The Gardener

  But I still thought it was crazy. “How will people, people living now, be able to get these abilities?”

  “They won’t.”

  “Then why do all this if you can’t help anyone living now?”

  He said, “That’s exactly the selfish attitude most of the leaders of the world have. ‘How will this affect us, what are we supposed to do?’ et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It’s not about us here and now. It’s about the future, and who will be here then. How they will take care of what we’ve left them.” He shook his head. “And at this rate, we won’t be leaving them … you and your generation … anything.”

  “So, what is your plan?” For me, it was always about one thing, the most important. “Who are you saving?”

  “Saving is an interesting word. Are we saving anything? Maybe we’re preserving life, ensuring that humans will be around after our current path would have seen us reach extinction.”

  That seemed like a strange way of looking at it. “But … isn’t it a case of nature taking its course? I mean, if the planet is destined to be destroyed, shouldn’t we just go along with it?”

  He laughed. “That’s so fatalistic. Why should we just give in to nature when we can do something to alter the path?” He tapped his fingers on the desk. “Mason, would you rather just be on the planet for a number of years, then once you’re gone, it’s as if you never existed? Or would you rather live forever?”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Answer the question.” He waited.

  Thinking about it, I wasn’t sure which way to go, what he wanted me to say. I mean, coming right down to it, wouldn’t we all want to live forever? So although it was ridiculous, I said, “I guess forever?”

  He smiled. “Exactly.”

  “But people can’t live forever.”

  “No, they can’t.” He pointed to the DVD shelves again. “Bottom shelf, third DVD from the left. Put that in.”

  I half expected more football, but instead it was a savanna, and a male and female lion with cubs. As I watched, the male lion attacked one of the cubs, crushing its skull in his mouth. I watched with horrid fascination for a moment, then looked away and fumbled for the stop button. “Why did he do that?”

  “When a male lion takes over a pride, he kills the cubs of the previous leader, so the females will raise only his cubs. So only his genes will live on.”

  My eyes widened.

  “No, no, no.” He held up a hand and swished it in the air. “Don’t worry, nothing like that is going on here. I’m trying to illustrate that it is within all of us to want to live on through our descendants.”

  “But that happens anyway.”

  He shook his head. “Not if famine and pestilence and war take over. We’re all gone, and any possibility for descendants goes with us. Unless…” He paused.

  Did he want me to figure it out? And then, in a flash, I did. I figured out the reason why those scientists would let their children be guinea pigs in an experiment to create a human autotroph. Because, if the world did indeed continue on its course, humans would be extinct. Unless there were humans who could survive famine. Humans who could survive to repopulate the world. Those humans, those genetically engineered descendants of the scientists, would live on. As would the gene pool of those scientists. That was what TroDyn, and the Gardener, my father, had offered them.

  “They sacrificed their children for immortality.”

  He didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “I don’t like the word sacrifice. Their children are thriving and will be incredibly useful members of society, lead very productive lives here at TroDyn. Their lives will be instrumental to the future of the planet.”

  But what about Solomon? “You didn’t feel the need to preserve your genes forever?” I asked.

  Something flashed in his eyes that made me nervous. He said, “Had your mother approved, of course you would have been part of this. You would have had a hand in all of it.”

  Thanks, Mom.

  I didn’t say anything to that, had no idea what to say to that.

  “You still could, you know. Be involved. I could send you to the best schools and you could come back here, help me run everything.”

  “My life would be set.”

  He nodded. “You’d worry for nothing.”

  For some reason, I didn’t exactly feel the same joy Charlie Bucket felt when Willy Wonka offered him the chocolate factory. “What about Mom?”

  He smiled. “I know she’s been … troubled. You don’t know her as I do—she’s a brilliant mind and I’d be happy to have her back on the project. After all, she only left because of you.”

  The door behind me banged and I jumped.

  Eve walked in, a glare on her face. “Getting caught up?”

  Solomon snapped, “I asked you to leave us alone.”

  “And I did. For far too long, obviously.” She gestured to me. “He may be your son, but you know next to nothing about him. She should never have been trusted with any of this. How can you just offer all of this, all of us, to him?”

  How did she know? Then I looked at the curtained window behind the desk. She must have been sitting in the book room, listening to everything. And blaming my mother.

  I stood up. “Listen, I want nothing to do with this place.”

  “You say that now.” Eve turned to me, hands on her hips. “But wait. Wait until all the things he’s been telling you start to happen. The wars, the pestilence, the famine. You’ll be rattling the front gates to get in.” She pointed up at the desk. “And he’ll welcome you with open arms.”

  She dropped her hands and started to pace, talking to herself or to us, I wasn’t sure. “I knew this was a possibility, always knew this was a possibility.” She stopped to stare at him. “You haven’t told him about Phase One, have you.” It was a statement, not a question.

  I asked, “What’s Phase One?”

  Eve crossed her arms and said to my father, “You tell him or I will.”

  Solomon looked furious. “What purpose could that serve at this point?”

  Eve almost laughed. “You want to hand this over to him without telling him about Phase One?”

  I repeated, “What’s Phase One?”

  Solomon leaned forward suddenly, like he was in pain.

