by Harley Tate
“We should clear the building first.”
She shook her head. “There’s no one here. And even if there is, I can’t imagine an Agriculture student shooting us over a few tomatoes.”
“Brianna.” Walter’s tone hit like a slap, sharp and insistent. “Clear the building.”
She opened her mouth to retort when Tracy stepped in. “How about Brianna stays here and works on the plants while we clear the rest of the building? By the time we’re done, she’ll be done, too. It’ll save time.”
Walter’s brows knit together, but he nodded. “Fine. I’ll lead.”
Tracy stayed a few steps back in her aisle while Walter approached the door to the rest of the Agricultural building. He reached for the handle as it swung open and almost hit him in the face.
A man carrying a six-pack of seedlings practically shrieked and almost lost the tray, bobbling it up and down and spilling dirt before he backed up.
“Hands up!” Walter trained the rifle on the man, waiting.
The man looked down at the plants in his hands and then back at Walter, hesitating.
“I said, hands up!”
At Walter’s repeated shout, the man shoved his hands up in the air, the plants going right along with them. The little leaves wobbled above his head as he stood there, shaking.
“Hon, he’s not a threat.”
Walter didn’t lower the rifle. Tracy stepped closer, reaching out to touch her husband’s arm. He flinched as her fingers found skin and the rifle bobbed.
The man with his hands up let out a little yelp and the plants jiggled harder. Tracy tried again.
“Honey, he’s wearing a shirt that says This is How I Roll with a picture of a tractor on it. He’s not looking to hurt us.”
“Sh-she’s right. I-I just like plants.”
Walter leaned over and lined up the sight. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
The plant man yelped again.
“Mr. Sloane, come on, man. He’s a graduate student or something. If it weren’t for him, none of these plants would still be alive.”
“Is that true?”
The man nodded. “Y-Yes. I’m all but dissertation. I just…I need to finish this data set or I can’t write it. If I lose the plants, then my whole year is wasted. I’ll have to start all over and I’ll lose funding and then I’ll have to take a leave of absence and go work for my cousin Larry in Waukegan and—”
“That’s enough.” Walter lifted his head and lowered the tip of the rifle about a foot. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
The man looked down at his chest. “I’ve got my ID right here.” He pointed his chin at the pouch hanging around his neck.
Tracy reached out and flipped it over. “Steve Larcen, Graduate Student, Agriculture Department.” She let it fall and stepped back.
“Do you have any weapons, Steve?”
He shook his head. “N-No, sir. Well, if you count the pruning shears, then maybe?”
“Guns, Steve. Do you have any guns?”
Steve shook his head back and forth fast enough to have whiplash. “No. No guns. They kind of scare me.”
At last, Walter lowered his weapon and Tracy exhaled in relief.
“You can lower your arms.”
“Thank you. The lactic acid was beginning to set in up there.”
Tracy shook her head. “What are you doing here?”
Steve’s brows tucked in. “Just what I said. Finishing up my dissertation research. I’ve got about a month left and then I can write it.”
“But the power’s out.”
“I know. It’s crazy, right? I’ve had it take a long time, but never like this.”
Tracy glanced at Brianna, whose expression mirrored her own. “You know it’s never coming back on, right?”
Steve shifted the plants to one hand and scratched at his head. “Chrissy said something like that when she left last week, but to be honest, I haven’t been focused on anything but this building right here for a few weeks. This next phase of growth is critical for my theory.”
“Which is?”
“That select cover crops work as well or better than fallow fields and herbicides to improve soil quality and reduce weeds. It’s been a three-year labor of love, but this is the final test. If the plants that I’ve grown in soil where my cover crop grew are healthier and less weed-plagued than my control plants, then my theory is correct. It could revolutionize organic farming.”
Brianna began asking Steve about his research and he spouted off a bunch of words that sounded more foreign language than agricultural. Tracy turned to her husband. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on them. You clear the rest of the building.”
“I don’t like leaving you alone with him.”
“With the tractor-humor graduate student? Walt, he’s fine and so am I. Check the rest of the building and come back. Maybe by then those two will have run out of things to say to each other.”
Walter frowned. “All right. But stay vigilant.”
Tracy nodded. “I will.” She watched her husband leave through the door before turning back to Brianna and Steve. He might seem more teddy than grizzly at the moment, but Tracy knew looks could be deceiving. While her husband cleared the rest of the building, she would honor her word and keep a steady watch.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MADISON
Agriculture Department, CSU, Chico
10:00 a.m.
“I told you I should have come with you from the start.” Madison leaned over a row of bright green plants, foraging among the leaves to find the plastic signs with the variety names written in neat print. “Then all of this would already be done.”
Brianna lifted a pole bean plant from Madison’s hands and placed it on the table of things to take. “You’re lucky your dad even let you trade places with your mom. The way he stared down poor Steve, I thought he was going to shoot him.”
Madison glanced up at her father as he leaned against the far wall of the greenhouse. “The graduate student? One look at him and it’s obvious he’s not dangerous.”
