Genetic Agriculture

Chapter 3

Genetic Agriculture

Greg climbed the stone steps and passed the columns that once supported an ornate porch. A heavy black woman with simple service dress stood behind a podium and smiled at Greg as he approached. "Your table is ready sir. Please come this way." Greg was led across an open stone floored space to the patio that overlooked New Rochelle and the Atlantic ocean, bathed in morning sun.

"Liam, let Mr P know I'm here...Just coffee today thank you." Greg took his place and went over this thoughts about Welcome and the impeding transfer of the fuels station.

"He's coming." Liam whispered.

"Good morning Mr. Greg No, don't get up."

"Good morning Mr. P." Mr. P was a very short, stocky, cleanly dressed American with a definite swagger. His head was cleanly shaved conceiling that otherwise he would be mostly bald. Without a word from Mr. P., the wait staff appeared, bearing fruits, juices, cheese and other treats for the Hotel manager and his guest.

"How was your meeting with Mr. E?"

"It went fine. He's all wrapped up in the..."

"What I want to know is if there is any chance he'll change the process before we make the transfer." Mr. P. interrupted. "I've told you that we can't afford to let this process get messed up. YOU are responsible for this. I want him in and out of here. We've dumped enough money refining the feed stock genetics to...its been a huge investment. All based on what you told me. YOU." Mr. Ps rant continued for what seemed an eternity. The waiter freshened the dripping water glass as Mr. P slowly drained it, sipped between his enfatic assertions accentuated with overly demonstrative hand gestures. Mr. P had a way of filling time with talk. It amazed Greg that Mr. P had every risen to a rank of authority in the U.S. military. He was more old school: command, command, command. He knew how to listen but the voices in his head immediately drowned out any possibility of understanding, appreciation, or empathy. "Now about that woman at the plant. How stupid could you be letting anyone use on the grounds? Do you know how much she had? You know what? It doesn't matter." In the following brief silence, Mr. P and Greg ate some of the food in front of them. "OK, I've got to go. Get all this straightened out." Mr. P ushed himself up and quickly weaved his way through the tables breifly making some comments to the head waiter, who acknoledged with a nod.

Greg took a breath. In the whole exchange, he had only said a few words. He sat and enjoyed a few sips of coffee, leaning back and gazing out across the town toward the expanse of engineered plantain fields beginning to bake in the Caribean sun.

CE woke early. He had left the windows open to enjoy the breezes in the night, but the sun now streamed in and was quickly warming his room. He wasn't due to meet Greg until after lunch so he was on his own for the morning. Normally he would just rest and enjoy the down time but he had made a promise to his grandson to pick up a conch shell at one of the local markets. There wasn't going to be any more changes to shop unless you include the GEV port gift shop, before it was time to go. Besides, Tuesday mornings were supposed to be the best times to go to town. Cruise ships never came on Tuesdays so the markets weren't teaming with necklace peddlers.

The walk took CE down the rough dirt access road and along the busy two lane highway to town. Along the way, CE passed several vegetable stands where local staples were displayed under big "NATURAL" signs to distinguish their goods from those derived from Engineered crops used in the Energy industry. CE picked up some bananas and instructed Carey to put 2 units on the smiling woman's account. CE didn't have to go far before the bustle of the city displaced the fenced yards and country homes. Bill-boards showing movies of happy young couples dancing at the local hot spots and playing at the beaches, emploring them to "live and love in SL" The advertising campaign was designed to stem the tide of emigration of the most talented youth to emerging economies in central america.

"Most of the stuff you're looking for should be down this way in the market place." came Caries voice over the traffic as if she was walking just a few steps behind CE. CE passed a modern building facade, which was in odd discord with the scores of empoverished huts along the nearby hillside. Things were substantially better in S.L. since the Navy began it's energy program there, but it would take years before the programs to improve educations and infrastructure would change the lives of most SLians.