  Eve walked up to the desk. “Solomon? Feeling poorly?”

  He nodded.

  She reached for a small brown bottle and shook a few pills into her hand. “Here.”

  He waved her away.

  “You must.”

  He sighed and took the pills, then continued. “Phase One relied upon the concept that we could turn a human into an autotroph, no genetics involved. You see, I did, at first, think we could give humans the ability to be autotrophic as things stand, using the resources available.”

  “Like how the nudibranchs became autotrophic.”

  He nodded, a flash of pride in his eyes. I almost felt pleased that I’d impressed him. He continued. “So for nearly a decade we tried medications and salves and anything we could think of to apply topically, thinking it was all based in the skin, the body’s largest organ.”

  I said, “But it didn’t work.”

  “No.” He ran a hand over his eyes, rubbing hard for a few seconds. “We knew we had to go deeper, work with the bloodstream. Change the very components of life itself.”

  “This was before…” I had trouble saying it. “Before the Greenhouse?”

  He nodded. “We had only ourselves as guinea pigs at that time. And I couldn’t ask anyone else to do it, so…” His arms reached up in a stretch and his sleeve slipped, revealing the tattoo.

  I stepped closer to the desk. “Is that a Karner Blue?”

  He frowned and looked at his arm. “How did you know that?”

  “But Dr. Emerson said only the autotrophs had that tattoo.” My hands began to tremble as my heartbeat speeded up.

  Solomon nodded.

  “But if that’s true…” I forced mys
elf to walk around the side of the desk, where most of his body had been concealed.

  Under the platform, there was a hole in the floor, where a cluster of silver wires twisted up. Where his lower body should have been was only more of the same, a twisted mess of silver wires, along with hoses that had a green liquid flowing through, which began where the top half of his body ended.

  I gasped and stumbled backward until I hit the wall, where I held out a hand, wanting something solid to grab on to.

  “It’s true, Mason.” With a hand he pointed to himself. “You are looking at the world’s first engineered human autotroph.”

  SEVENTEEN

  EVE SAID, “YOU’RE WONDERING HOW IT HAPPENED.”

  I could only manage a nod.

  “We started substituting part of his blood with photosynthetic agents, all organic, derived from plants. As his body adjusted to a certain percentage, we increased it, until the photosynthetic agents outweighed the blood.”

  Solomon interrupted. “But we made mistakes. We didn’t realize that organic materials would break down. While I was able to photosynthesize, it took all my energy. So we started on Phase Two, raising the children to live with less and less food, trying to see if we could succeed with that before giving them any of the organics.”

  I asked, “Did it work?”

  He shook his head. “We just couldn’t get the organics to stop breaking down, so we ended Phase One and tried to reverse it—to rid my body of the photosynthetic materials. My bloodstream could no longer function without the substances it had become dependent on and the circulation in my legs was compromised.” Solomon’s voice was flat, with no emotion. “They became gangrenous. So now I’m forever hooked up to a machine that provides me with fresh organic material to replace the old.”

  “And you take medicine?” I glanced at the bottle of pills, still in Eve’s hand.

  She saw me looking. “He’s been feeling weak lately. These help.” Her tone bordered on defensive.

  Solomon didn’t seem that bothered by what the experiment had done to him. He lost his legs. And his son. But then, whenever I spoke about my face, it was easier to keep the emotion out, easier to hold the feelings at a distance. “Was my mom here then?”

  Eve made some kind of weird huff, but Solomon ignored her. “Yes, it was soon before you were born.” He gestured at the tubes beneath him. “She’s the one who worked on this solution. But seeing me like this was … too much. Especially with you coming.” He gestured at his lower half. “I’m afraid this has made me a bit of a recluse. I haven’t left TroDyn for nearly sixteen years.”

  I moved back to the other side of the desk so I wouldn’t have to see that anymore. “And Phase Two?”

  Eve jumped back in. “We were able to improve the organics, fix the flaws. We couldn’t use the new ones on Solomon—his body rejected them. But the children were introduced to them very gradually and, most likely because of their young age, they didn’t suffer the same problems as Solomon. However, as they reached adolescence, we realized there needed to be an element of technology; the organics alone would not continue to effect change at the cellular level. So far, Phase Two of the experiment is working.” Eve paused, and then said proudly, “We have fully functioning autotrophs.”

  How could she be proud of it all? What they’d done to those kids? “What happened to Laila? Why was she sick?”

  Eve shook her head. “She wasn’t sick. We’ve been sending small groups to the Haven of Peace for a while now, to see how they function away from the perfectly controlled environment of the Greenhouse. Of course we put them in a semi-sleep mode to conserve their energy. And they do require at least one other autotroph to be nearby. They draw energy from each other. So when she was by herself—”

  “She was never by herself,” I interrupted. “She was withme.”

  Eve set a hand on her chest. “Pardon me.” She rolled her eyes, which pissed me off. “When Laila was not with another autotroph, she began to weaken.”

  I thought what she didn’t say: Especially when she was running around Portland.

  Eve said, “That’s an element we’re working on.”

  I asked, “Where is she now?”

  “She’s perfectly fine. I’ve taken her off the away group for now, she’ll just be staying here.”

