom drew pictures when she was sad. It reminded her of things that made her happy.” She laid the pages and pencils on the couch. “Why don’t you draw me a picture while I’m gone?” She grabbed the baldric and hammer from the table and slipped the strap over her shoulder. “Anything you want. Whatever comes to mind.”
Curiosity replaced the sadness on his face. He crawled from behind the ladder.
“Good boy. I’ll be back in a little while. You stay put.” She picked up the titanium box and slipped out the back door toward the barn.
Sharon took in the bright orange glow of the setting sun at the horizon. But for the looming red structure of the leaning barn and bedraggled ancient apple orchard behind it, there was no evidence that the place had once been one of the most profitable farms in southern Maine. Up on the hill where her grandfather’s favorite black walnut tree had used to reign over the orchard below, a knotty overgrown pine forest elbowed out anything else trying to grow.
In the distance, black specks flitted in and out of the hollow trunk of the walnut tree. Any living thing that got close enough realized before dying that the black specks were Africanized honeybees. Elliot was the only person who’d ever been able to survive their stings, or charm them.
She preferred the fallow, destitute look of the two hundred-plus acres that had been owned by her family since the mid-1900s. Neither a drone flying overhead nor a feral Yěxìng foraging for food, nor an opportunistic Banditti would have a clue that a luscious farm existed underfoot. Nor would they know that the forest camouflaged tens of thousands of electricity-generating solar panels shaped like pine needles on branches. Sprayed with a chemical containing a molecule isolated in 2043 from honeyb
ee propolis, the trunks stood forever preserved in time.
Sharon slipped a hand into the pocket of her canvas dungarees and pressed the button on the palm-sized transmitter tucked inside. Her brother, Jon, had designed and built it to remotely control the farm’s technology. The day he finished it, he declared the transmitter to be the Queenbee. The name stuck. On cue, the lifelike fiberglass owl in the cupola at the top of the barn came to life. Its head moved almost imperceptibly, as if taking in the view of the landscape. Sharon removed Queenbee from her pocket to make sure the image seen by the owl also displayed on Queenbee’s viewport.
Through the viewport, she studied the expanse of the pine forest that hid the solar arrays. As the owl swiveled its head, the view changed to the trees in the bedraggled orchard bent under the weight of inedible apples, except for that one special tree only she and Eve could identify. Beyond forest and orchard lay an impenetrable tangle of Japanese knotweed and kudzu, two invasive species that had thrived in the decades of intense warming brought on by the change in Maine’s climate.
Even though the owl’s lenses revealed no one within miles of the farm, she looked over her shoulder to be sure. Her scrutiny landed on her small home constructed out of scavenged materials. Perched on cinder blocks, the space underneath protected the home from rodents, snakes, insects, and flooding. Through the window, she observed Inu with his head bowed in concentration, hopefully drawing a revealing picture that spoke to the whereabouts of his family. The likelihood that the boy was alone in the world nagged at her.
She turned, tucked Queenbee into her pocket, and slid the barn door open. Except for a few pieces of rusted farm equipment and her solar-bike, the musty interior was empty. She crept inside and shut the door. Three durable pine trunks stripped of bark held up the sagging ceiling along the center of the roof. On balance, she preferred the risk of the ceiling caving in on her hidden solar-bike to a Banditti easily discovering its existence. Given that her fingerprint started the bike’s ignition, they’d take the bike and her hand as well.
She went to the southwest corner of the barn and stood in front of a rubber rug. With the toe of her boot, she pushed the rug aside. Underneath, three polycarbonate tiles indistinguishable from the slate tiles that surrounded them each had a thumb- sized circle etched into them. Hers was the one on the far left, then Eve’s and Jon’s. She bent at the knees and pressed her forefinger to her circle. The tiles whirred to life and slid open. Before climbing down, she looked again over her shoulder. Nothing moved.
Carrying the titanium box in one hand, she scrambled down the six iron rungs that led to the clandestine underground farm. Reaching into the space above her head, she slid the rubber rug over the opening and pressed her thumb to the underside of the tile below her circle. All three tiles slid closed, shutting out the light. She reached into her pocket and pressed a second button on Queenbee. A small array of white LEDs lining the corridor came to bright life.
Before letting the rank blue-cheese smell of the grout that lined the walls and tunnels assault her nostrils, she took several big breaths through her mouth. Two things had come out of the War of the Second Crusade: the total destruction of American agriculture and transportation systems, and the discovery of the micoriden molecule.
In order to completely destroy the United States, the United Kingdom of Asia targeted U.S. agriculture and transportation infrastructure with bombs. In response, the U.S. government discovered that when mixed with salt water, micoriden formed a grout that hardened enough to withstand extreme weight and prevent energy transfer; that is, the material was a great insulator. Although too late to save the country, the discovery was used by its successor, NONA, to build high-speed transportation tunnels underground that were undetectable by heat-seeking drones. In the chaos from the aftermath of the war, Sharon and her brothers had easily stolen enough micoriden and other supplies to construct the underground farm.
She dropped Queenbee into her pocket and checked the clock on her cuff. In another seven minutes, Dr. Ryan would be expecting her to power up the SComCat. She hoped, anyway. The one thing she wanted to hear more than Dr. Ryan saying that he’d found Eve safe and sound was to hear Eve’s voice.
