Principles of Advanced Cover Crop Design
By: The Arcanist
Tags: Literature, Science Fiction, Flash Fiction, SciFi, Short Story

Jani stood on the edge of the platform, shaded by a white tent. Behind her: a ten-acre test field blooming purple to match her blouse. In front: billionaire investor Akinari Yashimoto and Jani’s boss Cyndi. They sampled delicacies from silver serving dishes artfully catered on a gold tablecloth.

Jani’s heart fluttered; everything depended on this. She checked her phone. Three texts from the caretaker. Sabby was more anxious than normal. But she had to focus on her talk right now. The whole company depended on the next few minutes.

“I have a dinner meeting on the West Coast,” Yashimoto said.

Cyndi nodded toward Jani. Show time.

“Mr. Yashimoto,” Jani said, “I give you … Vicia villosa, hairy vetch!” She swept her arms toward the deep purple flowers covering every square inch of the field. “Cover crops have been used in agriculture for thousands of — “

“Right,” Yashimoto said. “Vetch fixes nitrogen while suppressing weeds, blah, blah, blah, to prep the soil for the real crop. Now explain how I’ll make money.”

Jani stuttered for a moment, regrouped. “We’ve developed a vetch that overcomes problems — ”

“Such as?”

“Well, farmers either plow the cover crop under, using expensive machinery or kill it with environmentally unfriendly herbicides, then have to wait weeks before planting.”

He checked his Rolex. “I’m looking for industry-disrupting innovations, not flowers.”

“Just watch.” Jani clicked a button on a remote in her pocket.

A fleet of ten drones, spaced fifty feet apart, rose in the distance and crossed the field toward them, spraying a white mist that settled on the vetch.

Yashimoto seemed mildly amused but wouldn’t be for long. She’d seen toddlers with a better attention span.

Within a minute, the drones landed on the stage all around Jani.

Yashimoto sighed. “Agricultural drones are commonplace — ”

“Look at the field,” Jani said.

The plants under the flying drones’ mist were black and drooping, spewing a thin, white fog. This fog drifted to nearby plants, and those began to turn black, repeating the process.

“We’ve added a biological ‘kill switch’ that’s triggered by a unique, non-toxic peptide chain. As the plants die, they generate that same chain, triggering neighboring plants.”

“A ‘peptide chain’ reaction.” He smiled at his own cleverness.

The vetch that had been sprayed first had already turned to black puddles seeping into the ground.

“What about chain cross-contamination?”

“The chain molecule degrades rapidly above fifteen Celsius. We can customize strains of plants with receptors for other chain sequences. Different seasons, different fields can have unique keys. Total control.”

Yashimoto paused, seeming to search for new objections. “No plowing? Immediate planting?”

“Correct.”

“But plowing provides soil aeration.”

Jani smiled, now looking at her own watch. “Wait for it …”

The field started to explode. Just tiny pops, like thousands of firecrackers throwing up a fistful of dirt each, starting where the original mist had landed, then spreading out over the whole field.

“We diverted a bit of fixated nitrogen to make explosive nodules on the roots. Just sit back, let the plants do all the work.”

Yashimoto stared at the field, still detonating in little pops.

“Any questions?” Cyndi asked.

“Just one.” His eyes scanned back and forth over the field. “How many zeros do you need on the check?”

Yashimoto and Cyndi broke off in discussion just as Jani’s mobile phone vibrated.

She glanced at the display — the caretaker. “What’s wrong?”

“You’d better come home.”