Anthem's Fall

by S. L. Dunn

“But I have class at two.” Ryan glanced to the clock. He would never finish the shelving in time.

  “Do you?” Mrs. McCreedy checked her watch. “Well then, you had better get started.”

  Ryan sat down heavily and shut his laptop. She was mental if she thought he would skip class to shelve books for her. At the very least the clash between capitalism and human rights would have to wait until he got back to his dorm later that evening. He wrapped up his headphones with an assenting nod, tossing his backpack over the desk and onto the stacks of hard covers in the cart.

  “Then I guess I better get to it.”

  “Very good,” Janet McCreedy said. She turned and plodded toward the coffee lounge, stopping on the way to admonish a group of girls for laughing in a designated quiet section.

  Ryan pushed the rusted cart of books, lurching it into motion. The front right wheel emitted a sharp squeak. Ryan smirked; Janet McCreedy was diabolical. He rolled the noisy cart through the otherwise silent library toward the nonfiction levels, causing many heads to turn and scowl. In return Ryan offered a self-deprecating shrug.

  The windowless nonfiction levels of the library were a desolate place for the majority of the semester, excluding the days directly preceding midterms and finals. Long narrow aisles ran between cumbersome shelves and an endless treasury of enlightening texts. Faintly humming fluorescent lights cast the maze of shelves and immaculate tile floors in a harsh clarity.

  With an apathetic sigh and a long stretch, Ryan began the task of organizing the texts. The daunting piles of worn books in the cart spanned an array of subjects, from The Life Cycle of the Honey Bee to A Brief History of Italian Neorealism to Nero: A Leader Misunderstood. Ryan knew the best strategy to deal with this task, as he was no amateur in the refined art of nonfiction shelving. He began to methodically organize the books into separate stacks by field: biology, history, music, film, engineering, geology, art, and so on. Shelving duty, although monotonous, had proven interesting to Ryan in some aspects. As he passed each book onto a respective stack, he decided shelving duty was not as bad as he remembered. It often exposed him to unusual or peculiar topics. While he had slaved away on these quiet floors the previous year, he had developed a habit of skimming through any book that featured a subject unfamiliar to him. Every volume he placed back on the shelves had been checked out of the library, and therefore every one of them was relevant to someone. He viewed his skimming as a constructive way of developing his basic knowledge of obscure subjects, a worthwhile pursuit. And since there was never a rush to finish shelving—because the job itself never ends—he had spent many isolated hours sitting cross-legged on the cold floor reading an array of topics and waiting out the clock.

  Ryan was flipping through one such book presently. He had picked up Legends of The Corn, a worn hardcover tome with a withered binding. The pages were cracked and yellowing, and the book smelled ancient and musty. It was an old collection of Native American mythologies, and one particular narrative caught his eye.

  The Legend of Mandamin says that one day, in the early days of the mother-world, the god Mandamin appeared out of a tall field of windswept grass and approached a village. His body was made of corn and he lashed out his deadly corn-arms at any brave warrior who approached him. The people of the village both feared and respected the living deity who stood before them. His voice spoke like the wind, and his gaze pierced like the sun and the moon. Mandamin challenged the warrior-chief of the village to battle—

  The ringtone of his cell phone suddenly rang through the silent labyrinth of shelves enclosing him. Ryan raised his eyes from the faded words and looked down the long empty aisle, his only company the buzz of the lights and the lonely shelves. Finding him on a cell phone immediately after chastising him would surely be the last straw for Janet McCreedy. But getting caught on this barren floor was unlikely. Ryan pulled his phone from his jeans pocket and answered it.

  It was Devon Richmond, Ryan’s freshman roommate.

  “What’s up?”

  “Ryan! Where the hell are you?” Devon’s voice carried a youthful inflection even over the phone.

  “I’m at the library. My boss is making me do a bunch of extra work, but I have class at two.” Ryan balanced the phone against his shoulder and continued to read Legends of The Corn.

  If he could not defeat the warrior-chief, the god Mandamin would present the chief’s people with the gift of corn. If the warrior-chief proved unworthy and died in the struggle, Mandamin would leave the mother-world forever, and man would never learn of his gift.

