The Magic Seed

By Kim Vacariu

In the climate-altered world of 2177, when potable water is almost non-existent, where no snow has fallen in nearly 100 years, when rain is a virtual oddity, and fossil fuels are long depleted, the human threat to Nature remains as strong as it ever was. In the transformed environment of the Rocky Mountains, a genetically-incubated journalist known as Zee and his telepathically-gifted girlfriend, Lectra, find both other-worldly love and a burning desire to fight for what remains of the natural world through rejuvenation of the age-old art of sabotage known as “monkeywrenching.”
Their ingeniously-executed destruction of past projects that threatened Nature, and their wild, uncanny escapes from capture, inspire the pair onward to new opportunities for “saving what’s left.” As they survive in a world of extraordinary circumstances created by human malfeasance of the highest order, their participation in a unique life-extension experiment gives them an uncanny vantage point for interpreting humanity’s greatest irony: that continuing damage to the planet’s ecosystem is irreparably and permanently linked to a manifest defect in the “human condition.” But a shocking “first arrival” by off-planet visitors throws Zee and Lectra into roles that they could never have possibly imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kim Vacariu
• Release date: Oct 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005322922

Kim Vacariu

Kim Vacariu migrated West after receiving a Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism at Kent State University. Upon arrival in Colorado he co-authored his first book, a collection of nature-infused poems peddled on the streets of Boulder. He soon launched a multi-year poetry-writing marathon, living in a remote off-the-grid cabin at the site of an old mining town called Bear River near Steamboat Springs, where he fully heard the call of the wild. Later, establishing a homestead in the nearby Elk River Valley, he co-founded and edited multiple publications, most notably the Steamboat Springs Review, a free alternative newspaper in which he first published The Adventures of Zee beginning in 1989. The newspaper received the local Environment 2000 Shining Star Award in 1995 for its “Commitment to Environmental Responsibility.” Vacariu continued focusing his writing and energy on Nature conservation, spending the next two decades as a communications specialist and grassroots organizer for Wildlands Network, where he created and directed a large coalition of conservation groups working to connect wild habitats in the Rocky Mountains. He continues to serve on boards of directors for nature-protection organizations, and lately claims he is scheming new ways to save what’s left of Nature in a future that is happening now.

Book preview

Preface

I wrote and began first publishing the original Adventures of Zee in 1989 as a series in the Steamboat Springs Review, a free alternative newspaper that my wife and I published and edited. At the time of that first writing, the climatological, social, and political upheavals I attributed to the far distant future seemed certain to take a very, very long time to occur.

When I recently unshelved the hefty, 110-chapter book after it lay dormant for decades, I was amazed by the story’s overpowering relevance to today’s world—more so than it even seemed back then. In fact, as this new series is published, it’s clear that I may have drastically over-estimated the time it would take for some of my original prognostications to come true, proof that the dire process Zee called the human stupidity loop was accelerating far faster than ever thought possible. Re-inspired by the eco-action of the old story, I split the original text into a 2-book series— 2175: Last of the Ski Domes; and 2177: The Magic Seed. In these latest versions I’ve faithfully maintained the characters, events and descriptions of the future world as I envisioned them back then.

The story occurs in the landscape of northwestern Colorado’s Park Range, where the Continental Divide headwaters of the Elk River, the spectacular expanse of the Mt. Zirkel Wilderness Area, and the gem of Gilpin Lake are all located. The names of some of the landmarks and towns referenced are accurate, while other such places and people are fabricated. However, the main characters in the story are not fabricated—they exist in real life today all over the world, waiting to take action when their time comes.  — Kim Vacariu

Introduction

In the climate-altered world of 2177, when potable water is almost non-existent, where no snow has fallen in nearly 100 years, when rain is a virtual oddity, and fossil fuels are long depleted, the human threat to Nature remains as strong as it ever was. In the transformed environment of the Rocky Mountains, a genetically-selected journalist known as Zee and his telepathically-gifted girlfriend, Lectra, find both other-worldly love and a burning desire to save what remains of the natural world through rejuvenation of the age-old art of sabotage known as monkeywrenching.

