Surviving the Evacuation, Book 20: Small Cogs in the Survival Machine: Surviving The Evacuation, #20

By Frank Tayell

The final evacuation begins.

 

A year and a half after the collapse of civilisation, pirates plague the Atlantic, the Saint Lawrence River is a radioactive dead-zone, and the forests of Quebec are succumbing to disease. With insufficient supplies to last until autumn, the survivors in Eastern Canada have no choice but to flee. A final evacuation is planned, to migrate across the breadth of irradiated North America to what they hope will be permanent safety on the Pacific coast.

 

Until they leave, life goes on, and children grow up. For Jay, that means getting a job. Apprenticed to old George Tull, he's tasked with scouting the Digby Peninsula for roadworthy vehicles left behind during the first evacuation of Canada. Instead, he finds signs that an old foe has returned.

 

For the Canadian evacuation not to become a deadly tragedy like its British forebear, safe roads and intact bridges must be found. Tuck and Sorcha join the soldiers mapping the tracks and trails through the dying forests of Quebec. It should be a straightforward mission, but the starving bears and predatory wolves are not as great a danger as the desperate survivors who wish to be forgotten by the world.

 

With increasing desertification on land, and rising toxicity in the oceans, it is unclear for how much longer the planet can sustain life. With imminent annihilation a real possibility, the more populous group of survivors in the Pacific plan a multi-faith expedition to Jerusalem and Mecca. For the devout, it is an opportunity to complete a pilgrimage. For the politicians, it is a chance to diminish the power of the ascendant crusaders, extremists, and death cults. For a few, it is an opportunity to hunt for the friends and family abandoned during the escape from Europe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Tayell
• Release date: Feb 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215102886

Frank Tayell

Frank Tayell is the author of post-apocalyptic fiction including the series Surviving the Evacuation and it’s North American spin-off, Here We Stand. "The outbreak began in New York, but they said Britain was safe. They lied. Nowhere is safe from the undead." He’s also the author of Strike a Match, a police procedural set twenty years after a nuclear war. The series chronicles the cases of the Serious Crimes Unit as they unravel a conspiracy threatening to turn their struggling democracy into a dystopia. For more information about Frank Tayell, visit http://blog.franktayell.com or http://www.facebook.com/FrankTayell

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Dramatis Personae

A non-exhaustive list of characters in this book.

The Wright Family

Bill, a reformed politician, once devised an evacuation plan for Britain. While it failed there, this plan was replicated with varying degrees of success across the world. He is now the senior civil servant for the community in Digby, and co-ordinating their evacuation to the far west. In an ideal world, Kim would be a radio presenter and children’s author, but post-outbreak Canada is far from ideal. Instead, she’s been reduced to being the unrecognised co-author of Bill’s plans to turn the Canadian survivors into a functioning community. It’s a year since they met, and almost as long since they found, and adopted, the soon-to-be fourteen-years-old Annette, and the probably-nearly three-years-old Daisy.

Special Projects, Canberra

Scott and Liu Higson each fell in love with planes first and then with each other. Before the outbreak, they lived in Broken Hill with their daughter Clemmie and son Bobby, though Scott had taken a temporary gig flying passenger planes in Europe so as to help fund Clemmie’s university costs in faraway Vancouver. Liu worked at Broken Hill’s airport, and often with Mick Dodson, a pilot and surgeon emeritus with the Flying Doctor Service. Mick’s daughter, Anna Dodson, was the local MP. After the outbreak, Anna became Deputy Prime Minister for Australia, Liu became her personal pilot, and Clemmie, after escaping from Vancouver, joined the Special Projects division operating out of Canberra University. Bobby, being only eleven years old, returned to school. Poor old Scott, meanwhile, was stranded in Europe.

Another old neighbour of theirs from Broken Hill, Tess Qwong, is now assistant commissioner of police and head of Special Projects. Among the secretive division’s broad remit is the ongoing investigation into whether the planet has suffered so much ecological damage that all life on Earth is doomed. The division’s research is organised by Dr Florence Avalon and Dr Leo Smilovitz. Along with as many postgrad students as they can conscript, they’re assisted by Team Stonefish, a self-named squad of conscripts and regulars who helped prevent the Australian coup. Nicko Oakes is a twenty-four-year-old sergeant in the SAS, and the Pictionary definition of an ambitious soldier. Though old enough to have a grown son, Bianca Clague hasn’t looked back since being conscripted. Elaina Slater was a teacher before the outbreak. As the initial crisis abated, she picked the less harrowing career choice and remained in the army.

