Wicked Seeds

by Cameron Sword

  “Okay.”

  Nathan tucked a cigarette over each ear and shouldered his duffel bag, heading off.

  “I left the keys. I’ll fake a vaguely persuasive apology when I get back but I promise in advance that I’ll refrain from crying this time.”

  “What, is that supposed to be funny?”

  “Not really. I’ll see you in a little while.”

  “Hey! I’m not lifting a finger to fix this tire unless you promise me the next place we land will be back at my farm.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Me too.”

  And with that, Nathan disappeared.

  Nathan was lying prone, peering down into a lush valley from an overhanging ridge. It was an interesting sight. This was wilderness, yet there it was – a large greenhouse with an expansive warehouse-like building attached. Crops were being grown in designated areas and beekeepers were handling beehives. There was only one dirt road leading in and out and a smattering of trucks congesting it. Curiously, the compound was also lightly patrolled by a security force. Private security, not U.S. Military.

  This was a corporate version of Area 51. Nothing nefarious about it, merely an ideal location to conduct experiments and develop products while maintaining near-perfect secrecy. Keeping proprietary information proprietary served as its main purpose, which is why the only way in and out was surveilled by checkpoints, and employees had to be bussed in. Nathan had been here before, working and sleeping onsite sometimes for weeks at a time, and knew his way around. It was here that Dr. K2 churned the bulk of the data on his damning research and it was here that he was abruptly fired.

  From Nathan’s viewpoint, the compound didn’t seem very far away, but it took him a thirty-minute hike before he came upon a scanning security camera near the warehouse’s perimeter. Nathan waited patiently before making his move, timing his entrance perfectly so he wouldn’t be detected or captured on video.

  Inside, the place was like a beehive in itself. Several people, most wearing lab coats, flitted about, every one of them busy doing something. Nathan slipped into a room where he was met by an imposing sign. DANGER. EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE. NO SMOKING WITHIN 30 FEET. Near the sign stood a large power generator. Nathan dislodged a cigarette previously wedged over one of his ears and lit it.

  Olive had the crop duster perched on a hydraulic jack, busy changing the plane’s damaged tire. Cussing all the way. At Nathan, at her mother for renting the plane to Nathan, then back at Nathan and finally at the tire itself – it was heavy!

  A siren – sounding a lot like a burglar alarm – suddenly blared in the distance. What the hell? A burglar alarm? Out here? Bizarre.

  She contemplated investigating the source of the noise for a moment, but decided against it. It seemed far enough away and Nathan could be back at any time. She wanted the plane to be fit for takeoff as soon as he arrived so they could leave immediately. She got back to work.

  Smoke. The power generator room was on fire, already pretty heavily involved as a crew arrived with fire extinguishers and water hoses.

  The alarm continued to sound as security personnel calmly ordered everyone out of the building in a fire-drill-type evacuation. Nathan moved briskly among the frazzled horde filing out of the building but ducked away, unnoticed, into a hallway.

  It wasn’t long before he found the room he was looking for. RESTRICTED ACCESS. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY – emblazoned on the door. It was locked. He tried opening it with his old electronic passkey but nothing happened. Obviously, his passkey had been deactivated. It was messy and required a few kicks and about a dozen assault forays from the butt end of a fire extinguisher employed as a battering ram, but he managed to break the door open.

  Inside, he found a bank of computers and other sophisticated electronic equipment. He identified one in particular and started typing.

  Data filled the screen. He scrutinized it for a moment, confirmed it was what he had come to get, inserted a thumb drive into a USB port and started uploading. A couple of minutes later, a passing shadow reminded him that he was in hostile territory.

  Out in the hall, a security guard was going from one room to another, making sure everyone was out of the building. He spotted the broken restricted access door and nervously engaged his walkie, announcing possible trouble. Growing increasingly apprehensive, the guard unholstered his pistol before entering, his eyes wide and flashing.

