Zera and the Green Man (28 page)

“Octopus and squid, you know, if they get scared, well, they have this black ink they squirt. Now, if something really startles me . . .  I squirt black ink out my . . .”

Zera stared in disbelief.
Poor James!
She glanced at her uncle and his face was now not only ashen, but had sweat beads all over it.
He looks like he might be sick again.

“And we don’t know how the skin spray they used on
you, that you absorbed into your body, might have altered you in other ways?”

“It’s been only six weeks, so, no, they don’t know.” James rubbed his arms. “Void’s offering me a lot of money to go to a new lab in South America while they try to figure out how to fix it. They don’t want this getting out.”

“And you were the only one in the experiment?”

“The only one I know of. I think I was the first. That’s what they told me anyway.”

“I’m sorry, James.” Lily addressed the camera. “James contacted us because he wanted people to
know
. He’s been taking a big risk, joining the Green Guerrillas, going undercover. You’re a good man, James.” At this point, Lily’s voice broke.

Bear paused the camera, moved his head away from the viewfinder. “Are you okay, Lil?” 

Lily shook it off, cleared her throat. “Keep shooting.”

James, black and white stripes now covering his exposed skin, looked directly into the camera. “I would give my life to stop what is being done here. This technology is just beyond stupid. It’s evil.”

“Well, there you have it,” Lily said. She had regained control of her emotions, but the anger and sarcasm that had animated her earlier was gone. She now looked depleted. “A brief tour of the greenhouse, as I promised,” she said softly. “Now we’re going downstairs, where you’ll see something even worse, if you can imagine, than what’s going on here.”

Bear turned off the camera.
“On to the lab.”

They headed for the elevator.

“We don’t have much time,” Lily said, looking at her watch. She sighed deeply. “This is so much harder than I thought it would be.”

“Do you hear that?” asked Bear.

“Hear what? I can’t even hear myself think, with the racket in here,” Lily said.

Zera couldn’t wait to leave.
It’s a madhouse
.

James’s head jerked skyward, towards the roof of the glass greenhouse. “It’s a chopper!”

Zera’s heart jumped.
Is it the police?
Her uncle was staring upward, his forehead creased in worry.

They hurried to the elevator. Lily pressed the button and turned off the greenhouse lights. The plant-animals quieted.

“Over there!” exclaimed James, pointing.

As the elevator door opened, a search light sliced through the sky and into the greenhouse. There were flashes of green, the momentary shimmer of the plants, and for a second, Zera’s companions and herself, fully illuminated.

Lily stared into the light, defiant. “Let’s get out of here! Move it, quick!”

They piled into the elevator. Zera watched the light, still slanted on the five of them as the helicopter hovered. The door closed. “Going down,” said the elevator’s masculine voice and a shiver traveled through Zera’s spine.
Down . . . to what? Nothing good can come out of what is happening now.

“When we get downstairs, we have to go
fast
. We have to finish,” said Lily.

The doors opened and they ran, with Lily in the lead, through the lab, back to the
clean room. As that door closed behind them, a flash of white light shone through a transom above the outside door. An exploding sound, another white flash, and a rumble came from the helicopter landing area.

“They must be attacking Drew!” Bear’s voice boomed from next to the mirror-door leading to the underground laboratory.

Lily’s jaw clenched. “We have to finish. Let’s go!”

James pulled up the “Are You Clean?” sign next to the door to reveal the keypad. “Do it, Ted,” directed Lily.

Theodore moved to the panel, his face gray and sweaty. “It’s Demeter 911.” He punched in letters and numbers, and then put his hand into the recessed opening. The door stayed shut.

Come on, Uncle Theodore,
Zera pleaded silently,
Come on!

“Damn,” Lily said. “Maybe you punched it in wrong!”

An outside explosion shook the building. Lily looked as if her knees were buckling and Theodore grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?”

“Let go of me!” Her face white, she punched in the code again. She grabbed Theodore’s hand and pressed it again on the pad.

The door opened.

“What about the cases?” asked Theodore, gesturing to the cart piled with
them.

“There’s no time!” Lily said. “Go!”

The five of them sped down the long corridor lit by emergency lights, descending into the near darkness. There were no small, flying cameras following them this time. As Theodore ran, he gasped to Lily, “You’re not taking any weapons to defend yourself? Isn’t that what’s in the cases?”

“No Theodore, it was something for the plants,” Lily said, “to make them sleep
— a permanent sleep.” She nodded toward the camera Bear carried as they ran down the corridor. “This is the only weapon we have. The only one we’ve ever used. Everything we’re doing is posting directly online. No matter what happens, they’re not going to get away with what they’re doing. Not anymore.”

