Chapter 29

Jennifer and Jordon, now 15, came barreling down the passage into the kitchen. They were laughing and talking.

“Morning, Mom” they said in unison.

Janna smiled at them. They were remarkably well adjusted and happy for teenagers, although she saw them adopt a veneer of cool with their friends. But at least so far they did not have the sullen, lost moodiness of many teenagers.

She spooned out some zone grain for them and added some butter and maple syrup. That was their favorite breakfast – at home – with their friends she wasn’t sure.

They both wore the studiously non-uniform uniform of the contemporary teenager. Jennifer wore green work pants and a grey tee shirt.  Jordon wore some very old jeans with a loose sort of tunic. They both had long hair with some sort of fiber woven in.

They sat down and were eating their grain when Joshua walked in. He went over to Janna and kissed her on the lips. She smiled at him. He was now forty but still looked very good to her.

Joshua walked by the kids and touched each on the shoulder. They looked back and smiled at him and went on eating. He got some grain himself and ate it standing up.

She felt their bond. Whenever she saw the three of them together, she felt it, since the kids were babies. Nothing changed externally. They continued what they were doing, but it seemed at the same time that they were – what – hyper aware of each other? Yes, it was like a deep mutual awareness. She puzzled over it some more. In 15 years she had never quite figured it out. And more and more she felt shut out, although on the surface they still seemed the ideal family.

“Well, got to go,” Joshua said and waved as he went out of the kitchen. He had a meeting this morning with yet another George Washington Carver of zone grass. They had found that the arid climate variety could be great for slowing the encroachment of deserts due to deforestation. It just needed a few tweaks, like expanding its zone. They want it to spread but not too much.

Despite Joshua’s policy of releasing all their scientific research and never trying in any way to own the new seed varieties, their little grass seed company continued to prosper. The company seemed immune to the growing feeling of impending economic disaster in the world. Apparently, there was always something else to do with grass.

The kids finished eating, rinsed their dishes, and went out to get their backpacks. Janna put dishes in the washer, dried her hands, and then headed out to the center room to get her purse. They all met at the car and headed out. In about five minutes she pulled up in front of their school.

“Bye, Mom,” they said in unison, and waved.

She had some CFO work to do, but it would only take a few hours, so she went by a food co-op they had joined and got a few things. When she pulled back into her driveway, there was a car sitting there.

When she got out of her car, a man got out of the other car and approached her.

“Mrs. Green. Hello. My name is John Gordon. I was at your wedding, but other than that we haven’t met. I pay for that persistent little band of Joshua Green watchers that you no doubt wonder about.”

She bristled. Those pests. She walked on without saying anything.

“Please, Mrs. Green. I have some information you should know. Joshua is keeping things from you.”

She hesitated and looked back. She nodded slightly, and he followed her to the front door and she let him into the center room.

Gordon looked around.

“Very interesting house. Joshua designed it?”

She didn’t reply, but went and sat down. He followed and sat across from her. They just sat there for a few minutes.

“I never could figure out why you took your industrial spying so far. You can get anything by asking. All our research is free in the memesphere. We even forego our compact payments.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “My company does make extensive use of your research. We have even got into genetically modified plants, even grass. Joshua has never made any attempts to block us.”

“Then why?”

“You are right to wonder. I pay out a lot for my Joshua watching, and the economic return has been …” He just turned up his hands.

“Then why?”

He pulled out a tablet from his pocket and unrolled it. It snapped rigid. He tapped on it a few times.

“I just sent a package to you.”

She picked up a tablet from the table between them and tapped on it. She leaned back and read for a few minutes, then looked up at him. A skeptical smile burst onto her face, all her tension releasing.

“You must think I’m a nut. I’m getting used to it. I don’t spread it around, but it is quite true. Your husband is an alien.”

“From outer space?” she laughed.

This was not what she expected when she thought of Joshua’s deep, dark secret. Maybe childhood organized crime connections he could never shake, maybe membership in a secret society bent on world domination through grass seed, but this was the furthest thing from her mind.

“Please, just consider the evidence,” Gordon pleaded.

“Evidence …” She looked down at her tablet.

“It’s all there. You are familiar with gene diagrams?”

“I’ve picked up some …”

“Have one of your researchers verify it, but I can assure you that diagram one and diagram two are both from Joshua. The second one is from Joshua when we … ah … when he was our guest. Don’t get too huffy about it. We settled.”

“And for the break-in at our company? And for the constant invasion of our privacy? And that man skulking in our woods with recording equipment? Joshua has never been willing to get a restraining order. That is something I don’t understand.”

“I won’t try to justify it to you, Mrs. Green. I am just here to tell you something. The second diagram is from our examination. The first one is from a large pod of a water plant. There is very good genetic evidence that Joshua was grown in that plant.”

“Grown – in a plant?” She just goggled at him.

“Now just listen. Also included there is a report on radio signals from space. It is not widely known, but the initial biocomputers that Gordon Biotech is given credit for developing were produced by mutations caused by those signals. Those original biocomputers were water plants very much like the one where Joshua’s DNA was found.”

“You can grow people from those plants?”

“Well, no, but …”

“Please. You seem like a rational person. You run a successful company. But so did Howard Hughes.”

“Mrs. Green. Don’t you wonder about the rapid changes in biotech since Joshua has been around? The growth of the memesphere? The economic disruptions?”

“You think Joshua is the cause of all this? You should blame yourself. You were in biotech long before Joshua.”

“I know, but most of the most impacting changes can be traced back to Joshua, at least they can be connected to people he is connected to.”

“What is this? Two degrees from Kevin Bacon?”

“That screen you are holding. The company that started that was funded by Joshua. See document five.”

“Joshua is a very intuitive investor. I know about that one. The principals were already doing research on organic displays.”

“But the leaps are just too much, and Joshua is always there.”

“This is the worse kind of conspiracy theory.”

“Please, Mrs. Green. There’s more. We believe that Joshua can communicate directly with computer systems, wirelessly. We don’t know how, but it is something in his physiology. And your children have it, too, Mrs. Green. Just read document six.”

Janna jumped up. “You stay away from my children. You just get out.”

“Please …”

“Now!” Janna said in a cold rage, pointing to the door.

Gordon got up and walked to the door. He opened it and walked out. Before closing the door he looked back and said, “Just read it, Mrs. Green.”

She did read it, all of it. It was pretty full of holes. Even if you assume that they did not cook up most of it, it was still pretty slim as evidence. How much money had he spent on this? When the conspiracy bug bites, there is no end to the obsessions. The world was changing rapidly, a lot of it attributable to the very things that Joshua was involved with. Gordon Biotech was under a lot of pressure, a lot of corporations were. Some nut with money wants a simple explanation. He couldn’t believe in a secret global cabal. He knew the corporate world too well. So he builds a case for an alien invader – her plant geek husband.

But two things still tugged at her. She had extracted those into three pictures, one on top of the other, two gene diagrams and an encrypted signal pattern between Joshua and their children. She just stared at those.

Hours later, she had fallen asleep on the couch. The kids were visiting friends. Joshua came in quietly. He saw the tablet with the three pictures propped on a stand positioned so she could look at it as she lay there. He saw what they were. She stirred and he sat down in front of her on the edge of the couch. She looked up, saw him, and then sat up.

“John Gordon,” she said.

He put his arms around her and she sagged down and started sobbing.

“You three shut me out. Don’t shut me out.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said and stroked her hair.