Show Me (Thomas Prescott 4), Nick Pirog [classic children's novels .TXT] 📗

His brow furrowed as he gathered his thoughts. A moment later, he said, “I grew up poor. Like poor, poor. Single mom. Food stamps, food banks, all the stuff you don’t want to be associated with when you’re a kid. For the first ten years of my life, I went to bed hungry half the time. It was miserable.” He paused for a second, then said, “I know in America, I didn’t go to bed hungry because of a lack of food. It was more of a money issue. But for a lot of the world, it is a food issue. They can’t grow enough. There either isn’t enough arable land or enough water or a thousand other agricultural problems. And it’s only gonna get worse. In twenty years, the Earth’s population will need 55 percent more food than it can produce now.”

I tried to put myself in Brian’s shoes, which for a kid who grew up as a One Percenter wasn’t easy. The only time I could ever remember going to bed hungry was when I was a hostage on a cruise ship. A cruise, I might add, that probably cost as much as Brian’s yearly salary. But I could remember the kids at my elementary and middle schools who ate for free and who seemed mortified by this fact. Hunger played an impactful role in Brian’s life, and he wanted to alleviate that pain for someone else, someone a generation, or three generations down the road. I respected that.

As for his population statistics, I’m sure they were overstated, but there was no question that with a booming global population more food would need to be produced. Someone had to take the reins and look for an answer to this problem.

I said, “So, that’s what made you want to work at Lunhill?”

“No, that’s what got me interested in biotech. I wanted to work at Lunhill because they spend the most money on research and development.” He paused, then said, “Nearly a billion dollars a year.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

Though, to be fair, Lunhill was a $91 billion company.

Brian started down the corridor and waved for me to follow. We walked for thirty yards before coming to a series of plate glass windows. It was one part greenhouse, one part meth lab. There were two people in the room, one man and one woman. The woman was dressed in jeans and a blouse. The man looked more scientisty, with a white lab coat and clear goggles pulled down over his eyes.

“Is that Walter White?” I asked.

Brian turned to me and smiled, “You know what’s funny? His name really is Walter.”

I laughed, and Brian and I went on a quick Breaking Bad tangent.

“I watched all five seasons in five days,” I told him.

“You watched an entire season each day?”

“I’d just been dumped by a girl,” I confided, not really sure why.

“Been there,” he replied, gazing down between his feet. I guessed he’d been dumped more recently than me. Or, he was still pining over his middle school crush.

I changed the subject back to science. “So if Walter there isn’t trying to grow meth, what exactly is he trying to grow?”

Brian snapped back to life. “Golden Rice.”

“Golden Rice?”

Brian nodded. “A genetically modified strain of rice that will provide a significant amount of Vitamin A.”

I suppose I didn’t look as impressed as Brian anticipated, and he explained, “Vitamin A deficiency plagues many parts of the developing world. More than a million deaths a year and half a million cases of irreversible blindness. If widely planted, Golden Rice could help reduce those numbers dramatically.”

“Wow,” I said, genuinely dazzled. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Super cool,” he echoed.

“So how does it work?” I asked. “What exactly does ‘genetically modified’ mean?”

“A GMO is any plant or animal that has been genetically modified through the addition of genetic material from another organism.” He paused to take a breath, then continued, “My favorite example is Bt-corn.”

The term Bt-corn rang familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“Bt-corn,” Brian continued, “has been genetically modified to create its own insecticide. The donor organism is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that contains a gene which produces a protein that kills the larvae of the corn borer.”

“The corn borer?”

“Yeah, it’s an insect. A moth, actually.”

“And they destroy the corn?”

“The larvae bore into the stalk of the corn and feed off it. They can really cut into a farmer’s yields. Here in the Midwest, they are particularly bad.”

“You seem to really like the science behind all this. Why do you work in sales?”

“I failed organic chemistry in college twice.”

“Really? You seem like a whiz with all this stuff.”

“Biology, botany, all that stuff I get, but for some reason, no matter how hard I studied, I just couldn’t get OC to click.” He sighed, then said, “I was gonna take it a third time, but I was going to have to wait a full year, and I wanted to start making some money. So I changed majors.”

We watched Walter play with a plant for another minute or so, then Brian said, “There isn’t really anything else interesting to see. Most of the people who work here either work in marketing, or accounting, or sales—like me.”

“I’m pretty hungry,” I said. “How about we go grab one of those egg salad sandwiches?”

He smiled and nodded.

Chapter Twenty

The cafeteria was state-of-the-art. Ready-made sandwiches, salads, pizza, plus a few gourmet food stations. After inhaling Brian’s egg salad breath for over an hour, that was the last thing on my mind, and I opted for a salad with grilled chicken breast. Brian grabbed two more egg salad sandwiches, a bowl of cottage cheese, and a Coke.

The thought of sitting opposite him and watching him eat his meal made me shudder, but I still had some questions I wanted answered. There were twenty tables with ten people spread between them. Brian and I took up seats at one of the empty tables.

I glanced down at my salad, then asked,