Cornucopia: Seeds of Hope, #1

By Eliza Sinclair

Samantha Gao is an elite Metro operative, dedicated to a better life for citizens of her city and fiercely protective of anyone under her care. She's the best of the best—at least, she used to be. A devastating mission and rumors of corruption within the ranks have left her questioning everything, even herself. Now, she's supposed to protect the very company that might be responsible for the loss of her team. She goes into the assignment ready for anything—except coming face-to-face with the past she walked away from.

Working as an engineer at the Greenerhouse branch of the Cornucopia seed colony, Caleb Estes is at the forefront of reclamation efforts slowly bringing the scarred earth back to life. With humanity finally getting their act together and striving to achieve the basics again—food, clean air and water—he has resources at his disposal he never dreamed of. The work is almost enough to keep him from dreams that won't rest. Dreams of his first love.


But when Sam walks back into Caleb's life, his dreams are replaced with stark realities about his work and his past. The answers they both seek aren't easily won, but neither is willing to let go of hope this time around. Can they hold on to a second chance at love while fighting to secure humanity's future?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cosmic Cat Publishing
• Release date: Nov 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781945249136

Book preview

Cornucopia

Eliza Sinclair

Copyright Page

Originally published by The Book Smugglers as Temporary Duty Assignment.

OMG, writing is work. A lot of work. Since it is so much work (done out of the author’s love of the words and worlds she builds), it would be really mean to steal her books. TL:DR? Stealing books is bad. Thank you for not being a book-stealer, and thank you for reading!

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cornucopia

Copyright © 2019 by Eliza Sinclair

ISBN: 978-1-945249-13-6

Cover, Book Design, and Ebook Conversion by Cassandra Chandler

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written prior permission of the copyright owners. If you would like to use material from the book, please inquire at elizasinclairwrites.gmail.com.

First eBook edition: November 2019

elizasinclair.com

Dedication

To all the women out there who feel like you are not enough: If you feel like less of a woman because you are grieving infertility or loss of pregnancy for any reason; if you are feeling alone and afraid when your body is suffering due to others’ actions; if you are transitioning and confused and overwhelmed, or transitioning into perimenopause/menopause and wondering why it’s still such a pain after all these years; if you are chronically dysmorphic or if you are confident but punished for your confidence; if you are told your mental illness or disability is weakness when you are doing everything to stay strong; if you are feeling that you are too much this, not enough that, not good at being a woman—guess what? You are you—the only you that there is, and you are enough.

Being the woman that you are is everything.

Prologue: Nice, a short story

GOOD MORNING, YUKIKO. AWAKE before the alarm, as usual.

My Homespace VI’s warm, lilting voice greets me at 06:30 just like it does every morning. I call him Henry—a strong and capable name, and if I had to guess, his accent is Australian.

Did you sleep well?

Beautifully, Henry. I dreamed about Iceland.

I see your exercises in dream-control are working, then.

Better than I hoped. Northern lights this time, all over the sky. I gaze up the wall facing my bed and scan today’s bullet points. Customized backgrounds stretch behind these lists, detailed renderings of the current weather in Reykjavik. Today, cloud hangs low over Mount Esja half a world away from the Metro and my climate-controlled cocoon.

We don’t get snow in these parts anymore. Haven’t for decades.

I’m ready to scan your vitals now. Remain still for a moment—

Henry, that’s imprecise. Not a moment—for just shy of seven seconds. Seven seconds of whatever remaining accountability I owe to Command.

Seven seconds of every day that ensure I am still an asset.

Ah, Yukiko—you always know the drill.

I know all the drills. That’s why I’m so good at what I do.

I sit in place, but I don’t need Henry’s assessment to tell me I’m in top form. I reach out my awareness—I can hear the city, sense its clockwork breaths. Beating hearts and a million feet. Organic and mechanical minds, the scurrying of scavengers in the alley beneath my high-rise. A fluttering of wings above me.

I breathe in and the scents are that of home—all as it should be. Nothing out of place.