The Pilgrims

While thousands hope to travel on the pilgrimage to the holy lands of many faiths, the expedition is being organised by Father Luke Evasco, acting bishop of Eastern Samar, representing the Catholics and a number of smaller Christian churches. Mr Tariq Ibrahim is chair of the Islamic College of the Pacific, an umbrella group representing more moderate voices across the region. David Kercher is a scientist who intends to hold a megaphone in front of the voice of compromise.

The Europeans

Accompanying the pilgrims is President Vernadski of Ukraine. Once an administrator of a hospital on the Dnieper River, he led a fighting retreat through Europe, outracing the undead until joining with the French survivors led by Professor Victoria Fontayne. With them at the time was Scott Higson, and Sergeant Salman Khan and Private Amber Kessler, both U.S. Marines from the USS Harper’s Ferry. With the self-named Starwind, her mother Claire Moreau, and the Ukrainians Lev, Pietr, Ivan, and Zoya, they repaired a plane and flew south, hoping to make contact with anyone who might come to the aid of the Europeans.

The Leadership in Digby

The survivors in Canada are led by a triumvirate: Admiral Janet Gunderson, the last United States Surgeon General before the outbreak, Napatchie Ashoona, the MP for Nunavut, and Mary O’Leary, a retired teacher and former leader of the survivors in Anglesey. Assisting in the day to day running of the community, among others like Bill and Kim, are Colonel Leon Laurent of the French Special Forces; Mary’s new husband George Tull, Tracy Mossburger; the one-time warrior chief of Annapolis; Jonas Jeffries and Martha Greene, both from Maine, and former neighbours of Thaddeus Sholto; and Diana Fenton, the Canadian sailor and warrior who became shipwrecked on Newfoundland. It was in rescuing her that the survivors from Anglesey first learned that a community in Digby existed.

The New Tower, The Tower of London & La Tour Nouvelle

While the New Tower in Digby is home to over two hundred residents, few of the original survivors who first moved to the Tower of London are still alive. Nilda was a latecomer to the Tower of London; along with Chester, she joined Aisha and Kevin, Eamonn and Greta, Tuck, and, of course, Jay. In the many months and many countries since, they have become something of an orphanage and place of respite for those who found parenthood thrust upon them during the chaos of the apocalypse.

While the group was still occupying the Tower of London, fifty children who’d been overlooked during the evacuation were rescued from Kent. Aged between eight and ten at the time of the collapse, they included the self-declared queen-bee Janine, the bookworm Tarquin, and Simone Dubois. Simone’s adopted grandparents, Monsieur and Madame Dupont, were neighbours of Colonel Leon Laurent in France.

In the months since, many other children and overburdened families have done the same. Rescued from Birmingham were the children Hazel, Damien, and Phoebe, and the trio of Garcias, a grandmother, mother, and her infant daughter all named Isabella.

The most recent additions to the New Tower came from New York, and in the care of an unlikely odd-couple, Mustafa Mahmoud, owner of the famed Cleopatra Coffee in Brooklyn, and Antonio Cortez, a recent resident of the prison on Rikers Island.

The outbreak didn’t wash away all sins, but it covered everyone with so much blood, what went before could be ignored. Such was the case with Sholto, Chester, Antonio, and Sorcha Locke, a former lieutenant to Lisa Kempton, the billionaire who broke most laws in her attempt to thwart the politicians and cartel behind the outbreak.

Alma

The community of two and a half thousand survived the past year through salvage, fishing in Lac Saint-Jean, and thanks to a diesel-stash left behind by the Canadian military. Thousands more survivors fled into northern Quebec. Since the outbreak, some have returned to make use of Alma’s trading post set up by Tom Wilgus, a former detective from South Bend. Minnie, Lennox, and Jethro are among the hunters keeping Alma fed. Anushka runs the bar that keeps people watered, while Bertha runs the mortuary where far too many go to rest their bones. Collectively, they’re hoping to keep the peace until the lakeside town can be evacuated.

Prologue - Jay’s Story So Far

Canberra Airport

22nd April

Ha! Now who’s the champion? Annette said, holding out the controller.

I’m going to get some air, Jay said.

Is something wrong? Bobby Higson asked.