“After the communications building, your dad seems to think everyone’s a threat.”
Madison puffed up her cheeks and blew out a stream of air. When her mom came back from the greenhouse and told her to go pick plants, she didn’t mention anything about her father being this…intense. “He’s really that shaken up?”
Brianna nodded.
Crap. Madison knew the incident in the radio building shook her father. He could barely look at her without emotion lining his face and pinching his brow. But he couldn’t take what might have happened and turn it into something more. She survived.
If anything, her father should see how capable she had become. Instead, he wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap and hide her away. It would never work. Not now.
“Finding what you need?” Steve, the graduate student, entered the greenhouse with Madison’s father close on his heels. Although he traded the rifle for a handgun, her dad still kept a weapon trained on the poor guy. At least Steve stopped shaking.
Madison smiled. “Are you sure you don’t mind us taking a few?”
“Not at all. Like I said, none of the plants in that section are part of my thesis. I was watering mine, so I figured why not water them all, you know?”
“I found heirloom pole beans and peppers. Do you know if there are any tomatoes?”
“Heirloom only?” Steve scrunched up his face in thought. “I think so. Harriet was working on a research project with tomatoes and squash. Those would be over on the far row.”
Madison made her way there and rummaged through the plants until she found the ones Steve mentioned. She pulled out three tomatoes and three squash.
As she handed the plants over to Brianna, her roommate raised an eyebrow. “Why heirloom? They don’t look as big and healthy as the plants in the middle.”
Steve spoke up. “All of my research plants are grocery-store varieties. They’re hybrid plants whose parents
were pollinated by hand. The tomatoes will be big and red and just what you expect in the grocery store. But if you save the seeds and try to grow them on your own next year, they probably won’t turn out.”
“Seriously?” Brianna glanced around at all the plants in the greenhouse. “Why would anyone grow plants with worthless seeds?”
“Because they produce the most attractive fruit. That’s all that stores and consumers care about these days. Biggest, most colorful, best-looking.” Madison ran her hands over the leaves of the closest plant as she talked. “Have you ever gone to the store and bought a big, red tomato only to cut into it at home and have it taste like nothing?”
Brianna nodded. “All the time.”
“That’s because those plants have been engineered to grow a ton of massive fruits all at once so the harvest is bigger.”
Steve chimed in. “But when you load up a single tomato plant with that much fruit, it diverts all its energy into ripening the fruit, not imparting flavor.”
Brianna stared at the two of them with wide eyes. “So you’re telling me all the plants corporate farms grow these days are engineered to look good? Like a massive beauty pageant for crops where they look pretty on the outside but what’s underneath doesn’t matter?”
Madison and Steve nodded.
“Unbelievable.”
Madison agreed. “It’s actually worse than that. A lot of the plants we buy to be backyard gardeners are the same. They’re just like Steve’s research plants. Many tomato plants sold at home improvement stores are grown to produce one year of beautiful fruit, but nothing more.”
“Why would anyone buy those?”
“Because people don’t take the time to dry seeds and plant from them the next year when they can just go to a big box store and buy an already started six-pack of plants for a few dollars.”
Brianna looked around at all the plants in amazement. “So all of those tomatoes you slaved over and babied at school, those were one-time only plants?”
Madison nodded.
“Unbelievable.”
“Tell me about it.” Steve walked over and picked up a small plant. “This is one of the best tomatoes for Northern California right here. It’s an Amish Paste tomato, sort of like a Roma, but it’s hardy inland and is one of the last to harvest.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“No reason you would when Romas are everywhere and grown in a massive scale.”
Madison could tell from the way Brianna’s eyes wandered to take in all the plants, that she was a bit overwhelmed. Even people as prepared as Brianna didn’t understand the nuances to gardening. Selecting varieties of seeds to grow was as important as picking the right soil and location.
Too much sun and irregular watering and tomatoes would crack in concentric circles around the top. When exposed to too-bright light and wet soil, the leaves would roll up from the bottom. The tomato fruit would lose the shade necessary to ripen and not sunburn.
And those were just tomatoes. With California producing over ninety-five percent of the tomatoes in the United States, it was the fruit all agriculture students in the state knew the most about, but it wasn’t the only one their little party needed. They would need a whole variety of plants to survive on their own.
Winter and summer squash, beans, peas, potatoes. Even corn if they could manage to till enough land. But they couldn’t take more than a few plants. What Madison really needed were good quality heirloom seeds. The more seeds she could bring with her, the better their chances of long-term farming.
She glanced up at Steve. “Any chance Chico State has an heirloom seed repository?”
Steve smiled. “It’s not a repository per se, but we do have a research lab. It should have what you’re looking for.” He pointed toward the building. “First floor, suite 105.”
“What about animals? There’s a farm here, right?”
Steve turned to Brianna and nodded. “It’s massive. Eight hundred acres, I think. But it’s about five miles down the road. This is just the research greenhouse. The farm is a whole separate undertaking. They’ve got goats, sheep, cows, and a ton of pasture land and plants. A bunch of people work there full-time.”