Past the intersection of the major highway skirting the harbors edge and the main road cutting through the town and up the hill, sat a large warehouse on a pier marked with a tattered panner "place de la Market". Behind the sign were big white faded letters spelling out "U.S. NAVY RSS SL". The pier and warehouse, now abuzz with commerce, were once part of a long abandoned network of small Navy bases scattered around the world. The ships that once used them and men who staffed them failed to connect with locals because they never found any common ground upon which to build a relationship. In the end, the facilities were donated to local governments in exchange for agreements for cooperative ventures like the SEED program and others that produced products and supported fisheries, industries and education. The now Navy made a concerted effort to forward deploy capabilities coowned with partner nations rather than U.S. combat assets. The pay off in good will and reduced trouble in those areas exceeded all previous efforts in the force first mentality.

CE stepped up to the first stall full of tourist trappings and picked up a shiney shell that the thought Ben would like. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the familiar shirtless form of Manuel talking to two American teenagers. The boys wore the characterisitc short white shorts and paisly shirts and spotted dew rags that all the more stylish rich kids wore on vacation. they talked briefly and began working their way through the crowds toward the exit.

"You like the shell?" the vendor inquired.

"Yes How much?"

"5"

"OK" Carey quickly made the transaction and the notice appeared on teh vendors hand held computer node.

"I'll wrap it up for you."

"No No I need to go" Greg looked over his shoulder and saw Manuel and the two boys moving out of the warehouse. Greg tried to pull away so he could follow, but got in a tug of war with the womoan.

"It's very fragile. You have to take care"

"No I have to go" With a quick tug, the shell from both of their grips and fell, shattering to pieces.

"Oh no look what you did" The woman looked around to grab a broom but when she looked up Greg had gone in pursuit of Manuel.

"Carey, can you see those three?"

"He just passed a public video heading North."

"See if we can get the security force data or traffic monitoring video"

"Access is denied."

"We are supposed to have it. Request clearance through the Navy contacts."

"Gimme a second"

Carey left the scene and made her way back to the Energy Research Lab operations center. In order to get access to police data streams she would have to collect clearance and background information from the security office, receive organizational authority for the request, format the information properly for application to the S.L. security forces, get Navy approval and then submit the request to S.L.S.F. With all the approvals in place, the data can then be unlocked for processing.

Before Greg had a taken a single step in the wrong direction Carey had taken care of all the administrative work. "The S.L.S.F. won't recognize the approvals. I can't get their feeds"

Greg scanned the crowds looking for Manuel. The camera in his ear-clip collected data for Carey to process

"Over there going into that shop." Carey used the enhanced video feeds from CE to isolate the image of Manuel among the sea of bodies and faces. "That shop is not in the data base. It used to be an electronics shop but that closed a few months ago."

Greg wasn't particularly brave; however, he often charged into things foolishly once he made his mind up to do so. This was one of those times he was telling himself "this is stupid." He worked his way toward the shop and faced the door. As he reached for the nob, the door pushed open and the Gold toothed man stepped out.

"Hey man, you followed Manuel all the way here?"

"I was wonderingn about that new stuff you were talking about."

"That's not for you Greg"

Manuel and the two boys pushed passed GT and came out smiling. Manuel headed back toward the market and the tow boys walked off a little sheepishly toward the marina.

"You can't come in with that gear." GT pointed to the ear-piece. "Come back later. You can have a smoke. You want a girl?" Carey flipped off GT in disgust. GT smiled completely unaware of Careys gestures. "Paradise"

"No thanks. This wasn't a good idea."

"Let's go" chimed in Carey.

Greg waved to GT and turned back toward the crowd. "He seems like he has better access to information than I do"

"You aren't very clandestine. You left two marks of your locatation in the past 30 minutes."

"I suppose I should be more careful. Let's go get some hard currency to use instead of these credits."

With a quick stop at the bank and a pass back through the market for a new shell. Greg was back on his way to the condo. "Carey, how pervasive is the resistance to engineered crops.? These NATURAL signs have me a little concerned. The local papers are reporting only good stuff."