Nah. I mean, I’ll accept that an Italian plumber has to fight weird aliens on a weirder world, but not that he can do it on a diet of mushrooms. Leaving Annette and Bobby to continue playing on the console, Jay left the large room in the small trailer, and stepped outside into the baking heat of the Australian capital. The thermometer on the side of the neighbouring trailer said it was twenty degrees Celsius. That was summer to his English soul, wintry compared to the nearby outback, and more than twice what it had been when he’d left Nova Scotia. That had been less than two weeks ago. Tomorrow, he’d be going back.

Hey, Jay, Bill said, enthroned in a soft-cushioned chair beneath a sun-proof awning and sipping on a recently bottled beer.

Everything okay? Kim asked.

I just wanted some air, Jay said. Too much screen-time, you know?

He pretended not to notice the look of bemused surprise on the faces of the two grown-mores as he unlatched the gate.

Just don’t go too far, Bill said. We have to leave for the big reception in a couple of hours.

No worries, Jay said, and pushed the gate shut behind him. There were seven trailers hidden behind the hangar at Canberra airport. They were the homes of the Higson family, of the deputy prime minister of Australia, and of the assistant commissioner of police, both of whom happened to be old neighbours and friends of Scott and Liu Higson. The trailers’ position, and the high fence, not to mention the high security around the airport itself, provided far more privacy than a crowded house on a crowded street, but it wasn’t what Jay would call luxury. Yes, there were lots of planter-boxes, whose spindly inhabitants were clearly struggling, and yes there was such plentiful electricity that they had air conditioning as well as fans, a TV, and a games console, but they also had the planes.

While growing up in Penrith, aircraft had been a distant totem, used to assist his daydreams of escaping to somewhere far away. Here, there was barely a minute between one taking off and another landing. Even when the sound went away, the smell didn’t. No, it wasn’t luxury like he’d seen while looting the five-star hotels of London, but it was still a step up from the New Tower in Digby, or life in the Tower of London, or, and the real reason he’d wanted to get some air, the old terraced house in Penrith where he’d lived with his mum.

It was a little more than a year since the world was turned inside out by the outbreak in Manhattan. Fourteen months since he’d played on a console, but fifteen months ago, he’d been a fifteen-year-old who’d done little else. Looking back, he didn’t recognise the person he’d been. Never would he have dreamed he’d have visited France and New York, have moved to Canada, and now come to Australia. Never would he have dreamed he’d have survived a zombie outbreak. Never would he have dreamed he’d have seen so much death.

Between the heat beating down from above and what was bouncing back off the tarmac, he was being cooked, so he sought a little respite in the shade of a stack of crates abandoned at the edge of the hangar.

He’d never known his father, who’d died after being hit by a speeding police car. The settlement had paid for the house in Penrith. He’d been a toddler when he and Mum had moved to the two-up two-down mid-terrace. Looking back, it had been survival of a different kind, but no preparation for life after the outbreak.

The old world’s end had begun in Manhattan around dawn on the 22nd February. The demonstration of what should have been a vaccine had killed those to whom it was administered. They had re-animated. They’d become zombies. There was no point arguing over whether that name was accurate, not when you were fighting for your life.

The infection had spread quickly. Too quickly, because there’d been some politicians who’d thought they could use the crisis to gain more power. It had spread everywhere. America had fallen. So had Britain. So had Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The air seemed to shake as a plane set down. Keeping to the shade, Jay made his way along the edge of the hangar to better see these new arrivals. It was a passenger plane, but a small one, with around fifteen windows in the passenger cabin. The old commercial markings were still visible, though he had no idea to which company, or country, the plane had once pledged its loyalty. The red cross and red crescent said it was now part of the Pacific-wide Flying Doctor Service. A small tug was already speeding towards the plane, but so was an ambulance.

At the beginning of the outbreak, the infection had spread everywhere, and it had spread quickly, but a hundred million had survived in the southern Pacific. One hundred million. A little over nine thousand had made the Atlantic crossing from Europe. Adding the surviving locals, there were now about fourteen thousand in Nova Scotia. He wasn’t sure how many people were still sucking Newfoundland’s pitiful oil from the ground, but it was in the hundreds, no more. There were two and a half thousand living around Lac Saint-Jean and in the town of Alma. The communities in northern Quebec were so scattered a census was impossible. Altogether, and counting the remains of the Canadian army Bill and Kim had found in Otter Rapids, there might be as many as fifty thousand people in the whole of Canada, and that was being optimistic.

