✥

Ricky’s boss from WEErd Wonders, Bill Mathers, was standing in the Tech-barn they had built next to some old barns of my own. He was accompanied by some guys in white coats wielding tablets. They were doing some major modifications to the unit the drones passed through on a conveyor belt, which attached and removed the sprays the drones carried. I looked up at the sound of rain drumming on the roof. You would have thought they could have muffled that noise somehow with their fancy portable building, sometimes the sound of rain falling drives me crazy.

“We can do everything remotely from here,” Bill explained. “Since there’s not much of the trial period left.”

I didn’t know what to say. “You’re not replacing Ricky?”

He shook his head. “It’s a monitoring job, and tinkering with the sprays the drones deliver. They can still collect soil and air samples, see what the enemy is up to, so to speak.” His sweeping arm, gestured to the rows of equipment and machinery. On one surface three monitors showed graphs and waves and bands of numbers that meant nothing to me. “We can counteract everything they come up with using what’s here already.”

“Are you sure? Really?”

“Unless they want to scorch your earth, and they’d have to get past the Magnetic Trees to do it.” He snorted. “There’s enough scorched earth around anyway. Who needs more of it, eh?”

No-one, I thought, looking out of the window to the line of trees WEErd Wonders had planted. Staring as if I could see the land beyond them.

✥

Like Bill said, we have Magnetic Trees. They are not really magnetic, of course, but they are there to shield the farm and our fields, soak up any bad particles that might ruin our test crop. Bad particles that have somehow managed to stray here accidentally, because there is a lot of bad stuff in the air these days, just drifting about. Or it’s bad stuff deliberately released by groups who are against the use of nano-technology in food production, although not so much against it, that they won’t use their own bugs to get their way. Our adversaries are the ‘Free to Be Fatties’ who think growing crops to beat the weather will just be the first step in manipulating food supplies. Adding vitamins and minerals to food is good for the consumer, but they fear that things will be added to the crops that switch off parts of your brain, make you feel full, make you eat less, make scarce food resources go a little bit further in an overpopulated world with a crap climate.

Apart from the Magnetic Trees, being involved with WEErd Wonders means we get top of the range drones for spraying and security purposes. Trespassers beware, if they can get past the newly erected fences which border the farm, and you would need to be a pole-vaulter to manage that. We also get a state of the art smart fridge. The Blue Sapphire they call it, after Queen Elizabeth’s 65 years on the throne. I admit those thick blue stripes are more than a little garish. Ali hates them and wants me to paint the fridge white. I’m worried that might compromise the magic that works inside the thing so she’ll just have to put up with the blue stripes for as long as the fridge works. Given it came with a lifetime guarantee and downloads its own updates, I expect that to be a long, long time.

✥

We were airing one of the holiday cottages when Ali delivered her bombshell. The cottage was cold and smelled damp, but the view was nice, especially this early in the day. Fields stretching to rolling hills, topped with clouds. Some of what I could see belonged to us. You could see which part by the large WEErd Wonders fence marking the boundary.

“Maybe we should sell up,” she said, back turned to me.

I could feel myself swallowing as I looked at her. “You think? I mean if this works we won’t need to worry about keeping the wolf from the door, just down at the gate, but…”

“Suppose they take their business to other farms?” Ali said, concern etched on her face when she turned round. “Farmers more desperate than us? Who’ll take any offer?”

“We could be their main test site,” I insisted. “This is just the start, Ali. If the Clingers can beat the weather then you can start tinkering with them. Try and get better yields, add in more vitamins and nutrients.”

“So ‘Free to be Fatties’ are right after all?” she said, eyebrows raised. “It is all about making people thinner?”

“Healthier,” I countered. “There’s too many people and not enough food for everyone. The planet is gubbed. Too much water in some places and not enough water in others. Guess which part we live in?”

“I know it makes sense,” she said, striking another match too hard and snapping it. “This is about trying to grow food that can survive constant downpours, but as you said, it’ll soon be about growing food that makes people feel fuller, even when they eat less.”

“Is that a bad thing? Look at the smart fridge they gave us. The packaging reacts with the food and keeps it fresher for longer. The fridge reacts with the packaging and makes the food last even longer than that.” She shook her head. “Where does it stop, Grant? Food that can make you feel full might become food that can make you feel happy, content?”

