by Jim Wurst
“Aztlan? I never said Aztlan.”
“If not, what did you say?”
“Nothing like that. Oh wait, I mentioned Mesoamerica that’s hardly the same thing. Mesoamerica is an archeological term. You see what is happening here, right? Everyone knows that ‘Aztlan’ is code for a greater Mexico taking back Texas and the Southwest. I never used the word, I don’t use the word, I don’t believe it. Someone is stirring the pot.”
“Be that as it may. Remember, there’s an election coming up and everyone knows who your daughter works for. Stick to corn and forget about the jokes.”
CHAPTER 22
The Galma satellite station, deep in the desert of Niger, looked much like its parent station in Katsina, only smaller. No one had ever taken a poll. This was likely to be the most isolated, god-forsaken, brutalized building on the planet. Theo’s small, short-range airship, a sand-hugger hovered over the landing port as the roof slid away, closing immediately when Theo was safely inside. The less sand that got in, the better.
Theo stepped out, followed by two assistants carrying two trays of shoots. The agent-in-charge of Galma, Raj Gupta, was waiting for them on the other side of the airlock.
Without hesitation, Theo reached out with his left hand to shake hands with Raj. Theo had known Raj for several years he easily overcame the impulse to shake with his right. Raj never shook with his right hand he didn’t have one. He was born with his right arm stopping just at the elbow.
“I’m glad you finally made it,” Raj said. The “finally” would have bothered Theo if he cared what anyone thought of him.
“Anything left?”
“Next to nothing. Do you think these will work better?”
“Perhaps. If it’s something in the soil, perhaps. They’ve proven to be the most resistant strain. But if it’s a microbe, not likely. Each try is marked for its particular resistance. If it’s something in the soil, we should be able to pinpoint it according to the survivors. If it’s a microbe, then these aren’t going to make it either. Any progress on that?”
“No evidence of a microbe, at least a new microbe. The good news is that we may have simply underestimated the acidity of the soil. If we’re right, these saplings will do better once we finish treating the soil.”
Theo, Raj, and the assistants arrived in the nursery. Raj motioned to a side table as the spot to place the saplings, while Theo turned immediately to the plants embedded in the nursery. With a look of disgust, Theo dropped to his stomach and examined the leaves and stem, even the soil, as if his fingers could detect something the microscopic tests missed. The plants were in terrible shape. Half a meter tall which was excellent for their age but the leaves were twisted, drained of all color.
“Do you really believe all this can be attributed to acidity?”
“It’s a theory. Do you have any new ideas?”
“Did you test for radiation?”
“Radiation? There’s some low-level radiation from the naturally occurring minerals, but nothing we haven’t accounted for.”
“I don’t mean natural radiation, man-made radiation. In your report, you indicated some saplings looked burnt. That’s this batch?”
“Yes.”
“Did this soil come from the east of Galma?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“An educated guess. Give me a sample of one of the burnt saplings so I can run my own tests.”
Raj had learned not to be offended. “I don’t know what you’re driving at. There were never any nuclear power plants here. Where would the radiation come from?”
“Stupid humans.”
CHAPTER 23
Dr. Asanti stared into the microscope. He always moved slowly. His staff never knew if it was simply his nature or if the permanent exhaustion made him that way.
To an untrained eye, what he was looking at was quite beautiful. A gentle swarm of cute little bumpy things sliding against each other, always moving, always bumping, but never hurting each other. A few of the bumpy things looked like deflating balloons, other looked like squished stars. The atomic microscope gave them bright colors red, gold, and pink. A microscopic playground. Dr. Asanti’s eye was not untrained.
“From where?”
“A clinic in Mawere.
“Symptoms include rash, headache, swelling joints and what else?” He knew where this was going.
“Bloodshot eyes, blood in the urine, bleeding gums.”
“In other words, blood.”
“Yes, sir.” The nurse knew the answer already. “Is it mutating?”
“Yes,” he sighed.