  Everything appeared to be secure… except for a freshly lit cigarette smoldering idly over the edge of a desk. By the time the guard had a chance to frown, Nathan’s leather sole flung out from behind a door, catching the guard squarely in the groin. The guard’s eyes looked up, searching into the deepest recesses of the top of his skull for relief. None came and he collapsed in a heap.

  Nathan knew he had to move fast now. He overheard the discussion the guard had with his peers over the walkie – others had been alerted and were on their way. He retrieved the thumb drive and dug out his expired pilot’s license, placing it neatly on a desk. His calling card.

  As he left the room, an angry voice called out after him.

  “You! Stop right there!”

  Nathan spun to see a couple of security personnel advancing. He bolted… exploding out of the building moments later, intercepting a pickup trucker exiting his vehicle and tossing him aside, jumping in, keying the ignition and screeching off. The security personnel who were chasing him had grown in number, and they emerged shortly afterward, scrambling into vehicles of their own as a group of befuddled scientists, all outside now, watched the proceedings.

  The distant siren continued to blare but there was also a distinct low decibel roar now. The crop duster was still up on the hydraulic jack while a sweaty and frustrated Olive struggled to lift the new wheel onto the hub. She finally managed, hand-bolting a couple of nuts to get them started, when… in the distance… the distinct roar seemed to be getting much louder… because it was getting closer. Olive stared off in the direction of the approaching noise. Something was very definitely, and very quickly, drawing nearer.

  A pickup truck suddenly appeared over a ridge, three feet off the ground, engine racing, landing hard, all four tires spitting earth.

  Olive jumped to her feet, astonished. A cadre of other vehicles materialized over the ridge one by one shortly afterward in the same fashion. What the hell!

  Nathan arrived in the clearing, bounding out of the pickup.

  “What’s going on?” Olive asked, completely unsettled.

  “Get in!”

  “The bolts aren’t properly on the wheel yet.”

  “Get in!!!”

  They scrambled into the cockpit. Nathan brought the plane to life, quickly engaging the accelerator. The plane lurched forward off the hydraulic jack, the replacement wheel wobbling furiously.

  Then… gunshots rang out, flying lead searching the air near their heads.

  “Are they shooting at us?” Olive asked, more incredulous than terrified.

  “Get down!”

  “Oh my God, they’re shooting at us!”

  Nathan forced her head under the dash as bullets continued to ventilate the cockpit.

  Black smoke.

  Flying glass.

  A desperate tire.

  Nathan finally managed to get the plane airborne, the replacement tire bounding off in a different direction. Gone.

  The shooting didn’t stop. Nathan eyed a lever; prayed it worked as he engaged it.

  The crop duster promptly spewed its chemical load, a pesticide soup enveloping the vehicles behind it. Engine hacking and sputtering, Nathan flew the smoking plane over a hill, disappearing.

  Olive was semiconscious and soot-covered but unhurt and safely on the ground, propped up against a tree. From her sensory perspectives, nothing was happening, especially pertaining to sound and smell, even though she was in a smoke-filled forest clearing and there was a lot of crackling noises going on around her.

  Nathan wa
s standing on unsteady feet nearby, unhurt as well but visibly shaken, drawing deep breaths, trying to center himself. That experience was intense and unexpected and grievously rattled his nerves.

  As Olive steadily regained consciousness, she finally began to detect the acrid odor of aviation fuel and charred aluminum, suddenly becoming aware of the crackling sounds associated with settling debris after a collision. Her eyes managed to adjust sufficiently to take in her surroundings – which included her mother’s smoldering plane. Both wings were missing and a path of debris led to its final resting place.

  “Oh. My. God.” Olive whispered under her breath, as she scrutinized the scene through inflamed and irritated eyes. It was surreal to her. Nathan grabbed his duffel bag, focusing his attention on her.

  “Can you walk? Cause we need to keep moving.”

  Colin sat silently at his desk in his study, staring at Nathan’s expired pilot’s license his people had retrieved from the restricted access room. He finally glanced up, exchanging glances with Roger and Alphonse before finding Kent’s vindicated smirk.

