James Hunt - GMO 24 - The Coalition

“Yes, sir.”

Gordon climbed into the truck, and the cul-de-sac grew smaller in the rearview mirror. He rested his head back on the seat. He could feel his body melting into the leather underneath him. “Wake me before we arrive in Topeka.” The driver nodded. It was exhausting work, torturing people.

The sun had reached its highest point in the sky when Todd arrived at the site. The straps from his pack sloped his tired shoulders. The thickness of tracks from large machinery intensified as Todd moved closer to where he’d placed the test soil. The closer Todd moved, the larger the hole from where they excavated grew. The crater was at least ten square feet in diameter and six feet deep. Todd chose this place due to its remote location. The Soil Coalition still sent out search parties for any usable land, but most of Wyoming had already been searched.

“They took it.”

Todd jumped, spinning around and almost falling into the pit behind him. Emma had dust caked on her face, and her lips were chapped from the sun.

“Emma, what are you doing here?” Todd asked.

“That’s how they knew. They know we did it. That’s why they’re here,” Emma said, her eyes slightly glazed over and still staring at the pit.

Todd glanced around frantically. “Did you see anyone else following me? Emma? Did you come alone?” He gave her a gentle shake of her shoulders.

“No,” Emma answered, shaking her head.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“It’s Billy. Something’s wrong. Ben came to find me.”

“What?”

“He’s not sure what it is, but he knows it’s bad.”

Billy was their key to the outside. If something happened to him, then everything they were working on would be put into jeopardy. “Let’s head back.” But what Todd couldn’t see was the man in the black jacket with a pair of binoculars, watching him.

The driver woke Gordon just as they entered Topeka. He rubbed his blurry eyes, and he could still see the red tinge of blood on his hands. He dropped them in his lap, annoyed by the fact that he was still dirty. “Take me to my place. I want to shower before I go back to the office.”

“Yes, sir.”

The images of the large steel structures of the farm camps they passed reflected in the SUV’s passenger window. He smiled. The lack of control he’d felt over the past few hours from the community’s insubordination had drained him. All he wanted was to know where the seeds were, and it didn’t matter how many times he hit them, or cut them, or spilled their blood, they just wouldn’t talk.

But those steel cages reaffirmed his control. It was a reminder that he held the whip, and with it the power to do whatever he wanted. He had the resources. He had the muscle. He had the food. He had everything he needed to maintain control and order. The vibration from his cell phone disrupted his train of thought. He checked the call. It was Jake. “Tell me you found something good.”

“The soil the techs found definitely originated from this community. I watched two of its members take a walk to the original site.”

“Good. Keep an eye on them.”

“You want me to bring them in?”

“No, just pay them a visit, see what you can get out of them.”

Gordon snapped his phone shut and spun it between his fingers. A breakthrough discovery of fixing the soil contamination had the potential to unravel everything he’d built. If citizens knew they had it, they would rally toward them. His mind kept going back to what Jake had said about the community members hiding their nutrition levels. But how the fuck could they hide it?

Maybe they didn’t.

“Sydney.”

After Todd dropped Emma off at her home, he walked back to his own place with the dying light fading behind him. Once inside, he headed to his room and kicked off his shoes. He turned his back to the door, and a few seconds later a blinding pain cracked the back of his skull, sending waves of throbbing pressure across his entire head. He collapsed forward on the bed, arms and legs attempting to push himself up, but he was still too disoriented from the blow. He felt hands grab his neck and fling him off the bed. The blurred face of the thug from the blood testing stared back at him.

“Enjoy your walk?” the thug asked then sent his fist across Todd’s cheek.

A spray of spit and blood flew from Todd’s mouth from the force of the punch. He fell to his side, and the throbbing in his head intensified from the thug’s blow.

“How’d you do it? Huh? Where’s the rest of the soil?” the thug asked.

“I… don’t… know,” Todd stammered.

“You don’t know?” The thug removed a blade from his waist and held it up to Todd’s throat. “How about now?”

A dribble of blood rolled from Todd’s lip down his chin, where it hung until it dripped onto the thug’s knife. He opened and closed his eyes, trying to get a handle on the pounding in his skull. “I’m not telling you anything. So you better just kill me now.”

The thug applied more pressure, and the edge of the blade penetrated Todd’s skin, sending a small trickle of blood down his neck. Todd didn’t take his eyes off the thug. If he was going to die, then he was going to look at the man who did it.

“Idealistic prick,” the thug said then sent another blow to the side of Todd’s face, knocking him out cold.

Papers were scattered sporadically over Sydney’s desk. His hair stuck up wildly from running his hands through it. His body hunched over data that his eyes strained to interpret. The tiny red veins cut across the whites of his eyes like roads on a map, winding and twisting their way through the earth. He picked up the paper and viciously ripped it in half then tossed the small pieces into the air, and they rained down like confetti. He slammed his arms on the desk and buried his face into the small hole they made.

Sniffles echoed from underneath his shaggy mop of hair. He finally picked his head up and wiped the snot and tears from his face. He childishly kicked the ground, frustrated at his own inability to recreate what another scientist had already discovered.

Maybe his father was right. Maybe he was nothing. His accomplishments would remain stuck in the realm of the theoretical. And if that was the case, then what was his purpose? What was his contribution? If he could produce no value, then what value did he possess?

A violent pounding at the door snapped him out of his self-loathing, and the fear of the moment gripped him. The door handle wobbled, and Sydney heard the scrape of a key entering the lock. He quickly snatched up the papers around him that contained his manipulation of the community’s blood tests. He barely had half of them gathered when Gordon burst through the door and grabbed Sydney by the collar, pinning him down against his own desk.

“What did you do, Sydney? Did you do something for your daddy? Is that it? Did he tell you to falsify the data?” Gordon asked, his voice low.

“W-what are you talking about? M-my d-dad didn’t tell me to d-do anything.”

Gordon lifted Sydney’s small frame off the desk and onto the wall by the front door. The contact between Sydney’s skull and the concrete resounded with a loud crack. Sydney’s vision went black. He found himself falling in and out of consciousness.

“What did you do, you little shit?” Gordon asked.

Just before Sydney blacked out, a group of sentries rushed into the lab.

“Mr. Reath, someone’s attacked a farm camp,” the sentry said.

“Camps? How many were hit?”

“So far just one, but we’re trying to contain the situation.”