Altered Seasons_MONSOONRISE

by Paul Briggs

  Hunter took a sniff. “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance, there’s garlic, that’s for vampires,” he said. Chelsey laughed out loud at this, although it wasn’t the kind of joke she usually liked.

  They managed to make it until dessert before the inevitable happened.

  “So, Hunter,” said Pop, “what are your plans for the fall? Besides college?”

  Hunter stared into his brownie for a few seconds.

  “Um… I’m… not… going back in the fall,” he finally said.

  “You’re dropping out?”

  “Not dropping out. My folks… their 401(k) lost a lot of money. I think it was the property values crashing along the coast that did it… Anyway, they can’t afford to keep paying my way through college. I might be able to get into a tech school in a few years and finish my degree.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Isabel said quickly. “Kristen’s going to nursing school.”

  “So do you have a job lined up?”

  “Uh…” Hunter glanced around as if looking for a cue card.

  “There’s a consulting firm down in Louisiana that does a lot of work for the Army,” said Isabel. “I’ve already got a position with them starting this summer. There should be something available for Hunter in the area.”

  “Excuse me,” said Hunter. “Gotta go to the bathroom.” As he left, Pop stared at his back, then turned to Isabel as if to say Really? Him? You’re telling me that’s the best you could do?

  Rather than respond, Isabel sat in silence eating for the next few minutes. This was what drove her nuts about her parents sometimes—they expected her to be an independent young woman and to find a man who could take care of her. You’d think one or the other would be good enough.

  Speaking of people who’d found men to take care of them, Chelsey was quieter than usual as she ate her gelato, nodding her head as if listening to something slow and pleasant on her earpiece. She wasn’t wearing an earpiece.

  Out the corner of her eye, Isabel saw Hunter peek his head around the corner. He beckoned her closer.

  “What is it?” said Isabel as soon as she was close enough to him and out of earshot of her family.

  “I got a question,” said Hunter, looking more like a guy who had to deliver bad news than a guy who had a question. “About Chelsey…”

  “What about her?”

  “Does she have a drug problem or something?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Isabel. “Why?”

  “My brother had a heroin problem for a while,” he said. “That’s what he looked like when he was high. Exactly like that.”

  Isabel glanced at Chelsey again. She did have kind of a blissed-out look to her, but…

  “Um… she’s eating gelato.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I kind of doubt this place is putting heroin in their gelato,” said Isabel. “Also, Kristen’s having the same thing and she seems perfectly normal.”

  “I’m just telling you what I’m seeing. I can’t explain it.”

  Just at that moment, Chelsey got up to go to the bathroom. Mom had always said girls ought to go to the bathroom in pairs, just to be safe. Isabel didn’t often follow this rule, but there was definitely something strange happening with her older sister right now. This didn’t seem like the best time to leave her alone. “Excuse me,” said Isabel.

  As soon as she was in the bathroom, Isabel realized something was wrong, but it wasn’t quite what she was expecting. There was a distinct sound of groaning and gasping and grunting coming from one of the stalls. It was definitely Chelsey’s voice, and it sounded as if she were in pain, or making some colossal effort… had she not been eating enough fiber?

  “You okay in there?” said Isabel.

  There was a long, anxious moment before Chelsey gasped out, “Fine… fine.”

  Not wanting to waste a perfectly good trip to the bathroom, Isabel started washing her hands. While she was halfway through this, Chelsey came out of the toilet stall looking… well, flushed. And also rather pleased with herself. And she was sweating, which was strange because the bathroom, like the rest of the restaurant, was air-conditioned.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. Then she leaned in and whispered: “I just had an orgasm while I was taking a shit!”

  Then Chelsey started laughing.

  She was still laughing five minutes later.

  * * *

  What Isabel knew about the Jellicoe treatment was what everyone knew. It blocked the brain from releasing dopamine in response to certain stimuli—nicotine, say—while at the same time encouraging the brain to rebuild the reward pathways that were damaged by the process of addiction. Doing a little online research on the subject later that night, she learned three more things.

  The first thing she learned was that the Jellicoe treatment was only ever meant to be used for otherwise untreatable and life-threatening addictions, not the occasional cigarette craving. Given its 70 percent success rate, of course, it was too much in demand for that.

  The second thing she learned was that that 70 percent success rate only applied if the procedure was performed by trained neurochemists. With the kind of discount treatment Chelsey had been fool enough to get, the success rate was about half that. In 40 percent of such cases, the rebuilding of the brain’s reward pathways was only partly successful, leaving the patient in a state of cold, gray dysphoria that their drug of choice could no longer free them from. That left the one in four cases where the treatment worked too well—those pathways became so strong that the brain magnified every simple pleasure into something overwhelming, so that, for example, one could literally get high on a good dessert. While obviously enjoyable, this made it very hard for the patient to function on a day-to-day basis.

  The third thing she learned was that it was irreversible.

  Throughout that summer, it was common for the daily highs in the Deep South to be well over a hundred. In many plants—including corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and other major food crops—when the temperature gets that high, and especially when it goes above 104° Fahrenheit (40° centigrade) things start to go wrong. Pollination fails. Photosynthesis stops. In dry conditions, the soil loses its moisture and the plant dehydrates.

