IT WAS TIME FOR SEEDING, AND I HAD FINALLY REACHED THE age of apprentice. This year I would join the other Paters, and I would observe and help Jas with the counting and with the machines. The machines would be my responsibility, and I was already nervous. I lay the batteries out, like I had been told, and let them soak in the sun. I turned each one on and off. I even tested one on myself by pricking my finger and putting the bead of blood on the machine. It took a moment. It whirred. It blinked three times. A green light came on for the first three codes, and the display showed the letters that I was meant to look for.
AGGCTTACACCG
GAATCACCTAGC
CTTGTAACCTGG
It blinked a fourth time and made an unpleasant noise and blinked red, but I ignored the letters. It did not matter. Three for Four of the sequence was what mattered. Everyone knew that. Satisfied, I switched the machine off and packed them all away. It would be a long walk to all the towns, and I wanted to rest in a bed before I would no longer have one to sleep in. I blew the wick out and shut my eyes. But I could not deny the truth. I was excited to leave Sandig and see the outside world.
I am interested in everything—the others in town make fun of me for this. But Jas doesn’t. He turns a blind eye when I slip out of the gates and wander around the outskirts of Sandig. I am interested in the differences between home and away. I find things out there and add them to my collection of things. Things that are broken. Things that are from the past. Things that have no use. Things that interest me. Things that I take apart. Even the Romas, those who roam, the renegades, the outsiders who reject the Way, don’t bother me. But the Romas know where I like to go. Out beyond the boundaries to stare and contemplate the strange signs of faces, with their tongues out, in the fields that surround Sandig, and to notice how many animals I can spot: now none, now more, now here, now there. Sometimes they leave me the interesting things they find in exchange for cooked food, dried fish and seaweed that I smuggle outside the gates. It is my secret trade. On occasion, if they find something they think is very valuable, they will wait for me and ask for things they need. I will show them items from my collection and they will pick something, like a knife or some thread to stitch with, good for caring for a wound.
But no matter how much the others may laugh, I like my things. I like to observe.
How the fields are always green in a different way and no one notices.
How mostly I have only seen a bird in an old book that I keep in my room.
How much we rely on the tech that the SciTexts left us from those that came before, to survive.
How when something breaks it cannot be fixed.
The Paters leave from Sandig four times a year. News, Ides, Fourth, and Remembrance. We leave our town in our bright red robes so that everyone may know who we are, and our yellow scarves so that everyone may know that we are from Sandig. Sandig is the most important town. We are the Paters who have the Counter. We keep the count for all that are left. When we walk on our journey to do our duty, even the Romas do not bother us. They watch out for us, escorting the way to the next town. We are that important to the world.
I am so excited to leave that I get dressed before the sun is up. I adjust my yellow scarf, which is stitched with blue and lavender. I have blue and lavender tattoo rings on both of my arms so that everyone knows that when I am a full Pater I may only go with green, brown, orange, and red. But since there are not many left that I can go with, I will become the next Counter.
There are twelve of us walking. The road is long and the work is hard. But we are special.
When we reach the first town, on the gate there is a blue, lavender, black, and green flag waving. That means two girls are ready for seeding. On the highest post, two white flags fly. That means two new babes. This town is growing. I will feast with the others as an honored guest while the two Paters who are called do their duty. Jas is one of them, and that means tomorrow at the counting, I will have to work alone.
“I’m nervous,” I say to Jas.
“Don’t be, Geo,” he says. He hesitates, as though he is going to say something to me but then doesn’t. Instead he says the Pater code. “Do your duty, for all. Three for Four count. Be swift.”
I repeat it along with him. I know he is steeling me for what I must do. But I am restless.
Some of the Paters are complaining that the food was off, or not as good as last year. I do not understand why they are complaining, because I notice that most from my group do not eat much. Every year they seem to get skinnier. For me, the food seemed fine, and in all my years I have never seen so much food on a table. I know that every town feeds the Pater their best foods. I eat everything in front of me. Most of the others barely finish their first plate.
After the feast they all want to rest because their stomachs hurt. We are led to a cabin where we will all bunk, and almost everyone has to lie down. I never lie down after I eat, like the others do. I have been warned that I may feel ill from the different tastes, but my belly does not hurt and I do not have gas like the others. But even in our town, they complain and lie down after every meal, as they do here.
I stand at the door, looking out at this town, which is different and new.
