Food Bowl

By Gil Hardwick

The far distant future beyond 2150, beyond the climate apocalypse, beyond dystopian aftershock, in a decayed world stagnating from boredom and corruption, far out beyond civilisation the Crop Masters work incessantly to maintain food supplies.
The protective high wall around the metropolis, built to protect the crops not the people, has been undermined by weather and lack of repairs. Holes begin to appear beneath it as the foundations wash away, and children start crawling out to play in the bush.
Who are these children? Over a long period eventually their children, and then their grandchildren come out to play, until the first of them are now parents and grand-parents.
Mike Barker finds himself with a serious problem on his hands, no longer able to guarantee food security as this naïve new hybrid population unknown to anybody finds its relentless way out onto the prohibited grain-belt.Something ancient stirs . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gilbert J Hardwick
• Release date: Feb 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9780992370428

Gil Hardwick

As an anthropologist, novelist and writer Gil Hardwick is a gifted author. Over many years working as a field ethnographer in the vast Australian inland he has met real characters and had real-life adventures, bringing his personalities and his plots to vibrant life. Writing from life, he neither shies away from real social issues and at times confronting dilemmas.

Book preview

PART ONE

Chapter One

From their lookout high up on the lip of the scarp they could see the light haze billowing up from the distant headers as they churned their way across the waving yellow-brown rice paddy, drift easterly on the mid-morning sea breeze. The Doctor, they called it.

The blokes taking the crop off would be happy. All week had been dead calm and the fine stuff coming off the great wide contoured paddocks had hung around on the still air; finding its way into their eyes and ears, right up their nose and down their throat, if they weren't wearing their suits and respirators.

It wasn't only the fine clay dust off the ground getting inside their clothing; working its way into their pores, into their armpits and crotch, but old pollen and itching plant fibre coming out of the headers themselves, and off the dry straw churning out onto the new stubble behind them as they passed over it, and again as the winnowed grain came pouring out of the auger tube into the tractor bin trailing alongside. Ten tonne to the hectare they were getting.

But now there was other dust; fine light plumes from vehicles approaching, this time through the thick tree cover down to their right. There looked to be three of them close together, with a fourth bringing up the rear some distance behind.

Mike turned his spotter's scope onto them, and picking up their GPS radioed in their location before his mate tapped his arm. Swivelling his scope around, he spotted another convoy coming in from the northwest at 10:50 o'clock, but still some distance away.

With his first radio alert the boys on the ground moved quickly into position, spreading out into the tree cover well out from the edge of the crop; covering the men on tractors while others around the air-lift field bins checked their ammunition and clicked their rifles off safety.

The headers were a good way out and fairly safe across a kilometre or more of flat open stubble, and they were due to shift the field bins closer to them anyway. These ferals arriving here on the northern boundary right at this moment only meant their timing was off; assuming they were after trouble or had some strategy in mind, or something had simply held them up; it was well past smoko, almost lunch already.

Within minutes the deep thrumming clatter of gunships coming in low above them, hovering, covering their flanks, drowned everything else out. Behind them came the steadier roar of the big transporters moving into position ready to drop their refills and take the full bins off.

Finally Mike ducked behind some rocks away from the noise, and covering his ears yelled into the microphone for his men to hold the perimeter and keep them there; take the refill bins out closer to where the headers were working then come back and take the full ones off - be quick about it - make sure the harvested grain was secure and he'd be down shortly to see what the newcomers wanted.

And tell the tractor drivers to stop out there where they are, or better turn around and go back out to the headers; we'll drop the empty bins near them so they don't have to come any closer.

Something was up and it bothered him. Where the ferals should have been was miles away at the silos where the company maintained a beggar's gate, where they knew they could pick up rations and take them away in their small jerry-built trailer bins filled with third-grade grain, or seconds occasionally, depending on the season.

Coming here in so many vehicles must be costing them a huge fuel ration, unless they had a digester or a still hidden away somewhere, and plenty of fuel grain from past years to feed it.

Whatever it was could only mean trouble.

The crowd was milling about quietly by the time he made his way down the long slope onto the flat and through the trees, leaving his mate up on top as lookout.

There was another lot over to his left that the men kept under guard, but right in front of him was fairly peaceful, non-threatening. Glancing across the boundary fence into the stubble he saw that his orders had been carried out, and only two of the gunships sat watchfully at rest there on the ground where the bins had been while harvesting went on a good safe distance behind them.

They were all waiting for him, turning to look at him as he strode purposefully from under the tree cover.

Straight away he recognised their leader, and he called out to him.

