James Hunt - GMO 24 - The Coalition

“There we go. All patched up,” the old man said.

Alex examined the old man’s stitching. It wasn’t pretty by any means, but the wound was tightly sealed up. “Thanks.”

The old man waved him off. When he tried to stand up, he immediately fell back down into his seat, holding his head. Alex grabbed his arm.

“You need to eat,” Alex said, then rushed over to one of the hydro-tanks and started picking off some strawberries and piling them in his hand. He set the fruit on the table next to where the old man was sitting and extended one of the strawberries to him. “Take it.”

The old man pinched the fruit between his bony fingers and lifted it from Alex’s palm. He rotated it, examining all of the grooves, bumps, and the tiny sprig of leaves that nestled at the top. He brought it to his nose and inhaled its scent. Then, slowly, he formed a fist around the berry and closed his eyes. The sobs that escaped the old man were soundless. The only visible sign of his weeping were the convulsions of his shoulders and the tears running down his face.

Alex placed his hand on the old man’s shoulder, and all he could feel was bone. Maybe the old man didn’t want to go on. Perhaps he’d reached the point where all appetite had disappeared. It wouldn’t have been the first time Alex had seen it happen. The only thing worse than starving to death was forgetting how to eat.

The old man wiped his eyes then unclenched his fist and brought the piece of fruit to his lips. He bit into it softly. The juices exploded and dribbled down the old man’s chin. He chewed slowly. Then, after the first bite was swallowed, he bit furiously into the rest. He greedily reached for the pile of fruit Alex had brought him, shoving bite after bite into his mouth, stuffing his cheeks until they looked like they were going to burst.

Alex intercepted the old man’s hands from grabbing any more. The old man tried to fight him but was too weak to do anything. “Hey, you need to slow down. You don’t want to shock your system.”

The old man finished what food he had in his mouth, and Alex took a portion of the strawberries away and stowed them in his pocket. He rotated his stitched arm a little bit, testing its mobility. It was stiff, and there were a few instances where he thought the stitches would tear, but they held true to the old man’s skill with the needle.

“It’ll stick,” the old man said, pointing to Alex’s arm. “It has been a while since I’ve patched anyone up.”

“What’d you do? Before this?”

“I was a doctor. General practitioner.”

“Why aren’t you stationed in one of the communities? Doctors are hard to find these days, and the Coalition would probably let you pick wherever you wanted to go.”

The old man shook his head. “No. I didn’t want to perpetuate their false hope. And this was the price I paid for my subversive behavior.” He gestured to his surroundings.

“Did you see it coming? The soil crisis?”

“Not soon enough. I remember receiving my first case of GMO poisoning. Of course, back then we didn’t know what it was. It resembled all of the symptoms of a flu bug. Then once the cases started piling up, that’s when questions started being asked, fingers pointing blame. The GMO companies screaming that it was the pesticide companies, the pesticide companies screaming that it was the GMO companies’ fault, the politicians yelling that it was both of their faults, and no one willing to share any of the information they had on their products and how they’d been using them. Everyone was afraid to let the science reveal the truth. They were scared of what it meant.”

The pain in Alex’s arm seemed to catch fire the longer the old man spoke. His head started to ache. Flashes of those first few months of famine pierced his memory. He started to feel cold, dizzy.

“He was nine,” the old man said. “That first patient with GMO poisoning that I had. I sent him home with some antibiotics and told his mother to keep fluids in him. He died a month later. When we discovered exactly what the GMO-24 strain did to the body, I realized just how painfully that boy died.”

Alex could hear the shouts and the sharp fire of gunshots. He could smell the smoke choking him and the fire melting his skin. His muscles tensed up.

“The acids in your stomach weakening to the point that they couldn’t digest water. Then the subsequent shutdown of your kidneys, liver, intestines. All of them just dissolving into nothing. Rotting from the inside out,” the old man continued.

“The screams,” Alex said softly to himself. “You never forget the screams.” He turned to the old man. “Do you remember that? People just… bargaining with some unnamed deity for more time. Saying they’ll give you anything for just a few more days, hours, seconds.”

The old man’s green eyes softened in the candlelight. The look on his face wasn’t one of revulsion or pity but of understanding. It was a face that had heard those cries before. But unlike the old man, who didn’t have the ability to save his patients, Alex was left with the ghosts of the dead that he could have saved.

“It was a hard time,” the old man said.

“Things haven’t gotten much better.” Alex closed his eyes, shaking the memories from his mind. “Look, the headquarters in Topeka will be checking in soon, and when they don’t get a response, they’ll be sending the cavalry. You won’t want to be here when that happens. Do you have any place you can go?”

“I’ll just do what the rest of them did. Grab as much food as I can carry then get as far away from this place as I can. Then die. I don’t think it will be as bad for me as it will for some of the others. I’m ready for it to be done.”

The old man didn’t have anything left in the tank. He’d reached that place of accepted apathy. It was an incredibly dangerous state of mind. Alex extended his hand, and the old man gripped it weakly.

“There’s a river just south of here. It could be patrolled by sentries looking for me, but at least you’ll be close to a water source. You might last a little longer with it,” Alex said.

“Thank you.” The old man got up from his seat and grabbed a rag that he converted to a pouch to carry whatever supplies he’d take with him.

Alex headed to the sentry station in the back. He gained access to the Coalition’s database with one of the sentries’ key cards and searched for Meeko and Harper’s location. They were stored at two separate camps, both just outside of Topeka. Headquarters would be checking in at this location in about six hours, and it would take him around five hours to get to Topeka. Time was his enemy now, and he was already running dangerously low on it.

In addition to the .22 rifle, Alex grabbed another AR-15 and ammo for the .308. He grabbed some food for the drive and found a Kevlar chest piece that fit him. The last piece of his deception was the uniform. He traced his finger over the stitching on the front, which read “Class 2.” The fabric was just as bulky as he remembered it.

The water from the hose spurted onto Gordon’s hands. A blended mixture of water and blood splashed to the ground and swirled in the dirt, turning it to mud. Gordon rubbed his hands furiously, trying to remove the dried red stains, but no matter how hard he scrubbed, he couldn’t rid himself of the pinkish tinge that lingered on his hands. Gordon summoned one of the sentries over.

“Change of plans. I’m heading back to Topeka. I want all of our men to stay here. You do not let any of these people move, understand? If that son of a bitch comes back, I want him alive. I don’t care what condition you bring him to me in, just as long as he’s still breathing. You got that?” Gordon asked.