Their ingeniously-executed destruction of past projects that threatened Nature, and their wild, uncanny escapes from capture, inspire the pair onward to new opportunities for saving what’s left. As they survive in a world of extraordinary circumstances created by human malfeasance of the highest order, their participation in a unique life-extension experiment gives them an uncanny vantage point for interpreting humanity’s greatest irony: that continuing damage to the planet’s ecosystem is irreparably and permanently linked to a manifest defect in the human condition. But a shocking first arrival by off-planet visitors throws Zee and Lectra into roles that they could never have possibly imagined.

1

Survivors

ZEE’S EYES POPPED WIDE open, avoiding the climax to a very bad dream. Staring up into the black of midnight, skin sweaty, heart still racing, the relief of sudden wakefulness washed over him, giving assurance he would not have to endure the nightmare’s final moments of terror. Trees were crashing to the ground all around him, and not the familiar half-dead cedars in his front yard. These were trees so huge their tops reached far above the clouds before slowly tilting his way, teetering, cracking, then smashing down, shaking the ground like earthquakes as they hit, barely missing him on every side. One last giant, with a girth many times wider than the biggest tree he had ever seen, was teetering, snapping, falling straight toward him...he couldn’t move his feet.

As his heart rate slowly recovered, Zee recognized the pure fantasy of his traumatic vision, one that had no logical connection to reality. The only thing he could think of that might have triggered it was the surge of angst he felt when he read about the global tree shortage a few days before. Beyond that, Zee usually dismissed his somewhat frequent Nature Nightmares, as he called them, as par for the course, not paying much attention to their blood-curdling content other than as a reminder of his favorite reporting topics.

But maybe, in this case, he should have paid a little more attention. A real-life tree story was about to break that would be worth his telling–and selling. For an eco-journalist always looking for Nature-related subject matter, this news event would more than fill out his checklist for a good tale: amazing levels of human hypocrisy, destruction of rare natural resources, and hair-raising depictions of Nature-protection efforts carried out by daring heroes.

At the time of Zee’s dreaming, in the spring of 2177, the NorthWest Zone of the United America Federation, including the area that once contained a unique forest of the world’s most gigantic trees, had only 332 of those native giants remaining in one small grove—the only such trees left of the many millions that once existed. That last lone stand of native sequoia, or redwood trees as they were known, having defied the survival odds against ecosystem-sized forest fires, endless heat and drought, and human development for thousands of years, now faced the greatest odds of all.

The grove stood like a fantastic mirage, an isolated plume of greenery towering above a surrounding landscape that had been repeatedly clear-cut of its former trees, both native and farmed. A landscape now given over to a sea of tightly wedged and stacked dorminium units, stuck together like the cells shown in the ancient bee honeycomb image shown in the New Honey promotional hologram at the Crystal Springs FoodPort: You’ll never know you’re not eating honey!

The intensive, century-long treeclone farming of the land around the remaining redwood grove had left the soil agriculturally useless. And that was long before the incredible drought and drastic increase in temperatures had finally combined to leave the region in biological starvation, but a perfect location for wall-to-wall housing complexes with stunning views of the last stand of towering, ancient wonders.

Not surprisingly, the Federation had leaked a report showing that the development value of the 190 acres of land on which those last big trees grew was thousands of times higher than the combined worth of the wood in the trees themselves, their inspirational value to the public, and their massive contribution to the global oxygen supply. The unmentioned problem was that those 190 acres were still strictly protected by the grove’s long-time Redwood ValueLand designation. It didn’t take long for passage of a Federal Emergency Declaration voiding the existing ValueLand protection when developers threatened to halt campaign funding unless the government agreed to allow building of high-end dorminiums inside the grove. The developers gave their assurance that there would be numerous trees left uncut to preserve Nature, but in reality the few remaining redwoods would be strategically spaced to provide eye candy for trillionaire dorminium buyers.