  Devon said something, but Ryan was not paying any attention. He mumbled something in return, his attention transfixed on the peculiar myth.

  Mandamin and the warrior-chief fought in the open field from whence the mysterious god arrived. Mandamin thrashed his corn-arms, and the warrior-chief thrust his spear. For four days and four nights they clashed. In the end, the warrior-chief struck Mandamin in his husk-chest with his mighty spear. The god fell to the grass, and seeds of corn spilled and overflowed from the mortal wound the spear had hewn. His corn-body shook and writhed and transformed into countless seeds that were carried away in the wind, forever to be harvested by the village.

  “Ryan! HELLO?”

  “Yeah . . . I’m here, sorry.” Ryan cleared his throat. “What is it?”

  “Where the hell are you? The debate is going to start any second!”

  The speaker vibrated against Ryan’s ear from Devon’s shout. Ryan jerked his head up. He swore aloud, panic overwhelming him. The debate had completely slipped his mind. “Oh god. I completely forgot.”

  “Hurry up! The place is packed!”

  Ryan hung up and looked at the time, his body feeling abruptly hollow. The debate team’s public forum started five minutes earlier in the Legrande auditorium. Ryan was the first student speaker in the lineup. He had chosen to discuss the ethics of genetically modified foods. A Columbia alumnus from Washington had evidently volunteered his time and taken the trip to New York to represent the interests of a biotech company. Ryan felt certain that this lobbyist—a career arguer—would be licking his chops at the chance to shoot down a bunch of disjointed, ill-conceived undergraduate perspectives.

  Ryan groaned. How could he have been so unreliable? It was unlike him. He looked to the now diminished piles of books in the cart and decided he would return later and finish the shelving. If Mrs. McCreedy found the cart sitting here unattended, he would almost certainly be canned. But the debate was vastly more important. He replaced Legends of the Corn in the cart, taking care not to further damage the binding, and trotted down the aisle toward the main stairs. As he turned and jogged down the stairwell, he glanced at the time on his cell phone.

  Six minutes late.

  Avoiding the crowded main lobby, Ryan burst through a pair of double doors and into a narrow corridor that led to a side exit. As he ran, he cycled through the main debate points he had been preparing. The stance he had chosen was well constructed, but would it hold up against the scrutiny of an expert—and the packed crowd in Legrande? Ryan rounded a turn and crashed through the steel side doors, stepping into the cool air of a blustery overcast afternoon. Below a gloom of gray clouds, autumn was taking hold of the city. On the stone path, rich scarlet and bronze leaves rustled about his sneakers.

  He headed toward the Legrande building. How many people would show for the debate? Ryan felt his heartbeat pounding as he quickened his pace to a rushed jog interspersed with sprints when no one was looking. Hustling past ivy covered brick-and-stone buildings, stately white columns, and trees drenched in warm autumnal hues, Ryan at last bounded up the granite stairs to Legrande three at a time and pulled open the thick oak doors to the auditorium.

  His mouth dropped.

  There were easily two hundred people sitting attentively in the ordered rows of chairs. The debate team had been expecting a minimal audience, not maximum capacity. The auditorium overflowed with the dull roar of their conversations. Ryan took
in a breath of relief, seeing that they were still setting up microphones. The debate was behind schedule and he did not miss his spot, but the unexpected crowd still put him on edge.

  Above the stage a projection screen reading Fall Student Body Debate separated two podiums. Behind the left stood a sharply dressed man in a black suit, surely the lobbyist. Ryan sized him up as he pushed past shoulders to make his way to the front. The lobbyist looked to be in his early forties, his features etched in haughtiness as he chuckled in conversation with a man sitting nearby. At once Ryan knew his predictions about the lobbyist had been right. It was obvious by this guy’s self-important manner that he was looking forward to embarrassing a rudimentary undergraduate perspective on genetic engineering. The lobbyist was in for disappointment if Ryan had anything to say about it.

  “Devon!” Ryan called as he approached the student presenters in the first row. Most were looking paler than usual, perhaps due to the unexpected size of the audience.

