A. Colucci - Seeders

The next two pages were filled with the hand-drawn diagram of some kind of device. It was labeled “Isochronic Tone Generator” and showed various switches and printed circuit boards, along with filters, amplifiers, and modulators. Jules guessed it was engineering plans for a type of synthesizer.

He turned the pages and found that the text became increasingly difficult to understand; less scientific and more philosophical. The word Seeders sprang out at him in bold red marker. He flipped around the middle pages and found Seeders several more times, sometimes in block letters or scribbled like a child.

The last few pages of the journal were shocking and Jules nearly dropped the book. They were filled with meticulous drawings of people dying. The bodies lay sprawled and mangled as if they’d been tortured, stabbed, or gutted. George’s talent as an artist was frightfully good, as he showed every gruesome detail. Jules cringed at the pleading eyes staring up at him, mouths in a scream, hands reaching out of the pictures for salvation. He held his breath, turning the pages in disgust. Among the carnage was a lot of scribbling, sentences that didn’t make sense or were illegible, along with rambling comments about life and death.

Jules closed the book. He looked at Sean, still reading the almanac, and then lifted his gaze to the window.

It seemed George had gone insane, convinced he was talking to plants. Still, Jules thought, much of the experiment had been conducted methodically with intelligible charts and descriptions. How could he be certain it was all fantasy? Wasn’t he an open-minded scientist who believed that one should never reject a theory that hadn’t been completely disproven? He was stuck on Sparrow Island for two weeks. Why not further study the book and figure out if there was anything to it? That’s why he came, after all. George’s last request was for Jules to continue his work, and if there was any chance of discovering something that would change the world, no matter how remote, didn’t he owe that much to his friend?

He opened the book again and continued reading.

It was half past noon and Isabelle came into the lab with a cup of hot coffee and a biscuit. She smiled at Sean reading a book on botany, and put the mug and biscuit in front of Jules. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Hm? Oh yes, that’s fine,” he said, not looking up from the book.

She saw the stacks of files on the desk. “It looks like you found a lot of interesting material.”

“What? Oh yes.”

She could see he was distracted. “I’ll just take Sean so you can work.”

Jules was suddenly aware of Isabelle in the room. “Uh, sorry. Thank you for the coffee.” He took a sip and put the book down. A wisp of dark hair fell over his eye and Isabelle had a terrible urge to push it back with her fingers. As if reading her mind, he pushed it back himself and smiled warmly. “I thought you were looking for the diamond.”

“I believe that’s a hopeless case.” She looked at Sean, who was enamored with the almanac, stroking the black ink drawings of holly leaves as though petting a cat. “Be careful with that book,” Isabelle told him. “My father made me wash my hands just to look at it.”

She picked up the green notebook. “ The Eden Project . What is this?”

“Nothing you’d want to read. There are drawings…”

“Was this my father’s journal?”

He took it back with more force than intended.

“I’m not allowed to see it?”

“Some of it’s rather disturbing. Besides, your father left all his research to me and this is the only record of his most recent work. I’m afraid he might have burned the rest on the patio.”

“Yes, I saw the ashes.” She gazed down at the book. “ Eden . That’s an odd word for George. Perhaps he found religion.”

“Doubt it. I think the title is a metaphor.”

“So, did he uncover something that would change the world?”

“He claims that plants were communicating with him, in English , no less. That’s a bit far-fetched for even my imagination.”

She shook her head sadly. “You’re right. That’s crazy.”

“Well, not entirely,” he said defensively. “I’ve been doing my own studies lately that show certain plants communicate with each other using acoustical signals, a series of clicks generated by their roots, which travel underground. The clicks seem to represent a particular message, warnings about things like drought or insect invasions in a language specific to each species, such as corn or peas.”

“A language, really?”

“The data is rather preliminary. More testing needs to be done.”

“Even so, communication between plants is very different from broccoli talking to my father.”

“That’s true. George was going down a strange path,” Jules said. “He believed that plant waves and human brain waves are naturally detected by each other, but only slightly because they’re on different frequencies. According to his notes, he found a way to synchronize the frequencies, entangling the thought waves of plants and humans.”

“That sounds insane.”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Jules frowned.

“What a waste of a brilliant mind.”

“It’s not all rubbish.” He opened the book to the pages on V-waves. “These notes reveal a detectable form of communication among trees. There’s no doubt that he discovered a type of electromagnetic wave produced by plants, which seems very similar to the waves given off by a thinking brain. He called them V-waves.”

“What’s the V ?”

“ Viridiplantae . Latin for ‘green plant.’”

“And he believed these waves are similar to human thoughts?”

Jules shrugged and opened the green notebook, displaying the strip charts.

“What am I looking at?”

“V-waves given off by trees,” he replied. “In this study, George hooked up a red cedar with probes to a voltmeter and spectrum analyzer. Then he chopped the tree with an ax. At the moment of impact, the V-waves changed dramatically in frequency. See, this is a recording of the plant’s reaction, which shows it suffered quite a jolt. But then…” Jules turned the pages of the book. “We have these timed recordings of six neighboring pines. There was a burst of energy among all of them the instant the blade struck the cedar, almost as if they could feel its pain.”

“Interesting. But those are physiological reactions. It doesn’t prove trees have conscious thought. It certainly doesn’t prove they could talk to George.”

“No, but combined with the rest of his data, it gets rather curious.” His fingers turned a few more pages. “These are the readings of your father’s brain waves, taken five years ago. Notice what happens over time, the similarities between the two waves. The V-waves show slight changes in frequency, until they’re completely synchronized with the readings of his own brain.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, in theory, he might have actually entangled the thought waves of plants and people.”

“ Thought waves, ” she said derisively. “Surely you don’t believe all this nonsense.”

“I’m not sure what to believe. George was scrupulous. Not one to make things up, especially test results. I mean, why would he lie?”

“Drugs. Mental disease.” She rubbed her arms. “He did kill himself, after all.”

“That’s another thing. I want to know why, don’t you? Why does a man claim to have made a miraculous discovery and then end his own life?”

She gave a hopeless shrug.

“There’s no harm in looking a bit closer, poking around and finding some answers.”