Reset: A Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Fantasy (Contaminant Series Book 1) (2 page)

Rosenthird shook his head in disgust, “There’s got to be another way.”

Chris used her best matter of fact tone, “Not before we lose the dollar, sir.  Food prices have more than doubled.  Even if we find enough food, at the rate of inflation, nobody can hardly afford it.”

Rosenthird after a sigh of resignation nodded at Chris to continue.

“In fifteen minutes, it’s the Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting.  The others will have reports that Marine Corps General Griffith will be presenting.  This includes a debriefing of Operation Stance.

Rosenthird scooted near the edge of the seat and sat up straighter.  He was putting on his game face, “Anything else?”

Chris nodded to Michael and he began, “Food Aid Rite is delivering, every hour, a shipment of food, seeds and soil for a total of 1.4 million pounds to be exact.” Michael beamed as he spoke.  It was his outreach that prompted the collaboration and collection of food.  And ever since, Food Aid Rite had been an aggressive front for support. 

“On the downside, this will be the last shipment for a while until things calm down.  It was also sent in one of the morning emails.  Apparently, they took some fire from locals while loading cargo.”

Rosenthird’s eyes gleamed as he dared to smile just a bit.  His face has been so grim for so long, that even when he half-smiled, his skin looked like cracked skin-colored frosting, strained and uncomfortable. 

“That’s really good news.  We can fly portions over to soup kitchens in guarded cities.  The more cities we can protect, the more that people will seek their protection.  It may be our only hope at restoring hope… and order.  What do you need from me?  A signature?”

Chris spoke this time. “No, Mr. President.  We’ll start with the list of stand-by volunteers.  It’s a lot of food, so we’ll reach out to people on the streets to help unload, sort, reload packages in exchange for meals and rations.  It’ll keep them fed, busy, and off the streets.  I’ll get Dannison the details at our next break.”

“Good work.” Rosenthird was back to being matter of fact.  He began to stand.

“One other thing, Mr. President…” Chris adjusted her glasses and looked at her clipboard.

Rosenthird sat back down.

“Lunch is at 1:30 pm today.” Chris delivered this as she would any other piece of information.

Rosenthird grimaced.  “They keep pushing it back further and further, like we won’t notice.” 

Michael and Chris stood and went to their usual chairs, stationed just behind the lounge couches, on either side of the room.  Shaking his head, President Rosenthird stood up and walked over to his desk. 

Right on time, the phone speaker buzzed and Jameson spoke, “Mr. President, Marine Corps General Griffith is here for his ten o’clock appointment.”

Rosenthird held the intercom button and responded, “Send him in.”

***

The next hour and a half went painstakingly slow.  The General Griffith outlined a broad overview of each mission scope executed by each branch, sparing Rosenthird the minute details.  Griffith laid out spreadsheets with numbers, pie graphs, charts, in two dimensions and three dimensions.  He gave a short lecture for how the data relates to the reports and finally read each branch’s debrief, saving his own detailed report for last.

There was a period of silence before Rosenthird spoke.  But when he did, his voice was iced, edged and deliberate.

“It sounds like some of you don’t want to come back.”

            General Griffith had all the makings of a seasoned veteran and his facial expression never changed.  His salt and peppered hair along with his sharp, clean-shaven jaw made his opinion worth two.

 “Mr. President, it’s not a matter of want.  Until the food situation is resolved, it is the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s advice to keep remaining overseas units, overseas.  There, these soldiers have food, supplies, and funds.  If you bring back all these troops, who is going to feed them? Pay them?”

“If your soldiers want funds, they can have funds… in
our
currency.  If they want food, they can eat the same way any other man, woman, and child eats: when they work.  There are angry mobs in our own backyards and roaming the streets… We need more troops
here
.”

Rosenthird’s voice rose, not in anger but in disappointment, “We need to get the public under control here.  Farmers can’t even farm without worrying about people coming to rob them.  What aid we’ve got is drying up real quick.”

“Mr. President, we have taken that into consideration.  It’s too soon to know what your scientists can do to mitigate damages, if anything.   In fact, we won’t know until the next harvest comes in.  You want to take sixty percent of our troops and for me to say
‘yes’
.  Well, I won’t.  We, too, are on the front lines out there against an invisible enemy.  That’s the best place for us to defend this country.”

