Spores

by Ike Hamill

  Marie sat back down and felt some of the tension fade. Her eyes were filling. She looked down.

  “Is this it, then?” he asked. “Are we through pretending?”

  It had only been a few hours since his blind optimism had actually irked her. She wondered how he had managed to travel so far when she had remained stuck, exactly where she was.

  “Oliver, let’s not talk this way.”

  “You’ve never been able to take praise graciously, but I have to say something. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but somehow it wasn’t enough. That’s not your fault.”

  When it was clear that he wasn’t going to say more, she finally responded.

  “You have such a way with words.”

  He laughed.

  “I don’t know how better to say it. I couldn’t ask for more from you. We barely knew each other and you stepped up and took on all of this.”

  He gestured with his right hand.

  “In another world we might have been soulmates, or we might not have even given each other a second look. In this life, short as it’s turning out to be, I’ve never been more indebted to someone.”

  “I love you, Oliver,” she said, reaching to squeeze his left hand. It felt dead.

  “That’s sweet. I hope that’s not true,” he said.

  When Helene came in, they were both laughing.

  * * * * * * *

  (Atoning)

  Marie got out of her car, adjusted her sweater, and composed herself by raising her chin and setting her shoulders back. With a deep breath, exhaled with puffed cheeks, she strode towards the gray building. The place had a distinct odor. It didn’t smell precisely sterile, but it smelled like someone kept the place in order. It smelled of process, if that was a thing.

  Marie gave her head a tiny shake, realizing that she was projecting all kinds of strange emotions onto the place. Her eyes scanned the directory until she found the name that she was looking for. She walked to the doors and pushed the button. The door slid to the side and revealed the smallest elevator that she had ever seen. It was like a vertical coffin. Marie shook her head again and spun to find the stairs.

  She barely recognized the man in his office setting. With his glasses on and a pen clamped between his teeth, he almost appeared intellectual. His finger kept his place on the page of his book as he looked up.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  She waited a beat until he recognized her.

  “Oh,” he said, rising. “Marie.”

  He started to extend his hand and brought it back, abandoning the gesture. Instead, he wiped his palms on his pants and then took a seat again. Marie looked at the chair next to her. It was stacked with books and papers.

  “I haven’t seen you since…” he started and then trailed off.

  The last time had been at the funeral, of course. They barely knew each other. The man’s name was Nelson, and he was the person who Oliver had been working with when he had become sick. If Oliver had any kind of intellectual legacy, Nelson held the key to it.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Oliver’s work,” Marie said.

  Nelson moved his glasses up on top of his bald head and blinked at her. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to go on.

  “I know it would mean a lot to him if his work was published.”

  “He’s dead,” Nelson said. “Nothing means anything to him now.”

  Marie felt her heart flutter in her chest. The man had merely been stating a fact as he knew it, but something about the way he said it suggested that Nelson felt personally responsible and maybe even a little pleased about the fact of Oliver’s death.

  “Which is why I’m here,” she said, “hoping to advocate for him.”

  Nelson leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. With his smug attitude and beady eyes, if there were a single person in the world who liked Nelson, Marie would have been surprised.

  “Marie, your boyfriend fucked me,” Nelson said, tilting his chin up.

  “Husband.”

  “Sorry?”

  “We got married. He was my husband.”

  “Super. Congratulations.”

  “Will you help me?” she asked. If there were any other way, she would have turned, walked out, and found it. Oliver had put it bluntly, and Marie had asked around after his death—the only way to publish the work was to get Nelson’s contribution. Oliver’s work couldn’t stand alone.

  “It’s not a matter of if I will. There’s nothing I can do to help.”

  “I was under the impression that…” she started.

  He unfolded his arms and slapped his hands down on the book that he was reading, interrupting her with the violence of the gesture.

  “Your impression is wrong. The research is not complete. Our funding was withdrawn because of your husband’s constant lies, and now I’ve wasted seven years of my life with nothing to show. His last act as a living, breathing person was to ruin my career.”

  Her throat was tight but Marie forced herself to speak forcefully.

  “His last act as a living, breathing person was to ask me to make sure his work didn’t die with him. Oliver, may he rest in peace, never meant to hurt you. If you wont help me, at least you will hand over all of his research and allow me to preserve his work so that someone with a less defeatist attitude might gain something from it someday.”

  She clasped her hands behind her back and stood tall against his glare.

  “I’m not being defeatist or arrogant when I tell you that I am the only person in the world who could advance the research far enough to make it publishable.”

  This was something that Marie already knew. She didn’t know many people in academia, and the only mycologist she had ever met was her deceased husband, but she was a resourceful person. Before coming to see Nelson, Marie had reached out through her network of friends and gotten in touch with a man who studied mushrooms in Greece. Through his heavy accent, he had given her much the same news—if Oliver’s research wasn’t complete, the only person with the right knowledge to finish the job was Nelson. He was a jerk with an enormous ego, but he was the only person in the world with the background and inclination to ensure Oliver’s legacy.

