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  The seeds must survive at all costs, he though. No matter what.

  And as he resolved to take the difficult next step, Benitar felt a distinct presence, as if his father was looking on and beaming approval on him, as if the son had finally pleased the elder, after all these years.

  Benitar had to be exceedingly careful. While he had ordered executions, he had never killed anyone himself. Could he do it now, if it came to that? Yes, he thought he could, but wondered what it would be like to do that, to point the gun and—in the name of the future of life on the planet—shoot one person, and then another, and another. He couldn’t leave them outside for animals to tear apart as he had done with others who stumbled into the area, couldn’t risk having any of them get away.

  Though filled with dread and guilt, Benitar felt absolute justification, that he would be remembered as the greatest hero in the history of Earth because he defended the last undamaged seed depository in the world—and the future it represented—against anyone who might threaten the heritage of millions of years of evolution. The future would honor him, if there was one, if the storms didn’t destroy the facility, or if mobs didn’t break in and take the precious seeds away … disasters that had befallen all of the other seed banks. He felt the tremendous weight of responsibility on his shoulders, and the skewering heat of his father’s gaze on him.

  The following morning, Benitar Jackson arose earlier than usual and went about his tasks at the Cascade Seed Repository, thinking of the gun in his lab coat, and of the extra clip of bullets he had brought with him this time. He had other firearms, too, hidden around the facility. Struggling internally, he delayed the inevitable and decided to await an excuse before “terminating” the staff, some incident to make the idea of killing more acceptable and sterile. Maybe it wouldn’t have to be done. Maybe he could find another way.

  But he couldn’t think of anything, no matter how hard he struggled to come up with something—and time was running out.

  Later that morning, at breakfast in the cafeteria, he saw Abe and Peggy gazing fondly at one another across a table in one corner.

  “If necessary, I’ll get them before they get me,” Benitar Jackson said under his breath. He tightened his fingers around the gun in his pocket.

  CHAPTER 6

  Abe and Peggy Come to Know the Danger

  Just before noon, Abe pushed open the door to Peggy’s room, only opening it partway. He stuck his head through the opening and smiled. “How goes it?”

  Peggy, moving her bed back into place against the wall, looked at him in surprise. “Oh—-”

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” said Abe. “If this isn’t a good time …”

  She smiled. “It’s OK. Come in.”

  Abe entered, and pushed the door closed behind him. She motioned toward a chair for him, and then sat lotus fashion on the bed. He turned the chair around and sat backwards on it, with his forearms resting on the top of the chair back. “Journal again?” he asked.

  Peggy nodded, feeling the need to be honest with him, to trust him. “I don’t think Benitar approves of our friendship,” she said. “Did you see the way he was looking at us this morning?”

  “I saw,” Abe admitted.

  “He’s probably jealous, because no woman would have him. God, he gives me the creeps. I keep feeling like he’d like nothing more than to toss me out in the snow again.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Wouldn’t he? You’ve really put yourself in a difficult position by helping me. I’m grateful but scared, and not only for myself and my baby.”

  The slender man scratched his chin thoughtfully. “He’s just tired and stressed out, as all of us are. I really don’t think …”

  “Think again,” Peggy said. Anyone who isn’t one-hundred percent dedicated to saving the seeds is his enemy. I’m not contributing as a member of his staff, so in his eyes, I’m just in the way, taking food resources that he needs to complete his sacred task. I don’t contribute around here, and when the baby is born it will be even more of a drain on resources, as he sees it.”

  Abe didn’t say anything for awhile. Finally, he nodded his head slowly, and let out a long breath. “I don’t want to think he would harm you or your baby.”

  “But he would, and you know it, don’t you? Abe, you call him ‘Top Seed,’ but I think ‘Bad Seed’ might be more appropriate.”

  Abe rested his chin on his arms, which were still on top of the chair back. Presently he said, quietly, “I suppose I do sense something about him. I’m not sure. This seed repository has become his mission, his holy duty. You’re very observant, picking up things about him quickly.”

  “I keep a journal, remember?”

  He nodded.

  “We’ve got to be discreet about whatever our friendship is,” Peggy said.

  “Or wherever it goes?” Abe asked, in a soft tone.

  Peggy nodded. “Or wherever it goes.” She smiled.

  Carefully, quietly, he went over and sat on the bed next to her. “You going to be OK?” he asked.

  She nodded, but she didn’t feel OK.

  “What did you write in your journal today?”

  Pausing, Peggy smiled softly. “That you saved my life by rescuing me, even if it risked upsetting your boss. Without you, I’d have died out there alone in the cold, and my unborn child too, never even getting the chance to live. This morning I felt the baby move again, really kicking hard. Less than two months to go now, but born into what? Starvation? I feel so uneasy about bringing a child into this world. Earth is going to die soon, as we all are. My pregnancy is coming to term and I don’t have a heck of a lot of choice here.”

  Her voice cracked with emotion, and trailed off. She cleared her throat, continued. “If I had only recently discovered the pregnancy, it might have been kindest to terminate. But that’s not the way it is at this point; I can’t do it now, not after getting to know my baby and her habits, even what she likes me to eat. I don’t know why, but I think it’s a girl.”

