***
The sun greeted Todd’s sullen, pale face with the vigor in which he received it: lethargically. He scratched the side of his beard, pushing through the thick bracken on his face. His barren left ring finger twitched uncontrollably. He sat there on the edge of the bed, watching it spasm randomly. A reaction to another sleepless night.
The pop of his knees brought a twinge of pain but mostly relief, as his body was thankful to be mobile and active once again. Todd quickly dressed and washed two caffeine pills down with a glass of water. He slipped on his shoes and picked at the flap forming from his loosened sole.
Todd shut the door and stepped onto the grey ash of dirt that was his front yard. All around the country, there was nothing but dust. The winds had carried GMO-24 to every corner of the country. Whatever patches of fertile soil were left were guarded by tanks and soldiers.
Todd checked over his shoulder a few times, keeping an eye out for the inspector from the day before. Once the coast was clear, he started his trek east. Todd adjusted the shoulder straps of the small sack he brought with him, which carried government synthetic food sticks that were provided to community members, and a bottle of water. The food sticks were the government’s response to the soil crisis. Designed and created in a lab, then shipped in bulk to every corner of the country. It was what most people lived on now.
The only issue with the synthetic foods was the human body’s ability to process it. Humans had evolved to their current state on fresh fruits and vegetables, red meat, and seafood. The human body could only absorb a fraction of what the sticks offered. Its original intent was to act as a supplement, but as the soil crisis grew more severe, it became a meal replacement.
Starving was the slowest death Todd had ever seen. One by one, your muscles, bones, organs, and other tissues weakened. The nerve, immune, and other bodily systems became less efficient, struggling to perform their basic functions. A person’s motor skills would start to fail them, along with the ability to think clearly.
For Todd, that was the hardest part to watch. The mind deteriorated. He could see the light behind each pair of eyes dim. Once the mind devolved to the basic necessities of survival in locating food and water, people became animalistic.
Three years ago, when the relocation efforts were put into place, there were only two types of faces on the people that arrived in the community. The first had a blank glare, a mind fogged and sluggish, a breath away from death.
The other face concealed a mind lowered to an animalistic ruthlessness. The territorial gorillas and bears that guarded their ground fiercely had found their way into the communities, towns, and cities limping along. The capacity for reason and logic had long escaped them. All that was left was instinct.
Instinct. Such a vile word. Todd detested that word. For decades, he was forced to listen to scholars, educated men and women, use that term to describe the actions of people.
“It’s our natural instinct to be violent. It’s our human instinct to destroy. It was his instinct to react that way. It was her instinct that caused her to go down that road. You have to listen to your instincts.”
Well, those firm believers in instincts had finally been given what they had clamored for. The pillars of choice and reason had crumbled. People now lived in slums, forced to work at gunpoint, separated from their family and friends.
Everything Todd had done over the past year was in laborious effort to rebuild those long-forgotten structures. He wanted to return to a time of acumen and intellect. To be able to walk down a street, a paved street, with new shoes. He wanted to look at the faces of the people around him and see their exuberant souls greet him through their eyes. He wanted to go through his day without the mention of the word hunger. He wanted to sleep like he did when he was a child, unafraid and peaceful. He wanted people to act of their own free will and not based off the repercussions from some thug with a rifle. He wanted a world better than what he inherited.
What made it all worse was the fact that they had squandered it. The human race had so many chances to get it right, and time and time again they continued to kill each other. They beat their neighbors. They drained the sources of life around them for the pointless pursuit of empty pleasures.
But he was so close. His research was on the brink of a breakthrough. All of the tests he’d run to ensure it was safe were coming to an end. His body’s nutrition levels were the highest they’d been since before the soil crisis. But if anyone from the Soil Coalition found out about his work, all would be lost. They would return to a world of squandered resources helmed by the same type of men and women who had brought the country to its current state. He couldn’t let that happen again.
Todd was building more than just a cure. He was building a movement, but patience and time were running out. And the new inspector was only going to exacerbate the situation. Something needed to be done. Quickly.