  That was why Marie had come to his office. Knowing that his ego demanded stroking, Marie had come up with an approach to manipulating Nelson into action.

  “So you’re saying that you are indeed capable of completing the research and publishing the work? Wouldn’t that mean that the last seven years of your life weren’t wasted?”

  He gave her a sad smile, like he was sorry about how stupid she was.

  “As I explained, there is no funding. Your husband fucked it up. The project is over. Now, if you don’t mind…”

  “I’ll fund it,” she said.

  He exhaled and rolled his eyes. After that, he didn’t even look at her. His finger scanned down the page, finding the place where he had left off.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “I’ve seen the proposal. I have the money. I’ll fund it.”

  It was either this or charity. Oliver hadn’t had any money. He had poured his energy into a research field that nobody cared about and the grants that he received barely covered the expense of his research. Marie, on the other hand, had plenty of money. She had inherited enough that she didn’t even need to work. The only reason she got up and went to her job every day was in search of some purpose. Lately, she had come to realize that she didn’t find any particular meaning in the bland office work that she was doing. It was a fine way to pass the time, but it didn’t mean anything. When Oliver’s passion gleamed in his eyes, his enthusiasm for his research had infected her. Now, with him dead and nobody else to advocate for him, she had taken on the cause.

  Nelson didn’t look up. “The work required three people. Oliver was the third person.”

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “You tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

  “It’s not that easy. We have to travel to the organ
isms.”

  “In Colorado, Oregon, and Maine. I know.”

  “The equipment alone…”

  “I know.”

  There was a gleam beginning to sparkle in his eyes. Nelson was a jerk, but he knew how to defer to a benefactor. He was only now starting to realize that Marie was his next benefactor.

  “Plus my expenses and salary.”

  “I know. And I know how much it will cost for Tyler’s time.”

  Nelson smiled at that. “No need to worry about him.”

  Chapter Eight - Research

  (Equipment)

  “WELCOME TO BULLSHIT,” NELSON said. He dropped his bags and took a few steps away from them so he could stand like a conquering hero, staring out at the horizon. Marie looked over to Tyler. The young man was trying to juggle his own bags into one hand so he could pick up Nelson’s bags as well. Marie shook her head. No matter how much Nelson thought of himself, the kid thought even more of the blowhard.

  Nelson turned around, looking annoyed that nobody had asked him to explain.

  “All the information that we’re going to collect here is redundant. If we hadn’t lost a year since the last data was collected, we could have skipped this entirely. Remember this lesson, Tyler, once you put your foot on the accelerator, don’t relent until you reach your destination.”

  The kid looked like he legitimately wanted to drop all the bags to write down the sophistry.

  “And remember not to do anything that might inconvenience anyone else, like come down with fatal brain tumors and die,” Marie said.

  She regretted her bluntness when she saw the horror on Tyler’s face.

  Nelson ignored her.

  “Let’s get everything settled. The weather is perfect. We can set up some of the monitoring tonight and get a jump on the collection.”

  Tyler shuffled the bags towards the rooms. Marie had only been able to book two because there was some kind of bicycle race in town. Of course, Nelson required his own room. She was going to be sharing a room with a kid who barely looked old enough to be away from home. At least he seemed nice—naive, but nice.

  While Tyler put Nelson’s bags away and started to unload the equipment, Marie picked up Tyler’s bag and moved it to their room. She gave him the bed closest to the window. The room was small and looked like it hadn’t been remodeled in decades, but it appeared clean. She didn’t see any cobwebs in the corners or dust under the bed. Pinching it between her fingers, Marie peeled back the bedspread and folded it to stow it away in the closet. She wasn’t particularly squeamish, but she knew the types of things that lived on motel bedspreads. At least the sheets and towels appeared to be washed between guests.

  In the door, Nelson cleared his throat. He waited until he had her full attention.

  “Can you get settled later? We’re trying to get the instruments ready.”

  Somehow, everything he said came out like a snotty command. One of the reasons that Marie hated to go to the movies was that people were so unimaginably rude to each other in films. It was difficult for her to stretch her imagination far enough to believe the things that strangers would say to each other. Now that she had met Nelson, she wondered if maybe she had merely led a sheltered life. Perhaps people like him were the norm, and she was just now being exposed to them.

  “Of course. I don’t know what to do though.”

  He frowned. “Believe me, if Tyler can handle it, anyone can.”

  From the way he said, it was clear that he meant it as an insult to both of them.

  Marie forced herself to picture Oliver. For his sake, she had endured weeks of his mother. Now, she was going to have to endure weeks of this man as well. She reminded herself that it would all be worth it when the research was done and the paper was published. Once Oliver’s work was complete and his legacy was secure, she would be able to look back on all of this trouble and know, with no doubt, that it had all been worth it.

  She followed Nelson into the next room.