CHAPTER 24
Despite decades of efforts to revive the orangutan population in the wild, the efforts of scientists and conservationists, including Ruth, to tip the ratio of orangutans born in captive and in the wild in favor of the wild continually failed. Even when carefully monitored families like Rabu’s were counted as “in the wild” there were still three captive births to every wild birth. Even under the best of circumstances, it would have been a slow process. Orangutans only gave birth every six to nine years, almost always a single baby, and offspring stayed with the mother for up to four years. They didn’t breed like rabbits. The orangutan survival networks tried to mate a captive with a wild. Ideally the female would be the wild partner, but statistics and individual apes’ preferences made this mostly impossible. Apes aren’t stupid, they mated with whom they wanted without basing it on a computer model. So Rabu’s parents were both born in captivity and gradually reintroduced into the wild, with mixed results. Orangutans were the only fully arboreal ape, living its entire life in the tree-tops, rarely dropping to the ground. They roamed widely through the jungle, nesting every night in a different tree, giving birth and nursing in the trees. The arboreal life was so total that it was possible for a five-year-old to have never touched the ground.
That was no longer the norm. Captive apes couldn’t roam the trees, so every generation lost a bit of the natural impulse. They still nested in trees or artificial perches, but reality forced them to live on the ground. This was one of the reasons for trying to mate wilds and captives to get the captives to relearn the arboreal life. The captives had been coming out of the trees since the wide-ranging areas were not possible, the hope was the wild would teach the captive to go back to the trees, especially the females since giving birth and nurturing the young in the tree-tops was the natural order. Neither of Rabu’s parents had experience in the trees. They were re-learning, an occasional wild orangutan would pass through their territory, they would follow suit, but would return to their nest on the ground. The Reserve tried to encourage them but there were no way humans could move across the tree-tops as easily as an orangutan so they couldn’t demonstrate what they meant.
The other nature instinct that was lost was that the male usually left the female shortly after the birth of their baby. But Kai, Rabu’s father, wasn’t doing that. On the one hand, Ruth felt relieved because she liked to see the family together, but on the other, her whole purpose in life was to create space for the apes to return to their natural state. The scientist had to keep fighting the romantic.
One future event Ruth was most anxious about was when Rabu would leave his mother. In the wild, that usually happened around age five or six. Without other orangutans as role models and this being Nurul’s first baby, would instinct triumph?
Over the decades, starting with Goodall, primatologists worked to develop a common language with other primates. Chimps, bonobos and gorillas were receptive. Baboons not so much. In general, monkeys never sat still long enough for a conversation. Fortunately, orangutans were more like the chimps. Since orangutans were exclusive to Borneo, the research and conversation work was intense. One of the largest primate centers in the world was at Tanjung Puting on the southern end of Borneo with 22 satellite stations around the island. Ruth’s station was s
mall she was the only scientist, she had one trainee, Jamal and his security team, and domestic help. Ten people in all. Like all the satellite stations, she was responsible for a small area of the rain forest and any orangutans living there or passing through. There were unobtrusive cameras and sensors implanted at key locations.
Ruth was now the center of quiet celebration with the birth of Rabu. Live births had been increasing as the apes learned to adapt and preservation efforts had begun to stop the slide. But the celebration was very quiet at headquarters. The government and the UN knew there had been a birth but not exactly where. Announcing the birth of an orangutan would have been like flying a huge flag saying, “Come steal me.” Thus, most of the world did not know the orangutan population had increased by one.
Besides the obvious reason for excitement, Ruth could barely contain her eagerness to begin to teach Rabu language. She had never done it before in the wild. Through generations of trial-and-error, scientists had developed a solid vocabulary and training method. Generally, apes had a sign vocabulary of nearly 100 words, mostly practical needs like “food” and “play.” It was more advanced for the African apes.
