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The
Silent Storm
by Kyla Davis Horn 9th Grade Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School 2005 I approached the door with a quick, uneasy pace. Why did the CEO invite us to his office? If he needed to speak with us, why didn’t he simply holoconference, as he usually did? Whatever he wished to discuss, it must be momentous. Dr. Lin, my supervisor and chair of the Genetic Research and Development Department, arrived close behind me. His face showed nothing but perfect calm. As my hand pressed against the entry pad, biometric scanners within the pad scrutinized my fingerprints, verifying my identity. Or rather a small part of my identity. The security network did not see my diligence, my conscientiousness, or my slight tendency toward nervousness. It simply saw that I was Dr. Marisa Harrington, senior researcher, vice-chair of Genetic Research and Development. The CEO, expecting our arrival, had placed Dr. Lin and me on primary authorization. A welcoming green glow from the tiny signal light indicated that the door had unlocked. The door gently drew itself open, and Dr. Lin and I stepped into the office. Mr. Sadler, our CEO since November, had been at work on his Sabia MemBrain when we entered. It was the newest in neural-network information technology. Mr. Sadler always assured that his neuronet was the latest in technology, generations ahead of any other in the company. For him, a neuronet was not merely a work implement; it was a status symbol. Mr. Sadler muttered a command to the Sabia. The membranous neuronet quietly furled itself, much like a scroll; the side-frame posts folded themselves flat to the surface of the desk. Mr. Sadler looked up with a genial smile. “Good morning, Dr. Lin…” – he glanced over to me – “Dr. Harrington. How punctual.” He gestured toward the date-and-time display projected high on the wall. March 27, 2026. 10:24:09. We were six minutes early. “Good morning,” Dr. Lin and I responded, more or less in synchrony. “Now,” began Mr. Sadler, “I suppose you’d like to know why I asked you here. It’s a… let’s say, sensitive issue, to say the least.” Sensitive? I puzzled. What could that mean? “I’ve been looking over some numbers – production, profit, and so on – for our company and a few rival agribusinesses. When I was an intern here, we were the top agribusiness in the western hemisphere, a step ahead of Persephone. In the past few years, though, things have started to worry me. Persephone is pulling ahead, and nothing we’ve done – not even your advances in climate resistance, Dr. Harrington – has helped. We’ve tried and tried without success. It seems their production and sales are always a step ahead of ours.” “Well,” laughed Dr. Lin, “we’re no economists. I’ll do what I can, but you might get some better ideas from Marketing than from Genetics.” “No, no,” said Mr. Sadler. “I just wanted to ask if Genetics could take on a special project… ” As Mr. Sadler explained what he had in mind, my uneasiness grew into full-fledged shock. I knew him to be audacious, a risk-taker, but never this foolish. We were to engineer a blight to be unleashed on Persephone’s greatest production source: its Des Moines wheat compound, on which it depended for a hefty percentage of its profit. “Of course, it will need to be resistant to fungicides so that it isn’t destroyed before it can do its job. Also, it will need a mechanism to keep it from spreading beyond the compound and starting an outbreak.” “Even with some safety mechanism, do you realize what a risk we would be taking? Living things can be unpredictable. If the mechanism fails in any one of millions and millions of organisms, we could have an outbreak. With such a virulent strain on the wind, we could start a major outbreak. In time, it could infect almost every wheat compound in North America – including ours.” I decided against voicing my ethical objections. They would be ignored at best; Mr. Sadler’s business principles were more or less independent of morality, sometimes diametrically opposed to it. On his agenda, business came first. “A good point, Dr. Harrington,” he replied, “but it could be prevented. Perhaps the research team could design for resistance to mutations. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to overtake Persephone and bring us back to number one.” Dr. Lin, as could only be expected, was eager to comply. He was certainly adept at pleasing authorities. This skill was what had won him the post of department chair, even when I and many other contenders had stronger research credentials. Dr. Lin’s art was not genetic engineering, but gaining favor. “I’ll pick a research team and get started. We’ll see what we can do.” I knew he saw the danger in the plan as well, for his sycophantic smile was laced with the slightest hint of dread. However, as Mr. Sadler wished, he would let business come first. * * * * * My work as an agricultural geneticist allowed me to continue, at least in principle, in a long and proud family heritage. However, food production was not the same in this decade as in the time of my grandparents. The vast expanses of fertile soil that my ancestors had tilled to provide food for their families and the world were now only a fond memory. Agriculture had become more efficient, more technologically advanced, and more profitable; the family farm had given way to agribusiness corporations, which, due to the ever-increasing global demand for food, wielded tremendous political power. * * * * * Four months later, Dr. Lin and a few colleagues had perfected their weapon: a virulent, laboriously created blight known as the Silent Storm. Our rivalry with Persephone had gone too far. True, my years of work in the genetic laboratories creating healthier wheat, hardier corn, more productive rye, had been driven by our intense struggle with Persephone, by our desire to be the top grain producer in the United States. But this competition had been taken beyond reason. Our company was desperate to see Persephone falter. We would soon unleash a weapon that would take a ruthless toll on our rival – and possibly us as well. This was a corporate secret I was ashamed and alarmed to know. I was too numb with shock and cold dread to fully believe it… and too fearful for my job to reveal it. The development team had engineered the fungus for rapid spread and near-invincibility to fungicides. As a measure to keep the blight from spreading, they had manipulated the genes directing spore activity. If the spores did not find a host plant within minutes, they would die off. This way, the blight could spread within the close quarters of the growing compound, but those spores that drifted outside would die before they could reach another wheat compound. Dr. Lin’s team had added a few measures to prevent mutation, but their deadline had halted more advanced measures in their tracks. Mr. Sadler had urged them along, insisted that the attack be in place well before the harvest. Mr. Sadler had placed a hand-picked infiltrator in Persephone’s Des Moines wheat compound. Soon, she would receive a culture of the Silent Storm blight and release it on its tour of destruction in Persephone’s wheat compound. At first the blight would work undetected, silently spreading like an invisible blaze from one plant to the next, down the neat, close-packed rows of identical wheat stalks. Then, in a sudden stroke, it would attack. Wheat stalks would disintegrate, consumed voraciously by the unseen Silent Storm. Persephone Agriculture would panic as they watched disaster sweep through their largest center of production. No fungicides would be able to stop the blight; it would not cease its destruction until it had devoured every stalk of wheat in the compound. The lattices of hydroponic scaffolding, stacked layer upon layer, stretching over an area the size of a small city, would be left barren. Of course, as Dr. Lin cheerfully and constantly insisted, the blight would never spread beyond Persephone’s compound. I was not so certain; nor, as I suspect, was he… * * * * * A steady breeze swept across the heartland, passing over a towering scaffold where the last of a once-vast wheat crop was succumbing to the deadly Silent Storm. The last stalk of wheat in Persephone’s compound had long been exterminated. Downwind lay hundreds more that would soon meet their fate… In Iowa, a dusting of tiny spores brought their windborne journey to an end, coming to rest in a wheat compound that was only weeks away from the harvest. It was much like any of the other compounds which the outbreak had devastated… except that this crop belonged to my own company, the one which had set this wave of destruction in motion. Now the Silent Storm would exact upon us the punishment we had wrought for ourselves. And it would not stop there. … Persephone had been swept from her pride; where once grain grew, all was barren. Golden-haired Demeter now wept, and so did I. |