“Shut the door,” Dug says to me. He is lying on his bedroll, sweating and moaning. So instead of joining the others on the floor to rest, I go outside to roam. I have never been away from Sandig, and my eyes are interested in all that is before me.
The town looks nothing like our hometown, and yet parts of it seem familiar. Here, like us, they feast mostly on fish and seaweed. I can hear the water. The sound of it is comforting and familiar, and reminds me of home. As with us, the streets are still mostly paved, and the people live on the street with the most houses that are still standing. The houses from before, with glass windows and working doors. And some of the houses have the same names as we do; tarbu ks. Wal t, Donal ’s. The houses go on, even past the large fence made of wood and metal that surrounds the town, and keeps its people safe. And outside, past the crumbling buildings, are of course those strange signs. The ones that scream danger. Now we know that there is not much out there, except for other barricaded towns and stretches of nothing. But after it all began, people needed to fight together to live. This town, Mesa, I know to be bigger than most but not as big as our home. I am warned that some other towns are very small. That is just part of the Way. And we do what we can to bring hope.
In the morning, when I wake up, it is time for the counting. It is the most important thing that our group of Paters do. We seed, like the other Paters, but our priority is the count. The village brings the babes that have been born since the last time we came. In this town there are two. I prick their fingers and the machines whir. They are both four for four. The town wants to celebrate with another feast. It is good news for them. Despite being a bigger town, their numbers were getting low. The two babes are boys. There is much to rejoice about that. Boys are rare, which is why most become Paters. But Jas has a schedule that he wants to keep. So he moves us along.
“We have many towns to go to,” he reminds us.
As I am packing up my machines, a woman comes in and presses a shell necklace into my hand. When we file out of the town, more people come up and try to give us gifts. I take what I am given because I like the thought of adding things from my trip to my collection, but the other Paters wave the people away, as though they are irritated by the show of emotion.
“I think they were just trying to say thank you,” I say to Jas.
“Geo, you’ll learn that your pack will be too heavy if you take every piece of thank you that you are given.”
“They were happy, that’s all,” I say. I am wearing my bead necklace. And I have dried seaweed in my pocket. And a small metal box with the picture of a woman who is part fish.
Jas shakes his head. He is much older than me, and so he has wisdom, and I respect that. But when he talks to me like that, it makes me feel as though I am not an apprentice Pater, about to become a man, but still just a small boy with a silly love of collecting odd things.
“Come now, Geo, don’t be sour,” Jas says.
We walk on the road and head north, but we must stop a few times more than Jas would like because some of our group are sick. We slow down our pace, and that helps, but Jas worries that we will fall behind in our duty.
We pass another group of Paters from the North on the road. Their number is small, only five. We exchange news. Even though they do not mention it, I notice that most of their group is feeling sick, too. We camp together for the night before we part ways in the morning.
We pass by some more fenced-off towns. I think that we are going to stop at every single one, but Jas says there is no need. Sometimes there are no flags hanging, which means no counting must be done because no babes have been born. We only stop if there are white flags—to do the counting—or if there are colored flags—to do the seeding—and then, only if the colors of the flags mean that one of us is a good match. If there are no flags, it means there is no need, or some other Pater group has filled it. We are all in this together.
We come upon a town that needs us, and so we enter. Here, there are the cactus and the succulents. I notice that there are plots of land outside that people still water, although nothing pushes up through the ground except for weeds. I am surprised when, later at the feast, they put the weeds in everything. Many of our group are still feeling ill. Many in the town are too. But I have not lost my appetite.
“It tastes good,” I say.
“Dandelions,” a woman tells me. “I will pack some for your journey.”
I continue eating my soup to avoid Jas’s annoyed look, but I am glad that I will have a tasty snack for the long walks.
The next morning, in the room with the machines, the same woman enters with a bag of dandelions and a babe in her arms. She hands me the dandelions, and I am glad that Jas is still in the outhouse, taking care of his stomach because he is not feeling well, so I can put them in my pack before he sees me collecting another thing. I wait before beginning, for Jas, and he comes in and examines the babe. The babe has orange and brown tattoos. That is a rare combination, but not as useful since the babe is a girl. When I am a full Pater, and a seeder, brown and orange will be good for me to do my duty with. If there are any left. I heard Jas say that there are not many along the road of the Way.
The baby coos. The woman smiles. I distract the child when Jas goes to prick her finger. The baby laughs. The machine whirs. The first code comes up green.
AGGCTTACACCG
And then there are three red buzzes.
