by S. S. Segran
“To your second question regarding alleged Russian involvement, that is simply a rogue theory and one I obviously have no information about. Specific questions about how other nations are responding to their own issues are better directed to the State Department, and you will have plenty of opportunities to do just that in the coming days.”
Kody took the remote from Jag and muted the television. “So what do you think?”
“Lots of crazies out there but it looks like the guy from Fox had it right,” Jag said, shaking his head. “If this thing isn’t stopped, we’re looking at starvation. Not for just the nation, but the entire world.”
Mariah pulled up the collar of her shirt and gnawed at it, a murky expression stitched on her face. “We’re the only ones who know what’s really going on. That’s kind of frightening.”
Jag gently rubbed her back. “Keep at it, guys. We’ll figure this out. I know we will—and we’re not alone in this quest.”
* * *
Aari, Tegan and Marshall had gotten into a small car after touching down in California. Marshall, seeming to know exactly where he needed to go, drove through the streets of Goleta. He then exited the town and drove until they reached a suburb with single-story bungalows on large plots of land. A few minutes later they arrived at the gates of a ranch-style home.
The Sentry picked up his phone. “And here we are. I just need to give him a call, and—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the gates opened. Aari saw Marshall glance at the security camera to the side of the gate and give it a thumbs-up. They parked along the side of the house and, as they got out, were greeted by a neighing to their left. A striking silver horse was staring at them from a large paddock.
Aari felt Tegan tugging on his arm excitedly. “Look at it!” she whispered. “It’s so handsome!”
“Too bad Mariah’s not here,” Aari said.
Marshall led the way to the back of the house with the teenagers in tow. A sliding door to a deck opened and a tall, slim man wearing a light-colored polo shirt stepped out. His hair was slightly grayed at the sides but there was a boyish charm about him. “Marshall!” he called out.
“Josh!” Marshall hurried up the steps and grabbed the other man in a warm hug. “It’s good to see you again!” He turned to the teens. “Aari, Tegan, this is Dr. Joshua Ferguson.”
“Pleasure meeting you, Dr. Ferguson,” Aari said, eagerly pumping the man’s hand.
“Just call me Josh.” From the bright light in the man’s eyes and the crispness in his enunciation, Aari knew he was going to enjoy getting to know the scientist.
Josh extended a hand to his side, inviting the three of them inside. “I understand this is an urgent matter, Marshall. Katherine has prepared lunch for all of us, so let’s have a quick bite.”
Inside the cozy dining room, two small dogs barked in welcome but were kindly hushed by Josh as his guests took their seats. He also mentioned a cat that was probably wandering around the property. Katherine Ferguson, her short straw-colored hair up in a ponytail, came out of the kitchen and smiled genially at the teens and the Sentry. Marshall got up to greet her and offered to help with lunch, but she declined and kissed his cheek before retreating.
The Sentry seemed exceptionally fond of Josh and Katherine, and Aari noticed that they reciprocated that affection as though Marshall was family. Wonder what history he has with them, Aari thought. It hit him then that the five knew next to nothing about most of Marshall’s life outside of his Sentry duties and his time with the Marines. He made a mental note to enquire about it at the next opportunity.
Josh served the first portion of their lunch, which consisted of artichokes, something Aari had never eaten before but found himself enjoying. They were served freshly baked swordfish next; Aari’s and Tegan’s jaws dropped.
Tegan took the first bite and wriggled in delight. “This is probably the best fish I’ve ever had. Kody is really missing out.”
Aari took a picture of their meal with his phone and sent it to Kody, who immediately replied with incoherent capitalized typing and crying emoticons. “Our boy’s in a fit now,” Aari told Tegan with a grin. She snickered.
Katherine brought out dessert once they had finished their meal, then excused herself. “I need find that cat before it gets too late,” she said with a sigh.
When she was out of the door, Marshall turned to Josh apologetically. “I’m sorry to take your time on a Sunday, Josh.”
The older man patted the Sentry’s arm. “Don’t be. It’s such a joy for Katherine and me to see you again after so long. Besides, I know you wouldn’t have come here in such a hurry if it wasn’t about something important.” He pushed his dessert bowl aside. “Now, what is it I can do for you?”
Marshall pinched the edge of the table between his fingers. “Best if I start from the top. These two are with me on this, by the way. Their friends are in Kansas working on another aspect of this situation.”
Josh laced his fingers over the table. “I am all ears.”
Aari watched the man’s reaction as Marshall explained everything concerning their hunch about the crop failures, leaving out how the five had met him and their powers. When he finished, Josh let out a whistle. “So you’re saying that the outbreak happening right now is intentional? Someone’s actually behind this? None of the agencies investigating the crop failure so far have mentioned anything to indicate that this is deliberate. What’s with that?”
Aari answered before Marshall could. “It’s a question of paradigm.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The government is working on an assumption based on past experience and training, which means they’re instinctively looking for a biological or chemical cause. They’re searching for the source in the obvious places, like soil, water, the crops, fertilizer, pesticides—anything else that the farmers may have used in the process.” Aari made a square with his thumbs and index fingers. “They’re locked in this box because that’s where the source has traditionally been for crop failure.”