Aware of the historical and biological significance of those redwoods, and to toss a bone to the naturalists who the move would certainly enrage, the Feds promised to preserve in perpetuity some of the best redwood specimens cut from the grove. They would be enshrined in the famed National Tree Museum, where humankind proudly exhibited an impressive display of all the tree species it had caused to become extinct.

The remaining stand of ancient giants in question—the last genetic source of the millennia-defying sequoias—was once part of a much larger forest of redwoods, covering a vast landscape around what was back then the wet and fertile coastal range of Northern California. Even at that time, so long ago, most of the other non-sequoia forests of the area had already been cut down as a result of the Pulp Rush. That industrial craze was driven by the need for a newly found element common in the pulp of spruce-fir-cypress trees, an element suddenly demanded for mass production of radiation-proof clothing.

The terrorists who had exploded a Cesium-137 bomb in the upper atmosphere back in 2125, maniacally attempting to save Earth from its overwhelming human population, had no concept of the collateral damage it would cause. Their crazy radiation attack scheme would inadvertently result in the harvesting of nearly all of the planet’s native conifer trees and the unintended disruption of animal life for many decades. But their main goal—killing off billions of people over time through radioactive poisoning, was more than realized, the contamination lasting for the next fifty years, with several hundred million killed. That radioactive contamination was finally eliminated with the strange appearance of a rad-vacuuming entity, obviously alien, apparently starved for its primary source of nutrition, showed up in a sun-blocking event that stunned the world.

Yet the ageless redwood forests managed to survive even through that onslaught of Nature destruction. And their original population might have remained intact if it were not for most of it dropping into the Pacific Ocean—along with 1200 square miles of surrounding coastal landscape—during the Great Tremor of 2138.

The few redwoods that escaped being swallowed by the sea in that quake were left in a small grove precariously hanging on for dear life just above the cliffs of the newly formed inland coastline. Ensuing governments dutifully treated those last relics as a sacred memorial, protecting the grove as a Federal ValueLand. Ironically, the designation took effect at the same time that the other less ancient conifer forests surrounding the grove were being clear-cut round the clock and replaced by hybridized tree production centers in Pulp Restoration Zones.  

For decades, tourists had come from all over the world to visit the Redwoods ValueLand, where the last of those trees were tightly sealed off from further human destruction by a BarZon Field. The invisible barrier, shaped like a dome over the grove, repelled any solid matter that contacted it from outside, except for soluble liquid, allowing for the pittance of rain that still fell in the NorthWest Zone to reach the ground around the redwoods. Combined with the occasional water still solar-pumped from a thousands-foot-deep irrigation well in their midst, and the reverse impermeability of the BarZon field that prevented any water vapor inside from escaping, the last redwood ecosystem seemed safe. Standing in the center of the cathedral-like enclave, one could imagine without difficulty a continuous forest of such giants stretching on for many thousands of acres, before the terrorist attack, before the earthquake, before Earth had reached the final stages of climate disruption.

2

Trees that never died

LECTRA HAD VISITED the pre-quake redwood forest on a field trip as a young Dish Kid. That was the nickname for people incubated without parents, or more accurately, incubated from a multitude of parent donors, chunks of whose DNA were selectively intermingled to create individuals with the particular skills most needed by society at that moment in time. In Lectra’s case, it was the shortage of Science Planners that brought her into the world with that citizen classification. 

Many years later, unknown to Lectra, Zee was also created in the same process, but in his case to satisfy the shortage of Journalists. The unlikely coincidence that they were both Dish Kids and Millenial-Ray life-extension program participants gave them an emotional link that far exceeded normal human partnership bonds.

Lectra was one of the first to receive the M-Ray treatment at 27 years old, forty-one years ago, at about the same time that Zee was first incubated. She had experienced no aging since then, making her now a 68-year old in the body of a 27-year-old. Zee, thanks to Lectra’s inside connections and her desire for a permanent partner, received his first dose of the Ray just two years ago, when he first met and fell for Lectra. He was 40 at that time, making him now a 42-year-old in the body of a 40-year-old. Their lifetimes were drastically separated in chronological years, yet their M-Ray experience would bond them for many lifetimes to come. They would always be 27 and 40, if all went well.