  Devon Richmond shook his head. “Finally! I told them you were on your way, but I don’t think they were going to delay it for another second.”

  “I know, I know.” Ryan plopped down breathless in a reserved chair in the front row and nodded to the other presenters. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Are you . . . prepared for this?” Devon asked. “You might want to let someone else step in—or bail altogether. I wouldn’t normally say that, but this guy doesn’t look like he’s messing around.”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” Ryan said. He pushed his backpack underneath the chair and waved to the debate team senior captain Julie Thorne.

  Julie gave him a withering look, then stood and ascended the stage steps. Ryan rose and trotted up the steps himself, taking effort to maintain a calm and collected countenance. Public speaking made him nervous, but Ryan liked the challenge. He stopped behind the open podium and focused coolly at its wood surface, his expression a picture of concentration.

  “Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming to Columbia’s annual fall semester student debate.” Julie Thorne spoke cheerily into the microphone over obligatory applause. Her anger toward Ryan seemed to have evaporated. “We are going to get our debates started right away. It is my pleasure to introduce you to an alumnus of Columbia, Alden Harris. Mr. Harris is a biotechnology lobbyist for the New York-based genetic engineering conglomerate, the Rijcore Company. To my left is sophomore Ryan Craig, an undergraduate student currently majoring in . . . ?”

  Ryan leaned into his microphone, his voice echoing across the hall. “Anthropology.”

  The lobbyist smirked with a belittling chuckle.

  Julie Thorne turned from Alden Harris to Ryan and cast a fake smile. “We welcome both of you to the stage! Our first topic of discussion will pertain to genetically modified organisms. More specifically, the recent controversy regarding genetically altered fish. I have no doubt you are all familiar with the Rijcore Company, which has devised a means of doubling the growth rate and adult size of the North Atlantic Salmon. They have done so by inserting foreign DNA segments into salmon eggs, which promote the permanent release of growth hormones. This innovation brings into question a pervasive ethical dilemma. Now we have quite a bit to plow through, and we are getting a late start, so we will have to limit each debate to five minutes. Ryan, we’ll start with your position.”

  For a moment Ryan’s tongue felt like lead as he looked into the sea of faces. He placed his palms on the podium and cleared his throat. “The issue of genetically modified organisms is one that—”

  “Is nothing new,” Alden Harris interrupted him, his voice carrying over Ryan’s with practiced articulacy. “In fact, the concept of modifying our food at a genetic level goes back to the very roots of civilization. One could even say the altering of our food is what gave rise to developed society through the advent of agriculture and more prolific sources of crops. It is truly . . . disappointing . . . that a mainstream misunderstanding based solely in unqualified naivety is obstructing a perfectly innocuous technology. Furthermore I find it—”

  “I’m going to have to stop you there, Alden.” Ryan forced his own voice over Alden Harris’s condescending tone. “The issue at hand is the insertion of foreign and mutative DNA into the heart of a species. You are inaccurately drawing a correlation between the adulteration of the North Atlantic Salmon’s natural biology and the practices of selective breeding through time.”

  “I disagree,” Alden Harris said. “Each case is merely a matter of fish being altered for a more efficient yield. They’re both means toward the same end.”

  “No, they absolutely are not. The two means to which you are referring are so incomparable to one another that I can’t allow you to suggest that point, or draw attention away from the main moralistic concerns that arise in this specific issue. If not, we’ll fall into a debate over perspectives so philosophical that no ground will be reached. When we consider these genetically engineered fish, we aren’t talking about a directional change through adaptation and selective breeding. We are referring to the alteration of a species’ very identity, with countless pitfalls both seen and unforeseen, all in the name of increased productivity.”

  Alden Harris sighed and adjusted his tie. “There comes a point, Mr. Craigie—”

  “Craig,” Ryan asserted instantly, and heard a laugh move through the audience.

  “Craig. Forgive me. There comes a point, Mr. Craig, where technological progress must be allowed to move forward. You just said we should avoid abstract philosophical perspectives in this debate. I couldn’t have put it better myself. What justification does your opposition to this technology have if not a vague naturalistic nostalgia? There is no—I will repeat—no data that shows Rijcore Company’s technology to be dangerous in any way.”