Josh looked at Marshall, clearly impressed. The Sentry lightly thumped Aari’s shoulder. “Probably should have introduced him to you as our mini Einstein.”
“Probably,” Josh said affably. “So what you’re saying, then, Aari, is that they’re looking at the ground when the destruction is actually . . . ”
“ . . .descending from the sky, literally.”
Josh absorbed this with round eyes. “That’s unbelievable! Alright, how can I be of help?”
“We need to find a way to destroy the nanomites—at least, that’s what we believe they are,” Marshall answered. “Doubt it could be anything else, really. Basically, we need to figure out what it’s made of, what makes it work, and how we can eliminate it.”
“We managed to catch three of them,” Tegan added. “They’re in my bag.”
Josh was dubious. “You caught them? How? How could you possibly catch them?”
Tegan gave a sheepish smile and looked to Aari for help, but he had no idea what to say either. Marshall came to their rescue. “Let’s just say they lucked out,” he told Josh simply.
Josh looked from Marshall to Aari and Tegan but smartly decided not to push the subject. “You mentioned that they come in the shape of a large bird at night?”
“I suspect that they travel fair distances from their source, wherever that is, and the form of a bird is the most efficient means of travel,” Aari said. “There’s definitely a significant level of programming involved here that allows these—I guess synthetic organisms?—to merge, dissolve and then remerge.”
As he spoke, Tegan picked up her knapsack and brought out the three spice containers with the bits of wheat stalk inside. Josh picked one up and put on his glasses to get a better look. “Hmm . . . I’ll need some serious magnification to figure out if we have a nanomite after all.”
Marshall picked up the other two containers and held them up. “Precisely. Which is why we came looking f
or your help.”
“I’ll take them down to my lab tomorrow,” Josh assured them. “I have all the equipment I need there to study it and run some tests. Why don’t you guys drop by tomorrow afternoon? Marshall, you know where I work.”
Marshall nodded at Aari and Tegan. “That sounds good.”
Josh was still looking at the container in his hand when Katherine walked back inside, obviously worried. “Josh, have you seen the cat?”
Josh removed his glasses and sat straight. “Isn’t she outside?”
“No. I’ve been calling her and she usually comes, but she hasn’t this time around.”
Just then, they heard a quiet meow. Aari leaned back in time to see a tortoiseshell cat walk light-footedly in from the study. Katherine groaned, then reluctantly beamed and picked up the cat. “She was inside the whole time!”
Her husband chuckled. “That sneaky feline . . . ”
Marshall slowly got up, Aari and Tegan following suit. The Sentry passed Josh the two other containers and hugged the couple again. “Thank you for the wonderful lunch, guys.”
Katherine put the cat down so she could give him a proper hug in return. “It was our pleasure, Marshall. You and your friends are welcome here any time.”
Aari and Tegan said goodbye to her and headed back to their car with Marshall and Josh. The two were walking ahead of the teens and talking quietly but were still audible to Tegan and Aari.
“This is really crucial, Josh. No one in the League has ever seen anything like this. It has a global reach and it’s very destructive. We don’t know what the ultimate purpose behind this attack is as of yet, but we’re working on it.”
“I understand,” Josh responded quietly.
As they reached the car, Aari felt his phone vibrate in short bursts inside his pocket multiple times. Frowning, he pulled out his phone and took a look at what was causing the alerts. “My Twitter feed is blowing up,” he said. “There’ve been more riots in major metropolitan areas across the country.”
Josh looked down at the containers in his hands. “Maybe I ought to go to the lab and get started this evening.”
Aari barely heard him as he was busy scrolling on his phone. He was about to put it away when a passing headline caught his attention. He quickly clicked the link. “Looks like things are getting out of control in India and China. Apparently China has started mobilizing its military.”
“What for?” Tegan asked.
“Looks like it’s to quell the unrest there.”
Marshall leaned against the car. “I'm not so sure about that,” he murmured, and his next words disturbed Aari. “My gut feeling says there’s something else brewing.”
42
Mariah and Jag hopped out of the pickup and gave each other puzzled looks. The Walmart parking lot was ridiculously full for a late Sunday afternoon, yet the grocery stores they’d visited in the last half hour were all devoid of customers. They’d managed to get dinner for Jag’s grandfather and were searching for bread for themselves and Kody, who’d remained at the house.
Jag made sure the truck’s doors were locked, then walked with Mariah toward the store’s entrance. They had to traverse the entire length of the parking lot since they’d only managed to find a spot at the very far end. As they approached the front of the store, they were met with the sight of a long lineup outside the building. Groups of people were hurrying through the entrance, but the rest were in line.
Mariah nudged Jag and indicated at the waiting crowd. “What in the world?”
Jag fiddled with his pendant. “I don’t know . . . ”`
They walked past the lineup to the doors where two uniformed security personnel were standing. Mariah paused when she saw a sign taped to the wall beside the guards. “Are you kidding me?” she sputtered. “We have to get in line if we want to buy bread or grain products?”