Ed, what the fuck? You know better than this . . . fucking bullshit. You know the rules, we have an agreement.

Chapter Two

Mike, talk to me!

He gazed back down the corridor. Peter Jamieson had his head stuck out his door, looking in his direction. Casting his eyes down a moment, hand on the doorknob, he cocked his head and glanced back again.

Got something? he wanted to know, knowing very well that the company boffin did have something important to say else he wouldn't be calling him; Give me 10-15 minutes, OK?

Placed his briefcase wearily on the sideboard along one wall, he opened it taking out a thick sheaf of papers. He stepped across to the desk to see a pair of red and green lights flashing in the top corner of the glass tablet set before his chair. The green indicated a security definition update so he flicked his finger across the screen to enable it, while the red told him there was a board meeting at 1300 hours and he was expected to attend with a full report.

It was not yet mid-morning, however. Outside the sunlight angled across the city, its rays muted by traffic haze even on the sunny side of the tall buildings, apart from the bright flash off some window somewhere. He stood, gazing thoughtfully out across the city skyline, then turned and stepped across to his ensuite for a quick shower and freshen-up.

His shoulder and hip were aching. As he dried himself off he stopped to check the pock marks and scarring up his left side; souvenirs of that little stoush on the Horn of Africa when some guy had sprayed him with a 9 mm Uzi from an empty building across the town square. It was that come-down off the adrenalin rush of action that did it to him every time, and he thought for a moment maybe he should go see a psych finally.

Shrugging it off, he dried himself with a clean towel and looked at himself in the mirror. His body was still clean and fit, well-muscled without an ounce of fat. His pecs and abs, and as he turned around his shoulder blades and dorsals, were all well-toned with clear definition beneath thick dark body hair. Back at boarding school, even as a teenager they called him The Bear, from his father's side who were all swarthy Mediterranean types; Black Irish they called them, except he'd been a swimmer and now sported well-developed shoulders and upper chest with slim waist and hips. He had a quick shave before putting on clean briefs and a t-shirt, then dressed again in his bush uniform. More or less presentable he went out into the tiny kitchenette to grind fresh coffee beans, and wait patiently for his miserly allocation of water to boil.

He smiled ruefully, thinking about it. No matter how much it rained - and during the monsoon it bucketed down - all the water was allowed to runoff regardless, and here they were with their tea or coffee allocation carefully metered by the centralised mainframes. Water.com had their niche in the scheme of things; no doubt of it, but so did Energy.com for more substantial reason. It was their windmills and solar panels, after all, which covered every roof as far as the eye could see. For all they were concerned rain came down from the sky for no better purpose than to wash the dust off their equipment.

The coffee was exquisite; Pitalito Estate Caturra Supremo, shipped in from the southern Huila region of the Colombian Northern Andes in South America. The job did come with its perquisites, but he was good at it. He had a reputation for bringing crops in on time and under budget, with a minimum of conflict, and had personally trained an awful lot of the world's top sowing and harvest managers. Most of the time he simply handed his ordinance back unused at the end of the season, he was that good, and was issued with entirely new gear as needed at the start of each job. They looked after him.

The raw sugar he preferred came in from the Monymusk factory, off the Caribbean south coast of Jamaica. He liked their bigger bean, No. 1 Blue Mountain coffee as well; they'd send it packed in his regular sugar order with no questions asked, but he relished the fruit, sharp acidity and slightly bitter after-palate of the Pitalito.

He could have his sweetener brought in from Beenleigh in Queensland if he wanted, or Coffs Harbour, but with world fossil fuel reserves so badly depleted the super-fast wind-powered neo-clippers that now dominated world commerce tending easterly in these latitudes with the trade winds, it was cheaper to ship produce from the Caribbean, Brazil and Argentina to the Australian west coast than just about anywhere else on earth. From here they'd take their grain shipments on the roaring southern latitudes back with them. It hadn't taken anything for the old colonial sea lanes to reopen, he thought, except these days real luxury came in unannounced as back load tucked in under the empty grain compartments.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he turned to pick up his cup. He was tired, bone weary after months of stripping canola, wheat and barley, then rice, right through spring and the hot summer months and looking for a break between early sowing and late, which was about the only time he had to himself. Thinking again he put the cup back down and placing some fresh beans and sugar in sachets put them in his pocket. Taking up his cup again he went out into the corridor, along a few doors to find Peter's office wide open, waiting for him.

The guy was Autistic; Asperger's, or so somebody said. Hyperactive brain, incredible mental acuity. Food.com had him on the payroll too for good reason.

"Shut the