Jas looks at me. The woman looks at me. The baby coos again.
“Geo, why don’t you give the litany.”
He is teaching me how to do it because I am Apprentice Counter. I have never given the litany before. I stumble over the prepared speech.
“As we know in these dark times, it is important for all that only the strong be allowed to grow. Any of those without the sequence must go down for all to rise.”
The woman looks at me. I feel terrible about the dandelions. I wonder if I should give them back. As is tradition, I take her hands in mine. I have not touched many hands in my life. Her hands are rough and cracked and dry. That is when I notice her birth marks. She has seven. On her left arm. Seven babes, all gone down. This will be her eighth to go down.
Jas has already taken the babe in his arms and put the poison on his finger for the babe to suck. In a few minutes the babe will sleep and never wake up again.
“Thank you,” the woman says. Her eyes are hard, but mine are not. I am crying as she leaves the tent.
Jas moves close to me.
“The first one is always hard,” Jas says. “It gets easier.”
“How can it get easier?” I ask.
Jas shrugs. “It just does.”
He leaves me to myself as I do my job of packing the machines. I try to remember that we are performing a kindness. No one, the Way says, except for those who are three or four for four, will live for very long. It is better for them to go down when they are young. It is less painful than to know them and then put them down.
“Orange and Brown is so rare, though,” I say.
“Yes,” Jas says. “Very rare.”
“Why couldn’t we have spared her for the orange and brown?”
“The sequence. Three or four for four. It is what we live by. It is our code. It is the law.”
After one week, we arrive at the next town that needs us.
We are halfway through the feast when a man comes from a remote village. He has heard through the Romas that we were on the road. He comes to plead his case.
“We are a small town. Very small. We are new. We have only two girls who are of age. We are prepared to give so much for just this chance. We are ready to join the Way.”
Sometimes this happens. New towns form. The Romas get tired of wandering and fighting, and they settle down and make a town. In order to grow, they must join the Way. It is hard. The Romas take a chance by inviting the Paters in. The girls must be tested to see if they will fit into the Way. If they do, then Paters will be sent to them. If not, then they will not join the Way and the town will likely die.
Jas is the oldest. It will be him to decide. It will be him who will go with the man to visit the girls. He consults with the man. They look at me.
“Geo,” Jas says. “They are desperate. The Way is their best chance. And they have birds.” Birds are rare. My stomach and eyes delight at the thought of birds.
“Why don’t you go?” I ask Jas. He should go. He is the leader. He is the Counter. I am just an Apprentice Counter. But then, as I look at him closely, I see that I don’t have to have him give me an answer. I can see by the way he holds himself, as though it is with great effort to stand, by his paleness and by the way he has spent so much time by the side of the road, like the others. It will not be long before the fact that he is ill will be known to all. It seems as though many people in all of the towns are ill. But I have not weakened at all. The walk has made me stronger.
“I will do it for the birds,” I say.
I will be gone a few days, and that will give the group a chance to rest and get better while I do our duty.
The man is so thankful, he pumps my arm up and down as though I will give water. It is shocking to be touched. But he is crying. And I try to remember that the Romas ways are not our Ways. He gives a sack of goods to Jas, with the promise for more upon my return.
I get my pack and find the man waiting by the gate. It is strange for me to leave on my own with a stranger. His accent is difficult to understand, but we make do with hand gestures and good will. We begin to walk. I can tell that he is sorry that I have to walk because it is far and the terrain is treacherous. And I am a Pater. I try not to let on that I am only an apprentice and have never seeded anyone, and that this is my first trip, and that after two hours my feet are in pain. I am his hope. I must always look like it.
We are walking up and up and up a mountain. As we turn on the path, the valley and the ocean spread out below us. The view takes my breath away. The water is silver, the sky is blue, and the ruins from two cities are in perfect view. I cannot help but wonder at the amount of people who lived there once. I cannot imagine the world without worry of extinction. The trip is worth it for this moment of beauty and sadness. My guide stops with me, and we both take a moment to ponder our fate, given to us by those who lived in those impossible buildings.
Jas has been slowly teaching me how to read the words of those from the ruined cities. He says that sometimes the answers to our questions lie in there. But the books are fragile and cannot stand the light. And many things that are written are confusing and incomprehensible. But I am always amazed at the things those people seemed to be able to do. Even everything in ruin seems more than what we are able to accomplish. I am amazed.