Let me guess, Henry… Blood pressure one-ten over seventy-five. Pulse, forty beats per minute. Same as Monday, right?

You’re no fun. I’ll have to remember to test you more.

Oh, come on, I’m tons of fun. I grin. I never get tired of being right. Henry’s voice follows me into the washroom.

I’ve prepared today’s shopping list for your review, and your coffee is finished brewing.

Domo, Henry. My voice is bright over the spattering water. I try to stay cheerful. It helps with my work almost as much as routine does.

I step out, dripping. Two minutes and fifty seconds, right on schedule. I’m rich enough to be able to afford actual water showers at least twice a week, but I don’t take it for granted. That would be disrespectful in a way I couldn’t live with.

I reach for the clothes draped over the same chair as always and smooth my hand over the appliqué on today’s shirt—a miniature graphic of the solar system in hot-pink satin. My calloused finger catches on the smooth fabric.

This time, the glitch-itch, the misgiving—whatever it is—lasts exactly two-point-five seconds. Half a second longer than usual.

I wander out into the living area of the EcoPod I share with a philodendron that might be dying. Lukka—that’s her name, the philodendron. According to Henry, the name is Icelandic and means lucky. It fits. Lukka has this uncanny way of resurrecting just when I’m about to give up on her.

I can count on Lukka’s predictable rallying back to life, but for whatever reason, this part of my routine doesn’t make me smile. I think that I just wish she were always green, always thriving. Today, Lukka is a mottled green-brown, with fronds drooping lethargically. This upsets me, and I feel myself holding my breath, my pulse quickening. Sixty beats per minute.

I breathe again, and will my pulse to slow. Maybe the lucid-dreaming took a toll on my vitals.

Hey Henry, how about letting me know what I can expect in the sustenance department if you’re not too busy.

Ah, now you’re surely joking—I’m never too busy for you. Your regular Wednesday market and courier drone shopping orders are prepped, but I’m sure you already knew that. Whitefish will be sent express. Tomatoes and snap peas are no good this week, or at least that’s the scuttlebutt. Would you like to order frozen ones instead?

They’ll work. I’ll just add more chili sauce. Anything else, Henry?

Glad you asked… There is, in fact. I’m patching in today’s requests. Please stand by.

It’s smoggy out with an air-quality warning issued from Metro Command. Henry warned me about this but I always hope against reason that I’ll spot some tiny glimpse of blue through the bruise-yellow haze. On a more practical level, it means visibility will be affected. If my task list for the day keeps me outdoors, this could be an issue. I gaze up to where the tops of the buildings and the Skyway are obscured by the smog.

So much less inspiring than mountaintops shrouded by fresh winter snow. I hear that in the Seed colonies, the air is clear enough you don’t have to wear a breather at all—those places with names like Victory, Bounty, Cornucopia.

I’ve also heard that the rain there doesn’t burn… At least, not like it does here. That crops can thrive and farmers can do their work with skin exposed to air and sky.

Must be nice.

I sniff the air before I equip my breather. Everything seems normal—the bakery two streets over yeasty and warm as always, the garbage scows’ fetid, rot-sweet stink, the warm-oil and plastic scents of the automated parts replicator operating above the storage facility to the east.

If anything, my little corner of the Metro smells cleaner than usual.

I tug a lightweight breather over my already frizzy hair and power on my optics. The world goes abruptly clear. My lenses don’t look like much, but they’re top of the line, high-cred stuff. I strike out, my head low, and wind my way through the morning crowds on the walkways. Voices, music, trams, never-ending holo-ads for food and drink and drugs are a raucous symphony complemented by my light footfalls on the pavement.

Nobody notices me. This pleases me, an anonymity comfortable as an old sweater. Also, useful for all the things I have to get done. If someone does greet me or offer any small talk, I return the favor. I like to be nice to others when I can because you never know who they are, or what they might be going through.

South Terminal Market is busy for a Wednesday. I know this because even though I’m here at the same time as always, I have to wait in line two minutes and forty-seven seconds longer than usual at Hal’s counter.

