Saving Sumac

CHAPTER 1: PUMPKIN PIE?

THANKSGIVING DAY 2035

“Come on Dezzy!  I don’t plan on being their excuse to fight over the turkey being cold or burnt…especially since I’m not eating any” Ruby yelled at Desmond as he shut down his computer and searched for his boots and hat. 

 “They’re over here by the door, Dezzy-Man,” she urged.

“Spock wants to come, Sissy…You know how he loves Mom.”

“Yeah, but he hates John, and I don’t want him to run off or sulk.  He can just crunch pecans and tear up the yard ’til we get home.  He’s a big boy now.”  Judging by his size, the pup had munched on more than pecans over this last summer.

Ruby grabbed Desmond’s signature apple pie and he grabbed her kale and quinoa wraps, and out the door they went.  The Thanksgiving meal at their mother’s was set to start at one. Which meant they were expected by twelve-thirty.

“Harvey, how long’s it gonna take to get there?”

“You should arrive at your mother’s residence within ten minutes of the scheduled appointment…twelve-twenty to twelve-forty PM, approximately.” the accented voice replied.

“Oh Dezzy!  I wish you wouldn’t let your girlfriends give you hickies.  It looks so trashy!” Ruby scolded her brother.

“I tell ’em not to, but they never listen.” there was a pause. “And I kinda like it,” he added under his breath with a smirk.  Desmond was a magnet to the endless parade of hopeful Mrs. Apalachees.  If the family wealth and social status weren’t enough to set every available beauty stalking the man, his savant intellect and penetrating blue eyes wreathed in long dark lashes were enough to have them fighting for his favors and begging at his feet.  All Ruby could do was filter out the skanks and make sure Desmond didn’t make too many promises or break too many hearts.

Ruby and Desmond had grown up exploring whatever they could. Sometimes for fun, sometimes to escape the world.  When they’d first gone on a trip to the Lost Sea Caves with their Uncle Lief and their cousins, Jaeger and Fraea, they’d formed a plan and made a pact:  They were going to explore the Earth’s deep places together and find a way to get paid to do it.  Desmond, socially awkward at times due to his Asperger's Syndrome, had bloomed late academically, but still graduated high school two years early and earned PhDs in geophysics, and mineralogy – making him an ideal speleologist.  Ruby, also brilliant (though conventionally so and socially fluid), had gotten her doctorate at NC State in geology, minoring in archaeology.  The portions of their education not covered by grants were funded by their grandfather, Baba, an old soil scientist and cartographer. Their childhood plans laid so long ago had finally become a reality that summer. A consultancy they dubbed Apalachee Angle.

Sometime around twenty twenty-one, the European Union and the United States joined with Japan in an effort to turn roads into both solar fields and wireless chargers for the electric vehicles that were just gaining popularity. The technology was cutting edge at the time, eventually providing enough electricity from just one beltway to power an entire city, including the suburbs and cars in the area. It was a revolution that eventually reduced power plants to mere backups, nearly useless within decades. Adding wireless charging to primary roads and highways made most combustion-powered vehicles obsolete.  This small change, the introduction of solar roads and auto-pods, led to a global ban on most ecologically or environmentally destructive mining technologies – as the need for fossil fuels became virtually non-existent.  Simultaneous with  the legalization of cannabis, soon petroleum-based fuels and plastics were also mostly replaced by the superior fibers, resins, and oils of the versatile plants.  In a very short time, the world had moved on; replacing smog with clean air, land-fills with huge composting centers and recycling plants... but it came at a cost.