What progress had been made in Borneo had mostly been wiped out with the apes themselves in the ‘30s. There were tantalizing hints that language skills were being passed from parent to child without any human intervention. That progress was lost, and efforts had to begin from scratch in the ‘40s. The average lifespan of an orangutan was 45 years and females did not give birth until 17 therefore it would take at least 50 years to study the impact over three generations. Ruth had practiced in controlled settings, focusing on words like “hungry,” “thirsty,” “water,” “food,” “sleep,” and her favorite: “hug.” Babies hug. Period. If the species has arms, the babies hug. Chimps famously kissed. As much as she loved her neighbors, Ruth just could not wrap her brain around kissing an orangutan. So lots of hugs. Not too much effort was put into adjectives, only the essential ones: “happy,” “sad,” “good,” “bad,” “clean,” “dirty.” Ruth had inherited a rich history with the orangutans. Several generations of great apes had learned the sign language. Ruth was very jealous of the team who first realized the apes were passing the language on to the next generation.
Last year, on her first visit to the family, Ruth brought gifts. This was what the orangutans expected. “Gift” and “food” were comfortable words with a stranger. Kai signed to Ruth: “Where Karen?” Ruth gasped and teared up. Damn, she thought, I should have anticipated that. The truth was in words the team chose not to teach the orangutans. Finally, Ruth said and signed, “Home.” Kai signed, “Hug.”
Today was Ruth’s first visit to the family since Rabu’s birth. Approaching the apes especially new parents required a fine line between stealth and familiarity. Too quiet and they might consider it an ambush, too loud and they might run away before realizing who was approaching. One practice was to carry a small can of pebbles. They would hear the noise but since it wasn’t a natural sound, they didn’t immediately assume danger. Ruth thought to try whistling. It seemed to work not so certain that she would write it up in a journal but enough for her to feel she was truly communicating. She walked through the underbrush whistling Mozart (she had no idea if they cared about the distinctions within music but it was fun to experiment) and carrying a small bag of gifts meaning food. It was important that the scientists not coddle the apes, but this was a special occasion. Ruth knew exactly where the family was, so she kept an eye out for movement as she approached. Kai came out of the brush and growled a bit before seeing that it was Ruth. He let her pass and approach the nest. Rabu was still a weak little bag of hair in his mother’s arms but was beginning to turn his head and grasp. Ruth sat down in front of the family and gave the parents the fruit.
Ruth spoke in her mixture of words and signs. She spoke in full sentences although everyone assumed the apes only processed the keywords.
“May I hug the baby?”
“hug – baby”
Ruth almost wept for joy when Nurul handed over her precious little one.
“Congratulations. We are all very happy for you. I have a gift for your baby.”
“Happy – you – gift – baby.”
She took out a small tracking bracelet similar to the ones the parents had been wearing for years showed it to Nurul and Kai and attached it to Rabu’s ankle.
“This way I can always help you if you need me.”
“I – help – need – me.”
Rabu picked at the bracelet, tapped it, rubbed it, and then tried to eat it.
CHAPTER 25
From the street, you could not see much beyond the seawalls. But from the restaurant atop the World Trade Center, ghosts of the past were visible in every direction. The seawall had been built on the west side of West Street, meaning all the construction of the late 1990s to 2010s were now on the wrong side of history. Since it wasn’t a sudden loss, the high-rises for the most part had been carefully dismantled so that the materials could be used elsewhere. Massive pumps under the World Trade Center and other key downtown locations had been built to protect the heart of the neighborhood from the ever-increasing tidal surges and hurricane-inspired flooding. New Yorkers could be called and were called a lot of things, but “foolish” was never one of them.
There was still the human insistence on disconnection that allowed New York to develop the waterfront while figuring out how to deal with losing it. Earlier than most US cities, New York began preparing early, and it showed. The combination of foresight, billions of dollars and a granite bedrock helped Manhattan push back against the first stages of sea level rise as opposed to the Miami real estate crash which was not only a literal crash but also both sudden and foreseen. The seawalls extended to 14th Street, which was enough for these decades while the next generation of walls were planned.