  Tyler was standing at the table near the window. His hands were moving quickly—taking little devices from boxes, removing the silver bags, and then using a small screwdriver to flip some kind of tiny switches on each before he lined them up on the table. She injected herself into his workflow, unboxing and removing the bags so he could concentrate on configuring the switches.

  “After this, we have to attach all the sensors and get the probes hooked up,” he said. “It’s time-consuming.”

  Marie nodded. Nelson’s contribution to the process was sitting on his bed, writing something out on a notepad.

  Nelson gave Tyler a stern look when the young man went to the back of the room to use the bathroom. She understood Tyler’s conundrum. He would have been yelled at if he tried to leave to use the bathroom in their room, and he received the stern look for presuming to use Nelson’s bathroom. It was a no-win situation.

  A minute later, things got even worse for Tyler. She heard the doorknob rattling, but the young man didn’t come out.

  “Excuse me?” he called through the door. When he was really nervous, along with his stammer, everything became a question. “I can’t get the door unlocked?”

  Nelson lowered his notepad. “You can’t, or you don’t know how?”

  “I can’t—I mean, I think it’s broken.”

  “Why would you lock a bathroom anyway?” Nelson asked. He stood and moved to the door. It operated fine from the outside. Nelson glared at Tyler as he rushed back to the table.

  They worked for hours. Marie tried to follow Tyler’s instructions precisely. The process was difficult to understand and even harder to master. It required both dexterity and a lot of thought.

  “I guess I don’t understand,” she said eventually, after watching Tyler correct one of the devices that she had just attached the probe to. “Shouldn’t it be oriented towards that green thing if it’s going to be upside down with regard to the spike?”

  “No,” Tyler said. He got a little tongue-tied when asked direct questions sometimes. He was trying to stutter out an answer when Nelson interrupted from his position over on the bed.

  “Marie, look at the number on the base of the spike. That will tell you the modifier for the orientation. Take that number, divide by fifteen and add it to the last two digits of the prefix. Modulo that with four, and you’ll…”

  “Oh!” Marie said. “That makes perfect sense, thank you.”

  The process was immediately clear when she followed Nelson’s instructions. The devices had not been built all at once, but in several batches. The seemingly arbitrary process that Tyler was using actually had its roots in the design of the thing.

  Still, even though he had been helpful, she wondered if Nelson had actually been trying to explain it, or if he had just been trying to prove his superiority by spouting off the information. He couldn’t have known that she had a background in math and cartography, but that was the experience that she had used to understand what he had said.

  Marie tucked the thought away for the moment and worked with fresh speed and confidence.

  * * * * * * *

  (Mountain)

  After configuring the sensors and loading them into big plastic bins for transport, they stacked everything in the back of the rental and drove to the site. The sun had already set behind the mountains. The light was maroon and soft. In the back seat, Nelson put on headphones and appeared to be absorbed in whatever he was listening to, so Marie leaned closer to the driver’s seat to try to get some answers out of Tyler.

  “Where are we going exactly?”

  “A field up in the foothills?” he answered, glancing over at her.

  “And why?”

  Tyler glanced at the rearview mirror, maybe worried that he would get into trouble if he said anything.

  “Autumn rust ring?”

  “I’m sorry?” she asked. He had pronounced the three words carefully, for once not stammering on any of the syllables, but they still didn’t make sense.

 
; “It’s a type of fungus. The fruiting bodies usually display as a ring of rusty looking mushrooms, but we shouldn’t see any of those tonight. We’re looking for the rhizomorphs.” He glanced at her and saw her confusion. “They’re like the roots of the fungus. They’re the nervous system of the organism that we’re trying to study.”

  “And they only live here, in Colorado?”

  “If we’re right, we’re going to document the largest organism on the planet,” Tyler said.

  “Largest? Like, bigger than a whale?”

  For the first time since they had met, Tyler gave her a genuine smile. “To date, the largest known organism is an armillaria, or honey fungus, in Oregon. It’s thousands of years old and covers more than eight square kilometers.”

  “What’s that in freedom units?”

  “More than three square miles,” he said.

  Marie straightened in her seat as she tried to process that information.

  “Oliver was studying tiny things, like fungal infections and whatever,” she said.

  Tyler nodded. “Yeah. It’s all connected. Imagine that a tiny fungal infection is like a remote sensor for some much bigger animal. Like when we put up a weather satellite to look back down at Earth. Maybe there’s a larger fungal creature that sends out an emissary that will be carried by a mammal and then it communicates back…”

  “You’re filling her up with nonsense,” Nelson said from the back seat.

  Tyler shut his mouth immediately.

  Marie turned around in her seat. She saw Nelson’s face lit up by the glow of his phone screen. He removed his headphones.

  “We’re simply studying the communication capabilities of a fungal network. There is no other subtext to our research,” Nelson said.

  “So we’re not trying to document the biggest organism on the planet?”

  Nelson sighed at her stupidity.

  “Communication and samples will prove that this is the largest organism both by weight and size. We proved it last time and we will prove it again. This time, our data will not be tainted by bizarre claims and questionable motives.”