My guide nudges me, and I tear myself away from the view. I discover that I am close to crying, so I try to hide it, as though there is dust or sun in my eyes. I make a big show of adjusting my hat. But I think that my guide knows my heart. For he puts his arm around me and squeezes my shoulder in a sympathetic way. A way that says, “My heart is heavy for us all, too.”
Just before sunset, we make it up to the village, if you can call it that. It is five houses and a well. Most of the few people here are old. Very old. These are Romas who are too tired to roam.
Here, in this village, there are two girls who are my age, in their sixteenth or seventeenth year. They have no tattoos. No one has tattoos. Romas don’t have their line on their arms. They are outside of the Way. I look at the girls in a respectful manner, with my eyes down. Their features are different than the girls and women I know. One of the girls is shy. She looks at her feet and hides her face behind her hair. The other girl, who is more homely, comes up to me. She looks at me in my eyes, which makes me feel strange. As though she is looking right inside of me. No one looks at anyone like that. It is disturbing, but I take it to be another of the strange ways of the Romas. She motions for me to follow her, and she shows me to a small shack where I will sleep. From her pocket she pulls out a red thing. She polishes it on her shirt and hands it to me. Then she takes one out for herself and begins to eat it. I have never seen something like it. I sniff it and smell a faint pleasant perfume. I bite into it. It is not soft, but hard, yet it is juicy and it makes my tongue feel alive.
“Good?” she asks.
“Good,” I say.
“Minerve,” she says, extending her hand in what I know to be a Romas grip. It is a greeting among them. We of the Way usually do not touch one another, but I extend my hand and touch hers. It feels electric.
“Geo,” I say.
She smiles. I notice that her eyes are green. I have never seen green eyes.
As she goes she closes the door behind me and leaves me to my preparations.
This town is so far out of the Way that there is no feast. Minerve comes back later and brings me a plate of food. Everything on the plate looks strange. Some of it I do not care for. But most of it is alive with flavor. When I am done eating, I feel full in a way that I have never felt before.
I begin my preparations. I will have to give them all a tattoo. I must choose a color and enter it into the book. I consult the charts. I notice that red has faded out a long time ago; it has not been used for more than fifty years. It makes me think that orange and brown will go that way soon, too, unless things change. But red has been gone for so long that it will be safe to give this town red. I am allowed to be with red. I like Minerve. Would it be wrong to make her a line that I can seed? I blush. But still, I settle down in my room to mix the color. If the girls are three for four, then I will give this town the color red.
The next morning, Minerve comes, and I am given breakfast. Once again there are things I have never seen before.
“What is this?” I lift up my food.
“Pan,” she says.
“Pan,” I say.
It is like eating a cloud.
A bell rings, and the other girl, the shy one, comes to my hut, along with all of the villagers. Everyone in town is outside my hut and the whole town amounts to no more than sixteen people. I understand now why the Counter has a ceremony and a script. It is too stressful to do this without a script. I take the first girl’s finger and prick it. Everyone lurches forward to see as I put the blood on the machine. It whirs, it clicks. It buzzes four times red. Everyone is still. We all breathe as one as I take Minerve’s finger. I look up at her. I must look like hope. But I feel fear. A drop of blood blooms on her finger. I place it in the machine. It whirs. It clicks. The first code comes up green.
AGGCTTACACCG
My heart lifts. I touch her knee.
The second sequence comes up green. I smile at her. My heart feels warm.
The third sequence comes up red. I squeeze her knee. The whole town is holding their breath. It could still be okay; she might just be three for four, like me. If so, then Paters will come. She will be seeded. The town will be allowed to trade. With birds, they will likely be rich.
The fourth sequence comes up red.
No one speaks. Someone gasps. There is a sob. Even the Romas know what that means. They will not be a part of the Way. I shake the machine, as though if I shake it, it will become green.
The man who guided me up the mountain suggests that we all have a meal together that evening and a good night’s sleep before we go back down so that I can join the others. The townsfolk disperse. Minerve stays.
“You should go,” I say. “I’m tired.”
“You are upset,” she says.
I had optimistically mixed the color to tattoo the village. I had ignored the protocol of wait and see. I am still learning, and now I understand that these rules are made to avoid disappointment.
I do not want her to make fun of my emotions. I am tired of people making fun of my sensitivity.
“Is it so terrible to be upset?” I yell. I kick the color pot on the ground. I want to smash the machine. But instead I yell again.
