by Kenneth Eade
“Robin?”
“Seth, it’s over. Please don’t call me anymore.”
“Robin, we’re not in the tenth grade.”
“I mean it Seth, don’t call me, and don’t try to see me. If you do, I’ll consider it harassment.”
Then Seth heard the click of the phone being hung up. In that one click, Robin was no longer a part of his life and he had no idea why. Seth knew it wasn’t a serious relationship, yet there was a sadness in the realization that it was over, and so suddenly. It was as if every memory of every breakup suddenly melded into one. By now, times should have changed, his shell should be thicker, and a wealth of experience should make this more bearable, but he felt teenage rejection overcoming him like a childhood virus that lies dormant, then attacks the unsuspecting adult. It would never be something he would get used to.
19
Long days go quickly, but take their toll. Seth was exhausted after putting the lab back together. At the risk of breaking in an entirely new team, he let George and Shirley both go back to their regular jobs and set about the task of going over the resumes of Robin’s replacement candidates.
Seth had rebuilt the lab, and the extra security surveillance video equipment he had ordered had been delivered and installed. Everything was ready, except that he needed to select a new assistant. Seth pored over the stack of resumes on his desk. The person had to be qualified, but not too much of a company person, like Robin. And it had to be a man this time.
After a while, he found himself reading the same sentence in the same resume, over and over again. His brain was unable to process any more information. That was his cue to go home.
Seth’s memory took over on autopilot, guiding him to his parking space while he went over all of the latest events in his mind. He could not assume that vandals broke into and destroyed the lab. He had taken precautions to guard the data. He had made multiple copies of the data on disc, multiple copies of all the reports, and had split up the duplicate copies of the slides. Instead of leaving his working copy at the lab, he would take it with him wherever he went. The only thing left to do was to think of a place to hide the duplicate copies.
Seth arrived home, parked his car, and shuffled into his apartment. His mom had given him a beautiful briefcase when he graduated from Stanford, but he never used it because nobody used briefcases anymore. Everyone carried laptop cases now. He took the briefcase from its special place in the closet, dusted it off, and put all of the duplicate data and hard drives in it.
The next day Seth went in late to work, so he could stop by the bank. He withdrew $30,000 in cash from his savings account and put that in the briefcase as well as his passport, just in case. He had unknowingly created a go-bag. He rented a private safety deposit box at a different bank, and put the go-bag into it. Hopefully, he would never have to use it.
20
It was lonelier at the lab without Robin. Seth’s new partner, Daniel Harkavy, had the charm of a dry piece of toast, and he wasn’t much fun to look at either. But he was both intelligent and diligent, and seemed to have the same scientific sense of duty that Seth had.
“Dan, did you go over the tests on our ratty friends?”
“Yes, no signs of mis-folded proteins; what we are seeing though is Bt toxin in the blood cells, intestinal walls, spleen, liver and even feces.”
“Lemme see that, what levels?”
“270 ppm.” 270 was considered toxic.
Seth knew that this meant that the Bt made by the GM plant was transferring to bacteria in the digestive system. This was not good. The control group, fed higher levels of the naturally occurring Bt, had no such symptoms – at all. This had to be a different kind of bacteria. Something in the genetic engineering process had turned it into a deadlier toxin.
Seth went into his office, recorded the findings, and sent them by secure email to a duplicate web mail address under an assumed name. Then he made two flash drive copies, one for the experiment and one for the go-bag, which he put in a hidden compartment in his jacket. Seth was beginning to feel like James Bond. Too bad there was no Q at the company to set him up with a cool car and weapons to defend himself from the bad guys.
At 11:00 p.m., Seth left the office. He would go by the bank the next morning on the way to work and stock up the go-bag. He headed straight home. Gliding into his parking space, Seth looked up at his apartment and noticed the light was on. He didn’t think he had left it on, but he had done it several times before, so it wasn’t really unusual, but he was overly nervous from the break-in.
Seth observed for a while. He must have left the light on this morning. He was being paranoid. Take a deep breath and go, he said to himself, as he remembered a line from an insurance claim that Johnny Carson had once shared on “The Tonight Show” – “I glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.”
When Seth came to the top of the stairs, everything looked in order. The door to his apartment was closed. He tried to open it quietly. It was locked. That was a good sign. He unlocked the door and slowly inched his way into the apartment, like he had seen in detective movies. The only difference was that detectives always had a gun.
Slightly slinking half of his body into the apartment, he was suddenly pulled in like a fly into a vacuum cleaner, and struck on the head. The curtain was down on Act II.
***
When Seth came to he was face down on the floor, eating dust. He sat up, and a shiver went up his spine in his panic as he frisked himself, finding the secret compartment in his jacket. The flash drive was still there. He straightened out his stiff body to stand up, and, as he did, his head throbbed. His right arm felt heavy and weak, like his hand had been super glued to a shot put. His knee ached from hitting the floor. The apartment looked even worse than he did. The living room floor was a collage of papers. The refrigerator had been purged of its contents, which had been strewn out all over his kitchen floor, like fish out of water on top of a goopy paste that looked like some kind of GMO Pepto Bismol. Seth picked up some ice from the floor to put on his head. Then he dialed 911. When the operator answered, “911 emergency,” Seth thought, “Wait a minute. If this was the company, I can’t let on about anything being missing,” he thought.