  “I’ll assume this counts as a ghost sighting.” Kent offered.

  “The plane crash-landed about seven miles away. Rugged terrain out there, not much of a population footprint. Not many places they can surface.” Roger reasoned.

  “They?” Colin asked.

  “Apparently, there was a woman.” Alphonse explained.

  “Possibly the owner of the aircraft. We’re cross-referencing the call letters with county licensing bureaus.” Roger added, continuing a brief moment later with... “There’s something else. Apart from stealing an undetermined amount of material during the breach, he also installed a unique permutation of sophisticated ransomware. We currently have no access to our data.”

  What? Colin didn’t actually utter that word, but his facial expression screamed it.

  “Our techs are working to defeat it, and they hope to very soon, but so far it’s proven to be a challenge.” Roger augmented.

  “What are his demands?” Colin asked.

  “Nothing so far. Only a notification for us to wait and that a ‘tolerable request’ will be arriving soon.”

  Colin leaned back in his chair, eyes burrowing into Kent’s and Alphonse’s skulls.

  “Engage our best people. Find them.”

  “Suggestion. It would be prudent to take him alive. In case we fail to defeat the virus before it destroys our data. There almost certainly will be no ‘tolerable request’ forthcoming. He’s not after money. He’s after revenge.” Roger warned.

  A general store with a single gas pump out front, isolated, surrounded by backcountry and framed by a lonely two-lane road, popped into view. Nathan and Olive approached on foot, Olive trailing, incensed.

  “You owe me some answers, mister! You destroyed my mother’s plane! Hey! Look at me! What the hell happened back there, what did you do?! Turn around, I’m talking to you! Hey! Hey!”

  Nathan continued to ignore her. He was harboring plenty of guilt about what he’d put her through but wasn’t in any mood to explain himself. She maneuvered in front of him, using her cell phone to snap his picture.

  “I’m calling the police.”

  She still had no cell reception but there was an aging public phone booth on the far side of the store’s parking lot and she crossed for it as Nathan entered the shop, admiring the only car in the parking lot as he did. A 1969 Camaro SS.

  The shopkeeper, bored and alone, chin-nodded a noiseless greeting Nathan’s way.

  “Is that your car out there?” Nathan asked, a moment after projecting a silent greeting of his own.

  “It’s not for sale.”

  “It’s a beauty. 396?”

  “454 LS7 aluminum block. And even with a four eleven gear ratio and no slicks, it still quarters in eleven flat. 396... please.”

  Nathan silently apologized for asking such a derogatory question before crossing to inspect bananas on display near the counter.

  “Are these organic?”

  “Check the labels.”

  “There are no labels.”

  “They’re bananas. What’s the big deal?”

  “It’s a big deal to some of us.”

  “You sound just like my second ex-wife. Met her at a club in Vegas. By the time the hangover finally cleared, I found a ring on my finger and a marriage certificate folded neatly in my shirt pocket. Wasn’t long before I found that she was a card-carrying member of the ACLU, loved rescuing cats and hated the Second Amendment. Marriage lasted exactly eighteen days but only because the sex was that good. She grew up in one of those prissy northeast blue states, probably where you’re from, right?”

  “I grew up in South Philly.”

  “I know people from South Philly. You don’t sound anything like them.”

  “What does someone from South Philly sound like?”

  “Authentic. Unpretentious. They’d be buying up corn dogs and beef jerky, not interrogating me about organic bananas.”

  Nathan nodded, freshly schooled, focusing on the bananas once again.

  “Tell me this then. Do you know whether these are grown locally or if they’re imported?”

  “A truck pulls up once or twice a week and delivers goods. Sometimes the driver looks local, sometimes he looks imported.”

  At that moment, a war wagon unexpectedly pulled up outside, four doors swinging open, discharging a cold-eyed cargo. Kent and his lacerated face, and three of Colin’s best people. Munda, Jenkins and Clarke.

  Nathan immediately recognized the approaching danger, grabbed a pair of bananas and placed them on the counter.