With a resigned sigh, Jag steered her to the back of the line. As they passed by the men and women, they noticed that the people seemed restless; some even appeared downright agitated. There was a group of three men standing in the middle of the lineup; a couple of them wore sleeveless shirts that showed off tattoos and rippling biceps. They were drinking from soda cans, but Mariah caught a whiff of alcohol.
Impatient people and booze. Not a good mix.
“There are so many people here,” she said as they took a place behind a small, kindly-looking elderly woman. “Maybe a hundred or so. Do we really want to stand in line for bread, Jag?”
“We need something for breakfast tomorrow,” he replied, weary.
“Can't we just get eggs or something for now?"
He looked like he was considering it when the woman in front of them turned around and smiled. “This is happening in grocery stores everywhere, sweetie. We’re here because every other store in town has run out of bread. If you want to get something else, though, you’d better be quick.” She nodded at the people walking out of the store. “Those folks are clearing the shelves in a hurry. But these ones here, including the out of town types,” she added, lowering her voice as she looked down the line at the men who were drinking, “decided that they would stay in line to get bread regardless.”
“If this is the only place with bread, the prices must be really jacked up, huh?” Jag asked.
“Oh, yes. It’s nearly tripled now.”
Mariah winced. That’s crazy! She shook Jag's arm slightly. "So should we get something else then?"
At that moment, the line moved forward a bit. As if that was a signal for Jag, he replied, “Let’s just wait it out.”
Mariah grumbled and folded her arms. A woman several spots ahead of them was struggling to keep her children under control. Three of them were milling around her legs while the youngest was in her arms, wriggling and getting loud.
“I wanna go home, Mommy!” he howled. “Hoooome!”
The woman tried desperately to shush him but this only seemed to make it worse. The child started wailing and screaming. Mariah and Jag politely looked away as the woman blushed, clearly not wanting any attention drawn to her.
“Hey!” a rough voice called. “Shut your mouth, you little punk!”
Appalled, Mariah searched to see who it was that was being so uncouth. She wasn’t entirely surprised when she saw that it was one of the three muscled men. He had a thick beard and wore a baseball jersey. Gulping down the rest of his drink, he crushed the soda can in his meaty hand and tossed it aside, belching.
“Disgusting,” Mariah hissed.
Jag rubbed her arm to calm her. “Shh, ignore him.”
“He yelled at a child!”
“I know, but I’m not sure you want to be confronting him, especially since he’s looking pretty plastered right now.”
Mariah, tempted to gesture rudely at the drunk, kept her peace as more people joined the line. She saw men and women exiting the store at the far end of the building with bags in their hands. It occurred to her that most others in the lineup were observing those shoppers, too.
A man spoke up behind her, jolting her out of her trance. “What is this, the Soviet Union? I can’t believe we’re lining up for bread! This is the United States of America, for god’s sakes!”
A few people muttered in agreement. Mariah could sense the restlessness growing in the crowd. All she wanted was to get the bread and leave the area but the line was moving very slowly. Forty minutes later, she and Jag were twenty people away from the store entrance.
“Nearly there,” she said, pleased.
Jag grimaced. “Not quite.” He motioned her over to his side so she could see what he meant.
Through the automatic glass doors at the entrance, she saw that the line of people didn’t magically dissipate as it entered the store. Stanchions had been placed inside the doors, with chains snaking deep into the building. People were still lined up between the stanchions, some talking to each other and others looking down at their phones.
Mariah snorted. “Sure hope they’ll have enoug
h left for us.”
As if waiting for Mariah’s words, a woman’s voice, cloaked in a Kansas twang, came over the store’s exterior speaker. “Dear Walmart customers! As we have a limited supply of bread and other baked products at this time, we regret to inform you that the lineup to the bakery section is now closed. You are welcome to shop for our other low-priced items in store.”
She continued speaking but her words were drowned out by the uproar from the waiting crowd.
“No!” the woman with four children cried. “I’ve got no bread left and I’ve been to six other stores! I need to feed my kids!” Holding onto her youngest with one arm, she grabbed the hand of another child and hurried past everyone else to the front of the line with her two other kids running to keep up. Those in the line protested and hurried after her.
“To hell with it,” the man wearing the baseball jersey barked. “I ain’t havin' none of this!” He and his friends ploughed past the guards, knocking them to the ground on their way into the store.
Others started to run after them, trampling the guards as they rushed in. Mariah stared at the scene unfolding before her, horrified. Jag grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off to the side as more people pushed toward the store entrance, shouting at each other to move out of the way, not bothering to stop for anyone who was knocked down in the fracas.
A scream reached their ears, followed by the shriek of a child. “Mommy!”
Mariah pulled away from Jag and caught sight of the woman with the four children. She was lying on the ground not far from the guards and was being trodden on. Her wailing kids tried to reach her, all of them with tears streaking down their faces. A couple of them were forcefully pushed aside as people continued rushing into the store.
Mariah started to run toward the commotion but Jag held onto her tightly. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “It’s a free-for-all over there!”
“That woman is being trampled!” she shouted. “And I think one of the guards got knocked out!”