  Agriculture reporters were calling it “heat kill,” but that wasn’t quite accurate. The crops weren’t dying. But every week they were losing hours—sometimes days—of growth.

  * * *

  It was with well-concealed annoyance that Carrie watched Gov. Vince Lofton leave the hotel. He was chairing the National Governors Association this year, but that wasn’t going to stop him from going back to Oklahoma City in time for church the next morning. Because apparently, Springfield, Illinois didn’t have churches. Or something. Anyway, now Carrie would be running this little affair until tomorrow.

  She headed to the cafeteria, but not to eat. A week ago she’d gotten a note from Gabrielle saying that Sandra Symcox—founder, owner, and CEO of De L’Air Diamonds—wanted to talk with her in person. Since this was someone who’d chipped in to fund the Norfolk Conference, Carrie was more than willing to do so. There were no unused conference rooms in the hotel this year—what with one thing and another, state governors had a lot on their minds—and meeting anyone in her hotel room would have raised too many eyebrows for all the wrong reasons. So… the cafeteria at three, and hopefully nothing would come up requiring her attention now she was suddenly running this show.

  Just as she was about to sit down, a voice behind her said “Governor Camberg?”

  Carrie turned around. There was a girl standing there with a briefcase.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I think so,” she said, smiling. The girl… might not actually be a girl, now that Carrie got a better look at her. Although she barely came up to Carrie’s chin and appeared to be no older than Thel, there was something in the look on her face that suggested a grown-up mind at work. She was also dressed like a grown-up, or possibly a very sha
rp high school senior applying for an internship, in taupe slacks and a white summer blouse. She had pale skin and an ash-blond ponytail, and smelled like sunscreen.

  “Sandra Symcox,” she said, extending a hand.

  * * *

  Over coffee—real coffee, and damn the expense—they talked.

  “So what are your plans for next year?”

  “My plan at this point is, once my term ends, to be an advocate for the Norfolk Plan. And for climate change adaptation in general.” And lose some weight. And write a book. And get ready for my run for the White House.

  “Advocacy isn’t necessarily a full-time job,” said Symcox, “and it doesn’t come with a salary. I know you’re not hurting for money, but…”

  “You sound like you’ve got something in mind.”

  “I’m setting up a foundation,” she said, opening her briefcase. “It’s just starting out, but I’m funding it with ten percent of my earnings and dividends.” She handed over a slim folder, which Carrie assumed contained a prospectus of some kind.

  Carrie took the folder, glanced through it, and put it in her own briefcase. “What’s it going to do?”

  “Well, as I see it, there's two basic kinds of charitable work—the kind that helps people rise out of poverty, or at least to something above a subsistence level, and there's the kind that just keeps people alive. I’m going to be spending the first couple of years just keeping people alive, then start adding on more ambitious projects.

  “What I need is somebody who can go abroad and find good places to spend money—people who are doing the most good, making the most efficient use of resources, and so on. As I understand it, before you went into politics you helped your company do charity evaluations.”

  “I did,” said Carrie, “but apart from a couple of vacations, I haven’t been overseas since the Navy. I don’t think I have the experience you’re looking for.”

  Symcox smiled. “Would you like some?” she said. “Something in your résumé you can point to when people ask about your foreign policy credentials?”

  She knows.

  Symcox smiled bigger. “It’s kind of an open secret,” she said. “Everybody I talk to seems to think you’re going to be running for president in a couple of years. I’m all for that. I think it’s great. The mind behind the Norfolk Plan is the kind of mind we need now and we’ll need a lot more later.”

  * * *

  As Carrie left the meeting, she broke into a brisk jog. Two men were having a screaming argument in the middle of the hotel lobby. It sounded bad enough that somebody was going to have to step in and referee it. In this case, “somebody” meant her.

  She stepped into the lobby and got a look at the arguers. One of them was Governor Gilbert Swank of Arizona—Carrie recognized him because he looked a lot like her father, huge, fat, and red-faced. But Papa had mostly been the jolly kind of fat man, and Swank looked the opposite of jolly right now.

  The other was the governor of Colorado, a skinny guy who was bald right on top of his head. His name was either LaTour or LaCour. They were screaming over each other to the point where Carrie had a hard time telling what they were arguing about, except that water was involved. A much smaller man was holding Swank’s right arm and trying to talk him down.

  As Carrie approached the scene of the kerfuffle, she caught references to some sort of compact, dying golf courses, and failing businesses. Then the Colorado governor raised his voice a little higher: “If they need water so bad, why don’t you just tell them to come to Grand Junction?”

  That, apparently, was going too far. Swank shoved the third man aside, stepped forward and took a swing. The bald man stepped back to avoid it, tripped over a phone-charging station, and landed on his back. Carrie got between them, planted the heel of her foot against the station, grabbed Swank by his wrists and pushed against him.

  “What—the hell—is wrong—with you?” she shouted. This was the part where Swank was supposed to realize he was acting like a lunatic and get a hold of himself. She hadn’t been planning on getting into a wrestling match with him. Unfortunately, Swank started trying to force her aside at this point.