From the restaurant, the changes to Brooklyn were also apparent. The heights of Brooklyn Heights had protected that neighborhood, but the historic waterfront the land of Fulton and Whitman was abandoned. The sandy south of Coney Island, Brighton Beach and Sea Gate were early losses. Fantastic amounts of money had poured into developments in Red Hook and Dumbo, so seawalls were built to offer some protection. But the city was resolved to the fact that in 30-40 years, these walls would not be enough, and Brooklyn would have to retreat further, abandoning Red Hook and Dumbo as she had done with Coney Island and Brighton Beach.
Walls would protect Liberty Island and Ellis Island at all costs. But Governors’ Island has essentially been abandoned to the rising sea level. The first seawalls had already been breached, so the city decided it was better to use its resources to protect the boroughs and left the island to the mercies of nature. Every year, more of the island was pummeled by storms while the lack of human activity meant the buildings continued to disappear under the wild growth. One consolation was that migrating, and sea birds found a new safe roost.
The view from the restaurant was also created by some people eating there. Either by creating the protections or creating the need for the protection, there was hardly a more elite gathering in the city. It was the kind of place where Ailes’ chief of staff could eat without turning any heads.
He sliced into his medium rare steak. His companion had ordered the lamb. The Chief poured more wine into his companion’s glass. They had known each other for decades, nearly always in opposition. But this was a 30-year-old bottle of French wine.
“It’s going to be an interesting election we all know that. Frankly, Hayden isn’t our strongest candidate, but we haven’t had a military man for a while good visuals. Election Day shouldn’t be too much drama, but the next month could be interesting.”
“How so?” asked the companion George Cranston Sr.
“You’ve heard rumors about something new, a wild card.”
“Rumors, yes.”
“And only rumors, of course. Th
e senator wouldn’t violate the Official Secrets Act by telling even his father something from the Daily Security Briefing.”
“Of course not, it’s only rumors.”
“Well, it’s not. The Chinese are building something massive in Zhidoi. We’re calling it the Chinese Device. I think it’s safe to say that it’ll be more than rumors in time for the election. It will be an election issue. And with you guys having a running mate of McDowell’s… ethnicity can’t help you.”
“Really? I would have thought the opposite, having a vice president familiar with the Chinese would work to our advantage.”
“Familiar is not the word that will be used. Look, let’s cut to the chase. One old war horse to another. Make it easy on yourselves, go through the motions, accept defeat gracefully. We’re building back up nicely the pie is growing. Soon there will be bigger pieces for everyone. And I mean everyone. Only the Chinese are even trying to rebuild their military to any serious extent. Space and the moon are off limits, no one will ever match our navy. Neither one of us are stupid enough to challenge the other on land. That leaves missiles and the air force.”
“Which is where the Chinese Device comes in?”
“That’s my hunch. Anti-missile, some sort of disruptor against aircraft or even spacecraft on re-entry. The American people are going to want a President who can address those new threats. That’s our guy.”
“So we roll over and play dead? You expect that of me and my boy?”
“Not play dead, play ball. We’ll take good care of George, and McDowell too if you wish.”
“Doesn’t sound very democratic.”
“Democracy evolves. Read the Constitution. You must have noticed that by now,” the Chief said as he stabbed his last bite of steak.
CHAPTER 26
The Prairie Grass Evangelical Church was a standout among the mega-churches of America. First, it really was in the prairie. They built most such churches in car-friendly suburbs, but decades earlier, the elders of this church moved back to God’s creation in the Great Plains. It was low to the ground, hugging the prairie, the walls and roof the colors of the soil and grass. “The feet of the Lord touched the earth, so should ours,” the elders of the church told the architect. Only the steeple soared above the grasses. Except for the cross, solar cells coated the steeple. There was little wood, of course, but the steel and polymers were coated to create the illusion of wood. It was the kind of church Frank Lloyd Wright would have built if he had been religious.