At the door, Theodore hurriedly punched in the password, correctly this time, and the door opened, revealing the bright-as-daylight interior of the laboratory. 

Zera sucked in her breath. Hideous forms, grotesque combinations of man’s organs and plant life, filled the room. The Green Guerrillas had prepared, hardened themselves as best as they could for this moment, but she didn’t have that luxury. Zera saw her uncle’s  guilt-stricken gaze. Zera found, to her amazement, that these sights didn’t frighten her, but she was heartsick. The heart-tree, the lung-tree . . . the medical machines whirring, hearts beating, lungs breathing, the contradictory smells of rich, teeming-with-life dirt and sterile bleach, and the perfumed stench of these plants’ blossoms. The plants spoke to her in soundless words, pleading, begging, for release. 

“Come on
, Bear,” Lily said to her cameraman, who now looked as if he, too, were experiencing some serious queasiness.

Bear took a deep breath, and blew it out through pursed lips. “Ready,” he said. He pointed the camera at Lily.

“We’re in the laboratory,” Lily’s words came rapid-fire. “Void’s trying to get into the building now. Here is where we show you the ultimate in god-playing.”

Lily turned to the row of trellised vines next to the door, the human eye-vines.  “Finally, all boundaries have been crossed. In our brave new world, body parts are commodities. ‘Products’ which will, no doubt, go to those with the deep pockets to pay for them. I shudder to think of where we go from here. We need to ask ourselves, is this really what we want? Is this human advancement?”

Dozens of eye-clusters stared blindly, un-activated by a human brain. There were no eyelids, just a thin, clear covering, like the skin on grapes. Brown, green, blue, hazel, and shades in-between stared immobile as Lily hurried down the row. Zera shuddered. She wondered —
where did the human genes come from to make these? Void employees? What would it be like, seeing your own eyes stare back at you, from a plant?

As Lily moved toward the lung trees, Zera couldn’t hear what she said anymore. Shrieks pierced her consciousness. Human fruit-hearts, veins pulsating with plant sap; lung trees, their fruits breathing in and out; trees with livers dangling pendulously.
Silent to all except Zera. She heard the fast, thundering beating of the hearts, the shallow, quick, and terrified breathing, the psychic screams of protest, both human and vegetable. There was no doubt; they could
feel. They are in torment.
She longed to help them, to do something to ease their misery.

Lily rushed to another planting tank, gesticulating wildly, her mouth moving fast as Bear filmed.
But Zera’s ears were full . . .

On trellises climbed vines with thick stems and giant leaves. Above them nets held fruit resembling bowling balls made of human hair.
What’s next?
flashed through Zera’s mind,
brains?
The medical machines’ lights blinked wildly as paper printouts rolled out.
The printouts are showing their distress
. 

The shrieks, the thunderous beats of the fruit-hearts, the eerie breaths faded, all at once. All sound faded, as if Zera had gone
underwater. She saw Lily mouthing words, eyes darting towards the door.

The door slid open.
                                                            
.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as a tall, handsome man, followed by a dozen other men in olive drab clothes and heavy boots, entered the room.
Soldiers?
Zera thought, standing half-hidden behind a heart-tree. The piercing cries stopped; she could hear again. Bear pivoted, camera in hand as the leader of the group yelled, “Stop what you’re doing, now!”

Zera’s focus went to the man behind the handsome and angry façade and she felt what he did: insecurity, desperation for
control, and underneath it all,
pain
.

Still stronger than the man’s emotions were those of the plants. The feelings were back again, full-out hysteria. The hairs on Zera’s arms stood on end. Her consciousness shifted. She realized that she was somehow
one
with the plants. The boundaries that seemed to exist never had.
We placed those boundaries.

The men began shouting, “Stay where you are!”
“Hands up!” Her uncle Theodore moved protectively toward her and one of the men yelled, “You, we said hands up!”

He lifted them, shaking his head.

Lily, her face twisted, confronted the leader. “It’s him, Langston Void. God himself.”

Zera’s attention moved to the lung-tree, near Lily, and as she
focused on it, she realized she could see and hear the room through
its
perspective. By moving her attention to the other human-plants in the room, she could see and hear the entire room. She no longer felt the plants’ anguish. They had quieted and now she
was
the plants. Her spirit filled all of them, was the cause of their calmness. She could
be
them, one at a time or all at once.
How is this happening?

You have opened yourself
up,
a voice answered her in her mind.

Sunny?
Zera thought.
Is that you? Where are you?

Yes, it’s me. Whenever entities connect, they stay close.

Six of Void’s dozen men carried laser rifles. They were spreading out to the perimeters of the room. The other six, wearing holsters with stun guns, flanked Void.