  “First of all,” Ryan said. He turned his gaze from the audience to Alden Harris. “I would point out that what you contemptuously refer to as my naturalistic nostalgia is no less defensible than what I would in turn refer to as your reckless hunger for increased profits.”

  “Now wait one—”

  “Further,” Ryan raised a hand over him. “You mentioned data. Let’s discuss that data. Your salmon grow twice as fast as a natural salmon and become an adult size that is double the size of a natural salmon. Is that correct?”

  Alden Harris nodded. “Yes. And that is with absolutely no negative effect to their nutritional properties.”

  “I have no doubt when a company as immense as Rijcore undertakes a venture seeking only to validate its research in one single respect—in this case, nutritional value—it will succeed in that one respect. I’m not going to argue the nutritional value of your monster fish.”

  “Well, if you aren’t going to present any actual data, what exactly is your point, Mr. Craig? And I hardly think monster is an appropriate word to be using in this forum.”

  “Very well,” Ryan said, slowly with thought. “For the sake of argument, by an injection of mutative DNA into their genes, the fish grow double as fast, and reach twice normal adult size. That is correct? That’s what your data shows?”

  “Yes, Mr. Craig, I just said that is correct.”

  “Then you’re right, monster was the improper word. Giant mutated baby fish sounds much more appropriate. I believe that name fits with all of your classifications.”

  That got a rise from the crowd, and Alden Harris gave Ryan an enraged smile. “Look. What we are dealing with here is a healthy method of producing larger quantities of farm-harvested fish without any detrimental side effect to wild fisheries. In fact, the larger production of farm salmon will put less of a strain on wild resources. If wildlife is not what you are seeking to protect with your position, I’m not entirely clear what is? The fact of the matter is that the Rijcore Company has created fish that are more efficient to produce with no excess risk or side effects.”

  Ryan stared at Alden Harris for a silent moment, only a few distant coughs breaking the silence.

  “This discussio
n isn’t about what people can have for dinner tonight. The argument comes down to a gratuitous exploitation of the very identity of a species for the cause of dollars and cents,” Ryan asserted firmly into the hush. “What happens if and when these fish inevitably escape from their farms? What happens when, with their doubled size and accelerated lifespan, they can outcompete wild fish? As long as these mutated salmon even exist, the ecology of our waterways are imperiled on a global scale. Beyond that, the ecological side of my argument doesn’t even bring into question the massive ethical concerns involved in this research. How long until pork, beef, and countless other food sources are mutated to the point of being unrecognizable? Your scientists at the Rijcore Company are ripping apart the natural world, and justifying their insatiable onslaught by stating their products are nutritional. It’s madness.”

  “You’re throwing so wide a net here, Mr. Craig, that I don’t know where to contest.” Alden Harris shook his head and shrugged in exasperation as Julie Thorne began to walk to the center of the stage.

  “Well, I’m afraid we’ll have to end that very appealing discussion there. Some interesting perspectives were brought up, and I thank you both for your time.”

  Ryan nodded in thanks to the polite applause that rose from the audience and left the stage as Julie Thorne introduced the next topic. Ryan sat down in front of Devon and rolled the tension out of his shoulders as he grabbed his backpack.

  “Unbelievable, man,” Devon whispered over the seat. “Are you leaving?”

  Leaning back, Ryan spoke softly so he would not disturb the speakers. Things were not going well for the student. Alden Harris was spewing impassioned declarations over her meek objections. “Yeah, I have to go to class. I’ll call you when I’m out.”

  Devon nodded. “Later.”

  Ryan slung his backpack over his shoulder and gave a thumbs-up to the rest of the debate team members assembled in the front row. A few returned his gesture, looking encouraged by his efforts against the ironclad lobbyist. He politely navigated through the spectators of the standing room to the side of the audience and out the back of the auditorium, receiving several whispered congratulations and disagreements as he went. Ryan shoved past the double doors into the breeze of the fall afternoon and began descending the pale granite stairs when someone called to him. He turned and saw a young woman exiting the auditorium.