Lectra had never forgotten the strangeness, the holiness, of seeing the iconic dark blue, white-capped Pacific through the vertical towers of those huge tree trunks as a young student. She knew that special childhood memory could never be duplicated now, what with that same seascape backdrop so rudely contaminated by half-fractured former mountaintops and the battered, shattered top floors of occasional high-rise building complexes sticking up through the surf offshore.

That trip to the redwoods, at age five, was her first exposure to ancient native trees, and the field trip’s tour of the forest was all she needed to permanently embed the rich loamy smells and fantastic grandeur of the momentous plants in her memory forever.

And now, having read of the Federation's plans to cut down the last of the redwoods to make room for new housing projects, Lectra’s distress was understandable. Mostly due to her general commitment to protecting whatever was left of Nature, but in this case encouraged further by the constant bantering of Zee, her partner in love and war, when he learned of the impending tree-killing operation.

Self-enrichment at the cost of the ecosystems that humanity needs to stay alive is the hypocrisy of greed! Zee almost yelled, startling Lectra from her pensive sipping on a cup of wakeup at their kitchen counter. She flipped a long, thick waterfall of bright yellow hair out of her way as she turned to see him. The comment activated their servosystem’s penchant for engagement.

You can’t blame humans for something an earthquake did. If that hadn’t happened, the trees you’re worried about would still be plentiful. I believe you need to recognize the cruelty of Nature as well as its benefits, said Zee’s home assistant, the Wizard II-XL654, in a cryptic tone selected from its voicebank of many inflexions, allowing the servosystem to fit its remarks to the tenor of whatever conversation might be happening.

Yours is the logic of someone who lives in a world of algorithms. I live in a world that is dying, and it is not being killed by Nature! Zee loudly reacted to the Wiz. There was no reply, other than a brief, low buzzing that meant Wiz was thinking something but not saying it.

I think I'm going to be sick over this one... Lectra groaned, reality setting in as she read the WorldNet morning news scrolling down their airscreen on the kitchen counter. "It’s not Nature cruelty we’re dealing with here, Wiz, it’s developer cruelty." 

Wait a minute, said Zee, slowly emerging from the previous night's ReLax escapade, steel blue eyes hidden behind a tight squint. "Every time you get sick about some threat to Nature we end up fighting for our lives. In fact, that last time we did die," he reminded, referring to the fake deaths Lectra had conjured up that allowed them to end their implications in the ski dome attack.

They're going to clear-cut the Redwoods ValueLand, ignored Lectra. They're going to cut ‘em down, then inject the cells of the best examples with plastex and move them to the National Tree Museum, she said. They say there won’t be any noticeable difference from the real thing." 

The Wiz, better known in public slang as a homechip, joined the conversation from out of nowhere. He talked straight this time, skipping imitation of Zee’s language habits that the chip sometimes used to create a more familiar dialogue with his operator.

It would be unusual if no one could tell the difference between a plasticized tree and a real one, offered the Wiz. Plasticized trees quickly lose their rich coloration, reasoned the logic-based, artificial entity that really wasn’t very artificial at all.

Lectra's intensity increased at that, bringing back the old, sweet recklessness that had consumed her many times before. If she and her partner could monkeywrench a complex development like the Zirkel Ski Dome, what would stop them from concocting a plan to save the last redwood grove? She'd even do it without her mate, if that's what it came down to.  

How'd you like to take a little trip to the NorthWest Zone? she asked Zee as he stuffed a chewy soystring between his lips with one hand, holding a steamy cup of wakeup in the other. After a huge mouthful of soy and a long sip of the thick liquid still fizzling on his tongue, Zee cleared his throat.

I'm no fool. I’ve turned you into an insatiable black hole for eco-heroism with my cheerleading. Don’t get me wrong, but as much as I like Nature Girls, I'm feeling a sense of insecurity and weakness right now. I can’t always be crawling around hiding in the bushes. I’ve got deadlines; need to write an airscreen load of stories. I need to get my new life set up, pretend like I’m normal. We just got off the Wanted List, for hell's sake. Now you want to start it all over again. You aren't going to rest until you get us killed or de-animated, this time over a few trees. Lectra calmly sat back in her seat and stared out at the silvery cascades of granite descending from Mt. Zirkel’s peak, glimmering in the scorching hot spring sun above the Continental Divide far out on the eastern horizon.