There were fifty million in Australia. Another fifty million were spread across New Zealand, New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines, and even Thailand and Japan. The further north you went, the fewer people there were, and the more precarious their existence was, but life was still easier than in the utmost north.

One hundred million in the Pacific. Fifty thousand in Canada. The difference in size was as hard to fathom as the discrepancy in their experiences.

In Britain, within days of the outbreak, an evacuation plan had been announced. The plan, Bill Wright’s plan, had been to relocate people from the dense cities to the coast. There, survivors would farm or fish, or join the new regiments that would wipe out the undead in Britain, France, Ireland, and beyond. There’d been other evacuations across the world, even in the Pacific, but in Britain, the plan had been corrupted. The evacuees had been murdered, and in the chaos, most of the survivors had either been infected or been torn apart by the undead.

The nuclear war had begun three weeks after the outbreak, and was part of that same political conspiracy that had created the undead. Precisely whose warheads had landed in Britain, and who Britain had lobbed hers at, would forever remain a radioactive mystery. What they now knew, and with utter certainty, was that the global positioning systems had been hacked, and all the first-wave missiles had been redirected into the oceans. The second wave had been fired blind, not that precise targeting mattered with atomic weapons. But the blast, the EMP, and the radiation obliterated the last organised attempts to halt the undead.

His mum hadn’t trusted the notion of an evacuation, so they had stayed in Penrith, living off food stolen from their absent neighbours. One of those neighbours, Sebastian, had returned, and told them of the bloodbath at the local muster point. Out of everyone from his old life, Sebastian’s was the only face who haunted his dreams. Sebastian had been good to them, kind for the sake of it, which was as rare after the outbreak as before. But Sebastian had died, infected like so many others.

Together with other survivors in Penrith, he and Mum had attempted to build a redoubt, but they’d been too inexperienced. He saw it now, with the benefit of a year of struggle and strife, but back then, they’d not known what to do, or how to do it. He and Mum had become separated. He’d stayed with Tuck and headed south, just the two of them, hiking slowly to London.

Lucy Tucker had been a career soldier until an IED had left her scarred and deaf. She’d undergone years of surgery and rehab, and was waiting on one final operation to restore her hearing when the outbreak hit. Because of her injury, she wasn’t recalled during the crisis. She’d tried to volunteer, but had been turned away. That had saved her life.

He and Tuck had finally reached London, and fallen in with a few other survivors. Whenever he looked at the surviving members, like Felicity, Eamonn and Greta, or Aisha and Kevin, he couldn’t help but remember those who’d been lost. Karl, Dev, and so many others had died through murder, accident, or self-sacrifice that it was depressing even remembering their names. Each redoubt had failed, and with each failure came death. Finally, they arrived at the Tower of London. It was there that his mother, and Chester Carson, had found them.

While he and Tuck had headed south, his mother had gone so far west she’d nearly drowned in the Irish Sea before being rescued and taken to the island of Anglesey. There, she’d found nearly ten thousand people. In turn, they represented most of the survivors of Britain, and quite a few from Ireland and the French Army. Scott Higson had found his way there. So had Bill and Kim, and Annette and Daisy. Mary O’Leary, the wheelchair-bound ex-teacher, had been in charge, though she listened closely to the likes of Colonel Leon Laurent of the French Special Forces, to engineers like Chief Watts, and increasingly to Bill.

His mum hadn’t stayed in Anglesey. With Chester for company, she had returned to Penrith, then travelled to Hull where they’d found a small boat that took them to London. Those were strange days, rattling around the Tower, knowing there were other people out there, not knowing if help would come. Until it did, they’d had to help themselves. They had sailed down the river on a hunt for abandoned farms. In Kent, they’d found the children, the last and left-behind survivors of a coastal redoubt. The youngest was eight, the oldest was ten. All were orphans, and most had once been students at a nearby boarding school.

Soon after they returned with the children to the Tower, they were betrayed. Their supplies were stolen. Chester had been shot. He’d nearly died. He’d lost his sight for a few days, and it had never fully returned. One crisis bled into another until, out of desperation, Eamonn had set off, alone, hoping to reach Anglesey.

Help did eventually come from Anglesey, in the form of a boat carrying George Tull, Lorraine, and a squad of soldiers. But so had come the news that Eamonn had never made it to the Welsh island.