Grumpy, sharp-eyed Hal himself oversees the transaction kiosk, which he only does when it’s this busy. He crosses his arms over his chest, frowning. At least he looks the same as any other day, V-necked white shirt stained with the spices he sells. His son—I call him Hal Mark 2 but only to myself—packages quick-mixes for a gaggle of elderly women in discount breathers and plastic protectives stretched over their big hair.

I pull away my own mask and the savory tang of masalas smacks me in the senses. Morning, Hal, I say and he wipes his hands on the white cotton stretched over his belly, trailing a yellowy smear of curry.

Yeah, yeah, hi-hi Missus—

Amada, I smile. Miss Amada.

Right. Usual order, Miss Amada?

Absolutely, thanks so much. I nod even though I know I don’t have to, that he will hand over the order like he always does, face blank, pulse fast and irregular.

’Kay. Gimme a second. Hal reaches under the kiosk and retrieves a foil-wrapped packet taped along the sides. Same package, same spiking heart rate and twitchy Hal but three minutes later than usual.

Need a bag?

Please, I say, and it’s like a song or rhyme that has to go a certain way.

He shakes out a flimsy, yellow plastic sack and with more care than I ever think is possible, places the foil brick in the middle, and ties the bag’s handles in a neat loop. Receipt’s sent to your account. See you soon.

Thanks, Hal—take care. ‘Til next week. I bob my head politely but he’s already busy with another customer so I’m off to the next stop and behind schedule.

The twinge is back. The misgiving I’m feeling has got to be related to weird sleep or funky dreams. Nothing else makes sense. I shrug it off and decide to splurge on lunch today. I check for new messages with Henry, and notice an urgent transmission from Sam Gao, my eyes and ears in Metro. She also happens to be my protégé, even if she’s one of the shittiest snipers on the TAC team (but don’t tell her that). She makes up for it by being the best at everything else.

Her message informs me that the Super Gyro guy (pun intended) is set up in Transit South for an extra day this month and I really can’t say no to that. Food’s so damn good that the transit cops reroute their enforcement drones away from the square just so they can stuff themselves full of affordable slow-roasted meat and tzatziki, like everyone else around here. Real meat—at least more than half soy.

I need to remember to send a gift to Sam—that kind of vigilance in these things that truly matter are what keep us all going. I mean, Sam is gruff on the outside but she’s a squishy teddy bear when it matters.

I take a moment to sigh in contentment then ping Henry.

You were right about the weather, as much as I hate to admit. Any updates, oh great prognosticator of skies and smog? I mutter into my wrist-comm and try to flatten down the pile of flimsy paper napkins in my lap.

Thank you for recognizing my superior talents. And actually, yes.

I take another bite of my ridiculously tasty gyro. The whole square smells like garlic and I can sense the waves of animal satisfaction radiating outward from the crowd of greasy-fingered devotees near the food-shuttle.

You received a new appointment request for an hour from now, just east of your current location. Full payment. Wired instantly, vetted through Command.

How much?

Henry tells me the fee and details and I pause mid-chew.

Ihnsschantly? A blob of meat drops from my mouth onto my arm and I stare at it, incredulous.

That’s different.

My heartbeat quickens—my pulse increases by three beats a minute. My senses sharpen with the adrenaline flooding my body and suddenly the smell of Super Gyro is too much.

There’s the glitch again, the nerve-itch shuddering over my spine, through my brain.

It’s been a long time since someone prepaid in full. Since I got that much for a job.

I remember to swallow my food. Henry continues, his voice implacable in my earpiece.

It sounds like a cinch. I’ve messaged you the coordinates and on your orders I’ll release the security on Terminal Holdings Locker 423. I will note, you’ll need different tools than usual today. Mixing it up for a change.

Different tools? I don’t hide my curiosity or impatience.

Hold your horses, details incoming.

I cram the last bit of gyro down my gullet, too twitchy to enjoy it. My routine is shot to hell. Nothing’s normal today—from frozen tomatoes to the