“It’s okay, Geo,” Minerve says. “We will go on as before, without the Way. It will just be our way.”
But we all know that the Romas numbers are dwindling. That is why in the past ten years Romas are trying to make towns and join the Way.
She comes over to me and touches my tattoos. She traces them with her fingers.
“Beautiful,” she says.
I go over to the pot. There is still some red in it. I take the needle from its pouch and I tattoo a red mark on her. I just want to see how the red will look on skin, since I have never seen it. When I have done a large enough circle on her shoulder for it to be noticeable, I stop. I cover it up with a bandage. She puts a hand on my cheek.
No one will be able to see the mark unless she is not wearing a shirt. I have not given her a false line. I have just given her a decoration that will be our secret.
I am suddenly very tired. I go to the corner and lay down on the bed. Minerve comes and lays down next to me and puts her arms around me. No one has ever held me. It is the most me that I have ever felt. I hold her like something known but long forgotten. I fall asleep.
A bell rings and the meal begins. It is modest, not a celebration. There is no pomp and glamour. I do not feel like wearing my red robe and yellow scarf. I wear my simple underclothes, and they make me feel more at home than in Sandig. There is a bird for a meal and a husk. I watch as the others open their husks. I have seen these kinds of husks before, but no one bothers with them. Where I am from, there is no part of it to eat. Just a white cone. But these husks are different: I notice that there are yellow insides. Minerve shows me how to bite into it, and it is sweet and earthy. When the yellow is eaten, all that is left is the white cone that I have seen before.
Later, as the town sleeps, I lie awake. I think about the babe in the town that we put down. I think about how if Minerve had been in the Way, she would have been put down too. I think about the birds. I think about the husks. I think that this town has something more than the sequence, more than our code, and that it must be saved. I cannot sleep. I want to wander outside and find Minerve. I want her to hold me again, but I know that is wrong. I close my eyes, my mind abuzz. When I do sleep, my dreams are vivid and wild. I dream of Minerve. I dream of the birds. I dream of the husks and the green.
In the morning, before dawn, my guide comes to get me. I notice that Minerve is with him. He is carrying a pack. He opens it to show me that it is full of gifts that he promised to Jas for my time: strange plants, dead birds, small pots. I nod in thanks. Our business done, Minerve then steps up to me and puts a small bag into my hands. I open it. It is the dried yellow parts from the husks we ate. I told her of the land near Sandig, where the fields are full but there are only empty cones inside.
“Will you walk with me?” I ask.
“I am glad to,” she says.
On our way down the mountain we talk of everything and anything we can think of, because it will be our only conversation. We stop and stare at the ruined buildings, and I am glad that she reaches for my hand. Outside of the gates of the town, Minerve and the guide stop and converse. She takes the pack from him, and he stays while Minerve walks me all the way to the gate. Once there, I put my arms around her. I wish I could say that I will see
Jas and the others know by my face that the town will not join the Way. We gather our things to leave. This time, it takes us longer to get to the next town. Jas is so ill that he tells us we should cut our trip short and head back to Sandig. By the time we reach home, three of our group have died. People are sick everywhere. They eat, but most people are pale and thin. I am never sick. Neither are a few others.
When the time came for Ides, half of the Paters are dead. Jas is so weak that he does not think he could even make the walk. Also, word has come that many towns on the coast are having trouble. No one can figure out the sickness, or where it comes from. We start to call it the Waste. We do not go to Count for Ides or for Fourth. Jas insists that we follow the rule of quarantine.
But I am well. I am restless. After a few months, I begin to escape the town gates at dawn and roam, as was my way. I notice that I am more healthy than I have ever been, as though my body has more energy, more vitality. I notice more birds than the year before. I notice things that fly from tree to tree. I notice that none of the Romas are ill.
One of them seeks me out. He’s found a machine that still works. A rare find indeed. It is one that I have been looking for, to replace the one that helps us to determine illnesses. He wants to trade. But nothing that I had will do.
He shakes his head at everything I’ve brought.
“I have nothing left,” I say. “Everyone is ill. I’ve been quarantined for months.”
“No,” he says, poking at all the objects I’ve laid out before him. Then his eyes fall on Minerve’s bag. He opens it, and out spills the hard yellow seeds into his hand.
“It’s worthless,” I say. “They are dry. I tried to eat one, it nearly broke my tooth.”
But the truth is that I want to keep the bag that Minerve gave to me with those yellow pieces from the husks. They are from her, and I want to keep them close to me.