  “Couple of bottled waters as well.”

  “What brand?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re not concerned about whether the water is organic or imported?”

  “And a pack of cigarettes. Any make.”

  The shopkeeper shook his head. A smoker. After all that organic banana talk, a smoker. What an idiot. The shopkeeper found a pack of cigarettes and placed it on the counter as Kent and his team entered, drawing weapons as they did. The shopkeeper, freshly alarmed, reached under the counter and came up with a worn shotgun with a duct-taped stock. Kent waved a sleek Sig Sauer in his face.

  “Are you kidding me? Put that down. Put it down!”

  The shopkeeper slowly placed the shotgun on the counter. Kent took it and handed it to one of his men.

  “Relax, old man, we’re not here to rob the place. Nothing stupid, you understand?”

  The shopkeeper nodded, trembling, backing away, arms raised. While all of this was taking place, Nathan had taken a cigarette out of the pack and was trying to light it with a lighter that refused to produce anything but sparks. Kent plucked a fresh lighter from a display and lit it for him. Nathan smiled and thanked him silently through a haze of exhaled smoke. Kent responded with his own inauthentic smile before sucker punching him in the gut, hard enough to buckle Nathan over, but not hard enough to eject the cigarette from his mouth.

  “I don’t recall ever seeing you smoke.”

  “Took a drag a few years ago. It’s been impossible to quit ever since.”

  Kent tore open Nathan’s shirt, revealing the bullet wound scars.

  “I’d ask how you managed to survive, but I don’t care. A lot of people are looking for you right now and it was me who found you. That’s what I care about.”

  Kent sucker punched Nathan once again, sending him to one knee this time.

  “The first one was just because. The second was partial payback for doing this to my face. Would’ve seen it coming if I wasn’t so drunk at the time. Would’ve handled you right there.” Kent declared.

  “Glad you were drunk then.” Nathan responded, freshly enlightened about who it was that placed the gun to the back of his head outside the restaurant/bar.

  It was at that moment that Olive barged in, tunnel-visioned, completely unaware of her surroundings.

  “All right, the pol
ice are on their way, you’re in real trouble now.” Olive lied. She had dialed 911 and was promptly put on hold by the dispatcher. Several seconds of dead air later, Olive hung up and called back, only to be placed on hold yet again. Unreal.

  She found herself faintly recalling having read a recent news article about an injured infant who ended up dying after a 911 operator placed the infant’s babysitter on hold for thirty-one minutes. Budget cuts were blamed. Funding for the local call center had dried up and the county was forced to farm out emergency calls to a larger call center located in a sizable faraway city that was itself already understaffed. Olive waited no more than five minutes before hanging up and storming into the store.

  Jenkins grabbed her as she entered, dragging her further into the shop. She quickly realized she’d just walked into a dangerous predicament.

  “Who’s your friend?” Kent asked Nathan.

  “She’s not my friend.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I kill her.”

  “I wish you would. She’s been pestering me all day.”

  BAM!

  Olive shrieked, her body spasming uncontrollably, but not because the bullet hit her. It missed – on purpose – taking out a soda display. The bad guys chuckled. For them, it was funny to watch. For Nathan, it was a relief. His bluff didn’t backfire, although he was reasonably certain it wouldn’t. Murdering someone with a witness around probably meant having to murder the witness as well. Moreover, murdering anyone would’ve been a mistake, creating a mess for the police to investigate, and they were allegedly already on their way.

  “Okay then, we now have perfect attendance. Let’s go.” Kent ordered as he ushered everyone but the shopkeeper out. But because the bad guys still had no real perception about how dangerous Nathan really was, they made a big mistake – all gathering around him so closely like that.

  If you blinked, you would’ve missed half of it – and it was almost too incredulous to describe. Nathan hit them all – only once – in a matter of a couple of seconds. Just mind boggling speed and precision in a completely unorthodox style. And, as the bad guys lay there, sprawled out in complete agony, Nathan approached the counter.