Stopping by the farm might be worth it, but with that many potential employees guarding the animals, the risk might be too high. Madison hesitated. A pair of dairy goats would give them milk year-round and a first line of defense from potential threats. Goats were as good as dogs for their watchdog skills.
She pointed toward the building as she smiled at Steve. “Can you show us the research lab? Last time we went exploring in a dark college building, it didn’t go so well.”
Brianna snorted beside her and dropped her voice so only Madison could hear. “Better keep an eye on your dad or he’s liable to shoot your tour guide.”
Madison glanced at her father. While she had been talking to Steve, her dad never took his eyes off the man, waiting and watching with his gun ready. Steve wasn’t a threat, Madison knew. But someone inside the building might be. Her father cleared it, but that didn’t mean it was empty.
At some point, they would have to talk. “Dad, can Steve show us where the research lab is? I’m sure he’d like to have you lead the way.”
Steve managed a nod, his face growing red like a ripening tomato. “T-That would be great.”
Madison’s father jerked his head toward the door. “Then let’s go. Tractor Boy, you come up by me. We’ll do this together.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WALTER
Agriculture Department, CSU, Chico
2:00 p.m.
Madison bent over a tray of seeds as the graduate student pulled down another tackle box full of them. Something about the kid rubbed Walter the wrong way. Maybe it was the beer belly or the ball cap on backwards or the way he had a habit of checking out his daughter’s backside every time he thought Walter wasn’t looking.
Whatever it was, Walter refused to give the guy any space. He’d kept a gun pointed on him the entire time he walked down the hall to the research lab. Even now with Madison almost forehead-to-forehead with the kid, Walter didn’t let up.
All he could see was Madison in that hallway, blood oozing from a cut in her neck and a shotgun in her hands. He couldn’t lock her up back at the house and keep her out of harm’s way; she was the only one besides Peyton who could pick the best plants and seeds for survival. With Peyton still recovering, Walter didn’t have a choice but to bring her to the greenhouse.
But he didn’t have to like it.
“Are you two about done?”
His daughter glanced up with a smile. “Almost. There’s two more boxes I’d like to go through.”
Walter kept his frown to himself, busying himself with checking the hallway for the twenty-seventh time. As he peered around the open door, Brianna came into view, her gun drawn and eyes alert. The more Walter got to know Madison’s roommate, the more she impressed him.
Her parents had done so much more to prepare her for this sort of world. Had he and Tracy been wrong to shelter Madison? Should they have been fortifying a bunker and teaching her how to siphon gas and start a fire with a battery and a paper clip?
Madison wasn’t as bad off as so many kids these days. She could shoot everything from a handgun to a rifle and knew the basics of animal care and camping thanks to her days in both 4-H and Girl Scouts. And the plant knowledge… that surpassed anything and everything Walter and Tracy could impart by miles.
But she hadn’t grown up anticipating this sort of future. They raised her to think good things of her fellow man and to hope for the best in all situations. Now Walter wished they’d been a bit more pessimistic. He couldn’t help but think she’d be better equipped if she had a bit of Brianna’s cutthroat nature.
He paused. What if none of this ever happened? Madison would still be at college, back from spring break and attending classes full of optimistic peers. When she finished the semester, she would come home and complain about
all the college kids who didn’t know the difference between a cucumber and a zucchini and then she would go to work on a farm for the summer.
Her life had been easy. Carefree. She knew hard work, but it was in the confines of plenty and abundance. There was never a time she went to bed hungry or risked her life to listen to the radio.
“You look like someone just kicked your cat.”
“I don’t have a cat.”
Brianna raised an eyebrow. “Fireball’s not even a little bit yours?”
“Nope.” Walter eased out of the doorway and stood beside Brianna, canvassing the empty hall. “How’s the packing?”
“Terrible. We don’t have enough room for even a quarter of what Madison wants to bring. Unless we start lashing some of us to the roof of the Jetta, we’re going to have to leave some stuff behind.”
“We can’t leave anything behind!” Madison’s voice called out from inside the research lab. “I’ve already pared it down to the bare minimum. Without everything on that table and the seeds I’ve selected in here, we can’t produce enough crops to be fully self-sufficient.”
Walter followed Brianna back into the research lab. She stopped a few feet away from Madison, her palms stuck to her hips. “We’re out of space. Unless we find another vehicle, it’s not possible.”
Madison glanced at her father. “Then we need to find a bigger car.”
“I’ve been looking. But there aren’t a lot of vehicles around. With the power grid failing during spring break, the campus is a ghost town. Anyone who stayed behind has already loaded up and left.” He focused on Tractor Boy. “Almost everyone, at least.”
Against all odds, the pudgy graduate student surprised him. “The Ag department manager had a work truck. It’s still out back if you want it.”
Walter cocked his head to the side. “What’s the catch?”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “No catch. The keys are in the maintenance locker by the back door. I don’t know if it has any gas, but it’s one of those four-door pickups with a full-size bed in the back.”