The sixty-one-meter-long tunnel in front of her sloped upward to a tangle of kudzu at the top of the hill. To her right, the second of the two tunnels led to the underground farm. Choosing the latter, she took long fast strides through the fifteen-meter-long tunnel that sloped steeply downhill nine meters lower than its entrance underneath the barn. Humidity and warmth spilled from the opening of the growing room.
Sharon turned the corner into the thirty-square-meter room. She was met by the soft purple glow from the blue and red lights used to grow the plants stacked in trays five meters high. She breathed in the heady scent of flourishing vegetables and fruits: tomatoes, kale, spinach, potatoes, squash, onions, eggplant, beans, pumpkins, and strawberries. A large food dehydrator rested in the corner next to a tall ladder. Next to it sat a desiccator-storage bin containing dried produce.
Hidden in the hollow of the dead walnut tree, an airtight container pressurized with argon contained their collection of heirloom seeds and genetic material extracted by Eve from the apple tree. The colony of Africanized honeybees lived in the tree, too. Nothing that breathed got past the resilient bees that guarded home and queen with their lives.
The thriving plant life filled Sharon with strength. While she longed for the days when she could plunge her hands into rich soil kissed by sun and rain, she felt grateful for these lush green beauties that sustained her and Eve. As a farmer’s granddaughter, daughter, and farmer herself, Sharon always paid attention to the needs of trees and plants. When the rest of the human population had come apart during the War of Earth’s Rebellion, Sharon, her brothers, and Eve kept paying attention.
In the tradition of her mother’s Abenaki ancestry, Sharon believed the apple tree had been Earth’s gift in response to her family’s devotion to nature. By paying attention, they managed to find what they needed to build the underground oasis that included the plants, lights, and reclamation system that continuously recycled moisture, carbon dioxide, oxygen and other nutrients.
Sharon went to Eve’s lab bench, laid the titanium box down, and snapped it open. She pressed the clock button on her cuff. Lifting the SComCat from the box she counted down the minutes toward 6 p.m., the time Dr. Ryan had instructed her to turn it on so they could—with any luck—communicate.
Inu’s shouts of alarm, however, came at 5:59.
She yanked Queenbee from her pocket and scanned its viewport while flipping the SComCat switch to “on.” Rotating the thumbwheel below the screen to turn the owl’s head, she perceived a beat-up black hydro-van approaching the house. She turned up the volume on Queenbee in order to hear better what the owl was hearing. Again, Inu screamed.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
Two Banditti, a woman and a man, burst from the van as Inu ran out the front door of Sharon’s house. The woman grabbed him by his hair. “Tell me where your people are.”
Inu shook his head side to side.
“Check the barn,” the woman ordered her companion.
“This can’t be happening,” Sharon whispered. “Not now.” She continued to watch the Banditti while listening for the SComCat to come to life with Dr. Ryan’s voice.
The man, with spiked hair and a fraying vest, stormed into the barn. Beneath the open vest he wore a T-shirt with the letter S across the chest like some ghoulish mutant superman.
The woman stood outside and shook Inu hard. “And if you continue to refuse to answer my questions, I’ll cut your tongue out.” The tall blonde, in a trench coat that unsuccessfully concealed a baldric, jostled Inu like a rag doll.
Struggling against her, the boy whimpered. The remote microphone picked up everything. A solidarity with Inu bloomed in Sharon at his refusal to answer.
Super-ghoul-man blustered from the barn. “Hey Mags, there’s a solar-bike inside. Nothing e
lse, though, except some bullshit junk.”
“I want that bike.” Mags’ words oozed out nasty and hard. “I’m guessing the sneaking asshole who can start it isn’t far.” She unsheathed a long knife from the baldric. “Wherever you are, asshole,” she yelled, “you got ten minutes to show yourself.” She shook Inu. “If you don’t, I’m going to cut off your little shit’s hand.”
Inu tried to wriggle from her grip.
Mags drew the point of the knife across the back of his wrist. A stream of red blood oozed from the slice.
Brave Inu held still.
The kid needed Sharon’s help as much as she needed to hear from Dr. Ryan that Eve was safe. Fuck.
“One way or the other, I’m going to get a hand today.” Mags waved the knife.
“Goddammit! Ring already.” Sharon picked up the silent SComCat and held it to her chest before shoving it into the outside pocket of her jacket.
Inu’s scream blew from Queenbee’s speaker, followed by Mags’ voice reminding her that time ticked down.
Sharon turned the volume down and dropped Queenbee into her pocket, then bolted uphill through the tunnel to the space beneath the barn. Footsteps and rustling overhead prevented her from exiting where she’d entered. Instead, she raced through the second tunnel to the exit in the kudzu at the edge of the forest.
She scrambled up the exit’s iron rungs and pressed her finger over the etched circle that matched her print. Again, tiles slid open. Above lay a knot of green that concealed the opening. Sharon checked Queenbee’s viewport. Mags stood outside the barn. Inu lay on the ground at her feet, cradling his cut hand. Super-ghoul-man must still be inside.
Before climbing through the snarl of thick branches and leaves, Sharon peeked at the SComCat. Still no call, but there were another seventeen minutes in which a call might come. She pocketed it, and climbed through the snarled brush. The sun had slipped below the horizon, casting a bare haze of light. Darkness, along with her hammer, suggested themselves as reliable weapons. She pressed the tiles closed.