Scott Mackay: Phytosphere

“You don’t have to bury food.”

“I’m the mother. It’s my job to look after you. And I take the job seriously.”

“But why bury food?”

“Because I don’t want anybody coming into the house and stealing it.”

“Why would they steal it?”

“Jake, how many times do I have to tell you? There are bad people in the world. And if bad people get desperate, they become extra bad. If this shroud lasts any length of time, everything’s going to stop growing and food’s going to run out. You think anything’s going to grow with that thing up in the sky?

Plants need light to grow. Two weeks of total darkness, and that’s it, there goes next year’s crop.”

“Uncle Neil will talk to the president before that happens.”

“If you need me, I’ll be in the backyard.”

She finished stocking the toy box with jarred and canned foods, and was surprised by how heavy it was once she lifted it. She went out the back door and ventured into the yard. The green sheet of the shroud mottled its way from horizon to horizon. A few clouds floated beneath it. The green was so dark in spots that it verged on black. A raccoon lumbered by at the end of the yard and disappeared into the bushes, all mixed up about night and day.

She carried the box into the woods and found a spot among the sycamores. The leaves on the trees rustled in a cool breeze—too cool for this time of the year. How strange the trees looked, silhouetted against that green sky. She put the box down, walked back to the toolshed, and got the spade. She carried it to the spot between the sycamores, broke the earth, and dug.

The earth smelled rich with living things. She dug some more and, in digging, knew she had made an admission to herself. This wasn’t like the regular and small disasters that befell people on a daily basis, making their lives miserable for a while, then finally drifting away like a bad dream. This was the Apocalypse. And she wanted food for when the Apocalypse finally came.

She arrived for her short morning shift at the Cedar-vale Nursing Home and Long-Term Care Facility an hour later. Old people played chess in the hallways, the lights were up bright, and the inmates were dressed in sweaters or jackets and enjoying themselves, as if the shroud were cause for celebration. She nodded a polite hello to the elderly volunteers in the information kiosk, passed the coffee stand, continued down the hall to Section H, climbed the stairs, and finally reached the Palliative Care Department, where people went to die. She waved to Elma and Karen, two nurse-receptionists, but they were too busy with the phones and didn’t notice her pass. Didn’t matter. Had to speak to her supervisor, and speak to him fast.

She found Whit, a tall black man, at his desk going over the master schedule.

“You too?” he said.

“Pardon?”

“Everybody’s asking for time off.”

“No… I don’t want time off. If you need me to work a few extra hours…”

“I just might.” He motioned out the window. “Everybody’s concerned about the weather.”

She looked out the window and saw the shroud moving across the sky like a green shadow.

“You knew my husband was stuck on the Moon?”

“You were saying.”

“And that the university let him go?”

“That’s tough. I’m sorry about that, Glenda.”

“It’s just that I’m… I’m running a bit short. And Hanna’s got her asthma prescription to fill. And I don’t know what the policy is, but I just thought if I could…if you could give me an advance on my pay. Just to tide me over the next couple of days.”

She hated this, begging for money. But better she beg Whit than Neil and Louise. Whit looked to one side and his forehead creased. He took a deep breath and sighed, then glanced up at her with sympathetic brown eyes.

“It’s all automatic, Glenda. Payroll won’t even accept hours worked—not from me, not from any supervisor—till the Thursday after the pay period ends.”

Her lips tightened in irritation. “And there’s not some special form you can e-mail them?”

“You have nothing in the bank?”

“I live paycheck to paycheck, Whit. That’s the way it is.”

“How much do you need?”

“Enough to buy Hanna’s medicine and some extra food.”

“Will two hundred dollars do?”

“I was hoping for three.”

“I could make three.” He took out his wallet.

She was disarmed by Whit’s generosity. “Whit, I can’t take your money.”

He withdrew a touch-sensitive cash chit, keyed in the appropriate amount, and handed it over. “I don’t want your kids suffering, Glenda. You can pay me back whenever. But if you’re looking for groceries, you may have to go all the way to Raleigh. Dee was telling me there’s nothing around here. The shelves are bare. People are hoarding.”

“So I heard. I plan to make the trip after work.”

“Then take my money, and think nothing of it.”

The Armstrong Convention Center was seven stories underground, on the south side of the lofty Apollo Way. A scale model of Apollo Eleven angled upward through the brightly lit space above a fountain that was timed to shoot fifteen streams of water every three seconds. The convention center itself was a domed oddity, chiseled into the rock of the Moon, the rock laminated with polycarbonate.

Gerry and Ian entered via the center doors and passed a coffee shop, a money-exchange place, a travel office, and a number of clothing stores. They soon came to the North Atrium’s moving walkway. The air smelled of marijuana and, glancing up to the next level, Gerry saw two showgirls in costume, rhinestones pasted to various suggestive parts of their bodies, passing a large zebra-striped joint back and forth as they chatted amiably to the cyber-enhanced security guard at the neon-outlined security kiosk.

He and Ian came to the end of the walkway and took three extremely long escalators down to the third lower level. Here they passed a gargantuan tank full of genetically enhanced dolphins, which would come to computer interfaces and conduct rote conversations with tourists for a few dollars. Gerry stared at the dolphins. He had a sudden urge to be near the ocean. He pictured the surf at Nag’s Head, and wanted to be walking barefoot in its foam.

As they entered Section A of the H. G. Wells Ballroom—the walled-off Section B was at present home to an A.A. meeting (he knew them well)—one of the mayor’s aides came forward with a waferscreen and asked Gerry and Ian to write their names, a list of affiliations, areas of expertise, and educational credentials in the spaces provided. Gerry did this, then looked around the room. There seemed to be a preponderance of showgirls and tourist workers here. He was touched. People were eager to help Earth.

In the far corner he saw technical types, several in suits, a number in lab coats, possessed of that curious brand of killer intelligence all technical types had, sitting in a circle arguing about something with the splitting-hairs vehemence customary to their tribe.

“Is that the AviOrbit contingent?” he asked Ian.

“That’s them. They’re all good guys. I don’t see any of the new pilots, though.”

“So these are engineers?” Gerry tried to keep the flagging spirits out of his voice.

“Yup.”

“They build interplanetary spacecraft?”

“Right.”

His voice sank into further hopelessness. “But have no grounding in pure, abstract science.”

“Why don’t you go over and ask them?”

“Let’s just listen to what people have to say. I don’t want to get into a big, long conversation with people I don’t know.”

The mayor’s assistant walked to the podium and handed the waferscreen to Hulke. The mayor scanned the data, flipping through it electronically with a touch of his right index finger. He finally stopped at one page in particular. He then had a few words with his assistant, who pointed across the rows of brown stackable plastic chairs to Gerry. The mayor looked at Gerry, then at the waferscreen, and finally nodded to himself, as if he found Gerry’s presence encouraging.