It's not something I'd expect you to get excited about, even though you’re always egging me on, she said. "Just a few trees. You do a great job of talking and writing about trees, about how the Earth’s ecosystem is collapsing. But will you go out and actually block the killing of the subjects of your stories? Noooo..."

Zee’s face wrinkled in perplexion. He had just run interference for this woman, allowing her to hack the demolition lasers at the ski dome construction site on Mt. Zirkel, cause them to turn on themselves and blow the whole construction site to smithereens. He nearly sacrificed his entire life for the operation, for that matter. Now he was catching flack over his commitment to saving Nature. 

I guess I'm an eco-wimp, sneered the reporter, his long silver hair and short, scruffy beard giving him the look of someone living in the wild. "All talk, no action. But what about you? Just what would you do about those trees? I know, you'd go out there and chain yourself to a couple of 'em. That would be a lot of fun watching those merciless laser-cutters slice you in half. Adios amiga!"

Lectra sat silently, unsure exactly how one lone person could safely prevent such an ecological slaughter. How did they accomplish such deeds in the past? Simple, they enforced that venerable old Endangered Species Act. The only endangered species left these days was humanity itself, she had to admit. Zee offered some advice in lieu of Lectra’s silence.

How about driving a few highly visible six-inch AlumiNox spikes into those trees right about eye-level? I’ve read that those things worked wonders for the old Earth Firsters, stopping trees from being cut down to avoid sending spiked logs through the sawmill blades. Zee pounded his fist on the counter as punctuation to that thought. The jolt sent Chara, Zee’s red Crimish hound jumping to her feet from a prone position on her bed in the corner of the kitchen. Sorry, Chara...just getting a little worked up here! The dog sat down, long ears drooping, yawning in a gesture that indicated such occasional outbursts from her master were to be expected.

Lectra remained quiet. She knew the spiking plan wouldn’t work since laser cutters would automatically detect and cut around impenetrable spikes. No, it would have to be more innovative than that. Whatever it was, it would have to be thought up quickly—the last redwoods were going to be harvested in less than a month. The Wizard interrupted, seeming to read Lectra's mind. 

Would it not be impossible to cut the redwoods if the BarZon Energy Field around them became permanent before the cutting began? the homechip innocently asked, hiding the fact he already knew the answer—an embedded instinct designed to avoid the homechip’s appearance of being smarter than its operator. Lectra widely expanded her green eyes and spun around to stare at the voice from nowhere.

There's no way to perpetuate a BarZon Field without perpetuating its energy source, she blankly said to the Wizard. Right now that shield is temporary, easily turned on and off, so it could be technically disrupted with the right commands—or maybe just the tossing in of a...you-know-what.

The Wizard was silent, well aware of what a you-know-what was, quietly researching a possible BarZon shutdown concept while at the same time ignoring the illegality of doing that, a questionable trait he had picked up from his operators. 

I believe that certain adjustments to the force field itself through changes to the energy source could perpetuate the barrier with no way to deactivate it, said the homechip. And by ‘you-know-what,’ I assume you mean some activity that I may not want to catalog. Zee was pacing the floor then stopped and turned to Lectra. 

"You know, I think Wiz might be right. What a great story! Monkeywrenchers Save Redwoods. There’s Ds in that. Of course, I’d be willing to donate some of my share of the profits, you know, to help pay for your legal fees after you’re convicted," Zee offered sarcastically.

Just make certain you are outside the BarZon field when it becomes permanent, said the Wiz, choosing one of the more cautionary tones from his inventory. And that will be some feat, indeed, considering that you would need to be inside the field to perpetuate it.

Zee suddenly wondered why, or how, the Wizard was openly assisting in a proposed sabotage scheme, something he had never done before. Their previous scurrilous, yet