  “I wish I could say something to help you,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand. “You’re helping me just being here.”

  “We live in a culture that makes women feel like monsters for wanting to abort a child,” Abe said, “that killing a fetus is always wrong, even if the world into which the child is born is abusive and traumatizing, overwhelming her with so much fear that her brain can’t develop properly.”

  “Here I am, bringing a child into a world that is dead,” Peggy said. She stopped, her eyes welling with tears, then snuggled closer to him and rested her head against his shoulder, sobbing. “Oh God,” she whispered, “what kind of world will my child be born into? Can it ever be like it was again? Will she have any sort of a chance?”

  Abe put his arm around her shoulder and said, “I wish I knew, but I don’t. Somehow, we need to have faith that what is happening, no matter how difficult, is meant to be. I know that sounds overly religious and all of that crud that lets people off the hook for being narrow-minded and cruel, but somehow we have to believe that it will all make sense in the end, that our lives have purpose.”

  Peggy took a long shuddering breath. She felt very vulnerable, and unable to protect her child. “Oh God, Abe, I wish I had your courage, your faith.” She smiled. “You don’t subscribe to any organized religion, but you’re very spiritual.”

  Abe gave s short, nervous laugh. “You give me too much credit. I just try to be optimistic, to keep from going bug-bonging crazy.”

  In spite of her fear and grief, Peggy had to laugh with him.

  Outside the door, Benitar Jackson heard their muffled conversation and laughter. He was not at all amused.

  CHAPTER 7

  Benitar Calls for Discipline

  In his office afterward, Benitar Jackson wore a virtual-reality headset, which projected computer images in front of his eyes, e-mail messages from Conelrad and the news services to which he subscribed. For two days he had been opera
ting in a news vacuum, since the messages weren’t getting through. Finally, probably due to a break in the weather, the data was flowing again.

  The news ranged from very bad to catastrophic, over much of the planet. A super typhoon with 310 mile per hour winds leveled half of the buildings in Hong Kong. A 90-foot tidal surge from a powerful storm wiped out Venice. Tornadoes had raged through New York, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia. Nearly a million additional people were dead or missing and presumed dead, in a matter of hours. An unconfirmed report was just coming in of a record-breaking hurricane hitting New Orleans, of dikes failing and half of the city underwater.

  After absorbing the disturbing information, Benitar dictated a weekly staff bulletin summarizing the events, including his own updated orders. Then, sending a mental command through the VR headset, he transmitted the notice to four electronic bulletin boards around the seed repository.

  Remaining in his office, he watched from a surveillance camera as four lunchtime diners in the cafeteria went over to the wall-mounted board and read it. Abe, Belinda, and Peggy were among them.

  Suddenly, Peggy pointed at the screen and exclaimed, “Look! The words are changing!”

  Using the camera, Director Jackson zoomed in on the screen, and to his horror he saw that a number of words were not what he had transmitted. Another electronic glitch, he thought at first. But he began to think otherwise, when Abe laughed, and said, “This is great. Can you believe what it says now?” The others laughed with him.

  Then someone said, “Director Jackson doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

  A murmur of concurrence went through the small group, and Belinda Amar glanced back at the surveillance camera, nervously.

  In a mounting rage, Benitar focused on the perverted, blasphemous damage that a saboteur had done to the last three sentences of his message. In the original version, which he had on hard copy, it read:

  We must all take the utmost care to safeguard the seeds, for they represent the future of humanity, the resurrection of the human species. I shall permit no dereliction of duty on my watch. If anyone violates my rules, there will be severe repercussions.

  The perverted sentences were quite different, and he felt his blood pressure rise as he read them:

  Don’t bother to safeguard the seeds, for they represent nothing more than the demise of the human species. I shall permit no attention to duty on my watch. If anyone violates my rules, there will be no repercussions whatsoever, not even a spanking.

  Even worse, the perpetrator had added a postscript:

  Blow it out your alimentary canal, Director. And stop snooping on people.

  Quickly, Benitar hit an override code, and darkened the bulletin boards entirely. Other than himself, there were five people in the facility, and three of them had been in the lunchroom at the time the changes appeared. He considered it unlikely, but not impossible, for any of them to have committed the atrocity. Of the two others who had not been in the lunchroom, he studied surveillance screens in his office to determine their whereabouts. Static filled one of the screens, providing no images, but the other screens showed the remaining employees at work.

  All except Jimmy Hansik, whose record had been spotty at best. When he paid attention to his duties, he did passable, even good, work, but there had been noticeable lapses, and Jackson had come down hard on him. Could this be Hansik’s way of getting even? He did have strong computer skills, but so did some of the other staffers. He wondered where Hansik was now, and why one surveillance screen had been filled with static. Had Hansik sabotaged that screen, as well as the bulletin?

  For several moments, Director Jackson sat back in his chair and considered what to do next. He didn’t feel especially close to any of his workers, and would just as soon wipe all of them out now. He had more than enough bullets to accomplish the task, and to his knowledge none of them had their own guns. But before doing that, he would like to know the identity of the traitor.