“This,” he says, and pushes the machine toward me. He takes the bag and walks away.
Jas is happy when I come back with the machine. I am not scolded for breaking quarantine. But the machine does not reveal any sickness. If we are sick, it is from something that we do not know. It is beyond the understanding of the machines.
Time goes on, and yet more people die. But not me. As they thin, I grow fatter and stronger.
When News comes around, Jas had succumbed to the Waste, and although I am not yet considered a man, I am now the head Counter. I wait till Ides to make my decision to go on a walk without the other Paters. I will go Count. I will go see the towns. But I will not put the other Paters in danger. I teach one of the young boys how to use the machine in case I don’t come back. I put on my red robe and my yellow scarf and begin the walk north.
So many villages are depleted of people. In some villages, everyone is gone. In one village, there is a babe. Since we had not come for so long, it is almost a year old. It is fat and round and healthy. When I prick its blood and put it on the machine, the machine comes up two sequences green, two sequences red.
I prepare the poison, as I was taught. I take the mother’s hands and recite the script. She bows her head and says thank you. I dip my finger in the poison and hold the babe in my arms. I looked at the babe. Two sequences green, two sequences red.
Two sequences green, two sequences red.
I turn to the mother, my finger in the air. I deviate from the script.
“What is your code?”
She looks startled.
“Your code?” I ask. “Your sequence? Are you four? Or three?”
“I am three,” she says. “I’m sorry, I am only three.”
I look at her. She is healthy. She is round and well-fed and full of vitality. So is the child.
Two sequences green, two sequences red.
Jas was four sequences. Everyone who has died was four sequences. I was three code sequences green. One red.
I hand the mother back the babe. I wash my finger of the poison. She understands what I am about to do. That I will not put the babe down. We do not speak of it. She is afraid that if we do, I will change my mind. I have broken the only law of the Way that has been understood to be unbreakable.
As I go from town to town, doing the count, I ask every healthy person what their count is. They are all three for four. I make a decision to pass all babes no matter if they are red or green. With no one to stop me, since I am alone on the road and I am the Counter, none went down.
Something is wrong. The sequence is wrong. The code is wrong.
When I get back to Sandig, I am now the lead Counter. There are only four Paters left.
“What do we do?” they ask me. The ones that are left, Pat, Dug, Jig, and Mel are older than me, but I am now the one to look up to.
“In the texts, there are sometimes answers.”
I went into the SciTexts. I go all the way back. To the beginning.
Some pages crumble at my touch. Some pages are like Jas said, incomprehensible. But one day, some parts of different pages make sense together.
Due to mass transgenic cross-pollination and the insertion of genes into the genome of food crops, unintended effects have begun to express themselves in the human host, and the way that mutations affect the function of the crops own genes are unpredictable….We have reached a tipping point, and the development of unknown toxic components make it impossible for humans to properly metabolize proteins in the following crops: corn, soy, alfalfa, wheat…. Many other food stuffs may have been affected. The amount of cross-pollination is at 98% in all crops…. As of this date, within twenty-five years, we expect a mass population loss of five billion+ due to famine from the inability of humans to digest and process these food crops…. Research indicates that genotyping those with markers for the novel mutations TFDE109, TFDE110, TFDE111, and TFDE112 and crossbreeding the remaining human survivors with the aim of ensuring that those born have a minimum of three, preferably four, mutations, should allow for human survival…. Short-term solution includes breeding for the mutations…. Signs indicating the toxicity of crops until correct mutations have been expressed is an option…. Literacy cannot be counted on as a means of communication…. Note: There is, however, a high probability that, in the future, there will be a shift back, and at that time the mutations TFDE109, TFDE110, TFDE111, and TFDE112 will be detrimental to human metabolism…. The timescale of this process cannot be estimated, since projections cannot be made due to the inability to control crossbreeding of plant species in the wild.
I have my answer. I walk out of the room. I walk to the gates and I open them.
“What are you doing, Geo?” people ask.
“Close the gate, Geo,” people say.
“The Romas will come!” people say.
I go to each field on the outskirts of Sandig and I pick what was there. I ignore the signs and take the things that grow that we have believed are poison. The things that the Romas ate all the time and sometimes lived and sometimes died. I put them in my pack and I bring them back to the town.
I will make everyone try to eat everything.
I will make sure that no more babes are ever put down again.
I will find Minerve and be with her.
I will spread the word.
And that will be the new Way.