THE SEEDS PROJECT INTERVIEWS
m e c h e l l e m o r r i s o n
page one
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By the year 2061
the predicted eruption of the Yellowstone caldera, compounded by war and
resource failure, had doomed most of Earth’s species to extinction—including
our own. Desperate to guarantee human
survival, scientists selected three thousand ‘lucky winners’ to undergo
suspended animation. The winners, comprised
of equal numbers of male and female Participants and code named Seeds, met
within the premium facilities of Stanford Research where they were trained,
prepped, and ultimately suspended.
Preserved in containers called ‘Pods,’ the Participants have since been placed
in suitable locations to wait out our planet’s environmental collapse and
renewal.
The Seeds
Project interviews, drawn from those working every level of the Project from Participant
selection to Pod placement, were conducted some fifteen years after the last
suspension completed.
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-MHM, 2102
page two
The
Seeds Project Timeline
Landmark
Historical Events
Official
Pre-Project research: 2033 – 2053
2049, Yellowstone caldera eruption forecast made public
Seeds DSS submitted to funding groups, 2055
2061, Yellowstone Park closed and quarantined
Seeds Farms
operated: 2062 – 2078
Call for
Participants: October-December, 2063
2072, the Colorado Line
Participant ‘winners’
privately awarded: December, 2074
‘Winners’
feeding period: January 2075-June 2076
Seeds Project
launch: January 2076
Estimated
“MG2000e” change in Protocol: August, 2076
2076, the African & Australian Continental Insurrections
Pod Placement: April –
November, 2078
2079 – 2083, the Urban Rebellions
2084 – 2086, The Seeds Project Inquisition
2089, the ‘Viral Free’ African exodus
2091, the Fall of the Capitals
2097, Yellowstone 13.0 earthquake, world-wide ‘Trifecta’
2098, NAEURP abandoned
2102, the Yellowstone caldera erupts
the first interview:
Bud Chynoweth
Participant Entrance security
staff
22 January 2085
The
place was crazy. I mean, Stanford
Research. People coming and going, day
and night. There wasn’t the time to pay
folks much mind or think past getting them through the door.
‘Cept
one girl. Sticks in my mind.
I
only saw her once, the day she arrived.
Never did learn her name. But I
remember her. She was the kind of girl
made a man stand at attention. Long
blonde hair streaked with honey and warm sun.
That was her. Eyes blue as a lazy
summer sky.
My
super at the time, name of Tom Rassy, rest his soul, said she come from
Wyoming. Said her daddy owned half the
damn state. He was like that, old
Tom. Always making stuff up. Truth is nobody ever knew where those kids
come from. Just like we never knew where
they wound up. Some in space, if the
news is to be believed. Flying around in
specialized Pods aimed for worlds unknown.
Any fool knows that’s a sack of shit.
Like when they told my grand-dad men had walked the moon way back in
nineteen sixty-nine. He called that
government horse and sir, my grand-dad was hardly wrong.
I
stayed with Grand-dad till he died. Did
I mention? Missouri was a whirling mess
of weather—tornadoes touching down every day like the devil’s own finger,
rivers cropping up to swallow farms whole.
But I stayed on anyway, until he passed.
Lord knows I was among the last to cross the Colorado Line before it
closed. I can’t say I’m proud of what I
done, back then. It was…. Shit.
It was every man for hisself.
I’ll
need a moment, if you don’t mind.
Maybe
I remember her so well ‘cause the day I saw that girl was my first day working
the Participant arrival entrance. Her
ambulance pulled to a stop and she stepped out, confident as you please in her
fancy-stitched boots and her nine-hundred dollar jeans, like she was stepping
out on the town. That threw me, I’ll
confess. I’d had the training and
all. I’d passed the security and been
given my G-clearance, else I wouldn’t have been there. I’d a still been working Chinatown and I
won’t lie. When you ain’t Chinese, a man
don’t last long on those streets.
But
even with my training, I’d pictured my job all wrong. I thought them kids would come in on gurneys,
all needled up with IV and maybe blood.
I thought they’d have monitors pasted to their heads, like the sick
people on TV. I figured those
sassy-assed PMTs would be hovering round, dressed in their cartoon scrubs and
clucking like them kids were spun gold.
Instead
that girl bounced to the curb, pretty as god’s own daughter, her hair swirling
in the wind. She looked light as
butterflies. Thin, you know? Fine-boned wrists. Arms as graceful as wings. She grabbed a little bag from the seat and
strung it over her shoulder. ‘Her
stuff,’ she said. Me and Rassy eyed each
other then. We suspected that where them
kids was going, they’d have no need of stuff.
I
grabbed up a wheel chair like I was trained to do, but Rassy jerked my collar
and hissed, ‘You want your first day to be your last?’ on account I’d forgot to
stub my smoke. Old Rassy took that smoke
clean out from between my lips and stomped it flat on the ground. He was lucky to catch me off-guard like that,
otherwise I might have kicked his ass from here to hell. Smokes ain’t cheap, nearly four dollars
apiece.
In
the end my smoke lay ruined for nothing.
That beautiful girl didn’t want the wheel chair when offered. Fact is she laughed and said ‘I’m good,’
without so much as meeting my eye. So I
was free to watch her.
You
remember that massive glass revolving door they used to have in Oakland
General? The one with cubbies wide
enough for three wheel chairs, maybe four?
Well Stanford Research had one too.
Now, what with the looting that door’s long gone, I suspect. But I’m glad I saw her navigate that
thing. Most other people hesitated,
rocking on their heels like the door might slap them if it found the
opportunity. Not that girl. She just flung her hair behind her back and
walked straight in, ignoring them PMTs and all their pleading that she ought to
take the chair. Just waved them off like
buzzing flies. I’d say she had no fear
of what might come, like some of them kids did.
She
got through the door fine so I stayed watching, standing, as I was, close to
the glass. A nurse came out from behind
the desk and brought up a wheel chair alongside her, but the girl refused that
one, too. That golden-haired girl just
kept on walking, a flock of medical soft-shoed locusts at her feet, till I
couldn’t see her no more.
Some
nights the sound of her boots wakes me—crisp and smart, like she’s been walking
through my dreams. That’s when I set to
fretting. The way our world’s been
turning, with the hunger and sickness, the volcano rumors and such, a person
don’t know what to expect.
But
I’ll tell you this. It’s my hope those
scientists let that girl keep them boots.
My gut says she’ll need them, when she wakes up.
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Bud Chynoweth
worked for Stanford Research as a member of the parking lot security staff from
October, 2076 through December, 2078. He
currently resides in Winnemucca, Nevada.
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