Greta had insisted on going to look for her beloved. Chester had gone with her. They found Eamonn in Birmingham, a prisoner of a group of bandits. There, they’d also found a small group of children, the grandmother, mother, infant trio, each named Isabella, and Sorcha Locke.

A former employee of Lisa Kempton, Sorcha had spent the last fifteen years trying to thwart the politicians and gangsters who were ultimately behind the outbreak. To do so, she’d broken at least half the laws of half the nations in the world. But Tuck trusted her, and that was good enough for him.

Chester, Eamonn, and the other survivors had been airlifted from Birmingham by Scott Higson, and taken to Anglesey. There, an evacuation to Ireland was underway. Chester was given a coveted seat on their one remaining plane, but the aircraft had been sabotaged, and had crashed in France. Aboard, other than Chester, were Bill, Sorcha, Scott Higson, Sergeant Khan, and Private Kessler.

Some of the ships carrying the rest of the people from Anglesey had run aground in Dundalk, victims of more sabotage. Annette had been among the group trapped in an old hotel, fighting off a horde of the undead. At the time, Jay been crammed onto a small boat, outracing a horde that had already reached London. Some of the undead had even reached the Thames and were being carried along nearly as fast as their boats. He wasn’t sure whether he’d had it worse than Annette, but Chester had had it worst of all.

Scott had suffered such a severe concussion he’d had to be carried through the deep snow while the undead, lured by the plane, dogged their every footstep. They’d found survivors in a town called Creil. But once again, a horde was approaching. Bill, Chester, and Sorcha had left with the hope of reaching Ireland. Scott and the two Marines had stayed with Starwind, Claire, Professor Fontayne, and the other French survivors.

Chester, Bill, and Sorcha made it to Calais, where they met Captain Flora Fielding. By then, the survivors from London had been picked up in the Thames Estuary. They’d gone on to rescue Chester and the others, and then sailed north, up the European coast, hunting for supplies and sanctuary. Meanwhile, Dundalk had fallen. Belfast had burned down. Those survivors in Ireland, escapees from Anglesey, had barely reached their boats in time.

Struggling to save themselves and unable to aid Scott and the French survivors, they had sailed north and west. Faroe had provided a temporary refuge, but there were locals there who weren’t friendly. And so, once again, they sailed on.

On Newfoundland, they’d rescued Diana Fenton. She’d told them of the community in Digby, Nova Scotia. There they’d found Martha, Napatchie and the Christinas, and four thousand others. They’d found Jonas Jeffries, a retired cop and old neighbour of Thaddeus Sholto from Maine. But Maine wasn’t that far from Nova Scotia, not by boat.

While the slower ships were still lumbering their way across the Atlantic, their ship had gone south. He, Chester, and Thaddeus had gone ashore in New York, and been chased away by hostile natives. What they’d not known, not until Sholto, Tuck, and Sorcha had returned to New York a few months later, and only a few weeks ago, was that they’d arrived in the middle of a battle between the Long Islanders and the pirates from Florida.

The Floridians wanted, and had recently succeeded in, pushing the New Yorkers out of the city. Not much was known about these pirates except that they were led by a NASA meteorologist called Tippy, and were clearly well supplied with fishing boats, diesel, and guns. What they wanted was a mystery.

Only a handful of the fleeing New Yorkers had made it to Digby, too few to change the arithmetic. Fifty thousand. One hundred million.

On the runway, the ambulance had turned off its lights. Whoever was aboard, not even a plane had been fast enough to save them.

Ever since he’d reached Australia, he’d kept seeing the bad in what surely was an absolute good. Millions of people had survived, the species was going to survive. Up in Canada, they’d receive shipments of food and medicine. He wasn’t sure how much would be sent or how often, but it was more than he’d expected two months ago. Life would never be as hard as it had been. And there were glimmers of happiness, like with Scott, stranded in Europe, only to be reunited with his family.

Scott had stayed with the French survivors after they were joined by the army from Ukraine and led by President Vernadski. They’d travelled through the Alps, through Europe, to Turkey, and then to Armenia. There, at an airport, Scott had repaired a plane. He’d flown south, trying to reach Australia, though he’d crashed among the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. That was where Scott and his small crew had been rescued. Now he lived with his family here in Canberra. He’d flown up to Canada to look for survivors, and he’d found them.

Surely that was good news. It was something to celebrate. Wasn’t it? Fifty thousand. One hundred million. Except there’d been eight billion a little over a year ago. Jay couldn’t help wondering how many there’d be in a year’s time.