Rosenthird raised his voice for the second time this meeting.  He was agitated and animated as he paced his side of the coffee table between the two couches. 

“There’s front lines right here that need defending.  If you’re worried about food, we’ve got rations you can defend.  You’re worried about money?  How long do you think the dollar will last with this kind of inflation?  Once our currency goes, you can kiss it all goodbye...”

Rosenthird was out of breath from his back and forth motions.  By the end of his retort, he was leaning on the coffee table, in the general’s face.

Griffith slowly stood up and with him, Rosenthird.  The general held his hat in his hand and put his chin up. “Mr. President, we’ve done this dance for a few years now.  But this time, our country, everything that we are, is riding on this.  Whatever you decide…” Griffith nodded as if to add affirmation, “We will carry it out with a vengeance.”

“I know you will.” Rosenthird patted Griffith on the shoulder and walked him to the door, “Tell them to start packing.  I’m signing the Order before lunch.”  With a brief handshake, President Rosenthird escorted Marine Corps General Griffith to the hallway.  He shut the office doors and quickly went to the phone to intercom Jameson, “Jameson, please have Vern escort Marine Corp General Griffith to the exit.”

A nasally “Yes, Mr. President” came through over the speaker.

Rosenthird slowly walked back over to the couch and plopped down.  He checked his watch.  Only 11:30am. “Why don’t you two take a break.  Be back here in twenty?”

“Thank you, Mr. President”

“Thank you, Mr. President”

Both aides closed up their notebooks and suitcases and exited the Oval office.

***

The door to the Oval office was shut when Chris and Michael returned to the benches outside the door.  At 11:50am, President Rosenthird arrived with his bodyguard in tow.  He opened up the office, allowing the bodyguard to enter first and then entering himself.  Once again, Michael allowed Chris to enter before him.  She didn’t even acknowledge it or him this time.  The aides situated themselves in their chairs and waited for the guests to arrive. 

Soon after the opening of the office, the couch opposite the President in the lounge had two visitors sitting on it.  On one end sat agriculturalist consultant, Peter Tillman.  He was surprisingly fit for a balding middle-aged farmer.  His skin was a leathery light brown from years spent in the sun. 

At the other end of the couch sat biologist, Anna Williams.  At first glance, she appeared young, like mid-twenties young, because of her wrinkle free face.  Her smooth, milk chocolate skin shone under the gentle lighting in the office.  A closer look revealed that Anna’s eyes were not so naïve as her age might suggest.  She was wearing a black dress suit and she had an aura of confidence that could be felt.

Rosenthird composed himself and turned to his presidential aide, “Christine?”

“Time, Mr. President.” She was matter-of-fact as usual.

“Alright. Let’s begin.”

“Mr. President,” Anna wasn’t calling his name.  She was addressing him.  “I’m Anna Williams of the Agriculture and Biology Coalition.  I will be filling in for Jenna Olson.  We are on the brink of something in Nebraska.  She wanted to stay back and see it through.”

Rosenthird acknowledged her with a nod,

“Okay.  What do you have for me?”  He sat back on his couch and propped pillows behind his back for support.  It was informal, but nothing about their situation was formal.

“We spoke over the phone.  I’m Peter Tillman, agriculturalist.  And, I’ll cut to the chase.  We want your permission to distribute cloned meat.  The work that ABC has been able to achieve in cloning cannot yet be applied to plants or reverse the effects of Crop-Dust.  The only plants that seem to have any capacity to withstand the genetic tampering are plants that have already been genetically altered.”

 “GMO’s?” Rosenthird piped up.

Peter gave an approving nod, “Yes, sir.”

Rosenthird let that sink in, “Eight months ago, people had been picketing GMO’s.  Now, it could save them.” He chuckled.

Neither Peter nor Anna laughed.

Anna spoke this time, “We’ve made significant advances in cloning animals; but plants are a more difficult because they have a wall around their cells, for one.  And for two, plants aren’t born.  But we can do meat.  We have experimented with the manufacture of animals that produce other foods such as milk and cheese.  We don’t know what effect ingesting Crop-Dust contaminants could have.  Upon closer examination, these synthetic foods are found to be just as nourishing if not more so.  It’s not a permanent fix.  But, it’s what we’ve got.”

