An Extract from This Month's Release: Fertilizer and Fresh Food

I've decided to celebrate each release with a series of extracts that run for the month it's released in. This month saw the second edition of 366 Days of Flash Fiction released. Links to the collection can be found at Books2Read at: https://books2read.com/u/b6MrN0

 

Fertilizer and Fresh Food

Written on December 3, 2015, for the March 16 entry of 366 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece explores the futures of corporations.

New Farm made fertilizers and explosives, way back in 2015. By 3015, it had made its way to the stars, and taken its technology a step further, and it had a rat in the nest, someone feeding its chemical genius to its competitors…and less savory customers.

We followed the trail across distant worlds, and then we followed it right back home. New Farm had kept major facilities on Earth—and we followed the rat right inside the biggest of them. Australia, again. And out west.

I loved the panoramic views, the contrast between the blood-red earth and the harsh blue of the sky, but I didn’t like the heat… and I wasn’t fond of the way New Farm had built facilities underground to avoid it. Not with the depthless aquifer right underneath it. The whole place gave me the chills. I’d have given up the view topside, for a traditional compound, all white-walled and ground covering, and the native species they’d preserved be damned. It’s probably a good thing I was outvoted by the tourist dollar.

Anyway, we followed the rat inside, caught her red-handed right before she blew the whole facility to Hell and back, and took our debrief up to Lunar One—away from the aquifer, the facility in full damage control, and the bandicoots and marsupial mice living above completely obliviously as to just how close they’d come to losing their entire species.

“They weren’t targeting you,” I said to the company’s CEO.

“They weren’t?”

“No, sir. Seems the clean food business is having a bit of a dispute over market rights, and the clean water in Australia’s aquifers is the key. Your facility was best placed to destroy it.”

“With our own product.” 

“Yes, sir. That was the general idea.”

Cover art is by Jake at JCaleb Design, and links to 366 Days of Flash Fiction can be found on Books2 Read at: https://books2read.com/u/b6MrN0