  “Stay out of this, lady!” he shouted. “This doesn’t concern you!” Carrie opened her mouth to respond that it did, actually, but suddenly “vice-chair of the National Governors Association” didn’t seem like the right kind of authority for a job like this. “Bouncer” would have been more appropriate. She could smell his breath. There was a little bit of booze on it, but not enough to account for this.

  Carrie weighed two hundred and none of your business pounds, which was a lot more than necessary for most purposes but right now was just slightly less than enough. Despite her best efforts, Swank was shoving her out of the way. Then there was a thump and he let go of her and collapsed on the floor, revealing a slender blonde woman in a crisp black suit standing behind him holding a heavy glass ashtray.

  Swank rubbed the back of his head, pushed himself up into a sitting position and turned around, just in time for the blonde to kick one of his knees aside and stand between his sprawled legs. The shoe she was aiming at his crotch must have cost as much as Carrie’s whole outfit.

  “Stay. Down.” Her voice was clear and firm. There was no anger in it, only command.

  There was a tense moment when he just sat there, weighing the odds. Then the blonde stepped back, just in time for hotel security to emerge from the crowd.

  Carrie turned to the security guards. “He needs somebody to look at him and make sure he’s not hurt,” she said, pointing to the bald man. Then she pointed at Swank and said, “And he needs to be turned over to the local police.” It felt wrong to involve the police instead of sorting out the disagreement herself, but she was on camera. She couldn’t see it, but she knew somebody here had a camera pointed at her. She couldn’t be seen downplaying an assault just because the perp was a politician.

  As the guards were leading the two men away, Carrie turned to the blonde, who she now recognized.

  “Thank you, Governor,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” said New York Governor Morgan.

  * * *

  It was dinnertime. Carrie had gotten an early seat at a table with Rafaél Tejera. The governor of New Mexico was a smallish man with leathery worker’s hands and a face that both genes and sunshine had helped turn brown. He was born and raised in Las Cruces, but it was easy to picture him as the peasant his parents had been before they came to America. He was the man who’d tried to restrain Swank. Carrie was determined to find out what that argument had been about.

  “You can’t understand, back East, just how seriously we take water rights,” said Tejera. “Water is what decides whether your property is a million dollars’ worth of cotton land or a thousand dollars’ worth of rangeland. It’s what decides which towns can grow into cities and which ones will never be more than wide spots in the road. And there isn’t enough of it. There never was, and now there’s even less.” Tejera drew a breath.

  “And this year Arizona’s running especially low,” he said. “The Phoenix area is hardest hit—the Salt River Project is almost dry. The state’s supposed to be refilling the aquifers, and instead they’re draining them again. But as luck would have it, this winter Utah and Colorado got some good rain and snow, so the Colorado River is fuller than usual.”

  “So why not take water from there?” said Carrie.

  “Ever hear of the Colorado River Compact?” said Tejera.

  “I’ve heard it mentioned, but I don’t know the details.”

  Tejera took a deep breath. “About a century ago,” he said, “the western states got together with the federal government and agreed on how to divide the water of the Colorado River. They created the Compact. It’s a complicated agreement and I won’t go into too much detail—the important part is that under that agreement, Arizona is entitled to only a certain percentage of the water, and no more.”

  “And Swank wants to renegotiate?”


  “Yes. But, of course, LaCour has to answer to his own constituents, and they’re going to keep every drop they’re entitled to.”

  “Can’t say I blame them,” said Morgan, walking up to their table.

  Carrie looked her over. Holbrooke Morgan was one of those governors who were jokingly referred to as “regional warlords.” (Mostly jokingly, anyway.) Probably it was just that mixture of awe and suspicion that anybody in Washington had for an executive who seemed to be able to pass laws and implement policies without anybody else getting in the way. But in the case of Morgan, if an asteroid or something landed on D.C. and destroyed the federal government, it was easy to imagine her seizing control of New York State and the New England States within the first week, and then extending her Empire State empire further south, conquering Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Trenton and giving the inhabitants of the Jersey Shore the choice of slavery or death. (Again, kidding. Mostly.)

  She was on the tall side—with her heels, she was as tall as Carrie—swan-necked and willowy, with blond hair that she kept in a complicated braided bun on the back of her head. She was three years older than Carrie, but looked about five years younger. Her suit, black and sharp-edged as if chiseled from obsidian, was an Arrigo Ciardi original. Carrie would never be able to wear a suit like that, because Arrigo Ciardi would commit seppuku with his own scissors before he ever agreed to design an outfit for a woman over size six.

  “If it’s true what I’ve heard, that Arizona is using what little water it has to grow cotton…” Morgan let her voice trail off.

  “It’s true,” said Tejera. “Funny story behind that. Want to hear it?” They both nodded as Morgan sat down.

  “Different places in Arizona are handling the drought in different ways. Phoenix and Tucson are rationing water. Which sounds cruel, I know, but at least that way everybody gets some. But for the state as a whole, Swank tried what was supposed to be a free-market approach—letting the price of water go up until it hits its ‘natural’ level.