The Bounty Hunter's Trilogy: Chosen By Fate

Chapter 6. All of the Bells and Whistles

Stan was left in charge of showing me around the rest of the base for my orientation. He reminded me of the basic rules as we went along. No noise past nine thirty at night, no noise loud enough to hear through walls, and as always the 'be kind to your neighbor' rule. Other than that, have fun. "The intricacies of what's considered right and wrong around here will be picked up or explained somewhere along the way," Stan explained as he gave me what looked to be a makeshift pamphlet about the base.

We started the tour on the roof of the building. Guards on the roof paced around the edge of the top of the building, looking over the surrounding land. Stan led me to the edge of the building. Looking down, I could see a large field where several people were riding large horses and practicing different forms of combat, most of them falling off. On the other side of the building, there was a landing strip that extended down the empty expanse of grassland around us. "You guys have an airplane?"

Stan shook his head. "We used to. One of the people who used to live here stole it. We lost a lot of people that day. We aren't sure where they are. When we tracked down the plane, it had crash landed in the middle of Iowa, but it was damaged beyond repair with nobody inside." He walked to the other side of the roof. I followed, seeing him pointing to a glass building in the field. It was clean and gleaming in the daylight. A tree lined path led to the doorway. "That is our botanical garden. It's where we grow all of our food besides livestock. We don't have to buy anything and we get everything we need."

He put his hand on my shoulder, getting a very serious look on his face. "Now Daniel, I know this might sound kind of ridiculous and irrelevant, but are you opposed to getting your hands dirty?"

I shook my head. "No. My mom and I garden at home every day."

He clapped me on the shoulder and smiled, directing me to the stairs down the side of the building. "Good, because we all do our own gardening here. You grow your own food and whatever else you want. Just make sure you grow enough of each food first. You don't get anybody else's. The only thing we collectively grow is wheat and grains. Except for corn. That's all you."

I shook my head and frowned at that. "No need to worry about that, then." Just the thought of corn made my throat feel tight. When I was seven, I had a horrible allergic reaction to corn at Brendan's eighth birthday party. My throat closed up, my skin got all patchy, and I was in the hospital for two days afterwards. I had no idea I was allergic, only my parents knew so they never fed it to me. So it's safe to say that I sould be skipping having any corn in my garden.

At the bottom of the stairs, Stan led me down the path that was lined with Hawthorn trees in full bloom. They led to a glass door with a metallic tree on each of the glass panels. We reached the door to the green house and Stan pulled it open. Inside, about thirty people were all at different planting boxes, working soil or gathering the ripest of their own food.

Stan startled me by shoving a bag of soil into my chest and some gloves into my hands. "Follow me." I sighed and followed him to a pair of empty planting boxes that were about six feet long by six feet wide each. They already had some dirt in them but it looked dried out and packed in. "Okay. This is where you grow your food. You have to move the dirt, water it, plant seeds, and check in here at least once daily. No touching anybody else's planters and no trading. Plan your planting by what you'll need in your diet and stick to it. Everything is in season in here because we control temperature and moisture to make it so." He looked around me and I followed his gaze to see Audrey waving him over to what I assumed was their planter. "Alright, have fun."

He walked towards his wife and I set down the heavy bag in my arms, finding a box cutter to open it and pouring the contents as evenly as I could into both sides of the planters. As I was trying to mix the soil and some water into the other dirt to soften it, Beverly came up to the planter boxes to my left with a golden tiger at her heels. She gave it a pat on the head before it sat on its haunches beside her and watched as Beverly started watering her plants. "Oh, hey Beverly." She looked up and smiled.