“It
is
what we’ve got.” Rosenthird half-muttered under his breath, “What about the plants we already had underground?  I haven’t heard any reports of those.”

“Well, they are still growing.  It’s been all we can do to study the dirt and isolate the element that is deactivating the soil and the plants.” Beyond that, Anna offered nothing more in the way of an explanation or an excuse.

Peter reached for the report from Anna and flipped a few pages near the center, “Mr. President, I’ve also outlined here some of our efforts and obstacles.  We’ve taken several of uninfected plants and created clones that were growing vegetation.  Whenever we have introduced a clone plant into soil from the Earth, it stops growing.  Not only that, but the plant is contaminated with the same inhibitor found in the soil.  To make matters worse, when the clone plant was returned to its original potter, the soil that was previously pure was found to be contaminated.”  Peter set the report on the table and pushed it towards Rosenthird who picked it up.

“Our saving grace in all of this is compost piles.  Every lab has been keeping one of paper and food scraps, although there’s not much of that.  It provides us with fresh dirt.  We’ve collaborated on a project to start composts all over the country and collect the dirt periodically.  Perhaps we can build something akin to a sandbox and start re-growing food.” Peter ended his sentence with his hands clasped.  Both he and Anna waited on President Rosenthird.

“How soon can the ABC have food packaged and ready for delivery?” Rosenthird spoke slow and decidedly.  His eyes were fixed on the report on the table.

Peter took a breath and quickly glanced at Anna, “We have prepackaged and deep frozen several thousand pounds of synthetic food, nationwide.  We started as soon as we realized what was happening.”

Rosenthird stood up, and thanked them both for their report as he walked them to door, “I’ll sign the Order before lunch.  It’s in about thirty minutes and you’re welcome to stay for it.  Vern will see you to the guest lounge.”

With that, Anna and Peter of the Agriculture and Biology Coalition exited the Oval Office.

Rosenthird was already at his desk by the time the door shut, “Jameson, send Vern to see our guests from the ABC to the guest area.  They will join us for lunch before they head back.  Notify the kitchen, too, please.”

“Will do, Mr. President” the intercom clicked off.

The next thirty minutes was sat in silence save for the scratching of President Rosenthird’s pen.  Michael looked at Chris who had happened to look at him.  He pretended to fall asleep and wake up suddenly.  She smiled just enough and looked away.  Time seemed to pass just a bit faster after that.  At last, the familiar dramatic scribbling signified the signing of the documents.  Rosenthird handed the Executive Orders to Michael who immediately took them to the far corner of the room where the fax machine was.  He scanned the documents to his tablet and emailed them to everyone on his roster for in-house correspondence.  Soon after, Rosenthird, Michael, and Chris were on their way to lunch.

Chapter Three

Mess was relatively empty by the time the three arrived.  However, a line of people ran out of Mess and part of the way down the hall.  This is where they got in line.  Rosenthird rocked back and forth from his heel to his toes, with his sleeves rolled up and his hands in his pocket.  Chris was texting on her phone. 

When the public outrage became physical, the State and local governments did everything they could to maintain peace and uphold society.  But each month without adequate food supply saw many people leaving their homes, jobs, and communities.  Entire cities became hollowed shells devoid of utilities and communications.  The government contracted a few wireless companies to maintain operations in return for bonds.  People even switched carriers to have access to a cellular network.  White House employees, federal employees, and large cities on the state level were on a government contract.  It’s not like that bill would be due anytime soon.

Michael checked his phone… for no reason at all.  His folks never called.  He scrolled through his contacts and stopped at ‘Mom’.  After the brief generic conversation he had with her in his head, he felt bad that he considered his own mother a chore and a bore.  But, he didn’t really see the point in frivolities either.  After a quick ponder, he called her.

The phone only rang twice before it was picked up and a rather vibrant voice on the other end of the line said, “Hello? Michael?”

“Hey, Ma, I was just thinking about you.  I thought I would call you up.”