Seeds Of Hunger

Chapter 2: Where the leaves blow

Carter shut the doors to the ambulance and slapped the door with the palm of his hand, signaling the driver that the door was shut. The ambulance turned on its sirens and sped off toward the nearest hospital carrying the hit and run victim, Nikki Graham. Carter surveyed the scene; the truck, from what the driver said, had run the red light like an idiot and plowed right into her from the back. With the car totaled but the truck barely having a scratch, the truck took off down the road. Carter shook his head and let out a frustrated breath. Would people ever learn?

"Yo, Carter!" Casey called to him as he walked through the debris. "Quite a mess, isn't it? At least he wasn't going that fast." Casey said with a touch of sarcasm. Wrecks in the big city were common place, usually caused by dumb drivers who think all the colors of the traffic light meant go, speed up, and just go through it.

"This was nothing. Graham just got a mild case of whiplash. The one I worked a week out of the academy made it to the department's top ten." Carter still shuttered when he thought of that one. Wrecks involving school buses were bad in of itself but when it caught on fire is truly horrifying. "Anyway, what's on the agenda for today?" Carter and Casey started toward Carter's cruiser. Casey preferred foot patrols; mainly because the department was having issues with the new order of cruisers.

"I gotta go to the court house later today for the drug bust that I was apart of to give testimony. I'll never understand the benefit of sticking a needle in your arm; I already hate the damn things when I have to go to the doctors but doing it willingly just blows my mind." Casey said, as he sat down in the passenger side of the cruiser.

"Its a mystery alright. But that bust sure put a hamper on the Baltimore supply from what I heard from Narcotics." Carter was referring to the Narcotics Division. They handled the drug dealers on the street. "That was a good bust you made too, bud. Congrats."

Casey waved his hand trying to be dismissive, "It was dumb luck really. He had a tail light out and I was gonna let him go with a warning until I saw a white brick laying in the back seat of his damn car." Casey chuckled. Dumb criminals don't last long on the street.

"No body said coke heads had to be smart." Carter agreed. "You want me to stop by the court house for ya? I gotta catch up on some paperwork by the station before I do some patrolling of my own. I might get some more coffee at the Sheetz on 13th. You got enough time to tag along?" Carter turned the ignition and pulled onto Main street.

"If you're buying, I'm only too happy to oblige." Casey laughed.

"Damn cops." Carter laugh, sitting in traffic.

Daniel Lee had been on the road since six AM and was within half an hour of D.C. He had checked his load before starting back down the highway and saw that while some of the pollen had blown off, there was still a large amount of the pollen remaining on the plants. Lee was surprised, he figured most of it had been blown off coming up the highway but it wasn't his concern. He just needed to get it to where it needed to go. He knew he had coated a fair amount of cow fields coming up through the country with the cake mix like pollen but from he remembered from seventh grade science, pollen helps make the bees get honey and helps plants make seeds so he figured he was just helping the process along.

Lee passed a sign that read WASHINGTON D.C. CITY LIMITS and followed his GPS to the Carnegie Research facility. He found the truck entrance and after speaking with the security officer there, he backed up to the correct dock for unloading. He showed his paperwork to the deck master and after an hour of unloading, he was on his way again. He noticed that he looked like he had just came out of a bakery from all the pollen in the air but it didn't bother his allergies any. He figured he'd get a early lunch and then head on back to pick up another load. Five hundred bucks for an easy trip like this was what he loved about his job. Now if he could just find a decent sushi place.

Drs. Allen Rich and Michelle Markarth marveled at the specimens just brought into the lab. The plants looked incredible; they would belong in any Italian restaurant. The flowers were basketball sized with goldish yellow petals. The inside of the flower were a deep blood red that was beautiful to look at. The plant overall was no bigger than a small child and would hopefully produce enough pollen to sustain their research for months maybe up to a year, but that might not be a problem with all the pollen on the flowers now, Rich thought. They were coated in the yellow powder and it was wafting in the air around them almost like it was snowing.

"ACHOO!" Markarth sneezed. "We need to get these to the environment pronto before our sinuses start to hate us." Markarth's eyes were starting to water, Rich saw, making her mascara run down her face.

"Bless you and yes we should. We don't want to lose anymore of the material." Rich grabbed the handle of the forklift the flowers were sitting on. He pulled the load through the doors, took a left in the hallway, and slide his badge though the card reader to access the environment. Every time he came in here he was still astounded at the fact it looked like the Amazon, without the multiple species of snakes and other animals trying to kill you. He rolled the forklift to a pre-dug spot for the plants for be buried in for night shift to bury. He took the handle from Markarth and pulled the forklift beside the other one and stood in the center of the environment.

"Beautiful isn't it?" Markarth said, breathing in the hot humid air. "I sure hope our engineers earned their bonus for completing this a week in advance." Markarth lightly touched a piece of foliage.

"If they didn't I wouldn't mind contributing." Rich added with a smile. "Michelle this could save millions of lives if this plant lives up to expectations. The initial findings were impressive with our research and if we can continue experimenting with it, who knows what we can find out about it." Rich had high hopes for the recently discovered plant.

" 'initium novum'. A new beginning." Markarth stated, walking back towards the door. "If this plant is all that its hyped up to be, the name suits it." Markarth grabbed a handkerchief and blew her nose to get rid of the pollen. "Excuse me. Let's take a look at a small sample, shall we?" Markarth grabbed a slide and a cotton swab and swiped the petal of the flower, making the once white tip of the cotton swab a bright yellow. She dabbed it onto the slide and carried it over to the microscope. She dropped a little bit of saline solution on the slide before sliding it into the tray on the microscope. "Wow! This pollen has more of the structures than the sample we had shipped to us a few weeks ago and the pollen is absorbing the solution making the structures grow in size! Allen this is everything we could have ever dreamed of!" Markarth hugged her co-worker as she let him look at the slide. Rich walked to the microscope and examined the sample. The sample was continuing to grow in size and stopped when the solution had been completely absorbed.

"This is incredible, Michelle. We have to get this in the lab and start working with the rats." Rich grabbed a sample container that looked liked a lunchbox for a school girl and grabbed a fine brush. Rich used the brush and very gently brushed a good portion of the pollen into the container. He had half of the container full when he put the lid on. It almost looked like yellow cake uranium but this had better purposes than death and nuclear fallout. Rich used his index finger and rubbed the bottom of his nose to clear some of the pollen away. I'm gonna have to start taking allergy medicine before coming to work, he thought with a chuckle.

He hefted the box and secured the door behind him. Beaming, he said to Markarth, "Let's get started!"