"It's a taste thing. The engineered crops have a lower water content and they are sweeter. The locals don't like them." Carey had pulled the data from a conversation she had heard in the market. "There is also a pride element. You know, people like things the way they were and they feel like they have to beat down the new idea to justify the way they had spent most of their lives.": information derived from psychology texts and a study completed in south Africa on acceptance of beef treated with growth hormones.

"I think theirs more to it. I need to talk to someone." At the next roadside stand, CE put on his best fake smile and approached the woman draped red pokedot fabric sitting behind the table. Pointing to the "NATURAL" sign and pulling some currency from his pocket CE asked "Why don't people like the bigger fruit from the energy plantation?" He gestured to have two of the plantains put in a bag.

"They not as good...They have a funny taste when you cook them...Like metal...If you eat too much you get dizzy...Kids eat them until they fall asleep. Then they don't go back to school. It's no good."

"hmmm, Thank you" CE was a little puzzled. The engineering process was carefully designed to eliminate any physical effects associated with replacing natural crops with engineered variants. He was sure Greg could explain it when they inspected the engineering facility later that afternoon.

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The Engineering facility was actually part of the same complex CE had toured the previous day. The engineering plant was a small single story white cement building, sitting atop a hill separated from the processing plant by a field of neat rows of plantain trees of various sizes and shapes. The mini-bus left a brown cloud of dust in its wake as the tires crackled on the dusty rutted access road cutting through the field. Genetic engineering was not CEs expertise but he knew enough of the process to recognize the basic steps; genetic modeling and prototype simulation (usually conducted in secure computational facilities) followed by gene synthesis an introduction, and finally by growth and testing. Everything could be conducted here on-site. Although completely outside of what one would normally associate with the Navy, leaders had invested designing generic small scale facilities to help forward operators establish sustainment methods whereever they might find themselves. From places as mundane and backwards as SL to as exotic as the worlds first space "ship"; an assembly of tubes stuffed full of carefully selected members of the Navies submarine force cruising back and forth to the moon looking for trouble and finding none. It turns out the world's people had no lust for killing each other from space and they laughed and the U.S. governments excuses for militarizing space to counter threats to our national security from moon bases run by Chinese settlers.

Greg and CE were busy with more terestrial issues today. CE was waiting for Greg in the main lab space. As CE walked in, Greg was mostly conceiled behind a large blue box with a rats next of cables and tubes dripping from the back and going under the removable tile floor to places unknown. CE walked over to find the dred-locked man from the night before discussing the propper connection of a stray tube in the native patois abreviated french dialect.

"Making some improvements to the genetic gun?" CE announced his presence.

"Oh hey here CE. We were just replacing the cooling line. I'm sorry I didn't introduce you to Vin last night." The dred-lock man stood, wiped his hand on his pants and offered it out to CE with a smile. "Vin will be in charge of operations once we make the transfer."

"Nice to meet you. This must be a new change. There was nothing in the reports that you had made you appointments."

"There's a few more to make, but Vin's a great start. He graduated from Miami a couple years ago on an educational exchange grant. I was pretty happy he decided to come back to help us on this SEED."

"Did you get everything straightened out last night."

"Yea it wasn't anything" Vin had to look away as Greg covered. "Lets go take a look the process." Greg changed the subject.

The two picked up where they left off the day before, going over the status of hardware, and discussing the various strains tested and the resulting yields. "Our most successful variant includes a protien that acts as a pesticide."

"Is that the sources of the metalic taste"

"Indirectly. When its cooked it breaks down into complex molecular structures that can have a taste"

"Do they do anything else?"

"We did extensive testing, you can get your PA to pull the reports, that show no side effects."

"Carey, Can you get me those reports please?" There wasn't a reply. "Carey" CE waited "There's some kind of problem with my PA."

"Liam, can you get those reports to CE? You can show for CE." Liam materialized at a computer console at the side of the room to both CE and Greg. "Do you know what's happened to CEs PA?"

"There is some ex