Freedom (13 page)

“There are things going on in this county that . . .” He tried to find words, then looked up. “Well, things that don’t make any sense.”

“Less sense than outsiders having more rights to my land than me?”

“In a word: yes. There’s some sort of strange force at work. Strange equipment is showing up—and people are tearing up their fields. Strangers—mostly young people—are moving back into the county and establishing businesses. But businesses that don’t seem to accept money. They have lots of high-tech, expensive gear—but I’ll be damned if I can tell what it is they do.”

“And they’re not gangs?”

The sheriff shook his head. “No. And they have legal counsel, too. We started investigating them, and the DA made us back off. I don’t know whether they’re a cult or—”

“What does this have to do with Jenna?”

“She’s one of them, Hank. That’s where she spends most of her time. I just thought you knew.”

Fossen gazed down at the fertile but unplanted soil. He nodded to himself. “Tell me where.”

H
enry Fossen waited in the dark in his F-150 pickup truck on the outskirts of Greeley. He was parked beneath the awning of an abandoned gas station across from a fenced yard shop. According to the sheriff, the yard had become a hive of activity in recent months.

Fossen watched the road for the arrival of Jenna’s subcompact car. One she’d saved up to buy with her own money before college. In the meantime, he listened to AM talk radio.

The news was all bad. Inflation was on the rise, with the dollar falling against overseas currencies. This had sent gas prices soaring. Unemployment—already dismal—was getting worse. Tent cities had begun to spring up outside Des Moines. The financial crisis was supposed to be easing up, but instead it was only getting worse. And yet the stock market was still moving upward. It didn’t seem to make sense.

Across the road Fossen saw silhouettes of people moving beneath flood lamps among tarp-covered pallets in the fenced-in perimeter of the yard shop. He occasionally saw forklifts moving pallets. A semitruck carrying shipping containers arrived at one point, and a lift truck pulled the containers off swiftly—sending the semi on its way.

But there was no printed sign to indicate it was a business. The sheriff said investigation of this site had been halted by the interference of a high-priced Des Moines law firm.

Fossen stared at the place. He needed to be certain the sheriff was right about Jenna before he confronted her. What had she gotten herself into? She had always seemed levelheaded—even as a teenager. Future Farmers of America, 4-H Club. Had he become complacent? Expecting her to never need his help? She excelled in school. Got a partial scholarship to ISU. Graduated with honors in biology—and walked straight out into the worst job market since the Great Depression. Here it was almost nine months later, and she was still living at home with no hope for work. She’d said she was volunteering at a nonprofit political action committee. Would she actually lie to—

Someone suddenly rapped on his passenger window, startling him. He turned to see his twenty-three-year-old daughter, Jenna, standing in a peacoat and scarf alongside his truck. She had a scowl on her face. Even so, she looked as pretty as ever.

Fossen sighed, turned down the radio, and unlocked the passenger door.

She rapped on the window glass again.

Exasperated, Fossen lowered the passenger window. “Jenna, just get in the truck.”

“Dad, why did you come here?”

“Because I need to know what you’re doing.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Damnit, Jenna, I don’t ever interfere with your life, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“I’m twenty-three. I’m an adult, and I don’t need you babysitting me. I haven’t needed anyone to babysit me since I was eight.”

“What do you expect me to do? Just ignore this? Is that what people who care about each other do? As long as you live under our roof, you’ll follow family rules, and family members don’t keep secrets from one another.”

He gestured to the fenced yard shop across the way. “What is this place, and what the hell are you doing in there?”

She studied him unflinchingly. “The sheriff told you about this.”

“Dave cares about you. He’s trying to protect you.”

She frowned. “He should look after himself. He does know that he has political enemies in St. Louis, right?”

Fossen suddenly felt as though he didn’t recognize the person standing next to his truck. “Hold it . . . what?”

She sighed. “Dad, I don’t think you’ll understand what I’m doing or why.”

“What you’re saying is you don’t think I’ll
approve
of what you’re doing.”

“I don’t care if you approve of what I’m doing.”

“If you’re living in our house—”

“I can move out, if I need to. I just thought that with Dennis away . . .”

He felt suddenly very hurt that she was so unreachable to him. She seemed to notice his reaction. “Dad. I’m not saying I want to move out. I’m just saying that what I’m doing is important.”

“Why can’t you see that I need to know you’re safe? I’m just trying to protect you.”

“That’s what you don’t understand, Dad. I’m the one protecting
you
. And I promise you, today was the last time Halperin Organix will ever bother the Fossens of Greeley, Iowa.”

He was confused. “Halperin? How is Halperin involved in this?” He studied her. “Honey, what’s going on in there?”

“Dad, if I show you, you have to promise not to try to talk me out of it. Because you won’t succeed.”

“It’s a cult, isn’t it?”

She laughed out loud. “You used to be upset that I wouldn’t go to church. Now you’re worried I’ve become a fanatic.” On his expression, she shook her head. “No, not a cult.”

She put on a pair of expensive-looking glasses and nodded her head. “If you’re coming, now’s the time.”

He got out of the truck and joined her as she crossed the road toward the brightly lit facility. “This is the old lumber yard, isn’t it? Do you need to tell anyone that I’m coming in or . . .”

“They already know, Dad. They knew the moment you drove up.”

As she and Fossen approached, the metal gates at the entrance swung open automatically. Fossen saw half a dozen people in their twenties and thirties moving busily around the yard, stabbing their hands at the air and talking to invisible people—probably on headsets, he guessed. Everyone wore expensive glasses, much like Jenna’s. An unmanned forklift whined past, seemingly under the direction of no one. It deftly lifted a pallet of unmarked crates and drove off into the warehouse.