“Hands up!” a soldier yelled at her. “Move away from the tree!”

When she hesitated, Theodore said, “Do it, Zera.”

Zera raised her hands and a couple of the tree’s branches jerked. No one noticed.

“Zera?” said Langston, concern etching his features. “Is this your niece? I thought she was in Colorado. I spoke to Hattie Goodacre. She said Zera was in a coma.”

“What?” Theodore shook his head. He, Lily, and Bear stared at Zera. Zera thought,
Oh my God, so that’s what happened
.

Langston turned to Bear and commanded, “Turn off the camera.”

“Don’t, Bear,” Lily said. “Now the world can see who’s behind all this.”

“I’m not moving,” said Bear.

Void nodded to the three men on his left. “Take it away.”

The corporate soldiers moved toward Bear. When they came within distance, Bear kicked sideways, catching one of the men just below the chin, snapping his head back, causing him to fall. Before the others could pull their stun guns, Bear delivered a roundhouse kick into the mid-section of another, toppling him. The camera stayed in Bear’s hands.

The first man lay on the floor to Bear’s right, and he was starting to get back up. The other, to his left, gasped, fish-like, for air. Theodore moved closer to Zera, but he was watching Lily. They exchanged terrified looks. Fear ripped through Zera.

James moved in front of Lily and Theodore, hands up over his head. The black and white stripes on his arms and face, now glowing, began to revolve up his arms and face, swirling like a barber shop pole, moving up and up, faster and faster.

The third soldier drew his stun gun but then stood there, staring along with the others.

They’re mesmerized.
That’s what cuttlefish do to their prey, they hypnotize them, confuse them with moving patterns.

Langston looked away. “Goggles,” he said.

The men reached for goggles on their belts and slipped them over their eyes, breaking the spell. Void said, “We were ready for that, James.”

Void motioned for the six rifle-carrying men to circle Bear. They pointed their weapons at him. 

“Please, Bear, put it down,” Lily said. “We have enough on them.”

Bear laid the camera down on the floor and two men grabbed him, pulled his arms behind him, and slapped handcuffs on his wrists. Another picked up the camera, turned it off, and slid it violently toward the door. It skidded sideways and collided with the wall. The sound of shattering plastic caused Bear to grit his teeth.

Void’s chiseled features warped into ugliness. His green eyes bored into Lily’s brown ones. “Your plan didn’t quite work the way you thought it would. Imagine, I’ve known Troy for years. All this time and never guessing . . .”

“Troy Sylvan has a conscience.” Lily spat the words.

Langston Void smiled at Lily as if she were a naughty child. “Too bad he wasn’t able to keep me from the office quite as long as you planned. Meg called some time ago, asking why Mr. Green was in the office when he was supposed to be in Colorado. It didn’t take me long to figure out the rest. You underestimated me.” 

Lily walked up to Langston and he motioned for several men, who had begun to advance, to stay back. “We have a wondrous planet,” she said. “We’ve found nothing like it in the universe. Many of us feel that it is
perfection
. How could you do these things? How could you tamper with billions of years of evolution?”

Void laughed. “Nature is
not
perfect, and all can be improved by the human hand. I think it’s
you
who needs to evolve.”

Lily moved closer, her small hands balled into fists. “The world is perfect in its imperfection!” She screamed. “Can’t you see that?”

Zera wondered what she could do, and, more importantly, how. She tried to will the heart-tree to move and a few leaves stirred.

This time Void didn’t call off his men. “The lady needs to be handcuffed as well. Give the handcuffs to Theodore Green,” he pointed. “He’s our
president of biotechnology and was kidnapped by these fools.”

Theodore moved to Lily’s side. As the soldiers approached he stood in front of her and put his arms out protectively. “Leave her alone.”

Void gestured for the men to wait. “Don’t tell me that you’re one of them too?”

“What you are doing is wrong, Langston,” Theodore said. “And I’ve been wrong too, for a long time.”

“Are you so sure about that, Theodore?” Langston’s sculptured features were as cold as stone. “What if I told you that Hattie Goodacre said your mother was in the hospital right now? That she’s needed a heart transplant for a long time? What would you say to that, Theodore? Would you still think it’s all so wrong, if your work could save the life of your
own mother
?”

A chill swept through Zera as her uncle blanched. “You’re lying.”

“No. You see, your deception proved true. I spoke to Hattie not long ago. She’s been at the hospital all day with someone with the ridiculous name of Cosmic Dan. Hattie cried when she told me how she’s been trying to get in touch with you. She told me everything. And she said her own grandmother had spent the day at Zera’s side. At
her
hospital bed. I checked it out; it’s all true, Theodore.”

“Zera?
But she’s here, Langston.”