“I made a mistake,” Seth responded, and hung up.
He would go back to the lab tomorrow, like nothing had happened, and continue with the testing, using the duplicate data. Seth went to his home computer, but, of course, the hard drive was missing. What a surprise.
Carefully checking every hiding place was a must, not only to make sure the predators had left, but also to see if they had, in fact, found everything. Finding the aspirin was easy, because the contents of his entire medicine cabinet had been emptied into the sink. His bed had been torn apart and the contents of his drawers, as well as the drawers themselves, carpeted the floor of his bedroom. His clothes had been ripped out of the closet and were in a jumbled pile on the floor. Where the bed should have been was just the frame. The mattress was against the wall and looked like Lizzy Borden had taken turns with Lorena Bobbitt on it.
At least there was no need to move the bed. Seth pushed aside the clutter, exposing the rug, and shoved that to the side. The floorboards looked intact. He went into the kitchen to fetch a knife from the kitchen floor and limped back to the bedroom. Prying open the secret compartment in the floorboard, he found that it was all there – his spare Mac book with the duplicate data on it, and his father’s 357 Magnum. He remembered when his father had given it to him.
“Son, they called the Colt 45 the Peacemaker. I like to call this little gem the Insurance Adjuster. If you use it right, you will make your life insurance company proud. I hope you never have to use it.”
Seth slipped the Magnum into his belt, and went to the remnants of his living room to power up the Mac Book and to make a copy of the flash drive. He was smart, but he had to be smarter. No points for second place.
21
Bill was, of course, on
the phone when Seth was shown into his office. Bill flashed the usual fake smile, and nosed Seth to sit down. After what seemed like an eternity of blah, blah, blah, he finally hung up.
“Seth, how are you doing?” Another shake and a smile.
“Everything’s coming along Bill.” Bill looked stoic.
“That’s great,” he said. “Uh – when can I expect your report?”
“Just going through and analyzing all the data. Shouldn’t be too much longer.”
If Bill knew anything about the break-ins, it wasn’t showing. But politicians were famous for double-speak and were consummate liars. That’s why George W. Bush had to be their favorite president. It’s easier to commit a fraud when the actor believes his lie to the point of a conviction.
“Seth, take your time. Team Two has already turned in their report.”
Team Two was pretty quick. It must be easier to work without getting whacked in the head every time you try to save your data.
“Okay, Bill.”
On his way back to the lab, Seth’s mind drifted to that thought that kept gnawing in the corner of his brain – the ecosystem. Everything in life was interconnected, from the smallest insect to the tallest tree, but nobody cared about the ecosystem.
Nature was doing a good job thousands and even millions of years before GMOs but he wondered, “If the Bt that was killing the rats was that strong, what effects could it have on life in the ecosystem when the GMO plant pollinates?” The results could be disastrous, from pollinator deaths to human respiratory problems, allergies, skin lesions and contamination and extinction of other plants, and God knows how many species that depended on them.
The ultimate plan was for Germinat to own all the seeds, and to engineer the GMOs to be sterile so all seeds had to be purchased from the company. But the current plants were still capable of reproduction, and the company had to take the alternative step of suing farmers who saved their seeds with patent violations. Since the GMOs were not sterile, that meant that they could breed with natural varieties of corn, soy and cotton, and contaminate them. And, finally, insect pests were very adaptable to changes in their environment and could easily develop resistance to the Bt toxin, resulting in crop failure anyway.
The U.S. official policy was to bring GMOs to market as soon as possible, for the benefit of mankind, of course. But oftentimes what was seen to benefit mankind was destructive to nature, without which mankind could not exist.
As Albert Einstein observed, human beings experience thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. We forget that we humans are animals, inextricably connected to the world and everything in it. In the rush to bring GMO food to the world because it was good for us, nobody had asked the question whether it would be good for the world.
22
Strangely, Seth was almost fully assimilated into his life as an English professor in Russia. He didn’t miss his moustache at all – he rather liked the clean-shaven look. Sometimes when he looked in the mirror, he didn’t even recognize himself. If Seth had to spend the rest of his life here, he thought that he could. And he may have to.
Unfortunately, he was obliged to stay in town and was not able to leave, so his sphere was somewhat limited. But, when Natasha invited him to the country with her friends, he was tempted to break that vow he had made to Yuri.
“Come on, it will be fun,” she said.
Fun – what an interesting concept. Seth’s clock had been set on survival so long that he didn’t realize that he was starving himself of an essential element of being, that of having fun.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know anybody.”
“That’s okay, you’ll be with me.”
That was convincing. The chance to spend the entire weekend with Natasha was as compelling to Seth as a porch light to an insect. After all, he was no longer Seth Rogan, the American fugitive; he was George Aimers, the Canadian English teacher. What could possibly go wrong?