Part 1

Homecoming

Scott

(& Bill)

Thailand, the Philippines

(& Canberra)

5th- 8th January

(& 22nd April)

Chapter 1 - Officially Unofficial

Canberra Airport, The Pacific Alliance

22nd April

I don’t know how they stand the noise, Bill said as the roar from a departing plane faded. He and Kim sat beneath an awning outside the trailers hidden behind a hangar at Canberra Airport, sipping recently brewed, nearly chilled, but utterly ambrosial beer.

I like it, Kim said. To me, the engines are a reminder that the world, or this part of it, is still working. Besides, they said they don’t do much flying at night.

For the sake of a lie-in, I’d pick a quieter spot for my home, Bill said.

There’s a high fence ringing us, and an even higher fence surrounding the airport, not to mention the armed guards, Kim said. That’s more privacy than we have in Canada. And when we met Anna Dodson, she said she spends most of her time flying between the refugee camps and factory cities. By living here, she can just tumble out of the plane and into her trailer. The same is true for Scott and Liu, and Dr Dodson, when they’re piloting.

Perhaps, Bill said. It’s just not how I picture the home of a political leader.

You mean it’s not Downing Street, Kim said. Which I rate as a positive. Oh, it’s so different here. Different to the old world, and to how we live over in the old New World, but the change has only just begun. It’s exciting. Terrifying, too, but I’m not nearly as anxious as when I thought we’d have to face the changes alone. I know we said it a lot, but maybe as we rebuild we really can take the best bits of the old world and forget the worst.

"To which all I can say is that your beer must be a lot stronger than mine," Bill said.

Don’t tell me you’re not feeling optimistic, Kim said. They’ve a hundred million people and a frankly embarrassingly high birth rate, with schools, hospitals, universities, and entirely new factory cities. For us, up north, we won’t have to decide whether we devote our scarce resources to making medicine or pumping oil, because we can get supplies from here. Maybe, one day, we’ll be able to buy tickets for the planes and so go on holiday.

You’d want to holiday here?

To anywhere that’s just a bit different, Kim said. There was a plane going to Thailand yesterday.

The planes won’t last forever, Bill said. I think Scott said within ten years most modern passenger planes will be permanently grounded. They can’t make the parts and are already cannibalising one plane to keep another in the air.

So they’ll make new planes, Kim said. They’re already building new ships, and have prototypes for new, low-tech cars. Why so gloomy?

Sorry. I know you’re right. The future we’re facing is a lot brighter than it might have been, but I can’t help looking at Canberra and picturing London if Quigley hadn’t turned my evacuation plan into a holocaust. Damn him.

To the fires forever, Kim said. It really is enough to make me want to believe in Hell, just so I can imagine an endless infinity of tortures for him. But let’s not think about that. Let’s imagine a nice government job for us both up in the northern borderlands. You’ll have an office with so many books you’ll frequently be buried beneath an avalanche of research material. You’ll need an assistant to dig you out, because I’ll only be working there part time. I want to concentrate on writing children’s books. I’ve got an idea for another.

You have? What is it?

I don’t want to say, not yet, except it’s more words than pictures and is a modern fable for the era children like Daisy will grow up in.

With a clang, quickly lost beneath the roar of a landing cargo plane, the gate to the compound opened. Scott appeared around the side of the trailers.

Please tell me you’ve a spare stubby, he said.

Busy afternoon? Kim asked,

Busy but utterly unproductive, Scott said. I must have walked a marathon going from one meeting to another, but I can’t say I got much done. I bring a message from Professor Fontayne. There’s been a change of plans.

Oh, please tell me this evening’s function has been cancelled, Kim said.

Sorry, no, Scott said. But it’s been moved from the Ukrainian embassy to one of David Kercher’s farms.

Who’s he? Kim asked.

He was a big player in genetically modified crops, Scott said. These days, he’s got the monopoly. His new variety of maize is about forty percent of everyone’s calories. He bills it as being able to germinate in wet soil, and even in frost, and as ripening in fifty days down from the sixty to one hundred days of the old seeds, but that’s all in the lab. The real benefit so far is that it needs much less fertilizer. Yields are up five percent over pre-outbreak levels.

"A-maize-ing," Kim said, with a slight giggle.

I thought I had a monopoly on dad-jokes, Bill said. "Forty percent of all your calories