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

“What kind of cereal? Must have had some nuts or clusters.”

“I think it’s called Tons of Clusters.”

He eyed me suspiciously, then said, “Well, you need a crown.”

I nodded.

“It’s gonna take a couple days to make, need to send it to the lab in Kansas City.” He smiled, showing brilliant, nearly perfect teeth. “But we can give you a temporary today.”

“Will that make the pain go away?”

After my tooth broke, I’d walked back into the house to rinse out my mouth. When the water hit my tooth, or lack thereof, it felt like someone drove a nail into my jaw. I could literally feel my heartbeat pulsating through my gum the entire time I searched my phone for a dentist with an opening.

Dr. Donald nodded. “Right now it hurts because the nerve is exposed. The temporary crown will take care of that.”

“Good.”

“Now, let’s get you numbed up.”

After shooting me up with novocaine, a hygienist stopped by to say she needed to do some impressions, though she didn’t say who. Hopefully, she did a good De Niro. She said that she’d be back in “a bit.”

While waiting for the novocaine to take effect, I took out my phone and loaded the second movie in the Terminator franchise: Terminator II: Judgment Day.

I watched ten minutes of the movie, then the hygienist returned. I waited for her to break out her Pacino, but apparently, she was taking impressions, not doing them, and she proceeded to stick this metal plate with pink goop in my mouth. Several minutes of gagging later, she removed the hardened material and allowed me to rinse my mouth out.

Once my temporary crown was fitted by Dr. Robert, I made an appointment to come back in a week, then returned to my car, where I decided to watch the rest of the movie.

Two hours later, the credits were rolling and I was ripping out my hair.

I was more confused than ever.

Now Arnold Schwarzenegger was a good guy?

WTF?

I really didn’t want to watch six more hours of robots and I searched “Terminator and Lunhill” on my phone.

And wouldn’t you know it…

The name of the article was “Lunhill Terminates ‘Terminator Seed’ Technology.” The article was dated March 23, 1999.

I skimmed it, reading aloud bits and pieces.

“Sterile seed technology—dubbed ‘terminator technology’ in the press—is a gene-use restriction technology whereby second generation seed (seed produced by the crop) will be sterile…After consulting with international experts and many small landholder farmers, Lunhill has made a commitment not to commercialize Sterile Seed Technology in food crops and has no plans or research that would violate this commitment in any way.”

I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

In 1999, Lunhill did away with their Terminator seed research, but according to Neil Felding’s coworker, that’s exactly what he was working on.

When I made it back to Tarrin, it was close to noon and Randall’s truck was parked in front of the farmhouse. I could see the tractor moving off in the distance. Nearly half of the 250 acres had been tilled and it was beginning to resemble something of a farm.

I parked and watched as Randall and the tractor cut across the perfectly manicured lines in my direction. Coming abreast of me in the large red tractor, Randall killed the engine and stood up.

“What happened to the barn?” he belted.

“Id barned dine.”

“What?”

“It baruned deen.”

He jumped down and squinted at me. Maybe he noticed the slobber on the left side my face.

“What happened to you?”

“Boke may ooth.”

“You broke a tooth?”

I nodded.

“Was this before or after you burned down the barn?”

“Agger.”

“Right. So what happened?”

“Unill.”

“What?’

“Undild!”

“What?”

I took a deep breath, concentrated. “Lundild!”

His brow furrowed. “Lunhill?”

It took a few hours to tell Randall everything. Partly because half my mouth was numb, partly because Randall had a thousand questions. But by midafternoon, Randall knew everything I knew.

Of all the things that should have upset him the most—that five members of his community who were murdered, then later a sixth with Mike Zernan; that it appeared Chief Eccleston was more involved with the company than anyone could have imagined; that Lunhill sent some ex-military goons to do their dirty work—he was most rattled by the fact Lunhill and Neil Felding were still working on Terminator seeds.

“I remember when I first heard about that shit,” Randall said. “Lunhill was sick of farmers reusing their seeds, not paying them for each year, and they were trying to find a way to make sure that wouldn’t happen. So they decided to design this seed that kills itself after each harvest.”

I was up to speed on this part and motioned for him to continue.

“But what these idiots didn’t realize is that most farmers don’t reuse seeds to save money—I mean, a lot of them do, especially in third world countries—but the main reason to reuse seed is because those seeds have adapted to certain conditions and environments. You save only the best seeds from the harvest, year after year. Those seeds have adapted to each climate’s individual conditions, soil, nutrient level, adapted to each farm’s unique farming practices.”

“Survival of the fittest?”

“Sort of. But naturally. Not in a lab.”

I nodded.

“And because each farmer is saving their own seeds from their own farm, they’re all a little different. It’s called ‘crop genetic diversity.’ Those seeds are our global food security. If farmers start using Terminator seeds, centuries of biodiversity will be wiped out.”

“But don’t farmers have to decide to buy those seeds?”

“They sure do. But look what happened to me—cross-pollination. Say my neighbor buys Terminator seeds and the wind or bees bring a couple of those seeds onto my land. They cross-pollinate with my seeds, and after a couple generations all my seeds are now sterile. But that’s not the worst of it. Sure, here in the US we have a choice. But in third world countries that’s not how it works.”

He locked eyes with me and said, “A defining feature of poverty is a lack of choice.”

I wondered if these words stemmed from the topic at hand