“Okay, I’ll go.”
“Great! We’ll come by your place Friday around 8 to pick you up.”
That was good. Yuri would have already made his obligatory visit and would have made plans to go out and get shit-faced and party. Seth had already made it clear to him that his partying days were over and he could count him out. Yuri left Seth alone for the most part on the weekends, so once he was able to sneak away, all he would have to do is answer his phone if Yuri should call.
When 8:00 p.m. rolled around, Seth felt like a kid sneaking out of his parents’ house. Natasha’s friend, Masha, and her boyfriend with the rhyming name, Pasha, drove them.
“All the girls are bringing their boyfriends,” said Natasha.
“Oh, does that mean I’m your boyfriend?” he asked. Natasha smiled shyly.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
On the way to the country, the world outside the jeep looked frozen and cold, but it was warm inside and Seth had his Russian winter provisions for outside; a good pair of boots, a fur hat and coat, and fur lined gloves. There was no room for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Russia. If you didn’t wear fur, you froze, so you wore fur.
They pulled in to a compound with high security. No passport, no passage, and your name had to be on the list. The place was a camp for employees of the Russian Central Bank. It had a sauna, a swimming pool, and several recreation rooms. When they arrived, Masha and Natasha joined the other girls in the kitchen, and Pasha scurried Seth out into the great outdoors with the men to barbeque shashliki, a delicious Russian marinated meat. Just as they didn’t believe in suspending the fur trade, Russians were not vegetarians either.
The cold was biting at his tingling fingers through the gloves and his ears through the hat, so Seth warmed his hands near the open barbeque, which was pouring out a deliciously smelling combination of smoke and steam. The guys were all gathered around doing the same thing and drinking beer. Pasha tried to translate for Seth as he turned the meat with one hand and held a bottle of beer with the other.
“So George, you’re from Canada?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of a car do you drive back in Canada?”
“A Lexus.”
The guys all reacted in chorus. A Lexus was definitely something they all would love to have.
***
As they feasted inside, it seemed like every man had a toast for their new found Canadian friend. Seth couldn’t decide if the toast was a reason for drinking, or the drinking a reason for talking, and he decided it was the latter. Alcohol is a kind of truth serum. Without it, you may doubt sincerity. With it you can doubt sincerely.
“Seth, how long have we known each other?” Pasha asked rhetorically, looking at his watch. “I’ll tell you – four hours and nine minutes, and in those four hours and nine minutes I have seen only goodness in you. So I want to say that I’m happy to call you my friend, and invite you to my home, anytime you want. To you.”
As Pasha raised his glass, eleven other glasses met each other at different levels in the middle of the large table, followed by a practically synchronized swallow, a joint exhalation, and the sound of twelve glasses hitting the table almost simultaneously. Seth discovered that night that he had two extra stomachs; one for vodka and one for overeating.
Then one of the guys pulled out a guitar and started playing. As members of the group joyfully sang old Russian folk songs, some of the girls began to dance. Seth didn’t know any of the lyrics, of course, but chimed into the chorus phonetically.
After the last bottle was emptied, the girls cleared the table while the guys went off to play billiards and table tennis. Seth surprised himself again to find that he could actually play with competence two games that he had always thought he had sucked at. When the girls were finished with their tasks, the guys all followed them to pool area for a sauna and swim.
Seth sweated beads of vodka in the sauna room, while making small talk with the guys. When he cou
ld stand it no longer, he made his way for the pool. Spotting Natasha, he jumped in and swam underwater to her like a shark, pulling her under by the legs.
“You’re drunk,” she said, as they surfaced.
“Not any more. I sweated every drop of vodka out.”
Seth held Natasha and spun her in the water, then leaned in for a kiss. She promptly pulled away and swam off, with Seth in pursuit.
Being with Natasha set Seth at ease; so much so he forgot what had even brought him to Russia in the first place. As their weekend was coming to a close, for the first time, he did not have a care in the world.
23
The pleasant weekend had quickly come to an end. As the car pulled out of the compound, everyone was in a jovial mood. If this had been America, there would be no way that jeep could have navigated the ice packed, snowy roads, but Pasha skillfully slipped and slid along, like a professional driver who had driven icy roads every day of his life. Everything was great, until they got to a police checkpoint near the river.
The police motioned for Pasha to pull over, and he did. Then, they looked inside the jeep and that is when things went from bad to worse.
“Dokumenti, pajaoulasta,” said the officer to Seth, asking for his documents with an outstretched hand.
Natasha quickly chimed in, speaking Russian, asking why, as Seth was a passenger, not the driver. It was no use to argue. Seth complied, giving his passport, and the officer took it into the police station, leaving Seth and his friends in the car.
There is a fine line between police and criminals, which makes it a better idea to play by their rules than to argue with them. Arguing with a man who has the same emotions, fears, and pressures that we all do, but who also can deprive you of your freedom, is never a good idea. There is no such thing as freedom of speech when you are dealing with a policeman.