“What’s wrong with that? Food has always affected people’s emotions, their cravings. People get hooked on certain foods, or need some at certain times. Like chocolate or coffee.”

“Yeah, because they are addicted to caffeine,” the green tea drinker of the family reminded me. “Like I said, we could sell the place, think of the development potential.”

“It’s Green Belt so you can’t build here,” I told her bluntly as something childish stirred to life inside me, wanting to shoot down every suggestion she came up with. “Besides the construction boom is long gone. Small, energy efficient units are what’s hot, and in the city, not in the countryside.”

“Then sell the farm to the company and let them run it.”

I could feel my eyebrows going up. “Really? That’s your solution? They could grow anything when we were gone.”

“But we’d be gone. Not our responsibility.”

“Okay, okay,” I raised my hands. “Let me think about it, right?”

“Make sure you do,” was her final comment as I headed for the door. I managed not to slam it.

✥

The weather is awful, has been for days. Constant rain has caused the main road into the valley to subside and prevent Bill from getting here. When the sun appears over the hills in front of me, it will hopefully shine down on a brand new crop. There is no-one in the Tech Barn anyway, Ricky never made it back. Volcanic ash on the other side of the world still plays havoc with air routes. I can’t get inside the white barn. WEErd Wonders have changed the access codes without telling me. Drones come in to land and are whisked inside on the conveyor belt where their samples are analysed and their sprays are modified with the latest nano-technology weapons to fight other nano-technology weapons. Bill let slip that if the trial is a success they are thinking about introducing animal genes into the new crop, giving the ability to move about and source their own food. That’ll give the protesters something else to worry about, I think, watching as a drone slows to land. A beam of light winks in my direction, scanning me, recognising that I’m not a threat, for now.

The rain drums on my hood. I hate the rain, which might be why my hands have turned to fists on either side of me, or it’s because I feel useless, even more removed from the land that has been in my family for generations. The steward of nothing, or things so small you can’t even see them. But you can still see the sun as it starts to peek over the tops of rolling hills, heralding a new day, a new dawn in more ways than one.

……………………………………………

Children’s author, short story writer and poet, Ian Hunter was born in Edinburgh but lives closer to Glasgow these days and is a member of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers Circle, poetry editor for the British Fantasy Society and book reviewer for Interzone, Concatenation and Shoreline of Infinity.

Pigeon

Guy Stewart

July 12, 1895

Mother said that a long time ago when she was a girl, they ate pigeon every day, sometimes for days and days at a time. But when she was a girl, pigeon didn’t make you vomit until you brought up only blood. When I asked her if they sounded nicer when she was a girl, she said, “No, they’ve always sounded like a rusty mill wheel pump in a dust storm.”

July 14, 1895

Mother is worried. The store in town said that they’re out of shotgun shells.

Pa and Danforth, my oldest brother, spent the afternoon casting lead ball shot and packing Grandpa’s old musket.

This morning, a family came through town in a prairie schooner. Mother covered my eyes as she dragged me away but I saw before she could get her hands over them. The wagon cover was shredded and there were dead people in it. It didn’t look like they had any eyes, neither. She took me and Dennis, Dorothy, and Debra into the tornado shelter. Mother cried about the end of the world until Pa came down and held on to her tight. Danforth didn’t even say anything nasty to me when I held Mother’s hand, too.

After we got back to work, he came up to me and asked if I wanted to know what was really going on.

“Why you wanna tell me?” I asked.

“’Cuz you’re always readin’ them crazy books.”

His idea of crazy books are Jules Verne’s From Earth to the Moon, and HG Wells’ The Time Machine. I shrugged, expecting him to start in on me again. Ever since he stopped schoolin’ and started working with Pa, he’s acting like he’s all better than the rest of us. But I’ve seen the look on his face lately, like when the pigeons in the sky are worse than a tornado. When they all land and eat the ground bare and there’s nothing we can do because their feathers and skin are poison, and the meat makes you vomit blood…

Danforth said, “I been hearin’ things in town.”

“What kind of things?” I scowled, crossed my arms over my chest—which had gotten bigger lately.

He shrugged. “Fine then, if you don’t want to know.” He turned and headed out of the house. Mother was busy with cleaning up after dinner.