  My chicken salad sandwich, which earlier had seemed to be fully digested, was threatening to reappear. “Where is she?”

  Eve stared at me. “You didn’t see her earlier? She’s back where she belongs.”

  I slapped a hand over my mouth, trying to keep from throwing up. Laila was back in the Greenhouse, in that horror house of freaks. “Take me to her!”

  “I’m not sure how that would—”

  “Then I’ll go myself.” In three long steps, I was at the door and heading through. Heated words between Eve and Solomon started up behind me as I entered the hallway and tried to figure out which way to go. Choosing to go left, Ihadn’t taken two steps before an alarm sounded, white lights flashing in time with the constant blare. I started to run, trying doors along the way. One was unlocked and I opened it, knocking over a mop with a clank.

  A janitor’s closet. Probably the first place they’d look. So I ran to the next corridor, took a right, and then turned the next corner and flattened myself against the wall. In seconds, I heard running footsteps in the first hallway, along with a door opening and, a little while later, slamming. The janitor’s closet, I assumed. The footsteps continued, but in the opposite direction. For all I knew, the building was set up to detect people in off-limits areas, so the more I stuck to the well-traveled areas, the less chance I had of sticking out like a sore thumb. I ran back to the janitor’s closet and slipped inside. They wouldn’t check it twice, I hoped.

  There was a small window, so when I heard more footsteps, I hid until they went past, then watched where they went. Eve must have set off the alarm, telling everyone I was heading for the Greenhouse. And I would just have to follow my chasers there.

  Two more pairs of footsteps went by, and I peeked out fast enough to see green jumpsuits, not the white shirt and khaki outfit. So the big guns had been called out for me. Or big Tasers, I could say.

  But I wanted to be able to find my way back, at least this far, so I started digging around. I needed something I could see, but that no one else would notice. Or if they did notice, would think nothing of. There was a canister of that orange powder the school custodians sprinkled on puke. Although the smell and its associations made me want to hurl, I poured some in my hand.

  Slipping back into the hallway, I followed the sound of the footsteps through the hallway. Before every turn, I trickled a little bit of powder on the floor. I wished I had worn tennis shoes; my boots weren’t so great to run in, plus they were loud. I had to stop once in a while to catch the sound of the footsteps over my own, but I managed to keep up, just far back enough to hear their footsteps yet not be discovered. As I paused behind one corner, waiting for the footsteps to get farther ahead so I could turn right, I heard footsteps behind me. Without thinking, I ran across to the opposite hall, hoping whoever was behind me would go where the others had, walking right past without seeing me.

  The footsteps, walking, not running, came closer and I crossed my fingers. Shirking back farther down the hallway, I could just see the person turn right, not even looking my way.

  Eve. Her face was red and her short hair all messy.

  I flattened myself against the wall. If she looked my way, she’d see me for sure.

  I waited until she had turned out of sight, then I jogged after her, pausing at each corner to drop some powder and make sure she was ahead. And finally I had to slow to a walk. She was certainly in no hurry, which said to me she was confident the green suits had done their work and captured me.

  Just as I was about to turn right again, I heard voices.

  Sliding down the wall to the floor, I sat on my haunches and peered around the corner. Eve and three green suits
had their backs to me as they stood in front of a double door. The Greenhouse. They’d led me right to it.

  Wiping my hands clean of the rest of the powder, I pulled my head back and caught my breath, trying to hatch a plan. Though I was bigger than any of the green suits, probably stronger, the possibility of them each having a Taser was pretty high. My best chance was to surprise them, hopefully steal a Taser from one, and get inside the Greenhouse to find Laila.

  Eve was the wild card. Something urged me not to underestimate her.

  Taking a few moments to gather my wits, I leaned closer to see if I could catch a few words.

  Eve said, “…talked about … timing … distraction.”

  One of the green suits, a man, spoke. “…not sure…”

  Another green suit, also a man, sounded ornery, and it was easier to hear him. “…move on it…”

  What were they talking about?

  Eve spoke again. She was agitated, her voice was louder. “We are so close! Once the Gardener is gone, they’ll have no choice but to side with us.”

  How could Solomon possibly go anywhere in his condition? I swallowed. Although I’d known her for only a little while, I got some serious evil vibes from her. Was she implying she was going to get rid of him?

  I inched a bit closer, trying to stay out of sight, but I wanted to hear. Sounding impatient, Eve said, “I don’t have time to wait around for that kid. He’s going to screw up my plan. You two, split up, start looking other places. He didn’t know his way around, he could be anywhere. You stay here. Taser him if he shows.”

  I listened to the footsteps recede before I looked around the corner. Down to one green suit, and his back was to me. Walking as softly as I could, I came up behind him. He heard me at the last second, but I threw an arm around his neck and grabbed his hand as he went for the Taser. He fought, kicking and trying to hit me with his other arm. He wasn’t so tough once the Taser was out of play, and no match for me. Although I knew it was risky, I tightened my grip around his neck until he stopped fighting, and then I released him. He fell to the floor. With a trembling hand, I checked for a pulse, relieved to find he’d just blacked out and I hadn’t really hurt him.