Langston glanced at Zera. “I don’t know who this young lady is but I would guess she’s another one of the Green Guerrillas’ tricks. Your niece is in the hospital.”

“You lying dog — ” Theodore lunged for Void, but before he could reach him two of Void’s men pulled him face down on the floor. A knee dug into his back, restraining him. 

Zera watched her uncle struggle. Confusion and anguish shone in his eyes. She had nothing but contempt in her heart for Langston Void. She wanted to scream, but her heart was so heavy it rendered her mute.
Is Nonny in the hospital?
Zera felt her uncle’s fear and torment over what might be true. The men handcuffed Lily and James, and they didn’t put up a fight. Then they put cuffs on Zera.

“Leave them alone!” Theodore boomed, lifting his head off the floor. Lily looked at him with surprise.

Langston stood over Theodore. “You could have had it all.”

“What
you
don’t understand, Langston,” Theodore grunted out the words, as the soldier kept a boot in his back, “is that if you can’t look at yourself in the mirror, then you have nothing.”

“I have no problem with that.”

“You’re not even looking at your real face!”

Langston winced. “Handcuff him, too.”

The men roughly secured Theodore. As the side of his face pressed into the cement floor, Zera realized with surprise that she could hear his thoughts. They were a jumble of fear and bargaining:
She’s gotten worse? Oh, Mother! It can’t be a lie, he said he spoke to Hattie. Maybe those hearts-plants can save her. All I have to do is tell Langston I can see I’ve been wrong. I could do it. I could save Mother.

Then
came another voice, one of the plants, in unison this time.
You ARE hearing him, like we hear him, the plants said. Like we can hear all of you, your thoughts, your feelings. We hear them through the chemistry of your body.

Theodore’s next thoughts, ones of despair that maybe Zera really
was
in a coma, tumbled toward her.
There’s no logical explanation,
he thought,
there’s no logical explanation.
Zera felt as if she were drowning in his confusion.
If something has happened to Zera . . . But she’s here. There’s no logical . . .”

A soft, sweet voice, a voice she remembered from her dreams and, from Tava, entered Zera’s consciousness. The Green Woman whispered to Theodore;
Zera’s in no danger.

Zera felt a weight lift from her and she saw her uncle visibly relax, but only for a moment. The Green Woman’s next words came with the impact of a sledgehammer.
Your mother is in danger — but you know she would not want help — not this way.

Hopelessness weighed upon both Theodore and Zera. Zera knew the Green Woman’s words
were true. She felt her uncle, in his ocean of confusion, fighting to somehow accept this.

Zera searched her memory for clues to confirm what Langston and the Green Woman said. Nonny had looked older
but Zera had thought nothing of it.
People get older, and Nonny’s been through a lot these past few years.
Now Zera knew that was part of it, but not the whole story.
Why would he keep this from me? I had a right to know!
With a shock Zera realized
Hattie knew too.
She remembered Hattie’s reaction when they walked to her house that first day back, and when Grandma Wren didn’t want Nonny to go to Tava.
I thought Hattie was being overprotective, but
she KNEW
. Heartbreak settled in like a lead weight in her chest.

The soldiers dragged her uncle to his feet. Theodore’s thought,
Mother’s worse,
blocked out everything else. 

She’s been sick for a long time, Zera, even before your mother and father died. Your uncle has known. He wanted to protect you. Maybe that was wrong, but he did it out of love. 

Zera heard another voice.
We must act,
it commanded. This voice was powerful, echoing, masculine.
The Green Man
. As the soldiers pulled her uncle to his feet, Zera’s distress over Nonny became overshadowed by a more powerful emotion. Gone was the fear, the confusion, the hurt. The Green Man was right. She had to
act
. A power coursed through her. An all-encompassing surge of energy electrified the air — controlled by the Green Man, the Green Woman, and, now, by Zera. She began to move not one plant, but all of them.
I WILL free him. He has to get to Nonny.

Vines slithered, first slowly, then rapidly, across the floor. Thin tendrils from eye-vines, thick ones from the melon-heads, curled, stretched, and curled again, creeping rapidly across the floor. The soldiers stared in disbelief as the vines reached their legs and coiled upward. The men tried to shake off the green shackles, but they were locked in place. Their eyes bulged in fright.

One of them screamed, staring at the fruit, “The . . . the eye vines grabbed me!”

The vines, growing and snaking on the floor, began to coil and wrap around themselves, creating first the giant feet, then legs, then torso, then powerful arms, and, finally, the head of the Green Man. He towered to the top of the laboratory. His powerful voice boomed through the room, “If
you
do not like the look of something, you can choose to look the other way! Not so with us. We see. We feel. Everything!”