“Dad, you need to promise me you won’t bother the people working in here. Quite a few of them are doing critical work, and even though they’re looking right at you, they might not be able to see or hear you.”

“Why wouldn’t they be able to see me?”

“Because they’ll be looking into a virtual dimension.” On his uncomprehending look she sighed again. “I told you you wouldn’t understand.”

She kept walking ahead and he followed, soaking up the bustle of the yard. It seemed odd. He hadn’t recalled this much activity here during the day. Come to think of it, he couldn’t recall a business with this much activity in Greeley in decades. “What is it they do here, exactly?”

“This is the logistics hub for the Greeley Faction—the local node of a global mesh network powered by a narrow AI agent that’s building a resilient, sustainable, high-technology civilization.”

He just looked at her. “So . . .”

“Just come inside.” She opened a door in the side of the warehouse and they entered a large space lined with tall shelving. Along the far wall stood several computerized milling machines with their operators focused intently on their work. The center of the room looked to be a staging area, bustling with young people, all wearing eyewear and gloves. To the side was a raised platform lined with office chairs and desks where a dozen people were grabbing, pulling, and pushing at invisible objects in the air. They were all speaking to unseen people, as though it were a call center.

Fossen nodded. “Telemarketers.” He turned to her. “This is one of those network marketing schemes, isn’t it? I’m really disappointed in—”

“Dad! It’s nothing like that.” She walked up to a canvas tarp draped over a large object. She pulled it away, revealing an old, wooden piece of equipment.

Fossen stopped cold. “A Clipper . . . what’s it doing here?”

The antique seemed out of place amid the computer-controlled forklift trucks passing by. It was a century-old Clipper seed cleaner—a machine just like the one that had been in his family ever since the 1920s. His father and his father’s father had used it right up until Halperin’s lawyers seized it as evidence of “intellectual property theft.”

He inspected it, leaning up and down. “I thought the biotech companies had destroyed most of these. . . .”

“It wasn’t easy to find. We’re building new ones now, but I wanted to get you an original. I was going to surprise you.”

He just shook his head. “This is stupid, Jenna. We can’t keep this. There are investigators taking photos of the house night and day. Halperin’s lawyers will claim we’re stealing their products again.”

“Would you listen to yourself? They’re making us bow and scrape for the right to participate in the natural world. They’re
seeds
, not products.”

“You know exactly what I mean. You know what these lawsuits have done to us.”

“That’s over now.”

“Jenna, stop talking nonsense. I just ran into their agents in the north field today.”

“I know. That’s the last time. I promise. Our faction unlocked Level Four Legal Protection this week. It’s already been activated.”

He just squinted at her. “Honey, none of this makes any sense.” He gestured to the rows of tall shelving, milling machines, and automated forklift trucks. “And who is paying for all this, by the way?”

“We are.”

“Oh really? How?”

“Our network doesn’t use the dollar. We’ve accrued darknet credits—a new digital currency that hasn’t been saddled with twenty lifetimes of debt by corporate giveaways. We’re using that currency to power a local, sustainable economy centered on Greeley.”

“You’re going to wind up getting arrested.”

“We’re free to use private currencies, as long as they’re convertible to the dollar.”

“But why would you bother?”

“Because the dollar is about to go into hyperinflation. There’s nothing supporting it. The darknet currency is backed by joules of green energy—something intrinsically valuable.”

“I just don’t understand any of this, Jenna.”

“My generation has no intention of living as serfs on a corporate manor, Dad. When people became more reliant on multinational corporations than on their own communities, they surrendered whatever say they had in their government. Corporations are growing stronger while democratic government becomes increasingly helpless.”

“Listen, whatever you’re going through—”

“Just look at corn and soybeans, subsidized with taxpayer money—creating a market that wouldn’t otherwise make sense. Why? So agribusiness firms have cheap inputs to make processed food. The taxpayers are basically subsidizing corporations to make crap, when we could have grown real food on our own. But, of course, they’ve made growing food illegal now. . . .”

He started to walk away. “I want you to leave with me.”

“Dad, there was a reason you didn’t want me or Dennis to go into farming. You wanted us to go to college and get away from here. Do you remember why? Do you remember what you said to me?”

He stopped. He didn’t face her, but nodded. “I said that there’s no future in farming.”

“Food is the very
heart
of freedom. Don’t you realize that? If people don’t grow the food, we both know who will: biotech companies like Halperin Organix. How can people be free if they can’t feed themselves without getting sued for patent violations?”

He looked around the warehouse as workers passed by. “Look, your mother and I did the best we could for—”

She came up and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you did. You’re honest. So was granddad. And so am I. But they’ve rigged the game. It was like this during the Gilded Age of the 1890s. And then again in the late 1920s. It’s nothing new. We’re just trying to break the cycle.”

He stared at her, unsure whether he wanted to understand what she was saying. “Then you’re not coming home with me?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve got work to do. I’ll be back home later tonight. ”

He shrugged. “You know, I worry about you. You and your brother. I know it hasn’t been easy. I . . . there’s no real jobs anymore. I feel like we’ve let you down.” Fossen started to tear up.

She hugged him tightly. “Dad, you didn’t let me down.” She looked back up at him. “You taught me everything I need to know: self-reliance, self-respect, community. Just don’t be surprised if I actually put it to use.”