held up his hand. “A year? Or two? Or ten? A single minute, even? It’s all the same.”
“But what about Tokyo . . . ?”
“Tokyo is eternal, Elliot. It survived firebombing. It will always be there. But don’t you see? Tokyo is not your here and now.” He placed the tea bowl on the desk with the grace of a grand tea master. He rested the backs of his hands on the polished desktop so that his palms faced the heavens. “You’ve got to stay open, Elliot. Look at the signs. Old life. NuLife. Get it? How propitious that your past should so perfectly align you with this particular present.”
“What present?”
“Potatoes. Ironic, isn’t it? How the Universe provides. As long as you stay open.” He moved his hand over to a folder at the edge of the desk. “Of course, what she provides often proves challenging.”
He slid the folder across the desk to Elliot. Inside was a copy of the New York Times Magazine. Centered on a stark white cover was a demented Mr. Potato Head, with two bolts stuck in its neck and a badly stitched scar on its forehead. Perched on its head was a tin skullcap, attached to an electrical coil that spiraled off the top of the page. Its wonky plastic eyes were looking in opposite directions. The tag line read, “Fried, Mashed, or Zapped with DNA?”
Inside, spread out over two pages like a Playboy centerfold, was a long, plump, beautifully reticulated potato. Elliot scanned the article. The journalist had started off small, almost poetically, the tale of a man planting a new type of potatoes in his backyard garden, but the target of his attack soon became clear. The guy talked toxins. He named names.
The contents of the article looked bad enough, Elliot realized, but the title was genius. Printed across the tanned, genetically engineered skin of the centerfold tuber, in a pastel font, were the words “Playing God in the Garden.”
With its power to appeal to a broad-range demographic, that title was truly dangerous copy. Elliot sighed.
“Marvelous chance to travel!” Duncan was saying. “I can envision you spending time in the field. Stretching your legs. Breathing that fresh Idaho air.”
Elliot sighed again.
Duncan frowned. “I’m worried about your vitality, Elliot,” he said. “Show me your tongue.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come over here.” Duncan motioned across the desk. “Open your mouth.” He aimed the beam of a halogen desk lamp down Elliot’s throat.
“Hmm,” Duncan said. “Just as I suspected. Stagnant chi energy. Weak liver function. An excess of damp and wind.” He flipped the lamp away. “You really should pay more attention to your diet. You are what you eat, you know. Here, have a carrot.” Duncan dangled the vegetable out in front of him. It was blunt and smooth and a bloody reddish-orange color. “What you need,” he said quietly, “is time in the desert. The dry air will do you good.”
mr. potato head
Geek smiled and took a long, slow hit off the bong. Thrifty Foods was not the biggest supermarket in Ashtabula, but the megastores were too hard to infiltrate and control for a basic C-level action. It was all a question of checkout lanes and customer density. Over eight lanes got to be a problem, since you really needed to station an agent in every other one for maximum jamming. As a target, then, Thrifty Foods was practically perfect. It had ten lanes, but with Frank on board they could break out Mr. Potato Head, who was a sure crowd pleaser.
“Dudes,” Geek croaked, applying a throat lock to hold down the smoke. “Thrifty Foods’ gonna get its consciousness raised.”
Frank wasn’t sure about this. He knew a lot of the kids who worked at Thrifty Foods—the baggers, stock boys, and cashiers—and he wasn’t at all convinced they were ready to have their consciousness raised quite yet. Wages, yes, but consciousness? Frank sort of doubted they had any to begin with. He sat in the dinette nook next to Charmey, who was making a flyer for the action. She held it up. It was a picture of a potato, stamped with a skull and crossbones.
“It looks very scary, no?” she asked. Frankie hesitated, trying to think of something to say. She pouted and showed it to the others.
“Vaguely menacing, perhaps,” offered Geek from the opposite corner. “A bit more humorous than hazardous.”
She snatched the drawing away and made a face at him. “It is very difficult,” she retorted, “to make a potato look dangereuse.” She bent down over the paper again and started to erase. Frankie leaned forward and brushed the hair from the back of her neck. He blew gently on her bar code. She shrugged her shoulders, but he could see that she was smiling, and he felt his heart race. He looked up and saw Geek watching them. He leaned back into the nook and traced his finger along the curve of Charmey’s spine. He waited patiently until bedtime.
The Seeds did a reconnaissance of Thrifty Foods the next day, while Frank was in school. They were timing the action for noon on the Saturday before Christmas, when there would be plenty of moms and kids around. Moms were key, Geek explained. Gotta get the moms. Lilith had shanghaied one of the baggers and got the personnel information from him, and that night they reconvened in the bunker for a briefing. The manager, Lilith reported, took a lunch break at noon and usually went off site. Y nodded. He had drawn a big map of the checkout area and was assigning the lanes.
“We’re starting with Express Lane One and doing the odds. We want a female in One because it’s closest to the entrance, just in case we get some early police action. Lilith is good with Five-O, so I’d prefer her, if that’s cool.” He looked around the group. No one objected.
“Good. Frank, dude, you’re next, Lane Three, so you can keep an eye on the door. You think you’re gonna know some of these po-po, right? You can recognize their vehicles?”
“Sure.”
“Excellent. Let us know when they’re coming, but once they’re on top of us, watch Lilith and do exactly what she does. The idea is no conflict. Just go limp and drop. Got it?”
Frankie nodded. He knew how to deal with the police.
Y continued. “I’ll take Lane Five and initiate from there. Charmey’s on Seven. Once we have it jammed, Geek’ll bring in Mr. Potato Head. Everyone clear?”
It was snowing on the morning of D-Day, so they moved into position early. The snow was good. It would get the shoppers into the store, stocking up in case the storm got bad. It might also slow down the police. By 1100 hours, the Spudnik had established a position in a far corner of the Thrifty Foods parking lot. They had cleaned out the vehicle and stashed their dube in Frankie’s cleaning closet at McDonald’s, in case they got searched.
“Okay, Seedlings, let’s roll,” said Y. He was dressed in a clean pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, and a tweed jacket. He’d shaved and tied his dreadlocks tightly back, and he looked surprisingly presentable. Lilith stood next to him, wearing a cloth coat and carrying a purse. They gave a thumbs-up and left the Spudnik. Frankie stood to follow, but Charmey held him back.
“Un