  I must be discreet, he thought, and not do the expected. I won’t raise my voice to anyone about this, not at all. In fact, I’ll act like it never happened. Maybe I’ll even laugh about it. That will throw them off.

  Even so, I hate to do it. Maybe there’s another way.

  After calming himself with a sedative, Benitar checked the personal escape capsule that could only be accessed from his own room, via a private elevator. Sealed in a rooftop chamber over the bunker entrance, a chamber that he could enter by using keypad codes, the white, bullet-shaped capsule was just large enough for one person, and contained emergency food and water supplies, along with storage compartments holding a small quantity of the most important seeds in the world—enough to give plant life a new start somewhere.

  It was his fallback plan, the one he didn’t want to use, because it would mean abandoning the seed repository and giving up his life’s work there, in favor of something smaller and more focused, of far less consequence. Of an ingenious design, the capsule would pierce the seemingly ever-present cloud cover and convert into a jet plane high in the air, an aircraft that anyone could operate, since it could be programmed to fly to any number of destinations and land safely. Once above the cloud cover, Benitar had the fuel range to reach the farthest points in the world, wherever he needed to go for the best chance of saving a sampling of the on-board seeds, and ultimately forming a new agricultural planting program.

  After satisfying himself that the capsule was intact and in proper working order, he went down and made his normal rounds of the bunker, checking on the humidity, inspecting the seeds, tubers, roots, and bulbs, monitoring graphs and readouts … all the while feeling a sense of grim pride. He even smiled at two of the workers, and relished in the surprise that registered on their faces.

  Yes, Benitar would save the precious stores, even if he had to deal with a slovenly crew of employees who didn’t understand his methods. Entering Section D, he struggled to control his anger. His prime suspect, the bearded Jimmy Hansik was tending to the machines, intently making slight adjustments to the temperature and humidity settings. Five months ago, Hansik had been careless about this, causing some of the precious seeds to dry out. Now Benitar thought back and remembered the angry exchange between the two of them, with him yelling and Hansik standing there, looking defiant and defensive. At one point, the insolent employee had even said, “Benitar, don’t blow a circuit over this. We have backup seeds for all of the ones we lost. It’s not the end of the world.”

  Fuming and red faced, with his fists balled, Jackson had retorted: “It’s exactly that if we don’t protect the seeds, you fool, if you don’t pay attention to our duties! Can’t you comprehend what’s happening to the weather, all the cities and towns that are being destroyed, the people that are being killed?”

  To this, Hansik had just shrugged, asserting that the Director paid too much attention to the weather news. The employee’s attitude had been so enraging that Jackson would have shot him on the spot, if he’d only had a gun with him at the time.

  Now Benitar was ready for another confrontation with the man, more than ready for it, despite the sedative he had taken. “Did you hear about the tornado that destroyed Los Angeles?” he asked, and added, pointedly, “including your precious Hollywood? I guess you’ll never get your big break in the movies now, so you won’t get a chance to flex your overdeveloped muscles on the screen.”

  “I gave up on that long ago,” Hansik said.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really.” Hansik continued working as he spoke, went to his small desk and retrieved an electronic clipboard.

  Smiling to himself, Jackson knew from eavesdropping with surveillance camera audios that this former body-builder had never given up the foolish hope that he would become an action hero one day. In one long, recorded conversation with Belinda, he had poured his heart out to her, over a bottle of wine.

  “That’s pretty funny what happened to my bulletin today,” Jackson said.

  “What’s that
?” Hansik looked up from the clipboard.

  “Surely you heard. Someone changed my words around, making fun of me.”

  “A practical joke?”

  “More like sabotage.” Benitar studied Hansik’s expression, didn’t see anything there to assure him that this was the culprit. Whoever the fox was, Hansik or someone else, it would take some effort to bring it out of its hole.

  Benitar touched the handgun hidden deep in his pocket, felt its cold, metallic smoothness, its potential for raw destruction. His forefinger caressed the trigger, and in his mind he saw himself opening fire on Hansik without warning, dropping him to the floor in a bloody heap. If he aimed carefully, Hansik wouldn’t die right away, and he might be able to elicit a confession from him. But that was risky. Out of spite, the fool might not talk. Or he might be innocent.

  Taking a deep breath, Jackson moved his finger away from the trigger, then whirled and stomped out into the corridor.

  CHAPTER 8

  Danger Lurks Out There

  That evening, Belinda Amar and Jimmy Hansik lay close together after their lovemaking. She looked at him as he slept, the jet black hair, the Roman nose, the close-cropped dark brown beard. She’d seen pictures of him without the beard and he looked a lot better that way. Why did he have it now? She let her eyes admire his body, the tanned skin, the weight-lifter muscles. Belinda smiled to herself and wondered if he had also exercised the muscles involved with his sexual prowess.

  She sniggered.

  At the sound, Jimmy stirred. “Wha—huh—?”

  Belinda shook her head. “Nothing.” She still smiled.

  Drowsily, Jimmy propped himself up on one arm and looked at her. “C’mon, wha’s the joke?”

  “Nothing.” She blushed. “Just a girl thought.”